Locomotive #3 pulls into the Mammatus station on time as expected. The clanging of a bell warns the people waiting on the station platform to stay back from the approaching train as it slows to a stop and vents steam. Three stewards rush forward with sturdy wooden stairs complete with metal handrails and place them at the exits for the two first-class cars and the main dining car. A fourth steward makes a brief stop at each second-class car to lower the built-in single folding metal step. Third-class passengers are ignored as they hop off the train onto the low dirt berm piled alongside the tracks. Baggage is quickly unloaded by the steward under the supervision of a conductor, in front of first-class cars.

The Nguyen family and their two student protectors are still in their respective cabins waiting on Ms. Jones to organize the children for departure.

The rear most car, the rear braking car explodes. The noise freezes everyone onboard and in the station.

Before the car remnants hit the ground the first of the four third-class cars does the same. Almost like a heartbeat the cars are detonating from some unseen force. The second car explodes, followed by the third.

Panic ensues as people flee the violent scene of destruction. Nobody waits to use stairs; they are diving out windows to escape the approaching sound of death and destruction.

Unexpectedly, the fourth car is rapidly propelled backwards away from the station as it explodes.

Teum hopes that will stop the deadly energetic progression.

It does. After fifteen seconds with no explosions the screams of terror dissipate and are replaced by pleas for help.

When the smoke clears enough for Teum to make out a loan figure, a man dressed all in white. His clothes are loose fitting, baggie, standing in the field next to the destroyed train cars.

Cursing himself for getting caught wearing one of his favorite shirts again, he pulls it off and casts it aside for later retrieval.

Teum doesn’t recognize the man and shouts, “Who are you supposed to be?”

The loosely garmented man responds, “You may call me Cairn. Next you will want to know why I am here. I am here to kill you Teum Fox and to collect the assassin you call Luscin.”

Teum shakes his head while thinking, ‘Where do these guys keep getting these ideas about their identities?’

Out loud he calls loudly over his shoulder, “Did you hear that my love? Now you’re an assassin!”

A shudder runs through Cairn when he hears the word, love. This man throws around forbidden words casually. He even has the audacity to use it as a pet name for an underling. Lieutenant or not, he can’t be allowed to use a word that could inspire sedition against the Free’er.

Teum is sidestepping away from the railroad tracks with the intent to move the fight away from the station and into the empty field to his right.

Needing to stall for time he goes on a verbal offense, “Why would you think Luscin is an assassin?”

Cairn can tell what Teum is doing and doesn’t care. He knows the outcome and doesn’t see any reason to rush, “Her last kill was so intimate, that’s what assassins do, at least the good ones.

“I bet she killed Elora too. Her head was taken off cleanly. It must be a wonder to watch her work. I envy you for your competent allies.

“But you on the other hand, it must have been you that took down Gideon. He’s known for his speed of flight but you ran him down like an inu. Brute force with no finesse will only take you so far.”

Teum is almost in place, “That’s big talk from someone who explodes train cars.”

“That was to get your attention. I wanted to lure you out and away from the station.

“Don’t look surprised, it’s not because of collateral damage. I want clear sightlines for when your backup arrives. My master has never been able to infiltrate more than a few spies into Mammatus. Now I know why. Someone else has already done it.”

Taking a long shot that Teum will give away something if he hears the stolen lock codes, “class, door, blue, butter, music… does that ring any bells?”

“No, but you should keep it up. That would make some bang-up smash poetry.”

Cairn was expecting several responses, but none as juvenile as that.

Sneering, “No matter, one of the Defenders here will know more than you think. I’ll pry it out of one of them.”

An arrogant voice projected from a man hopping off the train platform dressed in defender black and armed with the usual assortment of blades, plus a Katana makes an appearance, “Funny you should mention us.”

A feminine voice whispers in Cairn’s ear and says in a slow drawl, “Yes, as funny as that face of yours but that was unkind of me to say. Do accept my apology. I must admit I have a weakness for men with purple eyes.”

Cairn assesses the battlefield, an unknown lieutenant, an elite assassin, and Master’s Adara and Black Hill have shown up, so long as Terius the Terror of Mammatus doesn’t show there should be no problem.

Teum sees he has the support of his studies master’s, starts to move forward.

A voice whispers, “Stand down Teum. Let us handle this.”

A flash of light so bright that it burns engulfs the man calling himself Cairn. Teum realizes it was more exotic particles, the ones that decay and emit life damaging particles than actual light. Who did that?

Cairn’s white clothes are unaffected but his skin on the other hand is scorched raw. Blisters form on every exposed, now red, and inflamed square inch of his flesh.

“Nice, opener Adara. But you gave away your position,” snidely announces Cairn as he turns and faces her in the open field. He fires a thousand hours of gathered sunlight in a concentrated beam directed at her head.

She’s fast, they all are. But nobody is faster than light. The beam strikes her forehead for milliseconds as she falls backwards to get herself clear of the searing blast of photons. Not before her flesh and some skull bone, mostly the frontal portion are burned. More upsetting to Master Vania Adara It takes out some of her hair too.

Master Adara expected a counterattack but not a beam of sunlight, that was wickedly fast. Had she not been anticipating something she would be dead now. It came from between his eyes and he seemed to turn his head towards her to aim. She will take care not to be directly in front of him in the future.

Master Hron Black Hill was not idle, as Cairn turned towards Adara he moved in for an attack. It was a single motion, closing the sixteen yards between them, drawing, and striking with his katana. The first strike landed the moment Master Adara ducked out of the full beam of concentrated searing sunlight; what Cairn calls a star-strike.

Cairn turned and blocked the blade with a bare forearm.

Uninjured by the blow, Cairn taunts, “Attacking my back was wise, you’ll never hit me if I see you coming.”

Hron doesn’t wait and unleashes a flurry of attacks.

Cairn moves impossibly fast ducking and dodging more than two dozen slashes in the span of three heartbeats.

Another two dozen attacks are equally unsuccessful, Cairn with his half-smile and bulging purple eyes sneers, “Is this all you can do?”

Master Hron speeds his thoughts, doubling his mental processing speed and pours kinetic energy into his attacks increasing their output by the same capacity.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Cairn compensates by pouring more power into his muscles and matches the new deadly pace established by Black Hill.

“This is fun, but I am not here to kill you. I’m just after your controller.”

Cairn adds the offer, “When I kill him maybe you can fill the vacancy?”

Hron believing this is some kind of trick, ignores the senseless utterances of his opponent and continues the onslaught.

First there is one string of blood, then two as Master Black Hill’s slashes start connecting.

Cairn doesn’t even notice the minor cuts until the third. That’s when he realizes he is no longer able to always see the lethal Katana.

Cairn shifts his perceptions until he can sense the air pressure proceeding each strike, “That’s crafty of your partner to hide your little sword. That will no longer work.”

Cairn prepares another star-strike. Lining up all those photons takes a few moments; he incases them in an illusionary tube with a reflective inner surface, both ends capped by equally reflective mirrors. As the photons pour from his spirits hold and fill the tube, they are chaotic as they bounce around their paths, after an uncountable number of bounces and reflections their trajectory begin to calm and align until after a brief moment, they are nearly aligned bouncing off the two end caps.

The release of a star-strike is soundless except for the quiet hiss of dust and air being vaporized. The blast aimed at Master Hron Black Hill will burn clear through his chest in the same time it took to create the strike.

Hron prides himself on not gambling by presumptuously guessing his opponents move, in this instance he has no other attacks to block. Seeing the speedy purple eyed duelist suddenly stop and close his eyes, he turns his blade sideways and aligns it with his center.

The star-strike flashes in and out of existence in the course of a heartbeat.

Master Hron’s Katana reflects much of the deadly light back, narrowly missing its progenitor.

Both combatants take a step backwards, Hron because he must change weapons and Cairn because he had his eyes closed and doesn’t like relying on perceptions filtered through spirit.

The intense heat took a toll on the katana, its metal softened, it bends at the hilt when Hron jumped backward. Dropping the useless weapon, Master Black Hill draws from his back a spoil of war, a black gladius taken from the War Born invaders from the north.

Cairn reaches into a loose fold of his clothing and draws a long knife made of the same black substance as the gladius.

Now both armed with weapons that can reflect vast amounts of kinetic and thermal energies, the fight takes on a new flavor.

Cairn can no longer rely on his star-strike to disable weapons and burn through his opponent. His forearms harden until there is no difference between them and steel.

A flicker from his right is a glimpse of Master Adara; she’s surely nearby, but probably not on his right.

Carn punches with kinetic energy in a 360-degree arc. He senses the energy being absorbed in front of him by Master Black Hill and nowhere else. That leaves one place for her to be.

Hron Black Hill renews his assault. His prior slashing assault is now augmented with overhand hacks at neck and shoulders, utilizing the weighted tip of his gladius for maximum damage.

Cairn is forced to block with his hardened forearms and is waiting for an expected opening.

There’s a constant staccato of thumps and clangs as he blocks and parries the Master Defender’s attacks. Each hit to a forearm absorbed harmlessly into his spirit-store.

Thump, thump, thump, clank, thump, clang, clang. No discernable pattern, Cairn has been responding defensively from the start.

Then that opening he was looking for appeared. Master Black Hill subtly lifted his left arm while squaring his body to his opponent. His weight shifted slightly to the right.

Cairn steps in and blocks the chopping gladius with a raised left arm. His right at full extension goes below and beyond Master Black Hills arm and plunges into the stomach of the cloaked Master Adara with all the force of the hundreds of absorbed blows he’s received. Her blade finds its mark but is tangled in the loose folds of his pristine white garment and doesn’t carry enough energy to cut or pierce anything.

When his earlier 360-degree punch only landed on his forward target, he knew she must be waiting behind in ambush.

Twisting his blade 90-degrees he draws it out of the master illusionist’s stomach.

A barely heard shout of defiance by a woman registers as coming from Luscin, Cairn half-smiles.

A vast amount of potential energy is quickly approaching. A flicker of an approaching shadow has both Master and Duelist glance upward.

Locomotive #3 is rapidly descending towards the three fighters.

Master Black Hill snatches up Vania and leaps to safety.

Cairn, waits and catches the billowing steam engine. Further showing off his strength, he rotates it level with the ground and sets upright, “These are expensive, don’t they teach you to take care to not damage your surroundings?”

Without acknowledgement or pause, Locomotive #3 violently rolls over Cairn, flinging him skyward, but not before the boiler ruptures and explodes boiling him in pressurized steam.

The steam suddenly condenses into rain drops as the thermal energy is sucked from the air. The drops turn to ice the moment they strike the ground or the ruptured locomotive #3.

Cairn’s flesh took some serious damage. He leaves it as a reminder of his failure. His assessment of Luscin being a master assassin was a miss; she is the other two, lucky and psychotic.

Luscin blasts the collected thermal energy towards the falling jerk-face that stabbed Master Adara. Nobody gets away with hurting her friends.

Cairn feels the onrushing heat and takes it from her, steers it through the air and adds all the thermal energy he absorbed from the steam as well.

Luscin’s heart skipped a beat when he used her special technique to throw the energy back at her. To her knowledge only Teum has been able to duplicate that move.

Luscin pushes the super-heated air back towards purple-eyes, he in turn pushes it back towards her. The air between them shimmers like water and is outlined with tiny sparks as random dust and debris is burned on contact.

Cairn decides this is as good a time as any to make his play at recruitment, “Help me kill the one called Teum Fox and you can take a place of high standing under my Disciple.”

Both combatants are pouring more energy into the air until it becomes that half gas, half liquid state called plasma.

Luscin begins to draw down lightning while shouting her reply, “Kill him? I love him! You don’t get to say his name.”

Cairn’s eyes go wider than usual, there’s that word again. Casually used as if they have no idea how dangerous it is. That’s when he realizes these two do not work for a disciple, this is much worse. One of the banned words of sedition has been re-introduced to the world.

A second voice interrupts Cairn’s inner monolog.

It’s Teum’s, “That’s why I love you, you keep passing up chances to kill me.”

Teum kicks the locomotive towards Cairn as Luscin presses the boiling plasma into his face and calls all the lightning she can draw from the atmosphere around the plateau.

Cairn sucks in the plasma integrating it into his flesh making him glow from the inside. The lightning is swatted aside where it goes to ground harmlessly. The rolling locomotive is stopped with a single raised hand.

Teum leaps atop the suddenly still locomotive in time to see.

Cairn’s flesh is pulsing with power, veins of plasma spider-web his exposed flesh. His purple eyes are no longer protruding, his half smile is now full. His garment, made of some unknown material, is not affected in the least.

Voice raspy from the intense heat throughout his body, “This has been entertaining. Now you both die.”

Cairn discharges the plasma housed in his flesh into the ground. As impressive as that must have looked, he can’t do it for long. His flesh slumps momentarily before his spirit goes to work repairing his body, cell by cell. In the span of five seconds, he looks the same as before the fight. Bulging eyes and half smile included.

The surrounding ground for a dozen yards is now sparking and belching tiny flames as the super-heated plasma dissipates through it.

Teum jumps at Cairn with the intent to drive a foot through his head. Cairn grabs that foot and swings Teum headfirst into the battered locomotive.

In two strides he has Luscin by the throat in one hand while dragging Teum by the foot with his other.

“It’s a shame about you two. Rätsel would have adored your little quirks.”

Snick-snick.

Luscin and Teum disappear, along with both of Cairn’s hands.

Master Black Hill armed with katana appears before Cairn’s eyes, “Who’s Rätsel? Did you just give up the name of your disciple?”

Cairn sneers, “That only means I’ll stick around long enough to kill you now, too.”

A gladius explodes out of Cairn’s chest, pushing broken ribs outward in a macabre mockery of a blooming flower.

The real Master Black Hill holds the gladius that tore through Carin’s chest, he then hacks a second gladius into Cairn’s shoulder taking off his entire right arm.

The katana wielding figure to his front resolves into a badly wounded Master Adara. The top of her head still sports an inch wide gash down to her skull and blood still oozes from her ripped abdomen.

Her short sword is steady as it spears Cairn’s eye.

Cairn, when he thought his hands had been chopped off, he was tricked into releasing the two he needed to kill and can already feel the retreating pressure wave as they disappear at supersonic speed.

Tracking them will be no harder a second time. He will have to dispatch these two quickly.

Then he feels it, from the north, a huge pressure wave of energy. Whoever it is they are moving at a speed that is inhuman.

Unless Teum is returning, there’s only one man left alive that it could be.

Terius is coming.

Lurching skyward the short sword skewering his brain and the gladius in his heart are pulled free. It’s a shame he can’t retrieve the arm, it will take a day to regrow.

He can’t beat Terius in this condition. For now, he must retreat.

Hron and Adara lean on one another as the monster they fought escapes.

Dropping from the sky unceremoniously next to them is the retired headmaster, Fallon Gale. His body black and blue from the pounding you take when experiencing seven times normal gravity.

All he can mutter before falling face down in the cooling dirt, “I received a message that I must come here post haste, without regard for my own body.”

Adara and Hron look at one another and shrug.