Stretch, grab, release, swing, repeat. Arm over arm, I climbed up the inner frame of the chroma dome. Chancing a look down, I saw that I was almost in position. I climbed across one more triangular section of the dome, checked below me again, and released without hesitation. The ground flew up at me, and some of the pained players had time to cower in fear before my grey and cream bulk slammed into the target cow.

Well, no. That wasn't me. I couldn't do that. Not alone. It was the dropbeast, with the raidsuit clinging to its back. As for me, I was inside the raidsuit. I stared at the image of what the dropbeast's left eye was seeing, relayed to my eye via my scryer.

Even cocooned within two layers of armour, the impact knocked the breath out of my lungs. As my body struggled for breath, my mind was taking the next steps in my plan. Liberty attached a set of wires from my scryer to what I hoped were the correct parts of the cow demon's internals. They weren't, so I tried again until I saw the correct results. That meant it was time to set my modified subversion hex in motion, and...

Silence. Blessed silence.

The comfort of quietness was a great relief, but it was also a sign that I had to hurry. Players would be regaining thall's mental and physical balance, and I could expect more points to be scored over the next few minutes.

Actually, it wasn't me who had to hurry, as making plans wasn't my responsibility. "Swipe, I've got full control of these two mascots, though they're both a bit broken. What's the plan?" I said through the ventril, now that there was a chance of being heard.

"Mayhem," Swipe said almost immediately. I detected a note of glee in she's voice.

"Specific targets?" I asked.

"Keep Dead Drop vulnerable and HM away from thall's ball. Beyond that just keep everyone off our backs if you can."

"Got it. Are you doing what I think you're doing?"

"Absolutely," Swipe said, sounding far too pleased about what we were about to make happen. I wholeheartedly approved.

I made the dropbeast turn in a quick circle so I could see what was going on around me. A lot of players were running all over the field but two were closing on my position with purposeful strides. Hexen and DemDom's Memry were both understandably upset about how I'd overwritten hall's hexes and commandeered hall's demon mascots. That was fine.

On my order the raidsuit detached from the dropbeast's back. I'd ensured that both mascots would respond to signals from my scryer, so that let me continue controlling both. I would lose control once their hardbrains were reset, but by the time the hexmages achieved that it shouldn't matter. The dropbeast turned and hooked its hands under the raidsuit's arms. It pivoted a precise amount and waited for a few tense seconds. At what felt like the right moment to me, it tossed the raisuit over its head with full force, falling backwards in the process.

I winced as I landed in the ultradangerrope's mouth. It took a few fraught moments to ascertain that my location was as I'd hoped, and then the frantic business of taking over a new demon began. Somewhere behind me, I knew the two hexmages must have reached hall's fallen creatures. Before hall could undo any of my work, I set a couple of rather nasty hexes in motion. One set the dropbeast's aetherspinners and magical actuators pulsing at the maximum available force in alternate directions. The other activated every hidden surprise in the target cow in a randomly chosen sequence. "Brace for trouble!" I broadcast to my team moments before near-pandemonium broke loose.

While I missed seeing the show, it sounded impressively destructive. My eyes were on my scryer as I completed the tedious task of figuring out how to control the coiling ultradangerope. It was frightfully unintuitive. After a couple of minutes I was able to induce it to flop about and meander in a general direction, which was good enough for my purposes. The big downside was that watching its vision through my scryer was rather nauseating.

"Where do you need the 'rope?" I asked Swipe. I had to fight to keep the wild excitement out of my voice. Years of practice moderating my tone to sound properly ladylike helped me remain intelligible.

"Get it in front of our goal to free up Broth," Swipe said with urgency that was clear even though I was upside-down and being shaken like I was full of salt. "Can you separate and get the raidsuit to pin any of Dead Drop's defence?"

"Will do." I made one last improvement to my control hex and released the raidsuit from the coiling creature's jaws. I made sure to give myself a good flick in the general direction of Dead Drop's goal. The raidsuit skidded along the ground and bowled over a couple of players. By having the raidsuit turn its head to point a magical eye behind me, I determined that one belonged to Dreaming Eye and the other to the History Makers. I declared that a success, though I would have liked to have taken out the red bounder. It was blessedly very occupied suppressing Dreaming Eye's ball, which served well to keep it from getting in the way of our plans.

I spotted the rest of Cheesy Goodness moving around the field in carefully plotted paths, as ordered by Swipe. We were keeping possession of both our own ball and the History Makers' ball, both of which were crucial to—

Out of apparently nowhere, DemDom's Larry Sa intercepted a pass from Skids to Scaff. Sa lobbed the ball over many heads to Stray Dro, a trajectory which passed close by me in the raidsuit. I instinctively tried to turn and block, but the raidsuit was fully hex-controlled and did not respond to the movements of its occupant. All I achieved was to strain some muscles in my legs, on top of unnecessarily and painfully tensing my wrist. Before I could comprehend our opponents' plan, Stray batted the ball — our ball — directly into Blue Lightning's goal. Klash Ra was too busy dealing with a feint from Dead Drop to stop it.

I checked the scoreboard on my scryer. While I'd been working, the History Makers had scored on DemDom, and Dead Drop and scored on HM. The latter explained why the History makers were making sure Dreaming Eye's ball stayed controlled and well away from thall's goal: every other team had scored against HM, so thall were very close to being knocked out and giving Blue Lightning the win. HM didn't want that to happen, and neither did we. Both DemDom and Dead Drop were now one point behind Blue Lightning's five. DemDom's tactic of scoring with our ball meant that now Blue Lightning was also close to knockout, requiring only a point from Dreaming Eye to be out of the game. DemDom would of course like to score another point first, so thall could take the win. Getting at the Eye ball would be a challenge however, since it was equally a danger to HM. We hoped to avoid all of those outcomes, however.

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Blessedly it seemed that DemDom's plan for our ball didn't include holding onto it. Thall had other issues to worry about. Blue Lightning were fast but not fast enough to stop the raidsuit from swooping in and kicking our ball across to the ultradangerope. I'd gained enough finesse to guide the ball into our goal and toss it forward to Skids.

The other teams were still in the process of evaluating thall's plans and responding to the new potential pressures. We didn't really care about any of that. We were ready to act. Punnt received the History Makers' ball from its latest holder, Broth, and ran directly for Dead Drop's goal. Dro plowed directly into Tesle Jur, who'd run out of position to help retrieve Hexen from the ravages of the self-destructed dropbeast and the wild target cow. Both players went down hard and the ball rolled free.

Meanwhile, Skids had loaded our ball into sa's aetherrailer and was drawing careful aim.

I caused the raidsuit to pop its top so I could see the field with my own eye. My focus was primarily on Hexen. He had some frightful damage to he's armour and was trapped in a puddle of slick gel the target cow had spread over its general vicinity. He was looking from Skids to Punnt and back. He's expression turned from helpless anger to disbelieving defeat.

Skids took the shot, sending both balls through Dead Drop's goal. The fact that it gave us a second point and the History Makers a fourth point was inconsequential. Dead Drop was out of the game, and Blue Lightning had won. We'd gone out on our own terms, and our terms were Dead Drop's defeat. It wasn't a win, but it was a good way to go.

The crowd's response seemed underwhelming. It took me a few moments to realise my hearing was still affected by the cow demon's cry. Thinking of that reminded me that I had really better shut off what remained of the mascots I'd subverted. The middle of the field was a mess and I worried it might get far worse if I let Ganayanda's team's surprises run amok any longer. I immersed myself in the world of logic and signals, feeling out how to tell my scryer to restore the demons' hardbrains to a blank and passive state. How and why it was happening was still beyond my understanding. All I knew was that my scryer was showing the expected responses and the two and a half demons fell still. Half of the dropbeast was already strewn around the field, unable to handle the forces I'd set in motion.

I too was starting to feel unable to handle some of the forces I'd set in motion. Either the painkiller was wearing off or I was noticing the pain to a higher degree as the pressure from the chroma match released. The result was that I was experiencing a heightened awareness of my broken wrist. The pain seemed to be flowing up my arm and through my skull. Trying to distract myself by thinking about hexes or trying to command my scryer only reinforced the pain. I countered by focusing outward. The rest of Cheesy Goodness were slowly approaching me, waving at fans and responding to chants and cheers as they walked. Most of the other players were interacting with the crowd in similar ways, with Blue Lightning the most jubilant. Some players were helping free others from a variety of hazards and snares. Dead Drop were trying to pretend no one existed and nothing notable was occurring. Hexen was violently digging in the innards of the dropbeast, hauling out a massive cylinder I was blessed not to see too closely, loading the object onto the fallen mascot's barely attached hand, and jamming some wires into the creature's arm.

Multiple people shouted warnings as the object — obviously the dropbeast's primary aetherbottle — was flung directly at me. I yelped as I futilely attempted leaping away without directing the raidsuit to move. I really ought to have subordinated it to my armour's movements instead of controlling it through my scryer, but I had no arm control and very limited time and... and my mind was sprinting down some irrelevant path instead of moving me out of the way of the Maker-condemned aetherbottle.

At almost the last moment I tried falling out of the way, which was the best plan my panicked mind would supply. At the actual last moment, a bright blue-tinged light swept in front of me. I heard the aetherbottle hit something very solid. It detonated with an accompanying thunderclap. The light flared brighter for a moment. Most of the muted sounds I'd been hearing stopped. For a few seconds, nothing occurred. I'd expected something very bad to happen, or to realise that something very bad had already happened, but that moment never arrived.

The shouts from the crowd returned with even greater fervor. My hearing may have also improved, as I soon realised everyone was chanting the same thing:

"The Over Seer!"

My mouth turned dry and my already immobile body seemed to freeze into further stillness as I understood that a person of great power and esteem was standing right in front of me. That a person of such significance to all mages had stood between me and danger.

"Enough of that," a perfect voice said. No, the voice ordered, commanded. "No more fighting. This squabble is finished."

I didn't hear a verbal response from Hexen.

The light diminished enough for me to make out the details of the Over Seer's striking figure. She — that being the correct way to refer to any seer — was taller even than the Great Maker's messengers. She's armour was very dark blue yet emitted light from within. The design was bulky, with roughly rectangular segments hiding the actual body shape beneath. The corners curved into elongated points, exaggerating the length of the segments and making the wearer even taller. I doubted the person inside was anywhere near as tall as the armour, though I had to accept that it was a possibility. In my experience, a great many more things were possible than I ever expected.

The Over Seer's head was hooded and she's face was hidden in the shadow of a large visor. I had to rely on my imagination to supply what this person might look like. My imagination was taking a break, leaving me looking up at an unknowable void with a mouth of perfect white teeth. The lower face was also hidden in shadow... no not a shadow. That was a beard. I was not used to seeing facial hair, as it was not in fashion among mages.

I belatedly realised that the reason I could see those amazing teeth was because the Over Seer was smiling at me. "You have me fascinated. I'll keep an eye on you."

She spoke to me! The Over Seer spoke to me!

"Uh..."

She chuckled, and I immediately felt uneasy. It wasn't a friendly chuckle.

I thought there would be more to the exchange. I was wrong. Without warning, the Over Seer rose from the field, accelerated by an unseen, air-churning force. As she reached the dome she met one of the transparent panels with a gauntleted fist and punched it clear out of the frame, passing through on an unaltered course.

Had that really happened?

My team rejoined and surrounded me moments later. Thall seemed as stunned by the Over Seer's entry and exit as I was.

This was a moment to remember. I searched for something appropriately grand to say.

Skids beat me to it. "Hey Drift, looks like your fake eye popped out."

There went all chance of saying anything grand. "Of course it did," I said with as much exasperation as I had ever heard from my sisters. "No chance of finding that again. Can someone put an eyepatch on me before we go for pizza? And on a related note, who's gonna put pizza in my mouth? Unless someone volunteers you all will have to watch me eat it directly off a plate." I managed a pained grin as I met all five pairs of eyes with my one eye in turn. "I doubt anyone wants to see that."