Nadia’s vehicle made a beeline out of the elevator as soon as it had space. Both Nadia and James, however, were not inside. The two moved behind Nadia’s refractive stealth. While it wouldn’t deter anyone actively looking, it was just enough to help blend them into the crowd of people going out.

They moved as swiftly as they dared toward the trains, Nadia panting in exertion from her unhealed arm. The black fractal patterns no longer looked as bad as before, but they still gave off a sickening look. But they couldn’t stop.

There was an explosion in the distance.

“Looks like they found our ride,” James said.

“Yes,” Nadia said between breaths. “And now they will be searching the entire floor, we must hurry.”

They sped up, moving between the crowds until the reached the train platforms. Servitors scanned the crowd on platforms above, searching for criminals. For a moment, James thought they would detect him and Nadia, but it seemed that their status hadn’t been updated quite yet.

Nadia pushed through the crowd toward a ticket booth, wincing as her bad arm brushed up against others. James did his best to keep people back, but there were more people than he could deal with at once. Despite this, Nadia pushed along.

They reached the ticket machine, a touchscreen filled to the brim with options and prices to the various megacities scattered through the empire. Nadia ignored them all, choosing instead to swipe her hand on a reader.

“Override protocol, Hunter BZ98,” she said.

The screen blipped, then changed to reveal a number of other options. Before James could see the choices, Nadia slapped the top one and turned to leave.

James walked up behind. “We aren’t going to another city?”

“Not safe enough,” Nadia said. But that was all she would say on the matter.

She brought them past the throng of people getting on and off the usual trains, pushing through with more urgency this time. Once through, James found himself on the edge of the crowd, a line of imposing servitors preventing anyone from moving past. James followed Nadia as she walked through the servitors, breathing a sigh of relief as they continued to stay unresponsive.

This new platform had an old quality to it, as if it hadn’t been updated in centuries. Metal supports ran flush with lines of concrete, giving the area an industrial look. A blocky train, completely unlike the sleek bullet designs of the passenger rail, waited for them.

“Get in,” Nadia said as the doors hissed open.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” James said.

Nadia pushed him through the doors as he past her. Surprised, he turned to question his master, pausing when he saw Robert and other cultivators stepping onto the platform. Water pooled at Nadia’s feet, electricity still arcing across it.

“Running only makes this worse, Nadia,” Robert said, his small smile looking pained.

Nadia said nothing, stepping through the train doors to join James. However, the doors didn’t close.

“Come now, did you think I wouldn’t know your plan?” Robert asked with a raised eyebrow. “Once your vehicle came out on this floor I knew you would make your way to the train station. Your thoughts are too rigid, Nadia. Surprising from one who uses water.”

Robert chuckled, content to sit back and wait. He had the upper hand here. The longer he waited the more others would join him. Not even someone like Nadia could hold off so many cultivators at once.

Nadia knew as well. “We need to reach the front car,” she whispered to James. “I can override whatever stop he has if we do.”

James nodded.

“Planning to make a last stand?” Robert asked. “Please, Nadia. Admit your crime. We were master and disciple once. I can promise a light sentence.”

“I am ashamed to have called you master,” Nadia said. “And I am ashamed that I was so blind.”

As the last word left her lips, Nadia exploded into a torrent of water. She called as much as she could from her cores, letting it wash through her. James saw steam rise from her neck as she did, the telltale sign of overheating. A talisman sparked, activating something James couldn’t see at first glance.

He moved as the water spilled out, running toward the end of the car to the front. Nadia moved shortly after.

Robert jumped above the incoming wave, using whatever ability he had to suspend himself in the air. The two other cultivators near him tried to block the deluge of water, only for their defenses to crumble under the veritable lake.

Robert shook his head at the two. “Always so confident they can take anything that comes at them. They show none of the foresight you had, you know?”

“Though even foresight can’t deal with overwhelming power.” Robert bent over the water and placed a finger inside. Electricity ran from his golden body into the waves below. Steam exploded outward, masking the area in fog as Nadia and James made for the front of the train.

But the fog shrunk almost as soon as it appeared. James looked on in fear as Robert turned the entirety of the lake Nadia had expunged into steam, then compressed that steam into roiling clouds of electricity. They hung suspended over his shoulders, small arcs of electricity moving between them.

Robert plucked one of the new clouds from above and cupped it in his hands. With a speed unfitting of his larger frame, Robert squeezed the cloud until it became a ball of plasma and sidearmed it at the two. The ball crackled through the air, burning completely through the side of the train car as it traveled.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

James ducked below the ball as it reached him, the man having already entered the Metastate when the fight began. Nadia ignored the ball in favor of slicing through the doors connecting the train cars. The move continued onward, cutting through the next two as well and exposing the car up front.

“Ah, I see what you’re doing,” Robert said.

He grabbed two more clouds, squeezing them and throwing them at the car in front. Grunting, Nadia cartwheeled, using her momentum to kick two slicing waves of water at the incoming balls. They were small, barely visible in James’s eye and he could tell they caused Nadia strain to produce. They pierced through the windows of the train car, moving fast enough to pierce through the window without breaking it.

She aimed these thin cuts of water just above the plasma in a stair step pattern. As the first line reached the plasma, James saw some of the ball warp and envelop the water, changing its course slightly. It continued to move, eating each of Nadia’s strikes as they came until the plasma sailed over the train car.

Robert looked impressed. “I’m impressed! To think you could redirect plasma with that method!”

The man shrugged. “A shame that it goes to waste.”

Nothing he did gave away what happened, but suddenly the two balls of plasma changed their course. The plunged down from above the train toward its roof, intent on piercing through.

Nadia gave a roar, collecting what water she had as they moved into the last car before the front. With a push, she unleashed it, wrapping it over the outside of the car as they continued to run. The plasma struck the water, burning through but losing energy as it did.

It was a contest between Nadia’s reserves and time. They made it halfway through the car when James spied the first ball of plasma Robert unleashed making its way back. Right at Nadia.

He moved, diving onto her in a tackle and pulling her under the ball of plasma a moment before it could hit her. Robert directed it to follow, but James used all his power to steady himself and throw his master forward out of harm’s way. He moved to follow, but not before something hot enveloped his left hand.

“Aaaah!” James shouted. Pain lanced up like a bullet, but he ignored it and bolted into the front of the train.

Nadia grunted, closing the water around them even as her neck sparked from heat.

“Pull the lever at the front!” she yelled.

James moved, ignoring the heat from his hand yanking the lever downward.

“Override protocol, Hunter BZ98!” Nadia shouted. “Full speed!”

The train car lurched, sending James flying back and colliding with Nadia. She grunted as they collided, the both of them falling to the back of the car. She landed awkwardly on a jutting section of metal, the blow knocking the wind out of her as the train shot forward. James knocked his head on the side of the train, the blow dazing him.

Otherwise he would have noticed the ball of plasma burning through the roof and arcing towards him. It moved downward, controlled by its last command from Robert as the train went from zero to sixty in seconds. By sheer, terrible, luck it moved on a path toward James’s chest.

Nadia saw it, and even with the wind knocked out of her moved to protect her disciple. She knocked him to the ground, just in time for the blow to pass over him.

Slamming into the train floor gave James the shake he needed to escape his daze. His eyes instantly tracked the swiftly vanishing ball of plasma, along with the city that quickly shrank away form him.

“Master! We did it!” James shouted, the wind from the exposed parts of the train whipping through his ears. A smile plastered his face, the relief emanating from him in droves.

Nadia gave a pained gasp. “I’m glad, disciple.”

James, thinking his master had landed on her arm wrong, moved out from under her to help her up.

That was when he saw it.

The burned gash that dug from her upper back to past her legs.

In saving James, Nadia had pushed him down but taken the blow in his stead. One of her cores was half burned away. The other was safe, but looked to be sparking dangerously.

“No…” James whispered.

Nadia took a ragged breath, trying to use her good arm to stand.

“Don’t move!” James shouted.

The wind pounded against his ears. Or perhaps that was James’s heart. He scrambled, looking around the train for a first aid kit, felt his pockets for the healing cream he knew he’d left in the vehicle.

Nadia ignored his urging, using her good hand to prop herself up and sit on the edge.

“Disciple,” she said weakly.

James didn’t hear, too caught up in his search.

Nadia coughed, speaking a bit louder. “Disciple.”

James continued to move in a panic.

“Disciple!” Nadia finally shouted.

James finally noticed his master propped against the side of the train.

“Master! I told you not to move!” he shouted.

He ran to her, grabbing her back to keep her from resting on the wound. Silvery red blood pooled underneath her in a combination of synthetic and organic.

Nadia cupped James cheek in her good hand. “I am glad you are safe.”

“Master,” James choked out. “Don’t say that. It makes it sound like you’re dying.”

She coughed. “I believe I am, disciple.”

“No!” James shouted. “I can find something! I can bind your wound, stop the bleeding. We’ll find a doctor! It’ll all be okay.”

“James,” she said. “Stop and listen to me. Please.”

The solemnity of the statement gave James pause. Enough time for Nadia to speak once more.

“The course we are on is not toward a city. It is a safehouse, of sorts. It is a dangerous place.”

She took a breath, coughing as she did. “The course I plotted is a burial ground of sorts, a hidden place built in the ruins of older megacities. The dead live there.”

“What?” James asked.

Nadia shifted, prompting James to try and make her more comfortable. She stopped him with her hand.

“You remember that one of the reasons for cultivation is immortality, correct?” she said.

James nodded, unsure where his master was going with this.

“Mortals crave immortality as well,” Nadia said. “None more so than those in the imperial and great families.”

She coughed. “With technology, they learned to halt aging, but in doing so they halted themselves as well. Without specific drugs, these immortals turn into nothing but caricatures of themselves. Their brain still lives, but they are trapped in a loop of their own design.”

“Master, what are you saying?” James asked.

“Many of these immortals are people of importance, privy to knowledge that the emperor and families still wish to learn. So instead of killing them, they are placed in a ghost town, stored until they need be called upon for their tasks. That is where we are going. It is a secret held only to the imperials and great families. No one will find you there. You can recover and train.”

“Master, save your strength please,” James said. “You can tell me all of this when you are better.”

Nadia continued to ignore James’s pleas. “Most immortals are docile, but a few will react negatively to anything that breaks their routine. You must be careful. Observe before you act, and before all else you must stay safe.”

“Master,” James pleaded.

Nadia grabbed his hand. “Promise me, disciple.”

“Master—“

“James, promise me,” Nadia urged.

Tears streamed from James. “…I promise.”

Nadia smiled. “Good.” She looked at him, again cupping his cheek. “I am sorry I brought you into this. So very sorry.”

“Don’t say that master,” James said, sobbing. “You can’t regret your choices after you made them, remember?”

Nadia’s smile softened. “You are right, disciple. We can only move forward.”

James pulled his master into a hug. “You can’t die, master.”

“I am so proud of you, disciple,” Nadia said. “Despite all the trials thrown your way, you rose above them. I have no doubt you will rise above this as well.”

“I’m not letting you die!” James said, pulling away from her.

Nadia placed her hand just above her heart. “Do not worry, disciple. I will always be with you.”

She started to glow.