Shade had fallen against the nearest wall but was now slumped, head between his knees with a blank expression covering his face. There was a rapturous cry from down the hall. With the door open and context being shoved in front of him in the form of the crumpled marshall, Dan knew that Ravage, Shade’s sister, was also aware of something happening.

The rest of the room seemed stunned or confused in equal measure. Hyun Soon pressed a little further into the corner he had found, trying his best to made his large frame less noticeable. Xiaomei stood in front of him, a cat’s cradle of threads in her hand moving quickly as she anxiously chewed her lip. Calliope was kneeling at Shade’s side, trying to get more information out of him while Fa Lian was still seated next to an unmoving Yurie.

Dan’s vision was still covered in the promise of absolute destruction. It was not hard to see why Yurie had suddenly gone into wide eyed shock. Poisonous green, bloody red and pitch black paths were all that he could see. It was nearly enough to freeze him, too.

Nearly.

“We need to move.” There was a frustrating lack of initiative at Dan’s words, though Hyun Soon nodded and Fa Lian stood from the bed. “The enemy knows where we are. We have to go. Now.” Dan shouted the last word. Once the attention of everyone but Shade and Yurie landed on him properly, Dan started to give orders.

“Calliope. If they won’t move,” Dan pointed to Shade and Yurie, “do it for them. Hyun, Xiaomei - take them to our accommodation for now. If you can find Grier, get him.” The world spun. Were they under attack already? No, Dan thought to himself, you’re just not ready to save the day right now. Dan had stood up too fast and nearly blacked out. He had to pace himself. “Go. We’ll meet you there.”

“What are you going to do?” Xiaomei asked as she helped Yurie to her feet. Dan couldn’t keep the image of Yurie’s broken form from his mind. This battle was too much to ask for her involvement in. Xiaomei, too, had been nearly killed only a few months before. He wanted to keep anyone possible as far from the fighting as he could.

For now, though, Dan thought, looking around at the nauseating colours clinging to the world, there is no avoiding trouble. The others began to follow his orders. As they began to leave, Dan gathered small amounts of their mana. From Xiaomei, Hyun Soon, Yurie and Calliope, Dan received a refresh on the energy he copied from them. The techniques that flowed into Dan with his allies' mana gave him confidence.

He could feel his understanding of the mana armour and threads become more solidified. He saw how the two techniques could be weaved together. Even more than before, the two abilities became a single thing in Dan’s repertoire. Hyun Soon’s energy was warm and malleable, easily moulded into shape. Which is how the armour is formed, normally. By taking the rigid vectors of Xiaomei’s energy and mixing the two, Dan was certain that his armour would be far stronger than before.

Dan had only received a small taste of Calliope’s energy before burning through it haphazardly in the ensuing fight. Dan had grasped the feeling of it and wrung out all the efficacy he could manage from the wild magic she carried. Now, however, in the calm before the storm, he was able to let her energy run free. When Dan had used the energy before facsimiles of hair had grown from his arms. A wavy and hazy expulsion of mana, an overspill of energy.

Now that energy coalesced properly. Small, fibrous and wiry hairs sprouted on Dan’s arms. The truly interesting effect was the sharpening of his nails and teeth. Dan was fairly sure they would go back to normal but part of him was certain that he would at least need to file the nails down later.

Yurie flinched as Dan made to place his hand on her shoulder. It hurt his heart a little but he needed her sight. He wasn’t sure if it would help but he pooled some healing energy into his hand as he tapped his palm to her shoulder. The energy washed through her easily as her own rushed forth to fill the gap.

Dan could not watch to see if his influence helped or hindered because it was time to move. Every second spent getting people ready was a second the enemy could also take. “What are we doing, Dan? I couldn’t help but notice you didn’t try to send me away.” Dan turned and saw Fa Lian. She looked as ready as he felt.

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“For one,” Dan answered, smirking, “I know you wouldn’t listen to a word I say, sensible as it is or not.” The cell was now empty, the others leaving to find a semblance of safety. Calliope had said she would come back but Dan had asked her not to. For now, they needed to limit their movements as much as possible so that they couldn’t be attacked while apart. “For two…”

Dan looked at Fa Lian. Her hair was longer than Dan had ever seen it but it looked lustrous. Her skin had a gleam to it that was not any makeup or concealer but pure energy underneath. Her eyes, once a muted earthy green, now held emeralds within. Her clothing looked similar to Dan’s own, except each fabric and fibre spoke of quality.

She looked immaculate.

“For two?” She asked, following Dan out of the room as he turned and avoided the question. “What was the second point?” Instead of answering, Dan stopped at the door he had been approaching. He gestured to it. His second reason was that Fa Lian was as fierce and powerful as anyone he knew and that if they were going to talk to Ravage then he wanted her help. He had lost that train of thought when he’d looked into Fa Lian’s eyes and didn’t feel the need to tell her that.

“We need to find out what’s coming. I don’t think Shade will be any help, but we might be able to get answers out of this one.” Ravage had been a powerful combatant but once her mobility had been hindered and the ball of metal kept in her hair had been destroyed, she was fairly simple to contain. Dan took a deep breath, closing one eye as a shrill shout of excitement came from beyond the closed door.

“I don’t think she is going to be much more help than her brother.”

“No, maybe not that brother… But she might be able to lead us to her siblings.” Dan hadn’t quite formulated a plan so much as decided to be as reactionary as possible. Yurie would have been proud of him, if she had not been so rattled herself. Allusia was descending into chaos and no matter what choice he made, the outlines of death sat on his periphery. All except one. “We’re going to let her go.”

Dan did not give Fa Lian time to think. This path promised violence at its base. A deep red that sliced through the black. There were deeper colours in the path that Dan had chosen to take. Each time he used Yurie’s ability he became more intune with the nuances and more easily able to see that which made each seemingly uniform direction unique.

Yes, violence was a guarantee. That was why Fa Lian was important. With her along, the violence was much more likely to be aimed at someone other than Dan. Though, he conceded, she has probably tried to kill me as much as anyone. The moment Dan had decided that she should come, the path had glimmered. When she had agreed, the path had again rippled with potential.

Together, maybe they could capture a way to change the fate laid out before him.

Not for the first time, Dan wished he could ask Kumiho for advice. Much like the energy within Fa Lian which had been coloured by Ryong Aang, Dan’s own energy carried the fox’s signature. It was passive but Dan felt that if he didn’t feel disapproval, then he was probably getting her blessing with his plans. Unlocking their connection felt important to Dan’s growth but there was no time to focus on that right now.

“Ready?” Dan asked.

“No?” Fa Lian replied. She gathered the dragonscales which had once been her staff, now turning them into a whip and shield. The utility was impossible not to be jealous of. Dan wondered if he could learn something from the weapon itself and considered taking some mana from the scales. He decided to be sensible, however, and simply formed his own mana armour.

This was quickly becoming Dan’s favourite technique. It blended each aspect of mana control that he had learned. The density he had learned from Hyun Soon. The structure he had gained from Xiaomei. His own weaving, understanding of mana that most couldn’t come close to, was amplified now by Calliope’s bestial force. With all of these things combined, the technique - Dan’s own technique - truly felt completed.

With the pair of them ready for combat, they entered the room.

Ravage was chained to a chair, almost all mobility stripped except for her head and neck. These bonds were snapped in a few places and taut in all the others as she strained intensely against her bindings. She had the most furious expression Dan had ever seen. As Dan and Fa Lian entered, her mood changed so quickly that it was hard to tell whether she had been angry at all.

“Oh, the children. The healer and the dragon. How lovely.” Casual, even genial, Ravage sat herself back into the chair she had been tied to. She had broken enough of the chains to go from seated to awkwardly standing, her right arm still bound to the arm of the chair, but no more than that. When she returned to her seat, she seemed suddenly regal, Dan felt as though he were being given audience rather than seeing a prisoner.

Suddenly on the back foot, he was reminded of another reason Fa Lian was the right choice. “Speak when spoken to or this goes very different.” She cracked the whip and brought it forward. Even to Dan’s perception, he was certain that Fa Lian had just torn the majaal’s face to pieces. When he opened his eyes from wincing, Dan saw that Ravage had been just as sure. Her demeanour had fallen apart slightly, her eyes not leaving the sharp point which the whip had become. “Explain what you know, without making this difficult.”

Fa Lian pulled the spear tip away from Ravage’s eye and placed the butt on the floor of the cell. Dan hadn’t seen her shift the form of her weapon but he was impressed with her control of it. She must have been practising.

“She is coming. She will burn this city to the ground, destroying any who stand in her way until she can claim what is rightfully hers!” Ravage’s energy pisces up with every word, her excitement palpable in her wide eyes and manic expression.

“Who is coming? What are they claiming?”

Ravage leapt from her chair. There was a snapping sound in her shoulder but she got as close to Fa Lian as she could.

“Mother. Ruination. She comes for another weapon of her arsenal. A spear rests in Allusia and she shall claim it. She shall claim it and pierce heaven.”