[Webber]

Webber couldn't see anything special about this Miles guy. Sure, he was strong, but not strong enough to justify keeping Webber from joining the fight. He certainly wasn't as strong as Eve. The Forester could barely touch her with his walls. She’d nearly ended the whole thing in the first ten seconds.

Miles stopped his bullroaring as Eve and Pango approached his walling range. Miles remained in the same spot: five paces upzone from the twin walls that guarded his blinkshadow.

‘Round two,’ Webber said. Webber had to stop himself from cheering and yelling out encouragement—something told him that wouldn’t be appreciated.

Caruso didn’t say anything, just sat there gripping the branch way too hard and occasionally taking big unsteady breaths. For whatever reason, Caruso didn’t enjoy watching skilled super-humans going at it.

Webber grinned at him and punched his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, man! They got this.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

‘If you’d ever seen Eve fight before, you’d be as confident as me.’ The fact that Eve was now fighting with a crossbow didn’t give Webber any cause for concern. While blinking came as naturally to Eve as throwing a jab, it wasn’t her main strength. Her real strength was her fight-sense. She had a way with fights—she read the subtle language of combat better than Webber could himself. By predicting her opponent, she got away with things that no other fighter could. He’d seen her pull off some crazy shit before. She would find a way to make the crossbow work. And he couldn’t wait to see the look on Caruso’s face when she did.

Before stepping in, Pango shot a quick thread around his waist, leaving it tethered to the ground behind him. Webber had seen him use these defensive tethers while training with a waller back at the Urqaani camp.

Pango and Eve ran into Miles’s range at the same time. The first wall appeared beneath both of them at the same time. Eve darted over it while aiming her crossbow, while Pango let his tether do the work. As the wall lifted him, the thread behind him tautened, tugging him from the wall. The momentum of the wall and the length of the tether caused him to swing backwards in a tight controlled arch, like a rainbow. He slammed into the ground, absorbing the impact with his thick limbs. A new thread snaked up to tie around his waist as Pango surged forward again—now with two separate tethers to choose from.

Eve’s first bolt screamed at Miles’s head. While he raised a defensive wall before him and ducked behind it, Eve reloaded. She stayed on the balls of her feet, seeming to guess where the next wall would be, and jolting out sideways as it thrust up harmlessly beside her. She raised her crossbow again. And once more, Miles raised his defensive wall as the bolt twanged into it.

As Pango advanced, new threads rose up to pinch his tethers back into the ground, shortening them. Miles ripped a wall under him and Pango let one of his tethers yank him off the wall and away to the side. His unused tether had untied and slipped away, only to be replaced as he landed. Depending on which tether Pango chose, he could decide which direction the wall sent him.

Eve feigned one way, inducing a wayward wall, while firing a quick bolt which Miles managed to block. After firing, she didn’t move, but Miles clearly assumed she would. She kicked off this new missed wall, before blinking and sidestepping another one of Miles’s failed attempts.

It was mesmerizing watching the way Eve twirled and danced and blinked with ease around Miles’s flirting wall attempts. But hers was more than just a delicate grace; there was an edge to it. Every movement she made had both an urgency and a deadly rhythm. For Eve, a fight was a fast and ferocious thing. She clawed at it, disrespected it, forced her will upon it. And eventually, she always got her way.

Pango wasn’t the same fighter as Eve. He was more submissive than domineering. More supportive than aggressive. He respected the fight, sometimes even feared it. He let it roll over him. But this wasn’t a weakness. By giving himself to the fight he became intimately familiar with it, he settled into it, was patient with it, and eventually found a place where his threads could guide him and Eve to the fight’s climax.

For a while, the fight was just Miles dodging bolts, and Eve and Pango dodging walls. The walls would come at them at differing angles, sometimes hitting them together, sometimes not. It was a relentless barrage. The pressure only eased off whenever Eve raised her crossbow.

To deal with Eve’s bolts, Miles had erected three permanent defensive walls around him—in front of him and to the sides, while keeping his twin walls behind him to guard his blinkshadow. Whenever he saw the crossbow pointing his way, he ducked below this perimeter of chest-height walls. He was always quick to react. Eventually, Eve must’ve realised that Miles was reacting before she actually fired a bolt. She used this. Now when she raised her bow, it was more often a bluff than not. The threat of a shot was enough to send Miles ducking. This not only helped to conserve bolts, but meant she could force Miles to take his eyes off the fight.

Pango pressed this advantage. His threading range was ten paces. And if he hoped to gouge Miles, Webber knew he’d have to be in that ten pace range for a good couple of seconds to get the job done.

This appeared to be the plan. As Eve blinked off a wall and raised her bow, Pango charged forward and entered the ten-pace threading range, a couple of tethers trailing out behind him.

Miles peeked above his defensive wall and ripped a wall at Pango, sending him arching down to one side, but still within threading range. A couple of threads coiled up Miles’s torso, climbing up past his chest. One more second would do it, but Webber didn’t see the threads go any further. Miles, while ducking another bolt from Eve, flung a couple of walls blindly at Pango. The Forester must’ve gotten lucky or something, because the first wall took out one of Pango’s tethers. Then the second one collected both Pango and his remaining tether, leaving him at the wall’s mercy as he rode the deadly wall upwards.

Pango knew how to handle this situation. Webber knew what to expect; he’d watched him practice with the Urqaani waller enough times. Pango couldn’t simply attach himself to the wall and avoid taking damage. Webber didn’t quite grasp the physics of it, but Pango had explained that even if his threads prevented him from being launched, the wall’s speed would still kill him. The only way around this was to use a precise amount of threads so that when the wall hit its max height, the threads gave and snapped. This would still launch Pango, but instead of being launched a lethal eighty paces, he would get launched a manageable ten or twenty. And by rolling into his armoured ball and moving to the wall’s edge, he could fly out on a diagonal, clearing Mile's range and avoiding any follow up attacks.

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The problem here was that Miles’s walls were faster than a normal waller’s.

Pango rolled to the wall’s edge and threaded himself several times in place. The wall hurtled upwards. After reaching its peak, the threads snapped a little too easily. Pango was launched ten, twenty, thirty paces high, towards the surrounding tree-line. He kept tucked into his armoured ball to try and tank the brunt of the fall. Webber winced as Pango careened towards the ground, and winced again at the impact. As Pango slowly unfurled from his ball, it was clear he was injured.

Webber jumped off the tree. He felt that tension high up in his chest, the one that flared up whenever his friends were in danger, whenever he needed to jump into a fight. He called back to Caruso, ‘Stay on lookout,’ and ignored the protests that followed. Pango was hurt. Eve would need backup.

He rushed to Pango’s side. His tail looked broken. No way he could fight like that. Pango guessed what Webber intended and sighed, ‘Webber, no. He’s too strong…’

‘Don’t care. I need to back Eve up.’

Pango just nodded and Webber turned to the fight. Eve raised her crossbow as a feint, blinked, and dodged two walls, before narrowly avoiding a third as she spun out of Miles’s range. The Forester now had the ghost of a smile on his face. He knew he had just scored a small victory.

Eve didn’t waste time trying to send Webber back to the tree. ‘If you insist on fighting,’ she said. ‘Stay upzone. And take this knife,’ Webber went to grab it but Eve pulled it away, out of reach. ‘I’m not telling you to try and use it. Stay upzone so you can blink to safety. Get a feel for his walls before you go in too deep. Let’s reengage before he sounds his bullroarer again.’ Eve then loaded another bolt and turned towards Miles. She only had a few bolts left, including the one threaded to her waist. Webber wasn't sure what its purpose was, but there was no time to ask.

Webber’s heart thumped pleasantly in his chest. Round three. Eve and Pango were counting on him now. He would make them proud. He couldn’t help but grin as he walked towards the fight.

He’d always loved fighting. He loved the simplicity, the flow of it, when all the bullshit from everyday life gets swept away in an instant. And he loved the exhilaration that good combat brings. Even if it’s just a good natured shroomery brawl, there’s still that animalistic trigger that says ‘You were born for this, your survival depends on it.’ And nothing could match that feeling of victory; it felt like life itself. No drugshroom high would ever come close. That feeling was Webber’s addiction.

He stood upzone from Miles. It was the safest position. As long as he stuck to the edge of Miles’s range, he could blink off any wall, back out to safety. But he wouldn’t be able to do any blink attacks as Miles remained five paces upzone from his twin walls. He would have to rely on Eve to figure something out to end this fight.

Webber tested the edge of Miles’s range. He mimicked Eve’s footwork, the way she floated over the ground, able to change direction whenever the situation called for it. Webber gave it a go. He ran in and immediately sidestepped a wall that erupted beneath him. The wall’s speed took him by surprise—he knew Miles's walls were fast, but they hadn’t looked quite this fast from up in the tree. His back foot lingered on the wall for just a moment too long. But that moment was enough to yank his foot up and cause him to flail awkwardly in the air, a few paces off the ground. Another wall hurtled up beneath him to finish the job. Webber barely managed to blink away in time, feeling the rush of air whip his hair back.

He grinned wider.

As he ran in again, he kept aware of Eve, tried to fall in with her rhythm. He couldn’t copy her footwork. But he had his own moves. This time he didn’t broadcast his movements, and used little feints and misdirection to keep Miles guessing. He laughed when a wall shot up harmlessly beside him. The next wall came straight down his path. It was too fast to sidestep, so he blinked back. But he had gone too far inside Mile’s range. Instead of clearing the wall and blinking to safety, his foot clipped the edge and he was back-flipped violently outwards.

[Caruso]

Caruso grimaced as Webber was flung from the ring. He didn’t look hurt, it could’ve been much worse, and eventually it probably would be. There was no way Caruso could help out in this fight. But if Webber was going to be this reckless, then at least Caruso could be there to catch him with a wall.

He abandoned his post, dropped to the ground, and ran upzone of the ring where Webber was currently picking himself up. Pango tried limping his way over behind Webber, perhaps with a similar idea, but was clearly too injured and sat back down, just outside the tree-line.

Caruso had a bad feeling about this fight. With Pango’s broken tail, Eve and Webber would have to win this on their own. While Eve’s crossbow seemed useful, none of her bolts were able to get past Miles’s defensive wall. Webber had a knife now, but Caruso hoped he wouldn’t try and get close enough to use it.

Webber sprung to his feet and returned to the ring looking excited. He was quickly hit with a wall, but this time managed to blink out of the ring successfully. He gave Caruso a proud grin before rushing back in.

Eve fired a bolt at Miles. He ducked. She spun around, feinted left, then lunged left when no wall appeared there before blinking out of Miles’s range.

‘Caruso,’ she said, not taking her eyes off Miles. ‘I’m going to run in, from directly upzone. Launch me up twenty paces high. No more. Then catch me if you can.’

There was no time to think about it or ask any questions. Eve took a couple steps back then immediately ran towards the ring. Caruso did as she said and walled her up, the speed of his wall was just enough to launch her about twenty paces high. Her momentum carried her forwards into the ring. As she arced through the air she aimed her crossbow down towards Miles.

Caruso understood. Her new angle of attack might catch Miles off guard, make it harder to dodge. But Miles simply raised his defensive wall higher, as well as stepping forward towards it, shutting out Eve’s angle. Eve fired anyway, but her bolt sailed harmlessly over the wall, over Miles’s head, towards the twin walls that sat blocking his blinkshadow.

It was then that Caruso realized she’d fired her threaded bolt, the one still tied to her waist. A moment before it hit the twin walls, Eve blinked backwards, and the threaded bolt—still tied to her waist—blinked with her.

Caruso caught Eve with a wall. When back on the ground, she didn’t immediately start dodging and feinting, but instead casually untied the thread from her waist, and gave Caruso a satisfied nod. Realization slowly trickled in. All of Miles’s walls began sinking into the ground in the same way Mang’s box had when she was killed.

‘No fucking way...’ Webber said.

Miles lay on his side with the threaded bolt sticking halfway out the back of his head. Caruso stared at it, not quite understanding at first. He had seen her miss. Then he realized she hadn't been aiming at Miles. She had been aiming for his blinkshadow. Miles had left it unguarded, just for a moment, when he stepped forward to cut off Eve's angle.

Webber broke into a mixture of cheering and swearing. He jumped on Eve’s back, got promptly shoved off, then continued his cheering and swearing. Caruso grinned along with him.

‘Told ya not to worry, didn’t I?’ Webber said, slapping him on the back.

Before Caruso could answer, the sound of approaching horses silenced the celebration.

Ferris and Orange emerged from the tree-line on horseback.