Purple lightning flashed. Ike vanished.

Llewyn jumped back. He looked around, searching for Ike.

A hand gripped the back of Llewyn’s collar and threw him to the ground. All around Llewyn, puppets flew into the air from the force of him impacting the ground. Clarina staggered to the side and dropped to her knee.

Ike pinned Llewyn to the ground with his knee and hammered Llewyn’s face. Llewyn grappled at him, pushing Ike away. Ike ignored his blows. Llewyn scratched and beat at his arms, but Ike kept pummeling him. Shockwaves smashed out from Ike’s arms. Thunder rumbled and lightning struck with each of his blows.

“Get…off!” Llewyn roared. The force of his roar sent Ike flying back. He landed in the midst of the black puppets. Without hesitation, the black puppets rounded on him. They raised their weapons and charged in.

Ike clawed at the air. A swirl of wind blasted from his body and lashed through the puppets, enough to knock the closest ones back. He lifted his other hand. A Tempest grew in his palm. The puppets charged him again. They latched onto him. One puppet after another, weighing down on his shoulders. They formed a lump, then a mound, then a hill.

Ike laughed aloud. “I’m used to carrying a mountain. How pathetic.” He unleashed the Tempest.

The storm that whirled around him howled in time with the spell. The two of them synchronized, both empowering the other. The Tempest smashed into the puppets piled on top of Ike and threw them high into the air. They smashed into one another and dropped down to the ground, piercing deep into the storm-wetted soil.

Wisp charged through the puppets. These weren’t fleshy constructs, so she wasn’t able to simply eat them, but neither could they do much to her. All they could do was wail on her legs ineffectually until she tore them apart with kicks or her mandibles. “Hanging in there, Ike?”

“I’m doing great,” he replied. He heaved a deep breath. The storm still hung in the air, a residual humidity and shiver of electricity that rejuvenated him with each breath. He felt more alive than he ever had before. It was as if, his whole life, he’d been living only halfway, with his whole body restrained and his senses muffled by cotton. But now, the restraints were all gone. He existed in full, so bare and raw that the world almost hurt to experience. Aether pumped through his veins, through his entire body. Every movement, every skill, every spell felt easier. Magic came as naturally to him as breathing.

A huge field opened around him where the Tempest had thrown the enemies back. Ike rolled his shoulders out and cracked his knuckles, then leaped into the air. His legs kicked harder than they’d ever kicked before. He soared over the puppets, almost flying.

Down below, he caught sight of Llewyn. He dropped down in the middle of the puppets, then leaped again. With every leap, he closed in on Llewyn. The man watched him come. He waited, not retreating or preparing an attack.

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Ike smashed down in front of Llewyn. He looked up. “Wait long?”

“Not at all.” Llewyn gestured. Thin blue wires appeared at the tips of his fingers. He flicked his fingertips, and Clarina leaped in front of him. Another flick with his other hand. Clarina’s mother and father hopped beside her. The three of them faced Ike, all controlled by the blue wires flowing from Llewyn’s fingertips.

“Coward. Four on one? What a cheap battle,” Ike said. Even so, he felt no fear. They were strong, but they were puppets. Beings controlled by someone else.

He looked each of them in the eye. Not a single one reacted. They were all dead. Just like the people in Lord Nors’ city, dead from the inside out. He took a deep breath. “Hold on. I’ll set you all free.”

“Let’s see you try.” Llewyn flicked his wrist, and the puppets leapt toward Ike.

Ike immediately leaped toward Clarina. She had been the weakest in life. In death, it should remain the same. He leaped into the air and kicked toward her head.

His leg slammed into an iron wall. Ike hopped back, holding his injured leg in the air. He grimaced. His healing art activated, mending his bone and muscles back together.

Llewyn chuckled. He shook a finger. “Making assumptions, are we? But these three are now my puppets. They aren’t who they were. They’re beings I personally forged, crafting them into their ultimate selves. Don’t assume that their power has anything to do with what you know about them.”

Ike shook out his leg. He tested it a few times, then rested his weight on it. It held with only a little bit of pain. Dropping back another few steps, he activated his Sensory Enhancement, extending his aether at the same time. Forcibly, he used Sensory Enhancement on his aether sense, and directed both of them at the puppets.

The puppets glowed, all of them full of mana. Of the three puppets, Clarina glowed brightest. Her mother glowed the dimmest, and their father glowed between the other two’s glow. Ike held his sense open and closed in on Clarina’s mother. As his foot swept toward her face, the glow swapped to her.

Mid-kick, Ike redirected his kick upward. His foot swept by Clarina’s mother’s face, so close it stirred her hair. He scanned the trio. Now it was her father who was darkest. He hopped forward again, going to punch her father. This time, instead of watching the puppets, though, he watched Llewyn.

Llewyn’s finger twitched. Glow coursed up a thread on the mother’s back and down a thread on the father’s back. The father glowed brightly.

Ike’s eyes widened. He punched the father lightly and jumped back. Got it. He uses the threads to not only control them, but also to swap the aether between their bodies… or rather, mana, since they can’t use aether. All the mana amounts correspond to their original mana, where Clarina is the weakest, her mother is the strongest, and the father is between the two of them, but Llewyn can swap the three quantities freely between the three bodies. That means I’ll always be kicking the mother, who’s the strongest of all three, no matter who I try to attack.

I need to sever those threads. Can it be done? Ike drew one of the blades he’d gained as loot from his inventory and threw it at Llewyn’s fingertips.

The thread severed, only to regenerate a second later. Llewyn laughed. “It’s a good thought, but futile. Did you think I had never considered what might happen if the threads were cut? A foolishly obvious target. One I have long since reinforced.”

“Oh, is that so?” Ike narrowed his eyes. If I can’t cut the threads, then there’s only one path left to me. Break through with brute force! He charged in, his fist raised high.