Truth wasn’t a simple man, but he liked to think he was.

Confront complexity with simplicity, defeat magic with beatings. All he had to do was sort out the order of beatings.

There were dozens of active spell effects in the room, but only a few Truth actually cared about. There was the main ritual, which could be considered a strategic level threat. The curse that Mr. Red and Ms. Black just sacrificed their acolytes to power could be considered the tactical threat. Then there were the personal protections the ritualists had activated. Then there was whatever nastiness Starbrite was going to personally hit him with when he figured out who was wrecking his ritual.

Very complicated, and he had less than a second to start making things work. Smacking the ritualists together with their sacrifice might have scuffed up the sacrifice, but it didn’t do more than disorient the two old monsters. It was enough. Part of the point of the ritual was to raise the focus of the ritualists to its peak. Likewise, all the protection of the ritual space was specifically to keep them from being disturbed. Because when you are channeling and controlling that much magic power, when you have summoned the attention of so many truly mighty beings, any slip in your attention might be fatal.

The curse writhed overhead. Truth could see it- a thing made of dripping venom and screaming ghosts covered in barbed hooks and promises of uniquely horrible ends. That death would not be the end of your suffering, merely the end of the beginning. It thrashed in the air like a snake pulled from its hole. It was supposed to have a target. Mr. Red and Ms. Black barely had a hold of it after getting knocked around, but it was at the ragged edge of their grasp.

Give them just one second to think clearly, and they would drive it straight into Truth, shredding through his prided spell resistance. So why give them that time?

That spell clearly has the wrong target. Cup and Knife.

Truth dropped Harmony and launched himself at Mr. Red. As he moved, he stabbed the curse with his spell. Manda didn’t approve of this curse any more than he did. The ritualists didn’t have a clear target yet, their intention not quite firm. Truth just had to tweak the spell a little. And keep them from thinking too much.

Truth brought his foot up to chest height and stomped straight forward. Mr. Red was shielded, but physics still applied. The boot to the chest smashed him right back into Ms. Black. Again. Just as she was getting up from the last time Mr. Red knocked her over. He could hear the swears. Mr. Red let a chain whip drop out of his sleeve. Ms. Black was more straightforward, pulling a custom needler from inside her vestments.

Cup and Knife was struggling to crack the curse. Two Ninth Level pros put a fair number of bodies on this spell. It wasn’t shifting easily. He swore silently and called out the Tongue. Keep them distracted, keep them off balance. If he can’t crack the shields, then keep them disoriented.

The fangs of Incisive lashed out, smashing into the shield around Ms. Black. Truth viciously stabbed down twice in an instant, making the ritualist reflexively bring her arms up to block. It wasn’t rational- her wards were keeping him off for now. It was sheer instinct. And it bought him a fraction of a second. Time he used to smack around Mr. Red.

Truth hadn’t scrapped with chain whips before, and he wasn’t particularly eager to start now. Not with the hundreds of coppery glowing runes lining the links. He swept Mr. Red’s feet out from under him. As the ritualist went down, he met Truth’s boot rising up. This time, he was launched vertically, smashing into the spell-reinforced ceiling.

He hit hard enough to shatter cement. Truth grimaced in frustration. That would have killed almost anyone. He knew perfectly well that Mr. Red was fine, and would be shaking off the confusion any moment now. Incisive screamed a warning. Truth slipped back and brought the Tongue up to deflect. Ms. Black was already getting herself together. Firing from her back, her aim was dead on.

Two hand grip, hands not too far out in front, steady as a tripod, and that grouping is smaller than my pinky nail. Which, okay, at three meters isn’t insane.

Still a higher level of competence than he preferred in his enemies. Truth tried to deflect the needles towards the falling Mr. Red as he stepped over to Ms. Black, but he was pretty sure none of them actually connected. Incisive screamed and Truth dropped flat.

Ms. Black had remembered to layer spells on her needles. And now the room was on fire. He could feel the needles locking on to him, curving through the air. Becoming longer, moving faster, growing curses and banes like tumors.

From the ceiling descended a wyrm, lashing, hungry. Pale bone-rotting flames dripped from its maw as translucent wisps of coppery flame leaked from between its scales. Faster than blinking. Faster than the anticipation of pain. It came down like lightning and struck the floor like thunder. It was fast. But Truth was a bare fraction faster.

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He smiled at them. Nicely. Cup and Knife had finished its work on the curse.

There is your target. Get ‘em!

Truth was looking up at Mr. Red when the realization hit the falling ritualist. It was eerie to watch. In the time it takes a spark to fly, the old man realized what had happened, figured out what to do, and executed the plan. Which was to kill Truth before the curse killed him.

The needles were still coming. Ms. Black had a full magazine and was apparently determined to empty it on Truth. He kept dodging, playing for time now. The curse roared down, smashing into the wards surrounding the ritualists. He could see it clawing at the spells, corroding them.

Ms. Black’s aim fell off, but it didn’t matter as much as Truth wished it would. She kept the tracking spells going, and the room wasn’t that big. Truth frantically deflected the needles with the flat of the blade. This had the single advantage of keeping him from getting shot. It did not stop him from getting hurt. The needles hit like rushing wagons, the impact shockwave ripping up his skin and scraping against his muscles.

Mr. Red wasn’t waiting patiently for death either. The wyrm was unshakable, inexorable. Constantly closing on Truth, boxing him in. Pinning him up for the kill. Mr. Red and Ms. Black had worked together for most of a century. Their teamwork was flawless, no need for discussion.

Truth feinted towards Mr. Red, then lunged at Ms. Black. He dumped power into Earth Folding Step. He couldn’t move much, but then, he didn’t need to. A half meter step to the left, right, the side, anywhere but where it looked like he should land. He crossed the space between them in ten short steps. The needles flew wildly across the room, most not even coming close. The Tongue smashed down on her ward. Once, twice. Three times in a half a heartbeat. Always moving. Cutting from low to high, then high to low, then a hard thrust.

She snarled at him. Her wards flexed under the beating, but they held. Truth smiled back. He didn’t need to break them himself.

There was no crack. No shattering or explosion of wild magic. Truth looked right in Ms. Black’s eyes as the curse finally got through. There wasn’t any despair. No fear. Just disappointment. He couldn’t understand it. The spell ate into her. The curse ripped her apart, burning her magic as it rotted her flesh. He knew she was in pain. But she never looked scared.

“Dare to ignore me?!” The fire wyrm pressed in on him again, knocking him away from Ms. Black. Truth lined up for the rush. Without the threat of the needles, the fire wyrm was a hell of a lot less scary. He just needed to keep Mr. Red from thinking about what else he could be casting. With an explosive shove on his back foot, he launched. Mr. Black countered with a pencil thin beam of heat so strong, it formed a standing explosion in the room where it passed. Hot enough to melt cement.

Truth kept leaning on his footwork, combining Incisive with Earth Folding Step. It was so simple now- within his sphere of control, he decided where he was. The observations of others be damned, it was his opinion that mattered. He closed in a blur of shining steel and a thrum of cuts ripping through air. He got behind Mr. Black and hammered the Tongue into his shield, over and over and over. Smashing the pommel down on his head, forcing him onto the floor. Keeping him down and beating on him as the serpent tried to knock him away and protect its summoner.

He could feel when the curse got through. Everything went very still.

“Any last words? Any insights on what it means to be a human being?”

There was only some pained grunting, then the wyrm settled down directly on Mr. Black’s flesh. He didn’t wait for the curse to finish its job.

The ritualists were dead. The ritual was coming apart with ferocious speed, insane energies boiling and crackling through the air, through the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Harmony was on the floor. Torn up by explosions, burned, cut up, gnawed on by the sacrifice. His heart had stopped. Mercifully stopped. The brain trauma was surely enough to snuff out his consciousness.

Sorry Har. Sometimes I’m an asshole. And I’m doubly an asshole because I knew this would happen. It’s okay, though. I’m not going to let you go out like this.

He sent Cup and Knife into the ritual. It was like trying to seize control of an active factory that was exploding and also flying through the air at twice the speed of sound. It lacked both a target and a proper sacrifice. Truth smiled bitterly. More of a sacrifice.

Now that he was in the storm, he could feel all the lives that had made it rise. He had underestimated what drawing on all that power would do to those being drawn upon. All the accidents when people collapsed where they stood. All the carriages smashed against each other, or slamming into the side of a tunnel. Falling off the platform and onto the subway tracks.

This was it. Starbrite was eating the seed crop. If someone pushed on the spell even a little bit, it wouldn’t just be Starbite employees that were affected, it would be every single person with the system that the spell could reach. It wasn’t the whole world, but it was already millions.

He… may have underestimated, somehow, just how badly Starbrite wanted him dead. Somehow that thought didn’t land right. There was something else going on here. Something he wasn’t understanding about the situation. He didn’t have time to figure it out. Harmony needed him.

Truth bent his will on Cup and Knife, forcing it to bridge the broken body of his brother and the ritual. The ritual needs a target? What about the people who did this to him? What about the villains who tore up his soul before they tore up his flesh? What about all the other souls they mutilated and stole? It’s not right. The spell should go after them. Look, there are two fresh bodies right here to complete the sacrifice. Their souls are already in agony, still trapped in this ritual space. Ignore this body and soul right here. He’s what you use to aim with, not what you eat. Eat the others.

It’s everything you need. Now. Take all this power. All this pain. All this hateful energy. And kill every living member of Starbrite in this base. And as for their souls? Release them to Hell. Don’t let a single soul outside this room get away.