Marlon stood in the center of the Pit, the heart of the Market, his aura pulsing with newfound power. He took a deep breath, centering himself, flexing his control over space like a nervous tic. The air around him bent with his will, his senses attuned to every subtle shift in the fabric of space.
As he exhaled slowly, his awareness extended outward, feeling the intricate web of spatial connections that made up the Market. Each alleyway, each shop, each hidden nook was his domain; a potential weapon in his arsenal. And he could sense the impending danger, knew he’d need every weapon, every trick, if he were going to stop Skipper.
He began weaving invisible threads through space, laying the groundwork for his web of traps and diversions. His lips were set in grim determination as he split his focus across dozens of these threads.
Skipper had the power edge, but Marlon had the advantage of preparation and skill. And it was time to see just how much that counted for.
The attacks on Market space gradually intensified and Marlon was forced to divert more attention to shutting them down.
Just a minute longer…
Despite his contempt for the man, Skipper wasn’t an idiot. He was simply arrogant—a byproduct of his strength. So Marlon knew that Skipper would vary his approach, try different avenues, hope to overwhelm his pool of power and attention through a scatter shot approach.
All Marlon needed to do was open a channel, slip the gate into the Market on his terms.
There!
An intrusion began to form in an alleyway in the Services Sector. Marlon could have clamped it shut, cut off the power before it could split space. But he let it slide open, slip through his fingers like a weary man overwhelmed by the sheer volume of attacks.
A portal snapped into place, anchored itself into reality and even Marlon couldn’t have sealed it shut now if he wanted to.
When the first soldier peeked his head through the portal, scanned his eyes across the alleyway, he half-expected to eat a bullet or suffer some magical attack. Instead, all he saw were upturned cobblestones, debris, and the detritus of a hastily abandoned city.
He stepped through, signaling the all clear behind him.
High above, Marlon watched from his pinhole portal as a dozen more men and women stepped through the portal, filling the alleyway. The waves of aura around the group were of a middling strength—a cadre of B-rankers, most likely.
He watched and waited, feeling a second portal pass his defensive net in a similar alley across the Market. Then a third.
From each portal, a dozen mid-rank soldiers filtered through.
And he sprung his traps.
The air around each invading force seemed to thicken with power. They felt the change immediately, but their portals were one-way—there was no retreat.
The first group found themselves disoriented, their vision flipped, the ground above them and open space beneath them. As one, they threw themselves to the floor, clutching futilely at the cobblestones as space betrayed them.
A second group found themselves similarly confused about the orientation of space, but were actively flying through the air. A portal materialized beneath them—already formed, but somehow hidden. As they entered, a split-second of null-space led them out a second portal formed only a hairs breadth above the first. They fell in a never ending revolving door of space, cut off from their senses and power except for a microsecond between the two portals.
The third group found themselves trapped in a narrow alley that seemed to writhe around them, mocking their senses. As a group, they raced toward the alley mouth, only to find themselves back were they started. Reversing their path did nothing, and they soon found themselves sprinting end to end with no change, an eternal Penrose alleyway that no amount of aura or power could shatter.
More squads were allowed into the Market and each one found themselves in a bewildering, brain-defying trap. Portals winked in and out of existence, space bent and shifted wholesale, and chaos reigned across the Market.
There was a spatial storm raging in the Market and Marlon stood in the Eye.
When Skipper finally arrived, his presence rang out like a clarion call, attempting to dominate the Market space with steel willpower and iron fist.
But you didn’t tame a tempest with the lash; you rode it like a sailor strapped to the mast, giving in to its whims. You could no more defy the storm than you could quench the sun.
So Marlon sat back as Skipper tried to smooth the very waves of reality, creating new folds like bunches in the rug that defied attempts to shove them flat.
In one corner of the Market, a dozen Awakened were stranded in the void of subspace when Skipper’s machinations broke their portal’s connection. In another, the labyrinthine maze Marlon had brewed from space collapsed entirely, bringing uncountable tons of stone down upon their heads.
Everywhere Skipper countered, he only found inventive ways to kill or impede his own men.
Marlon watched and waited, expecting the frustration to mount until there was only one path forward. He would force a confrontation and spring his last trap.
Another minute passed and another group died. Skipper’s voice and aura smashed out, a defiant rock chucked into the sea.
The sea didn’t answer back, but Marlon did.
With a subtle flick of power, he revealed his location, a beacon visible for miles around, perched on the edge of a glass bridge high above the lava of the Pit.
Space ripped, screaming open as Skipper stepped across from him.
He was a weasel of a man on his best of days, small, sickly pale skin, with stringy, grease-coated hair massaged into a side comb that did little to hide his cul-de-sac hairline.
But as he stood across from Marlon, it seemed the man had seen better days.
His eyes were darting, bloodshot, sunken. His teeth yellowed and worn, like he’d been grinding them down for weeks. His cheeks were sharp points, threatening to spear through his skin.
But the power boiled off his aura, thick and dense like a bodybuilder’s muscles. He tried for a quick flick, flexing his power in a stabbing attack across space. Marlon unraveled it with a pull, then crossed his arms contemptuously.
“What? No villain monologue?” He tsked and shook his head. “Qui Shen teach you nothing?”
Skipper growled, stepping forward—a single step that took him a dozen yards, space yielding to his authority. They stood face-to-face now, but both knew the threat was idle; they weren’t brawlers like Duelists or Summoners. They could be touching nose-to-nose and still wouldn’t even think to raise a fist.
No, their fight would be one of finesse and skill and mastery over space.
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It was a moment of open-mouthed shock before Terry managed to respond to Tania.
“I thought we talked about this.” The tension of Tinker’s presence infected his tone, giving it a hard edge he regretted.
Instead of fighting fire with fire, Tania’s expression softened.
“Terry, I know it’s risky, and I know we talked about this already. But the situation’s changed—”
“Not enough to risk your life!” he blurted.
She sat back, looking off into the distance. He held his breath, waiting for the outburst he knew would come. But a moment passed, then two, and he wondered if he was being unfair to Tania. He examined her aura to try and glean what exactly was coursing beneath the surface.
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To his surprise, it was placid, smooth where Tania’s was usually hard-edged and full of fire. For a moment, he feared she was getting another premonition of danger.
“Tania, what’s wrong?”
She snorted humorlessly, her eyes flicking toward Terry before darting away again.
“It’s nothing. I—” She shook her head, the corners of her lips turning up before she masked it by looking down. “I just realized that I’ve been so wrong…about everything.”
Terry felt a flutter in his chest, worried that she was somehow going to say something she couldn’t take back. “What…what do you mean?” His voice was barely a cut above a whisper.
She looked up now, her full smile on display.
“I know this is gonna sound stupid, but I…I finally understand why I failed my Awakening the first time. Why I’m a Seer now instead of a Traveler.”
He narrowed his eyes, his thoughts jumbled as he tried to connect the dots. “What are you saying?”
“I wanted it so bad, Terry. The freedom being a Traveler would offer.” She looked off, her eyes trailing toward Tinker, Bloodhound, Lady, and Sol. “I never wanted to feel trapped, helpless, like I did when the draugr killed my parents.” She looked back, her eyes pinched in a pained expression, her voice lowering. “I was always gonna leave.” She said it like a shameful confession and Terry struggled to comprehend. “I never intended to stay in Wichita. When I tried the first time, I was gonna leave Feed Wichita, leave the team…leave you.”
He felt his blood surge, his face heat up as he processed that revelation. It felt like a stab to the chest. Tania must have seen his expression because she leaned in, grabbing his arms tight.
“It wasn’t because we’re not best friends, Terry. It hurt me to even think about it—”
He pulled away, feeling that heat in his body shift to his voice. “Then why?” he demanded. “And why are you telling me this?”
She sighed, sitting back on her heels, her eyes studying the passing ceiling as their platform continued its slow march to the surface.
“You don’t see it—I know that. And I don’t blame you.”
“See what!” He felt his blood rushing in his ears. “All I’ve ever been is a friend to you, Tania! Everything I’ve done, I included you—”
Her head whipped around, her gaze pinning him in place. “Exactly!” She let out a heavy breath, the fire draining from her eyes, her voice lowering. “Exactly. You…you’re like gravity, Terry. Everything around you gets pulled into your orbit.”
He opened his mouth to protest—it wasn’t his fault—but she held up a hand.
“No, listen. I’m just saying, it’s obvious to anyone who spends any time around you that you have a destiny or some purpose. And we’re getting sucked along by that pull. I…resented it at first. I didn’t realize it, but I blamed you for Flore, hell, even for Vlad.” Her eyes glistened, tears threatening to break free. “I felt—” She shook her head. “—no, I knew, that I’d join them. If I stayed with you, I’d eventually die. That’s why I got the Skills I did, see? My System wanted me to feel safe! It wanted me to realize that you weren’t a black hole pulling me into oblivion. Terry—” She reached out, grabbing his hands gently, the tears finally slipping down her cheeks. “—you’re not a black hole…you’re the sun, casting your light upon the world. The things you’re gonna do, the good you’re gonna accomplish…I was an idiot, Terry. To try and pull away from that.” She was shaking her head still, little flicks of her chin as if she couldn’t believe it. “I’m meant to help you, to support you. That’s why I’m a Seer. That’s why I have these abilities. I’m sorry—for everything, for being selfish, scared, a bitch—all of it. I…” She squeezed his hands, a sad smile on her face. “I just want to help you continue to shine…”
His eyes tracked over her hands, an overwhelming confusion infecting his thoughts. His instinct was to deny her feelings, call her silly, dramatic, or anything—anything to detract from the enormity of that proclamation, the idea that he had some sort of destiny. The thought was like a dirty word in his mind.
I’m just a kid, he complained internally. Just a kid trying to do the right thing.
It was a lie, and not even a convincing one. The Weaver had made his path clear when he’d first Awakened. It had set him on a journey to bring peace to the region, to fight back against the Council, Dancer, the Emperor…his father. It was false humility to argue otherwise.
But for some reason, it still stung at him, the way she’d described his presence like a gravitational pull. He didn’t know why—it was true. He’d blamed himself for Flore and Vlad’s death for months—still did.
Yet, there was something freeing in the thought, as well. He’d put himself and others in danger, but always for the right reasons. He knew himself, believed he knew his Waker, and he knew Tania. They were doing what they thought was right, what they thought would lead to the most good, as the Weaver had called it. Flore and Vlad hadn’t died for no reason—they had accomplished good, too.
And though it saddened him, he felt somewhere deep inside that if they were looking down now, they’d be proud of what they’d accomplished.
He couldn’t process everything at once; Tania’s words had been like a steamroller on his mind. But as he looked up into her eyes, felt her reassuring warmth in his hands, he felt that he finally understood what she had been hinting at; what drove her.
She was his friend, his ally, but she wasn’t his charge. It wasn’t his right to shield her from her own decisions. If she wanted to do this, then he would let her.
“That was a lot to unpack,” he said. She snorted, the old tears flicking off her chin. “But I hear you. Had to really dig into the subtext of your point.” He flicked his eyebrows as if to say, thanks for the compliment sandwich. “But I hear you.” He took a deep breath, reaching for his aura as he calmed his mind. “Do you still wanna do this?” His voice was soft, not pushing the issue, giving her the reins to make the call.
She studied him for a moment, her eyes flicking across his features. Then, a wide smile spread incrementally across her face.
“You bet your ass.”
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To the outside observer, Marlon and Skipper’s duel would have been completely incomprehensible. Space rioted, stuck in the maw of two titanic powers, the death throes of reality, the result.
Skipper opened by shearing space like a scalpel across where Marlon’s body was. Marlon answered by falling into a portal, entering subspace and exiting in a flash that occurred in perfect time with Skipper’s assault.
The attacks magnified, a dozen powerful maneuvers that sought to rend reality and turn Marlon into mincemeat. Marlon countered similarly, removing himself from the equation and reappearing fifty feet away on a separate glass bridge.
Skipper struck, Marlon countered, and space suffered. To the naked eye, distortions spread across the Pit like heat shimmers in the desert. After a full minute, Marlon was forced to rely purely on his senses, as his head began to swim whenever he focused his vision.
A second minute passed, and the bridges spanning the Pit began to crack and splinter under the warping of space. For two decades, these glass walkways had connected the separate sections of the Market, as integral as arteries in the body. Marlon had never thought he’d see the day they crumbled.
And yet, the distortions in space worked to undermine Terraform’s engineering and power. The sound of shattering glass tinkled in his ears, dopplered across his senses by the tectonic shifting of the air around them.
Skipper’s attacks came in faster, stronger, more destructive, shredding the substructure around them. Marlon, on the other hand, only had half his attention on the S-ranker. Every few seconds, he slipped out his own attack, timed in conjunction with Skipper’s so that they remained unnoticed.
Marlon had learned long ago that S-rankers, more often than not, were unshakably secure in the reach and weight of their power. They stopped learning technique, stopped honing their senses, instead relying upon brute force and raw Attributes to achieve their goals.
To a hammer, everything was a nail.
And a Traveler of Skipper’s power was accustomed to the ultimate trump—a get out of jail free card should he ever bite off more than he could chew.
But there were certain circumstances where that were not true, where space was so bruised and battered and beleaguered that she wouldn’t respond to the call of power any longer. She’d lay down, rest her head on the dirt, and die, like a blown-out horse pushed past her limit. Marlon had never witnessed such an event and he was certain Skipper hadn’t either.
Now, though, he sensed the heaving breaths of space, the withdrawal of its capacity to shift, the utter collapse of its cohesion and structure.
He didn’t know if localized space would implode, shoving Marlon and Skipper into some pocket dimension for all eternity. Perhaps space would shatter like a plane of glass, shredding their physical forms into mist. Or even shear around them like the cutting debris of a hurricane.
What he did know, was that the two of them had abused their domain past the breaking point. Space refused his coaxing, refused Skipper’s bullying, and it raged. It raged around them like deadly leaves in the wind.
Marlon had known space could be pushed too far—only his fate remained uncertain. But just in case, on the slim chance reality wouldn’t completely crush him in convulsive anger, he had positioned himself just so. It was a silly thing to do; just taking the bastard down would be enough. But survival instincts were hardwired, even in a man who had spent his life trying to un-hardwire himself.
The S-ranker sensed the end coming as well. His voice echoed across waves of space, sounding both far off and intimately close.
“You always…thought you were…better than me!”
Marlon couldn’t tell if his answer retread space to touch Skipper’s ears, but it warmed his stomach to say them anyway.
“I always have been!”
Marlon felt his bridge give way, just as he sensed Skipper’s aura fall outside the spatial storm. As he fell through the air toward the lava below, he felt the air around him suddenly still, cohesion return. He looked up, spotting the small area where their duel had been contained. In the moment, it had felt like all of reality had been their battlefield. But from outside the space, it was barely a fifty-by-fifty pocket of warped space, still crashing around itself erratically.
As he continued to fall, he finally caught sight of Skipper pinwheeling through the air, his eyes locked tight on the lava below. Marlon felt him reach for space, try to ram it open through sheer willpower.
He strained against the raw power, holding Skipper’s exit portal closed.
A single second had passed, and they neared the terminus of their fall together. Skipper’s face shifted in surprise, then anger. He tried again, this time pushing so much aura through, he shredded the surrounding space.
Marlon held tight, letting the pressure build, then let go. The effect was similar to a contested tug-o-war, the other side releasing their hold suddenly. Skipper reeled back in shock, the feedback catching him off guard. Then, he hit the lava with strangled cry.
A beat later, Marlon also hit something—something much harder, but much less painful.
He felt his legs snap like dry twigs as he landed on the stone abutment sticking out from the Pit wall. The thought of a roll to diffuse his momentum was preposterous—at his size? No, he had suspected the fall would kill him, but had tried anyway.
So, when his legs gave way and his head cracked against his knee with the sound of a major league home run, he assumed the darkness that followed was him finally returning to that once-forgotten kitchen to rest with his wife and daughter.
It was with an unbelievable level of annoyance that his eyes flicked open an undefinable amount of time later and he realized that he was—unfortunately—still alive.