The mystics called after Unity with jeering fury, seemingly unaware their rage was honey on his lips.

Unity ignored the cries, not wanting to risk losing pace in his laughter. Focusing only on running.

Not for the first time, he cursed his body. Cursed its sickliness, cursed its weakness. Cursed that it was so fragile as to cripple even the magic he directed to strengthening it. As if he were a luminar.

Cursed, above all, the failing mysticism which had been wielded in the efforts of making it. Producing perhaps the greatest error possible from a pair of Deities giving their lives to a task.

Moments later Unity heard footsteps nearing him from behind. He diverted focus enough to hate those as well.

Over the orchestra ringing around him; wind, scraping sand, panting breaths from his own mouth, Unity was unable to tell how far behind his persuers were. Closer than was ideal, he knew.

He was drawn again to the slate at his wrist, not missing the sharp jab as it snatched his focus.

Whichever of my teammates is nearest, they’re growing nearer still.

It irked Unity that he had no way of gauging distance from the sensation of his slate’s shaking. Irked him more that he had no way of estimating his teammate’s pace or trajectory.

He pushed the disquietment down, forcing his speed to heighten once more. He’d not intended on meeting them, but suddenly the thought seemed an appealing one. If nothing else he’d have an idiot to leave behind and buy time while he fled.

The sound of footfalls at his back grew louder even in spite of his best efforts. Of course they did. It was Unity’s fault for relying on his wretched body.

Come on. He urged his worthless legs. Work faster. For once in your fucking lives, don’t fail me.

He could feel the calling of his slate grow stronger by the heartbeat, every step bringing with it a new moment of hope- even certainty- that he’d reunite with whichever mystic he’d been paired with.

Each one ended with disappointment, changing nothing but the volume of footfalls nearing him from behind. Without even time enough for despair, Unity simply ran. Hoping and sprinting.

Louder. Louder. Louder still, came his pursuers. The sounds of their rage had long since died out, replaced by a silent and cold fury he knew to be more dangerous by far.

He had barely a moment to dwell on the sensation before strong fingers closed around his shoulder, snagging his trailing shirt. The fabric was no match for a mystic’s strength, nor their momentum, tearing in an instant with barely enough resistance to slow Unity’s pace.

It was enough.

That any had grown near enough to touch him filled Unity with a new vigour, seeming to lighten his body by a stone as he redoubled his efforts. He stumbled for a heartbeat, righted himself, then all was lost to him behind the haze of his frenzied sprint.

He barely had thought enough to aim at the slate, and regretted bothering. It buzzed scarcely harder than it had before. Whichever approaching ally it detected was a long way off.

Too long to help him, in any case. Too long to be worthy of consideration.

One foot in front of another. Don’t think about them. Don’t think about anything, Goddess knows your legs need whatever energy you can spare.

It was no use. Another snag on his clothes led to another heart-freezing rip, but unlike the first Unity was given no reprieve. More hands seized him as he slowed, closing around flesh rather than cloth and pulling him from his feet swiftly enough to throw stars into his vision.

Unity thrashed in the grips, snarling as feral, panicked instincts took him and finding every muscle in his body moving to break the hangman’s noose.

It served him no more than it had the lusomorph, and like the great beast he was quickly stilled. A fist buried itself in his gut, squeezing the air from him and flooding his eyes with tears. Unity gasped, sudden emptiness threatening to swallow him as it grew.

His arms were released, yet Unity found his body still unmoved by its commands. Folding up reflexively from the hollowing blow.

“We should hurry up and leave.” A distant voice said. “We can’t get those points back, and beating contestants doesn’t yield anything. We’re better off focusing on-”

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Another voice cut in, deeper. The boy’s. It was a relief to hear, at least, that the mystics were unaccustomed to violence. Righteous anger giving way the moment their quarry was caught.

“We’re better off putting this one down before he can make himself an obstacle later. Do you really think he’ll stop following just because we’ve caught him once?”

Unity tried to assure them that he would, but the words burned his throat like Taikan liquor, threatening to drag bile out in their wake. He fell silent, save for an undignified wheeze.

“Just knocking him out will work, right? Or do we need to go… further?”

There were few things Unity could remember wanting to do more than explain to the bumbling fools that depriving him of consciousness would be enough. Still, though, his pain-racked body betrayed him.

He looked up to see that none of the mystics even held him in their sights, all intently focused on one another instead. It filled him half with amazement, half with fury.

Fucking simpletons, all of them. They saw me tear a lusomorph’s spine in half and they’re still content to turn away from me. Do they think my speed alone indicates the threat I pose?

Whether simple or not, the mystics posed an unacceptable threat. Unity listened only partially to their conversation, dedicating the majority of his faculties to thinking of a way he might escape.

Surrounded on all sides, he found none. Only one scrap of hope was to be wrung from the situation, reminding Unity keenly of its presence with every second it spent tied around his wrist.

“Enough, we’re wasting time just by talking about this. I’ll do it.”

A shadow shifted across Unity as one of the people moved, a girl- tall and broad- raising her foot beside him. There was no hesitation in her eye, no uncertainty in her motions.

The sight filled his veins with fire, pouring cold lightning through his nerves.

Unity rolled as far as he was able, squaring a shoulder to crash into the legs of two other mystics. Shifting feet sent him rolling back, but Unity was already scrambling.

He flooded his hands with magic, splaying arms wide to trail forks of crimson lightning. Too weak to be damaging. The effect was immediate, sending his enemies stumbling backwards and giving him the reprieve he needed.

Scary ability once you’ve seen what it can do, eh?

Forcing himself to turn, Unity lurched in the direction he’d been running before- slate howling in approval.

Every step was slow, dragging through the sand and wasting precious momentum in the scraping of boot leather.

Ten paces separated them, closing to five in heartbeats. Closing to none scarcely after that. For the second time Unity was dragged to the ground, with no hesitant reprieve to be found like the first.

Before he even felt the desert’s touch, boots came down upon him. Unity covered up, tried desperately to make a shield of his arms, but his foes merely made lances of their legs.

Fucking cunts. All of them are fucking cunts.

Unity almost found it amusing that his disgust at the touch of their soles outshone the pain their impacts brought. It was a dim sensation. Blunt. Tolerable.

His enemies, the fools, were in one another’s way. All so eager to crush him underfoot that they pushed forth to do so, too inexperienced to realise they were robbing one another of the space needed to give their attacks any bite.

Agony flared in his shoulder as a particularly well-aimed, or fortunate, kick threatened to flip him almost completely over. Unity cried out despite himself, then cursed as the stamping gained a new energy to it.

They’d heard him, knew he’d felt pain. Smelled blood in the water. Without needing to even glance at one another, through the silent means all frantic, mobbing creatures seemed to possess, they’d moved in together like starved wolves.

He waited for a moment, steeling himself as the pain grew and the jolts became more targeted, then lashed out with a kick of his own. Heel met knee, throwing a startled yelp into the air.

Unity cursed to himself. He’d meant to break the joint entirely.

A boot caught him under the ribs, seizing his every muscle with a grip of agony. Trying to fight the reflex was folly, Unity couldn’t uncoil even a single limb. It was all he could do to bite down and keep himself from screaming at the skin-crawling sensation as it burrowed through him.

The mystics didn’t wait for his wits to return, they simply kept kicking. Unity barely managed to flip himself over in time to catch the boots on his back and shoulders rather than gut and face, but even there his fragile body strained under the onslaught.

Pain exploded behind each one, air driven from his lungs even as they fought to suck in more. Every motion he began was killed before it could truly start.

This is it then, he realised, thoughts clouded by the bludgeoning torture. Fragile in his own mind. I’ll be getting knocked out here. It could be worse, I suppose.

Even as he thought that, Unity found himself unable to imagine how. His enemies were weak mystics, relative to himself, and the angles from which they could strike him were scarcely better than before. His, he knew, would be a slow and painful defeat.

A fist crunched against Unity temple and scattered his thoughts, followed by an unseen blow to the back of his neck that dimmed the world and rang his ears.

He gasped, tasting sterile sand and iron blood. Waited for the strikes to continue.

Waited longer, only realising something was wrong when his scattered hearing grew coherent enough to register the sounds of a struggle ringing out from all sides around him.

Unity rose shakily, dizziness racking him just to lift his head from the ground. A smile replaced his grimace at the sight that met his eye. Mystics broken back from him, some lying prone and others barely standing under the onslaught of a blonde girl’s fists and an ebony luminar’s magic. All framed by the sudden, deafening silence of his slate. Reinforcements.

It had taken them long enough.