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A keen sense of wrongness mounts before anything can be seen. Like there's a piece in the world not quite in its place. The delicate framework of reality is pushed a little out of alignment. In a word, it feels bad. Very bad. Hair stands on the back of my neck. My arms put on gooseflesh, as I look away, a casual stone’s throw away, where grains of sand dance alone on the rings of seats.

Then a jet-black chasm is torn through spacetime.

A tall oval darker than black pops up over the benches, oozing shadowy mist.

My Eye identifies it as the event horizon of a warp gate. But it's very different from the spell I know. Where the Gate of Light sticks to the natural ebb and flow of the planet to nonintrusively connect two points, the ritual I see strong-arms straight through everything in its way to cut the shortest possible path. It’s not as stable and takes a gross amount of mana to pull off, but it also can't be interefered with from outside. The pinnacle of magic tourism, a travel method that shreds ethics and the environment purely for passenger convenience——a Gate of Shadows.

From the void steps a tall man decked out in a golden suit of armor.

Strawberry blond hair, trendily styled, a dandy 80s mullet.

Pale, sharp eyes sporting a cruel glint, a smug smile on his face. Triangular elf ears.

Yeah.

It’s him.

Why now, why here?

Don’t tell me I tipped him off when I dispelled Three’s brand?

Having eyeballed the dimensions of the cavern, the man raises a finger. An insulatory boundary is raised cleanly along the walls. We're trapped in a bubble with him, removed from the outside world.

The black dragon recognizes the guest too. They have a history, after all. The monster widens its maw in a deafening bellow. I hold my ears and stumble, the land swirling under me. The animosity is raw and overpowering. He lunges at the intruder like a dump truck, hellbent to rip him to shreds. But, looking almost bored, the sorcerer raises his hand and the titanic beast stops short in its tracks.

“It’s too late,” Yaoldabath says. “My magic already fills you throughout from tail to horns. You are mine now, old dog!”

The Elder Wyrm snarls and shakes with wrath. That’s all it can do. It retains its own will and awareness, but all control over its flesh has been stolen from within.

“It took 20,000 years of agony and a puppet specifically crafted for the purpose, but the Epitomic Black is finally broken. And now, for once, the existence of your wretched kind shall have meaning.”

Yaoldabath flicks his palm skyward. A huge pool of black spreads to engulf the restrained dragon and swallows his enormous figure awhole into an abyss under the belly of reality. A warp gate of that size, with a casting time under a second, no backup inscriptions, or spoken incantations, minimal gestures. It's crazy. The guy forks out a small city's worth of power like paying bus fare.

It's—insane.

Only a dumbfounding sense of void is left behind. The absence of the giant dragon makes the cavern feel three times as big and empty as it was before. I sink to my knees, having a hard time swallowing what my eyes show me.

Then something comes flying. A small shape darts across the hall from the west side, along with a furious scream.

“YAOLDABAAAAAAAATH——!”

Zandolph descends in a reckless, rage-fuelled leap. Her battered, sandy body is encased in a blazing swirl of mana and fire, hot enough that I have to cover my face even this far away. She hurls her glowing hot lance with all the might she can muster, and we’ve seen the shit that thing can do in her hands. My ears get clogged up as the sound barrier is rent. The blast of air knocks me on my ass. In a blink, the match is settled.

I'm not holding my breath, though.

Not for a second can I delude myself into thinking my friend has a shot at this.

The stories exaggerated nothing. Having appraised our enemy as a magician with my own eyes tonight, I can only admit that the gap in class is desperately, overwhelmingly wide.

Yaoldabath is way ahead. He sweeps the air with his hand, conjures a semisphere barrier. And it’s nothing like my pathetic film of morning dew. That barrier is a solid meter thick, fracturing light into glittering rainbow colors. The spear of molten death bounces off the curvature with a dull “boing!”, the potential energy cleanly absorbed, momentum snuffed out, heat dispersed, soundwaves muffled. And then, true enough, it’s settled.

The wizard brushes the barrier out of the way and grips Zandolph's falling figure with telekinesis. She stops like into an invisible windshield and is left dangling in the air, red fissures of light coiling around her.

She could still break out, if she knew how to turn into a dragon. Then her volume would be too great to be contained by a singular perspective. But locked in the shape of a tiny human, the magic falls on her equally from every direction, inescapable. Her resistance can't null it, it only gives the enemy a better grip.

“Ghrr, let go…!” she growls.

“Oh, the daughter of the Earth Mother,” Yaoldabath remarks with a leer. “The last Prime Color. You traveled a long way, only to follow in the footsteps of your mistaken parents. Too bad, I have no use for you. I need a beast, not a warm fool dressed as a rat. How about I send you to Gaia now?”

He slams Zandolph down on the floor and raises the pressure.

Damn it, I don't have a plan for this.

But I can’t just sit by and let my friend get pureed. I get out of my hiding spot behind the seats and approach the pair.

“Let her go!” I yell at the asshole, my finger pointed at his head.

Not with a gesture does the wizard show he can even hear me.

The pressure on Zandolph is continuously building up. Blood starts to leak out of her eyes and nose.

I repeat, “For the last time, let her go! Or I will—”

“—You will what?” The man now looks at me. “Blow air at me? Please. You may have done a passable job picking up my breadcrumbs these past few years, but surely you don't think that makes you my equal? What little knowledge there is of magic in your head, I put there!”

Maybe. But I’m not lowering the finger gun. It makes me feel safer.

“It’s not about the size of your thing, but how you use it,” I tell the bastard.

“Truly?”

Yaoldabath looks at Zandolph anew. As if my words gave him some kind of idea. Suddenly he relaxes his fingers and the telekinetic force on the red lets up. She draws a quick breath and then a surge of darkness from the floor swallows her, the way it did her parent. So quickly, she's gone.

Only the two of us left, Yaoldabath turns to me.

“Oh, I've heard of you, 'Zero'. Wouldn't it be a pity, if a rising star like yourself died here without anyone to see it? I know full well how my people yearn for heroes. Anything to break the monotony of time. The fact that you live is a wonder! You should’ve been disintegrated by the energies of the Cube the instant you opened it. Yet, here we are. I do belive there is a certain—'design' to life on this planet. Meaning to the seemingly disconnected things that happen. At least, we created have the means to give them such.”

“Does that mean you'll let me go?”

“It means, you will have a chance! To give your story the conclusion it deserves. Sealing the Epitomic Black took quite a bit of effort. I'd rather spare myself the trouble of what comes next. Hence, I propose a trade: the core of the Heaven’s Pillar, for the spawn of Metathron. You bring me the relic and I’ll let the lizards keep their Flame.”

I frown at him. “Everyone in the world for just one, how is that fair in your head?”

“You are welcome to walk away,” he graciously answers. “Save yourself! But I’ll get the core anyway. I’ll take it myself, kill the worm, and leave. And then, eventually, I will find and kill you too, and your meddlesome friends. But do your part, and you have my word; at least one of you will survive tonight. A heroic sacrifice. Isn't that a tale worth telling?”

“One will live, but it can't be both?”

His smile widens, no less mean.

“That would depend…on how you use what you have. You have until sunrise to impress me. Do anything stupid, like rally the wyrms, and I’ll unleash the old dog on them. This shall be purely a private performance. No room for extras.”

Not waiting for my agreement, the gleaming bastard takes a step to leave.

Then he suddenly pauses and turns back.

“Ah, maybe I’ll add one more favor on top of the bargain. To help your motivation.”

“What?”

“Perhaps you'd like me to tell you—how you were born?”

My heart stops. It keeps quiet for so many beats, I have to check if it’s working at all.

Yaoldabath floats up in the air, pulls me along with telekinesis, and takes us over to the open central floor. The hell's he up to?

“Have you ever thought about it? The wonder of life?” he chats. “How did the Old Gods create all these intelligent creatures to liven up their playground? After producing the archtype of each species, a suitably diverse starting population had to be formed, to let them take root. Shaping bodies is one thing, but what about the souls? What about the minds? We created are so much more than crude matter, not so easily conjured out of nothing, not even by the hands of gods! But they had just the thing.”

The sorcerer drops me onto the stage and raises a hand up high.

The air bends and swirls above him, and out of nothing, a large, bizarre gadget melts into view, coming to hover beside the man. A flat, clean-polished surface, a great circle, framed by irregular, radially expanding bars of metal.

“The Mirror of Aoltenaum,” he introduces the thing with the pomp and pride of a circus director. “A celestial relic with the power to materialize souls, salvaged from the ruin of Sky City Canelon. From beyond time and space, it samples the endless river where the spirits of the dead of the cosmos roam...And gives them form. Like this.”

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The madman punches his fist through the mirror. The surface doesn’t shatter but flows and ripples like liquid mercury. Soon he tears his arm out and pulls something along, a pale, sleek figure—a body. An adult human male.

Like taking out garbage, Yaoldabath throws the newborn, buck-naked man down on the cavern floor.

“Why humans?” he poses a rhetorical question. “The Mirror has a base template saved for every created sentient, to be modified at will—even emiri, naturally. However, human bodies are by far the fastest and most efficient to make. They cost hardly anything! Here! Have another!”

He sticks his hand into the Mirror again and pulls out another person, a woman this time, and tosses her down the same way.

“STOP IT!” I yell, horror and nausea rising in my throat.

Those aren’t just mass-produced mannequins. They’re alive and real, like you and me. I may not be the most virtuous gal in the world, but there's still a part in me sickened by that atrocious scorn for life.

Children are supposed to be brought into the world with love and care, not printed out for your entertainment like anime girls in a mobile game!

“From this womb you also were born,” Yaoldabath tells me. “This is what you are, ‘recruit’: an alien ghost stolen from the void, dressed in human skin. You are no child of man, but a rushed bastardization of the gods’ work. Bereft of meaning, a stranger everywhere she goes. And to close the shop, I have one last demonstration for you, who would presume to call yourself a magician: THIS—IS HOW YOU CURSE A PERSON!”

The wizard raises his voice into a lunatic howl, heavy with such heartless malice it rends your sanity. He thrusts his palm down at the two raw figures crawling on the ground, gasping their first breaths. A tongue of crimson light splits the air, marking the two with a fresh hot brand of spite. The curse runs through them in a heartbeat, invading their limbs and veins and nerves without resistance. Just like that, their free will, their divine right, is robbed from their hands.

“The sun rises in a little shy of four hours,” the maniac announces. “Me and your fiery friend shall await you at the vault—provided you can make it. I wonder if you have what it takes, o' champion?”

And, to the two human husks, he grunts a merciless command,

“Kill her.”

The Mirror fades away and Yaoldabath disappears into another portal of darkness.

Feeling dang awful, I’m left to face the two strangers, my newest siblings, as they crawl up to their feet and turn to me.

They look at me, the confusion of new life gone from their gazes. There’s only the mission now. Maybe they're the lucky ones? They have total clarity of why they exist: to kill one dumb broad, who happened to cross paths with the wrong guy. Son of a bitch.

I can’t work on two brands in tandem. I’ll have to incapacitate at least one first.

I launch a Chain of Light to shackle the male. But for someone born less than a minute ago, he’s already got astonishing self-control, and the instincts of a warrior hardcoded into him. He leans out of the way, brushes the chain aside with his hand. As if he has just then come to realize the use of hands, he quickly grips the chain, and reels me in. My lightweight figure is yanked clean off my feet and nearly into a mean left hook. I hurry to dispel the chain, drop on my knees, and slide under the swinging fist. Oh dear.

It’s not Villagers A and B I’m up against.

What the Mirror prints out is the ideal form of man, as the gods first made it, undiluted by generations of medieval diet and diseases. Worse, they have the skill trees Yaoldabath programmed into them. Once they awaken their potential the way I and the others did, ordinary people won't be a match for them.

Fucking hell. Is there no choice but to kill them?

That's what it comes down to, no matter what I do? Because it's what I was made for?

Oh come on, why am I letting the villain into my head?

I spring up, throw the guy out of the way with a Shockwave, then turn to the lady and link up with her brand. With an oh-so-familiar scream of pain, she drops to her knees, clawing at her neck.

A fresh, undeveloped brand is still easy enough to crack. I just need a few seconds...

The dude lands rolling on the edge of the stage, instinctively breaking his fall, and pushes back up. A regular bloke would be down for the count, but he shrugged off the wind hammer without a scratch? But it'll take him a moment to run back, and that moment is all I—

The man suddenly tenses his muscles and lets out a loud shout. “AAAAHH—SIFL!”

Mana is ignited. Streaks of blue light erupt through his tensed limbs. His frame blurs.

“What—!?”

A temporal displacement effect?

Damn. Our baby boy’s first word is a fifth tier Rune of Power? Guess “mama” went out of fashion.

“Are you fucking kidding m—bwah!” I start to say, but get tackled mid-sentence.

His innate time accelerated, the guy crosses the gap in a flash, and a rough hockey tackle sends me to the floor. I lose the link to the girl's brand. With practically no delay, she shakes off the pain and gets up to rejoin the fight. My ribs are too stiff to breathe, but never mind that. I stand up and shoot Flashpoints at the man, trying to hit a leg, but the speed hack makes him exceptionally difficult to hit. He zigzags all over the place.

Fine! If that's how you want to play.

No more holding back. I raise both hands and connect with the two brand-holders together. Struck by the inescapable pain, they freeze in mutual agony.

Okay, I tried. But better them than—

“—Ha?”

Then I’m struck dumb once again.

These brands aren't the same as before? The self-destruct function has been removed?

My certain kill cheat trick doesn't work!

“That asshole, he set me up?”

But. What do I do now? Only linking to the brand won't stun them forever. I have to make constant changes to the eidos to keep the pain impulses coming, but there isn't much I can do, if they won't go boom. My processing power isn't enough split between six modules. Too damn many moving parts and they keep fixing themselves. Worse, I can't move, or do anything else when I'm connected to the curses. But if I release them now, I'm screwed. Frost has too long casting time, the lad will kill me!

I got all haughty, thinking I'll have to kill them, but—can I, even if I went all out?

The man pushes up, gritting his teeth. His innate time accelerated, the pain feedback from the brand is conversely delayed.

The blue light flickers. In the next moment, the man's knuckles approach my abdomen. Fighting through the hurt, he makes the correct call, to eliminate the cause of the interference ASAP. He's no less desperate to finish this than I am, burning his mana at a dangerous rate. No, way more than I am. For me, this is only another fight in a series of too many; for him, it's all he lives for. I don't think I ever had such passion in me.

Daaaaaaaaamn this! If I eat that punch, my heart will rupture.

To dodge, I'll have to unlink. But if I unlink, he can move even faster. I can't make it in time!

Really! A checkmate? Now? Just like that?

Fucking hell, is this where I have to cash in my chips…?

I squeeze my eyes shut, clench my teeth, and cut the connection. At least make it fast!

“——”

But for some reason, death doesn’t come.

I reluctantly peel back the eyelids to see a view among the strangest to date.

The nu-man’s fist is stopped a hair’s breadth off my solar plexus. His wrist is in the firm grip of another figure standing between us.

Who? It's an effeminate figure dressed in a red-brown monk robe, slim gauntlets and steel-plated boots. A hood pulled overhead hides her face from me. Dragons don’t wear clothes like that and her energy is different. She’s—a mortal human?

“...Why don’t you pick on somebody of your own size?” the stranger coolly quips to the naked man.

I’d like to point out she’s no less a shrimp compared to him than I am, but the opportunity goes by. In a blink, the surprise contender switches her hold into a flawless one-inch punch that catches the guy by surprise and packs enough oomph to knock him off his feet. Even with Sifl, he can't dodge it! Youch.

The female recruit recognizes the intruder as the bigger threat.

Like a dancer, she starts swinging her arms and conjures—water. Out of thin air comes a swirling, coiling stream, which she shapes with her mind into a large javelin and…Well, it’s a move far too elaborate for close combat. The hooded stranger is already in front of the caster, gripping her wrist, and knocks her lights out with a whack on the chin too quick to see.

In the meantime, I’ve chained down the man and dispelled his brand, and then repeat the feat with the lady, and wipe the cold sweat off my brow. Saved! Was that close or what?

I turn to my mysterious savior, who removes the hood to show her face.

The smiling, tanned, freckled face of a young woman. Brown, lively eyes; messy, copper-brown hair, cut boyishly short.

“Gosh, Zero, it’s been a small eternity!” she tells me. “Where have you been!?”

“My god,” I gasp as I stare back at that vaguely familiar face. “You’re—You’re that...Um…”

“...”

“...Hang on. Wait. It’s coming to me. It's on the tip of my tongue. You're…err...You're...”

She's not waiting. I receive a lightning-speed jab on my ribs that takes the airs out of me.

“Fucking Lieselot…!” I grunt and wheeze, holding my side.

“Damn it, Zero, is that how you greet your childhood friend!?” the dashing damsel scolds me.

“Liar.” I size her up another time. “You’re not my Lieselot. She’s not that tall. Or that…disturbingly sexy?”

Lieselot looks at me with eyes of pity.

“Zero, I was fourteen when we last saw each other. I turn eighteen this March.”

“Eighteen?” That has to be the biggest shock I've had today. “No. No way. NOOOOOOO! That’s impossible! Get outta here! I don’t believe you!”

That little piglet? Old enough to drink? Old enough to legally star in porn? That’s sick! I will never accept it!

“Uh-huh,” she insists. “I grew up. People tend to do that. Or, well, most people do.”

What’s that supposed to mean?

“How the hell did you even get here?” I ask as I rub my still hurting side.

“I was sent to back you up!” she explains. “But you weren’t in Osgonnoth. Then Master Endol introduced me to this funky guy with a flying boat, and that guy gave me a ride here along a big bridge in the sky. He had a pet chimpanzee too, can you believe that? A cute fellow. It cleaned me out at cards, could you lend me a few coppers, by the way?”

“Please. I don’t want to hear another word. And I meant how did you get in here. Weren't there dragons guarding the entrance?”

“Well, yeah, there was a bunch of pretty tough-looking dudes outside. Those were dragons? Since they had the door, I climbed over the wall and down that big hole in the ceiling.”

She points at the gap overhead.

Seems we'll have to go over one more time with the Flame Tribe what's the point of guarding things.

“So, what’s the situation? Did you find that tower thingy, whatever it was?”

“What’s the situation? Let me tell you what the situation is,” I face my childhood friend, and harden my heart to deliver the bad news. “An evil, sadistic asshole with godlike powers just took a giant ugly dragon and my other friend hostage. And I’ll have to hand him the reactor of that tower thingy, or else they die. Except, if I do, everybody dies! And it's like some fucked up version of the trolley problem!”

Lieselot nods. “Gotcha. Let’s go kick his ass.”

I pull her back when she turns to go. “No, no, no, no. What part about ‘godlike powers’ did you not understand? We kind of tried that already, and it didn’t work out. Actually, I didn’t even try, because I already knew it wasn’t going to work out. I hid behind the benches. This takes some serious thinking and a proper plan to—”

“—We’ll think on the way.” Lieselot turns to go again, not listening. “Come on.”

God. Damn. Somehow, she got even worse than she was.

“Your friend’s in trouble, right?” she pauses to add.

“Huh?”

“Don’t tell me you were thinking something super stupid and lame like running away and saving only yourself, because the bad guy’s too scary?”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, of course not.”

“Then what’s there to worry about? You know what to do. Never abandon your friends—that’s what my dad always says.”

I look at Lieselot’s guileless smile. And I find myself smiling in kind, feeling like a complete idiot for panicking so much.

“You damn dad-con.”

I really missed you.

We head to the west side exist and out of the cavern. At the mouth of the tunnel, I pause to glance at where Three sits on her knees among the rubble, staring vacantly at the floor. My ears pick up her mumbling a quiet mantra,

“Who am I…? What am I…?”

You tell me.