The half-man, half-cat gladiator lurked in the middle of the ring, waiting for them. Confidence and assured victory were written across every inch of muscle as it swaggered about, its four-legged lower body pacing in the grit of the arena.

“On three, then.” Umi had no weapon, but she confidently balled up her fists. Her fishing rod lay on the ground behind the beast, waiting for her, and all she had to do was survive long enough to reach it.

Trivelin would have bet good money she would die on the way there.

“On three.” The spectacled mage confirmed, lifting his hands and beginning to pull spellwork glyphs from the air with intricate, twisting motions.

“One.”

“Two.”

The diagrams spread into a blazing circle, and collapsed down into a blazing point of golden light. From that spark expanded a sphere of blue sky, edged in rotating golden runes. It was beautiful. A horizon the color of sapphires, an ocean of sky, clouds sailing like ships on the endless azure, warped at the edges by the fish-eye lens of the spherical portal.

“Three. Open.”

Wind burst from the sky-portal, lifting the sand of the arena into a tremendous cloud as Umi and Trivelin ran forward, yelling in bravado and terror. Respectively.

The gladiator burst forward to meet them in a charge, but for a second, lost sight of the two in the rippling waves of dust pouring from the sky-sphere. Then a shadow caught its attention, and it plunged its trident down, narrowly missing Umi as she ducked away, panic written clear on her face.

The fishing rod was still out of reach, and it wasn’t looking like she had time to make another dash for it.

The gladiator lifted up its arm for another blow, and this time the dust had all been peeled away, leaving no cover to escape.

It’s arm came stabbing down-

A fishhook sailed through the air. It snagged the back of the gladiator’s arm and pulled, twisting the blow aside so Trivelin could escape as his features shifted back to normal.

Behind the centaur-beast, the real Umi stood with her fishing rod in hands.

“Open.” The mage pronounced, and a second sky-sphere blossomed from his designs. This one showed a cold, cloudy night, full of endless grey. Mist poured forth, carried on the wind to fill the entire arena with a sea of fog. Only the gladiator was tall enough to stand above the waves of mist that lifted and crashed and swirled like a true ocean.

The gladiator rushed towards the mage, identifying the real threat now, but found its footsteps slipping. With wind pouring out of two portals now, the sheer force was sending the beast sliding back.

Umi darted out of the fog, delivered a crushing blow to the beast’s backleg, and vanished again as the gladiator dropped to one knee and was slowly, slowly repelled by the roaring of the wind.

“Open.”

A third portal, and now rain pelted through the arena, the wind redoubling once more. Trivelin had to sink to the ground to keep from being thrown about as the gale created dozens of small, spiralling whirlpools in the mist. They rushed towards the gladiator, smashing into him with a force that sent him reeling, unable to fight back as Umi vaulted through the mist again to strike him across the arm.

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The golden trident fell from numbed fingers, and the gladiator swung with its net. Umi was already gone.

“Open.”

Hail tore into the walls like a storm of tiny arrows, each piece a thumb thick and sharp as the devil. Trivelin screamed and covered his head, his protests lost in the all-consuming howl of wind, the sound of water being sucked down a drain but amplified until it took on a shrill, screeching tone, a daredevil shriek.

The gladiator could no longer advance even slowly. With every second it was being pushed back. Four spherical portals to different skies floated above the mage’s shoulders as his hood flapped back in the wind, revealing a bald head carved - not tattooed, but carved - with runic letters written in scar tissue.

“Open.” Snow filled the air, tiny light flakes that rapidly began to steal the warmth from the world. Each gust of wind seemed to pull the life out of Trivelin, turning his skin hard with frost. Snow built up in his collar, filled his boots, stung in tiny drops of utter cold against his bare face.

A sixth portal was forming. Letter by letter, the mage was pulling golden diagrams from the air and weaving them into a singular design.

Trivelin prepared to die. Killed by his own ally, oh the indignity.

The world cracked open with a peel of thunder as the sixth sphere opened, full of angry scars of purple lightning in a black mass of clouds. Crackling threads of electricity poured across the mage’s hands as he held them forward, directing the energy towards the beast that stood in his way, a single moment of brilliance lighting up the world-

A second later the thunder hit, deafening Trivelin as he lay blinded through his eyelids by the burning light.

And yet, somehow, he heard the voice speak. It spoke not through the world of sound, which was presently obscured by the deafening aftermath of thunder, but into his skull.

All but one shall proceed. The majority must choose the unworthy one.

When his world was restored to him, swimming back into focus as a loud, piercing note rung in his ears, he saw the gladiator was dead. Rather violently, definitely dead. Smoke rose from the charred corpse. Where it had stood in the center of the arena there was now a golden door.

Staggering to his feet, Trivelin limped towards the door. A shard of ice had torn a rather nasty gash down the side of his calf. The mist, rain, and ice were slowly fading, the wind already dying from the air. He was wandering through a grey world as two fellow shadows emerged, also heading for the door.

When the last of the fog faded, Umi, Umi, and the nameless mage stood together before the golden gate.

“Ah, damn, I was going to vote for him. Which one of you has-” He glanced between them. Neither had the fishing rod. It lay tangled on the doorway’s edge, blown there by the wind.

“So what, I dropped it.” Umi said, reaching down. Umi stomped where her fingers were about to be and sent her flinching back.

“He can’t even act like me.” Umi scoffed. “Look at his body, the way he holds himself. He’s an idiot. I am graceful.”

“I- I wasn’t paying much attention to either of you, I’ll admit.” Pushing his glasses up on his nose, the mage gave a look between them, and shrugged. “I…” He froze, uncertain.

Umi shifted her hand behind her back and turned so only Umi could see as she said, in thief-sign, ‘There’s only one way we’re both safe.’

‘Agreed.’ Umi signed back.

‘On three then.’

‘One.’

‘Two’

‘Three.’

Neither of them moved. The mage paused, unsure why both his companions had just sprouted audacious, sly grins. Two foxes playing the exact same game.

‘For real?’ One Umi asked.

‘Sure.’ The other replied.

In unison, they both raised their fingers, pointing to the mage. “You.”

His mouth dropped slack, and then curled up, twisting into a grimace of absolute anger just before the spell of the tower caught him. There was a blur, and the man who brought down the sky was no longer there.

One of the Umi’s calmy shifted back to Trivelin, while the other picked up her fishing rod and slung it over her shoulder. “I didn’t catch your real name.” She asked.

“Oh, Trivelin.” As he offered her his hand, the door behind them silently creaked open.