Kyra had an arm under Lucys armpit as she half dragged, half carried her.

“C’mon Lu!” She shouted as she pulsed another Life Bolt into her.

Lucy’s eyes went wide at the rush of life force and she turned her head where she was being carried by Kyra and feebly raised an arm to fire a missile at the monster that was chasing them to the edge of the trees.

The monster was a huge gorilla, it had extra limbs but not how you would traditionally image a mythical primate, it had four extra legs, making it look like a six legged gorilla themed centaur. The magic missile hit it in the face and it crashed into the next tree it was leaping to. It roared and Kyra hiked Lucy again and glanced back, the monster was reeling from the hit but it wasn’t done.

Kyra cast Life Aura on Lucy and received a run-down of Lucy’s condition on her interface. She was relieved to see nothing was broken, and she had simply had her bell rung. The girls had gone up against the brutish bronze rank monster that was much more the boys style together, they had a fantastic plan that was well thought out and well executed, unfortunately the enemy also get a vote on how the plan went. The primate monster had jumped layers of defence and fall-back positions and slammed Lucy hard. It had barrelled through a last minute earth wall from Kyra which had taken a lot of the force out of it. They were now heading back to one last position. Kyra dropped Lucy into the pre-dug trench and turned to watch the monster shake off the hit and come at them again.

“Find me.”

Ten copies of Kyra materialised, all spread out in a line facing the monster, as it turned to chase it paused, trying to choose which one to attack. Kyra chose to press advantage rather than wait for the monster to realise there was only one trench that currently hid Lucy. The ten Kyras ran towards the monster, all leapt and launched a boulder down an angle at the monster, it roared and dodged but couldn’t dodge all of the boulders and some hit and vanished on contact. The real boulder smashed down next to it and it roared in surprise. As the Kyras hit the floor running she swiped down across her body and an earth spike shot sideways and down out of the crashed boulder through a back foot of the monster pinning it in place. She made use of the pinned monster to launch an attack straight towards it from ten directions.

Lucy landed badly in the trench and took a moment to get herself together. When she looked over the lip of the trench she saw Kyra launching at the pinned monster. Slightly abashed at being rocked by the monster she rallied to help. The plan had always been to pin the monster and tag team it and this was their last chance to do the plan. As Kyra slashed the one of the gorillas forearms open Lucy gave the go-ahead to Lechuza to strike, a feathery lightning bolt dived straight at the monster and peeled out the bottom of the dive in a bloody flash at its face. The monster roared and flailed about, ripping its back foot to shreds in its pain and anger. It’s face held dark orbital sockets and deep lacerations either side but no eyes, Lucy felt a tad queasy as she saw Lechuza snacking on the ragged scraps between her talons.

Now that it had ripped its foot out of the spike that held it in place Lucy hit it with a series of mind powers, the monster was one rank up on Lucy so they only had limited success if at all. Kyra dived in and took full advantage, she constantly flung mirror shards, she also sunk its feet into the floor then re-formed the earth around them and used the earth spike again. She threw her diamond sword which stuck into one of the primate’s legs and exploded. She reached up high and a diamond spear appeared, she struck it clear through one of the monsters free thighs and it buried a good way into the ground, pinning another leg. She flipped away, sending a life bolt mid flip Lucy’s way.

Ability: [Diamond weapons] (Diamond)

Special ability (conjuration)

Base cost: Varies

Cool-down: Nil

Current rank: Bronze (00%)

Effect (iron): Summon a sword and shield made entirely of diamond.

Effect (bronze): The user can now summon a diamond spear, the time before dismissal will be increased after leaving the users hand in order to allow it to be thrown. Iron rank summoned weapons will now be summoned at bronze rank strength. Option to explode weapons on dismissal sending bronze rank diamond shards flying.

The monster was pinned and angry and confused, it was blinded and disorientated by Lucy’s powers and Kyra was hitting it with mirror shards, her summons blasts and throwing spears for good measure. The spears sucked a good amount of mana and now she had the monsters attention she needed to take a moment to top up her mana.

[Tag] Kyra put on the interface.

She then trusted Lucy completely. With the monster straining to get at her she pulled out a mirror and pulled a mana potion from her storage. In the moment before the monster hit her Lucy uttered a spell.

“Exchange our fates.”

Lucy and Kyra switched places. Kyra was still mid chug of the potion as she appeared where Lucy had been and Lucy was transported to just underneath the monsters double fisted strike and she was pounded into the floor.

Lucy struggled to train some of her powers as she used cleverness and team tactics to kill monsters. The iron rank monsters weren’t complicated enough or tough enough to last against any of her family or her magic missiles for her to fully use all of her power set. Because of this she had to create opportunities to use her Possum Power.

The monster leant over her and roared in victory at what it thought was its kill. The huge canines were almost either of Lucys head it was so close and she opened one eye and fired a magic missile point blank into the monster’s mouth.

Kyra had been keeping a close eye on Lucy’s condition when she was attacked. Her Possum Power was only at iron rank so it couldn’t block all of the attack from the big gorilla but it was at the top end of iron rank so it blocked most.

The monster was choking on the missile, blue smoke trailing out of its mouth and was flailing around when it turned away from Lucy, Kyra hit it with a large earth spike from the floor straight into its chest. Lucy used a rune circle and when her next magic missile hit the circle of runes long spears of ice shot out with the same force as the missile and pierced the monsters chest. Kyra summoned and threw a fresh spear hitting it in the chest.

The huge primate was now a sorry sight. It was pinned in multiple places and now its chest looked like a pincushion. All the fight left it and it slumped. The girls met up in front of it.

“Sad really, it feels mean.” Kyra said.

“But it is still a monster. We’re not torturing it and it is only going to go crazy and attack more people.”

“I know, but look, it looks so sad. But I understand, its not like we can capture it and put it in a reserve. It’s not an animal.”

“Ooh, quick turn away.” Lucy said grabbing Kyras arm. The blonde adventurer reflexively summoned an earth wall as they turned. Lechuza plummeted at the monster and smashed through it into the floor, the amount of gore caused a wide splatter that hit the new earth wall.

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They walked around the edge of the wall to see Lechuza in the ruins of the monsters body, she was standing primly, cleaning gore from between her talons and feathers even though she was still standing in the body of the monster.

The boys came over the hill at that exact moment. Both dune buggies racing each other over the grassy hill. James was driving one and Teddy the other, James had Rashid riding shotgun in his and Teddy had Reuben. They skidded to a stop in front of the horrific bloodbath with the giant owl in the middle.

“And we thought we were having fun.” James said.

“Speak for yourself.” Reuben said, staggering out of Teddy’s buggy. “I’m an essence user, how do I feel so… what did you call it? Car-sick?”

“We told you, don’t read while we were racing.” Teddy said.

“I don’t understand what that has to do with feeling ill.”

“It’s something to do with the visual, vestibular and proprioceptive systems, the fluid in your ear canals swishes over the otolith hairs to tell your brain there’s movement in three axis and you brain confirms that with vision and the feel of gravity on your body. If you read while you’re in a moving car then your brain gets confused and hence nausea.”

Reuben looked up at Teddy sharply, suddenly locked on with academic interest. He opened his mouth to ask a question and stopped. He cocked his head and closed his eyes as if he was listening.

“Mr Mitchell, my goddess is impressed with your knowledge on the subject of equilibrium maintenance but she warns that you are not a doctor. Introducing these unexplored fields of study to the world in such a cavalier manner gives a pathway to chaos. There is a right way to introduce these things and guide them and that is not your path.”

He slumped and looked disappointed, the reprimand from the goddess to Teddy had quelled his follow up questions that he wanted to ask.

Teddy patted him on the shoulder with a smile, “It’s ok Reuben, I’ll let you know when she’s not listening.”

There as a faint tinkling laughter through the air and they all looked around. There was a faint aura of divinity that felt like a cool breeze passing by.

“Ok, thats not a little terrifying.”

Rashid shuddered and shook himself and turned to the girls. “So how did it go?”

“Well I got my bell rung pretty hard but we managed.” Lucy said.

“It didn’t go to plan then?”

“It didn’t, then it did I guess. We achieved everything we wanted to on it.”

“Well good, we’ll get you to meditation as quickly as we can, there’s a nice spot a few fields over that we found that will have a wonderful view of the sunset.”

They extended the buggies and the girls each jumped in one, they looted the monster and spun away back the way he boys had come. They moved at a more sedate pace, Lucy and Kyra catching up on the adventures the boys had been having racing around. It turns out that they had been scoping out some running routes which had turned into a rally-style race, they were meant to be on notice to come to the rescue but had got sidetracked.

“So if we had got in trouble?” Lucy shouted over the wind between the two buggies.

“Then you would have told us on the interface and I would have teleported over to you.” Teddy replied.

“I would have shape-shifted and been there not long after.” James said. “We hadn’t quite forgotten you. We just figured you didn’t want us hovering.”

“And you put four boys in some racing cars and tell them they can drive anywhere and what do you think will happen?” Kyra shouted to Lucy.

They pulled up to the top of a green hill. They could see the Delta all around them, the river wound its way through the lush green landscape and they could just see the city of Greenstone in the far distance as a hazy blur, even with James boosting their vision with his aura. Teddy took the Serenity out of storage and set it side-on to the setting sun. The boys then parked the buggies on the drop deck at the back and they six of them went up the stair cases at the back to the top deck to look out at the setting sun.

“Yep.”

“Beautiful.”

“This will do nicely.”

“Go on girls, get to meditating, we’ll sort dinner.”

The two girls didn’t need much encouragement to get out of cooking dinner and jumped off the top deck. Within minutes they had started their meditation rituals. Kyra earth-shaped an octagonal column of earth around fifteen feet tall and was sat cross legged on top, facing the vista. Lucy had a semicircle of notebooks and reference material around her she was making notes in two of them with pens in each hand. She would pause, sit with her eyes closed and meditate then scribble again.

On the top deck Rashid and Reuben sat around the large table at the back on the cushioned seats as guests. Teddy opened a cupboard at the side that was seamlessly integrated that they couldn’t even see it until opened. He pulled a large grill from the side along with a bag of charcoal. James came up the stairs from the kitchen holding five bowls of meat in different marinades, he had two in each hand, two balanced on his forearms and the other bowls then the fifth was carried by his rat tail he had summoned just for the purpose. Teddy opened another cupboard on the top deck and a faint fog of cold air escaped while he pulled out four bottles of beer. The guys all stood around the grill chatting away while grilling the meat.

There was a steady stream of notifications from both girls, they were both so close to the edge of bronze.

Ability [Mirror Maze] (Mirror) has reached Iron 9 (100%).

Ability [Mirror Maze] (Mirror) has reached Bronze 0 (00%).

Ability [Mirror Maze] (Mirror) has gained a new effect.

Ability: [Mirror Maze] (Mirror)

Special ability

Base cost: Low mana

Cool-down: 5min

Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%)

Effect (iron): 10 perfect copies of the caster will appear and be able to be moderately controlled within casters aura.

Effect (bronze): An adjustable amount of copies of the caster will appear up to 15 copies. Copies will have slight tangibility and have a higher level of independent control.

All [Mirror Essence] abilities have reached [Bronze 0].

Linked attribute [Speed] has increased from [Iron 9] to [Bronze 0].

Kyra barely stirred from her meditation, chasing her next advancement.

Lucy had moved from her erratic meditation phase to her concentrated phase. She sat cross legged, still with books scattered around her with runes and diagrams and explanations written out. Reuben was having a little stroll to stretch his legs and wandered over to look over her shoulder at the notes. Even though she was deep in meditation she raised a hand and a football size rune portal appeared and she swiped it left to right and the portal zoomed across the floor scooping up all the books. Reuben turned on his heel getting the message and went back up to the top deck.

Not long after Lucy had a breakthrough.

Ability [Playing possum] (Illusion) has reached Iron 9 (100%).

Ability [Playing possum] (Illusion) has reached Bronze 0 (00%).

Ability [Playing possum] (Illusion) has gained a new effect.

Ability: [Playing possum] (Illusion)

Special ability

Base cost: High mana

Cool-down: 18 Hour

Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%)

Effect (iron): Negates an iron rank enemy attack.

Effect (bronze): Negates most bronze rank enemy attacks. Teleports the user just out of harms reach.

All [Illusion Essence] abilities have reached [Bronze 0].

Linked attribute [Recovery] has increased from [Iron 9] to [Bronze 0].

Like with Kyra she didn’t change her meditation pose. The boys reasoned that she too must be close to another breakthrough.

Rashid and Reuben were having a great time, Reuben was an outworlder specialist and had a willing set of subjects to ask all the questions he wanted and Lucy absorbed all his prodigious magical theory as fast as he could describe it to her and was a pleasure to teach. Rashid loved teaching and this concentrated schedule had been really good fun with the two couples, they had a unique sense of humour due to their foreign nature and were one of the most hard working students he had ever had.

It came as a shock when the boys suddenly collapsed without warning in front of Rashid and Reuben, they paused looking at each other before rushing forward to help. After seeing that they were passed out they looked out at the girls and saw that they were similarly passed out, Kyra had even fallen off the column.

The boys slowly levitated off the top deck, pulled from the centre of their chests as if a rope was tied around them, they hovered off the side through the air towards the girls who were similarly hovering towards them, they all met feet first like the cardinal points of a compass and revolved in the air. A bright light shone out of them the faint sheen of bronze. After a moment of the bright light they all fell to the ground like rag dolls, putrid ooze seeping out of them.