Shara twisted her wrist and the distant fist followed suit, bursting inward at the trapped Tailcoat as the moment of victory seemed to slow to a crawl.

She could do it. She could beat Anad – even though she had to push down some stupid regret. Why? Because they’d fought together? He was here killing sorcerers just like her. Because he was Tel’s childhood friend? Their argument in the woods suggested maybe they weren’t such good friends after all.

Because she’d seen a chance to stop the killing between Tailcoats and sorcerers? That responsibility was too big for her. It required a plan. No, all she could do was live in the moment.

Shara pushed chaos energy into the chain-whip, preparing the fist to explode with force as soon as Anad parried it. Trapped as he was by the chains, the blast should be able to hurt even him through the protection of that stupid suit.

But he didn’t parry. Like he knew what was happening, silver streamers burst out of his sword in a torrent like a wave, and then he was just gone.

Shara’s fist hit the wall of chains behind where Anad had been standing, exploding with enough force to shake the hallway, and then the whole web vanished. The fist reappeared hanging from a short chain at the end of the hilt in Shara’s hand as her eyes followed Anad’s zig-zagging trail of silver to find him again at the far end of the hall.

In the blink of an eye, the heartbeat it took for her to attack, he’d pulled on the Trance and wound his way out of the maze of hanging chains.

Just how fast could Tailcoats make themselves? And… did she have a chance against that kind of speed? Punching through some magic suit was one thing… but if she couldn’t even hit him…

Silver lines streaked down the hall straight for her, and Shara pumped chaos energy into her feet and the weapon, jumping onto the wall at the same time as she whipped out the chain. Keeping it tight and under control, she lashed the fist out and across in line with the trailing streamers of silver while she quick-stepped back along the wall, which acted as her new down.

CLANG, sword met hanging chain, and Anad was right there, eyes billowing silver light like smoke under his hat. But, she’s stopped him. Parried his attack. And, most importantly, his sword hadn’t cut straight through her chain.

Knowing he’d seen her use the endless chain function of the whip – and that he’d countered it already – Shara instead kept the chain short as she stepped back along the wall and jerked the weapon forward like a conventional whip. She couldn’t stay in close, even if her weapon could stop his, and moved to create distance between them, throwing out attacks with each spin and step.

Anad tried to move in, but Shara lashed her weapon up and across, her sideways position on the wall changing the angle of attack, and he was forced to step back and parry at the same time. The ensuing concussive blast – while it did no apparent damage to Anad – bought Shara a second of breathing room.

Pouring more magic into the weapon, the chain instantly vanished and reappeared as Shara pivoted around on her back foot. Snapping out her arm while she spun, the fist lunged out like a snake, exploding on contact with Anad’s blade, and Shara did another turn, the chain again vanishing and reappearing to lance out at the Tailcoat.

Another concussive meeting between the two weapons, and Shara leapt into the air to keep up the twisting momentum. This time though, instead of striking straight out towards Anad, Shara began the whip’s extension while she was still mid-spin.

Sounds like the outlawed fireworks erupted as the fist trailed along the stone floor, the concussive magic constantly flaring up and gouging out an expanding trench until the arch of the weapon curved at Anad. Something about the motion built power in the attack – instead of expending it – and the resulting blast of sword parrying fist created a shockwave powerful enough to hurl the two combatants in opposite directions.

Shara’s breath burst out of her chest, and she bounced along the wall, the – what did Tel call it? – personal gravity of her magic keeping her anchored there. Pink sparks trailed behind her the last few feet before she ground to a painful stop, everything spinning and the tell-tale ache of bruises to come blossoming across her body.

“Ouch,” Shara grunted, pushing herself up to one knee sideways on the wall, and pumped chaos into her weapon. Stone dust filled the hall ahead of her, the small patter rocks falling to the ground the only sound. Or, maybe she was just deaf after the blast?

No, those were definitely stones falling and hitting one another. But… there was something else in there. A sound cutting through the relative silence like a knife.

The sound of hard-soled shoes clacking with every step.

Anad stalked out of the dust cloud without even a smudge marring his perfect suit, his eyes and sword glowing their same brilliant silver. He’d been at the epicenter of the blast that’d shredded the hall, and nearly Shara even from a good distance, and there wasn’t a scratch on him.

“You’re… going easy on me, aren’t you?” Shara said, forcing herself to her feet. She’d done more damage to herself than anybody else with that last attack. Mental note, don’t do that in small spaces.

Anad paused, something flashing across his face like even he hadn’t realized the truth of her words until she’d said them. But it was gone just as quickly as it’d appeared, and he started forward again.

“This is your only chance to surrender, Shara,” Anad said, moving at a normal person’s speed. “I promise I’ll give you the chance to present your case on the portals to the leadership. I’ll make sure Tel survives too, if he promises to give up his… hobbies. But if you keep fighting, as I said, I’ll do what I have to.”

“Tailcoats aren’t known for being real kind to prisoners,” Shara said, backing up until she was at the intersection of the hallways, then jumping down to stand on the floor. The blast had hit her hard, and her head was still spinning. Standing on the wall only made the vertigo worse, and if she was going to make a run for it – what other choice did she really have? – stopping to puke her guts out wouldn’t help.

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“I give you my word,” Anad said. “I’ll stay with you until you’ve had your chance to speak.”

“Sounds a bit too much like a marriage proposal for my liking,” Shara said, glancing down the right hallway. Clear. If she could get a few steps, maybe use her whip to create another explosion and cave in the tunnel or something, she might have a chance. “Maybe you should buy me dinner or something first…” she said as she turned her attention to the left hallway.

The hair on the back of her neck shot up, something flashing in her peripheral vision, and Shara instinctively curled her left arm up to shield her body.

It wasn’t enough.

Pain exploded in her bicep and forearm along with the snapping of bone, like she’d been hit with a metal pole, but it didn’t stop there. Sound like crumpling paper accompanied her ribs collapsing along her whole left side, and then she was in the air for a heartbeat before she slammed into the wall. Hitting it an angle, she bounced off, her body flopping uncontrollably to hit the floor, bounce again, and hit the opposite wall.

So, that’s what my magic fist feels like, was all the time she had to think before the pain seemed to catch up to her. It washed over her in an almost overwhelming wave, and she coughed, something thick and liquid catching in her throat and on her teeth. Eyes she didn’t even realize she’d closed opened to see red splattered on the stone in front of her, and a pair of shiny black shoes stepping her way.

Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack, the shoes came closer until the Tailcoat was standing right beside her.

Damn, Anad really had been holding back.

“I’m disappointed, Anad,” a woman’s voice said from somewhere above the feet standing beside Shara’s face. “This sorcerer wasn’t anywhere near strong enough that it should’ve caused you problems. Why wasn’t she dead?”

“She has information I thought would be important for our leaders to hear,” Anad said, another pair of shoes clacking closer.

“Information? In this ugly head of hers?” the new voice asked, then one of the shoes lifted up just before a new pressure pushed down on the side of Shara’s head. All at once, it was like she was trapped in a vice, her skull threatening to pop like an overripe melon, but she couldn’t do more than feebly jerk her feet.

Her entire left side was agony from the waist up, and she could barely draw a breath. What did come in was like icy needles in her chest, while what came back out tasted like wet copper.

“Gevar, please,” Anad said. “I think we need to listen to what she has to say.”

“No, Anad, I don’t think we do,” the Tailcoat said, and the pressure on Shara’s skull increased to the point it made her eyes cross and her vision go red.

Something cracked in her ears – the floor or her skull? – but then the foot on her head was gone. Another crack, raised voices, and Shara blinked through the red haze. What… was she seeing things right?

One of the Tailcoats – that must be the new one, Gevar or whatever – was getting up from the floor, Anad helping her. And they were both looking at Shara. Had she done something? Had her magic weapon? No… that wasn’t right, they weren’t looking at her. They were looking past her.

Somebody came to save her? Neela or Born? Maybe… maybe her aunt? If it was The…

“Tel, what are you doing?” Anad asked, his silver-streaming sword held up defensively.

Tel? It was Tel? Well, shit. Even if he had that gun of his, he just couldn’t measure up to one Tailcoat, let alone two.

“Anad, I’ll give you one chance. Leave,” Tel said, his voice coming out hard and cold to Shara’s injured ears.

“Tel… run…” Shara said weakly before a painful cough wracked her body, expelling more thick crimson out of her mouth. Oh, that’s not good.

“No,” Tel said, and two strange balls – watermelons? – floated through her vision to hover between Shara and the two Tailcoats.

“Anad, dear,” the other Tailcoat said calmly. “Just who is this Tink and how do you know each other?”

“He… I… we grew up together,” Anad said vaguely.

“From the orphanage?” Gevar asked, putting a hand on Anad’s shoulder. “I’ll take care of this then,” she added then stepped forward.

“Wrong choice,” Tel simply said before there was a pulse of chaos energy, and the two floating spheres spit out bolts of blue energy. Snap snap the bolts cracked in the air like a whip, but Gevar’s sword appeared in her hand as if by magic, lemon-yellow energy streaming from the blade as it intercepted the blue bolts.

“You caught me off-guard last time. It won’t happen again,” Gevar said, yellow light smoking out of her eyes.

“Speed gauged and measured,” Tel said flatly, almost mechanically. “Adjusting. Calibration complete.”

“What are you…?” Gevar started to ask, but suddenly the air was full of blue bolts, the spheres dancing in the air and spitting out a non-stop barrage. Yellow flashed as Gevar whipped her sword around to intercept the blasts, the sound like a herd of horses galloping down the hall, but it wasn’t enough, bolts slipping past to stagger her, and she was forced to retreat until a silver-flashing sword joined the fray.

Even with the two Tailcoats working in unison, one… two… three bolts found a way past their flashing blades, smacking into their tuxedos with enough force to make them stumble. Almost immediately, though, they stepped forward again, the energy streamers from their weapons and eyes growing as they pulled harder on the Trance.

“Hrm. Readings aren’t favorable,” Tel said. “I’m sorry, Shara, this might get loud.”

Loud? She could already barely hear herself think!

But, it was actually the opposite that happened, with one of the spheres ceasing its energy barrage, and Shara glanced up to see it wobbling in the air. Or maybe that was just her vision. Everything was… was… getting a little tough.

Shara wasn’t the only one who noticed the faltering sphere, though, and yellow and silver lines pushed forward against the remaining bolts. If it’d just been one Tailcoat, maybe Tel would’ve been able to hold them at bay. Two was – like Shara thought – too much. They worked too well together.

Silver and yellow flashed and rotated, covering each other’s blind spots and openings as the pair strode forward. Not a single blue bolt got by their parrying blades anymore, and they pressed ahead, inevitable. Unstoppable. Invincible.

“… run… Tel…” Shara tried again, though the words barely came out a whisper. Maybe he could at least get away from them.

“Anad is the one who should’ve run,” Tel said, and the faltering sphere suddenly jerked forward. Wobbling and zig-zagging through the air, it seemed to swerve in between the flashing blue bolts until it was right in front of the two Tailcoats, both their weapons out wide to parry the other sphere’s attacks.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

The explosion put Shara’s chain-blast to shame, lifting her broken body off the ground in a wave of pain and hurling her backwards. Debris and dust shot down the narrow hallway as everything shook, as the world turned upside down and then went black, and Shara collided with something. Something soft and that grunted when she hit it.

“Sorry about the rough treatment,” Tel said, chaos butterflies bursting to life around him as he held up a hand with a strange gauntlet on it. His other hand must’ve been what was holding her upright, and she tried to say something, but agony wracked her body, and all she could do was cough blood up on him. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you somewhere safe.”

“Oh, and how do you plan on doing that?” a voice said, and yellow and silver light shone from within the hanging dust cloud. “That little trick wasn’t nearly enough to stop us.”

“Because it wasn’t meant to stop you,” Tel said. “It was just the warmup. Anad, you really should run,” he added, his voice softening with that last bit.

Then the shadow of the other flying sphere shot into the dust cloud, and the world-cracking explosion threw Shara into the air again.