Crow turned around as he heard the scream. It was a terrible thing, the sound of agony- an expression of such pure and primal emotion that, surprise as it was, it almost seemed to physically spin him around with how quickly and firmly it grasped his attention. It took him a second to register what was happening as he looked at the source. A spear outheld in trembling hands, the metal tip protruding from flesh with drops of blood falling from the tip, a look of complete resignation over Ethi’s face and a twisted mask of agony across Unity’s.

And then he looked to where the spear tip protruded from, realising with a cold horror that it ran right through Unity’s outstretched forearm- stopping just a few inches from Crow’s body. He took a step back as he felt the world slow, enhancement magic activating without his conscious efforts.

His throat was tight and his mouth dry, and it took him a few tries to force out the words he was seeking.

“W...What’s going on?”

His first, non verbal, answer came from Ethi. The Oni tearing her spear free of Unity- eliciting a fresh cry of pain from the boy- and pulling the shaft back. She leapt away from them and pressed her back to the wall as she stared from Crow to Unity, eyes darting between them almost maddeningly. Her weapon shook in her grip as she kept it outstretched, elbows bent and ready to thrust it forwards. There was a billowing orange hue around her body.

Unity groaned, and Crow’s attention slipped from Ethi to him. If he looked bad before, he was terrible now. Right arm hanging limply at his side, great streaks of red ran down its length and fell from his fingertips in a thin yet sustained stream of droplets. Despite the egregious damage, he smiled as he spoke.

“What’s going on? What’s going on is your girlfriend just tried to turn you into a fucking shish-kebab. Unfortunately I happened to be stretching at the time, so she instead impaled fucking me through my fucking arm.”

He paused and looked down at his useless limb, then half laughed and continued.

“Oh great. I just tried to wave it but apparently I can’t move the fucking thing at all, I think she severed the tendon.”

Crow’s mind was racing, he could hardly process what Unity was saying. Ethi had stabbed him? She wouldn’t have, but he’d seen her spear sticking through Unity’s body. Wait… she’d tried to run him through while he wasn’t looking?

Unable to formulate any words, or even his own thoughts, Crow could do nothing but stare at Ethi in a silent question. She answered it with a snarl.

“Oh please.” She snapped. “Like neither of you would’ve done the same. We’re all here to make lives for ourselves as mystics, the only difference between us is that I wasn’t lucky enough to be born with some ancient God’s eyes or enough skill to cave in buildings by poking them. Pardon me for using the one fucking advantage I actually had over you two after a life of training still left me beneath you.”

Crow felt himself begin to get his bearings, or at least enough to realise that, enhancement magic still active, he was running his reserves dry. The half hour of walking had done good to replenish them slightly, yet it would take a full eight hours for him to recover them to full capacity. It was important he not waste it in situations where he wasn’t in combat… and yet his teammate had just tried to stab him, he was in combat that very moment. By the Eclipse...

“I say we kill her.” Unity growled, glancing at the newly-opened hole in his arm before staring daggers at the glowing Oni. Crow hardly registered the words, merely shaking his head.

“Why?” he murmured. Unity turned to him with a look of utter perplexity on his face.

“Because… she tried to kill you?”

Crow frowned, then realised what Unity was saying- the confusing fog in his mind slowly dissipating.

“No, I mean why did she try-” he paused, then looked at Ethi. “Why did you try to… to kill me?”

Before Ethi could answer, Unity let out a sharp laugh and cut in.

“Look at your Gauger, Crow.”

Crow obliged him, reading the text that had appeared on the piece of slate and feeling his stomach drop as he pieced together what was happening. His hand tightened into a fist around the key.

“I see.”

Crow thought his voice sounded hollow, he dimly wondered if others heard it the same way. However that train of thought was interrupted by Unity’s reply.

"Good. So we can kill her."

Crimson lines began to run their way up Unity’s good arm, the same lines that would tear apart any other object they appeared on. Ethi’s knuckles whitened on her weapon as her eyes widened, lips parted to reveal clenched teeth.

"I'll put this through your guts before you can get anywhere close.” She spat, the words broken by her stiffened jaw. Unity took a step towards her, leaning forwards slightly.

"That or you’ll panic, leave an opening and die before you can realise your mistake. Go ahead, flip that coin.”

Crow’s head was racing, even now he was struggling to take in what was going on. His teammates weren’t supposed to fight, they were on a team. They were supposed to work together, he’d trusted them to. He’d trusted Ethi even when Unity said he shouldn’t… he’d….

“No.” Crow muttered, so softly he was shocked to see Unity and Ethi even hear it. Ethi’s eyes flicked from Unity’s hands to Crow, her spear remaining pointed directly at the black haired boy’s stomach. Unity for his part turned to look at Crow as though he were not facing down a particularly panicky weapon user.

"No?" He repeated, almost mockingly. "She tried to kill you dude." Unity sighed, his eyes on Crow as if talking to a child. "Look I know she's kind of pretty, in that weird outback country bumpkin kind of way, but there comes a time when you have to admit that she's just not worth the hassle. Now for most men that's usually after ten years of marriage but you have an opportunity to save yourself the trouble and cut the middle man out by, well, cutting something out of her.”

"We're a team, Unity, that only changes when our objectives clash. Now you could fight or you could help me figure out how to get the other two keys."

Unity cocked his head. "What other two keys?"

Crow gestured to his gauger.

'Objective: Enter the doorway

Condition: Must hold a Golden Key'

"It says 'a' golden Key not 'the' which likely means there's more than one, so unless you-” he turned and gestured to Ethi- “were going to stab me purely out of laziness, you don’t have any reason to fight each other anymore.”

"Oh." Unity sighed, then nodded slightly. “Yeah, that actually makes sense… huh. Stopped clocks I guess.” He looked up, then shook his head slightly. "Still are you just going to let her go? She was going to kill you."

Crow paused, his eyes scanned Ethi, her orange aura dying down and her eyes meeting his own. Now that they weren’t darting from person to person, widened with desperation and fear, he realised that there was an overwhelming sadness and guilt behind them. He licked his lips before answering.

“I’d have done the same to either of you without even hesitating.”

For the second time today he saw genuine shock in Unity’s face, before it was replaced by what looked a lot like amusement. Chuckling, the boy lightly tapped Crow on the shoulder with his good arm.

"You... you're... you're really something, child of Chronos."

Unity’s fingers flexed, his arm lowering as the crimson lines disappeared up his sleeve. Ethi repurposed her spear back Into a crutch and hopped forwards shakily. The impending storm was calmed, now they just needed a plan to deal with the problems that weren’t each other.

There was a loud but distant noise, half groan half creak, and Crow immediately turned in its direction- he saw only the iron door they had stepped through, and so he moved a few more feet away from the frame to see past the askew slab of iron. As he did so he saw another door some twenty paces away, opening outwards just as theirs had- from behind it a group of five walked out into the beach.

Unity spoke from next to him, making Crow jump at his sudden and unnoticed proximity.

“They have a key…”

The trio exchanged glances, then without a single word spoken all turned to the newcomers and began sprinting towards them. Crow’s enhancement was still active and let his legs propel him forwards with the speed of a thoroughbred, even on the irritatingly loose sand. Yet Ethi shot ahead in a blur of red- abilities tied to something as difficult as emotions seemed to be a lot stronger to compensate. He called her name out in between breaths, causing the Oni to glance over her shoulder and fall back to match his pace. In contrast, Unity lagged far behind both of them, even with his own petty enhancement he was barely faster than the average human. Crow would have liked to wait but they needed the element of surprise, and that meant attacking quickly.

However as they drew near to the group, Crow’s excitement and haste began to bleed into fear and anxiety. There were five of them, that alone was an advantage. Yet with the distance shrinking with every moment- now barely twenty feet- he could make out more details than before. They were singed, some had black eyes and burst lips and all were covered in nicks and scrapes, but they weren’t as banged up as his own team. And to top it all off, like practically everyone in the Sieve, they were at least two years older than Crow.

He felt a hot ball of panic form in his chest. It was hopeless, they couldn’t win.

“Check your gauger!” Unity cried out.

The contestants all looked at him, close enough now that the confusion was visible on their expressions. A few of them simply stared, clearly not expecting an attack from anything but the tests of the Sieve itself. However two of them did as Unity said, looking down to their gaugers and reading the objective.

They had come within a half dozen paces when the air was set alight with magic. A boy with stupid hair splayed a hand at the back of a girl in front of him, catching her fully with a boiling streak of energy. She had clearly activated some form of physical enhancement ability to increase her durability, as her body was merely thrown to the ground with a burn mark the size of her head exposed on the back rather than being torn apart instantly. The next move was made by another boy who attempted to wrap his arm around the neck of the girl in front of him, however she was quicker than the first- or else warned by her fate- and knocked him down with an elbow to the jaw. A woman being half a man’s size didn’t mean anything when both had magic, after all what was a few extra kilograms of strength when their abilities added thousands?

Crow stopped his run, heels digging into the ground and churning it up as he slid forward nearly half a meter- carried by his superhuman momentum. Though he tried, it was nigh impossible to see any single moves made by the rest of the other team. The group of people had turned into a chaotic mass of light, smoke and spraying sand and blood.

A wayward blob of energy struck the ground at Crow’s feet and he had just enough time to register a great pulse of light before he was thrown backwards. The world seemed to spin around him, his stomach churned up and he felt a great panic at his inability to correct his suddenly weightless body’s position. Then he felt his mass press down on him again as his shoulders crashed into the ground. His vision was a hazy mess as he sat up, but after a few moments it cleared enough for him to get his bearings.

There were muffled shouts and blurs of light whizzing in every direction above him. He was on the ground, likely prone. There was a hand outstretched for him, and he grabbed it instantly- using the assistance to pull himself to his feet only to drop back down to his knees a moment later. His head was spinning, he felt like he was going to vomit and his ears had a strange ringing sound. He’d heard of this, soldiers from the Faction War mentioned their hearing being thrown off by the sound from close by cannon fire. He looked up at the person whose hand he’d taken and blinked as he tried to identify them, then realised that he only had one red skinned teammate. As his sight came into focus more he realised Ethi’s lips were moving, she was saying something.

The ringing subsided slightly.

"Crow? Crow? Crow!"

"Yeah I'm awake I'm awake." He grunted as he felt his sense of balance start to return. Forcing himself back into a stand and managing to avoid meeting the floor again, he looked around- only just realising with a sense of urgency that he had been only a few metres away from a small scale battle. What he saw now was far worse.

Magic hurled over their heads, the previously pristine beach now looked like a warzone- and Crow realised it probably was. Sand fell from the sky like rain, shunted into the air by the tonne as explosion after explosion rocked their surroundings. Entire areas of the place were thick with smoke and steam, and parts of the ground glowed where the terrain had been melted. In fact, even the dunes which had been littering the entire area had changed- as though each one of the building sized inclines were but a tiny pile kicked by a great boot and sent spraying outwards. This was far too much destruction for only five mystics.

“What’s going on?”

"It just got worse." She said staring at something behind him. "Everyone started attacking each other, then like twenty more doors opened."

Now that he looked more closely, Crow realised that there were far more figures moving about the debris and destruction than there had been a few moments ago. He ducked under a misthrown fireball, then turned back to Ethi.

“Where’s Unity?”

Ethi swallowed, and Crow saw his own fear reflected on her face.

“I don’t know, I was checking on you after you got thrown away and then when I looked back he’d vanished.”

Crow was seriously panicked now. Scanning the battlefield around him, he failed to catch so much as a glimpse of the boy. Did that mean he’d been incapacitated and teleported out? Glancing at Ethi, he was just about to suggest they look around their immediate area when the ground beneath them shifted. They yelped, stumbling back as a figure rose up from the sand. And just before Ethi could impale him, he raised one arm in greeting, shook his head to clear most of the particulates from it, and flashed that wide grin they’d grown accustomed to seeing.

“Hi guys!”

Crow laughed in relief as he saw Unity, and after a brief pause Ethi nervously joined in. He didn’t appear much worse than he had been before, however Crow noticed a new red stain on one of his sides that hadn’t been there when Crow was thrown back by that blast.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, admittedly more to assess how much help the boy would be than out of concern for his well being. Unity shrugged as he answered nonchalantly.

“Oh fine actually, yeah it’s been great feeling like I just spent a weekend in the fucking Butchery. How are you? Did being thrown like a discus do wonders for your complexion?”

Crow opted to ignore Unity’s Unityness for the time being, focusing instead on their current objective.

“Alright, keys. Anyone have any suggestions?”

Ethi shook her head glumly, however Unity didn’t even hesitate before answering.

“We’re being ignored because, thankfully, we look a lot less threatening than everyone else thanks to being ridiculously young and wearing about half of our own blood. On the other hand everybody else is going to keep on getting more injured, which means eventually we’ll be in other contestant’s sights.”

Crow grit his teeth.

“So what? We can put up a fight against a few injured contestants, we got this far.”

Unity rolled his eyes.

“Yes yes, we’re all very powerful and brave and cool. Problem is I don’t want to bet on us being more powerful or cool than the winners of a massive brawl involving hundreds of mystics, all of which will be older than us.”

Ethi cut in.

“What if we wait by the exit? Jump the first people to try and leave?”

Unity scoffed.

“Just because you instinctively try to stab every back you see, doesn’t mean it’s the be all end all of strategies. That’s such an obvious play there’s no way anyone would actually be surprised, unless there’s an Orc fighting somewhere in that meat grinder. All it’d do is keep us tied to one spot and filter out all the weakest potential enemies before we start a fight. No, what we need is to exploit our unthreateningness before it vanishes. We hang around groups that are already fighting, maybe among people while they lie down, maybe behind piles of sand, whatever. Point is we wait for them to start winning, losing or leave any kind of opening- then we snatch their key and fuck off with as little expended energy as possible. Speaking of, how are you guys’ reserves?”

Crow realised he hadn’t been tracking his own, taking a moment to assess himself he frowned.

“If I use enhancement alone? I can last another two minutes, maybe one and a half if I use my precognition as well- probably, uh, yeah. Yeah…. Two to one and a half minutes.”

He’d almost mentioned his time dilation, but decided to keep that to himself. It would be awkward to reveal now, but after Ethi’s display he was also eager to keep something up his sleeve hidden from his teammates. Unity turned to Ethi.

“I’m good for about five minutes.” She didn’t seem happy with that, frankly Crow would be. With their enhanced reflexes five minutes would likely be far longer than the battle would last. Unity simply nodded as if silently factoring the new information into his plans.

“Alright then,” he began after a second of thought, “Crow, you activate your precognition. Ethi and I will stick right next to you, and I mean shoulders touching. Hopefully anything that threatens either of us will show up as a warning for you that way. I’ll keep my eyes peeled to try and figure out which people are most likely to be carrying keys, and Ethi can concentrate on resisting the urge to stab us both while we’re relying on her.”

While Ethi’s jaw tightened at the not so veiled insults, Crow felt his brow furrow.

“Hang on, my ability will only warn me about attacks that threaten you if they also endanger me.”

Unity smiled triumphantly.

“Exactly! I call it the “four dimensional meat shield” formation, a rather ingenious-”

Ethi interrupted.

“Okay, we know the plan and we’re running out of time. Abilities on, let’s go.”

While Unity protested, they bunched together and began making their way across the battlefield. The deeper in they got, Crow realised, the more dangerous it became. It seemed the positions nearest the exit were particular hot spots, which was likely how they had managed to avoid their enemies’ attention with only the aid of looking unthreatening.

There were many near misses as they made their way across the treacherous area. Close jets of energy blistered their skin with the heat, nearby explosions pelted them with high velocity sprays of sand and the rancid smoke burned their nostrils- yet they continued onwards. Unity had been right, with Crow’s precognition effectively working for all three of them they were practically untouchable provided no one concentrated directly on them. It occurred to him that they likely made a rather comical sight, but he really didn’t care.

Before long they came upon a pair of teams who seemed absorbed enough by their battle to be viable targets. The conflict was four against three, yet the four appeared to be on the backfoot. Multicoloured shots of power flew between the two groups, some being sidestepped, some missing completely and a few breaking apart as if the air before them had suddenly hardened. Crow realised there was one particular mystic responsible for this, a red-headed girl who splayed her arms out each time it happened. Her forcefields didn’t appear as large as the ones that had separated the mass of people at the start of the Sieve, however, as one of them was unable to stop an attack from hitting her in the leg. She cried out as blood spurted from her ankle, dropping to her side.

The fight shifted instantly, the winning three now down a member forced them onto the backfoot- and Crow felt Unity tense in anticipation as he began watching even more intently. Soon he leaned down, breath hot in Crow’s ear as he whispered.

“The forcefield user has the key, it’s probably in her right pocket.”

That was inconvenient, she was lying on her right side. Still Crow turned to Ethi and repeated the information, the Oni nodded, licked her lips and closed her eyes for a moment- face scrunching up in concentration. After a second her aura shifted to a bright crimson, and she disappeared from his side.

The forcefield user was at least twenty feet away, yet Ethi crossed the distance in the time it took a man’s heart to beat. She appeared by the girl’s side and immediately grabbed her, flipping her body almost agonisingly slowly- after all she could not use both her strength and her speed at once- and sending her rolling onto her back. After a moment of fishing around in the girl’s pocket, Ethi attracted the attention of her teammates.

One of them screamed something and turned to Ethi, who leapt away from the forcefield user just in time for the beam of orange light he fired her way to break against the ground instead. The energy churned up the site of impact, hurling a cloud of sand, smoke and steam into the air- providing perfect cover for her as she hurried away.

Crow was going to wait for her, but realised Unity had already disappeared from his side. He turned and saw the boy frantically running away, then cursed under his breath and followed. His heart thundered in his ears as he desperately put distance between himself and the people from whom they had just stolen, with Ethi pulling up next to him early into the flight. A few moments later the two of them caught up to Unity, who glanced over his shoulder before raising an arm and gesturing for them to stop.

As soon as they did so, Crow felt a flood of relief. He almost felt like laughing at the escape, or at the very least laughing at how Unity immediately folded over in exhaustion once the running ended.

“We’re.” He gasped. “Clear.”

There were a few more seconds of heavy panting before the black haired boy turned to stare at Ethi. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t need to. Ethi grinned as she pulled out a golden key.

“Am I good, or what?”

Crow felt himself break out into a smile, then turned to Unity to congratulate him- only to realise the boy wasn’t smiling.

“What’s wrong?” He asked tentatively. Unity’s eyes were flitting around the battlefield, his lips moving silently. He answered slowly.

“We need to hurry. This battlefield’s emptying, and if I know anything about the Sieve- only a few people will be able to use that exit before it’s gone for good. They want to weed out the best, not the nicest.”

Crow’s mouth started to dry.

“So?”

Unity straightened up.

“So our tactic won’t work, we can’t take this slow anymore. We need to…” he closed his eyes, lips tightened. “Fuck. We need to brute force our way through.”

There was a silence lasting several moments, filled with all three of them exchanging looks. Finally they all nodded. Ethi was next to speak.

“Alright. Who’s our target?”

Unity thought for barely an instant before snapping back.

“Same people we just stole from. There were two groups there, that probably means two different teams with a key each. We have one so far.”

Ethi arched an eyebrow.

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. One of them just lost an important teammate and the thing they set her to guard, they’ll be desperate. Ergo fighting harder. Ergo damaging themselves and their enemy faster. “

“They’ll also be more alert.” Ethi pointed out. Unity groaned.

“Yes I know, but we don’t have any other options. Wonder boy here can stop them from getting the drop on us with his magic Eyes, other than that we just have to risk it. Do you want to keep deliberating and wasting time, or start acting?”

It seemed that Ethi was going to argue back, so Crow hurried back the way they’d just fled from.

“Let’s go.” he called over his shoulder. Though he was only in a light jog, his enhancement allowed him to match a normal person’s sprinting speed. Ethi and Unity came up beside him a moment later, faces stoned and resigned.

When they next encountered the group, a lot had changed. The team with the forcefield user looked worse for wear, both the ones still on their feet were drenched in sweat and blood- which appeared to have allowed a great amount of debris to stick to them. On the other hand the other team was now also down to two fighters. Despite this Crow swore the amount of firepower being exchanged was the same as it had been when there were seven active combatants.

This time they didn’t have long before they were spotted, a short cry from one of the ones they’d robbed before caused heads to turn- and then glowing palms were pointed their way. Crow glimpsed himself thrown back, body a mess of scorches and crushed bone, and he flattened himself against the ground- feeling heat on his back as what he imagined was a great amount of power sailed over him. When he spared a glance up he saw one of the enemies drop to the ground, a spear sticking out of his stomach. Ethi shot towards another as an orange blur, apparently having opted to throw her weapon. He couldn’t see Unity, but a glimpse of himself being completely engulfed in flame spurred him to roll left.

The ground to his right hissed as the fire licked at it, and the heat dried Crow’s eyes enough that it hurt just to keep them open- yet he still forced himself to stand. Through the haze he saw Ethi rolling around on the ground with someone, then Unity appeared behind another, wrapped his left hand around the unsuspecting mystic’s leg and stepped back as the man clutched his now mutilated thigh and fell.

Crow glimpsed an energy beam taking him out and ducked just in time to avoid it, then rushed forwards to his attacker. It was a woman, he’d never hit a woman before. Then again he’d also never kicked one between the legs, it turned out he was a natural at both.

His target dropping to the ground, Crow was looking for another enemy when he heard an agonised wail rip through the air. He turned to see Ethi lying down, a jagged piece of bone sticking out the side of her knee and her face a tortured mask of utter agony. The mystic she’d been grappling with stood next to her, a triumphant look on his face as he stared down at the battered Oni. Crow was about to walk over and intervene when he glimpsed his legs flying out from under him. He hopped to one side, avoiding the sweeping kick the woman he’d downed made for his ankles. He tried to kick her in the face as she rose, but she blocked his attack with her forearm. Crow felt himself panic even as the force of his blow shunted her backwards. He’d only ever been in fist fights with Astra in sparring matches. She always beat him, but she was far and away the best fighter he, or even old Bert, knew. Would Crow fare any better against this woman?

She shot forwards so suddenly he almost didn’t notice. Her body twisted, bringing her right side forwards. Her arm began to rise and Crow brought his guard up to block a right cross, then glimpsed a foot landing on his left thigh and raised his leg to block the low kick with his knee. The woman’s eyes narrowed at her feint failing, and Crow glimpsed his head rocking back just in time to avoid her followup left straight. It turned out she was good, better than him by a stretch and a half in unarmed skill- and her speed and power were above his as well. And yet Crow avoided yet another of her blows, and then another, and another. He suppressed a grin. He’d never realised it before, but his precognition really was astonishingly useful. Still, against an enemy like this it wouldn’t allow for any more than a stalemate unless Crow had something else to bring to the table. Fortunately he did.

Crow felt the familiar burning in his eyes as the world slowed down. His enhancement already rendered things slow enough that they appeared to be moving through syrup, but with his time dilation it seemed that anything other than the mystics and their attacks hardly moved at all. Grains of sand seemed suspended in the air, taking long seconds to drop by a noticeable amount, and Crow saw the astonishing speed of his attacker drop to, if not trivial, manageable levels. He shot out a right straight kick, his heel landing squarely in the centre of the woman’s body. She may have had as much physical strength as him, but her body was still lighter than most men’s. She toppled over onto her back, knees rising in the same way Crow knew came naturally to people when they had the air knocked out of them. He’d let her recover the first time, he wouldn’t do it again.

Crow took a step forward, raised his right foot and brought it crashing down on the woman’s face. He struck her with such force that her head was actually driven several inches into the sand behind it, and when Crow pulled his foot back a trail of blood and saliva clung between it and the now crushed nose of his enemy. Crow brought his foot down again, and then again, and then just as he was about to stamp on her a fourth time- the woman disappeared. There was no flash of light or glow, she was just there one moment and gone the next- a light popping noise left in her place. It took Crow a second to realise she’d been teleported away. He stood there unmoving for a second, before deactivating his time dilation and grinning as the world sped back up around him. He’d won his first fight.

There was a grunting noise to one side which dragged Crow’s attention back to the combat going on around him. He saw Unity was on the ground, the man who had beaten Ethi on top of him with one glowing arm. The man’s other arm was a mangled mess, Crow assumed due to Unity, and the two appeared to be wrestling over the remaining one- with Unity trying to keep it aimed anywhere except his face. Deactivating his time dilation, Crow walked up behind the man, then delivered a kick to the side of his head. His boot connected satisfyingly with the temple, toppling the enemy off Unity and sending him splaying out on the ground. An instant later he was gone just as the woman had been. Crow looked down to Unity and stretched a hand out to help him up, the boy took it with a muttered thanks- then turned to Ethi.

The Oni was no longer screaming, that was good. What was not good was that the shattered piece of bone sticking out the side of her leg had not retreated back into her body and repaired itself since Crow last saw it. She was still conscious, which from what Crow had heard about shock was a feat in and of itself, but her red skin had taken an alarmingly pale change to its palette. Unity tapped Crow’s arm, looking particularly satisfied.

“None of the others had a key, I think one of the teams just didn’t know they were the only ones that had one and kept fighting after we fucked off with theirs.” He grinned. “Then again we only need two now anyway, nab the Oni’s and let’s go.”

Crow blinked, glancing from Unity to Ethi and then back again.

“Uh, how are we going to….” He gestured to the Oni, and Unity almost seemed to laugh.

“What? Dude she’s finished, look at her. Even with her super speed she’d come last in a sprint-off against normie humans.”

Crow was stunned. He stared at Ethi, who seemed to have been listening based on the look of utter horror on her face.

“N- What? No, we can… I’ll carry her.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Running to the exit with a wounded mystic on your back is going to make you the biggest, and slowest, target on this entire field.”

“I…. We can’t just….”

Try as he might, try as desperately as he could, Crow couldn’t think of a way to bring Ethi with him. And yet he had to, he needed to. Unity put a hand on his shoulder.

“Come on Crow, this was always going to happen.”

“What?”

Unity continued as though he were discussing the weather.

“I mean, we had her run in and steal their key- then run back in for a fight? She was always going to be the target, that was half the beauty of the plan. We had an awesome piece of cannon fodder to keep us safe while we charged, and if my gamble was wrong and there wasn’t another key to take, or we failed to take it, we’d be down a treacherous piece of shit. Now she’s fulfilled her purpose, take the key and let’s go.”

Crow couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He wouldn’t believe it. Unity was rude, sure. He was insensitive, thoughtless, annoying, obnoxious, he was an asshole. But this? This?

“This can’t have been your plan.” Crow wasn’t sure whether he’d expected Unity to deny it or not. He certainly hadn’t expected the reply he got.

“Well, not this exactly, obviously. I was gonna ruin one of her legs if she survived unscathed, whether they had three keys or not. Don’t really trust her, you see. Also she’s a bitch. I don’t like helping bitches, even if doing so helps myself. In this case I had the chance to help myself and not help her, which was a very nice opportunity.”

Try as he might, Crow could neither think or project the words to properly respond to this. After a short while trying, Unity saved him the trouble.

“Crow.” Unity seemed deadly serious now. “She betrayed you without a second of hesitation, do you think I’d need to even try and convince her to leave you behind if your positions were reversed?”

Neither of them spoke for a long second. They simply stared at each other, the world a mass of explosions and violence around them, and then Crow looked down at Ethi.

The girl was drenched in sweat, her pretty features marred by pain and fear. He stared into her eyes and saw the despair etched into them.

“Please, Crow.” Was all she could manage. This girl who’d spent a lifetime of training for this. This girl who’d fought through pain and misery for this. This girl who’d stabbed her teammate in the back for this.

Crow walked over to Ethi, reaching into her pocket and searching for the key. She pleaded and resisted, hammering fists against him as he searched, but without her legs and hips her punches had no power behind them- Crow simply shrugged them off, pulling the golden key out and jarring her broken body as she screamed with a new wave of pain.

“For what it’s worth.” Crow tried, knowing full well that his words were as hollow as they came.

“I’m sorry, but you’re in my way.”

He looked away from his fallen teammate, joining Unity as the two of them sprinted away from the crippled Oni. She’d recover in time, Crow knew. nystics always had access to healing magic, even an injury as severe as that could be removed by a sufficiently skilled nystic for a sufficiently great price. And yet she’d lost. She’d thrown everything away, including her own sense of decency, in order to attain a victory in the Sieve- and it had all been for nothing.

Unity had been right. There was nobody waiting by the gate to pounce, it seemed everyone had deemed that strategy ineffective. It didn’t help Crow’s nerves though, in fact not having any adversity at all as he approached the great exit just made his anxiety grow further. Quick as they were, the pair reached their target before they could attract any unwanted attention.

Crow didn’t feel triumph as he stepped towards the great exit, inserting the golden key in the now symmetrically golden door. There was a light this time, he saw it spread over his body as the violence around him faded into nothingness.

And then there was a cheer. No, it was as far from a cheer as a cheer was from a whisper. The wall of sound struck Crow almost like the shockwave from one of the energy blasts he’d just fled from. In fact for a moment he thought it was one. A single instant of terrified, scraping panic seized his entire body- and then he relaxed as he realised that, generally speaking, energy blasts did not pronounce the word “princess”.

The word came again, however. And again. And Crow realised it was a chant, he stared around him and blinked at the mass of people he saw. He was in the centre of a stadium, as were perhaps a few hundred other people- all looking as beaten up as he was- and looking down on him from stands were more people than he’d ever seen at any one place before. Thousands, at least. Tens, probably hundreds, of thousands. It was ridiculous. Stadiums were meant to be a hundred yards long at most, they were supposed to hold maybe a half thousand spectators and house perhaps two dozen players. This one looked as though it could fit the entirety of Selsis in its centre.

Suddenly the crowd began to quieten, as though the sound had been a flame smothered by a blanket. It felt unnerving to see so many people remain so silent, like something was terribly wrong with the world. He looked from the mass of spectators to his fellow contestants, and saw that they were all staring in the same direction. Crow followed their eyes and saw a tall, tanned woman standing in the middle- the competitors forming a ring around her and all of them a good dozen metres away. She wore a great black dress which stopped just above her knees, her hair was tied up and adorned with an astonishing amount of precious stones and her eyelashes seemed to reflect the light of the sun. He knew her, of course. Everyone, even people from the middle of nowhere like Crow, knew her. That was Karma Alabaster, the princess of Olympus.

“PEOPLE OF BERMUDA!” Alabaster called out, “WE HAVE JUST WITNESSED A TRULY THRILLING FIRST STAGE!”

As if to show their agreement, the hordes of people staring down resumed their racket. The princess flashed a smile that made Crow fall just a little bit in love with her, then continued.

“AND AS EXCITING AS IT WAS, IT WAS JUST AS CHALLENGING. CAN WE HAVE SOME APPRECIATION FOR THESE BRAVE MYSTICS MAKING THEIR WAY THROUGH?”

With the express permission of Alabaster, the crowd’s noise grew to new magnitudes. Crow could’ve sworn he felt his teeth vibrate in his head as they roared, and after what felt like minutes the princess began gesturing for quiet- which she soon received.

“HOWEVER,” she called out. “SOME WENT EVEN FURTHER. RATHER THAN JUST PASSING, THEY EXCELLED. GOOD PEOPLE OF BERMUDA IT IS MY PLEASURE TO INTRODUCE THE FIRST PLACE COMPETITOR FOR THE SIEVE’S FIRST STAGE!”

The “princess” chanting resumed, this time even louder, as Alabaster gestured to one of the competitors standing in the ring around her. Crow couldn’t believe his eyes as a girl with long blonde hair tentatively stepped towards the woman, Alabaster grasping her hand and holding it up over her head. Seeing her stood next to Alabaster, Crow thought for a moment he was mistaken- that the blonde had to be a Fae, or someone with dwarfism. And yet he knew for certain that he would never mistake that face anywhere.

"That blonde chick’s kinda hot doncha' think?" Unity said quite nonchalantly.

Crow would have been angry, he would have been mad and he would have let out the seething burning rage that bubbled within him onto the boy, and yet after everything that had happened he didn’t even have the energy to feel surprise at Unity’s presence next to him. All he could do was muster the energy to groan.

“PLEASE GIVE IT UP FOR-”

"That's my sister."

"-ASTRA TEMPORA!"