Two months ago a middle-aged mystic by the name of Teriel Fasovich turned the once quiet town of Selosich into a canvas of ruin and death. It didn’t take long for him to be reprimanded, but it didn’t need to. The few minutes of confusion were more than he needed to take the lives of over two hundred Inepts, much like an unattended child would need only brief instants to stamp his pet mice to death.

The child in question was now lying in a crater, steam rising from around him where the moisture in the air and ground had been ripped free by the heat of Gem’s attack. His clothing had been obliterated, apparently no more magical than the terrain around it, and his bloated body was covered in ugly crimson burns. Had he not been bald to begin with there would likely be no remaining hair on his head anyway.

He’d been very loud, and very intimidating. For about eight seconds. Then Gem took a look at how much power he actually had, remembered he’d been captured the moment mystics with actual training showed up in the place of magicless citizens with pointy sticks and suddenly found herself much more confident at the prospect of beating him.

She glanced around, trying to decide on her next move. They were in some strange mansion, or at least something reminiscent of one. It was all grey stone and dark woods, probably styled after Nocturnal. Gem had been to the nation of vampires only a handful of times, but their decorum was gothic enough to have seared itself into her memory. On the matter of being seared she really did hope that carpet hadn’t been expensive, the dull red sheet of fabric hadn’t survived the few attacks her battle had lasted for.

“RE’OO’USHAN!”

Gem almost jumped out of her skin, such was the volume and pitch of the sudden, shrill cry. She turned back to Fasovich, feeling a headache coming on as he began to struggle to his feet.

"And you're up...neat."

"YOO!" He shrieked, the passion behind his words apparently being insufficient to overcome the fact that he was trying to pronounce them with a broken nose.

"In the flesh." Gem said, performing a mocking bow which she instantly regretted as the gesture flexed her injured arm.

"Whe’ I'n duh wi’ yoo der’l be no fless lef!" He rushed forwards, legs carrying him all of two strides before he crumpled into a heap once more.

"Terrifying." Gem muttered, then continued louder. "Listen I'm going to ask you a few questions and I really, really hope you answer them correctly."

He began struggling up to his feet but as Gem had learned from Karma, using a person's face as a punching bag tended to make walking quite a challenge. The way he almost seemed to jitter in losing his balance and regaining it twice per second was alarmingly similar to watching an enormous toddler. Curiously disturbing.

"Guh luch ge’i’ antin’ ou’ o’ mmme!"

Assuming that he’d meant to say something along the lines of not giving her any information, Gem stepped up a little closer. It seemed he’d finally given up, laying rather still with his back to the ground. She was fairly sure he was seeing two of her at the moment, hopefully that would make the arcane glow of her blue eyes twice as threatening.

"Pretty please? I may not be as powerful as my father yet, but I’m also not nearly as nice as him. Really I’m quite a disgraceful frontier of magic, come to think of it…."

Fasovich’s fleshy face paled, his eyes widening at the sight of her. Apparently a simple light show was enough to convince him Gem was who she claimed, he clearly wasn’t very smart as anyone powerful enough to be called a mystic could do something as simple as making their eyes glow.

"Yoo... yoo-"

"Mmmmhm" She nodded with a sweet smile.

The man squirmed backwards, crawling out of the crater and continuing back along the ground- only stopping as his head and shoulders collided with the wall.

“GEMINI!”

It figured the one word he pronounced perfectly was the name Gem hated more than anything. She supposed it couldn’t be helped, Gaeans would be Gaeans. She’d much rather have simply knocked him out again and been done with it, but one of the many lessons she’d learnt from Karma was that information won and lost fights.

"Now, first question." She began, trying to cover her disgust at meeting his gaze."Why are you here?"

Gem had never interrogated anyone before, nor had she ever really learnt how to do so. The closest thing to specific training she’d had in that area was watching Karma once or twice, and she was hardly in a position to order Fasovich’s legs be broken by the Kin. That was almost definitely against the rules.

Fortunately she also didn’t need to, as being globally famous as the child of the most powerful creature in history did a lot of the heavy lifting for her.

Though it was hard to tell exactly what the blubbering mass murderer was saying, Gem could piece together the basics. It seemed he, among certain other rather unstable mystics, had been placed in the Sieve to act as enemies, with the promise of various rewards. She shouldn’t have been surprised, the factions had never been particularly up front with their dealings.

Eventually the man ran out of information and resorted to begging, Gem stopped listening by that point. She glanced at her gauger, certain there was no risk of a surprise attack from someone so much weaker than her, and bit her lip in annoyance as she saw a flat zero listed under her credits. It seemed that she wouldn’t be gaining anything from just knocking out any of the enemies on this stage, even the human ones. Gem was sure she could kill Fasovich, and she was sure the people watching would think no less of her for putting such a miserable creature down. Still the thought of executing a human… she didn’t like it.

The human in question seemed to have picked up on the fact that he was in no immediate danger, as his begging soon waned away in place of a question.

"If...if a meh aksk...why agnh't you on our side?... we're be’er dhan Non-my’ics, we're better dhan dhe non maghichl, wha must yoo teat dhose ‘o a’ weaker dhan us as echal?!"

Gem frowned, genuinely confused. Did this guy not hear himself when he spoke? He wasn’t her equal, he wasn’t even close. Gem was a lion, and while he may not have been an ant that didn’t mean a mouse was any closer to her. Of course she couldn’t say that outloud, not when it was entirely likely that the audience was watching and listening to her every moment. Instead she just turned on her heel and began walking away, not caring to give his stupid question a response.

As she made her way through the mansion Gem felt something bubbling inside her. It wasn’t fear, obviously, but nor was it the strained boredom she usually met with on stage. This was excitement. She was finally getting to show the world just what she was capable of, finally proving that she wasn’t the next Gilasev- she was even greater. It was all she could do to stop herself from jumping with exhilaration.

Her fists tightened with the excess energy, and the tensing muscles sent a tweak of pain into her upper arm. The wound she’d received from Fasovich, a direct hit born from her not paying attention- and one which would have taken the arm off just below the elbow on an opponent with strength equal to his own. In Gem’s case it was barely more than skin deep, though that was deep enough to be painful. She studied it once more, the cut was perhaps three inches long and a centimetre wide- a few thin streaks of blood ran from it, but all were dried by now. Still, it was an annoying reminder of the fact that she’d let herself get wounded by a mouse.

Eager for a distraction, she turned to her gauger- surprised to see what it displayed.

Credits: 200

Team Credits: 1,000

Team Position: 3rd

Time remaining: 4 hours, 30 minutes

Third. Biting down the swelling frustration, Gem quickened her pace to a near-jog. She wasn’t supposed to be third, she was supposed to be first. In fact she was supposed to be first with such ease that compared to her performance, her placement didn’t even constitute an achievement. And yet she was third. Whatever, that was fine. It was still early days, after all, and after giving up an entire half hour on gathering information she could hardly expect an excellent start. Yes, that was it. The reason she appeared to be doing poorly was because nobody else had had the foresight to investigate the contents of the stage. In fact, they probably had- they just hadn’t been powerful enough that they could do so in a feasible time frame.

Gem pondered finding her teammates for a moment, then banished the thought. She’d be better served acting alone, Karma had warned her she’d be the underdog but none of the people she’d had a chance to look at had been on her level during the starting ceremony. There was no reason for her to squander even more time finding a team to work with when she was already the equivalent of an entire team by herself. Besides, the image of her sweeping the second stage on her own would send a far stronger message to any Immortals watching.

Gem had just turned a corner when she caught something out of the corner of her eye. It was a tiny glint of colour, normally not something worthy of consideration. Normally. In this case, however, it was like no colour seen on earth. Impossible to describe, and completely distinct to all others. It was one of the colours that she and one other person in the world were unique for being able to see, the colour of magic. And it was heading for her at an alarming speed.

She brought her physical enhancement to bear with a thought, her own magic obeying her instantaneously. And it was a lucky thing that it did, because the blow she caught on her forearm would have splintered the bone like a dry twig had her limb not been reinforced. She caught a glance at a grin and then her feet left the floor, her hair trailing in front of her face and the wind on her back as she soared backwards like a discus. After a brief instant in the air she came back down again, landing on a ridiculously long banquet table and splitting the heavy oaken furniture in half. Her training with Karma came back to her at the moment of impact, and she brought her legs back to her head. The motion sent her body rolling back, and she was able to plant her feet on solid ground with nothing more than a slight sense of discombobulation as payment.

The hall she occupied was practically identical to the one in which she’d “fought” Fasovich, what little light present was provided by some rather pitiful torches hanging in sconces. She didn’t need much to see the grinning face of her attacker, however, as he was strolling towards her that very moment.

“THAT WAS AMAZING!”

Gem was still somewhat wired from the abrupt attack, familiar flow of adrenaline rushing through her veins and filling them with electricity. As such, the suddenness with which the boy shouted at such volumes nearly made her leap out of her skin. She stared at him as he continued approaching. As he drew nearer she noticed details. His dark hair, tied upwards with a bandanna, was obvious from the start, but it wasn’t until closer that she noticed his skin was tanned in a similar way to Karma’s. His face had a strange, sharkish quality- however with the utter friendliness behind his expression it was hard to compare him to anything so predatory. Of course the fact that he was completely topless and had the abdominal muscles of an Olympian made the intimidation factor go up slightly. It occurred to Gem after a moment that he was probably waiting on an answer, and so she obliged him.

“Yes, I am quite amazing. Thank you for noticing.”

She tried to cover her growing hysteria, but it wasn’t easy. Because as soon as she had more than a glance at his magic she’d noticed the most important detail of all, he had even more potency than her. Gem massaged the throbbing area of her arm where his fist had made contact.

“So.” She started, taking a step back as he came within a few paces. “Are you here for an auto-graph?”

The boy grinned.

“FIGHT ME GEMINI!”

Gem blinked.

“Uh….”

The boy didn’t seem dissuaded, rather he appeared to be growing more excited by the second.

“MY NAME IS HACK PONG! FIGHT ME!”

Recovering from her confusion quickly, Gem forced a confident smile and for a moment gave her eyes the same glow that had terrified Fasovich so much.

“Are you sure you want to go up against me? You don’t seem weak enough to be worth only a few hundred credits, so I’ll spare you if you just run away now.”

Hack Pong’s eyes widened as he stared at her face, and for a second Gem thought he’d actually run. It turned out she was wrong.

“THAT’S SO COOL! DO IT AGAIN!”

“W… what?”

“THE EYE THING! DO IT AGAIN, IT’S AWESOME!”

Gem struggled to find words. Were it not for the fact that she was staring his power right in the face, she’d have had a hard time being threatened by this kid.

“I… you… wh…. No. No I will not.”

The boy didn’t seem even the slightest bit put out.

“ALRIGHTY THEN, NO WORRIES! LET’S FIGHT!”

“Do you not have the ability to regulate volume?”

“YEAAAAAAAAAH!”

Before Gem could think of, much less vocalise, a reply to this most eloquent of statements, Hack Pong shot towards her like a musket ball. His limbs were tucked in and his body hunched down, aerodynamic and jagged as he ran. A classic mystic’s sprinting position, after all air resistance became quite the issue when one’s speed was in the hundreds of miles per hour.

Gem barely had enough time to side-step before he reached her, the wind brushing against her as his body tore through the space she’d been occupying an instant prior. He began to turn, and she chose that moment to attack. A low kick to the knee, meant to hurt the joint and damage mobility. Perfectly timed as his movement caused the vulnerable side to line up with her foot right at the moment of impact, and yet as the tip of her boot thudded into it she felt heavy vibrations run up her limb. She stumbled away, nearly losing balance as her lower body was abruptly halted by the impact. Who was this guy? Kicking him was like kicking… well, like kicking Karma.

Before Gem could follow that thought to its conclusion, he’d come back at her. His grin still plastered across his face even in the midst of battle, but having taken on a far more sinister appearance in the light of its ferocious owner. He closed in and sent a kick of his own at Gem’s mid-section, she knew from the punch she’d blocked that the physical advantage was his and so chose to backstep instead. Avoiding the hit by a finger’s breadth.

It turned out to be the right decision, the gale force wind dragged behind his foot told her that he’d have cracked whichever arm she chose to guard with.

Quick as a flash the boy snapped his leg back and placed his foot down, then turned and swung a roundhouse kick at Gem’s head. Her surprise slowed her reactions like rust in a gear, and it was all she could do to stumble gracelessly away- unable to evade with her balance intact. Still grinning as though the fight was the most fun he’d had in his life, Hack took a step after her and threw a right straight- his entire body’s weight placed behind the deadly fist.

Unfortunately for him, Gem had learned a lot of nasty tricks from Karma. One was taking advantage of the huge gap in durability between hands and other body parts. Rather than continue her retreat, she placed a foot behind her and used it to force herself to change direction- suddenly leaning forwards and biting down to tighten her neck muscles. Her forehead met Hack’s fist with staggering force on both ends, and so it was perhaps not surprising that Gem was immediately staggered.

Stars danced in front of her eyes, and the world began to tilt slightly. Gem barely kept herself upright in the face of the overwhelming dizziness that suddenly came upon her. She blinked as Hack began to turn, and Gem had just enough time to raise her leg to block his kick before it landed on her. Pain danced down her limb, digging deep into the bone and almost seeming to heat it up. Contradictorily the meat of her thigh went numb, all sensation squeezed from it by the strike. Her body was shunted back by the force of the blow, and with one leg off the ground it failed to remain upright for more than an instant. Before Gem knew it she had the strange sensation of sinking, all the while her head still spinning as though she’d just woken up.

Groaning, she looked around her. Then realised she was lying down on her back. She tried to remember falling but couldn’t. She had just woken up, headbutting that bastard’s hand had caused her to black out.

Gem quickly recalled her precarious situation, rolling onto her side and hurriedly getting to her feet. She stared around her until she located her opponent, then raised her arms in preparation for another assault. And yet he just stood there. Gem frowned at that, and then frowned deeper when she realised he’d surely have had time to move in and attack her while she was unconscious. This train of thought was interrupted by Hack’s loud voice.

“YOU REALLY ARE AMAZING GEMINI! YOU’RE ALMOST HOLDING YOUR OWN EVEN WITHOUT YOUR ANTI MAGIC! HURRY UP AND USE IT SO I CAN FIGHT YOU AT FULL POWER!”

Gem’s jaw tightened in annoyance. He was going easy on her. On her, the Gemini. He thought he could afford to play around just because she wasn’t using everything that made her special? Laughable. She concentrated on her second ability, her energy manipulation. As far as simplicity went it was second only to her strength enhancement, but that didn’t matter.

From what she’d seen her opponent was a pure physical combatant, that meant that going against him in close quarters was probably a bad idea. With that in mind, she was very lucky to be equally as amazing at ranged combat as she was at melee.

The familiar sensation of running power leapt down her arm, seeping into her fingers and crackling beneath the skin. Gem suppressed the urge to rub them together as they began to itch. Hack’s grin widened as he saw the tell-tale glow begin to build in her hands, and that wideness extended to his eyes the moment Gem waved her arms out. She grinned as the light left her, dispersing into the air and then reforming some fifteen feet above his head. Hack’s momentary confusion at her seemingly abandoning the attack left him standing still, and so when the broiling mass of power collapsed down onto him he didn’t get the chance to so much as guard it.

A cylinder about half again as wide as a man’s shoulders arced downwards. Hack’s body immediately disappeared in the pillar of burning white power, not even a silhouette of him visible behind it. The ground around him was cracked by the kinetic discharge, fissures reaching out through the previously smooth marble and rendering it more akin to a hastily cobbled road than the floor of a mansion.

After a few moments she felt the heat, even stood ten paces from the epicentre of the magical pillar as she was the sheer amount of energy it held was not something that was inclined to sit still. The air around it heated to terrible temperatures, and that in turn heated the air adjacent to it. That air then heated the air next to itself, and so on until the excess thermal energy had completely diffused through the surrounding atmosphere. Gem had never used this attack on another human, but she was quite sure that anyone standing as close as she was at that moment would find their body charred down to the muscle unless they enhanced its durability through magic.

This technique was called “Rain”, it was one which she had learned from Gilasev after no small amount of begging. By using casts to change the point of origin and direction of the ability to descend from above, it apparently caught people by surprise with far more regularity. That and the several seconds of charge-up it required meant that, difficult to deploy as it was, it had more power than any other attack in Gem’s arsenal. It was for this reason that when the pillar of light dispersed and revealed a circle of molten, compressed stone where it had struck the ground directly, she was deeply shocked to see Hack standing unharmed in the centre of it.

“YAAAAAAAAAAA! THAT WAS AWESOME!”

The boy’s body was, on second glance, not entirely undamaged. His skin was reddened in many areas, particularly over the shoulders, neck and forearms. She knew that was the kind of red that came out only from having the lower layers exposed as the ones covering them were burnt away. His black hair had been singed at places, with some of its tips still smouldering. Finally his smile now carried a slightly pained grimace behind it. And yet these wounds had come from the most powerful weapon in her arsenal.

Gem’s chest lurched with an altogether unfamiliar feeling, yet one she recognised instinctively. Fear.

“ALRIGHT GEMINI!” the boy cried out, holding his arms up as he spoke. “NOW USE YOUR ANTI MAGIC! THEN WE CAN HAVE A REAL FIGHT!”

Fear was replaced instantly by anger. A real fight? She didn’t need her anti magic for that, in fact she could only hope to get a real fight from this kid if she held it back. Gritting her teeth, Gem raised her hands once more and built energy in them. Hack quickly spotted the oncoming attack and began sprinting towards her, even as far away as he was the speed was apparent. Had Gem tried to charge a second Rain he’d have reached her before she’d gotten halfway done, instead he himself failed to close half the distance before catching her attack to the face.

Gem didn’t have a name for this one, nor were there any complicated casts behind it. It was just a blast of kinetic energy with roughly as much force as a weak cannonball. From what she’d seen his resistance to physical impacts was far greater than his resistance to heat, and so she hadn’t expected to damage him. Of course taking a hit that hard to the head would knock anyone off balance.

Hack stumbled back, and Gem hurried to begin charging a follow up. A basic single-second delay cast this time, it didn’t give the same power as her Rain but it was also far quicker. Quick to the point that by the time Hack had righted himself, the beam of burning energy struck his stomach. His face instantly twisted to a mask of agony, and Gem was struck with the realisation that his nose had been flattened against it- blood streaming over his mouth and chin. Her kinetic attack shouldn’t have had such a resounding effect… should it?

She pushed such thoughts to the back of her mind, focusing on the fight in front of her. The boy was charging forwards again, and when Gem attempted another kinetic blast he grit his teeth and took it full-force. He slowed for half a step, teetered slightly as the energy broke around his head like waves against a cliff, and then continued onwards as though nothing had happened. Gem hissed and splayed her hands, producing more energy and hardening it into a sheen just a metre in front of her. A patch of discoloured light about five feet high and half as wide, it didn’t look like much but it could stop several of Gem’s best shots. Hack, visible as an outline through the translucent shield, slammed into it with terrifying speed.

The sheet of energy strained against him, and due to severely lacking elasticity this strain turned into fragmentation. Cracks snaked through the entirety of the barrier, and those cracks widened and lengthened until the entire thing fell apart. Hack came staggering through it, clearly dazed by the impact, and Gem seized the chance to land a heavy knee to his stomach. She’d braced for the familiar, unyielding endurance her attacks had met with each time before- instead the strike folded her enemy over and sent him back a step. The momentary confusion held Gem in place, and he was attacking once more before she could shake free of it.

He hurled a barrage of punches at her, each one thrown with minimal movement to maximise speed in exchange for power. The result was that they were extremely difficult to avoid, and it was all Gem could do to cover herself up. The attacks sent daggers of pain through her arms as they landed, each knuckle digging into her muscle as though it were made of diamond rather than bone. Still they came, and still she was forced to do nothing but defend. The pain in her limbs built and built, growing to near breaking point, and just when Gem thought she could take no more she felt the punches begin to ease up and slow down- Hack was tired, she had her chance.

Gem reached out with her left hand, concentrating energy back into it and preparing to unleash it upon his face. If she could damage his vision then she could win, it would take only one hit. However she didn’t land that hit. Hack’s torso twisted as he sent an elbow smacking into Gem’s hand. She cried out as her index finger seared with pain, her energy went wild and missed its mark entirely but she hardly noticed through the agony. Before she knew what was happening a heavy force imparted itself on her stomach, driving the air from her lungs and folding her over. She dropped to her knees, spluttering and coughing. And once more, rather than press his advantage, Hack backed off.

Though it went against her every instinct, Gem forced herself to straighten up enough to look him in the eye- silently furious at herself for being forced to do so from her knees.

“OAH! I ‘ANT EC’EC’INK ‘AT!”

Every word Hack uttered caused a bubble to expand and pop at the base of the bloody river streaming from his crushed nostrils. And yet despite how painful that must surely have been, the grin never left his face. It looked downright demonic.

“YOO AH’ DUNN WELL! NOO’ OOZE YUH AN’I ‘AGIC, DIS ISSH YUH LA’T S’ANSE!”

Having to pick through his every word to piece together what he was saying reminded Gem very much of talking to Fasovich, as did the sight of his busted faucet of a nose. There was one more thing, too. One more striking similarity between Hack and Fasovich, the fact that everything he said just pissed her off more.

Hack paused for a moment, reaching up to his nose and straightening it with a revolting squelch and cringe-inducing cry of pain. After a moment he patted the top, as though feeling for any imperfections, before gently pressing one of his nostrils shut and blowing air through the other- forcing out a spray of blood in varying stages of coagulation. He then repeated the process with the other while Gem simply stared in horror.

“AH, THAT’S BETTER!”

The clarity with which Hack spoke would have shocked her, were it not for the dozen other shocking things she’d witnessed already having sapped her ability to feel anything but a dull acceptance. In a slightly nasally voice he continued.

“GEMINI YOU REALLY ARE AMAZING! IN FACT, YOU’RE AMAZING ENOUGH TO BE MY RIVAL! AND AS MY RIVAL, I WANT YOU TO FIGHT ME WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE! MY FAMILY HAVE BEEN HONING OUR ABILITY FOR YEARS NOW, I SPENT MY ENTIRE CHILDHOOD PRACTICING IT AS WELL AS DOING SPECIAL TRAINING TO STRENGTHEN MY BONES. AND NOW I HAVE AN UNBREAKABLE SKELETON! BUT THAT MEANS THAT NO ORDINARY OPPONENT IS WORTH BEATING, BUT YOU’RE NOT ORDINARY ARE YOU GEMINI? YAAAAAAAH!”

Gem felt herself trembling. Her teeth ground against one another in her mouth, heart pounding in her ears. This bastard thought he was her rival? She’d held out on her anti magic. She’d held back for the sake of fighting him on his terms, but he genuinely thought she was on the same level as him?

She reached deep into herself, ignoring her three quarter full magic reserves entirely and focusing instead on the separate pool of power next to them. Anti magic flooded through her body, as much a part of her as the blood in her veins. She couldn’t see her face but knew that her eyes were glowing the way they always did when she made use of this power, and with a barely contained rage she got to her feet. Fighting to keep her voice from shaking, she almost whispered her reply.

“As you wish.”