Karma would have to impress. She felt the stares of the crowd very keenly, the pressure on her ears from their ecstatic cheers and the tense energy which still clung to them after the events of the previous task.

It had been two days since then, long enough for them to let go of much of the passionate, righteous anger they’d felt upon seeing what happened. Even so, they would fully expect to see that same passion in Karma. Buried, naturally. Barely visible below her steely, determined mask.

After all she was the Princess of Olympus, global symbol of stoicism in the face of disaster. They would be equally as dissatisfied by her showing anything but perfect control as they would by her failing to show residual anger.

A tedious tightrope, and one Karma would be forced to walk before an alarming number of eyes. Even so, as she inhaled and prepared to speak, illuminated and outlined by the light of the noon sun itself, it was difficult to even remember the masses of ordinary inepts and mystics were even there.

The gaze of the Immortals mixed into the audience was far more keenly felt. Just as she was being judged by each one of the people occupying the miles of seats, Karma was on trial before the ancient schemers hidden behind the private areas. Yet they would be far more observant of her performance, far quicker to smell weakness and far, far more capable of exploiting it.

As Karma felt her lungs fill entirely, she waited only a moment before emptying them with her opening words.

***

Astra felt her hands trembling as she stood in the tunnel, and not from nervousness at being before the crowd. Or at least not entirely. Old Bert had called it pre-battle shakes, the body preparing for a fight by flooding itself with adrenaline and energy. Filling itself to bursting with jittery muscular tension, to the extent that it leaked out as involuntary shivering.

It was a curious thing. In a few minutes' time, when Astra was actually face to face with the enemy, she imagined her hands would be as steady as a surgeon’s. She certainly hoped they would.

She heard the Princess’ voice ring out, just as strong and unyielding as ever before… no, not quite. It was subtle, barely there, but Astra could detect a shaky note to it. A twinge of upheaval.

The Gemini had been a close friend of Karma Alabaster’s, publicly at least. After meeting the girl, Astra assumed their relationship had been at least partially feigned. It had been a stupid assumption. She’d spoken to Karma herself, she was not the sort of woman to put on a show for her own gain. The sadness in her previously steadfast words banished any doubt Astra had had about that.

Astra realised she’d stopped listening to the Princess’ words, and with a silent curse to herself she pricked her ears once more- hanging onto each syllable and desperately trying to figure out whether she’d missed anything important or not.

“-THREE COMPETITORS FROM EACH TEAM!”

A smile came to Astra’s lips as she realised she’d only missed the opening fluff.

“OCCUPYING THE SECOND PLACE OF THIS YEAR’S SIEVE, AND WITH THE DETERMINATION TO FIGHT TOOTH AND NAIL FOR FIRST, PLEASE WELCOME TEAM POWERFUL WOMEN!”

Astra had been told her gauger would vibrate to let her know when it was time to walk out, but even so the abruptness of the signal caused her a few moments’ delay. As she stepped from the darkness of the tunnel and tried not to squint at the glare of the sun, she mused over how abysmal the Sieve’s organisers were at delivering vital information.

She still remembered only being sent an actual messanger to tell her about the number of contestants in the task fucking hours before it had begun.

The cheer which greeted Astra was, by her estimate, considerably weaker than their team had received in the previous task. Glancing to either side, she saw Crow and Unity shuffling and swaggering out respectively.

Three of them entering the arena at once and the crowds were making less noise than they had for the Gemini on her own. She wasn’t sure whether that was due to the people, or the still-sore memory of what their last entrance had led to.

Karma Alabaster turned as she cast an eye out to the bustling masses of watchers, and just as Astra noticed the volume begin to falter and die down, she called out once more.

“IMPRESSIVE THOUGH THEY MAY BE, TEAM POWERFUL WOMEN HAS A DANGEROUS ADVERSARY TO CONTEND WITH THIS TIME.”

It was difficult for Astra not to either laugh or cover her face as she heard such a ridiculous name shouted out to the world without even a hint of snark. She reminded herself to punch Unity Eden once they’d won the task.

“IN THIS YEAR’S FIRST PLACE, IT IS MY HONOUR TO PRESENT TEAM FATE!”

***

Xeno wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting of team Fate’s entrance, but it was most certainly not what she got. Two of their three contestants stepped out into the arena quite normally, both the short, ebony-skinned boy from Arcane and his taller, more muscular companion. The third, however, practically skipped her way in.

Watching from the scrying slate, too far to gain any real measure of their power, she found herself scrutinising their every feature in the hopes of gleaning any real clue as to their capabilities. She gave up after half a minute, but only with great mental exertion. It was the curse of the fae, people often said, to sit around wasting away as they attempted to discern the indiscernible.

She turned to Gem, slightly annoyed.

“I don’t suppose your magic-vision works from here, does it?”

“Nope, it doesn’t. Sorry.”

The silver haired girl seemed genuinely apologetic, too. But she’d hesitated a bit too long before answering.

“Are you sure?” Xeno asked, not really expecting an honest answer. Gem nodded in response, so she tried another gentle prod.

“Really? Because you practically flinched when Amelia came out.”

It was a lie on Xeno’s end, she hadn’t been watching Gem when Amelia had come out. On the other hand, terrible liar though Xeno was, she was betting that Gem was too distracted to notice even that at the moment.

She’d bet right.

“Alright,” she almost gasped. Her tone was like she was speaking with the first breath taken after almost drowning. Xeno said nothing, deciding to simply wait for Gem to share what she knew on her own terms. After a few seconds of wavering, she did.

“Well, yesterday, when Amelia came to see Crow in this room, I got the chance to look at her magic with my third eye. And it was impressive, really really impressive. I think she must be a little bit older than you, unless she’s the greatest magical prodigy of the last century.”

Xeno frowned at her friend as she spoke. Gem was rambling, that wasn’t like her at all.

“But… her potency isn’t what got my attention, and it’s not the only thing I see when I look at someone with my third eye. I see how much magic they have, yes, but I also see how it behaves. How it acts independently of being given any commands by them.”

She trailed off, and Xeno watched the girl’s lip tremble- as if she were physically exerting herself to try and continue. Finally, she spoke once more.

“Hers was like a mad dog, chained up and desperate to escape. Attacking just for the sake of attacking.”

Lifting her gaze, Gem locked those brilliant, luminescent cyan eyes with Xeno’s.

“Xeno, I think she’s more dangerous than any of us could have known.”

***

Karma barely suppressed a shudder as she glanced at the black-eyed girl. She wondered whether she’d have identified her as what she was had she not already known. How much of her shiver was simply an instinctive response, and how much was anticipation born from conscious knowledge?

It didn’t matter, she supposed. If nothing else, she was simply glad that Gem wasn’t fighting against her.

Clearing her head, Karma called out to the stadium all around her.

“NOW, AS LAST TIME, CAN THE CONTESTANTS PLEASE CHECK THEIR GAUGERS?!”

***

Second Task

Details: Obtain the ball.

Victory Condition: Hold the ball for a total of one minutes and thirty seconds. Three team points.

Credit Condition: Be the first to hold the ball for fifteen uninterrupted seconds. Two team points, one thousand credits.

Credit Condition: Hold the ball for ten uninterrupted seconds. One team point, three hundred credits.

Astra studied the words etched into her gauger, attempting to piece together everything they implied about the task. Ball was singular, and holding onto it also gave team points. In other words both sides would likely be fighting over a single target.

She snapped her attention back to the Princess as the woman’s voice rang out anew.

“WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY, LET’S BEGIN!”

The world began to dim, and Astra focused desperately on keeping her breathing even. She could win, she knew she could. After watching the third and fourth place teams fight it out, she’d certainly been concerned. But she was strong, she’d worked incredibly hard to become so, and she knew for a fact that not a single one of her enemies had put as much dedication into seeking strength as she had.

She could win.

Already monochromatic, her surroundings blurred in form as well as colour. A satisfied smile began to encroach on Astra’s lips as she imagined the stomach-churning effects such magic would have on her teammates. She wondered whether her immunity to such changes was tied to her knack for Itamis, or whether it was simply coincidental.

As the sea of distorted, desaturated light swirling around her settled into solid form, Astra took in her surroundings. Her hair was whipped into her face by unbelievably strong winds as she tried to look, forcing her to hold it back with a hand. She was standing in the centre of a large field, made from jagged and uneven rocks rather than grass and dirt. There were no trees or any sign of vegetation at all, any life being replaced by plateaus of stone.

Crow was standing some half-dozen metres to her right, staring around frantically the way he often did when placed into an unknown situation. Turning to her left, Astra saw Unity Eden an equal distance from her. He seemed practically unflapped by the area.

There came a great crashing from the skies above, and Astra found herself glancing up at the source. As she’d expected, black clouds covered every centimetre, thrashing around like a stormy ocean- like the weather she’d heard about striking Gol.

Movement flashed in the corner of her eye, and Astra turned her head to a spot some fifteen metres ahead of her. Team Fate.

From as far as she was, Astra couldn’t make out any of their expressions, though the straightness of their backs and the steadiness of their glares told her all she needed to know about how much of their attention was on the task. With the exception of Amelia, who appeared to be leaping into the air and allowing the wind to shunt her to one side several inches at a time.

Wordlessly, she moved closer to Crow. Something about staring down a group of powerful mystics while nature itself screamed in her ear made Astra want to be slightly closer to her brother.

A flash came from above, instantly turning six heads in response. At first Astra thought it had been lightning, such electric discharges were quite common in Selsis and would surely not be out of place in the atmosphere of this task.

The spherical, head-sized chunk of gleaming gold landing between the two teams, bouncing and coming to rest as it levitated some five feet off the ground made her realise that it may have been transportation magic instead.

Astra remained frozen, from the corners of her peripheral vision she could see that Crow was just as unmoving, though Unity was outside her field of view. Team Fate were similarly stilled, their bodies locked in position and a wave of energy sending twitches through all of their limbs as they constantly went to leap into action, only to stop it short in hesitation.

She wasn’t sure how long they all remained like that. It felt like minutes, though was likely just seconds.

When they all acted once more, it came instantly and explosively.

Astra’s magic came to her so quickly she hardly even registered the energising rush as it powered through her veins as a whirling cyclone of power. In the time it took the sensation to reach her toes, they’d already dug into the rocky ground and propelled her forward in a sprint.

Their target, the sphere, was some ten paces away. By the time Crow started moving, Astra had cleared half of that distance. She’d never been quite so fast as him, though her potency was greater, her Itamis ability required considerably more of it in lieu of a legendary strain to make them less magic-intensive. Nonetheless, she’d moved before anyone else. Astra knew she’d reach their target first.

And yet that certainty was shattered the moment she realised Amelia was already as close to it as she was. As Astra met her pitch black eyes, she realised that the girl wasn’t aiming to grab the sphere- she was aiming for Astra.

She had only enough time to notice that the girl’s expression was still closer to boredom than anything else before they collided. Astra slammed a foot into the ground before her, slowing herself even as she folded her arms around her body and raised a knee to block the impact. Amelia did nothing to reduce her own speed, simply allowing herself to impact Astra at full speed.

As a rule, any magic that increased physical strength would likewise increase the force required to move a mystic against their will. In Amelia’s case, she was akin to a boulder the size of a building. Astra was lifted from the ground as they struck each other, her body offering little enough resistance to the other girl that it was sent hurtling backwards some half-dozen metres and struck the ground in a heap.

Rolling with the fall, Astra scrambled onto her feet just in time to meet Amelia’s assault.

***

Crow resisted the irrational urge to duck as Astra flew by just a metre to his left, then resisted the considerably more rational urge to stumble back in fear as Amelia thundered after her. He allowed himself just a moment to marvel at the girl’s physical prowess, then he was upon the sphere.

He bit back his regret at not being able to help his sister, forcing his thoughts away from her. She’d been the one who’d proposed their plan, she’d known the risks and she’d taken them on herself without blinking. Astra would fight Amelia and keep the girl tied up in combat with her. Keep the enemy’s best piece off the board by sacrificing their own, herself.

All Crow had to do was focus on scoring points, and in this task it seemed the way he’d do so was by holding the ball. Simple.

Faroah reached him, finally closing the gap Amelia had crossed so easily, and attacked with outstretched, open palms. For a moment Crow wondered whether he meant to seize the ball rather than strike him, but then he noticed the glimmering golden energy shining from beneath the skin of his palms.

And the way the grape-sized raindrops disappeared into puffs of sizzling steam as they passed through them.

The boy was slow, either low of potency or unable to dedicate any but a scrap to his physical enhancement, but with Crow’s hands full with the sphere he had limited choices in defence. Faroah’s right hand shot forwards first, making a beeline for Crow’s face. He stumbled back and barely avoided the attack by merit of his superior speed.

For the briefest moment he considered activating his future-sight, then quickly dismissed the notion. As Ra had said, it would not serve him well in a close quarters battle.

The hard stone of the ground had no dirt, and so the rain was unable to slick it with mud. It was for this reason, not skill, that Crow was able to stumble rather than slip and fall. Already moving forwards and without the need to change direction so suddenly, Faroah’s footing was far surer.

He continued after Crow, throwing his right hand forward again then pulling it back and turning about his hip to throw a kick. The strike was weak, but with the caution Crow had of his mysterious glowing hands, it landed solidly on his knee.

Pain racked the joint and the entire leg buckled slightly, going numb everywhere below the point of impact. Crow hurried to straighten, to dart back, but he was far too slow to close the opening, and Faroah lunged with his left hand again.

Unable to change his footing and unwilling to guard an unknown attack with his own body, Crow realised he had only one available course of defence. Leaning back and making to look as though he intended to block with a shoulder, he waited for Faroah’s blow to edge just a few inches closer, then he unfolded and swung the sphere like a club- slamming the metallic orb into his attacker’s open palm.