In the moment before Nic reached the girl he'd dubbed Orion, a beam of light sparked through the sky. It was razor-sharp, a glittering blue lance that pierced towards his outstretched hand.

He twisted in the air. The beam cut harmlessly between him and Orion, and Nic dropped to the ground, the sound finally drawing her attention. She turned to see him and flinched back. The motion put weight on her injured leg, and she nearly fell. Nic threw out a palm strike, snarling, wanting to end this.

She grasped a talisman hanging from her belt and an armor of clay surrounded her. His hand slammed into her gut and the blow was reflected, an equal force driving into Nic's midsection, throwing him backwards.

A spear of blue light shot for his throat.

Nic used the shallow mud on the earth to catch himself, snaring his own foot to stop himself from hitting the ground. The light cut past his shoulder and opened a deep scratch across his back.

There was no getting around this. Since the girl had a defensive talisman, his chance to kill her quickly had slipped away.

The cavalry was here.

A dark, bald man with a tall and slender build dropped from the rooftops. He wore beetle-black plating covering camouflage clothes, a combination of the new world and the old, and carried in his slender hands a spear of polished bronze from which a green flag fluttered in a phantom wind.

Nic stepped back, cautious. New combatant, new rules.

He already knew one Shard let him extend the range of his strikes. Especially useful for turning a mediocre close-range fighter into a decent long-range threat. His others...

Some kind of sensory Shard? The shot preventing Nic from reaching Orion had been too accurate for the amount of dust swirling through the air. It would take supreme vision...

"Beth! Get yourself back up, we've got to fight this thing. We're going to-" He looked at Nic, trying to size up the little pink blob that had torn its way through a city block and a dozen men. “We’re going to survive till Vega gets here.”

"No need, friends. Looks like I'm just in time..."

Samuel de Vega was already there. He strolled down the street, the gun named Sheila tucked beneath his arm, a brittle smile on his face. Nic could see the rage beneath. The prideful, bitter anger at someone he was so convinced was beneath him doing this much harm to him and his city.

Nic loved it when he saw that specific, rare breed of anger in someone's eyes, and knew he'd brought their whole world crashing down.

De Vega ratcheted the shotgun’s bolt. “Shall we?’

Nic gave a brief smile, lifted a hand to give them a cheery wave, and-

Ran.

He took off like a shot, not wasting a second before bailing on the fight. His logic was simple enough to count on one hand. Three of them, and only one of him. All of them specialized in ranged fighting, where he was weakest, and all of them coordinating to interfere with his attempts to close the distance. Moreover, he’d used up most of his Warform’s sealed energy, and he wouldn’t be able to transform again for hours.

It was a recipe for being forced back and whittled down, mistake by mistake.

But if he ran, the wounded Orion - or Beth, apparently - wouldn’t be able to easily follow. Then he’d be down to two, both trying to chase him at the same time as they launched their attacks.

Nic shot into an alleyway, wrapped one foot in sticky tar, and scurried up the sides of the buildings in a series of rebounding hops from side to side. As he landed on the rooftop de Vega was right behind him, sailing high in a single leap.

As soon as the man’s boots touched the roof, the bastard fired off a shotgun blast, narrowly missing Nic as the slippery axolotl dropped from his feet and slid on his back down to the street below.

But by the time Nic landed, he was being restrained. A huge weight had dropped onto his shoulders and the air had darkened, sending him stumbling as he hit the ground. Behind him the shotgun let out a heavy ratcheting ch-chack of mechanical noise, heralding the next volley of buckshot. This time, de Vega’s shot was dead on the money, punching into Nic’s back.

He hit the ground with one hand underneath him, and pushed aura into his Internal Cauldron Sacrifice Technique. With his regeneration restrained Nic had been unwilling to use it-

But he had to break free.

His feet left cracks in the earth as he shot forward, the weight falling away, strength surging through his limbs till his veins bulged and turned ember-orange with internal fire. Smoke trailed behind him in ribbons, caught in the wind that kicked as he ran.

The tall, dark man with the spear burst out into the street ahead of him. His legs were a blur, surrounded by trails of green light in the exact same shade as the fluttering emerald banner he carried on his spear. Some kind of swiftness-enhancing effect. Something powerful enough to keep up with Nic’s forbidden techniques.

Nic scowled and veered aside, giving up sheer momentum to weave into zigs and zags as he evaded desperately. The spearman’s weapon darted out three times in quick succession, each motion extending into a brilliant energy beam that whipped past Nic as he wove about.

There was nothing for it but a frontal clash.

With a kick up, Nic ran along the side of a building, dodging the low sweep of the spear that filled the street with a scything crescent of energy. He leapt forward and swung a knee at the man’s head, already braced to receive the blow in return.

The spear bit into his shoulder. His knee knocked into the man’s jaw. They both spilled down into the dust, and Nic rolled onto his feet first, not pausing to finish the foe off. A blast of buckshot buzzed past his skull like a screaming cloud of lead insects.

De Vega was bounding down the street, leaping high, moving as if gravity didn’t affect him. Each time his feet hit the ground he’d root himself for a second and fire, cranking his shotgun and feeding in another cartridge.

It was gravity. The bastard’s Shard let him shift gravity, slowing his opponents or letting himself rush fast along the ground.

Nic was in the rooftops again with a single bound, grabbing the edge of a roof, kicking off from the wall, and smoothly swinging himself aboard. Vega was right behind him, shotgun braced under his arm. Nic turned.

There was one difficulty with basing your movement on leaps. No matter how agile you were, no matter how quick…

You couldn’t dodge mid-air.

He threw a fistful of dust mixed with water from Mire-Caller. It splattered into de Vega’s face, and the man spluttered, hitting the roof on one knee and cracking off a quick shot- meant more to cover the ground and keep Nic from advancing than to score a hit.

But Nic didn’t need to. He clenched his fist, making the mud burrow and shift, digging into de Vega's eyes until the man screamed in horror. The mud was like a clutching hand across his face and Nic used it to every brutal extent, raking and clawing to blind the man as best he could. A split second more and Nic could've killed his enemy with a crushing hit to the throat-

Alas, he wouldn’t get to finish it here.

A wind lifted under the tall spearman’s feet and launched him into the air. Wind-control. Nic marked another Shard off, counting the abilities his foes held in reserve. Blinding beams of spearlight drove towards Nic, piercing through the rooftop in a half-dozen places as Nic was forced to retreat.

In the moment Nic’s concentration lapsed, he lost control of the thin mud on de Vega’s face. The man managed to wipe it away, gasping.

The weight of de Vega’s gravity-Shard slammed down onto Nic’s back once more. The shotgun swung up to aim for his chest, de Vega’s eyes red with rage and blood.

Nic stomped his foot down and the weakened rooftop collapsed under the weight. He dropped as the blast whipped by overhead, crashing down into a small room. A frightened man flinched back, shielding children with his arms.

Without pausing, Nic crashed through the window and out on the street, sliding into shadows.

“Inkspur…” He whispered urgently.

The little wyvern leapt onto his shoulders.

“Can you lead me back to my gear?” He asked. The wyvern nodded and shot up into the air.

“And what can I do? I want to help!” Burbled the slimy armor wrapped around Nic’s body.

“NO.” Inkspur and Nic snapped in unison. “Just stay quiet.” Nic sighed, and took off, trying to stay ahead of his pursuers.

---

Inkspur led the way as he ran across the city, weaving from shadow to shadow. He knew de Vega and the tall spearman weren’t far behind. Every now and then they’d catch him for an instant, lashing out with their weapons until he managed to lose them.

The hunting lodge where he’d been dragged to meet with de Vega was just ahead, and Nic put on a last burst of speed. The wolves guarding the entrance rose from resting and chewing over threadbare bones, their lips drawing back, teeth bared as they growled.

Nic couldn’t be asked to stop.

As they lunged for him, Nic spewed out a swirling ray of Primordial Mist, consuming both. Teeth slammed into his hand as he thrust a punch against their heads, but even as they bit through his skin the wolves were losing shape. They collapsed into ash and dust, falling apart to reveal nothing inside their bodies but solid clay.

Golems. Nic hit the ground and watched as they dissolved to nothing.

He punched his way through the doors, and Inkspur sped into a side room. He followed through and found a large, sealed chest, made from mahogany and covered in iron bands. Ripping it open…

Nic saw his bag sitting atop a large pile of confiscated toys. No doubt the property of his fellow prisoners and anyone else unlucky enough to believe the promise of Makepeace’s name.

Grabbing the bag and slinging it over his shoulder, Nic swept the rest of the chest’s contents inside. There was no time to don his armor.

Reaching in, he drew out his resonant greatsword and a sealed tox-lob, one of the special grenades he’d rigged up using Redjaw’s aura-sealing venom and Sunfire’s volatile spit-crystals. A very special grenade, loaded with shards of glass to spread the toxins in a wide swathe of flying shrapnel.

Wind coiled around the greatsword’s broken hilt and formed a blade. Nic smiled faintly.

Now they’d fight on his terms.

The enemy was closing in, but Nic was the predator now, waiting for them to fall into his trap.