It took us the rest of the day to navigate around the periphery of the phoenix Elder’s inferno; we travelled in much higher spirits, given our freshly minted walking air-conditioning unit. I was doubly happy because I knew we were walking in the opposite direction of the horrifying domain of the razor spiders Darina had talked about; spiders were bad enough on their own, without giving them almost invisible, super-sharp blade-webbing.

As we travelled east along the valley floor and further into the mountain's shadow the mist began to thicken around us once again, made all the denser by our roving pocket of cold air. It was approaching nightfall when we came upon another river, flowing North and away from the mountain. It ran wide, deep and fast, the water churned white as it crashed over and amidst rocks; the irritating giant mosquitos flew thick about above the rolling surface, the drone of thousands of wings clearly audible above the sound of the breaking water.

“Okay, so this seems like a barrier that could’ve factored into our plans. Also, gross.”

I glanced down at Darina to find her already glaring at me.

“Hey, I didn’t say anything about you.”

“I am aware that compared to you I probably seem like I know everything, Hunter, but believe it or not I am not a living map.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“In absentminded correction, I believe criticism was implied by your comment, Hunter.”

I turned to face Riffa, mouth open and my hand held to my chest in faux shock.

“Et tu, Riffa...? Okay, fine. Sorry for making assumptions about your competence, Darina.”

I grinned at her outraged face as she kicked at me, but she was not really trying and I dodged it with relative ease; it helped that we were at the same physical level now, roughly. I even imagined that in a real fight I would have the edge, at least when it came to dodging; I was not sure I could pile on enough damage yet to take her out, but it would definitely be a far more even fight than our first.

“With tactical consideration, river appears to vary in width, with it growing wider as it flows away from the mountain. Even so, it appears to be at least two-thousand feet wide at this point. A person would need to be well into the Foundation stage in order to leap it, which rules out the majority of individuals. Any below that level would need to cross by more mundane means, provided they do not have an ability to control water.”

I looked at the vast expanse of fast-moving water and considered Reff’s words; I still found it astonishing that anybody could actually leap over a thousand feet of water.

“If we ruled out people with the ability to travel via ground and sky, I think we should rule out water. So, should we be on the lookout for boats?”

“In contradiction, I doubt they would send anybody below the Foundation stage, Hunter. To face us, of course, as we have seen; but to steal from an Elder? I think a completed Path is the minimum for a person to possess the combination of abilities necessary, assuming that such a specialized person exists.”

“Riffa is right. Shade seemed to be at the Foundation stage, at minimum, as did his companion. We should assume at least Shade’s presence.”

I rubbed at my face before running my fingers through my beard; it had not actually struck me until that moment that we had been discussing the fact that The Shadow Faced Guy would be present, and even if Reff completed his Path, we probably were no match for him, never mind any companions he brought.

“Crap, you’re right. How... how do we win if he’s there?”

There was no immediate answer, as we all stood looking over the river, our expressions pensive. As the seconds began to stretch into minutes, an idea occurred to me that renewed my hope, at least partially.

“Wait, Rainmaker knew his senses were being blocked, and he honed in on it; how, if he couldn’t sense Shade? He had to find the edges and extrapolate, right?”

“In expectant confirmation, that logic follows, Hunter, but how does that benefit us?”

I touched a finger to my nose and winked at my big friend, which only seemed to confuse him, but that only made me grin.

“So, the same has to be said for Flame Ever Dancing, right? They’ll know their senses are being blocked, and suspecting the heist, will go looking for them, right?”

“Hunter, stop drawing it out and explain.”

“Fine; Shade probably won’t be with whoever is doing the actual thieving, because Flame Ever Dancing will be looking for him. He’ll probably be as far away as possible, to draw attention away from the thief!”

Reff and Riffa both wore expressions that said they were a little impressed with my reasoning, and even the apprentice looked a little shocked at my lack of idiocy.

“With mild excitation, I believe you may be correct, Hunter.”

“Easy, Reff – you need to calm down.”

“With polite contrition, you are correct. I apologise.”

“... Reff, I was joking; you’re fine. Now, do we... I dunno, look for the best landing site?”

“With pointed consideration, while point of contact can be improved by the jumper, it is much more difficult to affect your landing point when making such a leap; the ground here is relatively soft, they will likely need a firm place to land.”

I pictured somebody slamming into the moist earth with the kind of force necessary to leap that distance and sinking in past their head and almost had to laugh at the almost cartoonish image.

“Good point, Riffa – important safety tip. Shall we go look for a rocky area?”

The siblings and Darina all nodded and we began to walk downriver, looking for the most likely landing points for our would-be thief. As we walked, I looked down at the water, thinking about all the creepy, dangerous things that inhabited the rivers of the various rainforests back on Earth, and shuddered at what probably lay waiting under there...

*

***

*

As it turned out we did not have to go far; a couple of miles downriver we found a huge spur of moss-covered rock jutting from the wet earth and out over the river. The stone outcropping was only thirty or so feet high and extended a similar length above the flowing water; the water itself was much calmer here than it had been further upstream, and the river slightly narrower. I imagined the ground was rockier and less prone to erosion, given the smaller rocks gathered about the large one like a gaggle of baby geese.

In the shade of the stone itself, the buzz of insects was even more intense, gathered as they were in a thick cloud. and I could swear that I saw more than one of the unnaturally large little bastards eyeing us hungrily; I was about to Focus and try my hand at bug-zapping when there was a flicker of neon purple-pink light and where the swarm had been, the open air now gaped, hollow and empty.

“What the shit was that?!”

I looked down at Darina for an explanation, but she was crouched slightly, gazing about us with narrowed eyes.

“Instant frog; look out for anything glowing. They don’t usually attack anything our size, but they’re territorial.”

“Instant frog? What, like, ‘just add water’?”

“Less nonsense more watching, Hunter.”

“What’s the big deal?”

Reff and Riffa were staring around us, not as intently as the apprentice, but they were definitely paying attention.

“In vague explanation, I have heard something of these creatures, Hunter. They are giant frogs and are never seen to move; the tales I have heard told say that they strike too fast to see, and many times more powerfully than should be possible.”

“Why are the beasts around here so scary? There was nothing like this in the Everwood.”

“In careful correction, you are mistaken; they merely – and wisely – chose not to bother an Apex.”

“Oh. Right. That. So, what do we do?”

“Find the Void borne frog and then we go in the opposite direction.”

“Really, it’s that strong? We can’t fight it? Wait, if it’s that strong, maybe it’ll take out the thieves, if they come this way.”

“I doubt it would bother anybody moving through its territory that quickly. And whether it can fight such a foe would depend on its level of growth.”

“Well, that makes sense, but doesn’t the same hold true for us? Are they like the thundering apes, born at the equivalent of Core stage? And even so, there are four of us, and Reff is closing in on Foundation. Shouldn’t we try, if we want to set up and ambush here?”

“Generally, when trying to fight an instant frog, you either win or die. You cannot run away from a thing that simply appears ahead of you.”

“I thought teleportation was impossible? And if you can’t run away, how are we going to just leave?”

“Shut up find the thing!”

Grumbling to myself I gazed around us, peering into the trees and underbrush looking for any sign of a a giant frog, but finding nothing. After a minute or so of fruitless searching, I saw my friends begin to relax and I ceased my search.

“It seems to have moved-”

As Darina spoke, presumably to say the frog was gone, my Instinctive Precognition screamed through me, though the only response it provided was to Focus. Lightning flared about me in thick, snapping tendrils and the sharp, sour smell of ozone cut through the earthy smells of the jungle as time slowed around me. Only a fraction of a second passed after my ability triggered, and even with time slowed as it was, it was far too little time for me to move. I felt a strange, vibrating blow impact my left shoulder and I was sent catapulting between my friends to smash crash through the thick vegetation around us.

As I flew through the air, I pushed tiny tendrils of praxis out of my body to gain purchase on the slick ground and used the leverage it afforded me to come to my feet, even as I slid backwards like I was doing some weird version of the moonwalk. I glanced back the way I had come to see my friends being scattered amidst the trees themselves, the attack having come too fast for any of them to react. Even Reff, who was the furthest along of any of us had not had chance to don his armour.

Electricity still arcing around me, I surged back to where we had been gathered, glancing around to find the source of the attack. Knowing the attack had come from behind me, I focused in that direction as I came to a stop where I had been, pushing Praxis through my Focus harder and feeling my perception of the world around me accelerate further.

Ahead of me, partially hidden between two rocks was the frog; it was about four feet tall a sat crouched, its skin and eyes a deep, light absorbing black that almost made it seem two-dimensional, if it was not for the vivid, neon purple-pink patterns flowing across its pebbly skin. We stared at each over for a moment before the glowing patterns flowed across its face, lending it definition and revealing an angry glare from the giant amphibian. I tensed to make a dash at the apparently angry psychedelic frog, but even as I began to bend my knees, it vanished.

Now, when I say vanished, I do not want you to get the wrong idea; I do not mean it was fast, there was no whump of displaced air, no snap or bang as it broke the sound barrier. There was no blur; one moment it sat glaring at me, and the next it was to my left, still glaring, but from somewhere else.

I just about had time to register that it had crouched slightly, as if absorbing momentum before I was once more sent flying though the air by another strangely vibrating blow to my chest. With a groan, I pushed harder on my Focus, hoping to catch some glimpse of movement; I was now pushing as hard as I ever had while maintaining control and the world seemed to crawl around me, even as I shot through it. My new perspective gave me plenty of time to watch a large tree pass within inches of my head and winced before reaching down to once more grasp the ground with my remaining hand, allowing me to divert my momentum and come to my feet.

By then I could hear my friends crashing through the jungle, and with lightning surging through me in a torrent, I ran back to help.

I arrived back again for the second time to see the frog vanish as Reff delivered a kick to space it had occupied. Sped up as I was, I noticed a fractional bunching of the beast’s legs just before it disappeared, and the same absorption of momentum when it re-appeared. The thing was moving, but it was like it was skipping the actual journey.

As it landed, a furious Darina jumped out of the trees with an attenuated yell, looking for all the world like she was going to headbutt it. I was well used to Darina’s ‘head first’ fighting style, but had thought some of the fights on our journey, as well as all the practice had mostly convinced her it was often a bad idea. It turned out that it was actually the jumping that was a bad idea in that instance, however, as the frog glanced up at her mid-yell and she was sent rocketing into the air.

I did not worry too much, while such an occurrence might be dangerous for many – like my near miss with the tree – Darina was pretty much certain to survive. It did provide me some benefit; as my friend was blasting off again, I noticed a slight clenching of the beast’s jaw, and I realised that this thing was hitting us with its tongue.

Somehow, this creature was not fast, or rather it was not just fast; something was at play here that was either allowing it to mess with cause and effect, or with space and time. And all at once, I wanted it. As it was, I was fast for my level; my body was naturally faster, my Focus leant me speed, my extended channels gave me an edge and my Instinctive Precognition allowed me to react to things that nobody at my level should be able to, but if could add whatever this thing’s power was on top of all that, I would be punching way above my weight.

With a savage grin on my face, I dashed in watching for the tell-tale signs of incipient action, even as Reff spun to attack once more. As I closed in, the neon patterns once more flowed across the frog’s face and I saw its eyes turn to look at my molten friend, and then to meet my own once more, even as its leg muscles twitched and it vanished. This time, I was ready.

You can tell a lot about a person’s intent by how they move, though a seasoned fighter will try to minimise those signs as they grow more skilled. But it is – almost - impossible to eliminate them entirely, it is just a matter of mechanics, and at the end of the day, this was a frog, not a seasoned fighter. As its muscles started to twitch – a sign I could only see in my heightened state – I guessed in which direction it was going and turned as it appeared there. In the split-second our gazes met once more, I pushed as hard as I could at the Praxis flowing through me and electricity sprung out of me like a dam had broken, in great torrents of violet-white light and this time, as I felt a blow land, it was hard but not hard enough to send me flying. This time, the tongue froze as screaming arcs of power shot through it and into the frog, even as my control slipped and I fell smoking to the earth.