Finally coming to the edge of the jungle was a shock after spending more than month amongst the dense plant life. The endless blue of the sky stretched out ahead of us to the horizon, across the rolling expanse of the plains.

“Ye know what, I’ll tell ye all this, I f’one am not sorry t’see the back o’that place. Never sweated s’much n’m’entire life!”

“For once you’ve spoken without any nonsense slipping out, Lush. It’s my home, and part of me loves it, but it’s a distant love.”

Having spoken, Darina pulled a small bead from storage and slapped it against her chest and a tiny wave of mist rolled over her, sweeping away the accumulated grim; a moment later, she was joined by the rest of us as we luxuriated in the dryer air.

Of course, despite Cad’s words, he had not done a great deal of sweating since meeting us, at least during the day, when Reff was awake to keep us cool, but from what he had said, the jovial man had spent a great deal of time in the forest, years in fact. Time scales were fuzzy when immortality was on the table, and ‘recent’ could be anywhere from the last few weeks, to the last few decades.

“It’ll be nice to run again without having to worry so much about tripping face first into a nest of murder ants, or a razor blade tree.”

“With careful recall, I do not recall either of these things being present in the Sha Forest, Hunter.”

“I didn’t mean they were actually called those things, Reff. I mean... I never actually saw ants, but I saw what they did to things. No thank you. And I’m sure there at least one tree tried to gut me.”

“There are trees that will try to kill you, but I don’t think we encountered any. I think you’re just a little clumsy.”

“Thanks Darina. You always know what to say to make me feel better about myself. Anyway, I’m glad to see the sky again.”

“In mild confusion, the sky was visible through the canopy at times.”

“I mean... a lot of it, I guess, Riffa. It’s nice to see it stretching out like that.”

Gesturing at the broad blue, I looked to see if Riffa understood what I was saying and saw her nodding, a very slight smile on her face. I could not quite tell if she was perhaps learning from her brother and had been teasing me a little, or whether it was just that she too was glad because of the sight. Despite her competitive nature, Riffa was the quietest of the us, and as such, a little difficult to pin down at times.

The five of us began to walk, just enjoying the feeling of having free movement, of not having to watch for tripping hazards or any of the other myriad annoyances that came with spending time in any jungle, let alone one taken up a notch by magic.

After a few minutes of casual strolling, the wall of trees receded ever further into the background, there came a polite cough and I turned to see Cad had stopped, and was now a few feet behind us.

“Now, I know it might be a touch soon, but ye did say ye wouldn’t spar so long as the wildlife could lend me a hand. And as ye can see, we’re not a fair distance from yon trees.”

Cad’s voice was faintly smug, his tone saying he knew he was being cheeky, but knowing he was the best kind of right – technically right. I was about to answer, having hesitated for a split second to try and think of another excuse, when Darina came to my rescue, at least partially.

“Not so fast, Lush. I would like a rematch before you idiots face off again.”

“Sure, you go ahead Darina. It’s been a few days since I had a decent practice,” I had been avoiding sparring completely in effort not to tempt Cad, and while I had advanced my Path a little, I was kind of itching to get back to it. “Why don’t we have a bout?” This I directed at Reff and Riffa, both of whom nodded.

“Now wait a sec’ I want t’figh-”

“We can fight over here. You can fight Hunter after – now, go all out, no holding back.”

“But, ye don’ stand a chance, lass, I’m the best part o’an entire stage above ye!”

“Then it will be even more embarrassing when you can't beat me.”

Grinning I walked a short distance away and squared off against Reff as his molten armour slid smoothly across his body until he was covered head to foot in dull-glowing orange and black. He was not in his mega-form, as that required significantly more energy – Veritas – and the simple fact was that I had no answer to it yet, though I suspected Riffa was working on something.

The grassy earth vibrated faintly as Riffa’s puppets spread out, with two staying by her side to act as bodyguards.

With a flare of Instinctive Precognition, I felt an attack coming and Focusing without conscious thought, lightning sprang to life all around me and time slowed to a crawl as I half-turned to avoid a low lunge-punch from Reff, which narrowly missed my face. Despite the giant’s progression to Foundation stage, given his early mastery of it I was still just about faster than him, when using all my abilities in sync. I was significantly faster than Riffa now, but she negated some of that advantage by being in multiple places at the same time.

Pushing Praxis from my remaining fist, I lashed out and struck Reff’s shoulder while lifting my feet; I was not really trying to do any damage, but was rather using equal and opposite reaction to throw me away from his massive form.

Flung backwards by the force of my blow, I landed and with another flare of precognition I let my feet slide out behind me as I dropped onto my hand and kicked out, pushing to fling myself into a horizontal spin that bring me to my feet as the huge sand heel of one of Riffa’s puppets came down in an axe kick where I had been only a split second before. Focusing harder, my lightning howled and thickened to the size of my wrist and I dashed forward and between two approaching constructs, their sand flowing together to form a wall just an instant too late to stop me from escaping the circle they had been forming to contain me.

Safe for the barest of moments, I glanced around for Reff but could not see him; guessing he was either within the circle or on the other side of it, I turned my attention to Riffa, and had just begun to move in her direction when I found myself leaping backwards as a glowing ball of stone smashed into the ground where I had stood, sending burnt soil flying in all directions, even as Reff uncurled and emerged from the small crater with a series of low kicks just at the height of my head.

Quick-stepping and blocking the kicks I could not avoid, I backtracked while I looked for an opening and had just decided to simply attempt to disengage to steal his momentum when I once more found myself reacting instinctually as the world sped up fractionally and with a strange buzz, I lost control of my leg and was catapulted across the plains.

As I shot out over the ocean of grass, the wind almost as loud as my lightning in my ears, I caught site of what looked like a closed flower blossom of dark sand where I had been standing. It looked like the siblings had been planning for my speed, in the same way they planned how to deal with each other's strengths, and I theirs. It would have worked without question, if it was not for my non-cultivation-based abilities, which admittedly gave me a slightly unfair advantage, but when it came to survival, I was not sure anything could really be unfair.

I finally felt my shoulder touch the ground and I rolled with the momentum and threw myself to my feet to slide across the grass. My time compression blow had a short refractory period, so I would not have access to my time compression for the moment; seeing Reff turn towards me, I pulled hard on my Focus to make up the difference and ran out to meet him.

*

***

*

Rolling my shoulders, I walked back to where Cad and Darina were now sitting, one looking pleased and the other irritated.

“She beat you, didn’t she? It’s ok, she cheats.”

My own bout had been a lot of fun and it felt good to be loosened up again; nobody had really won, we all knew each other too well, and worked together against anybody who got the upper hand. But you do not have to win or lose to learn. Sometimes a stalemate is good, like a loss that takes long enough to correct your moves.

“She didn’ beat me, Sparky. Damned monster just refused to stay down, n’I couldn’ keep her there withou’ breakin’ her Void blasted neck.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t slow her down for long, I’ve seen her neck broken twice.” Turning to Darina, I gave her a thumbs-up, which she glared at; I gave a lot of thumbs up, for different things and she had no quite worked out the contextual uses yet.

“I’m surprised you could keep going with how drunk his breath gets you. Nice.”

The apprentice’s glare turned into a smug grin as she straightened her back.

“It seems the lass here’s developed somethin’ of a resistance to me breath.”

“Less of a resistance and more of an immunity.”

“That’s pretty impressive, I would have thought that if it’s a matter of Focus versus Focus, in direct opposition, the higher stage would have won.”

“Me Focus is f’breakin’ down ‘n’producin, it doesn’t follow the stuff inta’ye. The direct application o’er healin’ counters me breath neatly. Once she got used to it.”

“But you still have your Path, right? Manipulating fate or whatever?”

“Aye, and that’s fine f’takin’ the lass down, but she just gets right on up again. Blasted cheatin’, it is.”

“I do not cheat. It’s not my fault if you cannot keep up with my genius.” The last was said as she looked at the irritated Cad; I knew she was just poking at him, rather than actually being that arrogant. Luckily, Cad just waved her away, and I caught a trace of a smile under his frown.

“Well, I’m glad you two had fun. I’m going to go meditate on some things from my sparring match with Reff and Riffa. I can’t really test it without risking breaking something, but I think the area my Path covers has increased a little. I think I can compress is it a little to get more speed in general.”

“Wait, we two were s’posed to fight, Sparky! Ye promised!”

“I don’t think I promised, but either way, I really want to make sure I capture the feeling, so fighting is going to have to wait. Sorry Cad! Besides, don’t want you getting beat twice in a row, it can’t be good for your morale.”

“Ye don’t heal through a shattered kneecap, Sparky. I’d hammer ye like a nail if I didn’ hol’back.”

“Well, maybe we can find out later, or tomorrow. Next week maybe?”

“Next week?”

“We’ll see. Reff and Riffa are ready for you two, if you want to have another go. Nice work, Darina!”

Walking away I could feel Cad scowling at my back, though I knew there was nothing real in it or my precog would be going nuts. Even without it, I was pretty confident the grumpiness was just for show, he was too much the life of the party to let something so simple annoy him.

Once I was a far enough away that I was unlikely to be hit by any flung people, I sat cross-legged in the grass warmed by the sun, closed my eyes and sank inside myself. Shifting my mind’s eye to my second energy centre, I gazed intently at my Exemplar, the little lotus-posed neon frog that had kicked my ass.

Concentrating wholly on the amphibian, I ran Praxis through it and reached out with my senses, trying to find the edge between myself and the time compression effect and the world in turn. When I had tried to use my sword, it had been sheared an inch or two above the hilt, but whenever I had tried to actually feel it in the past, I had failed. But during my match with the risi siblings, I thought I had found a minor sense of it. A fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my mind’s eye.

Sitting there in the sun, the whole of me focused on the effort, I finally found the border of the effect, and I could feel why it had been so difficult. The edge was not in one place, but rather snapped about, shrinking and growing between moments

Latching onto that ever-moving line with my will, I attempted to pull it closer to my body, and by fractions of inches; I succeeded. Stopping short after an unknown amount of time later just shy of my clothing. Struggling to hold onto that distance, I opened my eyes and tried to see if there was any difference.

I watched as the wind rippled across the grass in slow motion, and thought there was.