“Foul fiend! I challenge you!” Bruno yelled, stomping as Suzaki’s ability healed me. I tried to keep pace with him, but the exhaustion kept my body from being up to the task. Tristan ignored Bruno—his Manifested Soul tore past Captain Atkin’s ribbon, wrapping around her wrist and yanking her forward. Another tendril wrapped around her torso—tearing into her and contracting.

The Viceroy stumbled away from the Lieutenant—taking slices with the sword made of ice but failing to connect. That pill enhanced his speed to a wild degree—he was lurching left and right in sudden jerks, narrowly avoiding the blade.

Bruno tried to smash into Tristan from behind—only for the bastard to slip aside. He barreled past and ran into the Viceroy, knocking them both over.

“Luca—you’re the key,” Kayson whispered. “Use your ability on Eve.”

I didn’t even question it, setting a palm on the shoulder of the small woman dashing forward to help. There was a deep flash of blue. A second later, her voice erupted, shuddering through the air in a poisonous sound wave. I would’ve fallen to the ground in Kayson didn’t catch me.

Tristan winced—even though he’d managed to slam his hands against his ears a split second before she screamed. But the sound attack caught his Lieutenant by surprise. He recoiled, barely a second away from touching the Viceroy.

Eve’s screech warbled—and hit an odd note—the Viceroy’s ice-sword suddenly burst. Shards burst like shrapnel and sliced up Tristan, his Soul, his Lieutenant, and, unfortunately, Bruno. Eve cut off the sound as she reached my shaking brother at the back of the pier. Her eyes darted as she started pulling my brother away from the fighting.

“Every time you use your ability—he makes that face, and then his eyes flash with light again. Your ability counters his.” Kayson said, spiders crawling across the pier as his fingers stretched out. The halo above my head shattered as the healing ended. “Use your ability on me, now.”

At his direction, I set a hand on him—this time, it flashed red. I winced with guilt.

It only took a couple of seconds to see the consequences of my actions. The spiders reached the fighting. My allies’ bodies shifted as Bruno struggled to his feet. Eve was pulling my brother along and tried to cut a wide path around Tristan.

One of the webs got caught in a gust of air wrapped around her legs. Eve tumbled over. Kayson began to yell a warning as a shadowy tendril shot forward.

He wasn’t quick enough.

The inky blackness stabbed right into Eve’s gut. She shuddered in a pile on the pier as the shadow pulled back. Alex fell on his ass and scrambled away, almost going off the side of the pier. Fuck! Why was my ability a dice roll every time!?

Worse, the Lieutenant took advantage of our shock and regained his footing. He saw a chance and booked it towards the undefended Eve, one hand stretched forward and a manic grin on his face. Bruno smashed into him from the side; a single flaming meaty paw crunched into the fuckers jaw. His neck jerked to the left, and he stumbled back. Despite whatever that drug was doing, nobody could take a punch like that and shrug it off.

Suzaki sprinted past us to Eve. Strands of the translucent web flickered and swayed in the air as Kayson adjusted his spiders. Then Tristan’s eye’s flashed yellow again. He glanced in my direction, face filled with pure hate.

Another tendril snapped out. This one shot past Captain Atkin’s ribbon, narrowly scraping by the defense to wrap around her throat. She struggled, but another tendril broke past her shattered guard and wrapped around her waist.

There was a snap.

Her neck stretched out unnaturally long, and then a sick wet tearing sound as her head came free from the body and subsequently flung into the ocean.

“Enough!” Tristan screamed and dug into his pocket. He withdrew another pill. I pushed past my exhaustion and horror of seeing my Captain’s head ripped off. My hand flashed between red and blue sparks as I reached toward Kayson, hoping it could prevent this somehow.

There wasn’t enough time.

Tristan tossed his head back; the pill slid down his throat.

What had been an oppressive, heavy air of spiritual pressure grew denser. It felt like I’d been tossed into a shallow grave and had dirt shoveled on me until my lungs couldn’t breathe air. Veins bulged on Tristan’s forehead—his eyes filled with that horrible yellow light. But unlike before, it stayed. His skin flushed red, and he screamed, a loud terrible noise that rivaled Eve’s ability.

Arcs of lightning cracked off of his body and tore into the ground as if he'd pissed off the very heavens. Even more horrifying, his Manifested Soul enlarged, its mass expanding at a rapid rate as its singular eye filled with the same yellow as Tristan.

“You. Will. Die.” Tristan launched across the pier, a single step carrying him the ten feet between us. I saw one of his Manifested Soul’s tendrils slam into Bruno—now the size of a tree trunk. My arms jumped into place as his fist sprang forward, but the blow never came. Instead, his other hand swung from the side and hit me in the lower right kidney; the force threw me across the pier.

He backhanded Kayson and sent him flying before leaping towards me. Heavenly lightning tore off him and burned the very air itself, leaving a distinct and horrible smell of acid and burnt wire. I groaned and called Fickle Fate again—blue sparks erupting from my palm a single second before a fist snapped towards my head. I jerked away just in time as his knuckles cracked into the concrete and left a crater where my skull had been.

Tristan growled and then slammed a knee into my ribs and snapped bone. Horrible pain.

But there wasn’t time to focus on that.

There wasn’t a way in hell I’d be able to take him alone. There’d never been. I’d been a stubborn fool, and this was the price I’d pay. I’d dragged this psycho past his breaking point.

I strained the limits of my Soul; I felt a convulsing pain and a snap inside me. A shock of red and blue sparks tore through the air as I Manifested three crows. Typically, it’d be ill-advised to push this hard. But I didn’t have the luxury of safety. If I didn’t make my move and cause something unpredictable to happen every second to keep him on his toes, I’d die.

They burst outward in a flutter of wings. Tristan caught one by the neck and spiked it into the pavement. There was a single pitiful caw, and a shock of pain as another Soul wound stabbed into me. Tristan paused and screamed. Then he hurled his fist toward me.

There was a web around it—Kayson managed to pull just hard enough to divert the blow and send Tristan’s fist into the concrete. He’d been so enraged trying to predict my ability and kill my crow that he failed to see the small flash of blue as I brushed my hand against myself again. It let me survive another second.

His skin turned a sickly dark red, those black veins bulging everywhere on his body as the pills ran rampant.

Tristan broke the web with a flick of his wrist, and I used my Fickle Fate on myself again. Another flash of blue. I’d bought another second of life. I used it to scramble away from another blow and put a couple of feet between us. Despite the constant use of Soul Ability, each time I activated Fickle Fate, it threw him off for a second or two. He couldn’t parse the information fast enough to act.

There was a vulnerable point in his armor.

But there wasn’t any way in hell I’d be able to beat him on my own, not how I was now.

For so long, I’d never forged fate but was shaped by it, a simple and willing participant to the winds of a Fickle Fate. This wasn’t a situation I could afford to leave to chance. The risk here wasn’t worth anything. If I failed, he’d end all of my friends, my brother, then go on to kill Immortals knew who else.

I couldn’t take a roll of the dice here. Couldn’t flip a card and hope for the best. The only way to make fate what I needed was to rely on the people that could bring about the future I wanted. One of my two remaining crows landed on Bruno’s shoulder; a bright blue spark appeared behind Tristan’s Soul’s overwhelming darkness.

My second crow dive-bombed Kayson, its talons crackling with blue energy as it plunged into my ally. I wasn’t done, but I trusted in them to use that little edge I’d been able to give. I pulled myself together, fighting past the pain, and cranked my hand back, slapping Tristan’s face and showering him in red sparks. Taking advantage and stunning him during the second he’d been trying to parse the future. In rapid succession, I’d changed fate three times. He howled with rage, blinded by the shifting tides of fate.

Kayson yanked at a web, whipping a spider through the air at Tristan. The wind caught the insect and carried it right around Tristan’s ankles. Even as the bastard shifted to retaliate from my slap, the web thickened and caused him to stumble. It gave me a half-second to slip out of striking range.

There was a mad cackle of laughter from the other side of his Manifested Soul; Bruno slammed his way past the mass of black, whole body lit like a bonfire. Tristan’s Soul turned to pursue. The crow on Bruno’s shoulder shot across the ground to Eve, causing another spark of blue followed by an ear-splitting shout as Eve’s ability went off.

The manifestation of Shadow paused, one of its trunks narrowly missing Bruno as the shout caused it to shutter. Tristan screamed. Suzaki reached Eve and got a halo above her head.

Every second brought another flash of blue or red as I stood toe-to-toe with Tristan, light on my feet and flowing through the air like water. I no longer felt the pain in my side; I barely felt anything. Like I was pulling my body like one would pull the strings of a puppet. I used my ability to augment my chances and know when to press an attack or retreat—operating on an instinctual level. While I couldn’t see how things would go, it’s like I felt the winds of fate weaving around our fight.

The critical part was to keep the future shifting, even as each use further strained my Soul.

I pushed past that. Fickle Fate no longer carried an element of randomness. Each use went how it needed to be, shifting the future one slight movement at a time, no longer drawn by the gamble. I didn’t want the risk or the seductive thrill. Those feelings could drown in the sea. Exhaustion and mental fatigue mounted as my very Soul radiated a deep pain.

I ducked a blow; my palm scrapped his fist and sparked red. I slammed a blow into his side, then beat a palm against my chest with a blue spark. A quick jump over a sweeping leg, followed by a side kick into his head, barely phased Tristan, but I saw the bruise it left.

A little longer. Just a bit more to give to follow the winds of fate to what I wanted.

It felt like glass ran in my veins. Lightening started to crack around me in the same way it did Tristan. Blue and red sparks lanced between muscles and caused them to spasm. I landed a weak blow to Tristan's side laced with red, then ducked another punch that would've cracked my skull open.

Longer. I wouldn't stop.

The wracking pain mounted, almost as crippling as a Heavenly Tribulation, as my body started to give out. I'd pulled too many of Fate's strings, and the consequences burst in me as fireworks of sweet pain. Sweat drenched my body as I pushed my crows to keep fluttering between my squad and grant small pockets of luck as I abused my ability in whatever way I could.

Bruno crashed into Tristan from behind, a behemoth of righteous flaming might. Fist after fist rained down, my crow lept from Kayson and hung on his back—shocking him with a bit of luck.

Even though my body screamed, I kept fighting, dooming Tristan with bad luck.

Me and Bruno twisted in sync. A force of pure guttural instinct spawned from the overabundance of our chaotic spars that the chronic brawler roped me into. I knew when Bruno would punch. I'd hit Tristan with a bit of Fickle Fate to prevent him from seeing how until it was too late. When put on an even fighting field, it turned out that his combat skills were lacking. He'd relied too heavily on his ability, and it showed. He failed to adapt to our twisting style. Even if my hits were long past hurting him, Bruno's weren't.

His inferno scorched the drugged-out Captain.

Tristan's skin morphed from red to purple. Vein etched and almost bursting, swollen with putrid black. His control slipped by the second, and he seemed to give in to the madness.

He fought like a wild animal.

This was our chance. Tristan wore more and more down with the accumulated damage. Bruno's blows had torn and ruined his clothes and skin, with strands of web and spider draping him. Tristan's movements slowed; his breath was heavy.

Bruno's intensity only burned brighter. I'd let my friend's energy carry me forward, A torch that would light the way and bring this show to a close.

A shadow fell over us. Tristan's Manifested Soul had stopped contributing to the fight. But it'd only grown larger. Even as his body fell apart, his Soul cackled with mad energy. Its yellow eye regarded us with otherworldly hate.

Then it surged forward in a tide of shadow, sending me flying as a tendril smacked Bruno into the ocean in a pillar of steam.

A ball of black encased Tristan as I tumbled away.