He’d made it. Kaleb felt a tremendous sense of liberation. He had unconsciously internalised the pressure of getting out of Arbistrad, and now that it had happened, he could finally let go of it. The plan had worked, and he was free. He got up from his position on the door and made his way into the cabin, especially the small window that gave him a view out and down over the mists. He wasn’t afraid of heights, but the curve of the hull of the ship made him feel that he was already falling. He shivered and moved away from it.

“That was some nice trickery”

Kaleb almost choked himself as he spun around. The two men who’d been at the gangway. The two men who’d been part of the team that had first sprung him when he’d come to Arbistrad, they had somehow managed to get into his room. He hadn’t heard a thing.

“Yeah, it took us a moment to notice you were gone. Your friend must have decided to get busy”

How did they get past Essan? Kaleb was panicking, he knew, but there wasn’t any plan for this situation.

“And we’ll send our regards when we finish with you. They were pretty strong. But no one gets away with fucking with us.”

“Yeah, you tell him.”

“So then, now we’re gonna take you and we’re gonna have ourselves a little revenge.”

Kaleb hadn’t received any instruction from Erid about fighting. Or rather, the only thing he had been instructed on was to use other’s fields against themselves. But he really wasn’t sure if that would work here, in an enclosed space and with two assailants, both with full spikes. Yet something overrode Kaleb’s fear, and it was a blistering anger. These fucking morons wanted to take revenge after trying to steal his goddam organs! He knew anger would be a hindrance, and so he tempered it, focused it, and prepared himself. The two men were still grinning, stupidly, foolishly. Kaleb hastily put together a plan. One of them raised their arm. Kaleb pushed his crude sensory field out, and felt him building up a charge. Attractant, he thought. As the field expanded outward and gripped him in its pulsion, he expanded his own field, repelled off the wall behind him, pulling himself towards the man who had charged the field. The man was good, better than Kaleb had been, he prepared his field, and readied his fist. But just as the man switched to repulsion, and levelled his fist, he was greeted by Kaleb suddenly bouncing upward, having changed his trajectory. He could never use the same attack Erid had employed, trying to knock down one of these tank-like men, trained in the use of spikes would be futile. So he raised himself up to the ceiling, and landed on it with his hands, fumbling it slightly, as he simultaneously lashed out with a kick at the man, who’s repulsion now met with no resistance, and who stumbled forward slightly into the attack. Kaleb’s boot connected with the man’s field, and Kaleb felt a glancing pain up his leg, even though he’d channeled as much repulsion as he could into his leg.

The man lurched backwards, snarling.

Even in their brief altercation, Kaleb knew he was no match for these men. If the man himself hadn't changed his field generation, Kaleb would have smashed right into that fist, and likely been knocked unconscious before he could do anything. But Kaleb had to stay on the offensive, and do it quickly, if he wanted to avoid being simply overpowered.

The second man prepared a field. Repel… I think. So he was going to try and pin him to the walls. But Kaleb sensed an opportunity. He twisted as he fell, and extended his arms out before him as if he was going to catch himself with a field. The man prepared to deploy his field, and Kaleb pulled with all his might, on the attacker he had just kicked. His vision sparkled as he connected with the floor much more suddenly than anticipated – in response to the body of the man he’d kicked flying up into the air. This man was caught instead in the field that his friend was generating, and sent headlong into the far wall. There were shouts and yells. But Kaleb, barely conscious now, needed to stay on top. At the same time as pushing on the floor and driving himself up, he pushed on the legs of the man before him, which presently fell out behind him. The man was preparing a repelling field in order to carry himself further from the fray and take Kaleb by force, and he was nearly done, and continued to do so even as he grimaced at his change in orientation. Kaleb couldn’t let him finish. He pulled on the man’s head, at the same time as he pushed up off the floor, and he felt the incredible pressure of the man’s field pass through his fist, and then a horrible meaty crunch as his fist connected with the man’s nose. His fist hurt like hell, he may have broken a few bones – though it was no worse than his foot, or his elbows, or his whole body, really, so maybe he was okay.

The man writhed around, and his unfocused repel hit Kaleb as well as himself, and they both shot to opposite ends of the cabin. Kaleb hurriedly tried to push himself away from it, but he didn’t succeed entirely, and he hit the wall with a thud that he felt through the length of all his bones. He noticed that blood was dripping down from him. He couldn’t tell where from. He had to keep moving. The man who’d been thrown against the wall by his friend’s field was righted and now looking – far more carefully – at Kaleb. Kaleb didn’t have a strategy, nor did he have any more tricks. Or did he? Kaleb thought about the limited things that Erid had told him, about what they’d done, and the mistakes he’d made… and he began to form a pool of charge. Just one.

The man huffed and then extended his arm again, this time to repel Kaleb no doubt. Kaleb tried to right himself, but the man’s crushing overwhelming pulsion laid him flat against the floor, and then pulled him up and into the wall. Kaleb could feel that his breath was trapped. His heart even stuttered, he thought, as he was pressed up so tight. He could barely even see the man anymore through the dark flashes in his vision. Kaleb used what little field he could spare to push his arms up above his head, in a way that he hoped looked as if it were under the influence of the other man’s field, all the while continuing to charge the pool in his stomach. His body was now actively trying to reject the pool, and he felt it burning through him, up his spine, through every one of his organs. His flesh was, unlike those with spikes, not designed for this kind of active charge. He could pretend to hold a passive charge, but actually building one like this was tortuous. He felt he was doing his aggressors job for them, really.

The man approached him, and pulled a fist back, and charged another field. And in that moment, Kaleb pushed his hand off the wall with all of his pulsion, and felt his flesh being pulled horribly, but as it neared his assailant, who glared and began to release his punch, Kaleb let the entire pool of energy he had built out through his finger. His wrist snapped. He felt the bones break. The man’s eyes opened in shock as his field encountered another powerful pulsion, and he tried to redistribute his repulsion towards the influence, but he was too late. Even with all his automatic defenses and charged spikes, he was blown to the ground, unable to get his legs under him, he collapsed to the ground and his head was squeezed within the protective cocoon of his own defenses, between the pressure of Kaleb’s field and the floor. Kaleb dropped to the floor, gasping, his consciousness flagging, lancing pain driving itself up his arm, but he watched in pleasure, blood dripping down his face, as the man’s eyes rolled up into his head and he passed out.

But Kaleb had other issues. The second man was still up, and he saw, throught he haze, his eyes held murderous intent. Kaleb wondered if he had made a mistake. Even if he had taken out one of them, he had really taken himself out too. Maybe he should have waited for Essan to find him, or somehow called for help. It was too late for that now. He sensed again that awful feeling – that death was looming over him.

Then, out of nowhere, Kaleb thought he saw a long, thin, black shape exit the chest of the second man. The man seemed to see it too, because he looked down in surprise, and then shock as his mouth bubbled with red blood. Kaleb, for his part, felt a chill. He felt as if that black shape, so long and thin and sharp poking out of that growing red stain, he felt as if it were…an accusing finger, and it was pointed right at him.

He was saved any further terror by the welcoming arms of unconsciousness.