An angered lion can be calmed,

A famished shark can be baited,

And even a riled wolf might be cowed,

But a spurned little kitten? Oh gods, beware the kitten.

- Andanian Chronicles

The kitten circled the significantly larger predator cautiously, but Xerxes growled as he turned to face her. “No more playing around,” the emperor snarled, “I’ll grind your bones into dust and feed your flesh to the dogs!” His Talent surged as he closed the distance with blinding speed, and he reached out swiftly in an attempt to grab the veiled enchantress. But Mirror ducked gracefully and dug her claws into his sides before headbutting him in the chest. A thundering crack shook the plains as she connected with a force that shattered his defenses and snapped his ribs, and the larger lion stumbled back from the blow. The kitten exploited the opening and dashed forward to bite off a chunk of his flesh, before hopping just out of his reach yet again. Mirror chewed viciously on the scrap of meat in her dainty mouth and the emperor bled profusely as his wound refused to heal.

“Arrgh!” Xerxes yelled and slammed his fists into the ground. A large crater formed at the point of impact as the ground undulated and tilted violently, and the lion pounced with a roar as Mirror scrabbled to maintain her balance, while lashing out with his fist. The kitten dodged agilely and avoided a direct hit, even as she chanted to conjure a protective barrier, but the compressed air from the mighty lion’s blow surged through her defenses and snapped her head back with a forceful crack.

Mirror yelped with pain and slumped to the ground, and the lion leapt forward confidently to crush his victim. But the kitten channeled her power swiftly to her limbs and she snuck off to the side, even as she grabbed Xerxes by the arm and pivoted to use his momentum against him. The lion was hurled headfirst into the side of the crater’s wall and she immobilized him by skewering him through with a long white bone before clamping her jaws down on his thigh and chewing through with savage efficiency. Then she twisted to avoid his desperate wild kicks and scampered off to a safer distance.

The emperor gaped with disbelief as he bled from multiple wounds, “This is impossible!” He griped as he glared at the hissing kitten, “I’m supposed to be immortal, how are you even wounding me!?” The lion took up a defensive posture as he prepared to receive yet another attack. But the enchantress smiled as she circled patiently, and the harried emperor continued to bleed out from his wounds. “Rarr!” Xerxes cried out in frustration, and turned his back to dash towards Aryan and the chanting wolf.

“Big mistake,” Mirror’s gloated. Her breath misted against Xerxes’ jugular as she latched firmly on his shoulders and caught him in a stranglehold. His eyes widened with shock as she reinforced her biceps and forearm with her magic and clamped onto his carotid arteries like a vice. The gasping emperor propelled himself desperately into the air with a kick that split the land, but the kitten caught him like a recoiling elastic band and slammed him into the earthen fissure that he had created. Then she lifted the stunned beast by the arm and twirled him around swiftly before propelling him into the far hillside with a force that split the grassy mound in two.

A look of disbelief was etched on Xerxes’ face as he staggered to his feet and clutched at his torn bleeding neck, “Impossible! How are you keeping up with my speed and tossing me around when your power is only half of mine?” He whined with incredulity.

Mirror snickered, “You’re just really bad at using the Talent you already have. It’s almost a crime to have so much power, yet not have the slightest idea of how to use it properly. If you weren’t possessed by that irksome defensive tattoo, I would have bitten you all up by now!”

The lion roared with rage as he charged towards the veiled enchantress and lashed out with a blinding combination of kicks and punches, “I’ll kill you! I’ll smash you to pieces!”

But the kitten focused all her Talent into her petite feet and danced with incredible nimbleness to avoid each of his countless attacks. As the winded lion slowed and began panting for breath, she caught him by the arm as he lashed out clumsily and dragged him forward, while kicking his legs out from under him. The slender girl danced gracefully as she wrestled the mighty beast to the ground, twisted his arm behind him, and kneed him in the back. Then she gnawed ferociously on his exposed limb as the supine emperor was pinned down against his will.

The ground rumbled as Xerxes bucked wildly in a vain attempt to dislodge the tenacious enchantress. Then he took a deep breath and twisted his head around. “Rarr!” The combination of pain and desperation he experienced helped him pour out his Talent through his voice, and a massive shockwave smashed into the unprepared enchantress. The blast stunned Mirror and she tumbled from the beleaguered lion’s body, and Xerxes capitalized on her moment of weakness to twist around and slam his knee into her stomach. As the wounded enchantress fell, he grasped her by the arms and pinned her down with a thundering bang beneath him. “Got you now!” Xerxes gloated.

Mirror gathered all her strength into her right leg and kneed Xerxes brutally between his legs. His eyes bulged with agony as he released her to clutch at his crushed privates, and she snatched him by his long golden mane before flipping him into the ground behind her. Then the kitten staggered upright and bit him viciously before scuttling away, even as the emperor rose in hot furious pursuit. But the vast majority of his powerful attacks failed to connect, and the blood pouring from his bite wounds traced the battlefield with an increasingly complex pattern as the deadly high stakes game of cat and kitten intensified.

…

The archmages were less than five hundred meters from their intended target when the ground collapsed and plunged them into an underground basin filled with twisting poison ivy. The veterans reacted swiftly to the ambush and chanted a variety of spells to counteract the hostile magic. Methuselah bathed his body with a flaming arrow and sped forward with unabated speed as his spell scorched through the plants in his way. Two of the lesser archmages levitated as they swatted desperately at the vines reaching out for them, while the remaining pair froze the creepers closest to themselves before darting sideways in opposing directions in an attempt to circumvent the quagmire of toxic plants.

“A reality marble!” An archmage cursed as he quickly realized that he was trapped in an illusionary alternate dimension, and he glanced warily around the endless twisting forest of vines as he finally realized that he had been isolated from his other colleagues. He fired a powerful magical flare into the air to signal his location and quickly spotted a responding signal. Then he drew deeply on his blood gem and shoved his way forcefully through the dense greenery as he made haste to regroup with his comrade.

“Methuselah!” The archmage breathed a sigh of relief as he finally spotted the familiar cloaked figure, mediating calmly at the center of a scorched clearing. The man stepped forward, “We have to find the others… and…” his eyes widened with caution as he finally realized that the figure was simply a carefully arranged vegetative figurine. But the ambushing weasel’s spell tore into the archmage’s chest before he could reinforce his defenses. The Saadian caster opened his mouth to shout out a final warning to his colleagues, but the fungal spores proliferating through his flesh consumed his soul before he could scream.

“One down, four to go,” the weasel’s teeth glinted in the shadows between the waving ivy as he smiled silently, before launching yet another flare to bait the nearest remaining rat.

…

“There’s something hunting us out there,” Methuselah muttered darkly as he finally managed to regroup with one of his colleagues, “the number of Talent auras in this space has decreased by three.”

“But how did they manage to create such a large section of alternate reality? We should have sensed something at least, if they had that much raw ability!”

Methuselah shrugged as he surrounded himself within a strong defensive barrier and razed the plants around them with a hurried incantation, “Perhaps they used a magical tool of some kind, or utilized a spell to mask their presence. Don’t let your guard down, whoever our enemy is, he probably already got to several of the others.”

Just then, a bloodied cloaked figure staggered out from the mass of twisting vines, “Watch out Methuselah!” the wounded man cried out, “He’s the weasel!”

“Stop panicking, forty-nine & seventy-five.” the Mage General snapped at both of his tense colleagues who were just about to rain a devastating attack at each other, “neither of you are the enemy, don’t fall for their ruse.”

“But he attacked me!” Seventy-five accused the archmage standing next to Methuselah, “His Talent signature is exactly the same…”

“Stop overreacting,” Methuselah replied calmly, “get over here. This dimension is just like an inferior copy of the Andanian labyrinth. The perpetrator must only be slightly more powerful than one of us, since he has only engaged us individually and attempts to exploit our suspicions. He must have hidden somewhere nearby to ambush us as we fight among ourselves. You have almost exhausted all your energy, we will defend you while you contact the princess and seek an exit.”

“How do I know it’s not just another trap,” seventy-five panted weakly as he clutched at the final dregs of his blood gem.

“You are going into shock.” The Mage General explained reasonably, “Study the difference in the power we still have compared to your remaining stamina. If there’s really no one left besides us, there would be no reason for deception if you were our enemy.”

The wounded archmage took a deep calming breath before scurrying under the overlapping defenses of his colleagues. Then he sank down to the ground and let his defensive magic splutter out as he began tracing a communication circle in the ground before him. The message spell crackled to life as a precious drop of blood from his almost empty crystal splashed into its center, “Honored princess,” he requested hoarsely, “please respond!”

The sound of heavy static crackled from the magic circle as the surviving archmages gulped worriedly, then a girl’s concerned gasp hustled through the noise and the channel quickly stabilized. “Methuselah?” Lily’s anxious voice responded, “The lot of you disappeared suddenly from the battlefield, along with a single Vaishyan diviner, have you managed to defeat him yet? The wolf’s higher spell is almost ready!”

“We ran into a major problem,” the Mage General answered apologetically, “we are trapped in an alternate pocket dimension, similar to the shield of Andania. Can you help break us out?”

The Andanian witch closed her eyes and concentrated, “Oh that’s simple. Just tag that diviner’s body with any spell and the dimension you are in will collapse automatically. He’s listening in to our conversation, fire some offensive magic at your five o’clock, thirty-two meters from your position.”

Archdiviner Zinnridi gulped in surprise as he rose up from his position, even as the three archmages launched a trio of powerful spells toward his general direction. Then the weasel’s eyes widened in horror as he ferreted instinctively to his left and realized belatedly that the spells were aimed for the exact spot that he had fled to. “How did that sorceress even predict the direction I would try to escape in?” he gasped in pain as his defenses crumbled and the Saadian spells smashed him into the dirt. And the four survivors were dumped unceremoniously back onto the blasted battlefield.

“Bloody rats!” Zinnridi swore as he staggered back on his feet and patched the worst of his wounds with blood magic.

Methuselah’s eyes narrowed as he sized up their opponent quickly, “Deal with him, I’ll complete our objective alone,” he commanded hurriedly. Then the Mage General’s Talent quadrupled as he drained his blood gem and raced off in a black blur of magic. The two remaining archmages drew on their final reserves of energy as they advanced cautiously to flank their opponent from opposing sides.

The archdiviner begin to pursue the lone escapee, but he quickly realized the rat general’s objective. And the weasel smiled as he ceased his pursuit and turned to face his remaining exhausted opponents, “Well, what are you waiting for? Shall I demonstrate the vast superiority of Vaishyan magic?” he beckoned mockingly as a sea of withered vines surged from his arms and slammed into their battered defenses.