The obsidian shackle around his foot had already pulled him too far off balance, he had to let it take him to the ground. Instead, he grabbed his chess pieces from his pocket-space. Still, he kept the pocket open as he was dragged through the snow, quickly filling the space.

Snowman and Snowdumped were waiting for Shackle to drag him over to them, which gave Ranvir time. Snowdumped’s power was easy to read, hard to understand. Ranvir got a surface-level sense of obsidian which meant he likely had a Concept, probably from Flesh rather than a second-stage. Shackle was an obsidian Dagger, and Snowman was an ice Veil, it appeared both of them were manipulators as Shackle didn’t generate further obisidian.

Ranvir threw the queen piece into Shackle’s eye, then quickly whipped the king towards Snowdumped’s face. He didn’t see the king hit, but felt the manacle around his leg go limp as he at least got close with the queen.

Ranvir got to his feet quickly, seeing Snowman run for him. He reopened his pocket-space, dumping the snow into his hand then threw the loose material at his enemy. Snowman paused smiling as he reached for it with his power. Ranvir threw a punch through the snow.

The black shackle around his ankle yanked him off balance, causing him to collide with Snowman instead. Luckily, Ranvir had been expecting an impact and managed to catch himself, even through interference around his leg. He swept a bit more snow into his pocket-space as he fought against Shackle’s attempt to trap him.

Ranvir couldn’t beat a Dagger’s power and it was starting to show as he was losing ground, the manacle hauling him off. Red was breaking into a full blossom within him, however. The creature was once more taking shape, not as clearly as it had during the riots, but close. It was reveling in the combat, Ranvir could feel it. He was enjoying it too.

A crunch of snow warned of the third member’s approach. Ranvir drew fully on his tether, hauling as much power into himself as he’d ever done. He could tell which foot his assailant was currently running on. He could tell that he was slightly favoring his left side, which signaled he’d likely been hit in the left eye by the king figure earlier.

Ranvir let Shackle pull him, spinning out of the way of Snowdumped. With Flesh of obsidian he was likely either tougher, stronger, or heavier, than Ranvir. Maybe even all three. Either way, he would be harder to fight than the other two.

On his approach, Ranvir tried to follow unseen guidance to shrink the space the left of his trapped ankle, however, it didn’t work properly his manipulation impacting Shackle’s Dagger. Instead, of allowing Ranvir to divert his foot by just enough to escape his enemy’s control, his expression snapped and the manacle ripped to the right.

Yelping, Ranvir was launched off his feet and thrown into a snow drift. He’d gotten enough distance from Snowman that he wasn’t in immediate danger of getting trapped in the drift, but he had to get out quickly.

He tried manipulating the space around the manacle on his foot, stretching the space to let his foot slip out. Again, he impacted the Dagger’s control of the obsidian. Ranvir pushed, straining for every inch of power as he stretched the space as far as he could go.

Something snapped.

Ranvir gasped in pain, his mind delving into his connection to the pocket-space. It traveled over every millimeter of the aperture, into all the crevices of the space, meticulously examined and imprinted each of the miniature braces Ranvir hadn’t even realized he’d put in. It examined the pocket-space in it’s whole, then suddenly he snapped back.

Ranvir slipped the manacle, just in time to roll his head away from Snowdumped’s fist. The ice behind him lurched up so Ranvir pinched it off, gathering it into a pocket-space. Snowman’s Veil tried to oppose him, but it crumbled before his own presence. Ranvir stepped further away, trapping Snowdumped feet in hardened space.

Ranvir noticed the obsidian manacle moving towards him again, so he briefly opened the connection to the space he’d just pinched off, letting the aperture open just before obsidian then shut immediately.

“What!” Shackle exclaimed as Ranvir stepped around the futile struggles of Snowdumped.

The creature fully realized like never before laughed in true joy. It wasn’t human in construction, only vaguely reminiscent. The tail and rear legs reminded Ranvir of a cat, though they were far too large, the front part had the general traits of a human, but the arms were too big, too long, and too hairy. The face as well was wrong, except in the roughest measures. The chest, bare of hair, displayed powerful muscles that were almost human.

Ranvir brought his attention back to his enemies, who’d begun talking to him again.

“Look man, we’re sorry, okay?” Snowdumped said still trapped by his feet a few meters from Ranvir. His physical presence was doing work on the hardened space, so Ranvir reinforced with an absent thought. “Can’t you just let us go?”

Ranvir looked to the others, who nodded in agreement, though it didn’t appear like they were going to leave without their friend.

He didn’t want to let him go. The idea caused the creature to howl in outrage, causing furious red fire to break out all through out Ranvir. He closed his fists, feeling them shaking as he held back from just attacking them.

He was starting to feel a little faint, “Give me your pins,” he said finally. His legs were quivering, he fought it down not wanting to display his over-expression to them. Though, he also didn’t want to get thrown into isolation for a week because these guys thought they could beat on some first-year for fun. But the teachers had shown themselves to be quite unbending on that point.

“Let’s not repeat this again, huh?” Ranvir said fiddling with the three new pins in his possession. He’d released Snowdumped and the trio was now watching him warily as they were leaving.

“Sorry,” Shackle said and they ran off.

“I should probably stop them,” Ayvir said over Ranvir’s shoulder causing the student to start in surprise.

“Where were you?” he asked once he’d recovered himself.

“Close by,” Ayvir replied. “Sometimes all you need in order to answer a question is to put it against the world.”

“Was that what was happening?” Ranvir asked. “Putting my situation up against the world?”

“In a way,” Ayvir looked intently at Ranvir, his tether-sense falling on the student like a crumbling ruin. “You’re definitely different… You should be shaking and so weak you need help to stand.”

Ranvir let out a long breath, he didn’t feel great to be honest. He felt extremely bloated, but all of him instead of being limited to just his stomach. If his legs were held up by much more than good wishes and luck, Ranvir would be surprised.

“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes…” Ayvir continued, “I doubt I would notice at all.”

“Really?” Ranvir asked. The pressure of the master’s tether-sense was starting to wear on him. It wasn’t malicious and Ranvir was strong enough at this point that he wouldn’t crumble under the touch of a master’s presence. Still, while Ayvir lacked malicious intent, his presence still completely squashed Ranvir’s own.

“And I honestly don’t know if you’re more exhausted from pitting your Discipline against two other students or if it’s from your breakthrough. Did you even intent for it to happen?”

Ranvir blinked heavy eye lids, once, twice. He had to force them open the second time. “No, I didn’t intent to… It just kind of happened.”

“Interesting, interesting,” Ayvir said wrapping an arm around Ranvir’s shoulders, “You look like you’re dying on your feet.”

Ranvir snorted, his eyes closing in the process. It took him two steps before he managed to get them open again. “I feel like it too.”

“Ha!” Ayvir laughed, “Did I feel something else happening back there, too?”

“What do you mean?”

“There was a pause of something, a small break between advancing and you returning to yourself.”

Ranvir had to trawl through his memory to figure out what Ayvir was talking about, “I think that was related to my pocket-space.”

Ayvir hummed to himself, “You really don’t like to things properly. Pre-stage and most first-stage tethered I’ve ever heard of advance through their tether-space. Only second-stages stepping into the ranks of master advance after embracing the pressure.”

Ranvir couldn’t muster up much more than a weak smile.

“Masters and you, that is. I guess you really are a master in your own right.”