Sechen’s fist collided with Runfree’s bicep, and it crumpled. Whatever they had in place of bone shattered like glass, shards of a clear substance that exploded out of the other side in a rain of thick aqua liquid. Runfree lept back in surprise with a yelp of pain, looking down at their arm then up to Sechen as if just noticing that she existed. Sechen cracked her knuckle and put another halo on Paui, feeling her empowerment shoot up to one hundred percent. She frowned and took away two haloes, watching Paui’s empowerment dip to seventy percent. One-third of the Issi cost for seventy percent efficiency. If she had any more techniques, that would be a world shattering revelation.

She tucked that thought away for later, re-making Paui’s two halos and setting her on her feet. “Can you move your arm?”

“Mmhm.” Paui grunted, her eyes trailing Runfree as they shook their arm out, regenerating all the damage Sechen had done. “Your Issi feels different than Runfree’s.”

“Well, yeah.” Sechen laughed. “Mine just makes whatever you could do stronger. It doesn’t give you a whole slew of new techniques to use.”

Paui rolled her arm. “And how does light Issi do that? Not fortification, empowerment, or strength, but light? How does that work?”

“I have no idea.” Sechen shrugged. “Revel’s never worked like this either, so I think it’s just me. Heads up, it looks like Runfree’s all recovered.”

Runfree picked the last shard of ‘bone’ from their arm as Issi swirled around them, three perfectly separate colours that never touched or mixed. They locked eyes with Sechen for a short moment, but focused on Paui immediately after. Whatever had happened with the system, it had made this Runfree hate her with a burning passion.

“I… nver… H… ace…” Runfree tried to speak, but was cut off by the trial’s difficulties. They raised an arm to Paui and gathered Issi on their fingertips, silvery green that bode extremely poorly for Sechen and Paui’s health.

Shockwaves rippled out from Runfree’s fingers, four points of danger that ripped through the air where Sechen had been standing moments ago. Paui dropped under the blasts and screamed, clamping her hands to her ears as the aftershocks did their damage. Milliseconds later Runfree was there, rearing back for a kick enhanced with yellow streaks of speed Issi that Sechen knew she couldn’t react to. All she could do was watch as Runfree crushed Paui’s ribs, her scream of pain alighting a fire in Sechen’s mind that spread to her headspace.

With a motion like trying to force the ground to rise, Sechen called a claw. But this time it wasn’t anything like the one she’d summoned fighting Hugil and Arvay. This one felt far weaker, but it’s presence was infinitely stronger. The golden filigree shimmered as it gouged its way into existence, the pillar of murky darkness rising as lines of dim light shot straight to the tip. Runfree’s head snapped to Sechen as they felt the surge of power, but she wasn’t the one they needed to be looking at.

Paui pushed herself up with a scream of pain and effort, throwing Runfree into the air with a surprised grunt. The claw glowed with power, etching onto the back of Paui’s neck what looked like a combination of bite and claw marks. The marks quickly filled with murky light as Sechen’s power welled into her, then tried to escape into the surrounding air. Sechen reached out to connect with her Issi, but felt a blockage between her and Paui. This wasn’t a simple, one-time technique. It almost felt like bonding, but the transfer of power wasn’t permanent. Sechen went to ask for permission, feeling Paui’s trust open like a floodgate.

Golden wires wove themselves into Paui’s flesh around the outside of the marks, hardening Sechen’s Issi into something that felt like gems under her prying touch. A solid connection formed between her mind and Paui’s, and Sechen felt something battering desperately against Paui’s mind. It felt something like Naught, but forgotten instead of unknown. She didn’t know what that distinction meant, but it felt right. And Naught had done so much for her. She was about to yell for Paui to open her mind to this outsider, but then she felt what the outsider was made up of. Speed and Fluidity Issi. Runfree’s Issi. But it wasn’t Runfree’s Issi.

“Tell her that I’m not here to hurt her.” The mass of Issi spoke, and Sechen recognized it as the voice that had congratulated Paui on completing her trial. “She completed my trial, but won’t accept her prize. She still has the usurper’s Issi inside her, and I can’t do anything until she lets go.” The voice paused to let its words sink in, hissing as Paui traded blows with Runfree. “Do you want me to plead? Is that what you want?” It demanded with desperation and frustration fighting for control of its voice. “You might think that I’m above that, and I might have been at one time, but centuries change a manifestation. Please. She needs my help. And if you leave her, the usurper will swoop in and bond her. I can feel them coming. We don’t have much time. Please.”

Sechen was stunned speechless for a few long moments trying to process what she’d just seen. She shook her head and felt Naught’s voice slide under her mind, telling her that this new presence wasn’t going to hurt Paui. Sechen bit her lip as Paui took two force Issi punches from Runfree, her shoulder and hip knocked painfully out of their sockets as she slammed to the ground.

“It won’t hurt you.” Sechen whispered.

Paui looked over at her, as if she could hear her perfectly, then to Runfree, then back to Sechen with a look that questioned her sanity.

Sechen laughed despite the danger, and Paui’s concern doubled. “Not Runfree, idiot. The one knocking on your headspace.”

The blood drained from Paui’s face, and her hand reached for the new mark on the back of her neck. She slowly nodded as Runfree towered over her, speaking in the broken words of the trial, and closed her eyes.

Runfree waited for a response for exactly seven breaths, then slammed his foot down once more on Paui’s arm. She didn’t react in the slightest, her arm snapping like a twig under Runfree’s full simulated power. Sechen cursed and bolted, worried she’d made a huge mistake, and ran straight into a concentrated mass of force Issi. Her halos gleamed as they tried their best to protect her, her feet cutting twin ruts into the ground as she was pushed back.

But she didn’t fall. Sechen let out a guttural cry to try and take any of Runfree’s attention away from Paui, pooling Issi in her legs to try and give her enough speed to compete with them. It was nowhere near enough. Runfree bent down and threw Paui over their shoulder in one swift fluidity Issi aided motion and repositioned far behind Sechen. She craned her neck over her shoulder and tried to turn, but all she had was pure power. Changing her momentum on a dime wasn’t in her very limited bag of tricks.

One hand wrapped around Paui’s neck, Runfree’s eyes locked on Sechen with a deadly warning. “No… urt… dea…” They said, an ultimatum that Sechen couldn’t understand. But she got the gist of it.

With her hands raised, Sechen stopped. Runfree smirked and took one step back, removing their hand from Paui’s neck. If only she was a little more powerful, she could have punished Runfree for that moment of cockiness. Instead, she just had to stand there as Runfree ripped up a handful of grass and tied Paui’s arms behind her back. Her feet followed after that, and Runfree finished by binding Paui’s knees together. They didn’t break eye contact with Sechen once during their work, and when they rose with Paui on their shoulder, Sechen had an idea.

“Go. I won’t chase you.” She called across the prairie. “I can’t fight you. But I will find you, and I will get Paui back.”

Runfree chuckled and turned their back to Sechen in an obvious half-agreement with her statement. They sprinted off in a burst of yellow Issi, completely oblivious to the fact that they were a product of an Issi construct so advanced Sechen couldn’t believe it existed. Sechen turned and saw the other side of the whitestone boundary slowly encroaching on her, and started running. She needed to buy Paui some time, and if running after someone so they didn’t realize they were in a simulation was how she could do it, then she’d sprint her ass off.

Nearly an hour later, Paui finally stirred. Runfree’s duplicate somehow hadn’t noticed that they were in a simulation, and Sechen’s legs were screaming at her to stop. Hells, they had been for forty minutes. But she wasn’t going to let Paui get… more hurt. Thana had either turned on them or was now completely locked out of a system she helped design, and neither option bode anything but poorly for Sechen’s chances.

Paui’s eyes burst open as Issi flooded her, a swirl of yellow and blue powders that danced together in perfect harmony. Runfree yelped and threw her off their shoulder and into the nearest tree, but Paui twisted in midair to land with her feet down on the trunk. She took a deep breath, looked down at her shattered arm, and suddenly slammed into Runfree’s stomach with one knee. Her Issi covered her knee, leaving a colourful crater on Runfree as she jumped back, then slammed a foot to the side of their head before they could fall to their knees.

Runfree’s head slammed to the dirt and rebounded painfully, the agony written on their face quickly replaced by the view of the back of Paui’s knee. Sechen heard the crunch and saw shards fly as Runfree was brought low, but Paui wasn’t finished. She broke their elbows and knees so they couldn’t move if they wanted to, her eyes rapidly moving from part to part and re-breaking anything that Runfree’s Issi tried to fix.

“Harsh.” Sechen panted as she caught up to Paui, leaning and planting her hands on her knees to try and catch her breath. “Any idea how we’re going to get out of here?”

Paui crushed Runfree’s hand as it skittered forward with a grunt of annoyance. “What? You’re not going to tell me this was too much? That I shouldn’t torture them even though I won?”

“Maybe if it was the real Runfree, but an Issi duplicate?” Sechen shook her head, stepping over Runfree’s body. With a flare of her halos, her foot sunk through their chest like warm butter. “Hells, maybe the real Runfree deserves this much. But all the people that would lose bonds if they died don’t. You included.”

“Mmhm. Yeah.” Paui nodded absentmindedly. “We need to go to the room Wix showed you before. Do you think Thana would take us there?”

Sechen shrugged. “Probably? Should I ask why, or is that something you don’t want to say out loud?”

“You do get me.” Paui chuckled, patting Sechen on the shoulder. “I don’t know if we can trust anyone here, Sechen. Not with what I just learned. It’s either we can trust everyone except Runfree, or we can’t trust anyone. At all. There’s no inbetween.”