“Not to rush you, but we might be on a bit of a timer,” Jalen drawled, spinning the Solstice key on his finger like it was a very tiny basketball. “I get the feeling that Vivian is going to be a little bit displeased with us after all is said and done. Might want to get moving.”
“I am working on it,” Noah hissed through clenched teeth. “If I’d had a bit more forewarning that we were planning on robbing Aqua Terra, then I would have perhaps prepared a few things a little further in advance.”
“I was waiting for the right opportunity,” Yoru said from where she sat on the table beside them.
They — along with Brayden, Lee, and Fist — were back in the room that Noah had been watching the tournament from. Why they’d chosen to return to the one spot that Vivian would immediately first come looking for them was beyond Noah.But Yoru had been quite insistent that this was the optimal location to continue from.
“What exactly did you all do?” Fist asked, her eyes narrow. “Because I really feel like—”
“You should be quiet,” Jalen informed her. “If Spider makes a mistake right now, he might accidentally cut you in half.”
“What?” Noah asked. “No, I don’t think—”
“No, no. You never know.” Jalen patted Noah on the shoulder. “You really should speed up, though. How long can it possibly take to do your little teleporty shit and just snag everyone?”
“A very long time!” Noah snapped. “Why do you think I was doing the whole tournament in the first place? It was so everyone could find me! Not the opposite! Aqua Terra’s magic interferes with senses, and mine aren’t anywhere near powerful enough to cover every single one of the arenas around here. This place is huge!”
A distant rumble echoed from the crowd overhead. Noah’s gaze involuntarily flicked out the window. The sun hadn’t even had a chance to start rising over the horizon yet. That hadn’t stopped anyone. The crowd had already gathered for today’s fights, and it seemed they’d gotten started up.
They were far more riled up today than they had been the previous one.
“What the hell is going on out there?” Noah asked. “Is—”
“They got a message from Vivian,” Yoru said simply. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. But we don’t really have time. Jalen is right. Speeding up would be optimal. All you have to do is locate people you’re very familiar with. I’m certain you can pull it off.”
“Is your future-sight telling you that?” Noah asked.
“No,” Yoru replied. “I’m not using it right now. We’re up against another person that can influence the future. Someone who might be more powerful than me.”
“Wait, what?” Jalen asked. “You didn’t mention this.”
“There are other future-seers?” Lee asked. She frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“What happens when two different people see the future?” Brayden asked, his brow furrowing. “Is it different for each of them? The future isn’t some definite thing. So do they see something different? And if they do, how does that even work? Doesn’t that mean your powers just don’t work?”
“Nobody can see the future,” Yoru said with a shake of her head. “All they can do is see a version of it and some variation of an understanding as to how to try and bring it around. I don’t think even a god could completely choose a future. They can just influence things to try and make it come about.”
“So there’s basically no difference between someone who can see the future and someone with a really big hammer threatening to smack you if you don’t do what they say?” Lee asked, scratching her nose. “That makes your magic a lot less cool.”
“That is a crude but not entirely incorrect deduction,” Yoru said. “And there is someone with a bigger hammer than me. Thus, I had to resort to different strategies.”
“Threatening someone with a lot of smaller hammers?” Lee asked.
“Not exactly,” Yoru replied. “But not a bad idea either. The good thing with the future is it is a very vast thing. Nobody can measure every aspect of it. The key is moving the pieces that your opponents aren’t watching.”
“Kind of like eating the pieces of a board game,” Lee said with a knowing nod. “That makes sense.”
“Wait, what? I knew you were—” Noah caught himself. He’d gotten distracted by their conversation. “Could you all stop for a moment? I’m trying to concentrate! You realize I’ve never done this before and we’re on a bit of a tight timeline, do you not?”
“Sorry,” Jalen said. He coughed into his fist. “Well. Get on with it.”
“That doesn’t help,” Noah said through clenched teeth. He reached deep within himself for his magic again. What he’d been asked to do was nothing short of ludicrous. Yoru wanted him to somehow just figure out where all of his students were so Jalen could go pick them up and bring them here. Nobody else had a way to penetrate Aqua Terra’s anti-domain field… but his senses were nowhere strong enough to cover the entirety of the huge arenas that the tournament was taking place in.
Still, Yoru seemed quite confident that he could do it. She didn’t even know anything about the Beyond. From the very brief conversation they’d had while Jalen had been taking them ambling through Vivian’s innermost vault to steal her key, she only had the vague understanding that Noah could somehow skip past the city’s defenses and nothing more.
You seem awful constipated.
Grim’s voice echoed through Noah’s thoughts with just enough of a condescending tone to be annoying.
I have a slightly daunting task that is difficult enough to pull off without someone being snarky in the back of my head.
Have you considered asking for help?
Noah paused for a moment.
What? You can do something to help?
If all you need to do is follow the traces of Arbalest that mark your friends… it’s doable. I’ll need your ability to slice through this miasmic aura ruining Aqua Terra’s air. But if you use it when I tell you to and with enough power, I should be able to roughly identify the positions of your people. You and Jalen can go pick them up. Just know that Vivian is going to be very much aware of it. We won’t have long.
Noah’s eye twitched slightly.
Couldn’t you have told me that you could do this earlier?
It is not simple. And it will spend a great deal of my reserves. I am in no rush to waste my power like this. But the situation is difficult enough that I suspect Yoru has already accounted for my assistance.
Noah snuck a glance at Yoru, but her mask made it impossible to tell what she was thinking. His lips thinned slightly. There was a pretty good chance that Grim was right.
Fine. Do it. We can’t risk it. I won’t put anyone in danger. Our hands have already been played. If you can find them, do it.
Grim dropped from Noah’s back. The large book hit the floor behind him with a heavy thud, then flopped open to a blank page. Ink bloomed across the parchment. It swirled into patterns, forming faster than Noah’s eyes could track. A dull buzz filled the room. Jalen’s eyebrows crept up his forehead while Brayden and Fist both backed up.
“Whoa,” Lee said, staring at Grim as her tongue ran along her lips. “That’s a lot of magic.”
She wasn’t wrong. Noah’s skin prickled. Power pumped into the air so fast that Aqua Terra’s defenses weren’t enough to keep it completely suppressed. He could actually feel the magical power in the air around him.
Holy shit. How much power—
Get ready. You will not have a second chance. I will identify their locations. You and Jalen will grab them quickly. Then you must take us from here. Vivian’s patience with us will most certainly be spent after this. Do not hold back. Whatever you think we need, we will need more.
Noah sighed, reaching for the Beyond and gathering as much as he dared. He did seem to have a very bad habit of pissing off godlike beings. At least he knew that Renewal’s favorite fruit was peaches. Maybe that extended to Vivian as well.
I’ll be ready. Just don’t forget that Vivian knows where we’re going. We can’t make her too mad.
“Back up,” Noah warned, somewhat pointlessly. Everyone had already pressed themselves to the wall.
Inky magic spilled out from Grim’s pages, swirling up around Noah like the fingers of a giant’s hand preparing to clench around him. A malevolent presence emanated from within the power with enough intensity to make his stomach clench. There was something deeply, deeply wrong with—
Now!
Noah released the beyond.
It arced through the air silently, frozen white lightning digging its claws into reality’s flesh in a web in every direction around him for several feet.
Information came rushing back into Noah’s mind as Aqua Terra’s defenses were stripped bare.
The inky fingers swirling around Noah slammed shut.
Noah stiffened in surprise, but before he could react further, a rush of freezing cold power poured into his mind.
His vision went dark.
Something coiled deep through his soul, winding up from the depths up until it felt like it was about to burst free from his lips.
Then the darkness was gone.
Grim’s inky form peeled away from Noah’s back, his warped, stitched-together body rising to loom over him.
“I have them,” Grim hissed. “Jalen. Come. Our timer has begun. We have a minute. No more.”
Jalen strode forward without a word.
Grim’s hand shot out. A tendril lifted from Grim’s body and drove into Jalen’s skin. The man’s eyes widened. A flash of darkness passed through their whites. Then it was gone.
“Holy shit,” Jalen breathed. “I can sense—”
“Go!” Yoru ordered as she hurried over to join them. “Start with the one closest to us! I’ll come with you for the first one. Just pick me up when it’s done.”
There was no time to ask what Yoru was talking about. Jalen had already snapped his fingers, and a swirling green portal had twisted open before all of them.
“We’ll be back!” Noah said, grabbing Grim’s book off the ground and sprinting into the swirling disk of magical energy alongside Yoru and Jalen.
The world vanished for an instant.
Then it returned, and Noah found himself skidding to a stop on the sandy floor of the arena. Two stunned mages stood just a few feet from him, staring in disbelief.
Noah didn’t recognize the first mage — but certainly did the second.
“Spider? Jalen? Yoru?” Alexandra asked, her sword lowering slightly as shock warred across her features. “Is that you?”
“Hullo!” Jalen said cheerfully, striding right up to Alexandra and putting a hand on her shoulder. “This is a kidnapping. Thank you for your compliance!”
Then he swept her leg out from under her and sent the girl hurtling into the buzzing portal behind him. Alexandra vanished into it with little more than a startled curse.
“What the fuck?” the other mage asked.
“Cheers,” Jalen replied. He nodded to Noah. “On we go. Chop chop!”
“I’ll wait here,” Yoru said, looking up to the crowd. “There’s something that must be done. Get the others. Don’t forget me at the end.”
Noah didn’t waste time with questions. Yoru knew what she was doing. He just strode back into the portal, and Jalen was right at his heels.
Then the two of them were gone.
Yoru stood alone in the arena with the baffled mage across from here.
“What—” he started.
Yoru raised a glowing blue hand.
“Hush,” she said.
A beam of brilliant moonlight crashed down from the sky. It slammed the mage to his face in the sand, driving the air from his lungs and crushing his sentence into a muffled wheeze.
Yoru cast her gaze up to Baun and the crowds around him. They all looked just as shocked as the mage at her feet.
She lifted her hands. Coils of blue light lifted her gently into the air.
“I must apologize for the disruption,” Yoru called, her voice echoing through the arena like thunder. “We will endeavor to minimize the duration of our interuption.”
“Gods,” Baun whispered, forgetting that his voice was still getting broadcast to the entire crowd. “Spider’s people? The vision displayed in the arenas was real?”
“In the meantime,” Yoru continued, ignoring Baun and rising into the air while the waves of power emanating from her grew stronger, “Lord Spider would like me to pass along a message to all of you. He’s not much a fan of vying for anyone’s attention. But you’ve heard the tales of his passing. If you want to be a part of the next legend… anyone who is powerful enough to find the location of his faction welcome to join it. There’s only a single caveat.”
“Hold on,” Baun called as he finally shook his surprise off. Anger cut through his tone. “Who do you think you are? You can’t just—”
But it was far too late to stop Yoru now.
“You cannot be a member of any other Faction,” Yoru finished. “We don’t care who you are… but if you want to earn tutelage from Spider, then find us under your own power.”