They came at each other before either of them had fully decided to, the fight picking up where the gas station had left it — fast, technical, both of them reading the other's patterns and adjusting.
Scarlett fought with two swords and the particular economy of someone who had been doing this long enough that nothing was wasted. Her style was precise where his was instinctive, formal where his was integrated, and she was better than him and they both knew it. He pushed anyway, because knowing someone was better than you and deciding not to fight them were different things.
"Your sword artistry is good for your age," she said, in between exchanges. "Unrefined, but the integration is there. You've already merged it with your ability."
"I've had a good teacher," said Levi.
"Whoever they are, they did well." She pressed the attack, a sequence that drove him back three steps. "The telestride entries are becoming predictable, though. You favour the rear approach."
He changed the approach on the next exchange. She read it anyway.
He was on the defensive and getting more so, the gap between their levels widening with each sequence, and he was running his options when she did something unexpected — she stepped back and stopped.
"Let me explain something," she said.
—
She told him about the blood.
Her ability: creation and manipulation of blood. Not other people's — not yet, that required a different level of synthesis — but her own, and any blood she consumed. The synthesis process: consuming another person's blood allowed her to integrate their Flux into her own, temporarily accessing their ability.
"A lick of your blood was enough for the speed factor," she said. "Not enough for the full ability. For that I'd need a blood bag — which I have." She looked at him with the particular expression of someone who found their own work interesting. "I haven't used it yet. I wanted to see how far you'd get without me having to."
Levi processed this. "That's why you licked the blade."
"Yes."
"That's genuinely unsettling."
"I know." She didn't seem bothered by this assessment.
He understood, now, why she'd been matching his speed — not with her own speed but with his, borrowed through three seconds of contact with his blood. He understood why she'd been so patient in the fight, letting him spend his options while she conserved hers.
He activated his 3rd Form.
"Absolute Current," he said.
The azure arrived — continuous discharge, the world going precise, the full ceiling of what he currently was. Scarlett watched the transformation with the attention of a professional seeing something new and categorising it.
"You've been holding that back," she said.
"I was seeing how far I'd get without it."
She laughed — briefly, genuine. "Fair enough. Then let's make this interesting."
"Sword Artistry: Wildly Ecstatic Style," said Levi, and moved.
✦ ✦ ✦
Twenty metres away, Sylvia was having a different problem.
Jack's boom box produced sonic waves — directional, concentrated, deployable at range — and range was exactly what Sylvia's fighting style didn't want to deal with. Every time she closed distance he hit her with a wave that pushed her back and rang her skull like a bell. The ringing accumulated. By the third hit she was fighting through a constant high-pitched tone that made it hard to track anything to her left.
She hit the ground and stayed there for a moment, running an honest inventory. Her ears were bad. Her depth perception was off. She was in her 2nd form and he was in his 3rd, and every time she tried to get inside his range he had the speed to prevent it.
She activated her 3rd form.
The fire expanded — the amber skin, the hair fully combusted, the heat output climbing to the level that made the air above her shimmer. Jack felt it and smiled.
"Now we're cooking, lassie," he said. "Let's see what you've got."
He sent a sonic wave. She was already moving.
"Rocket Thruster: Rapid Throttle."
The thrusters gave her the speed she'd been developing for weeks — the specific speed that she'd pushed until it matched Levi's, the product of two months of training that had been specifically designed for exactly this kind of situation. She was inside his range before the wave had finished forming.
The fiery fist connected with his jaw. The daze that followed was real — she saw it in his eyes, the brief gap between receiving the impact and processing it — and she moved into it. Gut, chin, and then:
"Blazing Fist."
All the fire power concentrated into her right hand and she hooked him with it, the impact carrying enough heat that it scorched on contact. Jack went into the slope and stayed there.
She caught her breath. Watched him.
He was conscious. Badly damaged — half his face bruised and scorched, the slope behind him with a Jack-shaped impression in it — but conscious, and the smile that came back onto his face had an edge to it that it hadn't had before.
"I underestimated you, lassie," he said. "By the code of the Bounty Syndicate, that's an error I don't make twice."
"3rd Form: Sonic Psychosis."
He transformed — the sonic ability amplifying to a frequency that Sylvia felt in her back teeth, the air around him carrying a quality that wasn't sound exactly but was the condition that preceded sound — and before she had fully registered that he'd moved, he was behind her.
"More strength than me," he said, from immediately behind her. "But I have more speed. And strength is useless if it can't reach its target."
He fired a wave directly into her back before she could turn.
She took it. Flew forward. Got the Rocket Thruster running before she hit the ground and converted the forward momentum into a mid-air recovery, spinning to face him.
He was right about the speed differential. She'd closed it with the thrusters, but not eliminated it — he still had the edge and he knew exactly how to use it. She needed to change the equation.
"Rocket Thruster: Rapider Throttle."
She pushed the thrusters past their usual output — more fuel, more thrust, the same principle as the Absolute Current's relationship to the 3rd form's ceiling. More risk, more speed. She came at him and he moved and she was there, matching him, the speed gap closed enough that her attacks started landing and his started missing.
They traded. His sonic bursts, her fiery fists. He extinguished her fire with concentrated supersonic waves from his hands, which she hadn't seen before and had to adjust to. She adjusted. He adjusted to her adjustment. The fight compressed into a narrow technical register where both of them were operating at their ceiling.
Then he caught her cheek with his fist and detonated a supersonic burst on contact.
The pain was immediate and total — her eardrums, already stressed by the earlier hits, gave out under the direct burst. The world went muffled and wrong, the ringing replaced by a cotton-wool absence that was somehow worse. She hit the ground and this time didn't get up immediately.
She could feel him approaching. She couldn't hear him.
She enhanced her sensory magic to compensate — spatial awareness running through her skin, tracking heat signatures and vibration. She could feel his footsteps. She could feel the air displacement as he raised the boom box.
She focused everything into what came next.
He stood over her. "That was a good fight, lassie," he said, though she couldn't hear it. "Best I've had in a while."
He let his guard down.
"Solar Flare," said Sylvia.
The detonation was total — a full-body eruption of scorching flame expanding outward in every direction, the kind of attack that didn't distinguish between a target in front of you and a target standing over you. Jack survived it by throwing his full sonic output as a defensive shell, the supersonic wave and the fire colliding in a shockwave that levelled the grass for thirty metres. He took third-degree burns on everything the wave hadn't covered in time.
He ran for the smoke.
She came out of it after him.
"Blazing Breath: Scorching Dragon."
The fire left her lungs in the shape of a dragon — the form holding for three seconds, long enough to track him through the smoke, long enough to pin him against the slope with everything she had left.
When the smoke cleared, Jack was down.
Sylvia stood in the aftermath and breathed, her ears a distant ringing memory, and turned to watch what was happening twenty metres away.
✦ ✦ ✦
Inside the wrecked car, Zarraz came back to consciousness by degrees.
He was upside down. The car was on its roof. Outside, the sounds of an ongoing fight were audible through the broken windows. He assessed himself — broken arm still broken, ribs still fractured, head impact from the crash adding to the concussion that hadn't fully cleared. He was operational but not by much.
He unbuckled his belt, dropped to the roof, and looked out the window. Levi and Sylvia were in their forms, fighting two people, the fight already advanced enough that significant damage had been exchanged on both sides.
He looked at the ambassador.
The ambassador was still in his seat, hanging upside down, not moving. Zarraz got to him and pressed two fingers to his neck.
The pulse was there. Faint, irregular, the pulse of someone whose body had been managing a sustained crisis for three days and was running low on reserves. Alive, but the margin was narrowing.
"Damnit," Zarraz said quietly.
He looked at the border. Looked at Levi and Sylvia. Made the calculation.
Priscilla was in the other seat, still hanging, eyes closed, breathing evenly. He reached for her shoulder.
"Who dares disturb my slumber," she said, in a voice two registers lower than her normal one.
Zarraz stopped.
Priscilla's telekinesis deposited him outside the car without apparent effort or intention and went back to sleep.
Zarraz stood in the grass beside the wrecked car and looked at the sky for a moment. Then he went back in.
"Wake up," he said, and slapped her.
Priscilla woke up genuinely this time — eyes open, alert within two seconds, the particular transition of someone whose resting state was already more aware than most people's active state. She was not pleased about the slap. She understood, reading the situation through the broken windows and Zarraz's expression, that the slap had been necessary.
"The ambassador needs to get to the border now," Zarraz said. "His pulse is weak. I can't fight. You need to fly us there."
Priscilla looked at Levi and Sylvia, still engaged. "And them?"
"You drop us at the border and come back if they need it. The priority is the ambassador."
She didn't argue. She focused her energy, reached for the ambassador and Zarraz with her telekinesis — felt their weight, established the connection — and lifted.
They came up through the broken window. She looked at Levi once — he was in the middle of a telestride sequence, too fast to catch her eye — and turned toward the border.
"I'll be back," she said, to no one who could hear her.
She flew.