Warm, trickling fear pours over my mind. This… person… doesn't feel like the psychic. All the magic warps and bends around him like light through water, refusing to even touch his form. I swallow hard and summon coins into my hand, each of them filled with the most powerful shields and projectiles that I can easily produce.

Shit, do I wish I'd worked harder on finding a way to cheat my new odds.

"Who the hell are you?" I demand, and luckily, my voice doesn't shake. "You're not the psychic."

He cocks his head to the side and grins. "So you can feel it. Wonderful. No, the psychic you reference is my ally–and no, before you ask, I will not be telling them to lower their magic. One's allies must be factored into their own strength, do you not agree?"

I glance back at the house. "If you aren't going to, at least–"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. If one's allies are part of their strength, then is it not also fair to say that they are part of one's weaknesses?" He motions with one hand at the house, the rest of his body remaining perfectly still. "Leave them to die if you don't want to be burdened with their existence. Otherwise, you have to fight with the knowledge of the burden that they are. Oh, but where are my manners; I know you, the painted dane, and that shell on your head–yet you must be so confused as to who I am."

He sweeps his arm low and bends his back in a bow, his eyes never once leaving mine. "I am Ashmaw, fourth kit of Rendclaw and Hollowfang. Though Stonestep Solutions has purchased my time, I hold them no loyalty beyond the hunts they provide me."

"Ashmaw? Kit?" I shift a step back, focusing on the sensation of my relocation spiraling into the distance. It's useless now that I know what the psychic will do once I leave. "Are you some kind of demon?"

"Demon? No, no–I am a proud Gris. If you survive, I would recommend looking into my people's history. It is quite interesting." His grin widens, nearly splitting his face in half as more smoke billows out. "But can you afford to waste precious seconds with this idle chatter? From where I stand, it seems that merely existing is taking quite the effort for you."

He knows. Hell if I know how, but he knows. Were all my assumptions wrong? Is the only reason the psychic didn't instantly murder all of us because this… cat-demon… wanted to fight me one-on-one?

I reach up and tap Pearl's shell. If I'm going to get out of this alive, I can't do it alone.

"Ah, finally taking me seriously. Thank you." Ashmaw says seriously. "I hate it when my prey rolls over and dies. It does so take the joy out of watching life bleed from their eyes."

Pearl shudders, glances at me, and sets her jaw. "Well, if they already know, then there's no point in hiding it. I can't feel the psychic anywhere near here–they're strong enough that they can outrange my awareness. Gasp definitely wasn't this powerful."

"You don't have to tell me that." I mutter under my breath. "Can you get a feel on whatever the hell this guy is?"

Ashmaw sighs. "As I told you, I am a Gris. Would you prefer I tell you my class as well? Though I must warn you–I will take something from you of equal value to that information."

I gulp and shake my head. "I'll gather my own info, thanks."

He nods. "Very well. You wouldn't be much of a challenge without your legs, anyway."

That's one hell of a threat. Even though I haven't seen him use a single ounce of magic yet, something tells me that he's got the power to follow through with it.

"I honestly can't tell anything." Pearl hisses through her teeth. "He feels like those masked jerks. But not… well… masked."

"That's what I was afraid of." I lock eyes with Ashmaw and flex my fingers. "Well, thanks for all the extra time. Guess we should do this."

"Ah, thank you." Ashmaw bares his teeth at me. "I was waiting for that."

He turns his body to the side, almost like an olympic fencer, and stretches out one arm. The other tucks behind his back, curled into a fist from which a little magic begins to spill. With an upturned, flat palm, he gently brings his hand through the air as if wiping the underside of a glass bowl.

My awareness screams. A horrendous image of my body sliced in two flashes before my eyes as thin lines of magic appear over and around me in a perfect–but larger–mirror of Ashmaw's motion. I kick off backwards to get out of the way, and–

White hot, unambiguous death scythes through where I was standing a second ago. The very air screams and bubbles as any moisture in it is thoroughly annihilated, and even when the main spell dissipates, it leaves behind a charred scar in existence that hurts to look at. And would definitely hurt to touch.

"That's horrible." Pearl murmurs in wide-eyed awe. "Raw destruction that powerful was rare even back before I got trapped. Too bad he wants to kill you."

Yeah, too bad. I toss two projectiles at Ashmaw, triggering them just moments before the coins touch his skin. He separates his thumb and pinky from the slab that was his palm, and two swirls of destruction erupt on top of my projectiles. Sparks and cracks flicker in the air as they clash for all of five seconds, and when the dust settles, only his destruction remains.

I grimace and start backpedaling. If that did absolutely nothing, then I have to get him away from Clutter and the others before I start throwing shit that could have collateral damage. He follows me for one step. Two steps. Then he curls his pinky and index finger inward before thrusting the remaining fingers in my direction.

Two simmering webs of cracks fill the air, each at least twelve feet wide and brimming with the promise of death. My heart pounds in my chest as I stare down these promises of destruction. Pearl's scream fills my mind, wordless and pleading for me to move. Instinct and reactions take over as I summon three shields directly in front of me, and as they manifest, I flick a relocation coin up and over the top of the webs.

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Burning white fills my vision. Heat bubbles from the stuff like the surface of the sun, and all moisture disappears in a heartbeat. My lips chap, the tips of my fingers start to crack, and I have to close my eyes to keep them from burning. The first shield breaks the instant the magic touches it. My second doesn't hold up much longer–half a breath of boiling air at most. As the third one cracks and the heat somehow grows even more intense, I latch onto the relocation coin and pull with all my might.

I feel my last shield shatter as relocation pulls me away. Blissful moisture meets my face and I wrench open my eyes a good eighty feet in the air. Before gravity takes me I scan the entirety of the town from up here–the buildings, the road, and absolutely no sign of the psychic. My eyes meet Illumisia's, who stands on top of the bank like a gargoyle, and she bares her teeth with seething anger.

"Sorry." I apologize as the wind whips through my very dry clothes. "Damn skill thinks this is right."

She sneers and looks away, but not fully. A weird mixture of guilt, annoyance, and fear writhes in my gut as I turn my full attention back to Ashmaw, whose neck is craned skyward so he can stare at me. He sharply and exactly turns to aim his fingertips directly at my chest, and as he curls his middle finger upwards, only a single web of cracks appears in the air. Perfectly between me and him.

"Is this actually fire? Or is it something else?"

Pearl shakes her head. "I can't tell–whatever it is, it's extremely hot, so be even more careful than you're being right now!"

I nod and whip a relocation past Ashmaw. He turns like a mannequin and aims his finger at the dropping coin as the web of cracks I'm falling towards grows even brighter. I throw two more relocation coins at the ground, fully expecting Ashmaw to spin around and leave two more webs of cracks aimed at the other coins.

But… he doesn't. I frown in surprise and pull myself to the coin that's almost at the ground just a few inches from him, and only then does he whip around with an unchanged look on his face. Projectiles fill my palm moments before I slam it into his chest, ignite them with the shortest-lived and strongest spells I can manage, and relocate to the other coin I threw a dozen feet towards another random house.

Magic blossoms in a cacophony of noise. Heat, destruction, and salt clash for supremacy. Light fills my eyes as my awareness struggles to see through the magic, and just as my projectiles clear up, a rhythmic impact rings out from where Ashmaw was standing. Almost like… someone clapping.

"Bravo! Bravo, indeed!" He steps out from the blur, completely unharmed, and clapping like he just watched a thrilling stage play. "In the smallest of moments, you identified and took advantage of my weakness without hesitation. Even with the awareness of a shellraiser on your side, that is no easy feat–especially not when said shellraiser is heavily limited by the system. Alas, it would seem that your magic cannot hurt me."

He sighs and shakes his head. "Truly, truly a pity."

Heat erupts around me in a perfect ring without so much as a motion from Ashmaw. I flinch in surprise and almost step back, but the sensation of heat at the back of my neck stops me dead in my tracks. Was he just screwing with me? No–if that's true, then I don't have a chance. I need to believe that I can get out of this. And that starts with… with…

What the hell happened to my third coin? I can feel it, but it's… wrong. The spell's leaking out into the world, and the coin's just a melted pile of useless nothing.

"He can destroy my coins." I state in stunned disbelief. The roaring heat instantly dries my tongue. "I didn't know that was possible."

"It is very possible." Ashmaw's voice carries easily through the roar. "I am simply far more powerful than you are. Considering your run-in with a few of my masked… I suppose I can call them co-workers… I thought you would be more prepared for absolute failure."

"Can't prepare for something I wasn't even expecting." I mutter and summon two more shield coins. "Before this, I thought this was going to be a half-hour excursion. Not whatever the hell it's turned into."

I drop a relocation at my feet, then put two extremely compact skeletal-quarter shields around it. Hopefully that'll hold. Then I latch onto the coin in the distance, grit my teeth, and hope against hope that Ashmaw won't instantly go for Clutter and the others.

The world screams by. I land between two random buildings, neither of which I've explored, and whip around to face the column of destruction that rises high into the sky. The second that disappears, I'm going back in. If it doesn't… then I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do.

Torturously slow seconds crawl by. My breaths come heavier and quicker as my awareness starts to collapse once more. I've got a minute or two left of this in me. Maybe less if I have to throw around a ton of projectiles and shields. But before any of that… I need to find a way to remove Clutter and the others from this equation.

"Illumisa."

A blood-red shadow coats the ground. It opens its mouth and sighs. "Yes?"

"Take these coins and touch them to each of the people in the house." I summon three relocation coins and drop them onto her. "Then run as far away as you can. Once you're out of the psychic's range send me some kind of signal and I'll get them out of here."

She looks back at the coins with a frown. "I could just take them away, so you are aware. It would save you precious brain power. Or… if you say yes right now, I can deal with your little problem."

I swallow hard. The word dangles from the tip of my tongue, but I can't say it. "I can't tell you to protect me."

"That is a problem." She shudders, and the coins dissolve into her form. "I suppose I should wish you luck."

She disappears without another word. I stare up at the sky and the burning pillar of molten white destruction, sweat beading on my forehead like stressful rain. My awareness barely reaches the closest roof, and if I look closely, I can see it shrinking with every one of my breaths.

Warmth tickles the back of my neck. Burning danger fills my veins as my awareness recognizes something… up above? I crane my neck skywards, and my shoulders sag in an admission of defeat.

Painting the sky in a shade of wrong, like staring up at cracking ice from inside a freezing lake, are thousands upon thousands of cracks. Each of my coins flickers slightly as Illumisia touches them to one of my allies, but it doesn't matter. If she leaves them right now, they'll all die horribly. So she'll take them on her back and run.

Just like I want to. But my feet won't move. I latch onto the coin in Dell's apartment and pull–but my spell doesn't activate. Not for a lack of energy. From my skill preventing its use.

"Is this quest even worth it?" I whisper into the drying air. "It's just some rewards and a little adventure. Not something worth dying over!"

Nothing. No response. My feet won't even let me move–apparently this is exactly where my skill wants me to be. Or maybe it knows that if I could move, I'd run like hell and never look back at a piece of squirming plastic for the rest of my life. Instead, I close my eyes and let my hands drape limply at my sides.

The heat grows. And grows. It intensifies to the point that I'm reminded of being mummified by the beacon, but even that didn't kill me. I feel an awkward smile tug at my lips, and a dry, humourless laugh hisses into the scorching air. If this is how I'm going to die, at least it's a little funny in a morbid kind of way.

"Why are you laughing?"

Ashmaw's voice is loud, clear, and crackling with… frustration? I crack open an eye and look at him standing just a few feet away–shimmering in the extreme heat like some hateful mirage. He's still as unmoving as before, but his face… there's something bothering him.

Me.

Maybe… maybe I can weasel my way out of this somehow. But I need to think of something that can convince a guy I know literally nothing about–and fast. My life depends on it.

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