Lindsey and I stand fifteen paces apart on an open field about half a mile away from the guildhall. We stare at each other, in full gear, my [Mechanical Arm Cannon] aimed square at her. Meanwhile, she’s crouched into a low fighting stance, her [Twin Light Daggers] drawn and at the ready. Chloe’s standing about fifty yards away, off to the side, her wand in hand, ready to intervene at a moment’s notice.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Lindsey asks. “I can’t promise your safety if you go through with this sparring session.”

  Chloe gives me The Look, which does more to dissuade me than Lindsey’s words do. But Madison was quite clear. The only way to awaken the power of Manifestation is to apply it in life-or-death situations. And while I could sit around and continue to work on crafting all day while Stefan and his contacts continue to search for the headquarters of the Order of the Wilds, I need more. One the one hand, I am a [Planetouched Mechanist], and the technology I develop will change the fate of this world. Possibly more than that.

  But I was also built as a weapon, myself. A weapon that needs to be tempered in the fires of combat, and honed through training to be as sharp and powerful as it was designed. While I understand that no one is forcing me down this path, that I retain the free will to act as I see fit, I want to do this. I want to be pushed to my limits, and be forced to break through them. Better here, with someone I trust, than in the wilds against a hostile beast, or worse still, against an intelligent enemy actively trying to kill me.

  I nod. “I do.”

  The wind howls, filling the late morning with the smell of grass and lingering dew. My hair ruffles in the breeze as my heart races, preparing for the most powerful adversary I’ve faced yet.

  I grasp my [Lightning-Sheathed Dagger] with my right hand and stare at Lindsey. She looks so nonchalant about fighting me. Like I’m no threat to her. It irritates me. She’s faster, stronger, better trained both mentally and physically. She’s got years of experience as a Ranger to fall back on, not to mention more levels and a lot more combat experience than I do. But I won’t relent. I will fight like my life depends on it, because one day it will.

  Lindsey doesn’t make the first move. Or maybe she already has, using some [Afterimage] Skill to appear in front of me even as her real self is moving for a fatal blow.

  “I’m waiting!” she says in a clear taunt.

  I don’t fall for the bait. Attempting to fight her at close range is a losing battle; the two of us are both mid-distance fighters, but she has a clear advantage in close-quarters combat. At range, I have the advantage. My [Glyphcasting], especially combined with the power of Manifestation, is far more devastating than anything she’s seen, but it will backfire on me quite literally if I’m caught in the blast radius. In contrast, if I’m too far away, she can dodge any spell I throw at her.

  Positioning is the key to winning this fight. But I’m at a loss. She has the advantage on that front too. Then… It has to be trickery. I have to use Manifestation in ways that she can’t predict. Which, from the perspective of training my ability, is perfect.

  I raise my right arm and fire an [Ether Bullet Barrage] toward her. Not directly at her. She’s too fast, too tricky. I aim all around her, hoping she’ll dodge into the blast. But of course, she doesn’t fall for it. She even sticks her tongue out at me, continuing to insult me, calling me weak and my aim inaccurate. She even goes so far as to question my ability to protect Chloe.

  My muscles tense at this last bit. It’s an enormous strain of will not to give in to her goading. But I shrug the insults off and force myself to remain fixed solely on the present, solely on the task before me.

  Lindsey dashes forward, her daggers in a reverse grip. She kicks my chest; it doesn’t do much damage, but it knocks me off balance long enough for her to land a glancing blow upon my arm. It burns, though with my [Ethersight] flickered on at the last second, I manage to avoid the blinding sensation that follows. I fall back, using another [Ether Bullet Barrage] as covering fire as I gain more space.

  It’s not enough. Even before I can reorient myself, I’m attacked from behind by another kick that pops my spinal column. I rotate my elbow around behind me and fire another blast, but it finds nothing but trees in the distance. And worse still, after two glancing attacks, one of which was blunted by my armor,I’m already down four hundred health.

  “Still want to keep going?” Lindsey asks.

  My breathing is heavy, my chest is sore, but my resolve is strong. I channel Manifestation, willing the [Impulse] glyph to push me forward. It is successful, but without the proper [Speed] stat to control such movement, I’m not capable of doing much more than sprinting forward in a straight line. A straight, easily predictable line.

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  But the battle from before gives me an idea. I Manifest [Impulse] together with the [Snake] glyph, reasoning that it might also help me turn while in this state of heightened speed. It works, but not quite as intended. I not only can turn while moving. I’m not incapable of moving directly forward. Only in arcing swaths. Though I can constantly zig and zag about, approximating a straight line, so there’s that at least. Just really awkward and difficult— but not impossible— to control.

  “I see,” Lindsey says, our daggers beating one another’s attacks back. “So this is the power you spoke of earlier. But can you control it? And if so, for how long?”

  I don’t answer. She knows as well as I do that this power comes at a heavy toll. My [Ether] is dropping rapidly, far faster than my [Flawed Ring of Regeneration] and natural recovery rate can restore it. And it hurts, my head throbbing like a nasty migraine in the midst of battle.

  I fire a [Lightning Bullet] directly at her chest, hoping to do at least something to her. And she somehow— inexplicably— manages to dodge a speeding bullet fired from less than ten feet away. Though she seems winded after the effort.

  We clash once again, and this time it’s my turn to dodge an attack from point-blank range. But once again, she emerges unscathed, while I suffer a glancing wound on my left knee, [Bullet Time] be damned. But I hardly feel the pain of the blow over the gripping aura building over my head. My vision blurs, and my [Ethersight] isn’t doing me any favors. I switch it off, alleviating some of the mental load, at the cost of leaving me more vulnerable to her attacks.

  She notices— because of course she does— and fires another [Light Arrow] square at my head. I counter with my [Flash of Insight], causing both to erupt in a violent flashbang that sends me flying into a nearby tree. And to my surprise, this attack actually dazes her for long enough to shake off her own attempt at blinding me. Not long enough to deliver a counterstrike, but at least I’m not in a wholly worse-off position, my [Ether] being down to eight hundred aside.

  “I’ll give you this, Sera,” Lindsey says. “You’re doing better than I’d hoped. But if that’s all you can muster, you’re not ready to go toe-to-toe with me.”

  Her contempt infuriates me to no end, but I still have just enough sense to recognize the taunt for what it is and focus instead on how I can win this fight. I stop my Manifested glyphs, which is absolute heaven on my headache, and instead activate [Bullet Time] as I charge into point-blank range.

  “You’re leaving yourself wide open!” She draws her bow almost instantaneously and launches a crackling [Energy Arrow] directly at me.

  But I don’t dodge. I continue directly at her, raising my tiny buckler in a vain attempt to repel the oncoming attack. But not even for a second do I believe that [Bullet Time]’s passive effect is going to be enough to parry this attack. Instead, at the last second, just before contact, I Manifest a pair of [Repulsion] glyphs, forming a barrier offset from perpendicular by about fifteen degrees, trying to shunt the momentum of the attack away from me. But it doesn’t seem to be working. Even a third glyph to reinforce the barrier further doesn’t seem to be doing much beyond buying me a fraction of a second at the cost of making me sick to my stomach.

  But it’s enough time for me to sneak around my own defenses. I let go of the glyphs the instant I’m outside the blast radius, but the residual pressure wave left in its wake sends me tumbling. I roll with the blow, narrowly avoiding a stab to the stomach as Lindsey thrusts down upon me. Another blast of [Impulse] launches me back to my feet, just in time to have my right palm stained red with my own blood as I foolishly block a slash aimed directly at me, the [Repulsion Gauntlets] utterly worthless and their embroidered glyph now in tatters.

  [Your [Repulsion Gauntlets] have been destroyed. Associated equipment bonuses lost.]

  Thanks, System. Really needed that little bit of snark to keep my cool in the battle. You truly are the best.

  “You ready to call this?” Lindsey asks. “Next time I can’t promise that you’ll emerge with such a minor injury.”

  “Next time, it might not be against someone who’s going to pull even these punches.”

  I grit my teeth and grip my now-bloodstained dagger as I aim my [Machine Arm Cannon] toward her. My outward bravado is matched by the twinge of fear creeping up in the back of my neck. I trust Lindsey, but I know she’s a consummate professional of a soldier. Sentimentality has been trained out of her. If she says she’s going to come at me with everything she has, with killing intent, then she’ll do exactly that.

  But this is exactly what I need. I need to bring forth the power of 「The Anomaly」, and Madison was explicit that I would need to have my life on the line to bring forth its true capabilities. And though these memories could all be fabrications, hallucinations of the System designed to lead me astray, I believe in them. There’s no concrete proof that I can point to, nothing that I can look at and say ‘here is my evidence’. It’s something that my… not my body, but my soul, the part of me that persisted from that universe to this one, knows to be true.

  And this time Lindsey doesn’t hesitate. She pulls no punches, striking at me with a blow so quick that, even with [Bullet Time], I barely see it coming before it’s in my face. Time seems to slow to a crawl, my life flashing before my eyes, just as I need it to be. And in this final, stretched-out instant before her dagger pierces through my eye socket and into my brain, I feel something bubbling forward.

  It’s a voice I recognize as Dr. Chotono’s, from the visions. “If you want to abort this mission and enjoy these final seconds before oblivion, you have that right. If you do choose to abort this mission, know that I will be no less proud of you. But I wanted to make sure that I did everything I could to give you an option that might lead to your survival.”

  Yeah. I’ve been given that option before. The choice to accept oblivion, or the choice to fight and try to survive. My decision is clear, then as now. For Chloe’s sake, if not my own, I want to live.