Well, this was awkward.

  Not the fighting a giant tree god monster alongside a child’s imagined version of Darth fucking Vader while said child potentially bled out on the ground. No, that was just terrifying and stressful.

  Having Sami, her ex-girlfriend, hovering over her shoulder? Damn near intolerable.

  “Rua said not to be weird about this,” Sami said. “You’re being weird.”

  “I am not. I just… why do I need to have you on a call while I do this.”

  A Cutting charged at her, and Otter shed with a thread at its leg. The thread entangled, tying tight, and she yanked, knocking it on what passed for its ass.

  “Because,” Sami said, in that infuriatingly smug and superior tone she loved to adopt, “I invested points into Awareness, and knowing you, you have not.”

  “I’m a DPS mage build! Maybe! Why would I want to put points in Awareness?”

  She smmed her hatchet down onto the Cutting’s torso, nailing three strikes in quick succession until it went still.

  “Hardly. You’re some kind of hybrid midrange caster who is a mix between fighting and crowd control. Regardless, if you had points in Awareness, you’d know this tree thing you’re fighting is rotted.”

  “Well, that’s what I have you for.”

  “That is clearly my point.”

  “Don’t tell me what your point is, we all know the only pointy thing about you is that edge you call an ass.”

  Sami smirked at her. “So, you have still been checking it out.”

  “Hard not to when my girlfriend had you bent over her p.” She blew an errant bit of pink hair out of her face, and went looking for her next target.

  “On your left,” Sami supplied. “Don’t tell me the so-called Poly Queen is jealous that her girlfriend is showing interest in someone other than you?”

  Otter spotted the Cutting Sami had indicated, and tossed a thread at a tree branch tied as a noose. All the Cutting would have to do was run in a straight line ran at her and be ensnared. Any normal enemy would just sidestep the trap, but for all the advantages Cuttings had, they were dumber than a Ft Earther at a globe convention.

  “Jealous, pfftt, what makes you say that?”

  “I mean, she did finger me right in front of you.”

  “At my urging!”

  “You got caught up in the moment, and now you regret it.”

  “I do not. It’s just… messy.”

  “I’m not saying we should get back together. It’s probably a bad idea.”

  Otter felt something in her chest clench. “A very bad idea.”

  “I’m just saying, for someone who cims to be poly, you sure seem to be opposed to sharing.”

  “You don’t even like tiny, fit women with heterochromia!”

  “You think I only like poly Polynesian girls with big asses?”

  “Heh, poly Polynesian, I’m stealing that.”

  Sami genuinely smiled at that. Those smiles were rare. How often had Otter made it a daily mission to try to get one of those?

  “Do you have a pn for the big tree?”

  “Ashborne? No fucking idea. There’s no way my threads can hold him. Or trip him. Or do any significant damage. This guy looks like a raid boss and I’m still in the starter area.”

  “Don’t you have Darth Vader over there to help?”

  Otter gnced over at the armoured figure of the Dark Raider. He cleanly cut a Cutting in two, striding slowly and deliberately towards Ashborne.

  “Yeah, he’s like… half of Darth Vader. I didn’t finish his story with Sunny and Rua. So, I kind of gave him the abridged edition. I skipped out most of the really bad stuff. Don’t want him running around with a Death Star or anything.”

  Sami blinked. “That’s a possibility?”

  “I have no fucking idea. I don’t know how any of this works. But would you want to gamble with that?”

  “Point. So, how’d you get him to follow you around?”

  “Well, first, I tried implying I was an Imperial agent and had intel for him. And that kind of worked, but not as well as I wanted. He didn’t believe I had authorization to, you know, give him orders. So I might’ve kind’ve skipped some scenes and implied I was his kid.”

  “You what?”

  “I know, you always try to be my dommy mommy, but now I have a leather daddy!”

  Sami pinched the bridge of her nose, looking as if one of her world-famous migraines were coming on. Come to think of it, had she had those headaches before Otter?

  “How long can you make those threads?”

  “Like, ten feet, max. I think if my Pact evolves, I’ll be able to make them longer, but for now, that’s it.”

  “I was going to recommend maybe tying him to a tree.”

  “I don’t think these threads are indestructible. I haven’t tested that out yet.”

  “What have you been doing with all your free time?”

  “Trying to survive these things. And physical training with Rua.”

  Sami arched an eyebrow at her.

  “Not that kind. Well, some of that kind. But I mean, actual exercise. Rua thought I needed it.”

  “You did. You have no discipline.”

  “Not all of us have– oh shit.”

  Ashborne charged forward, evidently assessing the thread and finally deciding on the Dark Raider as the bigger threat. The bck-cd Mythwalker raised his bzing sword as one of Ashborne’s arms came crashing down. There was a sound of energy hitting wood, and a piece of Ashborne was sheared clean off.

  The tree hardly seemed to notice, twisting and another arm sweeping in from the side. Raider raised a hand, and the arm stopped midswing, all that fury frozen. Ashborne struggled against that invisible hold as the universe itself bent to Raider’s will, but as he did, Raider clenched his fist, and there was the sound of splintering wood.

  “Don’t just stand there, atack!” Sami yelled. “Go for the left leg, right where the ankle would be on a person.”

  Otter didn’t think. She’d been drilled to immediately do what that voice said, that tone said, without question. How many hundreds of hours of practice, of running scrimmage, of doing raids and PVP events, always following that voice without question?

  Too bad it’d also transted into their retionship.

  But that was a thought for another day. For now, there was Otter and Ashborne and the voice, and that was it. Everything else got pushed back. No drama. No Sunny being wounded. No death game.

  Otter got in close and shed a thread around Ashborne’s leg. She willed it to tie itself tight, and then yanked, empowering the thread with more Will. There was a smouldering smell as energy poured into the golden wire, burning into the wood of Ashborne. But she could no more budge the tree than she could a mountain.

  “Circle behind him!” came Sami’s order, and Otter complied.

  She pulled for all she was worth, her arms straining, her legs sinking into the mud as she dug into the ground and shifted her weight.

  And then the Dark Raider, using his telekinetic grip, yanked Ashborne forward.

  Ashborne tried to shift his weight, tried to resist, but between the mud and Otter’s futile pulling, he slipped.

  There was a mighty crash, and the world itself seemed to shake and rumble as Ashborne went down. One of his arms tried to catch his fall, but under the sheer weight of his bulk, it snapped, crushed under his own body, too heavy to be stopped by even himself.

  “Tie his legs together, now!”

  Otter did, throwing the thread and willing it to tie Ashborne’s legs together. The wire leapt from her hands as if alive, circling and looping around Ashborne’s legs, tying themselves tight.

  Raider was on Ashborne in an instant, moving from his impcable yet slow gait to a sprint in a moment, his cape flying behind him like a dark banner. Ashborne raised one hand defensively, and the Raider cut through it cleanly and without pause, continuing his movement forward, not content with a mere wound, and going for the kill.

  “Enough!”

  The word came from Ashborne himself, his trunk splitting to form a mouth. The word reverberated through the air, his Will crashing down on Otter and the Dark Raider. Even Sami, safe behind a window screen, seemed affected, flinching at that command.

  Everything in Otter’s body went sck, and she fell to the mud. It was like her muscles forgot how to work, how to hold herself steady, betraying her in an instant.

  She panicked, as even her lungs seemed to forget how to breathe.

  Ashborne stood. Slowly. With great care. He didn’t even throw any strength into what he did next. The thread binding his legs just snapped, simply by resisting against his movement. It was like trying to bind an elephant with cobwebs.

  The Dark Raider struggled to rise, getting to his knees. It didn’t help him. Ashborne’s fists, three at once, came down, smashing him into the earth. There was a wet sound accompanied by the squealing of metal as both the flesh and steel of the Raider’s body was smashed like an insect.

  And then Ashborne turned to face Otter.