The forest clearing felt like a pressurized chamber. The late afternoon sun hung low, bleeding a bruised purple through the canopy.

Leo and Mirage stood side by side. It wasn’t a planned alliance, but a mechanical necessity. Against Taren or Yariel individually, they had a fighting chance, against both, they were fodder.

"Left side," Leo whispered, his voice low and gravelly. "I’ll take Taren’s blind spot. You keep Yariel busy."

Mirage didn’t nod. She just tightened her grip on her wooden sword until her knuckles matched the bone-white of the Atlantis towers.

He didn’t wait for a signal and immediately lunged.

Leo’s boots kicked up a spray of dirt as he closed the gap toward Taren. He knew better than to go for a head-on strike. Taren’s porcelain arm wasn’t just a prosthetic after all, it was much more of a reinforced weapon. Leo feinted a high vertical slash, then dropped his weight at the last second, sliding across the damp grass to aim a low sweep at Taren’s organic leg.

Taren didn’t jump, neither did he flinch. He simply shifted his weight, taking the blow directly on his shin. The sound of wood hitting flesh was dull, but Taren’s leg didn’t buckle. Instead, he reached down with lightning speed, his porcelain hand catching the collar of Leo’s tunic.

"Too low," Taren grunted.

He hoisted Leo upward like he weighed nothing and slammed him back-first into the nearest pine. The bark bit into Leo’s spine, and for a second, the world turned into a blur of grey needles and blue light.

On the other side of the clearing, it was just as chaotic.

Yariel didn’t move with the predatory efficiency of Taren. She moved with the overwhelming arrogance of a natural disaster. She didn’t even have her wooden sword raised, it hung loosely in her right hand as she dodged Mirage’s frantic strikes with minimal effort. Every time Mirage swung, Yariel would simply lean back or step to the side by a fraction of an inch.

"Weak, Mirage," Yariel said, her voice cutting through the sounds of the struggle. "Weak. Were you able to find your voice against Leo?"

"I..I tried, I guess," Mirage muttered while still swinging attacks at Yariel.

"Ah, tired? Such weakness," Yariel teased.

Mirage let out a frustrated cry and lunged. She swung a horizontal cleave that should have been too fast to dodge, but Yariel finally moved. She stepped into the strike, her palm striking the flat of Mirage’s blade, redirecting the momentum into the ground.

The impact sent a shockwave through the soil. Mirage stumbled, and Yariel delivered a sharp kick to her stomach that sent the girl sprawling back toward Leo.

Leo scrambled to his feet, his lungs burning. He caught Mirage before she could hit the tree.

"Switch," Leo panted. "Taren’s timing is too consistent. I can’t break his rhythm if he’s focused only on me."

Mirage wiped a smudge of dirt from her cheek, her eyes hard. "And you think you can handle Yariel?"

"I don’t have to handle her. I just have to be a nuisance." He grinned.

They were both Zaharans after all.

They moved simultaneously. Mirage intercepted Taren’s follow-up charge, her lighter frame and moderate speed allowing her to dance around his heavy, pressurized strikes. She continued in that pattern, trying to frustrate Taren.

Leo, meanwhile, faced Yariel.

He didn’t use the standard forms he had been taught by Yariel, since it was something familiar to her and because he wanted to mix the styles he had learned from battling different people like Spirit of Madness, otherwise Shadow, and Sigurd. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

He used the jagged, erratic footwork he had caught a glimpse of from Lyra, he did have solid retentiveness. He moved in zigzags, dragging his sword in the dirt to create a screen of dust.

Yariel watched him with a bored expression. "Nice," she noted. "Ugly. But nice."

"It works," Leo barked.

He threw a handful of dirt at her face and followed it with a thrust aimed at her throat. It was a dirty move, a low-life move, and Yariel loved it. She laughed, her own wooden sword finally snapping upward to deflect his blade.

The clash was unlike the one with Taren. Where Taren was a hammer, Yariel was a razor. Every time their swords met, she would slide her blade down his, aiming for his fingers or his wrists. Leo had to keep his hands moving, shifting his grip constantly to avoid the stinging pain of her counterstrikes.

Yariel’s foot found Leo’s hip, sending him spinning. He corrected his balance, but before he could reset, Taren was there. The "Half-Banished" had forced Mirage back and was now coordinating with Yariel. The two of them moved like a single organism, Taren providing the heavy, crushing pressure, and Yariel providing the lethal precision.

Leo and Mirage were backed into the center of the clearing. The four of them had turned the forest into a wasteland of broken branches and churned earth.

"We’re losing," Mirage whispered, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

"I know," Leo said, his eyes fixed on Taren’s porcelain arm. If only he could unfold the mystery behind his flow of the supernatural with martial arts.

"Now!" Leo shouted.

He didn’t go for a strike. He dived at Taren’s waist, tackling him with every bit of strength he had left. At the same time, Mirage launched herself at Yariel.

The clearing exploded in a flurry of wood and limbs. Leo and Taren rolled across the ground, Taren’s porcelain hand punching holes into the soil as he tried to pin Leo down. Leo took a blow to the jaw that made his vision swim, but he didn’t let go. He needed Taren occupied.

Mirage and Yariel were a blur of teal and black. The sound of their swords clashing was like rapid-fire gunfire. Mirage was actually pushing Yariel back, her desperation fueling a speed that even Yariel hadn’t expected.

For a moment, it looked like the underdogs might actually pull it off.

Then, the air in the forest went still. Yariel stopped moving. She stood perfectly still as Mirage’s sword descended toward her shoulder. She didn’t parry. She didn’t dodge. She reached out with her bare hand and caught the wooden blade.

The wood snapped like a twig.

Mirage’s eyes widened in horror. Yariel didn’t say a word. She stepped forward, the air around her shimmering with a cold, oppressive aura that the two newly awakened hadn’t felt since. She struck Mirage once in the chest, not with a sword, but with two fingers.

Mirage collapsed instantly, the air stolen from her lungs.

"One down," Yariel said, her eyes turning toward the pile of limbs that was Leo and Taren.

Leo looked up, his face covered in dirt. He saw Yariel standing over them, her wooden sword held like a scepter. The sun had finally dipped below the horizon, leaving them in the cold, red shadows of the crimson orb glow.