I crack open my eyes. Colourful sheens of sparkling black dance over everything, leaving a strange spectacle of motion that I can't fully make sense of. Streaks go one way and speckles another, both laced with a spiralling thread that weaves through everything and nothing at the same time.

It's unfathomably beautiful. And it feels like it's ripping my brain apart piece by tiny piece. Woozy disorientation buckles my left knee. The soft whoosh of metal skimming through empty air fills the space I'd just occupied. I stifle a retch and try to put weight on my knee.

My muscles flex. I stand tall in a heartbeat. The wooziness is still there–way too much so–but it's just that; disorientation mixed with vertigo. No weakness, no pain, and definitely no limb-buckling weakness. So what the hell happened with my knee?

A twitch fills my shoulders. I instinctively shift to force the muscles into the right place. Metal meets my arm embraced by a shield in exactly the right place so the spear's point stops less than an inch from my face. Something struggles to shove it that last little bit, but the angle just isn't working in their favor.

No… his favor. A skinny man, with glowing triangular spells wrapped around his ankles, wrists, and neck like rave jewelry. Glowsticks. That's what they're called. The veins in his neck and a few in his forehead bulge with effort, but that shouldn't be possible. I'm pressing against the side of the spear. All his straining and grunting should definitely be pushing that spear right between my eyes.

Yet it doesn't. Second after second, struggle after struggle, he can't move his spear for shit. I've been staring at him this whole time, but the guy hasn't been doing much of anything, really. Just struggling pointlessly. Why the hell is he doing that? Worst comes to worst, just let go of the damn spear and take a few steps back. He must've seen me obliterate his buddy.

He finally opens his mouth with a gasp like he hadn't taken a breath in years. "You bitch! Let go!"

I tilt my head to the side. Let go? I'm just blocking his damn spear.

"Who are you calling a bitch?" I… reply? But… uh… I didn't say that. My lips moved, and the words definitely came out of my mouth, but I did not speak. "Hey, uh, what the hell's happening?"

I snort in amusement. "You can't hear it in your own voice? Doesn't it sound just a little off to you?"

"Off?" I frown and shove my blocking arm to the side. "What the hell are… you… am… I?"

"You," I say. "We're still distinct entities. I'm just hitching a little closer of a ride than normal thanks to your… brain-revelation. Wait. I using your mouth to talk right now?"

I nod vigorously. "Yes, you are, Pearl."

She–I–laughs awkwardly. "Oh, um, sorry about that. I guess I got so used to speaking out loud and only you hearing me. I'm gonna try something else out, okay?"

"Yes, please. I think we're scaring our guest."

The spearman is utterly terrified. He looks at me like I have two heads–or, two personalities, more accurately. But there's something missing. A qualifier I used to describe him all of two seconds ago.

His spear. It's gone. I feel at my overtender awareness, sensing all the shapes and colours and depth that never was there before in an attempt… to… find… huh. There's a very spear-shaped object stuck to my arm. I raise it into my field of view, and sure enough, there's a spear right there.

Stuck to me.

Not in that guy's hands.

I breathe through my nose and grab the spear by the shaft. The spearman whimpers in fear, a far cry from his angry outburst a moment ago, and scurries away like a rat. One violent thought rips at my mind; if we let him go, he'll bring more people. Is that really worth killing a… human… over?

Human? I narrow my eyes, but there's no need; my awareness feels and sees him in his entirety. He's six-foot one, black hair, skinny build with next to no muscle whatsoever, and a face that's somehow completely unremarkable and oddly punchable at the same time. I stand here, mesmerized by the detail that my awareness can feel, as the unknown man runs for his life.

Then I yank at the spear again. It won't budge.

"The hell?" I murmur and finally use my eyes to look down. Everything looks normal, except the spear's… stuck in the shield a little. Not in a 'pierced it' way, but in a 'the shield latched onto it' kind of way.

"That's your awareness at work," Pearl thinks at me. The words are instant, without a moment's delay that speaking would need. "Now that you're closer to an actual shellraiser, you're starting to be as aware as one of us."

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I set my jaw and give the spear one last yank. The wood splinters and cracks away, leaving half the shaft stuck to my shield–and the other in my hand. I toss it to the side with a click of my tongue and turn to the fight. Most of which is an attempt to stop Jumble from doing anything while Clutter goes around mercilessly tearing throats out.

"Tell me what's happening," I say quietly. "This feels… wrong. So wrong. Like… like…"

Pearl smiles knowingly. "Like your body's trying to process two sets of inputs at once?"

I nod. "Exactly that. So?"

"So, it pretty much is. Us shellraisers, we're electrical signals that live in this space-ooze and put ourselves in shells for safekeeping. Not so far from every other living thing with a brain if you're willing to agree with about a hundred justifications." Pearl pauses, then points towards the fight. "Are you aware of that?"

Aware of… no… I-I am. There's a stir in the mist right behind Clutter, who's teeth-deep in another very unprotected neck. Magic flickers and flutters like sparks falling from a fresh weld, giving way to a very watery impression of a person. Ogean, if the silhouette is anything to go by.

Except there isn't a silhouette. Just a little whisper of magic that I'm drawing way too much information from. Is that enough? No… not yet. Pearl's damn confident, but I need confirmation first. On the not-so-off chance that she is right, though, I summon a coin and let it fall heavy in my palm.

The coin wants to be used. It opens itself to me, utterly and fully, embracing its purpose with an almost ecstatic glee. My awareness accepts that offer. Every molecule of the coin saturates with magic, welling up into a fairly simple spell; projectile. Except it isn't simple. It's insanely complex, but housed within an operating sequence so masterful that it tricks you into thinking it's simple.

It's the difference between using a phone and understanding how each individual component does exactly what it does. My awareness filters that information into my brain. Or, rather, Pearl filters it into me through the sieve of our somehow shared awareness. In essence, thanks to my halsia deity skill, the spell's magic takes on a crystalline structure. Each little crystal is, essentially, its own little spell that fuses with all the others to make a much more elegant and powerful shape.

Obviously, I already knew that. But I've been doing next to nothing with it. Altering the duration, size, speed… that's barely scratching the surface of what this can actually do. I just haven't had the awareness to actually give those commands until now. Which is as good a time as any, since Pearl's being proven right about Clutter needing help in real-time.

An ogean woman shifts out of the mists, one hand open to wrap around whatever part of Clutter she can touch. Lines of sunlight trace down her arms from a brilliant sphere in the center of her chest that spits and erupts like an actual miniature sun. Her magic nips out at the air around her to scour away the moisture and Clutter's invisibility, leaving him stunned and vulnerable.

I gently close the coin in my palm. Intent as strong and clear as a flawless diamond surges through my awareness to fill the overly willing receptacle. Her little sun inspires me, and the imagery of colourful stars pulsating against a perfect curtain of black fills in the rest.

My coin shudders. I give it exact commands–an equal number of 2-Worth projectiles on standby, each with as much magic focused into speed and raw power as I can manage. My awareness pulses with a dim sound, carrying the command and spell-filled coin out of my palm. Pearl breaths a shuddery sigh of rapturous relief. I don't understand why.

Fifteen tiny, colourful crystals erupt from my coin. Each of them shimmers with the strange colouration of a shellraiser, but with the crystalline form of a halsia. I tug at the nearest one with very short-lived awe, feeling it ring back at me with a melodic chime. But Clutter's in trouble. There's no time to be impressed.

I turn and point my finger at the ogean. My awareness condenses in my fingertip, which is capped with a vicious crystalline talon that resonates perfectly with my mind. One singular star burns bright. The crystalline structure inside burns molten hot, and my spell sings with raw destructive intent.

Pearl whispers in my mind. I echo her words out loud.

"Sing for me."

My awareness goes black. Raw, unfiltered nothingness for the shortest of moments. I breathe. Pearl breaths. Our breaths are one, just as our awarenesses are. My fingertip whispers the first note of a song that should never be heard by anything.

A streak of shimmering black. The hiss and burn of air struggling to contain something moving far too fast. One small hole straight through the side of the ogean woman's neck. I didn't aim there. Yet she crumples like a sack of potatoes, all the life leaving her in a merciless instant. Her miniature sun dies after she does.

Clutter yelps, finally realizing that he's exposed. Then he looks down at the corpse right behind him and yelps again, readying his claws for a fight. With a frown of confusion, the idea that she might already be dead slowly seems to dawn on him. I chuckle to myself, a laugh that Pearl echoes with a giddy giggle in my mind, and rip the last of the spear out of my shield to finally join the fight.

The edge of my awareness twitches as the spearman comes back into frame. Magic bubbles off of him like an overflowing pot, triangles of all kinds ringing a new spear and every joint on his body. Hatred burns in his eyes. I can't let him come back. With a simple gesture, I raise a hand and point at him.

Heat. Shimmering darkness. One singular hole near where the head meets the neck. He crumples dead mid-stride, and a… faint scream echoes from… down the hall. How… how far away was he? I feel at the distance, and it just keeps going. When it hits the mile mark, a lump forms in my throat that I can't swallow around.

My shield squirms to be used. The remaining thirteen projectile-stars glisten with deadly intent. I avert my awareness from the dead man almost four miles down the hallway and flinch at the fist roaring towards my face. It slams into my shield, which absorbs the blow and seeps around the hand to try and lock it in. So that's what happened to the spear.

I flick a projectile-star through a paindne. Their corpse slams at my feet, fist still lodged at my eye level until I tell my shield to let it go. As I step over their body, a fresh question burns in my mind; my awareness extended over three damn miles down that hallway.

Why the hell couldn't it detect that punch?

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