Interlude-Maverick

(Galaboudine)

<She meant…she doesn't think I need to realize at all to keep up with the likes of you.>

Mavriste swallowed the knot in his throat.

Even as he let himself wear a grin, even as he genuinely loved the thrill of fully exerting himself, chills were still running under his fur, and he was all too aware of his heart pounding.

<Black, unholy tides, this guy's terrifying,> Mavriste marveled.

<I don't even think he knows it,> Mac chirped.

The gap in their Adept skills was vast. Mavriste didn't even begin to feel threatened on that front. But Caleb had wounded him anyway. His instincts in combat were top notch, and his composure was better than every marine they had. The psionic front was far more in Caleb's favor than he'd feared.

To the eye, he was thin and agile, but not flashy: even captivating to watch in motion as he fought. Not unlike dancers. But to Mavriste's psionics, the Human was like an impenetrable dark cloud, lazily tossing out thunderbolts like an ancient deity, causing massive destruction with just— literally— just a thought.

Most of the counterattacks Mav had managed to launch had been contemptuously deflected, and the ones that hadn't had disappeared altogether.

Caleb was hiding his psionics so completely, that, even with sim-Macoru helping him, he couldn't perceive the boundary to Caleb's firewall. It was impossible to confirm if damage was being done, or even if an attack had landed at all.

The dark murky mountaintop that Caleb was launching his psionics from was simply overwhelming.

<I need to compartmentalize,> Mavriste admitted, materializing patch-skin over his fresh new shoulder wound. <He's out thinking me. If I get more aggressive, can you be paying attention to minutiae so I can be more spontaneous?>

<I'll strategize. I'm going to start repurposing some psionics too,> sim-Mac said. <If he blasts too much of your firewall, he might be able to get at me or your plasma-regulator. If he gets that…>

As daunting as Caleb's psionic mastery was, Mavriste was still confident in his ability to guarantee a win with his Adept advantage. Of course, pushing that advantage all the way to a guarantee would certainly mean killing Caleb in the process.

He didn't want to do that unless he absolutely had to.

So the odds of a worst-case scenario hiked precipitously the more Caleb jeopardized Mav's win conditions. Mav was determined to win without deploying his most lethal Adeptry.

He launched a new attack toward Caleb again while Macoru reshuffled less critical psionic pieces to shield the plasma-regulator and Simulacrum.

Caleb's defenses were stubborn, far more than Mav had expected. His choice in shield was almost comedically large, reaching from shin to shoulder. But since the whole thing was transparent, it didn't obstruct his field of view at all.

With the shield in one hand, and a revolver in the other, Caleb had an ideal blend of offense and defense, complimented by the thunderous impact bombs that he kept blinking into existence with only a split second of forewarning.

Mav found himself blasted backward again, bullets deflecting off the plasma.

<His pace is insane!> Mavriste complained. <The bullets, the bombs, reforming the shield—surely he's gone through, what, a thousand kilograms already? Two?>

None of it stuck around long. Caleb didn't materialize more than forty—maybe fifty kilograms at a time. But he could just keep recreating that mass over and over in different forms. .

<Not that much,> Macoru said, but her tone conceded that Mavriste was right to take note. <His mass limit must be super low, but his recoup must be almost flawless.>

The revolver he was firing only held six rounds, but Caleb hadn't stopped squeezing off a shot or two every second for the last minute. Or two. Or three.

And that was without even mentioning how much energy he must be putting into the bombs.

Another golden pinprick sparked next to Mav's head, and he threw himself aside the same heartbeat it exploded.

His plasma bent and groaned around him as it absorbed the impact of both the explosion and throwing himself into the ground. He pushed himself up to all fours and darted in erratic zig-zags around Caleb, staying low to the ground and letting himself slide on his plasma's eccentric friction.

Caleb had adopted a plant-and-pivot style of defense—ideal for holding off a single opponent—but it required moving to keep his shield between them. That took constant coordination and focus. Mavriste knew if he could break Caleb's composure, or get him looking the wrong way for just a moment, he would get an opening.

Macoru was more talented at keeping the smart plasma coherent over distance. Shootouts like this were more to her strengths, but Mav could still imitate her rather well.

Bursts of black plasma arced from Mavriste's cloak toward Caleb, forcing him to pick between his shield and his body.

Obviously, the Human chose his body. Abandoning the shield, Caleb dove aside and left the shield behind to be hit by the plasma.

Just like before, the plasma punched holes through the transparent material like it was paper, but Mavriste didn't miss the holes were smaller than before. Caleb was modifying the material on the fly, refining to hold up better against Mavriste's attacks.

Swapping his shotgun ammo from slugs to scattershot, he tried to catch Caleb with a shot, but Caleb tricked him by materializing a new shield before dissolving the first.

The scattershot shells didn't hit Caleb's shield nearly as hard, but they peppered a wider area. He was forced to hunker more completely behind the shield to avoid the finer projectiles. Mav even weakened the charge in each shell so they wouldn't recoil so much.

It would put less strain on his shroud's kinetic energy. Probably not enough to be decisive, but it was a start.

Blinding psionic missiles slammed into Mavriste's firewall with increasing frequency. More than a third of his psionic defenses were stripped now. He couldn't let it continue unchecked.

He ramped up his movements, adding to his plasma's volume. Spreading it out would dilute its potency, but positioned correctly, he might slow Caleb's aim and reduce his field of view.

Mavriste was circling Caleb quickly enough that he could feel centrifugal force on his body. Of course there was a limit to how quickly and fluidly Caleb could pivot.

But it was ridiculous to see it go this far.

Mavriste finally felt like he was beginning to outspeed Caleb's ability to target him, only for a kinetic bomb to explode point blank.

Boom.

How had he aimed that so precisely? Between being completely out of Caleb's field of view and how fast he was moving…

Another blast sent Mavriste off balance again, and he slammed his heels into the ground, halting himself in an instant.

In the half second it took Caleb to adjust his aim, Mavriste erected his own solid barrier between them—even making it transparent like Caleb's—and inflated his plasma cloak to occupy five or ten times its normal volume.

Caleb frowned as he aimed several more explosions, each one tearing away huge chunks of the plasma cloak, but none getting close enough to harm Mavriste.

Mavriste took the moment to kneel and catch his breath.

The solid barrier between them would stop Caleb from shooting him while his cloak was feeble in this state, but the inflated cloak was still energetic and disruptive enough to prevent Caleb from materializing one of the quick-bombs right next to Mavriste's body.

Like this, he was forced to aim them more than eight or ten feet away from Mav. And while that was still close enough for the impact to rattle his teeth, they weren't going to harm him while he collected himself.

<The knives,> Macoru reminded him. <He can materialize those moving knives and shoot them from an angle your shield won't stop.>

<I know,> he panted. <I just needed to cut down his viable options for a few seconds. If he tries knives, I'm ready for them, I just need a few seconds.>

Caleb didn't launch any knives though, and if Mavriste read the Human's body language correctly, he was using the time to catch his breath too.

<You earn your name,> Mavriste admitted, still keeping the conversation totally psionic. 'Save your breath', Caleb had told him. It truly galled the marine that he hadn't realized that advantage before. <You're devilish in battle.>

<You're not fooling anyone,> Caleb said, intensifying his psionic attack while their physical battle lulled. <You still haven't shown half the effort you showed on the beach.>

<Mac?,> Mavriste asked.

<…I've got beginnings,> Sim-Mac offered.

<Talk.>

The illusory Macoru within his field of view bristled, dedicating all her attention toward the Human.

<His alien physiology is giving him some unexpected advantages. Frame and build, he's like a Farnata: all reach and leverage. But in the flesh and blood? He's heavier like a Vorak. Denser muscles and bones from heavier gravity on the Human homeworld,> Macoru explained.

<Best of both species,> Mavriste grumbled.

<Only somewhat,> Mac said. <He's going to wear himself out quicker than a Casti or Farnata. And even if he's like a Vorak, he doesn't quite measure up in terms of weight and raw brawn.>

<Unless he's got augs.>

<Probably does, but I'm betting they're not muscular—or, if they are, they're to a bare minimum degree,> Mac continued. <My gut would say his augs are in his nerves since his brain is so fast. Maybe tendons and ligaments too. I'd say try to bait an overreaction, but his sense of distance and timing are impeccable—I think he actually outstrips you on those fronts.>

<I've seen him in close quarters. He's good. Very good.>

<Which is why you need to fight him there,> Mac concluded. <This distance game isn't your style, and he's practiced his options at range. He's already shown the gun, the bombs, and knives. But I bet you he has more waiting. Smoke at a minimum. Probably something immobilizing too. Glue maybe. And that's not even bringing up corrosive or exothermic tricks.>

<Melting me alive isn't his style,> Mav dismissed. <And I think he actually might be more practiced in close-quarters than range.>

<Maybe, but you're going to lose if you don't take him seriously; you need to play to your strengths because he isn't showing many weaknesses right now.>

His sim of Macoru was right. Caleb was fighting in ideal form. The best way to build a victory then was to exploit and emphasize factors that were unideal for Caleb.

Under the psionic blocker, they were both cut off from their forces up the hill. That kind of information cutoff put a lot of mental strain on an opponent, especially a younger one.

It was uncharitable, but the Lightbringer was proving too savvy an opponent.

Right, let's go.

But before he could…

<Mav, duck!>

Macoru's voice alarmed him, and he almost looked behind him just due to the sheer urgency in tone. His simulacrum, however, reacted immediately—in the correct language.

<That wasn't me,> she said. <He's mimicking my voice.>

Caleb gave no indication whatsoever, maintaining the same stare boring right through his skull.

<Clever, clever…> Mavriste grinned.

He rose from his half-crouch, modifying the shield he'd made to be opaque. Caleb would still see him come out from behind it, but even a split second might give him an edge…and there was something he wanted to try.

Mavriste faked once, sending a Vorak-sized bubble of plasma one way, only to dart the opposite a heartbeat later.

Caleb didn't fall for the decoy and wrangled his gun to aim at Mavriste. But he was at least alarmed by Mavriste's decision to bolt straight for him instead of circling like before.

Damn, but if he didn't still react perfectly.

The Human squeezed off two shots before dissolving the gun and deflecting Mavriste's first punch.

Distance and timing.

<No kidding!> Mavriste marveled. He swiped a claw toward's Caleb's face only for his target to lean away, leaving his claws to pass an inch or two from the Human's chin.

Caleb's counterattacking fist came in in the same motion too, smashing against Mavriste's jaw—and still materializing a quarterstaff to swing at him after.

One thing after the next. No gaps or pauses to think.

Caleb was like him. He could explore complex thoughts and strategies and fight at the same time.

As skilled as Caleb was at close-quarters, fast-paced Adept combat? Mavriste kept up. It frustrated the Human, visibly.

<Tsk, tsk, Caleb,> Mavriste chided him. His emotional discipline was wearing thin, and Mavriste wasn't going to pass up that opportunity.

The psionic attack Mavriste launched had no care for defense. The two of them even took cues from Caleb's demonstration, repurposing defensive constructs into improvised psychic weapons. Reserving only the barest patches of his firewall to protect his simulacrum, the most crucial plasma-regulating pages in his Spellbook, and his comm.

Caleb didn't miss the moment to obliterate almost everything he didn't protect, but Mavriste's gamble paid off. At the same time Caleb attacked, Mavriste's own psychic strike landed.

Where his previous blows had disappeared into the murk, Mavriste could see this one pierce the darkness and pierce Caleb's own firewall.

It wasn't a large hole.

But even what little Mavriste saw through it shone like molten gold.

While his arms and legs lurched forward and back, matching Caleb blow for blow, his mind was preoccupied with the little something that almost seemed just within reach.

Mavriste darted a psionic probe forward, through the momentary hole, and like a fishing line, hauled it back.

"[Son of a bitch…]" Caleb swore in his native tongue.

<Oh, what's this?> Mavriste gloated, inspecting the prize he'd managed to reel in.

It had a little…pin…on it, like that of a grenade. But it didn't feel like a grenade. No, it didn't give off a hostile impression at all.

Mavriste pulled the pin and suddenly understood how Caleb's sense of distance could be so preternatural.

Caleb's mind bloomed into his awareness alongside two others, below and lateral to them.

Those minds were, Mav realized, the two rak left onboard their submarine, just barely in range under the nearby water's edge.

<A radar,> Mavriste breathed. <You really have psionic radar?>

<A temporary version,> Caleb glowered, pressing the attack.

<There's a permanent version?>

Caleb didn't answer, flaring gas jets on his shoulders and hips, blasting himself into a new attacking angle. Mavriste was making a mental note that Caleb didn't seem to be able to move himself with the gas jets and produce the pressure bombs at the same time when another sudden screech cut into his awareness.

<Mav, look out!>

Once again, his sister's cry of warning surprised him, but he correctly deduced that the sounds were from Caleb again.

<That's a low and dirty trick,> Mav snarled, bracing himself for an outside block against Caleb's high kicks.

Once again, the Human didn't give any acknowledgement to the trick.

Mavriste was pushing Caleb, but not enough. He needed to commit further, and he reached for the psionics he used to regulate their marines' signature smart-plasma.

In a defensive arrangement, the black fluid clung to his whole body, ready to alter the momentum, inertia, and friction of whatever it touched—exceptionally useful for defending. It was like a smart suit of armor that shielded you with strange physics.

Pulling the offensive arrangement from his Spellbook took less than a second, and it concentrated the plasma to different spots on his body. Cloaking his hands in the denser clumps, he could cleave through concrete like lard, but it left parts of his body unprotected.

Unfortunately, Caleb didn't miss the switch or what Mavriste used to enact it.

<[You dare use my own spells against me, Potter?]> Caleb snarked, refocusing his psionic attack specifically on Mav's Spellbook.

It was bad news. Caleb was going to get through what was left of Mav's defenses sooner rather than later. And if he gouged out Mav's Spellbook, then controlling the plasma was going to become a much slower affair.

Unacceptable.

Caleb was going to get hurt. There was no avoiding that now.

Mavriste only hoped he could end things without that hurt being lethal.

Cloaking in arm in the black plasma, he tore at Caleb's guard. Dark streaks like fire followed in the wake of Mavriste's every movement.

Mav was shocked to see Caleb backpedal with his limbs mostly intact. His forearms were singed, but shimmering transparent plates could now be seen clinging to where Mav had clawed.

<Invisible armor,> Macoru noted. <He didn't get bloodied when he got dragged across the concrete earlier.>

Caleb shook his arms, sealing the gouges in his bracers, rendering them invisible once again.

<He's wearing an invisible helmet too,> Macoru guessed.

<You think a breastplate or mail?>

It didn't really matter. Offensively speaking, Mavriste was in a superior weight class.

Even pouring on the offense, Caleb still made it abominably hard. Mavriste's first four attempts were foiled when Caleb dodged unexpectedly or interrupted him with a perfectly placed psionic barrage.

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Mavriste adjusted.

The more he pressured Caleb physically, the less the Human could afford to concentrate on the psionic assault, and the easier it became to weather.

Consolidating his psionics to the essentials had left him a smaller perimeter to defend, and switching his plasma cloak from a defensive profile to an offensive one was preventing the Human from dedicating himself wholly to his own attacks.

With fighters like Mav and Caleb there was a sequence to the exchanges. Neither of them was going to land the first punch or fall for the first feint. So there was preamble to every decisive move.

Block, block, jab, counter, feint, then go for the real attack.

Prod, prod, feint, hold… go!

Each exchange produced different results, but little by little, Mavriste was coming out ahead.

With his plasma cloak peeled back, Caleb was letting his offense stagnate. He was becoming more fixated on targeting Mavriste's exposed weak points.

It made him ever so slightly more predictable.

When Caleb pulled out the cult's blade, Mavriste saw his opening.

The cult had been adamant that the blade allowed whoever held it to see the future. But while Mavriste hadn't gotten to inspect the sword before Caleb broke it. Macoru , on the other hand had gotten a peek at the blade years ago, and from her description…He couldn't recreate the proto-psionics like Caleb proved able, but he was more than ready.

It didn't actually let you see the future. It let you see the present, just…very slowly.

Macoru had picked up on Caleb's usage of the tool in the Diving Bell.

It was hard to miss the bleeding from the eyes.

Caleb learned his lesson though, and Mavriste saw his gaze go out of focus. Fighting on just peripheral vision. In slow motion?

It would have been a joke if Caleb hadn't come an inch from killing Mav on the first try.

Mavriste tried to dart forward and score a quick blow, but Caleb reacted impossibly fast. To the untrained eye—and even to a majority of trained ones—Caleb started moving preemptively.

He thrust his knife forward at exactly the right moment to catch Mavriste in the throat. Only his plasma cloak saved him.

The knife was psionically buzzing with activity, holding so much of Caleb's mental resources that he'd actually allowed even his psionic onslaught to wane.

But physically, it was just a knife. No special material, no exotic characteristics to pierce through Mavriste's plasma cloak.

Caleb's already precise spacing and timing became impeccable. If not for his stroke of psionic luck, the blade's powers might have created a dangerous opening.

But unfortunately for Caleb, Mavriste had managed to steal the disposable psionic radar—or one of them. It gave him firsthand insight into how Caleb could track his position and react even without keeping his eyes pointed at his enemy.

Caleb was reacting sharply to the bleeding he'd experienced in the Diving Bell. He was fighting based on peripheral vision, the time dilation the cult's blade enabled, and his psionic radar. Collating those inputs to perceive Mavriste's approach more precisely than he could with his eyes directly.

But all combined, there was a crucial weakness that Caleb hadn't accounted for.

The knife itself.

Mavriste switched tactics, backing away from close-quarters and moving to circle him again.

Instead of pivoting with his shield, Caleb took on a brazen stance, facing just one direction and waiting. The only guesswork in Mavriste's plan was exactly how much the cult's blade let him dilate time.

Fifty-percent? Almost certainly. Could he slow it more? A fifth of its normal pace? A tenth?

Mavriste played it safe and assumed Caleb could stretch one second into twenty.

With that timing, it would be tricky…but doable.

Tightening the rings he was running around Caleb, Mavriste pulled on his Spellbook again and once again switched the configuration on his plasma cloak. He mainly alternated between the two: offense and defense. But there were more 'modes' to their signature creation. One of which was purely for experimental purposes.

It enabled very free-form modifications, even on the fly, at the cost of reducing almost all other utility in the plasma. It wouldn't withstand as much damage before dispersing, it wouldn't let him redirect inertia and momentum to the same degree, it even had limited temperatures it could reach safely.

But in this state, it was much more flexible. Far easier to produce a customized, preprogrammed attack. The kind of attack Caleb wouldn't have any trouble with normally.

Normally.

It was a simple edge formed out of plasma, analogous to a throwing star.

His aim didn't need to be perfect. The psionics embedded into the smart plasma helped aim its trajectory. All Mavriste had to do is release it with the right timing.

Round and round he slid, Caleb awaiting his attack. And when Mavriste circled him for the last time, he threw the star directly upward, directly behind Caleb so he couldn't see it coming.

Mavriste circled back to Caleb's front and prepared to charge in. Caleb tensed, perceiving every motion in slow, agonizing detail, ready to react and counter Mavriste's charge…

Right up until the hot plasma throwing star came in from above and scorched right through the knife.

Caleb let out a blood-curdling scream as his psionics went haywire. He'd been wired into the knife's constructs. Deeply. Destroying it threw his whole system into chaos.

Mavriste truly considered himself a kind and merciful rak. He knew circumstances didn't always allow him to be, but mercy and grace were truly things he yearned to embody.

But this was a circumstance where he could scantly afford to be kind.

He exploited Caleb's disarray.

It was with guilty satisfaction that he blew through Caleb's outer firewall, stripping it away in wide swaths. Psionics in his mind became clearer, glowing like molten magma, and the inscrutable mountain of earlier became a much more vulnerable system.

Mavriste could see what to aim at.

The obvious target was the reason they'd ultimately decided to isolate Caleb: his so-called Superconnector.

Caleb hadn't explained the intricacies of its capabilities, but hearing that some of Caleb's martial arts skill was in part due to connecting to others, Mavriste and his sister had a rather strong hunch about what it might let Caleb do.

Looking at the Superconnector like this, with barely any obscurement in place…

Fear struck gently and deep in his heart. He was tempted to destroy the construct right now, while he had the chance.

He forced himself to let the moment pass. It was one thing to strike Caleb's mind while he was vulnerable. It was another to obliterate his magnum opus out of expedience; that would be needlessly cruel.

Still reeling in agony, Caleb tried to take swing for him. But Mavriste caught Caleb's arm, wrenching him forward off balance, and delivered a plasma-empowered full force punch right into his invisible chest guard.

It cracked into visibility, and Caleb backpedaled in a panic.

Mavriste followed the attack with a blade, bringing it down toward Caleb's face. But before he could pull the slash and threaten Caleb to stay down, the Human caught the sword in his bare hand.

Nope, Mav thought. Seen you do that before.

He ran a charge of plasma through the sword, searing Caleb's hand.

"Augh!"

More than anything so far, it was the angry red burn on the palm of his hand that shocked him.

Mavriste stood over him, sword in hand pointed at his throat.

<Stand down,> Mav ordered. <I won't kill if you unless I absolutely have to.>

<…I…appreciate the courtesy,> Caleb said, sounding genuine. <But like I said before, I don't have the luxury of accepting.>

Madness. One swipe of the sword and his throat would spill open.

<Brother, behind you!>

Mav's hackles rose, but he arrested his reaction again. Caleb was copying Macoru's voice again—in the right language this time.

<Stop that,> sim-Macoru snapped. Her irritation mimicked Mavriste's own. <You're not fooling anyone.>

<I'm not surrendering either,> Caleb said. <So either stab me, or you surrender Vo.>

<They're not ours to surrender,> Mavriste said. <If Vo surrendered, we'd stand down and accept it. But they haven't yet. So we're going to fight to defend them.>

<Mav. He. Try. Something!>

Again, Macoru's voice in a broken facsimile of their native tongue.

<Stop it,> he hissed, letting a hint of anger get the better of him. <You're beaten.>

<Not nearly,> Caleb retorted, and kicked.

Spun.

Kicked?

Both, simultaneously.

In his millisecond of anger, Mavriste had let the point of the sword drift an inch away from Caleb's throat. There'd been no hesitation to take advantage.

Jets of air spun Caleb even while he was upside down, kicking first the sword and then Mavriste's wrist away.

<Look out!>

Mav ignored the voice easily this time, lunging for Caleb, trying to induce him into catching the blade again.

Caleb resorted to a quarterstaff instead. He caught the first slash, trying to twist the guard into a quick attack, but Mav was no stranger to polearms.

Rarely used over spears, Vorak swords tended to be longer than their forearms and slightly curved.

Mav preferred a sword in close quarters for precisely that reason: most enemies knew spears and staves. Swords required more expertise, both to wield and defend against.

Channeling more plasma through the blade, Mavriste sliced clean through Caleb's quarterstaff. The blade continued toward the Human and would have cleaved right through him if not for being deflected both off first his invisible shoulder guard and then his helmet.

Caleb jetted himself away, sucking down more breath.

<You're wearing thin,> Mav accused.

Caleb responded by materializing his gun and firing a slug right into Mavriste's chest in the blink of an eye.

Black plasma wrapped around his torso caught the round, but it still made him clap his mouth shut. Quickdraws like that, you had to guess where to guard before the shot actually fired.

This time he'd guessed right.

But he'd been forced to leave his head open; his plasma was still in the wrong configuration for defense.

<You're not so fresh yourself,> Caleb said, ditching his quarterstaff in favor of a sword of his own.

Not a hand-and-a-half blade like Mav's.

Caleb materialized a hilariously unwieldy blade, as tall as he was, and…thin. A broadsword—or a claymore. This wasn't for show. Even large swords were deceptively fast and lightweight.

Mavriste had a much harder time approaching now. Caleb was smart. The metal sword was denser than his more limber quarterstaff had been. It could actually meet Mavriste's plasma-charged strikes without failing.

Even down as he was, Caleb's form was precise. Disciplined.

The broadsword was long enough that even gentle swings forced Mavriste to slow his approach. He darted in low, feinting back and forth, tricking Caleb to committing to a swing and—the pommel smashed into his face, forcing him back.

Caleb clenched his own blade in his augmented hand, using it to bash Mavriste instead of slash him. It was just like his quarterstaff.

<That's it exactly,> Macoru noted. <The blade is a trick. He's using it as a metal quarterstaff.>

In addition to further attempts to distract him with Macoru's voice, Caleb caught him by surprise with a couple more tricks: swinging the blade faster by adding the same gas jets he used to push himself around, dropping it unexpectedly to try sneaking a fist inside Mav's guard.

Neat tricks, ones that even gave Mavriste bruises and bad cuts.

But they were stopgaps. Little by little Caleb's style was becoming readable, and Mavriste was adjusting faster and faster. Caleb was still reeling from the psionic recoil of the time dilating dagger being destroyed while he was gripping it so tightly.

<You're losing. Badly> Mavriste pointed out. <I can shear through that armor far faster than you can repair it.>

<That's only because you're trapped in my master plan,> Caleb said.

<You need to surrender.>

<No chance.>

Mavriste grimaced.

Is there really no way?

Before he could wrestle with the dilemma before him, Caleb began radiating signs of a second wind.

<More like third or fourth…> Macoru said bitterly. She might have been about to continue the thought, but Caleb's psionic energy shifted radically.

All his continuing attacks ceased, and Mavriste felt his blood run cold.

"<What are you—>"

The words were all he could get out before Caleb's Superconnector unspooled in his mind.

Like a magnificent golden, multi-plated snake-centipede, it uncurled and— how do I know those words?

Mavriste's perception and thoughts couldn't keep up as the superconstruct lanced into his mind, crushing what little psionic defenses he still had.

His whole body was shaking. Mavriste's? Caleb's? Both?

For a moment, Mavriste was lost in the connection between them that he couldn't perceive. Human ideas and impressions flashed before his eyes. He half expected to see Caleb having his own flashes of Vorak experience, but turning his attention toward the topic revealed just how little control Mavriste had over the process compared to Caleb.

Caleb wasn't trying to connect to Mav's experiences or memories.

He was trying to connect to his Simulacrum.

The new link formed, igniting in a hot glow between the two psionic creations.

Sim-Macoru screamed. Not in pain, but alarm.

Caleb was creating his own simulacrums across their connection! Multiple of them.

Why?

By the time Mavriste collected himself enough to ask the question, Caleb was already moving on to his attack.

It was surprisingly uncoordinated.

The Human just lurched toward him, throwing a reckless and sloppy punch— that passed right through him.

Mavriste tried to intercept the blow only to pass right through the illusory version of Caleb.

They were like sim-Macoru. Visible and audible to his senses, but purely psionic. Not truly there.

It suited Caleb, to combine two of the greatest psionic constructs forged so far and reduce them to a mere smokescreen.

And yet?

It was effective.

Caleb let out a soul shaking cry, and a dozen or more illusions of him broke out in unique paths. They all converged on Mavriste, attacking simultaneously, and Mavriste couldn't tell the difference between the real Caleb and the illusory simulacrums. Every single one of them registered as 'real' on the radar he'd stolen.

Mav tried to block the first couple on reflex, but it was futile. And he knew he was only leaving himself open for whatever attack the real Caleb decided to launch on—Caleb's fist connected with his belly, and Mav felt ribs crack.

Caleb lashed out in a fury, sinking blow after blow into Mavriste's body, neck, head, shoulder. Whichever part wasn't covered by the plasma, he attacked, leaving no room to recover. Mav could barely think. As soon as he tried to react to an attack heading for an unguarded portion of his body, Caleb's simulacrums lunged to fill his field of view.

It was a relentless attack designed to put and keep Mav off balance, leaving no chance for recovery.

And alone, he would have succumbed to exactly that fate. Caleb was too quick moving from one attack to the next, and he had the initiative in the moment.

But Mavriste wasn't truly alone. Despite isolating them, he carried his closest ally with him, and it was his own sim-Macoru that saved him .

She shut off his own superconstruct—herself. She shut the whole construct down like a lightswitch. And the connection that Caleb's simulacrum's had to Mav's eyes and ears was gone.

Caleb could have surely built a new one. Quickly, probably. Wouldn't take him more than a second or two.

Mavriste did not give him a second or two.

He caught Caleb's arm and hurled him over his shoulder. Caleb hit the ground with a heavy thud, and he came up wheezing.

Mavriste's own breath was strained from his cracked ribs.

If you had used a blade then, you could have killed me on the spot.

It was a sobering thought to realize that Caleb had been holding back too—likely without even realizing.

<Lightbringer…on a one-hundred point scale…> Mavriste said, his own breath ragged.

Caleb had no more words except yet more imitations of Macoru's voice.

<Look out!>

<Behind you, Mav!>

<MAVRISTE!>

He just stared at the Human, tired.

<On a hundred point scale, I give you a perfect score,> Mavriste sighed. <But for Adepts on our level? You need a thousand-point scale to measure us. I'm sorry, but you never had a chance.>

<Don't be so sure,> Caleb said, eyes still defiant.

Still, through their lingering connection, Mavriste caught an impression of Human words that some part of Caleb's brain couldn't help but give away.

All warfare is based on deception.

"MAVRISTE!"

His sister's words rang out. Not psionically. She screamed at him at the top of her lungs, and it was the only warning he got before a scorching plume of teal flames came down on him like a meteor.

He threw himself away from Caleb, barely avoiding the Warlock's flames by the wisps of his trimmed fur.

Nai herself came down from above next, crashing directly into Mav's shoulders from above, stomping him into the ground.

Pink sparks shot out in a flurry, trying to pepper Nai with rapid-fire. The Farnata blinked a shield into existence without even looking at them.

Second and third waves of fire at least forced her to leap off Mavriste's knocked down body.

Nai walked over to Caleb while Mavriste frantically retreated to his sister.

Caleb allowed himself to be hauled to his feet without a word, and Mavriste realized just how badly they'd miscalculated.

<…They were never cut off,> Mac said.

<No,> Mav agreed.

The psionic isolating bubble had been the lynchpin of their strategy. Cutting Caleb off had meant to accomplish a number of goals, compromising enemy chain of command, possibly securing an important hostage, and more.

It had accomplished none of that.

Worse, since Caleb had somehow bypassed it, all it had served was to cut off Mavriste. The Warlock's ambush had come within inches of killing him. Caleb had even prepared for Macoru trying to warn him, mimicking her voice, tricking him into ignoring her warnings.

Turning the situation even further against them, Nai wasn't the only new arrival.

Half-a-dozen rak Adepts spilled down the slope, pressing Humans trying to keep them at bay. Mavriste had to bite back the embarrassment of seeing his own soldiers having deduced the enemy's plan before him.

The script had flipped. Instead of Caleb being isolated, Nai had come to tip the scales, and Macoru had been forced to follow—the only one with any hope of checking the Warlock's power.

Now it was Mavriste and Macoru who were isolated, tricked into cutting themselves off from their own allies.

Punctuating the situation, a wall of teal flames erupted forty feet tall completely encircling the platform.

<A thousand-points? Who cares,> Caleb said. <Nai here is ten-thousand points. Bare minimum.>

He held up a fist toward his Farnata friend, and she raised her own to bump it.

The golden draconic-centipede-cable linked to Mavriste decoupled and coiled around Nai's mind instead.

"Mac?"

"Yeah, Mav?"

"I think we're in trouble."

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