“That’s so unfair,” I whispered under my breath, hoping he’d hear it. The hall was prepared for him, after all. Damned cheaters. All of them.

  [You are being way too harsh, Alexa.]

  Oh, am I!? I shot back at her in thought, bold and expressive, making damn sure she understood just how much I disagreed. How dare she even consider looking at this any other way than mine?

  [You better focus on the task, or he will smash you,] she replied, completely disregarding everything I’d so nicely thrown at her.

  I blinked away toward the card I’d smashed into a tree a minute earlier. Appearing at its position, I vaulted off, springboarding from the bark to the branch above, pulling myself up and throwing another card high into the air. The moment it reached the apex of its flight, I blinked there too and dove downward toward the grassy ground. I eased the impact, rolling as soon as the earth decided it was time for us to become acquainted again.

  Then I quieted my steps and hid behind a cluster of trees and brush.

  He knew damn well I wouldn’t be able to paint anywhere in here. It was ridiculous.

  [You could use the bark of the trees. And the grass isn’t that bad. Is it bad?]

  In that breeze? Yeah. Good luck to me.

  The bark might’ve worked if not for the fact that he could erase my effort in the blink of an eye. This whole thing was a setup, designed to put me in the worst possible position.

  But I didn’t need to beat him. I just needed to find her and get her out of trouble. And that was much easier here, where moss covered almost everything and ferns created an overgrown crisis of green.

  I took a deep breath, steadied my heart rate, tucked a loose strand of red hair back into place, and bolted with everything my legs could give me. The world blurred slightly as I ran through the vegetation, big and small. As far as I understood it, it was the big stuff I needed to watch when he got close.

  And unfortunately, he was getting closer with every passing second.

  I reached for Ella as the bark in front of me shimmered for a split second. I opened her in front of myself just in time to block part of it as it splintered and new growth lashed out at me. The attack splashed across her canopy like the overgrowth I’d just been thinking about, solidifying into hard wood that tried to trap her. I sent her away instead, sliding under another strike. This one was a branch that had decided flexibility was a great idea and aimed itself right at my chest.

  No. No. To that kind of thing I say: not today.

  But it was getting clearer by the second that as long as I stayed in the woods, I was on his hunting grounds. I reached for Lio, who was frantically searching for Caroline somewhere else in the forest, moving like the wind through the branches on the far side. He was too far away to use as an anchor, just outside my aura’s reach.

  As I was weighing my options, an attack came from below. The tree I was about to pass ripped part of its root free and tried to grab my feet. And by tried, I meant it succeeded. For about a second. I focused on my Usagear’s ears and used them as a teleport destination, leaving my suit behind and appearing almost naked where my head had been a moment earlier. I caught a branch above me, vaulted forward, and teleported my suit back onto my body mid motion.

  I’d already thrown three cards into the air, each in a different direction. He tried to counter by forcing branches to snatch them, but one slipped through. A heartbeat later, I was airborne.

  I reoriented, threw the same card again, farther and higher, teleported to it at the apex. Again. And again. I built myself a chain of flying stepping stones, burning through my soul’s energy fast. But I was getting away from him even faster, closing in on Lio’s position.

  He had, after all, found that wretched nice woman.

  I teleported to Lio, dropping down from the sky right at Caroline’s feet. She pretended to be in distress, sprawled on the grass, casually reading a book.

  “You found me?” she asked, closing it and leaning back against the tree. “That’s unfortunate.”

  “Un-for-tu-nate?” I asked, stressing each syllable. “How is that anything but a job well done?”

  “I mean, it is that too. I just hoped for a bit more time. It’s warm in here,” she said.

  I sent Lio back into the concrete jungle to keep an eye on the trolls.

  “Call him. Tell him it’s over.”

  “No need. He’ll know soon enough.”

  The environment around us began to dissolve into gooey shapes, sinking into the ground and vanishing. Almost immediately, we were back in the Hexblades training hall used for my examination. I spotted Marek Podlolski right away, already heading toward us with a frown.

  I didn’t wait. I moved to meet him halfway.

  “You cheated,” he said. “You used your pet to find Caroline. You can’t do that.”

  “Can’t is just a ‘can’ with one word too many, if you don’t care enough.” I shot back at him, stunning him briefly. I jabbed a finger into his chest. “You’re the ones who cheated. You built an environment tailored exactly to your powerset. You told me my task was to survive and find Caroline. I did exactly that.”

  “But you weren’t alone. You won’t always be able to summon whatever you want onto the battlefield.”

  “Listen up. I will always use whatever I have on hand to do what needs doing. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.”

  His expression hardened. Then it slowly thawed as a smile crept in. Despite looking like he’d kill babies for fun, he was actually pretty sweet underneath. He just thought he hid it better than he did.

  “That’s exactly the attitude we need. Welcome aboard, Jessica.” He held out his hand. I took it and shook.

  Behind him, Caroline was only half smiling.

  “Well,” she said, “Ain’t it sweet? I guess it falls to me now to make a person out of you, huh?”

  “You can try,” I answered. “Anything else planned for today?”

  “No. We’ll take it from here and finish the paperwork with the boss. We’ll contact you after New Year’s, when your gear, badge, and equipment are ready.”

  “Is that really it? A combat test two days ago, aptitude and psychological evaluation yesterday, and whatever this was today?”

  “You were screened before and pushed by Boston, so yeah, that’s it,” Marek answered simply, sounding a little annoyed. “Look, I’m not a fan of doing it this way. It’s special treatment, and despite the fact that I kind of like you, I don’t like it.” He did his best to stress the last word. “I’m very much a by the book person, so this sits fucking awful with me. So please don’t ever remind me how this was done, capiche?”

  “Yes, captain,” I replied, giving the salute I’d seen them use, pressing an open palm to my heart.

  “At least that part you did well enough.”

  “We’ll make it work,” Caroline said to him, sounding a bit hesitant. “I promise.”

  “I know you’ll try. Probably both of you. But if anything goes sideways, it’ll ultimately be me who gets the blame. So yes, please, do not fuck it up, people.”

  “That sounds promising,” I said, a note of cheer slipping into my voice as they started toward the exit. “Did you find out anything about the guy I found in the concrete jungle?” I added, remembering.

  I’d given them everything I had on him—he deserved a proper burial—but they only shook their heads. I waved them off in response.

  He’d never get his goodbyes, but such is the life.

  We were under Grand Central in Ideworld. I had ultimately found this place, and it really did have a sign out front that looked like the entrance to some kind of smoke shop. Just with a lot more security. And a working gate in the back with even more of it. The whole thing looked like a Realitydamn airport terminal, judging by how many people were moving in and out.

  But I wasn’t going through that channel today.

  It was getting late, and I was already suited up, so I teleported straight into the concrete jungle, where my lóng was already waiting for me.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  If everything went right with today’s culling, I’d be reaching full essence and my second soul core growth.

  I’d visited this place every night since after Christmas Eve, trying to squeeze every ounce of whatever was hidden here for me before I traveled to France with my friends. I’d quickly learned, though, that just like experience, essence preferred novelty. Repeating the same actions over and over started giving sharply diminishing returns.

  Still, essence kept flowing with every felled troll, giant, jaguar, and architect. That was the name I’d given to the creatures that looked like octopedal computer parts mashed together and held by wires and cables. They had eight tentacle like limbs they used to move around, standing a full ten feet above the tree line. This place used them to recreate anything I’d destroyed the night before. They’d slither in, stand still for a while with their tentacles sunk into the dirt, and then trees, vegetation, trolls, giants, or whatever else would regrow in a wash of digital green light. Like a hologram rebuilding something solid.

  And during that exact window, they were pretty much harmless.

  Which made them perfect targets for a cheater like me.

  Liora stayed high above everything, making sure the dozens of traps I’d painted around here were still intact. And I had to admit, despite the architects’ best efforts to keep this jungle pristine in its greyness and dullness, they clearly didn’t care that the ground was covered in graffiti. Probably because they used the same method themselves to tell their rivers apart from ordinary concrete ground.

  I bet that in this forest, Marek wouldn’t be so happy to face me.

  [I doubt he’d be happy to face you anywhere without some wood around.]

  True. He’s like me in that regard, right? Has to carry his tools with him if he wants to do anything magical. Probably explains why he’s so buff.

  [Or he just likes exercising.]

  Honestly, Ani, I’d rather repeat tasks like this than do endless squats and pushups. This way I train both my body and my soul.

  [You just called me Ani.]

  You mind?

  [No. I like it. Makes it personal.]

  I laughed at that as I walked toward the overlook I’d found a few days ago. You can’t get much more personal than you already are, I thought back at her.

  [And now you ruined it. Let me enjoy the small flashes of humanity you show sometimes.]

  “Whatever,” I murmured, looking through each of the eyes I’d placed around here.

  There had to be close to a hundred by now, each one watching something interesting. Five main areas where monsters gathered. Three troll trees. One giant dwelling, from which they launched their slow patrols to keep the troll population in check. And one spot where an architect stopped every night to replenish the last of the troll trees.

  He was almost there.

  Almost ready to meet the same end as the three before him.

  I teleported to Liora, who stood patiently, waiting for the usual hell to start. We both watched as the colossal, squid like being moved into position and, one by one, thrust its massive tentacles into the ground. They shimmered briefly with a shadowlight that looked far too digital for my tastes. Soon that light spread through the soil in shiny pixels, rippling outward like a wave of recreation.

  Trees began appearing where there had been none just seconds earlier, filling what had been barren, scorched ground with the dull aesthetics of someone who wanted to paint a rainforest but had only brought charcoal. Among the things rebuilt this way was a tall troll tower. Screens flickered to life near its top, cables spreading outward, searching for beings that did not yet exist.

  Interestingly, those weren’t brought to life with light alone.

  Trolls pushed their way up from the earth like moles, popping out of holes they’d dug themselves. They connected to the cables, slots clicking neatly into the backs of their necks. Their heads snapped backward in a single motion that looked far too much like a broken neck. Then their skin lit up, displaying websites from around the world. Ones I could actually see.

  Funny, right?

  I’d tried launching an Ideworld native laptop in here before. It powered on, I heard its internals hum and saw the indicator lights, but the screen stayed black, as if my eyes simply couldn’t process it. Shadow Sophie had no such problem.

  And yet, these things’ skin worked just fine for me.

  My brains told me to focus. The process was almost finished.

  The first time I did it, I was lazy and uncreative and I paid for it with the time spent—I’d painted a lot of fire traps and let the forest burn. Don’t get me wrong, it got the job done, but all of the murals I made evaporated in the heat. Because despite everything looking like concrete, rebar, and metal, those things behave like what they represent.

  So the very next day I got more creative. Which should’ve been my deal from the get-go, but somehow even for me it’s easy to fall into a habit, especially when it provides good results.

  I looked up at the big, cavernous wall that overlooked the scene below. Painting on it wasn’t easy, but with a rope attached at the top I went old school—hanging and spraying as I moved along the horizontal axis. And now it would be the fourth time I let it become a storm cloud.

  It wasn’t even a conscious thought. I just looked at the beautiful mural of naval blue, grey, and black. Facets of the cloud were lit from within by stored electricity, streaked with yellows and blues, the whole thing connected to me, accepted the light of my Authority.

  Once, I thought electricity was bound to my medium, like in Ella’s case. That I wasn’t able to just shoot a lightning arc at something. Well, I probably could if I had a good artistic representation of something that actually could do it—so Ella would have to stay an electric baton for now, able to electrocute only when she hit someone.

  This, however, was entirely different.

  This was a storm cloud in a place full of metallic rods sticking out, overlooking a monster made of computer parts—which, at that very moment, received the first strike right into its corpus. Lightning was a physical effect, as my creative mind reminded me.

  Thunder roared as its legs buckled under its mass, now suddenly lifeless.

  Then another strike hit nearby trees.

  And another slammed into the troll tower.

  Thunder after thunder after thunder. They kept striking, splitting both the silence and the living apart from their lives. Once again, like every previous day, the cavern lit up with oranges and reds as fire began consuming everything in its path. Trolls that survived electrocution now screamed as they burned alive.

  I didn’t like this part very much, so I listened to music instead. My Earthly phone played songs into my earbuds just the way it was supposed to—though I had to download them beforehand. The internet wasn’t really responding to my pleas in here, however ironic that was.

  When the first wave of fire rose high enough, I pulled my Authority from the cloud and moved to the wall beside it, where I’d painted a Cyclops blowing air with all the might his lungs could muster. He also had a few wind turbines painted onto his wristbands. I wanted both novelty and old, good reliability with this one.

  As I came closer, he too accepted my power, and the air began to move—forcing the fire to spread, only to meet the giants who, scared by what was happening or drawn by the trolls’ shouts, had wandered into the flames’ path. Who knew what drove them?

  They survived for quite some time, even with fire dancing on their skin. Even when it broke through and started sizzling muscle, they still tried to move. I watched them in fascination for their ability to withstand burns—they were a resilient bunch, but fire is indiscriminate in its hatred for life. It is an eternal hunger that moves and devours until it can no more, or until there is nothing left to consume.

  I moved alongside it, guiding it with the paintings I’d left, toward three more troll camps in the closest vicinity, while I focused on the songs playing. The air was hot now, but shadowlight insulated me somewhat, like it did from the cold.

  It was kind of nice—when all the killing stayed outside my vision and the sound was drowned out by old-school rock and metal bands.

  **********

  I released a breath and stepped closer to the other me. She held the greater part of my essence within the crystalline tree she had become after taking her place inside my soul’s realm. Tonight, however, I carried what remained—the final measure she needed in order to grow.

  “I am jealous of you,” I said, breaking the silence. I swear the rhythmic dimming and brightening of the light within the soul core quickened, as if her heart had answered me. For the longest time, I thought that heartbeat was mine. How could I not? Yet with each passing day, I come closer to granting her the credit for what this place truly is. We made it together, she and I—but she was the structure, the body, the laws themselves. All I ever was in return was the will.

  I envied her the serenity that came from simply being. But tonight, I would steal some of that peace of mind—because that is what thieves do, isn’t it? We take, and we use what belongs to others. Tonight I’d force her to move.

  I touched her crystalline skin, and the exchange began. The essence within me flowed into her, and the Authority within her poured into me, and the world spun inside my mind.

  It spun and spun, as though some celestial spider had seized us both and woven a cocoon around our shared existence. Soon it was not only my mind that turned, but my little universe as well.

  Everything pulsed and trembled. My lake-like black floor rippled as shadowlight spilled from the tree at the center of this realm. When the waves struck the walls of my abode, they shimmered and vanished—only to reform as a classical agora, farther from the center, no longer enclosing me. Openings appeared where none had been before. Each room I had once crafted for myself became a separate structure, adorned with Corinthian columns. These buildings encircled my crystal as it, too, rose higher.

  No longer was she merely a crystal with branches clinging to her form. She became a true tree, crowned with a corona that reached toward the sky. Her branches were unnatural—unlike any tree I had known—resembling instead a vast spiderweb spun from crystalline threads. The statues of me were no longer embedded in the walls; they had been moved before the buildings, standing tall and resolute, guardians of the great enclosure.

  And just when I believed the transformation complete, the shadowlight surged onward, spilling into the meadows beyond the agora. It touched the grasses and the fields of flowers, and they answered—rising into hills and forests, carving valleys where none had been.

  A landscape shaped by my soul.

  I reached for the control bar I had prepared for this moment—created within the temple that rose from the concrete jungle. I believed this place was truly special: a living embodiment of the browser itself, a power to search for answers to the questions we dared to ask ourselves. It granted me the soulmark I had longed for. Its guardian warned me that it might not be what I truly needed, but could they really know me? I did not even know myself completely.

  Still, I wanted this. And so I reached for the soul core again.

  I did not have to do it that way.

  I could have done it without that physical connection. The soulmark would have rooted itself within me and reached this place regardless. But this time, I wanted to do it with her.

  I opened myself spiritually. The shadowlight stored within me responded at once. Threads spilled from every pore of my body, wrapping around me like a second skin. It felt like breathing outside myself. Each breath reaching directly into the soul, bypassing the structures of flesh and bone.

  I felt the power of animation surge back in response, its threads returning to me, drilling themselves into the very framework of my being. The tether to my soul core awakened. As my palm rested against the crystal’s surface, the physical connection sent a shiver through me—a wave of pure energy crashing inward.

  It was overwhelming.

  I dropped to my knees, my hand sliding along the ice-cold bark.

  A tidal surge of memories rose within me. Me, painting with crayons while my parents watched. Me laying in the hospital bed all alone in the world. Me, sneaking out of the orphanage for the first time, clutching a stolen spray can. Me, being hugged by Peter. Me, running the obstacle course Penrose built for me. Leaping from a bridge on a bungee cord, daring myself to conquer my fear of heights. Climbing, walking, tumbling, dodging. Being struck, striking back. Slashing, drawing, sculpting clay. Kissing, kicking, rolling. Loving, crying, lashing out—

  Moving.

  Every action I have ever taken. Every motion. Every animation I have ever performed.