Lunaris facing Brian…

  The square pinched down to a ring.

  Smoke rolled low over the cobbles, smearing the world into charcoal and Dmitry’s ember. The bigger battle still clawed at the edges. Like yells, horns or the hollow boom of spells, but here, inside a circle of shield-locked elites, the noise thinned to breathe and steel.

  Lunaris slid to a stop on ash, cloak skimming the ground, sock-banner twitching like a too-honest flag.

  Okay. This is it. Don’t be weird. Be fast.

  Brian stepped into the center opposite her, heavy plate catching firelight in a dull, stubborn gleam. His longsword rode on his shoulder like it belonged there, casual as a cane; the blade was thick, hateful, and expensive. His helmet was off.

  He was… annoyingly handsome, with that particular brand of player smirk that assumed the ending had already been written. Winds pulled smoke past his jawline; he didn’t cough.

  He didn’t hurry.

  Her lighter armor, lacquered plates and leather over the Eeleim mantle, hugged her tight, joined to move with her. The weight sat just right on hips and shoulders, silent when she bounced on her toes. The rapier answered her hand with a familiar weight.

  The Mistrael rode on her left like a patient friend. Her pulse jumped.

  Charlie trusted me with this class. She took a million-credit thing and put it in my hands like I was something more than a sock with legs. I need to be the fastest to be worth it.

  Now I can prove it.

  Brian eyed her with a half-smile. “Chronosblade, huh? And beautiful on top of that. Unfair advantage.” He leaned back a little. “When I took this class, they said to build for speed. I didn’t. You seem like you did. How fast are you, cutie?”

  Lunaris smiled back, the kind that showed teeth because she didn’t know where else to put the fear. “I won’t say it,” she chirped, then added, bright: “I’ll show it. Besides, I’ve got a boyfriend already.”

  “He can watch,” he said and gestured with two fingers.

  Lunaris moved.

  The world moved with her.

  She skimmed the ring’s dust-rim, sock snapping, rapier needle-forward; his first swing came down like a guillotine. She slid inside it, Mistrael catching the edge and turning it by a finger-width. Weight screamed through her arm. She pivoted, felt the sweet slip of space open—thrust—

  Sparks belched from his chestplate where the rapier kissed it and glanced off. He grunted. Didn’t step back. Her grin didn’t falter. It just got tighter. “Rude.”

  His sword came back up and down in the same breath, a falling star aimed to split her crown. She folded sideways and felt the wind tear a strand of hair free. Cobble shattered where she’d been. The ring of elites took half a step closer, shields angling, points hungry.

  “Stay back,” Brian told them without looking.

  Lunaris bounced, breathed. The square’s heat pressed her cheeks. Blood tasted like copper on the back of her tongue. She circled right, left, then cut in; rapier probing, Mistrael sweeping to lift his guard.

  She was a blur.

  He was a wall that learned.

  He blocked more on each pass. Slower than her, much, but his plate drank her shallow cuts, and when his blade grazed anything at all, it rang her bones. The first time he clipped her pauldron, her shoulder sang numb. The second, he gouged leather and skin, and heat licked down her ribs.

  It’s okay. Hurt is okay. You’re a dancer; he’s a refrigerator.

  Refrigerators can be out-footed.

  She reset, breath hitching with a small, stupid laugh. “You fight like a fridge with legs,” she said. “My compliments to your… hinges?”

  He grinned, coming on again. “Careful with compliments, cutie. I blush easily, but stats win wars.”

  A feint put his shadow one way and his steel the other; he wasn’t just heavy. He was clever enough to be cruel. Lunaris ducked a bit too late, and the flat of his blade kissed her helm, staggering her into a short, ugly step. The world doubled. She tasted dust.

  Another blow came to her thigh. She leaned out with a twist the mantle liked, spine guided by some invisible nudge. The sword snapped past and smashed stone.

  He smiled for real then. “Not bad.”

  “I know.”

  She made herself breathe and let rhythm take her. Her feet found their dance: tick-step, slide, pivot, the lights in her head parsing his tells faster, faster. His shoulders telegraphed, his stance betrayed. She’d learn him like a song; she always did.

  I’ll be the fastest.

  I’ll be worth the trust.

  Smoke peeled between them. She took her opening.

  [Paradox Slash] pulsed.

  Time snapped like a rubber band. Her rapier struck; twice in the same instant. One in the present, quick and true; the second a ghost-cut from a possible moment that hadn’t happened yet, bypassing his guard to sing along the seam under his arm.

  The blade bit leather.

  Blood leapt.

  Brian reeled. He hadn’t expected that. His eyes flared, and the ring shifted with a ripple of shield and spear and breath held.

  Lunaris bounced back on her toes, chest heaving. “Manual says you’re supposed to block both,” she said, as if they were talking about broom techniques and not him bleeding. Then, trying not to pant: “Two-minute cooldown, by the way. You’re safe for—oh stars… Uhm, long enough to regret that armor choice.”

  His lips thinned, anger finally lapping over the edge as he slashed for her shoulder again. She weaved around it, and when the second strike of [Paradox Slash] came, she almost dodged the slash, taking half-step back. “Speed and skill,” she corrected, light, polite. “Can help to avoid my skill.”

  She massaged her numb shoulder, and regreated not begging Scamantha for more healing potions. [Paradox Slash] was truly teryfing, she couldn’t fully escape it, but he was alrady on her again.

  They traded.

  Steel screamed.

  He chased her into the ring’s shadow and out; she used elites’ edges as walls to spring from. A shield boss almost clipped her ear; she slid under it, scissored up between two points and flicked a cut against a knee seam that made the man stagger.

  Brian punished her for it with a backhand that would have taken her jaw if she hadn’t bent like a reed. Still, the edge kissed her. White fire exploded along her cheek.

  The mantle’s warmth steadied her center; she whispered thank you between breaths.

  He pressed.

  She gave ground, a stutter, a stumble that wasn’t entirely fake. He was faster now, not in speed but in the removal of waste; his swing arcs cleaner, his recovery shorter. He didn’t overextend; he ground forward. Pressure as an art.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  He’s adapting. Good. So do I.

  She shifted her stance.

  Mistrael became broom, rapier became needle; she played tempo like she’d been born to bully music. His shoulder twitched? She was already gone. His hip loaded with weight? She’d be there when it finished, not before. The next time he cut high, she didn’t duck. She stepped inside, took the blow on her pauldron, and drove her rapier up under the lip of his breastplate hard enough to bend the steel around her hilt.

  He barked, a genuine sound now, and shoved her away with his forearm. She skidded back, laughing breathlessly, giddy heat fizzing in her chest.

  I can do this. I am doing this. Charlie, I—

  Her eyes prickled stupidly, and she blinked the wet away with a furious toss of her head. “Looks like speed’s catching up, fridge-boy,” she managed… and if her voice shook, that was just because lungs were rude.

  “You’re burning yourself down, sweetie,” he said. It didn’t sound like gloating anymore. It sounded like a warning.

  Or maybe she imagined that.

  “I know I’m not the best yet,” he added, quieter, “but I learned from the best.”

  He changed again.

  The stat difference between them was just too big; his afterimage started to lie. A huff of dust to her left heralded a nothing that ate her parry while the real blade came from the right. She took it on the flat, wrists screaming. It drove her to one knee. He followed with a pommel strike that cracked her helm’s brow and filled her mouth with the taste of pennies.

  Lunaris rolled, came up light, the world tilting. The ring tightened a step. The elites watched without speaking: twelve men in good steel, patient as Karzi wolves.

  She lunged, not at Brian but past him, stabbed low at a greave seam and skipped back before the backslash. He didn’t fall for it; he didn’t chase into a trip. He let her spend energy, then bought it with weight. A shield edge clipped her ribs.

  For a moment, everything was heat and white.

  You are winning, something inside insisted. You can. You will. She twisted her rapier in a small, pretty figure-eight just because it made her feel like herself. She imagined Charlie’s crooked smile, the way it held a secret and a dare.

  This is mine.

  I’ll bring you a head and a story.

  I’ll be the fastest.

  Brian feinted high, snapped low. She half-stepped to counter and realized too late the tell wasn’t his; an elite to her right had shifted a boot, and she’d read the wrong body. His blade kissed her thigh through the leather and took a long, ugly complaint of blood.

  Her leg went loose. She caught herself on momentum and pride. The sock fluttered madly at her calf as if it was trying to flee. “Yield,” he said, breathing harder now, and she could hate him for that softness. “You’re good. Join me, and I’ll let you keep the class.”

  She laughed in his face. It came out hoarsely and a little hysterical. “No.”

  He didn’t sigh. He didn’t shrug. He just nodded once, like a man who had tested a door and found it locked.

  They crashed again.

  Time inched toward the edge of that two-minute mark or her cool-down. Not yet. A breath away. She needed one clean space to call it; he knew it too, and he starved her of space.

  His longsword hammered her Mistrael aside, pressed, pressed, pressed. She heard something give in her wrist. A cry slipped out. The elites’ shields made a small metallic rustle.

  “Now,” Brian said.

  He didn’t say it to her.

  Two shields slammed into her from either side. The ring broke the silence like a dam. Hands caught her mantle, her arms, her wrist. She snarled and tore free of one grip, driving her Mistrael hilt-first into a visor with a crack that sent a man reeling.

  Three more filled his place.

  A hooked shield caught the edge of her rapier and wrenched it. Pain flared down her forearm. She clung to the hilt with white-knuckled stubbornness.

  “Hey!” she spat, an outrage more child than soldier. “One on one!”

  No one answered.

  She tried to jump; couldn’t. Ankles snagged. A spear butt took her shin. The ground bucked. She fell to one knee again and ate a shield rim to the mouth for it. Stars burst and wouldn’t go. Hands closed on her shoulders, her elbow. Her health dipped into red, which made the world small.

  She waited for the mantle’s nudge; for a whisper telling her where survival was.

  Nowhere.

  She thrashed, screaming something wordless and furious. An elbow found a chin. A heel found a knee. Someone cursed. Blood was everywhere, hot as bathwater.

  Not all of it hers.

  “Hold,” Brian said again, and the weight on her limbs got precise instead of brutal. Not a beating. A pin. They were good at this. Of course they were. Elites weren’t just numbers; they were… elites? She needed to study more about her enemies, but that meant more energy drinks… She needed to sneak some to work.

  Her world, which had been a clean line from challenge to victory, hit the wall of unfair. It didn’t crack. It shattered. Oh. Oh, they can just… decide. Rage shook her. Humiliation burned hotter.

  She spat blood, lifted her chin. “Cowards,” she panted. “All of you.”

  No one flinched.

  She could feel her [Paradox Slash] live again. Useless. Lunaris bared her teeth at the ring and tried to pull one more inch against the hands. They didn’t give. Bootsteps scraped gravel.

  Brian approached.

  He had the patience of someone who had been trained to win before wanting to. His sword rode on his shoulder again. He didn’t point it at her. He didn’t raise his voice. His expression was unreadable, neither glee nor pity, something worse and cooler than both.

  He stopped close enough that she could see the line of dried blood at the seam she’d opened earlier, the one under his arm. It hadn’t been much. It had been hers.

  “Cutie,” he said quietly. “You are fast.”

  She glared up, chest sawing. “I am.”

  “You’re better than most will ever be.” He glanced into her eyes. “You’re not the fastest, but if you become my girlfriend… we can play together and—”

  One of his elites cleaned his throat. “Boss. You promised not to pick girls.”

  Brian turned to him and shook his head. “And where else am I supposed to find a girlfriend? At school? Please. After I did today, Lisa would kill me for even trying.”

  Lunaris was shocked. They… talk about this? For them all of this was just that… a game. Not real. And she was conquered, and she walked into the trap on her own. Her lip trembled. She bit it hard.

  Don’t you dare cry. Not here. Not now.

  He crouched to meet her eyes. His breath smelled of mint somehow. “Listen to me.”

  She wanted to spit in his face. She wanted to break his nose with her forehead. She wanted him to swing so she could make him regret the shape of his mouth. She did none of those things. She stared back and let her anger be bright and hers.

  “Your Queen will get you bullied,” he said. “And if she doesn’t, this class will. We’re not ten stories chasing each other. Cutie, we’re knives in one drawer. It ends one way.”

  “Then I’ll be the one left,” she whispered, and the promise tasted like blood.

  His jaw flexed. “Maybe. If you stop mistaking courage for advantage. Get more stats. Don’t rely on support mages; they’re just plain bad.” His tone softened. “I don’t want to hurt you. But we’re enemies.”

  He glanced past her, toward the ring. “Let her breathe,” he told his men. “Do not release her.”

  Lunaris dragged a lungful in and shaped it into something like a laugh. “Oh, look,” she rasped. “Mercy from a fridge.”

  That earned a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “From a man who doesn’t enjoy torturing girls.”

  He set the flat of his blade across his knees and rested his wrists on it casually, as if they were two students and not prisoner and captor. “Now. We talk.” The ring held, and the battle rumbled on, but she could hear their side losing.

  Lunaris stared at Brian and tried to keep her hands from shaking.

  “Last chance,” he said. “Join me.”

  Lunaris met his eyes, her pulse a trembling drum beneath bruised skin. Her body screamed for rest. Her pride refused. She shook her head once.

  Never.

  Without moving her lips, she flicked open the interface.

  Juliette was still there; in the dark, unseen, the one shadow that hadn’t betrayed her.

  That was enough.

  Brian exhaled through his nose; the sound was gentle. “I apologize then.” He raised his sword. The blade caught the light; one perfect, merciless arc. “Sorry.”

  Lunaris clenched her teeth, forcing her eyes open, forcing herself to see it coming. She wouldn’t blink. She would meet it head-on, the same way she met everything else: grinning and stupid.

  A whisper cracked beside her ear.

  Steel kissed air.

  NightSwallow appeared out of nothing, a ripple of black folding back on itself. Her dagger flashed, edge angled toward Lunaris’s neck. It was the cleanest mercy she could offer.

  Lunaris smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  But the blade never landed.

  A second dagger rang out of nowhere, batting Juliette’s aside with a clang that echoed through the smoke. The impact threw sparks across the floor. Both assassins staggered, shadows spilling away from their feet.

  A singsong voice surprised her: “Got you!”

  A tail swished into view first. The catgirl stepped out from behind a fallen shield, grin wide, eyes glowing in the firelight. Her twin daggers twirled in her hands like toys, her tone sugar-sweet. “Aww~ How lucky am I? I met the fearsome Swallow on a job.”

  Brian’s blade was already coming down.

  Lunaris looked up at him as Juliette twisted, turning her dagger to kill her again… too late. The last thing Lunaris saw was her own reflection in Brian’s sword, wide-eyed and stubborn, before she was back in her capsule.