A pale hand shot from the ground and grabbed my ankle, squeezing tightly and sending a wave of cold over my leg. I promptly amplified the surrounding gravity while inverting my own, and I shot up into the air away from the suddenly roiling ground.

I needed to find a way to stop Green without hurting him, but if I had to choose between him or Dioda, I didn't know who I would pick. I decided that it wouldn't come to that. Now all I needed to do was prevent Green from hurting me, which hadn't even been a possibility in my mind just a few minutes ago.

The temperature dropped abruptly, plummeting downward as a corona of frost exploded outward from Green's stone. The air chilled and I felt ice forming on my skin, preventing me from moving as easily. I didn't need to move to fight, though, so I just ignored it. Even from the distance I was at, I saw his eyes glow brighter, and I prepared some of my more creative ideas.

Clattering towards each other, the hard objects coating the ground began to collect into a vaguely humanoid shape, and it lunged at me with claws outstretched. Changing the direction of my gravity, I went from an upward fall to a horizontal one, and felt the hand of the artificial creature brush past my clothes.

Flipping around, I created a vacuum around Green's stone and disrupted the dust at the base. In a fraction of a second, the air around him was utterly obscured, hopefully blocking his view entirely. I had to briefly delete momentum in a good radius around myself in order to stop moving. I still didn't know how to fly, but gravity manipulation was doing a decent job so far. The biggest problem was the lack of precision - I couldn't evade very well, and I was pretty sure Green knew it somehow.

The world flipped over.

It took me a brief moment to process what had just happened, but the ash and dirt raining down on me from what had been the floor a second ago nullified all doubt that I'd been feeling. Green and his rock detached from the ground, falling towards me, and the vines caught it a short distance from the new ceiling, leaving the vacuum behind.

I switched my orientation to fit the new gravity just in time for a spike of ice five times my size hurtled past me. The amount of power Green had at his disposal even while bound was incredible, but I was far from done myself.

Summoning a spatial distortion to block the plume of flame headed my way, I took a brief moment to focus. The idea I had was difficult to properly execute, but I'd done it before and knew how to pull it off.

Even with his hands clenched around the handle of the sword impaling him, he managed to make a gesture, and darkness fell over the entire clearing. I didn't need my eyes to do what I was planning, but I definitely needed space and I had a feeling it'd be a matter of seconds before Green dismantled the distortion I was defending myself with.

My mind almost hurt from the calculations I was having to make in order to avoid blowing up who knew how much of Dioda's forest on accident, and I nearly missed the white-hot lance of pure energy that annihilated my distortion.

I didn't miss the sudden surge building somewhere in the depths of the blackness. Whatever it was Green was about to do, it was going to be big.

He never got the chance as I shoved the whole area into the fourth dimension.

I opened eyes that couldn't see into a space that light no longer occupied. Green and his stone spasmed from the sudden change, but I could sense him adjusting. It was time to take advantage of the brief pocket of time I had available to me.

Moving a hand diagonally, I created a dense core of gravity, one of the few things that could still operate in the fourth dimension, and hurled it in Green's direction. It slammed into the stone and tore a chunk off, and the binding circles flickered.

I kept tossing gravity at him, ensuring that each one compressed and detonated without directly striking Green, and I kept landing hits on the stone and knocking pieces off. As ice and fire and chunks of rock popped into existence around Green and dissolved as quickly as they came, I felt him cycle through elements I couldn't even identify.

The whole area, dropped into monochromatic blindness, shivered as a whole. I could track the exact moment Green tapped into time, and I felt everything start to rewind.

It was exactly what I was hoping wouldn't happen.

Now I only had moments before we were pulled out of the fourth dimension and my trump card would be rescinded. I wasn't affected by the backsliding flow of time, one of the pros of coming from a place where time was less of a necessity and more of an occasional option. But my advantage was rapidly disappearing, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to beat him without it.

I stepped out of the fourth back to the third, where a massive crater sat in the place where Green's clearing had once been and would be in a moment. The first thing I did was fix the gravity of the area. I didn't have long to prepare, and I needed all the time I could get.

With a shriek of displaced space, Green's stone slammed back into reality. I didn't hesitate, and immediately chucked a ball of outwardly expanding physics disruption in his direction.

The ball vanished well before it made it there. Green's eyes were blazing the color of his namesake now. The pieces I'd knocked out of the stone he was bound to were still missing just as I'd hoped. Energy wasn't affected by time in the fourth dimension the same way it was in the third, and about half of the binds were missing their glow. Three of the five vines securing him to the stone were partially withered, graying as they went further from Green himself.

Before I could attack again, a dense pocket of gravity enveloped me, and I was forced to the ground. The instant my feet touched down, hands exploded from the dirt and seized me, climbing higher and higher and holding me tightly. I warped space and sidestepped out of the grasp, but the gravity slid sideways and held onto me, following me through the step.

I constructed a hastily made lance of the gravity surrounding me and tossed it, but it whipped right back around and hit me in the gut, and I doubled over from the hit.

I was pulled towards Green so quickly I barely had time to process it, and Green held me in front of him. Even without skin, vibrant energy pulsed through his skin.

YIELD.

The mental shout practically rattled my mind, but I shook my head. Stop stealing from Dioda.

Green's hand tore from the handle of the object impaling him and wrapped around my throat, which seemed rather pointless. YIELD! Why are you doing this!? Why are you inciting me to attack you!? Is it my power? My influence? WHAT DO YOU WANT!?

It was hard to think through the shrapnel storm of sheer psychic power, but I still managed to look him in the eyes. I want you to stop, because what you're doing is wrong and you know it.

Green started squeezing. I deserve my punishment! I deserve to be tied to a rock and left there for eternity! You battle me even now! Would you disagree with me!?

I glared at him. Whether or not you deserve it doesn't matter. Do you think Dioda deserves what you're doing to her?

He stared at me for a long moment, and I felt the grip of gravity give a little. She does not. But if that is the price I must pay, then so be it.

I'd been hoping he wouldn't say that, but I had one final card I'd been desperate not to use. An ability that had been nearly useless back home, but would be critical here. I hung my head. Sorry, Green.

He blinked in surprise, and his grip lessened further. What for?

The gravity around my arms vanished as my counterattack finished, and I grabbed his temples. Without another word, I looked for Dioda's distinct mind and linked it with Green's.

He dropped me as though I'd been made of antimatter, hands trembling. All of the energies and disruptions and tears in space and time abruptly disappeared as he stared down at the ground, an expression of abject horror on his face. The vines withered simultaneously, dissolving into ash and floating away, leaving only the metal object impaling Green onto the stone. What... what is this!?

I stood up, my mind sore from the stress I'd been putting on it and a throbbing ache pulsing through my head. You know exactly what this is. Do you still think you're right?

Dioda's voice cut through the gap, spiraling straight into the ache and expanding it. Shold'ler! What... happening!?

Green's hand shot out, turned sideways, and slammed into the rock hard enough to send cracks spiderwebbing across its surface. He glared at me. Cheater. Manipulator. Traitor.

I shrugged the insincere insults off. If that's what you want to call me, sure. Go ahead. But stop hurting yourself at Dioda's cost.

His voice was bitter. I don't have a choice, do I?

I was starting to feel odd, and the ground started swaying. Was this an attack too? You tell... me. You're the one... who's...

My vision dimmed as I fell over, and the last thing I saw was an assortment of binding circles winking out one by one.