The Spectre floated off in the distance as the group crowded around Annelise’s motionless body. Maxwell begged Alexander and Connor to heal her, but they refused since she wasn’t actually hurt, just exhausted from the Favour overclocking her already impressive physical skills. She was one of the most durable fighters there because her archetype augmented her body, making her stronger, faster and more resilient for as long as she channelled ego.

“Okay, while she recovers, we should strategise. You’ve seen what it can do and should know what to expect. Attacking your fear directly may not always work, remember only Annelise, Willem and Likhwa are tough enough to take the kind of hits these things will be capable of. Sabine, how many of those Favours can you give?”

“Oh umm, enough for everyone I think? I just can’t give someone more than one a day.”

“Good, we’ll need them. Frank discussion time, guys. What are you most afraid of?”

The forest was still silent in the wake of the Spectre’s passage, and sitting at the base of a tree, the only sound was the chattering of the group as they talked about what they could each expect from their respective challenges.

After a short discussion, it was decided that Thando would approach the Spectre next. His deepest fear was more abstract, the idea of him losing control, and Alexander thought it’d best showcase what a less tangible fear may manifest as. Thando was also most likely to defeat an unknown challenge because of his potential power output, but the rest of the archons would stand by in case they had to intervene and pull him out.

Despite the safety net provided by the others, Thando was nervous. Annelise was still recovering from her own ordeal but she’d dominated her fight once she got over the initial shock. For the first time in years, Thando wasn’t one of the toughest guys in the room. The strange feeling of being weak, especially since he was losing his muscle thanks to his archetype, doused his usual pre-fight excitement. Any one of that giant snake’s attacks would have smeared him into the floor whereas Annelise was toying with it near the end, letting it get close to her then hopping away. He’d have to play it smarter.

Hyperbole, his second Literary Device, was an augmentation type ability, like Sabine’s Favour but applied to one specific action. A huge limitation to his powers was that everything had to be written down, but the effects did not have to manifest at the time of inscription, so he could store instances and release them at will. Since coming back from rescuing Piet, he’d tested with different variants of augmented actions. Some, like his Skybreaker Punch, were too ambitious as he simply couldn’t produce the power necessary to break the sky, even metaphorically, with his acclimation so low. Others, such as the Earth-shattering Punch, were too damaging to his body to do more than once, even if he actually could shatter a bit of earth, because Hyperbole only boosted the action and the body part doing the action, not the rest of his skeletal or muscular system. Along with the high-damage ranged abilities Onomatopoeia gave him, like Boom or Bang, he was the glassiest of glass cannons. According to Alexander, only raising his acclimation would make him more durable, so instead of his usual high mobility brawling style he’d developed in the octagon, he’d have to stay away and pelt the apparition from a distance, with moves like Earth-shattering Punch as a last resort. He sorely wished he’d had more time to experiment.

No matter. I am calm. I am strong. I am in control. And I’ll beat this fucker.

Thando cracked his knuckles and punched a nearby tree, hard.

“Ouch! Okay, I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

The Spectre drifted across the forest some distance away, having completely lost interest in them once no one was in its range. Interestingly, it had begun generating the odd tear of blood that would well up from where it’s eyes should have been and run down its face, falling to the ground but fading into nothingness before it hit. Alexander had said it was probably a good sign.

As they made their way through the trees towards the ghostly monster, they registered a faint high pitched noise, only just audible in the silence of the forest.

Once they got close enough to be just outside what they had judged to be its detection range, Sabine’s hair and Willem’s eyes started glowing golden, as Thando’s skin began giving off wisps of a faint golden mist. Sabine produced a Favour, a brilliant gold pendant she put around Thando’s neck. The first pulse of energy felt like a jolt of adrenaline. The world became sharper in his vision, he began to pick apart the scents of forest, everything was improved. The mist he produced began swirling and billowing, falling from him in great cascades. He glanced at Willem.

“Don’t let me get killed.”

“Of course not. You still owe me 100 bucks.”

With a chuckle, Thando pushed off into a run, Willem staying behind until the Specter reacted. And react it did. This time, along with the siren and flaming eyes, the ghoul raised its elongated arm and pointed one of its scythe-like claws at Thando. A bit freaky, but it didn’t do anything further.

As he roasted in the translucent flame, a flame that was surprisingly comfortable, he psyched himself up for whatever would appear. He wasn’t ready for what did manifest.

A completely unrecognisable, average looking guy.

Average in every sense. He was of middling height, with brown hair and eyes and slightly pale skin. He was carrying no weapons or armour, he just stared blankly at Thando.

“Umm..”

Thando looked back at Willem, who shrugged. Alexander called out from the trees.

“Don’t take any chances, blast him.”

The mist around him coalesced in his hands, forming his journal and pen, each trailing golden dust.

The journal, open to a random page in the middle, showed the things he’d written down earlier as they walked, a stockpile of booms, bangs, zaps and two Earth-shatterers, just in case. He closed it and attached it to the right side of his waist, the mist forming straps to hold it, as he’d have to tap it with his pen to use each successive stored ability.

“Hey dude, please attack me or something, I’ll feel much better about this if it’s self-defence.”

The man stayed silent, still staring dumbly. Thando sighed and tapped on the book, his now glowing pen locked and loaded. He pointed it at the hapless apparition, took a few steps back and unleashed a Bang.

A lance of concussive force exploded out of the tip of the pen, drilling a football sized hole right through the middle of the man’s torso and the trunk of the tree behind him. The man himself was knocked back into the tree and slid down onto the ground as his chest gushed blood, staring sightlessly. Instantly, three more figures materialised around his body. A woman and two children.

Shit.

The woman looked down at the corpse and wailed, hugging her two children and covering their eyes. The oldest, a boy no older than 12, tore himself out of his mother’s grasp and went over to the slumped man, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Daddy, no, wake up! You’re bleeding daddy, wake up!”

Fuck me, I have to kill them, don’t I...

“Thando, they’re not real! This is your fear, that you’ll lose control and hurt those that don’t deserve it. Don’t be taken in, this is the Spectre doing this, not you.”

Alexander’s words were understood by his rational brain, but his subconscious was frozen up. The little girl still in her mother’s arms, a dimpled blonde that looked around 5 or 6, had started crying, likely spurred by the cries of her mother and brother.

Shit, shit, shit.

The mother, a slender brunette, had looked over when Alexander started speaking, and realisation crossed her face after hearing him. She glared with grief-stricken eyes at Thando.

“Why?? Why have you done this to us?” She sobbed, her voice cracking with sorrow.

Thando couldn’t bring himself to answer her.

I’ll lose my nerve if this goes on.

He knew he had to do it now or never. He brought the pen over to the journal and tapped it lightly. The pen’s glow drew the mother’s attention and she stared at it, first in confusion, then with widening eyes as Thando raised his arm to point at the family.

“Timothy, RUN!”

She threw the girl in her arms to the side as she pushed her son out of the way with her foot, but it was too late.

A loud Boom shook the area as a fireball forcefully blossomed and expanded underneath the mom’s feet. She was completely obliterated. Timothy, the apparent son, fared little better as he wasn’t turned into ashy chunks of meat, but instead burnt to a crisp. The girl had been flung away, buoyed by both her mom’s desperate throw and the force of the explosion.

Thando had looked away when blowing the family up, but his eyes were drawn back by faint whimpers of pain. The girl was alive, if only barely.

No.

She had horrific burns across her body, and a few broken bones were stabbing up out of her limbs. Her breaths were shallow and laboured.

I’m not doing it.

“It’s crueller to leave her like that.”

Willem’s voice nudged at his ears, compassionate and soft.

Thando knew he was right but at the end of the day, he was double-tapping a child. Real or not, it was something he didn’t think he’d ever be ready for.

It’s not real, Thando, they aren’t people. Just apparitions drawn from my fears. They’re not real. Let’s get this over with.

He steeled himself and walked over to the half-dead girl. Standing above her, he tapped his journal and pointed at her skull. Her eyes had melted shut and he could see into her mouth through a gaping hole in her cheek. He looked away again, and released a Bang.

Her head splattered like a watermelon, the sound bringing bile up to his throat, but he held back the contents of his stomach.

“Ooooh kak.”

Hearing Willem swear made him look back. All the other members of the group were looking at the scene in shock. He turned back, expecting to see the bodies fade away, but only the original man’s corpse was gone. The boy, the girl, and what little remained of the mother was still there.

The boost from the Favour ended and Thando all but collapsed onto the ground. His hand touched a piece of brain matter. Thando started hyperventilating.

“Thando! Thando, are you okay?”

“No. I- wha- I can’t-“

He couldn’t even make out who was talking to him as his vision seemed to get darker with every rushed breath. Someone grabbed his shoulders and he heard their shoes squelch on a gobbet of flesh. That confirmed it.

Thando passed out.

“I think I know now why Archons don’t talk about their Shifts.”

Sabine was stroking Thando’s hair as he lay unconscious, head in her lap. He was obviously having some kind of nightmare as he’d mutter and fidget with a frown on his face.

“If this is the easiest part, what the fuck is going to happen when we get further along the plot? When we reach the climax? Fuck, is everyone who doesn’t make it out of a Shift killed by one of us?”

Alexander could only shrug helplessly. The mood had turned grave the moment Thando killed that kid and they realised she was real. He hadn’t even known that this kind of conflict could bring in others trapped by the Shift, it had always previously been entities pulled from the archons’ psyche. He’d known that being caught in a Shift with so many Primaries would mean a qualitative change in the nature of the Shift, but he hadn’t realised just how different it could be.

“Unfortunately, I think you’ll have to get used to the idea of killing innocents if you want to make it out of here. I was keeping the details under wraps, but I’m sure you’ve guessed by now. A Man vs Society conflict at the climax tends to mean a whole bunch of people will try to kill you. Usually this is an army mustered against your group or a town gone crazy. But with how much this Shift deviates from the norm, we may be forced to do much worse than defending ourselves.”

Everyone, including a newly recovered Annelise, looked sombre at his statement. They knew he was right. They just didn’t know if they could do it.