There should have been a dramatic pause, thought Tala. There should have been indrawn breaths, and a slow unfolding of the anger and hate she saw behind both the men’s eyes.

Clearly there was something deep going on between these two that she didn't understand, and this felt like one of those times when tension fills the room with the pressure of a coming storm, thickening the air and restricting any sudden movements. Instead, no one was ready for the intensity of what happened next.

"Hello, cast off," said the pox-marked man, and the room filled with a high-pitched whine.

Mead flared a bright white that filled the room with a light greater than that of the two suns combined, turning Rial into a silhouette encompassed in a blinding glare that caused those in the room to shield their eyes, weapons clattering to the floor as they did so. The whine became a roar that shook the walls, and energy poured out in a solid beam, arcing towards the weapon on the pox-marked man's lap.

This weapon too was a bright white, a light that had started at almost the same instant as the light from Mead.[1] The energy flew out to meet the incoming beam, and where the two streams met energy burst in all directions, a coruscating light so bright that Tala could see it even through closed eyelids and the palms of her hands.

The colour shifted the next instant, Mead's turning a deep red as the opposing energy shifted into a pure black. The roar redoubled, and a powerful wind threw everything loose around the hall in wild, spinning paths. The piles of loot that had been stacked next to the throne whirled through the air, slicing and cutting at those unfortunate enough to be in their path.

The next instant both colours shifted again, and now the beams were orange, writhing, coiling around each other, snaking from side to side, turning a few slow onlookers into vapour at their touch. All of this was accompanied by the deafening sound of the air itself being rent asunder.

Green, yellow, brown, red, white, black, the cacophony of sound and colour boomed and crackled overhead, whirling around and between as an incomprehensible amount of energy met and was annihilated by an opposing counter.

The pox-marked man, eyes wide in horror, dove off the throne and half-ran, half-collapsed into the arms of his bodyguard, who was equally wide-eyed. Whatever safety he had thought to find, however, was snatched away as a thick wooden beam, shaken loose from its fittings, smacked dead into the large man's temple and sent him crashing backwards to the floor.

"What are you doing?" the pox-marked man shouted towards the glowing weapon, shielding his eyes from the glare.

Rial's cry of Mead's name came at the same moment.

Over the cacophony came Mead's voice, loud and clear, along with... another voice?

It was hard to tell at first, but there was an echo, a reverberation under his words.

"Attempt made to neutralise an active threat before it had time to react. Unfortunately, it seems both units made the same calculation."

Mead's voice was the most alien Tala had ever heard it, a cold, mechanical tone without inflection. Underneath it the other weapon's words were identical.

Stay within my atrophic security field, came Mead's voice, this time with the buzzing tone that told her it was speaking privately. The plan hasn't been affected. Do not go far from me.

Indeed, in all the chaos Tala had barely had time to register it but the area around Mead was not undergoing the same traumatic destruction and madness as everything else within the hall. Even the wind, powerful enough to toss grown men into the air like feathers, was merely a strong breeze here. There was a... bubble... around them preventing the shards and splinters from coming close.

Even as she took this all in a heavy wooden table came spinning through the air towards her. There was little time to flinch back, to throw her hands up in futile defence before...

The table hit something, slowing as if caught in a thick gel, momentum dying rapidly until it hung, motionless, for a few brief seconds in front of her, then the wind behind caught it once more and whipped it away.

The pox-marked man and his friends did not seem to benefit from the same protection. The main group of slavers were scrambling for any means of escape, sprinting for the door against the typhoon, clambering up the stage in an attempt to reach the small exit visible at the back, pushing past and over each other in their desperation to reach windows obviously too small for their size. Several of them had already collapsed, unconscious or worse, caught by the whirling debris. The pox-marked man himself was hit and spun by several smaller pieces of debris, but by luck or virtue of his small frame escaped any serious harm. At least so far. The stage around him was beginning to smoke.

In fact, steam and smoke was starting to rise all around them. Tala could feel no heat herself, but she was starting to realise that this must have something to do with the strange 'field' Mead had enveloped them in. As a book of some kind flared into flame as it spun past her she realised this ongoing torrent of energy must be creating massive amounts of heat.

My counterpart does not seem to have flow restrictors in place. Curious.

A sudden bulge in the orange beam extending from Mead moved rapidly upwards, a red ring moving along it at high speed. The bulge met the energy coming the other way, and with a huge crack the hall's walls burst outwards, bricks and mortar raining down upon everyone who had been within its confines. Those rocks that fell above Tala and Rial performed the same peculiar movements as the table, slowing to a stop before rolling slowly sideways and down to the floor a few metres from them, stopped by the transparent dome. Others were not so lucky, crushed beneath long beams and large chunks of brick and mortar.

Now they stood beneath evening sky, but no early stars were visible. The energy from the two weapons was unrelenting, if anything more powerful than before, and it was brighter than noon.

"I think we should move!"

Rial's voice shook Tala out of her reverie. She had been entranced by the display, she realised.

Such power.

She didn't know if that had been her voice, or Mead's.

Tala led, dashing back the way the slavers had brought them towards a maze of houses and construction materials she had noted on the way here. The light emanating from Mead had softened now, making it easier to see, and its beam shot straight up into the sky, curving somewhere far overhead towards its target.

Around them golden beams of light crashed down, pillars of energy that smashed through houses and melted the earth beneath. They fell in the distance too, the boom of the destruction they caused noticeably delayed from the flash of the beams that caused them.

I have managed to reverse-engineer the method by which my counterpart cloaks his location. Quite ingenious; a method of enfolding l-space in on itself in such a way as to create a single dimensional field within a four dimensional structure. A Mobius strip, if you will. It cannot locate us.

A golden pillar smashed down besides them, its searing heat sensed even through the bubble Mead maintained around them.

Not accurately, anyway.

"Mead, stop gabbling!" shouted Rial. "Now tell us how to get out of here!"

You're going in the right direction. Let your friend take the lead and I don't doubt you'll get out of here undamaged. I shall continue to meet the challenge my counterpart is offering.

Something had happened to Mead; that much was clear. It sounded gleeful.

As they sprinted across a town which was rapidly being torn apart around them she could feel the enjoyment the two weapons were getting out of such destruction. There was a joy in the way buildings collapsed in on themselves, in the way wood burned and rock fused, a playfulness that reminded her of a child stamping amongst model cities he himself had built. Mead's voice reflected this.

I do recommend you draw your sword, however, Rial. I will do my very best to protect you, but I am somewhat focused on preventing our very atoms being reduced to their component parts. I would appreciate if you dealt with the small fry. You do have such skill with the sword, anyway.

It was exalting in the thrill of it all, she was sure. The gods had come out to play, and they wanted all to witness their power. Otherwise why would the machine keep her in the conversation?

And you, came Mead's voice, and Tala had no doubt it was addressing her. You do what you always do. Survive.

The slavers came round a corner ahead of them at the same time as Mead's words faded, driving ahead of them a group of frantic prisoners, caught between the barrels and barbs of the slaver's weapons and the pillars of energy that crashed down at random around them. There must have been ten of the bandits, and upon spotting Rial and Tala they cried out and raised bows and guns.

It was too late. Rial was a blur, flying over the slaves in a long leap that placed him directly in the middle of the would-be attackers, blade flashing in the light of the destruction all around. Tala shifted Mead, now in her arms, into her off hand and reached down for the coilgun held by one of the trembling prisoners. She must have taken it off a fallen guard, but the woman was clearly in no state to use it.

Tala raised the weapon with one hand and sighted. She made every shot count.

Once the fighting was finished she walked over to Rial, stood panting and surrounded by bodies.

"I think we need to consider what we should do with anyone we rescue," she said, all business.

She bent down to collect one of the coilguns from the dead hands of a slaver. The one she had used previously had jammed.

Rial looked behind her to the prisoners - now escapees, she guessed - then back at her.

"We take whoever wants to come with us," he said firmly.

"Right," Tala said, nodding.

She looked around. In every direction golden energy continued to rain down from the heavens, but more distant now. There was little left standing where they were.

"I don't know how many will be left, though."

She looked ahead of them. Far ahead, beyond the flattened town and across the glassy lands surrounding them, violet eyes glinted in the twilight.

[1] After all this, once it was all over, Rial was still never able to find out the truth of who shot first.