Nico sat at the edge with Luna, watching the blanket of dense white fog crawl up the mountain. Small wisps glided under his feet. It grew in intensity until it started flowing through him as fast as the wind blew. It slowly covered the summit.

Something dripped on top of Nico’s head. He jumped to the side in a fit of panic, thinking it was drool, but when he looked up he saw nothing but the white fog. Then he saw them. Hundreds of little liquids fell on him like soft needles. They struck his eyes, creating a dull, somewhat pleasant sensation. He rubbed his face and coursed it through his hair. The dust and dirt that had been permanently itched into his skin began to slide down.

It felt so…refreshing. His tongue started salivating. He swallowed his dusty tasting saliva, but he was too afraid to drink the liquid. He didn’t know what it was. When it struck the bronze it sizzled into steam, leaving nothing behind.

Nico looked to Luna, thinking she might know, and was momentarily stunned by what he saw. She had her head pointed upward, eyes closed, mouth wide open, and her hand stretched to catch the liquid. She drank the bits that fell into her mouth, then drank the one that gathered on her cusped hand. She turned towards him. He stared without bothering to hide it.

The fog flowed in between them, making her glowing eyes appear even more divine. Her hair and clothes stuck to her skin too. The sight tugged at his heart strings and brought warmth to his face. He might have fallen for her had he not suspected every action she did and every word she spoke. “We’re in the clouds. This phenomenon is called rain, and the liquid is called water,” she said. “It existed before beer and blood.”

“You’re hot,” he said flatly, turning forward and opening his mouth wide. It did taste great. It wasn’t like beer at all. It went down his throat and he felt cleaner. “How does it feel to be so attractive?” he added, chuckling.

“I was wondering when you were going to get that one out of your system. It was the first thing Gaia had said to me, though her second comment wasn’t quite as pragmatic as yours—It’s not something I can explain with words,” she said, smiling. “Nor is it something you can attain by yourself. It’s something you need someone else to make you feel—Why curious?

“I was kidding,” Nico said, slightly disappointed. “You know—the plan? Attracting the monsters?”

“Yes, but you are curious, so much that you didn’t even ask what clouds are. You’re also looking at me more, especially my eyes, which you used to avoid like the plague.” She smiled. “It is flattering.”

“Uh,” he said, turning away. There was hardly a need to hide it. “Maybe I am, but if I am, then you probably know why.”

“Probably, yes, but I can’t know until you tell me—and I would rather know.”

Nico sighed. He leaned back on his arms and left his head to hang lazily on his shoulders. He closed his eyes and swung his feet with the water. The sound of it falling was beautiful. It was like a thousand little drums playing quietly at the same time. “I suppose I’ve realized that there is more to life, to being human, than learning and fighting. I think being truly free means I get to experience those things too.”

“Such as?”

“Love, friendship, and other pointless activities such as art and music,” he said. Maybe he can learn how to dance.

“Did you know,” she said, leaning in, “that on average, those who practice the creative arts win more duels than those who don’t? Rankers are often singers, dancers, painters, and writers."

Nico snapped his eyes open. He sat up. “That doesn’t make sense. How—” he stopped. He leaned back, tilting his head from left to right. He pursed his lips as he tackled the idea. He’d always thought it was just for leisurely purposes, to not go insane, and maybe to make themselves well liked among the population. “I guess creativity makes you a better problem solver, and makes you less predictable in duels too.”

“I suppose that is also a reason,” she said, looking down. The fog was dense. It was a pure white. “Is it me, or am I hearing—”

Something Howled from beneath them. It spread out like an echo from one spot to the entire mountain, until it became a constant noise. Their footsteps made as much sound as the rain. Realizing he was surrounded by enemies with no escape in sight made his body tighten up. He took in a breath and tried to clear his mind. His heartbeat was so loud he heard it in his head. “They surrounded us,” he said, more to himself than to Luna. He picked up the axe by his side and prepared.

“Any last-minute advice?”

“Sometimes the price of victory exceeds the price of defeat…but in this case the price of defeat is getting eaten in a non-fun way, so I guess that doesn’t matter?”

“You’re supposed to give words of encouragement here,” Luna said. “Though comedy also alleviates the pressure.”

“Meh,” Nico said, shrugging. “You don’t need it.” He made a Kinetic shell and placed it in his palm. Before he made another one, he stopped and looked at Luna again. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was off about what she said. He might have ignored it had she not smiled wide and silly in return. “…that was an odd thing to say.”

“Is it?”

“For you.”

“It is,” she said, nodding in a way that prodded him on.

“…okay? So what did you do that for?”

“I am teaching you as you teach me.”

“Teaching me what exactly?” How to be a nice person?

“Noticing was the first lesson,” she said. “Understanding what is the second. Why is the third. How is the fourth and most important.”

Nico frowned. “I don’t like these types of puzzles.”

“And I won’t like burning the beauty out of life, yet we must learn regardless.” She made a fireball. She nodded towards him. Nico took a breath and nodded back.

They tossed their balls down the mountain. The white fog turned yellowish and echoed with Howls in response. They jogged back towards the tree, barely seeing more than two feet ahead of them. The fog kept thickening.

Kara was somewhere above them. She hadn’t came down once since she went up. Attempts at communications failed. He assumed she was going to fight in the trees without using her sword. She needed to keep it charging for the bigger threats, like the Elites or Bosses, though in truth, Nico suspected that she couldn’t fight on the ground.

Nico’s and Luna’s job was to just survive. How they did that was up to them. “I really wish I had a year to teach you.”

“You will,” she said.

The Tengus crawled over the summit and sprinted towards them. The first line fell after a few steps, gasping for breath. Before they caught it half a dozen of their siblings trampled them as they made their way for the tree.

The coliseum is filled, he thought, licking his lips. The mindless crowd is here, begging for bloodshed to distract them from the doom at their heels.

Nico charged. He swung his axe and hit something. In return a dozen dismembered arms reached for him from the fog with badly bent bone daggers and black nails so sharp and smooth they glimmered like obsidian.

One of them punctured a hole in Nico’s side, then pulled on his wound to get its teeth on his neck. He elbowed it in the face and tossed his Kinetic Shell above him. He struck it from the bottom with his axe, causing the blast to toss him to his elbows and the Tengus to fly in different directions. He took off running, grasping one of the knocked down Tengus.

He dragged it with him long enough to point the Locust at the next pack. Skewer. The bone pierced through the skull of the Tengu he was holding and two more behind it before it ran out of momentum. It activated automatically. Siphon. Their bodies turned into bright yellow particles that sank into the Skewer, refilling him. Now we repeat and rinse until the end of time.

With a near infinite Energy source ready for reaping, Nico didn’t bother dodging as he crashed into the next pack. His body was in a constant state of healing. He slammed his Kinetic Shells down with refreshing disregard for resources. He felt a good number of them fly off the summit. They Howled in terror, causing a few of their siblings to jump right after them.

There was no need to aim with his axe. Threats popped up from everywhere. He had to react in the moment. His Life Sense cautioned him against the dense packs and kept his guard up all around, but things were too hectic for him to hone in on one Tengu out of the dozens that reached for him.

It was a different type of battle. It felt like a logistics problem than a puzzle to solve. Less than how he killed the Tengus was how he moved around the summit, who he punched to make space, what hits he took, when he healed, and how he used his Kinetic Shells. Though the summit was being dyed in his blood, and though he heard Luna’s explosions ring around him in 4 second intervals, it didn’t feel violent. He wasn’t angry nor excited. There was too much to think about.

Soon, though, the summit was covered by Tengus. They were everywhere. There was no space to dodge into.

Nico glanced at his heat gauge. Barely half a minute and he was up to 4 Heat. The rain was sizzling off it. Now would be perfect. The lights went off. And perfect she is.

The darkness wasn’t completely pitch. He followed what light there was and saw Luna, a glaring yellow flame brighter and denser than the sun by several magnitudes. It forced him to look down.

She absorbed what little light pierced through the fog, but instead of turning it into heat and cooking herself, she Emitted it straight out. It made for an odd trick of light, where it got darker the further away he looked from her. The light moved as she moved, making it seem like the darkness was alive.

Every Tengu on the summit ran at the only thing they could see, and she ran the other way. She circled around the summit. The Tengus circled around with her, though a batch of them came at her from the front.

Very attractive. Nico thought he was clever. He ran ahead to intercept them, tossing Kinetic Shells and paving a path for her to run through.

With the monsters already chasing her, Luna stopped absorbing the light and turned the heat into a Fireball. She used it to blast the area ahead of her too, then regained some of the heat she spent by absorbing the light of the flames she made. It made the flames invisible. The Tengus ran into them, spreading the flames in the tightly condensed packs, though the rain ended up putting most of them out.

Nico ran towards her, firing his Skewer blind into the fog. As chance would have it, he hit something—a couple somethings. He Retracted and was reminded of a shish-kebab. He was guided forward, the Tengu’s crashing him from the front and side barely taking him off his stride. A few more crashed into his bone, then a few more tripped on top of those too, creating small lumps of stupid Tengus trapped within each other’s limbs. They clawed and bit each other to escape.

Luna must have seen the mound of Tengus. Miraculously enough, she resisted the urge to use her Fireballs on them. She angled away.

Nico yelled as loud as he could as he neared her, hoping her thermal sight could distinguish Nico from the similarly sizzed Tengus.

He’d already prepared himself to dodge an attack from her, but he was still surprised when a Tengu came flying at him.

He slid below it, the rain helping his pants glide on the metal. It worked better than he’d expected until he clawed at the ground with his hands and realized there was no way to slow down. By the time he came to a stop he was lying right below Luna.

She didn’t stomp his head, fortunately. Instead she caught the Locust by the wrist and half-lifted, half dragged him up with her running. He made a health shell and yelled for her to take it. She somehow heard him through the rain and constant, insistent Howling of the Tengus around him. She squeezed the palm, crushing the health shell. The gel went into her hand, up her arm, and healed her entire body.

She absorbed the heat from the Locust, and he wished he could absorb her pain. As much as they tried, she still had to force her way through the Tengus. It was like watching a child try to tackle an adult, but most of them got a hit or two before they were knocked aside, and then stampeded by their own siblings.

Nico had to stay near her to provide constant healing and fatigue recovery, but he couldn’t keep up in a straight race. Even if they had been the same Rank, her longer legs gave her an advantage in long distance. Nico hadn’t even learned how to properly run with the Locust’s added weight either.

They split up, with her going straight and him cutting into the inside. With Nico moving closer to the tree, he became closer to some of the packs than Luna was. They angled towards him, prompting Luna to absorb the light again. In the darkness, and in the swarm, they tripped and fell on top of each other. This was good and bad—good because they ended up tripping and killing each other, and bad because in the next lap the bodies were still there.

That’s where Nico’s Kinetic Shells came in. He ran mostly ahead of Luna, making sure there was a path she could take.

It started feeling like they were playing a game. How many laps can they make? How well can they work together in the fog and in the dark? It would have been fun if one mistake didn’t end up costing their lives and the lives of the people they loved.

Focus. Rather than spending precious time imagining what would happen if they failed, he could spend it to make sure they don’t.

The tree was within his Life Sense. It was shaking and swarming with Tengus that chased Kara. He sensed her landing on one of the Tengus and jumping up, lifting her legs to her hips as a Tengu flew below her. She stepped on it and jumped up again, catching a branch and swinging around it to a different one. He wished he could see her movements with his own eyes, though he supposed that so did she. Then again, none of what she is doing could have been possible unless she was forced hone her Kinetic Sense to this degree.

In the same vein, Nico wouldn’t have been here, fighting within the Deep’s to start a new age of humanity, had he not lost his arm. He wasn’t sure what to make of that, so he didn’t, and instead tried to force his attention back to staying alive, where he hoped it would stay for at least five seconds.