In the next fifteen minutes, they found two more caches. Each time, one of the dogs suddenly snapped their nose to the ground and started off the trail.

Steven was ecstatic. While he was still stressed about having their Skills on display for the whole city, if he looked past that, this was a fantastic opportunity.

They couldn’t die, and they had the chance to round out their builds and actually choose their Augments.

Steven was still incredibly worried, but his excitement was starting to overtake that.

Michael straightened from the third cache, a bright green box that had been easy to find but made them solve a tricky tile puzzle to open.

The man glanced at Buford and the red light flowing around him, then to Margie.

Margie glanced to the side before holding up one finger.

They weren’t sure exactly how the System was broadcasting this event to the city. Was it showing each person's stream or flicking between people like a highlight reel?

They didn’t know, so they opted to act like people were always watching them.

People could figure out that holding up one finger meant she only had one minute left until cooldown. But if somebody wasn’t paying attention, it was a lot easier to miss than her just saying one minute. It might not do any good, but Steven felt better being more cautious instead of less.

They started off again, and Steven scanned their surroundings as they rounded a bend in the trail. His thoughts still stuttered to a stop as they almost ran into two people.

The pair was a man and a woman who looked like polar opposites.

The woman was in her late 20s and tall with dark skin, lean features, and close-cropped dark hair. She wore almost no winter gear, only a light outer jacket, and heavy jeans.

While the man, on the other hand, looked to be in his late teens, was short and stocky, with long blonde hair, sickly pale skin, and chubby features. And he was wrapped in so many layers of coats that he resembled a circle more than anything else.

Steven threw up his hands and took a few quick steps back.

The timing was terrible, running into two people when Jugger-Hound was about to go on cooldown.

Steven searched for something to say, but his mind drew a blank. They needed to stall or attack right now, though the thought made him queasy.

Ideally, they wouldn’t fight at all. But if they did, they needed to end the fight immediately before Jugger-Hound dropped.

Barring that, they needed to stall and get them talking until it came back up.

Either way, they needed to act, but Steven was frozen stiff.

Monsters were one thing, but the idea of fighting people again made the queasiness ramp up to full-blown nausea.

Margie stepped forward and raised her hands along with Steven.

The duo had tensed, looking ready to fight or flee at the drop of a hat.

Steven hoped they just ran.

“How about this,“ Margie said. “We continue going down the path, and you guys keep going up, and neither group tries to kill the other. Sound reasonable?“

The two exchanged a glance before slowly nodding. The woman spoke, her voice a soft drawl. “Yeah, that sounds reasonabl-,“ before she even finished her sentence, the man flung his hand out.

Steven reacted on pure instinct, calling up a Hand-Shield an inch in front of his face.

A long, serrated knife slammed into it, but instead of bouncing away, it hung as if held by an invisible hand.

Steven’s eyes snapped to the man. He was holding a ghostly gray and blue copy of the knife, currently an inch from Stevan‘s eye.

The copy glowed slightly, and trails of light drifted off it like mist.

The man wrenched the copy upward, and the real knife followed the motion a heartbeat later.

Steven dodged back, narrowly avoiding a cut across his forehead.

The woman charged them with a flash of red light. She closed the distance in a heartbeat, leaving a trail of fire in her wake that hung in the air like a solid afterimage. The fire buzzed, filling the air with a sound like swarming bugs.

Buford launched at the woman, but she quickly sidestepped, and the dog flew by.

He passed through her fiery afterimage and yelped as the flames went right past his shroud and ignited his fur.

Steven‘s eyes widened in shock. Barely anything had gotten through Buford’s shroud. If those flames were powerful enough to hurt the dog, they would cut through the rest of them like they weren’t even there.

Micheal moved in the corner of his vision, but he couldn’t spare the attention to see what he was doing. There was a knife racing for his face.

He started to sidestep, then thought better of it as the knife curved in the air.

He threw up a Hand-Shield. The knife started to curve around it, but it was moving too fast and clanged against the shield's edge, stopping dead.

Steven switched his focus to the woman just as she reached him. He called a Hand-Shield above and behind her head and pulled it towards his foot.

It raced towards him like a hook on a reel, but once it reached her buzzing trail of flames, it slowed as if trying to push through molasses.

What the hell were those things made of?

Before Steven could dismiss and recall a shield, the woman slammed a punch into Margie‘s cheek. Margie tried to dodge, but her foot slipped on the ice. She staggered from the blow but didn’t drop or cry out. The woman paused for a beat, shocked.

Michael’s buff was no joke. Steven knew that, knew that the hit probably wouldn’t even bruise.

But the sight of Margie getting hit still filled him with rage.

He screamed and slammed into the woman's shoulder first. She caught Steven’s charge with both hands and slammed her hip into his side.

His feet left the ground, and she spun him around with a grunt.

Steven's vision filled with fire, and he called a shield in front of his side right before the woman tossed him into her flame trail.

He slammed into the shield with a spike of pain, but it was better than getting burned alive.

He recoiled off the shield, and Buford blitzed past him, heading for the man.

The man saw the dog coming and desperately pulled his ghostly knife back, trying to recall the real one.

He didn’t make it in time.

Buford‘s shoulder charge hit him center mass and sent him flying off the trail and into a snowbank.

The woman punched Steven in the side, and he gasped but managed to call in time to block the next hit.

She swore and shook out her hand.

Margie stepped forward and socked her in the nose.

The woman staggered back, and Steven pressed her.

She waved her hands in front of her face, leaving lines of fire in the air.

Steven backed off. Just coming close to the flames felt like sticking his hand in front of an open oven.

His earlier shield had gotten stuck in the trail, the pull running out completely. He dismissed it.

They all backed up a few steps, breathing heavily. Buford circled the woman, but the fire lines stopped him from closing in.

She crossed through a section of her flames, and that portion, as well as the entire line leading to it, winked out.

Steven narrowed his eyes. So her own flames didn’t hurt her, but if she backtracked at the wrong point, she could remove her entire trail.

They could use that.

He studied the fire more closely. There seemed to be a bit of leeway with her motions since swaying back on her feet didn't make the whole trail vanish. But taking a few steps back into the wrong section had cut out a decent chunk.

The trail itself was a thin haze from her back, arms, and legs, but at her feet, hands, and head, it condensed into a solid line. It looked closer to molten metal than it did flame.

They had to keep the woman on her back foot. Jugger couldn’t have more than 30 seconds left and the more they could get her to cross through her flames, the more area they had to work with.

But they didn’t know her other Skills.

The flame trail might have a passive Skill enhancing it, which could help explain why it was so strong. But that still left another active slot, assuming that the flame trail wasn’t a class skill.

Though she would only have that many slots if she passed through the first threshold, the System said the strongest people in the city were being thrown into this competition. It was a safe bet to assume everyone here would have passed the First Threshold.

Which also meant the man was probably still alive. Buford sent him flying, but with so many winter coats that he might as well have armor, the increased toughness from passing the First Threshold, and landing in a snowbank, Steven wasn’t betting on the man being down for the count.

“We wouldn’t be doing this if your deaths would be for real,” the woman said, her voice tight. “Just throwing that out there.”

“That’s comforting, I think,” Margie said.

They all stood tensed, their heavy breaths fogging in the winter air.

Steven got ready to make the first move when a snowball sailed past him and slammed into the woman’s shoulder.

It hit with a spray of hard-packed snow and ice, and she staggered. Steven lunged forward, slipping around the flames, and punched the woman in the jaw.

She fell, and Steven called a shield behind her head.

Before she hit, the flames flashed, and she zipped backward like a video in reverse.

The flame trail vanished as she raced back along it faster than Steven could sprint.

Buford chased her.

Before Steven could follow, the man pulled himself from the snow bank and slashed his ghostly knife at Steven.

The actual knife flew in from the side, and Steven was too slow to dodge. It slipped across his shoulder, slicing right through his coat and leaving a burning line behind.

Steven grunted and called a shield behind the man's side.

He pulled, and the shield clipped the man, causing him to stagger. The man caught himself and spun with the force, slashing out as he did.

Steven caught the knife with a shield, then called another in front of the man’s wrist as he tried to swipe down.

Buford yelped, and Steven’s heart clenched.

He shot a glance towards the dog.

He was trying to close in on the woman, but she had caged him in with her trail, limiting his movements, and he was covered in dark burns that had gone straight through his fur, blacking skin.

Steven’s world narrowed as his Skill boxes pulsed.

“Margie!”

“On it!” She snapped and rushed for Buford.

The man tried to trip her as she passed, but Steven blocked him with a shield before charging in.

The man narrowed his eyes and shifted his stance, widening his legs and raising the spectral knife in a reversed grip.

They crashed together, and Steven struck faster than he ever had before without Micheal‘s buff.

He punched, blocked, and dodged in a lightning-fast back and forth that he could barely keep track of.

He blocked every knife strike he could. He didn’t know what the ghostly knife would do if it touched him, and he didn’t want to find out.

The back and forth sped up, and Steven realized immediately that the man was better than him. He moved smoother, faster, and like he actually knew how to handle himself in a fistfight. If Steven couldn’t materialize a floating shield at a moment's notice, he would have gotten the hell beaten out of him in the first seconds of the fight.

The man started a kick, and Steven called a shield to block.

The instant the shield formed, the man aborted the kick, slamming his foot down and snapping a punch into Steven’s chin. His vision flashed, but he landed a shield pull into the man's leg at the same time.

The leg was swept up, but as the man fell, he dropped his knife and kicked out, using the shield pull to propel the blow.

Moving like a goddamned ninja, he slammed his foot into the falling knife, kicking it into Steven’s side as he hit the ground.

Steven blinked down at the knife in his side, unsure of how to react. It didn’t hurt. It just felt cold.

“SHIELD RIGHT KIDNEY!” Micheal bellowed.

The command snapped Steven out of his shock, and he immediately called a shield over his right kidney.

He felt the real knife slam into it a heartbeat later.

The man cursed and rolled to his feet.

He reached his hand out, and the ghostly knife disappeared from Steven’s side and returned to the man's hand.

He felt the real knife stop pressing against his shield as it appeared in the man’s off-hand.

He tossed the knife up, and once the tip pointed down, he slashed out with the copy.

The knife jerked downward. The copy flashed with gray light, and the blade sped up, whistling for Steven like an arrow.

He called two shields, layering the second under the first half a second apart.

The knife punched through the first shield like it wasn’t even there and cracked the second on contact.

Steven’s vision wavered as pain slammed through his skull. He shook his head, trying to push through the pain.

He had to block the next knife strike!

Micheal’s voice tore over the trail in a clear, piercing note. “See me!”

His opponent turned to Michael immediately, his focus drawn to the damsel like iron to a magnet.

After a second, he shook off the effect, but it was enough.

Steven called a sound trapped shield behind the man’s head, and pulled.

It crashed into the back of his skull with a deafening clang and the man went down. Steven called another shield, edge up, in front of the man's falling face.

He smashed into it and instantly vanished in a flash of blue and green light.

Micheal sucked in a deep, heaving breath but started running for Margie and Buford.

Eye Catching Beauty had a medium energy cost, which felt a hell of a lot worse than ‘medium’ would suggest.

Steven swallowed the bile that started to rise in his throat, forcing himself not to think about what he’d just done to the man.

He isn’t really dead, and this fight isn’t over.

Steven focused on Margie just in time to see the woman fling herself off the trail as the flame woman chased her.

The woman skidded to a stop, unwilling to follow Margie into the snow.

Wading through it would slow her down too much; Steven would be able to pelt her with shields for free.

If she had forced Margie into the snow, where was Buford?

Steven scanned the trail, but the dog’s crimson shroud was nowhere in sight.

“There!” Micheal pointed to a snowbank on the other side of the trail from Margie.

Jugger-Hound had run out, leaving Buford on his side, burned and beaten but alive.

Noodle stood in front of him on the icy crust over the snow, his paws planted and lips pulled back in a snarl.

The woman had turned her side of the trail into a mess of twisting lines of red and orange. It was so hot that Steven felt his skin drying out from over ten feet away.

The woman turned to them with a scowl and planted her feet. “The System better take your dogs with you when I win,” she growled.

Before they could respond, she charged.

Steven took in Buford’s injuries and Margie in the snow, only a few feet from the flames.

Fury ignited in his chest.

Steven called, slamming a shield in front of her face, then her ankle.

The woman slipped the first shield but caught her foot on the second. She rolled, and Steven called a shield in front of her shoulder. She crashed into it and grunted. Steven dismissed it and called a shield behind her and to the right. He stuck his left hand out and pulled the shield to it, trying to slip it past her trail.

The woman shoved herself to her feet, and the motion caught the shield's edge with a solid line of red.

Steven ground his teeth and called more.

The woman had adapted, however, and was moving more cautiously.

Steven and Micheal started backpedaling as the woman closed in at a careful jog.

The woman started moving erratically, zigzagging from one side of the trail to the other, jumping and ducking for no reason, all while dodging Steven’s shields.

Oh, he hit her with some when he read a dodge, but she was moving slow enough that she only stumbled before catching herself and pushing on.

Closing in would get him burned alive, and shield pull was all but useless because of her flame trail!

Shit!

The woman zigzagged again, then pulled her arms back like she was getting ready to do a push-up. The flame trial winked out.

Steven stopped and immediately started calling Lumbering Tower-Shield. “Get down!”

They ducked, and the woman threw her hands out.

Fire exploded out of her.

Solid lines of red traced by wisps of flame raced towards them at a dead sprint. It wound back and forth in a seemingly random pattern, but when the fire suddenly zigzagged, crossing from one side of the trail to the other, Steven realized what was happening.

She reversed her trail!

Energy flooded out of Steven as the motes of green condensed with a thump just before the flames reached them.

Steven had called the shield on its side, and the thing took up the entire width of the trail and rose three and a half feet high.

The air buzzed, downing everything else out as the fire burned inches from their heads, held at bay by the solid wall of green.

The shield didn’t even tremble as the flames continued to hiss away. They didn’t know how much stronger Tower-Shield was than Hand-Shield because they couldn’t even scratch the thing, much less break it.

With the shield blocking sight and muffling sound and the flames drowning everything else out, Steven couldn’t keep track of what their opponent was doing.

He certainly had a hunch, though.

She was outnumbered and had limited ranged options, but none of that would matter if she could close the distance and trap them in her trail.

So, while they were turtled behind the shield, she was doing one of two things.

Running away or running right at them.

Steven tapped into his shield.

His hearing shifted. His ears didn’t grow any weaker, but his focus moved from what his ears were picking up to what the shield was telling him instead. He didn’t have the skill to pay attention to both at once.

The buzzing fire grew louder, but over the buzz, he could hear pounding footsteps, and they were growing closer.

“Thank you, hero,” Micheal’s voice rolled over Steven with a wave of blue light.

Steven felt a savage smile slip into place as power surged through him.

He shifted and started counting.

She was closing fast. The footsteps would be on them in seconds.

She’s trying to hurt Micheal.

Protect him.

His Skills pulsed, and his hands clenched into fists.

He cocked his arm back and waited.

She wasn’t going to come around through the snow. It was too slow.

No, she was coming straight over the shield, banking on the fact that they were too afraid of getting burned to try and take a peek at her and the flames being loud enough to mask her run.

She’d have been right if only Steven didn’t have extra ears.

Steven waited, his whole body coiled like a spring, until the last possible moment.

The footsteps thundered in his mind, but it was too soon.

Not yet.

The footsteps reached the shield.

Not yet!

The footsteps vanished along with the sound of the flames, and Steven felt a hand close on the shield.

Now!

Steven exploded upward, putting his entire body behind his fist as he punched up with all the power Micheal’s buff could give him.

And as he did, he destroyed the Tower-Shield.

The world slowed down as the wall of green vanished, leaving the woman mid vault, her whole body horizontal as her hand grasped and now empty air.

Their eyes locked, and Steven saw the moment she realized she was screwed.

His uppercut slammed into her face like a hammer.

She slammed to the ground in a limp heap, nearly landing on Steven.

Her flame trail winked out, and Steven quickly called a shield next to her head before hesitating.

“System. The fight’s over, we won.”

“That it is. Do you wish to let her go or eliminate her for this round?”

“Take her out of the round.”

“DONE!”

The woman vanished in a flash of light, leaving Steven staring at the ground, his heart still pounding in his chest and his fist aching, even with Micheal’s buff.

He looked to Margie, who was pulling herself from the snowbank.

“Are you okay?”

She gave a thumbs up.

“Holy shit, that was close,” Steven breathed out. He hunched over, resting his hands on his knees as he tried to slow his heart.

“Too close,” Margie agreed.

“But,” Micheal said, a small smile tugging at his lips. “We did win. Which hopefully means-“ he cut off as a prompt filled their vision.

Your party has defeated Carson Miller and Amelia Ortell. Experience split with party.

Points earned: 3

Steven Kalio: 4 points

Margie Vern: 1 point

Micheal Vane: 1 point