Kamila opened her eyes.

Plato, screaming in frustration, was still wheeling around, beginning to make a circle that would lead him back to the road and towards Kamila again. He was adjusting his rifle for another shot, and Kamila questioned whether he had missed for only a moment before seeing the figure standing next to her. Hilda was wreathed in red light, the tips of her toes barely touching the ground, arms out. A ball of steel turned circles around her hand. Kamila watched, following Hilda’s gaze, following Plato. The ball shot out toward Plato. He grinned, tilting his head, and continued to adjust his rifle, shouting his victory, for Hilda had missed and in just a moment –

The redirected bullet caught in the spokes of Plato’s front wheel and he nearly tumbled from the cycle, his rifle striking the ground. Plato broke, turning the front wheel hard when he regained control and leaning off the side of the vehicle to reach for his weapon.

When he steadied the bike, raising the rifle, he fired immediately toward Hilda, who reached out before the bullet left the rifle. The wind shifted, like Plato and Hilda were two storm fronts clashing, creating funnel clouds above and hauling furrows of earth out into the open air.

But no, the bullet never reached halfway toward Hilda, embedding instead in the branch of a rapidly-growing tree that stretched out to cover Plato’s path. Standing on another branch, Aleks shouted something incomprehensible at Hilda and Kamila, holding something in his hand.

Plato revved his vehicle, reversing course and following the same semicircular route he’d taken, only in the opposite direction. He fired toward Aleks, and would have taken Kamila’s brother off the branch had his aim been true. The bullet fell into Hilda’s own influence. Kamila tried to follow its trajectory as she freed her fist from the dirt, as it whirled behind and past them, back toward Plato in an arc.

Plato screamed – pain, this time, and Kamila saw blood join the sand and ash and leaves and debris in the windstorm centered on the dead priest. Kamila tore forward, shouting as Hilda half-ran, half-floated behind her, drawing strength from her sister’s presence and the wind at her back, pushing Plato’s own storm away. Kamila’s mouth opened in an unending scream as she raised her hand, as Plato’s face came into full view, as the sand stung her face and the blood from the Invictan’s wound splashed over her forehead. His eyes were flat, pupil-less, full of mist. Kamila’s attention was fixed on those eyes, the world inside of them, her hand moving in to strike that face into an unrecognizable pulp.

Plato leapt up, and Kamila’s fist smashed into the cycle, tearing off one of its handlebars and sending pieces of the chassis flying. Still in the air, Plato spun his rifle around, and its bayonet shifted up, covering the barrel until the whole weapon was like a proper spear, weighted and ready for thrusting. He turned the point toward Kamila on the way down, and she jumped to the side to avoid it. Plato landed cleanly on his vehicle and, bracing the spear for a charge, placed his hand on the one good handlebar, revving the engine again.

He pointed himself not at Kamila, nor even at Hilda, but at the rapidly expanding tree on which Aleks stood. Kamila immediately leapt into action, attempting to intercept Plato and force him off the vehicle, but he accelerated so quickly that she found herself eating his dust. She scrambled back up to her feet, ignoring the sand stinging at her eyes.

Hilda, floating just next to her, landed briefly on the ground, where clods of dirt torn from their place were strewn across the narrow path, making the road disappear almost entirely underneath. The wind around Hilda weakened and faded, and in Kamila’s vision Hilda flickered out. Kamila reached out toward her sister, confused, and Hilda lifted from the ground again. The wind picked up, whistling around Kamila’s ears and whipping her braided hair over her shoulder, but she felt no pressure against her rooted feet.

At the same moment Kamila began to run, Hilda – seemingly to shift through the air more than she physically moved – sped toward the bike. They picked up speed, but Plato’s acceleration was greater with the full force of a thousand pounds of steel aimed straight at their brother. Kamila reached over her shoulder and unslung the repeating crossbow hanging there, spun it about in her grip and fired. The first bolt grazed Plato’s right shoulder, tearing off a chunk of bone and flesh, but he maintained the grip on his spear, growing closer to Aleks. Around Aleks the branches of the tree grew and twisted and covered up a part of the space between him and the reborn Invictan. Plato leapt, spear pointed straight at Aleks’s heart.

The branches suddenly surged, growing quicker and catching around Plato’s spear shaft, stopping the point an inch in front of Aleks’ chest. He leapt forward, dancing off the shaft of the spear, vaulting over the wooden wall, and falling past Plato to land on the bike moments before Plato himself returned. The wind tore at Aleks’ hair and threatened to push him out of the eye of the storm, into the worst of it where debris wheeled. Chunks of wood, sharp and splintered, tore off from the wall of Aleks’ creation and joined the storm spinning around the two on the cycle.

Plato grabbed Aleks by his shoulders and sought to push him off – the shorter man’s stature serving to disadvantage him against the Invictan. But Aleks was stocky and strong despite his short height, and he held on tight to the chassis of the bike with one hand, using the other to wrap round Plato’s throat. With the bike still in place, its engine idling while Plato struggled both to push Aleks off and to rev up the vehicle, Kamila drew closer. She held up one gauntleted fist to shield her face against the wind and the sharp debris that could rip through her skin.

Hilda pushed through the debris, and the chunks of wood, the dirt, the stone, all passed around her as though she were a ghost. She landed and stepped close to Plato, and Kamila watched as the color of the air between Hilda and Plato shifted. Flashes of bright lights and darks, like neon and acrylic. it tickled at Kamila’s hands, under the gauntlets, as she approached the bike. Aleks pulled his shoulder free from Plato’s grip, placed his other hand around the Aether-touched’s neck. He screamed, a plume of mist issuing from around his head.

The light stopped, and Plato was thrown from his place at the front of the bike. In the air, he flickered, and Hilda flickered too, and then she was behind him. He turned around, growling, while Aleks placed his hands on either side of the bike’s chassis.

Kamila changed course, charging at Plato from behind, shouting above the wind roaring in her ears.

Aleks stumbled free from the bike as it shattered into parts, clutching one metal rod triumphantly. The mist continued to spill off him, but lessened in its intensity. He turned and hurled the piece of what had been Plato’s vehicle at the Invictan, striking him through the back.

Plato, face to Hilda, did not appear to notice. Leaning forward on one foot in the aftermath of the throw, trying to regain his balance, Aleks reached for another piece of metal as Kamia charged past the pile, reached down to pick up the fallen spear from among the wreckage, and raised it to strike down her enemy. One foot in front of the other, inch by inch, she struggled her way through the storm, one gauntlet held up against the stinging barrage of debris. Splinters scored lines of blood in her side and with every pounding heartbeat, the storm grew a little more red. On the other side of the small hill where Plato stood, Kamila could see Hilda – walking calmly, unaffected by the storm, the debris simply passing around her, the wind treating her like a second eye within the chaos.

As Kamila charged through the storm, spear at the ready, the sand and debris passing in front of her eyes gave way to a vision of another place and time, and the storm’s roar around her faded to a dull, distant whooshing. It was as wind heard through a double-paned window. Kamila stood, small, looking at her own hands – child’s hands, soft and fat-fingered and flushed-red. Through Karla’s eyes she saw a great metal sphere, spinning in place on an even larger plate, mist flowing from it like sublimating ice. Karla’s father, his face distorted behind a thick rubber suit, looked on Karla with panic in his eyes. “You can’t be in here,” he said. “It’s dangerous – I’m in the middle of an experiment! Go!”

The mist flowed over Kamila, and she heard her father’s voice again, though his mouth did not move anymore as he stepped toward her. “I’m so stupid! Didn’t I lock the door? Karla! What’s going to happen to her? The Void! Its energy! What will it do? What will happen to Karla?” The words, they weren’t sound, Kamila realized. They resolved into thought: Stupid – stupid – you can unlock an entire new world but you can’t even take care of your own daughter –

He pushed her from the room. Kamila, confused, stumbled, pushing back with her small arms, calling out “Why can’t I play with it?” and staring at the machine – spinning, transfixing her with its metallic majesty. She was pushed out the door and into the hallway. Sand blew across the doorway, covering her view, blocking out her father. The roar of the wind grew strong in her ears again.

And she pushed through, spear held up, screaming to match that roaring all around her. Each step was slow and laborious, and multiple times she nearly lost her grip on the spear, but she pushed forward, even as Hilda walked up slowly to Plato, as Plato clenched his fists and towered over Kamila’s younger sister. Kamila grit her teeth and struggled to increase her pace, to close the gap between herself and the eye of the storm before Plato could –