Balt grimaced as he watched the screen, Riven unleashing Times Three and then Sunder in rapid succession. If last time was anything to go by, the idiot wouldn’t be able to use Limit Break again for days.

  He snorted when Tucker dragged his butt across Shane’s back. The big lug had actually helped pull off the win. Now it was Balt’s turn. All he had to do was beat another Outlier with shadow powers who could jump bodies at will. Totally fine. Nothing to stress about.

  When the duke descended and healed Riven, Balt finally exhaled. Healers were so rare where he came from that seeing one always made him pause and stare out of sheer habit. Still, with the stockpile of potions they now had, relying on a healer shouldn’t be a concern for a good while.

  He shook himself, trying to focus. He needed to give everything he had in the upcoming match. Jase was strong, no doubt about that, but he wasn’t on Riven’s level. If Balt could maneuver things just right, a well?timed Stormbreaker Cannon might be enough to tip the scales.

  He tightened his grip on his staff. Wouldn’t it be something for an old man like him to take down an Outlier? He glanced at his hand. Smooth now, no wrinkles left, and snorted. “Well… not that old anymore,” he muttered with a quiet laugh.

  Altus’s voice crackled through the speakers. “We will need to reset the arena. A two?hour intermission, and then we’ll begin the final match of the semi?finals.”

  Balt let out a long breath and sank back into his seat. The waiting room was nearly identical to the one he’d been in before, just a bit smaller, a bit quieter, and somehow even more suffocating.

  Time slipped by in slow, uneven stretches. Balt tried to meditate, then tried pacing, then tried sitting again. None of it helped. His thoughts kept circling the same drain, how could he win?

  The faint scrape of boots on the stone floor made Balt freeze mid-breath. He turned his head toward the door just as it eased open. First, a guild attendant stepped inside… and then Tucker squeezed in behind her, tail wagging, tongue lolling, looking far too pleased with himself.

  Balt’s face split into a grin before he could stop it. “Tucker! How’s Riven? Is he alright?”

  Tucker padded over, the floor vibrating under each step. “He’s resting,” Tucker mentally rumbled. “They moved him into an arena suite under guard while he recovers.”

  Balt smiled, glad his friend was on the mend.

  Tucker sat beside him, shoulder bumping Balt’s arm. “He sent me here,” Tucker added, “said you’d be in your head and needed company.”

  Balt barked a laugh. “Me? Never, I'm cooler than the other side of the pillow.”

  Tucker’s tail thumped once. Tucker eventually settled beside him, the room dim and still. After a moment, the big guy lowered his head onto Balt’s lap with a soft huff, warm breath seeping through the fabric of Balt’s robes. Balt’s hand drifted to Tucker’s fur, fingers combing through it in slow, absent strokes.

  Minutes passed like that, steady breathing, steady petting, the kind of silence that didn’t need filling.

  Balt’s voice finally broke it, low and rough. “I just… I want to go the distance, you know?” His hand paused, then resumed its rhythm. “I spent so many years being that bitter old man who’d already decided the world had nothing left for him.

  Then Riven shows up and flips everything on its head.” He let out a shaky breath. “He won’t be able to use his full kit in the championship. Not after what he pulled today. So I want to show him, show myself, that when he gives his all and is set back, he has nothing to worry about because I’ll be there to pick him up. That I’m more than who I used to be.”

  Tucker shifted, pressing his head more firmly into Balt’s lap. When he spoke in his mind, his voice was soft in a way few ever heard. “He already knows.”

  Balt blinked, caught off guard.

  “Riven and I,” Tucker continued, “We think of you like family. Not the kind you’re stuck with. The kind you choose.” His tail thumped once, slow and sincere. “You’ve changed. Anyone with eyes can see it. You’re not that man you used to be… and you’re not going back to who you once were.”

  Balt swallowed hard, the words hitting deeper than he expected. His hand rested on Tucker’s head, steady now, grateful. “When did you get so smart?”

  “I am not that smart, just smarter than you and Riven. It’s not really that high a bar.”

  Balt grinned as the knot in his chest finally loosened. His eyes blurred, and Tucker leaned in without hesitation, dutifully licking the tears away.

  Balt and Tucker talked and strategized, and before Balt knew it only two minutes remained on the timer.

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  He drew a long breath, slapped his cheeks, and straightened. “Alright… let’s do this.” He gave Tucker one last firm pat, then turned toward the waiting doors.

  They rumbled open at his approach.

  The arena had been fully reset, fresh white sand, gleaming wards, the faint hum of the barrier rising around the ring. Gone were the boulders in the middle of the rocky terrain. In the boulders’ place resided a large, clear pond.

  Jase emerged from the opposite tunnel just as Balt reached the center of the ring. The younger man rolled his shoulders, twin daggers already spinning between his fingers. His dark form a contrast to the white sand he walked on.

  Altus’s voice boomed across the arena, bright and electric.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for the final match of the semi?finals! On one side, Jase, System Champion! And on the other, Balt, a member of another System Champion’s elite party! Who will earn the right to face Riven in the championship match? Well… we’re about to find out! Guildmaster, if you would be so kind!”

  Aaron’s voice followed, calm but carrying authority.

  “Fighters, take your stances.”

  Balt planted his staff. Jase lowered into a predatory crouch.

  “Fighters ready… begin!”

  The arena erupted.

  Jase moved first, blurring forward as four shadows peeled off him like living ink. They sprinted in front of him, each armed with a dagger of condensed darkness.

  Balt smirked. “Four, huh? Cute.”

  He swept his staff in a wide arc. Four shimmering orbs of compressed force and lightning spiraled into existence around him.

  “I’ve got one for each of you.”

  The shadows tried to dart in all directions. Balt flicked his wrist, and the orbs shot forward like cannonballs. Each collided with a shadow clone, detonating in bursts of kinetic pressure that shredded them into wisps of smoke. Jase darted through the darkness, daggers flashing.

  A curtain of darkness poured from Jase’s body, swallowing the area around Balt and him in a suffocating black dome. Balt couldn’t see his own hand in front of his face.

  “Really?” Balt muttered. “This old trick?”

  A disturbance of mana behind him made his turn. He slammed his staff down.

  A tidal wave of force exploded outward, rippling across the sand. The darkness shattered, peeling away in strips as Jase was hurled backward, skidding across the sand.

  The crowd roared.

  Jase rolled to his feet, teeth bared. “That area of effect Talent of yours is annoying as fuck, you know that?”

  Balt shrugged. “Stop hiding in the dark.”

  More shadows began to appear around Jase now. Six this time. They swarmed Balt from all angles.

  Balt spun his staff, lightning crackling along its length. He fired bolts in rapid succession, each one spearing through a clone and dispersing it. But Jase was relentless; every time Balt destroyed one, another replaced it.

  The two closed in on each other, trading blows, dagger against staff, shadow against lightning. Balt firing out orbs the whole time, keeping the shadows off of him.

  After several exchanges, Balt’s shields were flickering under the continued dagger strikes. He had thinned Jase’s clones down to where only two were active now.

  Balt needed to find an opening to concentrate his attack on the real Jase. But the clones continued harassment, and Jase’s movements made it almost impossible.

  Balt gave as good as he got, hitting Jase with several electrically charged staff strikes as well as several force orbs. The amount of mana he was burning through was not sustainable, though.

  They fought to a near standstill, both panting, both bleeding, both refusing to yield.

  Jase wiped blood from his lip and laughed breathlessly. “I can’t believe you made me use this. I was saving it for the finals… but you’re too damn stubborn to go down, old man.”

  “I got a trick or two left of my own. Show me what you’ve got, kid.”

  Shadows pooled around Jase, and then swallowed him. Balt sent orbs into the shadows, but they passed right through with no effect. A heartbeat later a creature stepped out of the swirling shadows.

  Its legs were fog, drifting across the sand without disturbing a grain. His arms were elongated daggers that melted into his hands. The creature that was Jase looked almost incorporeal as it stared at him. His eyes glowed like coals in a furnace.

  Balt blinked. “Well, that’s fucking terrifying.”

  The shadow?thing hissed.

  Balt lifted his staff. “Bring it creepy. I’ve got something for your ass.”

  Jase surged forward; fog expanding, engulfing Balt in a suffocating cloud. Visibility dropped to nothing. Balt could barely breathe, let alone see.

  He planted his feet, channeling everything he had left.

  Lightning gathered at the tip of his staff, swirling with force magic until the air vibrated. He calmed his breathing. Feeling the surrounding mana, trusting his mana sense more than his sight, he felt the mana coalesce to his side. He turned.

  “Stormbreaker…”

  The fog closed in.

  “…Cannon!”

  The blast tore through the darkness, a beam of lightning?laced force that carved a trench through the sand and ripped open the fog.

  His cannon had caught Jase partially on his right side. He was sent spinning through the air as his new form flickered violently. “Got your ass!”

  As soon as his mana gave out, Jase vanished into the remaining fog.

  Balt’s instincts screamed. He spun, staff raised—

  Too slow.

  Jase materialized behind him, a whisper of shadow that had remained around Balts’ feet.

  Balt moved on instinct.

  His palm slammed into the gems in his staff. They flared white-hot, screaming as they flooded his body with mana.

  He blinked behind Jase in a crack of displaced air.

  I am more than I was.

  He fired.

  Jase split into three silhouettes at the last instant, each tearing away in a different direction.

  Balt didn’t hesitate.

  He aimed for the middle.

  The blast obliterated the figure and vaporized the remaining fog. Silence fell. Balt lowered his staff, chest heaving.

  “Did I… ?”

  A sharp pain exploded in his thigh.

  Balt looked down in pain to see Jase’s dagger hand half buried into his thigh. Jase was bloody and broken, fully corporeal now. Balt tried to summon the last dregs of his mana and strike him across the face.

  Jase ducked the incoming swing and bull rushed him, knocking him over. Jase fought for position in the sand. All semblance of shadow and magic now gone.

  Balt tried to throw him off, but soon there was a dagger under his chin, stopping his movements.

  “Holy shit, man…” Jase panted. “You about killed me.”

  Balt tried to laugh but only managed a wheeze.

  Altus’s voice thundered across the arena.

  “WHAT AN AMAZING FIGHT! Balt stood toe?to?toe with a System Champion and nearly won! An absolutely incredible display of power and skill!”

  The crowd erupted, chanting Balt’s name even in defeat. And Balt, lying in the sand, bleeding and exhausted, managed a small, proud smile. “I’ll get him next time for sure.”