Ana didn't like being the center of attention. She especially didn't like being pushed into the spotlight, and she certainly never wanted to be made into a spectacle. Yet there she was, climbing onto a round shield, three feet wide and held up by three tall men. Three mages crowded underneath trying to get the perfect angle to make her go up instead of sideways — nobody wanted her to get launched headfirst into the far wall, or spackled against the near one, which rose only inches away. Spectacle didn't begin to describe the situation. Especially with every person there who wasn't directly involved watching the ridiculous scene with rapt attention, fully aware that this might be either the key to their salvation, or the most spectacularly ridiculous death in the short history of the Splinter.

The officers had kept most people back, but a few crowded right around the circus act: the captains, of course, since this was ultimately their responsibility; Tellak, who still had to do whatever Shaping she needed to reduce Ana's weight; and Messy, who was worried sick. Nobody had even tried to stop her.

With a pleading, almost plaintive look Messy reached up, her hand not quite reaching the level of the shield. Ana crouched, perfectly still even when her makeshift platform wavered. She reached down, and their fingertips barely brushed. "I'm gonna be fine, Mess," Ana said, her face a picture of calm for Messy's sake. "Straight up, grab the Crystals, and next time you see me we'll be outside."

"Alright," Messy said, "just… be careful."

"Babe, all I need to do here is keep my balance, and I'm pretty good at that."

Messy put on a brave face. "Yeah. I guess you are," she said, then stretched just that little bit further to hook their fingertips together for a moment before letting go and backing up. "Promise me not to go running off if this isn't the chamber, though!"

"I won't," Ana promised solemnly.

Captain Pirta respectfully waited a few seconds before clearing her throat. "Are we all ready?" she said, looking around. The two teams with tents in their hands, optimistically ready to catch Ana if everything went to shit, nodded. So did Tellak. And while Ana couldn't see the mages underneath her, Pirta seemed satisfied. "Well, then. Miss Tellak, if you would?"

"Alright, Ana," Tellak said, taking Messy's place. "I'm going to do the Shaping, and then trigger it by touch. It'll reduce your weight for a minute or so. Might be a bit longer or a bit shorter. You won't feel a thing. Don't even think about it. Like you said, all you need to do is balance."

"We'll try to do this as smoothly as possible," Simt said from below, "but there's going to be a shock no matter what. The lift from Rasker will be constant, but Spira needs to ramp up pretty hard to get enough push with her water, and I don't really do constant force. So be ready for that."

"As long as you don't straight up knock the shield out from under me, I'll be fine," Ana said, centering herself best she could on the shield. She checked the straps of her armor one last time and tucked her hammer-axe under the skirt plates, so it wouldn't fly out of its loop if anything happened. Her shield was in her hand, and with her Unbreakable Grip, there was no risk of losing that. With any luck they'd both be unnecessary, anyway.

"Alright," she said. "I'm good. Mages, do your thing."

Tellak was already doing her Shaping. There were vague tingles and currents in the air — the movement of mana, Ana guessed. Then those sensations became stronger as the three mages beneath her began their own Shapings. "Ready," said a male voice, which must have belonged to Rasker the Air-mage. "Ready," said Spira, then Tellak, and finally Simt. "Ana," Tellak said, reaching up one hand. Her voice was strained. "Once you center yourself again, just say the word."

Ana crouched and touched Tellak's fingers, and a pulse went through her, like when Tellak had first tested her for an affinity but a thousand times stronger. It was strength, reliability, endurance, comfort, and confidence, all at once, and it brought with it a lightness all through her body that was even stronger than when her bonuses kicked in. Reduced weight, Ana thought. Better than goddamn therapy.

Ana quickly straightened, centered herself, and said, "Ready! Go!"

She rose like a three stage rocket. First a gentle lift, Rasker's powerful updraft. Then a sudden push from Spira's water that she felt in her knees, gut, and lungs, like one of those amusement park rides that shoot you straight up into the air. And when she'd barely had a heartbeat to react to that, the final stage kicked in. Simt's kinetic blast was everything that Spira's water jet was, compressed into a single moment. Ana could have sworn that her vision greyed out as the hundred feet of wall beside her flashed past faster than she could even begin to think of an appropriate curse.

The shield beneath her feet tilted. She adjusted her balance automatically, but then it tilted the other way and flipped, and suddenly Ana was hurtling upward through the air with nothing beneath her except a jet of water that caught her foot and sent her whirling end over end.

As her field of vision spun, there was the ledge. She'd barely cleared the top of the wall. Not even thinking, she threw her arms out and they slapped painfully against the glassy material. Her buckler clattered away, discarded in favor of more surface area to grip with.

Everything had gone so fast that only now did the onlookers beneath start to shout, Messy's piercing cry of "Ana!" cutting through the rest.

No time for that. Ana needed to not slip off the ledge. She was completely focused now, half on her hands and arms, half on her feet and legs. Luckily her hands were just clammy enough to give some little bit of friction instead of sliding, but the wall beneath her feet was too smooth for her to put her toes on anything. She looked, and felt, and tried, and scrabbled with her feet, blessing her increased Strength and Tellak's weight-reducing Shaping when she succeeded in finding some small friction with her soles. Slowly, carefully, she worked her elbows outward, bending them so that her hands moved closer and closer to her center of gravity. She prepared to press up—

Ana barely had time to notice her Danger Sense and her bonuses triggering before something closed over her head with painful, almost crushing force. She was yanked up, her body dangling briefly by her neck before she was hurled across the floor where she rolled and bounced and came to a painful stop against a wall.

So the Crystal chamber wasn't empty, after all. That figured.

Ana was on her hands and knees and then rising almost instantly, thanking Fight Through and her massive Vitality for keeping her going. She might have survived without them, but there was no way she'd be defending herself. Especially with how she hadn't even made it properly to her feet before a rough-looking boot flashed in her peripheral vision. Only a quick twist of the hips and a reflexive, painfully sloppy block with both forearms saved her from taking a punt to the face. As it was, the force of the kick was enough to lift her two feet into the air, spinning around her center so that she had to splay her legs to stop the rotation.

This was bad. She didn't know the situation. She hadn't even gotten a good look at her assailant, though it was a good bet that it was a revenant. And she was being entirely reactive, defending herself without even the opportunity to strike back. The initiative was out of her hands.

That didn't change when a hand closed around her throat and lifted and pressed her against the wall. Finally, after however few seconds had passed, she had a chance to look at her opponent. And that look almost killed her.

For half a moment, she froze. It could have been Nic. The height, the build, the shape of his face, the nose. The hair was wrong, but his filmy eyes could have been the same green as Nic's when they were alive. Behind the bloating and corruption it might, almost, have been him.

The thing that wasn't, that couldn't be Nicola Stamper opened its jaw wide, and with a gurgling screech it tried to clamp its cracked, yellowed teeth around Ana's face.

Ana barely recovered in time to shove her left arm in front of her face before those teeth bit down, and a distant agony filled her arm with liquid fire all the way to her spine. Her mouth opened in a voiceless, strangled scream, more in outrage than pain thanks to Fight Through, as the sound of teeth grinding on bone filled her with a primal fear and rage that she'd rarely known.

That rage would mean nothing if this thing tore her arm off, or strangled her to death. She punched the revenant in the jaw with her free right hand, but with their faces separated only by the width of her savaged arm and her feet dangling, she didn't have the leverage or the grounding to put real force into it. She tried her knees, but it was the same problem there — she hit, and she hit well, but not well enough against something as tough as this monster.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Well. She knew what to do about a chokehold, normally. But she only had one free hand, and she couldn't use her legs to effect. She'd have to improvise.

She lifted and locked her legs around the revenant's waist. That would give her some relative stability — something to work with. Ignoring the blood trickling down her left arm, she brought her right in, elbow on the revenant's left, hand gripping tight around the outer edge of the thing's right palm with her Unbreakable Grip. There. Like this she had leverage, and she used it.

With every adrenaline fueled Point of Strength that she possessed, Ana pressed down with her elbow, rotating it toward her own body. At the same time she twisted right at the waist, and the inexorable force of the combined motions tore the revenant's right hand loose from her neck. It came off her skin with a series of snapping pops and a hundred separate tearing sensations all along her skin, but it came off. At the same time the revenant's left arm dropped under her elbow, and without the direct force of either hand pressing her neck into the wall, Ana could take a deep, sharp breath through her bruised throat.

She screamed for real this time, surprise and fear and anger and suppressed pain all needing an outlet.

The revenant growled and stumbled around, fighting Ana for control of its arms and biting down harder. It tried bashing her against the wall but she barely felt it, and they bounced off from the force. With Tellak's Shaping still active, Ana wasn't nearly as big of an inconvenience as she might have been, but she had taken some of the initiative and was doing her best to throw her foe off balance.

No longer in immediate danger of dying, Ana went on the offensive. She didn't need much. She tucked her head forward, nice and tight, to prevent another chokehold. Then she—

Shit. When she tucked her head she saw that her padded belt pouch had torn open. She didn't have her gun. It was gone, along with her healing potion.

Fine. Well, not fine. Goddess fucking dammit. But she had her—

Her hammer-axe was gone, too, the loop torn. Her scream turned to one of frustration, but inside she was analytical. Okay. She was practically unarmed. She had two daggers, but she wasn't sure if drawing one was worth releasing her grip on the revenant's hand. The bastards didn't bleed. So her right arm was busy. Her left was useless, or busy doing the very important job of keeping the revenant from eating her face, depending on how you looked at it. And her legs were occupied keeping her anchored and giving her some measure of control.

That left her one weapon. A last resort, but if ever there was a time for those, this was it.

Ana straightened, leaned back, and, using her whole body, headbutted the revenant right in the bridge of the nose.

The little bump right beneath her hairline struck the revenant's face where bone met cartilage, with a satisfying Grunch. A distant shock of pain shot up her arm, but the force made the revenant stumble backward. She did it again, and it stumbled further. The third time there was a wet, tearing sound, and her arm came free, a ragged wound pouring blood where the revenant had torn a chunk of flesh loose. A fourth time. A fifth—

The revenant pulled its left arm free, and as Ana reared back for a fifth strike it slammed its fist into her chest. The punch itself wasn't bad — this wasn't Nic, but whoever the revenant had been in life he probably hadn't been much stronger than Ana's charge. The sickly green light that wreathed that fist, though, and which seemed to pass right through her leather chestpiece and burrow into her soul, that was horrible. Much like when Saareng the Binder had struck one of her Party mates with a similar light and Ana absorbed it, Ana's muscles spasmed and relaxed randomly. The grip of her legs around the revenant's waist loosened. Then the revenant shoved her, and with her lessened weight, Ana flew back off the revenant entirely, hitting the floor bonelessly before sliding to a stop.

Ana gasped as she fought to get her muscles under control. Breathing was an exercise of willpower. Big movements worked. Fine control was out. Her hands might as well have been mittens. She could barely make a fist.

The revenant stalked forward, hate and hunger in its eyes. [Revenant of Gedial (Threat: Extreme)] said its label, and with her shocked and headbutt-addled mind all Ana could think was, Thank fuck, it's really not Nic. It's not Nic.

Then it surged toward her. Ana's leg came up reflexively and she kicked upward, catching the revenant square in the chest. It was a shitty kick, embarrassingly so, but with her Strength and the floor beneath her it was enough that the revenant was pushed back. Due to the angle it actually went airborne, if only a few inches above the ground. But with her reduced weight, Ana was pushed back much more than the revenant was. She slid backward a couple of feet, but rather than give her space to rise and defend herself properly, all she got was a moment to mostly get her muscles back under control, her half-stunned condition giving the revenant another chance to attack. It scrambled forward again, lower to the ground, but this time Ana was less dazed, her muscles less jerky, and she was prepared and determined to buy herself a moment, just a few seconds. That was all she'd need to get on her feet and arm herself.

The twisted thing that had been a man called Gedial threw itself at Ana, teeth bared, its ruined nose and cheeks a mess of sloughing flesh and black, clotted blood, and her defence was practically textbook. Raising her shoulders she grabbed the front of the revenant's tattered tunic as it came in, the hand on her injured left arm practically useless but the right strong enough to pull. She planted one foot in its belly and rolled back, redirecting the revenant over instead of onto her. Then, for good measure, she pushed off with her other foot, bucked her hips, and kicked out.

She'd never done quite this maneuver with her new Strength, and she was in no way unhappy with the result. She didn't expect the revenant to go flying the way it did, though it was obvious in hindsight. She definitely didn't expect to see it slip with a snarl over the edge of the precipice.

It wasn't done, though. As the revenant went over, one hand slapped down onto the glassy floor, stopping it dead. Ana remembered the tearing feeling when she'd dislodged those hands from her throat, and she could feel a burning and a steady flow of blood from the torn skin there. Suction cups, or something, she thought as she twisted to get her hands and feet under her to go after it. Explains how it got up here.

As Ana moved, three things happened in rapid succession: there was a cry of "What the fuck?" from below; the revenant's other hand appeared, and it pulled itself up so its head and shoulders were over the edge; and a piece of the sun the size of a gumball, judging by the purple streak it left in Ana's vision, passed through the revenant in a tiny fraction of a second. It obliterated the revenant's shoulder in an explosion of steam, chunks of flash-cooked meat, and splinters of bone, setting most of that side of its face on fire for good measure.

Goddess, Ana thought, bless Kaira and her itchy trigger finger!

The revenant dropped, dangling by the fingertips of its remaining hand. The screaming from below was a mix of fear, surprise, and boiling anger. Ana's good right hand came down like a hammer again and again, crushing bone, splintering nails, and pulping flesh as they amputated the thing's fingers through sheer blunt trauma. She didn't care about the shock that went up her arm, telling her that she might have cracked a bone or two of her own. She could worry about that when pain was a thing that mattered.

With an indignant howl, the remains of the revenant's hand slipped away from the ledge.

It took the revenant about two and a half seconds to hit the ground. Ana spent that time looking around for her things, locating them quickly along with the mound covered in crystals that she'd silently prayed and expected to see up there. The healing potion had shattered, because of course it had. It took another three seconds for Ana to get her notification, and by then she was already moving with a half stumble, half crawl to collect her gun. The notification was accompanied by another one, unexpected but extremely welcome.

Congratulations! Your Party has defeated: Revenant of Gedial (Threat: Extreme). Based on your contribution, you have been awarded: Growth Crystal (Greater). For fighting in the defense of your object of devotion, you have been awarded: Growth Crystal (Major) as a bonus.

Congratulations! Your Skill Unarmed Combat has improved to Level 10! You have been awarded: Growth Crystal (Major). You have gained the Perk Close Quarters.

Close Quarters: The clinch and the grapple are your domain. This is where you're at your best, where you truly shine, and where others should fear to tread. While in combat, as long as you are in prolonged physical contact with an opponent, your Strength and Dexterity modifiers are each treated as though they were 2 Steps higher.

"Come. Fucking. At me," Ana wheezed. It would have been easier to appreciate what she'd received if she hadn't in that same moment lost her bonuses, which drove her to her knees as she had to feel the full agony of having her arm chewed through and what was at best a cracked carpal bone. She hadn't even noticed the small surge of increased Strength, Endurance, and Vitality as her bonuses from Iron Body increased.

Fucking waste, she thought as she grit her teeth against the pain. As she forced herself back to her feet and stumbled over to her gun, she clamped down with her good hand above the deep, ragged wound, thumb on the radial artery to slow the bleeding. She really needed to learn to goddamn channel. Going into a fight without her protective Shaping up: never again. Mental effects of learning a Craft be damned.

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