Anele pressed her fists against the hard-packed earth of the alley and pushed up to her knees and elbows. The suppressive weight of the Crude mage's soul put an elephant on her back and threatened to squeeze the consciousness out of her. The only thing that saved her, in the end, was the Perfect warmage. His soul was taking the brunt of the weight. Even now as she strained to lift her head, she saw him between the matted locks that fell over her face. He stood still, body locked midstep, soul furiously flexing to keep him from collapsing.

The Crude mage stood only three paces from him, still holding their broken arm. Their creamy robes fluttered against the force of the warmage's counterflexing, but there was no doubt who's will was winning out.

Anele pushed a leg under her body and strained up to one knee, then a trembling crouch, clutching her stomach as her soul roiled. The pure black soul clay that painted her body faded in patches around her arms and feet and face, slowly eroding like the hull of a ship being eaten away by sea acid. There was only one way out of this alive.

Kill or crawl. The voice was softer than a whisper, crawling along the edge of Anele's awareness. It rasped against the inside of her bones.

Anele punched her heart hand into the hard street and cycled what little Earth aura she could. Even in this denser patch, the aura was near dead. Next best thing, then. Anele pushed her focus into her right hand, and the soul clay moved with it like water, until her fist was a knot of midnight. The rest of her body now exposed, Anele had to grit her teeth against the pressure exerted on her soul.

Each step forward was agony, every breath was like lifting a mountain with her chest, but she made it to the end of the alley. The Crude mage was only five paces away, close enough for Anele to make out the rings around their brown eyes, the age lines wrinkles around their mouth, the individual stitches of their heavy white robes. They were old but tall and lithe, and far too angry in the eye for someone who should have been in their wisdom years.

That anger, the deepness of it, it only reminded Anele of how long she'd spent apart from people. Divine beasts could feel rage, tremendously so, and a whole spectrum of emotion with frightening complexity, but very few had a concept of blame or hatred. Emotion was a tide, either flowing in or out. You couldn't pin it on any one thing.

Anele set the shock of that aside before she lost her advantage. The Crude was fully focused on the Perfect. On iron-clamped feet, Anele snuck around the back of the mage, and kicked off with the last of her strength, aiming a dark fist at the base of the mage's spine.

Lazy. That's the only way Anele could describe the mage's parry. The sidestep had been so casual, and that said nothing of the affront Anele felt at having her fist turned aside with a hip check, and all the while the mage's eyes had been on the frozen warmage. Then came a kick in the side that sent Anele flying sideways.

The soul clay enveloped her body a moment before the back of her head bounced off the base of a building. A crack broke through the rush of blood in her ears, and given that her eyes were only half closed, Anele assumed it was the brick behind her. Anele put all her focus in drawing breath without crumpling around her side, and that only made the weight of the stifling flex that much heavier on her soul.

"Are you alright?" the mage asked her, eyes still on the warmage. There was the seed of a smile on the corner of their lip. "If you are, this isn't a safe place to be right now. If not, catch your breath."

For a brief moment, the pressure completely lifted and Anele's soul cycled normally again -- as normally as it did, all ragged as it was. Unfortunately, that ebb in the mage's flex also freed the warmage, and he blew forward on a stride so powerful he blurred across the street, his fist a bubbling fire of jade and gold. Anele launched herself at the mage too.

The warmage reached the Crude a whole breath and a half before Anele did, propelled by the strength and speed of a Perfect body. Their fist flew through the afterimage of where the mage had just been, a fist that should have caved through to the back of their skull. Unrestrained by the flexing, his movements blurred at the edges, but the Crude mage had sidestepped him too, and dodged the follow up back hand as the warmage twisted around. Anele felt the shift in the air as they prepared to flex again.

She didn't give the bastard the chance.

Focusing her soul clay on her fist again, Anele took advantage of the moment the mage slipped out of the Perfect's reach. She ducked low into the mage's guard, planted her feet, and lashed a fierce fist up towards their gut. And this time, she meant it.

At some point, the Crude had tucked their broken arm into the V of their robes, so their heart hand was free to catch Anele's punch. Long fingers clamped around her swinging fist, but the force of the blow was still enough to lift the Crude off their feet. They smiled down as if they'd been expecting that, eyes still on the warmage's back as they twisted in the air, vaulting over Anele's shoulder.

Even midair, the Crude still held her hand in a vice grip, so Anele had to twist around to avoid having her wrist snapped. Pivoting, Anele hammered their right hand down, aiming at the broken arm tucked to the mage's chest.

Then the sky fell again.

Anele's fist froze in the air as the mage landed lightly on their feet, robes fluttering slightly. The warmage went down to one knee, desperately trying to get himself upright. For Anele, the physical contact with the mage increased the weight of the flex threefold, but the thin barrier of soul clay on her fist kept her soul from exploding.

Seething, Anele tried to push her gaze through the mage's stoneiris, but it was like trying to break a rock by breathing on it. "If you're going to kill me, at least look at me, friend."

"Kill you?" At last, the mage's eyes fell on Anele. They had no gaze that she could feel, just a twinkle of mischief in eyes that showed something Anele hadn't seen since she was a toddler. Sadness. "I was just giving you a moment to run before you caught the attention of a Perfect. My pardons."

Long fingers slipped off Anele's fist, and the pressure eased a fraction. She was still moving through syrup though; the soul flex hadn't been this powerful a moment before. They'd been holding back.

The mage cupped the elbow of their broken arm, and Anele wasn't sure if they winced or smiled. "You might want to do that now, though, this is no place for a..."

Anele's soul shivered as the mage's gaze passed over it. When their eyes locked again, Anele saw a hint of confusion, then the mage set their sight on her soul-clay-painted fist and frowned.

"Child," they began, "what exactly are--"

A deafening explosion ripped through the air, hot against Anele's back, blowing the mage's robes and grey braids back, then a blinding light turned the sky pale as white jade. Even if she could have, Anele wouldn't have needed to turn around to know that it had come from the big building where the Judge's soul was.

The Crude mage -- if Anele could even call them that -- seemed to forget her in an instant. Their eyes turned upward, and a hard focus burned through the sadness in them before they sprinted off down the street, swift as wind. When Anele could no longer hear their bare feet on the hard earth, the flexing stopped and the pressure evaporated. She crumbled to her hands and knees as her soul stretched out, sore as a slept-on ear.

She didn't see the Perfect warmage take off, but she felt the force of his leap as a deep rumble in the earth. Still on her hands and knees, she looked up and watched him leap through the air before landing on a rooftop fifty paces away. He kicked off again, shattering the tiles beneath him, heading for the beam of white light that was already fading over the big building. No telling who'd get there first between the two, but there was a meal waiting for the last one standing.

Trembling to her feet, Anele clutched her side and jogged after them.