"Alright, here looks good," Ori said over the rushing wind.

"Marvellous choice. Nothing says here like the middle of nowhere." Lucas grunted. Ignoring the Dire Strix's usual snark, Ori loosened his harness and jumped before casting Feather Fall to slow his descent. It had been an overcast morning, and the flight had let him appreciate the thick blanket of cloud smothering the valleys with the light of the open sky above.

They had flown for an hour to a region of southern Twilight far from any known settlements. Below lay a lake that Ori had previously found peaceful during earlier practice. He had returned to it to work on flying with Lysara.

A flash, and an orb of lightning crackled into being as she was summoned.

"Right, buddy, ready to fly?" Ori said to his familiar, casting Feather Fall on the Lesser Elemental of Flux.

"I am."

"I think it should be easier for you…" He outlined his idea.

While Lysara could already control her position relative to ground by managing charge, flight was about absolute positioning, impulse control and force. By shaping like or unlike charges, she could create repelling or attracting forces. "It's only a start. If it works, you will still need a more stable way to stay aloft."

By the time he'd finished, they had drifted through the base of the cloud layer, mist beading on his clothes.

Lysara, who had been falling patiently beside him, suddenly zipped upward, then snapped into a streak of lightning and vanished from sight. Ori gaped, then laughed, masking his envy.

"Whatever."

Blinking several times upwards 60 yards at a time with Radiant Step, he rose above the clouds again and flooded his body with mana aspected with his Altus affinity. With Feather Fall active, his slow sink stopped as he was carried with the wind.

From Nameless's memories of sky combat, Ori knew that once power crossed a threshold, the influence of the environment loosened. Sea, ground or sky mattered less as the scale of energies increased.

Despite curses and dark magics that chiefly targeted living beings and did little to inanimate matter, the battle between Nameless and the Name Eater had still been fought in the air. Beyond that, Ori understood the advantage of air superiority, the energy advantage of holding the higher ground, and the way motion from sea, to surface, to sky, to space brought step changes in speed and freedom of movement. These aspects were vital for the conflict he was preparing to face.

The sky had opened, leaving intermittent fluffy clouds. They billowed into pillars as convection from the ground drew moisture up in invisible columns, condensing into towers of cotton above rolling, vergent valleys. Ori drifted between them, cycling mana infusions of Altus, Air and Freedom through his body. He could move quickly enough to negate the mid-altitude winds, but not much faster without dedicated spells or an increase to the Sovereign rank.

From dawn to midday, he ran through his basic combat magics, testing what worked and what did not. His lightning spells, Channel Lightning, Call Lightning, Chain Lightning and Greater Stun, were markedly stronger. Even above the clouds, he could tap wider charge fields, drawing from ground or clear sky with surprising ease. His light-based spells; Moonbeam, Prismatic Weapon, Purifying Light, Radiant Step, Prismatic Mist, Prismatic Smite and Starfield- gained modest casting speed and power from his improved affinities and his recent boosts to Intelligence and Wisdom.

Void Dance, as expected, failed at altitude. Without shadows to anchor, it had nothing to bite into. Radiant Step, however, paired well with Prismatic Mist and his newly cultivated glamour. Infusing Freedom and Glamour into Radiant Step doubled both range and the speed of determining his destination, which were his main avenues of progress for now.

On a whim, he flooded his body with Fate-aspected mana.

A sudden weight, one that was both physical and metaphysical, settled over him at once. Altus's lightness ceased; he stopped riding the air currents and began to sink, Feather Fall doing little to slow the drop. Worse, he could not dispel Fate from his mana nor its effect.

"Fucksake," Ori shouted, as even a flare of his Astral Domain failed to halt the fall or lift the burden. Wind tore at his eyes and stole his breath from his lungs as he dropped out of the low cloud. Reason told him impact with the lake below would keep him alive even at terminal speed, and that anything short of a severe head wound was within his ability to heal, but he was no masochist.

Instinct took over. Glamour and Duælism with Freedom aspected mana as it flooded his flesh, Mind over Magic knitting with the Duælist's Weave to merge the natures of Void Dance and Radiant Step into a spell with diametrically opposed aspects that had no business fusing.

The spell was cast, the sky held its breath, and then suddenly, Ori was elsewhere.

Ori surveyed the new sky.

His translocation had been instant and disorienting. Void Dance required careful steps through the void and was far from instant for him, while Radiant Step needed sight of, or knowledge about, the destination. Neither applied as he took in the scene from his perch at the edge of the sky.

Thin air and distant clouds suggested his momentary intent of "higher" had worked. Still, this altitude felt well above any cloud he could see, which was a touch excessive.

The good news was that he was still in Twilight. The sky, the light and the endless rolling valleys below were familiar, even if the lake he had chosen was nowhere in sight. Fate mana had bled out of his body, and, with Feather Fall active, he could again control his movement.

Lysara and Lucas now felt distant. His position relative to Strafhollow and his other bonds was hard to judge, though he suspected he was closer to them now than before, if displaced laterally by dozens or hundreds of miles.

As he worked through the chain of events, something stirred in the clouds below. Vision of the Progenitor focused, catching two gigantic shapes fighting a mile beneath him: birds, one blue and unfamiliar, the other a black crow reeking of infernal taint. Both dwarfed Lucas in size. As Ori dropped nearer, he tasted their auras: Sovereign rank for the blue, heron-like creature, and Immortal rank for the crow, whose clustered black eyes triggered his trypophobia. Blue fire roared from the heron, roasting at the shadow armour cladding the crow-like monster.

Ori muted his presence and cast Prismatic Mist, vanishing from sight. Sliding laterally as he descended, he could better read the titanic exchange. The blue bird was clearly losing. The crow tore feathers and flesh and shrugged off flames far stronger than a Sovereign ranker could normally manage, its mastery of shadow smothering the heat.

Had infernals not been involved, he might have left them to it. But Ori had beef.

Seraphine's beacon formed in his hand.

"Oh, hello, Ori, oooh, you're floating—" Seraphine exclaimed silently. "Oh, what's this, a battle? Do you plan to make a move?"

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"Yeah," he replied, as the heron was flicked almost contemptuously from the crow's beak and sent plummeting. Ori raised his wand, Will of the High Human activated as Lesser Mind over Magic, Law of Radiance, and his Cosmic and Flux affinities moved as one. High Magic and fine mana control layered over the spell as he ripped free electrons from the sky and the ground. Mirrored tributaries of molten Cosmic Flux swelled into twin rivers reaching from above and below, before Call Lightning split the sky and bridged heaven and earth.

It seemed almost incidental that the Infernal Crow happened to be in the bolt's path as it all but disintegrated in a shower of ash and black feathers.

Once more, the world held its breath. Peritia flooded the air as the value on his Page from the Library of Fates climbed from 1.1 to 1.2 billion, confirming that with a single spell, Ori had just one-shot an Immortal-rank monster.

"Wow. You killed it, just like that?" Seraphine said, her voice slow and reverent.

"Looks like it." Ori was surprised, too. He considered his Demon Bane nature, how his affinities and spells were natural counters to infernal creatures, and how his strike might be judged a sneak attack against a perhaps exhausted, distracted foe.

He cast Death Ward on the plummeting blue heron, choosing to remain hidden under his presence-masking while he tested whether the spell had drawn further attention.

Black feathers rained from the sky as he set down in an open forest, sparse trees dotting the leading edge of a valley. He turned towards the fallen creature. The massive bird, larger than a house, had its fall broken by branches. It gave a mournful cry, then struggled free of the tangle of wings and limbs.

Ori revealed himself as he approached, letting his Presence rise. The Aura of the Progenitor's nimbus flashed, sparking and warping the air, and the creature's head swung towards him at once.

"Ori, it is a phoenix. Be careful," Seraphine warned in his mind.

Before he could react, searing blue fire washed over him. Prismatic Shield snapped up and shattered, forcing him to layer multiple shields in quick succession. One split mind handled the pain while the rest controlled his awareness, movements and spellwork.

His clothes were almost burned to ash. Even through the shields, the heat blistered his skin. Glamour and Aura reinforced his casting, and multifocal spells knitted scorched flesh. Anger flared at himself for lowering his guard, and at the foolish bird. He decided to act first and seek forgiveness later.

Ori cast Greater Stun, and the magic ceased.

He scowled at the phoenix as he closed. Even compartmentalised, being burned alive was near the worst pain there was, and the special nature of the blue fire had added a particularly vicious sting.

"Oh, Ori," Seraphine said pityingly.

"I'm alright," Ori sighed internally as he felt Seraphine's Beacon of Wisdom wash over him.

Aloud, Ori shouted, raising his hands in what he hoped appeared to be non-threatening. "Hi, not here to hurt you, actually, I can help you heal if you give me a chance?" Ori said, casting Beacon of Restoration beneath the giant creature.

"There," Ori said at last, lowering his hands as the layered spells fell away. "You should be fine now."

After reaching the creature, he had threaded Life-aspected mana alongside through Cure Wounds until the torn flight muscles and bruising had disappeared. Channel Restoration came after, carefully completing the detailed work, knitting capillaries and damaged nerves, while preventing the worst of the scarring. Seraphine added her guidance every minute or so, correcting bad habits, laziness and pointing his attention to aspects of healing he'd missed.

For silent minutes, the only sound was the phoenix's rasping breath and the faint rustle of wind moving through trees. The giant bird glared at him throughout as if he owed it an apology for existing. Though to be fair, Avian faces were still a mystery to him even now, despite his interactions with Lucas, yet the judgment in those luminous, highly intelligent eyes needed no translation, and left no doubt towards its understanding of everything Ori had said.

The phoenix unfurled a span of storm-blue feathers, then rolled its wings through a full sweep. Satisfied, it rose, towering above him and bent that imperious glare down for one last measure.

"You are welcome, you blue overgrown chicken," Ori scoffed.

The bird's squawk of outrage shook the treetops. A gust hammered the slope and sent loose foliage tumbling as it launched above the forest canopy and climbed, soaring until it vanished into the clouds.

"Well," Seraphine said, her tone as dry as paper. "Yet another ordinary afternoon."

He told her everything then, from the odd decision to flood his veins with Fate, to the sudden gravity that had dragged him out of the sky, to the split second of panic where Glamour and Freedom and Duælism had tangled with Mind over Magic and produced a spell that should not have worked. As he retraced each step, he felt her attention sharpen, concern growing as the details became clear.

"It is not something I would recommend you try again until your comprehension of Fate is much higher than it is, Ori."

"What do you mean?"

"A Fate affinity is usually the purview of seers and diviners, people who work with what must and what might. You have that, and you have Freedom. They are not sworn enemies per se, yet they can behave like fire and ice in the same crucible. Volatile, unpredictable and difficult to master together."

"Hm." He rubbed his jaw, eyes on the far clouds.

"Normally, I would assume one with affinity with Fate would have an antipathy with Freedom. That you have both suggests one of two things, and both tie into your nature."

"Didn't I just get it through my bonds, though? Either Ruenne'del or Harriet, they are seers and diviners respectively."

"That is indeed one option, though one feeds into the next. That Fate itself holds you in its regard. Not uncommon for those on the path, but still." Seraphine paused, as if biting her lip in thought.

"What does that— you know what? It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, I will figure it out if I can use it, ignore it if I cannot."

Fate and Freedom, his arrival here, at this moment, to this battle between beast and monster. The idea that Fate had conspired to bring him here suggested an odd surrender of agency, one he was unwilling to subject himself to again unless he had no choice. Had his intervention been significant, beneficial? Was the bird important? The way it had simply burned him, glared at him, then left suggested little but sheer happenstance.

"You said it was a phoenix? Are they special in some way? Rare?" He flexed his fingers, feeling the faint sting where blue fire had curled around his shields.

"They are of the same order as dragons," Seraphine said, "and other beings with arch-evolutionary bloodlines and heritages. Rare in my time, at least, though I have no idea in the present age and realm. Normally, most consider meeting a phoenix fortuitous."

Ori glanced down at the ruin of his clothes. The heat had eaten the front of his jeans, leaving the edges curled and blackened. He sighed. "Getting rid of an infernal was nice, I guess. As for fortuitous, that bird definitely got the better end of the deal."

"Mm. Your spell that transported you, by the way," Seraphine added, curiosity peeking through caution. "Will you be using it more often?"

"No, I don't think so. It was an accident. Even if it worked, it is something I might not try again," he said.

"It is a powerful ability, likely one that could save your life," Seraphine said softly. "Name it, if you can, even if you never intend to use it again."

Ori chuckled. "Gatchastep."

"Gatch-cha step?" she attempted. "If there is a joke behind the name, please share."

He huffed. "Gatcha games are from where I'm from. It started with machines full of sealed plastic eggs; they were prizes, each of different value. Insert a coin, twist the handle that goes 'gatcha', and an egg drops. Inside are random toys of varying rarity. Other games took up the same idea: spend real money for a chance to improve your pieces, heroes, weapons or abilities in-game. There is other stuff, but it is mostly the same thing, a game of chance. Gambling, really. Today I made the first pull and got the prize of my face getting roasted by a pissed-off chicken."

Seraphine giggled. "I see."

"So yes, you can see why I might not try that again."

"Still, keep in mind such a spell, just in case. Every spell has its counters, as you experienced. When one spell works, another may falter, and having these options may keep you alive."

"Fine." Ori sighed.

"And despite how it may seem, I still maintain this encounter to be fortuitous."

"Fortuitous?" he said. "That word again."

"Oh yes. Not only did you kill something that needed to be killed, and likely gained plenty of peritia for the trouble. You learned a new, powerful spell combination and made a rare creature of noble lineage owe you a favour," Seraphine explained earnestly, though there was a smile he felt rather than heard.

Ori shook ash out of his hair, considered Echo Forging his clothes again, before Glamour, inspired by his vast practice fixing his clothing, restored what had been burned to indecency in minutes instead of hours.

"That chicken didn't seem like the type to acknowledge good deeds, let alone repay them," he said.

"Time will, of course, tell," Seraphine said, convivially, as Ori turned towards his distant bonds and considered whether Lucas would be lost if he simply summoned him here.

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