"''Thorn Queen'' Leah has covered the arena in vines. She''s taken hold of the mystery man and appears to be growing an entire wall of thorns to hold her foe."


    Life flowed out from Erin like tendrils into the different seeds, forcing them to grow and grow. They intertwined around Lucien and formed walls of thick green and black vines in a close circle. Erin closed her eyes tight as she focused. She demanded more from the vines, wrapping them tightly around Lucien and pulling on Alex with the others.


    "Grah!" Lucien grunted as she pulled Alex from his grip.


    She left her gate open and pushed through the vines to get him. The thorns cut into her skin and tore at her cloak, but she pushed through. She grabbed onto Alex and tried to lift him, but he just fell into her as dead weight.


    "Try again," his whisper was faint, but she felt his hand grip her shoulder like he was just waking up. "And thank you. For coming back."


    Erin grunted and stood up with him again. This time, he supported more of his own weight, and they limped through the circle of thorny vines again. She fell through on the other side and took Alex tumbling with her.


    "Sayed!" she yelled as she focused on her gate again.


    Lucien was tearing apart the vines and pulling them off of his body. She kept the vines growing and growing, but her gate was ripping and tearing in her heart. It was like thorns and vines were wrapped around her heart, tearing away at her gate to release any restraints.


    Sayed appeared out from a patch of vines, dragging himself across the ground with his clawed gauntlet. The going was slow, but he pushed himself over to Alex, finally collapsing beside him.


    "Enough!" Lucien yelled. "Beast''s Maw!"


    Flames erupted in the center of the vines, shooting out in a column from Lucien''s location. Erin gasped and fell back to the ground as her gate forcibly closed. The line of flame cut down and across her vines, turning them to ash instantly and throwing heat through the entire arena.


    "The mystery man has a lot of tricks, folks. Now he has a dragon''s face!"


    The announcer was right. As Erin landed on her hands and looked up at Lucien, his face had been replaced with a red-scaled maw. His modified arms were gone, and his black armor had returned in full. The face transitioned back with a quick veil of black-red mist as the vines burned away from his body, and he looked down at Erin with his yellow eyes.


    "Enough with the weaklings. I will not be denied. Today, I will kill Ortega!"


    Crack.


    A line cut across the arena, cutting a line between Lucien and the three of them. It didn''t stop at the arena, though. Instead, it cut up the walls on both sides, all the way up the stands. In the distance, Erin could hear the echoes of it continuing.


    Rumble.


    Erin shook with the ground as it cracked and moaned. Something was happening beneath the arena, and it shook like the entire island was falling apart from the inside. The crack widened, forcing Lucien farther away from the group.


    "I don''t know what''s happening, folks, but I can tell you this announcer is running for his life!"


    Screams erupted from the stands.


    "What are you doing, Gulantry!" Lucien demanded.


    "I cannot control it!" A man''s voice echoed from the air above. "It is like there''s an emptiness that just grows and grows. I—"


    Static replaced his words, and Alex began to laugh behind her. Erin looked back at him, but a mad grin stretched across his face. He knew something.


    "You see Lucien?" Alex asked, forcing himself up to his knees. "You know what''s happening— a backlash. He broke the core with his games, and now he has to pay the price. He''s probably already gone."


    "No." Lucien looked over to them as his side of the arena slid further away.


    "What are you going to do, Lucien?" Alex asked, still stuck to the ground. "You going to stay and finish us off. I can''t beat you, but we could probably delay you long enough. You wouldn''t live through that."


    Lucien glared across the chasm at them but said nothing.


    "Yeah, you run." Alex laughed and raised his middle finger at Lucien.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Erin had no idea what he was doing, but it didn''t seem like a polite thing to do.


    "Fine then," Lucien said, looking around him. "Perhaps you can take today as a lesson, Ortega. Be stronger the next time we meet. A battle is no fun if the prey can not even keep up. Beast Wings"


    Lucien turned away, and mist covered his back. Two long wings covered in white feathers shot out from the mist. Lucien bent down before launching himself into the air, his wings flapping again and again until he was out of sight.


    "Hah," Alex said, and Erin turned back to look at him. "We did it."


    "Jack..." Sayed tried to pull himself up from the ground, but he couldn''t even do that.


    "Hold still." Erin opened her gate and let the energy flow into her hands until they glowed green. "I''ll patch both of you up as much as I can."


    "We don''t have long," Alex said as he fell closer to Sayed, probably to make her job easier.


    "What''s going to happen?" Erin''s brow knitted as she held her hands over both men.


    She couldn''t heal them both, but they were tough people. If she could just get them to the point where they could at least move on their own, maybe they would have a chance to get out of there. A secret part of her also thought that if the worst came to worst, she could get out on her own, even if she would hate herself afterward.


    "The shaking will get worse, and starting wherever Gulantry kept the core, this entire island will be consumed. The arena will go first soon, maybe some of the outskirts, but it will slow down after that. Maybe a week for anyone to get out of the island''s territory."


    "And after that?"


    "Poof. No more island, just a black spot on the nightsea."


    "A Black Spot?" Erin raised her eyebrow. "I thought those were legends."


    Rumble. Crack.


    At the center of the arena, where the hill had been, a black orb cracked through the ground and floated up into the air. A wind blew toward that black orb, and in moments, loose dirt and rocks were shooting through the air in a funnel toward it.


    Whoosh.


    "That''s our timer," Alex whispered, rising to one knee. "Can you get up, Sayed? We need to go. Now."


    "I can try, brother," Sayed grunted as he stood up. "For Jack''s sake, I will escape this place."


    "That''s the spirit," Alex said, standing up the rest of the way.


    "You''re both insane," Erin said, shaking her hand as she closed her gate.


    She was dried out and spent, like vines laid out in the sun. Between calling up the vines, restraining Lucien, and healing Sayed and Alex as much as possible, she had nothing left inside of her.


    "Do you still have it?" Alex turned to her.


    "The sword?" Erin patted her back, where the sword was strapped against her. "Yeah, I do."


    "New plan. Run for the wall. I''ll handle the rest."


    "My blade!" Sayed looked around.


    "Already handling it," Alex said. "Run."


    They took off at a sprint toward the edge of the arena. Out of the corner of her eye, Erin saw Sayed''s sword arcing through the air, following right behind them. She half expected the announcer to call out that they were running away, but he had already fled the arena with the crowds.


    "Catch Sayed!"


    Sayed reached out his right hand and caught his sword with it, much the same way he had when Erin had thrown it to him the day before. He was out ahead of her, somehow outpacing her despite his injuries. Again, Erin had to wonder what the two men were made of.


    "Don''t stop running!"


    They came for the wall, and Erin ran straight at it. The original plan was that Sayed would get the nightshade close to a wall and hold it off. Erin would have freed Jack and gotten Jack over to Sayed. Alex would have distracted Lucien until he could throw them over the wall with his curse. However, that plan had gone to sha-om.


    "Rail Gun!"


    Alex yelled, and Sayed''s arm was thrown forward with his sword, arcing up into the air like it had been launched out of a gun. At his full running speed, he was thrown up and over the wall and out of Erin''s sight. She heard him yell out as he landed on the other side, but she couldn''t make out what he said.


    "One more! Rail Gun!"


    Force slammed into Erin''s back, and she could feel the grooves of the sword that was strapped to her back pushing her up into the air. Her feet kept going below her like she was running on the air itself. She looked down and could see the stone benches below. Sayed was down there, his arms open and ready to catch her. She hit him hard, but he took her entire weight with only a grunt.


    "I got you, my brother," Sayed said, setting her down on the ground.


    "Alex." Erin nodded, and they both ran to the edge of the stands.


    At the center of the arena, the once small orb had expanded to consume the entire hill. It seemed like a greedy monster, eating everything in its path and ever wanting more and more to consume. Erin hoped Alex was right that it would slow down because everyone on Glory Plateau was doomed if it didn''t.


    Alex was running toward the wall, and she saw him jump into the air. He threw his feet out in front of himself like he would run on the wall. In the initial plan, he would have had his staff and would have pushed up the wall with it, but it was gone.


    "He''s not going to make it," Erin said.


    The wall was just too high.


    "Hah, have faith," Sayed said, reaching down his arm.


    "Step."


    Alex disappeared and reappeared moments later, both his hands reaching out for Sayed. Sayed grabbed onto one hand and grunted. Erin reacted immediately, jumping up and reaching as far down the wall as she could with her right hand. Her left tapped the corner of the edge as Alex''s fingers caught in hers.


    "Pull!" Sayed yelled, doing most of the work and pulling both back up and over the edge.


    They fell together in a heap by the arena''s edge. Sayed and Alex lay breathing hard on the ground for moments after, and Erin took a second to reorient herself. Her shoulders were on the ground, and her abdomen was pressing hard into her chest. She had landed in the worst possible way.


    "Thanks," Alex wheezed as Erin found a way to roll away from the wall and onto her back.


    "We''re never doing this again." Erin sighed as she pushed herself up and onto her knees.


    "Never say never." Alex laughed as he lay splayed out on the ground. "But we do need to go. This isn''t anywhere near far enough."


    Erin was on her feet instantly, looking back at the growing orb. It had doubled in size again. All that was visible in the arena was the top half of the orb. It looked like a giant dome of inky blackness.


    "Get up!" Erin yelled and reached down for Alex.


    He took her hand, and once he was up, they both helped Sayed to his feet. Together, the three of them ran through the stands and up through the stone arches that were the arena''s entrance and exit.