✴

“ÆON! Leave this server immediately!” you say.

5 reaches out with her hand of liquid light, and eight of her dark tendrils lash out just above your head. You turn to see ÆON’s gate slamming shut as the black mass grasps at empty space.

Looking back up at 5, you focus hard on your shield and try to remember what little you’ve learned of æthereal combat. But she turns away from you. The veins of negation creep back to their origin, leaving the prism space cracked and damaged, but intact. The black aura recedes to just a thin line around 5’s avatar.

“...5?” you say.

“Aydan.” She climbs down toward you, calm as the tranquilized familiar behind her. “Target neutralized.”

“Um, thanks,” you say.

You see 7 through the glass, distorted and broken, on the opposite side from where she left a moment ago.

“All clear,” you sign to her. “But 5 was, um, a little intense.” You indicate the spatial collateral damage around you.

“I’ve never seen her like that,” 7 says. “It must be a defensive program she developed, it might need a little refining before she should deploy it again...”

“Sorry...I lost control,” 5 signs to her.

“It’s okay, you did your best, you’re still learning,” 7 signs. “Aydan, be careful. The prism medium is damaged. One mistake stepping out of it and you could be the one divided and scattered. 5 will guide you.”