My montum carried forward a few more steps before my legs gave out entirely. I collapsed onto the training room floor, my chest heaving, my vision gone. Every heartbeat sent a spike of agony through my skull, the backlash of pushing my newfound ability far beyond what was wise.
I crossed the finish line and kept going, not by choice, but because at that speed, I was a projectile now, no longer a runner. Hurtling forward with nothing but montum.
For a mont, my legs finally rembered they were supposed to obey soone, but that soone was gone. Both mind and body switched off simultaneously, like a puppet whose strings had been severed mid leap. At full sprint, with the accumulated velocity of the last twenty five laps and a spell designed to cheat physics, the sudden loss of control was catastrophic.
I crashed. My body slamd against the stone floor with enough force to crack sothing in my shoulder, the impact launching into a violent tumble across the training room. I bounced once, twice, my hip striking, then my head connecting with a sickening thud that broadcasted white lightning inside my skull. I was brought to a halt against the far wall, leaving a sar of blood and torn fabric behind .
For a long mont, there was nothing. No thought. No pain. Just absence.
Then the world snapped back into painful focus, and I wished for the emptiness to return.
"Allaran!" Phinyx’s voice seed to co from very far away. "Are you okay?"
I tried to respond, but my mouth wouldn’t form words. My body felt like it belonged to soone else, distant and unresponsive. The cool surface of the floor pressed against my cheek was the only sensation that seed real.
"What happened?" Kira’s voice now, closer, worried. "What did he do?"
"I don’t know." Phinyx sounded equally concerned. "He was running normally, and then suddenly he was... everywhere. Moving faster than I’ve ever seen anyone move."
I wanted to tell them about Quickstep, about my intelligence reaching level 10, about the breakthrough I’d achieved after months of failure. But my lips refused to cooperate, my mind sliding toward the comforting darkness of unconsciousness.
"Is he breathing?" Kira asked, her voice tight with worry.
"Yeah." Phinyx’s hand pressed against my neck, checking my pulse. "His heart’s racing, though. And there’s blood..."
I felt sothing warm trickling from my nose, from my ears. The familiar sensation of ability backlash, though far more intense than anything I’d experienced before.
Kira knelt beside , her face swimming in and out of focus above my own. I could see her eyes widening as she took in the damage, the gash on my scalp and my shoulder, the blood seeping from my nose and ears. Her hand hovered near my face, uncertain whether to touch.
"I’ve never seen backlash like this." she whispered. "Not even when he overused his ability. This is different. This is worse."
"We need to move him." Phinyx’s voice had lost its usual calm, edged with urgency I’d never heard from him before. "Now. Before—" He stopped, but I knew what he wasn’t saying. Before it got worse. Before sothing permanent broke.
"Help get him to his room." Kira’s voice was steady now, taking command of the situation. "We need to let him rest."
I felt arms sliding under my shoulders, lifting my unresponsive body from the floor. The movent sent fresh waves of pain through my skull, but I couldn’t even groan in protest.
When Phinyx started carrying I wanted to laugh, not long ago I was the one taking him towards the hospital, back when we had just rembered his existence
"He’s heavier than he looks." Phinyx grunted, adjusting his grip.
"That’s because he’s actually been training." Kira replied, a hint of dry humor breaking through her concern. "Unlike so people who just sit and ditate all day."
"Hey, vibing is hard work too." Phinyx protested weakly as they began dragging toward the elevator. "I’m actually extrely tired too, I’ve been vibing since the morning."
Their voices faded in and out as they maneuvered through the spire, my consciousness flickering like a candle in the wind. Snippets of their conversation reached through the fog.
"...never seen anything like that..."
"...getting so much stronger..."
"...backlash from what, though? It wasn’t his Switch ability..."
"...new power maybe?..."
By the ti they reached my quarters, I was marginally more aware, though still unable to speak or move voluntarily. They laid on my bed with surprising gentleness, Kira carefully arranging my limbs while Phinyx fetched water from my washroom.
"Do you think he’s going to be okay?" Phinyx asked, setting the water on my bedside table.
Kira studied my face for a long mont. "I think so. It looks like ability backlash, just more severe than usual. He must have pushed himself too hard."
I wanted to tell them that after the amount of damage I’d taken today, constitution was on the verge of reaching level 10, and if it worked like my other breakthroughs, I’d be as good as new in no ti.
"But what was he doing?" Phinyx wondered, perching on the edge of my desk. "That wasn’t running. That was... I don’t even know what to call it."
"Becoming what Damian wants." Kira said softly, her expression troubled. "A weapon."
I wanted to protest, to tell her it was more than that, that the Quickstep spell represented sothing beyond just combat potential. It was understanding, mastery, the result of perseverance in the face of repeated failure. But darkness was closing in around the edges of my vision, my exhausted mind unable to fight it any longer.
The last thing I heard was Phinyx’s thoughtful hum.
"A weapon, maybe." he said, his voice returning to its usual philosophical calm. "But one with a vibe of his own. One that might decide for itself what it wants to cut."
Then unconsciousness claid , and I knew nothing more.
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