It is very easy to get used to the noise made by someone casting blade, even some of the louder ones. When I was first learning Divitaetion I was doing so alongside several other children, and the room would fill with the noise of crackling and humming whenever we were practising blade. After a few weeks of that you get to the point where you barely pay any mind to the noise, and a sound that you once found intrusive and irritating barely bothers you. Now generally being able to ignore this sound is quite useful when you are studying alongside several others, as otherwise it would be very hard to concentrate on your own Divitaetion. There are some situations, however, where being able to ignore the sound proves to be your downfall. One of those situations is when you would otherwise have heard the humming of a blade held by someone waiting behind a gym door to ambush you.

Fortunately I had Verity with me, who had received all her training alone and hadn’t yet learned to drown out the noise.

“What’s that sound?” she asked as we neared the door. Now that she’d mentioned it, I could hear it too: the unmistakeable vibrations of a blade from just beyond the door. What was someone doing out there that they wouldn’t be able to do in the gym? Before I could come up with any potential answer to this question, the door blew off its hinges and straight into me. There was nothing I could do in time to stop it and the heavy wooden door slammed into me with great force. I flew backwards and hit the ground, the door landing on top of me. All of this was an undeniable reminder that I hadn’t taken any painkillers since that morning. I swore and shifted the door off me. Just moving hurt but I forced myself up and saw two figures completely clad in black enter the room, both wielding blades coming from notes in their hands. The assailants.

What the hell were they doing here? Why were they attacking? How did they get here? Have they always been here? Why do something so risky?

Questions of that nature flooded my mind, but I had a far more important question to answer.

Could I capture them? I got to my feet and started running towards them as Verity began to run away. One assailant pursued her while the other came up to meet me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of coins, which I threw at the assailant. Evidently realising what I was trying to do, the assailant lunged forwards and, with their blade, batted the coins away. The coins clattered and rolled across the floor. It turned out the assailant had a way of counteracting their own trick. Figures. Regardless it had given me time to take out my bank card and cast my own blade with it. Our blades clashed with the usual noise like a thunderclap. I’d estimated that the assailant’s blade was worth about five dollars, and I’d been right. I had spent a significant amount of time in the past two days casting blades worth five dollars and it seemed that familiarity was paying off. We held there for a moment, our blades locked together, and I pumped more money into mine. The volume of crackling increased as the intensity of my blade did the same. The assailant stepped back, then jumped back as their blade gave way under the value of mine. The blade shattered and the note in the assailant’s hand crumbled to dust. Before I could press the advantage, the assailant threw a handful of coins at me. I tried to repeat their trick and knock the coins away, but I missed a few and they hit my right arm and leg. With a wince I realised that they had cut me on impact. Rather than casting force this time the assailant had cast blade on all the coins. Still at that value they weren’t going to cause much more than a cut, I could deal with it. Like when I had thrown the coins, the assailant had used the time they’d bought to cast blade. This time they had cast it twice, and both of them roared and rippled with energy. They must have both been fifty dollars or more! With me on the back foot, the assailant raced forwards with both weapons poised to strike. Having two blades isn’t quite the advantage you might think. It’s difficult to concentrate on performing deft movements with both hands, and much combat between practitioners of Divitaetion was more about using a free hand to influence the flow of battle through other types of Divitaetion. A battle between practitioners of Divitaetion was rarely decided by the blade but by whatever you did with the hand not holding the blade. That said, if you’re swinging around two massive crackling blades, your opponent is going to have trouble. I was going to have a lot of trouble. The flow of battle had been reversed once more, and I was on the defensive. The assailant advanced and I retreated, backing away slowly then jumping backwards and to the side. I retreated past where most of the coins I had thrown earlier had landed after the assailant knocked them away. The assailant continued their advance as I increased the value of my blade to about fifty dollars. If I retreated any further I’d be in danger of literally backing myself into a corner. No, it was time to strike back and I had already made preparations. The assailant was about to cross the gathering of coins when they suddenly jumped backwards away from them.

Dammit! They’d realised.

As if on cue, the coins all launched themselves into the air. The assailant had noticed that the coins hadn’t yet exhibited any sign of Divitaetion. When they realised that they’d also realised that my retreat was intended to lead them into a trap. A real trap, not a cast of trap. I had cast force on the coins but delayed it by about a minute. If it had taken the assailant a second longer to realise what I was doing, then they would have been hit. The two of us, the assailant and I, stood poised to fight once more, but neither of us moving. I don’t know if the assailant was waiting out of caution, trying to work out if I’d set another trap or if all the coins had actually jumped up yet. My reason was very simple, I was exhausted. The impact of the door, and now the physical strain of another tense Divitaetion battle, was taking its toll on me, and my chest was throbbing with a dull ache. Verity didn’t stand a chance against the assailants, but I didn’t have the time to check on her. A moment spent not focussing on the assailant was a moment the assailant could use to their advantage. My chest continued to ache with increasing intensity. I was barely a match for the assailants when I was performing at my best. In my current state I had no hope.

The assailant’s body lowered slightly. They were about to charge. I increased the value of my blade to over one hundred dollars. It gave off an almighty thundering noise as I did so. I wasn’t going to be able to outmanoeuvre the assailant today, so I’d have to hope I could overwhelm him with sheer power. Hopefully finance would approve this hefty expense if it was used to defeat one of the assailants. The assailant appeared to hesitate for a moment, in the face of my blade, but then dashed towards me. I dashed at him too, preparing to swing my blade and shatter through both of theirs.

“Stop it or I take the girl’s head!” a voice commanded. I flicked my eyes towards the source of the voice, despite knowing it could cost me a victory, and saw the second assailant holding a blade to Verity’s throat.

Oh no… was all I could manage before the first assailant was upon me. They’d dropped their blades and had placed a note on my chest. Before I could think of a word appropriately taboo enough to express how I felt in that moment, the assailant cast force and my ribs were once more subjected to a heavy impact. I didn’t black out, but I found myself sincerely hoping that I would as my ribs screamed. They screamed a little more when I collided with the wall. I fell to the floor. I didn’t scream and I didn’t even writhe with pain, because both of those actions would have made the pain so much worse.

“You got her?” the first assailant, the one who had just finished tenderising me, asked. Their voice was low and gravelly and, as I realised, fake. The way they spoke was awkward and stilted. They were putting a voice on. Why? To hide their identity?

“Yep.” said the second assailant in an equally stilted way, though despite trying to obscure it, I could at least tell that this second voice probably belonged to a woman.

“Right, let’s go.” said the first assailant. Wait were they trying to kidnap Verity?

“What about that one?” the second assailant asked, nodding their head in the direction of my barely moving form.

“I guess we should finish him off.” the first assailant shrugged and made his way over to me, drawing out a note. A blade burst from the note. I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do to stop them at this point.

Verity seemed to disagree. First she yelled out:

“Stop!” and when that didn’t seem to discourage the first or second assailant, she turned to the second, the one holding a blade to her neck, and commanded, “Get away from me!”

The second assailant flew backwards from Verity like she’d just been hit by a truck. The first assailant turned to see their ally crash to the floor.

“What the hell?!” the first assailant asked to no one in particular, and dashed towards Verity, blade at the ready. I wanted to cry out to warn Verity, who was still looking in the direction of the second assailant, who was slowly getting to their feet. I wanted to cry out but I couldn’t make a sound.

Verity noticed the first assailant when it was almost too late. The first assailant swung at her with his blade and Verity put an arm up to stop it. I winced, expecting to hear a sickening noise as the blade cleaved through her arm. Instead I heard a noise like a thunderclap, the unmistakeable sound of two blades clashing. What? Verity had blocked the blade with her arm? No, she had not only blocked the blade but the first assailant’s blade had shattered on impact.

Verity’s arm was crackling and glowing exactly like a blade! How had she done that? The first assailant dashed backwards and swore loudly.

“Run!” the second assailant yelled and the two of them dashed for the door… the two of them dashed for the exit. Verity didn’t pursue them. Instead she ran over to me.

“Hugh!” she cried, “Hugh are you okay?”

“No…” I managed to say. Then, because I had a burning desire to know, I managed to ask, “Verity… how did you do that? You weren’t holding any money and… and you turned your arm into a blade…” Verity didn’t say anything, but pulled something out of her pocket. The photo, the one of her with her parents.

“I don’t think you know this is possible but… before I came here, I could create heat by giving up pieces of this.” Verity spoke softly and slowly.

In contrast my mind was racing. Tom Beckman had been right! Verity had been casting Divitaetion with something other than money! She’d been using that photo but… how? Divitaetion was meant to be an act of offering money back to Mammon in exchange for great power? It didn’t make sense for anything else to be able to be used? Was everything I had been studying all these years a lie?

Verity turned away.

“Please don’t tell anyone about this… I’ll go and get someone to help!” she said, and ran from the gym, leaving me alone, in pain and in shock.

What did it mean?

My final thoughts before slipping into unconsciousness were something along those lines.