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He\'d tried stretching his arms beneath the table a few times to see if he\'d suddenly become elastic, but that had proven ineffective, even after some of his magic returned. Princess ended up returning to life and re-inhabiting her Spatial Mirror a few ineffective tests later.

It was around then that Alex realized he\'d been staring Orchid down for the past hour or so. She\'d definitely noticed it, but it wasn\'t like he could un-stare her. That had left him in an awkward position.

He\'d had two options. The first was to look away, but that would have almost made the aforementioned sixty minutes of staring even worse, as it would mean he knew exactly what he was doing.

The other was to keep staring at her.

Alex ended up going with the second option. After all, she hadn\'t gotten weirded out yet. Changing anything would have just brought more attention back to him and Claire seemed to have a good handle on the situation as things were.

As to what those things were, Alex was a little less certain. Claire and Orchid were locked in a conversation about the Everbloom family now, but he had no idea at what point the topic had shifted.

He\'d just sat and stared at the wall behind Orchid\'s head — desperately wishing the two would stop so he could do literally anything other than this.

When the tingling at the back of his mind that marked the presence of another Anomaly had grown stronger, he\'d nearly leapt out of his chair in delight. It was exactly what he\'d been waiting for. His ticket to escaping the hell he\'d mistakenly built around himself had finally arrived.

He just hadn\'t expected the Anomaly that had showed up to be quite so… upfront about their plans — or to be stabbed full of weapons.

"What?" Alex asked, half-wondering if he\'d managed to mishear the man. Nobody strolled up and announced that they were planning to kill—

"I\'m here to kill you," Derek said. The large man scratched at the stubble on the side of his face. "Is now a bad time? Are you busy?"

Okay. I didn\'t mishear him.

The look that Orchid was giving Derek made it abundantly clear that this wasn\'t some weird Outworlder thing. She was even more baffled than he was.

"Eh. We were just wrapping things up. Now\'s as good a time as any," Alex said, trying to hide just how relieved he actually was. Derek\'s timing was so good that he may as well have been an angel.

"Great!" Derek exclaimed, placing his un-stabbed hand on his chest and letting out a relieved sigh. "That\'s good to hear. I showed up while the last guy had food poisoning. It was really rough. Stood outside the toilet for about an hour. Then I found out he\'d cut a hole in the back of the room and run off by the time I got concerned enough to check on him."

You got concerned enough to check on the guy you were waiting to kill?

"A common issue, I\'m certain," Alex said dryly.

"Is it?" Derek frowned. "That\'s annoying. How do you normally deal with it?"

Right. No sarcasm with this guy.

"Stand on the inside of the bathroom," Claire advised from behind Alex. "That way you can see if they make a run for it, and you can help get some liquids if they need them."

"I thought about that, but…" Derek glanced at the axe sticking out of his side, then shrugged helplessly. "I don\'t exactly get along too well with doors. Or doorways. Or hallways. Any tight spaces, really."

"I think I may have suffered an occlusion in my brain," Orchid said, blinking heavily. Her staff wavered in the air and she stared at her hand as if she were trying to determine if it was actually there. "I do not believe I am hearing the words of this conversation correctly."

"No, you\'re hearing them right," Claire said.

Derek cleared his throat. "If now is a good time… could you step out of the house? There\'s a doorway. I\'d hate to damage it on accident."

"Don\'t you think we\'d end up damaging the rest of the town if we fight here?" Alex asked, tilting his head to the side. He wasn\'t even trying to stall for time — he genuinely wanted to know what the other Anomaly\'s answer would be.

"Oh, shit," Derek said, slapping himself in the face. "You\'re right. I didn\'t think about that at all! It would be pretty rude if we destroyed the street, and someone might get caught up in the fight. Do you think we could…"

Derek gestured vaguely over his shoulder.

"Take this outside of town?"

"Yes!" Derek nodded empathetically. "Exactly!"

"Do you want me to deal with him?" Orchid whispered hesitantly. "I\'m certain something like this isn\'t worth your time. It will be a middling problem for me to handle."

"Absolutely not," Alex said with a firm shake of his head. He was not about to let someone else steal a kill on an Anomaly and prevent him from advancing his Unmaker title, which would let him upgrade an Auxiliary Skill the next time he killed an Anomaly.

I\'m still not actually sure this guy wants to kill me, though. He\'s so polite. If he\'s serious… well, it\'s a nice change from all the nutjobs I\'ve met recently.

"I\'d appreciate that as well," Derek voiced. "I don\'t really want to fight you, miss. Just… er, what\'s your name?"

"Alex."

"Just Alex," Derek finished.

This might actually be the weirdest thing that\'s happened to me since the apocalypse started, and that\'s saying a lot.

Claire caught Alex\'s eye and arched an eyebrow. He just shrugged in response. There was no reason to be rude. Derek was an Anomaly. He wanted the same thing that Alex did — the winner of their fight would get stronger.

"Let\'s get to it, then. No point wasting time," Alex said, stepping out from the house. He prepared to call on his monsters if Derek tried anything, but the larger man just nodded in agreement.

"I couldn\'t agree more," Derek said, turning and starting toward the main road.

Alex walked after him.

"Find us later," Claire told Orchid. "We\'ll be around town. I suggest leaving a little forewarning when you need our help. We don\'t tend to stick around for long periods of time."

"Understood," Orchid muttered, not sounding like she\'d fully registered a single thing that Claire had just said. She just stared after them until they vanished from view, her mouth hanging askew.

The three of them walked in silence for a minute. People stared at Derek, but the large Anomaly barely even seemed to notice. He hummed a happy tune to himself, his hands in his tattered pockets as he strolled through the city.

"You know, you\'re the first person to actually take me up on this," Derek said, glancing back at Alex. "Everyone else has just tried to kill me the moment I finish talking. Sometimes sooner. You\'re a good guy. Your friend isn\'t planning to jump me the moment we start fighting, I she?"

"I\'ll stay out of the way," Claire said as they reached a large gate at the edge of town. A small stream of people flowed in and out of it. "It does kind of seem rude to butt in at this point. Do you do this a lot?"

"Done it a few times. Maybe I just got bad eggs," Derek replied with a small shrug. The three of them joined the line of people leaving the city, ignoring the looks as they drew on their way out.

Alex drew to a stop as they emerged from within Valley Ford, the sound of roaring water slamming into him like someone had abruptly flipped a switch to turn it on.

His eyes went wide as he got his first look at the city\'s surroundings. It was at the base of an enormous valley. Perhaps the name should have given that part away, but Alex digressed.

Rolling clay hills stretched out around them but came to an abrupt stop about fifty feet away from the city\'s edges, which were all solid gray stone.

Towering mountains with jagged, snow-tipped peaks loomed all around the city and the hills surrounding it. Waterfalls poured down their faces, joining into massive rivers at their bases. The water flowed naturally right up until it reached the edge of the city where the clay turned to stone, where it lifted into the air as if flowing through invisible tubes.

The rivers all twisted together into an enormous spinning vortex above Valley Ford. It was the source of the thunderous sound, but the inside of the city hadn\'t been anywhere near this loud.

Derek yelled something, but Alex could barely hear him. He shook his head and held his hands up helplessly.

The large Anomaly pointed toward the rolling stone hills away from town, then pantomimed walking toward them. Alex\'s eyes lit up and he nodded.

All three of them headed in the direction that Derek had indicated until the crashing water faded into a rumble in the distance. The trip took just under twenty minutes, and they came to a stop between two small hills.

"How does this location feel to you?" Derek asked.

"About as good as any, I\'d say. This is an interesting place," Alex said.

"Quite," Derek agreed. "I can\'t wait to get a chance to properly explore the city. After this, I guess — but I don\'t want to make plans while you\'re waiting. You just about ready?"

Definitely the weirdest thing that\'s ever happened to me. It\'s rather odd, actually. Derek is claiming to have killed other Anomalies. He\'s stuffed full of weapons but isn\'t acting hurt… it feels like he should be relatively strong. I definitely didn\'t see him in the Nexus Point, though. Was he from one of the other winner\'s areas?

Alex called his summons with a thought. The ground before him bubbled black as Princess emerged from it like a wraith escaping from hell. Glass shattered to his right; electricity crackled to his left.

Glint and Spark joined Princess at his sides.

Derek didn\'t so much as blink.

"Yeah," Alex said, feeling slightly awkward about the whole thing. It was considerably easier to start a fight when his opponent was already trying to kill him — though, Derek had flat out voiced his plans to do exactly that. Alex shook himself off and focused his attention. This was just a more civilized manner of doing what he\'d already done. He couldn\'t afford to be distracted when he was about to fight to the death. "I\'m ready."

"Wait, who starts? I haven\'t gotten this far before. I think we need a count-down."

You can\'t be serious.

"Claire?" Alex asked.

"I… uh, sure. Three. Two—"

"Wait!" Derek exclaimed. "Do we start on one? Or do we start on zero?"

"I\'ll say \'go\' after I finish counting down," Claire said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Is that fine?"

"Perfect. Thank you."

"I\'m starting," Claire said. She waited for a moment to see if Derek would say anything else. When he didn\'t, she started to count down.

"Three. Two. One… Go."

Glint burst into motion. He bounded across the ground and lunged, his claws catching the light as they carved through the air in a blur. Derek didn\'t even have a moment to react. One moment, the Shardwalker had been in front of him.

The next, Glint skidded to a stop behind the Anomaly, blood dripping from his claws.

Derek\'s head slipped forward, severed at the neck, and fell off his shoulders. It landed at his feet with a soft thud.

Alex blinked in disbelief.

What? Just like that? He didn\'t even try to dodge!

"Huh," Claire said.

"Did I attack too fast?" Alex asked. "I waited until the count was over, right?"

"Yeah, you did."

The answer didn\'t come from Claire.

It had come from the ground between Derek\'s feet.

The Anomaly leaned and grabbed his head by the hair. He lifted it back to the stump of his neck and thunked it down with a squelch, giving it a twist to set it in place.

Alex\'s eyes went wide.

What the fuck?

"That was a good opening attack. I didn\'t even see it coming. I knew this was going to be a good fight." Derek grabbed the haft of the huge axe that protruded from his side and ripped it free of himself with a spray of blood and a grunt. He lowered his stance, readying the bloodstained weapon before him as a smile pulled across his lips. "But now it\'s my turn."