[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Y9sJ6mj.png[/img][/center]

[color=f7941d]“Sir,”[/color] Callie intoned rapidly, even as she continued to gather power, [color=f7941d]“target is in Mirage Space and Obsidian have not re-emerged for evac!  Requesting preparations for through-portal cover fire and to receive hostile antiquarian on deck if necessary!”[/color]

She shuddered at the possibility, giving a glance to the helicopter pilot and a quick gesture to find a new position in the thick of the clouds.  A piece of her subconscious had been watching the flurry of violence throughout, working on dissecting their opponent’s abilities.  If there was any chance that his power copying wasn’t based entirely on proximity to the Arms Master and he could, in fact, copy from her portals themselves – meaning he could, at least theoretically, reach her position…  Well, better to keep it ambiguous, in any case.

[color=f7941d][i]Unsummoning as a counter?  Major risk…  Last resort.[/i][/color]

[color=f7941d][i]May need it if he gets onto the[/i] Rizal…[/color]

[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh7QOx8Z30I]Charter tugged at her vision.[/url]  She needed to see something.  Someone she’d missed in the chaos.

Nil.  Swept away.  Clawing desperately for air and buoyancy.

[i]A woman, thrashing at the water, watched from safety on the lakeshore.[/i]

She cared now more than she ever did then.

Callie [i]wrenched[/i] at her power, will exerted, redirecting its prior momentum and calling it, [i]urging[/i] it to her command, fear and duty and hope united and compelling in a way that had only ever manifested once in her life.  It gripped, it surged, it subsumed her.

[color=f7941d][i]STEADY.  NO HESITATION.  YOU ARE SO MUCH MORE OF YOURSELF NOW THAN YOU WERE.[/i][/color]

[color=f7941d]“Relay message: incapacitated Obsidian member incoming!  Prepare to repel any who follow!”[/color]

No room for doubt, not after everything, not when she was needed.  She directed energy in a torrent, more than she ever had before, prior limits pushed back and back in the face of that need.  Even as her will exerted itself, her mind worked: observing Nil’s surroundings and keeping the power from truly coalescing for as long as she could to preserve flexibility in the portal’s ultimate location; shaping the aperture to be as small as reasonably possible while accommodating Nil’s slight form; timing the manifestation, revising her estimate downwards faster than the passing seconds – 32.3, 29.6, 26.1…

Not fast enough.  PLA boats.  Nil hauled aboard, sodden, shivering, retching.

One of the soldiers reaching over with a syringe.  Callie flinched, her eyes screwing near-shut…

[color=f7941d][i]NO HESITATION.[/i][/color]

[color=f7941d][i]NO[/i] FEAR.[/color]

…and opening again, ablaze.

The torrent became a [i]cascade[/i].  Was she or Charter the conduit, now?  The power cared not, funnelling through one and both, building connection, bridging not merely physical space but [i]there[/i] and [i]here[/i], [i]danger[/i] and [i]safety[/i].  It flowed strong and true, intense, [i]burning[/i] in its clarity.

Time shrank to nothing.  How could it remain, in the face of her will to protect?

When space folded open on the Chinese rescue boat, it did so with an intensity that drove back all about it – all except one.  And so, with an irresistible gravity, Nil fell through the portal on the deck of the [i]Rizal[/i], tumbling and gently settling with providential surety, as if written upon the universe: in this moment, she would return unharmed.

[color=f7941d][i]NOW: THE REST.[/i][/color]

[@Gerlando]