Chapter 99: 89. A New Week, A New Start

Jay woke up with a slight hangover. He’d drunk enough to get past his Resilience. He had to limit it, of course, but that still required a lot of alcohol for when he stopped limiting the Attribute.

Monday morning greeted him with murky memories of YoAnna’s varied expressions while Jay spilled his guts on everything since they’d last talked. From the Night of Knives to the School Arc meetings to the Yoroachian battles to traveling up and down the United States.

The different sides of YoAnna’s face reacted in contrasting ways. Her scarred side flitted between extreme excitement and extreme anger at the flip of a hat. Her perfectly untouched side showed ranges of concern, sadness, joy, regret, and even a touch of horror.

There was no question about which of the emotions were real or not. All of them were real. Jay believed YoAnna felt everything on a level that was deeply intimate and alien at the same time.

For some reason, he had a greater grasp of YoAnna’s lack of humanity than ever before. Even though he couldn’t look past the veil cloaking her from his [Identify] and [Eye of Venerated Madness].

“The more powerful I become, the more I see how far apart we are,” Jay said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Was it possible to cross that distance and stand side by side with her? Or to stand ahead of her and have her follow him?

It had been years since they'd played around in daycare where she would eagerly follow him and watch him jump around and fall on his head. Jay wanted that again. The past two weeks without her after having her back in his life made it obvious how much Jay enjoyed her presence. He wanted to dismiss some of her concerns so she could enjoy herself more. So they could play around more. She had a lot of work to catch up on after spending two weeks absorbing those dungeon cores, though. She could only spend so much time with him or any of the Champions.

Jay, his mom, Kleo, and YoAnna had hung around either at the sofas or at the bar as they talked, which had YoAnna airing out some of her concerns. One of those concerns happened to be a question of whether the Champions were strong enough for the next leg of their journey. She might have to get involved at least once or twice in the near future to help raise their battle proficiency so cases where Mike nearly died could be avoided or mitigated. Jay had offered a suggestion where YoAnna could lead a training session. YoAnna liked that idea, though she had feared getting involved so heavily would reveal a different side of her nobody experienced before.

“It’ll work out alright, YoAnna,” Jay said. YoAnna left last night, but she had mentioned she could hear her name from further out now, especially with prayers. Jay figured he didn't have to pray to be heard. “I mean, it has to work out somehow, right? If the world and monsters and System Admins are going to become greater threats with the leak in the apocalypse, we have to become greater, too.”

A warm and welcoming feeling passed over Jay. It was YoAnna’s divine attention greeting him in the morning. It almost felt like her will could caress his entire body from whatever distance separated them. But it held back from being too intimate. If only she would say yes to going out with him and closing that gap in intimacy. Sooner or later, Jay would find a breakthrough in his relationship with her. He just had to make sure Casey didn't cut in somehow. Shouldn't be too hard.

Jay smiled and bounced out of bed.

With the Champions' secret out to the public. With his new home guarded against psycho assassins and rival agencies. Jay allowed his gravity powers to do as they pleased.

And that felt good. Really good.

He comfortably rotated around due to a combination of [Dance Floor Relativity], [Moonwalker], and [Gravity Mastery]. He crouched on the ceiling in a bedroom as big as his old living room. The walls had more shelf space for when he eventually returned to collecting again. The pantheon’s agents and servants had gone ahead and replaced all of his games and consoles, thankfully.

Jay's smile widened as he walked along the ceiling to start a new day filled with new possibilities. A new week, a new start.

He met with Mom, Derek, and Amanda before they headed out for a morning run. A spread of fruits, cheeses, and other mini-breakfast items was laid out on the kitchen island. It wasn’t Derek’s doing this time around. The cook had gotten it done. Their villa’s servants greeted Jay in the kitchen as they worked around their masters and mistresses.

All of this luxury made Jay wonder why he and Mom had suffered through the motel. But the answer came to him just as fast as he questioned their struggles. It was part of the nature of challenge and change. Before they could accept the change, they had to face the challenges of old demons. And to be honest, some of those demons still lingered.

Mom got way more active than Jay had ever seen.

Physical training.

Martial arts.

She’d even get Derek to take her into the woods where they could shoot guns freely on YoAnna’s estate. The place was so huge they could set up multiple ranges with space to spare.

Mom had been taking full advantage of all the luxury, acres of land, and great freedoms since they had moved in last week. But she was doing it for something personal she was keeping to herself. Those old demons might want to worry about whatever Jhara Luckrun had planned. She could be a cruel and cunning she-devil when greatly motivated.

“What’s Momma preparing for?” Kleo asked from inside of Jay’s chest. “It feels devilish. But I can't sense deeper. She's wise to our powers, but I wanna know still.”

“It’s up to her to tell us, or we’ll get a better clue when meta-g reveals it,” Jay said sagely.

If Mom wouldn’t tell, the gravity duo would learn of it the closer Mom got to acting on her real impulses. It was true that Mom was wise to Jay and Kleo's powers and could probably counteract it by the sheer nature of being a madlass and lover of fantasy. But she couldn't hide what she planned forever. Jay wasn't even sure if he wanted to know. What would he do if she was requesting something that was truly devilish and kind of bad?

“Want breakfast before we meet up with everyone?” Jay asked.

“Mm. Okay.” A little arm poked out of Jay’s chest. Kleo really liked staying inside of her home lately.

The [Freak] sighed as he passed Kleo some cheese and grapes. He tried to ignore the crumbs and juices that speckled the inside of his chest. Somehow, the crumbs would end up in his stomach when Kleo was done. Like she could pick up or dump stuff at will from inside of his chest, twisting the reality of his flesh with the fantasy of her magic. Just like how she had twisted things around to share portions of her power with him against RoAnna. And then had him eat RoAnna's neck for her to feast upon the divinity shard. She had truly grown closer to Jay ever since she ranked up last two weeks ago.

“What are you doing to me, Kleo?” Jay asked.

“It’s a secret,” Kleo said. “It’ll be stronger that way.”

“It’s scarier that way, too.”

“I know, master.”

She was asking for his trust. Jay could feel that. And without further question, Jay gave it. He would trust her. He might poke and prod a little more later. But he would ultimately trust her in the long run. Kleo worked to his benefit, even if that meant the alternate sources of power might be devilish. From Jay’s understanding of [Faeries], they could do good or harm, bring joy or misery. Under an unfavorable lens, [Faeries] had been looked at as demonic forces, the origins of witches, the taker of children, and the deadly tricksters of people on a journey.

Jay had talked about some of his changes with Mom and YoAnna last night, but he could feel Kleo not wishing to speak on the ??? thing and the divinity shard. Mom refused to dig deeper last night even though she would know a lot about myths, old fantasy, and strange magical stuff that surrounded Kleo. Mom was kind of a pagan. YoAnna had decided to let Kleo keep her secrets, a silent agreement between godling and [Faerie] to trust each other on the matters of Jay’s strange and new developments. For some reason, despite Kleo's origins, she and YoAnna could be like sisters at times. Or very close friends.

“I better not transform into something weird,” Jay said.

“If you do, young master, I’m sure it’ll be an excellently weird transformation,” the cook, a Lesser Fomorian, said in passing.

His jutting fangs from the bottom of his mouth were more prominent when he smiled. The same happened with all of the Lesser Fomorians.

Jay finally stopped leaving it as a mystery and learned last night that the Rank 1 or Rank 2 aliens were sworn protectors of YoAnna while she grew up as a little child in a Pre-System universe. They came over in hibernation with YoAnna when she landed on Earth. They pretended to be her parents during her time in daycare when Jay first befriended her. The Fomorians didn't get involved in her tests as System Guide, and they had a pact where they wouldn't interject deeply in pantheon matters any more than as servants. They were peaceful people and didn't rise beyond the lower Ranks due to that. The System preferred to dole out heavier Experience to those who truly put their lives on the line, especially in hard and violent circumstances, which was the bread and butter of YoAnna, especially.

The Fomorians were Citizens of Challenge and Change, another Title that YoAnna could afford others, but they mostly did their best work as servants. They enjoyed their safe and cushy lives. A pretty nice gig, honestly, since YoAnna provided for all of them with more currency and luxury than most people with roles as servants probably received on Earth. They even had rotations where they went on vacations and traveled the world for weeks at a time.

YoAnna wouldn't go into further details on how her pact with the Lesser Fomorians formed before coming to Earth. Jay just knew the Fomorians would only interject in unusual or extreme circumstances involving YoAnna or the estate. Or they would use magic to shapeshift when YoAnna needed them to be her when she couldn't be at two places at once. This would only come to pass if it was safe for the Fomorian. Hence her moments at Central High when YoAnna had seemed very cold and aloof since the female Fomorian pretending to be her didn't want to make any costly mistakes. From what Jay could tell, all of the Fomorians were happy to have more people to serve and wanted to impress their new masters and mistresses. And they were living quite well despite the oncoming cosmic doom that could end them all.

"Hey, um, Elada?" Jay called.

"Yes, young master?"

"Any way I could get you to tell me more of YoAnna's past? The parts before she came to our universe and to Earth?" Jay asked with a big friendly smile. "Please?"

The Fomorian chuckled with a friendly tone. He excused himself to take out the trash and didn't return to the kitchen.

***

There were twelve villas.

One for every Champion. And they had plenty of space for more villas to be built, too. Or to expand their own villas if they wanted such. They only needed to ask YoAnna, and she would erect mini-kingdoms for each of her Champions.

A combination of magic enchantments and YoAnna’s divine powers seeping into the land was obscuring the entire estate and its constructions from satellite imaging and spying efforts. Technological or magical, since the latter could be a possibility when you had the World Knife and Benefactors involved. Weaklings who tried to trespass got turned around by a nonlethal decree that challenged their presence. It was kind of fun to watch a random trespasser pace back and forth at the boundaries without realizing what was happening to them. YoAnna stayed in the main mansion, leaving the villas as tiny fiefdoms where Champions could reign supreme. In true teen fashion, not everyone was comfortable with having their own giant house with walls, gates, alien servants, and fancy decorations, and not many others to share it with.

When Jay visited the BOYS, he only had a football field of gravel road between him and the next villa over. The Zhou’s were officially housed there.

While Luckruns’ had a lakeside view and a primary concern for revelry, the Zhous’ was more for modern open spaces, chrome futuristic designs, and three work rooms with one that counted as a giant garage. They also had a mini golf course where Tim scored the most unlikely holes in one.

Other than Mother Zhou and the Zhou servants, Rick, Tim, and Dennis shared the villa with Mike. They had plenty of rooms since Tim and Rick didn’t mind staying in one together. Although Jay was pretty sure those two fought like cats when they thought nobody was looking.

Jay dropped in on the back porch as Tim aced another mini-gold shot. Mike was looking over a magical doohickey, another of Macy’s creations. Dennis and Rick were weapon-fighting. Their axe and greatsword clanged as Dennis worked on his edge alignment while Rick drilled flow.

The boys looked up at Jay’s arrival.

“YoAnna wants to see us all,” the [Freak] announced.

“When?” Mike asked,

“Soon as we all gather.” Jay shrugged.

“She told you alone, huh? Funny that, Jay-o-boy.” Rick leered. “Spent the night with ya?”

“Not entirely.”

The Red [Fighter] laughed and clapped Jay hard on the back. Tim put away the golf clubs. Dennis nodded Jay’s way as a greeting.

Jay and Dennis hadn’t buried the hatchet after the Junkside Yoroachian War and the blood revelation. Jay was still uncertain if Dennis would keep the secret to himself. That story was out of Jay’s hands, and meta-g could only offer contingencies. His 4D Headspace felt like a cooked grenade if he tried to look ahead on the issue.

As the boys got ready, Jay chatted lightly with Mother Zhou about her new architectural ideas. Agent Cabana had sweet-talked her way into Mother Zhou’s good grace and cultivated a shared passion for architecture with the hard woman. It helped smoothen the transition from Mother Zhou staying fiercely self-reliant to accepting YoAnna’s overly gracious offers.

The Zhous were another example of YoAnna’s offerings getting delayed for an easier transition rather than being abruptly dropped on the Champions and families. Agent Cabana must’ve had divine patience knowing how some of the Champions struggled and didn’t come flying in to fix everything all at once.

Once the boys were ready, they hurtled through the air via Kleo!

It cost way less for her to use [Dance Floor Relativity] for group transport. As long as she centered [Orbital Mastery] on Jay for cost reductions while including the gravity power improvements of [Gravity Mastery], the group flight for short trips expense stayed a nonissue.

It did help with mana costs when the gravity duo’s passengers relaxed, keeping their Poise limited. Dennis getting reminded that he hated freefall flights kept his Poise up. Jay was willing to bite the inefficiency for the hilarity of scaring Dennis.

Rick hollered gleefully.

Tim and Mike let Kleo have the wheel and didn’t stress the journey.

They soared over a few empty villas before landing at the Strongholds’ villa. He was ready to go, leaving his sister and niece to explore the villas with the servants. The Dragon [Fighter] refused the gravity freefall flight, however.

They walked over to one of Brit’s two villas. She got the extra one from Rick. She still had family flying in from all over the United States. Her mom was still unsure about the dangerous arrangements, but the aunties, older sisters, cousins, and the rest of the close and extended family welcomed the boys with open arms. Brit was finishing up in the kitchen with her mini-army of cooks when the boys arrived, so she needed time to freshen up.

“Why not [Cleanse]?” Mike asked.

“Sugar, the beauty process is a ceremony in itself. It should remain sacred and not rushed if possible.”

“Someone should call the Allens before we get to their villa,” Dennis offered.

“Nah.” Rick chuckled. “Tell them YoAnna needs to see us ASAP and let the chaos spin from there.”

Tim remained resolutely neutral on the matter. Jay liked the sound of the Allens getting thrown into chaos.

Frank called the Allens despite Rick’s protests.

Once they had Brit ready to go, they took the golf carts. It was slow going, but the morning was beautiful.

Jay enjoyed the ride up to Lilith’s villa, which looked more like a medieval castle. It even had a tower that held Lilith’s bedroom. Jay was pretty sure she slept in the dungeon more often than up in her princess tower.

They found Mister Hernandez rushing out with a bagel in his mouth. He quickly said hi and bye as he jumped into his sedan.

Even with all of the offerings YoAnna provided, Mister Hernandez couldn’t let go of his non-profit work. He had helped Amanda in choosing the right non-profit group and proper channels to run her donation through.

He would be the most hesitant toward becoming a full member of the pantheon, but Jay was sure they would have time to coax him into it. It was a toss-up who’d join first, Mother Zhou or Mister Hernandez.

Lilith met the growing group of magical teenagers at the top of the stairs leading to her personal laboratory. By means of magic that was above the [Mages’] understanding, Lilith had been granted a deep underground basement that served as one of her laboratories.

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Her bored and unhurried face scanned all the Champions gathered while she was dressed in stained pajamas. They were the killer bunny ones she wore since she was nine, too. Her fuzzy bunny slippers had scorch marks and holes from accidental spills.

“Let’s go,” Lilith said.

“You’re not gonna freshen up first?” Brit wore a tense smile.

“[Cleanse] me, woman, and let’s get on with the day’s tyranny,” Lilith grumped. “Every second wasted takes away from my very important work.”

“Is it work to kill things faster or more painfully?” Brit asked.

“All of the above,” Mike answered dryly.

After Lilith, they found the Allen Sisters’ villa empty except for their servants. The sisters had already rolled out. But the visit wasn’t for naught.

The Allens’ butler pointed the Champions toward the kiddie campsite. The trail leading there was more offroad than what the golf carts could handle. The group used the estate’s vehicle station and traded out the golf carts for ATVs, buggies, and dirt bikes.

They found the Allens outside of the campsite.

The sisters didn’t wait out of courtesy, though. Emily was having an episode. She was sitting on a stump with her back to the campsite.

Emily wore something between full-on goth and her slightly cute death girl vibe. She had a red smiley face pinned to her jean jacket’s front, breaking up all the black.

“She just needs a moment,” Hailey said with her political smile.

Jay glanced from glum Emily to the happy funland that was the kiddie campsite. Over the course of a week, their two thousand kiddies had turned a plot of woods into their own paradise.

The biggest and grandest plant life stayed upright as tree houses. The kiddies replanted where they’d excavated and built over, blending nature with woodsy architecture. They used natural plant dyes, weaved with plant fibers, and took every scrap of building material given to them and made more useful, innovative, or fun things that made their little village come to life with colors, music, and celebration.

Jay watched a gang of kiddies parade around while drumming on empty paint buckets. They waved at the Champions with their extra arms during their celebratory morning period. His mom had mentioned that the kiddies had predictable celebration patterns while still developing their own culture based on everyday fun. It sucked that their death momma was tempted to end them and destroy all of this re-life happiness.

Jay gestured for Tim to follow. They moved toward Emily. The three other Allens barred the way.

“Just a moment, please?” Jay asked.

“No,” Casey growled.

Jay’s annoyance rose. Maybe he should put Casey in her place at long last.

A huge thump rang out far from outside the campsite. Somewhere south.

Jay widened his spatial-g by fifty percent. He only needed the length of three football fields to catch a fast-moving and giant object soaring closer.

It didn’t quite reach the Champions and campsite. But the giant object hit the ground and tumbled through trees, dirt mounds, and lots of leaves until it finally stopped about one hundred feet away.

Lilith let out a shriek and dashed ahead of everyone else.

The Champions sprang after her. Even Emily hustled, putting aside her gloomy mood. Despite their differences, anything that concerned a Champion greatly was a problem that affected all Champions.

They only slowed when they saw it was Gatanna. Jay had already known, but he was focused on the oncoming threat.

The Adaptive [Yogatzilla] sat up in a daze and shook her head. Her heavy-scaled dreadlocks clipped tree branches and tore bark off every trunk they struck. She was missing some of her teeth as dark red blood dribbled from her mouth.

“Gatanna, don’t let your precious blood spill like this,” Lilith complained, hugging her familiar’s forearm. “I need every drop for my experiments!”

Gatanna growled angrily in the direction she’d flown from. She gently removed her mistress from her arm and plopped Lilith down with the rest of the Champions. Then she rose back to her mighty 54-foot height, cricked her neck, and let out a strident roar.

The Champions started to pull out their weapons.

“Don’t,” Jay ordered with his graven voice.

Various reactions flared, some in opposition. But the Champions listened to his command even if a few questioned it.

“Is Commander R giving Gatanna payback?” Frank asked. “R’s got some good skills, but Gatanna’s too strong to get tossed like that.”

“No,” Jay said, unable to sense Gatanna’s opponent. “It’s someone far above that.”

Far, far, far above.

Gatanna charged ahead. The earth rolled and bucked with every crashing stomp of the [Yogatzilla]. The super monster trampled saplings in her way before she hurled a haymaker at the ground behind a copse of trees.

Another huge thump sounded out. Then Gatanna’s cry rang far and wide when she suddenly got pulled down by something monstrously strong. Another huge collision struck out for all to hear. Gatanna entered the air like before, her massive body getting catapulted by something that ignored physics with raw power. Everyone gasped as Gatanna flew over their heads and hit the ground with a bone-crunching slam behind them.

Jay winced. That landing was a little too much for Gatanna. It dislocated her shoulder. A minor fracture formed on the collar bone, too.

His spatial-g could act like x-ray vision since the insides were getting pulled by gravity just the same. Jay could see a lot. But his spatial-g would not serve as well compared to another one of his gravity senses.

“My meta-g is telling me to prepare myself, but why?” Jay asked, turning back around before the others.

“Hello, everyone.”

Appearing right on cue was YoAnna Sainte-Rhythms, the Godling of Challenge and Change, Leader of the Multiverse Protectorate Pantheon, sole Multiverse System Guide of their Pre-System universe, a seventeen-year-old girl with too much power and responsibility to spare.

She was a vision of striking beauty and fantasy. Amazonian. Hourglass-shaped with long, supple legs, curves that flowed perfectly with her frame, and hair that fanned out like a lion’s mane reaching down to the back of her legs. The morning sunlight brightened the half of her face untouched by mortal imperfection and stayed at the absolute pinnacle of beauty. A shadow grew darker on the scarred half of her face in opposition to the perfect side.

Jay’s eyes roved over her entire form, feeling the heady need that her appearance always brought up from inside of him. From inside of anyone that saw her. And wanted her. She was wearing a silky, near-see-through cyan and white sundress over a matching two-piece bikini set. She looked like she was going to the lake for fun.

Mostly everyone else was caught up by the question her face asked.

Did the scar matter? Or could you see past that?

Or did you see both?

This should be the first time they’d seen her since coming back from their first dungeon crawls. They wouldn’t be as prepared as Jay. A few might fail to see past the scar at first glance.

Casey drew her sword and shield out of her bag of holding. She rounded on Jay with a look that promised she’d go to the farthest ends of the world to leave a lasting scar on the [Freak].

A blur of movement flew at Casey.

It was through sheer fighting experience and her own instincts that raised her shield arm. Just in time to block the flying kick aimed at her face.

Casey’s feet left the ground.

She skipped across the earth like a rock slung across a pond.

The attack had come from YoAnna of all people. A great shock.

“Hah!” Rick pointed and laughed. “You can’t just challenge YoAnna’s favorite little guy in front of her!”

“No,” Jay and Frank said at the same time, reaching the same conclusion by different means.

It was too late to help Rick. YoAnna set her sights on him next.

One punch later, Rick’s blood splattered almost everyone. He snapped a tree in half before he stopped flying like a fleshy ragdoll. YoAnna had already moved on to striking Brit before Rick flopped still.

The Holy [Medium] took out her shield just in time. But she was not fast enough to use a Skill to defend herself better.

Jay intervened with [Graviton Wall] and [Gravity Grasp]. The first Skill was a feinting move to see if YoAnna would respond to such. The other Skill was an attempt to pull Brit out of the way behind the wall placement.

At the same time, Frank blazed a trail with [Cavalry Charge]. He aimed a shoulder ram at YoAnna’s side.

Lilith and Tim hopped to action just as fast. The Alchemy [Crafter] threw a concoction at YoAnna’s feet that would burst and release a sticky snare. The Endless [Fighter] moved even faster than Frank to sucker-punch the back of YoAnna’s head.

“Inadequate,” YoAnna scolded.

She backhanded Frank and sent him airborne.

She jumped, dodging Lilith’s sticky snare while flipping over [Graviton Wall] with utter nonchalance.

YoAnna caught Brit with a kick even while Jay was [Gravity Grasping] Brit to help her get back. The hit folded Brit’s shield, smashed it into the Medium’s gut, and forced Brit’s breakfast to jettison up in a violent spray.

Tim couldn’t do anything since his fist had been caught in YoAnna’s free hand and crushed. He got yanked around as YoAnna chased down the next Champion and continued to string chaos and violence amid them.

She even used Tim as a bludgeoning weapon to smash Mike and Hailey into the ground and frighten Dennis into freezing. Then she beat the big lug to the ground with her bare fists. Once she piled the hurt on almost everyone, she soon caught Jay by the front of his hoodie.

“Why do I feel like this is my fault?” Jay grunted. She had taken his idea for her to lead a training session to the extreme, didn't she?

“By the time we’re done, you all will surely improve leaps and bounds.” The scarred half of her face showed savage glee. The perfect half of her face looked concerned but determined. “But as of now, I can see you’re limited by your [Omen Bearer of the Apocalypse] Title and haven’t really grown out of being Rank 1 rookies yet.”

“Holy shit, YoAnna, we’ve only been doing this for three weeks!” Jay shouted, keeping the multiple timelines and time dilation factored. “With no real mentors or training sessions or anything prior for this Champion stuff! Can we start with something a little less challenging?”

Jay winced as his meta-g smacked him in the head for saying that last part. How could he say that to the Godling of Challenge and Change of all people?

“These inadequacies are a fault of mine, unfortunately,” YoAnna said before opening a can of ass-whooping on Jay.

She took a long breath before speaking up even further.

“We must overcome these inadequacies through sheer effort and new levels of exceptional violence. You’ve all been chosen because you can exceed common limitations and attain the means of unlikely victory on your own. You can break into new thresholds of power and reach the loftiest heights of greatness in spite of what you lack or where you originated from. It doesn't matter if you came from money or if you didn't. It doesn't matter if you were preppy school girls, high-achieving performers, troublemakers, nerds, or comedians. All that mattered was how you fulfilled your roles despite the consequences and how your differences can help each other. You all carry burdens while pushing beyond the challenges that would cow or crush most others. You all showed within you the potential to be masters and mistresses of your own destinies despite the machinations of greater forces. It's to the point that sometimes I'm even frightened by what you can become, but this is the consequence of why I've chosen you all. So, I will do my best to serve as a whetstone for your blades to sharpen themselves further."

Everyone was laying broken, beaten, and barely alive. It had only taken YoAnna a minute or two at most to beat the hell out of all of her Champions. Some of them were unconscious, even. Nonetheless, her words would resonate through them and be heard regardless of whether they were awake or not.

It was a rousing speech. But it was one that promised a new horror for the Champions to face.

“Again, o' Champions of mine, even if you must hate me, you must rise again and again and again. Become challenged. Become changed. And defeat me,” YoAnna requested.

That sounded absolutely impossible to Jay while he was half-drowning in a puddle of his own blood. Kleo was staying firmly in his chest, knowing she would be doomed if she exited. She would have to offer her support from inside of him, which didn't include healing, unfortunately. Maybe that would be for the best. He could just rest here and take his time to heal the old fashion way.

YoAnna cast healing magic to continue their torment/training right away. With little to no planning allowed when they got back to their feet. She returned their Basic Quality weapons to usable conditions, too.

How thoughtful of her.