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Description
DESIDERIUM
[noun]
1. longing, desire, wish.
2. grief, regret.
3. need, necessity.
4. (In plural) pleasures, desires.
Etymology: Latin from dēsīderō, “want, desire, wish for; miss, lack, need”.

---

Casimir awoke to the feeling of his arms being pressed tightly to his sides by a length of some sort of rope. He peeled his eyes open and wriggled against the bonds, testing the strength of the knot and the rope itself. It held fast. He snarled, and for a moment he considered setting it ablaze, even despite the risk it posed to himself, for it would only take a thought to push his will into the bindings and sear the lot. However, another strange creature made their presence known by drifting dramatically down from the boughs of the unscorched trees around them. Their multitudinous tails flickered in and out of existence, wafting around their body like silk scarves, and they seemed to bask in Casimir’s undivided attention.

“Hello, lovely!” They said, pushing silvery pink bangs out of their eyes with dainty fingers. “I suppose you might be wondering what you’re doing here, all trussed up and pretty?”

Casimir growled low in his throat, rethinking that plan to burn the rope alone and extending it to the surrounding area as well. He’d survive, it would be fine. The heat in the area began to rise.

“Now, now. Don’t be silly. I’m not a competitor. In fact, I have some fantastic information for you that you will require in order to win your true destiny back-!”

Immediately Casimir stamped out the wild, angry magic internally. “My true destiny?”

“Dear boy, you haven’t figured it out yet? Every single one of you is here for a reason and it’s not- nor will it ever be- the reason you want or believe.”

“I’m here to save my people! She promised us a wish, a way to choose our own destiny.”

He strained against the bonds holding him again.

“She’s a liar, Casimir darling. Sure, she can set you back in the timeline before she got her nasty pokey fingers inside it but she needs a few things from you people first- and you’re not going to like it.” The metallic looking creature lowered themselves to the ground, toes barely touching it as if they weighed nothing at all. They leant closely to Casimir’s face with their hands on their knees. “All these competitors that are being taken away after you win? She’s stealing their fate, literally. Every possible choice or action that they could have made will make her more powerful. And I hate people who mess with fate.”

---

Somewhere, deep in the bowels of the Shrapnel Heart Zone, a human man dressed all in black dragged his young charge towards their exit. He was getting tired of her whining but they had to keep moving. Despite not being interested in the tournament in the slightest, he was two (technically three, but Allen and his friend were a team) competitors down out of who knew how many. Knowing his luck, he’d have to fight his way to the end of all of this just to get back to his team. Things were getting weirder and weirder around here.

“Mr Kyle, I’m hungry again!” Pestle pulled on his hand where he had it around her thin, pale wrist until she was sliding across the metal floor on the backs of her heels.

“We’ll find you something to eat in the next zone, there’s nothing here but death and trash.” He fixed his eyes solidly on the end of the hall they were taking, and refused to grace the girl with eye contact. He knew she was sheltered, but this was getting ridiculous.

“Bee had food, he gave me nuggets.” She pouted, scuffing the floor with her toes. “Where’d he go again?”

“Somewhere else,” Kyle grit through his teeth. If the girl asked him one more damn question, he was going to lose his marbles. “Let’s go.”

Finally, around a few more corners in the maze of a building, they came to the portal that would lead them to the next zone. They’d been through Ice Horizon, this one was Shrapnel Heart, and the next was somewhere called Castle Wish? It sounded promising enough. Their stars glowed with their weird power, allowing them access through the portal that glowed in kind, and he pulled Pestle through.

On the other side of it, Kyle took a deep, shuddering, unhappy breath, and continued onwards. Everything was purple, or pink, or glittering, or glowing. “Like some sort of ugly, fucked up amusement park…” he muttered to himself.

Pestle, on the other hand, seemed to be overjoyed by their surroundings. Her little eyes lit up with glee as a swarm of bright blue butterflies flew past them. “Mr Kyle, Mr Kyle! It’s so pretty!”

He watched the girl dash forward and chase the fluttering insects, arms outstretched wide. “Don't go too far, we need to find you food and we don't know what's out here."

“Yes, Mr Kyle."

---

“What do you know about how the end of your people was brought about?”

Casimir turned his head away, unable to look the creature in their eyes.”It was my fault. The Nepherim specifically wanted to discuss the peace treaty between myself and my parents, but I didn’t want to hear it. They kept pushing me and pushing me to go to this meeting and I ran away and hid…”

He took a deep breath, shoulders tense and drawn tightly. His companion settled down on the ground next to Casimir but, if you looked closely, you’d see that they floated just barely above the grass.

“What if I told you,” they said, “that it was never your fault at all?”

It felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest. Although Casimir had no idea what the creature could be talking about, it felt like hope. “What do you mean?”

“We’ll start at the very beginning, shall we?

Your people tell of your Gods, and your gift of magic and transformation. Your legends say the Gods granted you these powers and the Nepherim were jealous and declared an endless war.

A hundred, thousand years later- it’s not a coincidence they chose now to ask for a peace treaty Casimir. Ametsuchi knows exactly where to push, where to pull, how to change a people’s fate in order to concentrate it on one person.

You.”

The ropes binding Casimir still fell away under their deft fingers while they spoke, leaving Casimir sitting on the soggy, muddy, burnt ground in a confused stupor. He shook his head, attempting to clear his thoughts, then dragged his fingers through his hair.

“What?”

“I’ll lay it out simply for you. Ametsuchi is behind every bad Fate everyone in this tournament has ever suffered or ever will suffer- including the deaths of your people. If you want your revenge, you have to take it out on her.”

---

The doors didn’t lead to the same place twice, and it was pissing Kyle off. He closed the heavy wooden door in front of him that, logic dictated, should put him out around where the library would be. It was not the library, but instead a cupboard filled with brooms and mops and a confused looking rodent. Behind him, Pestle was in the kitchen -the door should have lead to a hallway or a bedroom or something but, no, it was the kitchen- gorging herself on fresh fruit and sweets that seemed to have been laid out recently. There was no proper way to check for poison, but Pestle was a bio-weapon. She should be fine. So long as the door didn’t shut. He hefted the shotgun and tried again. This time it relinquished the library onto him and Kyle turned around slightly to shout at his young charge.

“Pestle! I found the library, stay in the kitchen unless someone else appears- then come get me.”

She looked up from her stack of fluffy pancakes and nodded.

“There's got to be a map, or something, in this blasted place…” he muttered to himself, fingers trailing along the spines of the books in front of him.

The books didn't seem to be in any particular order, some of the titles or author's names were in alphabetical order but others were not. Some were written in an odd, spiralling script, and others had jagged, bold lettering on their covers. Kyle wandered aimlessly, but kept an eye on the open door.

After pawing through a couple of the books that he could read, but finding nothing of importance, he turned back towards the exit. There was a strange ringing in his ears, quiet and tinny but definitely there, and he shook his head to clear the noise. However the further he walked the louder it seemed to get until it was a raging crescendo inside his ears. Kyle's knees hit the floor and he clenched his hands tightly over his head but still the noise echoed and rang throughout the room.

---

“Tell me what I have to do.”

“For a start~” Kyuu sang, tapping Casimir on the nose with a long and delicate finger, “you need to stop trying to be friends with your opponents.”

Casimir dragged his knees to his chest and curled in towards himself. “I just thought we could get along.”

The creature rolled their eyes, and floated gently away from where Casimir slouched on the floor unhappily. “This is a tournament, where the winner decides their true fate, Casimir. You can’t make friends or get along with everyone that’s trying to kill you- you should know that already.”

“I do.” He said, dejectedly, and stood up. He shook off the mud and rain from himself in a wild spray that made Kyuu flinch back away from him with a sneer across his beautiful features.

“Good! That’s step one. Step two is win.”

---

Kyle grabbed for the bookshelf closest to him, attempting to use it to steady himself, but with the screeching ringing in his ears his bid for stability upended a collection of books right on top of his head. He hissed in pain, one hand pressing tightly against his temple while the other pushed the books away from him. Suddenly, while he was about to throw one in a fit of anger across the room, the noise stopped. It didn’t even leave behind the sharp tinnitus noise of listening to loud music. Kyle looked at the book in confusion. It was thin and bound in black leather, with no title or author on the spine or cover. It had been bent in half at some point and showed signs of heavy use. He flipped it open, read a few lines from a page in the middle, then immediately dropped it to the floor. That was definitely his handwriting, and the way he wrote. Tentatively, he picked the book up again and continued reading.

Loop 35

The child and I are still trapped in this castle. The tournament continues to rage around us. At my last count, we have died or been beaten by another competitor thirty five times. The kitsune creature has returned the memories of the previous timelines to me each time, but he grows more and more disillusioned. I fear we cannot beat his master.

Loop 63

He is only returning the memories to me out of propriety, but this book continues to exist in each timeline. Perhaps the castle is a stable loop. I have requested he not give Pestle her previous memories, as her repeated deaths are beginning to affect her in ways I could not forsee.

Loop 80

Kyuu informs me this will be the last time he returns my memories. I am painfully aware that these time loops will continue, even without my knowledge of them. I can only hope that whoever Kyuu chooses next will be able to break us out of this cursed existence. Ametsuchi’s experiment must be stopped, at all costs.
This will more than likely be my final log, unless my future selves also record their time in this diary.
Kyle Warren

“Scary, isn’t it?”

What Kyle could only describe as a lion-like creature stepped out from behind the shadows of a towering bookcase. It’s gloved fists burnt white-hot, but it didn’t seem to affect him.

“Knowing you’ve done this before?” It nodded at the book in Kyle’s hands.

“You know about this?” He shut the book with a snap, free hand slowly moving towards the holster hanging from his hip.

“Kyuu filled me in.” The creature shrugged loosely but the fire in it's hands burnt hotter, until it travelled almost the whole way up it's arms. “My name is Casimir. I'm sorry, but I have to take your star now.”

---

Casimir's heart beat in his throat. His opponent hadn't noticed him until he’d revealed himself but he couldn't just launch a surprise attack. The man was pale after reading the book in his hands and seemed to be fighting the need to shake. He could understand. Kyuu’s revelations- and the subsequent memory transfer- had certainly made him feel like puking at the very least.

The man moved fast, grabbing a strange weapon from the black holster at his side, and launched a painful volley. It sounded like an explosion, held in the palm of his hands, and when the first shot tore through his shoulder Casimir's instincts went wild with the pain. Blood blossomed on the uniform. He threw himself up and forward, over his opponent, landing in an angry crouch behind him.

“What is that?!” He snarled, throwing up a defensive, burning, wall of fire between them.

“You've never seen a gun before?” Kyle asked, stepping away from the heat. It scorched black marks on the ceiling and floor but didn't catch and spread.

Casimir held his injured shoulder and hissed painfully. Blood was still seeping into his clothes, but the bullet had gone straight through the muscle and thankfully was not stuck inside him. He seared the wound closed with a burning finger. The smell of burnt flesh and fur joined the ashy smell of burning wood.

Without warning, he threw himself at Kyle again. The flames parted and snuffed themselves out and although the man was fast, Casimir was faster. He threw a solid punch at the man's retreating form, one that launched Kyle through the stacks of bookshelves with an almighty crash.

The precious moments of his transformation ticked away in the back of his head. Kyle was already hauling himself to his feet, though he was clearly attempting to mask the pain in his features. Casimir's punch had left a red, blistering burn across his cheek and seared half of an eyebrow away. The man pulled another, longer weapon from the bag that he carried and shot at Casimir who desperately ducked and weaved from the concussive blasts. He knew he had to go on the offensive, there were only moments before-

“Mr Kyle! What's going on?” A shrill, innocent voice asked.

There was a child, standing amongst the wrecked piles of books and burnt wood. Strange insects buzzed around her head in aimless patterns. As Casimir's plan formed, Kyle's feet were already moving. Fire licked the floor around the lion's feet and, just once, as he reached his charge, Kyle locked eyes with his opponent. Even from across the room, he could see his heart had hardened.

---

After being alerted that a star had been taken, Ko-Reko and the faithful Automation stepped through their judge's portal to a scene of destruction. What had once been a pleasant wing of the castle had been reduced to ashes and rubble. The castle itself seemed to shiver, parts of it's rooms exposed to the rest of the zone. Lying unconscious amongst the destruction, and certainly not unharmed, were the two competitors they had been sent to collect.

“Rough!” Laughed Ko, as the machine he rode lifted the two gingerly. “Looks like they're alive- but that's gonna leave a scar!”

He glanced around the area, but there seemed to be no sign of Casimir. Behind the mask, his eyes narrowed.

---

Somewhere far away, Casimir took deep breaths and steadied himself against a wall. The last few moments of fire and screaming and bright burning light replayed endlessly in his head. His hands shook uncontrollably as his memories of the attack blurred and meshed with his own battle against a child and her guardian. He choked back a sob, and squashed the noise threatening to build in the back of his throat, and told himself again.

It would be better, when it was all over.

Description
DESIDERIUM
[noun]
1. longing, desire, wish.
2. grief, regret.
3. need, necessity.
4. (In plural) pleasures, desires.
Etymology: Latin from dēsīderō, “want, desire, wish for; miss, lack, need”.

---

Casimir awoke to the feeling of his arms being pressed tightly to his sides by a length of some sort of rope. He peeled his eyes open and wriggled against the bonds, testing the strength of the knot and the rope itself. It held fast. He snarled, and for a moment he considered setting it ablaze, even despite the risk it posed to himself, for it would only take a thought to push his will into the bindings and sear the lot. However, another strange creature made their presence known by drifting dramatically down from the boughs of the unscorched trees around them. Their multitudinous tails flickered in and out of existence, wafting around their body like silk scarves, and they seemed to bask in Casimir’s undivided attention.

“Hello, lovely!” They said, pushing silvery pink bangs out of their eyes with dainty fingers. “I suppose you might be wondering what you’re doing here, all trussed up and pretty?”

Casimir growled low in his throat, rethinking that plan to burn the rope alone and extending it to the surrounding area as well. He’d survive, it would be fine. The heat in the area began to rise.

“Now, now. Don’t be silly. I’m not a competitor. In fact, I have some fantastic information for you that you will require in order to win your true destiny back-!”

Immediately Casimir stamped out the wild, angry magic internally. “My true destiny?”

“Dear boy, you haven’t figured it out yet? Every single one of you is here for a reason and it’s not- nor will it ever be- the reason you want or believe.”

“I’m here to save my people! She promised us a wish, a way to choose our own destiny.”

He strained against the bonds holding him again.

“She’s a liar, Casimir darling. Sure, she can set you back in the timeline before she got her nasty pokey fingers inside it but she needs a few things from you people first- and you’re not going to like it.” The metallic looking creature lowered themselves to the ground, toes barely touching it as if they weighed nothing at all. They leant closely to Casimir’s face with their hands on their knees. “All these competitors that are being taken away after you win? She’s stealing their fate, literally. Every possible choice or action that they could have made will make her more powerful. And I hate people who mess with fate.”

---

Somewhere, deep in the bowels of the Shrapnel Heart Zone, a human man dressed all in black dragged his young charge towards their exit. He was getting tired of her whining but they had to keep moving. Despite not being interested in the tournament in the slightest, he was two (technically three, but Allen and his friend were a team) competitors down out of who knew how many. Knowing his luck, he’d have to fight his way to the end of all of this just to get back to his team. Things were getting weirder and weirder around here.

“Mr Kyle, I’m hungry again!” Pestle pulled on his hand where he had it around her thin, pale wrist until she was sliding across the metal floor on the backs of her heels.

“We’ll find you something to eat in the next zone, there’s nothing here but death and trash.” He fixed his eyes solidly on the end of the hall they were taking, and refused to grace the girl with eye contact. He knew she was sheltered, but this was getting ridiculous.

“Bee had food, he gave me nuggets.” She pouted, scuffing the floor with her toes. “Where’d he go again?”

“Somewhere else,” Kyle grit through his teeth. If the girl asked him one more damn question, he was going to lose his marbles. “Let’s go.”

Finally, around a few more corners in the maze of a building, they came to the portal that would lead them to the next zone. They’d been through Ice Horizon, this one was Shrapnel Heart, and the next was somewhere called Castle Wish? It sounded promising enough. Their stars glowed with their weird power, allowing them access through the portal that glowed in kind, and he pulled Pestle through.

On the other side of it, Kyle took a deep, shuddering, unhappy breath, and continued onwards. Everything was purple, or pink, or glittering, or glowing. “Like some sort of ugly, fucked up amusement park…” he muttered to himself.

Pestle, on the other hand, seemed to be overjoyed by their surroundings. Her little eyes lit up with glee as a swarm of bright blue butterflies flew past them. “Mr Kyle, Mr Kyle! It’s so pretty!”

He watched the girl dash forward and chase the fluttering insects, arms outstretched wide. “Don't go too far, we need to find you food and we don't know what's out here."

“Yes, Mr Kyle."

---

“What do you know about how the end of your people was brought about?”

Casimir turned his head away, unable to look the creature in their eyes.”It was my fault. The Nepherim specifically wanted to discuss the peace treaty between myself and my parents, but I didn’t want to hear it. They kept pushing me and pushing me to go to this meeting and I ran away and hid…”

He took a deep breath, shoulders tense and drawn tightly. His companion settled down on the ground next to Casimir but, if you looked closely, you’d see that they floated just barely above the grass.

“What if I told you,” they said, “that it was never your fault at all?”

It felt like his heart was going to burst out of his chest. Although Casimir had no idea what the creature could be talking about, it felt like hope. “What do you mean?”

“We’ll start at the very beginning, shall we?

Your people tell of your Gods, and your gift of magic and transformation. Your legends say the Gods granted you these powers and the Nepherim were jealous and declared an endless war.

A hundred, thousand years later- it’s not a coincidence they chose now to ask for a peace treaty Casimir. Ametsuchi knows exactly where to push, where to pull, how to change a people’s fate in order to concentrate it on one person.

You.”

The ropes binding Casimir still fell away under their deft fingers while they spoke, leaving Casimir sitting on the soggy, muddy, burnt ground in a confused stupor. He shook his head, attempting to clear his thoughts, then dragged his fingers through his hair.

“What?”

“I’ll lay it out simply for you. Ametsuchi is behind every bad Fate everyone in this tournament has ever suffered or ever will suffer- including the deaths of your people. If you want your revenge, you have to take it out on her.”

---

The doors didn’t lead to the same place twice, and it was pissing Kyle off. He closed the heavy wooden door in front of him that, logic dictated, should put him out around where the library would be. It was not the library, but instead a cupboard filled with brooms and mops and a confused looking rodent. Behind him, Pestle was in the kitchen -the door should have lead to a hallway or a bedroom or something but, no, it was the kitchen- gorging herself on fresh fruit and sweets that seemed to have been laid out recently. There was no proper way to check for poison, but Pestle was a bio-weapon. She should be fine. So long as the door didn’t shut. He hefted the shotgun and tried again. This time it relinquished the library onto him and Kyle turned around slightly to shout at his young charge.

“Pestle! I found the library, stay in the kitchen unless someone else appears- then come get me.”

She looked up from her stack of fluffy pancakes and nodded.

“There's got to be a map, or something, in this blasted place…” he muttered to himself, fingers trailing along the spines of the books in front of him.

The books didn't seem to be in any particular order, some of the titles or author's names were in alphabetical order but others were not. Some were written in an odd, spiralling script, and others had jagged, bold lettering on their covers. Kyle wandered aimlessly, but kept an eye on the open door.

After pawing through a couple of the books that he could read, but finding nothing of importance, he turned back towards the exit. There was a strange ringing in his ears, quiet and tinny but definitely there, and he shook his head to clear the noise. However the further he walked the louder it seemed to get until it was a raging crescendo inside his ears. Kyle's knees hit the floor and he clenched his hands tightly over his head but still the noise echoed and rang throughout the room.

---

“Tell me what I have to do.”

“For a start~” Kyuu sang, tapping Casimir on the nose with a long and delicate finger, “you need to stop trying to be friends with your opponents.”

Casimir dragged his knees to his chest and curled in towards himself. “I just thought we could get along.”

The creature rolled their eyes, and floated gently away from where Casimir slouched on the floor unhappily. “This is a tournament, where the winner decides their true fate, Casimir. You can’t make friends or get along with everyone that’s trying to kill you- you should know that already.”

“I do.” He said, dejectedly, and stood up. He shook off the mud and rain from himself in a wild spray that made Kyuu flinch back away from him with a sneer across his beautiful features.

“Good! That’s step one. Step two is win.”

---

Kyle grabbed for the bookshelf closest to him, attempting to use it to steady himself, but with the screeching ringing in his ears his bid for stability upended a collection of books right on top of his head. He hissed in pain, one hand pressing tightly against his temple while the other pushed the books away from him. Suddenly, while he was about to throw one in a fit of anger across the room, the noise stopped. It didn’t even leave behind the sharp tinnitus noise of listening to loud music. Kyle looked at the book in confusion. It was thin and bound in black leather, with no title or author on the spine or cover. It had been bent in half at some point and showed signs of heavy use. He flipped it open, read a few lines from a page in the middle, then immediately dropped it to the floor. That was definitely his handwriting, and the way he wrote. Tentatively, he picked the book up again and continued reading.

Loop 35

The child and I are still trapped in this castle. The tournament continues to rage around us. At my last count, we have died or been beaten by another competitor thirty five times. The kitsune creature has returned the memories of the previous timelines to me each time, but he grows more and more disillusioned. I fear we cannot beat his master.

Loop 63

He is only returning the memories to me out of propriety, but this book continues to exist in each timeline. Perhaps the castle is a stable loop. I have requested he not give Pestle her previous memories, as her repeated deaths are beginning to affect her in ways I could not forsee.

Loop 80

Kyuu informs me this will be the last time he returns my memories. I am painfully aware that these time loops will continue, even without my knowledge of them. I can only hope that whoever Kyuu chooses next will be able to break us out of this cursed existence. Ametsuchi’s experiment must be stopped, at all costs.
This will more than likely be my final log, unless my future selves also record their time in this diary.
Kyle Warren

“Scary, isn’t it?”

What Kyle could only describe as a lion-like creature stepped out from behind the shadows of a towering bookcase. It’s gloved fists burnt white-hot, but it didn’t seem to affect him.

“Knowing you’ve done this before?” It nodded at the book in Kyle’s hands.

“You know about this?” He shut the book with a snap, free hand slowly moving towards the holster hanging from his hip.

“Kyuu filled me in.” The creature shrugged loosely but the fire in it's hands burnt hotter, until it travelled almost the whole way up it's arms. “My name is Casimir. I'm sorry, but I have to take your star now.”

---

Casimir's heart beat in his throat. His opponent hadn't noticed him until he’d revealed himself but he couldn't just launch a surprise attack. The man was pale after reading the book in his hands and seemed to be fighting the need to shake. He could understand. Kyuu’s revelations- and the subsequent memory transfer- had certainly made him feel like puking at the very least.

The man moved fast, grabbing a strange weapon from the black holster at his side, and launched a painful volley. It sounded like an explosion, held in the palm of his hands, and when the first shot tore through his shoulder Casimir's instincts went wild with the pain. Blood blossomed on the uniform. He threw himself up and forward, over his opponent, landing in an angry crouch behind him.

“What is that?!” He snarled, throwing up a defensive, burning, wall of fire between them.

“You've never seen a gun before?” Kyle asked, stepping away from the heat. It scorched black marks on the ceiling and floor but didn't catch and spread.

Casimir held his injured shoulder and hissed painfully. Blood was still seeping into his clothes, but the bullet had gone straight through the muscle and thankfully was not stuck inside him. He seared the wound closed with a burning finger. The smell of burnt flesh and fur joined the ashy smell of burning wood.

Without warning, he threw himself at Kyle again. The flames parted and snuffed themselves out and although the man was fast, Casimir was faster. He threw a solid punch at the man's retreating form, one that launched Kyle through the stacks of bookshelves with an almighty crash.

The precious moments of his transformation ticked away in the back of his head. Kyle was already hauling himself to his feet, though he was clearly attempting to mask the pain in his features. Casimir's punch had left a red, blistering burn across his cheek and seared half of an eyebrow away. The man pulled another, longer weapon from the bag that he carried and shot at Casimir who desperately ducked and weaved from the concussive blasts. He knew he had to go on the offensive, there were only moments before-

“Mr Kyle! What's going on?” A shrill, innocent voice asked.

There was a child, standing amongst the wrecked piles of books and burnt wood. Strange insects buzzed around her head in aimless patterns. As Casimir's plan formed, Kyle's feet were already moving. Fire licked the floor around the lion's feet and, just once, as he reached his charge, Kyle locked eyes with his opponent. Even from across the room, he could see his heart had hardened.

---

After being alerted that a star had been taken, Ko-Reko and the faithful Automation stepped through their judge's portal to a scene of destruction. What had once been a pleasant wing of the castle had been reduced to ashes and rubble. The castle itself seemed to shiver, parts of it's rooms exposed to the rest of the zone. Lying unconscious amongst the destruction, and certainly not unharmed, were the two competitors they had been sent to collect.

“Rough!” Laughed Ko, as the machine he rode lifted the two gingerly. “Looks like they're alive- but that's gonna leave a scar!”

He glanced around the area, but there seemed to be no sign of Casimir. Behind the mask, his eyes narrowed.

---

Somewhere far away, Casimir took deep breaths and steadied himself against a wall. The last few moments of fire and screaming and bright burning light replayed endlessly in his head. His hands shook uncontrollably as his memories of the attack blurred and meshed with his own battle against a child and her guardian. He choked back a sob, and squashed the noise threatening to build in the back of his throat, and told himself again.

It would be better, when it was all over.