~Now run and don’t stop!!!~

  You don’t have to say that twice! was the first and only thought going through any of Josh’s compartmentalized awarenesses. He fully intended to make a dust raising ‘Exit stage left…’ ala Snaggalpuss from Saturday morning cartoon fame.

  But that wasn’t happening.

  The mid-level shin amputations Utu had so kindly bestow on Josh were uneven by about three inches. Josh’s skedaddle was more a waddle reminiscent of Tweeddle Dumb and Tweedle Dee, his torso shifting dramatically from left to right off midline as it accommodated his faulty center of gravity. To say nothing of the the bloody stump prints left behind him he could do nothing about. The lawyer knew it would make it much easier for anyone to follow. But being followed was a way better situation than still being caught. So Josh waddled at top speed focusing his Essence circulation to the grit-caked stumps where his feet used to be. After about thirty seconds of stumble-runing behind Sen’s lead, the bleeding slowed to a trickle. After forty-five, it had stopped. Now he was mearly leaving rounded-drag prints behind. Baby steps of improvement…literally.

  Sen was obviously keeping their forward progress slow waiting for Josh’s healing. All the while his head was swiveling in as much of a 360 as possible, searching wearily for pursuit or interception.

  Josh could feel though his Essence that Sen was also bee-lining directly for the ‘Safety’ area. Good, maybe we’ll actually make it out of here… Though his optimism was tempered by the rough idea he had of how big the Tafl pitch could be. It had taken Theia and Hyperion little more than ten minutes at supersonic speed to get him and Sen to the middle it where they dropped them off loosely surrounded by their opponents. Assuming the field was a square…which was a big assumption. For all I know its shape could be more abstract than a North Carolina gerrymander. But, assuming it was square, they covered arpoximately 127 miles to get to the middle flying at 767 mph in that roughly ten minutes. Doubling that, and multiplying it by itself it to get the area of the square…He and Sen were following a metaphysical yellow brick road to the magical land of ‘Safety’ in a space that was about the size of Wisconsin. Slightly over 65,000 square miles…

  Except for the muffled shuffle of loose dirt at their progress, the massive space all around them was silent. Josh’s wasn’t surprised that they couldn’t hear the crush rollers. Especially if they had caught a break and they were searching for them in an opposite direction. Still he kept his eyes peeled every step looking for a glowing nimbus of fog that would reveal a stationary roller laying in wait for them. Another thing he was surprised not to hear was the crowd. Anything with that may people in it couldn’t be completely silent, even if they were just trying to squeeze through each other to get to the urinal troughs, beer stands, or complaining that the action had stopped. But not a peep. Josh had to assume, that for some reason he was very grateful for, the crowd’s hubbub had been muted. Are they muting the sounds of the other teams as well? Could they do that? Would they do that? All questions Josh would have loved answers to right now. Until then he kept his head waggling, uneven steps going behind Sen as best he could–

  Sen halted and silently crept back to Josh. Signalling him to sit, he then and dusted off the accumulated dirt on his healing stumps. Josh morbidly looked down as well. The ends of his tibia a fibula on both legs had rounded off in growth like a tree limb severed several growing seasons ago. The bones were also sticking out past the much slower healing skin, ligaments, and muscle tissues which apeared to be all funneling in to the center in a slow attempt to seal off the open bone in some kind of permanent stumps.

  He shook his head once sagely. ~The constant pressure from our forced running has retareded your healing’s correct formation. Josh nodded once concurring with Sen’s assessment and the science part of his mind pointed out that this was evidence that their healing was not just 3-D printer style, but could be effected by environmental forces–

  A segmented conciousness of Josh realized that Sen wasn’t interested in his biologic theories on their healing– ~Hey! Wait a minuite!–~

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  ~No.~ Came the disciplined reply of combat the master who had already pulled his blades from his mag-sheath and lopped of the poorly healing ends. Sen had already returned his weapons and put his hand over Josh’s open and just-about-to-scream-bloody-murder mouth. The subdued screeching of Josh’s outrage was reduced to puffed-cheek whining . The sound’s din’t even carry beyond the ever swirling fog in their their field of vision.

  With both of his lower legs again bleeding freely, even through the skull-screaming pain that both ends were at least even lenth this time.

  ~Now you’ll have feet again, my brother.~ Sen smiled down at Josh as if the next logical thing to happen was for his Karmic Bonded partner to give him a heartfelt thankyou for all of his selfless service.

  ~...~

  Sen barely pulled his hand back before Josh bit his fingers off, thrusting his head like an outraged snapping turtle at their trailing ends. But the combat instructer’s smile only widened at Josh, and he complimented his quick thinking. ~Never stop fighting. It was also wise to use the weapons your enemy is vulnerable to– and look, the healing has already picked up pace. We will reamin here for a few minutes in order for your feet to reform.~

  Missing his attack, Josh raised a brow and confirmed that Sen’s observations were correct. His healing speed had increased back to what it should have been. In less than five minutes he had sprouted new feet. They were several sizes smaller than his standard eleven and a half, showing that it would probably take a bit longer for the healing to fully fillout his DNA’s biologic map. Still the stunted things were good enough to start beating their feet on the hardpack dirt to cover more of the unknowable distance to ‘Safety’. Josh checked his status to see where his current health and Free mana was sitting with all of this healing and Essence circulation that had taken place.

  Realizing that he wasn’t topped up on Free Essence, Josh quickly absorbed some Earth Essence from the ground below and…came up empty. Apparently, whatever Star Child Voodoo/Hoodoo that made the protostar under him look like a terrestrial desert, as far as Essence metaphysics was concerned, it was not. There was absolutely no viable Earth Aura for them. He quickly shifted to Space/Time and filled his reserves. At the atomic and quantum levels, even something as dense as a star was still more space then not.

  Josh was also a little surprised by what he saw in the Physical Health Status box. Remembering with a fair amount of discomfort, back to each individual insult that lead to deductions in his health, he was surprised to find out that the two given by Utu with his hacksaw from hell were responsible for almost half of his entire health pool being emptied. They weren’t even ‘vital organs’ as far as most mortals were concerned. His science mind quickly volunteered that it led to possible conclusions that many more factors were now inplay concerning overall health status regarding cultivationally advanced life forms. Some possible factors leading to increased damage from what he previously considered ‘non vital areas,’ included the victims mental state and perhaps repetive injury to the same area. Josh had proven that he could regenerate every one of his biologic organs– including his brain and heart. Even after they had been reduced to the physical consistency of a mentled slushy. He may not even have any more ‘vital organs’ in the traditional sense for the purposes of damage and dying and being rendered unconcious. Perhaps the only thing that really mattered for the sake of being truly killed was his cultivational core. An organ he knew without questions existed both in the physical and spiritual/metaphysical realms. And likely the core’s essential links to his physical body, like the pineal gland joining the metaphysical with his physical brain. Josh admitted that this was something he would have to give more thought to. Hopefully he could come up with some solid theories without having to undergo more repetitive amputations and significant head trauma. But, probably not…

  During the fight witht the Sumarians, before he had gone over to the dark side and refused to stop busting up their crush roller, Josh’s minimized Interface had also dinged in the uncommon way it did to indicate that he had learned a new skill. He pulled the minimized text box to the front of his view.

  Error: Tetrahedral Hybrid Attunement skill Advanced to Tripple Braided Skill: Error. For complete details view status window.

  So Josh accessed the indicated Status link:

  …Ya…that’s about as useful as birth control to Elon Musk... At least the previous unhelpful ‘Error’ Text Box that had popped up during their lava swim with Kyon Shi had given some information about psyche dominion…

  But, even without more helpful information, Josh did have his theories about braiding and the core advancements he was still very far away from. He would have to discuss them with some willing and cultivationally advanced person in the future. This line of thinking made him miss Gusti, alot. Perhaps, if he and Sen won this thing, Gaia would be predisposed to filling the Orangutan Affin’s shoes in the cultivation guide department. He knew the Clone would never do it…Regardless, for now, they needed to get a move on. Theory would have wait.