The dagger punched into him again and again, striking vital organs and severing arteries to the point that even the massive boon of Bountiful Recovery couldn't keep up. All that stored healing mana in Luke's meta-heart drained in a few seconds as the rest of Josh's team charged out of Alan's office to rejoin the fight.

  One skill allowed Luke to stay in the fight, rather than fall dead to the floor.

  Loom's Reminder [Active - Mana Cost: Moderate]: For a brief moment, each touch produces a thread.

  The perfect counter to a person so fast you couldn't touch them even as they attacked, Loom's Reminder produced a thread connecting Luke to Josh, but it fell apart the moment the Jumper teleported away. When his opponent returned, Luke was ready. Another thread sprang into existence, and this time, despite his eyes being a ruin and his heart and lungs punctured, Luke timed it just right.

  Bleed The Weave [Active - Mana Cost: High]: Rupture a weave to make your target weep mana.

  Despite the staggering mana cost, Bleed The Weave would follow Josh to whatever hideout he kept teleporting away to. Tom's words of power filled the air, but Luke sliced through the spellweave. The two opponents had made a mistake. They'd come too close. Cascading Threads saw him connected to both, and Luke severed the nerves in their necks to make them crumple to the floor as he drained mana from their meta-hearts, replenishing his own stores.

  Josh, the asshole, returned, staggering forward after letting go of William and Diedrik, the Bloomcaller and Reaver. The latter of them was healed. They'd gone to another Gauntlet, allowing William to heal the others. Mana leaked from the Jumper, oozing out of his main mana channel, where Luke had struck with Bleed The Weave. Very little mana remained for the Jumper.

  Luke realized that it was Josh who was responsible for people popping in and out. Without mana, he had put an end to their hit-and-run tactics. Something in his interface pulled at his attention as the Bloomcaller retreated, healing his two friends on the floor. Smudge wanted out. Unable to pull his concentration from the fight, Luke let the little bastard out before turning to deal with Josh once and for all, before William could heal him.

  Smudge threw himself onto Tom. As the man watched in paralyzed horror, Luke's pet began to drain mana from Tom's meta-heart right through his chest.

  Ignoring the pet's antics, Luke weavestepped toward the staff on the floor, grabbed it, weavestepped again, and swung. At that point, the Jumper didn't have anything left in the tank. It almost felt wrong to attack someone defenseless. Almost. Luke's staff broke the biker helmet in one swing, continuing downward to give Josh's head a good ringing. Consciousness fled from the Jumper.

  Bolts of darkness slammed into Luke's back, pushing him forward and to the floor, dropping the staff. Shadows followed and reached up to grab Luke's leg. Immense pain surged up the limb as Melanie used those shadows to crush him with enough power to almost twist the leg right off.

  As he healed himself, getting to his feet, Tom's eyes closed, his face turning ashen as all mana within him surged into Smudge, still sitting on his chest. The pet was like a black hole, consuming all, even the very mana channels themselves, followed by the meta-heart. After that, Smudge's attention turned to Melanie, but William had restored her neck just in time, so she crawled away, got up, and attempted to use her shadows to keep the pet away. That didn't work. Not even shadows can stand against the void, and they just fell into Smudge, not doing much of anything.

  Panting, Luke took an unsteady step toward the still-standing enemies. William the Bloomcaller, Diedrik the Reaver, and Melanie the Vesper. Tom was dead, Josh unconscious. Since destroying Emily, the Lancer's meta-heart, she hadn't reappeared. Perhaps William hadn't been able to heal that.

  Three versus two, if you counted Smudge. Luke was fine with those odds.

  As Luke advanced on the trio, Diedrik took a page out of Curtis's book and turned his darkness into a blade. A quick step forward and a thrust saw the tip buried in Luke's stomach. Wincing, Luke continued forward, plunging the blade deeper inside himself as he reached out with Threads of Mana. After disposing of the Reaver, Luke used Diedrik's mana to heal the wound in his stomach.

  Two more to go.

  Neither Melanie nor William disappeared, proving the theory that Josh was behind all that teleporting.

  "Wait," William said, raising his palms.

  Luke stopped, straightened, and raised an eyebrow.

  "Don't kill us," William continued, eyeing the still advancing Smudge. "We surrender. We... We didn't want to. It was just... Just... couldn't stop..."

  Covered in blood, mostly his own, Luke stood there, considering. He was not in a merciful mood, not after what he'd just been through. That didn't mean he would just kill people who'd given up, not even those who'd tried to kill him moments earlier, and William's words brought terrible implications with them. "Alan ordered you?"

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  Orders most people would not be able to counteract, not even if they wanted to.

  "He did," Melanie said. Her eyes went to the door leading to the stairwell. "You should get out of here."

  Luke followed her gaze. "Reinforcements?"

  She nodded

  He felt them coming. A lot of them.

  "If Alan ordered you, how were you able to stop?"

  "I don't know how it works," William said, his hands dropping to his sides now that he figured Luke wouldn't kill them. "This was the first time he used it on us. When we didn't want to, you know..."

  "Kill me?"

  "...Yeah."

  Turned around to face Josh, waving for the two others to follow. "Come along then."

  "What?" Melanie asked.

  Getting down on one knee next to Josh, Luke spoke over his shoulder as he healed the Jumper. "Are you going to stay with Alan and the guild after what he did to you? After what he made you do?"

  The roar of a helicopter reached down from up above, outside the large windows. It was descending right next to Alan's office.

  "No," Melanie said. "I don't know."

  "Come with me, then," Luke said.

  "He'll find us," William said, healing Josh before Luke got the chance. "The guild has four Jumpers. And there are all kinds of other people. Not so great people. Mr. Schmidt won't accept our leaving."

  "Of course, I would accept your resignation. I am not an evil man. It is just that sometimes you need to consider less tasteful alternatives when all other options prove impossible."

  Luke stood and spun. Alan stood at a safe distance from Luke, holding the door open for a flood of Integrated to come pouring in from the stairs, charging toward Luke and the others.

  "This time, I'm not underestimating you, Lifeweaver. If you happen to survive, do find me in New York."

  KILL LUKE QUINN.

  KILL THE LIFEWEAVER.

  With that, Alan disappeared again. Another Jumper must've pulled him back.

  "Fuck," Luke muttered as he forced Smudge back into his interface and grabbed Josh with both hands and threads of mana, heaving him up over his shoulder. With this many opponents, there was no telling how the fight would end, and fighting them seemed wrong after what Melanie and William revealed. These people might not even be in control of their own actions. The two he'd just spoken to had changed with the new orders, advancing like they wanted nothing more than to wrap their hands around Luke's throat. What a horrible class Alan had found, just horrible.

  It was time to retreat. He rushed into Alan's office. Not stopping, he ran straight at the windows, slapping Josh's face to wake him up and ignoring the helicopter that had just lowered itself to hover right in line with the floor. A damn machine gun was mounted on it. Alan was out of his mind.

  This was not the time to stop. Instead, Luke continued forward, leapt, punched through glass, then weavestepped forward, through the broken window, and found one thing that'd changed when he ranked up the Weavestep skill. It now added to his momentum. Luke screamed as they rushed forward and down at terrible speed, narrowly clearing the bottom of the helicopter.

  "Jooooosh!" he shouted, slapping the Jumper again and again.

  When that did nothing, he focused for all he was worth to use his skills despite the ground rushing up to meet them, and extended a single thread of mana into the still unconscious man's brain. A minor shock with Weaver's Rupture got Josh's eyes open. A second later, the screaming began. It was difficult to tell where Luke's cries ended, and Josh's began, but Luke forced a word out just as they were about to smash into the ground and become paste in the middle of the road.

  "JUMP!"

  Their momentum did not carry through to the other side of their teleport.

  "Phew," Luke said and sat up on the floor, steadying his breath while looking around what appeared to be an old classroom. It smelled and looked as if it hadn't been used for quite some time. "Where are we?"

  Josh looked frightened out of his mind, hugging his own legs, and like he was about to teleport away, so Luke grabbed his still somewhat beaten-in face between his hands. "If you teleport without me, you'll die. I've got your heart on a string, bud."

  "O-okay," Josh breathed, still looking like he could bolt at any moment.

  "Where are we?" Luke asked.

  It took Josh a while to gather himself enough to give a reply. "My old school. Had math in here. I hate math."

  "Why did you teleport us here?"

  "Jump."

  "What?"

  Josh calmed down a little. "I'm a Jumper. We jump."

  "Okay, fine. Why did you... jump us here?"

  "My teacher smacked me here once in third grade."

  Luke gave him a look that he hoped conveyed just how little that answered his question.

  "Jumping is tied to memories," Josh explained. "Strong memories of locations make them easier to grab on to, and trust me when I say, I was grabbing for anything just now."

  "I see."

  Josh turned to Luke. "Sorry about, you know... All the stabbing."

  "It's fine," Luke said. "I've grown used to the pain of almost dying, and it was Alan's order that forced you."

  "Still."

  They sat in silence for a while.

  "What now?" Josh asked. "Are you going to kill me?"

  Luke shook his head. "That's not how I roll. Most of the time, it's not."

  "What then?"

  "I need to get to New York."

  "That's far," Josh said. "I'm from the West Coast."

  Luke stood and peered out of the window. He didn't recognize any buildings. Turning to Josh, he asked, "Josh. Where are we?"

  Josh cleared his throat. "It's a town called Eugene. Almost two hours south of Portland."

  "We're in Oregon?" Luke sputtered.

  "Yeah," Josh said, getting to his feet. "But don't worry. Since you're not going to kill me, I'll take you to New York."

  "Thanks. What about you?"

  "Me?"

  "Want to come? Or are you planning on staying in the guild?"

  Josh grimaced. "Fuck no."

  "It'll be dangerous, but I've got some friends there. Could use your help in rescuing Dot from Alan."

  It took Josh a moment to consider that option, but he nodded despite looking a little paler than before. "I'll do it. I've got nothing left in Chicago. No one."

  "Great! Not the whole having no one thing, but the joining us thing. Great!"

  Luke quit Integrated Solutions Group.

  It was time to join his friends in a new city and rescue Dot, to find out more about the Intruders, the Phoenix Phalanx, and the apparent multitude of portals all over the place. Time to grow stronger and put a stop to Alan's reign before he grew too big to fail.

  Together with Josh, Luke jumped across the entire nation.

  It was time to create his own rules.