Quickly!

While hurtling downwards, the experimental energy-transducive prescience Transform Package now activates inside of me. I let my hair-feather-flowers and white toga disconnect and blow away as my skin shades deep-hued like the prescient Subjects, borrowed instinct threads my awareness and then before I SLAM down into the brown permastone of the antechamber floor my pre-planned spatial distortion SHUNTS me sideways –

– where I continue hurtling downwards through the floor aperture into the third level of phasic simalcra. My eyes widen: Other already waits there among glimmering alternatives.

How? It should not be possible.

I reach a palm out, emitting a Concussive Blast which HURTLES me to the side. My progress inexplicably slows, curving back in...

It did something. (Switch!)

Slipping into another phasic state, I arc faster again around Other, which has somehow anchored itself here to remain real as ever.

Switch.

I slip into another phasic state, warming and arcing faster by Other.

Switch.

Hot from the quick phasic switches, I now plummet down to the alternative third floor ground at my original speed again, free of the strange grip Other had used to slow me.

New prescient instinct finally activates.

Switch.

– and I slip back into the normal phasic state before landing into a sprint, while merry shouts ring out above, along with disbelieving laughter.

They will play with me instead of unleashing their true power, intrigued and unused to such rebellion, but I must NOT be the aggressor in any way or they will grow serious and combine like rampaging techno-gods, to...

(FOCUS)

I dive into the floor aperture leading down to the second reflective Level. Pre-planned gravimetrics enfolds me, launching me into an accelerating downwards spiral along an artificial gravity pathway twisting around the second floor energy column amidst four curving stairs, floating mirrors and obscuring spatial warping...

"Is it true?" calls a voice above me.

"Tat tvam asi?!" comes a final, frantic shout.

Curving at whistling speed...

New prescient instinct warns of danger.

... I reach out a hand, firing a Concussive Blast which sends me tumbling sideways into a spatial distortion that apparates me across the room to land crouched under a staircase banister.

My new instincts feel like...

Suddenly: beams, projectiles, and offensive options unknown STRIKE down everywhere above, exploding in exponential furiousity to SHATTER stairs, mirrors, walls, or alter course because of pre-planned artificial gravity pathways, disappearing into spatial distortions to appear again elsewhere and explode as debris seemingly bursts from every direction.

This is more serious.

"Play nicer, Fnord!" a happy voice calls above.

New prescient instinct signals radial vectors along which I might safely flee.

Useful. Very useful.

The insane bombardment thins...

(GO!)

I leap towards a floating mirror, both feet striking its surface. Momentum spins it so my head suddenly faces normal-gravity downwards, then I LEAP hard towards the ground –

New prescient instinct signals urgent evasive action.

Trying to catch me in mid-air?

Reaching out a hand, I fire a Concussion Blast which sends me tumbling diagonally towards the center floor aperture. I land into a tumbling roll, then cartwheel up again back into a post-human SPRINT –

New prescient instinct demands I attack above.

NO! Any attack would signal my end!

After a moment of fatal indecision, I look up.

A color-cycling impressive energy shield shimmers into existence above, matching pace with me, covering Fnord, its immense form now bristling with offensive armature like a living tank. "No more!" it shouts down.

I summon a triple S-Shield, each snapping securely into place before EXPLODING forces crush me down into the ground. My outermost S-Shield winks out. Its strong bombardment intensifies. My middle S-Shield winks out, and cracks form across the second floor Level my final S-Shield is increasingly pressed down into it...

Fnord SCREAMS down at me in rage.

Quadrupled force STRIKES, my inner S-Shield winks out and the final energy bombardment blasts me down into the cracked floor which EXPLODES, hurtling me into the ground floor level burnt-hurt-stunned AND flushed with power absorbed through my conductive skin as my abruptly closed eyes open again...

New instinct is SCREAMING.

... and I gaze down through glittering space, while hurtling beside blasted staircases, towards the pyramid's groundfloor filled by prancing, twisted iterations of Oryx and Aryx all shouting variously. "Are you one of us?" "Are you a pretender?" "Play!"

NO! (NO!)

Panicked, I activate a costly A-Sphere, which STOPS.

I am held within impenetrable blurred spacetime burning through my inner energy reserves to maintain itself, so I issue blinding fast directives before quickly letting the A-Shield wink out.

NOW!

Immediately: I release three outbound shockwaves in quick succession, phasic energy RIPPLING across local spacetime, followed by holography threaded concussive forces BLASTING, followed by a big gravitational pulse SHUDDERING out.

A fearsome, but harmless distraction.

Three forms shoot down amidst that first maelstrom, landing upon the earth: a photon ghost copy of myself, a magnetically pulsing hologram copy of myself and my true self hidden in a hyperflective body-snug C-Shield. All three versions of myself then all post-human sprint in three different directions after those triple shockwaves, speeding through my adversaries hunkered within many shields flaring bright against my false attacks.

Confusion will save me!

My photon ghost copy heads for buried machinery suddenly rumbling to life as my orb core, magnetically pulsing hologram copy arrows for the front entrance and I speed into the thickest concentration of twisted Ryxs, trusting my C-Shield to protect me.

"Annihilate the false self!" a voice shouts above.

(Hurry!)

I dodge through happily shouting Ryxes all trying to tag me, spinning, sliding and leaping to avoid them. My orb core, magnetically pulsing hologram copy bounds ahead of an exploratory series of offensive beams fired down from Fnord, followed by an abrupt bombardment which forces it to activate an A-Shield. My photon ghost copy leaps into sudden gravimetric flight above leaping Ryxes before dropping back down to earth into a post-human sprint as Nisargadatta blurs into existence above, its multi-arms spinning a glowing trishula into a blinding series of strikes downwards, one catching and rending it into sparking-shrill dissipation-sparks...

New prescient instinct demands I attack.

No! That will doom me!

I hesitate only briefly, but its long enough for a hand to graze against my C-Shield second-skin. "You're it!" The gleeful Ryx shouts, before all the surrounding Ryxes abruptly flee –

New prescient instinct SCREAMS dissolution.

I use personal integrated spatial warping technology to apparate myself out of my tagged hyperflective body-snug C-Shield second-skin, across the hall, after which my now empty second-skin FLARES dark, contracting swiftly inwards towards a ROARING limited local event horizon. The A-Sphere snaps from existence before my orb core, magnetically pulsing hologram copy can post-human sprints out again through another bombardment from Fnord, unknowingly heading towards the waiting Nisargadatta holding its glowing trishula...

This is my chance.

Slipping outside through a secret exit, I post-human sprint forward across the dark landscape torn by ripping wind, while black clouds send lightning STRIKING down everywhere as part of my final pre-planned distractions, then –

New prescient instinct warns me.

– and I block Chimera's roaring roundhouse kick, which sends me tumbling away in a cartwheel and then back into a post-human sprint towards –

New prescient instinct warns me.

A Concussive Blast from Ur tumbles me away into another cartwheel, then back into a post-human sprint towards –

New prescient instinct SCREAMS.

My eyes widen.

X stands amidst exponentially EXPANDING fields of intersecting exotic energies.

They are growing serious. So it's time for me to get serious too.

While activating gravimetrics, I leap forward to shoot upwards towards the sky as X's wild exponential energy EXPLODES high to catch and rend me to pieces. I don't panic this time, using my personal integrated spatial warping technology to apparate myself to another point well beyond its reach while continuing to soar, with my own exponential speed, up towards the black-boiling sky and the border, home to my final distraction.

No more attack instincts.

I de-activate my transform package.

"Id!"

New prescient instinct fades...

It followed me!

After speeding between the still smoking Spire and a clear one, I cross the border rising, but glance back.

Gabriel is speeding after me, black robes fluttering, clearing the border right before my tweaked Reinforcing Barrier glows to spherical life around the entire Meeting Grounds to trap the rest inside. Immediately: ten Masters appear before the offending barrier, all of them floating dark against the backlight of my translucent pyramid as bright energies build between them in a blinding chain of light FLARING against the glowing Reinforcing Barrier, which begins bowing outwards, glowing white-hot...

QUICKLY!

I turn back and shoot into the boiling black storm.