MAGNUS

A pennant fluttered in the air, appearing out of nowhere, falling slowly to the ground. Once it touched the sands I heard the soft crack sound of Jessica’s pistols as she aimed and fired in a smooth motion. The bullets hit an invisible wall around our opponent and just seemed to hover in the air before him.

“Good reaction time, but you can’t expect to beat a prepared opponent like that,” the old soldier said.

He grunted and tapped the butt of his staff against the ground and five rows of creatures appeared, each one similar to the next. They were about five feet tall, grey skinned, and covered in armor with shields as tall as they were in hand. “Let’s begin with this,” the man said as each of the creatures drew a short sword from behind their shields and began to advance.

“The hell are those?” Jessica spat out.

I hit the little lever on the side of my pistol and swapped out the magazine for my fireball ammunition and fired off three quick blasts that detonated within the packed creatures, scattering them into motes of light.

“Wisp Knights, ghost type soldiers. Vulnerable to fire and not particularly strong on their own,” I replied as I sent another fireball roaring towards Marcus.

He tapped his staff again and a walking statue of magma rose up from the ground to take my fireball full in the chest to no effect. I tried to angle my fifth and sixth shots around the creature to detonate behind our opponent but the Magma Giant just stretched out its hands and caught the fireballs before they could detonate.

Vara said, “We need some kind of plan, I don’t think he’s going to let us just fling spells at him until we manage to hit him.”

“Quite right,” the gruff voice said from behind us.

I ducked into a low spin, avoiding the blade of a sword that would have taken my head off. I saw Takahashi step up with crossed arms to block the blow that would have continued into Vara, only to have both of them thrown back fifteen feet from the force of the blow. Jessica spun to face him and opened fire, only for the bullets to stop in the same way as before. Unfortunately for her the Magma Giant was faster than she was expecting and closed the distance to drop a searing fist where she stood.

What surprised me though was that Riku jumped at her and they both slid into the shadow of the massive fist only to step out behind the giant a few seconds later. I saw Jessica swapping out the attack for her pistol and begin firing ice arrows into the giant, capturing its attention. In my peripheral vision I saw more creatures appearing around us as the man called up more of his troops.

I called out, “Vara is with me on Marcus, the rest of you keep his army under control!”

“Linara, can you lock him down?” I asked.

“Not without hitting you two as well, I haven’t had enough time to practice fine control,” she replied as she blew a cloud of ash and dust over where the man stood.

Vara quickly moved to my side, her rapier up in a guard position, and said, “How is he that physically strong?”

I let my vision shift into seeing the flows of aether, immediately tuning out the riotous mass of bindings and aether that flowed through the floor of the arena. I saw Marcus of course, his aether flow showing me precisely where he was. I also saw another flow overlaid on top of his, one I didn’t recognize. I focused on one of the bindings within that second flow and recognized aspects of it were similar to Linaravax’s Gravity manipulation.

“Stop, you’re drawing on that Talent!” screamed Varis’s voice.

I wrenched my focus away from the binding and said, “I need to know what that is if I’m going to counter it.”

“It’s physical force, motion and impact. He’s got a ghost type basically playing armor suit for him. You won’t be able to hit him directly without clearing it away,” she replied.

I quickly relayed the information to Vara, but just as I finished I felt an impact on the back of my knees and across my chest at the same time sending me into a tumbling spin. As I spun I saw Marcus rush forward in a long lunge that impaled Vara.

I landed hard and cried out as I watched her disperse into motes of light, as the man began to stomp towards me. My left leg wasn’t working correctly, so instead of rising I reached into one of the pouches on my belt and pulled out a steel marble with a rune on it. Shutting my eyes tight I activated it, and still could see the afterimage from the flash of light that burst forth, the loud crack of sound that accompanied it deafening me as I called out mentally, “Pull me clear!”

I felt talons grab onto my shoulders and Linara’s powerful wings lifted us in a long jump out of striking range of the man. When I opened my eyes I saw Tak with his hand reaching for my leg, which was bent sideways, and I said, “Don’t bother, I need a blizzard if you can manage it.”

He shook his head and with a jolt of pain straightened my leg and began using a spell I didn’t know he had bound to heal the injury. He spoke after a moment, “I don’t have much capability with the cold. Thunderstorms yes, blizzards no.”

His little blue drake landed next to him and puffed out a breath laced with ice crystals causing the young man to chuckle and say, “Jetoran asks what you need frozen.”

I pointed to where I could still see Marcus standing, “Him, the ghost around him is all about motion. We need to slow it down.”

Linara’s dark wing wrapped around us as I heard something slam into it. “That hurt, kiss dirt!”

As her wing lifted away from us I saw the aether around Marcus shift and could see the ground around him sink a little as a space ten feet across suddenly dealt with increased pressure from her manipulations. Jetoran took the opportunity to fill the area with a blast of freezing cold; but as the attack was almost upon Marcus he vanished and I heard a pair of female screams. Turning I saw the man had appeared next to Jessica and Mai, his hands stuffed through their chests.

Beside me Tak cried out in rage and rushed towards the old soldier, his body arcing with lightning as he moved faster than I could reliably track. Linara roared next to me as she became entangled in a mass of vines and tentacles as another creature appeared next to her. I cocked the hammer on my pistol to switch power sources and fired into the mass of greenery. Fire wouldn’t severely harm Linara, who began as an Ashwing and had a resistance to it, but plant types were susceptible. The black dragon ripped burning limbs off the tangle of vines with a mental thanks and turned her focus to keeping the horde of creatures off of me.

I rose to my feet, my hand drifting to my belt, as I watched Tak impact the shield that had stopped Jessica’s bullets and come to a dead stop. Marcus’s sword lashed out and dispersed my friend into the same motes of light as the rest of my companions.

Palming the card I looked closer at my opponents aether and saw that the creature that had accompanied his form was no longer there. It seemed that the lightning that had covered Tak was enough to defeat it.

“You should save yourself some pain and surrender boy,” Marcus said as he called forth another row of Wisp Knights, these ones with a reddish hue to their skin.

I holstered the gun and drew a second card to my other hand and said to Varis, “Question, does the arena capture the current charge status of the cards?”

“Why wouldn’t, oh wait no. I think they missed that part. Cards carried in are at full capacity,” she said.

When he saw that I was preparing to continue fighting he snorted out a laugh and said, “Just like the old man, you don’t know when to quit.”

I responded with, “Sure I do, when I’m dead.”

I activated both cards and the great wolf appeared in front of me, and a massive canopy of leaves rose up above me as the trunk of Alara’s great trunk formed behind me. A green skinned hand reached out and rested upon my shoulder as the humanoid form of the Yggra Dryad stepped out of the tree, clad in wooden armor and bearing a longbow that had leaves growing out of it.

“Fuck me,” Marcus swore as he raised his staff and began to summon more creatures as fast as he could.