Outside the walls of Everwind on the northern plains, the second golem came down to Tearha crashing. Chains dug into the earth tightened as Luce directed Misti and the other terramancers to lock the Titan down as a gentle rain of white sifted between them. The early snowfall of the next season did not stop them from moving in heated formation. The first Hulvark that was restrained had two pyromancers torching surgically through the giant stone arms to reached the control circuit implanted within. Only afterwards could the terramancers overwrite the magic that bound the creatures to their former masters' commands.

“Hold it down until we're done with Hully!” Misti yelled over the shifting Titan trying to kick up dust.

While walking backwards and reeling her grappling hook back into her rifle's launcher, Luce asked, “Hully?”

“Yes! I'm calling the other one Varky.”

“We're not keeping them,” Luce replied.

“Oh, come on!” Misti pouted. “I've been practising the swap-over spell for years!”

As they chatted over the work being done, a rider galloped in from the south. Josh's large build of a silhouette was clear and recognizable, even from a distance.

Misti noted, “You sent dad away so he wouldn't get caught up in the fighting, didn't you?”

“Don't tell him that,” Luce defended.

“You're so squishy.”

“Shut up.”

She left Misti to work on converting the golems and approached Josh just as the latter got off his steed. The man unstrapped the spear-cannon from his back and pushed the weapon out towards Luce with a crooked smiled.

Luce gave a snide greeting. “You're late.”

“Bah, I figured if you wanted me here you would have just asked.” She snatched the spear away with a chuckle and a shake of her head.

Loud claps followed that, breaking the bustling work of the Titan Rangers on the field. Everyone turned to the source. In the middle of the group stood a man dressed in all white, glowing brighter than the Twins, with lines of silver etched into the seams of his bleached white suit.

“Bravo!” Light cheered on. Silence fell on all except the pyromancers, who continued their surgical job of slowly melting away the excess rock from the arms of the Titans. “I saw everything. Impressive. Like a bunch of nercrofants taking down a fox.”

Misti joined her father and Luce in standing together, casually taking the spear-cannon away from the latter. She weighed the weapon in her hand.

Luce stepped forward and said, “Lord Light, I am Lucinda Baerrinska, and I'll represent the Titan Rangers in all official negotiations and discussions.”

“Please, Miss Baerrinska,” Light waved away the notion with a laugh. “There's no need for all that formal speech and pomp. I'm extremely grateful that you and your band of misfits stopped that possibly horrendous siege from happening.”

“Well, we are glad to be of–”

“But that's not what I'm here for,” Light interrupted, his tone unfitting of the grimness the words carried. “I want to know where The Watcher went.”

Luce fluently lied, “Who?”

“You've never heard of The Watcher?”

“My apologies, Lord Light. But I've been a recluse until just recently. I don't receive much news.”

The Lord began pacing in a circle, speaking more to himself than the people around him. “There's a chance that you are telling the truth. That you don't actually know who The Watcher is. And that by doing what I'm about to do, I'll be starting an inter-faction war.” He stopped walking, scratching his luscious hair as he contemplated the situation. “That would be a crazy thing to do. Utterly mad. The Council might condemn me to the pits!” He then turned to Luce and held up a finger like a gun. “But his disappearance from my view corresponds too closely to the Titans' movements. So it's a good thing I'm insane and don't give two crap.”

A beam of light shot out of his finger, the spell aimed at Luce. A wall of ice burst out of the ground and the beam refracted through it. Miguel Vallertes quickly moved between Light and Luce, stepping in with a confident gait within the blink of an eye. He turned to Light, and the two superpowers stared down.

Light smiled. “Did you think I'd fall for that again?”

“Josh?” Luce exclaimed. The older man fell to his knees, hands on his abdomen, grey shirt slowly being covered blood red. Luce rushed to his side and gently lowered him to the ground. “Don't! Don't! Hey! Stay with me, old man! I'm not losing you too!”

“You asshole!” Misti shouted.

“No!” Miguel reached out his hand and tried to stop her.

But the girl had already launched herself into the air with the catapult of an earth spike. She aimed the spear cannon down at Light and fired a grenade. Light shot another beam perfectly aimed at the explosive, which detonated mid air into a cloud of black smoke. Misti dropped through the dust cover and, with spearhead pointed downwards, aimed for Light's head.

Two beams of light fired at her and she twisted in flight. Her body became a rag doll before dropping to the ground, breaking up a cloud of fresh snow on impact. She laid unmoving in the dirt.

“Misti!” Luce yelled, tears streaming down her eyes. She managed to somehow gather up a breath of courage before shouting, “Healers! Quickly!”

***

Miguel let out a long, low growl as the twin daggers appeared in his hands in a puff of crystallized cold. Nerve-like tentacles stretched and snaked from the weapons hilt and blade, reaching out to and fusing with his skin. They separated and reconnected to his forearm with every move of his hand, as if they were worms, wiggling in reach of air. His right arm glowed a bright cyan as his circuits lit up in preparation for the battle to come.

Behind him, Luce shouted orders of aid, the young woman torn between the man she treated like a father and the girl who was as good as a sister. Titan Rangers ran from side-to-side in panic while pyromancers and terramancers pushed through the nerve wrecking atmosphere and continued their delicate work on the Titans. To his front, Miguel's staring match with Light did not waver, and the Lord stood with a cunning grin bordering on pride. The Grandmaster Enhancer placed his left hand on his waist and brought the pommels of his two daggers together. The nerve-tentacles connected between the two weapons, and the ones that were set in his skin stiffened to resemble circuits.

“Ex–” Miguel seethed. A burst of energy emitted outwards from him. A dome of cold spread with him at the centre. Cotton snow spiked with fluffs of frost and winter grass froze over in waves of white icing. Lord Light generated a sabre of light in his hand. Miguel yelled, “–SEED!”

Light rushed with sword in hand, stepping into hyperspace, closing the gap between him and Miguel at thirty times the speed of sound. The Enhancer reacted, drawing his weapon at the same speed to meet the attack. His daggers glowed, and when contact was made, they turned into a double bladed polearm with the teal blades of his daggers at both end of the shaft. The double bladed pole hummed with cold and the material gently shifted as if made of living muscles.

Under his breath, Miguel whispered, “Cold Fusion!” The name of his legendary soul arm.

“Exseeder!” Light yelled with a manic grin.

The Lord drew his sword back and struck forward in three successive slashes. Miguel pulled back a step, and with deft controls from the nerve-tentacles, spun Cold Fusion in a disc spin before him, deftly parrying the attack with the momentum of the turn.

He grabbed the edge of the polearm with both hands as it retracted before bringing the weapon over his head and slashing downwards towards Light's. Light met the attack with a swift placing of the lightsabre under the path of Miguel's wrist. The latter stopped his attack just before his wrist was sliced off by the caustic sabre. With gymnastic grace, his right leg kicked straight up, knocking away Light's arm and repositioned his opponent's weapon. His left feet left the ground as Miguel did a backflip. A spike of ice grew out from where his feet parted and shot straight up for Light's head. The latter sidestepped the attack. Miguel landed on one hand and spun on it, slashing his weapon in a wide arc that generated a wave of spiked ice from the tip of the cut.

Light jumped and dodged the first ice spire, landing on top of the ice itself.

Miguel twisted on his arm, pushed, spun in the air, and delivered three slashes towards Light in float. The cuts each generated a new wave of ice spikes upon the previous set. Light repeated the jump twice, before being unable to react to the last attack. The Lord's body broke into glowing fireflies, which separated, flew around, and reformed behind Miguel.

The Lord steadied and generated a sword of light in each hand. He kicked off from where he regenerated and went in for the killing cut, assaulting from Miguel's rear.

The Enhanced stabbed Cold Fusion in the ground. “Corpse Party!” he shouted.

All went black.

***

Hyperspace battles were conducted by individuals of monstrous strength. When one gained the ability to enter hyperspace, their parameters, physical and mental, reflexes and endurance, are all enhanced by roughly thirty fold for a short period of time. She could only watch, with tears down her face and Josh's unconscious body in her lap, as Miguel and Light's fight of high-speed proportion unfolded.

Before the hydromancers could reach Josh or Misti to treat their wounds, before she had a chance to breathe again, or blink to dry her eyes of tears, in the span of ten short seconds, the battle was concluded. Flashes of light like neon spun like cars in long exposure pictures, and sudden gales of cold and spires of ice erupted before her within snaps.

She could not make out what Miguel shouted under the sonic booms from their burst of speed, but could feel the power when the black dome suddenly appeared before her. Stretching the size of half a field, the dome was of pure dark, with no colour going in or out. It was as if light itself had been caught within it and failed to escape.

And as suddenly as it appeared, the dome vanished in a burst of colours that temporarily blinded her. After regaining her sight, she noticed that where the dome once was, Light and Miguel had switched places from where she last saw them, both facing away. The mutated polearm of Miguel disappeared in a flash of icy sparkles and Light fell to his knees.

Slowly, the Lord light let out a laugh as blood dripped from his face and body from dozens of cuts. A glow of aura surrounded him as his magic frantically ran to heal his injuries. His laughter grew louder and the man got to his feet, suit ruined red from his wounds. He turned, and Miguel did the same, the two superpowers facing each other exactly as they had started.

Light began, “You win this one.” Without another word, the Lord dissipated in a flash of light, leaving just droplets of blood in the snow where he stood.

Luce could visibly see Miguel's shoulders dropped as he let out a sigh relief. He turned to her, and with the circuits in his left arm glowing a bright blue, said, “I'll do the healing.”