Xanaad is right there, eyes shining with malicious glee. “Weeeeaaakkk...” Its tentacles sneer down at me. I can't even tear my eyes from it; can't move my body in any way whatsoever. It's like I'm locked inside, bound and chained with someone else at the wheel. Only this time, I'm conscious for it.

All I can do is stare out through my own eyes as my head turns to look over the field to see the scattered bodies of the defenders, full of holes and collapsed in every direction. I don't even know how they got like that.

In the distance, the archers and mages are similarly torn up. The few that still stand are suddenly holding their fire. For this moment, the chaotic battlefield has fallen silent. My body looks back up at Xanaad, with a feeling like something is starting. Something changing inside me.

“Miiiinnnneeee...”

Then the tap of footsteps draws my body's attention back toward the town's core. There are a handful of people, a mix of different classes. Unlike almost everyone else, they look largely unharmed. A spider cracked wall of overlapping, multicolor shields clatter away in front of them while a woman in blue stumbles and falls to her knees.

But the others are still standing. Among them, all I see are Lara and Helios. Lara scans over the field, taking in the bodies strewn about in piles.

The way they're lying there, dozens of them breathing but unmoving, it looks like something saved them from fatal blows, but they're still too weak to fight. The same goes for the hundred downed archers spread across the surrounding buildings. Was it Helios' second big spell? Some sort death save spell?

But why? All it did was leave our forces at effectively zero HP, crippled and unable to fight...

When Lara's eyes meet mine, shoulders set and determined, I have a strong feeling she is about to answer that question.

She starts to speak as they approach. Xanaad advances a step at a time. It clearly doesn't find four people threatening after wiping out hundreds on its way here.

When they're closer, I can hear them better. Lara's words are a spell chant. As she glares ahead, Helios places a hand on her shoulder, and says something too quiet to make out. With a flash, all of the little motes of light and power circling him transfer over to Lara. He goes down to his knees too, apparently powerless after transferring his strength to her.

Lara is lit up like the sun at this point, she has so many buffs increasing her power. But with the way she's chanting, it doesn't look like she's done.

I don't get it, what's their plan? How are they going to get through this with a support healer, a support mage that just gave up his power, and one random guy who looks like a generic fighter of some sort?

Apparently, Lara means to go it alone. She leaves the other man behind to protect Helios and the blue-robed woman. Seeing her approach, Xanaad hisses its derision. It hefts its axe in one hand, brandishing it haughtily.

Pausing her chant, Lara glares up at the beast. “You will not touch her!” Her words bite as sharp as daggers. Her voice rises louder for the the tail end of her chant as the boss advances faster. Her eyes burn into mine as she holds her tome in one hand and draws her short sword in the other. She raises it high overhead and finishes her spell with a great shout.

“All we need is one more chance to turn this tide!” Her mana vanishes and the weapon unravels in her hand, sparkles of light spreading around her. “Rising!” Light beams out, bombarding everything in our surroundings. All the bodies begin to glow, mine included, and I can feel my wounds healing.

Your corruption has been cleansed.

The shackles fall off, and I'm in control again, the rumble of change inside burning out. I smile a little. Leave it to Lara.

The change makes Xanaad pause as it looks down at me, hate burning in its eyes again.

Now that I'm out of its control and not bound to the tower, Xanaad doesn't hesitate at all. Not for an instant. With a flick of its wrist, I blast into the ground so hard and fast, the stone cracks and pieces explode off in every direction. Even with the reduction, the pain nearly overwhelms my senses. The next thing I know, my health plummets to nothing, but I don't die.

With the sound of shattering glass, a brilliant golden shield appears around me. It cracks and crumbles away, leaving me on the ground, still in one piece. Helios' second chance spell.

I feel totally broken, immobile but not dead. As if I have a sliver of HP left, but I'm stabilized, so I won't bleed out on my own. With only one target remaining between it and the city core crystal, Xanaad continues advancing on Lara.

From my position on the ground, I keep watching. Of all the bodies glowing with healing light, many of them – the dead ones – dissolve away, and all at once, people rapidly begin respawning all around us. Covering the towers and the courtyard ground at their bases. Magic to reduce respawn timers?

Everyone else stands, their wounds and spirits recovered. In an instant, we're back in the fight. But that isn't the end of it. The healing light licking up off of each and every person she healed condenses, flying off to gather around Lara. Hundreds or thousands of the lights, in all different shades of red, blue, white, yellow. They cover her, one from every person she healed.

If she looked like the sun before, now she's a supernova.

“Krikrikrikrikri...” The screech is probably supposed to be laughter, in spite of everything. In the face of the entire army brought back to full power. With the defenders rising all around it, Xanaad suddenly pauses, then glances to look back at me.

Oh fuck. It realized I'm still alive. Lara sees it too, and starts running. With a piercing bellow, Xanaad makes a huge sweep with its free hand and a wave bursts, writhing coils of darkness firing off in every direction. Lara ducks it, sliding on her knees with the darkness slicing past her nose. Behind, tanks and mages throw up defensive measures to block most of the spray, but they can't protect everyone.

“Weeeaaakkkk,” it shrills, already turning away as dangerous auras burst out all around us. My eyes dart across the crowd, people here and there having turned again. Anyone that got hit. Using those corrupting attacks freely... if it's anything like other raid bosses, this must be in its last phase.

Chaos erupts again, the corrupted players turning on everyone else and trying to swarm the city core, forcing the others back into a frantic defense at the very steps to the core platform. I don't have time to see how it goes though, because Xanaad immediately uses the opportunity come after me once more. I stumble up to my feet.

My health is nearly empty but ticking up just a bit thanks to the aftereffect of Lara's healing magic. I still feel numb and slow, but even worse, my mind is like a bag of broken glass after whatever it did to me earlier. However it corrupted me. Is that, that feeling, what caused all of those other players to be corrupted and turn on their allies?

I don't know, but I can't-

No! I'm Mei now! I can! Mei won't give in, just because it hurts! The boss advances, and I force my body to move, to dash sideways at an angle toward Lara. I make what little room I can with it bearing down on me nearly too fast to see.

“Mei!” As soon as she regains her feet, Lara comes like a streak of light from the other side of the field. Despite the distance, her earlier dash and blinding speed with her mountain of buffs gets her all the way across the field just in time, deflecting the monster's grasping hand with a magical shield. Her face contorts when her mana bottoms out again, just seconds after her massive healing spell. Even so, she whips around, grabbing me like a hug, before jumping to put distance between us and the boss.

When it extends its hand to shoot, I gasp out. Lara can't see from this position, but reads my reaction and tenses. Without even looking, she thrusts one arm back and shouts, “Shield!” Her whole body flinches and clenches around me when she casts without mana, but the neon blue barrier appears, taking the black projectile straight on. It cracks, deep furrows carving into its entire surface. It holds.

My sister's leap takes us a short distance from the boss, and it's definitely about to follow up, when the bombardment of magic and ranged attacks come down from the rooftops, from our full force of players this time, blasting at its now unarmored body to great effect.

It shrieks with rage, and is forced to dodge away from the attacks long enough to fire more of its corrupting rays up at the guardians lining the buildings and towers above. But it buys us time.

“Mei, you have to bind to a tower,” Lara tells me, hugging me so tight it hurts a little. I don't understand why that's so important, but that doesn't matter now. I just have to get to a-

The moment I start to turn to look for the closest tower I'll need to run to, there's a rumble. With a flash of white, a circle of stone forms directly next to us. It rises, shooting up from the ground with a whooshing rumble, lifting skyward beside us.

The whole process is over in a matter of moments, before we find ourselves clasped together, leaning against the new tower the commander just placed directly next to us, in the middle of the field.

Ok.

I turn to touch the tower's surface. “R-”

The very instant I begin to voice my request, I feel it being approved.

You have rejoined the Guardian defense of Lenarlil. You have been soul bound to Hero Tower 3.

Besides being in my party, I can feel Lara binding to the same tower a moment later. With a rush, the tower buffs wash over me. It's not as drastic as what Helios pulled earlier, but it's damn close. That's when I notice a significant portion of the myriad of golden lights around Lara begin to flicker. It looks like Helios' huge buff will wear off soon.

Harried on all sides, the boss is flying across the field in a rampage at anyone who gets between it and me, and firing its corrupting beam attack freely now. Swathes of our newly revived forces are turning against us. The situation has clearly devolved again.

When that massive buff wears off, things are going to get a lot worse. What do we have left, a minute maybe?

“One minute, our timing's off...” Lara breathes when she sees it too. She releases me and stands. She speaks fast. “Mei, I'm going to go finish this.

I nod. I don't know how, but I'll always believe in her. “Go kick its ass.” I stick my tongue out a little, and apparently that's enough. Another tiny particle of golden light joins all the others. Lara smirks and turns away. I sit against the tower, letting my body slowly heal and watch her take a few steps toward Xanaad as its rampage clears the field enough that it can advance on us once more.

“Set timer, sixty seconds,” Lara mutters, glowing red digits appearing beside her as she spreads her feet into a wide stance, her hand settling on her remaining sword, the one in the magical silver sheath. She sucks in a breath, her whole frame visibly tensing and her glowing aura of buffs swirling around her. “Full Overdrive.”

There's a deep force, like a rush of wind washing across me, as I stare at Lara. With a golden flash, her body transforms and grows in an instant, like a crack of thunder. The cute and plump girl from before is gone, replaced with an amazon warrior. I watch the tag above her shift. Her title, Life Saver, changes.

Lara – Tide Turner

She's gained well over a foot of height, suddenly pushing seven feet, with her loose monk robes now tight around her huge, razor sharp frame and taught muscles. Her raven black hair is longer, the braids replaced with a wild, high ponytail that flutters behind her, thrown around by the pure ambient force rolling off of her. “I feel more powerful...” she murmurs, glancing back my way for just a moment, before she shakes her head and prepares herself.

“Valor. Berserk. Boost.” Each activated skill sends her aura crackling out with a swirl of new buffs, like fire and lightning fighting to be free of its container. That's all she has time for, the sprinting boss already on top of us, axe raised high. She draws her sword, the small weapon like a toy in her larger hands, until it is released from its sheath.

Lara swings, weapon expanding in a flash of glowing silver. I blink, realizing a moment late that she didn't just swing her sword at the boss. Her entire body is suddenly in a different place, a few feet from where she was before, a spray of darkness from the monster's chest, where she cut through it, too fast for me to follow. She turns back, brandishing the now enormous two handed great sword in front of her, its blade a radiant, gleaming silver, aqua blue hued. With a hard gaze on her sharp, almost gaunt face, she radiates power on the same level as the raid boss itself.

“Come,” Lara commands. It must recognize the threat, because Xanaad finally stops pursuing me to deal with her. The thing rounds on my sister, tentacles shrieking in rage as it flings a bolt of darkness at point blank. Lara doesn't so much move as she teleports. All at once, she's another few feet to the side, the spell flying off into the distance as she brings her sword to bear at her side.

“Tri-slash!” she steps in, and her arms move so fast it looks like all three swings fly out simultaneously. Deep black gouges tear into its flesh again, darkness spewing into the atmosphere around it. Xanaad swings right back, dark magic and axe streaking, also unbelievably fast.

The weapons clash, then the two are moving, away into the field. All I can see are blurry after images. Xanaad isn't playing around anymore. But beyond any of my expectations, the boss monster is outclassed by my sister. What little I can make out of their fight is enough to tell. While its attacks graze her here and there, she's consistently putting that massive sword through its flesh as she spins and whirls and flips in every direction. Like some kind of deadly dance I can't even follow with my eyes.

It's taken literally thousands of overpowered Personal Affinity buffs and support spells, but she's done it. Her and Helios, that's why they did everything they did earlier. They bet they'd need Lara's overwhelming blade work to take down the boss, and they were right.

The only place Xanaad beats Lara is in durability. She rends through its flesh so fast and hard that there's a constant stream of dark, blood-like particles bursting away with each new cut. If she calls her attacks I can't tell, because they come too fast. But the eldritch monstrosity hardly seems to notice, it isn't slowing down at all. This is why it didn't care about eating attacks earlier while it was chasing me. Even in its unarmored final phase, the thing's damn near indestructible.

Lara on the other hand, is clearly built to put out damage, not take it. Despite her speed, the few grazes she takes start to add up. Blood slowly dyes her robes. The question is whether she can hack through the thing's bottomless vitality before her time is up. Either the buffs that let her fight on this level, or her body's own life. Or, if it manages to land a solid hit before then. There's also the danger of those corrupting attacks, but it isn't firing any. It might need too long to cast, and can't do it while in such pitched combat.

The two move so fast that most of the archers still firing on the boss can't even aim properly to hit it anymore. That just leaves the few high level snipers to put their well placed shots into it, even as it practically warps from one place to another, the stone underfoot shattering from the pressure of their clashing attacks.

Whole areas around them erupt with magical explosions as well, the unoccupied mages turning the field into a roll of elemental magic in their attempts to hit the boss. Again, it's really good there's no friendly fire, or I'm sure they would be doing far more harm than good.

It's hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure the longer they fight, the stronger Lara gets. I know I'm just level one, but it's mind-boggling to know that battles can get up to this level.

Behind the two blurs of motion and blood, it looks like the other players are starting to bring the situation under control. I keep seeing flashes of cleansing light, and I think the number of corrupted players is decreasing. It looks like they're mostly trying to heal them instead of kill them. That doesn't stop the regular trails of light into the sky though, when they do slay one of the corrupted, out of the battle for good. I still don't know what sort of respawn timer there is for dying without being bound to a tower, but it's certainly too long to make it back in at this point.

My attention returns to my sister. I think she's running out of time... When a whole chunk of the buffs wear off, she visibly slows. I can follow her movements better. So can Xanaad. She starts to struggle more, put on the defensive more often during their rapid fire exchanges. The change is killing her damage output.

One hit sends her staggering, and I can feel her health slipping lower. She needs to finish this, or she needs help. But everyone else is too busy dealing with the corrupted players, keeping them from the core crystal.

Still up against the tower, I stand. I swipe open my menu and quickly change my attacks. Even if I can't do damage, I can be a distraction. As terrifying as Xanaad is, it's already shown it can't help but pay attention to me, ignoring things that are far more dangerous.

When I try to draw, my quiver is gone. It must have been destroyed somehow. I have to pull my arrow directly out of my inventory. It's fine, I'm only getting one shot at this. I pull to half draw, arrow aimed in the boss's general direction. My chance will be when something changes.

I watch as Lara leaps and spins around the cleaving axe and scattering of dark bolts, sword continuing to draw silver arcs in the air. She ducks and rolls, cutting at its feet and legs. Up to its arms and chest. Then she's forced to block again, the heavy axe sending her careening away and taking out another chunk of her remaining life. I pull to full draw and steady my hands.

Lara rolls, bouncing back to her feet and readies her sword once more. “Boost!” she shouts, her chest heaving. The boss before her raises its free hand, about to fire a spell while it has the space, and I see my chance.

“Fire!”

When Lara breaks into a sprint, I shout and my arrow bursts from my bow string. There's a resounding boom, and the cheap weapon blows apart in my hand. A single attack using nearly every one of my abilities. It feels like a kick in the gut when my body screams with effort and a ton of my energy vanishes at once. My arrow crosses the entire distance to the boss in an instant, aimed directly for its beady black eye.

Xanaad shifts its head aside. The look of ease in its gaze when it turns my way clearly mocking my attempt.

Joke's on you, asshole.

When its attention shifts back to its own fight, Lara is already in the air, weapon raised high overhead. Too close for it to respond. “Crash!” she screams at the top of her lungs, somersaulting full over forward with the downward strike of her weapon. The blade bisects the boss, all the way through. Straight vertical from the crown of its head to its groin. Against all logic, the wound doesn't simply split the thing in half. Instead, a huge torrent of black blood sprays out as her momentum carries her straight into its chest. The beast rears back, a throaty, gurgling scream echoing out. One hand flies up and yanks Lara out of the air before she can recover from the massive swing.

It whips her to the side, flinging her away as it writhes in one of its first shows of pain. When I see her sailing in my general direction, I dash to the side, diving to catch her, even though she's so much bigger than me. With a painful crash, we tumble over the wreckage of the plaza ground together until we stop.

I'm wincing and staggering, helping Lara up. The haze of buffs is rapidly flickering out around her. When I glance, that timer floating beside her only has five seconds left, and the sword in her hand is covered top to bottom in deep cracks and chips.

“Thanks,” she pants, barely gives me a sideways nod, and kicks off into battle again. Her movements look slower now, almost numb. Her health is critical. But the boss is finally falling apart. With its movements stopped, a whole barrage of attacks comes pounding in from all sides.

“Boost!” Lara shouts again. “Boost! Full Throttle!” With her sword leveled beside her, she bursts forward once more, impaling the staggered boss through the center of its chest with the force of a bomb going off. There's a metallic crash as her sword shatters, shards scattering away around her.

Xanaad flails, one clawed hand swatting Lara away yet again. She tumbles across the ground and I run the short distance to where she stops. When I pick her up, her health is almost entirely gone. She's still bleeding badly. The rest of the buffs remaining around her vanish, and I can feel the way all of her stats plummet. Her aura of strength vanishes entirely.

Among them, her health and stamina visibly bottom out. Helios' second chance shield appears and shatters around her. Lara slumps into my lap, obviously in a dying, but stable state like everyone else was earlier. Even with her large, powerful body and the leftover healing slowly ticking her health up again, she can't fight anymore. Not without a healer and time to rest.

Her head shifts to the side as the timer she set earlier reaches zero. She pauses, staring at it shortly. “Well, that's different...”

She doesn't elaborate, simply panting in shallow breaths as I look up to the now limping, but still advancing boss. In the end, Lara wasn't enough alone. But now, with most of the corrupted players cured or slain while she held the boss down, it is alone once more, and on death's door.

It raises its hand, darkness forming. Between the two of us and the wounded boss, two or three dozen players intercede, giving it pause. Now that Lara is out of the fight, it looks like they all want their shot at it too.

The players charge, and the boss roars. Picking up speed again, it dances between them. They throw out big attacks and spells, more than a few leaning into their own personal, special abilities. But without the exploit-level buffs from earlier, the boss holds a clear advantage over any normal player, even in its dying state. It cuts them down rapidly, every swing of its axe met with screams and blood. But it's weaker now and continues taking wounds itself.

It's just a few seconds into the continuing battle when Lara's body glows golden again, her large form shrinking back to its earlier, smaller appearance. When I look up again, the boss has cleared away about half the fighters before it, and the way it's looking at me past the remaining ones, I'm getting worried it will try something again.

But it's too weak. Xanaad falls to its knees. “Noooootttt ooovvveeerrrrrr......” it hisses, the hideous death rattle continuing until the streams of arrows and magic finally put it to the ground entirely. The players arrayed around it move in, hacking down into the monster repeatedly from all directions, to ensure it's truly finished.

The deathly aura it held over the surrounding field finally lifts.