They waited tensely. Rory had no idea how Viv and the others had found them, but then, he couldn’t be sure if it was them in the first place. It sounded like it from what Aaron had dropped with the talk of a “rescue party”, but who knew. Maybe a contingent of unrelated Otherworlders had dropped by, and they thought the enemy had appeared to free Rory and company.

Whatever the case, they waited in silence. Rory wondered why they weren’t forcing him to expel his Sigil of Weaving. They seemed to be waiting for something, likely confirmation that the intruders had been dealt with.

He hoped Viv, Miles, and the others would be alright, if it was even them. Those fires from Thomas had been dangerous, and the riot of colourful light he had seen on the backs of their hands hadn’t been encouraging in terms of taking them on.

But Viv and the others were strong in their own right too. So long as they were smart about it, they’d be fine. He figured letting the Homeworlders see them was part of their plan.

Though it made Rory wonder how they had found them in the first place. He didn’t recall them bringing in anyone who could track them or anything similar.

The sudden boom outside made the whole place shake. Rory’s heart jumped into and lodged in his throat. Everyone else was similarly shaken. The Homeworlders had stumbled to the floor, while Ned and Arie were looking around with wide, alarmed eyes.

Cursing, Linda and Aaron rushed off to the window at the far end of the room. Rory tried to see if he could peer through it as well. It was impossible. Even if the Homeworlders hadn’t been blocking the way, he wouldn’t have been able to see much thanks to his positioning. If only he could have used his Sigils.

There was another tremendous boom. The warehouse shook again. This time, a flash of light outside threw up enormous shadows against the walls of the warehouse.

The Homeworlders threw themselves backwards. Linda hurried away, rushing downstairs probably to join the fray outside. Rory almost grinned. As fast as she had been, he had still caught her expression—scared and worried. Viv, Miles, and the others were giving a good showing, and he was proud of them for doing so.

Aaron came to a stop before them. “There’s no point trying to escape. You’re not getting free until we get the Sigil of Weaving. So hand it—”

A loud scream interrupted him. It was shrill and frightened. Aaron cursed, glanced once at the golden chains binding his captives, then rushed off downstairs.

“Now’s our chance,” Ned breathed. “Got to get out.”

As he grunted and rose to his feet, he lowered his head and raised his tied-up arms to bite the golden chains. His teeth left no mark at all. Whatever material the chains were made of wasn’t going to be broken easily.

“Do you have no Sigil?” Arie asked, before biting down on her own binds. Despite her stronger jaw, she couldn’t damage the chains either.

Was there a Sigil Rory had? With the others failing to do anything to their binds, there was no point in him trying anything physical either. He had to think of other solutions. Weaving. It needed Mana, which they didn’t have, but surely there had to be some nearby somewhere. The Homeworlders had kept them trapped here, on the second floor, to deprive them of Mana access, which meant they had to have resupplied on the bottom floor.

“Follow me,” Rory said. He groaned as he rose to his feet too. Sitting cramped like that after their long walk had left his legs shaky and unable to recover properly. “I think I know where to find Mana.”

They took the stairs down, trying to be careful and make sure none of the Homeworlders were nearby. The battle was still raging outside. As Rory headed downstairs, he could make out shouts and cries from outside, though nothing sounded as close to what the shriek had sounded like before.

Ned was looking around even before he got down. “Where is it? Somewhere here, right?”

“Shh,” Rory insisted, lowering his own voice. “They might still hear us.”

Rory stared everywhere. Dust and cobwebs, white cloth covering everything. He could barely breathe in the dust clogging the air, doing his best not to cough and potentially give themselves away.

But where could the Mana be? Rory closed his eyes, recalling the recent past and trying to not let the urgency of the situation mess with his memories. He flashed back to the moments where Linda and then Aaron had left. Their footsteps had followed a similar pattern, he was sure of that.

Rory opened his eyes. “This way.” He led them to behind a crate near the left-hand wall. “There!”

A pack was lying there. Rory quickly knelt beside it and opened it up, finding exactly what he was looking for. He smiled as he held up the little packets of glowing blue crystals.

Breaking open one of the packets, Rory immediately activated his Sigil of Weaving. His binds dissolved as the white liens sank into the golden chains. Rory didn’t check the notification for the new Sigil he received, quickly shoving it aside as he pocketed the new Sigil.

“You guys use the rest,” Rory said, handing them the pack.

As they began rooting through it, there was another massive explosion outside. Rory’s heart climbed into his mouth again. He activated his Weaving. If only he had his staff with him. His Weaving would provide good defence against other Sigils, but it wasn’t going to give them the same escaping abilities that his staff would have.

But he forgot all about it as the door burst inwards and fell on the floor.

It was Viv.

“Rory!” she shouted.

Ned let loose a happy, almost sniffling gasp. “We’re saved!”

Rory wasn’t so sure. Viv looked mightily dishevelled, her Thunderclaw arm flashing with electricity and her hands clasped to hold her Omnipresent Sabre.

She took them all in. “Are you all alright?”

“We’re fine,” Rory said. “What’s going on outside?”

Viv looked outside with a worried glance. “We caught them by surprise. But those bastards are strong and they’re recovering fast. We need to get out of here, fast. If you can move, let’s go.”

Rory looked back at Ned and Arie, nodding at them. They started towards the door, and as Viv turned to lead the way ahead, another explosion rocketed before them. Rory and the others staggered back, though Viv made sure she stood in front of them.

Thomas walked over just outside the warehouse’s main door. “Thought you could leave that easily?”

“I thought I killed you?” Viv asked.

Thomas snorted. “As if. You’re going down this time, old woman. And then the old man is next.”

That was very much the wrong thing to say to Viv. She launched herself at Thomas with incredible speed, Rory’s eyes failing to keep up with her movement. When had she gotten that fast?

Thomas, however, had no trouble keeping up. Just as Viv reached him with her Omnipresent Sabre looking to perforate into his lungs, the bigger man snapped his fingers. Viv seemed to slow down without warning. It was almost as if time was congealing around her. The very air was turning greyish and solid-looking.

Rory’s eyes widened. Thomas was compressing the air around Viv, not something abstract like time.

Viv’s reaction was fast. As Thomas summoned his white flames, she still managed to throw a burning red arc backwards. She teleported away, reappearing just in front of Rory and the others where she had been just before the fight had started.

“Not so fast,” Thomas shouted. There was a wild look in his eyes, an impending scream of ferocious delight etched on his face.

Rory grimaced. These Homeworlders had gone insane with bloodlust.

Thomas threw an enormous salvo of white fire. At the same time, the image of the Sigil on the back of his hand shifted, the air solidifying behind the fire blast in the next second.

Viv cursed, brandishing her Omnipresent Sabre to get away, but Rory stepped forward first. “I got this,” he said.

He activated his Weaving. The white lines flashed into the face of the air-reinforced fire blast, and he focused them on the dangerous flames. It worked to reduce the fire to another Sigil he didn’t have time to check, but the blast was too fast for him to stop the rush of compressed air behind the heat. They screamed in unison as they were hammered altogether, falling back against the warehouse wall.

“Weak,” Thomas crowed. He stepped closer, his heavy steps sounding loud in the disturbed air. “You really thought—”

Blue fire blast into being around the big man. He screamed as he tried to repel it with his own white flames, only to face a severe explosion that rocked him back where he stood.

“Now,” Viv said, rising to her feet. “Let’s go.”

They were lucky that Thomas’s windy blast hadn’t really hurt, even when they had collided against the far wall of the room. Rory rose, biting down against the groan that threatened to rise at the same time. Near at hand, Arie and Ned were already up.

They hurried off as fast as their legs could carry them. The blue fire parted, revealing a harried-looking Miles on the other side of the street.

“Come on,” he shouted. “We don’t have time.”

Rory covered his face with his forearms as he passed by the fire. It was roaring and spitting sparks in all directions, several blue glints striking his clothes and bits of his exposed skin. They stung ferociously, but now wasn’t the time to be bothered by the idea of being burned. They had to escape first.

“Where are Trish and Allen?” Viv asked as soon as she reached Miles.

Miles looked to the left—Rory’s left, his right—with a frown. “They’re holding off the others. I think Allen’s injured but Trish has him covered.”

Viv cursed. Ned and Arie looked worried too.

“How are we getting out?” Rory asked. “Where’s your pickup?”

“We can reach the pickup, don’t worry about that.” Viv was looking in the same direction as Miles. “But we need to hold this position for now. At least until the other two get here.”

“Why?”

“Cause that’s how we’re getting out.”

Before Rory could ask why they had to stay put instead of running immediately, their enemies showed up. Another explosion rocked the area from their left, displaying Thomas bursting free from the wall of Miles’s Stormfire. From their two o’clock direction, Aaron ran in, wearing some kind of crystalline suit of armour. It looked like it was made of diamonds.

“Great, we’ve got company,” Ned muttered.

“Ned,” Viv said, voice crisp as a commander’s. “Try to rise up and see if you can spot the others. We’ll keep them busy temporarily, but we can’t wait for long.”

Ned nodded, then activated his Sigil of the Hooktongue. His Burnwing appendages burst out of his back, and he rose high into the air, though not before Rory spotted more of the black scales covering his body. Even his eyes had turned into slit-pupils. Rory had to get a Sigil to help him when this was all done, possibly by checking if Alia had one yet.

“Oh no you don’t,” Aaron shouted.

He was about to jump, but then Viv shot forward with her incredible speed once more. Her Omnipresent Sabre slashed at him, and he was forced to cross his arms to defend himself. The impact of Viv’s strike threw him backwards to collide with the street behind him.

Thomas shouted out, pelting his fire as hard as he could. Good thing Miles was there to catch it. Little explosions rocked the street.

Then trouble landed right into their midst.

“Ha!” came a shout from above.

Rory twisted with everyone else to see Linda materializing out of nowhere several feet above them. He had no idea how she had gotten up there, and no time to determine it. They all fell back reflexively, too slow to use any Sigils at all.

Linda landed on top of Arie, glinting black knives materializing in her hands The former Neophyte was slammed to the ground by her assailant’s weight atop her.

There was no time to think. No space to wait for anyone else to do something, anything at all, before Arie was murdered. So, Rory activated his Weaving and targeted it to the weapons in their enemy’s hands.

Linda stabbed down but it was only her closed fists connecting with a dull thud against Arie’s skin. The former Neophyte tried to snap at her, but Linda jumped back with surprising agility. Then she summoned a black spear.

Rory felt his face twisting. A big, long-range weapon. His Weaving wouldn’t act fast enough to prevent Linda from skewering them all. Unless…

Just as Linda reached forward with her spear, seeking to stab Arie before she could rise back to her feet, Rory used his Weaving directly on their enemy. The white lines landed on her and struck like tiny lightning bolts. Linda screamed, dropping her spear which evaporated with into thin mist. Rory didn’t dare check the Sigil

Somehow, Linda pulled herself back, bleeding and gasping in pain. Her skin was perforated with a vicious array of bloody holes. But even as she recovered, Arie lashed out. Her jaw opened and snapped around Linda’s arm, crunching and biting right through.

Screaming, Linda pulled herself back even further, then disappeared as a misty cloak formed around her.

Rory didn’t have time to process everything that had just happened in a such a short flash. Viv appeared next to him with another teleporting slash, Miles hurrying in behind her. He turned and saw why.

Trish was running at them with Allen slung across her shoulders. Ned was just behind.

“Get ready,” Viv yelled at them all. She raised her Omnipresent Sabre, then stabbed it down into the ground around them, a pool of crimson energy quickly spreading past their feet.

Rory checked their enemies. Aaron and Thomas had both been stymied back for the time being, but both were recovering to rush at them. But it didn’t look like they’d get to them before Trish and Allen did. It was the ones behind those two that worried Rory. Shen and Linus were charging in, the former having partially transformed into a Rockback, and the latter looking like he was on green fire.

“Trish!” Rory shouted. “Behind you.”

Trish found his eyes, then nodded in understanding. She waved an arm backwards without looking, a wall of steel rose up. The Homeworlders rushing in slammed into with hard gongs, then immediately started hammering away at an attempt to get past it.

“Stop,” someone yelled from the other end of the street. Rory recognized Sylvia’s voice. “I knew this was going to be a disaster. Just stop before you kill them!”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Aaron said. “Get them.”

He attacked, as did Thomas following in his footsteps. Thankfully, Trish and Allen had reached Rory’s group. Just as the Homeworlder launched themselves, Trish dived with Allen still on her shoulders.

“Miles,” Viv yelled. “Now!”

The Sigil of Earth flashed on the back of Miles’s hand, and a wide pillar of earth burst upwards from under them. Its surface area was enough to hold everyone in Rory’s group, including Trish, Ned, and Allen who had barely made it on.

As the Homeworlders screamed from down below, beginning their various attempts to reach them, Viv slashed out a burning red arc far from where they stood. Rory and the others disappeared, finally free from their enemy.