One of the spectating remnants fished out a golden bell. A second one offered a tiny hammer to ring it. The original smiled in thanks and clanged the bell on the second's head.

The ground turned to ice a second before a maul smashed it. The acolyte audience scrambled away from the shiny spitfire.

The Speaker arced upward and fired a cerulean lightning bolt. It crackled around a protective barrier, transforming the return fire of icicles into a light show. The Speaker flew, avoiding projectiles and casting more ineffective lightning at Lizzy. Eli stomped into the melee, taking on the horde and their various magical effects. Earth spikes, air blades, and even water whips assaulted her from every angle—a whip wrapped around her maul.

Too late to realize the mistake, Eli used the poor fellow to bowl over several other acolytes. More mistakes as a red-haired Elden charged Eli with the fire spell equivalent of a battering ram. Shield met spear, and spear shattered, blown away by a casual swing of a maul. The sound of metallic tinkling alerted Eli to the blowing darts pinging off her armor. Taking a deliberate step, Eli cast an Earth Pit and watched the woman disappear through her visor.

Rez bounded over the hole and into the chaos, using the chaos to break Keel's line of sight. She ducked a water blade aiming for her neck and let it slice the incoming fireball. Using the acolyte's surprise, Rez kicked him in the gonads. He squeaked and crumpled.

"Why?"

Abandoned and forgotten, Jeremy laid there, trying to hold his legacy together by sheer will. His head smacked into the ground as Keel used it as a springboard, launching himself in Rez's direction. A deflected lightning bolt scarred his landing zone.

Seeing quick strikes were ineffective, the Speaker stopped speed casting and flew higher to gather magical power. The area darkened as storm clouds rumbled into existence, conjuring harsh gales that blew combatants off balance. The Speaker chanted, casting her gaze downward at her prey.

"Hello little birdie."

The sing-song voice startled the Speaker. An ice-make saber batted the religious leader to the ground and crushed the poor Elden that broke her fall. Hijacking the magical energy gathered for a lightning storm caused the chilled air to coalesce into a rotating icy blue crystal. Sharpened to a point, it slammed into the ground.

The snowy blast billowed, setting a new playing field.

Rez's panting breath traced her movement through the macabre field of statues. Keel's inferno thawed the frozen Eldens as he followed. An unaffected and unaware acolyte stumbled into his path and suffered the consequences. Keel pitched the woman to the center of the brawl where a hefty swing of Eli's maul batted her into the newly erected crystalline monument. The force destabilized the axis and shifted it into a leaning tower.

Pocketed explosions sparked like fireworks as the Speaker swerved past the crystal and through the trees, a predatory hawk right on her tail. Blowing past a squawking flock of tropical birds, her flight path made a forced correction to avoid a stampede of Puck Boars. Stomping and squealing, the elephant-sized pigs rammed into an immovable force and parted river around a rock. Lizzy's eager eyes pinpointed her actual quarry.

"You are as slippery as your name."

The words struck a chord as a sudden wind wall transformed into a vortex. A category two tornado carved a path through the battlefield. The disaster tore up the earth and uprooted priceless treasures, sweeping up the remaining ice statues and any who were too slow to find shelter. Rez felt her momentum cease and become weightless. Swimming and tumbling over flying objects, leap-frogging a Puck Boar Piglet, Rez spotted Lizzy trapped in the eye of the storm.

Reaching out, they linked hands and the temperature heated up.

Lizzy's ice staved off the radiating heat Rez was putting out. The flying statues melted instantly, reverting into screaming and flailing acolytes. With so much heat, the wind fled, and the tornado dispersed.

"Eli! Catch!"

Rez felt weightless once again as Lizzy slung her back towards the ground. Traversing the distance in a blink, her fire winked out, coming into contact with a strong but gentle arm. Eli's rotation tore a half-circle groove in the ground. Eli set the teenager down and patted her once.

"It's all in the pivot foot."

Rez watched Eli shatter a siege fireball before it hit them. Tearing her vision away, Rez moved to run, but Keel was there. She'd been cornered.

"I've got your back. Deal with him."

Queen Eli's back was more than a wall. It was a castle. A beacon of hope and rallying cry. Rez felt all her worries crumble.

"I am not your enemy, Keel."

Wispy flames flickered off his diluted hair.

"You stand against me. You are no longer my Sub-Commander."

The orange mace Keel conjured overshadowed the yellow daggers wielded by Rez. Meager tools, but it was more than enough to make the Leader see sense.

Rez charged first, back low, arms crossed, daggers forward like a charging boar. Her tusks caught the descending mace blow and threw it backward. The opening allowed a horizontal slice to cut Keel's chest. He recoiled and staggered, grasping at the scorched wound. Eyes bulging in rage, he twirled his mace.

A series of swings had Rez hopping back and staying low. A deceitful fireball made her roll to the side; off-balance she could only block the mace as it came down. Her arm cracked and a dagger dispersed.

"Controlling the others will be cumbersome without you."

"Is that all I am to you? What happened to traveling the world? Forming a wandering sect? No adults allowed; that was the dream for all of us."

"Childish dreams. A pack of Manaless kids is nothing but food. We are a disease."

"I never thought of us like that, of you, like that. We can become better."

"Enough talking. You've made your decision clear."

Keel resumed his attack. Swinging in wide arcs, Rez ducked and dodged backward, cutting at Keel's wrist. The mace deflected her weak attack and left her stomach open for a kick. She somersaulted and landed on her back. Dodging right, then left, as holes opened in the ground near her head. Instinct took over. Roots sprouted into vines and entangled Keel's legs. Cursing, he tried to set them on fire, but they were already burning. Fueled with two elements, Rez crafted a new spell of blistering heat. The yellow fire chomped through Keel's pants and shoes, causing him to drop his mace and scream in agony. He couldn't put out a fire that wasn't his.

Falling on his face, Keel whimpered as the magic was dissipated. Red, black, and yellow furrows scarred the skin, binding his legs into a crippled state. Keel wouldn't walk again. Not for a long time.

Getting to her feet, Rez cradled her broken arm and peered down at her Leader.

"When was it? When did you change?"

Keel's grunts of pain and resentment kept him from answering. Then they were drowned out by a glorious gong. The crystal monument was falling, falling towards them. Rez tried to grab Keel and drag him out of the way, but he continued fighting her off. Scrambling, she tumbled out from under the impact zone, a bleeding body bouncing past her like a skipping stone.

The crash emphasized the Speaker's mangled form. She was bleeding from a dozen wounds, and her leylines were flickering worriedly. A shoulder was out of place, making her effort at inching away futile.

"Connie?"

Lizzy landed gracefully, a paragon of ice. She waltzed over to the crawling Speaker, intrigued by Rez's word.

"Connie. Is that your name? Connie, what? Connie Pleezu? Please, tell me, I'm dying to know."

Lizzy used a boot to flip the Connie over. A sword tip pushed aside the matted grey hair clinging to her damp skin. The injured woman's gaze drilled daggers into her still pristine adversary. Seething, she spoke through her teeth.

"I am the Speaker of Qwaver. You hold no right to treat me this way."

"Just like you have a right to fracture little girls? Nuh-uh. I don't think so. Speak your name or die nameless and without remembrance."

"Even if I were to perish this day, Qwaver would welcome me into his open arms. Unbelievers receive nothing."

Connie spat the barbed words thinking they would cut. They did nothing but annoy.

"Fine, then. I wonder if your death will pacify your groupies."

Connie cackled. She laughed in the face of death and used her working arm to dig around in a pocket. When it didn't find what should have been present, her amusement died out.

"You stole it."

A whispered accusation.

"Stole what?"

The heat pulsated like a heartbeat and rippled outward. Only Eli grounded herself before the air currents swatted everyone away. Lizzy was able to right herself a moment later; however, she was concerned that the temperature was affecting her armor.

The fallen crystalline monument melted into slag as a figure emerged adorned in the ethereal leather of an Ifrit. The intensity of Keel's aura was nothing like before. It was as if it had been fundamentally changed.

Keel seethed like the demon whose skin he wore. An elongated finger rose to point at the downed Speaker.

"Connie Lingus, your life is mine."

For some reason, it didn't tickle Lizzy the way it should have.

"But first. What was it you said?"

Lizzy was startled to detect spatial energy. She followed the waves to the trembling Rez. Keel's finger extended, and Rez vanished.

"Bye-bye."