Still being low on mana, Tom asked June to drive them back to the hotel. She just got the engine started when a loud crack rang out. The engine died as an old man in a robe and hat, manifested out of no where. Alexander looked round and spotted the boy he was looking for. He was about to say something when a bag of white powder hit him in the chest. Detecting fire mana running throughout it, he tried to counter it with water mana. What he ended up happening was him being covered in hot bread dough. This could have been funny, but small bits of angry fire mana were now shooting at him like a shotgun. Alexander cast a quick shield spell and it rained over him like water. Next a railroad spike slammed into the shield and pierced half way through. The tip was red hot as he looked down at it. A fire tornado engulfed his shield. He found this amusing.

"Oh noo, not fire. Come on boy, you can't think this will work?"

Tom didn't say anything as emptied another bottle. Alexander notices what he was doing. The railroad spike was now a white hot. He was trying to cook him, also the bread dough was starting to smell good. Having enough of this noise, he cast a frost nova spell. The fire died out and he looked over at Tom. His legs were frozen in ice. Alexander began to taunt him.

"Now if you are done with all this tomfoolery, we can do some real spell casting."

They both glared at each other as Alexander said.

"That pun was funny an-"

Crying out in pain as Tom lanced a beam of light into his eyes. Getting to work on the ice round his legs, Tom hammered fisted one side and then the other. There was a huge fire ball barreling down at Tom from the sky. Sand dashed to him as a dome formed and the fire ball washed over it. After that Tom made four mini planets and found himself in a glass dome. Alexander laughing fiendishly as he cast his spell and Tom looked on in horror at the madman. It started to snow inside the glass dome. The mini planets shot out of the thin glass and rushed towards the old man. Casting another shield spell and the sand wrapped round it. Something heavy brushed against the shield and sand. A knife slowly cut through the shield and followed by Tom's hand. Alexander panicked and sent a wave of lightning out. Tossed and tumbled in the dirt, Tom came to a stop looking up at the sky. The old man asked.

"How did you do that?"

Coughing some dirt out of his lungs before answering.

"The slow knife penetrates the shield."

This confounded him for a second.

"I didn't think to try."

Gun shots rang out six times. All of them missed as they curved round Alexander. He looked over at June and she ducked behind a truck.

"Oh there you are. I need to kill you."

In the middle of casting a lightning bolt spell at her, Tom deposited all of his water mana in the spell matrix. A backlash of electricity ran through both their bodies as they laid there on the groud. Alexander couldn't do anything as June stabbed the knife into his eye. His death broke the feedback loop and Tom passed out.