The battle started off with tremendous chaos right off the bat. Thomas threw a column of his white-gold flames in a near-unending stream. Sadly, he was too close, and he’d gotten his attack away too quickly for Miles to repel the flaming barrage with his Stormfire. The resultant explosion would have harmed Rory’s group far more than it would the Homeworlders.

Fortunately, Ned reacted soon enough. Even as Rory threw out his Weaving’s white lines, Ned summoned a geyser of water. The meeting of the brilliant flames and the water produced a miniature explosion of blistering steam.

Rory coughed and jerked as scalding vapour scored across any exposed skin and left his clothes uncomfortably damp. It was still better than a direct impact by Thomas’s flames.

At the same time, the Wraith Lord rushed forward to apprehend the Djinn. They both summoned their dark fire, but a sweep of the Wraith’s giant sword and his magic-negating Lifedrain repelled the flames. Then he swung right into the monsters, forcing them back.

Rory was distracted from his fight by the rest of the battle.

“Disperse,” Viv shouted. “Try to cover each other’s backs but don’t get distracted from your main battle.” Her voice took on an echoing quality as she charged. “You don’t have any room for mistakes. Do anything and everything you can to live. We’ve come too far to lose. We’re getting out of this alive!”

Emboldened by her words, the others cheered after her. Rory felt the same way. He had come too far to be killed by fellow humans. There was no way he was losing here.

The steam had spread out around them to cloud them up, giving them some space from the enemy’s direct line of sight. Aaron’s group wouldn’t be able to tell where they were coming from, a fact the others took full advantage of. They spread out and shot into the billowing cloud of steam, unheeding of its scalding effects.

Rory tried to see where he could be the most useful. The fight was sprawling but he had to focus his efforts where he was needed.

As soon as the battle began, the Wraiths had shot forward to try to overwhelm Shen and Linus. They were having a difficult time, however. Shen had turned back into a near-Rockback, tearing through the weaker Wraiths with ease. On the other side, Linus was burning his way through the cloaked creatures with his strange, green fire.

Viv had engaged Aaron directly. She was slamming away at his crystalline armour without much effect, though she was doing well to push him back. He was occupied without posing too much danger to Viv. That’s all that mattered for the moment.

Miles was keeping Linda at bay with his Stormfire while Ned was continuing to create more steam by preventing Thomas’s fires from reaching them.

With all the Homeworlders occupied, the only ones that left were the Djinn. Rory couldn’t see them through the steamy mist. He had to wipe away sweat trying to drip into his eyes. This was getting too warm, too difficult to focus. He had to concentrate. The Djinn could use their poisonous Abyssal Inferno at any moment, and Rory’s blizzard was all that could protect them from its toxic fumes.

Grey knives flashed in, but Trish acted fast. Her steel shield spiralled into being. The knives hit it hard enough to perforate it, the blades poking through the metal.

Trish cursed. “She’s not supposed to be able to throw that hard.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the shield was suddenly torn from her grasp. Rory caught the chains connecting the hilt of the knives to Linda’s hands before the shield slammed into the Wraiths, killing several in one fell swoop. Shen had jerked backwards at Linda’s interruption, but he grinned as he suddenly found himself free. He charged at them.

“I’ll stop him,” Trish said, racing to meet his rush.

At the same time, blasts of compressed air flew at them. Rory had been expecting them for a while, and he used his Weaving to try to stop them. It didn’t work as well as he hoped. While part of the windy wall had been reduced to nothing, Rory, Arie, and Ned all felt the brunt of the wind’s force hammer into them and throw them back.

Rory grunted as he quickly got to his feet. Smart of Thomas to wait until Trish and her shield was distracted before using his air attacks.

Linda was already rushing in for the kill. Before Rory could react, Arie rushed up and faced her head on.

“Get back, Arie,” Rory shouted.

The former Neophyte didn’t listen. She was going to die by the Homeworlders’ hands.

“Worry about your own worthless hides,” Thomas shouted as he threw his fires again.

Rory activated his Sigil of Barricading Blizzard. He had no idea if it was going to be enough, but he never had to find out directly. Ned grabbed him around his waist and flew straight up with his Burnwing appendages. Thomas’s flames burned a hole through the wintry gale and scorched the ground where Rory had been standing a second ago.

With the little grace period that he had been afforded, Rory tried to survey the nearby battlefield. Arie wasn’t doing well against her opponent. Linda was continuously beating her back with the grey knives. The only reason she hadn’t been cut and sliced up was because her tough, draconic skin was difficult to pierce.

It was only going to be moments before she was overwhelmed by Linda. Rory had to help her, fast.

Unfortunately, Ned had to keep flying around to prevent Thomas from blasting them out of the air with either his flames or his hammering air blows. The motion was making Rory a little dizzy. He was safe, but it was getting impossible to focus on the battle ahead.

“Ned,” he said, hoping he didn’t bite his tongue off as he was erratically flown about. “I need some time and space to focus. Can you pause for a second?”

“And get ourselves killed?”

“Well, pause when we won’t get ourselves killed.”

Ned growled as he twisted in the air with Rory still in tow. He had to marvel at the younger man’s strength. Carrying around another man while still flying like that had to require an insane amount of effort.

Sadly, it didn’t look like Thomas’s attacks were going to abate any time soon. The efficiency of his Sigils had to be pretty high, or he had to have an inexhaustible supply of Mana on him. Either way, Arie was going to get herself killed by the other Homeworlder at this rate.

“Drop me,” Rory said.

Ned twisted around, and Rory thought he was going to comply, but then he righted his flight and held onto his charge tighter. “Are you nuts?”

“It’ll distract him, which is all we need. I can land safely, don’t worry.”

“How are you going to land safely?”

“I’ll be using my Sigils. Just trust me and maybe don’t drop me from too high up.”

“Ugh, fine.” Ned twisted in mi-air again and flew hard for a few seconds. “Get ready.”

All of a sudden, Rory found himself unsupported as Ned let him go. Rory’s jacket flapped in the air. The ground was still far enough to break his foot, of not worse, if he landed directly. So, instead, Rory used the power of his Barricading Blizzard to summon an icy wall.

It rose fast. Rory had timed it perfectly so that he fell about eight feet instead of the twenty he would have directly to the ground. His feet still hit the ledge of ice hard, though, and he bit down on the sudden bloom of dull pain. It could have been so much worse. Just the fact that he had been able to summon wall thick enough to support his weight was amazing.

But more than that, the manoeuvre had successfully distracted Thomas as well.

He had been torn trying to decide who to attack, Ned or Rory. That indecision had given Ned just the opportunity he needed to rush in first.

Rory didn’t bother checking the outcome of the meeting between Ned and Thomas. He turned to see how Arie was faring. Linda had scored several dangerous hits against her, actually managing to cut through her thick, scaly skin. Dark blood blotted the ground near their fight.

Enough was enough. Rory summoned another barricade, aiming it right between the fighters. Both of them jumped back immediately, alarmed by the icy wall’s sudden appearance.

“Arie,” Rory shouted. “Fall back, right now. That’s an order.”

Arie looked like she hadn’t heard. Or pretending she hadn’t. Apparently, she had every intention of fighting and taking the other woman out. But Rory wasn’t going to let that happen.

“I said, get back,” Rory said. “Trust me. I know how we can win.”

Linda wasn’t content to sit and wait for Rory to finish. After a few experimental slashes against the ice, she had rounded the wall to attack from the other side, charging in with a yell. Rory wasn’t about to let that happen. He summoned more icy barricades, trapping the Homeworlder in a small, wintry maze.

Arie finally decided to heed Rory’s command. As she fell back, he turned to observe what had happened with Ned and Thomas. They had separated again. Ned was still buzzing around, trying to evade Thomas’s attacks, who had decided Ned was the bigger threat than Rory.

With him distracted, it was all too easy for Rory to summon more icy barricades, this time around the big man. Thomas growled, immediately starting to hammer away at the ice with his flames and his heavy wind. Not for long, though. Ned swooped in to take advantage of the distraction from a distance, shooting at him with the crossbow he had recovered from the jeep. Thomas was soon too busy defending himself from the fire and lightning raining upon him.

Rory had a little time to himself to try his next trick. Linus seemed to have burned most of the Wraiths to ash, but Rory wasn’t letting him off that easy. He used his Sigil of Resurrection Field within his staff, pointing it at the area around Linus.

It worked to perfection. A soft purple glow went up in a circle around the flame-wreathed Homeworlder, then the fallen Wraiths began to rise. Their bodies were purplish and ghostly translucent, but they stood as tall and frightening as they had in life.

Rory didn’t know if all it took was his force of will, his internal wish, but he used his voice anyway. “Attack!”

The ghostly Wraiths charged at Linus. He had fallen back several steps, his face a mask of alarm. When he used his fire to defend himself, his face grew even more alarmed when it didn’t work the way it had before. The ghosts weren’t corporeal enough to take the same damage they had when alive.

Rory grinned, seeing another Homeworlder momentarily contained. They were making progress. He turned his attention to Viv, and his grin died. She was in trouble.

“Viv,” Rory yelled. “We got water.”

He knew he ought not to distract her form her battle with Aaron, especially since the tables had turned. Aaron had recovered was pushing Viv back with little effort, forcing her to step backwards. Large crystal blades had formed off both his arms. He was slashing them around with wild abandon.

Viv doing all she could just to not get sliced in half. At a point, she even granted herself some space using her Sigil of Smoky Stealth, then blasted Aaron with her sabre turning into a horizontal geyser of crimson energy.

Unfortunately, Aaron’s suit was too strong. The impact forced him back several feet along the ground, but he rooted himself, then forced himself forward against the stream of red power. Viv, and even Rory, looked on agog. His strength and prowess were insane.

But the pushback had highlighted the very thing Rory had been wanting to point out. Water. Aaron’s crystal-armoured feet had screeched along the ground and splashed through the water that Rory’s blizzard had condensed the steam Ned had created by counteracting Thomas’s flames. Water that had to be contaminated and dirty enough to act as a conductor.

Viv stopped her stream of energy, then threw her Thunderclaw arm forward. Lightning burst off it, sparking in arcs that crisscrossed each other as they bounced off the wet street.

Aaron had no time to react. The first electric arcs zapped him hard enough to paralyze him to his spot, with a thunderous bolt following in a second later to blast him off his feet. He thudded to the ground several yards with heavy clanks. His body was smoking, though he was too distant for Rory to tell if he had suffered any severe burns or not.

“Trish!” Viv shouted.

Rory jerked his head round to see Trish suffering under Shen’s assault. She was protecting herself with her shield, but the force behind Shen’s Rockback-powered blows wasn’t something she could handle on her own. Every counterattacking slice and slash she attempted bounced off Shen’s rocky skin.

There were bits of hardened concrete strewn all over the ground. Rory figured Trish had tried to hold Shen back with her Sigil of Concrete, but her opponent had proven too powerful.

Viv rushed in to assist. She slashed at him with burning red arcs, but Shen’s rocky skin withstood the hits. It seemed to hurt, considering his roaring reaction, but Rory didn’t see any evidence of damage.

In response, Shen began tearing up chunks of the street and pelting them at Viv to spray her in a hail of heavy shrapnel. She barely evaded them.

Trish tried to take advantage by spearing Shen from a distance. Unfortunately, the javelin simply got stuck on his rocky hide. He pulled it out, swinging it with such force that neither Trish nor Viv dared get too close and potentially get hit. It would be instant death.

Rory looked around. The other Homeworlders were recovering fast—Thomas had pushed back Ned enough to start breaking down Rory’s ice barricades, Linda had almost managed to get out of her maze, and Aaron was slowly climbing back to his feet. They had to take out Shen and get out right now.

He just wasn’t sure how they were supposed to deal with his immense strength. Then it hit him. Immense strength. Monstrous strength.

“Fall back,” Rory shouted at Viv and Trish. “I’ve got this.”

They heeded him. Rory stood to his full height. The ice wall under him was starting to melt, making his footing a little slippery and treacherous. But he focused and threw an icy bolt, but with his Sigil of Frozen Lightning activated instead of Barricading Blizzard. Big as Shen was, it was all too easy to hit him.

As soon as the blue-white bolt struck, it exploded in a cascade of ice that soon covered Shen’s whole body. He screamed, which was quickly cut off as lightning burst and sparked over him, shocking his whole body. Shen’s subsequent fall to the ground was heavy enough to make the whole area shake.

“We’re getting out now,” Rory yelled. He slipped down the ice wall to land on the ground, thankful that his old legs didn’t give way. “Come on!”

Rory even directed his yell at the Wraith Lord. His fight with the Djinn had sprawled off to a distance where Rory could no longer see what had become him. Hopefully, he was fine. They didn’t have time to wait for him, however.

But as the others hurried back towards the jeep and the pickup, a heavy metal arrow landed just behind them all. Then it exploded. Rory and the others were thrown to the ground.

“Well, well,” Stormvir said. The rebel elf was smiling down at them from a nearby balcony. “Looks like I made it just in time.”