“Um, is this really necessary?” Ben asked Ceselee as she ran, having thrown him over her shoulder when she saw he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the group.

“I’m not exactly a fan either but time is of the essence. You should really train your agility a bit, or at the worst you could have brought your bike.”

“There’s nothing I need agility for as a craftsman or enchanter. As for my bike… well hindsight’s twenty/twenty as they say, let’s not focus on that.”

Despite the danger they were all rushing towards, he got to see firsthand the rest of the guild giggle as they ran behind their leader. Everyone had met up at the guild quickly enough, but with the leviathans showing up days earlier than expected they had only around half of the adventurers they were expecting, meaning they’d need to work all the harder to protect the town as the people within began to evacuate.

“Honesty, what’s even the point of prophecy if it’s so inaccurate? Between this one being five days early and the gods having a freaking seventeen-year window, not seeing much point.”

“Looking at all possible futures and trying to determine the most likely one isn’t exactly easy you know, especially not for stuff like this. Ideally, the prophets would stick to predicting weather and harvest seasons, but they need to at least try and help divert disaster if they see it on the horizon. At the end of the day no matter how finicky it is, it’s better than nothing.”

After that Ceselee outlined the main goal for everyone as they ran, namely ensuring that the town was safe by leading away as many of the beasts as they could before truly going on the offensive, it all came down to how they did it.

“Thera, of all of us your magic should be the most powerful, I’m told they were spotted pretty far out still, do you think you could attack from a distance with enough power to get their attention?”

“I can’t guarantee my accuracy, but if I keep trying I should be able to manage.”

“Good.”

As soon as that was decided they arrived at the beach and Ceselee shouted at the other guild leaders what they would attempt, only stopping as she heard Ben swear by her ear.

“Ceselee, a bit of a problem,” He told her as he contorted himself to be able to stare into the sea. “There’s a bit more than the dozen we were expecting. I count twenty-three.”

She dropped him as she whipped her head to look for herself, trying to see the heads poking out of the water in the distance. “Are you sure? I only see a few so far.”

“I’m sure,” He said confidently as he picked himself up and grabbed her arm, pointing them out one by one and leaving her stomach to drop with things only getting worse with what he said next. “And I don’t think those are all juveniles either.”

“What?”

“Look at the heads of those four, it’s a bit hard to tell because they’re farther back than the rest, but if you ignore the perspective playing tricks on you it’s pretty clear the size is going to be around three times larger than the others.”

“Infinite hells!” She shouted as she passed on the information to the other guild leaders standing around as they prepared their own adventurers. Dealing with double the expected threat with only half the expected adventurers, on top of four of them being fully developed; all of the guild leaders knew the smart move would be to retreat and scrap the town, but the people living there had put off evacuating too long, having placed too much faith in the accuracy of the timeframe they’d been given, as well as the threat they’d have to deal with. This was too much.

Ben, having no idea what was going on through the minds of those in charge, instead walked up to Thera, placing his hands on her staff with her.

“Hey, I know we shouldn’t get used to me helping the staff’s load, but if the booklet was right the scales of those things are ridiculous to get through, even for the young ones so I think you’re really going to have to push yourself to do it. It probably won’t have any issues but I’ll watch the staff just in case so let’s get started.”

“Wait!” Ceselee called out. “Too many variables are different from what we expected, we just need a minute to think things over!”

“Um, Ceselee? At the speed they’re moving I think they’ll be here in five minutes tops. I mean they might end up moving a bit faster after being attacked, but I really think we should thin out the numbers before they get closer.”

“Thin out? Are you saying you’ll be able to kill them from this distance?”

As she looked at them, even without being able to see her face she was sure that Thera was far less confident than Ben on the matter, but his confidence in her was unshaking.

He stared out into the ocean, thinking for a minute based on what he knew of Thera’s strength and what he’d read of the leviathans. “Killing any at this distance might be a bit too much to hope for, but we should be able to deal some serious damage to the young ones at least. Don’t worry Ceselee, we’ve got this,” He told her as a grin stretched across his face and she felt one form on hers in return, remembering the similar encounter that made up her first meeting with the boy.

“Alright, in that case we’re going to the left away from the town, do what you can and then we’re hightailing it away to put an end to it.”

They both ignored the cries of outrage from the other guild leaders. She went to deal with them and the other adventurers while he focused on Thera.

“Great, no pressure,” She muttered as she felt his hand on hers and the connection formed between them. She wasn’t sure if the staff would be at risk when nothing she’d done yet had caused it too much damage, but with the sudden rise in pressure his presence felt reassuring as she began her spell, reaching deep into the earth to get solid rock instead of just the sand beneath her feet and shaping it into a circular saw. Even the smallest of the creature’s heads she could see was as large as she was tall, so she made its size to match, adding as much power to its spin as the combined force of her earth magic and telekinesis working together could manage before firing it off, hearing the air crack as it sped off, missing her target and continuing to fly.

“Damn it,” She muttered, gritting her teeth as she did.

“It’s alright, take a breath and try again,” He told her calmly. “You don’t need to do anything fancy, if you score a hit with a fast enough rock it will work just as well as a saw.”

“I really want to know how you’re so calm right now.”

“Ha, I might be meditating with one of my minds while stretching my focus with the rest. Don’t worry and just do what you can,” A part of him was thinking about how nice it would be if his teacher was with them instead of with the group dedicated to protecting the town. He would have even taken the annoying demigod at that point or the other summoned hero with him, but all he could use was the hand he was dealt.

Thera did as he said, pulling a rock from the earth, far larger than she’d been using since she started gaining more control over her magic as a whole and once again put as much raw force behind as she could, the power of it being shot off making it look like it was skimming across the water as it went, not stopping for anything, only losing some of its speed as it made contact with one of the distant creatures, leaving them and the crowd of onlookers to watch it sink into the water, not rising again.

A cheer went up around them at their small victory, but there was still plenty to go, and with no other choice in the matter Thera reached into the earth to prepare her next shot.