Chương 39: Bk 1 Ch 36: Showdown

"How fast can you fly?" I ask.

"Not fast enough," says Chimera grimly, shaking her head.

"I can get you back to Franklin in under five minutes."

"Five minutes?" she demands.

"We've gotta be 80 or 90 miles away!"

"I'm aware."

"You're serious?" she asks.

"Even while carrying other people?"

"Weight isn't a factor."

"Jesus. You really are a little powerhouse, aren't you?" She stares at me for a few seconds, then sighs.

"... I am gonna have to fill out so much fucking paperwork over this." Then she turns to Mr. Fletcher.

"You. Can you confirm for the official record that the evidence you gave against Apollo came from the Golden Empire Cartel, and was given under duress?" He blinks, then barks a laugh.

"That's right. I don't know what their magicals might be capable of, it's entirely plausible that everything they gave me was completely fabricated."

"Perfect," says Chimera. A small sphere appears in her hand; unlike the dead talisman I took off of Firecracker, it's still glowing brightly with swirling golden light. She tosses it to Elliot, who catches it and immediately transforms, his relief at having it back clear.

"Sorry again about all this, kid. Thanks for being a good sport."

"It's fine, I know you didn't want to," he says.

"And, uh, thanks," he says, looking over at Mr. Fletcher.

"... Don't mention it. Convince your friend here not to murder me later, and we'll call it even," says Mr. Fletcher, jerking his head at me.

"She already decided not to," Anja informs him on my behalf.

"You're still an asshole, though." He chooses not to answer that.

"The sheriffs are already on their way, and the fire department too," Chimera tells Mr. Fletcher.

"You can tell them the broad strokes of what went down here, but try to keep a lid on the details until you get back to Franklin. This needs to be handled carefully."

"Understood," he says.

"Alright," says Chimera, turning to me.

"Then let's see if you're really as fast as you think you are, Space Cadet."

"Everyone hold on to someone," I instruct. At the speeds I'll be going, even a little bit of turbulence might knock someone out of my gravity field. Chimera nods, taking hold of my left bicep. Anja grabs my right arm, and Elliot holds on to her. I don't waste any more time, hurling us all into the air at full speed. This time, I go much higher than I did on the way out; there's no need to stay low enough to receive a radio signal from the surface.

It takes less than a minute for Franklin to become clearly visible, along with the curve of the Earth, and I start angling horizontally, following a rough parabola. By the time I level out, the sky is almost entirely black overhead. I accelerate until the heat and pressure start becoming slightly uncomfortable, not daring to push any harder than that while I'm carrying Elliot and Anja. I don't start actively decelerating until we're just a few miles out, counting on the air resistance to help slow us.

Those last few miles still pass by in less than thirty seconds. We come in at a fairly steep angle, although not as high as the one I took off at. There's not much time to take in the situation, but some details are immediately obvious. It looks like most of the action is going down on the north side of town; there's already thick columns of smoke rising from multiple places, and a tiny point is glowing like the sun, bright enough to see even from here. I shake my arm to get Chimera's attention and give her a nod.

She nods back, then pushes off and out of my gravity field. She immediately shapeshifts into something I can't make out, but it looks like I was right about her being able to decrease her size as well as increase it. Meanwhile, I angle the rest of us towards my territory. At least there's no smoke, but I'm not going to go help with the Cartel until I'm sure everything's fine. Everything isn't fine. It's a lot harder to spot, but I'm hyper aware of anything even slightly out of place.

A flash of blue draws my attention, and I steer closer, focusing. There, a winged figure flies up above the street, turning sharply to dive behind a house and avoid a blur of silver. I can't push any faster, I'm already still damn close to supersonic, but I wait until the very last possible instant to slow, covering the remaining distance in maybe ten seconds. I land in a crouch in the middle of the street, hard enough to smash the pavement, catching myself with my free hand.

Anja and Elliot hover behind on their own wings, having let go and pulled up a little early than me. In front of me, Barracuda scrambles backwards, falling into a guard position. Obsidian bursts out from a house a moment later, one of our safehouses, taking position behind her. Most of the front wall has already been smashed in; at least I can't actually see any bodies. The hesitate, waiting for us to make the first move.

I wait for a couple seconds as well, until Cassie slowly comes out from behind the house she was hiding behind, jumping over to join me.

"Hey, boss," she says quietly.

"Tyler?" I ask. She shakes her head.

"They got him. A couple more too, I think. We did our best to hold them off, but…" I close my eyes for a second, and push everything down for now.

"We'll take it from here. Get yourself and everyone else somewhere safe."

"Fuck 'em up," she says, then jumps and flies behind the ruined safehouse. I look back at Barracuda and Obsidian. I can't read their expressions behind their masks, of course, but something about them still feels resigned. The first time we met, they were both slightly stronger than me. Now the gap is substantially wider, but in the opposite direction. Even Elliot and Anja aren't too far off from overtaking them in power.

Outnumbered, outmatched, and less mobile than any of us, I think they know they're not walking away from this. I feel the smallest flicker of respect; they saw a single way out and went all-in on it, and even though they lost, they haven't lowered themselves to begging. I'm still going to kill them, though.

"It's not too late to surrender," says Elliot as though reading my mind, or maybe he just knows me by now.

"Hand over your talismans, and I promise I'll protect you until I can give you to ABRA." I don't contradict him. As much as I'm itching to put them down permanently, it wouldn't be worth damaging my friendship with Elliot. Besides, I don't think it's going to matter.

"Go fuck yourself," snarls Barracuda, proving me right.

"You think you can side with her and still play the hero? Fuck you. I'll die before I give you the satisfaction."

"That can be arranged," I reply coolly. Obsidian begins the fight by trying to skewer me with spears from the surrounding asphalt. It's useless, I just float up out of range. Then, I tear up the entire street under their feet, sending water spraying into the air from a broken main. The first time I tried this against Barracuda, I was frustrated by how easily she seemed to adapt to it, jumping off fragments of concrete which should have been far too small to take her weight.

Now, the two of them seem almost clumsy compared to Firecracker, constantly on the verge of losing their footing as they're pelted by the storm of debris. I fly into the maelstrom, navigating through it as deftly as a fish through water. Anja dives in as well, not quite as deft, but the fact that I'm not actively trying to hinder her combined with the many times we've spared against each other still leaves her far more mobile than our opponents.

Her spirits are even better off, the storm of debris simply passing harmlessly through them. Barracuda and Obsidian fight to both reach the edge and avoid being separated, but it's a losing battle. The two of us dart in and out, attacking from every angle, all but immune to any retaliation. Barracuda blocks one of my slashes, leaving her open to one of Anja's spirits stabbing her in the back. It inflicts minimal damage, the point of the blade sliding down her back rather than penetrating, but still draws blood.

She retaliates by flinging one of her buzzsaws at the spirit. The spirit blocks with its shield, and unlike the first time they fought, it's strong enough to actually weather the attack, immediately going back in before she expects it. This time, she slashes it away with her weapon, cutting through a wing and destroying it, but then she has to twist awkwardly to avoid my next attack. She loses her footing, going plummeting down into the pit I left in the street.

Instead of following, I collapse around half of my vortex on top of her, burying her. She'll probably break free in a moment, but just like when I spar against Elliot and Anja, it leaves her partner alone. Obsidian manages to break through to the edge of my diminished vortex, only to immediately be forced to block a barrage of arrows from Elliot circling overhead. Anja comes at him from behind, scoring a cut on his leg as he jumps clear.

He lands in someone's yard, frantically defending himself from two directions at once. Spikes erupt from the ground in an attempt to block Anja, but she smashes straight through them with her shield. Then I arrive, dumping the rest of my vortex on Barracuda to delay her for a moment longer. Three directions is too much. An arrow slips through, piercing into his right shoulder, and his guard falters.

I smash his sword out of the way with the butt of my staff, spinning it into a stab that goes straight through his heart. I'm already turning away even as his transformation breaks and his armor vanishes. A mass of flailing silver tentacles erupts from the street, disintegrating dirt and shattered concrete. Barracuda bursts free, screaming "NO!" as she sees Obsidian's body. She charges forwards, apparently no longer interested in escape.

I move to meet her, waving the others back; if she isn't trying to run, then I'll give her a dignified death. I slice through the sawblade she sends at me, meeting her head-on on the ground. She slashes at me with desperate fury, wielding more of those barbed tentacle whips in her free hand, holding nothing back for defense. It's not enough; I'm stronger than her, faster than her, and honestly, more skilled than her.

I accept a gash across my back from her magic in exchange for landing a cut on her leg with my spear. I take advantage of the loosely packed debris we're fighting on, sending her stumbling backwards with an especially strong blow and then opening a hole behind her to trip her, which wins me a deeper cut across her stomach. She screams as she makes one final effort, willingly leaving herself open, "blocking" my spear with her free arm in an attempt to land a blow on me. It's already too late.

Her sword vanishes before it can touch me as her transformation breaks, and my spear cuts through through her arm and deeply into her side. She lands in a bloody heap, now wearing nothing but jeans and a rapidly darkening band T-shirt. Not quite dead yet, she painfully pushes herself over so she can look at me. Like I guessed, she's probably just a couple of years older than me, and quite pretty. A shame things had to turn out like this.

"Damn you," she hisses out.

"I hope-" she breaks off as she coughs up blood.

"I hope one day, someone takes everything you love, too."

"Maybe they will," I say, shrugging.

"But it won't be today." She doesn't answer, her head lolling back as she stops breathing. After a moment, I reach down and snap the necklace holding her talisman, which seems to be the most common place to wear it. This one is silver with flecks of blue. I study it for a moment, then make it vanish. Anja walks up to join me, holding Obsidian's talisman out as well, jet black and reflective. I accept it with a nod.

"... I'm sorry about Tyler," she says.

"He was a good kid."

"Yeah. He was," I agree. We're both quiet for a moment. Then I say, "This isn't over yet. The Cartel doesn't get to just walk away after all this. Do you have one more fight in you?"

"Yeah," says Anja, nodding firmly.

"I'm with you." We both turn to Elliot, standing further back. He glances at the two bodies, sighs, then nods as well.

"... Yeah, alright. If that's what it takes to finally end this." I again carry everyone, just in case the extra speed ends up being necessary. The other fight isn't even remotely difficult to spot. Several hundred feet above downtown, a green dragon twists and loops in midair to avoid an arc of brilliantly glowing plasma, immediately recognizable to me as a solar flare.

Chimera breaths a massive plume of flame in retaliation, blocked by another burst of plasma, the two magical fires clashing in an enormous shockwave. I start heading in that direction, but not too fast; even I'm a little hesitant to stick my nose into such a heavyweight fight, especially without knowing exactly who else I might be facing. As we approach, the nature of the fight starts to become clear. Chimera isn't actually focused on the relatively tiny figure with brilliantly glowing wings who must be Corona.

Instead, she seems to be trying to get past Corona, while Corona tries to keep her back. The battle is also moving south at a pretty rapid clip. I adjust my trajectory, aiming for where they're headed instead of where they are right now. It takes me only a couple of minutes to spot what I'm looking for: A cluster of four more magicals, flying much lower and slower than the pair above them, the weaker Cartel magicals attempting to retreat as Corona covers them.

Currently, they're just outside of downtown, heading more or less due south. I consider for a moment. From the way they're clustered, I'm almost certain one of them is carrying the other three like I am. Assuming none of the others can fly on their own, it should be pretty easy to knock them out of the air even if they have an edge in strength. If I act right now, though, they'll fall in the middle of a neighborhood.

That's not going to win me any points with Chimera, and besides, I don't actually enjoy wrecking my hometown. Instead, I turn south myself. They're only going 40 or 50mph at best, so outpacing them is trivial. I drop us into cover, quickly explaining my plan to Anja and Elliot. As predicted, the fleeing Cartel magicals follow a straight-line path directly over the big park running along a mile-long stretch of Pine Creek in south Franklin.

There are still quite a few people in the park, but it's emptying rapidly as the battle between the dragon and the miniature sun moves steadily closer. We have to wait for less than a minute before our target passes by, just a couple hundred feet away. The three of us burst from the tree cover, crossing the distance in less than two second. Elliot peels off around fifty feet short to stay at range, while Anja and I charge straight in. I go straight for the guy in the middle, who I'm guessing is the flier.

He's the strongest of them, although he's actually slightly weaker than me. He's got a sort of futuristic knight look, and his weapon is a halberd. The other three are weaker still, with two around Barracuda's level, and one not even as strong as Elliot and Anja. They all sense us coming, of course, but there's not a whole lot they can do. The flier reflexively jerks away from us, but there's no way he can actually avoid us.

One girl has a crossbow, she fires a dark orange bolt at me, while another guy sends a purple lightning bolt at Anja. Both attacks are easily deflected. Then we're on top of them. There's some sort of barely-visible forcefield around them, but we smash straight through it weapons first. As I guessed, the weaker three go plummeting the moment it bursts. I leave them to Anja and Elliot; despite their advantage in numbers and strength, they have a huge disadvantage in mobility.

Instead, I focus on the flying knight, keeping him too busy to pick them back up. It doesn't seem like either of us have magic that can directly attack the other, so it's a straight mid-air duel. His weapon has more reach than mine, but I'm faster, so I get right up in his face, not giving him enough room to swing it. For a few seconds, he scrambles backwards as he desperately blocks my slashes, trying to make a little room. I don't let him.

Instead, I actually reach out and grab his halberd by the haft, forcing it out of the way. I cut a narrow slash down his arm before he manages to do the same to me, grabbing my staff just below the head and pushing the blade away. We struggle against each other for a couple seconds longer. Then, I let my staff vanish, leaving him holding nothing, and immediately resummon it.

Once again, he copies my idea slightly too late, receiving another small stab wound in his opposite shoulder before he manages to resummon his weapon and block the next attack. The fight is already massively in my favor, but I have to break off before I can press my advantage further. Corona is closing fast, having finally noticed that her people are under attack. Chimera is hot on her tail, but she'll get here first by a couple of seconds.

I've already driven the knight quite a ways back from the three magicals he was escorting, who are hunkered together on the ground and exchanging long-ranged attacks with Elliot. That's who Corona heads for, so I shoot back to defend them. As she closes to within a hundred or so feet, Corona lets loose another massive arc of brilliant plasma at us. I respond by ripping a huge chunk of earth and flinging it in her general direction. The plasma all but vaporizes my impromptu shield, but it is somewhat weakened.

Anja plants herself in front of Elliot, with a pair of her spirits in front of her. The plasma annihilates both spirits as well, but it's weakened further. Anja's shield isn't nearly big enough to cover her entire body, let alone Elliot as well, but it's also a magical weapon, capable of defying the usual rules. The plasma deflects off of it as though it were much larger, although a few wisps still slip through. She's left a bit singed in a few spots, but nothing serious. Did you know this story is from Royal Road?

Read the official version for free and support the author. I avoid the arc entirely, flying over it. But Corona keeps bearing down on the two of them, correctly identifying them as the most vulnerable targets. Muttering a curse, I move to intercept her. She sees me coming, blasting me with another wave of plasma just as large as the last. I can't avoid it without leaving Elliot and Anja exposed. Gritting my teeth, I instead slice my way through it with my spear.

Just like Anja's shield, it works when it shouldn't, but not perfectly. The plasma splashes away from my slash like a stick swung into a pond, but tendrils still brush over me as I fly through. It fucking hurts, my costume blackening and my skin blistering beneath it, but it won't slow me down, and it'll heal within a minute or two at the longest, so I ignore it.

At least I manage to catch her by surprise, although obviously not completely; she'd clearly assumed I'd veer off and is forced to block my initial slash a bit awkwardly. Up close, I finally get a good look at her. Her costume is a formfitting white bodysuit with golden highlights, plus a smooth white helmet with a dark faceplate. Her weapon is a sort of mace, a white rod with a large glowing orb as the head. Her wings are made of more streamers of plasma emerging from her back.

She's much stronger than me, feeling like a very close match for Chimera. I try to push the advantage of surprise, striking at her with a flurry of slashes from every angle. It works for about a second. Then she manages to get a blow in, forcing me to block and sending me hurtling backwards from the force of it. She immediately follows up with another wave of plasma, and this time I do make a run for it.

I'm too close to avoid the wave completely even with my speed, forcing me to try and slash it away again and earning me another few painful burns on my legs. It's fine, though, because I've already delayed her long enough. Chimera comes barreling in in her draconic form, blasting Corona with a jet of flames. Corona wraps plasma around herself like a shield, which seems to be mostly effective. But then Chimera closes into melee range, swiping at her with enormous claws.

This time, it's Corona who goes hurtling downwards from the force of the blow. Corona comes to a stop around ten feet above her subordinates on the ground. The knight I was fighting has managed to get back as well, coming to a stop just behind her. Chimera doesn't go straight for the attack, instead landing around thirty feet away, shifting back to her human form as she does so.

"It's over, Corona! Give it up!" she shouts.

"Siding with the Syndicate? Typical," Corona shouts back.

"Our job before anything else is to keep the peace! Did you seriously think you could burn down half the fucking city and start a large-scale gang war without consequences?"

"It would've been nice and clean if you'd just dealt with her and left like you were supposed to!" says Corona, pointing at me.

"And you thought doubling down after your plan had already gone off the rails would make things better? You crossed too many lines today, Corona. Even if you manage to get away, we're not gonna just let this go. Surrender now, and at least you and your people are guaranteed to live."

"I don't think so," says Corona coldly.

"I didn't want to fight you, but if killing you and your little friends is the only way out, then so be it."

"Gotta be honest, I was kinda hoping you'd say that," says Chimera. Then she lunges forwards, growing as she does, to a form even larger than the dragon. The hulking quadrupedal body is still covered in green scales, but instead of wings, half a dozen serpentine heads emerge from its neck. Each one snaps forwards at a different Cartel magical. Corona retaliates with another wave of plasma as her subordinates all scramble for cover.

Chimera makes no move to defend herself as it washes over her, leaving her heads blackened and scorched. But the burned flesh sloughs off within seconds, revealing undamaged scales beneath, an absurd rate of regeneration even for a magical. Corona is forced to charge into melee range and bring her actual weapon to bear. Each strike of her mace sends one of the hydra's heads reeling back, but as far as I can tell, it's not actually inflicting any real damage.

I'm almost positive that Chimera's magic counts the natural "weapons" of her shapeshifted forms as her actual weapon; Corona certainly seems to be treating the snapping fangs as though they're a deadly threat. Meanwhile, I stop the other Cartel magicals from trying to run by tearing the ground beneath them into a vortex. Lacking both Barracuda's experience with my magic and Firecracker's natural agility, all of them loose their footing, going plummeting down into the pit I opened beneath them.

Before I can do anything to take advantage of it, though, a barely-visible bubble pops into existence in the middle of my vortex, dirt and rocks splattering off of it. I consider trying to crush it, but then Corona takes a brief window to send another huge wave of plasma in my general direction. I avoid it by darting into the vortex myself, assuming she won't risk hitting her own people. Anja follows me, while Elliot simply puts the rest of us between himself and Corona.

Then it's absolute chaos, far more so than even the two-on-two battle last New Year's. The knight is capable of all but ignoring my vortex, the debris glancing off the skintight forcefield he uses to fly, but the other three are all but helpless on their own. Every time I cut through one of the forcefields he keeps trying to summon, they go tumbling.

It doesn't take long to start racking up hits; Anja lands a slash on the back of their weakest magical as he once again goes flailing, I stab the girl with the crossbow in the leg while she's distracted with two of Anja's spirits, and the knight takes an arrow in the shoulder from Elliot while he tries to drive me away from the others. It doesn't take long for the battle to start turning against us, though, although even a few seconds is a long time in a fight like this.

Slowly, the three weaker magicals start to find their footing, adapt to fighting in my vortex. The weakest one is actually quickest; he's got a vaguely bird-themed costume, and he seems to be reacting directly to the minor changes I constantly make in the gravity field rather than to the motion of the debris itself. I don't think I've seen him actually use any magic yet; given how weak he is, I'm willing to bet he's the one with some kind of magical sight. The other two soon start finding their feet as well.

I take a purple lightning bolt in the back as I'm trying to once again grapple with the knight, and although I mostly shrug it off, it still lets him make a bit of distance and bring his halberd back into play. Elliot's rate of fire slows slightly as he has to dodge a couple of retaliatory bolts. We're not actually in any kind of trouble yet, but our initial advantage is starting to slip away. From inside my vortex, I catch only glimpses of Chimera's fight with Corona as I happen to pass near the edge.

Their battle has gone aerial again, Chimera back in her favored draconic form. It's hard to tell, but it doesn't seem like either of them are making a whole lot of headway. As they pass close by, Corona abruptly turns and dives straight into my vortex. I don't even realize she's coming until she's already inside, her wings vaporizing huge swaths of the debris making it up.

She's still hesitant to unleash her magic more fully for fear of hitting her own people, so I have a brief moment to try and figure out how to react. I decide to attack. Darting forwards, I slash at her from below and behind. She blocks, of course, nearly catching me with her blisteringly fast return swing. But it distracts her for a moment as Chimera comes in from above, now in the smaller, more maneuverable form of a harpy.

She slashes at Corona with wickedly taloned feet, finally landing a thin cut down Corona's back, and also cutting through her wings. Corona falls a few feet before she manages to resummon them, keeping Chimera back with a plume of plasma that vaporizes more of my vortex. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes clear that my vortex is doing almost nothing to hinder her, and while it doesn't hinder Chimera much, it's still making her slightly less agile.

It's also being vaporizes faster than I can replenish it by tearing more dirt up from the ground, so after a moment, I decide to just hurl the entire thing at Corona. As expected, she blasts it away with another, more restrained burst of plasma, warding off another strike from Chimera with her mace even while mostly blind. This time, it's me who manages to slip in behind and score a cut across her leg, enduring the burns from the plasma I take in return.

Now the battlefield's clear, but we're still all practically packed together. Chimera takes advantage by shifting back into her enormous hydra form, and the forcefield knight only barely manages to snatch the other three Cartel magicals out of her way as she lands in the pit I've left. Instead of reengaging Chimera, though, Corona swerves away and darts for Elliot, now exposed around fifty or sixty feet away.

It leaves her own people almost completely vulnerable, but her gambit pays off; none of us are willing to sacrifice him for them. I curse and follow, and so does Chimera, but it takes her a moment to shift forms again. That leaves me alone against Corona for a couple of seconds, but I can't hesitate, or she'll just blast him with full-power plasma while he doesn't have anything to shelter behind.

I'm tougher than him, the burns I suffered at the start of the fight are already mostly healed, so all I can do is force her attention onto me instead. Instead of plasma like I'm expecting, though, the head of her mace starts glowing brightly. I'm already nearly on top of her, it's too late to disengage, so I try to break her focus instead, slashing at her furiously as I close. None of my attacks get through, and her weapon continues to gather power. Then Chimera arrives, once again in the form of a harpy.

My instincts are screaming danger, telling me there's nowhere to dodge except backwards. I fling myself away, hoping Chimera can weather whatever attack she's preparing. But instead of turning to face Chimera, Corona comes after me, not quite as fast, but fast enough to keep the distance closed. It leaves her entirely open, and Chimera once again rakes her talons down her back. Then she thrusts her mace forwards.

Unlike the narrow beam my weapon emits, hers unleashes a spherical shockwave of blindingly bright energy. I brace my staff in front of me, hoping it'll block at least a little of it. I blink stars out of my eyes, briefly wondering why everything hurts so much. Then adrenaline surges, and I force myself to move. I launch myself out of the trench I carved in the ground as I crashed, nearly ten feet long. The entire front of my body feels like one big bruise, and I'm pretty sure at least a couple of ribs are broken.

Unlike the burns, they're going to take a while to heal, being damage from her actual weapon. Worse, my resistance has taken a serious beating as well; I doubt I can take another shockwave like that without my transformation breaking. Fortunately, I was only out of it for a moment, and the shockwave launched me far enough from the battle that no one was in position to take advantage. I'm relieved to see that Elliot is fine, and Corona is once again fully engaged against Chimera.

But the forcefield knight is now engaging Anja, supported by ranged attacks from his companions on the ground. It seems like his forcefields are capable of keeping her spirits back, which means neither of them have anything except their weapons. Even if he's already taken hits, he's still superior to her in both strength and speed. As I rush forwards to support her, I take stock of the situation as quickly as I can.

Corona's clearly hoping that if she can kill us or force us to retreat, she'll be able to hold Chimera off on her own long enough for her people to escape. It's a risky play; she's now taken multiple hits, and Chimera has taken none, putting her at a significant disadvantage. I don't think she can afford to interfere in our fight again and offer Chimera more free hits. If the three of us can hold out against her four subordinates for long enough, I'm sure Chimera will win.

That's a bit of a tall order, but all four of them are already injured, whereas Elliot and Anja are still more or less fresh. The forcefield knight whirls away from Anja to block my first stab as I come lunging in.

"I'll handle him! Keep the rest of them off me!" I shout as we exchange more blows. Anja hesitates briefly, then nods and darts away towards the remaining three. Elliot is already exchanging long-range fire with them. I've done everything I can to prepare them; now all I can do is trust them to handle themselves. Unfortunately, while my injuries don't hinder me as much as they would for a normal human, they're not completely irrelevant.

Even though I ignore the pain as much as I can, my strikes are still a touch slower than they were before, a hair weaker. He's injured too, of course, but not as badly. When I try to grapple with him again, I can't quite force his halberd out of the way, and he manages to push me back. He clearly realizes the same thing and gets more aggressive, no longer so concerned about letting me get in close. Slowly but surely, I get pushed more and more onto the defensive.

Anja and Elliot seem to be at a stalemate from the glances I can spare, mainly because none of the low-level Cartel magicals seem to have any idea what they're supposed to do. The three of them are huddled together, easily warding off Elliot's arrows and Anja's spirits, but the ranged attacks they send back aren't any more effective. After a little while, though, they start jogging south on their own.

I doubt they'll be able to run all the way back to California, but if they can get out of the park and back into neighborhoods, things are going to get messy, and it doesn't seem like there's much we can do to stop them. And although Corona is clearly on the defensive as well, it doesn't look like her fight is going to be resolved any time soon. With no other ideas, I try and move my fight in the direction of the one on the ground, hoping to create another vortex to keep them contained.

The forcefield knight sees what I'm doing, though, and forces me backwards instead. I grit my teeth and try to push myself just a little harder, try to recapture the momentum I had in our first fight. It works, slightly, forcing him back on the defensive, but my ribs are screaming at me. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep it up. Then, as I throw myself into yet another lunge, the forcefield knight sort of jerks in midair, like his halberd is being pulled in two directions at once.

My surprise doesn't stop me from exploiting the window, and my spear stabs into his shoulder. But it doesn't even matter, because the entire side of his head simultaneously explodes into a spray of bone fragments and gore. His costume vanishes, and his body plummets. For a moment, I just stare in confusion. Then the crack of a rifle reaches my ears, and I grin savagely, realizing what happened.

That's why Corona was so desperate to fight her way free quickly; the Cartel didn't manage to kill Huntsman after all, and it looks like he just caught up. I turn and dart towards the three on the ground, who are still jogging south, not yet realizing the danger they're in. I go for the girl with the crossbow first. She senses me coming and whirls, but just before I reach her, she suddenly spins to the side instead, holding up her crossbow in front of her head. A rifle bullet pings off of it.

Then my spearblade slices straight through her neck, and her costume vanishes as her headless body collapses. The guy who kept throwing purple lightning around panics, flailing at me with a two-handed axe in an attempt to keep me back. I do jump backwards, not to avoid his axe, but to avoid the spray as his head abruptly disintegrates too. The final Cartel magical, the one with the vague bird costume, throws up his hands.

"I sur-" That's as much as he gets out before his brains get splattered all over the grass as well; apparently Huntsman isn't in a prisoner-taking mood. There's several more rifle cracks in quick succession. I can't see if they actually hit, but Corona swerves wildly in the air overhead. Then, she turns and blasts away south at full speed. Just like that, the battle is over.

It's abrupt enough that it takes me a few seconds to process it, but then I slowly lower my staff and let the blade vanish, letting myself take a few deep breaths. Now comes the aftermath.