An extraordinarily large bang accompanied the spectacle. Never in my life had I ever expected to see lightning strike each leg of the Eiffel Tower, but there was certainly a first time for everything.

The Tower began to collapse. I immediately noticed the huge cloud of dust that was rising from the base of the Tower. Then I noticed the screams. Finally, I noticed the storm of rubble.

As the Eiffel Tower descended, a huge rumble shook the ground at my feet, so loud that I was half surprised I did not go deaf.

Time still felt sluggish. The plates of metal and earth flying towards me seemed to be moving at a speed slower than the average walk.

I turned my head to the left, where my friends were. Isaac was running towards us, but he, too, seemed to be moving slowly.

‘Albert! Ali! Get over here!’ he roared so loud that it must have hurt his throat.

His words seemed to resume the normal flow of time.

Grunting, I barged Ali out of the way of a huge slab. My vision became clouded with brown dust, so thick I could only just about see the silhouettes of corpses flying past me.

I grabbed Ali with two of my left fingers and threw him behind me.

Pieces of metal and the ground itself were flying towards the two of us at insane speeds. Panic flooded my body. I had to protect Ali. He was my friend. Not only that, but he was severely injured, no matter how much he denied needing help.

Grunting, I sliced through the middle of a plate of metal that had been flying towards me. Pain shot through my arms and shoulders. Slicing through solid metal was not easy.

I swatted away another piece, wondering if that would hurt less than cutting through it. The opposite was true.

I roared with pain, but this was not the time to focus on my own problems. My vision was still clouded with dust, and I was fighting to keep my eyes open. They were throbbing with pain, as one could expect, given the fact I was standing in the middle of a huge cloud of dust.

‘Ali! This way!’ I yelled, grabbing his wrist again.

I darted to the right, pulling him with me. Every few seconds, if that, I had to duck or halt in my tracks to avoid being killed by a piece of debris.

The biggest trouble was the fact that the pieces were not visible until they were about four feet away from me. It gave me less than a second to prepare.

Fear shot through my body as I realised that all of my friends were caught up in this. Isaac was on his own, most likely. He had been running toward me and Ali. He was coming to help when the storm had begun.

And Cecilia. She wasn’t the strongest physically. There was no way that she would be able to carve through the plates of metal and earth if I was struggling.

***

Albert would kill him if he let a single piece of debris touch Cecilia.

Ethan stood defensively in front of her, desperately swatting away and slicing through the flying pieces of debris with his flaming sword. One had already caught him in the leg, which was now bleeding rather heavily.

‘Ethan! Be careful!’ Cecilia screamed.

Ethan heard her take a step forward.

‘Stay behind me!’ he screamed angrily, slicing through a chunk of earth. ‘The last thing Albert wants is you getting hurt! Don’t fucking move until this is over!’

Speaking of which, Ethan had no idea how long it would last. The Eiffel Tower was over three hundred metres of metal. That wouldn’t just be over in a few seconds.

‘Shit…’ he murmured as he sliced through even more debris, pain soaring across his body. ‘What the fuck is this, man?’

***

‘How long is this going to last?’ I roared over the noise.

I didn’t expect an answer and did not blame Ali for not giving me one. What felt like a kilogram of dust flew into my mouth from just that one sentence.

Screaming in anger, I began to slice through the mess with a bit more power. My arms were blurs in front of me, but I could not tell whether that was because they were shrouded in dust or because I was moving them so incredibly quickly.

I dodged a few smaller pieces by quickly cocking my head to the left.

Nobody had expected the Eiffel Tower to come crashing down when we had organised this battle. This was simply insane, even by my standards.

‘Ali!’ I screamed jubilantly. ‘It’s slowing down! The storm is clearing!’

The scene before me was slowly becoming clearer and clearer. But there were still objects zooming towards me.

An entire small tree flew toward me with terrifying speed. I desperately swung my sword up, slicing cleanly through the middle of its body.

But now I was able to slow down my swinging. The pieces of debris were coming slower and less frequently now.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the storm seemed to stop. The dust disappeared and I found that I no longer had to slice through flying objects.

Sighing, I stared out at the scene in front of me.

Everything had been levelled. The grass had been painted brown with dust and there was not a single tree in sight. All the benches were gone. All the…people…were gone. In the distance, all I could see was a desolate wasteland-looking area. Not a single building was in sight.

The sky was clouded with the remaining dust, but it seemed to just hover in the air rather than invade my mouth.

Steam rose thickly from my arms and legs. I hadn’t even realised that I had been hit.

‘Ali!’ Isaac’s voice bellowed from somewhere to my left.

Glancing in that direction, I saw Isaac, covered in dust and a bit of dried blood, bounding towards me. I had never seen anyone run so fast.

He dropped to his knees next to a large plate of metal about two metres away from me. Throwing his swords to the ground next to him, he shoved his hands underneath the piece of debris and desperately began to try and pull it up.

‘Ali!’ he screamed again, frantically trying to pull the piece of metal up. ‘Ali!’

My mind was completely blank. Now that I could look at my surroundings, it was true that Ali was nowhere to be seen. But I couldn’t see anybody else in the distance either. My stomach flipped.

‘Albert!’ Isaac roared, sounding both angry and scared. ‘Help me! You’re strong! Lift this thing up!’

I stayed rooted to the spot, my eyes wide.

‘Albert!’ Isaac barked. ‘Help me!’

Still, I did not move. I do not know what kept me so determinedly rooted to the spot.

‘Albert!’ Isaac shrieked, looking up at me. Tears were streaming down his face. ‘Get this thing off the fucking ground!’

My swords fell to the ground as I dived next to the piece of debris to help Isaac.

I shoved my fingers underneath it and pulled with every ounce of strength I had. It didn’t move. I gritted my teeth and pulled even harder. It still didn’t move. I let out a strained roar. Not even an inch.

Anger and fear were beginning to get a hold of me. It was almost blinding. I felt my mind begin to fog as all rational thought left my mind.

Yellow lightning appeared on my forearms. I let out a scream of pure rage. The yellow lightning intensified.

The piece of metal flew up into the sky and landed with a dull thud a few metres away from us after a few seconds.

Such a ghastly sight was revealed that I am not sure I want to describe it.

A blood stain. A giant one. A huge patch of crimson was staining the flattened earth beneath it. What seemed to be a few flattened organs lay in this patch. As did a bit of what appeared to be bone dust.

This was not a ‘pool’ of blood, for the record. It was a stain. It was not a liquid.

But one thing caught my eye. A spearhead. Somehow not crushed by the chunk of metal, it lay near the bottom of the blood stain.

Isaac’s eyes widened, as did mine.

I let out a few shaky breaths, but Isaac could not hold in his emotions as well as I could.

‘Ali!’ he wailed, dragging out the final syllable.

He began to claw at the ground next to the dried blood.

‘Ali!’ he repeated, his voice raw. ‘No!’

I slowly turned my head to see if I could see him. Maybe this wasn’t his blood. Maybe it was a random soldier. Perhaps Ali was searching for us at this very moment.

‘Albert, what if I was seeing things?’ Isaac cried, bringing his hands up from the ground and clutching my shoulders. ‘What if Ali wasn’t here? What if this isn’t him?’

I glanced at the spearhead silently. I knew he had seen it, too. He just didn’t want to believe it. I had come to terms with it quicker than he had.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

‘Albert, tell me!’ he roared. ‘Tell me I was seeing things! You were right next to him! You know he’s alive, don’t you?’

I didn’t say a word.

Isaac gritted his teeth.

‘Why?’ he screamed. ‘Why did it have to be him, Albert? Why not anybody else? Why did it have to be Ali?’

I had failed. Ali had been under my care. It had been my job to protect him. I had pulled him away from the rest of the group and then failed to protect him.

He, as Isaac had pointed out, had been right next to me. How had I not noticed? How had I not seen him get crushed to death by a flying chunk of metal?

‘Albert!’ Isaac roared, shaking me slightly. ‘Ali…Ali…he’s…Albert…tell me he’s not!’

‘It is a shame, boys, it really is,’ came a deep voice from above me.

My swords were just about visible out of the corners of my eye. That was all I needed.

In half a second, I had grabbed them and murmured, ‘Thunder Breathing, Second Form: Godspeed.’

I shot to my feet, spinning on the spot and slashing across the air. It did not matter who it was that had spoken. I had not recognised that voice. It was most likely an enemy.

A hand. A hand caught my blade. It grasped it tightly before slowly pushing it away and returning to the side of the person it belonged to.

He looked a lot like Titan. He had flowing hair that went down to his shoulders, but this man’s hair was brown rather than dirty blond. Titan had blue eyes just like this man, too, but Titan’s were a lighter shade. When I had first met Titan, he had been wearing a pristine white toga that was perfectly positioned to display his perfect arms and abs. This man wore the same attire, but his toga was dark blue instead of white. Leather sandals sat comfortably on his feet, just like they had on Titan’s when I had first encountered him. This man’s facial hair was a great deal longer than Titan’s, however. He had a full beard the same colour as his hair.

‘Titan Almighty,’ I heard Isaac say quietly from behind me. ‘How tall is this guy?’

He was about two metres tall, I was certain of that.

But the question was not ‘How tall is this guy?’. It was: who is he?

I had a vague answer, at the very least. A vague answer that I was very sure of. The man in front of me, without a shadow of a doubt, was a God.

‘Good instinct, Mr Santrrer,’ the God said as I bowed my head and sheathed my swords. ‘It is a sign of a good soldier that your first thought was to try and kill me. But, I am afraid, that is impossible. Especially for a mortal such as yourself.’

I raised my head and then spoke for the first time in what felt like years.

‘With all due respect, sir – and I apologise for not being able to formulate a polite way to say this – who are you?’

The God smiled sadly. ‘I am Ali’s grandfather.’

My eyes would have widened if I had not been at the site of one of my best friends’ deaths. I had suspected that this man was Ali’s Godly heritage, but I had known better than to assume so.

‘I know that he went out of his way to hide that he was descended from me, and I cannot blame him,’ he continued. ‘For I am Wethra.’

That was a name that I had not heard since the day I arrived at RoCity.

Wethra was the twin brother of Titan and one of the Three Primordials. If you would believe it, he was Primordial of the Weather.

He was Ali’s grandfather? This entire time…Ali had been the grandson of one of the Primordials? That made him as powerful as me and Ethan.

‘I tend not to have children anymore,’ Wethra said slowly, ignoring the stunned look on Isaac’s face. ‘The last time I had a child he was hospitalised. Six men assaulted him purely because he’s my son.’

‘And…Ali feared we’d treat him that way?’ Isaac said quietly, sniffling halfway through the question.

‘He did. He feared it more than anything else.’

I knew as well as Isaac that we never would have dared to treat Ali any different just because he was Wethra’s grandson. I didn’t even know why Wethra and his descendants were regarded as ‘bad omens’.

‘Why come down now that he’s…’ Isaac began, but he seemed to choke on his words. ‘Why not show yourself sooner?’

‘I wouldn’t dare disrupt his life,’ Wethra retorted, sounding genuinely offended. ‘I care for my descendants more than any other God cares for theirs. It would be rude of me to show my face when he was trying so desperately to hide me.’

‘What do you mean you ‘care for your descendants more’? Isaac pressed, his voice still quiet. He had still not risen to his feet.

‘I doubt the other Gods knew you were attacking Paris until this morning,’ Wethra replied, his voice at a dangerously low volume. ‘And by ‘this morning’, I mean when you jumped from the planes.’

‘Isaac! Albert!’ came a familiar voice from behind me.

I spun on the spot to find Natasha barrelling towards us. Her brown hair flew behind her like the mane of a horse.

‘I’ve been searching for a familiar face for so long!’ she cried as she reached us. ‘I lost everyone else in the…storm…’

She glanced at Wethra, then at me, then at Isaac, then at the stain on the floor.

‘Wha-…What’s…Who…?’ she managed.

Wethra offered a giant hand towards her. ‘Wethra, Primordial of the Weather. Miss Acclere, I take it?’

Natasha stared at him wordlessly for a few seconds before taking his hand and nodding. ‘Why…why are you…here…?’

‘How do we tell her, boys?’ Wethra said, smiling warmly.

Isaac and I stayed completely silent.

‘Well, Miss Acclere, I am Ali’s grandfather,’ Wethra explained, still smiling, but it was faltering.

Natasha’s face lit up. ‘He’s been Claimed! That’s-’

‘This isn’t a Claiming,’ Isaac snarled. ‘This is a funeral.’

‘H-Huh?’ Natasha whimpered, looking at him. ‘What do you-’

‘Look at the blood on the floor, Natasha,’ Isaac interrupted bitterly. ‘That’s his blood.’

Natasha’s face went slack.

‘But…Albert…you were with him, weren’t you?’ she breathed shakily.

I nodded, biting the inside of my cheek as hard as I could.

This was my fault. Everybody’s first reaction so far other than Wethra’s was to question me. I was there. I was his protection. I had failed.

It still hadn’t truly set in that he was dead. How? How was Ali dead? I could vividly imagine him running towards us from across the wasteland, smiling ear to ear at the realisation that we had survived, too.

‘I wish you all the best of luck in this battle, by the way, children,’ Wethra said abruptly, piercing the silence with his deep voice. ‘Even if no other God is rooting for you, I will be.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said quietly. ‘It means a lot.’

Wethra stared at the bloody patch on the ground. He seemed genuinely upset at the death of his grandson. I doubted Titan would even care too much if Ethan or I were to die here.

‘I really did have high hopes for him, you know,’ he said quietly. It sounded as though he didn’t realise he was speaking loud enough for everyone else to hear him. ‘He would’ve shone brighter than any other demigod of mine.’

My throat began to burn. Even as a God – no, a Primordial – Wethra sounded upset. He was grieving just like the rest of us.

‘Do you…’ I began cautiously. ‘Do you…blame me?’

Before I even had time to think about my question, his answer had flown from his mouth.

‘Dear Gods, boy, no! I blame the damned boy that took down the Eiffel Tower!’

I considered that statement. The way it was phrased made it sound almost as though Wethra knew who it was. In fairness, he had apparently known right from the get-go that we were going to attack Paris. What else did he know? What else could he know?

I ignored this thought.

‘I’m glad, sir. Although the results may not show it, I did try to protect your grandson.’

‘I know, Mr Santrrer, and I have nothing but gratitude and respect for you for doing so. Most people would have defended themselves and only themselves.’

I didn’t say a word. I didn’t quite know what to say.

‘You are a remarkable young boy, I’ll give you that,’ Wethra continued, and his body began to glow. ‘And your friends…all of them…remarkable people, too. This is a fantastic generation of demigods. You will go very far.’

He disappeared with a bright flash, leaving the three of us in stunned silence.

‘Ali…’ Natasha murmured. ‘He’s…he was…the grandson of a Primordial?’

Isaac angrily wiped his eyes with his forearm and got to his feet. Then, he roughly grabbed his swords and picked them up off the ground.

‘The three of us are the only ones that know,’ he grumbled, staring at the crimson patch on the floor. ‘We should prioritise finding everybody else first. Then we can figure out how to break the news.’

Natasha, trembling slightly, slowly walked over to the blood.

‘This…’ she breathed. ‘Is this…from his spear?’

Without even giving her an answer, Isaac dropped his swords again. He crouched next to the blood and snatched the spearhead from the ground, putting it in his pocket.

‘I’m gonna keep it,’ he growled. ‘My only reminder of him.’

I thought back to all the times I had found Isaac and Ali together. In the café. Shopping. Whenever I went outside, there was a high chance I would find the two of them together. They had been amazing friends.

I suspected that Isaac was feeling something similar to what I would feel if I were to lose Ethan. Just the thought of that made me shiver.

My throat closed, and it suddenly became a fight to not let tears creep their way into my eyes.

‘Where do we even find everyone in this mess?’ Natasha murmured, stroking her ring and smacking her wristwatch.

Her sword and shield appeared in her hands. They would have glistened under the sun if it weren’t for the tonnes of dust in the air.

‘It’s a wasteland,’ I replied quietly, trying not to sound upset. ‘They can’t be hiding anywhere.’

‘What if they’re trapped under-’ she caught herself.

‘Albert, do you reckon you could fly up and scan the area for anyone?’ Isaac muttered.

‘Good idea.’

I hadn’t even thought of that. Even though I was extremely fatigued, I was certain I could at least hover in the air for a while.

‘I can barely even remember which direction everybody else should be from here,’ Natasha said quietly.

‘Towards the river,’ Isaac grumbled. ‘That’s roughly where everybody should be.’

Pain shot through my left wrist.

One second I had been fine, the other I had not.

Glancing down, my stomach flipped. My left hand was gone.

What had happened was immediately obvious. Someone or something had cut my hand off faster than one could blink.

It didn’t matter who or what it was that had done it, the message was still clear. The real fight had only just begun.

Looking up, I felt what can only be described as terror encompass my body.

He was about an inch taller than me, and a mop of black hair sat atop his head. As he turned to face me, I noticed his electric blue eyes. His identical black swords did glisten eerily, unlike Natasha’s. There was only one person it could have possibly been.

Nothing other than pure anger was displayed in those eyes of his. He was ready for this. I certainly wasn’t.

‘Righello,’ I said calmly, my voice piercing the air.

‘It’s been a while, Albert Santrrer,’ his voice was, like mine, strangely calm.

The tension between the two of us was palpable. The dynamic was different than it was between me and Maltor. Maltor and I had a history. Righello and I just wanted to kill each other.

‘Surprising, isn’t it?’ he taunted, not breaking eye contact with me. ‘Everybody besides you is holding a weapon. I thought you would be the only one.’

Steam was pouring from the end of my left arm. I had to let my hand regenerate before I fought him. He had been the hardest fight of my life when I had been at my best. Now I was exhausted and missing one of my hands. If he came for me now, I would be dead within five minutes.

‘You…’ I breathed. ‘You’re the one that took down the Eiffel Tower, aren’t you?’

A wicked grin appeared on his face.

‘Special orders,’ he snarled cockily. ‘We had no need for it. And, hey, it took out a load of your guys.’

Anger began to boil.

Isaac roared with anger and lunged towards Righello, his swords poised to take him out.

I admired his bravery. Everybody knew how powerful Righello was. Everybody had seen our fight. And yet he still charged towards him without any regard for his own life.

I couldn’t blame him. Righello had killed Ali and then shown his cocky little face mere moments after.

Righello’s right hand blitzed up. The flat of his blade smashed into the side of Isaac’s head, sending him crashing to his knees.

My hand was back.

‘Isaac!’ Natasha yelled, and she took a step forward.

'Stay where you are, idiot girl!’ Righello snapped. ‘I’ll dispose of both of you if you get in the way of what’s about to happen.’

He knew as well as I did that the two of us were about to have the most destructive fight of this war so far.

He raised his sword, pointing the tip at my neck.

‘Come on, then, Albert Santrrer,’ he said calmly. ‘Let’s finish what we couldn’t six months ago.’

But he didn’t wait for me to start it.

Righello dived straight at me, attempting to stab my throat.

My movements felt sluggish and my arms felt heavy, but I still moved quick enough to unsheath my swords and block his jab before it reached me.

The fight started off slow.

He swung his right blade around towards the side of my neck, and I jumped backwards. He threw a flurry of jabs, and it took immense strain and effort to block them all.

‘Come on, Albert!’ he taunted, swinging his sword towards my stomach. I blocked it. ‘Give me something to work with! Let’s have some fun!’

Lightning ran up and down the bodies of his blades as he swung them repeatedly towards my vitals. But still, I held on. My arms were throbbing with pain, but I still managed to block his hits and swat his blades away.

If he sped up, I was finished.

‘You’re slower than I remember, Albert!’ he roared cockily. ‘Are you tired?’

He dragged his sword across my chest. My vision blurred.

Righello was right. I was extremely tired. Exhausted, even. I couldn’t keep going like this.

Or, could I?

I had something up my sleeve that Righello did not know about. I had completely forgotten about it. I hadn’t used it since the night Maltor and I escaped The School six years ago, and, even then, I hadn’t been the one to use it.

It was risky. I couldn’t do it. There was only a chance that it would work the way I wanted it to. And, even then, there was a higher chance that it would hurt Natasha and Isaac because of how close they were to me.

Righello swung his left blade around, and I caught it with my right. The swords dragged along each other, creating a noise that made my toes curl.

He swung two more shots toward me, and I caught them. Just barely.

‘Come on, Albert! Show me what you’ve got!’

I’d show him. He killed Ali. He had tried to kill Cecilia back in January.

Now it was my turn to toy with him.

He threw a jab toward my head with his right sword. I crouched low to avoid it whilst also throwing the same move at his stomach with my own right sword.

Whilst crouched, without him noticing, I tapped a very specific point on my left calf.