Solitaire POV: Day 76

Current Wealth: 168 gold 47 silver 29 copper

I had about a second before watching my friend become the world’s nobbiest barbeque, and I was acting on it before most of my brain even knew what was happening. Thinking, reaching my focus out into the air around me, grabbing all the components I could find, drawing them in and throwing them.

Even after training for weeks, I’d never have been quick enough to do something with magus magic that fast, but my new powers were different. More innate, instinctual, limited only by the speed of my mind. And those were no limits at all.

By the time I saw the light, I’d already filled the surrounding atmosphere with my will. By the time I felt the heat, I’d already started reaching into it for water. By the time I saw the fire, I’d already thrown it out in a great torrent to wash around Xangô. 16 cubic metres of air, with at least a few percentage points of it made up of moisture. Probably, I hit my friend with close to a tonne of water, likely bowled him off his feet, maybe saved him, maybe killed him.

Unfortunately, I was denied the chance to know, because I discovered something new about my power, too. It wasn’t exempt from Newton’s third law.

My feet left the ground instantly, body tossed back like a ragdoll, forced to take more than its fair share of momentum as I propelled the torrent outwards. Probably it weighed ten times as much as me, and was moving easily dozens of miles per hour. I had just enough time to realise that I might die before the wall caught me.

The heavily sandbag-coated wall. It was that that saved me, slight deformations to the covering burlap sacks decelerating me more gradually, reducing the force and keeping my skeleton from crumpling apart. It didn’t stop me from seeing stars however.

I bounced off it, fell down, groaned and coughed. Blood was in my mouth, salty and iron-tasting, flavouring the death I was choking back and leaving me spasming for precious moments while I waited for my organs to settle. By the time I came to, the room was empty except for me, and Xangô was just barely visible outside, flitting by the door. I got to my feet, coughing, but no more blood came up. That was a good sign, and I lurched my way to the door with a grunt.

Outside, everything was mad. The air smelled of smog and smoke, it was all hot enough to sting even my supernaturally-toughened flesh, and Xangô didn’t so much as glance at me. I felt the magic instantly, but it took me a second to realise that some of it was coming from him, and all of it directed in the same direction as his eyes.

Fire, more fire, more fire than I’d ever seen before. Slashing through the air in great waves, heating the stone ground to a cherry-red glow, and Beam was right in the centre of it all. Dodging, diving, jumping and flipping. He was moving fast, almost faster than I could keep track of, like he was moving through air while the rest of the world swam its way through water. The glowing armour clung to him, as always, trailing light, but I could see that he was moving to the limits of his abilities.

Corvan was hovering high above, eyes alight with hate, power extending down in great sheets of flame. My friend didn’t have long, so I got to work.

The air was dryer, around me, now, but not so much so that I didn’t find plenty of moisture to separate and throw out. I kept the speed down, this time, just enough to reach a few metres overhead and intercept one of Corvan’s attacks, hissing on impact as the heat was absorbed and diffused as pattering rain. I didn’t look at Xangô while speaking, but I didn’t need to to know he’d be listening.

“We need your gun.” I told him. “I’ll focus on buying us some time.”

Even as I said it, I called on more water, moving to ensure that I could keep scraping fresh patches of air after depleting others. I sent my next blast out as an elongated lance, aimed for the magus himself, and watched as Corvan shifted his flames into an opaque wall of air. The liquid scattered on impact, of course, but by then I was already preparing a follow up.

Fire rolled down for me, and I threw up more water- felt it boil away, but near enough that the wave of heat made my eyes water and skin itch. So I fixed it, drawing on more moisture, ringing the heat out of my flesh by boiling the liquid myself. An endothermic reaction that gave me the perfect chance to cool myself a bit, and gave me an idea.

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More fire, more water, this time farther from my body, leaving me safer and unhurt. I took the extra time and used it to gather more water, drawing the heat from it as I did. I needed somewhere to put it, so I separated my mass of moisture into two blocks, one vaporising while another, much larger, froze solid. I shaped the liquid even as it hardened and crystalised into ice, making it a great, long lance with a jagged tip. Then I lashed it out at the magus.

Corvan blocked it again of course, his shield shattering the material with ease. Something strong enough to turn away an explosion as big as we’d thrown his way last time would’ve never failed at something so trivial.

I’d been counting on the fact.

As the ice broke apart, its hollow interiors was exposed, venting out the pressurised steam I’d left trapped inside- all the waste heat I’d needed to move away to solidify the water, now free to shoot out and bathe the magus. He was fifty feet away, at least, but I still heard him scream, and nobody could’ve failed to see him fall.

He could still breathe while using his shield, after all, most magi could. I knew enough about our magic system to be aware of that much. If air could get through, why not gas? God, I wish I could marry myself.

Corvan slowed himself before he landed, climbing, waveringly, to his feet. And then the bricks were on him; Argar, Helena, Beam, all moving like a pack of hunting dogs, encircling him within an instant, attacking in unison. His shield was fast in raising, and great in warding them back, I called out a warning right before the shockwave he conjured rang out to send them all flying back. Beam, though, didn’t need it.

He’d already leapt away from the concussion, twisting to land feet-first in a crouch, then lunging again. His conjured sword was barely deflected, and the sheer force of it sent the magus skidding back, fighting for balance. Argar rose behind him just as he did, letting Corvan’s momentum carry him towards his axe swing, sending him spinning and rolling away with the strength of it.

Fire, then water. My and Corvan’s magic met in the air, sizzling each other to death, and Argar charged through the conflagration. The magus sent another jet of flame out, smaller, but enough to heat his plate to glowing and launch him back- I screamed at the sight, the magus turned to me and raised his shield.

My ice shattered again, but this time Corvan’s barrier was far enough in front of him that the steam dispersed before it could scald his body. I could see the effects of my last attack still, red, cracked patches along his skin, but it was all superficial, too little to truly hurt him. I should’ve used more steam, and trapped it in a smaller space, increased the pressure and mass so that it would hold heat longer and shoot out faster. Might’ve melted the bastard’s face off with my last hit, might’ve hurt him again with this one. Too late, now.

The gunshot snapped me out of my self-pity.

Xangô had taken his sweet fucking time in fishing out his rifle, but it was free now, and I heard it announce itself with a sharp crack of supersonic flight and the sizzle of burning powder. Corvan’s barrier flashed, then buckled, and I saw a spray of crimson in the air all within a timeframe so small even my enhanced eyes couldn’t pick out any individual moment from coming before or after another. The magus stumbled, cursing.

Beam chose then to slam his newest weapon into the man from the side, a giant halberd which might’ve been too big for even his own superhuman musculature, were it made of metal instead of light, and hit with about as much force as the entire River Mersey. The poor old man went flying so hard he looked to be challenging the Apollo 11’s record.

Corvan hit the ground, bounced about a metre back up into the air, then hit it again. He slid this time, rolling and grinding along the floor before finally stopping as his face hit a wall and his body flipped one last time. I saw him twitching. Still alive, then, odd.

Clearly he’d shielded himself from the subsequent impacts, as well as just the initial strike, because the streak of blood he’d left along behind him wasn’t nearly a “dead” amount of leakage. That was fine, though, it meant more fun for me. I stalked after him, a sudden energy vitalising my movements as I thought of getting my hands on the fucker and twisting bits off. Where would I start? Perhaps a rib, that’d be ironic, we’d needed him to fix Beam’s ribs first after all. Then again, one couldn’t beat the old classics. I reckoned I’d take off his cock.

I reached him, and he turned to look up at me with focus in his eyes and magic in his hands, it didn’t last long. My fist cracked across his jaw and launched the coherence right out of him, leaving his head to loll back slack and boneless as his eyes fogged over with concussion. My fingers were just tightening about his chin, my other hand just reaching for the nearest cluster of pain receptors, when something important occurred to me.

Glancing over my shoulder, I looked back to check on Argar. The man was still lying still, a smouldering wreck covered with smoke and steam. My anger flared, but I stabbed it in the kidney and put it to one side, glaring back at the magus.

“Alright cunt, listen up.” I hissed, bringing his face to within an inch of mine, resisting the urge to start chewing through his cheek and bite out his tongue. “You just hurt a mate of mine, you’re going to un-fuck him, and if you don’t manage that I’ll be teaching you things about human anatomy that your moron civilisation won’t discover for another 500 years.”

Corvan did not appear to be any less grumpy than usual.