A few moments earlier...

The floor was once again drenched in the barrage of the rain immediately after the front of the house exploded outwards. After Andrea released the overwhelmingly dangerous bombardment of ice, she slams the ice daggers into the ground. The blades pierce through the wooden floorboards and shriek as the freezing ice slides against the wood. The walls of the home begin to lean towards the back of the house, and the structure cracks as the hurricane force winds attempts to shove the house over.

Rain sweeps in towards Andrea from the gaping hole in the house and strikes the ice daggers that are frozen to her fists. The ice from the knives reaches out in tendrils upon the floor and races towards the doorway, freezing the wet floor instantaneously. Once the ice reached the threshold of the home, it took a vertical turn and shot upwards towards the ceiling. The tendrils grew in the air like vines without a grip. With each droplet that hit the ice, it instantaneously froze and added to the wall of ice vines. Moments later, the holes between the ice vines had enclosed and encased the interior of the home in a thick wall of ice. Within a matter of seconds, the ice had replaced the structural damage, and the house finally settled back in place.

Turning swiftly on her heels, Andrea wrenches the ice daggers out of the floor and turns towards the kitchen window. Throwing a quick right punch with the dagger frozen to her fist, she casts another ice wall spell at the window. A single needle of ice flies forth from the dagger and embeds itself into the bottom of the wooden window frame. Tendrils of ice reach out from the needle, and the ice vines cover the entire opening. The holes between the vines disappeared as the ice wall rapidly hardened in the window frame.

Looking down at Vikta and Echo upon the ground, Andrea sighs and drops to her knees. Andrea says, “You need to leave. Get Echo out of here and find Felix. My brother will know what to do next.”

Vikta grunts as he props himself up on his elbows, “That damn lizard broke my ankle. I’m not going anywhere like this.”

Andrea curses under her breath, “Shit. It doesn’t look good. It looks like your ankle is completely crushed, and several veins have been cut. You’re bleeding out fast. The best I can do is set the bones in ice.”

Vikta grimaces as he knows what comes next. Calming his nerves, Vikta utters, “Do it.”

Reaching down with one of the daggers, Andrea places the tip against the exposed muscles of Vikta’s broken ankle. Upon contact, the vulnerable flesh flash freezes and his entire foot becomes encased in ice. Vikta howls and lets loose a blood-curdling screech of pain. The flesh near the ice puckers and turns red and then blue as it drains the heat from his tissue.

Drained of energy Andrea starts breathing heavily and has to prop herself up on her hands and knees to keep from tumbling over from exhaustion. She begins to hyperventilate, and her breaths become ragged. Retching and heaving, Andrea vomits on the frozen floor in front of her. Falling over on her side, she begins having a seizure. Shaking uncontrollably, her eyes roll into the back of her head. The muscles in her arms and legs start constricting nonstop sending her limbs flailing wildly in every direction. She hunches over into a fetal position as her seizure continues without an end in sight.

Vikta panics and screams, “Andrea! No, no, no... Not now. Please not now. This isn’t happening. Andrea!”

Rolling over to his stomach, Vikta crawls over to Andrea’s side by way of his arms and one good leg. Grunting with each movement, Vikta powered through the pain and swiftly crawled over to her. Each time the iced over ankle moved, he grimaced in pain but never stopped moving towards his wife. Reaching Andrea, Vikta propped himself up on his side and reached out for her arms.

While they were facing each other, Vikta lunged out with his hands grabbed Andrea by the elbows. He was attempting to force her to stop flailing around with only his brute strength. Andrea was powerful, even for Vikta, and one of the ice daggers eventually clipped his shoulder. Vikta howled in pain once again as the unrestrained raw magic eviscerated anything it touched. The dagger sliced through and left a small scratch on his right shoulder, which immediately froze over and prevented any bleeding. One of the small ice daggers in her hand turned red as the ice consumed the blood it had touched and instantly integrated it into the weapon.

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Vikta eventually gained dominance and was able to cross her arms and pin them in place. Vikta held back tears as his voice cracked, “Fight through the pain. You’ve been through this before.”

Andrea continued with her seizure and showed no sign of stopping. Tears rolled down Vikta’s face as sobbed on the floor in front of his wife. Vikta began shaking her softly as he cried out, “Andrea... Please come back to me. You can’t do this to us. You can’t leave us like this. We need you. I NEED YOU!”

Echo wakes at the sound of his father yelling and steadily blinks his eyes open. He sits up and rubs a red spot on his forehead. It was sore to the touch, and he grimaced as pain shot through his head with a searing headache. Echo looked over to his father and mother and assumed they were hugging on the floor until he noticed what was wrong. Echo panicked as he watched the scene unfold in front of him. Sitting speechless, Echo was struck dumbfounded with horror. He was watching his mother die from magical exhaustion.

For a few moments, it looked as if nothing would change and this would be the end, but then Andrea began to slow her spasms and ragged breathing. After what seemed like an eternity, she started coming back to reality, and her eyes rolled forward to look at Vikta. Sobbing and gasping for air, Andrea says with a hoarse voice, “I... I’m not going anywhere, hun. Help me up.”

While Vikta still has Andrea gripped by the elbows, they sit up together. Vikta let’s go of her, and they begin hugging. Andrea makes an effort to keep the frozen daggers far away from him as she embraces Vikta and plants a kiss on his cheek. They let go of each other and turn their heads to look at Echo, who was already sitting upright and watching the both of them with an incredibly confounded expression. Looking past his parents, Echo noticed the massive ice wall and his face scrunched up in confusion.

Echo asked, “What the hell happened to our house!?”

Vikta sighed, “I’ll explain later. Right now, we need to go.”

Andrea coughed a few times and tried to regain her composure. Taking a deep breath, Andrea turns towards her husband who was still staring at Echo and says, “No, you need to go. I’ll hold off the big dumb lizard while you make your escape.”

Vikta snaps his attention towards Andrea and growls, “I’m not leaving you here. You’re coming with us. If anything it should be me taking on Lazarus. Not you.”

Andrea sighed as she calmly says, “What will you do, then? You’ll hold him off for maybe a few seconds with that busted ankle. He’ll just laugh at you and then chase us down. It’s not like you’ll be able to stop him. We’ll never have enough time to make it to the train if you argue with me on this. I’m staying and giving you more time to run. There’s no other way.”

Vikta hesitates for a few moments, and then grabs Andrea by the cheeks and plants a long kiss on her lips. As they embrace, they both begin sobbing, and their lips shiver as they touch for the final time. With streams of tears on his face, Vikta pulls away and says in a soft voice, “I love you. I’ll come looking for you. I’ll find you and save you. I promise.”

Andrea gives a slight smile between his palms as tears begin rolling down her face and over Vikta’s fingertips. Vikta let’s go as Andrea turns her head back to Echo and asks, “Can you help your father get up? His ankle is busted, and he’ll need your help to get out of here.”

Echo simply said, “But mom... What about you?”

Andrea snapped, “Just get to the train and make haste for Launch Central. Get off this planet with Felix. He’ll be able to protect you while your father heals up. Now get going. I’ll be alright.”

Getting up from his spot on the floor. Echo walks over to Vikta and attempts to lift him by his arms. Vikta helps with his one good leg as the young man raises him. Echo slings Vikta’s left arm over his shoulders and lets his father put the weight down on him to prop himself up.

As the duo stands together, with Vikta’s left arm over Echo’s shoulders, Vikta says, “Let’s climb out through your bedroom window and run to the train. It’s our best option right now.”

Andrea began standing up from the floor with her ice daggers still in hand. Once she was standing, she glared at her ice wall at the front of the home. Her arms drooped heavily by her side as she shifted her feet into a fighter’s stance once more. Vikta and Echo turned towards the bedroom hallway and began walking towards the room at the end. Halfway down the hall, Echo stopped in place and turned his head to look over his shoulder.

Vikta coughs as he turns his eyes to Echo and asks, “What’s wrong? We need to keep moving.”

Echo’s lips shiver as he says, “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

Vikta turns his head fully toward the young man, and the two of them stare at each other for a long moment. Vikta glares heavily into Echo's eyes as he says flatly, “Never say goodbye. Goodbye is forever.”

Those words would torment Echo for the rest of his life.