Moon sprayed ice between the cultists and the town. It was an impressive, tall and thick wall. But Arra touched the wall and blew it to smithereens with that single touch.

The cultists had poured through the hole in the dome like water through a leak. There were a lot of people to keep track of, and they could all do some messed up ability.

The good news was, they didn't seem very interested in fighting her. A fact that was probably keeping her alive. The bad news was, they were interested in slaughtering the people in nearby buildings.

The clerics shielded an open location of injured people with their magic shield. Further up the road, one of the cultists tried to slip between two buildings, to get into an unprotected part of town, and one of the law enforcement members came out to block them off with a sword. She didn't want to know where Pauth had gone, seeing as he could use shadows to go anywhere in town.

On the other side of the street, Moon saw more of those black glass-like shards. It wasn't the same person as before. That person had been human, this one was a zenny. But It was the same ability, and Moon could counter it.

Moon brought up another ice wall. This one was smaller, with less showmanship put in, but it was thicker. The shards hit the wall, and there was no way they were going through.

She dropped to the ground with a dramatic thud, wings still spread out.

Above them, a gunshot went off, carrying into the street, though no way she could tell who it hit. Evin had been stationed around there. Maybe it had been from him.

Moon spouted ice shards at the cultist who'd fired the shards. She spread her ice attack out wide and far enough it would be hard to dodge even with a five second warning. The zenny ducked and rolled to the right with impressive speed, but he was still scraped by a few of her ice pieces.

She ran towards him. She saw him lift his head enough to glare over his arm, and most shards appeared in the air.

There was another cultist coming in behind her. Cooper stepped behind the zenny, lifted the invisible sheet enough to throw properly, and flung one of his acid bombs at the attacker behind her.

He'd worked all day yesterday on the acid and smoke bombs. Because of the limited resources and time, the acid wasn't as strong as it could be, but it was enough. The cultist stumbled back into the crowd, skin burning.

Cooper pulled the sheet back over him.

Moon had defended herself as best she could against the shards. From so close, she didn't have time to block all of them, but her scales helped her from taking worse damage. She jumped into the sky.

Cooper kept moving. He dropped a smoke bomb between the cultists and the injured. Didn't even take the sheet off for that one, just dropped the bomb as he whisked by.

Moon tried to slap the zenny with her tail. He dodged. She dropped at him like a bird of prey, he rolled away again. She sprayed ice chunks out at him. He flattened against the ground, lower than them.

She charged through the air at him again, mouth open, saliva dripping out.

He tried to move away and. . .was pinned to the ground. One of the ice shards had stuck into his shirt.

He scrambled, trying to get out of his shirt, or tear it away, but he wasn't fast enough. Her jaws closed in around him. Then she hesitated. She didn't want to kill someone. But what were the alternatives. Knock him out? Hoping she didn't accidentally kill him in the process?

Something scraped her leg, strong enough to break the scales and draw blood. She should try and knock him out now. She couldn't afford to just sit here, thinking it over.

Cooper didn't want to kill people either. But. . .he was still in this battle. He could injure the cultists and slow them down, but could he do more? If he wasn't going to kill them?

Wesles might be the most useful person they'd brought. Out of anyone who wasn't a dragon. And not for the potions he'd made. He had a magical arm. He could touch the cultists, without them touching him.

Under his sheet, Cooper saw the magical arm glisten into reality, appearing from somewhere in the crowd. (Wesles was short enough, Cooper couldn't see him.) It wrapped around Arra, lifted her up, and slammed her into the ground, hard enough Cooper saw a crack appear on her eye piece. He could also pull injured people away, but it seemed most of them were already behind the cleric's barrier. And there weren't many people attacking so close to the dome anymore.

Stolen novel; please report.

Most of the cultists had moved further up the street. That was good, it meant the injured were being left alone. Most of the people who could still fight were still following them. If left to their own devices, the cultists would blow up buildings or send their attacks inside, so anyone who could still fight sort of had to follow them, do damage control.

But where were they going? Ultimately? Cooper was going to see if he could find out.

~~~

"Wren!" Fleck shouted.

He flapped after her, only to pull back from the heat of the flames. It stung and burned. Especially his eyes, but even his skin, which was supposed to be at least a little protected by his scales, hurt. It was like embers had gotten between his scales and skin and festered there.

He took a few steps backwards, using his wings to shield his face.

He flapped them a few times, creating gusts of wind. Nothing. The flames didn't lessen.

Wren entered, and almost immediately had to move to the left. She'd seen a figure, low to the ground, move towards her from the right. She rolled in the opposite direction, landing in a crouch.

The dwarf. Sistout. Good thing Wren hadn't let her touch her.

She didn't give Wren a chance to think further. She brought her hands repeatedly towards Wren in a barrage. She didn't try to punch or grab. If she hit, it would be a slap. But why try to hurt? A light tap was all she needed.

Wren dodged, tilting this way and that to stay just out of range. As Sistout moved closer she backed up, and ducked into the nearest hall. She saw Sistout's hand coming again at her right side, out of the corner of her eye.

Wren dropped, a somewhat controlled tumble to her left. She was inside a cubicle. This was some sort of office building.

Sistout stepped into the entry, towering over Wren in her crouch. Wren backed up, sliding under the desk.

Sistout raised an eyebrow. "Bad idea."

She should've jumped over the cubicle wall! It didn't go all the way to the ceiling!

They might both be right, but too late for that now.

But Wren was calm. She slid the chair between her and the dwarf with one hand, and grabbed the rock enhancer out of her pocket with her other hand. Her left hand wasn't working properly, but it didn't need to reach all the way up to get something from her pocket.

The elf magician said the rock was an enhancer. Anvon said she'd used emotion magic on him. But, who said she had to be touching someone to do that?

The chair only gave her a second or two, the time it took for Sistout to shove it out of the way.

It was all she needed. In that time, she was connected to the power of the universe.

She took the guilt that had been eating her for days, all the pain and death and sorrow, and horror at herself. And she shoved it at Sistout. It wasn't hard. Intuitive. All her time sharing emotions with Fleck probably made it so.

Sistout screamed like she'd been electrocuted. She took two steps back, head arched up, before she lost her balance and fell on her butt.

Wren stood up and went past her. Sistout hadn't been knocked unconscious or anything. And she was still close enough she should've been able to stop Wren, reach out and grab her ankle. But Wren saw her just stare at her in horror as she passed, taking deep ragged breaths, and Wren didn't stick around to see anything else, moving as fast she could past her.

Fleck tried to mentally watch Wren, and he tried to find a way in to join her, help out. But the only windows he checked likewise had flames around them, or he couldn't jump through. They were glass. He should be able to break through no problem.

Then he was interrupted, by the neighboring building collapsing.

Fleck let out a yelp as a metal beam came near his shoulder. He swerved away, tucking his wings in to avoid tearing them.

A concrete slab, part of the second floor, slid towards him. He ran faster, narrowly getting ahead of it as it crunched into the ground. Glass from the windows hit him, but bounced harmlessly off his scales.

What looked like a boiler, something for heating at any rate, fell towards him. Couldn't go forward. Too much rubble. He turned right, and tripped. On a pipe bursting water everywhere. He hit the mucky ground.

And was saved. Someone caught the machinery.

He looked up. He blinked, just to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

"Aqua?!"

Aqua was there, boiler in her teeth, her snake-like body allowing her to wind through the rubble and hazards.

Udo was also there, on her shoulders, holding one of her spikes.

She flung the boiler aside like it was a piece of bad meat. "Evergreen and Cembra are here too. And we would've been here sooner if we'd had the faintest idea where you were, or what was going on, before Copper sent a message." She growled out.

She brought her head low to look in his eyes, but the rest of her body coiled behind him in a sign of menace.

"Help me get to Wren!" Fleck shouted. He stomped the ground, wings spreading out a bit again.

"What?"

"Wren! Harmoni! She ran into the flaming building! Help!"

He jumped through the rubble, spreading his wings and getting into the air again. It was faster. They stopped by the door again.

Aqua sprayed water at it, but no change happened to the fire. The flames didn't visibly dim, and the heat didn't stop. And they didn't seem to have a smell, something Fleck hadn't been in the right headspace to notice before, but was weird.

Aqua gave up a moment later. "Whatever these flames are, they're magic. And they're not operating on the same magic as us."

"The cult's fowl magic."

Aqua nodded. "Seems likely."

It was quiet and dark in here compared to outside, only a dim light of the chaos outside getting through the slits in the window's blinds. The hall ahead of her was completely empty. Unobstructed, she ran to the end and turned.

She didn't go to the main staircase, in case Sistout decided to go after her. She went to an emergency staircase at the other end of the building, in a small metal area that, while still inside the building, was clearly not one you were supposed to spend time in.

She started up them, rusted metal steps clanging beneath her feet. It was loud. She didn't realize there was someone in the stairwell with her until it was too late.

Wren was on the staircase between the third and second floor when something sliced through her palm, as easily as if a knife had been there. The palm was a sensitive spot. Wren dropped her stone with a yelp. It fell down between the steps with more clanging, falling to the staircase below.

Wren spun around.

"Hello Wren," Pauth greeted.