Pyry Chimera, the avatar of the Yeti, expanded the snowstorm around him; as it howled through the tunnel it eventually grew large enough to obscure him entirely. At the same time, Drache Chimera, the avatar of the Dragon, flapped his wings to propel himself into the air above Pyry’s blizzard.

“Wait a second,” Herman said, as the two avatars encroached on Saxon and him. “We forgot to decide who's taking who.”

Saxon opened his hand, and in it, an ethereal green coin appeared. On one side of the coin was a dragon, the other a yeti.

“We can flip for it,” Saxon suggested.

“Hey you got better at the illusions,” Herman remarked.

“Turns out, it’s all about the angles,” Saxon replied.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Herman said. “Alright, wanna do dragon, you take the yeti, yeti you take the dragon.”

“Needlessly complicated, but sure,” Saxon replied. He flipped the coin high in the air. The coin clattered to the ground. Both Saxon and Herman looked down to see which side of the coin was facing up.

Before either could say a word, a torrential snowstorm enveloped them both. Despite Saxon and Herman being so close together, they could barely see each other’s outlines.

Suddenly, another outline appeared through the veil of snow, one much larger than Saxon or Herman. A humongous fist came crashing down as the hulking stature of Pyry standing nearly 10ft tall, emerged from the snow. Although Pyry couldn’t see Saxon or Herman through the snow, his blizzard acted as a radar.

Pyry was able to detect whenever the snow conjured by his mythos impacted something; thus he knew the position of anything in his blizzard. The only problem was that he couldn’t tell apart the people in his blizzard. Fortunately, as Drache could fly, he could remain above Pyry’s snowstorm ensuring anything Pyry detected inside was an enemy.

Just before impact, Pyry felt the person he had struck at seemingly vanish. In fact, he felt the other man caught in his blizzard vanish as well. However, he quickly realized they didn’t disappear but instead, were blitzing out of it.

From above, Drache noticed a blur traveling through the blizzard at rapid speed. Drache raced through the air to keep pace.

Sensing that the two men were going to make it out, Pyry amplified the intensity of his blizzard, in exchange for limiting its radius. The increase in power dropped the temperature inside low enough for ice to start forming along the ground.

Just before Saxon and Herman could make it out of the blizzard, the newly formed ice caused them to lose their footing. Right as they slipped, Herman noticed the ice on the floor and used his mythos to heat it into water. Drache watched from above as Saxon tumbled out of the blizzard.

Diving downward, Drache called out to Saxon. “You're a fast one, aren’t you?”

Taking a deep breath inward, Drache’s chest expanded before he exhaled a gout of flame at Saxon. Before the flaming breath could scorch Saxon, he scrambled to his feet and used his super speed to dash out of the way.

Saxon blitzed forward toward Drache. In a flash, the crack of Drache’s jaw echoed out into the chamber, as Saxon slammed his fist across it. Before he could land another, Drache retreated by flying upward toward the top of the cavern.

From what he saw of the blur in Pyry’s blizzard, Drache had gauged Saxon’s speed to be more than manageable. However, that strike indicated Saxon was far, far faster than he was in Pyry’s blizzard. Carrying a person, and being in a blizzard still didn’t explain this sudden rise in speed.

Lost in thought, Drache realized he had lost sight of Saxon. His eyes darted around the cavern but saw nothing. That’s when he heard the sound of rocks falling right beside him. Drache turned to his right to see that Saxon had run up the side of the tunnel’s wall, and was currently running along the ceiling.

Quickly, Drache dropped his flight, falling far enough to evade Saxon’s attack. Saxon completed his loop around the cavern, stopping at the cavern floor. The sudden stop sent enough dust flying into the air briefly obscuring him.

Saxon dashed out from the cloud of dust, hoping to catch Drache by surprise. However, the cloud of dust was nowhere near as dense as Pyry’s blizzard. Drache, having seen right through the dust, now knew where Saxon was coming from.

As Saxon was up on the cavern walls, a ball of fire blasted into the wall setting his path ablaze. Lacking enough experience to change course so suddenly, Saxon halted himself entirely and fell off the wall.

Not giving him a second to rest, Drache’s flame breath came raining down upon Saxon, though he managed to roll out of the way.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

So long as Drache could track Saxon, he could remain in the air out of harm's way, and use his flames to block off any path to him. Even if Saxon did manage to land a hit or two, Drache’s scales provided enough protection to absorb a few blows. Eventually, the cavern floor would be engulfed in flames, and Saxon would have nowhere to run.

Strangely, Drache knew that Saxon should’ve come to the same conclusion; Drache’s victory was inevitable if things continued as they were. However, Saxon made no attempts to attack. He only kept on avoiding Drache’s onslaught of flames, as if inevitability was on his side, not Drache’s.

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Pyry sensed somebody still inside his blizzard. He charged toward them, but then once again felt them disappear. However, this time Pyry was able to catch that this wasn’t teleportation, but rather super speed.

“Stop running!” Pyry exclaimed.

Unexpectedly, Pyry heard Herman’s voice call out from where he sensed him inside his snowstorm. “Neat trick, don’t you think?”

Pyry struck out toward where he sensed Herman, but once again he vanished before he could make an impact.

Again, Herman called out to him. “Fun fact, the temperature of something is correlated to its speed. With an increase in temperature, atoms move faster. Turns out, if I heat myself, I can move faster.”

Once again, Pyry smashed both his hands down upon where he knew Herman stood, but they only impacted the ground beneath him.

Herman continued to taunt him. “You know maybe that’s why you’re so slow, spending all your time in this blizzard. It’s freezing here!”

“Well then let’s make it a little colder,” Pyry responded. The blizzard began to condense itself, and as the radius shrunk, the temperature dropped. Pyry hoped that by forming ice it would prevent Herman from running around.

However, before Pyry could drop the temperature low enough to form ice, a sudden shock ran through his whole body. The smell of smoke filled the air, as steam rose from the ground to permeate the space. The sound of crackling electricity resonated from where Pyry sensed Herman standing.

The system shock was powerful enough for Pyry to momentarily lose concentration on his blizzard causing it to disappear. As a result, Pyry could no longer sense Herman’s location, and the steam prevented him from seeing him either.

“They say there are three states of matter, but did you know there’s a fourth,” Herman said. “Plasma is what you get when you superheat a gas, and take a guess what lightning is made of.

Thanks for the ice by the way. Turned that stuff into water, and ran my electricity right through it, then straight to you.”

“Are you always this annoying?” Pyry asked.

“You find me annoying, that’s rude,” Herman replied. “Well then, I guess it’s time for me to take my leave.”

Confused, Pyry resummoned his blizzard, but now detected nobody inside it.

Meanwhile, Drache unleashed another stream of flame toward Saxon. Saxon was beginning to run out of room. Fortunately, he didn’t need to run any longer.

Gazing up toward Drache, a smirk crawled across Saxon’s face. “Took you long enough.”

Drache realized Saxon wasn’t looking toward him but behind him. Drache spun around to see Saxon, again. This Saxon had seemingly apparated from out of nowhere right behind Drache near the cavern’s ceiling and had wings on his back.

Drache was unable to comprehend how this was possible, until out of the corner of his eye he noticed something; an illusion around the Saxon he had been fighting faded to reveal Herman hiding behind it.

This whole time, Drache’s opponent had been Herman, and Pyry’s opponent had been Saxon.

Without time to think, Drache bellowed fire toward the real Saxon. In response, Saxon used the mythos of King Leonidas to summon a fiery red shield that blocked the flames. Before Drache could expel more fire, Saxon grabbed his face, covering his mouth.

Lightning crackled around Saxon’s arm, electrocuting Drache. Saxon dismissed his shield and planted his feet on the cavern ceiling. Using the wings of Icarus, and the strength of King Leonidas, Saxon exploded off of the cavern ceiling toward the ground.

With a strike that both looked and sounded like thunder, Saxon slammed Drache into the ground, and sent a powerful flash of electricity surging through his body, knocking him out instantly.

At the same time, Herman turned toward the Pyry’s blizzard. With a wave of his hand, he used his mythos to heat the entirety of the snow in Pyry’s snowstorm into water. In a flash, water engulfed Pyry.

Through the water, Pyry looked to see Herman--to his surprise outside of his blizzard--both his hands raised toward him. Fear riddled Pyry’s eyes. He knew what was coming next.

A surge of lightning emanated from Herman’s fingertips. The water that surrounded Pyry conducted the electricity till lightning engulfed him. As the water turned to steam, Pyry fell to his knees, his body charred, and smoking.

Still barely conscious, he attempted to rise to his feet. However, before Pyry could take a single step, steam parted as Herman--having used his super speed to blitz toward him--drove his fist into Pyry’s head knocking him out cold.

Eventually, both Pyry and Drache reverted to their human forms, allowing Saxon and Herman to slip underworld cuffs on them with ease.

“Status report,” Herman requested, over the infiltration team’s communications.

“Everyone’s alright, and heading back to Charon,” Lya informed Herman. “No signs of Draumur.”

“That means he’s right here,” Saxon said, signaling toward the vault door Drache and Pyry were guarding. “We could check it out.”

Herman gave Saxon a look of disapproval. “Let’s regroup first.”

“Fine,” Saxon replied.

“We got him backed into a corner, so let's take our time,” Herman said. “Couldn’t hear much during the fight, but from the sounds of it, not everyone got out unscathed, so I had Charon pick us up a friend. ”

Saxon smiled. “Well then let’s not keep the good doctor waiting.”