The instant the first bullet left Mark’s chamber, Thel teleported away. He reappeared behind Omet and threw up his arms.

Omet was hurled over Mark’s head by a wave of flying snow and collapsed about twenty feet away. Horan barely had time to summon his sword before Thel lunged forward with a blade of his own.

As they locked swords, Thel grinned at the visible fear in Horan’s eye. “What? Too scared to keep mocking me? Pathetic!” He shoved Horan into the snow.

Horan hurriedly got up, floating a foot off the ground. “Thel, come on. This is between you and me. Nobody else has to get hurt.”

Thel scoffed. “Oh, really? Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you decided to hide behind all of these goons of yours.” He felt something strike the back of his head and turned around to see Mark aiming a smoking barrel at him. “But I’ll humor you, sure.” He made a flicking motion with his empty hand and sent Mark’s gun flying through the air into the snow. Immediately after, he wrapped his arm around Horan’s waist and sent the two hurtling into the sky.

Horan pulled himself free of Thel’s grip once the two entered the clouds above. Whirling around, Horan realized that he had no idea where Thel was now. The ash-filled clouds were so thick, he couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of him. He could barely tell which way was up.

Thel’s voice echoed out from the dark haze, seemingly coming from every direction at once. “Well, here’s what you wanted. Nobody to hide behind, nobody to bail you out. Just me and you. Just the way I like it.”

A red glow appeared in front of Horan, piercing through the grey miasma surrounding him. Thel raced forward with his fists raised, striking with the intent to kill. Horan barely had time to block the blow, being sent flying back from the force of the attack.

Horan righted himself in the air, sword raised in a defensive stance. Instead of using the cloud cover to mask his presence, Thel was making himself clearly visible by emanating a blisteringly hot red aura that could probably be seen from the ground. “Please, Thel. I just want to talk. Why are you doing this? I know what you did, back in Egypt. Why? Why did you kill them? What are you doing?”

Thel scowled. “Oh, so now you care about what’s going on with other people? Convenient for you, isn’t it? Fine, I’ll oblige. What I’m doing is getting you to admit that you don’t deserve what you had. That I should’ve been the one in charge. That I’m better than you. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll let those folks down on the ground go if you say it. So go ahead. I’ve been waiting all these years for you to say it.

Horan stared incredulously at Thel. “Really? That’s why you’ve been trying to take over the world? Because you want to prove that you’re better than me?! And this is about the first time you did this? I thought we all got over that millennia ago!”

Thel’s expression softened slightly, a look of regret beginning to peek through. But a flicker of blue dimly flashed in his eyes, and his countenance hardened again. “I’m waiting. There’s nobody around for you to impress, Horan. It’s just you and your executioner up here. So go ahead and say it, speed this all up for everyone.”

Horan didn’t respond, slowly backing away from him. “You’re insane… How else could…?”

Thel growled audibly and balled his hands into fists. “You always make this so hard. First I try conquering the world and playing up being the bad guy. Sure, it works on all the little people down there, but you’re still not acting right. And now, I’m just trying to get you to say, like, four words! Is it that hard for you to swallow your pride? Just say it!”

“Look, I understand that you’re feeling inferior. I get it. But please, we can talk about this. This can all end cleanly, if you’ll just listen to me!”

“Oh, sure, because you’re so desperate to be civil about this, you humiliated me in front of everyone down on the ground!” His fists began to glow much brighter than the rest of his body. “I know you’re terrified of me, you know I’m better than you, so just spit it out!”

“I know you want me to validate you, but trust me, that’s not going to give you closure, or satisfaction, or anything. If you could-!”

Horan stopped when he felt the air around his neck constrict, cutting off his speech. Thel slowly drifted towards him, murder in his eyes. “Always with the talking when it comes to you. Blah, blah blah. But when you need to say something that actually hurts your pride, you suddenly get all evasive! I wonder why that is.” He sighed. “Fine. Maybe you haven’t properly internalized the truth yet. In that case, I’ll make you realize it. By beating the confession out of you.”

He struck at Horan’s chest, but Horan shifted into a falcon an instant before the blow landed. His smaller neck freed from the constriction of Thel’s power, he flew forward and attempted to scratch at Thel’s eyes.

Before any damage could be done, Thel wordlessly expelled a surge of energy around him, sending Horan flying through the air. Horan quickly shifted back into his true form and summoned another sword, glancing down at a severe-looking scorch mark on his leg.

Thel tutted, slowly lifting his arms. “Really, Horan? Really? Your strategy to defend yourself is to try and scratch my eyes out? Lame.” As he raised his arms, two roughly cuboidal shapes began to form from the clouds around him, buzzing with chaotic energy. The shapes quickly took on further definition, turning into fist-like shapes the size of cars. “Guess I have to teach you a lesson on how to do this kind of thing.”

One of the fists rushed forward quicker than Horan could react, slamming into him and sending him flying backwards, spinning wildly. He only just managed to fly out of the way of the second fist, which soared past and dissipated back into the surrounding clouds.

The instant the first pair of shapes were gone, more began to form around Horan in the dozens. Thel sighed. “Seriously, I don’t get you. You can’t win, why are you still trying? You’re only making this worse for yourself.” He waited a moment for a response, but received none. “Fine. Looks like you haven’t learned yet.” He snapped his fingers, and the real assault began.

Horan tried his best to hold off the attacks. Some of the cloudy strikes he dispelled with blasts of wind, others he deflected or cleaved through with his sword, but it wasn’t enough. He was harried from all sides by the oddly solid clouds, knocked around like a feather in a hurricane. When he realized the futility of defense, he switched to evasion.

He flew upwards as fast as he could, dodging what few attacks he could. Maybe if he could breach the top of the cloud cover, Thel wouldn’t be able to form any more of the cloud-fists, and would be at more of a disadvantage.

As Horan ascended, the water vapor that would normally coat his body in clouds like these vanished. All that was this high up was ash. But the attacks continued. Every time Horan was struck, he was sent careening through the air and lost his grip on his sword, having to constantly summon new ones just to keep something between himself and Thel’s onslaught. He couldn’t do this for much longer, and there was no end in sight to the clouds. “I don’t want to fight you, you’re not gonna get any fulfillment out of this! Please, it’s not too late, you can stop all this!”

Thel teleported in bursts to keep up with Horan’s flight, never letting up with the barrage of cloud-fists. Were it not for his glow, Horan wouldn’t be able to see the fists coming his way. “You just don’t get it, do you? There’s no running from me, Horan. I’ll never stop until you’re lying broken in front of me! All of this, this death, this carnage… It’s all because of you! Everything I’ve done, Everything I’ve been planning for years, it was to prove that I’m better! To get you to say that you’re nothing compared to me! After everything I’ve done, everyone I’ve killed, I can’t stop now! So just let me finish this and say it! SAY IT!”

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He teleported directly above Horan, glowing with enough intensity to cut through the clouds for hundreds of yards. Horan looked up to see a pair of blazing feet coming straight at him.

Horan felt his ribs snap like twigs under Thel’s heels, his double kick sending Horan hurtling back down to earth. Horan fell through a mile of cloud cover in the blink of an eye, reemerging from the bottom of the clouds and into view of the people on the ground. He attempted to slow his descent with a cushion of air, but it still wasn’t nearly enough. He crash-landed next to Thel’s split boulder, tumbling through the snow. He was barely still conscious.

Thel followed suit, landing back on the ground and slowly walking towards where Horan lay. “You really are the worst ne…” He looked over at Omet, who was silently lying in the snow and trying not to draw attention to themself. “…Mesis ever. Seriously, this kid’s a joke! Up there?” He pointed at the clouds. “Prime penultimate dueling spot. But what does he do? He runs like a wimp! Killing him is a service.”

Before Thel could take another step, He was knocked to the side by a shotgun blast from Mark. Mark stepped forward and took aim at Thel again. “Don’t touch my friend.”

Thel quickly regained composure and teleported out of the way of Mark’s subsequent shots. “Excuse me, I’m a little busy, I don’t have time to mess with some human. If it helps, I won’t touch him, per se. All I’m going to do is turn him into paste.”

He teleported up to Mark, grabbed the gun out of Mark’s hands, slammed the handle of the gun into Mark’s forehead and tossed the weapon aside. As Mark staggered back, clutching his bleeding forehead, Thel punched him in the gut at full force. Mark screamed in pain as he sailed through the air, then landed in the snow with a sickening crunch.

Thel turned back to Horan, who had gotten up and was standing perfectly still. “Sorry about that. Now, where were we?”

Horan stared in silence at Mark’s broken body lying unmoving in the snow, his eye wide with shock. Thel traced Horan’s gaze to Mark and chuckled. “Aw, did I kill your pet human? That’s such a shame, really.” He waited for a few seconds, during which Horan still did not move. “Oh, grow up. You’ll get over it. Now can we please get back to the whole final battle thing? I’ve got a lot of pent-up anger that I need to let out. Maybe this time, you’ll get into it knowing that your actions have consequences.”

A slight breeze began to form, creating a sluggishly swirling funnel of snow around the two Primoi, with Horan in the exact middle. Thel looked around as the wind began to make his robes flap in the wind, then noticed that Horan’s hands were balled into fists. “Aww, is my nephew gonna throw a tantrum? Do you need a blankie? Are you gonna cry?” Thel laughed. “What a baby. I really don’t get why it’s so hard for you to just say that you’re scared.”

The wind swirling around Horan began to pick up speed. Thel had to shield his eyes to stop stray snow particles from getting in his eyes. He saw that Horan was pulling back his left arm, as if winding up for a swing. Thel snorted and stepped directly in front of Horan. “Oh, you wanna get violent? You know what? Sure. For old time’s sake, I’ll humour you. I’ll give you a free hit. Then can we please get back to business?”

Omet slowly got up and saw what was happening, taking a small step back with their eyes wide. Thel spotted them over Horan’s shoulder. “Oh, you’re still here. Don’t worry about my nephew here, he’s not gonna Amp. He’s just being melodramatic over his favourite human dyi-“

Horan swung his fist directly into Thel’s chest, sending him flying hundreds of feet away in an instant. As Thel flew away, Horan dissipated into thin air.

Horan instantly reformed behind Thel and slammed him into the ground. A massive plume of snow was displaced and formed a massive crater around the spot where Thel had landed. Horan immediately splayed out his limbs and formed a tornado around himself in a matter of seconds.

Dazed, Thel picked out of the indentation in the ground, only to be picked up by the gale-force winds Horan was generating. He limply flew around the edges of the snow-filled tornado, watching Horan stare at him as he flew. The longer Horan’s gaze was fixed on Thel, the brighter his eye began to glow, and the faster the tornado around him spun.

After a few seconds of being tossed around in the wind like a ragdoll, Thel regained enough control of his own mental faculties to teleport out of the tornado’s grip. He reformed a good distance away, staring in shock at the maelstrom Horan had managed to create.

The tornado vanished in an instant as Horan teleported in front of Thel, knocking him back into the air. Thel spun wildly before managing to right himself, summoning his sword out of pure survival instinct. Horan summoned a blade of his own and teleported up to face Thel.

Thel was immediately put on the defensive as Horan harried him with an inhumanly fast barrage of strikes, teleporting in from all directions to strike Thel from every angle possible. Thel attempted to teleport himself to give himself some breathing room, but Horan only shortened the time between his attacks and began to strike so quickly that not even Thel could keep track of him. At this point, Horan’s eye was glowing so brightly that looking at his face was almost blinding.

As his sword was knocked out of his hands, all Thel could do was curl up into a ball and hope nothing vital was hit as Horan bounced him around the air like a human pinball. As he relentlessly struck Thel, Horan began to yell out his grievances.

“You kick me out of my own life! You cut out my eye! You humiliate me in front of everyone! You kill my best friend!”

He stopped Thel in mid-air by grabbing him by the throat. He forced Thel to stare into his painfully bright eye, then hurled him back to where Omet was standing.

Thel bounced and skidded through the snow before sliding to a rough stop. He lifted his head out of the snow to see Omet looking down at him, still cradling their burnt arm. Thel coughed up a small pool of golden blood and struggled to get up. “…Help…”

Omet stepped back, glanced at something behind the nearby dead tree, and looked over Thel at something behind him. “I think it’s a little late for someone to help you, friend.”

Groaning in pain, Thel turned over to look behind him. Horan was floating in place about fifty feet away, his eye still painfully bright. He stared furiously at Thel, breathing heavily. “You… You…” The light in his eye flickered out of existence and he collapsed to the ground, unmoving and not breathing.

Thel stared intently at Horan’s body while the adrenaline ebbed from his body and the real pain of his numerous grievous wounds began to set in. He began to laugh weakly as he slowly and shakily stood up. “Ran out of steam, huh? Well now, doesn’t that suck? I have to admit…” He shifted his weight to one leg and cried in pain as something in the leg snapped, forcing him to his knees. Once again, he slowly stood up. “…That was impressive. I honestly didn’t think you had it in you. But after pulling a stunt like that, you’re a dead Primus walking. Or… lying. Can you even hear me? Oh, who cares, I’m just going to keep talking.”

He slowly began to limp towards where Horan lay, trailing blood and wincing with every step. “Frankly, I’m… pretty satisfied with that whole… display of yours. Using the power… of friendship to get one over on your evil nemesis? That’s a classic! It’s a real shame… that that’s not enough to beat me. You… could never do that, not really. You’re just a scared, weak little kid who hides behind his human friends to keep him safe. Now that I’ve given it a little more thought… You’re a joke.”

Thel stood over Horan and summoned a sword. The extra weight made him tilt to the side as the sword pulled his weakened arm to the ground. “Honestly, maybe you weren’t that good of a nemesis after all. I mean, come on! The only time you really manage to threaten me, and it signs your death warrant without me even getting involved? That’s just sad.” He let out a ragged sigh. “Maybe this just won’t ever work out for me, after you took away most of my power. Maybe it’ll all finally click once I finish you off for good.” He slowly raised his sword over Horan’s neck. “Only one way to find out.”

Thel stopped in place as he felt a new, overpowering pain erupt from his neck. Next to him stood a bruised and bleeding Mark, who had jammed his knife into Thel’s throat right up to the handle.

Thel could only stay frozen in shock as Mark pulled the knife backwards, yanking it out of the back of Thel’s neck. Thel stumbled backwards for a few steps before collapsing into the snow, his eyes dimming to dull, red marbles. An expression of stunned confusion and fear was plastered onto his face.

Mark dropped his knife and fell to his knees. “…We did it. It’s done. You can…” He looked down at Horan, whose extremities began to shrivel and curl up. “No! No-no-no-no-no-no!” He grabbed Horan and cradled his head in his lap. “No, you’re not dying!” He frantically thought of something to try and help Horan, then remembered something.

“Okay, okay… I-I don’t know if you can hear me, but… Think of a stream, out in the woods. It’s-it’s a nice summer day. The water’s flowing over the rocks, there’s the tiniest trickle. The sun’s shining through the trees, casting all kinds of shapes on the water. Th-there’s not an animal in sight, the only noise is the stream. Everything is quiet, everything is calm…” He began rocking back and forth, holding Horan’s head in his hands. “…Everything is quiet… Everything is calm…”

The withering, which had spread all the way through Horan’s hands and feet, slowly came to a halt. For a couple of seconds, Horan’s entire body was wracked with shivering. A few chunks of skin on his hands and feet shook off, but he quickly stopped. Slowly and quietly, Horan began to breathe again.

Mark breathed a sigh of relief, choked back a tear, and passed out.

There was nobody else around to see them. Omet had already left to get help.