Tarr saw the guild head approach with Flyte's friend in tow. The vile man did not seem to appreciate the joy his apprentice had found. It figured. The honorsoul would lose a knife today.

"How could you?" Tarr's question was more an accusation. His body language was enough for his parents to know this was his fight, at least for now. "Don't you know how I hurt?"

'Thirteen years, just seven years old. Only now I find that I am not the burden that slew my parents. They live yet! There's thirteen years I could have spent without guilt.'

"I know exactly how you felt, Tarr," Telin's face was stoic. "It's how you became strong. With motivation born from a weeping heart you were able to grow and reach the utter apex of mortal strength! If you were a paladin or an honorbound, no one less than an honorsoul could even touch your cloak unless you allowed them."

"Join me again," the man smiled as though justice could not apply to him. "I'll make it so."

'How brazen!'

"I'd rather die," Tarr answered.

"I can make that reality," Telin said coldly.

"There'd be no point," hidden beneath his mask, Tarr's smile was a wolf's. "You gain nothing, and waste years of effort."

"You read me," Telin relented. "If you don't relent yourself, bring me Flyte instead. I'll need a new knife."

Tarr was surprised to hear his mother's voice decry the notion first.

"Shut your trap, Telin! You'll only be losing guilders today."

Telin looked around at the group. "Does she speak for you all?" He directed his gaze toward Tarr.

"Of course," Tarr said. "She's my mother, I'd stand by her side before yours any day."

"She took the words out of my mouth," Flyte's friend said.

Nefti simply brought his hand to his blade's hilt.

"In that case," Telin grinned hugely. "I'll have to take him myself!"

Before Telin could even get through one step, Hieday teleport right to his side, pulled a knife free from its sheath, and tried to skewer the honorsoul. In evading the attack, Telin opened himself up to being grabbed by Elliot's outreaching hand, allowing for Nefti to take the man's arm off with a swing of his immense sword.

'It looks like they're going all out. I might as well too.'

As Telin's arm grew back, Tarr created a gate over it, hindering his old master's fighting capabilities for just another instant.

"So that's how it is," Telin said calmly, as he began to draw his sword, Fragment. "Balrot, do what you want with them, so long as it is short of their deaths."

The black sword flew out, aiming to shear off Nefti's arm, but Tarr did not let it. He opened a gate for Fragment to fly through, taking the sword far from his dad.

Fragment changed course, moving instead for Tarr.

'From what I've seen, Fragment has something alive inside of it as opposed to an enchantment or a spell. I'd bet it can get dizzy.'

"I'll deal with the sword!" Tarr called out.

Tarr created gate after gate, ensuring that Telin's sword remained at least fifteen feet away while also being somewhere in his sight at all times.

While he did that, the others continued fighting Telin. Telin had sped up his body though magic to try and counterbalance that three-on-one fight, but Hieday and her husband were still able to contend him decently. Telin's forced guest did what he could, but he'd brought no weapons, so diving right into the fight was far out of the question.

At some point in the fight, Hieday had moved out of sight, and from that point on, she'd remained unseen, despite the impact of her knives on Telin's defenses being readily obvious.

Hieday's specific bloodline was definitely not one to be messed with. Tarr had learned in the Dark Guild that his mother was a darkwalker, which explained her gate-less teleportation, as well as her invisibility. Tarr found the combination of powers to be immensely powerful, but it made him all the more wary of the scourge that had crushed Nareal, the home world of all altruins.

The real problem with Hieday being invisible was that it left Nefti as Telin's only real target. Nefti didn't seem to mind, his grasp of sword fighting was solid. He and Telin clashed blades evenly, with Hieday's interruptions helping to create this balance, but unlike Telin, Tarr's parents could'nt keep this up forever. Everyone around could see that. Something had to change.

Tarr gritted his teeth. 'Come on, just a little longer.'

He could see Fragment slowing down. If he could just get the sword to drop once, Tarr would be able to join the fight against Telin.

"Tarr?" Flyte's longtime ally spoke up. "If you're not going to use your knives, may I borrow them?"

To respond, Tarr simply sent his knives over with a pair of gates and focused harder on fighting Telin's demonic sword.

Dozens of gates appeared around Fragment, each of them leading to illogical locations. They constantly flickered about, changing their destinations and locations not even a few seconds after appearing.

It was something of a last-ditch effort, because the more gates Tarr used, the worse each one cost him in mannah. If his mannah were a water in a bag, opening multiple gates was like poking holes in the bag and letting it tear.

Just as Tarr thought he'd finally snared Fragment it, true to its name, split into several pieces and took many paths to attack Tarr. The half-archaic could feel its desire to shed his blood, but he just couldn't let that happen. Not while there were people who depended on him.

With the use of a single gate, Tarr sent one of the shards flying into the others, knocking down the fragmented sword.

Tarr rushed over panting, and scooped up the fallen Fragment, and dropped it unceremoniously through a gate leaving Telin's sword all the way back at the guild base.

Turning toward the fight against Telin, Tarr could see the stand-still had turned against the honorsoul's favor slightly. The man Tlein had brought with him turned out to be fairly good at dual knife fighting or was much better than Tarr had expected at least. He didn't fight with any discipline Tarr had seen, so he didn't expect that the man had been trained specifically to fight with knives, but his general weapon mastery was enough to keep Telin on the back foot.

Still, he wasn't as good at knife fighting as Tarr, so the archaic boy walked over to the unconscious form of Flyte, took his sword, and swapped weapons with the fighter.

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Tarr gated into the fight and began to tear into Telin's defenses. Similar to his fight with Flyte, Telin would put up defenses only to have gates form that circumvented or took advantage of them.

"Foulos," Telin said, his voice thick with malice.

The sand under everyone's feet burst away, weapons shattered, blades were burst asunder. Any object that held no magical value was broken immediately, including the swords in Telin's hands. It could have been worse. Telin had held back.

"Oh, come on," Flyte's friend complained. Tarr didn't see any reasoning for this outburst, the soldier still held Flyte's sword intact, and his armor was unscathed.

'This man showed up with Telin fully armored but lack weapons, while Telin had an abundance.'

"Telin," Tarr started. "That's kind of a cruddy move."

"What?" the tempest asked as he pulled out a Montante. "I saved one of Elliot's weapons"

'This is a good sign, at least,' Tarr thought. 'Telin hates using magic to finish a fair fight. We must have pushed. Only problem is, once he uses one spell, he doesn't stop.'

Electricity sparked into Telin's hand as he cast a spell with just a mental spirit contract. He dove after Nefti, seeing that the large man was currently unarmed.

Nefti, relying on pure reflexes, grabbed Telin's wrist and plunged his hand into the sand, dissipating the electricity.

"Foulos."

Telin's lightning bolt struck Nefti from above, leaving the immense man sprawled on the ground.

Blades that must have belonged to Hieday reduced Telin's arms to ribbons. She quickly became his next target.

Tarr was very glad his mother made for a slippery target, as it gave him more time to catch his breath. Each of Telin's attacks struck sand or air uselessly as he tried to find the cloaked woman. Hieday, Tarr noticed, was using her gate-less teleportation to avoid touching the sand.

Suddenly, Tarr felt static in the air. Before he could shout out a warning, Hieday went to attack, only for Telin to detect her and block her strike, using the opportunity to tie a prepared rope tight around her wrist. In that same motion, the honorsoul overlapped speed spells and slammed Hieday into the ground like a humanoid flail. She was knocked out immediately.

Tarr was very low on energy, but he would try to do as much as he possibly could to stall Telin. Opening as many gates as he had had simply drained too much of his mannah for Tarr to be doing anything better than hit and run fighting, and he didn't expect much from Elliot, as Telin had called him.

That being said, Elliot had a look to him, and Tarr could feel that there was the foundation of a plan forming in him based on his body language.

Telin dove after Flyte's friend, his hand already forming into a crackling fist. His target's gauntlet was raised, pointing at the honorsoul as he shouted one word.

"Honorious!"

Suddenly, both Telin and Elliot seemed to stop in time.

'A slowing spell disguised a spirit summon! That's genius! Telin won't realize until he's already been hit! Although, I don't think that guy knew anything about the dangers of a wordless cast...'

Still, the maneuver was excellent. It would give Tarr time to set up a really heavy attack, and make time for Flyte's stone armed friend to arrive, as Tarr knew he would.

It took almost no time at all for Tarr to find an excellent boulder, right where he had left it. He rolled it through a gate into the sky, where it sped faster and faster up before reaching its terminal velocity.

With another gate, Tarr launched the incredibly fast boulder at the still-slowed Telin, sending him far across the sands, where he'd still need to heal before he could undo the slowing spell.

"Sari," Tarr quickly said, removing Elliot from his own spell.

The soldier turned to him, chuckling like a child who'd caused a meager amount of chaos. "How was that?" Elliot asked, laughing.

"That, Elliot," Tarr began. "Was the most brilliant attack I've ever seen hit Telin."

"Surely it was," Elliot laughed still. "I mean, the man instantly disappeared! He really had no clue."

"To be honest," Tarr said. "I was surprised myself when you both just stopped. You didn't strike me as a mage even though your mask glowed."

"It's a bit of a recent development." Elliot extended his hand. "I know we know each other's names, but it feels more natural to introduce myself. I'm Elliot."

Tarr grasped the man's hand. "And I, Tarr."

Elliot looked around. "Any clue what we should do now? Move everyone? Find reinforcements?"

"Sadly, the poison I used on Flyte's body will probably do worse damage if we move him," Tarr sighed. "And I think the huge, flying boulder was a better beacon than any other we'll ake with the time we've got. It's better that we wait and catch our breaths."

"Poison?" Eliot asked. "If you were fighting Flyte, why did you defend him?"

"I was being stupid," Tarr admitted. "I got angry when I shouldn't have, and lashed out, and-"

"Hey, I get it. We don't always act like ourselves." Elliot's posture wasn't even tense. He completely trusted Tarr.

"How do you do that?" Tarr asked.

"Do what?"

The half-archaic shook his head. "Nevermind it."

Elliot paused a moment, then seemed to remember where he was, jolting. "Hey Tarr, do you know where I could get my hands on some swords?"

"Yeah, there should be some in the guild barracks."

'Fragment.'

"Actually, I can't makke a gate there right now. Sorry."

"No worries," Elliot just shrugged. "I'm not sure it would make a huge difference against Telin anyway."

"You ready?" Tarr asked the soldier.

"Ready as I can be."

The two watched as lightning struck like rain in the distance, as if the heavens themselves were enraged.

Tarr sucked in a deep breath. He wasn't ready to fight the thunderstorm that was his master.

He would anyway. The man was a massive boor.

Telin burst from the gloom, his silhouette streched across the desert sand as lightning illuminated him. He did not look any worse for wear than he did before, but he did look mad.

Which was understandable, to a degree. Tarr had hit Telin really hard.

The honorsoul lunged toward Tarr first, deeming him to be the bigger threat between his two opponents.

Tarr was easily beaten. He simply didn't have enough energy left to defend against lightning strikes anymore. To ensure Tarr didn't interfere later, Telin turned sand into stone shackles and lowered them until Tarr was forced to his knees.

With the amount of mannah Tarr had left, he wasn't going to be able to properly create gates without the use of his hands. He simply wouldn't be able to aim them.

So Tarr had to watch as Telin fought Elliot. The masked soldier really did rely on his spirit ally this time. Winds pushed against Telin's advance while giving Elliot tailwind. Even still, Elliot lacked the weapons he'd grown accustomed to, and Telin was vastly stronger than him even ignoring that. Telin landed a solid punch on Elliot, pushing him several feet back.

Elliot, after staggering for a moment, reached up a hand to pull off his mask in a last ditch effort to stop Telin, but the honorsoul seemed to get even more serious and punched him hard in the face before he could.

Elliot slumped over, out cold.

'What could he be hiding under that mask?'

Telin began to walk over to Flyte uncontested. Tarr watched as his foe got closer and closer to Flyte.

He paused when he heard someone getting up.

Nefti pulled himself from the desert floor, positioning himself between Flyte and Telin. His legs were not steady, and electrical burns were intensely visible across his body, but the archaic just held up his fists defiantly.

"What are you doing?" Telin asked. "You can't possibly win this fight."

"That's not what this is about," Nefti answered. "I know I'll lose, but that doesn't mean that standing in your way is pointless. As long as I stay standing, you won't be taking Flyte anywhere."

"Fine by me. Watching this makes me sick." Telin dove towards Nefti, fists raised to attack. Nefti caught Telin's wrist again, his time throwing the honorsoul.

Then, Nefti pulled off his mask.

A sea of shadows rose from the ground, writhing in hunger. Lightning struck, trying to force Nefti down again, but his sea ate it.

Nefti pulled a pendant from his neck and crushed it. Dark tendrils poured from it, condenscing into a sword not unlike his old one.

The archaic let loose sweeping strikes upon his opponent, forcing Telin to keep some distance. The honorsoul was neither flexible nor armed enough to get past Nefti's attacks unscathed. Shadows crawled up his boots, looking for something to eat.

Tarr's dad was going all out, but in the process he was very quickly losing his mannah. His vitality.

Telin couldn't do anything to bring Nefti down, but the reverse was true too. The only difference was that Telin wasn't using anything to keep this standstill going.

Or at least, Tarr hadn't thought that Telin would be able to strike Nefti. The man liked to end his fights by crushing his opponents, shrugging off blows while taking few. Still, he wouldn't die as easily as a normal person.

The honorsoul bounded toward Nefti, his mighy leap pushing him past the gloom that hungered for his flesh. Although he was bisected in the process, Telin struck Nefti's face with a sparking fist.

Nefti was sprawled on the ground again.

Telin placed Nefti's mask back on the unconscious man's face, preserving his life for another day.

Just when he truly began to think Flyte would be taken, Tarr felt the bonds around his wrists turn back into sand.

"What's going on here?" Ander asked as he strode in, looking at the unconscious forms of his friends and allies. "Was this you, Telin?"

Telin shot the younger man a tired, albeit disgusted face. "This isn't worth my effort."

And just like that, the tempest went away, leaving Flyte right where he'd lain the whole time. It seemed that Telin's affinity for short, clean fights was worth more than taking a new mentee. Though it might have just been that he knew Flyte would hate him too much to ever truly follow him.

Tarr tried to stand up, but immediately got nauseous, feeling as though there were a weight just under his neck.

"I guess it's just us two to watch over everyone then?" Ander asked.

"Actually," Tarr said, his vision fading. "I think I'm passing out."

Tarr fell down, but was out before he felt the ground.