After dropping Jerry off outside the Mall, I flew back to the huge mess we've made of the park. Twenty seconds might not be much in most situations, but during a fight you could be stabbed or shot several times in one second by a single opponent and we'd left Mandy with several hundred.

Fortunately, the enemy's ground forces had yet to recover from Jerry's lasers, my charges and their own magic artillery blowing up in their faces. Even better, enough time had passed for the Super Suit power to recreate my costume in pristine condition. It wouldn't last, not with the kind of battle still ahead of us, but the pleasant smell and sheer comfort of brand new leather plus lack of imminent wardrobe malfunction offset the stress of battle just a little. And every little bit helped.

I found Mandy still holding the pair of fireballs in mid-air with her magic while blasting at small groups of enemies with a wand. Five more wands lay on the ground around her feet, blackened, smoking and spent while six more were strapped to the redhead's belt ready to be used.

"How is it going?" I asked, floating over her shoulder as she cut another dozen Executioners off at the knees with a beam of fire.

"Slowly," she replied with a grunt, discarding the wand and drawing another. "More infantry formations are being directed to our position every so often and we've yet to see even a hint of the enemy's main force. And those two overgrown imps on the towers would require my undivided attention to deal with."

"I didn't see any major enemy force while flying around." Still couldn't, not even with my extended senses. "Maybe he sent them to deal with another survivor group?" Mandy snorted. Yeah, it didn't sound believable even to me; our group had been causing too much trouble to be left alone... so what had the enemy planned to take us out? Neither of us knew, though Mads didn't seem too worried about it; she was too busy blasting more enemies with the new wand. Instead of a continuous stream of fire, this one shot explosive fireballs every few seconds.

While she did that, I focused on defense. There were far too many burn marks and droplets of slowly cooling metal in the area it was a miracle at least a few hadn't found their mark. To avoid just such a possibility, I raised a dome-shaped force-field around Mandy. Anything hostile crossing it would be subjected to a few tons worth of Proximakinesis trying to stop or deflect it. It could stop bullets and arrows as long as too many weren't crossing it simultaneously or hold back stragglers but wouldn't do much against an artillery shell or more than a few melee enemies.

Executioners - the enemy's heavily armored wights - had almost reformed their lines after their futile chase of Jerry and I a couple minutes earlier. A formation of black and red armor and wicked probably-magical swords and glaives cut across the whole park, already three lines deep and growing. They hadn't attacked because they, or at least their controller, knew small numbers wouldn't overwhelm us and we would just fly away if it seemed likely they would, but the enemy's lack of fliers wouldn't last forever. We needed to cut down their numbers before reinforcements arrived and I couldn't do that if I was maintaining a defensive force-field.

Drawing deeply upon the reserves of superhuman stamina and vitality my powers granted, I activated Lasting Force on the force-field I was maintaining. The newest and least used of my abilities burned through my endurance like a furnace did coal, expending the kind of energy I would have in hours upon hours of hard exercise or heavy combat. This was not just enhancing a sword to cut slightly better, or a table to be a bit more resilient, but several cubic meters of stand-alone active powers. My limbs shook, breaths came shorter and shorter and my heart beat several miles a minute as the effect finally settled around Mandy for good. Unless revoked or destroyed by some other power it would keep working forever.

Just in time, too; several Stymphalian Chickens were approaching along with dozens of imps. Completely ignoring the smaller annoyances, I gripped the closest twenty-ton magical bomber around the neck, my arms barely closing around the flexible yet sharp metal flesh. Then I flew back, pushing over its too-loud squawks of protest as I did its flight. Only days before I wouldn't have been strong enough to simply overpower it like that, but now? As soon as it lost momentum and stalled I pulled it round and round until it picked up speed then launched it at the gathering infantry below. It missed, its own struggles pulling it off-course by a couple of yards but the impact was hard enough to kill it and its self-destruct blasted holes into many nearby Executioners.

Two more of the bigger aerial menaces flew around me, making a beeline for Mandy. But just as I was stronger, I had also grown faster; I caught up with the first before it was a quarter of the way to its target and kicked it in the tail. That sent it spinning through the air as a giant, metal, fire-spewing feather ball. The other slowed until it was beating its wings in place then flew backwards, courtesy of the invisible cone-shaped field of Proximakinesis acting as a tractor beam. By the time it reached me it was already going at twice its normal speed and tumbling as helplessly as the first. I got out of the way, flew behind it and exhaled.

A torrent of beyond-hurricane-force wind blew out of my lips in a cone, pushing the oversized metal avian without me needing to get up close, guiding its trajectory until it shattered against the nearest tower. The sound of the impact was so loud the air visibly shook, enemy infantry at ground level were knocked off their feet and both my eyes and eardrums hurt. Unfortunately, despite the tremendous impact and subsequent explosion the tower itself still stood. Beyond a bump at the point of impact and maybe bending a quarter-inch out of place it was intact. Then again, solid steel pillars thick enough for large monsters to sit on them were bound to be tough.

The demon on top growled threateningly, but with Mandy holding its magic trapped and me flying out of reach it had no way to retaliate. I gave him the finger - and without pants it was painfully, disgustingly obvious that it was a he - then punched the tower with all my strength. It rang like a gong but hardly budged, my punch having far less impact than a twenty-ton projectile having accelerated for several seconds before it hit.

I shook my arm, trying to get off the sting and numbness. It felt like trying to punch a normal person without powers; do it wrong and you'd break your own fingers. Bringing the towers down would not be easy.

xxxx xxxx

Amanda let her last wand fall to the ground, the metal rod that had once held the enchantment red-hot from bits of fire magic that had not gone where they were supposed to. She'd review the flaws in her enchantments later; right then she had to improvise after using up all her remaining wands to deal with the Iron Beak Maya had kicked aside then forgotten about.

At least her best friend had been less distracted when it came to defense. Several new skeleton archers had already arrived but all their attempts to kill Amanda had failed to penetrate a dome of power that shone silver in her mage-sight. Simple, straightforward, effective; exactly the kind of magic that fit Maya's temperament and talents. It was... informative how similar people behaved both in wielding magic and mundane skills. Reassuring as well, especially with what she was about to do.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The redhead had always lacked Maya's athleticism and boldness or Jerry's academic ability and disregard for the rules. She preferred to be cautious, think things through then choose a course of action for maximum results. It was not out of recklessness or overconfidence that she reached into the enemy's investment in the fabric of the world, located two lines of feeble, less than human will, and supplanted them. It was out of awareness of how things stood and fear of where they'd go.

Instead of struggling against her own magic, the two emerald fireballs hanging overhead came to a complete stop. Then lines of fire spun out of the wagon-sized orbs, spiraled down and linked to her palms. A shot of energy like a hundred espressos flowed up her arms then down the rest of her tired body, revitalizing, strengthening and replenishing everything in its path with stolen energy. Her well of power did not empty or fill but her will could be strained from too much effort; stealing the magic of the enemy restored some of what had been lost in the battle and in crafting so many wands earlier.

No longer forced to maintain their spells, the two overgrown imps on the towers had already formed new ones and thrown them at Maya. Before they could blast the blonde out of the air, Amanda subverted their magic once more and drained it. Instead of a gallon of coffee this time her body felt as light and full of energy as after spending a week in one of the best spas in the East Coast. She felt not only refreshed but a hair stronger, which was only natural after consuming the homing fireballs. That was the downside of parceling bits of your will to cheaply grant spells minds of their own; someone who knew what both you and they were doing could eat them.

Dozens upon dozens of the lesser imps converged to her location from all around the park until a small cloud of the things hung over her head. Then the rain of fire bolts came, dozens upon dozens of little explosions ineffectually blasting against Maya's shield; being near-weightless orbs of magic and superheated air, their chances of pushing through the force-field were zero. Dumb the imps might be, even they realized they were getting nowhere with their ranged attacks. So they tried melee.

Unfortunately for them, they'd given Amanda too much time and too much fire to work with. The winged annoyances lacked even the rudimentary sentience of their larger, uglier counterparts; they were just bits of obsidian given flexibility and a semblance of life through magic. The same magic the young sorceress had been learning to control over the past week. With no will to oppose her own, tearing through the animation spells only took a pulse of disruptive power in the same theme and scope of magic - a simple dispelling. Dozens of imps fell lifeless to the ground, their now rigid bodies shattering upon impact.

An explosion next to the towers hurled a leather-clad blonde missile back. The blur of a missile slowed and became recognizably Maya, who stood hovering to the left of Amanda's position.

"They just keep coming and the towers are proving tough nuts to crack," the flying former cheerleader complained, hands crossed under her breasts. "Any ideas?" Superpowers looked great on Amanda's best friend, better than on any newly-empowered person she'd met so far. Then again Maya had always looked good enough to make many girls feel insecure. Oh well, Amanda would have to console herself with merely supermodel-level looks and awesome cosmic power.

"Several, but I don't think they'll be needed," she told Maya, sensing familiar yet stronger concentrations of heat and magic approaching the park rapidly.

"Oh good, because I've had my fill of fighting against endless hordes for the day," Maya said with a frown. "And I need a bath. A long one, with pine-scented soap."

"Do you want cheese with that whine? At least you get brand-new, clean clothes whenever you want," the redhead shot back. "The rest of us have to make do with what we can scrounge from abandoned, blown-up houses." A look at the enemy lines told her the enemy was still hesitating to attack. Less than a minute more and it would be too late.

"What, you haven't invented a cleaning spell yet?" the blonde wondered then tilted her head as if listening to something. "Wait, I think Jerry's coming and wow, look at those armor upgrades."

"I'm a fire sorceress, May. Clothes are kinda flammable, how am I supposed to clean them with my magic?" She didn't turn around to see Jerry's cheesy dynamic entry of walking through several parked cars. She'd seen him all the way to the Mall and back, watched him during the fight earlier, as she had the day before and the day before that. The goofy idiot had almost died after insisting on coming with her in the tunnels where his armor did not fit and Amanda had vowed never to be away from him again. He'd been her first scry-link, her first step into what Verity called "commander magic".

Maya would be the second because boy, could that girl get stupidly reckless at times. Knowing when to come in with help, never losing track of her friends, always being able to communicate even in a world where cell phones could die just because some bastard decided to invade... all those were reasons that kind of magic appealed to her.

So despite not looking, she saw Jerry entering the battlefield guns blazing. She could track both him and Maya as they mowed down enemies by the hundreds while she counterspelled the bigger threats. She struck out at the enemy's coordination with quick, subtle thrusts, avoiding the notice of their Master because she did not want to be crushed like a bug. As she was she could match the firepower of two heavy enemy units; the mage behind the invasion could, given time and investment, change the weather for hundreds of square miles or summon and command an army of tens of thousands.

What she also couldn't do was know her friends' thoughts, or catch on to their plans when they didn't bloody talk to her. All it took was a few seconds of dealing with a suicide spell that would have blown up half the park with them upon it, and Jerry was already firing at the demons with all his many, newly-improved lasers.

"NO!" It was, of course, too late. She had expected those two to bring down the towers themselves, not fire on the occupants; killing fire demons with fire, heat or anything similar was not quite an exercise in futility but it was close. They survived the barrage almost intact. What didn't survive was the metal chains holding them bound to their towers. She wasn't certain what would happen if they were freed before the enchantments that forcibly manifested them in the world were broken but it would probably not be pretty.

Amanda's worries were immediately proven insufficient; the moment the overgrown imps were freed, the powerful spells on the towers died... and the two monsters visibly grew in size. Their midnight-blue skin turned the dark red of superheated iron, their claws lengthened and were sheathed in emerald fire and their magical weight doubled. One of them tackling Maya out of the sky with a flying leap proved the same held true about their physical abilities as well.

Something in the sorceress's mind and magical knowledge clicked and she realized what had just happened. The chains had been a trap. As non-natives to this reality and forcibly manifested at that, magical beings were weaker than normal. It was partly why the zombies coming through the original portals had been so much weaker than newly risen ones. But what if the summoned entity had been invited? And what better invitation to the world than magically and physically unchaining a being to run free? Intentional or otherwise, it had worked and now they had bigger problems than just this one battle.

Because Amanda doubted the enemy had just those two chained devils and the mist was still thinning...