9.

Are you certain you want to challenge the gate with this party?

‘Yes,’ we said in unison and our bodies phased through the barrier while our hearts tried to beat out of their sockets.

If we expected any welcome at all, there wasn’t any. Gwgon hauled himself to his feet, the point of his sword inflicting a small wound on the ground as he leaned on it for support. His companion stood, too. The feline purred as it stretched its back, pointing its butt towards the sky in a gesture familiar to anyone with a house cat.

Gwgon waited. As did we.

Though his eyes were like May’s, they were missing something, I noticed. The house, the exterior, was the same. Yet in Gwgon’s case, there was no one home.

‘Just do as we planned—’ Kate started, but the ground trembling underneath our feet cut her off.

The stone pathway of the maze burst at the seams. Cracks parted the unison floor, and red liquid burst from the ground, covering part of the arena. Heat wafted off the lava, heating the air. It was spreading quickly and would soon cover the entire floor.

‘Don’t waste time,’ May said, her sword catching that familiar glow. A wicked edge of flame formed over her head.

Dale exhaled. A blue sheen covered the top of his brows and his breath came out as white clouds—not the paltry imitation mine was when I breathed in the early morning air of the mountain—but true mist.

Kate exploded. It was the sole way I could explain the combustion of maura that took place beside me. The already tall girl grew even taller. Uncontrolled lightning danced over her frame, walking from her hands towards the chain fastened around it, and reaching the spiked head of the flail. Next to her display, the flourishing of my spear was silly.

Gwgon watched it all happen. Despite time not being on his side, he didn’t seem in a rush. At his side, his companion was done stretching. Gwgon extended his hand, and the tiger curled its neck, gracefully allowing the boy to scratch him.

Maybe the home is not so deserted after all, I thought.

‘You're open,’ May hissed. The flame lance she was forming was finished. She threw it. The construct had lost none of the power I expected from it—distance was devoured.

Gwgon didn’t even look. He raised his palm, and when May’s flame hit his skin, the fire dissolved in a dizzying flash of black light as if sucked into a black hole.

We went silent. Even the crackling of the lightning around Kate dimmed. The entire time, Gwgon hadn’t stopped scratching the tiger under his chin. It wasn’t until a breathless pause had passed that Gwgon stopped entertaining his companion and turned towards us.

10.

My mother’s saying came to mind again: ‘Never fight anything that has more powerful abilities than you, unless you have a way to counter them.’ I was starting to hate whenever her voice popped into my head. Nothing good ever happened after it did.

‘What was that?’ May snapped.

‘I don’t know…’ Dale responded, genuinely frowning. ‘A space-related ability, maybe. Or…no.’ He shook his head like an unsuspecting man coming home to his wife and daughter bleeding out on the floor of his living room. ‘I don’t know.’

Metal wheeled through the air. A sparking tingle rolled over the skin of my cheeks as Kate’s flail whirled in a circle.

‘We’ll figure it out,’ Kate said. ‘There’s only two of them…’

Kate’s phrase hadn’t finished when Gwgon rushed us. I say rushed, but that was gravely underselling his speed. He was a comet smashing into us. Though I was in the front together with May, I had no way of keeping up with him, so May rushed forward, her new ability powering her to meet the force of nature head-on. Her enhanced sword met Gwgon’s own—which wasn’t enhanced—and I had to lean forward to brace myself against the resulting shockwave. In the time it took to blink three times, May and Gwgon must’ve traded at least five blows.

I need to get in there. So, I leapt forward—only to see a gold blur shoot through the corner of my vision. I clicked my tongue. I was so focused on the boy I forgot about the spirit.

It hurried forward, jumping between stones yet untouched by the lava. It didn’t make it far. Tiny pillars of ice sprouted and blocked its way forward, forcing the beast to drastically lower its speed and find other free sections of ground. In a moment of brilliance, it landed on the tip of a fresh ice column in a grace offered only to felines. It prepared to launch itself forward, but Kate’s flail smashed through the pillar, the spiked head catching the beast in the mouth and sending it soaring backwards over the field.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Gwgon didn’t even glance as his beast companion launched past him, and the tiger stood up without a scratch.

My attention turned back to him, knowing the other two would be alright. May took a step back underneath the weight of Gwgon’s strikes. Her forehead was already a sea of sweat. Impossible…how good was he with a blade?! As if to laugh at me, dark flames flickered on the silver metal of his sword. There was no ringing or clanging when the weapons of the two met—instead, there was a high-pitched scream, that of a girl assaulted in an alley. Where black fire met orange, holes were left in the aura surrounding May’s blade. Seeing this, May pulled back. But I was finally there. The sharpened point of my cursed spear filled the gap May’s sword left, and Gwgon retreated quickly to avoid me. I pressed. Compressed, darkened water met a honed edge. This time, there was that familiar clang: the shivering noise of metal on metal.

Our weapons were locked in a struggle for power for an instant. Gwgon flexed, and then I was thrown back. I somersaulted and landed on the edge of a melted pool of stone but I balanced on my toes to keep myself whole. Darn, I thought, sparing a glance around me. A third of the floor was already covered, and it hadn’t been more than a minute.

‘We won’t be able to outlast him!’ I yelled.

Behind me, I heard the cracking of a metal whip and a belated yelp. ‘Switch targets!’ Kate yelled back. ‘This thing’s too slippery for us to deal with. You and Dale on the boy, me and May on the beast.’

That sounded like a plan—

‘No!’ May yelled. ‘I’ve got him! Just hold on!’

She engaged Gwgon again before any of us could get a word in, her sword held high in that favourite stance of hers.

My retort died in my mouth but my thoughts continued. What in the hell is she doing?! I dashed forward immediately to help. However, Gwgon had sent me flying quite a bit, so I was forced to watch as he lazily slapped her descending blade to the side with his flat, and reversed his cut. Blood spattered and sizzled as it mixed with the heated floor. May jumped back, covering her right eye. The palm of her hand came back in red.

There was an instant in which my thinking froze. Then my throat started trembling.

‘Get Back!’ I screamed.

I reached and hauled on the back of her robe, throwing a stunned May out of the way of a slash that would’ve split the artery in her throat. It got the crazy girl out of harm’s way, but it left me wide open. Gwgon didn’t care to let me recover my footing and mercilessly hounded me. He made me dance around the ballroom that was the arena as I tried my hardest not to dip my feet in the heated floor while he walked over it without issue. But the game got harder the more we played, and he backed me into a corner. His blade went for my guts. I hollowed out my stomach, and the sword narrowly missed. My robes parted, though. The front was cut open all the way, leaving two separate pieces to float in the breeze.

There was no time to be sad about it. Gwgon’s sword of black fire was already trying to puncture my chest. I bit my lip and stepped to the side, my foot going directly for the lava. Mentally, I prepared myself for the burn. But an angled piece of ice formed below my foot, saving my shoes and skin.

Then Dale rammed into Gwgon and the Black Flame was pushed back.

‘Thanks,’ I said, out of breath.

Dale didn’t respond and looked at his arms. Blades of ice jutted out from his sleeve on both arms. The left blade looked sharp. So sharp that it would cut through cloth without trying. The top half of the right one was broken—must’ve been from the impact just now.

I stepped onto solid ground again. Dale and I looked ahead of us. Except for bruising on his chest where the ice had hit him, Gwgon was fine. Black Flame held his sword out to his side, approaching in a slow, confident walk as brief discharges of lava rose around him like geysers.

I took the offered time to inspect our situation. The timer said two minutes and thirty seconds, and more than half of the arena was no longer usable. At our rear, May had recovered from her shock. Partially. Normally, she should’ve been a match for the tiger in speed. She no longer was. Part of it was the loss of vision. A bigger part was the amount of blood streaming down her face. The loss had caused May’s movements to grow sluggish, and the two girls were actually losing the struggle against the Black Flame’s beast companion.

‘Not good,’ I said. My chest heaved up and down. I wiped the sweat from my eyelids, clearing my sight some. If I could, I wanted to avoid using my final move so soon into the dungeon, but I may not have a choice. ‘Can we leave the barrier?’

Dale chuckled.

‘So quick to turn tail and run? Aren’t you going to use the power stored in that spear of yours?’

I stilled. Dale’s chuckle grew louder.

‘Surely you didn’t think it was hidden?’

He strode forward before I could respond.

‘Sir Gwgon Black Flame,’ Dale called out, holding his arms up high. Ice rode on his breath as he spoke. ‘Please accept my sincerest apologies. Most of the geniuses walking around today are merely good fakes, so I thought you were one of them.’ Dale didn’t glance back at me as he spoke, but his neck twitched. ‘You are a true member of that most esteemed class.’

Dale unbuckled the strap keeping his golem figurine in place on his hip, then threw it in the air. The skin, like ice, glistened in the light as it tumbled. Dale linked his fingers. He touched his thumbs and index fingers together, while his other digits curled. The shape resembled a triangle with two eyes at the bottom.

Gwgon stopped walking and rushed forward. Too late.

‘Garnax,’ Dale whispered. The air vibrated with the name, and the surroundings shook. The tiny figurine expanded with a snap and steam poured from the lava as thick, icy limbs touched the ground in a Superman crouch. The golem rose to its full height—slightly taller than Dale was himself. Its body was sharp and angled, the head featureless and hexagon-like. The fist that was its hand was the same. It clashed with Gwgon’s blade, and while the ice broke, Black Flame’s sword didn’t cut all the way through, and the boy was launched backwards again.

I watched quietly as the golem’s hand reformed while Dale grinned like a madman.