Jasson tapped his foot, Water Crystal loaded. Battery mostly charged. He’d swapped out the Water Crystal he used earlier for the biggest one he could find. The Water Crystal itself stuck out a good foot from his phone. He had no idea what threat he’d be facing. Anyone that could kill Petra and Clara would be so far beyond him. But he doubted that it could withstand a concentrated beam of water.

“Stay on the towel,” Charon growled, “And stop fiddling. It’s distracting. We’re almost there, just sit still.”

Jasson glanced out the window and recognized the area. They were coming up on that carved chasm that had been clawed up the other day. Jasson tensed, hand on the unlocked door.

Whoosh!

The canyon passed and the car barreled along the path before climbing a hill. The same one Jasson had climbed two times already.

Here I am, Jasson thought as his body tingled, I’m really doing this. No turning back. No hesitation. Even if-

Jasson clenched his phone, heart racing as reality and adrenaline met.

Charon pulled to a stop at the top of the hill and said “This is as close as we get. I don’t want to risk them scratching the paint job.”

“Thanks!”

Go time! Jasson thought, looking around. Now or nev- what the heck?!

Jasson stood on a hill above ongoing war, a landscape torn to the bone in many places. For some reason, there were a dozen coffins stretched out by a large bonfire and five cages. A procession of ominous black-cloaked warriors attacked the recognizable form of Scott, who stood among a field of bamboo cages doing a dance. And to the right-

“NO!” Jasson stumbled down the hill, lining up his giant crystal with the man killing his friends.

What did he need to do? Clara was flailing in a giant sphere of water, drowning. Petra was skewered on glinting red tendrils as a man in black laughed beside her. The blood from Petra was dripping into a clear glass jar on the ground, clearly for some kind of sick collection.

“Look!” the man cackled to Petra, “She only has a couple of seconds to live. I’ll be honest, I was surprised that I couldn’t stab her through. But even she needs to breathe, and this is a debatably worse death than being burned alive! By the way, how are you? Feeling dead yet? Did you think to fight me without a single healing crystal? How foo-”

“HEY!” Jasson roared, pointing his phone with the foot-long crystal on the end like a short rifle, “Let them go!”

Please reach, Jasson thought.

SSSSOOOOF!

A cutting six-inch stream exploded out of Jasson’s phone like the pressure on the bottom of the sea. It kicked relentlessly and Jasson wrestled with death as he barely held onto his phone. Thankfully, it came out of the tip of the crystal, so Jasson was able to grab the foot-length and brace himself.

“Fool!” The man immediately released Clara and Petra and threw both crystals forward, a hundred tendrils absorbing Jasson’s attack, “You would attack me with water?! ME?! These girls are practically dead already, and you save them with water?! Haha. Hahaha. HAHAHAHAHA-”

“Wow,” Jasson gritted his teeth and looked at his phone, then slid the ‘Power’ slider all the way to the top, “You’re cocky.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Jasson managed to brace his phone against his shoulder before-

VOOOOM!

Jasson desperately clung to the crystal with both hands, aiming for where he hoped that man had been. He couldn’t see anything besides water and had no idea how he remained on his feet. The stream, no less powerful and precise than before, was now the size of a man and roared like Niagra Falls.

Be-beep!

1% power. Powering Off.

Jasson collapsed, his phone falling from numb fingers as he looked out. The land in front of Jasson was gone in a cone the length of a football field, and the city beyond was absolutely drenched. Petra stood to one side, still holding an unconscious Clara’s arm, looking at Jasson with wide eyes.

“Jasson?!” Petra said, “What took you so long? You should have come looking for us hours ago!”

Jasson laughed and grabbed his phone, resting the giant crystal against his shoulder as he jogged up and said “Same to you!”

“You little twit!” Petra was crying, “I had to use my only healing crystal to get myself in enough shape to drag Clara away from your blast! I don’t have anything else to save her with.”

“Well, I could try CPR on her.” Jasson approached them, “or I could do this.”

Jasson dug the healing crystal out of his pocket and pressed it against Clara’s chest, then said “Med Kit!”

Clara coughed up water and rolled over, wheezing. Jasson put the healing crystal in Petra’s stunned hands and said “You should get yourself healed up. I think Scott is getting overwhelmed, and I’m out of po-”

Jasson looked down and saw a tendril punching through his shoulder, and watched it collapse into a pool of water and Jasson’s own blood. Jasson turned in time to see another tentacle yank Jasson’s phone into the distance, the crystal attached.

“Clout!” Petra hissed, healing Clara, “He took your phone! Oh, *&^%!”

Jasson watched as half a man climbed out of a ditch on the other side of the chasm. Jasson’s stomach twisted at the exposed organs, but a bright red light flashed and the man was mostly whole again. Only the hand remained missing from a regrown arm, and his face was malformed and twisted.

“Wait,” Jasson said, “His name is ‘Clout’? You’re serious?! Clout?”

“So you’re the great mage who killed the Wyverns!” Clout shouted, “An inexperienced boy who uses a legendary weapon with a greater crystal. A pathetic misuse of this kind of POWER!!”

Clout caught the crystal and Jasson’s phone in his good hand, then squinted at it. He poked at it a few times with his nub and turned it over.

“How do you work this?” Clout said, pulling Jasson’s phone from the crystal and pocketing it, “Confounded devices. I’ll have one of my technicians look at it later. For now, thank you for the crystal. There’s nothing I can’t do with one this size! You must have killed a sea dragon to get one this big. Hah!”

The rest of his mana crystals glowed, and Clout raised up into the air. Higher and higher on a thousand tendrils of water. He raised himself out of the shadow of the mountain and into the sun, where his blood glinted brilliant red in the afternoon sun. Jasson could see what he couldn't before, a layer of bloodied water around Clout acting as armor. He shined like a too-bright red laser on a white wall, a star of destruction burning above them.

“NOW THIS IS POWER!” Clout laughed, “I had no idea! The gods have looked favorably on me today! I will drive your bones so far into the earth that you won’t be found when the Crystal King comes again!”

A massive sphere of water formed above Clout, mangled arm raised beside his good one as maniacal laughter erupted from the shining red dot.

“What do we do?” Jasson looked at Clara. “Do we run? Can you carry us?”

“Of course,” Clara stood, “but I don’t think that will work. Petra?”

Petra slumped over on the ground and said “I guess it’s only fitting.”

Petra looked Jasson in the eyes and grinned, saying, “The only person I’ve been able to save, and we’re both about to die right after he paid off his debt. Sit down, Clara. We’ll go out together.”

Petra pulled Clara down into a hug, then grabbed Jasson and wrapped him up in the hug.

“Umm,” Jasson mumbled from the warmth and dug a large Mana crystal from his pocket, “would this help?”

Petra took the crystal and laughed, saying, “I could put up a defense, but my mind is fried. Sorry.”

She squeezed them, “Thanks for being here.”

“NOW!” Clout of house Taste’r shouted above, “YOU SHALL DIE!!!!!”

They looked up together at the shining red dot as he screamed his final move. An enormous shadow moved on the top of the hill. Jasson glanced at it, distractable as ever.

“Fury of Neptune’s-AAAEEEEE!”

As Jasson watched, the house-sized shadow lit on fire and lept with familiar grace, soaring hundreds of feet into the air and snatching Clout from the air. It landed daintily with hardly a sound, a wave of fire rolling from it. Bearing the steaming screaming Clout in its mouth, the fiery creature trotted proudly away. Tail held straight and high, a path of fiery paw prints leading back to the mountains.

The summoned water hovered for a few seconds then rained down on the shocked battlefield.

Everyone was thinking the same thing, but Jasson broke the silence first.

“That was a cat,” Jasson said, “a giant, fiery, orange, cat.”

“Oh thank goodness,” Petra sighed and released them, “I thought the afterlife was getting quite strange. So you saw it too?”

“We all did,” Clara laughed, picking Petra and Jasson up, “All right guys. Let’s get out of here! Come on Scott! We’re booking it while they’re busy!”

“Righty-ho, milady!” Scott clapped his hands and shouted, “Attention, those still coming to fight me! If you don’t free all your allies from these cages in the next three minutes, then they will grow inward and skewer them! Bamboo is deadly you know. Good luck!”

Scott backflipped from his cage and jogged to catch up with Clara, then said “Where are we going?”

“To the north, for Harriett.” Petra said, “Then we’re getting out of here.”