Medea

Though the long walk home had done much to clear my head, the effects of PIp’s special-brew Sunshine Moonshine were still very much felt in my system. My vision was unfocused, if no longer blurry, and the ground gently swayed beneath my feet like the deck of a ship at sea.

But I was a fighter, and the second I heard chanting behind me and saw Arryn hit the floor, bouncing his head on the pavement, I sprung into action. The light from Volcano’s magma arm only faintly illuminated the shadowed alleyway, but I could see at least three other assailants lurking behind us, down a side street near Arryn’s unconscious form, and one on the rooftop above us.

Volcano started lumbering forward into a run, his arm seeping molten rock as he built up speed. He wasn’t my biggest priority right now. I exerted my will, sending Lefty and Righty in opposite directions. Righty flew towards Arryn, impacting him in the face with a punch hard enough to violate mage boxing regulations. Fortunately, I didn’t see a judge here. Lefty flew up at the same time, grabbing the man on the rooftop by the collar of his shirt and pulling him off his perch. He bounced as he hit the ground.

Wyll was fairly quick to react too. I suppose all that training wasn’t for nothing. He charged the man in the back, and I trusted him to deal with that as I turned my attention to Volcano. My hands weren’t able to get back to me in time, so I had to dive out of the way to dodge the stream of searing hot lava that blasted past me. The heat was intense, and I smelled the acrid scent of burnt hair. That was too close. My dive was less graceful than I’d hoped, as the swaying of the ground meant that instead of tucking into a tight roll I sprawled into some bags of refuse that had accumulated near a dumpster in the alley. Volcano, with apparently some exertion, turned the stream towards me as I was trying to get back to my feet, and Righty arrived just in time to knock his arm off trajectory. The flow of lava missed me by an inch, and the accumulated heat left me coated in sweat.

The man I’d pulled from the roof was beginning to stir, and the one I’d punched in the face was spitting out teeth and glaring at me with absolute fury. Shit. At least I hadn’t killed them but it confirmed my suspicion that they had some kind of physical buff pre-cast. They’d planned for me. I looked to Wyll for backup and to my dismay found him completely bound in a large golden python, that shimmered with dappled light that flowed up its body to it’d many-eyed head, that was hissing in Wyll’s face as he struggled to get free. The mage he was fighting had a wrist mounted wand aimed in my direction, which glowed with a harsh pink light as he chanted something.

I acted before I could think about what I was doing, and ducked around Vocano to put him between me and the incoming spell. The hulking man provided good cover, but tried to smack me away with his non-molten hand. His backswing was met with Lefty, and this time I didn’t hold back. I squeezed, and heard the crunch of bones as he screamed. I didn’t let him rest, following with a kidney punch with Righty and a swift kick up between his legs. Lets see his buffs protect against that.

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Maybe it was the booze that hindered my judgement, but I quickly realised that my cover had crumpled to the floor. Volcano curled up into a ball while trying not to fall on his burning limb, and I was rewarded for my victory by three darts of mana whizzing past me fast enough to crack the mortar of the wall behind me. I sent one of my hands after the other mage before he could fire more shots, but Righty was smashed out of the air by the assailant who took down Arryn. He had some kind of bat that was speckled with shoddy runework. I didn’t have the benefit of time to figure out what they did, but judging by the way the force of his swing almost cracked Righty in half, it was almost certainly a force enhancement. A hit from that would be instant death. Righty clattered to the ground with a wave of sparks, and would no longer move as I willed it. I sent in Lefty to grab his ankle and trip him up, but he kicked it and sent it flying away down the alley. Okay, so, maybe those runes were more for reinforcement and he just has some potent strength buff instead. Noted.

The good news was that the man I’d pulled from the roof had slumped back down again, and Volcano didn’t look like he’d be fighting shape for another minute or two. The bad news was I was completely unarmed against the two remaining attackers. The one with the bat leaped into the air for a magic-enhanced overhead swing, and the one in the back had at least seven of those magical darts aimed in my direction.

My back was against the wall, both metaphorically and literally. I couldn’t outrun the darts, couldn’t overpower the bat wielder. My mind raced for options when I remembered floating the bottle just an hour ago. The buff user was descending fast, so I reached out and grabbed the first thing I could see, picturing moving it as if I had gone through the same excruciating process of binding the gauntlets to my mind. I felt the connection there in some imperceptible way, and willed it to move as I had done so many times before.

The dumpster hit with the power of a meteor, and crashed into the man falling on me so hard I saw his reinforced bat break into splinters. There was the screech of crumpling metal as it pushed further, crumpling against the wall like an empty can with him beneath it. The impact had embedded the dumpster in the wall, fifteen feet above my head.

I barely had enough time to celebrate before I felt a hard thud in my thigh. It was like being punched, but looking down I could see blood leaking out of a hole that faintly shimmered with pink ether. My injured leg gave out under me, and that helped me avoid the barrage of the other darts, only one other grazing my neck. As I hit the floor, the pain finally hit me in a nauseating wave. I could make out Arryn holding his head and stumbling to help me. I hadn’t even seen him get up again. He slumped down next to me and said something I couldn’t hear over the thumping in my ears, but I did see another bolt flying towards his back, longer like a javelin instead of a dart. I acted on instinct again, and threw Arryn out of the way with my newfound magic. I took care not to treat him as roughly as I had the dumpster, and to thank my good deed the javelin of forged mana embedded itself in my shoulder and pinned me to the ground.

The pain was excruciating, and to make matters worse Volcano had pulled himself together, standing over me with rage in his eyes and his ruined hand hanging limply by his side. His other one, now billowing smoke, was raised above me poised to strike.

“You shoulda taken the loss, sweetheart.” he said with a wicked smile. “Alabaster sends his regards.”

"Fuck you." I spat.

He yelled and swung his hand down, but before it could make contact I heard Wyll scream, and the world went white.