Just a minute ago the students were enamored with Giantsbane’s very presence. Now they rushed past their hero, fighting each other for the right to take one of the five bridges. Arguments were had, gifts discharged. The bridges were made of rope and plank; they wobbled as teams stomped frantically to cross them.

Amidst the chaos, Lyssa searched for her friends while Vortex gauged the opponents closing in behind them.

“What are you waiting for, Vortex,” Ironhog shouted. “Take us across!”

“Something isn’t right,” Vortex replied.

A couple hundred feet away, Amelia took to the air with Penny in tow. Lyssa felt panic rise in her stomach like bile. She reached into her mind, calling, scrounging for the Self who held her telepathy hostage. There was no response, not even a cynical goad. Bildungsroman had retreated somewhere she could not feel. The Self had not been the same after being effortlessly dispatched by the Director.

So Lyssa was stuck in her own mind, unable to ‘path to them to pull back. She watched the flutter of Amelia’s wings rise towards the sun.

“What are you doing younglings?” Giantsbane’s voice arrested everyone’s attention once more. His size grew as fast as thought and he rose into the air. His mighty palm closed in on Amelia.

“Shit!” Lyssa exclaimed. Time slowed. She reached inward and stood on the antechamber of her mind. The dimensions of her mansion had always been mutable, changing in size and form to her mood and whim. It was shrunken at that moment, every door and every hall within reach. Before her was the foot of the staircase that took her to her loftiest thoughts.

“Eury!” She shouted.

“…What?”

“I need you!”

“You do or them? This game is competitive, my naïve Self. Worry about your cohort.”

“They helped me, accepted me despite how strange we- I am. I have to do this for them. I can’t just-”

“No.”

“If you value your freedom give your gift to me or else I will put you in a metaphorical hotbox.”

A pillar of white force-fire filled the staircase, spilling into the antechamber. Paintings and doors rattled. Eury hovered before her, a cocksure smile on her face.

“You don’t know how to do that.”

“I will learn eventually,” Lyssa said.

“Admit this is for you. Not them.”

“What does that…?”

“Say it.”

“This is what I want. Selfishly. Wholeheartedly.”

Eury leaned in close to her ear.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Isn’t the truth liberating?”

Giantsbane’s palm was almost upon her friends. Lyssa raised her own and fired. A beam of white fire raced into the sky, striking Giantsbane in the wrist. Her right arm snapped back from the immense recoil and she fell onto the ground. She had used her full power in that blast. It was just enough to pause the gargantuan hand towering over them, giving Amelia enough time to pull back and land. Giantsbane looked at his hand like an insect just bit it.

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He squinted at the crowd of students. Sharp eyes finally locked onto Lyssa laying on the ground, her teeth grit as she cradled her arm. Something had definitely snapped.

Eury cackled in the distance of her thoughts.

“I know things about us you don’t wish to acknowledge. Look at you, pretending to be selfless, caring for your friends. When did we learn to be that way? Be honest about what you want, and I’ll lend you my strength.”

And then her voice retreated back up the staircase, resting in the clouds of Lyssa’s thoughts.

“A daring challenge, student!” Giantsbane said. He began walking towards them. Each step was followed by aftershocks.

“Why the hell did you do that?” Burnout said incredulously.

“I don’t know,” Lyssa said. “I saw people in trouble.”

Giantsbane blotted out the sun with his sheer bulk. His movements were slow, making up for speed with mass. He stopped in front of them and raised his foot.

“I hope you haven’t bitten off more than you could chew,” he said. The hammer came down. A spider web of cracks travelled outward from the tip of his foot, shattering solid ground into a field of mismatched boulders. Every team nearby lost their footing. A student that was nowhere close to the footfall cried out as his ankle became lodged in the suddenly treacherous landscape.

Lyssa was thrown away by the wind force of the foot alone. She formed armor around herself before her back hit the ground, ignoring Sethlana’s grumbling. A jolt of pain travelled up her injured arm.

“Whoa, hold up!” The giant hero said. “Where are you lot going?” He turned his attention to the students with flight. He bent down to scoop a handful of debris, then casually flicked his forearm. The stones and dirt flew like the pellets of a shotgun shell. Most of the students turned back. Some were struck. They fell into the ravine, screaming all the way down.

“We built these perfectly good bridges for your use, you know.”

With only five ways across the ravine, egress was slow. Too slow. Arcs of red paint were already beginning to pepper the area as the other antagonists of the game closed in.

“Burnout,” Vortex said, and nothing else.

“I’m okay. I’m okay,” Burnout said, brushing dirt off his suit.

Vortex released a fully formed tornado from her palms and began directing it into the incoming soldiers. She shot a glance at her teammate.

“Oh,” Burnout said. “Seriously?” He took a deep breath and threw every wisp of flame he had into the wind. The brown-grey twister drunk the fire greedily, instantly taking on a white-hot brilliance.

The soldiers stopped. Their vehicles hit the brakes. They began turning around.

“Impressive display, student,” Giantsbane said.

“I’m not finished,” Vortex shouted. The wind picked up. The tornado grew, nurtured by fire. The only spot free from the ravenous currents was by Vortex’s feet. Many students gravitated towards her. Still she did not stop.

“Anything,” she whispered. “And everything.”

The wall of dense air had become more tropical storm than mere twister. Burnout’s contribution had thinned to almost nothing. Well over a hundred students had gathered under Vortex’s eye, watching, for they could do nothing else.

“You can stop this, right?” Ironhog shouted. It was muffled into the faintest echo.

“No,” Vortex said. “This one only time can defeat.”

Lyssa squinted. A shadow moved inside the hurricane. She could identify the parts of its silhouette. Legs, torso, arms, hands. Hands on spread arms that pulled together in an instant. Then came the loudest sound she had ever heard. Far louder than the worst thunderclaps she had retreated under her bed sheets from as a child. Louder, for just a heartbeat, than Rachminau’s meteors.

The shockwave of air looked solid as it expanded like a balloon. The wave moved slow enough to track with one’s eyes, but fast enough to be unavoidable. Not that the students had anywhere else to go. They had a second to react before the shockwave felt solid too.

Lyssa did not know how long she stayed in the air. She had closed her eyes on instinct, and likely lost consciousness until she landed. She certainly felt the hard ground meet every part of her body as she tumbled to a stop. It felt as though every bone in her body had broken. She struggled to pull enough of herself together just to get up. Her limbs were made of lead. In the moment before the shockwave struck she had covered herself entirely in her stone armor. Now her scales came off her skin in shards and dust. She brushed the dirt from her eyes.

Several seconds passed before she stopped seeing multiples. She gauged her surroundings. Her peers were scattered about, recovering at their own rate, groaning the whole time. There was no trace of Vortex’s hurricane. They could all see with crystal clarity the hero standing in their way. Judging by his current size, Lyssa guessed they had been thrust back a few hundred yards. Giantsbane released his hands from his mid-clap pose and let his arms fall to his sides.

“Care to try again?” He called out.