Amadeus was raining fire on every soldier he could find. He jumped across the tents and boxes, frying them with his lightning. Whenever he ran low on stamina, he sapped it from his enemies and continued guiding the children.
It should’ve kept him going for the entire way back, but Amadeus could feel his Seeds straining at the edges. The more he spent, the easier it got for the Seed to crack and break apart. His Crystallized Lightning had healed the damage from last time, but Amadeus thought he would rip open the wounds anew if he kept at it.
A blast of force knocked Amadeus back and onto the ground. Jared was beside him in an instant, a shield in his hand that blocked the hail of bullets.
Amadeus moved a hand lazily across the sky. The clouds struck down the soldiers and Jared helped him back up. He knew it wouldn’t be enough, as more soldiers approached from all ends.
Jared stood by him but Amadeus waved him back.
“Let me handle this.”
He didn’t want to see Jared hurt himself for him. He was the oldest, and that meant he was supposed to protect them. But as the soldiers closed in, that felt harder and harder to accomplish.
Doubt took his heart for an instant. Amadeus raised a hand and called the storm to himself. The soldiers aimed their guns.
And a pane of light blocked both partied from each other.
“Attack!” Lillie shouted from somewhere.
Wielders attacked the soldiers with magic, disarming them, sending them to the ground. Amadeus followed suit, calling lightning from his storm to incapacitate them.
The tides of the battle changed and the soldiers ran away in fear, leaving Amadeus a moment to breathe.
“Lillie!” He shouted for her.
As soon as she appeared he grabbed and twirled her around in the air.
“The reunion can wait, Am!” she said, smiling at him.
“Right,” he said, putting her down.
Lillie pointed ahead of them, where the cars were positioned in an open field.
“It’s going to be tough breaking through,” Lillie aired her worries.
“Not with all of us here,” Amadeus replied. His gap-toothed smile made her chuckle, and they ran for their escape.
****
Jeffords stood in awe of the man’s prowess. Even after extracting all that energy from his subordinates, he couldn’t seem to get through to the man.
Victor had his eyes squarely on the man. It was then that Jeffords knew, he couldn’t let him get away at any cost.
More magic knights appeared around Jeffords, and he used up most of his power in creating them. They’d have to do for the next part.
“Let me leave in peace, Jeffords,” Victor told him. “I won’t go against yours, and you against mine.”
“You sure you’re not a politician yourself, son?” Jeffords asked.
Jeffords snapped his fingers, and his knights rushed the boy.
Victor popped more blades from his arms. They spun around his flesh like helicopter blades, cutting through anything he came into contact with. He parried the slashes from the knights, but couldn’t seem to disperse them with a single hit.
These ones must be stronger.
The next knight came in with a large overhead swing. Victor jumped back and raised his bladed arm to the skies. He flew further into the air than he would’ve thought, and got an idea from it.
The knights chased him again, and Victor planted his foot on the largest one. He popped three blades at separate angles and jumped off of it, taking to the skies. He floated along his blades’ trajectory, right towards the wall.
His powers weren’t strong enough to keep him afloat though. Eventually Victor came down and continued in a run. Portals opened up to grab him but Victor couldn’t spare the time for them. he was growing more tired by the second, sweat beading around his face and muscles aching.
When he reached the wall, Victor popped more blades and dug into the stony exterior. More portals popped open beside him, but Victor popped shot blades into them.
He kept climbing up the divots and footholds until he reached the halfway point. Then Victor looked up and found the President standing up on the edge of the wall.
Jeffords held his hands towards Victor and flames erupted from his fingers. Victor jumped to avoid the blast, then popped spinning blades to slow his fall.
“Fine. I’ll just bust right through,” Victor decided. He pulled out his frigustone pistol and fired it into the walls until they frosted over. Then he popped a blade on his palm and spun it around like a drill.
When knights came too close to him, Victor beat them away with his pistols and blades. The battle was growing tiring for him, however, and he could feel himself slowing down.
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A knight slashed Victor on his arms and left a deep cut. He shot his ignistone pistol into the knight’s helmet and the monster faded.
Victor held his arms and grunted, making his way back to the wall. There, he finally had enough and activated his Enlarge.
Victor grew a few feet till he was a hulking giant. He braced his hands against the wall and kicked into the frozen over area, cracking it through. When he returned to normal, Victor was hobbling over to the other end.
Seeing the open desert had never been more pleasing to the man. He started to run faster and faster, but then a portal appeared and Jeffords along with it.
“Just leave me alone, already!”
“Can’t do that, son.”
Victor fired more bullets at the man. Knights came to defend him once more.
They then rushed Victor down all at once. The Timewalker slapped one on the back, slowing him down, then jumped over another’s swing. The Brute came down with his Warhammer again and Victor redirected it to another knight. It crunched the other’s shield and Victor fired ignistone bullets into the Brute’s abdomen.
The fight continued with Victor being overwhelmed at every turn. They blocked off his exits and positioned themselves to aim for him. Victor tried jumping off another of them, but they grabbed his leg and threw him to the ground.
Jeffords tried to blast him with flames but Victor froze over his arm with a frigustone bullet. He fired more at the man and his knights reconvened around him.
Victor smiled a bloody grin, standing up. He took a moment to breathe while the President popped the bullets out of his flesh.
Somehow, his reserves were still high, and Victor was running on fumes.
“You’re stronger than I imagined, Victor.”
“And you’re more persistent than I thought,” Victor fired back.
“That I am. Now tell me, how much do you know of the Lord’s Domain?” Jeffords asked him.
“Enough to know it makes you a threat.”
“Then do you recognize this?”
Most of the knights spread apart once more. Jeffords made portals that carried them far and wide around the battlefield. A bead of sweat ran down his temple as he did so. The effort was straining him, which meant Victor might have had a chance.
“What are you doing?” Victor asked, aiming his pistols.
A wordless command left Jeffords’ mouth, and the knights exploded once more into black smoke.
He destroyed them? Victor was baffled.
But the smoke didn’t disperse. Instead, it funnelled into the earth around Victor and Jeffords. Patterns formed in the sand in black, sigils and runes that connected to each other and formed a giant circle around them.
Victor fired into Jeffords with his guns but his knights moved in an instant. He saw their essence thicken and lengthen, becoming more real and more dangerous.
Victor Whispered to the winds to contact Am and Lillie. Get me quickly! He sent the message, but something felt wrong. He could feel the magic failing. Like it couldn’t escape the grasp of the earth.
“What… did you do?” Victor asked, horrified.
“I’ve Conquered this land. Whatever goes inside of it now can only happen through my orders,” Jeffords explained. “This is the Masterwork of the Lord’s Domain.”
“I can’t believe I ever voted for you,” Victor spat.
“You trusted in the words of my campaign, Victor. Why not trust in the man behind it? There’s no filter between you and I anymore.”
“You’re only a step above the monsters, Jeffords. But that doesn’t make you good. Not one bit.”
Jeffords took that personally, his scowl intensifying.
Victor needed to leave, and quickly. He turned around but there was a portal there. Victor fired into it but it was as if it did nothing. Fire exploded from the bullet hole but was consumed by the shadows around it. The knight that came out slashed at Victor and cut a gash across his forehead.
Victor jumped back and popped blades. They came slower than normal and he had to fight hard to fend off even a single knight. He pushed it back and avoided a blast of fire from Jeffords.
A glance showed him that he wasn’t in any better condition than Victor himself. Jeffords was holding his chest and heaving. Maybe, if he could get close to him, Victor could end this wretched ability.
Victor pulled out his ignistone pistol and reloaded it. He cocked the gun just before another knight came down swinging at him. He fired once into its face and then aimed at Jeffords. The bullet hit the man in the hand and Jeffords screamed.
But the magic knights didn’t cease. One of them caught Victor across the side with a blow and he felt the air leave his lungs. His ribs cracked but Victor stood tall. He grabbed the club and fired the entire ignistone magazine into the monster’s face.
Another knight came for him and Victor tried to jump. He couldn’t though, and instead ended up stumbling back onto the dirt.
The knight swung down his sword towards him. Victor parted his legs and fired a spinning blade into the knight’s face. He turned over and started crawling away, but a portal appeared before him.
Oh, come on! Victor slid underneath the portal and popped out the other end. it closed behind him and he found himself at the edge of the Conquered land.
A flash of hope entered Victor’s heart and he started to run. He ran as far as his legs would take him, to the edge of the field. But even he wasn’t as quick as a portal.
It appeared much quicker than he thought. The Warhammer caught him right in the chest. His dragonsilver plate softened the would-be deathblow.
Instead, Victor only rolled across the ground in immense pain. It was as if that single hit had taken everything out of the man. He lost his grip on his pistol and dropped it to the ground.
He started coughing violently, blood mixing in with the phlegm. All the while the knights boxed him in.
They held their weapons above their heads, ready to swing down at a moment’s notice.
When Jeffords approached him, Victor stifled the cough and raised himself on his elbows.
“You fought well, son. But I can’t let you go.”
Jeffords left hand was bleeding and frozen over. He kneeled down and picked up Victor’s ignistone pistol in his right instead. Then he raised it, and took aim at the Timewalker.
Victor looked at the barrel of the gun, and then behind it, where something was moving in the air. A portal struggled open behind the president, and Cooper pulled him in.
Victor took his chance and pushed himself off. He jumped through the portal to the other side, landing on smooth sand.
The portal closed before even a single knight could make it through. Victor would’ve collapsed right then and there.
He’d made it. Actually made it! But the celebration could wait, because he heard a gunshot right beside him.
Victor turned around to find Professor Cooper standing above him. He was struggling against Jeffords, who even now was dead set on winning. Across from the both of them was a soldier who was holding a bleeding hole in his shoulder.
Victor raised himself up and jumped onto Jeffords’ back. He clasped the man by the throat and let out the strongest Slowdown he could muster out of himself. The President slowed in the air, and Professor Cooper’s eyes widened.
“How did you…”
“No time!” Victor held out a hand that Professor Cooper clasped in his.
He took it and Cooper led him to the injured soldier.
“Take us away, now,” Cooper ordered the man. he nodded and another portal opened up.
Victor took one last glance back at the president. He was still slowed, but tried his best to run at them, grab them, and stop them from leaving. Victor could see that fire still in his eyes, but it had burnt away any reason in Jeffords’ mind.
All there was left was a ravenous animal who didn’t want his kingdom to collapse. Victor walked through the portal, and it closed to Jeffords’ screams.