The pillow moved and Isela let out a small scream that was so high-pitched, it was almost inaudible, drawing the attention of half the room. The fur on her neck and face fluffed up in embarrassment and she gestured towards the pillow, trying to get the attention back to the pillow.

Everyone complied as the pillow shifted again, watching in various forms of shock. It wasn’t moving fast, but it seemed to be deliberate, as if bones had magically been created within it. It wiggled enough to fall off the chair and everybody reflexively took a step back.

“What the hell?” Isela asked quietly.

Nobody responded, but Helianna leaned down to put her hand on the pillow, which instantly stilled. She felt a connection to it and pulled, trying to withdraw her magic from the pillow. It resisted at first so she pulled harder on the connection. After several seconds of focus, it eventually gave, the magic flowed back back into her. She turned back to everyone else who was looking at her with a mix of fastination and horror. Isela was the first to speak.

“That’s so cool! You should put it in a doll or something! See if it can control it!” Everybody’s eyes snapped to her and she flinched back in surprise.

“What? It would be cool!”

“It would be creepy, that’s what,” Sylas grumbled. Helianna found herself agreeing with him for the first time. Another glance passed between her parents and Helianna caught it this time.

“What?” she asked.

“Well we still have a couple dolls from when you were young if you’d like to try,” Jana responded. After a brief moment of thought, Helianna nodded and her mother disappeared upstairs.

“Now we’ve got magic dolls as well? I called it. It’s voodoo,” Sylas quietly muttered.

Helianna’s father glanced at him with a frown and Isela smacked Sylas on the arm, trying to get him to shut up. Not only did she want to avoid getting kicked out, she was actually excited by what she was about to see. Jana came down a minute later with a doll that Helianna instantly recognized. It was the last one her mother had bought her before she stopped playing with them.

“You kept this?”

“Of course!” Jana handed it to Helianna after a brief moment of thought, and Helianna took a deep breath.

“We ready for this?” After a few nods, she closed her eyes. It took her a few moments to get a solid feel of her magic again and she pushed it into the doll. She put it down and took a step back, wary of how the magic in the doll would act. After a few moments, it started moving, but nobody said a word. Every second seemed like an eternity as it rolled itself over onto its stomach and slowly stood up

“I knew it!” Isela whisper-yelled.

The doll stood on wobbly legs and stepped in a seemingly random direction. It lost its balance momentarily and had to take several panicked steps to the side to remain upright. Everyone watched in silence, as if looking in on a zoo-animal while the doll slowly stumbled towards the door.

“It’s going outside?” Isela whispered to Helianna, who shrugged.

Helianna followed the doll closely, the others crowding behind her as they slowly tailed her. When it reached the door, it thumped its arms against the wood, unable to reach the handles. Helianna hesitantly opened it, careful not to knock the doll over. The doll then took several hesitant steps outside before crouching in the dirt just outside the house. Everyone watched as they saw it slowly start writing in the dirt.

Too enraptured by the actions of the doll, none of them noticed a ball of fire flying towards the open door until the last second. Isela’s ears suddenly swiveled around, hearing the quiet roaring of the fireball as it flew.

“Watch ou-”

Already the closest to the fireball, Helianna reacted quickly and jumped in front of it so it impacted her in the chest. The fire disappeared into her nullification field, preventing the fire from expanding further, but she wasn’t able stop the following two fireballs from exploding against the side of the house and catching it on fire.

“We’re under attack! They’re already here!” yelled Helianna as she ran from the house, immediately making a beeline for the fire thrower. Isela and Sylas both chased after, Isela immediately flying up high in the air. Both of Helianna’s parents dashed inside and her mother’s voice could easily be heard yelling for Tanelex.

Helianna looked around as she ran towards the fire user, identifying at least five ithrax hostiles, their uniforms easy to see. He threw large gouts of fire at her, which of course did no damage, only making it harder to see. When she was only a few meters away, a large block of mana ice suddenly surrounded her. Unable to see, continued running as she growled in frustration. When she exited, the fire user was in a completely different place than beforehand. She looked around for the icemaker when the air around her heated up to impossible levels, making the air around her distort and messing with her vision. She pulled out a dagger and threw it at the fire mage.

A moment before it struck however, the air suddenly cooled to extreme cold. While her vision was restored, a large drop in air pressure occurred and combined with the drastic temperature change, the dagger shattered. A moment later, the air returned to the massive levels of heat, causing the air pressure to rise and her vision to become distorted again. While none of the magic had ever touched her, the resulting effects of their magic was phenomenally disorienting and she found herself struggling to stay upright, much less fight back.

Among the chaos, she suddenly heard the sound of metal shattering once more and she felt a few metal fragments hitting her skin. An arrow had narrowly missed her and the fluctuating temperatures that surrounded her had resulted in the blade of the arrow shattering. She tried to look around to see the source of the arrow, but couldn’t make out any shapes beyond a few feet in front of her.

The arrow had come from a strange, but heated battle between Sylas and the hostile spatial mage. Both of them used bows and arrows, utilizing their spatial magic to make the arrows home in on their targets. However, thanks to both having the same magic and utilizing the same techniques, they found themselves consistently able to counter each other’s arrows and neither had managed to land a hit.

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Several arrows were fired at Isela and the two she was fighting but well timed spatial manipulations kept the arrows off track. Regardless of the interference, she was barely hanging on. There was a light mage who repeatedly fired lasers at her, but kept missing as he struggled to track her erratic flying. He could only sustain the lasers for a brief moment and could never fix his aim before he had to take a break. Despite his terrible strategy, he remained persistent, confident that it would be devastating when he landed a hit.

The other one was a gravity mage, who was flying through the air after Isela. He was a human and so he had to use his magic to fly at all times, unlike Isela who could fly on her own. This gave her a huge advantage, as he rapidly had to alternate between keeping himself in the air and trying to hurt her with his magic. She didn’t need magic to fly and the natural benefit provided by her wings was just enough to keep her ahead of her two attackers.

At one point, she flew a bit low, getting close enough to Helianna that they could see each other’s plight. Helianna shouted out, the alternating pressure and temperature warping her voice.

“Isela! Fly low through the town!”

Barely taking a moment to think, Isela dove, kicking up dust as she flew. She started weaving between buildings, the other gravity mage barely able to keep up, much less attack her. Realizing he couldn’t fight like this, the gravity mage floated back up above the town to get a better view and started activating concentrated blasts of gravity magic, hoping to knock her into the buildings.

Instead of knocking her around however, his blasts simply damaged buildings and screams began to erupt from the town. Realizing she had put others in danger and likely would cause more if she stayed, Isela immediately started climbing again. This put her in a vulnerable position and she was hit by a powerful burst of magic, the gravity around her increasing by multiple times. She was barely able to stay flying and quickly pulled a muscle in one of her wings to stay up, hampering her ability to fly.

During this exchange, the light mage had been unable to see her and had changed his focus, firing a laser at Sylas and being useful for the first time. It burned into Sylas’ shoulder and he cried out in pain and surprise, losing his focus. One of the opponent’s arrows managed to break through his lapse in concentration, Sylas barely turning it to the side and allowing it to graze his outer thigh.

Seeing Isela back in the air and Sylas standing still, she knew they had no chance as it was. Isela wasn’t listening and against a better trained spatial mage, Sylas didn’t have a chance.

“Sylas! Don’t just use arrows you dumbass!” Completely unable to hear his grumbling, she could only tell that he heard her words by his figure disappearing. A moment later, her vision was obstructed by another gout of flame, causing another small shockwave as it blasted through the cold air impossibly fast.

Sylas stepped forward, folding the space in front of him so that the single step placed him in front of the light mage. Unable to hear Helianna from where he was, the light mage was surprised and released a flash of light, blinding Sylas. Unfortunately for the mage, Sylas was already swinging and the flash did not stop his fist. Instead of landing a blow to the man’s nose, his fist crunched into the man’s teeth, causing both men to yell in pain. The enemy mage tried to backpedal, but Sylas’ vision slowly returned and he took advantage of his spatial abilities, traversing the distance much faster. The other mage was completely unprepared and Sylas nailed the man across the chin with a strong left hook, instantly knocking the incompetent mage out cold.

His disappearance did not go unnoticed as the other hostile mage turned and targeted Helianna. The two mages disorienting her saw it coming and dropped their magic as the arrow approached. Still reeling for the effects, Helianna never saw it coming and pain blossomed in her shoulder. She cried out and gritted her teeth and took a moment to break the end off with her other hand, not wanting it to impede her movement more. It hurt like hell, but she found she could still move her arm. The moment of stillness didn’t go unpunished as the fire mage lit the ground on fire and she had to get away before it turned into a non-magical fire.

Before the spatial mage could land another arrow however, the enemy mage found herself once again having to deal with Sylas. This time however, her arrows kept getting closer and closer to Sylas, his pain holding him back. Already less efficient than her at using his magic, he was now struggling to keep up the pressure.

Isela had been freed up by the light mage getting injured however and dove down behind the spatial mage. The one chasing Isela tried to yell a warning, which gave the archer mage a brief moment to dodge, turning Isela’s lethal blow into a debilitating one. As those four got locked into their own frenzy, as the four mages got into a slog, Helianna stumbled towards the town. Unable to stop her movements without getting too close, the two mages redoubled their efforts. Regardless, she made it to the other houses, hoping to use them to lose the mages.

She heard buildings cracking and collapsing around her as the temperature shock quickly damaged the support. Fires started raging and the screaming rose in volume, but she ignored it all, trying to focus on her surroundings. Her salvation came when a wall collapsed next to her and stirred up a massive cloud of debris. Realizing that they wouldn’t be able to see her, she immediately rushed in the last direction she saw one of them.

Despite tripping on a piece of rubble, She managed to run headlong into one of the hostiles. He immediately threw a kick at her in surprise, but she stepped into it and grabbed his leg. She twisted it and forced him to the ground with his back towards her. She stepped forward and in an instant, snapped his neck.

She looked around, trying to find the other mage, when pain erupted in her lower back. She threw an elbow and connected with someone behind her as she twisted, the knife being wrenched out of his hands in the process. She looked at who had attacked her and saw a sixth ithrax that none of them had seen.

Meanwhile, Sylas panted as he forced himself to use even more of his magic. At this point, it felt as if his insides were being twisted every time he used it. His only comfort was that he could tell he was doing better than the other mage. She had taken several hits from Isela and barely seemed to be standing. Sylas fired one last time at the woman chasing Isela. He missed, as he often did, but he bent the space in front of the arrow, forcing the projectile towards the woman. And for the first time in the entire battle, the arrow followed was not redirected. His arrow struck true and drove into the woman’s chest. Despite being far from dead, shock overtook her and she plummeted to the ground.

There was a wet thud as her body hit the ground and wet raspy breaths came from her. Completely out of the fight, both Isela and Sylas ignored her, looking towards the town. They had killed the other gravity mage earlier and now they needed to find Helianna.

The had last seen her running towards the towns, which now looked like it had been hit by a natural disaster. What hadn’t been collapsed was on fire and they both started sprinting towards it. As the worst of the adrenaline faded, Sylas collapsed, his body unable to take the physical and magical toll that had been exacted on his body. Isela kept flying, pushing her battered wing to its limit.

As she flew over the collapsing town, she saw Helianna. She was in a dagger fight with an new ithrax and the ice mage was trying to manipulate the fight. Helianna had a knife still sticking out of her back, and dozens of cuts across her arms and body. Isela dove to help, but her wing started to give out and she struggled to maintain control. Instead of smoothly dragging her claws along the mage and continuing flying, she completely tackled the man, burying her claws deep into his back. She felt several bones snap and two of her claws snapped off in the tumble, her body unable to take the high speed crash.

All sense of direction was lost, her body bouncing along the ground. When she came to her senses, she found herself at the feet of Helianna and the last ithrax. She struggled to her side and swiped at the feet of the enemy, forcing him to dodge. The small action was just enough for Helianna to capitalize, and she buried her dagger into his arm, forcing him to drop it. Quickly picking it up, she rushed him, burying it in his neck. She looked around for a brief moment, but realizing that the fight was over, she collapsed to the ground and lay there panting. Groaning and screaming filled their ears as the town collapsed around them.