Cetri panted as she turned around one last corner. She took a moment to breathe, leaning her back against the monochrome building. She had to have ran for the past ten minutes. She had zigzagged across the city hoping they would lose her.

Now, she could take her time and familiarize herself with her surroundings. What could her enemies use to their advantage to catch her off guard? Where could they hide? Hiding was a coward's tactic, one Cetri would never use outside of hunting wild animals. After all, they didn't have the same idea of honor.

While she was at it, she checked each of the doors. Perhaps she could find a safe haven for her and the others to plan their next course of action. Not to be used as a stakeout for a sneak attack.

She rattled each of the doorknobs, none of them turning no matter how much she forced them. "Spark, have I gone weak?" she muttered to herself.

If the doors won't open, what about the windows? Gazing up, she noticed dozens of not hundreds of windows across each of the buildings, including the one she was standing in front of. Unfortunately, there was no means of climbing the walls. If only Aston was there to float up to one of the windows. For whatever reason, the lower floors didn't have any windows. Perhaps it was for this very reason.

She kept walking and eventually came to a building with two giant windows, large enough for a person to pass through. She approached them and was about to reach for her hammer when they suddenly... opened.

"What the flaming—" Cetri gawked, she took a step back and watched as they once again closed. Stepping forward, they opened once again. The idea both fascinated and frustrated her. How did such a contraption work? She shrugged it off and entered the building.

Inside, lights flickered on and off, making the setting quite eerie. Long rectangular devices seemed to be the source of this light. Somehow, she didn't think this was what isabells looked like.

The building appeared to be empty save for its white walls and ugly checkered blue and beige flooring. Who designed this? The longer Cetri spent here, the more depressed she got. As she ascended, she started questioning if she'd be able to find her way back down or if she were better off smashing one of these windows and jumping down. After all, a cat always lands on their feet. Even one that's eight stories high— Okay, maybe that wasn't a smart idea.

Just as she was about to give up and find a corner to rest in, she noticed something interesting. A locked door with some sort of glowing pad next to it. Twisting the handle proved fruitless, so she deduced the pad must have something to do with the lock. Smashing the pad with her hammer, the door clicked open.

Inside were dozens of tarps covering who knows what. Quickly running over, she removed one to see dozens of broken contraptions she couldn't begin to describe. Some even seemed to house broken batteries. None of it looked remotely useful, so she left it. However, the tarp in the middle of the room seemed to cover something big.

Removing the tarp from the center unveiled a giant statue of two people fighting. Judging by their physique, both were male. However, one of them had their heads cut off. Judging by the rough finish, someone had broken it off. Neither of these figures looked familiar to her, so she couldn't even begin to theorize why someone might defile them.

Deciding this room held no further value, she began walking the same way she came, hoping to descend back down. Before she could leave, she noticed something hanging on the wall covered by yet another tarp. Realizing it was probably some sort of picture, she yanked the tarp down.

It displayed a man completely covered in a robe so that his facial features could not be seen. In one corner was the sun, and in the other was the moon. Behind the man were the four elements, and beside him were two other cloaked figures. Like the statue, one of their faces was punched out.

"I know the sun, moon, and elements, but who are the other three?" Cetri pondered. She wondered if her companions might have any insight.

—-

"Shit!" Aston shouted, wiping the blood off his lips. Isla was less than useless in this battle, her arrows lazily falling to the ground as each one was deflected. He knew it wasn't her fault, yet he still wanted someone to blame. Once the two learned he possessed magic, they adapted surprisingly well, dodging nearly all of his attacks. It was as if they had fought against those with magic before. Each time he had cast a spell, their gaze shifted over to Isla for a few seconds, as if they expected her to follow suit. He supposed they assumed she was full Fae, considering her hair and pale complexion.

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He braced for impact as the red-haired woman charged at him with her bat. He had summoned a wall of rock from the ground, but she had predicted this and swerved around it with ease, striking him in the back.

"Aston!" Isla shouted, watching him cough up blood before running over to him.

"I can't!" He choked out. His hoarse voice was filled with aggravation and contempt. "They predict my every move! How am I supposed to defeat them...?" How could they know his every move? It was as if they had seen every attack, every maneuver at least once before.

"Then I'll protect you." She took his face in her hands, staring into his eyes; her own filled with determination. Even with that determination, she remained serene, naive almost. She was so innocent and fragile, just as she always had been. He wanted to grab her wrist to stop her, to tell her it was okay, and he didn't need saving. He was stronger than her, much stronger, and had failed. What could she ever hope to achieve?

She took a deep breath, readying her bow. The man before her smirked shaking his head, already knowing she would fail. He would break her morale; deflect it back, stabbing the very arm she used to take aim.

But she would not accept failure so easily.

She thought back to her time in the forest; recalled the way the Fae around her fought. The conversations she had overheard about the magic she could not possess. She thought back to Notus who had taught Aston how to enchant her very weapon.

Her weapon...

She tilted her head slightly to get a better view of the bow she was holding. It possessed wind just as it had the past few weeks, but only now did she really think about what that meant. Her arrows had indeed flown faster and with little effort, yet these two seemed to predict that. No, she had to think about this weapon as an extension of herself. She could not wield magic, but she could wield this weapon, and this weapon was magic.

She could wield magic.

Indirectly, that is. Rather than aiming around his bat as she had tried so many times, she aimed directly over his head. She imagined the arrow as an extension of herself, so when it flew far above the man who seemed rather surprised and humored at what appeared to be a spectacular failure, she pictured the arrow turning back around. And so, it did, impaling him through his back, causing him to let out a blood-curdling scream.

She smiled at her small victory, ready to nock another arrow, but her victory was short-lived. The two had grown wary of her arrows, with one of them always keeping their eye on it, deflecting and dodging as necessary.

Just like Aston, there was no way she would win.

Aston wanted to grab her hand and run, but there was no way he'd be able to manage. He was bleeding far too much and just bending his knee caused excruciating pain.

He shouldn't have let his guard down the moment Isla had hit her target. He should have known that they had seen this technique before, and the only reason it had caught them off-guard was because of how unoriginal Isla's fighting had been prior. They had obviously fought against the Fae before; they adapted too well to elemental attacks to not have.

Elemental attacks...

He had only been fighting using what the Fae had taught him. He would have to use techniques the Fae had never seen before if he had any hope of winning. The man was already injured from Isla's arrow; he would make a good target. One by one, Aston recreated his friends' weapons, thankful that he was merely replicating them rather than summoning them. Starting with Elric's sword, he pulled his arm back wincing in pain in the process, before throwing it, grazing his foe's shoulder.

It seemed to shock the red-haired man who had little time to recover as Aston was on him with a pair of scimitars. The woman was about to protest when Isla kept her busy, nocking two arrows at once this time. Last was Cetri's hammer, which was heavier than Aston had expected. He nearly dropped it on his foot, managing to move at the last second. Using all his strength, he managed to swing, his foe parrying with his bat.

A sharp buzzing pain encompassed Aston, but he would not give in. Screaming as loud as he could, he pushed through the pain, breaking the bat in half and pounding the redhead's chest into the ground.

Aston's eyes glowed a bright red, the hammer conducting flames that Aston had cast. He made his way over to the terrified woman who had since dropped her weapon and held her hands up defensively. It was Isla who put herself between the two.

"You're not going to kill her, are you?" Her voice was hesitant, scared as her pupils fluttered between the blazing hammer and Aston's lifeless expression.

"It's not like she would show me mercy, so why should I?" The words rolled off his tongue as if he had spoken them before.

"She fights because she has to, I'm sure." Isla glanced back at the scared woman behind her, feeling pity for her more than anything. "We're different. We don't have to kill anyone. We could restrain her instead!"

Aston closed his eyes, the hammer disappearing in the process. If it was Isla asking, he couldn't refuse. He couldn't bear to see her upset. The small frown she bore only made him feel guiltier.

He reached out to the girl in front of him. She jolted a bit, only managing to move an inch or two back as she was already on her back. Lucky for him, a silver chain was part of her strange attire. It didn't seem to have any practical use, merely decoration. He grabbed it in his hand momentarily before letting go.

Unfortunately, the chains were rather small. So, he created multiple, using fire to meld them together. When he was done, he had a set of cuffs, a chain hanging out that was tied down by a replica of Cetri's hammer. He was too tired to think of any heavier object and merely recalled the last heavy thing he could think of. Would it hold? He had no idea how strong this woman was. But something told him that even if she did break free, she wouldn't pursue them.