52 LII. | 'O, colliding fires...!'

A shower of yellow crystals flew toward them, and Hector raised a wall of iron, but it barely stopped anything. Chunks of crystal tore through his metal as if it were cardboard. Hector took a softball-sized crystal through the chest, knocking him off his feet.

'He's using soul-strengthening techniques on those crystals,' Garovel informed him privately. 'His element is probably sulfur.'

Hector struggled back up again, watching Lynnette buy him the time to do so. The purple shade could withstand the crystals much more effectively, and when Andres tried to coat her in them, the shadow ripped her free immediately.

'Be careful,' said Garovel. 'He can probably create it in states other than its solid crystal form.'

Lynnette was forcing Andres back into the hall by the time Hector rejoined. However, Andres was apparently baiting her toward him in order to hide the fact that Desmond was approaching her from behind, which was why Hector decided to place himself there first.

For a moment, he and Lynnette stood back-to-back, and he quickly whispered to her what Garovel had just told him about Andres' ability.

"Got it."

A giant crystal came flying toward them, and Lynnette cleaved it cleanly in two with her violet-coated sword. The subsequent halves of the crystal crashed into the walls and kept tumbling down the length of the corridor.

Desmond threw a blinking look at the suddenly missing walls around him. In a matter of seconds, his section of the hallway had been converted into one big room, a kind of adjoining chamber. The ceiling began to groan, and Hector thought it might cave in, but at least for the moment, it did not.

Desmond's reaper, Ezmortig, appeared behind him, probably wanting to provide observational advice like Garovel had been doing.

Hector launched another javelin. Desmond dodged it easily enough while Hector began closing the distance with a freshly constructed blade in hand. And then abruptly, he clapped iron around Desmond's face. Hector swung for the man's neck, but even without the use of his eyes, Desmond still ducked right under the blow and caught Hector's arm with both of his own. The arm snapped, and the man's burly hands found Hector's throat. Hector could hear the sizzling noise, and he knew the explosion was imminent.

The iron spikes came out. They skewered Desmond in five places, loosening his grip and allowing Hector to kick him off before the hand exploded. Desmond went bouncing toward Lynn, who was more than happy to make time for the man. She brought her sword to bear and chopped both of Desmond's legs off.

Yellow crystals crashed into her, and she went flying away from Desmond. Hector leapt up and caught her, mostly with his right arm, as the other was still broken.

And due to the odd angle at which he'd caught her, Hector landed with a swirling flourish. He was about to lay her down, expecting her to at least be disoriented, but that didn't seem to be the case. She looked just as clear-eyed as ever and got back on her feet straight away.

And it was a good thing, too, because Andres wasn't letting up. He didn't bother attending to Desmond at all, and instead launched a wave of fist-sized crystals at them. Hector raised a metal wall, and Lynnette added a purple coating to it. The crystals shattered on impact.

Hector already knew that Lynn's shadow was more resilient than Geoffrey's had been, but he was continually surprised by how much. Over the course of their training, he'd made multiple attempts to break through her shadow with a soul-empowered punch, but he had never once succeeded. Even after he'd started using enhanced strength and sent her flying, Lynn had described his punches as feeling like nothing more than a friendly pat on the arm.

Lynnette retracted her shadow while Hector destroyed his wall and prepared another javelin. She went first, diving headlong through Andres' storm of crystals and forcing him back again.

Which was another thing Hector didn't understand: how Andres could launch his crystals the way he did. The man hadn't thrown them. He'd merely put one hand forward, and the crystals shot forth as soon as they appeared. Hector very much wanted to know how that was possible, but now wasn't the best time to ask Garovel for an explanation.

Lynnette kept pressing and finally caught one of Andres' arms with her blade. The man tried to use it as an opportunity to hit her with a crystal fist, but a javelin flew into the man's chest, completely knocking him off balance. And Lynn sliced his head off.

Desmond had removed the metal from his face by now and was still waiting for his legs to regrow as Andres' head rolled toward him. When he looked up to see Lynnette and Hector bearing down upon them, he grinned and said, "Well, then! Try this one!"

And Desmond's entire body began to darken and sizzle.

Hector and Lynn both screeched to a halt and tried to box Desmond in with metal and shadow together.

It wasn't enough.

The explosion shook the whole building and ripped their hasty container to pieces, even breaking Lynnette's shadow. The shock wave hit Hector like a train. He flew through a wall, then another, and was outside, toppling through grass and dirt until finally skidding to a stop.

His armor was in tatters, and his body was in shreds. Most of the flesh on his face was gone. His torso was no better, exposed ribs jutting out of his chest, jagged and broken. Blood seemed to be everywhere.

His extremities, however, were still attached, apart from a missing foot and half an arm. And he was still conscious. His eardrums were blown out. His eyes were gone. All the nerve endings on the front side of his body were destroyed. But Hector was awake, still aware that everything was regenerating.

And he couldn't speak yet, but he could think. 'Garovel?!'

'I'm safe, Hector. You suppressed it enough for me to get out of the blast radius in time.'

He would have breathed a sigh of relief if his lungs hadn't been crushed into a meaty paste. 'A-and... what happened to Lynn?'

'I'm searching for her now.'

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

A purple streak shoved the massive, wooden desk off of her. Lynnette coughed, half-expecting to see blood, but saw none. She wasn't sure if that was because the blood genuinely wasn't there or because she could barely see straight at the moment.

Before trying to move, she shut her eye and did a roll call. All of her limbs still worked, but she was reasonably sure that at least two of her ribs were broken. A pounding headache was there as well, and she raised a hand to her forehead and found a bit of blood there.

"Hoh," she breathed. She shifted off of her back and onto all fours. "I definitely felt that one..." She tried to stand and stumbled.

Looking around, she realized that she wasn't sure where she'd ended up. Whatever room this used to be, it was rubble now.

The doorway was blocked by debris, no doubt from the giant hole in the ceiling, which also served as the only source of light for the otherwise dim chamber. At the moment, though, Lynnette wasn't feeling quite up to climbing, so she set the shadow to work trying to clear a path to the door.

"Oh, thank the goddess!" came a man's voice. "You are still alive!"

She looked up to see the King's blond-bearded face through the hole. "Your Highness!" said Lynnette. "Are you alright?!"

"Yes, I am fine. Do you require help getting back up here?"

And she realized that she must have fallen down to the basement level. She gathered herself, standing erect. "No," she said. "Please wait there a moment." She'd never used the shadow like a rope before and was thus unsure if it could even function as such, but now seemed like a good time to try. She sent a purple hook up and had it latch onto the first floor, and sure enough, she was able to pull herself up without much difficulty.

And as she met the King face-to-face again, she was reminded of her task. "Your Highness, we have to get you out of here." She took his hand, and they started navigating the ruined hallway.

"More of them are coming," said William.

Her brow lowered. "What do you mean?"

"Before your fight, Andres called their other comrades. I am certain they are on their way here."

Her mouth wrenched into a frown. "All the more reason to leave, then."

She had no idea where Hector was. Certainly, she wanted to go search for him, but from her understanding, it would only be a matter of minutes before Desmond and Andres regenerated fully. That left precious little time to get the King out. And even if she was strong enough to defeat them on her own, she knew that she still wouldn't be able to kill them so long as she couldn't see their reapers.

Lynnette escorted the King all the way to the front gate, where the castle's guardsmen were busy ushering civilians to safety.

She found her car again and tossed the keys to William. "It has GPS," she said. "Follow it to the last address it recorded. Should be outside Walton. When you get there, look for a door in the ground, and you'll find an underground bunker."

He gave her a confused look. "You are not going to come with me?"

"I'll meet you at the bunker as soon as I can."

"But why--?"

"I'm not leaving here without my friend."

-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

The regeneration was almost finished. He had enough muscle tissue to stand again, though his walking remained slow and stilted. He could see Garovel overlooking the castle grounds from the sky. 'You see her yet?' Hector asked.

'Ah... Oh, there she is. She's already at the front gate.'

'Good.'

'And that's the King's aura driving away. Looks like she got him to safety.'

'Seriously?'

'Yep.' The reaper laughed. 'This was supposed to be our plan, but she's doing all the important stuff, isn't she?'

Hector shrugged. 'Hey, I don't mind...'

'Uh-oh.'

He stopped. He was starting to hate hearing that from Garovel. 'What's wrong?'

'I sense Karkash approaching.'

'Aw, fuck.' His legs were fully returned now, and he started running. 'You're sure it's him?'

'Afraid so. From the northwest. He must've received word we were here.' Garovel descended back to the ground where Hector could protect him. 'Harold's not that far away, and we've already seen how fast he can fly.'

'I really didn't want to fight him again...'

'His reaper will be able to sense us. He'll chase after us until you force him not to.'

He circled around the castle, trying to reach the front, but Karkash found him first. When Hector saw the man hovering there, he created a lightning rod in the grass for himself, but much to his surprise, Karkash did not immediately attack him.

Instead, Karkash slowly descended toward Hector, and offered a few words in a thick Vaelish accent. "Where is the King?"

Hector wasn't entirely sure how to answer, but Garovel did so for him.

'He's gone,' the reaper said.

Karkash was briefly quiet. His reaper, Hoyohté, was right behind him, and the two of them were probably speaking, but Karkash never removed his eyes from Hector. "You must tell me where he is," the man said.

Hector's expression tilted. 'Is he serious? I don't understand why he's not just attacking me...'

'...Ah!' said Garovel. 'Because he's still not confident that he can beat you! He wants to buy time for the others to arrive and help him!'

'Err--you really think so?'

'Attack him now! We have to get away from here before they show up!'

Hector obliged. And for his opening move, he chose a sneaky thing. He put his hands together, disguising the motion by pretending to crack his knuckles, and behind Karkash, a line of four large catapults took shape. In truth, they were nothing more than seesaws with iron boulders lain at their far ends. Larger boulders took form over the seesaws' raised ends, and when they dropped, the original four boulders were launched.

Hector's trajectory wasn't perfect. The first two boulders missed Karkash, but the last two were on target. They still didn't hit him, though. Rather, they became caught in the man's swirling magnetic field, but that was enough. Their sudden appearance from outside of Karkash's view forced him to take his eyes off Hector for a moment, and in that time, Hector used a sudden platform to propel himself into the air.

When Karkash saw him again, Hector was already barreling toward him. Hastily aimed lightning cut through Hector's chest as a two-handed punch connected with Karkash's collarbone. Karkash torpedoed into the ground while Hector's body fell back down at normal velocity, spasming a bit from the electricity coursing through him.

When he tumbled into the grass again, Hector started running toward Karkash's body, knowing the deed to be yet unfinished. Fleeing on a motorcycle would be impossible so long as this person remained undefeated, so he annihilated his catapults and made fresh boulders over Karkash's head.

They stopped in mid-air and lightning shot up and bounced between them, crackling with furious energy.

Karkash burst up into the sky, wreathed in electricity as the iron boulders swirled around him with increasing speed.

Hector made more lightning rods as he ran along the ground. He wanted to stay ahead, to create iron spires more quickly than Karkash could seize control of them. Getting in close without anything to shield himself from the lightning was obviously dangerous, and Karkash wasn't likely to fall for another simple diversionary tactic.

For a time, their battle reached a kind of stalemate. Karkash refused to come in close where Hector could actually hit him, and Hector refused to leave the sanctuary of his many, fleeting lightning rods.

It did, however, give him and Garovel an opportunity to strategize.

'Karkash is only a problem because of his mobility,' said Garovel. 'If you can take that away from him, we'll be able to escape much more easily.'

'Is that even possible?'

'We know his power is to control electromagnetic fields, so presumably, he can only fly because he's wearing something metallic under his clothes. Destroy that.'

'How the hell do I do that?!'

'Good question.'

'Fuck!'

'I have an idea, though.' And Garovel explained it to Hector, who listened as best he could while still trying to maintain the stalemate.

Hector understood. It sounded difficult but still doable. Before he could put the plan into action, however, he noticed Lynnette standing atop the castle's roof. And then he noticed Andres and Desmond, too, appearing together through the hole in the wall that Hector had made upon being thrown outside.

If nothing else, the stalemate was about to be broken.