The First Battle

Four months later.

"Earth mages, shield!"

ShaPOW

The sound of a nearby explosion was heard clearly.

"Earth mages?"

"They're down, sir!"

A string of curses was heard. "Fire mages, recover the earth mages! Water mages, get ready to heal them! Ice mages, relocate to cover them!" Messengers scurried away to deliver the orders.

Shiv was standing on the roof of a house in the northern district of a familiar town made of stone. Beside him, was a short man with an even shorter temper and a tall man with an evil look in his only remaining eye. They were watching the men scrambling below with much interest.

"Farhad, tell the fire squadron to split in two and send half of them to loop around and go through the western district." Briggs whispered to the tall man behind him. His eyes remained glued to the enemy commanders below, however.

Meanwhile, Farhad, the tall man, closed his eye in deep concentration for several seconds before opening it and training his eye onto the back of Briggs' head again.

Several minutes passed until, "Big Farmer, we've got enemy fire mages attacking in the exact spot we pulled our ice mages back from! They're pushing through our lines like they're made of butter!" A man ran into the hastily-built command center located in the middle of an intersection and delivered the bad news.

Another string of curses, then Big Farmer whipped around, screaming at his men, "which one of you is betraying me?! Which one! Tell me or I'll kill you all!"

Briggs had a nasty smile on his face as he watched the scene below. Big Farmer was at the end of his rope, and seemed like he was just about to let go.

Shiv was also impressed. Big Famer, to him, had seemed like an indomitable force of nature. Always calm and always certain of the next best course of action. And Shiv had gotten all of this from only two meetings.

Now, Big Farmer was screaming at his men because of his own shortcomings.

There was a moment of silence in which Big Farmer's men stared at him with fear until the giant calmed himself down and shook his head. "Pull the northwestern squad back to the southern line to attack those fire mages from the back while they attack our Frontline from the back."

"It looks like they're headed toward us, though!" One of his men protested.

"No, there's no reason for them to head this way, unless one of you betrayed me. We chose this spot as the command center for a reason. Now deliver my orders. Now." Big Farmer had indeed chosen a very hard-to-find spot as his command center. Unfortunately for him, one of his commanders actually had betrayed him, albeit unwillingly.

Shiv looked to Briggs, curious about what he'd do next, and nodded to himself when the short man only continued to observe.

Several tense minutes passed, along with several more explosions and screams, until a man ran into the command center, breathing heavily. "The northwest squad reached the Frontline without meeting any enemy troops."

Big Farmer scowled. "Tell them to turn around and watch for an attack."

The messenger ran off, gasping for air. Suddenly, he was back again. But instead of running back, he was sent flying into the command center with a scorched stomach. He rolled several times before coming to a stop at Big Farmer's feet.

The dead man was followed by Briggs' fire squadron, which immediately began shooting fire everywhere.

Briggs stood up and nodded to Shiv, then told Farhad to take over.

A moment later, he was throwing ice javelins at Big Farmer, who was taking cover behind a wall of steel, glowing white-hot from the assaulting fire.

Shiv, meanwhile, used his newest Ability, [Freeze Ranged] to dramatically slow down Big Farmer and his comrades. A thin layer of ice grew over them, and their skin turned a paler color.

Shiv was momentarily amused that his opponents were being attacked by fire on one side, and ice on the other.

A slew of metal spears shot from Big Farmer, forcing Shiv to throw himself backward and summon a wall of stone. Several of the spears pierced the wall and continued until they were halfway through it, scaring Shiv half to death. He pushed through his fear to stand back up and continue to keep his Ability activated, despite the gnawing hunger that was rapidly making itself known in his stomach.

Briggs had jumped down into the command center to attack the debuffed men while his fire mages continued their own attack from the opposite side. The moment he landed, he lunged forward with a sword of ice and stabbed the nearest man through the neck, killing him instantly. Big Farmer reacted as fast as he could, which was incredibly so, despite the ice growing all over him, by creating a massive greatsword of pure steel that he swung at Briggs with a roar.

The short man ducked, narrowly avoiding being sliced in half, and shoved his fragile saber forward with all the speed he could muster. He successfully reached Big Farmer, stabbing his thigh, but cursed when his weapon shattered against the metal armor that had just replaced the skin of the giant.

Big Farmer adjusted his grip to bring his sword down, directly into Briggs, but had to lift it to block the attack from Shiv's fire whip instead.

Briggs used this opportunity, and took advantage of his diminutive stature, to roll between the giant's legs and hurl a newly created javelin into the eye of the last of Big Farmer's companions.

Shiv was now on the ground of the command center, using his diverse set of powers to manipulate his flaming whip of stone into stabbing at Big Farmer from every unexpected direction he could manage. Every so often he would feint an attack, using the whip to flick molten, flaming stone onto Big Farmer instead of stabbing at him. One such attack reached Big Farmer before he could replace the skin with metal, and burned off his left ear.

The attack seemed to trigger something in the giant, who had been furiously swinging his greatsword around, trying to intercept the whip's attacks. He threw his sword at Briggs, who had spun around and backed up from the wild mountain of a man with watchful eyes. He threw himself to the side, but the sword spun in a strange pattern, and gave him a wicked gash on his hip.

Now swordless, the giant was by no means weaponless, and with a blood curdling scream, encased his entire body in metal as he lunged at Shiv.

Shiv was reminded of the truck that had sent him flying into the Grand Canyon, and disjointedly remembered that semi trucks weren't allowed on the road he was on. 'That treacherous, suited, scum of a deity.' Much like he'd done with the truck, he jumped headfirst to the side to avoid the bulldozer of a man, and much like what happened with the truck, he was too slow. A pained groan escaped his lips when Big Farmer's shoulder hit him in the side.

The sound of crunching bones and blood splattering was all that could be heard for a single instant in time.

An instant later, Shiv hit the ground and rolled limply several times whilst Big Farmer continued charging forward without slowing.

Shiv's vision darkened at the edges, only letting him see the retreating form of the giant. 'He's… heading toward… the front line… Blaze is behind… the front line…' his disoriented brain latched onto that. 'Blaze. He's heading toward Blaze.'

He coughed up blood and inched his hand toward his caved-in rib cage. It took an eternity, but he finally reached it and activated his [Heal] Ability. He was immediately consumed with hunger greater than he had ever felt before, but he continued even as it felt like his insides were eating themselves. He persevered, even when it felt like his stomach had twisted into a knot and disappeared.

He pushed on, until he was completely healed. He stood up, ignoring the pain, and limped after Big Farmer, his vision darkening with each step he took.

Briggs yelled something at him, but he couldn't make it out, and didn't care anyway. He continued moving after Big Farmer, who was getting smaller and smaller as he crashed through wall after stone wall.

"Wait." His croak went unheard.

If he had any presence of mind with which to reason with, he would remember that Blaze was far behind the front lines, perfectly safe with a small contingent of Briggs' troops, but a horrible feeling completely separate from the injury he'd just taken was settled deep in his heart.

Something horrible was about to happen.

He lost sight of the giant, but continued forward, following the path of wreckage left behind, until he reached the frontline of the battle. There were men everywhere sending spells flying in every direction. Explosions and the yells and clangor of combat wrang in Shiv's ears.

All of this noise failed to cover the scream that pierced him to the very core of his being.