I leapt down from my platform, glowering at Quinn and Righello.

  ‘Albert!’ Ethan called, leaping down to join me.

  ‘No, Ethan,’ I snarled. ‘Go somewhere else. These two are mine.’

  ‘You can’t fight in that condition!’

  ‘I can. I’ve fought in worse condition than this. Trust me. Go.’

  ‘You’ve never-’

  ‘Ethan!’ I barked, letting my annoyance get the better of me. ‘Go! This is my fight to take!’

  He didn’t look exactly happy about it, but Ethan took a few steps back. He was actually going to let me have this.

  ‘Wise choice, Albert,’ Righello said tauntingly, taking slow steps towards me, drawing his swords. ‘May the Gods find enjoyment in the spectacle of your death.’

  Quinn, too, drew his sword. It was rather unsettling, seeing three gleaming black swords before me. Something about them and the looks on their wielders’ faces nearly put me off.

  Then I remembered everything that had just happened. Everything they had just said. Everything they had done before.

  I knew I was in for a hard fight, and potentially the hardest one of my life so far. A two on one against a son of Hades and a son of Zeus. Even for me, that was a bit much.

  Righello made the first move.

  He raced towards me and swung one of his swords towards my stomach and the other towards my head. A basic tactic.

  ‘Water Breathing, Third Form,’ I breathed, planting my feet firmly. ‘Split Waves.’

  I brought my swords up either side of me in a defensive manoeuvre and the instant Righello’s blades met mine, I pushed outward and moved them away.

  Quinn dived at me from above. Ignoring the sudden burning question of how he could jump so high, I leapt to the right to avoid sudden death by a skull piercing from above.

  I swung my sword around in an arc, just barely catching Quinn’s arm. Righello charged at me, his body alive with electricity.

  As he came for me, I suddenly found it extremely hard to control my breathing. There was so much anger coursing through my veins that I found that I didn’t know what to do.

  Time seemed to slow as Righello drew nearer. I desperately tried to will my body to move, but it simply wouldn’t respond to the wishes of my mind.

  How was I supposed to kill Righello, and do so painfully, if my body wouldn’t even move? My anger towards him was very quickly transitioning into anger towards myself.

  Gritting my teeth, I managed to ready my swords into a defensive position and plant my feet firmly on the ground. But whether or not I would actually be able to defend against his attack was a different story.

  Right before his swords reached me, a large object ploughed into me from the left, sending me flying upward into the sky.

  Ignoring the pain coursing through body, I tried to focus on what had hit me.

  I got my answer the second I landed on the back of a large pegasus.

  ‘Midnight!’ I yelled in a mixture of delight and horror as the powerful pegasus galloped forward, carrying me on his back.

  He charged around the back of the white podium that I had been chained on a few moments before and began to head for the hole leading to the outside.

  ‘Midnight!’ I repeated. ‘What are you doing?’

  Orders, master, was the response I got.

  ‘What do you mean, ‘orders’?’ I roared over the sound of his powerful hooves charging across the ground towards the hole.

  Sunlight poured through the gaping cavity, which begged the question of the time. It made me realise that I had absolutely no idea when in the day it actually was. It could have been seven in the morning for all I knew.

  ‘Midnight!’ I screamed. ‘Don’t ignore me! What ‘orders’?’

  I’m taking you home, master. This is a rescue mission, after all.

  ‘You’re not taking me anywhere!’ I said loudly, anger creeping into my voice. ‘Turn around, now!’

  No can do, master. My apologies.

  ‘I have a fight, Midnight!’ I bellowed.

  And I have a master to save.

  I was pleasantly struck by this sudden show of affection. Midnight had never been cold towards me, despite the fact I had expected such after robbing him from Maltor, but I hadn’t expected such a display of chivalry.

  ‘Midnight, please! Just let me kill Righello and Quinn and we can go!’

  We were nearing the exit. I had to turn him around. But he just wasn’t listening.

  ‘Midnight! I swore on the River Styx! I have to go back! If I don’t, only the goddess herself knows what’ll happen to me!’

  Outside, I could hear ferocious battling. Midnight was taking me away from one fight to charge me through another. In my mind, the two of us had less chance of survival if we escaped.

  What was Midnight’s plan? Humberston wasn’t far from RoCity at all, but it still wouldn’t be an easy journey. People would try to stop us. I’d have to fight to protect the two of us, regardless of what Midnight wanted.

  ‘Midnight, please!’ I pleaded again, my throat raw. ‘Turn around! Trust me! We’ll be okay if you just turn ar-’

  A spike of earth suddenly shot up from beneath the white flooring, piercing straight through Midnight’s head.

  Blood immediately began to seep down the earthen spire as Midnight’s body completely halted. I was thrown off of his back, causing me to fly through the air for a brief moment before crashing into a heap a few feet away.

  My head shot up in the direction of Midnight. His body was limp but kept in a sort of loose standing position by the mould of hardened dirt spearing through his head. His blood, the same colour as that of a human, poured thickly down the spike and began to form a crimson puddle at his hooves.

  It was a gory, ghastly sight. However, I did not feel disgusted. In that moment, as I stared at the lifeless body of my pegasus kept standing only by the same weapon that had killed him, I felt nothing other than waves upon waves of one of the purest forms of anger I had ever felt.

  I rose to my feet. I did so steadily rather than shakily as one might have expected. My body seemed to be levelled by my anger. I was certain that I would feel the devastating effects of grief once the battle was over, but, for now, I could focus on killing Righello and Quinn. Slowly.

  I paced towards the pair of them, who did the same towards me. I made a silent prayer to the Gods that Midnight may rest in peace, before making another to Midnight himself, asking him to watch over me as I avenged him.

  This time, I made the first move.

  ‘Fire Breathing, Ninth Form: Infernal Rage.’

  My swords lit up with orange flames that illuminated the area marvellously. I dived forward toward Righello rather than Quinn for two reasons: he was the bigger threat and I hated him far more.

  The flames spread to encompass my entire body, turning my vision red as I began to hack and slash at Righello with quick, harsh movements that proved to be incredibly difficult for even him to block. Every time my swords collided with either his body or his blades as he blocked, the flames on them flared up slightly. With each hit, I grew infinitely more powerful.

  ‘Seventh Form: Rising Sunshine.’

  To complete the spectacle, I brought my right sword up with incredible power, with enough force that Righello blocking the move actually sent him flying up into the air.

  Instantly, I turned to Quinn.

  He swung his blade towards me quickly, but I effortlessly blocked, flames still encompassing my body.

  The two of us hacked and slashed at one another for a few seconds, mirroring each other’s moves perfectly. No damage was dealt, but the stalemate proved ferocious.

  Quinn scoffed as I pushed him a few steps back with my sword. ‘Looks like I’ve gotten stronger, huh?’

  Righello dived at me from above, roaring, ‘Thunder Breathing, Eighth Form: Thunderbolt!’

  The attempted display of strength and chivalry did nothing more than make Righello look like an idiot.

  The fire around my body expanded, enveloping Righello in its wrath. He gave a roar of shock and pain as he realised his electricity was nothing against my blaze. Sparks and shockwaves ebbed and flowed through the inferno but were eventually fizzled out.

  With a grunt, I blasted all of the fire outward, sending Righello back into the air and Quinn another few steps backward.

  I bolted forward toward Quinn, who failed to mask his terror. I slashed across his stomach, causing him to wince.

  ‘Thunder Breathing, Third Form: Sparking Strikes,’ I murmured, so quietly that even I struggled to hear my own words.

  My swords shot forward so quickly that they were blurs. Electricity crackled through the air as it coursed along the bodies of my blades and into Quinn’s defenceless body.

  I swung my leg out and Quinn dropped to the ground helplessly.

  I drove my sword down straight towards his head, only failing to hit my target because Righello appeared at my side and ploughed his sword through my lower ribs and charged. He carried me away from Quinn powerfully, charging my body with electricity as it flowed from his arms into the blade that he had embedded in my torso.

  ‘You’re doing well, Albert,’ Righello snarled.

  He yanked his sword out of my body.

  ‘However, you’re not doing well enough.’

  His moment was again ruined by me being a lot more ready than he had anticipated.

  He brought his sword down powerfully towards the top of my head. It carved through the air with a strangely eerie noise, likely because of the electricity on it disrupting the natural state of the air, but my own blade shot up instinctively to block it.

  ‘Light Breathing, Third Form,’ I growled, staring directly into Righello’s electric blue eyes. ‘Beaming Slash.’

  My blade shone with incredible power. It radiated with energy as I brought it powerfully down across Righello’s torso, inciting a roar from him.

  I delivered a powerful kick to his stomach, so powerful that he was again sent flying through the air with tremendous speed.

  For a moment, I considered catching my breath. Taking a break. After all, Quinn was still struggling to get to his feet, and my biggest threat was flying through the air, getting increasingly further away from me.

  Then my eyes landed on Midnight.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, I charged towards Quinn. Midnight’s murderer. I would kill him before Righello had the chance to stop me.

  ***

  Cecilia tumbled through the air, finally landing in a crumpled heap a few feet away from where she had been pushed.

  The room was blindingly bright. And this was where Albert had been kept. Cecilia knew how much he hated white rooms, and so had felt an insanely extreme level of disgust when she had seen the room that her boyfriend had been chained in.

  The fight was a brutal one. Cecilia had absolutely no idea where Albert was, but he wasn’t chained on that podium anymore, which is all that mattered. Well, unless he was dead, but she knew that he wasn’t.

  Cecilia rose rather shakily to her feet, gripping her bronze sickles as tightly as she could.

  Her opponent was making his way towards her, and Cecilia began to feel true fear once more.

  She wasn’t the biggest of girls, only being around five-foot-four if she stood with good posture, and she didn’t have the most muscle on her. Her opponent, however, was a five-foot-eleven man with far more muscle mass then her. His dark brown eyes glowered at her from across the room as he marched towards her. Slicked back black hair sat atop his rather rectangular head, the same shiny colour as the light stubble that decorated his chin.

  Cecilia didn’t know any fancy Breathing Techniques, nor was she the smartest fighter. It was a seemingly impossible fight to win.

  However, she gritted her teeth and stood with her feet planted more firmly on the ground than they had ever been planted before. She would not run. Even if this were how she died, she believed there to be no better way to go out.

  The man wordlessly swung his sword down towards her. Its bronze body glimmered in the sunlight pouring in from behind him as it carved through the air towards the poor girl.

  She rolled out of the way, leaping to her feet at the end. Quickly diving towards him, Cecilia swung her sickles at his head. And she connected. One slashed across his neck and the other across the top of his head. They weren’t deep cuts, nor were they fatal, but they obviously hurt, for the man gasped in pain and turned to face her, stunned. She wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.

  Roaring just as she had seen Albert do in the past, she ploughed her sickle into the crevice in the man’s neck created by her previous strike. Immediately, she saw the colour drain from his eyes. His body slumped forward, and Cecilia jumped backward to avoid having him fall on top of her.

  Panting, Cecilia stared at the body of the man she had just killed. Strangely, she felt no remorse. The only emotion present within her was that of a quiet fury.

  ‘Impressive…’ a taunting voice said from behind her.

  Without hesitating, Cecilia spun on the spot and swung her sickles out in an attempt to strike whoever it was that was there. She missed, however, as Righello was out of her range.

  He stared at her with tired yet vengeful eyes.

  ‘I didn’t think you had it in you to kill,’ he continued, not taking his eyes off her. ‘How you’ve grown…’

  Cecilia wordlessly dived towards him, aiming to strike his neck with her sickles.

  Before she reached him, Righello delivered a powerful kick into her stomach. Cecilia felt all of the air in her body escape in a single grunt as she tumbled through the air before hitting the ground in a heap for the second time that day.

  ‘Don’t try that,’ Righello snarled. ‘I’ll entertain your idea of fighting me, but you won’t get anywhere.’

  Even Cecilia felt the change in the air. It was hard to describe. It felt as though the air itself suddenly sprung to life.

  Bolts of lightning flared to life all around her and began to speed around in random directions. Occasionally, one would dart towards her, and it took everything she had to block it.

  ‘Good luck surviving against them!’ Righello yelled over the crackling electricity as he began to walk away from her.

  Cecilia eyed the surrounding area, and what she found horrified her to her core.

  Not only was Righello now heading over to where Albert was, but the entire battlefield was covered in the same erratic bolts of lightning that she was dealing with. The soldiers present now found themselves struggling against Maltor’s forces and Righello’s lightning.

  Cecilia wondered how Righello was managing to control so many. And he was going over to continue his fight with Albert? Just how strong was he now?

  ***

  ‘Water Breathing, Fifth Form: Striking Tide!’ I roared as I darted towards Quinn.

  I swung my blade powerfully towards him, but it was blocked by a bolt of lightning. Another bolt swooped towards me from the right, prompting me to leap backwards to avoid it.

  Righello had rejoined the fray.

  He charged towards me, lightning running up and down his entire body.

  ‘Fire Breathing, Eighth Form: Blazing Torches,’ I murmured, preparing myself for the clash.

  Flames appeared along the bodies of my swords. They shone powerfully and lit up the surrounding area with an orange glow.

  As Righello reached me, I perfected my stance and murmured, ‘Ninth Form: Infernal Rage.’

  I swung my swords out with rapid, jagged movements. Righello blocked each of my strikes and fired back with a few of his own.

  Our movements were continuous. The two of us hacked and slashed at each other, desperately trying to break through each other’s guard. Every time our blades collided, the flames on my swords brightened and roared with might. The sound of metal colliding combined with the roars of my flames and the crackling of electricity made my toes curl and my head throb. But I continued. And I would not break my movement until Righello Notte had fallen.

  ‘Tenth Form: Crimson Rage!’ I roared, masterfully transitioning from one Form to the next.

  The flames on my blade grew to shine brighter and more powerfully than ever before. Fires sprung to life all around me as the infernos on my blades spread to cover my entire body.

  I jumped and stepped in random directions to throw Righello off, but I did not stop my onslaught once.

  Occasionally, I broke through his guard and landed a small strike on his body, inciting a wince and a grunt of anguish from my opponent.

  Then Quinn decided to join in.

  He pounced at me from my left and tried to drive his sword into my head. The flames on my body warped and wrapped themselves around his blade. They expanded rapidly towards his cross-guard, causing him to yelp in shock.

  Tightening my gut, I dispersed the flames surrounding me, creating a sort of explosion as they shot out in all directions. Righello grunted and Quinn let out another yelp, this one likely from pain.

  Immediately, five bolts of lightning shot towards me, each from a different direction. I spun and contorted my body, slicing through each one as though they were no more than an electrically charged strip of butter.

  ‘Albert!’ a familiar voice roared from my left.

  Glancing in that direction, my eyes fell on Tom, who was bolting towards me. His hazel hair flew magnificently behind him as he did so, but his face appeared frantic.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Tom yelled as he reached me. ‘You’re in no state to fight!’

  ‘Let him do as he pleases,’ Righello snarled.

  Immediately, I turned on the spot, ready to clash with him once more.

  However, I was not Righello’s target. Tom was.

  Before I could even react, Righello thrust one of his swords through Tom’s chest. A look of a sort of dazed shock fell across Tom’s face, before every muscle in his body went slack and he slumped forward.

  Righello pulled his blade from Tom’s body, causing it to fall forward and land at my feet.

  All I could do was stare at it. I felt rather angry at myself for not feeling any particular emotion. Why didn’t I feel sad? Angry? Vengeful? Much to my distaste, I didn’t really feel anything. My body appeared to be a hollow shell housing nothing but organs and blood.

  ‘Let’s continue,’ Righello said simply.

  And continue, we did.

  I leapt back to avoid Righello’s first slash, before diving forward and ploughing my sword into his left shoulder, prompting a wince.

  Without skipping a beat, I yanked it back and perfected my breathing. But Righello didn’t let me finish a Form.

  Godspeed. He used Godspeed. He shot forward faster than I could react and plunged his sword deep into my stomach. I was carried backwards by the force and around the battlefield as he charged around erratically, his entire body coated in vicious lightning.

  After a few seconds of this, he abruptly stopped, which sent me flying off the end of his sword and across the floor.

  As I landed in a crumpled heap, I found that I couldn’t breathe. Not in the sense that I wasn’t breathing, but I suddenly found it incredibly hard to. It felt as though my chest was caving in on itself and crushing my lungs and heart.

  I desperately tried to get to my feet, which was a task made infinitely harder by the fact I was also concentrating on trying to steady my breathing.

  ‘Steady your breathing,’ Grandad’s words rang through my head for the second time that day. ‘Anything is possible, so long as you can keep your breathing steady.’

  I, rather shakily, kept my balance. I drew a long breath in, focusing on the oxygen reaching each and every one of my body’s cells.

  ‘Fire Breathing, Eleventh Form,’ I murmured as Righello and Quinn charged towards me. ‘Burning Rage.’

  ***

  Harvey leapt back through the hole leading into the room in which Albert had been held.

  His breaths were frantic, his muscles were aching, and his own dried blood was staining large parts of his clothes and skin. His swords rattled in his hands despite his best efforts to keep them steady.

  Joseph was just a few steps behind him. His right eye had been forced shut by the thick blood flowing from a shallow wound on his forehead, and dried blood coated his forearms just as it did Harvey’s.

  The two of them had sort of wordlessly banded together once the fight had started. Joseph had seen it as his duty to protect the cousin of Albert Santrrer and had done so with valour. Harvey had witnessed Joseph kill a number of people, and he had not previously taken him as the kind of man to do so.

  ‘Albert should be somewhere in here, right?’ Joseph murmured.

  Harvey nodded. ‘Yeah…but we might have trouble getting to him.’

  It was a messy scene, to say the least. Soldiers were battling all over the place, locked in ferocious fights across the entire room. The white walls and floor had been turned a musty brown from the dust and debris created when Ethan had blown an entrance into the chamber.

  And then there was the lightning. Dozens of bolts of electricity were darting in seemingly random directions around the room at incredibly high speeds. Occasionally, one would hit a RoCitian soldier, and every time this happened, the soldier dropped in an instant.

  ‘Righello…’ Harvey breathed.

  He thought back to the fight in Llangollen. That had only been four days ago.

  He remembered the lightning at that fight. And he remembered how quickly Righello had been able to slice Albert’s arms off and take him away.

  A bitter taste suddenly appeared in Harvey’s mouth. He should have known that Righello would be here. But the fact that the lightning was in here…that meant that Righello was close.

  He wondered if he’d be able to fight him. Then he realised how stupid that idea was. If Albert struggled with him, there was simply no way that Harvey would be able to even block a single strike.

  ‘Uh, Mr Bèstia?’ Joseph said shakily from Harvey’s left.

  ‘What?’ Harvey replied quickly, feeling rather on edge.

  ‘Isn’t that…Mr Santrrer’s pegasus?’

  Joseph pointed forward. Harvey hadn’t noticed it before, and quickly wished that he hadn’t noticed it at all.

  Midnight’s limp body was resting on a spire made of hardened dirt that was stabbing through his head. A sickeningly large pool of dark crimson blood lay at his hooves and a dried stream of such was stained against the spike.

  Harvey remembered the order he had given to Midnight. Was this…was this his fault? Midnight had died trying to carry out the order that he had given him, that much was evident given the direction that Midnight was facing – he had been running towards the hole leading outside.

  ‘There must be a child of Hades somewhere here,’ Joseph concluded, sounding sick.

  ‘Quinn…’ Harvey breathed, feeling a strange mixture of horror and fear.

  Righello and Quinn were here. And if Midnight hadn’t reached the hole…that meant Albert was still in the room. Harvey realised with a tight throat that Albert was more than likely fighting the two of them.

  ‘We don’t have time to waste,’ Harvey snarled through gritted teeth. ‘Let’s find Albert and get him out of here.’

  ‘But Albert won’t-’

  ‘That’s an order, Joseph. We came here to get Albert and that’s exactly what we are going to do.’

  Without waiting for a response, Harvey marched forward. As he did so, he scanned his surroundings, taking into account multiple things. He was surveying the positions of the lightning bolts zooming around the air, the positions of the enemy soldiers, and he was also looking for Albert.

  He felt strangely calm. Well, that was a partial lie. There was a deep rage resting somewhere inside him, but he was predominantly calm.

  He tried not to trouble himself with the thought of Midnight’s death or the fact that he was more than likely walking to his own demise. Instead, he tried to focus on finding Albert.

  ‘There!’ Joseph suddenly shouted from behind Harvey.

  Harvey turned to look at him and saw that he was pointing somewhere to the right. Following Joseph’s finger, Harvey found a sight that made his stomach churn.

  The lightning had disguised them, but now Harvey could very clearly see Albert lying in a crumpled heap as Righello and Quinn marched towards him.

  Without even thinking, Harvey began to bolt in that direction.

  A bolt of lightning slammed into him from the right, sending him crashing into the ground. Pain washed over his body in waves, and it took all he had to not cry out.

  ‘Mr Bèstia!’ Joseph cried.

  Through his daze, Harvey rolled so that he was lying on his back. In that position, he felt more peaceful than he had previously. The warm sun was beaming down on him and it felt strangely as though he had nothing to worry about.

  That was until a large man tried to stab him in the head.

  Harvey quickly rolled out of the way of the blade and leapt to his feet.

  Flames burst to life on Harvey’s blades and he dived at the man. He swung around, attempting to quickly end the fight by decapitating his opponent. This moved was effortlessly blocked and the man delivered a powerful punch into Harvey’s stomach.

  All of the air left Harvey’s lungs in one fell swoop as he crashed into the ground once again.

  Joseph dived in the way, blocking the man’s second attempt at stabbing Harvey with his own sword.

  Harvey watched in awe as the two men before him duelled rather marvellously. Joseph was evidently the smaller of the two, but he was holding his own – he even got a couple of strikes in.

  But Harvey had learnt his lesson about letting chances fly by.

  Without waiting for a command from Joseph, Harvey jumped to the right and dived towards the man, ploughing his sword through the man’s head as he did so. Immediately, he collapsed forward onto Joseph, who grimaced and stepped backwards.

  ‘Teamwork…makes…the dream work…huh?’ Harvey commented sarcastically, still struggling to get his breath.

  Joseph smiled at him before slicing through a bolt of lightning that shot towards him.

  ‘Let’s…go…’ Harvey managed.

  The pair set off again, this time much slower, towards where Albert was. Harvey noticed that Albert was now standing, rather shakily, and his blades were now coated in some of the most ferocious flames that Harvey had ever seen.

  Harvey smiled. What was he worrying about? Albert had everything covered.

  Harvey heard a strained grunt from behind him. Turning quickly on the spot, he found Joseph locked in another stalemate with an enemy soldier. The two had their swords pressed against each other with so much force that the blades were actually slowly sliding down each other.

  Joseph glanced over his shoulder at Harvey. Immediately, his eyes widened.

  He swung his leg out behind him, taking Harvey’s shins out. Harvey crashed to the ground and stared up in complete horror as a bolt of lightning slammed into Joseph’s back, flying straight above Harvey and through the spot that he had just been standing.

  The effect was immediate. Joseph’s body crumbled. His legs gave out as every other muscle in his body went limp. Thin plumes of smoke rose into the air from his clothes as he fell, quickly producing a sort of burning odour.

  ‘Joseph!’ Harvey roared, as though somehow his desperate cry would raise the man from the dead.

  There was no time for grief, Harvey was quickly reminded. The man who Joseph had been fighting dived towards him, swinging his sword at Harvey’s neck. Without breaking a sweat, Harvey sliced his own blade across the man’s throat, creating a cut so deep that he immediately collapsed, lifeless.

  Staring down at the body of Joseph Roberts, Harvey felt grief. The feeling was alien to him, as he had only really felt it after Jeremy’s death. But this time it was different. This time, the death was his fault.

  Harvey bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from crying. Joseph was dead. Although the two had never really bonded, Harvey felt that he had grown much closer to the man over the course of the afternoon. His death affected him.

  There was only one thing left for Harvey to do: rescue Albert. Perhaps if he did so, the empty feeling in his chest would disappear. Maybe in doing so, he could avenge Midnight and Joseph.

  Harvey took a deep breath. Then, with nothing but a burning rage fuelling him, he stepped deeper into the battlefield, and towards his cousin.