The first to go was the guard who'd searched me. He was clearly an enemy and standing right before me, unfortunate for him because I wasn't in a particularly merciful mood.

  I placed my hand on the back on the stunned man's head and simply released a wave of kinetic energy. There was a *POMF* sound and a spray of red gore. Nobody could take that sort of an attack at point blank without some defense and his had been sorely lacking.

  For a beat nobody responded, and then chaos reigned. Uro was unsurprisingly the first to begin, from beside me I heard his voice raise and instantly a tingle crossed my skin as he did... something, I wasn't entirely sure, but it was followed after by screaming, so I guessed it'd proven effective. Others weren't far behind him though, as shouts and screams began all around me.

  As my second target fell, spewing a fountain of blood all over the ground I spun a quick shield around myself, and just in time. A significant force slammed into my side, tossing me and my bubble into the wall of a nearby mud building.

  “YOU BASTARD!” came the shouting voice of one of the others, presumably some physical type magic user since he'd tackled me a good ten feet and nearly shattered a mud brick wall. “I'LL KILL YOU, I'LL RIP OFF YOUR HEAD!”

  “Shh, stop yelling,” I answered quietly as I sent a wave of yellow smoke at him with a motion. Summoning this wasn't something I'd practiced, but it came easier than I'd imagined it would.

  “STOP YELLING! YOU INSAN...” he coughed as the chlorine reached his lungs, drawing more in. “Wha...” the coughing continued, and I kept pouring the poison into his face.

  “You really should've listened,” I chided as I looked up and back towards the others.

  To my endless relief Chien had moved beside Isha and was projecting the thickest bubble I imagined he could. Perhaps that wouldn't have been enough against a dedicated assault by some of those involved in this fighting, but they were getting only stray shots as she grabbed him and began to run for cover. In the few moments I had I noticed her scream at one of the other guards who got a little close, sending the man reeling backwards.

  Satisfied that my loved ones were fleeing as they should I turned back to the others. Uro's men were surrounded, and slightly outnumbered, but there was hope for them yet. Nora's people had been deprived of their strongest fighter, while now Uro had few here who could oppose him. He was currently locked in combat with three of the guards, and looked to be winning.

  There was a wave of auras over the battlefield, and I began searching them for what I was looking for. Nora was down, but it appeared not dead. She wasn't still but writhing on the ground, skin and flesh stitching itself back together even as I watched, like some kind of CGI effect. That wouldn't do at all.

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  It was surprising, truly surprising that the sizable bolt of kinetic energy I sent screaming at the injured healer shattered upon her skin. With great interest I watched as the spell fizzled out against her. Was this more of the resistance I'd seen earlier? Still not knowing how that worked I was a bit put out. After all, my best attacks were magical in nature.

  Another of the guards saw me shooting at their leader and apparently took exception to that. He ignored the man coughing up what was left of his lungs at my feet and sent a storm of missiles my way, only for them to bounce harmlessly off my shield. I'd worked long and hard on my kinetic magic, so it was stronger than most, but it was still a threat. My responding volley proved a bit more effective, but there was still some resistance, leaving large marks covering his body.

  That was frustrating, I really needed to get to the bottom of their resistances. I watched closely as another of my attacks hit him, trying to focus on what he was doing. As I observed the spell unwound as it neared his skin, dissolving against what looked like his aura. Another quick look confirmed that all of the combatants save myself and mine were pulsing theirs out, did that have something to do with it? With a sigh I realized that now really wasn't the time.

  While I was spacing out my opponent pulled together another spell, slamming me and my shield back into the wall once more. It cracked and bricks began to fall off of it, opening a sizable hole in the structure. On a lark I grabbed one of those with my magic, accelerating it towards my attacker as fast as I could. After all Atal had been thrilled to have a weapon that could do something similar, and I assumed he'd known about whatever they were doing.

  Surprisingly that worked, most of my attacks had been stronger than that brick had, but its effect was an order of magnitude more. The piece of mud masonry impacted the caster in the stomach, and he crumbled, tossed back by the energy imparted in it.

  “Huh, guess it only effects magic,” I said, hardly even thinking about it. “Now, where were we.”

  Nora was trying to rise, one arm a char covered stump, but she still looked out of sorts as she tried to point a hand to where Uro and the others were fighting. It'd already been decided that I would tolerate no more of her, and so I needed to do something about that.

  We were close enough to the docks that I could see them, so I simply wrapped magic around one of the rafts there. Straining to my limit I pulled upon my strength, images of a rope wrapping around it and yanking, hard as I could. Slowly at first, but rapidly gaining speed it rose and began flying at Nora.

  The fighting seemed to pause as I worked, falling away into the background. For seconds that stretched on like minutes the world slowed to a crawl. I could see the moment Nora turned, looking at the approaching calamity, the widening of her eyes, then everything sped back up.

  There was a brief scream, the barest starts of a truly terrified shriek before it was cut off by the crashing of wood into flesh. Not willing to risk her surviving I sent a blast of flames into the shattered remnants of the vessel, perhaps she couldn't be burned so easily, but wood was well known for doing so.

  “Enough!” came a reverberating boom from Uro.

  I had to cover my ears as the elder elf began to speak, amplifying his voice enough that the ground seemed to shake.

  “This has gone on long enough, cease this at once. Take your injured and go back to your homes. Your leader is dead, this fight is over, now cease.”

  Picking myself up off the ground I got a glance into the home I'd been slammed into. There was a woman, hair disheveled and cheeks streaked with tears holding a child there, the young girl looking much the same as her mother. Both trembled, weeping and curled up in the far corner of the room.

  “Please...” the mother begged as she saw me looking in at her. “Please don't hurt us.”

  “Don't worry, I...” then I realized what this must look like. I'd slammed through their wall, hurling pieces of their home at people and sending spells decidedly designed to kill all around, the whole time quietly talking to myself.

  From her perspective I must be a terror, a villain in the night ruining her home and an immediate threat to her and her child. That bothered me, in a visceral way, deep in my chest it hurt to know that to this woman, these innocent people I must be a horror born of nightmares.

  By the time I realized I still needed to keep my guard up and turned it looked like the fighting had stopped. Several of those still standing were surrounding Uro protectively, while others had taken their comrades in arms and were carrying them quickly away. The man himself looked pensively at the pyre his former enemy was beneath, eyes almost regretful.