“Don’t. Touch. My…” Nexin roared, the flames around him igniting the air and pulling it into a fiery tornado. “Sister!” he finished, and thrust his hands forward, the tornado rushing ahead.

  It erupted in size, filling the street and consuming the buildings on either side. It devoured everything it came in contact with, then engulfed the Stormbearer, who’d just gotten to his feet.

  Would that be enough?

  The tornado raged in place, its flames lighting up the city and stretching to the clouds high above.

  Firestorm sped away to avoid being pulled in. The sounds of battle seemed to die all around, or maybe Nexin’s fury had just drowned them out.

  Nexin, not even breathing heavily, still stood in the middle of the street, his hands extended like he was squeezing an invisible ball.

  CRACK

  The tornado froze in a split second. A glistening, perfect, frozen piece of art.

  “Can you move, El?” Nexin asked without turning, his hands dropping to his sides.

  El pulled herself out of the hollow in the ground the knight had crushed her into, but it took everything she had.

  “I… no…” she said, her voice weak. “He… did something to… to my… Spark…”

  Nexin’s hands clenched into fists at his side. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this, then get you back home. We’ll make it right.”

  “Be careful, Nex,” El said. “He’s dangerous.”

  “So am I,” Nexin said, the heat around him suddenly intensifying to the point El had to shield her eyes.

  Like looking at the sun.

  A great crack ran up the tornado from ground to sky, small shards of ice raining down, before the whole thing split down the middle like a piece of firewood. Like a tree falling, the two great slabs of ice started slowly, building speed as they tilted in opposite directions.

  The impact flattened buildings, people, and golems alike, and shook the ground like an earthquake. Dust and debris exploded outward, completely obscuring the sky and dropping pebbles like rain.

  Pebbles that disintegrated into ash when they got within a hundred feet of Nexin.

  He sliced his hand across in front of him, and the air down the street cleared to reveal the Stormbearer stepping out of the remnants of the frozen tornado.

  “You’re a tough one,” Nexin said, dropping into Flaming Fists while a blinding corona wrapped his hands. “Let’s see just how tough.”

  He’s going hand-to-hand against the Stormbearer?

  The rippling heat around Nexin vanished with a POP, and flaming wings sprouted from the electrum nubs on his shoulders. Not just two wings, though. No, six smaller wings stretched and flexed, and then Nexin was simply gone.

  A wall to the left cracked, but El’s eyes were too slow to catch up to her brother. A blur across her vision, and he was gone again. A tap on the ground, like a footstep to the left of the Stormbearer, and Nexin snapped into view just above the Stormbearer’s shoulder.

  The plate helm turned just in time for Nexin’s corona-enclosed fist to slam into its side.

  BOOOOM

  The shockwave of the punch washed over El like a river, small pieces of stone caught in the blast stinging her hands as she brought her arms up reflexively.

  Did he get him?

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The Stormbearer hadn’t even moved, and brought his spiked gauntlet around in a backhand to Nexin’s chest… that passed right through it.

  Nexin’s body dissolved into gaseous flame, some kind of heat afterimage, and he reappeared on the opposite side of the Stormbearer. This time a rising left hook smashed into the knight’s helm from the other side.

  A second BOOOM, and more rocks pelted El, one even drawing blood across her cheek. Wait, where was her flame armor?

  Meanwhile, the Stormbearer snapped back around with a wide punch, but Nexin had already dashed back out of range to glance at his knuckles.

  Nexin shook his hands, a thin layer of ice falling to the ground, and then flowed into The Sun Never Truly Sets. The spear that grew in his hands was unlike anything he’d used in sparring, bright and condensed, like he’d pulled the sun down into his hands and forged it into a weapon.

  Had El ever really seen her brother’s strength?

  The knight took a step forward, and Nexin burst ahead at the same time, driving the molten spear straight into the center of the knight’s chest before the plated foot even set down. For the first time, the knight was pushed back, his planted foot leaving a divot five feet long in the ground before he stopped his backward momentum.

  Nexin’s spear sparked and spat molten globules as he twisted it against the armored chestplate, but even that weapon wasn’t enough to penetrate, and frost steamed on the spear-tip. But Nexin wasn’t finished, and leapt up and over as the knight reached for him, twisting while new weapons formed in his hands.

  This time, twin plasma hooks drove into the knight’s shoulders as Nexin landed behind the knight and drove a foot into the back of the knight’s left knee. As soon as the knight’s balance faltered, Nexin twisted and pulled on the weapons already icing over, hurling the knight through a building across the street.

  What was left of the side walls collapsed on the knight in the center of the building, the roof quickly coming down to join it. That wouldn’t be nearly enough to stop the knight though, and Nexin braced himself while he drew his arm back and ignited the same massive bow he’d used against El in their last spar.

  The ballista-bolt-like-arrow writhed like a living thing in Nexin’s hands, again of that same plasma, eager to be released. Nexin held it longer though, power pouring into it. Unlike when El did the same thing, this arrow didn’t grow any further in size. It just became more and more compressed. Hotter and hotter.

  The rubble of the fallen building shifted, and Nexin loosed his shot. Everything within ten feet of the arrow melted in an instant, its path evident by the smoldering canyon left in its wake.

  Then it hit the building, and there really was a second sun.

  The blast itself consumed an entire block in a blink, and then it was gone, not nearly enough oxygen to fuel its power. A vacuum formed in its absence, the air rushing in from all sides strong enough to lift El off the ground and drag her a good two feet before it settled down.

  Nothing could have survived that.

  And yet, there at the bottom of the concave pit stood the Stormbearer, his armor glowing red in places and then quickly icing over.

  “Still not enough?” Nexin asked, twin swords snaking their way into his hands, and launched toward his enemy.

  Somehow, the knight did the same, and the two powerhouses met midway, exchanged a flurry of blows, and leapt apart again.

  Nexin came away with both his swords fully encased in ice, while the knight had scars of glowing heat across his body. Once again, the lines vanished beneath the growing ice, and the Stormbearer reached his right hand toward his distant greatsword.

  The weapon barely twitched at first, then simply burst free from the ground and flew to its master’s hand.

  “Nexin!” El shouted. “Be careful. That sword… it’s powerful.”

  The Stormbearer’s head swiveled, first to El, and then to her brother, its fingers tightening around the hilt of its huge sword.

  He understood my warning? Or, is it something else?

  “Thanks,” Nexin shouted back, his ice-covered swords vanishing to be replaced by single, large axe. “I think I know how…” Nexin’s words cut off as a fist bigger than he was crashed into his side with wrecking-ball force.

  Like a rag doll, Nexin’s limp body bounced and skipped along the ground until it finally hit a pile of rubble thirty feet away, while a giant camouflaged golem materialized in the middle of the street.

  “NEEEEEEEXIN!” El shouted and tried to push herself to her feet, but her body lacked the strength, and she fell right back down. “No…” she cried, tears leaking down her face as her hand reached for her distant brother.

  He didn’t move.

  “You promised you’d take me home…” El pleaded. “You have to get up.”

  A wave of ice washed over Nexin’s body, lifting him from the ground and slamming him against the rubble, where it fully cocooned him.

  “No,” El said again, shifting to look at the Stormbearer, who in turn met her gaze. “He was all I had left,” she said. Like that monster would care. “He…” she couldn’t finish her sentence. Her lungs wouldn’t fill. Her chest felt like it was caving in on itself. Her whole body was cold.

  The Stormbearer took a step toward her. Then another, but stopped when the ground shook from the golem lumbering forward. The knight glanced over his shoulder at the oncoming monstrosity, picking up speed as it charged ahead, then back at El. He seemed to weigh something about her, and then turned to fully face the charging construct.

  El’s head dropped to the ground. She didn’t have the strength to hold it up anymore. Why should she? What was the point? She looked one last time at the Stormbearer as he drove his sword into the belly of the golem, and a small part of her mind asked why they were fighting before her heavy eyelids closed.

  She didn’t care enough to try to answer.