Alsur watched the fight erupt, and immediately noticed something had gone wrong. Aktoa’s usual opening, a ring of fire surrounding the stranger, blazed high, but had little effect beyond a visual distraction. This wasn’t their first encounter. They’d fought countless times, and they always started the same.

  However, this time the stranger fought strangely, moving as if possessed. His usual aggression was gone and he simply stood, his glare drilling holes straight through Alsur. They knew little of this man, primarily because he always lost, his repeated deaths making understanding difficult. After centuries of repeated battle, they had never lost against him.

  Seizing the perceived advantage, Akota surged forward, his flames swirling around him. However, instead of striking back, the stranger evading Aktoa’s swing with minimal effort. Behind Aktoa, his partner twisted the flames, freezing them so fast that the air cracked with each sudden vacuum. Despite the chaos, the stranger remained unmoved.

  “Disorient him!” Alsur commanded through the mind link that he shared with the rest of his team. “Overwhelm his senses!”

  In response, Aktoa’s flames shifted from a purely visual phenomena to a torment of fluctuating temperature and pressure as he worked in tandem with his partner to assault the strangers senses. From the rear, the team began a chaotic pulse between darkness and light to add to the disorientation.

  “Eoren and Hyatha, a trump card!” Alsur yelled, his mental command clear. The two responded by coalescing their powers as earth was pulled above them into a mountain of rock.

  Before the earth could solidify, the stranger moved. Using a surge of magic, the man launched himself forward, leaving a crater in his wake. He flew directly for Hyatha, who abandoned the formation of earth to her partner. She reversed her gravity and flipped midair to land on her feet on the underside of the crumbling mountain above them.

  “Hyatha!” Eoren’s cry was strained, the weight of the earth overwhelming her. The task, meant to utilize both of their powers, proved to be an intense struggle alone.

  Instead of continuing his pursuit of Hyatha, the stranger wheeled around, his focus locking onto Eoren. She backpedaled, the light show ineffective in the centuries of battles making the tactic obsolete. Eoren warped space behind her, and a single step taking her a mile away. With Eoren now gone, Hyatha switched focus, now holding up the mountain herself. Without Eoren to keep it together, the earth loosened, threatening to bury her.

  Aktoa and Frumi finally arrived, lunging at the stranger’s back, but the stranger’s altered tactics had disoriented the entire team. They had all been set in their ways and their fights predictable, including the stranger. But now, with this drastic change, Alsur watched as his team’s desperation created opening’s for the stranger.

  The man launched himself skyward, leaving another fresh crater behind him as he flew toward’s Hyatha. Alsur’s mind reeled. The constant reckless magic expenditure would surely doom the stranger to a quick death.

  Hyatha docked, but the stranger’s impact on the earth above her created a shockwave, sending a storm of rock her way. Eoren reappeared below them, once again working to wrestle control of the mountain that was proving to be their own downfall.

  The stranger’s unpredictable movements freed him from their disorienting tactics and Alsur knew what that meant. Without the haze of the effects, the fight could go very poorly. In a gamble, Zivats’ threw his signature darkness bomb which would cling to whoever or whatever it contacted. With it modified to be expelled from a physical object instead of pure magic, it was made to bypass the stranger’s magic resistance. However, the chaos of battle had muddled the mind link and Frumi took the darkness bomb to the back of the head, blinding her.

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  The stranger reacted instantly to the opportunity and his fist crackled with magic as he swung at Frumi. Eoren, seeing the impending blow, warped space to yank Frumi to safety. But the stranger had planned for that. The stranger’s fist, instead of flying for Frumi, smashed into Eoren’s face. In an explosion of magic, her head ceased to exist and her body crumpled to the ground. Her body shortly followed, consumed in a flash of her own emerald magic.

  Horror cascaded through the mind link, but Alsur crushed it instantly, trying to keep his team in formation. Despite the forced calm, a sliver of doubt lingered in his own mind. Eoren never died first. This fight was wrong. His focus snapped back to the fight as he saw Aktoa exploit the stranger’s overextension, a powerful blow aimed at the man’s skull.

  Knowing the stranger could still deflect part of the attack, Alsur saw a chance.

  “Stop.” he commanded, and everything froze except Aktoa. Magic might fail against the stranger, but unmoving air was another matter. The blow landed and Alsur immediately released his hold, the effort already draining him. The stranger staggered, affected by both his intense use of magic and Aktoa’s blow in such a short time frame.

  The strike disrupted the stranger’s movements and a laser carved a pit in the ground before the man’s next step, deepening his stumble. Aktoa rushed forward to press his advantage, but the stranger unleashed a blinding array of magic.

  Propelled up by his magic, the stranger altered his trajectory once again toward’s Hyatha, who was trying to deconstruct the mountain safely. Alsur’s warning rang through the link, but too late. Hyatha died much like Eoren did and she was consumed by a flash of violet magic.

  The stranger’s path continued to curve, quickly turning towards Alsur.

  “On me!” Alsur called out, bringing several team members to his side in an instant. Aktoa and Frumi raced to join them, the darkness bomb having long dissipated. But before they could arrive, the stranger landed and Alsur prepared for a fight.

  The stranger’s tactics were incongruous. Targeting Hyatha and Eoren first? Unthinkable. And after centuries of battle, Alsur was always last to fall, if he fell at all. And every time, he had taken the stranger with him. Now, that certainty wavered. The stranger’s plan remained a mystery, but his reckless magic expenditure was clear. The stranger couldn’t kill all of them.

  The stranger grinned as his whole body flashed with blinding light. Alsur immediately knew that this had to be the rest of his magic.

  “Stop.” Alsur’s command failed, the blazing expenditure of magic nullifying Alsur’s hold on even his surroundings. Zivats, the shadow mage, erupted from the stranger’s shadow to strike, but the magic warped. He emerged in a scream as his body only half formed and was sent flying by a casual backhand, nearly colliding with Frumi and Aktoa.

  The last member of his team charged in a desperate assault. Alsur’s warning came too late and as Ivner’s knee struck the man’s groin, the man simply grunted in pain and grasped Ivner’s leg. With a sickening twist, Ivner’s hip was dislocated. Hoping to draw the stranger’s attention from Aktoa and Frumi, Alsur stepped forward. The stranger lunged, but instead of the expected blow, the stranger wrapped Alsur in an embrace.

  “We’re going down together,” voiced the stranger, speaking for the first time in over a century.

  A searing blade of alien magic plunged through Alsur’s back, his heart, and into the stranger’s chest. The stranger’s magic surged through the blade and into the man’s body before redirecting back into his hand through the blade again, creating a loop of blazing magic between the two of them. Their magics shouldn’t, couldn’t interact and it felt as if the universe didn’t know what to do with the result. As darkness overwhelmed him, dread took hold. If the stranger’s intent was as he feared, he didn’t know what he could do. The stranger died and a moment later, Alsur’s body was unravelled by the conflicting magic. The team watched their leader disappear in a rare flash of golden light, fear taking hold. Unable to do anything else, they simply hoping they could survive what was to come.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Far away, a young mother-to-be looked up at the sky, watching the starfall, hoping it wasn’t a sign for her own unborn children. She worried as she watched, and rubbed her eyes as she stared, perplexed. One of them flickered gold, the color of nobility. She could only ever remember seeing that once. Now she hoped it was a sign of noble things to come for her children. As she turned away, she missed the golden star’s erratic pulse, its light fading in and out as it plummeted…

  At the time of starting this story, I am currently a masters student and am posting my first story within a much larger narrative. This is hopefully the beginning of a long journey that spans multiple series of books that all tie in together. This means two primary things. I am going to try my best, but I doubt I will be able to complete the writathon. I am posting from a backlog, but I don’t want to cheat the system and don’t know if I can maintain my backlog with that much writing while getting a masters.

  That being said, no matter what happens, this story will continue. I have already been working on the larger narrative for four years and do not plan on stopping soon. I am really excited to finally be getting this out into the open and look forward to having some readers.

  Also, if anybody notices any poor grammar or writing, please critique my writing (as long as you’re not cruel about it) Similarly, I am prone to make logical leaps occasionally and while I try to stop it, I’m sure there are some. So if I write something that’s confusing or doesn’t make sense, please ask questions. It may be on purpose but I also may have just made a mistake.