Chapter 7 - The Fall (1/2)

Mordred

I took a swig of some liquid courage and charged out of the carriage with a shrill battle cry. The five horsemen were nearly upon us. I twisted my ring and began to chant. Raising my hand, my fingertips grew hot as a ball of fire formed in my palm. Casting the spell, I aimed at the leading horse, causing it to crash into the ground, pinning the rider forward under his horse. Because of the fallen horse, the other riders were forced to slow their charge to avoid getting caught in the mess. However, they soon regrouped and continued their charge towards me. Readying another blast of fire, I was certain they were charging to their deaths. I missed spectacularly and they chased me down to lop off my head as I attempted to make a tactical retreat.

Weaving my hands over myself in a specific pattern, I cast a spell that allowed me to run faster than I normally could, and narrowly dodged a cut to my leg that would surely have resulted in my untimely demise.

Looking back at my pursuers, I shouted, ”Haha! Can't catch me now, can you, bi-!” I ran into Xavier. Oops! Because of basic physics and Xavier not budging an inch, I ended up on my rear a foot in front of him. He just frowned at me and raised his arm, a ball of shadow forming in his palm. He crushed the ball, causing shadows to drip into the ground. From underneath, a dark hand rose up and grabbed the man's arm. He stopped the horse and clutched his arm in pain as the dark hand inched up his arm.

Looking at the enemies, I used another of my many strengths: my mind. Xavier only had a sword and he looked strained from casting multiple spells in a short of a time. Point being I needed to help cut down the bandits. Shoving Xavier out of the way, I thrust my hands at them and a mighty cone of fire burst out of my palms, cooking them medium rare. The remaining man galloped away on their horse to a nearby dune and pulled out his bow. He aimed at me. This prompted a trench war of sorts: both of us firing our respective attacks and ducking for cover when we weren't. However, I had unlimited ammo, while they had to rely on arrows. Clearly, I was the better fighter.

Solskin

Looking at the scrawny wizard's attempt at combat, I chuckled and launched myself into my own fight. I leaped off the caravan roof and landed next to Persephone. Nodding to her, I ducked under the wild swing of our opponents axe and stepped into his arm length, depriving him of the space to swing his large axe. The Bandit realized the danger and and planted his boot firmly on my ċhėst, sending me flying back. Persephone, seeing his focus shift to me and his leg lingering in the air from the kick, hooked her scythe around the back of his knee and pulled with all her strength. I heard the man scream from the injury and he fell fell to the ground. Turning around, I saw Xavier had charged the remaining horseman and was struggling to hold them off. Mordred was a good distance away gesturing wildly with his hand, but his bolts of flame were unable make contact as the brawl was too hectic.

Focusing on my blade, I charged to join Xavier, lightning arching down my blade. When the horseman finally noticed I was rushing him, I stabbed my blade into the ground. Thunder boomed and there was a deafening crack which echoed through the mountains. The force of the blast sent the horseman flying into the trees. The nearby wagon careened dangerously back and forth. Suddenly, we all felt a preternatural force pass through us as we realized we were falling. Up.

Rocks, sand, and leaves began to float and rise into the air. They were soon followed by Xavier, Mordred, the horseman, and I. We rose and rose, getting to increasingly more perilous heights. It was at this point that we started to panic and flail wildly.

My only coherent though in that situation was: What in God's name is happening? Solskin released a large thunderclap, and soon after everyone began floating into the air. The Laws of Physics had been broken and nothing made sense anymore. On another note, I wasn't the only who shared this sentiment. On the entire way up, Xavier was cursing Uranus for being pissed off. I felt the urge to hurl. It wasn't pleasant, but at least I aimed it towards the remaining horseman. After spending my internal ammunation, I realized why I had thrown up. We had started to fall down.

I attempted to right myself by spreading out my arms to maximize surface area. Xavier noticed how I had slowed my descent from permanent paralyzation to broken legs, and began to mimic me.

”Good idea!” Xavier shouted at me, his voice somehow getting through the wind. I did not reply, I knew that if I did, my stomach would regret it.

While I knew how to slow down because of basic Earth knowledge, I was still panicking about the pain that would surely come from landing. Xavier didn't know that he would even live, yet I still couldn't copy the cold ferocity of Xavier. He seemed to not care that we were 50 feet in the sky. In fact, he continued to attack the horseman, unfazed by the lack of a ground. Solskin was worse. He was also panicking, but he was yelling at me for angering the gods. What did I do? Did he not realize it was all his fault? If I wasn't falling to the ground at high speeds, I would have sighed with exasperation and slapped him.