Hey everyone. I want to apologise for my incredibly long absence from concluding this story. My initial plan was to present you all completely with the remaining final chapters in one fell swoop, but real-life issues and other complications got and continue to get in the way of the second-last chapter, which for me has been the most difficult and challenging one to write. I promise to get it done to the best of my ability. So, with further apologies in advance for what might be another long wait (hopefully, not as long as before) and to let you all know I am still here, I give you Chapter 19 of Believe.

Chapter 19 - Battle for Survival

"I believe."

"Gwen?"

Gwen looked up, finding a concerned Kevin standing above her. Startled, she gazed at her surroundings. She was back in the atrium. A second, more careful survey of the room located Charmcaster glancing around the barren confines in search of something.

The Totem, Gwen realised.

Somberly, she rose up on her feet and took Kevin by the hand, squeezing it softly and offering him a smile. For a moment, Kevin seemed unsure of how to respond, until he smiled back at her.

"Did we get it?" she asked him. "Please tell me we got it."

"I don't know," Kevin replied, his lips faltering. "When I got back, Hope was already here. And it gets worse, we were all stuck in those trials for twelve whole hours."

Gwen paled in horror. "Do you think - - - do you think one of us failed?" she voiced, trying her best to keep herself from sounding defeated.

"Uh, nobody exactly told me 'You passed your test with flying colours'," Kevin spoke with a trace of lighthearted sarcasm. "Hope, what about you?"

Evidently finding nothing in her search, Hope walked over to them. "All that was said to me was the spirits found out what they wanted to know."

"Okay, that kinda sounds better than mine," Kevin assumed nervously.

"And mine," Gwen said, the worry of failure growing as the thought that she and Kevin might both not have passed arose.

"Calm your fears, Gwendolyn, or did you not learn from your trial?" a gentle yet mysterious voice flowed through the chamber, catching the three off-guard.

Gwen, Hope and Kevin shifted immediately in response, tracking the source of the voice in unison, and raised their heads to stare up at the ceiling. For a moment, all there was to be seen was plain stone. That changed as a spatter of light appeared and swirled around in an endless circle until a white portal was formed. The voice spoke again, louder and clearer, addressing the three of them in turn.

"Hope of Ledgerdomain, taker of the trial of redemption. When faced with the memories and illusions of your past, you were offered a choice to alter time and save your father and by so doing, have the life you always believed in your childhood to have been denied you. You chose otherwise, to live with the mistakes you've made and the crimes you've committed and to proceed onwards with your future, continuing to redeem yourself to the end of your days."

"Kevin of Earth, taker of the trial of power. When confronted with the man who drove you to seek out a means of thwarting him, we offered you the power and strength you had thrice over to do so. By remembering the experiences of your past, you elected not to take it, deciding for yourself that you never really had to seek out physical power to have true power."

"Gwendolyn of Earth, to you we gave one of the most difficult trials we could, one that so few have ever passed, the trial of faith. As a child, you were full of love and concern to those close to you, but as you matured into a woman, what was once positive became negative. Love and concern became possession and doubt and, as such, you lost your faith in others and their ability to choose for themselves. When your feelings about a situation were met with a rivalling one, you deemed it necessary to drown it out or prove it wrong, no matter the cost. Until you discovered the cost of your actions was too high a price for you. On your journey to this temple and during your trial, you battled with yourself and your feelings constantly until it came to a final, resolute conclusion."

A small object, fashioned in the shape of a humanoid figurine, drifted out from inside the portal and floated down into the temple. Hope was the first to react. Her expression gleaming bright with sudden joy, she saw upon the tiny item the intricate carvings and miniscule writings imprinted on it in ages past she trained herself to recognise from the paper sheet she was carrying in her satchel. Gwen and Kevin both took notice and they too looked up with renewed triumph, knowing now that it was what they had come for.

"Thus, the three of you have passed," the voice spoke again. "The Totem is yours."

Hope held out her hands, cupping them together. The Totem landed softly in her palms. As the white light faded and the portal vanished, Kevin and Gwen stepped over to her, the former clasping Hope warmly by the shoulder. Hope tore her eyes away from the figurine, glancing at Kevin first and then at Gwen.

"We did it," Hope said.

"Yeah. We did," Gwen swallowed happily.

Kevin grinned, positioning himself so that he stood between the two and put his other hand gently on Gwen's shoulder. "Come on, girls. Let's go home."

Taking his words to heart, Hope smiled at Gwen and she headed for the temple doors. Beaming at her boyfriend, Gwen held her hand out to Kevin. Kevin looked first at her hand, then at her face, and accepted it as his grin widened further.

"Welcome back," he said, drawing her into a one-armed hug as they started to follow Hope.

"Good to be back," Gwen responded, nuzzling her face along his side.

With their eyes on each other and Hope's on the Totem, they ignored the large stone door as it separated into the three triangles and slid open, walking on through as their path was cleared, and listened without a care in the world as it closed behind them. Then, as if preparing for the journey ahead, Hope tucked the Totem safely inside her satchel and zipped it shut. Finally she looked entirely forward and she stopped, her expression swiftly veering in the opposite direction, from warmhearted joy to cold dread.

Kevin and Gwen almost crashed into her. Distracted from staring into one another's eyes, they wondered curiously why she had halted so abruptly. They gazed past her and saw for themselves the same terrifying sight she had been greeted with. From the bottom of the steps and across the small space of land to and beyond the precipice, stretching along a great distance of the suspended pathway, was a whole army of stone golems.

"Not again," Kevin moaned.

At one spot, where she recalled the beginning of the pathway to be, Hope noticed a movement. Narrowing her eyes, she saw four golems shuffling aside. The movement repeated itself with the next four golems ahead of the previous ones and again with the four in front of those, going in a straight line, one that was heading towards the steps. The golems were making way for something.

No, Hope amended. Someone.

The black head surrounded by flames of mana appeared in view from out of the throng first, its eyes set malevolently on Hope. As he came nearer, the rest of his form slowly became more distinct from the grey and brown stone around him. The pale and mottled green of his skin flushed with energy as he stretched the black claws of his hands outward in readiness for the battle he aimed to have. His large tortoise-shell armour matched his body motion for motion, the Alpha Rune clinking against his hardened chest as it swung on the chain roped around his neck.

Finally, Adwaita parted from his army and came to a stop at the foot of the steps. Pulling his sight away from Hope, he addressed Kevin and Gwen.

"The two of you are allowed to leave and if you have it, you can take the Totem with you. I only want Charmcaster," he proffered.

A sense of fury rippled from inside Gwen and she moved to deny him verbally when she noticed Charmcaster slipping her hand back to her satchel. A moment's attention to how the fingers of her former enemy traced along the small bag, twitching as it met the strings keeping it tied to her hip, brought her to realise Charmcaster was going to accept Adwaita's terms for them. Gwen slid away from Kevin and, quickly taking a step down, grabbed Charmcaster sharply by the wrist. She and her old rival looked each other in the eye.

"Gwen."

"No."

"Gwen!"

"NO, HOPE!" Gwen snapped.

Hope flinched and stared at Gwen, disbelieving for a mere second what she had just heard. Gwen fought off the urge to smile completely, her lips only crooking at the corners.

"We do this together. We're all going home."

Finding herself in a struggle to throw off the intense rise of emotion Gwen's words were giving her, Hope attempted to argue. Whatever words she was about to form were silenced as Kevin moved in beside them and diverted her attention from the effort. He nodded at her, showing he agreed with Gwen. The need she felt to fight them both fell out of her. She sighed in defeat and smiled at them. A second or two passed between as she hinted with her eyes for them to get ready.

Then she turned around and faced down Adwaita. Kevin and Gwen descended another step, joining Hope directly at her side. Realising from their unified stance what choice they had made, Adwaita glowered at them darkly.

"So be it."

: * :

Letting out a growl, Adwaita lunged at the three, angling his claws to tear into Hope. She, Kevin and Gwen were prepared; they dodged him separately, flinging around him as they jumped toward his army. Gwen and Hope twisted in midair and tossed blasts of mana into his armoured back. Adwaita crashed bodily onto the steps. His growl pitching over into a feral roar, he turned to face them and strike back.

They were nowhere in sight. The three of them had buried themselves deep within his forces, practically disappeared from sight.

"Do not let them reach the path!" he bellowed in frustration at his creations. "Where is Charmcaster?!"

The golems attempted to follow orders and respond to their master's demand to know Hope's whereabouts at the same time. Those standing nearest the pathway and those on it trudged forward, seeking to block the mouth off. In the thick of it, Gwen took advantage of the charge and sent out a powerful shockwave of energy in the path's direction. Carried up into the air by its strong runt, hundreds of the golems went tumbling off the ledges and plunged down into the deep abyss. Adwaita cursed under his breath and vainly reached to access the magic cores hidden inside the golems that fell. As he expected, he could not. He drew back his hand and instead tuned his senses to the astral plane, hunting Charmcaster's location by himself.

The first person he managed to lock onto was Gwen as he traced the signature of the energy back to her. His fury burning out, he considered attacking her in retaliation, if only to lure Charmcaster out once he had Gwen at his mercy. What was it the girl said? They would all go home together? The instinct, the thirst for battle, seared ever hotter as he devoted more and more of everything into acknowledging the words for what they meant.

"If that is how it's going to be," he snarled to himself. "Then they will all die together."

He charged forward, shoving his soldiers to the side as he went, his bloodlust growing the closer he got to his target. When he saw the flashes of red hair whipping in and out of sight amongst the rocky bodies of his army, his white eyes swelled with victory and he made to break through the last three lines of golems between him and Gwen with a single leap.

Just as he leaned back to propel himself forward, he was tackled from the right. Acting out of surprise, he tried to catch a glimpse of who or whatever had the courage to assault him with such a mundane method of attack. Thrusting one arm upward as his opponent climbed onto his shoulders, he gripped his assailant by the arm to pry him off. The opponent responded, tugging its arm back and locking its legs around his neck.

It did not matter to Adwaita, for he had achieved what he wanted.

A short glimpse at the limb he held in his claws identified for him whom it was he was dealing with. For a few seconds, his eyes widened in anger and disbelief as he recognised the stone flesh of his golems. Then, before his incensed rage overtook him and sent him off into violent fury, he realised what he had missed in that quick glimpse.

He eyed the legs wrapped around his throat, ignoring his opponent's fists as they pummelled whatever weak spot they could reach. Within another second, he was absolutely sure of what he had seen. The legs lacked the purple markings that signified the golems were powered by mana. The arm had lacked them as well.

Understanding with that that there was only one person who could possibly be astride his shoulders, Adwaita cooled his temper and retaliated with purposely weak attempts of countering Kevin's punches, subtly analysing the pattern in which his adversary was fighting. In half of a minute, he deducted it was an embarrassingly basic one.

A punch from the right. A punch from the left. A second punch from the right. One small moment to breathe and regather strength. A punch from the left. A punch from the right. A second punch from the left. Another small moment to breathe and regather strength. And a double-fisted slam directly to the back of the neck.

Then the cycle would be repeated. Adwaita huffed inwardly in annoyance, careful not to show Kevin he was figuring him out. Repeating the same attack was an amateur's tactic.

He allowed Kevin to start again and he counted the moves as the pattern recommenced, still pretending to defend himself seriously. One, two, three, pause. Breathe. One, two, three, pause. Breathe. Then came the moment Kevin took to prepare the double-fisted slam.

Adwaita struck, grabbing Kevin tightly around the head. Surprised, Kevin fought back and wrenched to get himself free. Undeterred, Adwaita raised his other clawed hand slowly up to grip Kevin by the shoulder, and he squeezed hard.

His mouth covered, Kevin issued out a strangled roar as his legs loosened involuntarily. Both hearing and feeling the weakness in his opponent, Adwaita triumphantly pulled Kevin off his shoulders and bodily slung him over his head to throw him backfirst onto the ground.

Landing with a horrendous crash, Kevin cried out agonisingly as the blinding pain from the impact rushed through him. Adwaita snorted uncaringly in response and stood back, readying to finish the fight as he called a palm-sized field of energy to appear in his hand.

A blast of mana struck him in the side. The blow, minor as it was to him, caused him to lose concentration as his prepared spell vanished. Adwaita half-turned, expecting to see Gwen ready to engage him. His disgruntled yet stoic nature cracked entirely when he saw his attacker had silver long hair and not red.

Subconsciously, as he held Hope in his eyes, he let go of the leash he had on his wrath. Turning to Kevin, he conjured up a binding spell. A band of mana materialized instantly around Kevin's waist and shackled him fast to the ground. Four smaller bands came after that, locking down each of his limbs as well.

Adwaita gestured to two of his soldiers. "Keep an eye on him," he ordered, pointing at Kevin, and then he went off to confront Hope.

Readying for him as he approached, Hope crouched back and arranged her arms defensively in front of her. Adwaita paid the motion little mind, centering his focus wholly on ensuring they would not be interrupted. His eyes remaining on Hope, his senses on the alert for Gwen, he made the last lumbering steps towards his enemy.

He stared down at Hope, appraising her slowly, trying to determine whether or not she'd be powerful enough to take him on. With her battle fighting Ghostfreak, the challenges of navigating Najaaltik and whatever trial the mythical temple had given her, he presumed that some of her magic would have been drained in the process, or at least she would be physically tired after going through so much adversity in a short period of time. His analysis ended in disappointment.

Hope was at full strength.

His tense expression grew even more focused. He was going to have to be careful. After all, she proved capable of defeating him when he had worn the Alpha Rune before.

Hope spoke first, breaking him out of his estimation of her. "Got to say, this is kind of surprising. You've never left Ledgerdomain to hunt me down before."

"Because I thought in the past after you suffered defeat at my hands personally, you were intelligent enough not to cross my path again," Adwaita replied sharply. "Or was I not demonstratively clear that I will always thwart you?"

"Then here's some news for you. I've given up on that," Hope stated.

"I am aware of that but sadly too little, too late."

"What are you talking about?" Hope questioned.

"It's occurred to me that even if you give up on fighting me, one of your descendants may choose to take up your campaign against me as their own. After so many years battling you and your father, going back and forth constantly on which of us has the throne, I have no interest in prolonged combat with your family for the rest of eternity," Adwaita explained bluntly.

Hope's eyes darkened. "So your solution is to end me and my bloodline?"

"Yes. I suppose that means I will have to kill your uncle as well, unlikely as the chance he will father direct descendants is, just to be entirely sure I have nothing more to fear," Adwaita confirmed offhandedly. "But that is what happens when my acts of mercy are repeatedly denied."

"Acts of mercy?!" Hope blurted out in abrupt rage. "You call what you've done to me and my family mercy? You started all of this when you decided to take everything from me!"

"Because you would have taken everything from ME!" Adwaita spat in return.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hope demanded.

"Don't try to hide your knowledge of the truth with false innocence! You know what you are destined to do!" Adwaita growled darkly.

The furious expression on Hope's face changed inexplicably. At first, Adwaita assumed she was still pretending not to know the reason for his crusade against her and nearly responded by attacking her. It was simply with a careful regard of her features that he began to think otherwise. Uncertainty slipped inside his mind, softening his anger, and he perused the astral plane for answers, testing the depths of Hope's feelings. What he found left him astounded as the reality dawned.

"By Bezel. You really do not know," he said finally. "They've never told you."

Still mystified, Hope did not answer him. He took that as confirmation anyway.

Adwaita sighed deeply. "So you are an innocent in this after all. The sole reason you've been fighting me is because I hurt you and you were never told why," he said in a solemn tone. "In that case, I apologise, but it does not change anything. I still have to kill you."

He reassumed his defensive stance. "So, rather than take advantage of your stupor, I will give you the chance to prepare yourself."

Remaining confused for a few moments more, Hope allowed every question processing relentlessly through her mind to be exhausted. Adwaita had another reason for conquering Ledgerdomain besides attaining more power? Something that involved her specifically? Something that her parents and maybe even Hex never wanted her to know about to keep her out of danger? Something that forced Adwaita to want her dead now? Like what? What could possibly warrant a vendetta like the one he had been waging against her for years?

In the end though, as she soon determined, none of those questions mattered yet. The one that did was the matter of her survival. Putting everything she had been told to the side, she faced Adwaita once more and retook her stance. Adwaita responded with a shallow grin. The two summoned up their power.

Then, like lightning, they pounced.

: * :

Swiftly, Gwen took in the precariousness of her situation. Right from the start, she knew what she was getting into by diving headfirst among the mass of golems, something she mentioned inwardly that Ben would have been proud of her for doing. Daring her opponents to attack her from all sides.

And they had, she acknowledged. But this was different. Something had changed.

Before, she was able to roughly brush through and overpower a great many golems, sending them all into the abyss to prevent any chance of Adwaita getting the spheres of energy he had implanted in them, but now, she was pinned in from everywhere around her. In a flash, she tapped into the astral plane, dodging a lunge from her left, a tackle from behind, and two more lunges from her front and right. Alarm quickly took hold of her as the answer became starkly clear. All of Adwaita's forces were converging on her position. Where were Kevin and Charmcaster?

Immediately she went on the search and halted suddenly when she found Kevin. Panic shot through Gwen as she realised he must have been met by Adwaita as he was helplessly chained flat to the ground with mana and had two golems standing guard over him. With a distressed cry, she returned to the physical world and began to build up an attack. Sensing danger, the golems standing the closest to her nervously started backing away.

Gwen ignored them, seething mainly to herself, "I am not going to lose anyone else because of what I've done!"

At once, a powerful wave of energy surged away from her body and threw up every golem between her and the two guarding Kevin into the sky. Before they all came tumbling back to earth, she acted. Using her magic, she sped forward across the vacant land and slid to a clean stop the moment she reached them. One of the two golems endeavoured to counter her. Gwen never gave it the chance and formed a whip in her hand. She cast her arm back and lashed the energy once, catching the golem around one leg. She pulled tight. The caught leg flew upward, bringing the body and head of the golem crashing down.

The second golem charged at Gwen. She was ready. Summoning more strength to her arm, she wrenched herself around to the right, swinging the whip in that direction. The first golem was launched into the air once more and found itself pulled directly into the path of its comrade. It opened its mouth to yell out in warning.

Gwen was too fast. Too late, the second golem saw the other coming its way and stopped to howl out in fright just as the first golem began to alert it. The two collided with one another and they fell in a heap.

As did the rest of Adwaita's army.

Ignoring the crashlanding of hundreds of stone bodies as they met with the ground, Gwen dashed over to Kevin and set to work on breaking his restraints.

"Don't move," she cautioned to him.

"You got it," Kevin nodded.

Darts of energy flitted out from Gwen's fingertips and assaulted each band of mana at a time. Hoping that it would be enough to fracture them, Gwen gritted her teeth when they did not and she increased her concentration. The growing intensity of her powers caught a report of danger from the metaphysical realm. Answering to it, she cast out a non-verbal surveyance spell behind her. Adwaita's soldiers were beginning to regain their footing. Fear held her for a brief moment, but in the next second, she forced back a groan and placed her hands down on the bands around Kevin's arms.

"When I say now, you break through the shackles, okay?" she said fiercely.

"Okay."

The incantation came hidden from inside Gwen's mind, spilling out readily through her teeth. Quick, strong pulses of energy resonated from her palms, generating sequentially in waves as they swept along and over the manacles of energy until their every facet and curve was encompassed.

Kevin threw up his arms. The restraints broke, splintering apart and flying away in tiny glasslike shards the literal second they were faced with opposition.

"Whoa," he gaped in awe, marvelling at how good it felt to have his arms freed. He looked up at Gwen and the surprise on his face developed rapidly into a grin.

Gwen smiled back at him as she dropped her hands to the bands adhering his legs to the ground. The pulses emitted again from her hands and weakened the tensile strength of the energy. Kevin kicked up his legs when she finished with them and she moved to handle the main one at his waist. His legs came free just as easily as his arms had, once more filling him with relief.

Gwen completed the spell a third time. A sense of victory rushed through her as she felt the band weaken under her touch and she pulled away from Kevin, giving him an assuring nod. Kevin leaped up onto his feet, snapping the final manacle to pieces. The two exchanged a gaze of shared confidence before a pack of guttural snarls dragged their attention back to the battle.

From every direction they could see, they were being closed in on by countless golems left furious and humiliated by Gwen's earlier attack.

"I'll take care of these guys," Kevin glanced at Gwen. "You've gotta get after Adwaita."

Gwen tensed and eyed him with dread. "He's gone after Hope, hasn't he?" she asked.

Kevin nodded. Gwen tuned into the metaphysical realm again and immediately found Hope and Adwaita. To her shock, she was informed by her senses that their energy signatures were radiating wildly. She drew in a short breath, realising the two were already locked in battle, and turned in their direction.

"Be careful," she spoke over her shoulder to Kevin.

Kevin grinned back at her. "Come on, Gwen. These guys I can handle," he said cockily. "You're the one who's going to face the real threat here, so you be careful."

Shaking her head in wry amusement, Gwen hurried off and pushed her way through the first line of golems, disappearing from sight the minute they closed ranks.

"Alright, boys. Round Two," Kevin smirked, raising one fist in defence and the other to fight. As if they had been waiting for him to say that, the golems roared and swarmed in around him. Kevin threw out a punch.

: * :

Against the awesome combination of raw power that was Adwaita and the Alpha Rune, Hope had known from the start of the duel that unless she could gain a swift advantage, it would be over in seconds. Her first assault involved his army of golems. Allowing Adwaita the first blow, she ducked underneath the deadly projectile of energy he tossed at her and concentrated on levitating the three golems closed to them into the air. Hope smirked and jumped back up, surprising Adwaita with the ruse that she had not called upon any means of retaliation. Confidence ran through her and she pulled her hand back, clenching it into a fist.

The three golems lifted up off the ground. For a split-second, they reacted speechlessly at their sudden weightlessness, confused as to what was happening. Their astonishment quickly gave way to terror as Hope performed her next move. With tremendous shock, they found themselves being thrown right at their master. Adwaita pitched forward as the first one collided into his back. At once he tried to regain his balance, flailing to protect himself. The second one hit him with just as much force and unbalanced him even more.

Hope played her endgame and ran toward Adwaita as he circled to deflect the third golem away from him, raising her hand up within reach of his neck to snatch at the Alpha Rune. Adwaita stiffened midturn, sensing her approach at the last minute. The sorceror growled in fury, realising he had been baited.

"Objectus!" he screamed. Two separate pulses of energy fled from his body, each one slashing off in the opposite direction. The pulse he sent from his right slammed into Hope and shoved her back several steps. The golem was less fortunate and was batted higher into the air, coming down to land somewhere in the depths of its comrades' numbers.

Adwaita glared threateningly at the other two golems and warned them to get back into the fight. Petrified, the two scurried off to rejoin their brethren. Then Adwaita rounded on Hope, a hiss escaping from his mouth. Though her strategy had been foiled, Hope could not help but genuinely smile that she had already succeeded in irking him.

Without another word expressed, they engaged in battle again.

As they progressed, fighting on, the duo became so immersed in their conflict that they were oblivious to the development of the rest of the battle, not even devoting one iota of attention when the golems were all cast up into the sky by Gwen or when they crashed back on solid ground. All of their focus, the whole of their concentration, was on each other.

Blow after blow, projectile after projectile, Hope centered her attacks on removing the Alpha Rune from Adwaita's neck. Infuriated by her goal, Adwaita fell back upon defensive spells to keep his ownership of the token rather than put up the brutal assault he so clearly wanted to use to end her.

The nature of the fight changed again as Adwaita swerved to his left to avoid a jet of mana Hope had aimed at his face. There, Hope paused. Adwaita hesitated, wondering why she had stopped, and considered the battlefield behind him.

Wait, he thought suddenly. Behind him?

He dared a quick glance over his shoulder. When their duel had begun, he and Charmcaster had been standing near the outer fringes of his army as the bulk of them pressed closer to the temple, boxing in on Kevin and Gwen to leave Charmcaster without help. Now, there was a gap, ten metres by his estimate, between himself and his soldiers. Somehow the fight had taken him and Charmcaster a fair distance from the battle. Still, he was perplexed why Charmcaster was hesitant to continue.

In a moment, as he faced her again, the confusion was dashed. Instead of attempting another sneak attack, Hope was moving quietly, sidestepping in a curved line, looking as though she was manoeuvring away from another danger by coming closer to him. Adwaita gazed past her for the first time, and then he knew. Not only had he completely cut her off from any assistance from her friends, but he had also cornered her by the cliff's edge. The gaping maw of the abyss was looming right behind her.

Hope looked up and finally noticed she had his attention again. Flinching with horror, her eyes shifted to the abyss. Suddenly she caught herself and grimaced, knowing that her involuntary reaction had likely given her away.

Adwaita was smirking. His presumption had been correct. Quietly and deliberately, he switched from one fighting pose to another, splaying out his arms in a downward arc and squaring his legs into an offensive stand. To Hope, the new pose was both predictable and readable. It was also intimidating, as Adwaita meant it to be. He had stylised himself as the predator readying to lunge at its prey. Hope looked left and right, searching for a way out. Adwaita followed her with his eyes, preparing to lurch his whole body in any direction she sought to make an escape in.

Gradually, the truth dawned on Hope. Adwaita had her. Her enemy seemed to know this too as he then enacted the last step, raising his arm higher than the left and angling it until it was like that of a snake poising to strike.

Hope balled her hands into fists and assumed a basic defensive posture, knowing that when the attack came, it would be brutally relentless. Again she eyed at the Alpha Rune. For a scarce moment, she wondered if Adwaita would be so focused on her in the inevitable onslaught that he'd end up neglecting to shield it from harm. Hope let the thought pass. The Alpha Rune was not the priority anymore. Survival was.

Cruelly allowing Hope another moment just so that the reality of her predicament had absolutely sunk in, Adwaita broke the tension and sprang at her. His right arm whirled downward, generating a blast of mana in his claws, and he threw his attack, all in the span of a heartbeat.

Hope responded, crafting guards of energy around her wrists. Her eyes zeroed in on the incoming projectile, she waited until it had come within reach of her. When it did, she brought her left arm and met the blow with the guard. The projectile rebounded harmlessly off the surface, flying away from her.

Adwaita was undeterred. Acting as though he were a war machine, his empty hand circled back to its original position while his left arm, having adopted the snakelike striking position its counterpart had been in a moment prior, swung a second ball of energy at his nemesis.

Hope met it as she did the first, this time by openly deflecting it with a grunt. His rage burning hot, Adwaita kept on going, unleashing attack upon attack in rapid succession as he closed in on Hope. Hope never let up on her defence, bravely fighting her hardest as her enemy charged at her like a maddened beast.

By the time they were in close range of one another, they were each seized by a powerful emotion; Adwaita with the overwhelming magnitude of his fury, Hope with her ever-growing panic. Hope altered her technique in answer, redirecting the mana back at their creator. Adwaita simply dodged out of the way, his ferocity becoming more explicit the nearer he got.

He was onto Hope in seconds. Oblivious to the fact that the ecstasy he felt in that moment of accomplishment had tainted his focus, Adwaita abandoned using mana and he randomly began swiping at her with his claws. Terror coursed straight through Hope as she was caught unawares by the transition in combat and reacted purely out of instinct, lifting up her guards to ward off the strikes of his talons. Steadily, slowly, she regained her nerve as she continued to fend him off, refusing to allow her fear to overtake her every thought, knowing in her heart to do otherwise was likely to result in either death on the spot or a fateful plunge into the waiting abyss behind her.

The final moments of combat came as a surprise to the both of them. There was no thought, no counter, no strategy or plan when out of the blue, as Hope deflected another one of his swipes, Adwaita lashed back at her and grabbed a hold of her left arm. The two paused briefly, until it struck Hope that she needed to get free. Rotating her other hand, she swung her right arm upwards in a sharp arc, aiming to slap the energy guard affixed to it against Adwaita's hand. Adwaita detected the move and acted, his left wrist meeting the blow with enough force to push it to the side jarringly. The counter threw Hope off her balance and left her unable to deal with his securing his capture of her as his arm darted part of the way back and snapped forward, the claws opening wide.

They clamped shut as Adwaita held Hope by the neck. More out of shock than the immediate urging need to breathe, Hope gasped horrendously. Smirking, Adwaita released the arm he had caught and summoned a blast of mana to appear in his palm. The spell he was quietly constructing flared into life, crackling dangerously as it spanned the width of his hands. In that moment, Hope realised what was going to happen. This was it. This would be the final blow.

Rearing his hand back slowly, Adwaita narrowed his eyes directly on Hope's chest, telling her without a word exactly where he was going to inflict his blow. He was targeting right for her heart.

At any other time that she had fought him before, except maybe their previous encounter, Hope thought she would be somewhat reconciled with the imminent nature of a swift death. After all, she had given up everything and put every best effort she had into wresting Ledgerdomain back from Adwaita and keeping it out of his claws. But now, that small comfort was not enough, and it never would be enough. She had something else to live for. Someone to live for. And if Adwaita was going to take that away from her, then she would take something he held so preciously away from him.

Without thinking, with nothing more than the idea itself in her mind, she raised her hand up instinctively past Adwaita's left arm and fired a bolt of mana. Adwaita started, discovering too late what she had just done. His own attack perished, turning to smoke as he attempted to catch Hope's projectile with both hands before it could hit its target.

The jet of light struck the Alpha Rune hard which, to its detriment, absorbed the majority of the impact. The limitless energy stored within the artifact spasmed outwardly, issuing tiny sparks of mana in dancing fits across its surface. Low, raspy noises quickly rose in volume as white steam started to billow from the Rune. Then, with a loud snap, hairline fractures cracked into view. Adwaita panicked and whirled backwards, trying to put distance between him and Hope. Hope herself was mostly unperturbed by the sight; the shock and regret that crossed over her face when the stark truth of what she was doing lasted only a brief second, morphing almost instantly to firm and calm resolve as she cast another blast forward.

Adwaita gaped up in horror as he saw her new attack coming and suddenly he found his voice. "Charmcaster! NO!" he shrieked in fear.

His plea had no effect on Hope or her assault. Before he could think of something else, the projectile slammed into the damaged Alpha Rune. Adwaita gaped down fearfully as the talisman succumbed to the pure velocity of the spell and pressed itself firmly into his chest. As if sensing its own weakness, the Alpha Rune shook forward again, throbbing with violent agony. The fractures throughout its shape widened into explicit cracks, allowing untold levels of mana to blaze on through in a terrific display of light.

"No," Adwaita moaned. "What have you- - -

Another unexpected turn of events occurred, cutting him off before he could finish his sentence. The streams of mana escaping through the cracks literally ground to a complete stop, the wafts of energy freezing in place. Then, by some unbidden signal, they turned back, reversing completely in direction, and drifted back into the confines of the Rune. As the last shreds of light drew back inside, Adwaita heaved greatly in relief, believing the Rune had begun a process of healing itself.

A second later, the Alpha Rune exploded with the force of a grenade.

The shockwave followed without warning and blew Adwaita and Hope off their feet. Adwaita was thrown back in the direction of the temple, his disbelieving eyes bulging at the splintered remnants of the Rune as they fell away from the necklace shard by shard. For Hope, the force of the explosion had been more of a buffeting gale than the point-blank windstorm that tossed Adwaita a fair distance from her, but the power of it was more than enough to cast her towards danger and sent her freefalling into the abyss.

All at once, Hope experienced many feelings. The creeping dread of the blackness she was about to plunge and disappear into started to invade her senses, attempting to convince her to give up and accept her fate. The impact of the shockwave was lessening, and with it the numbing sensation of the blow itself. Aiding the curse of the abyss, the awful idea that everything was over in that moment threatened to overwhelm her. Then there was the feeling that, to her, was the worst one; as Hope remembered that the Totem of Life was still inside her satchel, the realisation that it was going to be lost in the depths of the abyss with her struck. Her heart cried out in misery. She was failing. Ben was never going to be brought back.

Ben!

Something in her soul ignited and empowered her to act. Fire burned anew in Hope's eyes as she turned her head up towards the cliffside. The thoughts of Ben driving her, she fought back. Defying gravity's might, she spun head over heels through the air, flinging herself to the rocky surface. Her feet found purchase first, stopping luckily on a narrow ledge. Blind instinct told her it was not going to last and she clutched a hold onto an area above her head. As she did, the ledge that served as sanctuary gave way, crumbling underneath her. Hope slipped, nearly going along with it, and tightened her handgrip.

Her adrenaline running on empty, Hope gazed up towards the top of the cliff. It was much too far away for her to jump to. Magic was not an option either, she reminded herself. The only thing left to do was to find a way to climb.

Desperately, she searched for anything higher she could grab onto. She spotted a tiny jut of rock within reach of her right hand and she looked around for anything near it for her left hand. There was nothing, meaning she'd have to trade a more secure hold for a risky one. Her search took her further up, trying to locate any sign of what move she could make after that.

Again, there was nothing. Hope sighed miserably and went on to calculate the distance between her and safety. There definitely was too much of a gap to catapult herself up to the top on her own, but there was a possible chance she could make it if there was someone waiting for her up there. If only she had help - - -

A scraping noise from above broke her out of her thoughts. Someone was coming to the edge, no, running towards it. Hope's first thought was that it was Adwaita wanting to see if she had been beaten and she mentally prepared herself to see his scaly face leering down at her. Her mind changed when the rhythm of the footsteps rang out more clearly; they were extremely light and nimble, not the cumbersome and heavy pounding she had been anticipating.

Hope focused her eyes high up to the edge. The head of the person finally came into view. It wasn't reptilian in nature. It wasn't even surrounded by flames of mana. It was human, with long red hair swishing in the wind.

Meeting Hope's gaze, the panic in Gwen's eyes switched momentarily to relief and then over to charged determination. Swiftly, she went down on her knees and conjured a pair of chains, shackling them to her legs and bolting the other ends to the ground. She tested them once to be sure they were fastened enough and spared a glance in Adwaita's direction.

The sorcerer had recovered, but his heart was no longer in the battle. He was sitting still on the spot where the explosion had thrown him to, his eyes full of despair as he held the hanging tatters of the Alpha Rune in his claws. The pink flames of mana surrounding his head, the most prominent sign he was the master of the destroyed talisman, were gradually extinguishing.

Leaving no more room for pity, Gwen swung the upper half of her body over and down past the precipice and extended her arms towards Hope.

"Reach!" she cried urgently.

Hope hesitated, reconsidering her chances of getting up to Gwen and gave thought to the Totem of Life's safety instead. Maybe it would be better if she tossed the satchel up for Gwen to catch first. At least Ben would be saved.

Gwen realised what she was thinking. "Don't you dare!" she warned Hope, who turned her head up to face her again. "I told you, we're all going home."

"Ben matters more than me!" Hope argued.

"And you matter more to him!" Gwen fired back, startling Hope with the passionate conviction in her voice. "Now reach!"

Incredible warmth flourished from inside Hope as Gwen's words registered in her mind, stirring her into action. It took her a moment to judge what it would take for her to get to Gwen. As she had understood from the beginning, the effort had a chance of working, but there remained a risk of failure.

Cautiously, she repositioned her hands, moving them so they could tautly lie on the crests of the rocks they had been holding onto, and she pushed up between them. Sweat began to appear in beads on her forehead as she concentrated heavily on the next part. For this, timing was everything.

She hoisted herself up fast, climbing a few inches, and scrabbled hard against the rough stone. Finally, she managed to rebalance her body as she achieved what she had been fighting for. Precarious as it was, her feet stood firmly on the rocks that had only seconds ago been her handholds.

Allowing a small bout of relieving solace to course through her, Hope surveyed the still large amount of space she had to contend with. Once she was sure she was ready, she checked her plans one more time before settling on advancing further upward. There was nothing else but what she had already intended. Calmly, she bit back on her breath and poured every ounce of concentration and stamina she could into her arms and legs. There was a sudden snap of cracking stone. Sensing the rocks holding her up were about to break, Hope arched back and leaped.

Almost as if she were flying, her great jump carried her up the height of the cliff. Her heart flooding with joy, she lifted her arms towards Gwen's, who in turn was greeting Hope's success with a beaming smile. But, barely a foot away from the intended end of her journey, trouble started brewing.

Hope felt her momentum start to slow. Worry set in as the sudden idea she had not given the jump enough power took root in her mind. Above her, Gwen realised the same thing with mounting horror and stretched herself harder, battling to narrow the remaining gap of air between them.

Just as the force of gravity was about to stake its claim on Hope a third time, her fingers brushed past Gwen's. The slight touch triggered a reaction in the two and their hands clasped to the other's forearms. Gwen prepared for the recoil and strengthened her grip on Hope. Hope's imminent plunge stopped with a terrible jerk and she swung backwards out into the open. Gwen groaned, biting her teeth together as the violent tug strained her arms. Her instincts flared into life and commanded her to pull.

"This had better work," she grunted to herself as she directed her mind to the manacles keeping her legs on the ground above. Mild relief came to her as she sensed that she remained connected to the spells and she shouted out loud, "EVELLERE!"

The chains answered and shifted groggily away from the cliff edge and towards the temple, dragging Gwen's legs with them. Both Gwen and Hope felt the first movement as a surprising lurch, responding to it with involuntary yelps. But the great jolt to the system they shared in died down as the way in which they were being pulled smoothed out into a consistent towing as they slid up through the air to the top of the cliff and over the edge until they were hoisted safely onto solid land. Hope and Gwen let their relief loose, exhaling out in gasping heaves.

"Thank you," Hope said once she caught her breath enough to speak. Gwen responded by waving her hand and bearing her old rival another warm smile. Hope returned the smile with one of her own, allowing silence to fall. Then it occurred to her their surroundings were too silent. The same revelation struck Gwen a moment later and they turned to the temple.

The battle was, by all appearances, over. All of Adwaita's golems occupying the wasteland as well as the suspended pathway were still in both sound and motion, gaping blankly at Hope and Gwen as if they were left stunned by the rescue. Adwaita himself paid no mind to either of them, remaining where he was; the embering flames surrounding his head were gone, leaving him with his ordinary reptilian appearance. Kevin, human again, was standing over the despondent sorceror, staring at Gwen and Hope with mixed concern and relief.

In complete quiet, Gwen undid the chains and willed them to vanish, standing up when she was done. Hope also climbed to her feet, moaning stiffly as she stepped over beside Gwen.

"You ready to get some answers?" Gwen asked her.

"You have no idea."

Next up, the motives of Adwaita are unveiled.