On the other side of the gate there was no light. The only reason Martin could see was because Alice shone like a beacon. Wide light circled so far past her feet he didn't realize he had his own orange glow until he looked down to navigate a hole in the road.
No dirt existed inside the hole. It opened to pitch nothingness.
On the outskirts of his vision massive dilapidated structures of unknown material loomed. Piles of debris gathered at their crumbling bases. Hundreds of glassless windows watched, silent and ghostlike.
"This place…" It couldn't be real.
"It's part of the land that existed before the Calamity. Forgotten pieces of an old world that shouldn't exist," Alice said.
"How do you know?"
"I remembered."
Rubble shifted in one of the ruins. Glowing eyes advanced. One by one a pack of coyotes emerged from the edges of Alice's light, skittering down piles of rock and iron, claws clattering on the huge bricked road.
The fighting began and did not stop. They had to smash their way forward. Martin considered it lucky the monsters at the edge of calamity were warped versions of those he'd fought before. Sparks from the Forest of Beginnings showered under Fiersome's hammer. Ahead of him Alice dismissed monsters with precision.
As they traveled the edges of reality faded until there were no more buildings. Still the stone path continued, stretching over the abyss. The further the road went the more it fractured. Broken bits floated in pitch dark. Outside that was nothing. Above, below, and beyond, there was no end to the pure black.
A piece of stone cracked under Martin's boot. Crumble slowly spread out weightlessly into the nothingness. As he walked the road started to feel floaty like standing on planks over water.
"Alice."
"We have to keep going." She didn't look back at him. Dammit she was stubborn.
He kept pace in the center of the path. Up ahead a golden portal swirled. Alice dashed straight for it. Hot glow fizzled over her form, her colors dispersing into particles that disappeared into the darkness. Her shout echoed beyond. "Radea!"
Martin went after her. The atmosphere grew so dense with magic it weighed down on him like poorly fit plate armor. The portal's magic tightened. For a split second he thought the spell might shove him back. Then his foot landed on solid… glass?
The floor looked like glass but it wasn't. Radea lay unmoving on the translucent surface. Alice was on her knees, growling with pain. A giant clock towered over the scene. Its pale face silhouetted a man Martin had never seen before. The stranger's gauntleted hand directed at Alice and kept her down with some unseen force.
Martin charged.
In huge strides he drove himself between Alice and the stranger, intending to tackle the guy. But as soon as Martin got between them his strength vanished to the point he couldn't catch his step. Polished glass floor smashed to his chin. He sprawled forward over the surface, glaring ahead at the man who could only be Gideon.
Martin discovered Gideon's powers the hard way.
In two seconds his fire magic got sucked into a force gathering at Gideon's palm. Then his very essence started to peel away. Drowsiness smothered him. He fought with everything he had to stay conscious. Years of workaholic insomnia kept him awake by a thread. "You're… going to regret this," he wheezed.
Between dying eyelids Gideon blurred.
A rush of wind and weight whooshed over Martin's collapsed body.
Alice plowed into Gideon at full force. The tense thread stealing Martin's life snapped. It stung like crazy and he gasped for air. Ice pooled in his chest. With each breath dead cold leaked further into his insides first with piercing icicles and then an alarming numbness.
Left barely alive he couldn't move.
Weak. You're weak. But you can be strong…
Be quiet!
Gideon went down. Alice's heel pressed to Gideon's chest while she slashed at him again and again. Sparks flew each time her swords crashed with his magic defenses. No human should be able to withstand those types of attacks.
They no longer had the element of surprise. Martin wasn't paying attention to his own situation. Alice was in trouble. Gideon was a big guy, and the perfectly articulated armor protecting his arms was no joke.
One of those blasted gauntlets grabbed Alice by the ankle. Gideon ripped her to the ground, stood, and pulled his sword.
Martin recognized the sword. Final Justice: a relic that'd disappeared along with the earthmates. Despite all the art drawn of the weapon no smith could ever recreate the real thing. Final Justice channeled insane amounts of magic even if the wielder themselves had none. It'd been used to destroy castles, control monsters, fight wars.
Shit.
"Alice…" he groaned. Even if Martin had the lifeforce to warn her, she probably wouldn't hear him over her razor edged battle focus. He tried with all his might to summon fire runeys. Nothing happened.
The crystal floor intensified cold numbness shutting down his internals.
So this must be death, huh. He watched the fight with a strange sense of detachment. All he wanted was for Alice to live.
A crackly voice came from nearby. "Hey… you…"
Radea.
"You better help her," Radea said.
He couldn't talk. He thought he might have enough energy to move a tiny bit if Gideon and Alice came this way. Martin was saving that last strength to trip Gideon.
"There's a piece… of the fathomless dread inside you too…"
What?
"...but you never listened to it, did you?"
The inner voice that told him he'd never be good enough. The one that told him to quit and promised relief if he took a different path. He worked extra hard to shut it up on the nights it was loud.
"I'm going to take it away," Radea said. "Don't make me regret this."
Her arm dragged against the floor to point at him. Slowly clawed fingers started to spread. "Your little brother… never shuts up about you. He's noisy." Radea laughed softly, bitterly to herself. The last phrase Martin heard wasn't meant for him. "...Sorry… Livia…"
His heart exploded.
Martin curled into a ball and screamed. The scar that Alice healed tore open and blinding white pain crushed his skull. "NNNNGH!"
A piercing whine rang in his ears. Hot, hot, hotter than he'd ever been, even standing in front of the forge, even the accidental burns. Lava filled his guts. It choked off his yell.
Pure poison extracted from his soul. In its place all the fire he'd been trying to call back rushed in. It was too much. He couldn't contain the runes. They bled through his system and began burning him from the inside.
On the outside all he could hear was Radea's tortured roar. Dark scales burst across her body and the joints of a dragon wracked inward upon themselves. Agony twisted her features. Radea drew out the corruption that'd been trapped inside him and they both suffered.
Gideon shouted, "No! What are you doing?"
As Radea transformed, fishlike ribs popped from her dragon's chest. The cavity split open and a pulsing core of purple slimy runes glowed inside. It was as if magic itself had been corrupted.
Alice took Gideon's momentary distraction as an opening. Water beams erupted from her palms. The twin jets hit Gideon and burst into roaring waves over his coat. The edges of the fabric frayed. His shoulder pauldron ripped off and was pulverized into metallic dust.
Against the current Gideon calmly walked toward Alice. Final Justice dropped from his hand and clashed on the translucent floor. The same corrupted runeys swirling inside dragon Radea began to leech out of Gideon. Midnight smoking waves circled him.
Alice bared her teeth.
Gideon's fist shot through the laser water and gripped her by the throat. Martin's shield scraped the floor. He stood. It was easy. The power of countless fire runeys surged through his veins. Air in front of him distorted from the heat of his own breath. "Stop."
"Stay down, dog." Gideon threw his hand out at Martin. Once again Gideon's palm sucked the flow of runeys into it—except this time Martin had far too many for that trick to work.
Gideon hissed at the unexpected fierceness of the fire runeys scorching his hand. Pathetic, Martin thought. Burns were an average day at work. This man could never measure up to Master Darroch.
Gideon's grip sank deeper into Alice's throat. She desperately pawed at the hand strangling her. Fury at having to witness this over the short dash it took to close the distance seared through Martin's arms as he lifted Fiersome.
The hammer burst with dragon flame. Buckles holding Martin's armor in place melted, the leather turning brittle and snapping off. Metal clattered on the floor. Fiersome did not care. It burned red hot and only got stronger.
Today he'd be destruction.
Fiersome collided with the arm holding Alice hostage. Bones snapped. Gideon emitted a blood-curdling roar. Alice dropped to the ground coughing, clutching the bruises she'd soon have.
No more.
Martin attacked Gideon with the calculated ruthlessness of a dragon trapped for a thousand years. Gideon's spells evaporated in sizzling fits the instant they came in contact with Martin's flaming aura. Martin himself would soon turn to ash. Not before he achieved his goal, though.
Fiersome smashed repeatedly into Gideon's buckling black magic barriers. Something unholy protected this person and Fiersome was going to wreck it.
"Your hearts are full of hate," Gideon spat. "Every last one of you."
Martin didn't waste his breath on anything other than pummeling Gideon. Sinew strained under Fiersome's heft. The hammer flew up and soared downward.
CRACK
Gideon stumbled backwards. "Fathomless dread, lend me your power! Forget the dragon and join me! Together we'll bring about true justice. No crime, no war; if the cost is these lives here I'll pay it! Please!"
Bones jutting from Radea's chest emerged further. Her horrible cry mixed between monster and human. The pulsing sick orb inside her drifted outward. Crystallized spines and fins started to sprout from it before the orb shot in a pure abyssal beam straight to Gideon.
"Yes. YES!" The man laughed insanely. He absorbed a second piece of fathomless dread.
Then he coughed up blood.
Fiersome shook in Martin's grip. Blackened scorches crisped his bare arms. He couldn't lift the hammer anymore. He didn't need to.
Gideon stared in shock at the crimson splatter at his feet. "What is… happening?"
Fevered fire within Martin broke across his forehead and curled the tips of his hair. He sank to his knees as he burned alive from the inside. He knew what was happening to Gideon because it was happening to him too. A human body couldn't survive as a host for this much rune energy.
Alice was at Martin's side. She called his name. Her hand touched his shoulder. She yanked it back with a yelp; she'd been burned.
"Sorry," he said. For being unable to stop it. For leaving so soon when they'd barely been together.
He was tired. He decided to lay down. Alice fussed over him and spewed words, then healing magic. But it couldn't stop the runes boiling his blood. He'd expected it. She was still talking to him, begging him to pull it together. He loved her voice. Really, he loved her. That was all. It was a very simple thing in the end.
In front of them Gideon gripped his head and groaned. More blood leaked.
Radea's broken body lay on the edge of the platform.
Alice pounded her fists on the crystal floor before trying yet another healing spell. It changed nothing. "Sorry," Martin whispered.
Alice would live. He was glad.
The flecks of runic energy stirring Radea's mane quit moving.
All of the magic at the edge of time froze. Then it started flowing in one direction: Gideon.
Fire runeys following the vortex sapped out of Martin's spirit. It eased his pain, but added to the ominous charge gathering over the battlefield. Atmosphere tensed the way it did before a lightning strike.
Everything went silent.
No.
"Alice—!"
The world exploded. Gideon's body was eviscerated in an instant. The blast ripped through reality and engulfed everyone.
The last thing Martin knew was a wall of purple energy.
Then there was nothi…
..
.