Gwyndolin wasted no time and immediately cast a deluge of spells in Snowflame's direction.

Following his lead, Sargon teleported behind the two female assassins and animated the concrete ground. The two women were forced to dodge as concrete tendrils grew from the ground and attempted to constrict them.

One of the women had enough skill to continuously shoot arrows at Sargon while jumping through the air, but the sorcerer's clothes came alive and snatched any approaching projectile out of the air.

The other managed to effortlessly cut through tendrils and crates with a pair of scissors, but was unable to approach Sargon as more and more animated objects threw themselves into her path.

Gwyndolin kept one of his serpents watching the fight, but otherwise turned the rest of his attention to Snowflame.

The metahuman was responding to his spells with a steady stream of fireballs that intercepted his Soul Spheres as he charged toward Gwyndolin.

Ignoring the metahuman's incoherent yelling as he approached, Gwyndolin cast a Snap Freeze with twice as much power as he had used prior, and followed up with a powerful Soul Sphere.

An icy fog streamed across the battlefield, instantly freezing everything it touched. When it reached Snowflame, his flames were almost completely doused and ice started to creep along his body. If the mortal were a normal person or a metahuman without pyrokinesis and superior durability, he would have immediately been frozen solid by that spell.

As it was, the magic simply served as a way to stop Snowflame from using his fire to stop the Soul Sphere from smashing into his body and pushing him into a wall with enough force to shake the entire building.

Having had well enough of the metahuman not staying down when he should, Gwyndolin followed the spell with a Soul Stream.

However, he did hold back a little. After all, he didn't want to destroy the building.

A blinding beam of blue light emitted from the end of Gwyndolin's catalyst and fired directly into Snowflame over a five-second period.

When the spell finished, Gwyndolin was surprised and exasperated to see that while Snowflame was struggling to stand and frantically throwing white powder onto his body, the criminal had still not given up. Why were the warriors of this world so unreasonably durable?

Gwyndolin started to cast another spell that he hoped would finally force the metahuman nuisance to stop fighting.

With a muttered curse, Gwyndolin dodged to the side as his spell was interrupted by an arrow for the second time. It was only after the arrow passed that he realized it was not made of Nth metal, and thus, would not have pierced his shield. The assassin likely intended to continue taking advantage of his caution as a way to stop him from finishing off Snowflame.

He was tempted to turn his attention to the assassin, but experience told him that would be a mistake. Snowflame was already beginning to heal at an accelerated rate by absorbing more of the white drug littering the building.

Gwyndolin had thought the metahuman's regeneration would be unable to keep up with his spells, but it seems like he was mistaken.

Pushing his magic into his catalyst, Gwyndolin cast a spell that would destroy all of the crates between him on Snowflame.

The Soul Vortex traveled slowly, pulling all of the drugs into its orbit and firing projectiles in every direction. A Snap Freeze cast over the entire area caused all the white powder in the building to be encased in ice. Now, if Snowflame wished to access the drug, he would need to burn it first.

As Gwyndolin continued throwing a barrage of spells at Snowflame—with the metahuman responding by throwing debris at high speeds—the fight between Sargon and the assassins was deteriorating.

Sargon was an experienced superhero with decades of experience and a powerful magical artifact, but his enemies were more than capable of keeping up with him.

The woman with the scissors seemed to possess some degree of resistance to magic and superhuman strength that allowed her to destroy the sorcerer's animations. The assassin with the bow possessed a degree of skill and agility along with her own magical abilities that made her difficult to pin down.

Their strategy was obvious to Gwyndolin. They intended to outlast the elderly superhero while ensuring Gwyndolin was unable to finish defeating his opponent. Normally this would not work against Sargon given he was very fit for his age and well-experienced against enemies that thought their endurance greater than his own.

Unfortunately, he'd yet to realize that neither of these women was human. Gwyndolin was not quite certain what they were, but he could tell that they were both magical entities of some variety.

It was starting to look more and more like he would not be able to capture his enemies alive.

As if seeking to prove this thought correct, Snowflame suddenly roared at the top of his lungs and charged at Gwyndolin at his fastest speed. Unlike his previous attempts, this time he moved fast enough that Gwyndolin was unable to cast another spell before he arrived.

However, he did not panic and simply sent forward all his serpents and swung his catalyst at the metahuman as he arrived. This time, Snowflame did not allow himself to be pushed off balance and instead tried to catch Gwyndolin in a hold.

The two of them traded blows for several moments, while the metahuman tried to pin Gwyndolin down. Using his nonhuman legs, Gwyndolin was easily able to avoid Snowflame with his atypical movement.

He was confident he would be able to eventually defeat the mortal and capture him alive so he could be interrogated, but it seemed like he would not have enough time. By now, Sargon had noticed his opponents were not tiring even as he himself started to slow, but there was nothing he could do without retreating.

Knowing that there was little hope at this point for him to capture the criminals without endangering Sargon, Gwyndolin decided to end the fight.

"Sargon! To me!"

With the reflexes of an experienced superhero, Sargon ducked beneath the swipe of scissors sharp enough to take off his head and teleported to Gwyndolin without hesitation.

Maybe it was the tone of Gwyndolin's voice that tipped Snowflame off, or maybe it was just a result of his instincts, but at that moment, he made a decision that potentially saved his life.

"Oh fucking shit," said Snowflame, as he turned and ran for the exit.

A moment later, Gwyndolin turned his head to the retreating metahuman and his serpents to female assassins.

The White Dragon Breath was a spell created by Seath the Scaleless that emits a beam of energy from the sorcerer's catalyst that turns everything it touches into crystals. However, Gwyndolin was unfortunate enough to have known Seath personally, and as a result, he knew a spell much closer to the original dragon breath.

Gwyndolin and his serpents all unhinged their jaws far beyond what a human would be capable of and shot out breaths of white mist from all their mouths. Immediately, piercing white crystals started to grow on every surface touched by the mist, and concrete and steel either found itself destroyed or converted.

By the time Gwyndolin was done casting his spell, he and Sargon were standing in the only unaffected area of a building made entirely of protruding crystals.

Gwyndolin returned his jaw to its normal dimensions and tasted the air for magic. It seemed like the magical entities had managed to escape because the only magic he could taste in the air was Sargon's and his own.

It was vexing that he'd not been able to capture them, but he was confident they would not be able to escape him a second time. After all, next time he intended to be the one doing the ambushing.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Gwyndolin turned to his ally.

He ignored the disturbed look in Sargon's eyes and quickly checked him for injuries; he was not surprised at the man's reaction. People rarely reacted well when they saw him unhinge his jaw, or perhaps the mortal was disturbed by the strength of his magic. It mattered little.

"Our enemies have escaped. There is nothing left for us to do here."

Gwyndolin's words must have pulled the man out of his thoughts, because the elderly superhero turned his attention away from the crystal building and quickly agreed.

"Yes, let's get out of here before the cops show up," said Sargon. With a silent casting, the elderly sorcerer telekinetically called the discarded Nth metal arrow to his hand. "I need to call some people and figure out where this came from. Nth metal is extremely rare and highly regulated. The Medusa Syndicate might be more dangerous than I expected."

Gwyndolin looked at the arrow that was still stained with his blood and signaled his agreement with a nod.

Before Sargon could protest, Gwyndolin grabbed the superhero and teleported them both away in a flash of light.

[hr]

Cameron Chase allowed none of her annoyance to show on her face as he presented her identification to the useless Miami cop guarding the perimeter of the crime scene.

Well… useless might be a strong word. It's not like she knew the kid, but the entire department had proven itself completely incapable of gathering information on Slither—now known as Gwyndolin—so Cameron was in no mood to be charitable.

Her own investigation was not having much more luck, but her interrogations of the local criminals had provided evidence that this superhero was one of the magical variety. That and the D.E.O's magical specialists claiming that "something weird" was going down in Miami and the wide variety of abilities the target had so far displayed.

Walking past the cop with a smile and thanks, Cameron set her eyes on one of those abilities and was reluctantly impressed. There weren't very many people who could turn a large building into a giant crystal sculpture, after all.

Walking past the cops who were wandering around and doing nothing of importance, Cameron approached the man who lead the most useless police department south of Gotham City.

She had no idea why the Miami Chief of Police decided he needed to personally go to the scene of Gwyndolin's latest fight, but Pablo Perez was not a man prone to rational decisions.

The rotund Police Chief was busy yelling at some of the forensic people about their inability to find anything that would help them catch Gwyndolin. That man seemed completely unconcerned that he was currently standing near a building that was, by all accounts, used to store a massive amount of drugs.

To be fair, the Cartel pays him a lot of money to be unconcerned, Cameron mused to herself.

"Excuse me, Chief Perez? I'm Agent Cameron Chase with the D.E.O," said Cameron, drawing the man's attention away from the poor forensics worker. "I'm here to ask you a few questions about the vigilante known as Gwyndolin."

"Huh? D.E.O? Are the feds finally getting serious about getting this freak off my streets?"

No. I'm here to make friends with him so he'll be willing to feed me information when he gets recruited by the Justice League, Cameron thought to herself. Obviously, that's not something I'm going to tell this clown.

"Yes, Chief Perez. Any information you can give me would be very helpful."

Cameron gently guided the man with sympathetic smiles as he whined and complained about "freakish vigilantes" and "worthless detectives."

However, by the time she was finished interrogating the Chief of Police, Cameron came to the conclusion that the man did not know much more than what was included in their systems. The only thing new she had learned was that the Cartel was likely getting hit pretty hard if Pablo was so eager to find the vigilante.

With a smile that did not reach her eyes, Cameron thanked the man for his time and left the crime scene.

It was starting to look like if she wanted to find Gwyndolin so she could make her approach, she would need to start leaning more heavily on the Department's resources.

At least I've found a suitable peace offering when I finally find the guy. He should be willing to hear me out if the D.E.O helps to clean up the Miami police department, right?

Maybe some of the local members of the magical community would know something?

According to her briefing, there was an old magical superhero who used to operate back in the Justice Society's days that lives in the city. Apparently, he worked for some big fish nowadays, because bones had told her to step lightly and be polite if she approached him.

Cameron held back a sigh as it became increasingly obvious she would need to approach him.

Hopefully, he would know something.

—-

AN: Going to focus on my other story, so updates for this will become more sporadic.

If you're interested in a Warcraft SI, feel free to check out my other story. A Nerubian's Journey.

If you want to chat, feel free to hit me up on discord. Info in my profile