Chapter 10 Part One: Battle Under a Seashell Sky

The team was sitting in a loose mob in the Park proper, next to the river. Animated chatter concerning the battles was prevalent before a call to order was issued by the leader. "The first thing we should do is target the kid and knock her out from the get-go. That way, we can focus all of our firepower on Iceflame without worrying about some sort of sneak attack." Marcas had had enough of Nicole's antics, and wasn't going to suffer through a loss because he underestimated her again. A chorus of "yes"s from the gathered Fir Darrig sealed the deal, followed by an admittedly pertinent question from Dean: "But what about Iceflame? Like Abraxus said, he's a Master Wizard; are you sure you two can beat him?"

"Trust me, if he's anything like the Wizards from before, his defenses won't hold up under sustained fire."

"I have a question," Phil said, hand raised.

"Shoot, Freezy-pop."

"Actually, i-it's Phil—"

"My god, I was joking. Lighten up a little, won't ya?"

"…"

"Anyway, question?"

"Yeah, um, who is Iceflame? H-hold on a second!" Phil cried, as his compatriots groaned. "I just mean, like, who is he? And how do you know him?"

Marcas inspected a scar on the back of his hand, weighing just how much to tell the new conscript. Not much time. Better keep it brief. "You ever heard of Malistaire Drake?"

"Sheesh, who hasn't? The guy ripped through half the Spiral in, like, half a decade or something for some reason. And now he's disappeared or in hiding or whatever. Why?"

"Not sure if anyone knows why he did what he did, and not many more than that know exactly what he was doing, either, but I know for a fact that he's dead. And Iceflame killed him." The group erupted in exclamations of shock and dismay; if nothing else, everyone knew that Malistaire was, if not the most powerful, certainly the most skilled Duelist in the known Spiral. To be not only defeated, but slain, would place his victor in a league away from the Fir Darrig by an order of magnitude. Only Abraxus remained suspiciously silent, a fact not overlooked by Anathema. Gliding smoothly in front of him, she crossed her arms (as much as she could manage to, anyway) and glared at the Ghoul, the latter not reacting one way or the other, merely meeting her gaze calmly.

"You knew." It wasn't a question, but Abraxus grunted his confirmation regardless. She turned to Marcas, eyes flaring. "So is there anyone else you decided to tell before the rest of your team? Like a mailman, or your barber—"

"I don't have a barber—"

"Or maybe the thunder of dragons that weave through the alleyways at night?!"

"I don't understand why this is a big deal."

"Because you didn't tell any of us, Marcas! We didn't even know this guy existed until he exploded into the damn street! How long did YOU know about him, huh?!" Cracker croaked in agreement, one beady eye turned on him.

So not the exact truth, but… "About eight months now, but—"

"But?! There is no but, Marcas! You were sitting on this for EIGHT DAMN MONTHS! How do you justify that!?"

"Because I didn't have any reason to tell anyone, Annie! He didn't even know who we were before today! He only ever came here because the OTHER Wizard asked him to!" He rubbed his temples, trying to maintain his grip on his temper, and continuing when he regained his cool. "Why would I put my entire operation at risk by keeping a potential threat a secret from my elite warriors? He's a recluse who hasn't left his home once in the past six months. Odds were good he shut himself away permanently."

Annie was still glaring at him, but the flames in her eyes dimmed and she backed up slightly. A sigh of relief escaped the rest of the assembled fighters barring, of course, Abraxus, who only smiled thinly. "Then why tell him?" she asked bitingly, waving an arm toward the Ghoul.

"I didn't. He told me. Before he lost his voice, he used to be a fighter in the Grand Arena, where Iceflame is Champion. Well, was Champion; I have no idea who it is now. I can maybe ask the Spider if she knows. You know, if she hasn't outlawed it yet."

"…Oh." That was as much of an apology as she was going to make, and both of the accused welcomed it as such.

"Yeah, oh. Look, Iceflame and the other one are coming now, so let's leave this until this whole mess is dealt with. In the meantime, I need you four to deal with those idiots in Triton Avenue; it shouldn't take you more than an hour, so I'll see you back at base when this is done. Let's roll." Not waiting for an answer, he walked toward the street, Phil following him after a moment of confusion.

They walked along without a word, until Phil broke the silence:

"Do you really think we can beat him?"

"Ye."

"Despite knowing how much stronger he is than us?"

"Ye."

"How?"

"The moves make the man. Or the victor, in this case."

"What move do you have that can beat him?"

"A combination of moves, actually, but a combination that he'll have never seen before. What about you? You have any extra-special spell that can turn the tide in a match?"

"I was only here for three days before we got sucked into this."

"Holy crap, you were with us for three days and we still didn't know your name? You have absolutely no presence."

"Yeah, don't remind me…"

The duo made it to the middle of the street, an area roughly fifteen feet across and relatively clear of the mounds of rubble that choked the rest of the Way. The two heard the sound of laughter coming closer; their opponents were in high spirits, it seemed.

"Remember, the kid first, and then we pile it on the Wizard," Marcas said to his partner, as they watched the aforementioned pair round the corner.

"R-right..."

He clapped the nervous Bunny on the shoulder. "We're gonna be fine, okay? We got this." He smiled good-naturedly, as Phil relaxed somewhat.

"O-okay."

At Around The Same Time…

"Oh god, I'm so nauseous. Couldn't you have healed me up a little smoother, Chrome?" The healing wasn't painful by any means—that would be sort of counterproductive—but there something about seeing charred skin burst into blooms of new silver flesh as if in slow-motion and cuts painstakingly seam themselves smoothly back together that was almost trippy.

Chrome didn't answer until she took a small wooden cup from a Pixie and had a sip, eyebrow raised all the while. "I sacrificed comfort for thoroughness; you're going to need it, if you'll remember. It'll pass in a bit, don't worry. In the meantime, have a drink—they aren't alcoholic, Will, so stop gulping them down like that—and let's think of a plan together this time, okay?" I could swear to god she did it on purpose to get back at me; for what, I didn't know, but I could only guess that it had to do with how I won; without adrenaline coursing through me I realized just how lucky I was that Carbuncle was my opponent instead of any of the other, older Fir Darrig. Either they wouldn't have the patience to see what I was going to do, and simply blast me point-blank, or else my punch wouldn't have knocked them out. I could see Chrome's frustration: if I kept this type of decision-making up, I probably wouldn't live long enough to regret it. Of course, I had this vein of thought before, well before my gamble, and I clear forgot it the moment a fight began to catch my attention. I really ought to fix that, I thought, and then grimaced; I had that thought before, too.

I looked around the Hedge Maze; we retreated there to heal and plan our next move. "Not that there's much to plan out, in any case."

"I wouldn't say that," Nicholas said, startling me; I didn't realize that I said that out loud. "We'll need a strategy to up our effectiveness in this battle. But that, I think, can come later. For now, unwinding for a few minutes to get our minds back to base is the best course of action." He took off his hat and lied down, placing it on his face to block out the light. Will, sitting next to his mentor in a half-lotus position, sighed disappointedly at the small cup in his hand and said, "I don't see why you had to get my hopes up, though; I mean, why even serve water in shot glasses?"

"These cups are made of wood, not glass," Chrome retorted. "And they're made for Fae hands, as you clearly failed to notice." Will looked at the cup nestled snugly in Chrome's hands. "…Huh."

"I always ignore him when he's like this," Nicholas said, his voice slightly muffled by his hat. "Anytime he's focused on something, he's blind to even the most obvious clues until he puzzles the first thing out."

"Oh, so you have a question?" Chrome asked the Sorcerer, who had pulled off his hood and was now raking his fingers through his azure hair, trying to fashion it into something more to his liking than its current, decidedly nondescript style. After fussing with it until it half looked like an actual bird's nest, he patted it back into place resignedly before answering. "Not much of a question, but when we all first met, you got Nick's name first try. How'd you guess?"

Chrome leaned back as far as was safe; sitting on the path as we were, she didn't exactly have anything to support her. "Honestly," she began, "I wouldn't have picked up on it if it hadn't been for Nicole."

I blinked, completely at a loss for any example that could have led to "Nick". She saw my confusion, and added in a small voice, "You said it at one point back when I was healing you the first time."

THAT… was even more confusing. "So I already knew the name? And I'm the one who gave it to you, only for you to "trigger" me later? How… what even… ugh. Amnesia is just… so, so dumb, you guys."

Nicholas sat up, gaze intent as it bored into mine. "Amnesia? I didn't hear about that."

I shrugged, a bit nonplussed at the realization that I forgot to tell him that part. There are an awful lot of realizations today, huh? "Well you can hear about it now." I told him the highlights of the start of my day (though really at that point it was well into the afternoon). Lips pursed in thought, he said, "How do you feel? You seem okay, but it certainly couldn't have been easy, waking up and discovering that that's as far back as you can remember."

I shrugged. "No real reason for me to get all that broken up about it. After all, it's all I've ever known."

After lying on the ground for another minute or so, he said, "I can give you some insight about that dream you had, though."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I can almost guarantee that that voice belonged to Rattlebones. It makes sense, considering he made you."

"Hmmp… so why'd he scream at the end?"

Chrome piped up then. "Most likely because you attacked him; I mean, it wouldn't be an especially novel scenario. Rattlebones was always making these stronger and stronger monsters, only for them to turn on him, either because they were mentally unstable, still had their memories and wanted revenge, or because they just didn't like him." She shrugged. "Anyway, you two really should start strategizing now. Verdant?" The Pixie from earlier dutifully began collecting cups (she needed to call another Pixie to help carry all of Will's).

"We'll take these back to the storeroom, no worries, but, um, we also need some grass seed."

Chrome scrunched her nose in confusion. "North Storeroom, like all the other gardening items. The key's in the lock. I thought the cannonball landed in a hedge; why would you need grass seed?"

Verdant shrugged, lifting off the ground slightly. "It did, but there's a burned patch of grass clear on the other side of the Maze! None of us have any idea what made it, 'cause whatever it was, it's not there now. Well, we're off. Good luck in your fight!" They flitted off, leaving Will and Chrome staring at me knowingly. My face began to burn, which sparked comments from the peanut gallery:

"Um, your face is turning gray. Is that normal?"

"Methinks she's blushing." The two chuckled good-naturedly, with Chrome sobering up first. In any case, do either of you have a strategy, or are we going to cobble one out in the next—" she checked a nearby sundial "—five minutes?"

I raised my hand. "I've got one."

Nicholas sat up, rolling out a crick in his neck. "Then by all means, shoot."

"I have a specific technique that may be a little hard to grasp at first, but that I'm sure you'll take to admirably; it's called "beat the other guy senseless"."

Will snickered into his hand, as Chrome immediately voiced her disapproval: "Okay, so clearly you're a poisoned well of knowledge, so—" she was cut off as Nicholas hopped to his feet.

"Baller, let's do it," he said, causing Will to laugh out loud and Chrome to start sputtering incoherently: "Wha—you jus—I—just—" She finally put her head in her hands to muffle a scream born of sheer incredulity of the situation. I patted her shoulder tentatively. "Welp, later girl scout," I said before zooming toward the park again, though not before I heard her renew her scream, this time full of rage.

The Battlefield

The sound of metal clashing against metal rang throughout the way. The clangs continued as Marcas tried to force his way past Iceflame to get a clean shot at Nicole, with Phil getting stonewalled in much the same way. The Necromancer's spear was a golden blur, instantly and effortlessly turning aside any attack, physical or otherwise, that the two elites managed to unleash; most of their energy was spent avoiding his attacks.

Diving out of the way of yet another thrust from the Wizard, the Fae summoned his Stormblade, the massive energy construct glowing an especially potent amethyst in the light of the setting sun. Iceflame's face showed surprise before returning to its expressionless default, but, as the Fir Darrig noted with an internal smile, his spear flashed anew with Death energy before he charged his smaller opponent. The "blades" met with a clash, locking against each other for a moment before the fighters pulled away, only to unleash a flurry of hits. The resulting whirlwind of blows was sustained by two constants:

1. Iceflame was stronger, and

2. Marcas was better.

He was honestly worried about that, despite the fact that such a gap in skill would be logically unfeasible, considering that he would have had to attain it in the past year. But then, he's a Master Wizard, he thought, and he's only been training for four years. Feasibility really shouldn't be my guide in this fight. Ducking under a heavy swing, he jabbed at the Wizard, only for him to sidestep and whack him with the shaft, knocking him away. Skidding along the ground, he nearly fell over, but managed to keep his footing, only to be knocked down by a wave of ice. He broke out of the quickly growing crystals, but it was no good: Iceflame had already launched a deadly javelin of fire, sending it roaring toward his head. He jumped backwards with a curse, landing on his back, but allowing the javelin to fly over him unimpeded. He saw Iceflame rush forward, his spear illuminating the widening grin on his face. He stabbed down, changing the spear's focus from Fire to Ice, but Marcas rolled into a handstand and pushed off, delivering a punishing kick to his chest. He staggered away, winded but unharmed.

The two had only begun to catch their breath when a large—but impotent—fireball struck Marcas from behind. Leaping to the side, he caught sight of Nicole flitting over to Iceflame instead of pressing her (admittedly meager) advantage. Completely emotionally drained by the events of the day, he barely felt a twinge of annoyance when they began to argue right in front of him. Well, Nicole argued; Iceflame just stood there with a vague smile on his face.

"I told you I was going to be the one to fight him, dammit!" Nicole shouted, blind to the vast difference between her and her preferred opponent's power and skill levels. "Just fight Phil or something!"

"Hey, you said that you wanted to fight him," Iceflame said calmly, "and you will. But only after I get what I came here for."

"And that is?!"

"A good fight, and some information." The last word was directed at Marcas, who nearly jumped; he had been mentally listing all the things he had done wrong that day, and proposing alternate courses of action. As he scanned for potential weaknesses in their defense, a small, trembling pile of rocks inching closer to his opponents alerted him to the presence of Phil. Dropping his stance, he leaned against a nearby slab of rock, meeting Nicole's glare with a toothy grin. "Information, eh? Sure, I could use a breather. What do you wanna know?"

Iceflame's right eye flashed as he hitched his spear behind his back, with his left remaining unchanged. "First off," he began, "Exactly who and what are you, and where did you come from? You're clearly not in the same class as most of the monsters in this World."

Marcas snickered. "Let me assure you Iceflame, I am a native of Wizard City."

"Unless you were born in the past year, I'll have to call bullcrap. I'd have felt a power like yours long before now."

"It's funny you should mention that, but I need to explain the whole situation in order for you to get it. Fair?" The Wizard waved for him to continue, and Nicole, interested despite herself, nodded slightly. "Good. Now, what do you know about Rattlebones?"

Iceflame thought for a moment. "Basically nothing. Malistaire got him to make Bone Cages, Eric Deathblade killed- well, beat him, and then he laid low until now to do all of this." He made a sweeping motion with his arm, acknowledging the ruined landscape. "What about him- wait."

"Please save your theories until after the lecture! Yes, Rattlebones survived the battle, and initially, he was content to try and reclaim his role as Wizard City's chief destroyer. But there was a fatal oversight in his plan…" He paused, waiting for someone to push the question. Eventually, Nicole spat a venomous, "What?" at him.

"He was weak, too weak to take on even an Apprentice Wizard. Anytime he tried to rise, the top brass of Ravenwood sent some kid out on pest control, and the moment they met him they smacked him back down again. Wizard City is cruel to the evil."

"My heart bleeds. Why is any of this important?" Iceflame appeared to be growing bored. Time to kick it up a notch.

"If I recall correctly, you were one of these Wizards, Iceflame."

"Still don't see why you're talking about this. Nearly everyone in my year did; it was basically another test to slog through."

"But Rattlebones kept you in mind specifically." He snickered again at the Wizard's blank look. "No idea why, huh? Trust me, it makes sense. He considered the loss against you to be the last straw."

"Why, because I wanted to know where Eric was?"

"No, because you beat the shit out of him when you found out he didn't have anything you wanted. A beatdown like that, from someone that close to the bane of his existence? He snapped. He went underground and began making all sorts of new creatures in an attempt to take over Wizard City for himself. But there was an oversight in that plan, too…" Seeing the fierce glare Nicole flashed him, he chuckled and continued, "Everything he made tried to kill him for one reason or another. Not surprising, considering he took Unicorn Way residents and experimented on them to make 'em his minions. The only things that bother listening to him are the Shadows, and they're mainly surveillance, aside from the occasional "supply run". BUT, thanks to them, Rattlebones created the seven most powerful beings in the Spiral: the Fir Darrig."

"Oh, Goddamn it."

"Oh, it gets better! With each of us belonging to a different School of magic, and possessing unique abilities, we were tasked to raze Wizard City, and hunt you down and kill you!"

Iceflame gave him a strange look. "Then why didn't you? It'll be coming on to a year now since your "birth" judging by context clues, but Wizard City's still standing and last time I checked, I'm still breathing."

"Yeaaah… the orders didn't take." Not exactly true; though Rattlebones's skill and power programming was done through the incubation tanks' individual matrices, his "conditioning" was delivered orally while the Fir Darrig gestated. While this mainly annoyed them to the point of rebellion, it also left a nagging mental urge to kill Iceflame for Marcas at least. It was easily ignored, but was a source of constant irritation. "We blew him up and went to a building full of Dark Fairies. As a matter of fact," he said, pointing to Nicole, "you might've been one of them." A stifled gasp, quickly followed by a breathless demand for details, filled Marcas with a small amount of mirth. Leaning back, he shrugged and let the other shoe drop: "You know, one of the few we didn't kill in there."

He almost felt bad seeing her expression morph from surprise to horror, quickly followed by rage. Almost. He was worried by Iceflame, though; before settling in a grim expression, his face showed actual anger instead of the annoyance Marcas was beginning to suspect was his strongest emotion. "Then what?" the Necromancer asked in a clipped tone.

"Simply put, we planned another course: control over whatever World each of us wished. I stayed behind, claiming this World for myself, while the others went on ahead, each one hoping to conquer one for themselves." The rock pile look-alike inched closer and closer to the stock-still Nicole. Grinning wider, Marcas slowly slid a throwing knife from a hidden fold in his duster, keeping it out of sight of his opponents. He was loath to use such an underhanded tactic, but he held no illusions: they were equally matched now, but Iceflame was wearing him down, and would eventually overwhelm him. I am not going to lose my World to him.

Iceflame contemplated for a while before responding. "Exactly what are you doing in Wizard City? You can't be conquering still; it's been a year now. You should either have been ruling or shut down at this point."

Marcas growled, surprising the Wizard. "I had a concise plan," he said, keeping an eye on Phil, "that had very few hiccups in the beginning: the creation of an army, made up of native residents of Wizard City, so as not to attract notice; training said army beyond their normal capabilities; take this World one street and neighborhood at a time, until Ravenwood was cut off completely, cutting down all opposition in our way; and finally, either push a surrender and exile or complete slaughter of the surviving Heads of the School. But for some reason or another, though we have taken all of the more… hostile streets, we only got a response from them a few months ago: a four-person team of Adepts, weaker than your friend Will. Anathema, Abraxus and I took care of them with ease, but no one else showed up. I later found out from one of my spies that the top brass are covering my takeover up, closing off streets to the areas they control, and telling the citizens and students that the streets in question are either quarantined or being repaired after a gas line explosion. The only street that hasn't been closed off was the already abandoned Unicorn Way. First thing we needed in the takeover was a real base, so me and my elite soldiers were going to take THAT." He made a sharp motion indicating the out of sight Hedge Maze. "BUT, as we all know, she hindered me long enough for you Wizards to get here. And that's that."

Iceflame snorted. "That plan may have worked, if not for one thing: the monsters in Wizard City are kept absurdly weak by Spiral standards, thanks to Bartleby. By the way, what are you planning to do with the World Tree, anyway? It's not like you can just ignore him, and killing him kills the Spiral altogether, assuming you could actually do it, which I doubt."

He almost let it slip then, absorbed in the conversation as he was. He managed to bite his tongue, though, and instead shrugged noncommittally. "I'll burn that bridge when I get to it, don't worry."

Iceflame raised a brow at the non-answer, but simply shrugged in kind before standing up. "Well, thanks for story-time, but I think it's time we wrapped this up. I hope your little adventure this past year was worth it, because it just cost you your freedom and probably some range of motion for a while, because I'm going to kick your ass from here to the Dueling Arena before I throw you in a perfectly sized jail cell for treason."

Marcas straightened up, knife still hidden. "Is that right? I'm sorry to say, friend, that that's not going to happen." To Nicole's credit, she immediately leapt up from her seat, wise to the trick, right as Phil burst from his disguise with a hoarse war cry. She tried to veer out of the way, but was slashed from shoulder to opposite hip by his trench spike, and fell to the ground, black blood splattering across the cobbles.

Iceflame already had spear in hand, moving to impale the frozen Bunny. "Oh, and also!" Marcas called, and Iceflame snapped his head to him.

"You're-" whatever he was going to say was cut off by Marcas's knife burying itself into his left eye. He staggered back a few steps, and fell flat on his back, dust kicking up when he hit the ground.

"And that's the end of that. Good job Phil." It was perfect really; once they hid the bodies, their friends (if they showed up at all) could be deflected with some quick story about them leaving to deal with a lead or somesuch. Will would understand and be annoyed, while Chrome would be convinced by Will. And now this spaz, he thought belatedly, watching Phil's incessant hand wringing go on for nearly a minute. "Phil, what are you doing?"

"I, uh, I… geez, man, I didn't wanna, um, k-kill anybody. I didn't know I'd c-c-cut her t-that deep…"

"Well you did, and now we have to hide both of these guys before their friends come. Come on, Iceflame first, and watch… your… step… huh."

Phil was confused. "What do you mean? What happen—" he felt a tap on his shoulder. Whirling around, he saw… Nicole, who was alive and absolutely livid, as evidenced by her solid-black eyes. She stuck out her hand, palm up, and Phil, petrified and smart enough to comply, meekly handed her his trench spike. After sizing up the weapon, she decked him across the face with the knuckled grip. Marcas watched him tumble to the ground, dazed. Well, that happened, he thought, as the Dark Fairy stalked toward him. She lifted the spike, preparing a downward swing, but he pulled it away from her with ease, kicking her back. "I can feel the killing intent from here," he said, eyeing the spike before tossing it aside, "but superpowered, your evil side is not. Thanks to that cut, you're actually weaker than you were before. And seeing as I'm your opponent…" With a flash, his Stormblade burst into existence in his hand, "I don't think the odds are in your favor." She rushed him, only to come to a stop some feet away from him and clutch her shoulder, hissing in pain. Swinging out, he let loose a gust of wind that flung her into the far wall, near Iceflame's- "For the love of-"

He ducked out of reach of the golden spear racing for his head, and watched it zoom back to its thrower. " MotherFUCKER! What does it take, huh!? What the hell does it take!? Look at you! You still have the damn knife in your eye, damn it! Why aren't—" Iceflame plucked out the knife, eye still attached—"you… uh… wha…"

"Glass."

"Ah."

"Mind you, I still used it to see, but, ya know, them's the works. Gotta hand it to you though, you're certainly more trouble than I thought you would be, so as a sort of thank you, I'm going to show you my transformation."

Pardon? "T…transformation? What, like a Polymorph?" He grinned. "Big deal. You're gonna be about as strong as you were already, just with different moves. And that missing eye counts against you more than you know."

"Oh, no doubt. But there's another flaw with my transformation…"

"Yeah, what?"

"I can't hide my power in it."

"Wait, what?" But it was already happening: a high wind picked up, blowing off of Iceflame in pressurized waves, their cacophony only drowned out by his scream. It went on, and on, and on… Marcas began to think—began to hope—that something went wrong, that the Wizard was dying… and then… everything stopped.