Before the clouds part

‘WHY DID I THINK I WAS WINNING!?’

“AHHH!” Mina screamed as she skated out of the way of another fire blast. She then attempted to freeze the phoenix to the ground with an ice arrow to it’s talons, and while the arrow did hit and hurt it, the ice evaporated almost instantly, and she was forced to duck away as it sent some flaming talon slashes at her in response.

‘I am totally not ready for this yet! I need way more training, I need help, I need something!’ She mentally screamed as she made more and more ice paths to help her dodge the slashes and other fire blasts the phoenix was sending at her. In a panic, she turned to see if anyone could help her at all, only to be heavily disappointed.

Dory was done being merciful to his wife. He’d decided enough was enough and had started going all out against her, sending slash after powerful slash at her, his swings so fast that Natalia was only able to block and dodge about half of them. The only thing keeping Natalia in the fight at this point was her barrier and healing magic, and the fact that Dory was only using the flats of his blades to attack her.

Then off to the side closer to the trees, Iro was doing better than Natalia, but she was still on the back foot. Her advantage in skill and familiarity with her opponents was of little use as she was being boxed in. Nik’s aggressive mindless assault was made vastly more deadly thanks to Agapi’s methodical assistance. The older woman utilized her sword and sky blasts to either force Iro into Nik’s strikes, or took advantage of openings Iro left when she avoided Nik. And this was only going to get worse as the pair were pushing Iro back into the trees, soon to have her pressed up against the wall.

Lastly Jordan was doing the best of all of them, but even he wasn’t winning. He was turtled down on the ground playing defence while Athan and Lefteris flew around him, peppering him with all sorts of different slashes and spells. Jordan was able to get a few attacks of his own in, a few icy flying slashes, but Athan and Lefteris were both quick enough that none of them were more than a glancing blow.

At this point Mina realized she was no longer being attacked by fire, and quickly turned back to the phoenix wondering what was going on, only to pale at the sight. The phoenix had seemingly decided that it was done playing around, and it had risen up into the air where it began absorbing all the fire around them, just like before.

Seeing this, Mina could only drop to her knees in defeat. She knew there was no way she could avoid or defend against the attack, there was absolutely nothing she could do but pray she survived it, and even that seemed unlikely. So, she did the only thing she could at the moment, stare death in the face as bravely as she could.

But Mina wasn’t the only one that saw that they were losing. Jordan saw too.

‘Damnit, everyone’s on the back foot.’ He thought to himself. ‘At this rate, there’s no way we’re going to be able to send Mina home!’

Then, aloud, he sighed.

“Looks like I’ve got no other choice. Doilleir Fuachd.”

An explosion of cold mist erupted from Jordan, completely obscuring him from view. Not wanting to risk getting caught up in whatever he was doing, Athan and Lefteris flew backwards out of range of the mist and braced themselves for whatever was about to come next.

“I’d been hoping to beat you guys without resorting to this, but it seems that I can’t. I always seem to have to pull something like this out whenever I’m faced with a final boss. But alright, lets do this.” Jordan’s voice echoed out from within the mist.

The mist then faded to reveal and unexpected sight. Jordan was still standing right where he’d started, but had sheathed his sword and shield. Instead, he now held his guitar and looked ready to play.

“I’ll admit, it took a bit longer to make a fitting song for situations like this. For a while I was just using covers of other people’s songs, but now I finally have a good one of my own.”

Athan and Lefteris were confused, but also weren’t about to let Jordan pull off whatever he was planning. They instantly charged in and prepared to throw some ranged attacks at him, but it was already too late.

“It’s time, to let the star light shine.” Jordan declared, and he strummed his guitar.