Battle? When I'm outnumbered 15 to 1?!

The fireball struck the back of one of the men, who fell to the ground and writhed in pain, rolling around to put out the fire. The two men next to him freaked out and just watched, unsure what to do.

“What the hell did you jus- argh!”

With my free right hand, I grabbed the arm holding me up and squeezed tight. My captor squealed in pain. I had heated my hand so much with fire magic that grabbing his arm burned the skin clean off.

The pain caught him by surprise so badly that he let go of my left arm, letting me get my feet back on the ground. I pulled him down with my right hand and punched him in the eye with all my might with my left, heating my knuckles so the punch would temporarily (or maybe permanently) blind that eye. He collapsed backwards in front of me.

“A fire mage?! What the-“

“Heatwave!”

I turned to face the rest of the men and clapped my hands together, releasing all the energy I could to unleash a wave of flame that engulfed all of them. The tarp and wooden support behind them caught alight, giving me a pretty strict time limit to wrap this up.

My hands were in agony, the skin on my right palm, left knuckles and all fingertips being burned away.

Holding my staff is gonna be painful for a good while…

I shook the thought out of my head. It wasn’t the time to stand around and complain. I had to save those girls.

“I’m gonna get you girls out of here, okay?”

I ran over to the cart where the girls were being held and grabbed at the lock. I didn’t know where the key was, but if I could heat it enough to compromise the metal, I could break it open. So I grabbed it by the shackles and started channelling energy into my already-burning right hand.

I looked up for a moment to see one of the girls in the cart, scruffy and weak, pointing behind me with a terrified expression.

“Behind you!”

The girl’s warning came a second too late. I turned just in time to get a knee in my stomach, which sent me careening away from the cart and into the wooden support further along. My back slammed into it and I hit the ground, the adrenaline only masking some of the pain.

As he approached again, I got a good look at the man’s face. It was the boss from before. He looked practically unharmed by my heatwave, and was now walking towards me with clear killing intent.

Before I could react he picked me up and threw me like a ragdoll away from the cart. Prioritising the merchandise, I guess. Typical money grubber.

I rolled until I could get back onto my knees, where I held out my right hand to discharge some fire magic into him. He closed the distance even faster than I expected, swatting my hand away and backhanding me across the face. He really was immensely strong. I was pretty resilient but even I was damn near unconscious after that strike.

Before I could move to counter again, he stamped on my left arm with his heavy boots, making sure to put a lot of weight behind it to cause maximum pain. Then, with his left hand he held my right against the ground, and with his right he drew the sword at his hip. I knew that, if I didn’t act quickly, I’d be sushi’d in seconds.

God, I am gonna regret this tomorrow…

I inhaled with all my might, then exhaled right up at him. But instead of air, what came out of my mouth was a stream of fire, setting his clothes alight and drawing out a scream of agony.

I really preferred not to use that move if possible, because it burned the hell out of the roof of my mouth and make my tongue burn terribly, but I could pull it out in last resort scenarios like that.

As he stumbled backwards, I tried to get to my feet to deliver the finishing blow, but before I had a chance he was catapulted away from me by wind magic .

“Hey kiddo. You forgot this.” I looked to the source of the voice, and it was Immanuel, his wand in one hand, my staff in the other, misty right there alongside him. When I acknowledged his entrance, he threw me my staff, then commanded “Mizuha, get those girls out of her before the whole tent burns down.”

“Y-yes, Mr Fredrick.”

“Bakuchan, you hurt?”

“Don’t have time to be.” In truth, even just catching my staff in my seared hands was agony, but this was life or death. Five or six of the bandits that I had knocked down with heatwave were getting back on their feet. “Protect Misty and the girls!”

An ice shard whizzed at me, and I just barely managed to move my head out of the way. I returned fire with a flamethrower, but a chunk of rock came up from the ground and blocked the bulk of the flames.

They at least have one strong earth mage and one strong water mage.

I changed my target to some armed bandits approaching from the left, expecting them to have no magic defences. My expectation was proven wrong as the flamethrower was pushed back with immense wind. My vision was blocked by my own attack and I couldn’t see where the armed bandits were approaching from.

Shit!

I had no time to get out of the way. I was totally defeated. Or at least I would have been, if a blast of wind magic didn’t move me out of the kill range less than a second before a sword would have sashimi’d me. I watched as the soldier who had tried to kill me was slammed by a chunk of ice before I hit the ground and tumbled. I dragged my aching body up and looked at where I had landed

Oh crap, this is where-

I turned myself just in time to come face to face with the water mage who had almost put an icicle through my teeth. There was a split second before either of us reacted. We both realised that whoever casted slower would die.

“Flamethrower!”

“Agh-!”

I was milliseconds faster, and from less than a metre away, the spell was an instant kill. He was charred and black before he hit the ground.

Never roasted a man to death before… that didn’t feel great…

“Shit-!”

The Earth mage that had been his companion disappeared into the ground, almost definitely tunnelling to get to his allies. In the meantime, Misty and Immanuel ran to me, I jumped up to my feet, and one of the large wooden supports holding the massive tent up collapsed in flames. The place was slowly but surely starting to fill with smoke too.

“We need to get out of this place!” said Misty.

“Unfortunately there’s five bandits between us and the exit," replied Immanuel.

“Don’t worry,” I said, collecting energy at the point of my staff. “I have a plan.”

One wind mage. One earth mage. Three with swords. Misty doesn’t have enough mana to conjure tonnes of water, but she can manipulate what’s already there. They have no water mage anymore so she’d be totally uncontested. But only if I can get them in the right place. But what options do we have...?

Wait, the casks!

“Immanuel, keep them at a distance. Misty, run defence and get ready to use those casks of ale.”

They fell into their positions naturally. Immanuel at my shoulder to protect me from direct attacks, Misty at my back to keep herself safe until she was needed.

Our foes moved too.

I flamethrowered the ground on their left side, forcing the two mages on the back lines to move right. They launched two simultaneous attacks: the three with swords ran towards our flank while Immanuel tried to keep them at bay. The mages launched a boulder towards us, thrown with earth magic and pushed with wind magic.

I blasted the boulder in half with a low-power inferno, the two large chunks flying off to the sides. Molten rock flew at our faces, but Misty caught it with her magic and returned it, forcing the mages even further to the right.

Man am I glad we practiced using magic on non-water liquids, that could have been bad.

“Immanuel, switch!”

Shoulder to shoulder, Immanuel and I turned round each other and swapped targets. He met the enemy’s wind cutter in the air with his own and kept the pressure on to force them left. He also fanned the flames left on the ground to close off more area, but that only meant the breathable air was depleting faster. I unleashed a high-energy flamethrower that left a wall of flame to the right of the swordsmen, forcing them back closer to their mages.

We were steadily cutting off their space, but also depleting our own air. We were on a hard timer and it was only growing shorter.

“Switch again!”

Immanuel fanned my flames on the other side and forced the approaching swordsmen ever closer to the danger zone. I cut off even more space for the mages with another wall of flame, corralling them closer and closer to those casks.

Two of the swordsmen made a desperate play, charging in close and aiming for me on the front line. One was blasted back towards his mages by Immanuel. The other swung for me, but Misty grabbed me and dragged me out of the way, his sword slamming the ground instead. I smacked him upside the chin with my staff, and Immanuel launched him away too.

“Thanks guys-“

“Get away!”

Immanuel threw himself and Misty backwards with a gust of wind magic. He tried to move me too, but my feet were trapped in the ground.

The Earth mage… oh shit-

I looked up to see a huge piece of burning tarp falling towards me. I’d been outplayed, and there was no way out. I just ducked and covered my head.

“Bakuchan! Get down!”

I lowered myself just in time to not get my head taken off by Immanuel’s wind magic, which threw the burning tarp away from and towards our enemies.

The tarp was big enough to cover all five of them, throwing them towards the back of the tent that was steadily burning down around them. Right next to the casks of ale.

“Misty! Now!”

The enemy wind mage launched the tarp off of them, and they all scrambled to their feet, but they didn’t have time to move. Dozens of casks of ale shattered around them, their contents washing them away in a huge wave. All of them were now within range of each other. Then Misty froze all of them in place. It was the perfect opportunity to finish it.

“Immanuel! Up!”

I kicked free of my leg restraints, no longer maintained by magic, and ran at Immanuel. I jumped, pushing my foot down hard on his joined hands, and he threw me high into the air. He pushed me even higher with wind magic, and I lined up the perfect shot.

No time to incant. No time to hesitate. No time to feel guilty.

“Inferno!”

Brilliant white light blitzed through the burning air towards my foes. In the dead middle between them, there was a flash of blinding light. Then, a deadly roar. And after that, there was nothing.

I touched down on the ground beneath me, and didn’t look at the result of my work.