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She was right. We were already behind in points, we needed to capture a flag. I fired off a quick door-busting rune at the nearest enemy. It smacked through his warding spell, still doing significant damage, but three others jumped to his aid, whipping off runes at Fable.

I rushed toward them, slamming the door buster into the shield of one and blocking a spell from the other as Ross came to our aid.

A massive bolt of lightning cracked from the sky above our head, and, for a half second, I almost thought Typhon had joined the battle. Then I caught sight of Julius Rendimion, which was almost as bad. I let out a curse, straining my limited energy reserves to block his attack.

I sent a long-range lightning rune right back at him, but my opponent’s fingers blurred with textbook precision, not only blocking the spell, but blasting it back at me with nearly the same strength.

I growled, barely getting a ward up in time.

Marina and Caterina were working as a team on the left, handling two others on the opposing team, and they looked to be holding their own.

The other Draconells came forward, targeting Fable at close range, and she narrowly avoided the swing of a magic-infused sword.

I moved to blast at one but was sent sprawling as a rune slammed into my side before I could.

“You don’t have time to worry about anything else, except me, loser,” Julius called, laughing harshly as gouts of flame sprang from his fingertips, ripping through a hastily created ward.

“We’ll handle these three,” Fable said. “Take him, Harlow.”

I rolled sideways, dodging a blast as I flung myself toward Julius.

I took a risk and threw a rune I’d never used before; one I’d seen in the books Fable and I had been scouring.

Roots sprang from the ground, grasping at Julius’ legs.

He burned through them in a single motion, but I had already fired off my next rune.

Lightning arced toward him, with me following just behind it.

Thank you, Doyenne Storm, for your magical weather defense classes.

Tempo was important in a magical duel, and the person who had to focus on defending from the other person’s attacks was at a serious disadvantage.

I fired off a quick slicing rune at his legs, dropping into a roll beneath the fireball he’d managed to send my way a moment earlier, then blasted another attack at his chest. I had always been confident in my close-quarters combat, and was even more so after my fight with Nikita, and if I could just get close, I could –

He leapt over the slashing attack, and he moved to ward against the blast at his chest with his left hand as expected, but his right hand whirred into motion simultaneously. At the exact same time as my spell fizzled into nothing, a rock slammed directly into my torso.

I flew backward, my body screaming in pain as I rolled back to my feet, preparing to block his next attack. I’d seen the two-handed carnival tricks in class, but to be able to do it at this level was astonishing and frankly, it scared the sheet out of me.

He grinned wickedly, and I was forced to watch helplessly as his next attack slammed into Ross’s side as he was about to strike one of the Draconells.

“You really thought you could challenge me all by yourself, dropout?” he jeered, both hands casting spells at blinding speed.

I spared a quick glance at Ross in between blocking spells. He rebounded and came running, but Julius threw a screamer of a rune above head, the blast sending a stalactite plummeting down straight for Ross.

I scrambled to throw a rune, but it was Phyllis who saved him.

“No! I won’t stand aside! Not again!” She threw Ross to the ground and erected a protective shield over the two of them a split second before the rocks struck.

The sound was like a cannon, and I covered my ears as dust obscured my view.

The fighting came to a momentary standstill, no one could see through the dust.

By the time it cleared, Ross was flat on his face, out cold, but still alive, thank the gods ... and Phyllis. She stood over him, her hands flashing runes at a speed I’d never seen her capable of. Judging by the astonished look on her face, she’d never seen it either.

There was no time to celebrate, though, as the Draconells unleashed a fresh attack on Fable in the three-on-one melée, and she let out a yelp, barely dodging a follow-up that would’ve ended it.

I let out a roar, leaping forward to close the distance, even more desperate – we were down a man, we had to end this, and quickly.

My fingers moved faster than I had thought possible, blocking a dozen spells in between throwing out attacks of my own in my mad dash. Julius’s expression darkened, just a hint of anxiety working into his haughty expression as I closed in on him.

I had to move like our lives depended on this. It was no longer a game.

This was survival.

I’d seen this rune used ... by Nocta in Central Park. Fruck it, all was fair in love and war.

I let the energy build inside of me, prepping to flatten them all. The rune, if it worked, was going to literally send bodies flying, but how to get my friends clear of it?

The rune storm was everything the weather gods could ever imagine, driving winds, lashing rain, and as I cast it, I opened myself up to my Quirk.

A rush of adrenaline poured through me.

I had a Quirk. I had an amazing awesome sweet frucking Quirk, and I was going to use it to save my friends. It was just going to take me a minute.

A gout of flame sprang from the ground in front of me at the same time as Julius fired a blast at me from the side, but I never let my momentum stop, throwing up a shield as I surged directly through the flames, casting a rune with my left hand to add weight to my foot as I lashed out to kick at his leg.

Shock and fury warred on his face as he drew a rune to block the attack, but I pulled back at the last second, tugging a throwing knife from my belt with my right hand and aiming it directly at his chest. He whipped his arm up in time to block it, but my fist was just behind, catching him in the shoulder.

It was almost like watching myself from above, as if I were playing a video game and had just unlocked a secret skillset. Speed.

Speed and more speed. It was frucking awesome because behind that speed was coming the super punch that would deal with Draconell in one blow.

Fire surged to life beneath my feet, and I rolled forward rather than back to dodge, keeping up my flurry of attacks, this time with a magical slicing attack. He warded it off, firing a hasty lightning bolt at me with his other hand at the same time.

My Quirk hummed inside of me, like a tone going off to let me know it was ready.

“Quack!” I yelled at my team. Quack. Duck. I hoped they got the message. Surprise flitted through the bond between Typhon and I, and then a flood of what could only be understanding. He got the message.

I spun the rune I’d seen Nocta use, drawing power through my Quirk and then unleashing the storm inside the cavern.

As it left my fingers the world around us slowed, my friends dropped to the ground, as did Typhon.

Smart guy.

The rune rippled out as if I were the center of an atomic bomb, the air itself shaking as the storm absolutely demolished the entire Draconell team.

Rocks fell, the walls shuddered as if they’d come down, but there wasn’t a single Draconell member left.

They faded as they slammed into the walls furthest from us. Was this how they got pulled out for their reset, before they were sent back in?

I didn’t understand what had just happened there, why they had disappeared. But I didn’t have time to stand around.

Typhon had been just behind Julius, he was flat on his belly, his eyes wide.

“Harlow. What the fuck was that?”

I walked over to him, bent and locked the magical handcuffs around his wrists. “A rune, Typhon. Backed up by my Quirk.”

He stared up at me. “The bond between us ... I sensed you had more in you. Were you holding back?”

I thought about it. “Yeah. Yeah, I was.”

“Fuck me,” he whispered. I could have said yes please, or only if you ask nicely, but I was all out of quips.

There were no more sounds of fighting. The rune I’d borrowed from Nocta had done exactly what I’d seen him do to all the trees in Central Park.

Flattened them.

One by one my friends stood up, staring at me. Would they remember the rune that Nocta had used? I wasn’t sure. But when I looked at Phyllis, I knew she understood where I’d gotten it from. The shame was hot, but I fought it back. “I would do anything to save you all.”

Phyllis tipped her head at me. “I know.”

Fable stood across from me, panting, looking at where her attackers had been just a moment before. “Holy sheet balls. We frucking did it. We got their flag!”