Fanfic

Sweat poured down Dom�s face. He shifted his sword painfully to the other hand and took a double-handed position. Attacking in earnest, his sword never stopped moving, snaking behind Stenmun�s guard to make tiny cuts on his arm, his face, his chest.
Then Stenmun brought his sword down on top of Dom�s, locking his arm in place and virtually paralysing him while he remained in that hold.

Kel was working. She brought her foot down on it�s ankle, then took advantage of it�s hesitation to run it through.
It didn�t notice � still bizarrely moaning about it�s foot.
Then it was on her again, fast, driving her back. She hooked it�s staff with her own, twisting it out of it�s hands with a flick. Now she was winning. It soared into the air and vanished.
A new one appeared in its hands.

Dom was spinning and lunging, the Scanran more than his equal. He twisted suddenly, his sword biting into Stenmun�s left thigh. Internally relieved, he felt a stab on his right arm. He had wounded Stenmun, but had taken a wound in return.
Using his sword in his left arm, Dom circled. Stenmun limped now, his steps slightly uneven. He lunged and Dom had to leap from his path - so much for his supposed weakness!
The sword plunged deep into a tree. Instead of trying to pull it free, Stenmun picked up a branch and swung towards Dom, attacking furiously. His speed was astonishing, and Dom, exhausted from the long battle against the machines and the intricate dance of combat with Stenmun, couldn�t keep up.
Powered by fear and desperation, the scanran landed blows that knocked Dom�s sword from his hands and forced him to fall on the ground.
One more blow, once more Stenmun raised the branch and aimed for Dom�s head.

Jodai and Blayce were held by the same paralysis while Kel and the solid shadow fought. When it�s hands refilled for the third time, Kel gave up on disarming it. She was beginning to feel that slow ache that meant she was tiring, but the creature facing her seemed tireless.
The only way she could beat it was risky, very risky, and would require every bit of strength she had left.
Kel reversed her hold on the glaive from broom-sweeps clean to how someone would hold a sword. The thing, shocked from the change in tactics, fumbled to match her and failed.
Arm aching from it�s heavy load, Kel began the crescent drill, then into a complex butterfly sweep, first one side then the other.
There - she thrust into it�s stomach, then spun. The paralysis broke on Blayce, she couldn�t see Jodai.
Raising his hands, dark Gift pooling there, Kel brought the glaive up through his hands shattering the magic. She continued the strike, turning at the final instant to behead the mage.
For a moment, that still place was if possible more silent. Even the breeze stopped. His head landed in the grey grass a few feet away. His body stood for a further second, then slumped to the ground.

Dom watched the make shift staff in slow motion as it fell towards him. He rolled, narrowly avoiding death, and surged up, two knives from his boots in his hands.
Using a final burst of speed, he slammed the hilt of the first knife into Stenmun�s temple, a line of blood slowly trickling from the force of the impact.
Another turn took the other blade into Stenmum�s abdomen.
Again, a moment of stillness as Dom looked directly into the fading eyes of his foe. The icy blue eyes were emptying as he watched, and Dom collapsed to the clearing floor under the weight of his dead body.
Pushing the dead mercenary off himself, Dom stood. He looked down at his prickling arm to see it glowing. Then he realised he was glowing.
As the clearing spun, he asked the empty air, �What the..?�

Jodai ran to Kel, who stood staring at the body she had just separated. Jodai wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her back as they watched.
A shadow deeper than that Kel had defeated rose from the body, rising like mist and emerging through the dead flesh. It fell into roughly the shape of a man, although his face was obscured from view.
Kel felt a chill seep through her bones, growing and intertwining and binding her to the ground. She somehow knew that this was not her place.
Jodai knew it was her turn. She looked into her mind, and found that well spring of white flame she needed.
She did not move forward, but took a solitary step backwards and waited calmly.
The shade knocked Kel away to the floor like a toy doll, where she sprawled unconscious.
Jodai reached into her mind and sent a call through the earth. The tall grss reached and clung to the shade, stopping him from advancing. He growled a phrase at the earth, and suddenly Jodai stood on a pedastool at the centre of a crater.
The shade stood on midair in the grey.
Jodai used every spell she knew - fire, water, earth, air. Everything reflected off a deep shield that flickered steadily a heartbeat from the shade.
Gathering her power for a final assault of magic, Jodai whipped the winds around her and avoided a volley of globes that would burn her soul.
Her scream rang out across the meadow. One of the globes had brushed her arm, and needles of poison fled into every crevice in her mind.

Iorwyn watched the white witch fall with a smile. These were the champions of his father? Was the old man getting sentimental and weak?
The first one, the one with fire in her soul, lay on the un-scorched grass metres away. The white witch lay on the island in the centre of the crater he had created.
Iorwyn drew in all of his powers, readying himself for the final spell. It was not really a spell, more a flood of magic onto every level of the conscious and every realm.
It was time to end the worlds.
So intent was he on the growing aura of dark power around him that he did not see the tendrils of magic that grew beneath him, a ladder of orange flame that reached for him.
He did not see the tendrils spin faster and faster until they were a shimmering rope of orange fire that twined loosely around his shield.
He did, however, feel a brush of wings that surrounded his Gift and stopped it from flowing to the heavens and all around.
Jodai, Kel and Iorwyn all did not see the gathered gods, humans, phantoms, Immortals and People. They did not see the worried faces as Kel sat tentatively up and glared at the waning rope until it thickened. Until it wrapped around every part of the shade, holding him in place as he had held her while he fought Jodai.
Kel walked serenely to Jodai, offering a hand to the now awake queen. She took it and immediately began to glow the small pale colour of the moon in that place where all barriers were insubstantial.
Jodai and Kel walked together across empty air to the captive former demon. No tendril of dark magic escaped the scarlet bonds that streamed in ribbons from Kel, her hair and eyes blazing.
Jodai looked at Kel, and both nodded. She took a single breath and reached between the bonds.
Where her shining hand touched that of the shade, white met black in a place of grey. A rainbow of colours flew to Jodai from everywhere at once - gold from the gods, silver from the immortals, copper from the People and even a mist rose from the phantoms of the dead.
Every mage in the world felt as though the barrier was once more gone, every mage stood to attention and sent their power to Jodai. The King stood in his study, the queen looking puzzled between her husband and her children, all watching a scene far away as sapphire blue flew into the morning sky.
Alanna dropped her sword, her husband gripping her hand with white knuckles as violet flame fled from her small body.
Numair and Daine at Ekino ran to the balcony to watch as a torch of white slowly grew in the far distance.
Laila held the child close to her as her auburn blaze joined that of the pale mother and child.
Neal sat wordlessly beside his father and cousin in the clearing, staring at the torches that were Jodai and Kel in the meadow beyond, not hearing the muffled cries of alarm from the unGifted soldiers as they grew brighter in the distance. Emerald flame flooded from father and son. Dom raced along the connection to Kel and sent his essence to her.
Jodai felt the magic of her daughter join with her own and called to the earth, to the very heart of magic and the essence of all Gifts be they divine or mortal or other.
A mushroom cloud of pure white erupted at the centre of the bonds, and in the blinding aftermath there was silence.

Jodai looked at the sky, which had changed in the instant the magic exploded. She knew the creature was dead, mother nature herself had grudgingly agreed to destroy it to preserve the world.
The blood sky accompanied the emerald meadow, all traces of grey gone. The frost and snow had been melted by the white hot phoenix flame for miles.
Streaks of orange, yellow and red covered the sky. Looking to her right, painfully, her vision still frayed with white, she saw Dom stagger into the clearing accompanied by a group of frightened soldiers, Duke Baird and Neal.
The Scanran Queen felt hollow and empty as she watched Dom run to Kel and weep as he held her.
She felt detached, watching everything from a distance. She felt a pang of sorrow for her sister, for Laila and for her family. Maggur and their daughter would have to cope, as would their country.
Words floated to her from the mist, suddenly much clearer than the panicking soldiers and healers.
�It will be painful and it will push you further than even you can imagine. It may take everything you have and more��
She supposed that it had taken everything. It had been painful, but everything was now just a haze. Jodai was struggling to keep her thoughts together.
Her last was for her husband, an apology and a message of love, and for the daughter she didn�t think she would ever know.