After I had fallen to the cliff, thanks to the gravity-powered girl, Rayne showed up. My growing theory was that she was coming as a way to warn me. She didn't speak, she only looked in the distance and I scanned the area to see what she was trying to tell me. It took a moment to find it. Waves of heat warped the air, just above the small town, in the direction of the enemy's campsite. It had to be the fire user. Was he making his move? Or just preparing it? Either way, our stealth team was in big trouble.

That's why I told Xander to leave. Hopefully, he would make it in time. I didn't think he would make the difference when it came to fighting the fire user; maybe he could, but I wasn't prepared to bet on it. Xander had improved a lot since coming here, but if Zack was right about their leader's weakness, we would need to make it a long fight. Which meant that we needed to find as many ways as possible to keep our people alive. Instead of attacking, I was relying on Xander to find a way to save as many people as he could. I just hope I didn't send him to his death.

Worrying about Xander would need to wait. The blue haired girl in front of me was a strong opponent. Her ability was strange and powerful and I would need to keep on my toes if I was going to beat her. One option would be to copy her ability. That way, I could either correct my center of gravity when she used her power on me, or I could do the same against her. The biggest issue was that I didn't know her skill as a fighter. I might need my ability for other things, like copying her speed or healing if I got injured.

"There's no point in sending him away," she said after she threw one of her weapons at Xander and I had blocked it. "He's going to die like the rest of you."

"If that happens, you'll die too."

She smirked and tapped her head with a long dagger, "Already knew that."

"We could beat him. But it would be a lot easier with your help."

"No. You can't beat him. No one can. I just want to get these next three cycles over with so I can start winning."

I tightened the grip on my sword. There was no point in talking with her. She wouldn't change her mind unless we proved that the fire user could be beaten. I was getting angry, but not at the blue haired girl, at least not directly. Her leader was to blame. "Come on, then. Let's see what you've got."

She readied herself to strike, moving the twin blades in practiced movements, as I readied myself as well. Then she changed gravity for me again. I was falling, but not towards the cliff like last time. This time, I was falling towards her. I was about to strike and it looked like she'd be too late to attack me. The best thing to do would be to end this quickly so we could better prepare for the looming threat of the fire user. Just before I was going to strike, the girl threw one of her blades into the air and my trajectory changed. I was no longer falling towards the girl, but towards the blade she threw.

The change of angle threw off my attack and I had to go on defense as she attacked me with her remaining blade. She seemed frustrated that I didn't die on the spot and I have to admit that I hadn't been ready for such an interesting strategy. If I hadn't been trained so thoroughly, I wouldn't have reacted as quickly and the fight would've already been over.

Her attack wasn't finished yet. I was out of range of her attacking me, unless she threw her other dagger, but I was still falling up, towards the first blade. As soon as it came down, I would have to dodge it, but maybe I could do something better. The blade started coming down and when I came close enough to the weapon, I grabbed it and threw it towards its master. Blue Hair didn't bother catching it or dodging it. Instead, she simply had it vanish, then made it reappear. I fell back to the ground, rolling when I hit the sand. The impact jarred me and I coughed but was otherwise alright. I was no longer tethered to the dagger. Once she had her weapon vanish, gravity went back to normal for me.

While I didn't know if there was more to her power than what I had seen, it seemed clear to me what she could do with it. She had to have two existing objects for her power to work. First, was the one she was changing gravity for; me. The second object she needed was the base; her dagger. She couldn't make gravity change without something being there. Otherwise, she could simply have me fall up until I died in space or she could drop me from an extreme height. In addition to that, if one of the objects were to disappear, like how she resummoned her weapons, her power would cancel itself. Her ability was irritating and if she used it right, I might not stand a chance unless I took it for my own.

I dashed at her, using my ability to extract hers. When I was near, I went to strike but she used her power again and I was falling away from her, my sword missing her by several inches. With her power copied, I used it to correct gravity for myself and I kicked off the ground, repeating my attack. This caught her off guard and she dodged too late. My sword bit into her side, but not deep enough for a fatal blow.

Continuing to press my attack, I rushed her again but she was ready. When she tossed her blade up a second time, I slowed, preparing myself to fall upwards and was ready to use my copied ability again, but instead of me falling towards the dagger, she did, catching it. Then she threw her weapon at me. I had to dodge but when I did, she was there, ready to attack and forcing me to block. Then I got a boot to my ribs and it knocked me backward, nearly dropping me to the ground. It was lucky that I managed to keep my footing because she was on top of me instantly, slashing with both of her blades in hand.

Usually, I'm not a defensive fighter. Through years of training, I had been taught that defending is a good way to react to your opponent, not a good way to control the situation. My way of fighting was to force my opponents to react to me. That's why I opted to dodge attacks. Dodging allowed me to make a counter strike or at least reposition myself in a more favorable stance to gain advantages in a fight. That said, it wasn't like I was inept at blocking. None of the girl's attacks were connecting with my body. But there was still a problem; I was stuck. Even though I kept retreating, she followed, relentlessly attacking my vitals. There was no way for me to get around her or stop blocking. So I did the only thing left to do.

I used her ability to tether her to the cliff. She shot backward and I changed my stance to accommodate her quicker strikes. I wasn't sure if attacking her was the best move. If she had just one blade, I would have already finished this fight but her second blade made all the difference. She was very fast and while I had the range to compensate for her speed, if she got too close, I might be in trouble. Normally, I would just wait her out until the ability I copied was gone and I could exchange it to take her speed. However, if I lose her ability, speed won't be enough to pull a win from her. She'd just change gravity for me again and I would have no way to counter that. Keeping her ability was an important part of winning this fight but she knew her power much better than I did, so trying to outmaneuver her with her own ability would be a waste of time.

As expected, she canceled my ability with her own and we were back at it again. She rushed me and repeated her attack, but I was more prepared for the way she moved and was better able to keep her at bay, blocking attacks and dodging when I could. None of my attacks connected with her either and we seemed to be at a stalemate. Her smaller blades were better able to keep up with my wide swings and block before my sword connected with her. I had to come up with a plan to get around her defense...or maybe I could try something a bit trickier.

Planting my feet into the sand, I attacked at a horizontal angle as hard as I could. Blue Hair blocked, as expected, but the force of the blow pushed her back and I was able to back up to gain some distance between us. Before she could rush me again, I hurled my sword at her and began to advance, using her power in a way I hoped she wouldn't expect. Just before we collided, she went to strike and I leaped into the air, intending to dodge both blades but she got me. Either I misjudged where I needed to dodge to or she saw what I was doing at the last second and moved her attack. Her blow landed on my left leg but didn't have the angle or power to do too much damage, resulting in a deep cut above my knee. She, on the other hand, had not seen my attack coming.

After I had thrown my sword, I used her ability to have the blade's edge fall towards her. It resulted in the blade flying directly at her from behind. She had been so focused on me that she didn't notice the sword coming to impale her. The girl dropped to her knees and vanished and my sword dropped to the sand below. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and retrieved my sword, waiting for more enemies to come.

I took a moment to glance over the town, in the direction of the army's base and saw smoke rising in the distance. Now that I wasn't in a difficult fight, I considered if it was right of me to have Xander go without giving him any real instructions. It worried me. While I wanted him to help save the others by pulling whoever he could back from the fight, I realized that Xander often doesn't think the same way I do. It's not a bad thing, but it probably means that I should have given him specific instructions on what to do. Instead, I left it up to him. If he made it in time to help them, he may have chosen to fight and if that was the case, he was probably dead.

Looking around, I took note of everyone from my team and the opposing army. We were still outnumbered and it was only a matter of time before they got a decent amount of reinforcements; so far, only small groups of the enemy had come to join the fight. But now, we also had to worry about the leader. I was less sure about winning this battle. We had lost almost half of our number on the beach so far and who knows if anyone survived from the stealth team. But now wasn't the time to give up. If all we did was take out the leader, it would be enough. And he was coming, I was sure of it.

"Ruffus!" I shouted, heading towards the tall man. He struck the ground and sliced upwards, cutting into an opponent. When the next challenger arrived, he detonated the slice in the sand and that enemy also vanished, being directly on top of the explosion. "Everyone needs to get into the water! He's coming."

Ruffus and I called to the remaining ground forces and had them retreat into the water. Those on the cliff were instructed to stay unless they couldn't maintain the area and had to retreat. If they were in danger, they would come down, into the water. A rope had been tied at the top and led down to the water's edge, where they could reach us. Once everyone was in position, we noticed that the enemy had not followed us but instead, stopped and waited. It made me feel uneasy.

"Hmm," Rayne said, floating into my vision, "why aren't they attacking?"

"The fire user," I said under my breath. Ruffus and a few other allies nodded, not realizing that I wasn't talking to them.

"Seems strange not to keep attacking; I wonder what they're thinking."

Then we saw him. A blazing, massive fire in the shape of a man. A charred path of ruin following him as he stepped towards the beach. We stood waiting and I heard someone ask me what to do. By the time the inferno reached the sand of the beach, I saw two more figures far behind him and while I couldn't make out who they were, I had hoped one of them was Xander.

"Think that's them? Xander and Demi?" Rayne asked me. I nodded. "Let's hope so. This isn't going to be easy and you could use all the help you can get. Do you have a plan?"

It wasn't much of a plan, "Tick him off, then jump into the water and hope you don't die."

Rayne cocked her head, "Sounds like a pretty lame plan." I could hear some of my allies mutter in agreement with her.

"We just need to make this a long fight. Not a pretty one." The more I thought about it, the less sure I was that it would work. "This isn't going to be easy."

A voice came from the flaming man, "What are you all doing?" he bellowed, sending a pillar of flames towards the water. Several people died, vanishing before they could dive in, but a few managed to dodge the blast. "Kill them!"

The fight resumed, the sound of metal clashing, shouts of anger and yelps of pain drowning out the sound of the waves behind us. All the while, the fire user continued to blast us with his flames. But I noticed that it wasn't just our side that he was attacking. He was killing off anyone and everyone. Our enemies didn't take notice, they were too focused on fighting us that they didn't see that they were being killed off by their leader.

The water hissed and steam rose to the air hazing my vision. Anger washed over me and I took out another enemy in my path. As they vanished, Rayne shouted my name and I looked up. A pillar of fire was headed straight for me. I could already feel the heat and hoped that the water would save me from the blast. I turned, diving in the cool, refreshing ocean, but my leg, which had been cut by Blue Hair's dagger, had been too close to the top of the water and I felt a burning sensation. As my leg descended deeper into the ocean, the pain dulled and I felt a throbbing from my calf down to my toes.

I gasped when I came out of the water and examined my surroundings. The fighting continued but I was alone. I had drifted out further than I had realized and, turning, made my way back into the battle. My leg had been badly burned and was blistering, making it difficult to move. A good chunk of my pant leg had been burned off and I was pretty sure that my shoe had melted onto my foot but I was alive. The water had protected me, although I had to make it deep enough to escape harm.

The battle raged on but now that I was further away, I could see things more clearly. The fire user was mercilessly incinerating everyone within range. It seemed clear that he was going to kill everyone here, not just us. This was his endgame. Our number had reduced significantly. The ranged team was gone, their rope to make it down the cliff safely had been burned away. No one stood atop it now. Everyone left was in the water with me. But we couldn't stop now. The Fire user had to be defeated. This man had defiled the graveyard, he had gathered an army to make people feel more hopeless than ever and he attacked his own team without pause. The few parts of this game that inspired hope or honor were being challenged by this one person. I grasped my sword tightly and ran into battle, once more. This fight would end with only one left standing; I felt it in my bones.