Lacy wanted to run, but Gwen was paralyzed once again. “GWEN COME ON!” she screamed, but her mentor did not budge. “GODDAMMIT!”

A portal to burst through the air, out of which Isabella stepped. Isabella started, “What’s-”

“Gwen!” Lacy said, pointing. 

Isabella obliged, carved a portal, and dragged Gwen and Lacy through alongside her. 

The building finished imploding as they escaped. Lacy covered her ears at the swell of noise, and looked around to see it was happening to the entire school. Each of the buildings, imploding simultaneously. The boys ran towards them from the sea of wreckage. A sulfur smell tainted the air, and when Lacy jerked her head around to the source, she saw the building she was just in had been reduced to dust. And Alistair Albrecht emerged from that dust yet unscathed. 

“Can you get me close to him? Behind him, maybe?” Lacy asked Isabella. 

She nodded, and she obliged. Lacy couldn’t use too much more lightning today- her arms felt like she’d deadlifted a hundred pounds, her legs like she’d ran four miles at breakneck speed- but she could manage at least one more, and if she could get in a clean hit-

The sensation of passing through a portal, like running over a carpet in wool socks during a dry winter supercharged by a nuclear power plant, engulfed her before she could realize it was happening, and it was over before she could process it. They emerged directly behind Alistair, and Lacy readied her lightning. She aimed, fired: direct hit, square in the small of the back. Alistair fell to the ground, face first, its cloak shredded and burnt at the back, its flesh turning sallow. For a moment, Lacy breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. She looked at Isabella, whose hand she realized she was still holding tight. Isabella was looking at her with an expression Lacy couldn’t read.

A chuckle came up from the ground, and Alistair, face decaying and contorting, coated in ashes, turned over and beamed at her. “Impressive! Perhaps I’ve misjudged you, boy!”

“I keep telling you, I’m a GIRL!” Lacy screamed. Her Star pulsed, and the wind rose around her. She lashed a thunderbolt to Alistair and let the soundwave disorient the king, dragging out the low bass tone that seemed to upset ghouls so much. She looked at Isabella, pulled her hand away and gestured at the King of the Ghouls. “Waiting for an invitation?”

Isabella blinked, nodded, swung her sword towards Alistair’s neck, only for Alistair to roar at the sky and burn bright with orange fire on all-sides. Isabella carved a portal before she could crash into Alistair’s pyre, appearing behind Lacy and then grabbing her and pulling her back in. They appeared next to Gwen and the boys a hundred yards from the erstwhile school as Alistair’s firestorm howled ever-louder. Quentin and Joshua both dug in their feet and held out their hands, keeping the inferno caged. Gwen, still shaking, joined them. Danny stood there, wide-eyed with yet another inscrutable facial expression. 

Lacy planted her feet and tried to push back against the fire. The backlash sent her flying back a dozen yards. She rolled over the ground and stopped just short of crashing into a tree. Every muscle in her body cried out in protest as she tried to get up and offered a small burst of relief as she fell back to the ground. Get up get up get up getupgetupgetupgetup-

She pressed her hands against the ground, but couldn’t support her own weight: her arms no longer responded. She rolled over onto her back, attempted to do a sit-up, only to fall back down midway through the attempt. 

Getupgetupgetupgetup-

“Lacy, there’s a certain wisdom to knowing when you can’t fight anymore,” Drew said. 

“Shut! Up!” Lacy screamed. Out loud. 

Only Danny seemed to notice. The others were holding back the firewall. He rushed over and offered Lacy a hand, helping her rise to her feet. She accepted, and immediately fell back to the ground once she was up. The lightness in her head exploded through the rest of her body, and consciousness slipped away soon thereafter. 

***

The firewall stood strong, and Gwen gritted her teeth as she dug her feet into the ground. Lacy was out cold, and Danny’s usefulness was limited now that Alistair had shown up. That left four of them. Gwen reached for Starlight, and another dangerous idea occurred to her. 

Her father had always been the sort of instructor to teach by example. 

“Cover me,” Gwen said. The others nodded, and then were pushed backwards several feet by Gwen’s departure from the firewall resistance. 

She ducked backwards, then darted over to where Lacy lay unconscious. Danny held his gun and his knife at the ready, prepared to defend his friend with even the most basic of tools if it came to it. A good kid- if they survived this, she’d have the others start teaching him to use a sword. “I need to borrow her,” Gwen said. 

Danny acquiesced. 

She shook Lacy awake, the girl’s eyes dilating as she was dragged back into the conscious realm. “Wzzuh?”

“Remember our little trick with the blood inside the dungeon?” Gwen said. 

Lacy nodded, eyes only half opened. 

“Think you can give me a jump-start for something similar?” Gwen said. “I don’t need much, just enough to override the water-resistance.”

Lacy gulped, then nodded. Gwen grabbed her hand, then reached for her Star and let the white light channel through. Sweat soaked through her clothes, and the cuts across her body throbbed as a small bead of blood floated out from it. 

“Blut meines Vaters,” Gwen said. 

Lacy promptly passed out again. A moment later, the firestorm petered out, leaving only the swaths of naked heat. Her father screamed, and Gwen’s eyes darted over to her father as blood gushed from the spot on his ankle where Lacy had bitten him. 

Perfect. 

A stream of blood poured from her father’s ankle. It was black and deadened, the blood of a ghoul. Her father was a ghoul- the King of the Ghouls. A monster. And I’m a goddamned monster hunter, Gwen thought, gritting her teeth she took aim. It was always going to come to this. She focused the blood pouring out from her father’s ankle and reforged it into a small ax, aimed for her father’s neck. It stopped short, and Gwen screamed as the wound between her ribs and her hip opened up and poured forth copious amounts of blood. 

“IMPRESSIVE!” her father called out. “I’m so proud of you, my girl! You’ve shown me something now I hadn’t considered before. Excellent work. It’s wonderful that I can now learn from you, just as you once learned from me.” The worst part was that he meant it: that was his sincere-voice. She hadn’t heard that since she was a kid.

Gwen’s side throbbed as blood leaked out and sharpened into a series of small daggers in front her face. Her blood-ax shattered, and she dropped onto one knee. Danny fired a gun, then another, then another. Quentin had done a good job outfitting the boy. The bullets flew through the air and stopped short of Alistair: his shield was still working. But it was weakening, and taking up evermore energy- the blood daggers shattered before Gwen’s eyes as her father struggled to focus his energy on his own protection. Of the two Stars swarming him, the purple one, the one she did not recognize, flew around him ever more frantic, bursting with ever more light. It must have been where this Entropy magic was coming from, and going by the expanding size of his fangs and claws, it took its toll on him. It must’ve worked on the same principle ghoulish physiology did, eating through his reserves of strength and forcing him into a more feral state the more he relied on it. And it had another effect: physical decay, distortion, mutation, rather than simple mental deterioration. 

A portal ruptured in the air behind Alistair, and both Isabella and Joshua jumped out and swung their respective swords while Gwen backtracked. Alistair weaved out of the way of both blades and swung his leg first into Isabella’s stomach and then afterwards into Joshua ribcage. They both were knocked to the ground, but a hail of bullets then tore through Alistair as Quentin produced an automatic pistol from his trenchcoat. The distance was too great for accurate headshots, but they slowed the King down. 

Gwen forced herself up. She reached for Starlight, knowing it was burning her. She needed to end this once and for all, and she needed to get in close to make it happen. 

She forced herself up, and then said to Danny, “Cover me.”

The boy nodded. 

Gwen proceeded to do exactly what she knew not to do in this situation: run directly at her opponent, screaming at the top of her lungs. Bullets weaved over and around her, and Isabella and Joshua portaled over to Lacy to get out of the line of fire. 

Her father balked, then laughed. And laughed. And laughed. It just pissed Gwen off even more. Her father was many things, and considered himself many more things. Chief among them was ‘honorable.’ That meant when someone did something like this, you showed them respect as a mage. “Toter engel!” Gwen screamed. White light exploded from her hand as she reached out for her father. 

Her father did the same, saying the same words, using the same spell, drawing on the light of two Stars. 

Their columns of white light met each other, and then engulfed everything. 

The weight of three colliding Destinies slammed into each other, puncturing the skin of reality and letting Liminal Void pour out into the world.