Vopros jumped forward, to run to help Banshee. He fell after three steps, a sharp pang of pain coming from his calf. Someone had lodged an icicle in his leg with surgical precision. Irissa was hiding somewhere, now playing it safe.

He rolled in a thicker mass of grass, concentrating to materialize, in his hands, a pair of binoculars. He laid low, starting to scour the surroundings.

«This time you blow.» he hissed.

River's superior physical prowess was perfectly mirrored in the Oneiron, and Chico was having a hell of a time ducking here and dodging there to avoid being hit or grabbed by his gigantic opponent. He knew that if River got hold of him, there would be no running away.

«Ay gringo! Can we stop this madness?» he asked, dodging another assault «Do you even know why you're here?»

«We've been chosen to bring justice to your wrongdoings!» growled the bear, launching forward. Chico dodged him at the last second, swinging one of his meat-cleavers and managing to leave a red slash across one of his paws. River roared. «That's what Enforcers are for! And righteous Covens!»

«He could have chosen Mariposa, or any other high Rank Coven, but he chose you. I mean, you're clearly not bad but... didn't it sound really strange?»

Chico rolled aside, as one of the bear's paws missed his head by inches, creating a disquietingly big hole in the ground.

«I have always been the best! Someone finally remembered!»

«Someone remembered, or it is just Staccato's presence?»

River's nozzle crumbled in a dark expression of rage. He stood tall on his paws and sacrificed some brute strength for a structure with superior dexterity, harmoniously changing his appearance back to the tiger. He roared and jumped towards Chico. Who did what the Pollos did best.

Started running.

«Come on! You've been ignored for years, since the scandal and suddenly now a Head of a House you don't even belong him choses you?» Chico kept on talking, directly aiming at the strength of the other ones' will rather than fighting. Doubt was the best weapon against someone's will in the Oneiron. «Or, you could be right, maybe they did chose you for you. But just because we had Garaham.»

It was a core mistake, to talk while chased by a tiger on steroids, especially to mention the brother he clearly didn't have a good relationship with, and Chico found out very quickly when he found himself short of breath, with a giant feline parked on his lungs, and River's fangs dripping saliva next to the back of his ear. «Every dog has his day.» he growled, deep and menacing. Chico tried to muster enough breath to answer. His eye glanced on the side. And a smirk appeared on his lips.

«But apparently, not every tiger.»

An explosion in the immediate vicinity unbalanced River enough to topple him from Chico's chest, enabling the mage to stand up, coughing. He felt a hand grabbing him from the shoulders. He opened his eyes, finding a very serious Vopros in front of him, looking at something apparently behind him.

«Vopros, thanks, but...»

«Shut it.» said the Russian. The tiger was lying still on the ground, recovering. In some seconds time, a sharp icicle hissed right by Chico's arm. Who screamed.

Vopros looked like he was counting. At the count of five, he moved as swiftly as Chico had ever seen him, and he made a small portal appear on Chico's back. They both heard a swallowing sound, and then with a powerful roar, the tiger collapsed again, with icicles sprouting deep from his chest. With a painful groan, he tried to rise to his feet. But, ultimately, collapsed, and started to fade away, until it disappeared.

«What the...» Chico looked at Vopros with his eyes opened wide. «Did you just used me as bait?»

«I calculated times of shooting and error. Irissa good, but no sniper. She always make same...»

Vopros's head exploded in a shower of blood and bone. Even if they were just products of imagination, it was pretty shocking. One minute he was talking, the next he was lying on the ground, half of his face missing, slowly fading away, as the tiger had just done.

Instinctively, Chico took shelter behind a tree. But it wasn't safe, and he knew.

His study of the field was interrupted by a sudden scream.

Banshee.

Irissa was standing right beside the corpse hill, moving her hands around to freeze the ground under the Irish's feet. The air and the grass around them were like a winter dream, if winter dreams were stained with blood. Irissa didn't look good, from Vopros's grenade, but apparently, she didn't bleed. She oozed a strange liquid which didn't look much different from the grass's ichor.

The blood staining the ice here and there was Banshee's. She verted in quite dire conditions. Her face was a mask of blood and had done basically nothing but eliminate some undead. It was like emptying the sea with a rake.

Chico started moving towards the open battle. While moving, he gathered shadow in his hands, and it started crawling, smoothly, all around him, wrapping his legs, arms, chest and head, in a rippling sort of armor, with deep violet reflections.

He started to zig-zag, across the field. There was only one thing big enough to give him cover from Irissa, who had started shooting icicles at him as soon as he had moved. He felt a dull thud right at the center of his back, and his armor trembled, but somehow, it absorbed the icicle.

Banshee used the ice quite well for dodging for a time, but as Irissa called a cold wind to sweep her off her feet, this was becoming overly difficult. Nonetheless, Chico noticed something had changed in her.

She wasn't still giving much effort in fighting the hill, but she had started to float over the frozen grass, and every time she dodged a flail, and now there were three, she shot an attacking sorcery towards Irissa. Not enough to seriously wound her, but surely enough to wound her when she hit. The girl's expression was getting particularly madder now.

Chico took advantage of the starting frozen field to start sliding. He stabbed one of his meat cleavers it in the iced earth to make a brusque curve in his slide, dodging yet another icicle, and propelling himself towards the base of the hill, just as Banshee's feet were caught in two blocks of ice.

One of the flails hit the now immobilized Banshee, thrusting her on a side with a creepy loud "crack" of bones. He used the second meat cleaver and plunged it in the corpses protruding from the mass, starting to climb it.

«Andale Banshee! Do it for the Jefe!» Chico prayed that whatever cracked wasn't Banshee's head, but some less useful bone, like a leg.

He wasn't entirely disappointed. She had a broken leg but her will had apparently gone back to be strong enough to let her ignore the pain. She spat some blood and stood up on the still miraculously intact other leg, her eyes burning intensively.

Once he saw her standing, Chico started climbing again. He cleaved away two undead arms in a single swoop. They were many, but they were very frail. The only reason why the flails weren't heavily damaged when they hit was because new corprses were constantly running, like little creepy spiders, from the central body to fill the holes.

A crawling mass of rotting meat.

«Get out you insect! This is a private fight! Don't stick your nose in family matters!» Staccato roared from the top of the hill, directing more and more undead his way, giving up the flails to focus on Chico.

Irissa was now simply casting spells without even thinking about the target. The battlefield was completely covered in two-inches-thick ice.

Banshee put her boot down in the ice, solidly, leaving the other leg limp on her side. She concentrated, dipping from a part of her magic she had been always reluctant to use. She tried to block the terrible memories that always surged when she did, starting to feel the familiar pang of bliss as she opened the gate to the corners of her power.

The air around her got suddenly warmer, the ice shards melted before hitting her, and then, slowly, even before. She created a hot air pocket around herself, growing larger and larger by the second, contrasting the effects of Irissa's cold. Her face was serious but calm, while a sensation of deep satisfaction spread all over her body, contrasting the pain from the wounds. Time seemed to slow down.

Irissa directed both her hands and the entirety of her attack's power towards Banshee. Her hot pocket resisted the first wave, and then Banshee turned it from simple warm air to a flaming barrier creating a dome around her.

Chico fended off two undead and was able to climb another three inches. It was some result, while climbing undead by the dozen. But the sudden change in the air got his attention, as well as Staccato's. He let go a hidden smile.

The Irish was back in the game.

Irissa's frustrated screams covered any other sound on the battlefield. She exploded a storm suddenly blasting all its power from one point, investing with its whole violence everything around it.

Without screaming, without even muttering a word, Banshee concentrated and expanded her dome.

Even Staccato and Chico had to momentarily stop fighting to protect themselves from the hurling tempest that the clash of the two women's power was creating. It was so much that Staccato lose his focus, and the hill collapsed, bringing him and Chico back on the ground.

Banshee let Irissa go. Let her climb to momentum. She waited, between one release of ice power and the next. And in that slight window of time, she acted. Using the warm wind to create a corridor from her right inside Irissa's defense, she unleashed her shot. A single, well-directed arrow of the brightest flame, leaving her open hand to reach Irissa's straight to the heart.

Irissa screamed, pierced through. She held the hole in her chest, breathing wheezily. She moved her gaze on Banshee, the distraught expression of a mystified teenager dangled on her face for a second. Then, she collapsed on the ground. And as it happened to the others, started fading away.

«Damn you!» screamed Staccato.

He was alone. He turned to look at them.

Chico had his meat cleavers in his hands, and Banshee... Banshee was looking at him with the most hurt eyes he had ever seen in a person, but the flames dancing around her hands were a menace enough.

Staccato glared at them all, ground his teeth, and started to fade away.

He had surrendered.

And they won.

***

Hi guys!
So, the Trial appears to be over... or is it? Banshee and Staccato had quite the showdown, and we got to know some parentele here and there. Stay tuned! We're practically halfway to the end right now. And the pace is going up!

As usual, vote and comment to you heart's content, and thank you for each and every feedback you could give us.

Lots of love,

Daniel