"Finally." Andrea sighed, ecstatic that the trip was over.

"That was the easy part, Andrea." Cascade glared down the length of the cliff. There was a little bit of mist flowing across the dry ground. The only thing that she could see were a bunch of large boulders and rises in the ground, along with a few trees. But no Sephtis. And certainly no creatures he could use to fight against them with.

"So... I was under the impression that we were going to fight something here?" Andrea raised an eyebrow.

Cascade did not reply. She walked forward, looking around as she went, looking for anywhere that Sephtis could be. Maybe he's behind one of these boulders? He could be invisible as a result of his illusions, but I would think he would have attacked by now if that were the case...

Omar and Andrea followed behind Cascade. They wandered atop of the cliff for several minutes.
"I just don't understand what could have happened. Sephtis should be here." Cascade shook her head. She bit her nails. If she was wrong, then they would have come all this way for nothing. She mentally berated herself for not considering the consequences of what would happen if she was wrong. "But this is the only way that he could succeed. He couldn't have gone anywhere else." Cascade was pacing back and forth now.

"Calm down, Cascade. He'll be here somewhere." Andrea smiled at Cascade.

Cascade didn't hear Andrea's words. Her thoughts were too far buried in her worry of what she had pulled them into.

"Plus, Cascade, huge rocks were thrown off a cliff at us! He's definitely here."

"It could have just been a landslide of some sort. Maybe a slight earthquake or something of the sort."

Andrea sighed. Cascade, once more, had managed to gain the better of her in an argument. I wish I could think of a better argument, just this once.

Little did they know, Sephtis was watching from not too far away. Slightly behind them and to the left, Sephtis stood, his hand held out to tell his stone soldiers not to make their move yet.

The Elementals could not see him, for he had created the illusion that he was not there. They could see the stone soldiers, but they had simply ignored them, passing them off as rises in the ground or large boulders. That was why they were such an effective defense for the cliffs. Now that Sephtis had control of them, they were a useful tool for his victory. He did not need to attack them himself. He could simply use his soldiers.

As Cascade turned away, and so did the others, Sephtis held out three fingers. Then two. Then one. Then he closed his hand into a fist and brought it down.

The ten stone soldiers, or the Iscoren, as they were called, suddenly rushed forward.

As the Iscoren sped towards them, Omar gasped. "They're coming!" he yelled, but the stone colossi were already starting to come down upon them.

Suddenly, two huge figures, made of thick, strong roots rushed between the Elementals and the Iscoren.

Cascade swung around. "Hythalus!" Her jaw dropped as she saw the huge root-creature step in front of them.

"Forget about Mindara, you should not." His bright blue eyes sparkled with a smile as he and the other creature, who looked nearly identical to himself, stood their ground against the continuous barrage of stone limbs which attempted to shove them out of the way.

Omar smiled. Hythalus really had saved them in a time of need, and even without them calling him. He called a friend to join him as well, it seems.

"Run, you should." Hythalus suddenly seemed overcome with concern. His roots stretched, and a loud "SNAP" echoed around the cliffside as one broke. He seemed oblivious to it, concerned solely for the Elementals' safety.

Omar and Cascade took off, seeing Andrea many meters ahead of them, as she had taken off at a run as soon as Omar had called out the fact that the Iscoren were coming.

The Elementals watched as the Iscoren, having the higher numbers, eventually managed to tear Hythalus and Mindara from the ground and hurl them off the cliffside.

Cascade held out a silent hand of farewell as she ran. "Thank you," she whispered, though she knew they wouldn't hear it.

"Well, we need to fight them now." Andrea had passed over the shock of the previous events faster than the others.

"Oh... right." Omar grimaced. "I'm not looking forward to that."

"Me neither, honestly. They look indestructible, considering the tools we have at hand. We would need a pit of lava or something. I can't make that."

"There must be some way to turn them back, like with Hythalus." Cascade stole a glance towards the Iscoren from behind the rock.

"Well, you can't just look all of 'em in the eye for two minutes and have a heart-to-heart discussion!" Andrea was known for being quite direct.

"True. But there must be an easier way. I mean, Sephtis must have corrupted them somehow, and I doubt he had the time to have a 'heart-to-heart discussion' either."

"I did not consider that."

"That's my job. Thinking." Cascade materialized an icy handheld telescope, looking at the Iscoren carefully. She gave a sigh of exasperation. "It doesn't look like they have any weaknesses." She looked harder. The Iscoren had seen movement behind the rock the Elementals hid behind. They were approaching faster now.

"Um... Cascade? We need a plan." Andrea was on her toes, prepared to run.

"Hang on." Cascade was getting anxious. If she didn't find the weakness of the Iscoren, then they were most likely doomed.

"We don't have time to 'hang on'! We've got ten colossal stone giants coming at us! How is this a 'hang on' moment?!" Andrea fidgeted with a stray strand of hair and bounced up and down a few times on her toes.

Cascade suddenly gasped and a grin broke across her face. "Yes!"

"What is it? What is it?" Andrea was caught off guard by the sudden burst of joy from Cascade.

"I found their weakness! There's a circle on the back of their head with a symbol on it. If you spin it twice to the right and three times to the left, then the Iscoren will get a mind reset, basically."

"The Iscoren?"

Cascade sighed. "The stone giants."

"Oh. Wait, how do you know how to turn it?"

"I read the symbol on the circle."

Andrea stared at her quizzically, "How do you know how to read it?"

Cascade was stumped at that. "I'm... I'm not sure. I didn't learn it from a book or anything else. I just... knew how."

"You don't say that often." Andrea chuckled.

"Maybe the language that those gods and goddesses spoke is written that way. Maybe that's why I can read it. Just like those symbols in the temple of Omnistherus."

"Maybe." Andrea suddenly gasped and threw herself to one side as a giant stone fist crashed down beside her.

"Watch out!" Cascade called.

"Yup. Got it." Say it a little earlier next time, please, Cascade.

"Hmm." Cascade created a giant ball of ice, which she launched at the nearest Iscoren.

As the ball of ice hit the Iscoren, it spun, not facing Cascade any longer. Cascade ran forward and leapt onto the Iscoren, using the cracks in the stone as handholds, and freezing her hands and feet in place temporarily whenever she moved, so that the Iscoren could not shake her off. Cascade made handholds for herself now, leaping from one to another, and freezing herself in place there so as not to fall off when the Iscoren attempted to. As Cascade reached the back of the Iscoren's head, she pressed the center of the symbol to make it rise upwards, then spun it twice to the right and three times to the left. "I hope this works." Cascade clung to the rock even tighter.

The Iscoren stopped. It fell to the ground.

Cascade leapt off the Iscoren just in time before it fell, letting out a small scream.

The Iscoren crashed to the ground with a loud "KABOOM", which echoed around the cliffs even though there was already a cacophony of sounds: cracks, yells, growls, and the grating sound of stone on stone.

Cascade gave a sigh of annoyance as she picked herself up off the ground. It appeared that there wasn't much that they could do to stop the Iscoren from falling.

"I got one- EEAAAAAH!" Andrea shrieked and threw herself off of the Iscoren she had just revived. She thudded onto the ground heavily. "What just happened?"

Cascade took Andrea's hand and helped her rise. "They have a total brain reboot after we spin the stone. They stay... I'm not sure what it is... unconscious maybe, until a while afterwards. We need to get off of them quickly once we spin the stone on the back of an Iscoren's head."

"Yeah. Definitely."

Omar leapt off one Iscoren, landed on top of another, and spun the stone. Then he leapt off once more and landed on another.

"That's efficient." Andrea raised her eyebrows.

"Certainly. Though maybe a little too risky- Omar! Look out!" Cascade spotted the three Iscoren that were encircling Omar. Omar tried to jump onto one of them, but one of the others attacked.

Cascade made an icy wall between the Iscoren and Omar, but it was no use. Sephtis simply shattered it from his hiding spot by adjusting the gravity to slam it into the ground. But it seemed that it tired him to do so. Cascade made another. Again, he shattered it. But now the Iscoren was on top of Omar.

Cascade shot forwards and made a pillar of ice, which boosted her up on top of the Iscoren which held Omar. She spun the stone and grabbed Omar, leaping off the Iscoren just in time. She shot back to Andrea on a slab of ice.

"Is he all right?" Andrea asked.

"He probably has a concussion from that Iscoren attacking him, and he's unconscious. If you're asking if he's alive, then yes, he's fine. He's alive. Though he might have broken his arm."

"Oh. So he's kind of all right. Whoa!" Andrea grabbed Cascade and leapt to the side as a boulder landed next to them. "They can throw rocks too."

"There's only four left! You take the ones on the right and I'll take the ones on the left." Cascade sped off, leaving Andrea in the dust.

"What? Oh, um... nevermind." Whatever Andrea had to say was lost in the commotion as another boulder crashed next to her.

Cascade scrambled up an Iscoren, just as she had done before, and spun the stone. This time, she used a platform of ice to travel over to the next Iscoren. Spinning the stone, she leapt off. "It gets easier and easier," she muttered as she took care of her second Iscoren and landed lightly on the ground. Cascade turned around and gasped.

While Cascade had been fighting her Iscoren, Andrea had mounted her own. She grabbed the Iscoren's hand, and as it tried to throw her off, she used the momentum to swing on top of its head. Spinning the stone, she leapt off, aiming to land on the next Iscoren. But she didn't make it there.

Andrea, so caught up in the action, did not take the time to check where the previous Iscoren would fall. While airborne, the hand of the Iscoren that Andrea had just defeated swatted her out of the air as it fell, throwing her to the ground.

Cascade saw Andrea hit the ground and knew that she wouldn't rise again to fight the last Iscoren. Cascade sped forward towards the large stone figure in front of her, feeling the vibration of its heavy footsteps. She leapt onto the last Iscoren. Scrambling on top of it, she waited to spin the stone until the Iscoren was facing away from Andrea, so that it would not fall on top of her or Omar. Then she spun the stone and leapt off, immediately running to Andrea's side.

Cascade slid to a stop beside Andrea and checked to see if she was still alive. She gave a sigh of relief as she saw Andrea's chest rise and fall, admittedly shakily, but she continued to breathe at a normal rate.

Cascade looked up and stood, her eyebrows lowering as she glared at Sephtis, who was now no longer invisible, as it would simply be a waste of his energy to do so now that the Iscoren were taken down, and he had to be the one to fight.

Cascade's long, broad, straight sword materialized in her hands as the mist thickened. The cliffs seemed to fall eerily quiet.

Sephtis had seen his final Iscoren fall. He knew he had underestimated the Elementals, but it seemed as though he had almost won. Only Cascade was left. He sneered as he saw her assume a ready stance, her long sword appearing in her hands. She should be easy to defeat. After all, I've done it before. Sephtis' thoughts served to encourage him.

As Sephtis drew his two black-bladed, curved swords, a malicious smile spread across his face, and his dark, malevolent eyes sparkled with excitement. "You don't stand a chance, little girl."