Crystal Folly

Liliona vs The Great Seven

Lightning struck the ground, temporarily paralyzing everyone on the snow. Stella, fortunately, was zooming towards the wizard. They tried to cast another spell, but got caught a split second later. Stella could see it was a young girl around her age in the robes, but by the time she began to ask why she's doing this, she teleported a good distance away. Before she could reach her, the spell was cast and she split into what seemed like forty copies of herself. Damn it, they all have the same smell! she internally yelled. And I can't dodge everything if she decides to target me. So this is what it's like fighting a master wizard. All of the copies of the wizards turned to face her moments before she nearly vanished. "What's the matter? Can't hit a moving target going at Mach Twenty-Seven?" she antagonized, making sure that all of the copies and the original were watching her.

"Ender, what's she doing?" Johann asked, very confused about her actions. "She might have insanely high speed, but this is a master wizard we're dealing with here. Even if she can't get a hit on Stella, there's forty of them and seven of us down here. If you've got a plan..." He trailed off, knowing that there'd be some sort of improvising needed soon.

Moments before Ender came up with something, around sixty thorny tendrils coming from the surrounding trees began to strike the group in the middle at blazing speeds. Most of them were narrowly missing everyone, and the ones that made contact were burned instantly. When there were fewer than twelve, they were directed at Stella, who dodged all of the attacks with no issues. At that point, the wizard began aiming where she was going using two tendrils at a time. It proved to be hardly effective, as she was constantly clipping her afterimage. Seeming to know what Stella would do, she redirected four of the remaining tendrils towards Ender. "Let's see if you can save him without either of you getting hurt!" she screamed with maniacal laughter, knowing it'd be impossible.

Time seemed to slow as Stella sped towards the group in her race against the thorns to reach Ender. When she got to the ground, Ender had already transformed into his cat form to be harder to hit and easier to pick up, but the vines were just mere centimeters away from them. Without thinking, she raised her tail in an attempt to deflect at least one of them, but it wasn't fast enough, allowing them to pierce through her wings and partially through her back. The wizard was in hysterics when she saw where they hit, thinking she wouldn't be able to recover from it.

Before she continued, Arthur burned the vines from the outside and pulled Stella behind a tree to pull out the rest and treat her wounds. While he did so, the wizard tried to strike him with the remaining six tendrils, but they all were sent into the snow. "You leave him alone!" Sadie yelled, having climbed up the branches to avoid the much lower vines. "You want a real challenge?! Fight the five of us. At once!" The wizard made a very unnerving and unnaturally relaxed smile.

"You think challenging me, the great Liliona, will end well for you!?" she yelled in return. "You've made a grave mistake, girl! Now prepare to die!" As she began casting numerous spells, Ender, now in his overdrive form, had already almost reached her left side when an explosion of snow erupted from where he was standing moments before. A second after the snow fell back down, he lunged at her directly, knowing she'd expect it.

"This is for Stella!" he roared in her face before being forced to the ground by an entity made of snow and wood. Before landing, he managed to severely injure her leg, but it was pointless; by the time he looked up again, she had already healed the wounds he left just moments before. A single arrow flew over his head, catching the entity in the chest. More soon followed, including several arrows with a reflective flame on the tip and arrows made completely out of ice and fire. In seconds, they began going through it, reaching an invisible barrier a few feet in front of Liliona. Cracks began to form as they continued to make contact, eventually shattering it moments before another was created.