The battlefield groaned, caught between annihilation and combustion, as both of them leaned in harder—knowing, with grim certainty, that this was no longer a skirmish.
"So," Nicole said lightly, frost spiraling lazily around her shoulders, "are we going to monologue about our powers until someone finds a loophole to abuse now? Is it that time?"
"Barely," Rudra replied.
He glanced down.
The ground had betrayed him.
Pale creepers—half-ice, half-something else—had erupted from beneath the scorched earth, coiling around his calf and shin like frozen tendons. They weren't plants. They pulsed, tightening in slow, deliberate increments, siphoning heat with every constriction. The fire around his leg guttered, shrinking, hissing like it was being strangled.
"Of course ice isn't the only card you have under your sleeves," Rudra continued flatly, shifting his stance despite the resistance. "And that's an ironic metaphor, because you're shirtless."
Nicole snorted. Actually snorted.
"Oh, I like you," she said, twisting her wrist.
The creepers yanked.
Rudra was wrenched forward as the frost-vines tried to drag him off balance, spikes blooming outward in anticipation of a fall. He slammed the butt of his talwar into the ground instead, fire detonating from the impact point in a circular shockwave. The vines closest to him flash-boiled, exploding into steam and shattered ice shards, but the ones further back held fast, anchoring into the permafrost like iron hooks.
Nicole moved.
Not walking. Sliding.
She crossed the battlefield in a blink, boots skimming over ice that formed under her feet a fraction of a second before impact. An ice dagger spun into her palm, elongated, serrated, humming with subzero intent as she slashed for his throat.
Rudra twisted.
The blade grazed his collar instead, freezing fabric solid before shattering it into glittering fragments. He ducked low, shoulder-checking her mid-motion, heat flaring outward on instinct. The collision sent both of them skidding apart—Nicole carving a furrow of frost behind her, Rudra tearing molten trenches through the ground as the vines finally snapped under the thermal surge.
He came up coughing steam, boots smoking, revolver already barking.
Three shots.
Nicole twisted her torso impossibly, rounds screaming past her ribs as she flicked her fingers. The bullets froze midair, encased in clear ice, then redirected—rocketing back at him like comets.
"CHRONOS DESIST."
Time stopped.
The world stalled in a half-breath. Rudra stepped between the frozen projectiles, grabbed one barehanded despite the cold ripping skin, and hurled it straight down. Time resumed as the bullet punched into the ground and detonated in a geyser of ice and dirt.
Nicole's eyes widened again—this time with unmistakable excitement.
"Oh," she breathed. "Temporal authority. That explains the déjà vu."
Rudra didn't answer. He was already moving.
Fire crawled up his spine, into his shoulders, down his arms, pooling into his blade as he lunged. Nicole met him head-on, frost roaring outward as her Stage Two dress rippled, the white lily sigil at her chest pulsing—two layers bright, hungry.
Steel and ice collided.
The impact cracked the air.
Fire screamed. Frost shrieked back.
And beneath it all, something unseen laughed quietly—pleased that the game had finally become interesting.
[Somewhere else]
Riley was halfway through a drunken, off-key chant that had no real lyrics and too much confidence, relieving himself on a perfectly innocent bush while swaying like a man who'd won against sobriety but lost against gravity.
"—an' then the roo said nah mate—" he slurred.
The ground thumped.
Not a shake. Not wind.
A collision.
Riley stopped mid-verse.
Another tremor rolled through the dirt, deeper this time, like the land itself had flinched. The bush rustled. His stream faltered.
"…what the fuck was that," he muttered.
Then he felt it.
Pressure. Heat. Cold. Both wrong. Both distant. Both enormous.
Riley zipped up in record time, head snapping toward the horizon.
Far off, beyond the low hills—
Fire exploded upward, a column of orange-white violence punching into the sky.
A heartbeat later, ice answered, a crystalline bloom expanding outward, flash-freezing the air itself. The shockwave hit seconds later, rattling his teeth, snuffing his buzz clean out of his skull.
His blood went cold.
"Oh. No. No no no," he said, already reaching for his rifle. "Red."
Another blast—this one louder, closer. The night flickered like a broken screen, alternating between inferno-glow and glacial blue.
Riley spat, cursed every god he half-believed in, and took off running.
Boots pounding.
Rifle tight in his hands.
Hangover forgotten.
"Swear to Christ," he growled as he sprinted, lungs burning, "I leave you alone for five minutes and you start a boss fight."