Manus Somniator

Elian leapt and twisted to intercept a ball of light with his bucklers as it passed through the foggy shield around them. A ball of ash exploded around the metal disk as he neutralized the light, then landed heavily.

"This is the third time!" He roared. The third time they've been the last tigers standing, keeping each other safe while everyone else fell. They'd only fought together three times. It wasn't ideal.

Cadam stood almost-still with his arms hanging, swaying almost imperceptibly as he turned from Elian to Maxanda. The white fog that surrounded them poured from the gems on his shoulders and arms, energizing the other two and soaking the power out of incoming attacks so that they could deal with them. He didn't quite have the energy to talk right now.

Maxanda stood on the opposite side of their formation, covering the arc that Elian couldn't. Instead of his twirling, almost dance-like interception, she stood with her arms crossed and withered magic away with her sight. Until Elian shouted, she had been muttering to herself, explaining away projectiles and rays- A fireball, almost intelligently steering towards Cadam. The spell unraveled and its magnetic core splashed against the fog like dye in water. A roiling mass of light, twitching and bobbing unpredictably. It came undone and fizzled out the same way.

"Reyna might still be out there!" She shot back. Reyna, the one who started this war. A terrifying fighter. But there was no sign of her, and every enemy tiger was either out of the fight or on them right now.

Elian clapped a bolt of ice between his bucklers, then spun back to briefly face Max. Or at least, Max's back.

"We can't keep doing this! We have to fight," he said.

Maxanda froze up. She didn't know how to fight, none of them really knew how to fight. They'd practiced together, but only this, they only knew how to defend. She looked out over the tigers who surrounded them, plotting and calculating, trying to find some way through. But no, they'd be crushed. For the first time she moved, slowly turning back, petrified rather than frosty.

Cadam glanced up, eyes half-closed. He didn't want to push Max, but eventually, had to make the decision for the two- His time and energy were running out. The smaller tiger held his hands together as the fog stopped drifting from his blue gemstones. He stepped towards Maxanda, trying hard to keep from shaking as he reached up to hold her arm. She looked back down, her normally stoic grimace broken up by wide-eyed fear.

"We'll learn to fight." He said.

Cadam and Maxanda pulled close, and Elian squeezed his way between them. Their outer barrier of mist puffed and unraveled as their foes bashed away at it, buying them a few more seconds to prepare. Max straightened her back and refocused her glare, to push away attacks and keep their shields up just a bit longer- But without Cadam's energizing fog flowing around them, she instantly felt the heavy weight of exhaustion in her chest.

While their defenses still stood, Cadam looked back at the others. This wasn't going to be easy for them. As soon as they were vulnerable, the trio would be pulverized, Cadam was determined to make sure he took the first hit. He was already sapped, after all, from minutes of powering Max's and Elian's inefficient magic. Wouldn't be much use.

Elian grinned up at Max, tugging the brim of his feathered hat with a buckler-covered paw.

"You've always got my back," he said with an emphatic half-bow. Maxanda smiled awkwardly, nothing changing aside from her mouth, now that she was comfortably hidden again.

Finally, their shield snapped, filaments of fluff resembling Cadam's mane blasting outward. It didn't do as much as they had hoped, but one of the tigers who had tried to climb up onto the fountain was bowled back.

Cadam hopped down, staggering back to his feet and leaning back against the stone wall. He locked eyes with a bigger, meaner-looking tiger, eager to fight after the long standoff against their defenses. The other tiger raised his fist, conjuring stones and gravel around it, before swinging wildly towards Cadam. He only raised his arms in an almost-shrug, already half-asleep on his feet.

He didn't go down without resistance, though. A ball of rock slammed into his chest, but he held on long enough to puff fog into the bigger tiger's face. It tingled uncomfortably, but more than that, he could feel Cadam's pulse in the mist until it cleared. Few people could bear the sensation aside from Max and Elian.

Cadam didn't have much fight left in him after that. He slid backwards down the stone wall, until he lied with his head propped up against it, uncharacteristically peaceful for a defeated tiger.

Elian, though, was not as peaceful. He leapt up from the edge of the fountain, lifted by a wreathe of ash, before falling down to bring both his bucklers onto the stony tiger's head. Still trying to clear the fog, he was struck at full force, a cloud of hot ash erupting from the impact and staining their clothes and fur.

He stood up on his downed opponent as Maxanda climbed down beside him, the two on either side of their fallen friend. Elian was bouncing on his feet, holding one of the bucklers out like it was a sword, ready to swing at anyone else who approached. The other team was a little more cautious, their uncoordinated attacks were less predictable than the shield was.

It felt like an eternity, two groups of tigers sizing each other up while Elian hurled insults and threats, but it really only took a few seconds for someone to emerge.

Or... Someones? A single small tiger, dressed in an angular black coat, emerged from the enemy line. As soon as she stepped out she seemed to split, two identical tigers emerging from her position, then moving towards Max and Elian in complicated swerving paths that kept the three tigers constantly intersecting and walking through each other.

Elian stopped his constant bobbing and weaving to look up at Maxanda.

"What in the world is *this*?" He demanded. Max had no answer, she couldn't pierce any illusions or projections- It must've been something strong.

She kept her eyes locked, though, watching the tiger(s) move, one of them occasionally lifting the wide-brimmed hat to peek up and change course.

That must've been it, the real tiger steering the images. Her frozen face warmed up with excitement as she solved the riddle, and lifted an arm to point accusingly at the black-jacketed illusionist.

"That one! Get it!" She shouted. Elian jumped back into action, setting his hat again and clapping the crust of ash of his sleeves before charging with bucklers forward. He didn't see whatever Maxanda did, but, her calculating perception had always steered him true.

The three figures stopped their weaving approach when Elian charged, one barely lifting their hat to look out from under it. He caught a smirk between the flaps of the collar, too late to turn away- The two "illusions" he ignored deftly leaned down and caught his ankles as he tried to run past, ripping him off his feet and into the air, upside-down.

From his new vantage point he couldn't see much aside from Maxanda, covering her face with big taloned hands. Elian was furious that he'd been beat, but, couldn't show that... Max would take it out on herself, she'd only tried to provide the best advice she could.

So he went out in style, giving an exaggerated salute and putting his hands on his hips before a heavy boot hit him in the back of the head. The jacketed tigers dropped him in a heap, took a second to look down at him... And turned towards Maxanda, all at once. She had to fight hard to find her composure as they started moving again.

The three *things* didn't even dodge and weave this time, they were unafraid. Maxanda even thought she heard them *giggling* under their pointed hats. She let loose with every spell she knew, but they were barely practiced, little more than light-shows. The black figures reached out of their pockets to snap them up with gloved paws.

Finally, they stood only a few feet away. Maxanda was enormous compared to them, almost twice as tall, she could at least give them a more reliable thrashing- But the one in front looked up, emerging from the raised collar of their jacket, as glowing runes appeared to hide their face. Something made a horrible clashing sound and Max was dazzled by light, suddenly feeling very vulnerable.

She blinked away the sparks in her vision, focusing her glare on the three, muttering again. Her dissecting gaze that picked apart spells so effectively before pressed heavily on her chest and stung her eyes, so much harder without the extra energy.

Light magic. She could figure this out. She could solve it, turn their spells back. She-

Was slammed by another pulse of harsh light, then hit in the head by something hard, collapsing on top of Cadam.