The Retrieval of the Red snow princess (open)

Roseria was able to jump over the low sweep that he tried to hit her with and Zedekiah then procceded with a lung attack. The wind caught her fan and she sllipped out of the way just in time to barely dodge the attack. Roseria smiled and dropped to the floor but before she could use her attacks the guy was on her again. He would constatnly stay just close enough to fight her but not too close to give her the advantage. Roseria was on the defensive now. She was trying to hit him but at the moment she couldn't do it. She had to wait for him to mess up then she would deal a major blow to turn the tides in her favor, but until then she had to spend her time blocking, parrying, and dodging to avoid a lethal stab.

"Roseria we found Karah." Came a female voice. The voice wasn't too deep but it was just a little raspy. She turned to see Eclipsa run towards her then she stopped and waited.


Roseria smiled with joy then she found a new determination to finish this fight. She parryed one of his blows with all her strength sending her sliding to the side a bit. As expected zedekiah rushed in on her again but roseria jumped into the air without a moments hesitation then she used the cold air from her fan to fling herself atop a nearby buildinng. Hopefully free of the man known as zedekiah....but who was he.

"Eclipsa, you and the witches go ahead after her i'll stay behind and continue to distract this man." She said and after a second the witch nodded and was off.

Martin Valette looked out over the chaos that had once been the city of Tampa Bay, Florida. Fires and columns of smoke rising out of the fog told of the battles breaking out on this uncharacteristically cold day. He turned in his seat in the back of a US army jeep to the laptop that had been provided to him by the Order to keep him up to date on developments. The latest report began playing, provided by an aide of the commanding officer, a clipped young woman of African complexion who had apparently recorded the briefing in person.

Greetings, meta-operative.

As you know, Tampa and St. Petersburg are currently under assault from an extranational enemy.

The epicenter of this attack appears to be off-coast, US army and navy elements have attempted to halt the attack with ballistics and ranged assault, but the fog has made visual confirmation of a kill difficult, and the attacks continue unabated.

National Guard units have already been deployed, and are making their best efforts to contain the... Snowmen. They seem to lose power the further they get from the epicenter, as the temperature rises they melt like normal, but offensive action into the city itself has proven problematic. The armored columns stationed in this region are not outfitted for winter combat, and my superiors are reluctant to send troops in on foot. At any rate, there is no doubt that a metahuman is responsible for this mess.

Meta-operatives such as yourself are being brought in to subdue the situation, a section at the end of this briefing tailored to your specific assignment will be included. Several of our aircraft have been attacked by flying abnormals, so air support will be minimal, unfortunately.

The recording paused, and then jumped, with the woman's face changing position as a consequence of the spliced footage.

Hospitaller, due to your unique abilities and function as a member of the Order, Command has placed you at the head of the relief column. We have reestablished communications with Macdill Airforce Base in the center of the Bay, and are utilizing that as our forward operations center. There, you will be provided with a motorcycle and proceed east from there across the Gandy Bridge to St. Petersburg, where the fighting has been thickest and snowman proliferation has been heaviest. You will join and assist forward recon units with the elimination of heavy threats, rescuing of civilians and emergency medical treatment. Godspeed.

Later.

Hospitaller listened, ears alert for sounds of screaming or commotion, but an unearthly silence had fallen over this part of Tampa. He'd long since had the guardsmen accompanying him help with casualties and other civilians, routing them back to the bridgehead to be taken to safety.

Martin shivered a little. He'd brought the winterized version of his gear, a thicker BDU and a waterproof, wind-breaking black jacket emblazoned with his Order's emblem, but it wasn't the cold that was giving him chills. This silence was unnatural.

The silence was broken only by the crunch of snow underfoot, until Hospitaller realized that it was not just his own feet that were making the noise. Three figures materialized out of the fog, scantily clad despite the cold, one with red hair, one with white, and one with black. Something about them disconcerted Martin, but he brushed this unease aside. These people were unarmed and not snowmen, and as such needed to be brought to safety.

"Hey! You three! Yes, you! Get under cover, don't you know there's an attack going on? This is no time to be playing in the snow!"

Zedekiah nearly had Roseria with the lunge following his low sweep, but with a cold blast of magical wind her fan carried her to safety. The lunge speared open air, but Zedekiah's surprise didn't stop him from pursuing his opponent, intent on preventing her escape. As soon as the ice demon touched the ground Zedekiah was upon her once more, slashing at her with wild ferocity. She could do little more than desperately avoid his attacks, using a combination of dodges, blocks, and parries to prevent herself from taking a hit. It was only a matter of time before one of them slipped up, and Zedekiah was confident that it would not be him.

From the corner of his eye Zedekiah noticed another woman approaching with apparently important news. As the two superpowered beings fought, the newcomer called out that she had found Karah. Parrying one last blow with her full strength, Roseria sent herself skidding away from Zedekiah. As he moved to follow her she jumped away, using her fan and control of the freezing wind to propel herself even higher. She was quickly out of the reach of his sword, and as his arrows had already proven to be useless he was unable to reach her from the ground. Soon she reached the top of a nearby building, safe from his grasp. With no way to follow, Zedekiah had no choice but to wait and reevaluate his plan.

Once in the safety of the rooftop, the frigid queen gave her subordinate orders to secure Karah. Roseria would resume the task of keeping Zedekiah occupied. This development left Zedekiah feeling conflicted, quite uncommon for the Voidwalker. On one hand, he was tasked with making sure Gattison's demon could be delivered, which would be impossible if it was reclaimed by these ice witches. On the other hand, there was a wealth of knowledge to be gained from the ice demon if she were subdued and taken in for research and questioning. The situation was further complicated by the war that had broken out between the snow warriors and the U.S. military.

Eventually Zedekiah decided that eliminating Roseria as a threat had to be his top priority, otherwise all other threats could be compounded by her interference. The black market smugglers would just have to find a way to keep Karah under their control until Zedekiah could provide back-up. With this decision in mind, Zedekiah raised his sword and promptly sprinted after the retreating witch. If Roseria wanted to stop him from killing her support, she would have to come down from her rooftop and face him in combat once again.

Roseria was done with this fight.  She had found karah and now the only thing stopping her was this man who hell bent on capturing her.  Roseria raised her fan and fell from the roof top.  Time seemed to slow as Roseria thought about karah then she remembered that one song she had her listen to.  Karah spent alto of time with humans so it wasn't odd that she listened to their music.  The song echoed in her head as she froze all alley ways and streets that came within three blocks of where she was.  she then proceeded to attack zedekiah.  Her movements where fluid this time.  She was both on attack and defense as she spun off her fan to attack zedekiah just to switch to defense after her first hit.  This was meant to confuse zedekiah and ultimately make him not want to strike first but Roseria wasn't paying attention to the affects of her ploy.  The was all that she could think about.  Tendrils swam thought the air to block roseria's blind spots as she spun to catch wind into her fan to propel at her opponent.  This fan had an unnatural chill to it...almost like the song that rang in her head.  The snow began to fall rapidly as her attacks gradually became more fierce.  She was not playing anymore she was serious she wouldn't let karah be taken for a second time.

The witches were walking down a distant street as they neared their destination.  Eclipse had taken the lead while merlan took the rear.  As they walked they heard a truck pull up and then a man called to them.  As the witches listened more closely it was evident that they were being reprimanded.  Eclipsa became agitated and out of fury shot a flurry of water bullets about the size of base balls at the truck causing it to explode.  The witches took this time to run and escape the man who was reprimanding them.
(The song Roseria is thinking of is evanessence- snow white queen)

Hospitaller picked himself up, the glow from his hands repairing the cuts, bruises and impact trauma he'd taken from the short flight the explosion had launched him on. Mentally he shunted these truck-exploders from "noncombatants" to "possible snowman commanders".

As he pursued them on foot he pulled out a radio that was part of his standard gear and switched it to the frequency command had told him to contact the military on. A press of a button pinged an operator, who responded.

"Callsign?"

"Hotel, Oscar, Sierra, Papa, reporting. Am pursuing hostile meta-humans with possible connections to the anomaly. Requesting backup so I can get back to healing."

"Negative Hotel. All available meta-operatives are already engaged. All civilian distress signals have been confirmed extracted. Pursue and apprehend the targets."

Hospitaller lowered the radio. He didn't like fighting, and while he was in American territory he was technically under the authority, more or less, of their armed forces. If there were civilians, or any other sort of casualty for that matter, around, he wouldn't hesitate to let these three get away. But here they were, the only non-snowman hostiles he'd seen. Perhaps taking them out might end this once and for all.

With that in mind, he put the radio back in one of his many pockets and extended his right hand. He didn't know this trio's durability, he didn't want to blast someone in half! So, instead, he aimed for the nearest one's legs. A snapping thunderclap rang out as the beam of solid light leapt from his hand...

Zedekiah's plan to draw Roseria from the rooftop seemed to work, as she was almost instantly upon him when he began chasing after the ice witch. She fired herself at Zedekiah, using her wind-powered fan to rush him at high speed. With newfound ferocity and skill, the demon attacked Zedekiah, her fighting ability far more polished than it was before. The entire area had dropped even further in temperature, everything around the fighters becoming caked in sparking crystals, chilling Zedekiah to the bone. Roseria would strike at Zedekiah with her fan and then quickly move to a defensive posture after Zedekiah's response, prepared to avoid his counter attack. Her strategy seemed far more balanced, and possibly more dangerous, than her previous attempts. Zedekiah knew that one way or another she planned to end this.

The two combatants were locked in a vicious back-and-forth struggle. Zedekiah had a noticeably better reaction time and seemed to have more fighting experience. Roseria made up for these shortcomings with superior power and speed and her ability to use magical tendrils to cover her unguarded areas. The result was a brutal stalemate that looked like it would come down whoever could last the longest. As soon as Zedekiah realized this, he knew that his time was limited. He was fighting in an environment that his body was not accustomed to, which would cause him to tire at a faster rate. In addition, he had already suffered a number of wounds, which would limit his bodies ability to withstand further abuse. It seemed that victory was no longer a likely prospect.

Zedekiah couldn't rely on his opponent making a mistake to secure his victory, so he would have find an alternative way to prevent defeat. "You fight well." he stated, his breaths creating clouds of mist in the freezing air. "But not well enough. Your allies may have found Karah, but they will never be to take her. As we speak a team fighters, each more powerful than I, is taking her into their custody. You were the only variable they feared would ruin the plans, and you have wasted your chance by fighting me here." This was a lie, of course, but even if Roseria suspected as much there was no way should would be able to risk it. She obviously cared deeply for Karah, and that would force her to abandon the fight and fly away to try and save her friend herself.

Roseria jumped back as the man spoke of people stronger than him.  She began to fight again but this time she put all her strength into each blow.

"I'll beat you before they get to her."  She called then she swung her fan with all her might turning the end into a razor sharp weapon.  She jumped upward and then threw her fan at zedekiah.  It was like one giant disk and the cold air around it made it sound like a high pitched howl as it flew closer to it's target.

Roseria took this time to begin her sprint to meet up with the witches. She whistled loudly and one of her dragons came allowing her to jump onto their back. She latched on intently and began riding it towards the witches. Seconds later her fan had returned to it's owner as if it were a boomerang.


listera was clipped up by thick sound waves as the witches began to run.  She got up and grabbed a nearby car and threw it towards the culprit.  Eclipsa turned and shot several bullets of water towards the closest building causing parts of the building to collapse distracting the person chasing them. Eclipsa lunged towards their culprit with Listera under foot as Merlan prepared to heal her sisters and the other creatures that have been injured throughout the fight.

They then proceeded to continue towards the target building.

The car was, fortunately, not a Ford Pinto.  It did not explode on impact.  

It did, however, catch Hospitaller a glancing blow, throwing him aside and putting him down for a solid sixty seconds, by which point debris and time had put more than enough obstruction between himself and the suspicious trio to take them out of sight and make pursuit impractical.  

Hospitaller reported the incident to the Army, and then resumed his hunt for survivors.  There was no way he was catching them on foot, and if the hydrokinetic could somehow make vehicles explode with thrown water, mechanized chasing was less than ideal as well.  Whether the Army could reroute another Meta-Operative to intercept them or not was patently not his problem.  

The incident did gall him just a bit though.  If they *were* responsible for the snowmen wreaking havoc, then he would very much like to discourse to them with his fists.  He had already treated several trapped civilians for injuries ranging from large splinters to impact trauma.  It wasn't his job to be the blunt instrument in combat, but causing chaos at this scale put those three on par with any warmonger or plaguebearer so far as Martin was concerned.  

Hospitaller was jarred from his ruminating by a sound like a banshee being fed through a woodchipper.  He looked in the direction the noise had come from, and beheld a scaly beast beating its wings against the air, forcing itself through the air in complete disregard for gravity.  The radio returned to his hand.  

He had a hunch.  

"Hotel, Oscar, Sierra, Papa, reporting.  Do you have any ice-themed reptilian meta-operatives in the downtown sector?"

"Negative, Hotel."  

He was hardly one to start fights, but if there was someone riding this thing, they were probably higher up than the trio.  If anything would stop this madness, taking out whoever's mount this was seemed a pretty good bet.  If not, perhaps they might know who he *did* have to hit in order to finish the invasion.  

With those adrenalin-fueled thoughts rushing through his head, Hospitaller raised both hands, and Smote at the dragon's left wing, the beams of solid light flying across the intervening space with the force of a steam-driven pile driver.

The ice demon jumped away from Zedekiah when he began talking, listening intently to what he had to say. Hopefully she would heed his warning and flee, because even though Zedekiah was sure he could still fight for a while longer, he knew that eventually he would end up on the losing side of a battle. After considering what he had to say, the woman responded by leaping back into the fight, swinging her fan blade with a strength that Zedekiah couldn't hope to match. Thankfully, he didn't need to. Instead he just dodged the attacks, hopping this way and that, staying out of the path of her deadly tool. As she fought, she called out with a proclamation saying that she would defeat Zedekiah before his mythical team of metahumans could reach Karah. Zedekiah sighed inwardly, not letting it show on his face. She truly insisted on ending him. The woman's determination was admirable, but annoying. Zedekiah prepared to fight this battle to the bitter end.

Just as Zedekiah was resigning himself to the unpleasant moments ahead, Roseria swung her fan for the last time. Following this slash she jumped into the air, and Zedekiah knew that this was her last resort to kill him before going on to find Karah. He almost smiled, but his face only showed his permanent grim scowl. She flung her fan, the razor-sharp weapon spinning through the air at a speed that a normal human wouldn't have time to react to. Zedekiah, however, was not a normal human. The spinning blade was too fast for Zedekiah to reliably dodge, and he didn't trust his blade to be able to take the full force of it with a block, so he decided to meet the two techniques halfway.

The instant the fan left Roseria's hands Zedekiah was on the move, shifting his weight to the side and pushing off with his right foot in order to dash left. Simultaneously he swung his sword in an awkward looking movement, tucking his elbow in and swiping it along his body in line with the path of the incoming fan. By moving his center of mass out of the way of the weapon he was able to block the edge of the spinning blade and guide it away from his body. He deflected the attack, but only barely. The maneuver left him off balance, nearly knocking him to the floor, but thankfully The ice demon was already running away. It seemed she didn't even care whether her final attack had worked or not.

As the fan spun back around and returned to its owner, Zedekiah watched Roseria mount her massive ice dragon. Within moments she was flying in the direction of her ice witch allies, soon to be far away. Zedekiah took a knee, catching his breath. The adrenaline of battle was wearing off, and he suddenly began to feel the effects of his wounds and fatigue. Reaching into his battered armor he pulled out his cell phone, which was remarkably unscathed. Typing the words 'Mission Unsuccessful" into the text field, Zedekiah sent the bad news to Gattison.

BOOOOOM!

An explosion sounded in the direction of the ice demon. Snapping his head toward the sound, Zedekiah caught the sight of a powerful looking beam of light impacting one of the dragon's wings. Thoroughly interested, Zedekiah considered for a moment whether or not it would be wise to join the newly evolving action. After a few seconds of thinking he made his decision. Tucking his phone back into his armor, he ran off to to see what was happening for himself.

Roseria was rushing to the building maybe a few blocks away when her dragon shook violently and a gust of wind knocked her off the head. They collided to the ground but not before Roseria got a glimpse of who shot them. It was some guy in what she assumed to be a medic uniform issued by the military. The dragon cried once it touch the ground and roseria fell on top of it.

"Laura are you okay?!" She asked urgently as she jumped off the dragon and ran to it's head.

The dragon looked at her and twisted onto it's back and nodded before it stared at who hit it. Down the road was the image of a man running down to them. Then as if a leech zedekiah appeared next to him a few minutes later. Roseria looked down and the air around her dropped to an even lower degree. Snow began to twist around her and ice began to float next to her. Her eyes glowed a twisted blue and her fan pulsed with energy. She was done with zedekiah and that man had harmed her dragon and her friend non the less.

When she opened the fan behind her the dragon began to growl as it prepared to take revenge on the person who harmed her. As the air began to freeze over around them a giant explosion shook the area and loth had crashed to the ground in rage behind zedekiah and the new foe. He began to rush them with a grand fury as icy fog spilt from his mouth. His fangs sparkled as the light glinted off his teeth.

Hospitaller watched as the reptile plunged to earth.  He pushed down the satisfaction of a clean hit, his purpose was not to kill or destroy.  This was a preventive measure.  These things were no doubt what had been giving the American's planes grief.  Hopefully now he could find their leader, get some answers.  

He started moving in their direction, visibility was dropping and his beam attacks would be more accurate if he was closer.  

The adrenalin was rising in his mind, conscious thought making room for fighting instinct.  The rider, for that was what that woman must be, had drawn herself up.  The air had taken on another level of chill, he could almost feel the frozen hate directed at him by the fan-brandishing female.  

Wind whipping about him almost drowned out the rumble behind him, and as he turned he beheld a second dragon emerging from the mist.  The creature rushed toward him, and almost automatically a hand reached out.  Another beam rent the air asunder with accompanying boom, this one directed at the lizard's leg.  

This was bad.  He needed to take this one out of the fight, or reposition so the three of them could not attack him from different angles at once.  Already the "fight" instinct was giving way to "flight", making him wish he'd kept at least one of the motor vehicles he and the squad he'd been accompanying had been using to shuttle casualties and noncombatants back to the secure zones.

In lieu of using an unavailable transport or turning his back to the three enemies Hospitaller shifted his position, moving so that his body was facing almost perpendicular to the road, with one hand extended towards the duo he'd shot down, and another aimed at the newcomer.  He rapidly switched between watching first one and then the other, wary of their next move.

As Zedekiah neared the wreckage, he saw that Roseria and her dragon were indeed shot down. The ice demon seemed relatively unscathed, but her dragon's wing was fairly injured. The source of this injury was what looked to be a young, unassuming man wearing a standard army uniform with a black jacket. The jacket bore a cross-like symbol that Zedekiah couldn't identify, but the outfit suggested he was a part of the military operation trying to stop Roseria's invasion. Though one wouldn't have guessed just from looking at him, the young man was apparently a powerful metahuman. Perhaps the ice woman believes he is one of my partners, trying to capture Karah. Zedekiah thought to himself. The idea was quite amusing, considering the fact that his story about metahuman partners was a complete lie.

Zedekiah walked calmly up to the superpowered newcomer. The man didn't seem to notice him, and Zedekiah didn't want to startle him by speaking out suddenly, so he stayed quiet for the time being. At that point the wind began to pick up. An inhuman chill crept down Zedekiah's spine, and he knew that Roseria was using her cryomagic. Feeling an explosion that shook him to his very core, Zedekiah watched as the ice demon's second dragon descended from the sky, slamming itself into the ground with enough force to cause a small earthquake. The dragon landed in between Zedekiah and the supersoldier, roaring and spewing freezing mist. Zedekiah knew that if he was going to make it through this next leg of the fight he would have to link up with the newcomer, but that was easier said than done when there was terrific and monstrous reptile in the way.

With another eardrum-shattering BOOM, the soldier struck the creature's leg with a beam of light. Seizing his opportunity, Zedekiah leaped at the beast and slashed with his sword, aiming for the base of its tail as it hopefully flinched from the other man's attack. Even if the creature avoided Zedekiah's attack, it would hopefully give the soldier a chance to see Zedekiah. That way they could both work on a way to fight strategically, using their bolstered numbers to their advantage.

Roseria noticed the man turn urgently and shoot her dragon by them in the leg. He fell to the ground but used his tail to block zedekiah's sword. Roseria was done with the fight. She opened the fan and a giant pulsing sound erupted all around her and the aura that was slightly radiating off of her was now emanating from the fan only. She swung the fan as the pressure in it built up. The swing was agonizingly slow as she forced the fan across her body.

"Loth jump." She called to the dragon next to zedekiah and the other man.

She wasn't going to have them be a nuisance anymore. There was a loud roar as the wind that was caught in the fan rushed into the ground. It slid towards them like a large snake, destroying the ground under it turning it into what look like a poorly placed sewer ditch. The wind apruptly widened as the male dragon crawled across the building on it's left to get away from the attack.

Blades of ice danced feverishly inside the giant wave of wind as it honed in on its victims.

"Thank you witches." Roseria said for if it wasn't for them and this enchanted snow none of the moves she's doing now would be as strong or as controllable.


As the witches neared the building something made a loud boom and a flash of light washed over the windows. Karah was fighting back for once. She could hear Roseria fighting and she heard the explosions going off. This was all because she was too scared to protect herself when she was in real danger. Karah had always relied on Roseria to do everything...even when to tell her to transform so she could fight. She never objected or had a problem with it because it was fun to fight along side whom she called family.

The witches busted in and the real fight began. Thugs appeared out of all corners of the old factory like building as karah was chained in the middle of the room on a doctors table. Bodies were scattered on the floor some lifeless some just in an immense amount of pain. She looked over at the witches from her binds and smiled as the rushed in.

"Hey is roseria with you?" She asked as they became surrounded by the goons and thugs that took karah.

"No she was shot down while heading here." They said to her. At first karah was mortified and prepared to cry but then she remembered that roseria wasn't that easily beaten, and so her face became straight again and a green light glowed from her mouth as she began to shoot volleys of beams at the people surrounding her.

Hospitaller caught a movement following on his strike at the dragon. A man dressed up in an odd, non-military outfit with a large blade. It didn't take a genius to jump to the conclusion this must be one of the other meta-operatives the Army was coordinating. Filing him as "Ally" with no further fuss, Hospitaller moved to support the man. He wasn't paying the rider any mind for the moment, healing, as always came first. The newcomer looked worse for wear, and Hospitaller's light reached out, repairing damage and restoring health. A quick, clipped introduction was in order.

"Hospitaller. With the Recon and Recovery teams. I can provide fire and medical support. You know her?"

Deep conversation, however, turned out to be impractical. A crackling of power drew his attention back to the rider. Ice and wind mingled ominously as the road was excavated, and Hospitaller situated himself behind his new ally, hands glowing with healing power, ready to restore any hits that made it through whatever his ally had for defenses.

The dragon went down hard after being hit with the soldier's beam of light. Zedekiah was sure his blade would strike the beasts tail off, but instead the creature whipped it's tail around clashed with his sword, blocking the attack. The combination maneuver between Zedekiah and the newcomer was a good plan, but it didn't pan out the way he had hoped it would. If only Zedekiah could rendezvous with the soldier, things would be easier. As if reading the Zedekiah's mind, the soldier finally acknowledged and approached Zedekiah. Before any words were exchanged, the man enveloped Zedekiah in a holy light. Zedekiah could feel the cuts over his body stitching together, fresh blood coursing through his veins. The ache in his bones was gone, and the weariness that had been brought about by extended combat was now a distant memory. Zedekiah was ready for round two.

The soldier introduced himself as "Hospitaller," a silly and obvious pseudonym. In light of recent events, however, Zedekiah could ignore the name. The man was obviously a self-proclaimed superhero, which meant nothing to Zedekiah except that a prolonged alliance was more or less out of the question. "Heroes" tended not to take kindly to Zedekiah's actions. Hospitaller continued by stating his association with search and rescue. That made sense, given his powerful healing capabilities. His offensive power meant Hospitaller would no doubt be a capable ally in a fight, which was exactly what Zedekiah needed right now.

"Zedekiah Bishop," the voidwalker announced, introducing himself to the soldier. Unfortunately, before he could begin to answer Hospitaller's question regarding his relationship to the ice demon, he was interrupted. Roseria had not been standing idly by as her two opponents fought her minions. She had surrounded her fan with a deadly aura, one that signaled a devastating attack incoming. She swung her fan in a curiously slow motion, catching wind as it moved. When she yelled for her dragon to "jump," Zedekiah prepared for the worst. He was not disappointed. With a sound that reminded Zedekiah of some of the more monstrous beasts of the Void, a storm of epic proportions was released from Roseria's weapon. It was a torrent of ice and wind, tearing through the sky and into the ground, moving almost as if it had a mind of its own. The terrible attack razed its way through everything in it's path, reducing the ground beneath it to dirt and rubble. Not surprisingly, the wind aimed itself at Zedekiah and Hospitaller.

The dragon quickly fled up a nearby building, not wanting anything to do with the approaching storm. As the beast left, the storm widened, becoming less concentrated but now almost impossible to avoid, taking up the entire street and tearing building faces apart with blades of ice and harsh winds. Zedekiah's new ally moved so that Zedekiah was between him and the storm, healing power at the ready. Apparently he was pinning his hopes on Zedekiah having a defense against this attack. Zedekiah almost laughed. Instead, he steeled himself and raised his sword, getting in a stance that would best allow him to perform a complex series of maneuvers. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, thinking back to his swordsmanship training.

One of his old swordmaster's most advanced drills was the "dance of the falling petals." He would toss a flurry of petals from a high point, tasking Zedekiah with catching them all in a net without letting any touch the ground. It was an almost impossible task, the petals being too numerous for Zedekiah to get them all. The younger Zedekiah wanted to quit, but his master scolded him, telling him that if he refused to try, then he had already failed. Taking this advice to heart, Zedekiah trained himself night and day. Eventually, after weeks of constant practice, Zedekiah finally impressed his master, completing the drill with perfection. The the drill taught Zedekiah the value of determination, but now it held a more literal purpose. Zedekiah opened his eyes, focused on the approaching the wall of wind and ice blades. It no longer seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle, unblockable and deadly. It now seemed to Zedekiah as nothing more than an armful of petals in the breeze, and him staring it down with his net in hand.

The attack met Zedekiah with a gust so strong it nearly floored him immediately. Zedekiah was knocked off balance, taking a pair of quick ice-slices to his body and one to the neck, missing anything vital but dangerously close to nicking his jugular. He took a knee, regaining his balance and blocking three successive ice blades with his sword. The wind was almost unbearable, making Zedekiah's eyes water and making his attacks feel like he was moving through water, but he wouldn't give up. He hoped that as long as Hospitaller stayed behind him the soldier would be spared the brunt of the damage, that way he could heal Zedekiah up later. His sword a blur, Zedekiah blocked blade after blade, the ice shards shattering on his weapon. He took more hits than he could count, but he was actually holding his own against the titanic storm.

"I cant do anything else at the moment." Roseria said as she took a knee closing her fan.

The other dragon crawled next to her and looked at her. They stood their as the watched the gust of wind rush into zedekiah. Loth crawled in front of her and his scales began to pulse. Roseria touched a few of them and a swarm of snow men appeared from his scales and began to walk in front of roseria. They parted so that she was now in a one way from her to zedekiah and the new opponent. Roseria decided that she would try to stop fighting and try to work with them until they got karah back.

"Okay snowmen I want you to go and guard the other roads nobody gets in or out." Roseria called and the snowmen began to trot towards the roads and alleys.

The dragons took a few steps back then sat up in a loyal dog position. Roseria closed her fan and put it back up as she stood and waited for the other two.