The Storm and the Archmage

This was't working. Elody could already feel things slipping from her grasp. She had thought to overpower him with water alone - her strongest element - but that was clearly not in the cards. What else could she do? She had other elements to use, didn't she? Fire was far from her ability to control but if she'd had any plants around...

But there were no plants in this deep cave under the city. Maybe moss but she could hardly do anything with that.

However, there was stone.

Kazum darted to the side as a dozen blades of rock tore themselves from the ground and screamed towards him. More followed, Elody forged a swarm of them. Dozens, hundreds of blades which flashed and swooped and cut for the man! But Kazum reduced them to nothing with a blast from his staff. That was fine, they were a distraction anyway. Eldoy slammed into him from behind with all of her strength. His personal shield flared brightly for a moment, and he twisted. The head of his staff clubbed her in the skull and Elody hit the ground. She rolled as he summoned chains of binding light to entrap her. They followed, coiling like snakes around her body. Elody roared and shattered them with a dozen rising spikes from the earth. A wall of stone blocked Kazum's next attack - an evil purple sphere which enveloped and disintegrated it - and then Elody managed to evade a burning ray of light which swept across her chest.

Kazum was laughing. A maniacal joy in his eyes.

"More!" He shouted. "Show me more! Strength is only true when it is being challenged! For power to be real it must be used! Show me your strength! Show me your will!"

Elody slammed him with another mental attack. This time, she smashed a blow like a hammer into his mind. No subtlety , no finesse. Just destruction. He reeled under her attack, but quickly recovered and launched a wave of marble-sized lights from one hand. They circled and surrounded her on all sides before enveloping her position in darkness. Everything around and between them was simply erased.

Everything except for Elody. Teeth gritted in pain, she plunged out of the blackness. A whip of water landing a curving hit across his side. His shield flared again, and Elody volleyed a dozen sharpened stones into it! Most were blocked but as the last few hit, the wards finally failed and one carved deeply into his shoulder. He snarled in pain and she was on him! Water curved around her form, rising around her in tendrils. She looked like some ocean goddess at war, especially as she directed them all. Coiling and snaking around his body. But Kazum was quick and able to outpace her, dodging her strikes with preternatural speed.

Suddenly, he lanced out and struck her a blow to the gut. His hand burned with magic and Elody felt a hole torn right through her as the spell escaped! Pain flooded her back and she staggered. It would have been a fatal wound for a mortal.

But she was not a mortal, and the damage closed to nothing with only a few moments worth of thought. However, those moments had given Kazum the chance to unleash a rippling wall of **** which slammed into her body and pinned her against the wall of one of the buildings. Elody writhed there, fighting and snarling but she could find no way out!

Had he beaten her again?

Then her eyes fell to where Vrasha lay. She looked so beaten, enslaved and naked, the seed of a man dripping from between her thighs. The Windblade lay at her side wet with her climax. As soon as Elody saw that, a new and deeper rage seemed to fill her. It boiled up from inside of her body, screaming roaring and building. It was the same sort of wrath which drove an elder nature spirit to destroy a city, or doom a civilisation. At that moment, the only thing which saved Gelmina was that Elody was yet young for her kind. She did have the power for such legendary consequences.

But she had power enough to break the wall. Strength and fury surged through her being. Fire burning in her belly, and the stone around her churned and ran like liquid. She screamed, and the ward shattered! Suddenly, she was moving. Kazum pivoted to respond but the earth under his feet ran like liquid and he tripped!

Elody punched him, empowering herself with the strength of the earth and the elements. The **** was bone-breaking and radiating through his body. Kazum's shield popped like a balloon and he was hurled through the air. Elody twisted and used an extending tentacle of water to grab his staff and pull it towards her even as he went! She caught it and twirled, bringing it down across her knee.

But it did not break.

Surprised, Elody filled it with the essence of fire, letting the wood smoulder and char as flame ate away at it from the core out.

But it did not burn.

She gathered water around it, making it heavier and heavier, compressing it down to crush the staff under the sheer, abyssal pressure.

But it did not shatter.

She gathered more power. The staff had to have a weakness! She would find it! she would-

Her time ran out. A shimmering light beside her was her only warning as Kazum's body flashed into existence within inches of her back. She turned to respond but he slammed her with some sort of anti-magic wave which broke her control of the elements. This was followed rapidly by a wave of kinetic **** which picked her up off her feet - staff spinning away - and smashed her into one of the building. The sturdy stone and brick structure collapsed in on itself under the impact, and Elody felt bones snap and organs rupture. Pain expanded behind her eyes and for a moment she could not move at all.

When the damage was fixed, she tried to dig her way out, but Kazum was ready. A blast of ice enveloped her body, freezing her in place for a few seconds as he invoked a binding circle around her. By the time she had managed to fight her way free of the ice, she was surrounded on all sides by an invisible barrier. She could pierce it, but she would need time. Time Kazum was not about to give her.

"It is over," Said the archmage. "You fought well. Better the second time though you had less raw power. Nonetheless, you are now beaten. You cannot escape my wards before I reinforce them. You cannot strike at me through that barrier. There is now no option you can take which allows you to continue the battle. I have won and you have lost."

He gestured towards her, his palm open as it had been before. Elody remembered the terrible feeling, the tearing as her very being had been shredded and cast into the wind.

"Now I will offer you one final chance. You have impressed me, so you may join me. Serve as my **** and enforcer or die. I do not know just how you returned the first time but I suspect it will not happen again."