True to the dark clouds in the sky, raindrops started falling over the battlefield in front of the school, first shyly and sparce, but then like a downpour in a summer day. Together with the rain, lightning and thunder could be seen and heard over the sound of the fire and the water meeting the ground, with the electrical discharges hitting the lightning rods of S?o Paulo’s far away skyscrapers.

  Olivia stopped dead, watching in horror as Tomás spun thought the air. Beside her, Gustavo screamed a resounding ‘No!!’ and began charging one more of his fireballs. Conjuring almost all of his remaining Mana, he formed a ball of fire just as big as the second one he had just throwed at the Goblins, exerting the same control as before, guiding the sphere towards the Caster and its remaining Goblins goons. The thing sucked the bodies of the dead Goblins it found in its wake, growing in size and swelling to some seven meter in diameter.

  Moving with uncaring grace, the fireball reached the Caster’s group and hit them squarely, forming a massive wall of fire that engulfed the monsters in an inferno of flames. The ground around the point of impact kept on burning for some seconds after the explosion, almost melting the concrete that formed the school’s front yard.

  “That’s what you get, you worm!!” Gustavo screamed towards the wall of flames. “Don’t ever mess… with us… again…”

  The Private fell to the ground, and Olivia rushed to him, supporting the young man. Gustavo was bleeding from his eyes and nose, breathing hard and trembling. She wondered if it was because of the exertion he posed on himself, conjuring three powerful Magics in a short span of time, consuming his accumulated Mana and more. The boy began crying, tears running down his face and mixing with his blood as he watched the fallen Tomás across the front yard, trying to mouth something but being unable to produce a sound.

  “It’s okay Gus, we will get him and I am sure the Corporal will be back up in no time,” Olivia said, almost lying to herself. She was sure that Tomás would not survive after being thrown around like that, but she could do nothing but to have a small hope that Tomás would simply shrug the injury away and stand up like nothing had happened.

  She looked up to the fire show just ahead of her to check on the destruction Gustavo had caused and froze. As the flames dissipated, a dark and translucent sphere appeared on the spot the Caster was at, silhouettes taking shape inside of it. When the fire died out, the sphere, or, rather, the shield, dissolved like a bubble, exposing the Goblins unscathed behind it. The Caster, a Goblin with a dark robe and horns growing out of his head and shoulders, wielding a staff with a great black orb on its tip, stood there, expressionless. Its eyes emitted bursts of black energy and seemed to absorb all light around it. Waving its robed left arm towards the group of humans, the Goblins behind the Caster moved forward, almost all of them Infantries clad in more uniform armor, with helmets and breastplates of dubious quality, and wielding swords and shields.

  Silva reacted to this by shooting the first in line with a well-placed shot on the thing’s head. But, with a slight motion of the Caster’s staff, a small dark shield formed to intercept the bullet before it killed its target. Silva then started taking steps towards where Olivia and Gustavo stood, shooting suppressive shots at the monsters. Sensing the danger in the humans, all of the Infantries covered themselves in their signature Red Aura. The Sergeant could tell without a second glance those Goblins were not the same as the ones they encountered so far, being much more trained and organized.

  Silva’s shots did nothing to the approaching Goblins, simply being stopped by the Caster dark shield. Olivia, putting the colorless Gustavo in the ground, stood up and prepared some of her lightning Magic.

  From the first moment they discovered her and Gustavo’s Magic, she could tell that manipulating the incontrollable electrical discharges was not an easy feat. When Gustavo was already being able to control his fire with ease, Olivia was still trying and failing her numerous attempts of conjuring lightning, all of them resulting in only just strain and spent Mana. It wasn’t until Tomás remembered something that she understood what she had to do in order to cast her Magic: reduce resistance. Being a force similar to electricity, Lightning would travel in the course with less resistance and, just like the natural occurrence in the skies, she had to energize the air for her Magic to pass without hindrance.

  Lucky for her, the air between her and the monsters was already charged, both by the fire Gustavo conjured, heating and exciting the atmosphere close to the ground, and by the rain that began to fall. Olivia focused herself, concentrating on the possible pathways for her Magic, slowing the world down and making all the hairs on her body stand up, making her look like a victim of electrocution. Like a small river and its serpentine course, she saw in her mind the Presence of the gases and molecules of water in the proximity, their agitation, their accumulated energies.

  Using her own Presence to agitate even more the air, Olivia created a twisting and invisible avenue connecting all the twenty-six Goblins that were closing on their position, making sure to connect the caster to it twice. She released her Magic, a bluish white stream of electricity that ran through the air close to the speed of light using the highway she paved as a shortcut to reach the marked Goblins.

  Olivia, with her now enhanced senses, perceived the world like a stop motion movie, with each frame by painstaking frame forging itself very slow in her mind. But, even for her, the chain lightning was moving too fast, with her only being able to watch as the stream moved itself from raindrop to raindrop, finally connecting to the intended target. As the current reached each of the Goblins, they died before even realizing what hit them, squirming and forcefully flexing their muscles, falling stiffly to the ground.

  Finally focusing on the Caster, Olivia noticed the monster actively cutting the highway she paved for her magic, forcefully removing the agitation from the air, waving its staff slightly in the direction of the path. The monster was able to save itself and ten others from the onslaught of the chain lightning, with the others simply falling dead the moment Olivia returned her senses to their normal speed.

  Now, Olivia noticed that the monster, now visibly agitated, started cooling down the air around itself, effectively making Olivia’s Magic almost useless. Silva, now next to Olivia and Gustavo, tried to shoot at the monsters, only achieving to hit the translucent shields protecting the remaining Goblins. With his weapon going empty, he quickly reloaded.

  “You damn son of a whore”, said Olivia, cursing the monster through her teeth.

  Now effectively out of viable options, Olivia, Silva and the expended Gustavo were at the mercy of the monsters, who now were closing in at almost running pace. Drawing her combat knife, Olivia readied herself to close combat.

  "Son, you must wake up," said Matilda, holding her son's bruised face with her hand. "Life isn't as simple as winning a fight. You can't just butt your head around and hope to change things for the best with your fists."

  The inside of the little home was very humble, with very few furniture. The farmhouse was not theirs to call home, in fact, as the leisure contract didn’t allow them for any luxury, so they lived in her parent’s old house, taking care of a small plantation very far away with much hard work. Inside the house’s kitchen, Matilda sat with her son in the family’s table, a square little thing with just four chairs, using the natural light of the day to illuminate her son while she took care of him.

  Her boy had got himself in a fight again, punching some older kids in the school. He hadn't won the fight, far from it in fact, with a swollen eye and the marks from kicks all over on his body. She was cleaning his wounds with all her love and care, and, at the same time, trying to put some sense inside his stubborn head. She let go of his face and resumed her nursing, wetting some cotton with alcohol.

  "I know mom, but they were hitting the other kids- auch!!", he tried to say when she passed alcohol over one of his many bruises, "and I was not going to simply watch them push them around."

  "I know you had the best of intentions, son, but there are other ways to solve those problems beside a fistfight. You must remember that violence never solves anything and just bring you more problems", Matilda said, again cupping the boy's face, with both hands this time. "And they hurt you, don't you get it? They are provoking you, making you into their willing punching bag."

  "I if I don't do anything they will hurt the other kids", he said, with a shrug. "I tried talking to them before, mom, but they don't listen."

  Matilda sat back on her chair, thinking about that. Indeed, it was a hard predicament. The school could do nothing, as the fights happened outside of school grounds and class hours, and the other kids were afraid, not giving their testimonies to corroborate her son. To complicate matters even further, it was a small city, with everyone knowing everyone, and the bullies’ parents were influential, being protected by their power over the small community.

  Even with all of her inspiring words, she was still at a loss of ideas. She could not simply stand idly while her son was being beaten just by defending someone, but what could she do? She was a simple countryside woman, all she could do was work hard to take care of her son, her house, her family and their livelihood.

  "Your mother is right kid, you can't always solve your problems with your fists", said a man's voice from behind both of them. The two turned to see Sebasti?o, Matilda' husband, entering the kitchen. "But this time, I assure you, you can."

  He approached the two, pulled a chair and sat down on the other side of the boy, using the table as support for his arm. Matilda noticed her husband bloodied fist, exposing the fact that he recently got into a fight, a thing that had not happened in a long time. With a stern look on her face, she silently asked him 'what are you doing?'

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  He responded with a shrug and held her hand, slightly calming his wife's worries.

  "I, uhh, talked with the parents of those troublemakers", he said, messing with his son's hair. "They will have to stop their children now, and, if not, they will have trouble with the police."

  "How is a fight between kids going to give them trouble with the police?", asked Matilda, genuinely curious.

  "It's not what the kids are doing, it's what the parents do, but let's not concern ourselves with that, shall we?", Sebasti?o said, squeezing his wife's hand. "Son, look at me."

  The boy looked at his father's face, a very serious look on his face and a swollen eye as a patch of honor.

  "I want you to know that I, we," he looked at his wife, "love you very much and we are very proud of you for standing up for the people around you like that. Not many people are willing to take a beating for someone else, much less when you cannot hope to punch back."

  Sebasti?o put his hand over his son's shoulder, prompting the boy to flinch in pain over the many bruises on his body.

  "Sorry about that, son”, pulling the boy close and kissing him on the forehead. Pushing him back again to look in his eyes, he said "But remember Tomás, when people start pushing you around like that again, you hit them back, and you hit them back hard."

  Upon hearing his father's words inside his mind, Tomás opened his eyes. He didn’t want to wake up, but something compelled him to. Seeing only with his right eye in a very blurry manner, he was only being able to make out vague silhouettes in front of him. The world was a sea of pain for him, the very act of breathing in was like piercing needles on his chest and exhaling was the same as removing those needles, making him sure that he got a lot of broken ribs.

  Noticing his left arm bent in an unnatural angle, with a new elbow down on his forearm, he made an attempt to look at his own state: he was with his back to a pole in a position one could call sitting, looking at the state of the battlefield, but his vision did not help him distinguish what was happening. His left leg was in a similar state as his left arm, being dislocated to an unsafe angle, but his right one was somewhat intact, with just tears on the fabric of his trousers. His right arm was also almost intact, save from a cut on the forearm he got in the middle of the fight with the Goblins, and he was still holding his pistol with an iron grip.

  Tomás didn’t understand what he was doing in the ground. He thought they were almost winning the battle, so he relaxed a little. When he started looking for his comrades, he was sent flying through the air. ‘I was hit from behind, that’s for sure, but by what?’ he thought. His logic was cut short when he noticed a light show in front of him: a searing white light crossing his very limited field of view, downing some of the silhouettes in front of him.

  ‘That must be Olivia’s lightning’, the Corporal thought. ‘They should be able to win this, right?’

  But to his surprise, the silhouettes, that he now was sure were Goblins, kept moving forward, with just one staying behind. Tomás blinked several times in an attempt to clear his vision, making the world clear each time he opened his eyes again. He then was able to notice a Goblin in a dark robe preparing some kind of Magic.

  With his Concentration, Tomás sensed the Presence around the creature: a very dark Mana, with a texture like oil, forming inside and outside the creature. He noticed also that the air around the creature was cold, probably in an attempt to protect it from Olivia’s lightning, isolating the monster. He also took a look at his own state, noticing his Aura almost all spent, with very few Presence remaining inside his entire body. Tomás was at death’s door, no doubt about it.

  In a last attempt to make himself useful, he very slowly and painfully raised his right arm. Unsure if it would kill him, Tomás concentrated all of his very little Aura on his right hand, making the energy seep inside the pistol’s handle, entering the third round in the sequence of the magazine, making the thing glow red in his mind. Trying to keep a steady aim with his wounded arm, Tomás targeted the Goblin Caster.

  His first shot went wild, only being useful to attract the Goblin’s attention. The second would hit the monster squarely if it not for the monster’s shield, making the bullet deflect to the side. The third, charged, left the pistol’s barrel just like the one Tomás used to kill the Goblin Captain before he was sent flying by the monster in front of him. Without the strengthening Tomás would normally apply to weapon, the pistol exploded in his hand, causing some of his finger to be broken by the explosion. Moving through the air just slightly slower than the shot form before, the bullet made its way towards the Caster. The Goblin then raised his shield, with assured confidence that the bullet would not pass.

  But, contrary even to Tomás expectations, the bullet shattered the shield and reached the Caster behind it, causing the monster to scream in pain. With this, the other Goblins and Silva turned their attentions to the feud between the wounded soldier and the magic user.

  While all of this was happening, Olivia was preparing her attack. When she noticed Tomás taking aim moments before, she was sure the hard to die Corporal had some kind of last card, and that turned out to be true when his third shot had just shattered the Caster’s shield. Thinking quickly with her enhanced senses while the bullet hasn’t even reached its target, she intended not to waste the opportunity presented by the dying soldier. Focusing her Mana, she carved another pathway of excited air towards the trajectory that the strengthened shot from Tomás had just crossed. The already hot air made from the passage of the bullet and its propellants made her job easier, so she just had to make sure her lightning hit true on the dammed Goblin Caster. With extra care and focus on precision, she sent her lightning on its way.

  The superhot stream of plasma crossed the air in a straight line, ignoring the dumbfounded Goblins just centimeters from where it was passing. When the thing reached the path of the bullet, moments after the shot from Tomás reached its target, the lightning did a ninety degree turn and finished its way towards the monster. Using the hole in the shield, the discharge connected to the monster and finished Tomás’ job, electrocuting the Goblin Caster and killing it.

  When Silva and the Goblin Infantries finished to turn to see what happened to the Caster, he was already blackened from the electrical discharge. The Goblins began panicking when they noticed their dead leader, attempting to form some sort of coherent plan for attack and/or escape.

  Silva, not wasting a moment, simply opened fire with his rifle, mowing down the Infantries before they even got a chance to react, his strengthened shots piercing the ten Goblins like they were made from paper. When the monsters finished falling to the ground, Silva rushed to Tomás side, finally being able to see the horrible state his friend was in.

  Twisted, broken and beaten, the only indication that Tomás was alive was his very labored breath and his moving right eye. His left arm and left were broken in a painful manner, and blood was dripping from various exposed fractures where broken bones could be seen piercing the skin. His right hand was in tatters, having endured an explosion with a lot of shrapnel from very close, with some fingers broken, stuck bits of the pistol and with burned skin. It was a gruesome scene and a evident miracle that the Corporal was alive.

  Olivia dragged Gustavo with her and did the same. The young Private had started to regain his color, and, when he noticed the barely alive Corporal, his face lit up instantly. Not being able to even speak or to nod at them, Tomás simply looked at them with painful looking eyes full of tears.

  “Olivia, bring Tomas’ kit here right now. We need medical evac as fast as possible”, said Silva in an urgent manner. “Gustavo, pick yourself up, son. Go check on those civilians. I will call Command.”

  Gustavo, now visibly looking healthier, stood up and ran towards the school front door, dodging the countless bodies of burned, electrocuted or maimed Goblins.

  Crouching down beside Tomás and bringing his radio up to his ear, Silva hailed the Army base. He quickly remembered that, in all of his career, he never thought he would need to call for a medical evacuation.

  “This is Sergeant Arturo Silva, XXo Infantry Battalion, requesting immediate medical evacuation of urgent wounded. We are at XXX Street, in front XXX Elementary School. Multiple fractures, pierced lungs, heavy concussion, and shrapnel wounds with heavy bleeding. Possible wounded civilians, number unknow. Over.” He repeated the hail one more time before receiving an answer.

  “This is Xo Army Provisional Base, I receive you, Sergeant”, said the radio controller. “A helicopter will be sent on your way. Please state additional information on your surroundings. Over.”

  “Affirmative. We are at the school’s front yard, with heavy monster casualties around us. There is enough open space for landing, but there is smoke and fire all over, be advised of unfavorable conditions. Over”, said Silva.

  “Copy that, Sergeant. Helicopter on course. Estimated time for arrival is five minutes. Do you have a medic with you that can give the wounded first aid? Over.”, asked the controller.

  “Negative. The wounded is Corporal Tomás Santos, our team medic. I would like any help you can provide. Over.”, said a more desperate Silva.

  “Copy that. I will bring a medical officer to the radio. Over.”

  “I can help with that, sir.”, said a woman’s voice from behind Silva.

  He turned to see a woman in a dirty dress and blonde hair. If not for the situation he was in, Silva would say that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But, with Tomás’ life on the line, he simply stood up and went for her.

  “You can? Are you a medic? Doctor? Nurse?”, Silva said holding her hands and pulling her to where Tomás was laying.

  “I am a nurse, sort of.”, she said, the last part very low. “My name is Silvia. I can help you friend here.”

  “So please, do it.”, said Silva.

  Just as this was happening, Olivia arrived with Tomás backpack. Noticing the unknow woman next to the Sergeant, Oliva crouched and started opening the med kit.

  Noticing Olivia’s arrival, Silva turned and said “Olivia, help Ms. Silvia here with Tomás, she is a nurse. Ms. Silvia, how many civilians were at the school? Is there wounded?”

  “No wounded, sir, and we are eight, three children and eight adults.”, Silvia said, already starting to take care of Tomás.

  “Command, this is Sergeant Silva again. I got confirmation of eight civilians requiring evacuation, no wounded. With my team, we are totaling twelve. Over.”, Silva said over the radio.

  “Copy that, Sergeant. Helicopter is capable of transporting and will be advised. Over.” Said the controller.

  “Copy that, Command. Also, civilian with medical expertise is stabilizing wounded. Over.”

  “Copy that, Sergeant. Keep in contact. Over”, said the controller.

  “Mr. Josef! Mr. Josef!?”, said the woman, exasperated.

  “Yes, miss?”, said a man coming from the school, presumably Josef.

  “I need something long to use to immobilize a broken leg and arm. Can you find it in the school?”, said Silvia.

  “And get the other people ready, rescue is on the way.”, said Silva.

  “Of course, miss, sir.”, Josef said. But, when he got close and saw the state of Tomás was in, the man prostrated his hands and quickly made a foreign prayer, saying “By Allah, how is this man alive?”

  “He will not be if you don’t move fast. Go, now!!”, said Silvia. The man turned

  The woman started cutting the fabric of Tomás’ clothes using the tools from his kit, exposing the wounds to their full extent. Quickly applying some analgesics and anticoagulants, she put clotting bandages over the more severe wounds and started the painful process of realigning the fractured bones with precise movements, taking care to not move the exposed ones too much and using some broom sticks Josef brought and some bandages to keep the broken arm and leg in place.

  The rain began to pick up, a downpour that soaked everything around them. Silvia picked the kit’s emergency blanket and covered the wounded soldier. When the Corporal was in a more comfortable position, she stopped and turned to him.

  “His name is Tomás, right?”, she asked Silva. The Sergeant nodded. “Tomás, I need you to stay with us. Can you do that?”

  The Corporal, behind a very hazy mind, nodded.