Alitia: Crown of Ash

XLIII: Revival of the Moon

Helena absolutely hated this damn battle already. 

As soon as the Shadows started to peek over the horizon, she knew that they would be in it for the long haul. She pulled herself closer to Tanith and Sophia, her two allies for the battle at hand, and started attacking from as far away as she could manage. She was a bit too far from the Shadows to see if her attacks were making contact with their targets, much less doing damage, but Helena kept throwing spheres of fire through the sky regardless. She didn't see much of a choice, in all honesty. 

Helena was as good as alone with Tanith and Sophia as far as she could tell. There were no other familiar faces within range, and the city was too large for her to search through all of the people nearby without compromising her ability to attack. She had to stay focused no matter how isolated and exposed she felt. Her nerves couldn't get the best of her when they were in such a dire situation. 

Sophia seemed to feel the same way. She moved through the air towards the walls of the city, and she dropped down a small sprinkling of dust at the empty holes where the outer wall had once stood tall and proud. Helena watched as the magic floated to the ground before Sophia clapped her hands together, and large green vines began to rise upwards, creating a barrier that blocked out all of the Shadows in the region. 

Tanith shot Sophia a weary smile before she got to work in a similar way. She raised her hands above her head, creating a sphere of air that whirled rapidly. Tanith launched it forward, and the churning wind landed on the ground just in front of Sophia's barrier. The sphere expanded outwards, and it began to swallow all the Shadows who dared to get too close. Tanith pressed her hands together when she believed that the orb was at full capacity, and all of the Shadows within its boundaries gave way alongside her magic, creating an explosion of familiar sludge that rained down on the outside Shadows. 

Helena started to direct her attacks in the direction of the hole that Sophia was attempting to plug. The nature mage wasn't going to be able to keep this up for much longer because of how large the gap was. Fortifying the hole in the wall would have been difficult for anyone, but her magic was weakened because of how far away they had to be in order to remain safe. The shadows attempting to break through the vines certainly weren't helping, and each blow against the wall of writhing plants seemed to hit Sophia personally. Helena saw the enchantress wince from time to time, and she could tell that Sophia was starting to lose her energy already. 

"We have to get earth mages to start filling those holes up again!" Tanith cried out as she unleashed another attack. "The rocks from the wall will be easy to use, and if we play our cards right, we'll be able to make sure that nothing else happens within the borders of the city! That will keep most of the Shadows out since none of them are attacking from the sky!"

Helena nodded, and she glanced around once again to see if she recognized anyone. Helena cursed the fact that there weren't many mages from Igni, and the divide of leaths and mages among the population bothered Helena more then than ever before. She didn't know of any mages whose specialties revolved around earth magic outside of Igni, and they were going to need all the help that they could get if they were going to fill those holes before more Shadows broke through the barrier. 

"I-I don't know how m-much longer I can d-do this!" Sophia cried out. She was suffering under a cruel mixture of adrenaline and pressure, leaving her to shudder with every blow against her shield of vines. She let out a small yelp of pain as a particularly powerful Shadow managed to get through the crowd to bash against the barrier. The phantom pain was strong enough to nearly knock her out of the sky. 

Helena saw this as a prompt to do what she could to ease her friend's suffering, and she flew to Sophia's side before wrapping an arm around her waist. The action was disjointed and awkward since they were still flying on their own and lacked any sort of synchronicity, but at least Sophia was being kept in the air. That was all that mattered to Helena for the time being.