The rumbling of the sky was a constant weight over the backs of the gathered crowd. Flashes of lightning illuminated the mists with blinding color. In the space between lightning chaos reigned, any semblance of strategy and decorum lost. Gods bit and tore and slashed at Hianlian. Healers dashed about trying to find the wounded.
Someone had gotten eaten.
One of their own, the opal-and-blue… he hadn’t been eaten but Hianlian had tried. Now the Guardian sported a broken jaw for his attempt. The black dragon was proud of that particular show of might.

Acheron surveyed the field from atop the rubble of a collapsed spire and took a moment to catch his breath and lick his wounds. Above, his leader circled the battle as if it no longer interested him. Searching for something, Some_one_ else. Acheron weighed the idea of abandoning the fight to assist his leader. Hianlian was weakened. Surely these fools could handle him from here out? …But Mordred had not ordered a withdrawal.

Night had fallen, casting the Vale into stark shadows and darkness. The oppressive dark clouds spilled the world into inky black, and only those whose pelts or magic glowed could be seen. Like beacons.

Green lightning wrapped around into a rift that opened atop a spire. The small, venomous smooth coat leaped from the green, stood tall, and when lightning inevitably struck him his magic wrapped it in green and it arced in a graceful deadly assault into Hianlian’s bloody eye, the only space there was between the masses of shapes hanging from the feline god.
Hianlian screamed, shaking the earth.

More light, a wall of white magic between Hianlian and a line-up of mismatched ketucari, the blue-and-opal snack of a toa at their center while they launched magic through his reflect. Clever. Acheron would have to remember that one and tell Mordred of it.
Grunting, he pushed himself to his paws and sank his claws into the stone to brace himself. The static in the air was getting thin. Hianlian took up too much of it for his own magic. He’d have to focus longer, harder, if he wanted to--
“Excuse me!”

A sweet voice. Like bells. Snarling, Acheron snapped his head to the left. There, just off the rubble, the tiny cream coat stood, her hand on a bag filled with vials and herbs and gauze. “You… you’re hurt, arent’ you?” The kadin called, shyng from his glare. “Do you need--”


He snorted, glared at Hianlian. The guardian had grabbed a humanoid and snapped them between his teeth like a femur, tossing them aside before twisting to launch himself between the flying gods to the venomous smooth coat, desperation in his remaining eye. The green-lightning toa answered by launching lightning directly into the Guardian’s manic gaze.
“...Save your herbs for another.” Acheron growled out, and braced himself again.

Rain pelted against his sides, lightning arched down into his fur. He drank it all in with a laugh.

The cream coat dashed off in the corner of his vision, towards the humanoid who’d been tossed aside like garbage. Good, he grinned, tossing his head to the sky with a howl, Inviting the storm to him. His muscles swelled, his fur sparked with static and stood on end like needles.
With a screaming howl, he focused Hianlian’s lightning--and fired it back at him in a crimson bolt.

A green bolt echoed--down towards the opal-and-blue’s barrier. A direct hit that leaped and struck Hianlian in the stomach, sending the guardian reeling back--so Acheron’s bolt caught him in the chest--and launched him backwards into another spire.
Stone cracked and shattered, Hianlian’s screams and yowls and curses buried under hundreds of tons of rock while he flailed.

Through the mists, dozens of shapes surged towards the guardian like locusts to tear him apart while he lay prone. Acheron launched himself from his perch and leaped in bounding steps to the head of the crowd. There he rocketted into the air, twisted, and brought his entire weight down like a meteor into the Guardian’s ribs.
He cackled when something cracked and Hianlian’s pliant belly recoiled, and proceeded to claw and tear, soon joined by a many eyed-god who stank of blood and death.
Voices crowded around, the opal-and-blue leaped up to Acheron’s other side, eyes glowing white with the effort of lifting one of the monstrous stones from Hianlian with Greheli, and driving the sharpest end he could back down into whatever he could reach between stones.

It was the many eyed god who  first meaningfully broke skin, shredding Hianlian’s chest down to expose the Guardian’s ribs.

Hianlian thrashed, twisted, tried to wriggle from under the mountain of stone. But without leverage there was nowhere for him to twist to. Acheron took delight in that, focusing his own lightning into his paws, and slamming it down on exposed bone.
The way the Guardian Thrashed was Delicious, blood erupting from torn flesh and scales.
They would win this fight yet.