"Alex! Switch!" Edward called out over the sounds of the tornado's roaring winds.

At the same time, Alexander continued his chant: "is thu-"

The lead assassin took off towards the wizard pair and Edward moved to try and intercept him. The Blade Master was much slower on his feet courtesy of his lack of a Quicken spell and his much heavier frame and armor. The lead assassin was going to reach the wizards before Edward could get there. The auxiliary assassin raised his bow with a disintegration arrow head towards all three of those aligned on the human side. Shamesh glanced at the auxiliary assassin and realized what he had to do. He took a step forwards, half covering Alexander with his body from the auxiliary assassin, and put himself in a better position to meet the lead assassin head on. He drew the sword that had been hanging at his hip the entire time. It was an almost ineffectual weapon against the assassins and their disintegration weapons but it was still sharp enough to kill. "Command:" Shamesh began.

The lead assassin threw one of his sickles at Alexander. Edward's sword flicked out. The auxiliary assassin finished drawing his bow. Alexander finished his chant and readied himself to dodge: "-nder." The lead assassin's sickle reached Shamesh on its way to Alexander as the assassin continued his charge towards the pair of wizards. The tip of Edward's sword impacted the bottom of the chain that connected the lead assassin's sickle to both himself and the other sickle, sending a jolt of lightning down the chain and yanking the sickle backwards slightly. The auxiliary assassin released his bow, the arrow aimed at Shamesh, who he still thought to be the most dangerous of them all. Shamesh's sword slammed down on the top of the chain of the sickle heading towards Alexander. Alexander leaned backwards and pointed two outstretched fingers at the auxiliary assassin.

Alexander had bet everything on Edward and Shamesh. His heart raced faster than it ever had before. The sickle had come in far faster than he was expecting, too fast to properly react to, so he was just glad that he had gotten his spell off. He had faith that Shamesh and Edward could finish the lead assassin together. From where he had ended up, the sickle wouldn't have killed him but it would have been anything but pleasant. The blade would have ended up impacting him around his right shoulder to lung area. He had enough healing potions in his Bottomless Pocket to fix even a massive line of muscle, bone, and a bit of lung. At least he had enough to keep it from killing him. But he most definitely would have been put out of the fight.

The combined effort of Edward and Shamesh caused the sickle to stop two full feet before Alexander and fall to the ground. The lead assassin staggered half of a step from the sudden jolt just as he got to Shamesh. He had been too focused on his prey and had missed the lightning on Edward's blade until after he had thrown the sickle. If the wind from the tornado hadn't been coming from that direction, then he would have had both eyes completely open and he would have been able to keep track of everything that was going on better. That half of a step stagger was hardly enough to get him killed, but it was proof that he would need to be extremely careful of the swordsman's giant blade.

Edward's blade flicked towards the lead assassin who had just entered his maximum range while he was still charging to intercept the drow. The auxiliary assassin's eyes went wide as he realized where Alexander's lighting bolt was going and tried to dive to the side. Shamesh finished his chant: "Negation" And powerful disrupting magic slammed into the lead assassin with the goal of removing his quicken spell. At the same time, the disintegration arrow passed straight through Shamesh's temples leaving an open hole from one side to the other. Alexander's spell went off and a lightning bolt crossed the distance between himself and his target in an instant. The lightning bolt punched straight through the auxiliary assassin's left shoulder and out the other side. His clothes caught fire and he went down hard from his body momentarily locking up while he was trying to dodge.

The lead assassin tried to catch Edward's blade with his own disintegration enhanced sickle blades but Edward turned his horizontal slice into a feint similar to what he had done to the first pair of knights he had fought earlier. His horizontal swing turned ninety degrees in an instant and went straight down towards the assassin's foremost foot and the chain of his weapon that was still stretched out almost the entire way to Alexander. The sudden loss of Quicken hadn't been a surprise to the lead assassin, because he knew it was only a matter of time, but it still put him in a rough spot with the Blade Master now bearing down on him. The auxiliary assassin was finished for at least the next few seconds but Alexander knew better than to leave a potential threat for later. Shamesh staggered as his skull's integrity was reduced by around thirty percent and with it around thirty percent of his motor function. His mana reserves were almost empty and he would need quite a bit of time to heal completely. If he had known where the auxiliary assassin was aiming, then maybe he could have dodged the arrow, but his full attention had been on the flying weapon and casting the dispel to slow the lead assassin back down to reasonable levels. Alexander made the motion of drawing and shooting a bow which caused an arrow made of fire to form and begin to shoot forwards toward the momentarily collapsed auxiliary assassin.

The lead assassin had to make a decision. He could drop his weapons entirely and dodge to the side, which would keep him from taking any damage at all. He could dodge to the side, which would leave his weapon's chain in the path of Edward's electrified sword and would definitely get himself mildly electrocuted. Or, the most insane option, he could yank his weapon's chain out of the way and potentially lose his foot if his enchanted boot did not hold up against a near maximum level warrior's downward strike with a greatsword larger than the assassin himself. At least, that was the position that Edward had thought he had put the lead assassin into. The reality was not nearly so perfect.

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The lead assassin yanked his lead foot back while he cracked his weapon's chain like a whip. This moved his entire body further forwards save for the leg that barely managed to be retreated enough to avoid getting lopped off. Edward's sword came down with lethal intent but missed the lead assassin's nose by less than an inch and cut nearly a finger's width off the toes of his boot. The weapon's chain had whipped out of the way just as his blade cleaved through the space that it had been. It had been a close call for sure, but the assassin had managed to come out of the attack nearly unscathed. The sickle that had been lying on the ground whipped to the side and came around behind Shamesh's right foot. At the same time, Edward's sword stopped right as the tip of its edge touched the stone ground and he turned it so the blade was facing the assassin once more, ready to begin his next swing that would hopefully cleave the assassin in two. Shamesh somehow staggered out of the way of the incoming sickle, not that it helped him very much as he barely caught himself from toppling to the ground. His body was not cooperating and his mental faculties felt slow but otherwise normal. Alexander drew and shot another fire arrow as his first one made contact with the auxiliary assassin.

Fire arrows were not that powerful one at a time, but after a few lit their target on fire, hopefully the auxiliary assassin would just burn to death. It also happened to be incredibly mana efficient, which was good because the wizards were running out of mana. It was a spell from the 'level zero' category. Those spells were specifically designed to use the same amount of mana as the caster's mana regeneration rate. Even low level wizards could cast it but it would be about as effective as someone overhand throwing a conventional torch at someone. For Alexander, it was strong enough to light his opponent's clothes and cloak on fire with each shot. If he had taught it to Shamesh, then Shamesh's arrows would have been strong enough to kill a random civilian off of the street in no more than two shots in just as many seconds. As it stood, there was a chance that Alexander could kill the auxiliary assassin in two shots as well, plus the lightning bolt and however long it took his clothes and armor to burn him to death.

The lead assassin jumped with just the power of his feet and ankles into a tight front flip over Edward's upswing. Edward's crackling blade sliced off a handful of hair as it narrowly missed the assassin's head. His sword stopped in less than a blink and reversed course almost perfectly while maintaining its edge facing the direction that it was going. If nothing changed in the next blink, then Edward's sword could cut through the assassin at the waist as he landed. Where the assassin had been faster than Edward while under the effect of Quicken, he was now only around two thirds to three quarters of Edward's speed. That was only when it came to attacking however, as Edward's size and armor still slowed him down a good bit. 'A good bit' put them both at around the same speed in the dodging and running department. The assassin was just a lot more graceful and had a reaction time that bordered on precognizant.

While their battle continued, Shamesh staggered a few more steps before he finally dropped to a knee. He was still upright enough that Edward and Alexander knew that he wasn't destroyed but it was clear that the shot had damaged him severely. Speaking of Alexander, he did his best to stay out of the way while he shot the auxiliary assassin with a total of four flaming arrows before he turned to help Edward.

Edward's reverse swing, that should have cut the lead assassin in half, was met by a Reality Shield of all things. The assassin had realized that he was going to be hit and had touched another of the golden disks on his belt while still in the middle of his front flip. Edward's blade screeched and sparked off of the Reality Shield as the assassin landed and threw a throwing knife, which he had retrieved from somewhere, towards Edward's chest. He was still not aware of Edward's only devious trick, that he was wearing heavy armor disguised as baggy pants and tunic. Edward's sword came down in a vertical chop that could have doubled as a guillotine for an ogre. As he did so, his tiny crossguard hit the blade of the throwing knife and sent it clattering to the ground. Unfortunately the assassin managed to roll out of the way in time and only lost the bottom half of one of the soles of his boots.

Edward's sword chased after the lead assassin like a sentient lightning bolt. As the assassin finished his roll, he brought the blade of the sickle that was still in his hand up to catch Edward's sword and hopefully halve the larger man's reach. Even if it meant getting decently electrocuted, the lead assassin was willing to make that trade. Edward's weapon was far too large, moved far too fast, was far too lethal, and had far too much of a debilitating effect tied to it to be left alone. The sword might not have been legendary quality but in the hands of someone like The Blade Master, it could have been 'The Sword of Instant Demise'. Edward yanked back on his sword with all of his strength and used it as an anchor to send himself towards his opponent.

The assassin and warrior's blades were mere inches apart when the larger man's fist came in from the side like a siege battering ram. The assassin was caught with his weapon extended awkwardly behind and above him, to catch the sword, and was not prepared for two hundred and twenty pounds of Ronin trained Highland mountain man to come in from the side in a hook that could have killed almost any human or elf under level ten, regardless of their class, just from the simple act of taking it to the temple like the assassin was about to.

The assassin had to make a choice. Edward was starting to get a better and better read of the assassin's capabilities and this time both of them knew the assassin's only option was to sacrifice his left arm to Edward's blow. The assassin's left hand weapon still had not been retrieved because Edward had not given the assassin a moment to breathe. Their exchanges were happening in fractions of a second, far too quickly for even Shamesh to keep up with. The assassin did exactly what he had to. His left arm came up as he tried to dive in the same direction that Edward's fist was going in order to lessen the impact. His forearm broke and he was sent tumbling towards the auxiliary assassin just as Alexander's fourth arrow was being let go. He rolled, sprang to his feet, and his boots slid across the ground for a few feet as Edward recovered from the awkward position that his punch had left him in. Edward had still had enough time, however, to step on the handle of the assassin's second sickle.

The Blade Master and lead assassin locked eyes right as the final auxiliary assassin died from a fourth Flame Arrow from the Court Mage of Safeharbor. The Physical Shadow of the Lord of Darkness was still collapsed on one knee, trying to regain his bearings only half of a dozen feet from each of the first two and a dozen feet from the Court Mage. With the lead assassin's second weapon, which was still chained to his first, stuck firmly beneath the boot of The Blade Master. It was clear which way the rest of the fight was going to go. Which brought forth the question: Why hadn't the lead assassin tried to escape yet?

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