Layla – and by extension, Guillaume – started closing the distance fast. At most, maybe a couple dozen paces or so separated her from Henry right now, and that length was closing faster than Henry's frantic heartbeat. Even with what was, in essence, a giant metal cage strapped to her back, her pace was unrelenting. Like an indomitable juggernaut, she bore down on him head on, forcing him to move quick and think on his feet.

So, in theory, it was a situation that played to his strengths… right?

Henry immediately grabbed ahold of the smooth, glassy surface of the black stone, praying that whatever effects that had happened prior would repeat. A quick motion, with an easy to test hypothesis and even quicker to discard if things didn't go according to plan. His tattoo lit up like a ley line as he made contact.

Luckily, this time his intuition panned out. Everything played out in much the same fashion as it had before. Crackling not-light and pain that felt like simultaneous heat and cold enveloped his hand yet again, but now that he was expecting it, he found that pain much easier to push through. Shock wasn't quite so much of a factor, and he needed little convincing to determine that this was the trick that had the best shot of seeing him out of this situation alive.

Unfortunately, Guillaume also seemed to have the same idea. Even before his fingers touched the crystal, Henry could see Layla tensing in anticipation. The first few errant sparks manifested in the air around her, and for a precious moment she flinched. When the first motes of energy made contact, she reacted in a violent fashion similar to before, but…

But that was as far as it went. A slight stumble, and then she just kept on sprinting at him. Nothing more was managed.

Her stride faltered for maybe a half second in total, and once she recovered the only indication that it was affecting any part of her was the look of absolute concentration plastered over her face. The chase was on, and Henry very quickly realized he needed to get out of the way.

Snap decision, dive to the left. Guillaume's body clearly held the secret he needed to unwrap this… magic puzzle, for lack of a better term, but solving it came second to keeping himself in the fight. Roll away a bit further to give himself distance to get back up. Already, it was getting much harder to replenish his numbers, and any further might leave him stranded on his own once again. As he scrambled to his feet, away from his crouched position by the corpse and dashing out onto the open rooftop away from the thickest part of the field of bodies, Henry watched out of the corner of his eye as the only other active clone struggled to bring his numbers up to full strength.

1… 2… 3…

A duplicate flashed to life on the third count. 3 whole seconds of concentrated effort. For just one copy. In ideal circumstances, that should have happened instantaneously. Henry immediately fell into old coping habits, justifying his way around the precarious situation in his head.

It's okay! I can still make this work! So long as I keep Guillaume chasing me, one of my other copies can-

His half-panicked rationalization fell short before it even got off the ground. As he risked a glance over his shoulder, it became immediately obvious that Layla had stopped pursuing him. To keep herself between him and the crystal.

The moment he was far enough away for Guillaume's liking, she backed off and guarded the body jealously. The other two copies circled, looking for an opening but finding none as she stood practically on top of the body, her arms were held up in a loose guard. Fingers outstretched, but relaxed as she waited for one of them to make the first move. Like a big dog on a chain out front of somebody's house, she kept all three of them from getting anywhere near the black crystal that – apparently – still very much grounded Guillaume to her body in some way.

If she was the guard dog, Henry guessed that made him the postman in this situation. Needing to get in close to finish a job he'd started, but at the same time having enough sense to realize when he really didn't have any good options should he try to go for it.

So… what did that make William?

A low, subsonic thrum rising into the human audible range gave the answer to just that question. The entire rooftop trembled, forcing Henry to brace momentarily and encouraging him to risk a glance in the Knight's direction. As the hum reached a point loud enough he could feel it in his teeth, the magic energy reached a critical mass and got to work.

The heater shield attached to Sir Henwood's left arm extended vertically, converting into a tower shield that held his lance in a stable firing position. The conical steel mass taller than he was on his tiptoes angled upward towards the sky, propped up against the shield as the body of the armor crouched behind it. Crisscrossing networks of enchantment patterns flickered and danced across the surface of every interlocking piece, cycling an ungodly amount of mana of varying Domains as the final preparations the Knight Commander was making slid into place.

From over his shoulders, four roughly concave dishes fanned out in a semicircle, peering around the edge of the shield while the faint yellow glow of Day enchantments slowly flickered to life. Then, before either of them could react, very quickly flared to life.

Floodlights blinded absolutely everyone on the wrong end of those dishes. It was a crude, but highly effective tactic for briefly taking someone out of commission, especially since every last survivor inside Hallow London practically lived and breathed low-light conditions. Henry was still blinking spots out of his eyes when Sir Henwood brought the rest of the tools at his disposal to bear on the situation.

Flashes of blue light, thankfully much dimmer than the Day enchantments, flared at the tip of the lance. Conjured from thin air, blasts of high-velocity water arced through the hazy night sky one by one like fireworks, raining down over Guillaume's general position.

As they went up, they drilled perfectly spherical holes into the Shroud, cutting through the opaque layer of fog over their heads like a swarm of angry termites through wood. As they came down, similar holes in the Shroud burst outward towards them, only for the gaps they created to smooth over in mere moments just to be burst again. Like an artillery cannon on board a battleship, the lance fired with a slow, steady rhythm, slow enough to hear the quiet in between shots.

Not that that meant Henry suddenly wanted to be hit by one of those projectiles.

The first kiddie-pool sized shell missed its target by a solid three meters. A miniature geyser of water erupted from the impact site, knocking Layla off her feet and away from the body she was so jealously protecting. Sir Henwood dialed in his aim in very short order, and the next three rained down in rapid succession.

Layla was pushed back, stumbled, tossed around, and pushed again by the onslaught. Tirelessly, the lance's water cannon pummeled her with a deluge of liquid, soaking her through to the bone even after she hit the rough asphalt.

Henry would likely have been helpless if he got caught in a torrent like that. But, although Guillaume was down, he was by no metrics out. Even as the constant rain tossed her around, she was still flailing about and trying to claw her way back despite the rate of fire beginning to gradually increase.

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He couldn't help himself. He had to ask.

"I thought that suit was for killing wolves!", he shouted to William. "Since when did it become a crowd control tool?!"

"There was a food riot a month ago-", he started, before realizing he was getting distracted. "Now's not the time for chatter, Henry! I can't keep this pace up forever, so get back to whatever that was you were doing!!"

His other two copies had already started on that laborious task long before he'd thrown the question out there, but it was doubtful that anyone would be happy about being corrected on that. Far more productive to work towards the common goal, right now. With nothing better to do, he helped extricate the body from the danger zone while Guillaume remained suppressed.

Trickier than it might appear at first glance, to his surprise. It was a rather precarious balancing act, split between getting the now very stiff corpse up off the ground and making sure that none of them got hit by a stray deluge of water themselves. It didn't help their already frayed nerves that the noise of impact was usually loud enough to make at least one of them flinch, and that the space in between each shot was growing slightly longer each time, now.

Come on… there we go!

As one, they heaved one last time and pulled themselves out to… safety? Out of the way, for now at least. Which put them… roughly back at square one, with no idea if the same trick would work a second time. A change in approach was likely in order, then.

Let's see if we can separate this damnable rock from the baggage…

His fingers tightened around the sharp edges of the stone, and the resulting energy roared in defiance. Floods of remnant water lapped at his knees in waves, causing him to shiver as the cold seeped into his shoes and socks.

He pressed on regardless. The tips of his forefinger and thumb started losing feeling out of his body's natural self-preservation response, but he continued to squeeze tighter and tighter. Trying to rip the roughly octahedral crystal free from the body's forehead, to no avail.

"Knife!", he shouted towards his clones. "Someone get me a knife!" He thrust his other hand out, palm outstretched to receive a copy of the weapon he personally had lost in the fighting. There was no room for misinterpretation, no waiting around for the other to react. Like a well oiled machine, he got exactly what he needed, the instant he needed it, and got to work immediately so as to not waste the precious moments it saved in such a high-stakes situation.

The tip of the blade, ever so barely, was able to slip into the seam where skin met stone. One hand held the head straight, while the other wrenched against the blade to try and pry the two loose. He couldn't quite get leverage on the first try, but it felt promising. Without a word, one of the other clones took over for him, holding the head straight while he used both arms to pry harder.

Every muscle in both of his arms clenched tight as he worked. The crystal shifted by half a millimeter. Then a millimeter. Then two. It was taking everything he had, but he was making progress. The crystal was screaming in protest, vorpal energy twisting and writhing at the seam, angrily flooding out of the widening gap in chaotic waveforms.

He'd gotten it about halfway free when the monsoon-like barrages finally fell silent. As soon as the last massive orb of water had splashed down, Guillaume was free once again.

Mist jettisoned from Layla's body, propelling her to her feet in an instant. The Shroud above them roiled and swirled from the aftershocks brought on by the assault, long tendrils spreading down and away from points of impact making an upside-down forest of pockmarked remnants of craters in Hallow London's 'ceiling'. Some of those craters had expelled mist quite a distance away, leaving contrails in the air that one might have almost been able to touch with their bare hands, with a tall enough ladder.

Layla's control didn't require touch, just close enough proximity. Expelling every last scrap of reserves she had, fighting through the foreign energies crackling against her skin, she leapt high into the air. Calling out to the misty sky above.

By the barest of margins, she got just within range of one of the more low-hanging tendrils. It was enough.

She pulled.

Like a siphon, the once wavering string of mist became an unending fountain as the weight of the seemingly limitless supply above travelled down the length to her outstretched palm. Some was absorbed into her skin, only to be jettisoned immediately so that she could stay aloft and continue the process. Far more went into her body and stayed there, refining her body layer by layer, strengthening her to comic book scale and perhaps just a bit beyond. Lining every fiber of her being with the raw power of her refined mana.

And yet, she was pulling even more, condensing layer upon layer of hazy, shimmering air in front of her like a mirage in the desert. Her hair flailed madly as the pressure of all these moving parts buffeted the air around her.

It was an awe inspiring sight… and very clearly one her body would not be able to handle for long.

The wound in her leg was more than just trickling blood, glistening red as it dropped to the asphalt below literally glowing with charge. Similar streaks were flowing from her nose, her lips, and perhaps even her eyes, it was hard to tell.

She wasn't quite spasming, on account of being suspended in the air, but it was close, and likely would be once she touched down, if Henry were to guess.

The mist orb in front of her reached the size of a football, then a beach ball. Becoming so dense, so quickly, that it put the tiny projectile they'd used to flush Guillaume out of the radio shack earlier to shame by an order of magnitude. When it rivaled the size of the water launched in her direction earlier, blood burst from the vessels in her arm in a crimson spray, rocketing the orb away towards William at supersonic speeds.

Even with the tower shield blocking the majority of the blast, being ready for the impact, and angling the shield slightly to deflect rather than take head on, he was launched bodily over the side of the building. Henry didn't even have time to react, as he was next on the list of targets.

Come on! Pry loose already!

He frantically worked to rotate the blade the last few degrees needed to pop the thing loose, but this simply wasn't something that he could rush. He needed to buy time.

The other copies were on it, and decided that reinforcements were absolutely necessary.

1… 2… 3… 4… 5…

The clone snapped awake in the air behind Layla, grabbing on tight and holding her in a full-nelson hold. His legs wrapped around to complete the grapple, and…

With a casual twist, Guillaume broke her free and slapped the clone down to Earth below.

Pasted immediately.

Just how much charge is she holding onto right now?!?! This can't be sustainable, or-!

"No more of that," Guillaume intoned with cold menace. Layla's voice was completely gone, now, replaced by his own. "You couldn't have made it any more obvious, looking at the spot behind my back like that. Need to see where you'll end up before you duplicate? Fine. I'll take away your ability to see."

The mist funneled out of the Shroud once again, hosing down the entire rooftop like a fire extinguisher. In a matter of mere moments, Henry could barely see the work in front of his own eyes, much less the copies a mere meter away from him.

He kept working away at the crystal like his life depended on it. Because it did.

Almost…

A vision flashed of one of the other duplicates being obliterated with a mere touch. The second, who had a split second more to react, managed to require a more forceful approach in his vision, and was punched clean through the torso by Layla's fist, before being kicked away.

Almost…!

The crystal popped loose right as Guillaume dove to tackle him. If the sudden difference in resistance hadn't caused his arms to pop up in front of his face, there would have been no way for him to put up even a half-decent guard.

The pitch-black bipyramid skittered just out of reach, barely in sight as it hungrily pulled the mist in from around it. Wind was knocked fully out of his lungs by her impact, and he felt one of his arms pop free in a way that promised pain without end once his brain got back around to processing little details such as that. Shoulder blades… a similar situation. Only reason he was still alive to realize that was because his crossed forearms were able to stop the outstretched pointer finger from reaching his forehead.

Though, it didn't seem like it would for long. Guillaume grinned maniacally through his stolen face as he pressed the digit ever closer, prodigious physical strength being put to full use.

1…

Push up. Up, and away. It's all he could do, now. Nearly all of his remaining mental and physical strength, dedicated to one task.

2…

It was a losing battle from the start. While controlling so much mist might have absolutely destroyed her fine motor control, there was still more than enough raw power left in her body to arm wrestle him under a table ten times out of ten.

3…

He adjusted his grip, using both hands to grab the crook of her elbow and lift up. He moved it about a centimeter before Guillaume reacted to the play and applied more downward pressure.

4…

Using two arms to counter one had its downsides, too. Namely, the other arm still being in play. She went straight for the kill shot when Guillaume realized he was running low on time, which Henry could only react to by splitting his focus between each of them. He was losing ground much more quickly, now.

5…

The crystal in his chest strained against the torture it had been put through. After this, he doubted he'd be able to clone himself a final time if this fight required it.

6-

Layla's finger made contact, and every neuron in his brain fired at once. In an overactive, cascading wave of Exotic Domain mana and electric signals, his head exploded, leaving only a lifeless husk behind.

Guillaume stared down at it. The so-called Thirteenth Devil, who had been the bane of his existence pretty much ever since the day they'd met, now just another piece of refuse to be cast away.

Surely, there was more to it. Some other rat hiding nearby, ready to strike at the most opportune moment?

With a mere thought, the misty layer wrapped around her dispersed to the four winds. Nothing. There wasn't another living soul to be found anywhere near them.

"It… it's over."

Guillaume gazed up to the full moon above. He wanted to laugh. Wanted to crow to the heavens that at long last, he had won, and now his new empire would rise from the ashes of the old, just like the organization that preceded it.

He never got the chance, though.

"You got one thing right," said a familiar, irritating voice.

Layla's eyes went wide as Guillaume whipped her head around to face the intruder. Responding with abject shock for one, fatal moment.

In the palm of Henry's hand was the black crystal. Lying perfectly, eerily still as it lay swaddled in the ruined tatters of his tie, faint traces of the original yellow color still just barely peeking through. He'd used it to pick up the crystal without alerting him.

The need for such subterfuge was now over. His tattooed palm descended on the stone, and the last scraps of resistance it could offer gave way.

"How-"

"Don't bother trying to find a way back like I did," Henry said as a final farewell. "Oh, and Martin hopes you burn in hell, if you even know who that is."

Guillaume was physically incapable of formulating a response to that. He screamed in terror, feeling his psyche be severed from the body he'd stolen as Henry's hand made contact.

Everything was slowing down for him. Becoming harder to process, to… to…

The ghost of his mind faded away like dust in the wind. With one final, bloodcurdling yell, Layla slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Free at last.

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