"Let's go go go!" Toby shouted. Behind them, the metal door crumpled into a ball. An Einherjar and a Valkyrja stood there. The Valkyrja opened her fist, and the ball flew straight at them.
"Fireball!"
"TOBY, NO!"
The projectiles met in mid-air. Toby's blast melted it into slag, sending hot globs of metal all over the place. Ilise heard Siegfried cry out in pain as his uniform began to hiss.
The Einherjar charged into the room. A wave of ice shot out, forcing them back against the Monolith.
"We're boxed in!" Roza cried out.
"NO, Roza. WE'RE STUCK IN A CYLINDER. OF COURSE WE'RE BOXED IN, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!" Siegfried yelled, clutching his arm. The metal had eaten through his sleeve. A patch of charred flesh hissed underneath. Siegfried seethed.
Rei took charge.
"Toby! Ward the ice off! Ilise, get Siegfried to safety. Roza and I will hold them off long enough for you guys to retreat."
"Got it!"
Ilise casted another Hyperkinetic spell. She set foot on the ice, settled into her sprinting position and-
Slid across the room on her belly. She wiped out into Siegfried on the other end. Entangled in a ball of limbs, they struggled to extricate themselves as they spun around the room, unable to find any purchase on solid ground. Toby was desperately hosing down the encroaching ice with a beam attack, but it just made things worse for Ilise and Siegfried by turning the field of ice into an impromptu swimming pool.
"REI! WHY IN THE WORLD ARE YOU TEXTING AT A TIME LIKE THIS!" Toby yelled.
Their phones beeped again.
Ilise fumbled with hers for a moment, and everything fit together.
Siegfried was too hurt to take out of his phone. She whispered Rei's instructions to him, making sure the Einherjar and Valkyrja were out of earshot.
"We need to get to higher ground. Once we do, Roza will electrocute the water and try and take them out. Rei says that the students are bound to arrive soon. They'll be our distraction and our cue to get out of here. Got it?"
Siegfried mustered the energy to nod.
"Anchor!" Ilise cried. A large glyph appeared underneath the both of them, slowing their movement down somewhat. They trudged across the ice, with Ilise summoning Anchoring glyphs wherever they set foot. Siegfried had gone motionless by this point, and was nothing but a limp sack of meat propped up on Ilise's shoulders.
She grabbed the tip of an icicle. "Hyperkinetic!" Her teeth gritted, she hauled herself and Siegfried up onto the ice. The fact that it hadn't broken underneath their combined weight and Ilise's Hyperkinetic-enhanced strength was a testament to the Einherjar's magical proficiency.
"Roza! NOW!"
Everyone turned to look at Roza, who'd somehow scaled the monolith and was now hovering in mid-air, her hair floating around her like a pink-and-blue halo.
"Sundering Lightning!"
A bolt of lightning much larger than anything Roza's Discharges had ever produced materialised in the room. It struck the pool of water and the ice surrounding it. Ilise had to cast a Shield spell to prevent the two of them from getting electrocuted by the water or impaled by any stray shards of ice.
The Valkyrja had been knee-deep in the water when the lightning bolt hit. She fell to her knees, steam rising off her armour. Her hair stood on end.
Right on cue, the students heard the sound of multiple spells being casted. The 'cavalry' had arrived. Hordes of other students poured into the room, overwhelming the Einherjar. Some of them had the misfortune of stepping into Roza's electrified trap.
"Cavalry's here, guys. Let's get out of here."
Rei rushed forward to catch his sister, who'd fallen the moment her spell ended.
Toby led them out through a recently melted hole in the wall.
"Careful. It's hot. But where we're going, I think a bit of heat'll be welcome."
A cold blast of air greeted them as they exited into what was undoubtedly Helheim's ventilation system. They'd entered on the pipes, and they'd exit through the pipes.
"Here, Ilise. We can share Siegfried's weight."
Together, they hooked their arms around Siegfried's limp ones. Rei was already burdened with Roza, who, while considerably lighter than Siegfried, was plenty heavy for Rei's untrained arms.
The fight raged on. Student and soldier alike faced off in a battle that simply couldn't be contained in a room as small as the one housing the Monolith. Bolts of lightning crackled, metal screeched and shrieked as they were forcibly shaped into weapons, fireballs sizzled against the cold surface of the Monolith and drops of acid flew everywhere.
Ilise wasn't really sure if it could be called the cavalry, seeing as several of the attacks were flying dangerously close to them. No one had noticed them, however.
"Heave - HO!" Toby roared. He and Ilise, with their combined strength, managed to force him inside the vent without touching the searing-hot rim.
The descent into Hell might've been easy, but no one ever said the ascent out was.
--