Page 101 of The Knights of Gaia

“More dangerous than fightinghim?” I pointed at the black behemoth, who’d just picked up the power-line pole Jareth had thrown at him.

“Youaren’tfighting him.” Kato’s tone left no room for discussion.

I guess he was used to everyone always doing what he said.

“No, I won’t be fighting him,” I agreed, squaring my shoulders. “Instead, while you guys keep him busy and make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone, I’m going to go get something that can stop him.”

Orion and Nala had engaged the armored fiend. Orion was constantly teleporting Nala to random points, forcing their adversary to turn to keep her in his sight.

“Savannah is right. Keeping this guy busy will take all of us,” Eris told Kato before she flew into the air on a gust of wind and shot toward the enemy.

“And you can’t say no to that cute determined little crinkle between her eyes.” Ainsley said to Kato, then joined the fight.

“Fine,” he finally said. “But don’t get yourself killed.”

“Right, like that’s my plan.”

But he probably didn’t hear me. He and the other Knights looked pretty busy fighting the armored fiend.

I ran back to the brick house Kato had brought me to just a few hours ago. I waved my hand in front of the magic scanner at the door, and it actually opened. Maybe it remembered me from earlier.

I rushed inside. There were a lot of magical-looking items scattered throughout the various dressing rooms. I grabbed anything that looked like it might put a dent in the fiend’s creepy black armor, stuffed them all into my backpack, then ran back outside.

The Knights were still battling the black behemoth at the roundabout, though there were a lot more broken power lines now. Leaves and branches and even an old park bench littered the ground too.

None of the Knights were in great shape. Ainsley was bleeding through her armor, one of Jareth’s bull horns was missing, and Nala was moving around the battlefield with a decided limp. Orion and Altair were lying unconscious on the ground. Eris was shielding them with a great whirling wall made out of a tornado, which was busily sucking up every piece of debris that the fiend hurled at them.

When Kato tried to sneak up on the enemy from behind, the armored fiend spun around, lifted Kato by the throat, and plucked the helmet from his head. Then he threw Kato into Eris’s tornado.

Eris unraveled the tornado, trying to lower—not drop—Kato to the ground. Which was just what the fiend wanted. Now that her wind shield was down, he lumbered toward the Knights with loud, thundering steps. The ground shook violently, every step setting off a new earthquake.

This had to end now.

I plunged my hand into my backpack and pulled out a mystical-looking handheld mirror: a circle of stained glass, about the size of my hand, set inside an ornate silver frame with an even more ornate handle. I wasn’t sure what this enchanted object did, but it surefeltpowerful.

Magic rippled across the mirror, and the picture in the stained glass changed from a relaxed pastural scene to something that bore a striking resemblance to the armored fiend.

And when I turned the mirror to face the fiend, lightning flashed across the clear sky.

A piece of his armor fell off.

And then another.

And another.

Lightning flashed every time.

The fiend scurried to recover his fallen pieces of armor, but he was losing them faster than he could collect them. Growling, he grabbed an uprooted speed sign off the ground and threw it at me. It came in so fast, I’d never be able to outrun it.

Kato dashed in front of me, catching the sign out of the air and sending it back at the fiend, who ducked out of the way. But he couldn’t evade the long metal chain Kato slashed at him like a whip. A rusty swing was attached to the other end of the chain, and when it connected with a hole in the fiend’s armor, that hole grew bigger. Another chunk of armor hit the ground.

An earth-splittingboom!echoed off the sky, like thunder. Then the black behemoth tipped over, hitting the street like a toppled tree.

Nala was the first to reach him. “He’s unconscious,” she told the others.

“Bind him,” Kato told her.

She wrapped layers of chains around the black behemoth, and Ainsley helped her.

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