[center][img]https://i.pinimg.com/236x/53/78/87/537887fac74ee493713b9e56a78663e4.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][h1][u][color=BC3823]Evander[/color] [color=CC5500]Fino[/color] [color=d4af37]Synesti[/color][/u][/h1][/center]
[hr][center][h2]H[color=8D918D]igh Stakes: 
Ending In Secrets[/color][/h2][/center][hr] 
[color=8D918D]Location:[/color] Proving Grounds, [color=BC3823]Erasand’Enise[/color]



[color=FFFFFF][i]He felt helpless…[/i][/color]

[color=FFFFFF][i]No![/i][/color] 

[color=8D918D]Evander then blasted his name,[color=BC3823]“I AM EVANDER FINO SYNESTI, I WILL NOT FORGET WHO I AM!”[/color] A swelling of anger and heat, a surge of fire grew in him like a raging furnace about to explode. His eyes flinched at first, then widened as time nearly stopped from his perspective. 

Evander released a heat wave combined with concussive force. The massive blast smashed Abdel, who stood in point-blank range of Evander’s fury. The boots of the Virangish paladin lifted off their heels as his body propelled back, hitting a stone wall. 

Evander’s other ally, which he had climbed the wall, nearly took a hit too. Her quick reactions carried her behind the cover. Only her arm took a few ashes to the flesh. The menace who had appeared next to her was another story, unscathed and unbudged. 

[color=d1001c]“You are mad!”[/color]

Shouted Abdel,

[color=d1001c]“The beast is tampering with your mind!”[/color]

Evander could not hear Abdel as himself. Instead, the illusion persisted. Abdel was a hissing Sanguinaire in Evander’s mind. He still stood in a dimly lit den in a Perrench architected manor, [color=FFFFFF][i]wait…[/i][/color]

He scanned the room, noticing similarities to a story he had heard repeatedly. Her voice slipped across his back neck, filling his ear once more, [color=FFFFFF][i]Sebastian[/i][/color]. Evander could feel the only heat in this room was coming from him, [color=FFFFFF][i]this isn’t real![/i][/color] It smacked him, the realization that he had been tricked into believing he was in the story of Aelis Clairmont. 

Evander’s chin lowered. His forehead cast a shadow over his eyes. Then, he began to chuckle. The more he saw how ridiculous this scene was, the more he laughed. Evander saw everything around him for what it was, an illusion. The manor, the Sanguinaire that was Abdel, the fireplace, the den, his father, and his sister all faded as swiftly as they had all appeared. Evander raised his chin, opened his eyes, and darted his gaze like a laser directly at the fiend’s location, fully engaged in sensing the pathetic trickster.

[color=BC3823]“You are pathetic! You mock the name you carry; I thought Sanguinaires are supposed to be terrifying!”[/color] Evander spotted the Lxiang from earlier, [color=BC3823]“Instead, you are nothing but a coward hiding behind parlor tricks!”[/color] He extended his arm, grabbing the Lxiang with his magnetic gift and thrusting it above as a missile toward the Sanguinaire’s heart. 

[color=008080]“Hey kid,”[/color] the Sanguinaire said, laughing.[color=008080]“Nice dragon pendant.”[/color] Avoiding the Lxiang cleanly, the Sanguinaire appeared in Evander’s face, [color=008080]“one problem….”[/color] He grabbed Evander by the collar, [color=008080]“I don’t like dragons,”[/color] he whispered. 

With a burning spirit, Evander spits in the Sanguinaire’s face, [color=BC3823]“cry to someone who cares.”[/color] The Sanguinaire hurled the youth like scrap out of the arena. Smashing through a block’s worth of houses, Evander finally crash-landed on a sidewalk after passing through the last house. Dust filled his lungs, and pain shot up his nervous system, yet, his heart’s flame only burned stronger. Rising from the rubble, he raised his forearm to his cheeks to wipe across his blood-stained lips, followed by Evander’s grin. Taking a step forward, another surge of pain cut from toe to crown. Wincing, he would not show this fiend that it was winning. 

Evander scanned the sky, [color=BC3823]“it’s about time you became something worthy to fight me.”[/color] He began to draw in energy from his environment as the creature taunted from a distance, [color=008080]“come out, come out wherever you aaarrre!”[/color] Throwing its arms open.

Evander walked into the open street around the bend of the last house he had crashed through. Standing at the end of the street in direct sight of the Sanguiniare, Evander shouted defiantly, [color=BC3823]“I’m not hiding; you are moving too slow! Come at me!”[/color]

Evander caught the glare of the creature. Suddenly, a flash of his dead sister and father crossed his eyes. The Sanguiniare tried to pull more tricks, but Evander wouldn’t have any. Shaking his head, [color=FFFFFF][i]it’s only an illusion.[/i][/color] He dropped into a defensive posture. The Sanguinaire attacked by burning Evander. 

The heat was felt as some of Evander’s hair began to singe, [color=BC3823]“cute,”[/color] Evander teased. He rotated his forearm and nothing else to show how casually he resisted the Sanguinaire’s attack. Evander absorbed all the heat from the Sanguiniare’s attack as an intuitive arcanist and fireblood. [color=BC3823]“Idiot…try harder!”[/color] Before Evander could counter, a bright light forced everyone to recoil from the fight. 

There was a blazing touch warming his skin. Naturally, he began to draw from its infinite wellspring of heat. The enormous amount was like that of the sun on a smoldering day. Evander allowed the essence of this new player to replenish his soul’s fire while her showdown with the Sanguinaire began. 

[color=FFFF00]“You will depart,”[/color] or [color=FFFF00]“you will die.”[/color]

The words of Solstice, a sun-blessed Zeno. [color=008080]“I’ll die, you stupid girl?”[/color] The sky wavered, and it began to dark, even though Solstice was at full power. From thirteen different directions appeared thirteen demonic figures. They brought their hands together in triangle formations, and from them leaped a storm of darts. Evander tried estimating, [color=FFFFFF][i]Dozens…no hundreds…no way…thousands.[/i][/color] It was like watching what true power could achieve in a heartbeat. All of the darts converged on the supernova-like figure. 

She was not impressed. Solstice evaporated many of the darts as if they had not even existed. Two made it through. One grazed her cheek. The other, she snatched out of the air. She followed her actions with a conviction to end this fight with the Sanguinaire six feet below. 

The sky began to boil with fire, great arms of it shooting toward the Sanguinaire. He was too quick, and the arms were missed. Then she whipped them like snakes around the other way. He dodged. Three more arms of flames sprout from her, writhing and snapping like great tentacles. One washing over him. The Sanguinaire screamed, the other arm impaling his chest. 

Solstice floats down, perching on a rooftop, still smoking, her fiery glow flickering and dimming in her eyes, [color=FFFF00]“surrender if you wish to live.”[/color] Evander looked at Solstice,[color=BC3823]“Live?”[/color] He questioned, [color=BC3823]“He deserves no such option!”[/color] Evander, empowered by the arcane energies raging around him, took action to scorch the pathetic trickster. 

He crisped the stone behind the Sanguinaire instead as the Sanguinaire appeared behind Evander,[color=008080]“Bad move, boy! Last move, boy!”[/color] The Sanguinaire swiped his claws to cut Evander’s head clean off his youthful shoulders. What the Sanguinaire did not account for was Evander’s skills in Zebaka. 

Evander swiftly dropped his head, avoiding the strike while coiling to the side, bending his knees, and placing his right hand with his palm face down on the ground. He tried to sweep into an upward heel kick to connect with the Sanguinaire’s jaw. Too fast. Evander missed. The Sanguinaire was already attacking another party member, Ymiico. The Sanguinaire was dropped by one of Ymicco’s traps, stalled but not killed. Before the Sanguinaire continued his advance, he turned his gaze to Solstice.

The two fought in close quarters; another Sanguinaire tried joining to fight alongside Solstice. The number of powers on this battlefield was numerous. Evander readied himself to make another attempt at a decisive strike. Before he could, Solstice was ripped by metal threads, and a second powerful person joined the fray, Luna. 

She took the fight to his blind spot. Her blade thrust deep into his back, seizing his body up. Finally, the Sanguinaire fell from the sky, crashing into the street below. Luna followed his fall, touching him. Something in that moment shook the Sanguinaire. Evander could see it in his eyes. He disappeared once more as blood gushed from his body. 

Luna taunted him as the Sanguinaire had called out to Evander, [color=FFFF00]“Come out come out whereveeeeeer you aaaare!”[/color]

The Sanguinaire tried running from her, but she had done something to him that none of the others would have understood. The Sanguinaire seized up, falling to the ground, screaming in pain, and clutching his head. Evander saw his chance. He conjured an arcane lance, heaving it at the down trickster.

Evander missed again as the Sanguinaire disappeared. Evander felt frustrated, but he did not break focus. The Sanguinaire reappeared, attacking Ymiico, but Yuli intervened, cracking him with heavy left and right hooks. A sudden thunderous command came out of nowhere, shocking the fighting to a halt. 

Evander fell to one knee. His eyes shut momentarily as he resisted the command. He kept repeating his name, his origin, his story. 

[color=BC3823]“Get out of my head!”[/color] He stood up, pushing the command away from him. When he reoriented, Sunny was attacking Luna.[color=BC3823]“Damn, they got her.”[/color] Whoever tried commanding the battlefield seemed to have contested Sunny’s will. Evander saw Sunny's power initially; he knew she needed to be stopped before pursuing the Sanguinaire. Sunny attacked her sister Luna. Evander recalled a tactic he witnessed during the Great Melon Derby. He pulled out the metal wires he had taken control over when Chad arrived at Zemana’s house. Tossing the wires, he extended his arm to control them. Using his magnetic gift, he closed his grip once the wires reached Sunny to wrap them around her. Evander failed to bond Sunny, but he did get her arm. It was enough to halt her assault, for now…

In the end, Sunny found her way free and tried punching Luna in the gut before Luna slipped into the void. 

At this moment, Silas tried showing everyone where the Sanguinaire had run off to, but a loud COMMAND banged on everyone’s nervous system again. 

Evander was not brought to his knees this time when resisting the mental hammer. He could recognize it, feel it, and let it pass over him…he just…shrugged. 

[color=BC3823]“Stop playing games, show up or step off!”[/color] Evander shouted. Something was out there attempting to control the outcome. [color=FFFFFF][i]Were they defending the Sanguinaire? Or were they here to control it with those commands?[/i][/color] Evander brought his foot back to prepare his stance defensively. [color=FFFFFF][i]Where are you?[/i][/color] He could not sense them. Suddenly, his classmates all rose like puppets on strings rising into formation. 

[color=FFFFFF][i]There you are![/i][/color] Evander locked onto a Dread Priest, but it was too late. All his classmates were brought to him, encircling him as meat shields, [color=FFFFFF][i]Damnit! What a coward![/i][/color] Evander grit his teeth, [color=FFFFFF][i]I can’t attack. He’s left no openings.[/i][/color] Evander’s mind rolled in a thousand directions, his eyes darting from one side to the other to spot an opening he could slip an attack through, [color=FFFFFF][i]this isn’t over.[/i][/color] 

[color=silver]“We should talk,”[/color] said the Dread Priest.

Even if Evander had no choice, he continued to let on that he was ready to take this challenge head-on if the Dread Priest was pulling a trick. He began to draw in energy, speaking in a frustrated tone, [color=BC3823]“Then speak.”[/color]

Brother Wolf opened up with their plan to use the Sanguinaire to lure out a treacherous Arch-Zeno. Shortly after, three robed figures materialized. Evander asked Brother Wolf, Brother Flint, Sister Lumen, and Sister Cadence questions about the Sanguinaire’s consequences, the traitor among the Arch-Zenos, the Volti assassins, and the Traveler.[/color]