Jace vs. Ob Nixilis (Featuring the Gatewatch)

Gideon, Jace, and the elf collapsed to the floor in a heap. And then they disappeared.

The demon snarled at the disruption of the imprisonment spell, and the vanishing of his prey. He turned back to Chandra and reared back to loose his deathblow.

Chandra winced, unable to summon the strength to dodge, or even collapse. But when she was still alive a heartbeat later, she glanced at the demon. He was staring around, speaking dark words in a growing fit of fury.

"You've invisible, as far as he can see," said Jace's voice in her head. "For now."

Chandra staggered away, leaning against the cavern wall as the demon searched for them.

"The others. Are they alive?" Chandra asked in her mind.

"Barely."

"We'll have to take him on. On my signal. Ready?"

"No! We are nowhere near ready. We don't have much left in us."

Chandra made fists. "How long before he figures out we're still here? We can do this."

"Chandra. We've been—tormented. For...I don't know how long. Felt...long."

Chandra didn't like the uncertainty in Jace's thoughts, the frank admission of pain. The demon was kicking and stomping over the cavern floor. He couldn't see them, but there was no way he was fooled into thinking they had disappeared for good.

Chandra squared her shoulders. Fire flickered from her fingertips, growing into palm-sized spheres of heat. "All the more reason to take him down."

Jace's hesitating reply: "They need rest."

"Jace. We came here to do a job. That job's not done. Is it."

"Chandra—" Jace thought at her.

Chandra's fire grew. "Is it?"

"Chandra, I can't—"

The others reappeared in a flash, the concealment spell broken. Jace and the elf woman had moved further back in the chamber from where Chandra had seen them last. They looked conscious but weak.

Gideon had reappeared too. The demon already had him by the neck, raising him up off his feet.

"Gideon!"

The demon turned to face Chandra and grinned wide, a thudding laugh rising from deep within him. The sound held the built-up malice of being trapped on Zendikar for eons—and the satisfaction of finally being repaid for it.

"Your friends should thank you, little candle," said the demon. "Not for giving them hope—that was, in fact, quite cruel of you. But no, without you, they would have had no audience for their deaths." The demon squeezed on Gideon's throat, and Chandra could hear bone cracking.

Chandra couldn't budge. She knew any step she might take would just hasten Gideon's demise.

But she saw that Gideon was struggling. His hands clamped onto the demon's, trying to break free, and even in his weary state, sparks of light protected his flesh. She saw Jace's eyes glow with azure smoke, conjuring some mind-piercing spell even as he fought to remain standing. And she saw the elf woman's hair blow back as she summoned up desperate magic. Vines of mana twisted out of the ground and flowed into her.

I haven't failed them. We haven't failed each other.

Chandra stomped on the ground, and a streak of fire raced along from her foot to the demon, setting the cavern floor on fire beneath his feet. Gideon elbowed the demon's arms and kicked at his chest, wresting himself free and rolling away just as fire engulfed the demon.

The demon emerged surrounded. Gideon now wielded his sural, Jace had a spell at the ready, and the elf's eyes were glimmering with mana.

"All together!" Gideon shouted, and Chandra knew exactly what he meant.

All four of them attacked the demon simultaneously. Flashing whip-blades and elemental vines and punishing mind magic coincided with Chandra's from-the-gut rush of fire.

The demon grimaced, doubling his wings over himself for protection. He attempted to blast back with a spell, but Jace was too quick for him, and the demon's spell dissolved just as Gideon slashed at him from another direction. He lashed out toward the elf, but Chandra cut him off with a column of flame.

The demon clapped his wings together, buffeting Chandra back against a wall and giving him time to kick Jace in the gut. But Gideon tangled the demon's leg in sural blades and yanked, combining with Nissa's vines to topple him to the ground.

Chandra made eye contact with Gideon as she unstrapped his buckler from her arm, and he nodded. She tossed the shield into the air and Gideon slid it on in one motion, and he elbow-dropped the metal shield onto the prone demon's cranium, just as Chandra melted the metal of his helmet to putty. The crack was audible.

The demon roared and burst back up to his feet, throwing Gideon off of him, wobbling his head slightly. Chandra gathered a barrage of fire to knock him off his feet—but agony surged through her veins.

"Enough," the demon said through his fangs. Chandra's heartbeats were jagged pulses of pain, like her bloodstream had become needles.

Jace became a coterie of four Jaces, each one seemingly drilling into the demon's mind, while Gideon shoulder-rammed into the demon's chest. Chandra felt the elf woman's hand on her arm, and at her touch, Chandra's heart soothed, regaining its natural rhythms.

"Prepare something big," whispered the elf. "We'll tell you when." And she spun to lash at the demon with a swirl of living magic.

Between the multiple illusionary Jaces, the slashing physical prowess of Gideon, and the relentless wild magic of the elf, the demon was doing more dodging than attacking. He grimaced, claws holding his head, using his elbows and wings to minimize incoming attacks while Jace's magic pummeled his mind.

With the demon occupied, Chandra sculpted a tiny fire cyclone out of the air. She spun with it, letting it grow as she fed its fire, building up strength. She was immersed in it, consumed by it, dancing with the hot spiraling winds as part of it.

"Ready?" came Jace's voice in her head.

"Ready!" Chandra shouted aloud.

The others simultaneously dodged out of the way, leaving Chandra a clear shot at the demon. She loosed her cyclone with a shout, and it tore across the chamber, slamming into him and blasting him against the wall.

Chandra's spell dispersed. The demon was charred, smoking, propping his shoulder against the wall of the chamber. His hell-coal eyes looked to each of them, one by one. "Well done," he said. "Well done. You've chosen to spend your efforts to defeat me, and you have. But every moment you've spent on me, you've allowed Zendikar to suffer. So you've still, of course, lost."

Chandra and the others looked at each other.

"I promise you this," the demon said in a low snarl. "I will walk every plane, scour every pathetic world, until I find a way to bring fitting punishment down upon your misguided lives."

The air folded in on itself, swallowing the demon, and he was gone.