Rex visibly relaxed as they left the shop, which meant he no longer held his coffee in a death grip and his shoulders relaxed a hair. As far as things went, it was about as relaxed as Rex ever really got these days. He just added the feeling of being in the coffee shop to the list of demons he needed to exorcise. That list was already horrifically long.


Memories bubbled up and Rex didn’t realize he’d just picked a random direction to walk in and had slid into silence. Two things that had also been happening to him a lot lately. “Sorry,” he said swiftly in response to the throat-clearing. “I get stuck in my head lately,” he added.

“I volunteer,” Rex said after a moment of processing the man’s question. “Through my church. Community outreach. Local neighborhood aid. Soup kitchens, food deliveries. Helping people get resources they need. That kind of thing.” Rex flushed a bit, unused to detailed the things he did at such length. He took a draw from his coffee and savored the scalding heat. At least it would give an excuse why his own face was heating up.

“I agree. Better to stay busy,” Rex said after he recovered his composure. “Doesn’t make up for what I did, but it helps.” Not once did his priest suggest Rex take these activities on as penance. Oh, he’d given Rex opportunities and suggested it could be good for him to get back to helping people, but Rex hadn’t been able to avoid the guilt. This helped somewhat.

”Dangerous place.” Sam half joked not prying any further into it. He too got lost in his thoughts and more often than not it lead him to a darker place. Over the years though it got easier to pull himself back. Eve and Cora helped. Gave him a reason not to dwell for too long. Maybe Rex didn’t have anyone like that. It definitely made slipping into the bottle easier.

”Idel hands Idel mind.” he too found it easier with distractions. No time to think about the next drink or how he was feeling. It was also easier to put on a brave face while around others. Sam took ‘fake it till you make it’ to a whole other level.

There was the comment that made Sam a bit more curious about what Rex had done but then again it wasn’t any of his business. The one-eyed X-man nodded his head for a moment before adding. ”We aren’t the sum of our mistakes you know.” he sipped his coffee, ”We all have things we regret, things to make up for. It’s how we live our lives now that matter. Not what mistakes were made in the past.” it was something Gemma had told him often during their sessions. It felt kind of good to say as well for it was another reminder for himself.

”Just got to leave the world a better place than when we found it.”

Rex acknowledged the joke with a faint smile, but he didn’t feel any of the humor himself. He knew many people who fought the darkness within them by making light of it. Rex had never been one of those people, not even as a kid. He appreciated when others made the effort though, and sometimes he admired them for it. It must make things so much easier to let it roll off your back. Instead, Rex had always stood strong under everything. Never bending.

Which meant the only option when the weight became too much was to break.

“Agreed,” Rex said, mirroring Sam with a drink of his own coffee. “Nevertheless, the consequences of our actions continue to shape us and cannot always be so readily ignored.” He didn’t try to make eye contact. He wasn’t trying to score a moral point, or even proselytize. Maybe he was defending himself? Justifying his actions? Rex didn’t know. It was just what he felt.

Rex took his eyes off the sidewalk in front of him and looked around at other pedestrians, most of them wearing heavy clothes and rushing through the rapidly increasing cold, intent on being somewhere. A green-scaled man looked particularly focused as he nearly ran past, his tie and briefcase flapping in the wind. They all had places to go, places to be, things to do. Rex wasn’t walking nearly as fast and he was rather directionless.

“What are your, uh, hobbies?” Rex said after realizing he’d been silent too long. Conversations were about listening and speaking. He did well with the former but sometimes forgot the latter.

Growing up as a trained killer they usually neglected to drill in the ‘consequences’ it was something Sam had to learn for himself over the years which usually led to some ‘disagreements’ with his team. Something he struggled with but was still trying to learn. He adapted and that was what he was best at. Bad decisions or not.

”Well, I’m a teacher at the mansion. Specialize in ‘self-defense’. Given my background and history it made sense to help out the school that took me in. So when I’m not drilling in ‘keep your hands up’ I’m avoiding paperwork.” Sam said raising a hand to cover his blind side while the other lifted the hot coffee to his mouth.

Taking a sip he continued, ”Also help teach control for the kids that don’t... have that much control over their powers. Given the school being so full of kids like that it keeps me pretty busy. All hours which is good. I don’t sleep much anyways.” he didn’t elaborate on his lack of sleep but continued on. ”I live for those, ‘Ah-ha’ moments when the lightbulb goes off and the kids suddenly aren’t afraid of themselves.” he sipped again.

”Volunteer work is something else I get a kick out of, though it’s less soup kitchens and more getting shot at by bank robbers.” Sam reached down into his wallet and flashed a ‘police’ badge for Rex showing it off. ”Always someone that needs to be stopped.” he said elaborating that he liked to stay busy.

”Also adopted a kid recently. She’s... more than a handful.” Sam said hoping Eve wasn’t setting a fire to the mansion chemistry lab or terrorizing his dog with her giant guinea pig. ”and when I’m not dealing with all that I like being out in the woods. Find it relaxing. Away from problems and people.”

Continuing on their walk Sam ignored the green scaled man who rushed past. The wind however did catch his attention as he caught a piece of paper out of the air as it floated in front of him. Most of it was reactionary and he didn’t notice he did it till the paper was in his hand. Frowning he threw it out in the nearest bin as they walked past.

It was way too windy. Something was... off. Using the cold in the air already around them his thermal sense illuminated the streets more than his single eye could. Just in case.

“Teacher, huh?” Rex said after he sipped his coffee. “Wouldn’t have figured it.” The hot brew gently scalded his tongue. “Guess self defense makes sense.” He figured an X-Man could teach kids a lot about how to defend themselves. Although, weren’t martial arts for self defense? Those same martial arts that turned people into living weapons? As if mutations weren’t dangerous enough.

The paperwork thing was also something that made sense. “I get that,” he said. Rex never actually avoided his paperwork - no matter how much of it there was - but he’d fantasized about it many times. Often when he’d been drunk.

Rex covertly stole a glance at his walking partner. “Your hobby is same as one of your jobs?” he asked. He realized it might’ve sounded a bit judgemental so he backtracked. “Not that it’s bad, but…do you ever feel like you just want out some times?”

The group facilitator had been right on the money, Rex had to admit. In the brief time they’d been talking, there were certainly commonalities between the men. Enough that Rex was slowly warming up to the mutant. “Felicitaciones,” he congratulated the man. “I’ve got two kids myself. Perfect angels, when they’re not perfect devils.” Like me. The faint smile that had started forming died as Rex’s mind went to a dark place, a place it dwelled so frequently.

He shrugged. “Not much of an outdoors guy myself. Why I tend to find myself wandering the streets at night. Clear my head,” he said. He was born in the city. He put his life on the line for the city. Everything he knew was in the city. Since going on sabbatical, those ties had only grown closer because in absence of his family, he’d given everything to the city.

Rex took another sip and frowned. He glanced at Sam. “Huh. Coffee’s getting cold. You doing that?” he said. Either the ice mutant was messing with him or the coffee machine at the coffee shop was busted. His hands were getting a little cold too, much colder than expected. That, at least, was something he could deal with.

“Father, warm my hands,” he said in a barely audible tone. Immediately the chill vanished and the faint blue tinge began to be replaced by the warmth of the godforsaken magic that Rex pulled around him. It wasn’t much at all. It was barely even a spell. But even that was more than what he’d thought was possible until that event at the clinic with Dr. Cama.

His breath still plumed out in a fog. Then came the flurries, almost out of nowhere. A faint vibration ran through the ground. Then another.

Were they getting closer?

”All the time.” the icemancer said truthfully with a sigh, he would love to sneak off to some remote part of the world in the mountains somewhere with his dog and cat. Live a life there where he didn’t have to worry about the fate of the school, the kids that went there or the world itself. Eve and Cora wouldn’t like it one bit. Well maybe Cora if there were rocks to climb.

”Can’t though.” shrugging he continued, ”Every time I think I’m done I come to the realization that I have too much to make up for or there is someone who needs help and no one is willing to do anything.” it was a vicious cycle. One that would more than likely end with him in the ground. He could rest then.

”Gotta love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life though right?” he asked. Either throwing a punch or taking one Sam did find it was what he enjoyed most. He was simple like that sometimes.

”Thanks.” Sam said honestly glad he did adopt Eve. She needed someone to be around and they were friends when she was an adult. It only made sense to him to keep treating her as one. ”Names?” asking about Rex’s kids hoping that it wasn’t a touchy subject. Most people in group had either loved ones taken from them or kept from them till they got their life together. Sam hoped Rex wasn’t either.

”Hmmm?” he asked realizing his thermal vision was causing his powers to make the air colder around them. ”Sorry, helps me see better at night.” he tapped to the side of his head with the eyepatch. ”But it shouldn’t be this cold.” something was off. Sam sipped his coffee one last time before it was empty. Why waste the stuff?

Rex’s thermal image grew a bit brighter enough where it stood out to Sam. Only for a second though, the ground rumbling was enough to draw his attention. ”You feel that?” Sam asked before moving forward quicker and quicker till he was running down the block. A few more people turned a corner and ran past. Someone shouted, “Run!”

”What the hell?” he asked staring in the direction of the commotion still trying to register what was happening.

Rex knew that sigh intimately. The sigh of a man who believed in the righteousness of what he did and picked up his burden day after day because it needed to be done. He’d seen many men, normally firefighters and emergency responders, sigh that sigh as once more they rushed into fire. Rex didn’t say anything. He didn’t think he needed to. He nodded solemnly.

“Carlos and Calixto,” Rex said, offering the names of his sons, if stiffly. There was a noticeable pause before he’d spoken anything, a pause where he weighed the prospect of letting Sam in or shoring up his walls. Baby steps, then. This was a new thing Rex had to do.

Rex sipped again at his chilling coffee and winced. This was not meant to be a cold brew. It tasted like it had been sitting out for hours, a far cry from its prior scalding heat. Rex shook his head and scowled before chucking the cardboard cup into a nearby trash can. Snow was already accumulating on the trash can’s edges.

“Guess you’re not doing this then, either,” he remarked as the flurries grew thicker and fat snowflakes began falling. Mere minutes before, it had been a clear, if cold, evening. This snowstorm was whipping up out of nowhere.

He saw Sam accelerate and Rex instinctively moved with him. The exertion actually felt good, making his blood run hot and staving off some of the cold, even as he could feel the temperature dropping quickly. His breath was constantly steaming around him now.

He leaned against a pool briefly to catch his balance after nearly lsiding on a sudden patch of ice when he heard Sam’s confusion. He glanced up and the curtain of snow parted long enough for Rex to see something he couldn’t have guessed.

A massive wooly mammoth burst onto the street and with a braying trumpet it barreled into a semi truck and knocked it on its size. It blasted a wild klarion call of defiance and anger and trampled over a taxi that had been gridlocked on the suddenly treacherous streets. Every step of the massive creature shook the ground and were accompanied by loud gunshot sounds of splitting ice.

A high-pitched ululation pierced the whitening sky and a streetlight glinted off of a form perched precariously on the mammoth’s back, just barely able to be seen from Rex’s viewpoint. It looked like a man with wild hair and wearing nothing but a loincloth was standing on the mammoth’s shoulder hump, loosely clinging to some of the mammoth’s hair in one hand and holding up a very primitive-looking spear in the other hand.

“Pray to your gods, you cowards!” the man yelled amid the mammoth’s trumpeting. “But it won’t do you any good! The age of man is ending and now begins a new ICE AGE!”

He waved his spear and a blast of wind-driven snow swept down and hurled a fleeing pedestrian into the side of a building. He slashed in the opposite direction and a fan of icicles flew out like knives into the sides of some of the other traffic-stopped cars on the street. The mammoth began moving toward the cars.

When they arrived on the scene Sam sighed even louder. ”Got to be ****ing kidding me.” the cold illuminated more than he could see, it was kind of nice because Sam didn’t have to create the cold as well. He just made it work for himself. Rex was the brightest thing nearby as people ran past fleeing from the beast from the ice age.

Sam had mixed feelings about the creature. While he thought they were the coolest version of an elephant he also had to put it into perspective that it was rampaging and... charging towards a group of cars. ”Guess we can talk more after.” Sam said his body already controlling the falling snow to coat his body.

There was already one visible injury as the man was swept up and hit a building, tumbling down to hit the ground. Sam raised his ahnd and shot a beam of blue to where the man was going to fall and landed in a giant hand of ice. ”How’s your first aide?” Sam asked turning quickly to Rex knowing he was a first responder given the man’s training. The snow turned to ice on his face and body giving him his cold blue armor.

”He’s gonna trample those cars!” the ice blades that shout out from the met with another beam of blue this time the blue turned to a thin wall given the distance Sam was from them. ”Help who you can!” Sam didn’t wait for a response and shot himself forward with a pillar of ice from under his feet toward the cars and the beast and the man riding it with a spear.

”You wouldn’t survive it!” he said controlling his fall with a beam of ice under his feet till he slid in front of the cars and the path of the wooly mammoth. The man was using ice. Sam’s element. There was never a more confident stance as Sam readied himself for another ice dagger attack. ”This is your first and only warning! Stand down before anyone else gets hurt!”

“Don’t worry about me, just go!” Rex shouted back as the icy armor formed around the mutant. Rex didn’t bother watching the other man in action - he had other responsibilities. He might’ve been on sabbatical and he might not have any resources around him, but he still had his hands, his strength, and his faith.

“Blessed Redeemer, watch over us,” he said, the words carried away on steam as he altered course and beelined straight for the man Sam’s ice had caught. He fell into a crouch by the man and immediately went for the man’s pulse. “Sir, sir, are you okay?” he barked. There was a pulse. Good. The man coughed and wheezed, but Rex saw his eyes flicker open.

Rex nodded. “You need to get out of here.” It usually wasn’t a good idea to move someone after a collision like that. Any number of injuries could be worsened. However, this wasn’t the scene of an accident, this was more like a warzone. Leaving anyone here only increased their odds of dying. Besides, the temperature kept dropping. That alone could prove fatal.

The firefighter managed to pull the man up and then ducked just enough to hoist him over his shoulder as he tried to backtrack. “Leave your vehicles!” he shouted over the chaos. “Run! Help people around you! But get out of here!”

Meanwhile, the nearly naked man on mammoth was cackling with insane glee.

“A champion!” he crowed. “And one of ice and snow! How splendid!” With the spear still clenched in his fist, he beat his chest twice and gave an elaborate bow. The mammoth stopped short for just a moment. “You are exactly the worst person they could have possibly sent! So why don’t you join us instead, m’kay? We can remake this city in our image and we can rule it together!”

He howled into the wind and showers of hail fell. “Or don’t!” he shrugged. “I don’t care! But you’re not going to stop me! Megafauna! Attack!”

The mammoth immediately stomped down on a car and crushed the hood nearly flat. Then it slid its tusks under another and with a mighty toss of its head, flipped the car into the air back toward some other cars, mere seconds after its passenger vacated it. “That’s right! Run! RUN! You foolish humans! You’re an evolutionary dead end! And soon you’ll all be dead too!”

The temperature plummeted further and hoarfrost erupted over everything within thirty feet of the man and his mammoth.

Arms hung at his sides waiting for the response, his fingers twitched at the ready while his breathing was slow and controlled. People were already hurt. Usually Sam didn’t give a warning, he was just doing this to be nice, that and he really wanted to see the mammoth up close. The situation would have been far cooler if the mammoth didn’t just throw a car.

Sam welcomed the chill and even took a few steps forward as the man playing neanderthal rallied his steed further. Magic again? Sam silently wondered, sure the man could have been a mutant but that would mean he got the beast from the ice age with other means. Magic to Sam seemed the most likely. Either way they were playing with his element.

While ice and cold crept outwards and added to the panic and confusion people scattered about abandoning their cars and avoiding flying ones from the mammoth. ”Fine. Have it your way.” Sam said lifting his hands and creating a wall of ice behind him. If only to shield anyone else behind him. The icemancer had a city to protect. His city.

”Sam’s attack!” Sam shouted, and just like that two identical ice clones of Sam freed themselves from the barrier of ice behind him each with a spear in hand. It was primitive but this was how they fought mammoth’s back in the day right? Luckily for Sam they could repair themselves when injured.

A spear of ice formed in Sam’s hand so he could lob it at the man controlling the beast. It wasn’t meant to kill of maim but get an idea of what the man was capable of. Another formed in his hand as he launched himself forward ready to bring it down on the caveman.

The street was rapidly emptying out, as people fled or escaped into flanking buildings. They were New Yorkers, they’d seen a lot of stuff and weirdness was part of their daily commute, but they weren’t Canadians! The cold was far too fierce and quick, as snow was already dusting the ground and metal became risky to touch with a bare hand.

The neo-neanderthal howled with laughter and waved his spear in the direction of a group of stragglers. The frigid winds focused on the group and sleet and hail rushed at them. Needles of ice stabbed exposed skin and patches of ice began forming on them. Some stumbled and fell, others cried out as blood specs emerged. Their screams pierced through the roaring winds.

Yet the man in the loincloth couldn’t focus long on them. “Is that really the best you’ve got?” he jeered as the spear of ice flew at him. He shook his own spear and the icy projectile shattered into a dozen razor-sharp icicles. He laughed as they flew past him in a tight current of freezing wind, whipping around him in a personal cyclone only to fly out the other end in a shotgun salvo of glacial shards at the one-eyed man.

“It’s a good start!” he yelled playfully. “Maybe one day you would actually pose a threat to me! If you live that long! Megafauna, smash his ‘friends’ for me, please?”

The mammoth swung its massive head and a car went flying down the sidewalk at the ice clones and the wall of ice.

Meanwhile, Rex managed to get the wounded man into a building just around the corner. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do. “Call 911!“ he yelled at the lobby’s receptionist. This man needs an ambulance, and several others will be needed! Mutants are tearing up the next street! Now!”

The receptionist’s jaw dropped open but as Rex yelled again, he started to pick up the phone and dial. Seeing that, Rex nodded and plunged back out into the streets. It was cold there still, but in comparison to where the fighting was, it was practically a summer day. There were still people running away from the action, ahead of the lethal cold front, but Rex had a horrible feeling in his stomach that not everyone would be able to run away.

Rex charged back from where he’d come, clearing a way through the crowd. He turned the corner and the cold nearly stole his breath away. The street was rapidly on its way to freezing over, buildings included. Rex saw a wall of ice protecting part of one side of the street, but he saw a bunch of unprotected people on the other side. He started running toward them, for once thankful that the traffic was at a standstill, meaning he was actually safer than usual in crossing the street.

”My mistake.” Sam retorted after seeing more innocent people get bombarded with shards of ice followed by patches on them. His own spear broke down and whirled around the cosplayed cave man before being sent back at him. He was still in midair meaning he couldn’t do much to get out of the way. However it was ice, his ice. Meaning there was no reason to. The shards of ice collapsed harmlessly onto his body suit of ice.

”No killing.” it was more to himself but being so close to the caveman it might have sounded like he was ordering the pair to follow his orders.

”Megafauna?” Sam questioned as he landed on the back of the mammoth his ice creating traction on the back of the beast so he could turn and battle the man who was trying to bring on the ice age. ”Not Manny? Or tusk?” one of the clones shattered under the weight of a car as the other one ducked then leapt onto the trunk of the behemoth.

”You were warned!” Sam shouted snapping out the back of his fist in a strike meant for surprise and dissertation followed by a front kick aiming to his chest. Sam’s current goal was to separate the two. Both of them must have been mutants. This didn’t reek of magic.

The clone’s body shifted slightly altering it’s fingers for claws to latch onto the beast. Thankfully Sam didn’t have to focus much on the clone, they knew what needed to be done. ‘Protect them.’ was the only command the winter warrior had given.

The cave man didn’t particularly care that the shrapnel didn’t hurt the ice man. It didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. No man of ice could stop an Ice Age.

As the ice man landed on MEgafauna’s back, the mammoth rumbled but otherwise didn’t pay attention. The mammoth smashed the hood of another car.

The pseudo-caveman responded differently. “Joining the party after AAH!” he yelped as a fist came flying at his face. He jerked away but a kick caught him square in the chest and he went flying off the mammoth and got lost behind a thick sheet of snow and fog.

It was only then, when the ice clone sank its claws into the mammoth’s trunk, that the mammoth truly responded. The mammoth partially reared and let out a n angry trumpeting as it whipped its trunk quickly back and forth, its massive shaggy head flailing from side to side. Then it whipped its head back and like a bullwhip, tried to strike the man on her back with the clone-ladden end of her trunk.

By that point, Rex had managed to reach the crowd of fast-freezing people. “Move it, people! You can’t stay here!” he roared, his heart pounding in his ears even as he felt his hands growing cold again.

“Can’t…make it!” an older man wheezed as he collapsed to the ground. Frost covered his eyebrows and beard and patches of ice were growing on his coat. The ground was thoroughly slicked over and as Rex watched. Two women who’d been huddled together went down as one as they slipped on the ice.

“Yes. You. CAN!” Rex cried. He appeared at the man’s side and nearly yanked him to his feet. “You two!” he yelled at two other guys who were trying to walk out of the storm, just yards ahead of the women. “Help those two stand up! We’re all getting out of here together!”

The two guys turned back and stared blankly so Rex repeated himself. There was one person left, a teenaged girl and her dog, a little schnauzer she held in her arms. “You! I need to help this man stand!” he said,

“But, buh buh but what are y-y-you gonna do?” she stammered in the chill as she unthinkingly complied, moving to support the old man.

They weren’t dressed for the weather. None of them were. It felt like it had already dropped below zero. These people were dressed for the forties.

“I’m going to sell my soul,” Rex said. “And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night!”

Energy began building around him from the moment Rex began reciting the oh-so-familiar verses. He reached out to that wellspring of power, the one that called to him, and he opened his mind to it. Heat began to rush hrough him and a vibrant energy flushed away the cold. As the last words left his lips, there was a crackling, a shattering, and then violent flames spiraled up around him in a column of fire, six feet wide, that danced twelve feet into the sky. The light blasted into the darkness and orange and yellow shone against the whiteness of the air and the ground, punching through the whiteout and restoring some measure of warmth and comfort to the people nearby. What once would’ve made them all sweat now gave them a chance to survive.

The people stared in shock and awe so Rex yelled again. “Go go go go!”

The people started to walk, picking up speed as they went.

Sam’s target was down, they were separated. Enough for them to be handled separately. The trunk whipped overhead of Sam and a clone reached out to grab the icemancer by the arm he ducked the initial attack and latched on to his clone and held on for life as the trunk flung from one side to the other.

When it was close enough to the ground Sam let go of the ice clone and landed on his feet with a slight slide on the ice. ”Easy now! You don’t have to fight anymore, big hairy guy is off your back and you can go back to what you were doing before he came a long.” Sam said hoping the creature was smart enough to know how things were going to end. He was on the news enough, and in the papers. If it wasn’t Sam stopping them there was his team members who were all more than capable of handling the pair.

The air was knocked out of the caveman with the kick and then he recovered it after the fall landing on his back and rolling to the side as Megafauna started thrashing about. A clone of ice appeared under Sam’s will and tried to land on the other icemancer but only managed to get a spear through the chest. The clone reached out then started to fall apart now that he was in the immediate reach of the cave man and his own ice powers.

”Looks like you ran out of time.” Sam said getting to his feet and walking over to the caveman who was busy picking apart his clone who still tried to reach out and grab at him to slow him down. It was so cold, his thermal vision gave him more to see than he cared to. Along with a sudden rush of heat, almost a wave of red, orange and yellow washed over the cold and he smirked.

”I don’t know who you pissed off but someone isn’t too happy.” he chuckled reforming another clone and sending it to the mammoth. ”There will be no ice age today, last warning.”

Megafauna didn’t bother listening to the one-eyed man. Ice Age was sprawled on the ground, and even though he was quick to his feet and already slaying one of the ice creatures, it did nothing to settle her down. She whacked her trunk against a car, ice person-side facing the car and then twisted her head to repeat it against the iced-over asphalt. Rinse and repeat as needed.

The caveman in question had a manic grin on his face even as the reaching ice person shattered into bits with just an effort of will. “Fool,” he said, a small trickle of blood already freezing into crystals as it poured from his mouth. “There’s always time for an ice age! I’m a force of nature!”

Ice Age planted the butt of his spear on the ground and howled into the darkening sky. A spiraling blizzard whipped up around him, completely hiding him in a white wall of snow. Winds blasted out, accompanied by shards from the shattered clone and they flew in all directions. Power lines snapped under the sudden weight of ice and everything in sight iced over. A transformer blew and the streetlights shut off, along with all the lights in the buildings on either side of the street.

Firelight from a burning column played out early, like a fallen sun in the darkness and the white. The blizzard died down momentarily, just enough to reveal a light coating of ice crystals all over the caveman’s body. “Looks like I’ve got a small fire to put out!” he said and he raised his spear in time to be picked up with a blast of wind and he flew several yards in an arctic gust.

A sudden blast of icy wind made even Rex’s flames falter and whip around even more chaotically than normal. He was flushed with heat and although the increased cold didn’t bother him, he could see its effects on the others. They cried out in shock and pain. Rex could see ice already forming across their skin. “Keep moving!” he yelled over the snapping and crackling of the flames.

“Too-too-too c-c-cold!” the girl whimpered, barely audible over the wind, despite being only scant yards in front of Rex.

“Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people,” Rex recited. More power blazed through him and the flames grew in height and intensity, the flames closer to white-hot than yellow. Steam rose from the ground within yards as a wave of intense heat rolled over everything. Gasps of surprise and some relief came from the stragglers. Some of the ice seemed to be melting off them already. He knew the heat could be every bit as dangerous in the long term, but for now, he just needed time off this street or somewhere safe.

Then an angry scream pierced the air and a shower of razor shards of ice began pelting them from above, even as snow began concentrating above Rex and an angry mammoth began a charge toward Cold Steel, fourteen-foot-long ivory tusks aimed straight for his chest.