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This wasn't going to be good. Hector knew he had to do something, but not having a right hand in this moment was more than just an inconvenience. Ever since having his mind "tempered" by Rasalased, he'd been having trouble using his left hand for normal iron materialization. At first, he and Garovel had thought that he'd completely lost function with it, that he could only use his left hand to materialize Haqq's shield, but more recently, Hector had tried practicing with it anyway and discovered that he actually could still use it for iron--but only a little.

He'd been trying to regain more functionality with it and had made a bit of progress, but it still had a long way to go, he felt. And hell, even before the tempering, he'd been right-handed, so that might've been a factor, too.

Here and now, though, his left hand was already quite busy just holding onto his shield--the only thing currently keeping him from being turned into a bullet-induced meat-spaghetti.

So his options were limited. And Zeff was closing in. And Hector was starting to get really freaking cold again, too.

But he still had his orbiting iron plates left. This whole time, they'd never stopped moving. They'd caught a few stray bullets here and there, sure, but they were still whipping around him just fine.

Hector decided to use them and go all-in. He ramped up the speed of the plates while simultaneously modifying their shape and increasing their mass, turning them into big blocks. He leapt high up into the air with the aid of an iron platform, flipping haphazardly and unintentionally--yet still maintaining his focus enough to sense the spears of ice that Zeff was already raising up from the ground to skewer him. They broke upon his shield instead. Hector took a half-dozen bullets to the chest as a result, but in exchange, he was able to bring down two of the big iron blocks simultaneously--right where Zeff was standing.

The impact with the ground had the force of an explosion, and Hector was sent flying backward, completely beyond the range of the blizzard. He hit the ground skidding and toppling on his half-busted armor.

A bit dizzy, he struggled back to his feet.