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Hector barely got out of the way in time--and even that wasn't quite enough. The flame didn't actually touch him, but it still melted most of his breastplate. He could feel his chest burning as he rushed to annihilate and rematerialize the front plate.

His flight was chaotic. He didn't yet have the kind of well-practiced control that he needed to be fighting a battle in the sky like this. But he did have the power. The speed.

That would have to do.

He didn't hold back in his movements. Subtle and nuanced went out the window. When he needed to go right, he surged right. When he needed to go left, he burst left.

His body could barely take it. He could feel bones cracking with each explosive turn. He could feel blood pooling quickly to one side of his head and limbs before violently shifting to a different side. It would've certainly been enough to make him sick and disoriented to the point of delirium, if he hadn't been so focused.

On the fight. On Banda.

The Raptor's smoking form was so difficult to keep track of at this range. It moved so strangely and unpredictably. The Scarf of Amordiin helped, but not as much as usual. Air currents could pass right through Banda's body with only the faintest whiff of information being sent back to Hector's mind.

He had to pay closer attention than ever before. He couldn't let some little puff of red smoke sneak up on him, lest it turn suddenly into a blade through his helmet.

But it wasn't like all the other red smoke in front of him could just be ignored, either. Snapping maws and thrashing claws kept materializing from the smoke, lurching at him in a flurry of ceaseless attacks as the smoke billowed after him.

And the ranged attacks, too. Some of the mouths mixed in more beams of white fire, each one threatening to end him in an instant.

Hector had the Amir-10, though--the new version of Haqq's shield that Abbas had gifted him. The beams broke upon it like water upon rock, splashing out in all directions around him.

Still, this was far from an ideal situation. He had to hit back--and hard, too. As hard as possible.

But his most powerful technique would prove useless here, Hector felt. Orbiting cubes launched at high speeds would just pass right through Banda's smoke-based body. Soul-empowering them wouldn't matter, either, he was pretty sure.