Fight! Fight!
The third mage was slower off the jump than the other two, or just younger, because he actually dodged the knife Mahota somehow managed to slap out of the air, and throw right at his stomach. I mean, he had the same anti-missile spell as the others. The knife was going to miss. Reflexes are reflexes, I guess. You have them, even when you shouldn’t — because while he was still flinching from the knife that couldn’t hurt him, Mahota spun and kicked him full in the face, which absolutely could.
I ran past him to the alleyway outside, because there was still the asshole who had started all of this. He was a pro, too: some people might have tried to stumble to their feet right away, but he knew all he needed was his hands free to cast. So why waste time? …I’m reconstructing all of this after the fact, you understand. What I experienced then was him throwing a slammy at me.
Like I said, he was a pro. Balls of compressed air are great for stunning people, making them fall down, sometimes even knocking them out. They also don’t tear up the surroundings like fireballs or lightning strikes do, which is great when you’re trying to do a quiet job. Best or worst of all: it’s a ranged spell that can get through a mage’s standard protection. It’s hard to make a magical missile miss when it’s almost as wide as the alley you’re in.
It certainly pushed me back. I’m a pro, too, so my reflexes had me turn sideways into the blast, but I still did some staggering of my own, long enough to let him finish rising. His hands were already knotting themselves to get out a spell of — actually, I didn’t recognize the passes. I did recognize the smell of power being far too recklessly pulled out of the air, and that was bad. The ‘more-reflexive actions needed’ bad.