Fire and ice

[igenlode]

Yet another sample rewrite, trying to make the original into more of an 'action scene' and less choppy/laborious to read (which, ironically, for me at least means writing your 'action' with *longer* sentences, and not the ultra-short fragments often advocated as being a means of improving the pacing...)
As usual, it also ends up being an exercise in pulling out the necessary elements from amidst the unnecessary extra detail -- why is it so hard to do that with my *own* fiction? :-(

Dancing light and shadow formed on the building ahead. Something odd yet familiar about the brightening light and sharpening shadows.

His eyes widened and, in what felt like slow motion, he turned his head to look over his shoulder.

To see a large ball of blue fire arcing toward him.

He held out a hand, spaying his fingers to counter the attack.

And fell through the melting ice bridge under his feet.

He drifted backward as he fell. The world tilting upside down. His surroundings were hard to piece together, the new angle disorienting.

But he managed to reach out and smack the back of his hand against a wall. Knuckles scraping against it long enough to form a few fragile crystals of ice.

They weren't strong enough to support his weight; he smashed through them and hit the asphalt below.

But they slowed his fall enough to avoid anything more than bruises.

He got up and found he'd landed in a dead-end alley, tall walls on three sides.

Touya skidded around the corner.

In his alarm, Shouto pushed—he just wanted this to be over, to stop this however much power it took—and encased everything in ice.

The glacial wall was possibly even larger than at the sports festival. He'd tried his best to direct it around the buildings instead of directly through them, but he was sure there was still some property damage.

Cold traveled through his veins and he opened his mouth to release a breath of frosty air.

The ice was already melting.

Touya stepped through the glacier, as though walking through nothing but whipped cream.

Even the flowing water from the sagging ice started to evaporate in clouds of steam.

It was too warm to build his way back up to the rooftops.

And Apparition's heat was too strong for his ice side to do any good against him in an attack.

Rewrite:

Dancing light and shadow formed on the building ahead. There was something odd yet familiar about it.

Time seemed to slow down even as he turned, eyes widening, to see a ball of blue fire rushing towards him. Shouto flung up one hand to counter the attack, and found himself falling as the ice bridge he had created began to melt away beneath his feet.

The world swung wildly about him. Plunging downwards, he managed to summon a few desperate crystals of ice; not enough to halt his fall before he smashed through to the asphalt below, but enough to let him scramble to his feet with nothing more than a few bruises.

The alley he'd landed in was a dead end. He was trapped. And Touya had just appeared in the entrance.

Panicking, Shouto thrust every ounce of power he had into a glacial barrier, and watched his opponent step through it with ease as the ice sagged and fell away in trails of steam. Apparition's heat was too strong for him to build his way back up to the rooftops, let alone to resist it with any direct attack. [...]