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Jessica Black
It was hard to believe. It had been 6 months since Lough had vanished. I wasn't sure if he was alive, dead, or crippled to near-death. During that time, I hadn't eaten, slept, or really thought much for that matter.
Darius was in a much better mindset than I had been. He'd been depressed for a few days but had quickly pulled himself together and turned himself around. He started training and doing things to keep himself occupied.
Classes had been cancelled for the first couple of months since the Constellations Tournament. The appearance of Lough, someone who could wield and efficiently use an impossible amount of spells, and a being whose power surpassed even that, shook the city, the council, and even the royal family, Laexanad.
I wandered aimlessly through the university. Looking around, I could see places and things that I'd done with Lough: Sneaking out onto the roof and watching the stars, the outside area where we revealed who me and Darius were, spending time together in the dorm rooms.
I felt a sharp pain in my chest, which could have only been my heart. Tears formed in the corners of my eyes as I thought about Lough. Dammit... he'll come back... stop being weak... I thought tiredly.
I walked into the main building block of Aurora University and headed to my 'History of Artefacts' class. After classes had started up again, I'd found it difficult to concentrate during this class due to Lough not being there.
I sat down and rested my head on the desk as Professor Crow began his lecture. My eyes kept glancing to my right where Lough's seat used to be, and I could only stare aimlessly as I pondered what could have been.
An image began forming in my head. A family. A wedding. Time together. Endless opportunities. My face heated, and I whispered to myself, "This is stupid... will he even be the same if... no, when he gets back?"
I was at a loss for words. Just as I was about to let out a defeated breath, a huge explosion sounded through the halls and corridors. Everyone stood up in a hurry and panic began to settle into everyone as they rushed to get out of the classroom. Running out the room, I searched around for the source of the problem. My twin-bladed sword appeared in my hand, and yellow lightning crackled along its edges.
I ran to the window situated in the far wall that overlooked a large portion of the city, and I was confused when I saw the sky was a deep orange. "Orange? But it's coming to nighttime..." My voice trailed off as I looked out the window. "What the hell..."
The sky was orange from the colour of fires spread throughout the city. Bolts of lightning, spears of ice, and giant balls of fire were flying through every street. Men in black cloaks with a few symbols on the rear were launching spells at everything and everyone. The symbols were different on certain people. Some had a red flame whereas some had blue spikes of ice. Some had a yellow symbol of electrical currents.
It's their elements! I realised.
I saw a group, each with the different symbols, rushing towards the university. Professors of every class were brandishing their artefacts and preparing for force. "What is going on?!" I uttered to myself as I worried about my brother. I didn't know where Darius was, I'd last seen him about an hour prior and couldn't remember where he was going. Either way, he'd be fine since he had a physical stealth artefact.
Another explosion shook the building, and I knew they'd got in. They must be strong. I acknowledged.
I ran to the sound of the explosion and saw a battle between the cloaked figures and the professors. In a split moment of self-doubt, I leapt into the fray and began clashing with the enemy. It was strange. Having done many assassinations, I'd thought fighting would be easier.
I gripped my blades and split them in half. Now, I held two longswords, one in each hand. They were about 15 to 20 inches long and were sharper than the average military grade blades. I let them channel lightning through the black-blue blades and began slicing through enemy after enemy. Blood stained my blade, but that wasn't my greatest concern. These people were killing my friends, and I planned on stopping them. The thought of them thinking the same as me sobered me instantly, but I reminded myself they invaded first. However, I knew better than anyone that right and wrong was based on perspective. You never know someone's story until you've asked them, and you genuinely understand them.
I plunged my right-hand blade into the stomach of a man with a red flame symbol on his cloak, indicating his fire based artefact. Twisting the blade, I winced at his grunt and pulled him closer to me.
"Who are you?" I asked in a low and dry tone.
"As if... I'd tell you..." he spat. He gripped my wrist and drove the blade deeper into him, killing himself quicker so as not to reveal information. I hated that strategy. Killing oneself for the sake of information keeping. Sure, it was loyal... but where had that loyalty gotten them. Dead.
I felt the coldness of ice at my neck and spun on my heel to deflect it. My blade hit the side of a large ice lance, and it crashed into the floor, a few inches from my feet. My leg was cut by a follow-up ice spear, and I fell to one knee. A woman with a gleeful smile and a large selection of ice spikes floating around her looked down at me. I wasn't ready to let this end here. I had to see him again.
I began to stand up and swung my blade but paused as the woman went rigid and looked down, blood leaking from the corners of her lips. Blood started to spread onto her cloak where lungs would have been. She fell to the floor, and a bloody dagger was floating in front of me.
Darius appeared before me with a wry smile as he flicked the blood off the dagger. "Hey, you ok?" He asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just a small cut," I replied, gesturing to my leg.
"Pff, you'll get over it," he snorted with a playful smile. I punched his arm, and he continued to laugh before he reigned himself in and took on a serious tone.
"Know anything about... this?" He asked seriously. I shook my head.
"Nope, they came out of nowhere. The city is being run through by them. The uni isn't the only place being ransacked or attacked."
"What the hell... well, this is shit..." he cursed as he looked around at the courtyard of fallen corpses.
"We need to help everyone. There are people out there with no artefacts, and we can't leave them to - " Darius cut me off with a hand and a knowing smile.
"I know," he said calmly, "Let's go!"
We raced off and away towards the main city. There were people everywhere. Some running and screaming. Some were staying and helping with the battle, while some were helping heal the injured. This awful...
Darius and I ran towards a large group of people fighting. I leapt onto the roof of a nearby building, and Darius vanished into thin air. We practised our teamwork tirelessly when we were kids. I was almost glad to be able to do some form of teamwork with my brother again despite being under less ideal circumstances.
I aimed and charged a lightning bolt, ready to fire whenever. One of the assailants fell to a slit throat, and I knew that was the signal. I fired my bolt of lighting into an enemy, and it spread like a web through the group, paralysing them and letting Darius end them quickly and painlessly. We instantly moved on to the next group and repeated the process.
As we arrived at the third group, this one a little bigger, I felt a presence behind me as I prepared the bolt of electricity. I spun quickly but wasn't fast enough as a set of knuckles struck my jaw, sending me spinning across the tiles of the roof. Kicking up off the roof, I got back to my feet and faced my enemy.
A muscular and burly man with a flame on his cloak. His beard was grey and short. Green eyes stared at me with a mixture of craziness and pity. He's looking down on me! I thought to myself, pissed off at the fact a man was looking down on me like this.
I blitzed towards him, but he grabbed my wrist as I slashed with my sword, eliciting a gasp as I was flung upwards and slammed into the tiles with true destructive force. The combined force of my weight and the slamming caused me to crash through the ceiling, and I landed on a table that broke under the collapsed ceiling. I lay in a cloud of dust and sawdust, dazed and dumbfounded as I tried to stand up. I barely avoided a knee, which crashed into the floor where my neck was moments ago. Crap... that was way too close!
Zipping along the room, I fired a bolt of lightning at the man who jolted for a moment. That was all I needed. Kicking off the wall, my body drove to home like a missile as I shot towards him, my blades ready. He brought up his fists and threw a terrifying punch towards my head. However, I spun and dodged. Feeling the flesh slice open, I drove my blade into the midsection of his ribcage and sliced to the side and downwards, which disembowelled him. I saw, in mild disgust, as his side opened up and his large intestine began to spill out, and I could see his lungs.
I heaved and wretched on the floor beside the corpse and wiped my mouth from the acidic taste of my churned up lunch. After cleaning away my sick from my mouth, I climbed out of the house I'd fallen through the roof of. I saw the original group was mostly dealt with and in a state of panic as my brother expertly dealt with them all and disposed of them.
Quickly, efficiently, and skillfully, I gathered mana and released a multitude of bolts that struck the remaining opponents, letting Darius easily kill them and without wasting too many resources.
As the last one fell before us, a thunderous roar sounded across the entire city.
"What the fuck is that?!" I heard Darius shout. Sensing his fear, I shakily looked up to the sky.
Soaring above us was a huge figure. Sky-blue in colour. Spikes of pure ice jutted from its spine, and royal blue eyes looked down on us like we were ants. Wings made of crystalline ice flapped and blasted cold wind across the city and cooled me down to a nice temperature. It was a dragon!
Sharp white teeth lined the draconic jaw, and a blue-white mist trailed from the throat of the beast. Atop it was a figure that looked human. A brown cloak covered the figure. Long black hair spillled from their head and billowed behind them as they flew above us. Even from this distance, I could sense the cold and sharp gaze of the human-like person riding the monstrous dragon.
Just who do you have to be to ride a freaking dragon like that?! I thought with a laugh. A small laugh that was a laugh of disbelief and one that showed I had nothing left I could give. If that person was an enemy, it was over for us. That dragon alone looked as if it could wipe out at least half the city. Not to mention the aura blasting from the human. It was as beastly and dangerous as the dragon they were riding on.
Purple lightning began to coalesce at the hand of the figure and in a single swing of their arm, a beam of lightning shot from their palm and obliterated the groups of cloaked attackers in an indiscriminate strike of absolute destruction.
Darius landed beside me, having jumped up to the roof I was stood on and watched with a slack jaw. "Who... is that? How can they have so much..."
"Power," I finished for him. I was breathless.
Then came the bloodlust. It was so intense that for a moment, I thought it was aimed at me. But after looking around, I could only see one place it could come from.
The person riding the dragon.
I staggered at the sheer intensity of the killing intent this human was giving off. The dragon turned its head and looked as though it was speaking, right before the human-looking person stepped off the wing of the dragon and plummeted hundreds of feet to the ground.
"Is he insane?! He'll die!" I shouted as we watched in confusion and doubt as this 'human' dropped over 200 feet to the ground. A tall and thick cloud of dust kicked up about a mile away from us, and we instantly rushed over.
We hid on the roof of a half destroyed building as at least 50 of the cloaked people surrounded where this person had landed. The floor was cratered and sunk in a large circle with a radius of around 4 or 5 metres.
In the centre was a man. Azure eyes filled with rage and a pure killing intent aimed directly at the black-cloaked army of people who had raided our city. His long black hair flowed gently in the wind, and his features were sharp. His aura was powerful and commanding, but not without the presence of elegance and refinement. Muscles defined by intense training and a clear magical talent that seemed to surpass those of the S-ranks within the entirety of Nova.
"I doubt anyone in Nova could make a spell that strong," I whispered to Darius.
"You're right... whoever they are... wait... doesn't he look a lot like..." he trailed off as we returned our attention to the confrontation.
"Who are you?!" One of the enemies shouted.
"Someone you should have thought about before attacking this city," the man replied, and my eyes couldn't believe what I saw.
A shimmering purple blade appeared in his hand. The only hand he had, as a matter of fact. A sense of familiarity filled me, and I could see exactly what Darius was saying. He hadn't even finished his original sentence, but I knew now who he was talking about.
In a flash of purple, the man flickered out of sight and reappeared a few feet past the furthest attacker. After a moment, everyone, all 50 people who opposed him, were sliced open in a fatal way and dropped to the floor like it was nothing.
A powerful presence... magical talent like no other... physical prowess that not even trained assassins like us can physically see... it's him!
"Lough!" I shouted to the man. He spun instantly, and his eyes lit up when they locked on me and Darius.
"Hey... guys..." he said with a warm smile and few tears dripping from the corners of his eyes.
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