A New Life

by Payton Cavallo

  “Chainicus.” Leas whispered out as he used his magic to create a silver chain that stabbed into Mona, Leas keeping her an arm’s distance away, the slug like being that was her refusing to let go of Craeft. Most likely in fear, Craeft thought as he was dragged back with her. He knew that Mona was probably terrified of the fate that awaited her for her rebellion. “Now now, can’t have you both playing with the prisoner. I’ll just bring you back to your rooms and-“

  His bluish-grey eyes widened in disbelief as he saw the ice began to crack, a small high-pitched squeal coming from them as Rayan poured his fire magic into them. With a loud crack, they finally broke off, the chains and cuffs that held him to the wall finally fracturing under the extreme temperature difference and allowing the man to stand up.

  Craeft saw Rayan reach up and touch the skin where the cuffs had been, wincing at the rawness of it. He must have been struggling for a while to get out, but it was to no avail as his fire magic simply wasn’t strong enough to break out without melting the metal, which would’ve probably killed him as well.

  But now that he was out, Craeft knew that their chances of getting out of here and rescuing his mother had gotten much higher. He watched as Rayan held his hand out, his five fingers straight as he pushed the fire elemental magic into them and forming a blade of red-hot flames.

  “Oh, still got a little fight left in you?” Leas said with a smirk. Craeft could practically see the rage pouring off of Rayan, the clear intent to rend Leas to pieces with that fire blade of his oozing out of every pore. “I have to admit, I’m a bit impressed that you’re so good with that element of yours that you can do it without a amulet glove or even any words…but,” He smiled as he gave the chain a rough tug causing Mona to let out a cry of anguish. Craeft felt helpless as he struggled to no avail. “It doesn’t matter as long as I have my meat shields.”

  Craeft saw Rayan snarl, his flames flaring up as if they were burning out of sheer rage. “Coward. Using children to shield yourself. Is there any low you won’t reach?”

  “Psh, I’d rather be a cowardly dog that lives than a dead courageous lion.” Being called a meat shield made Craeft feel sick to his stomach. “Besides, I’m the one with all the cards here, so you can quit your little courageous act. Now I want you to stand still so when I knock you out once again, like after I blew your father up into wet chunks, you won’t accidentally impale yourself on those chain fragments. It would be a shame for my employer to lose her new toy now wouldn’t it?”

  Craeft grit his teeth as he tried to think of a way out of this situation. He was sick of not being able to do anything, only to watch as the people he cared about were hurt. His mom and Mona, neither of them deserved this. They were good, and yet evil people like Leas and the werewolf lady hurt them because they could. However, any hopes were dashed as Craeft tried to push any magic out of himself, but found that none would answer his call.

  His magical core was dangerously low and had stopped sending magic out to keep him from dying, leaving him trapped as nothing more than a hostage.

  Craeft’s thoughts were interrupted by the loudest most horrendous screech he had ever heard, emanating from Mona.

  “SKREEEEEEEEE!!!” Mona screamed as hard and loud as she could, transforming the ends of most of her tentacles into mouths.

  “Ugh, will you shut up?” Leas said as he yanked the chain once again, shaking his head. “No one can hear you down here love, and I-“ He stopped as he heard the noises of heavy footsteps behind him. Craeft turned and saw that both of the guardians had quickly made their way towards his location, the sound of their charges scream attracting them like flies to a corpse. “Heh, you brought your little guardians to you.” He held one hand out, an alchemical grenade in it. It transformed into a fly and flew towards one of them and crawled up into its wounded eye before it reverted back into a grenade and detonated inside it.

  Gore splattered the hallway as its head exploded into wet chunks. However, it seemed the Leas had underestimated the guardian’s speed, Craeft watching as the lone survivor, Glorina if the whisper he heard from Rayan was true, began to pick up speed. Glorina, the sole surviving guardian, broke into a sprint, Leas eyes widening as she almost immediately cleared the distance from the hallway to the cell, and charged into him. The man let out a grunt as his mithril armor took most of the blow, the magical properties of it allowing him to absorb the impact.

  Glorina’s eyes widened as she spotted Rayan in the room, a whisper of her son’s name leaving her lips. Rayan heard it, his eyes alight with surprise and his heart aching at the sight of her.

  Leas seemed to be furious however, as he was forced to let go of his spell, the conjured chains fading back into pure magic. Craeft pried Mona’s limp tentacles off of him and held her whimpering form. Leas seemed too intent on killing Glorina to notice the two as his attention was on the lone guardian, allowing Craeft to try and slip out of the room. “Stupid animal!” He yelled out as Glorina reached down to grab his neck. He grabbed another alchemical grenade from the belt along his waist and transformed it once again into a fly which flew into Glorina’s mouth and detonated once again.

  Glorina let out a sickening gurgle as she recoiled back, her jaw blown off and a good portion of her throat and upper chest gone with it. Yet, Ms. Alcott’s alchemy was a thing of grotesque wonder, and allowed her to survive, though she was incapacitated as she laid nearby, leaning against the wall as she breathed shallow breaths. Craeft felt sick as he watched the scene, yet he would not allow that to stop him from running out into the hallway with Mona’s quivering body. He saw the look of pure hatred in Rayan’s eyes, and knew that the man would stop at nothing to kill Leas.

  And Craeft was smart enough to know that to get between the two would not be a wise idea.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Rayan was normally a calm man. Due to his past military experiences, he had learned the hard way that rushing into any situation with emotions running high was a terrible idea. However, he could not stop himself as he looked at the man who had destroyed his family.

  Rayan’s anger grew with the intensity of his flames, the fire turning a slight blue as it grew ever hotter. “You…you killed my father, and now you wound my mother like this?!” He lunged forward with a snarl, his blue eyes filled with fury. “I’m going to burn you alive!”

  Rayan rushed forward, small flames bursting from the soles of his feet which propelled him forward. His strikes were frenzied as he slashed at Leas, yet the mithril-armor enhanced man stayed just out of his reach and even when he could nick him with his flame-blade, the armor protected him from any damage. However, he had dealt with enemies like that before and would not let that deter him from scorching the man. He would just have to get creative.

  Rayan breathed in deep, a few bits of steam leaving his mouth before he breathed out, unleashing scorching hot embers upon Leas. With a cry of “Barrius!”, a dense blue barrier appeared and blocked the spell. Rayan let out a grunt of annoyance as he once again propelled himself, narrowly avoiding an alchemical grenade that had been transformed into a bird. It flew by him and detonated onto the far wall, leaving a crater in its wake.

  The redhead slashed them with his flame, but it merely melted the metal as the birds, bereft of the magic to counteract Rayan’s own, transformed back into the fragments, that were superheated by his own magic. Rayan grimaced as he felt several metal fragments lodge into his body, but he ignored it as he kept moving towards Leas, the pain being a small price to pay for the death of the man who murdered his parents.

  ‘I’ll have to be careful,’ Rayan thought as he deftly maneuvered around some shards of metal that had been conjured into flames, a burst of flames from his body forcing them out of their transformation and back into molten hunks of metal. ‘If even one of those grenades hits me, I’m done for.’ Rayan crouched down as several silver stakes flew over his head, courtesy of one silverus propogentum spell. ‘Unfortunately, it looks like my blades can’t do anything,
or even my flames.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘There must be a way to defeat him. Everyone has a weakness.’

  It was then that Rayan noticed the rivulets of sweat trailing down Leas forehead. A small grin tugged at Rayan’s lips. ‘Of course, the heat. He’s still human after all, and even though the armor will block the spell, it doesn’t block the heat. Especially that pathetic knock off of an Ascean Knights armor.’

  Rayan had known several knights, even fought alongside them, and he knew that the armor Leas wore was nothing but a pale imitation of the real thing. It was certainly mithril, its strange skintight metal and enhancements gave it away, but it was nowhere near as strong as it would have blocked the heat far better than it seemed to be doing for Leas, though that could be because he wore no helmet.

  That was alright in Rayan’s books. If Leas was arrogant enough to not wear an essential piece of gear, then he would exploit that weakness.

  Leas was swift, his mithril armor enhancing his already agile body to new limits as he easily dodged out of Rayan’s reach. However, Rayan didn’t care about that, only using it to force Leas to put some distance between the two as he held out his hands, one on top of the other and pointed them outwards. A cone of fire left his palms, saturating the place with heat, and even though Leas avoided it, Rayan could see that the heat was starting to get to him.

  Just as planned.

  Sweat dripped down Leas face as he stood up and raised his amulet glove and poured a good deal of his magic into it. “Silverus Propogentum!”

  Several silver stakes were conjured and flew towards Rayan. It was difficult to dodge, as Rayan had to use controlled bursts of fire from his soles to dodge them, but he managed. Rayan’s increased mobility allowed him to get closer to Leas, the man sweating buckets as the heat intensified along with Rayan’s flames.

  Rayan forced Leas on the defensive, frenzied strikes hitting him relentlessly and while they did no damage, they did cause the temperature to continue to rise to unbearable levels. Unable to do anything but block using dense blue barriers created from his own magic, the barrius spell constantly left Leas amulet glove as he tried to defend himself and slowly but surely, used more and more of his magic. Rayan knew that he probably wouldn’t be able to get through the shields, not unless he pushed even more magic into his flames and exhausted his magical core even quicker, but Leas didn’t seem to have noticed his plan.

  The redhead had noticed it, a vicious grin on his face as he saw Leas slowing down. mithril armor enhanced the wearer, but Leas was still human. Unlike the beasts the hunter had faced, he was no dark creature filled with inhuman stamina and durability, and thus, he would eventually exhaust himself and become desperate.

  And Rayan knew that a desperate opponent was not only a dangerous one, but also, a predictable one. Unless he had a spell hidden away that would give him a serious advantage against Rayan, something the former military man knew that Leas didn’t have or else he would have used it, the hunter would be forced to start exhausting his supplies of grenades.

  And exhaust them he did. With a varied use of his barrius spell, he attempted to box Rayan in, Leas breath becoming more and more labored as he continuously created barriers and transformed grenades into birds to fly around and detonate behind them. However, Rayan would not allow them to even get near him. Using controlled embers, he caused them to go off prematurely, hurting the barriers more than anything else.

  Finally, Rayan saw that glint in his enemy’s eyes, the one that told him he had nothing left to lose. Rayan readied himself as his flames were increased to a staggering intensity, appearing as pure white for only a moment, creating a truly massive amount of heat haze, blurring his image to an extreme degree and allowing him to use his trump card.

  Rayan watched as sweat dripped down Leas face, the hunter using the Barrius spell once more to create a box around Rayan, before he sent several of his grenades in through small holes, the explosive having been transformed into small birds.

  Even with the large amount of magic he had fed into the shield, he was still thrown back from the sheer force of the grenades, Leas slamming into the wall behind him. Leas looked towards where Rayan had been and saw no sight of the man. A ruthless laugh escaped his lips at the sheer relief he felt, and the murderous joy of killing his opponent.

  “Burn me alive? Hahaha, Rayan, you arrogant fool. You were tough I have to admit but you couldn’t stand up to a hunter like me. Heh, what a joke of a corporal you must have been.” His laughter died down as a smirk slipped across his face. “Well, now to go grab the kids and bring them to Mrs. Alcott. I’ll have to be careful how I explain it to her though. I’ll have to blame one of the guardians or else she’ll find a way to take this out of my money.”

  He walked towards the doorway, giving Glorina a grin as she laid there on the floor, wheezing as her heart slowed. Even with his employer’s skill in alchemy, she would not survive and Leas relished the look of anguish in her eyes. “Looks like I took out your whole family love, but don’t worry. You’ll be joining them soon enough.”

  “Whole family? But I’m still here.” A calm voice said behind the man. Leas eyes widened, but before he could turn, he felt a hand on his lower back. He screamed as pain flared in his lower spine, the mithril blocking the flames but not the heat from Rayan’s fire magic. He collapsed to the floor with a cry of agony. “How does it feel Leas? How does it feel to fall for a heat mirage? Did you really think I wouldn’t notice your little transfiguration trick, especially since it was the same one that killed my father?” Rayan smirked. “You didn’t even notice as I slipped out of your barrier before it fully formed, too busy thinking of your victory, weren’t you?”

  Rayan saw that Leas wasn’t listening, probably too concerned with finding any means of survival.

  The coward.

  ‘What did he do to me?!’ Leas thought as tried to stand, but found his legs weren’t complying with his wishes. ‘I can’t feel them! He struck me in the back and severed my spine’s nerves!’ He screamed out in pain as he once again tried to move. ‘I am not going to die! I, Leas Evans, am not going to lose to some weakling like him!’ His arms moved, pulling his body to the doorway. ‘If I can just crawl out of here, I could escape! Yes, that’s it,’ He was getting closer. ‘Just a little further.’

  Leas delusion was destroyed as he felt a hand on his leg. “And where do you think you’re going?” Rayan said as he pulled the man back into the room. “Someone like you, who enjoys hurting those weaker than him, and look at you now. Helpless and desperate. You were all boastful and certain of yourself when I was chained to that wall, when I couldn’t fight back.” Rayan kicked the man onto his back, allowing him to look Leas in the eyes. “And then you couldn’t even die like a man and tried to crawl away. But there’s no getting away from me you coward.”

  “No! This can’t be happening to me!” Leas cried out as he tried to hold up his amulet glove, attempting to push any remaining magic he had into a spell that would let him escape. Rayan could see the desperation in his eyes, as Leas had to know that taking magic, even the slightest sliver, from a magical core as depleted as his would cause permanent injury to the core.

  But in Leas eyes, Rayan realized, anything would be better than death.

  Rayan grabbed Leas’ hand and let the heat burn it through the armor. He let out a cry which only intensified as Rayan aimed his other hand at him, Leas hand still sizzling under the armor. A small ember grew upon Rayan’s palm, a pale blue thing which reflected in Leas eyes.

  “Goodbye, Leas.” Rayan unleashed his fire magic on the man, Leas screaming as he was burned alive. His flesh sizzled and melted under the man’s touch, the mithril armor absorbing most of it, but not the heat, resulting in him being cooked inside of it. Soon, all that was left was his charred corpse inside his blue armor, the mithril having begun to crack and break under his fiery assault.

  Rayan felt himself nearly collapse; his magical core having been strained to its limits. He heard a
wheezing noise, and turned towards it, spotting his mother slowly dying as she succumbed to her wounds. “Mother…” He shakily walked over to her, trying not to stagger as the exhaustion settled in. Rayan crouched down, and looked into the dying woman’s eyes, her brown eyes filled with regret and misery. “Shh, shh, it’ll be alright.” He hugged her. “You’ll be with dad soon and…” He felt a few tears spill down her his face. “A-and you’ll be with him in the Eternal Fields of Elemii. You’ll never have to suffer any pain, no hunger nor thirst. You’ll be…be…” He didn’t trust himself to not breakdown, and so he kissed her on the forehead. “I love you mother.”

  Glorina stared into his eyes for a few moments, before her cheeks lifted up ever so slightly, causing her eyes to scrunch up. It was a smile, Rayan realized, as the light left her eyes and she died, her form going completely limp and the wheezing stopping as she breathed her last.

  Rayan shook as he tried not to cry, tried not to completely lose it. But after so long, the stress of keeping everything in finally burst like a river through a dam.

  Tears flowed down his cheeks as he clutched her fallen form, a deep sense of anguish filling his being. He clutched her corpse, hugging it to his chest as he wept. Tears spilled down his face, the man who had tried to keep it in for so long finally breaking down. For what felt like hours he sat there, holding his deceased mother before he felt two small hands on both his shoulders. He turned and saw two small faces looking back at him.

  It was Craeft and Mrs. Alcott’s daughter, Mona.

  “Ah,” Rayan wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “You two shouldn’t have seen me like this.” He let go of Glorina’s corpse and shakily stood, before nearly collapsing once again. “That fight took more out me than I thought.” He glanced at the two kids. “Are both of you alright?”