Lillith

  Day becomes night and the world explodes in sound as I bite into Markus’ neck. The other sages must be interfering now. I was hoping they’d be too afraid once they realized the area was filled with hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen. Or, well, poison gas at least. I guess they probably didn’t identify it right away. I’d hoped for a little more time. An ironic side-effect of so much power is proportional cowardice. All together, I can’t fight all the sages in this arena. But none of them will want to be the first to face the fate Markus is fighting, especially lacking his supposed fine control over pain. I was counting on two minutes. Two minutes before one of them gathered the others and convinced the rest to attack together. This was my conservative estimate, considering a long history with such men.

  A lot can happen in two minutes. Almost every fight I’ve ever been in has been shorter than that. I needed to kill Markus in that time, releasing his direct control over the arena and buying myself a chance to escape. Not the ideal escape plan but I wasn’t planning on being attacked by the Collector and detained by a whole handful of assholes. I am so close to pulling it off, too. Maybe close enough that he’s already dropped the nexus barrier in the sky and around the arena. But vines wrap themselves around me again, tearing me off of my prey and throwing me into the dirt. Fuck. How does he have so much power left? His vines before were almost impossible to move in. I thought he’d lost control of them when I managed to break free, but these are even stronger. It must be the other sages. It has to be. It hasn’t been two minutes yet. My already desperate escape attempt is getting harder.

  Hope isn’t lost yet, however. Ember and the twins are still out there. I am certain they are planning something. I knew they would be when I planned all of this. My plan has been to kill Markus and create as much chaos as I could, giving them an opportunity to enact whatever plan they have. We can’t communicate, but fighting from both ends would leave cracks we could slip through, and we both understand that. Would sure have been nice to kill a sage, though. In any case, the other sages may have moved too quickly, but it’s not over yet. I have friends.

  Vines snap around my right leg as an axe shrouded white mana passes through them. Friends old and new, it would seem. She swings again and again, until I am able to scramble to my feet away from them. Bahamut offers me a hand, which I accept, climbing to my feet with her help. As soon as I do I realize I am in either a much better, or much worse situation than I thought.

  “Please! Kill me! Just fucking end it! I’m not healing anymore, I can’t use the nexus while fighting him alone, I can’t be taken, just kill me now!”

  Markus is wrapped in vines too, and for some reason desperate to die. On one side of the sky, smoke is rising into the air. On the other is a perfect yin and yang of black and white energy. White mana exactly like Bahamut’s has eaten through the wall on one side, while some sort of . . . liquid drips over the walls. It’s black and it carries the endless stars. If that’s an ally, that’ll be an easier escape than I could hope for. Even as the thought crosses my mind I am acutely aware that I have gotten lucky exactly once in the last eleven years. Luck is not my friend.

  Markus is still whimpering and his begging finally gets through to me. Whatever is happening, he would rather die than live through it. And killing him is exactly what I plan to do. “Thank you, Bahamut. Glad you changed your mind about me,” I say as I take a step toward Markus. Bahamut catches my arm and stops me.

  “Where are you going?” she asks and I look back.

  “I don’t torture people. If someone like him is begging for death, I’m going to give it to him,” I answer. She points toward the mana and . . . nexus energy I guess, and shouts at me.

  “Right now those sages are focused on Markus! What do you think happens if he suddenly dies and we are still here?” I stare at the magic she is gesturing at.

  “You know, I saw the white, uh, nothing mana and kinda hoped that was one of your friends,” I respond. I then look back at Markus and realize the point is moot. The vines are . . . dissolving him. Like Sara does. If that didn’t kill the fucker, nothing I can do is going to. “You know what, you’re right. Think we’d better bug out.”

  She scoffs. “You sound like a fucking sage,” she grunts, but both of us run in the opposite direction. “What about you? Is that mess a friend of yours?” she asks. I look at the smoke we are running toward. Meanwhile, she scrapes at the scale I’ve lodged in her skin.

  “Maybe,” I guess. “Those bitches are around here somewhere I’m sure. I wouldn’t pick at that by the way, a lot of gas in the area still.” We make it to the gate she emerged from, opposite the attacking sages. A wave of white mana flies at us and I am prepared to really flex my creativity to find a way out when Bahamut steps in between the spell and me. And it dissipates immediately. That’s . . . interesting.

  I don’t waste time examining it, however. I can see two men flying in the distance and we need to get out of sight now. “Sure they aren’t your friends?” I ask as I grab the gate on either side, forcing it open with all my strength. It groans and complains, but it literally bends to my will. We are slipping into the hallway behind it before the faces of our enemies come into focus. We don’t stop there, however, as both of us sprint through the building, taking as many turns as we can. The entire facility is in a panic with everyone running toward the exit. There must be hundreds of people trying to leave. That must be where my friends are, too. I look over my shoulder and picture the oozing stars and the pale mana. For some reason, it feels safer to head deeper inside. I turn to head further into the maze of a facility.

  “Where the fuck are you going?” Bahamut asks, gesturing toward the exit.

  “Too many people, if they are after us we could get them caught in the crossfire,” I answer. She hesitates for a moment before cursing and following me.

  “I’m growing to really dislike you,” she whispers as we run past a few fleeing bystanders and make our way further and further from any sign of other people. “Do you have a plan for how to run deeper inside and still get out?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Still putting one together, thanks. I wasn’t actually expecting an assault on the full colosseum,” I respond, then I glance back at her. “Stop picking at the scale,” I repeat.

  “Great. Glad you gave Markus what was coming to him, or I would find this whole situation profoundly irritating,” she hisses.

  “We roll with the punches,” I respond, then I rapidly halt, grabbing her shoulder and stopping us both. Only inches in front of us, the wall to our right explodes as pure energy tears a new hallway through the building. I pull Bahamut to the side, using the remaining wall as concealment. Her eyes bulge at me.

  “How did you see that coming?” She asks. I shrug. Not to be flippant, but because I genuinely don’t know. I just . . . had a feeling I needed to stop or I would die. Instead of answering her, I gently smack her hand away from her face.

  “Stop fucking with the scale, goddamn dude,” I chide. She looks at her hand, completely baffled.

  “Why do you care so much?” She whispers as we both catch our breath, waiting until it feels safe to move on.

  “I fill the scales with mana,” I answer. “When I pull them off, they maintain the effect. That one is full of air mana. It’s creating a bubble around your entire body. It’ll protect you if I have to use poison gas again. Besides, you’ll get an infection.” She shakes her head and it looks like she is going to respond, but I feel an urgent need to run. Whoever attacked isn’t looking, and it won’t be safe here forever. I grab her arm and pull her across the huge opening leading straight back to the arena.

  Two men seem to be arguing, but neither is looking, exactly as I suspected. For three agonizing seconds, we are completely exposed to our enemies. The air feels like condemnation as it prickles my skin, but we make it past unnoticed. “You’re insane,” Bahamut whispers.

  “So they tell me,” I respond. I then look straight at a wall in another direction. I don’t know when it happened, but at some point I’d decided on a destination. It’s a terrible idea. I don’t know why I want to go there. But I do. I start channeling light mana, creating my radar spell to look in the direction of our ultimate goal. It’s deep in the building, and as I hoped, there is no one around. “Bahamut, can you use that weird mana to tunnel through this way?” I ask.

  “Void,” she says. “Why?”

  “Can you just trust me?” I ask. The earth shakes under our feet and she groans before summoning a massive amount of mana and firing it through the wall in front of us, as well as a few walls behind that. The destruction is complete, like there had never been an obstacle in the first place. “Damn,” I whistle, “Gonna call that the Baha Blast. Come on, let’s go.” She rolls her eyes at me, but complies.

  From here it’s a straight shot to the room I am aiming for, and we just have to deal with the anxiety that we will be blindsided by another massive attack. I’m not sure what is stopping them from throwing magic indiscriminately, but they could start again at any moment. “So,” I say as we run. “Void mana. That makes sense. So that sage back there . . .” I trail off.

  Bahamut and I speak at the same time, with me trailing only a little. “My father, yes,” she acknowledges.

  I am in the middle of saying “The Void Sage” but stop halfway. “Wait, what was yours?” I ask. “Fuck.” I guess that’s why.

  “Fuck,” she agrees.

  A moment later and we are at the strangely anachronistic door. A moment after that there is no door and we run into Markus’ home. “Made it,” I gasp. She looks around incredulously.

  “What now?” she asks. I actually don’t know. But I feel relieved to be here. I feel like I am close to safety. But the safety promised by that feeling seems like a pretty shitty idea.

  “I’m not sure,” I respond honestly. She gapes at me.

  “Do you remember the first thing I ever said to you?” she asks.

  “Moron,” I answer. She nods.

  “After spending more time with you and getting to know you better, I want you to know I have not reconsidered."

  I am about to respond when our luck runs out. One moment we are alone, and the next two sages stand in the room with us. Two men. “Oh Jesus fucking Christ,” I swear. This was not the surprise I needed today. The sage I don’t recognize lifts his arm only for the Void Sage to catch it.

  “Let me take Riley first, then kill Annie,” he says. The other sage glares at him.

  “I have little patience for this, Rowan,” he dismisses.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” Riley, apparently, responds. Kind of a gentle name for such a badass, honestly.

  “But her you’ll go with,” Rowan sneers. “You will never fail to keep disappointing me. It seems this lesson wasn’t harsh enough. If you don’t want the next to be worse, come with me now. You know this woman needs to die. And she needs to die now. I can’t stop the Original forever.” I glare at the man, years of resentment boiling up. Rowan. Cute. How very ‘Pokemon’ of him. Safety. I get the feeling of safety.

  “It is time for her to die and stop holding us back,” the Original Sage growls. “Deal with your family drama when it’s handled.”

  “I will deal with my family how I please,” Rowan responds.

  “If memory serves, that mostly consists of getting divorced,” I quip. “And having your calls screened by your adult children, I guess.” It feels safe. I will be safe.

  Rowan smirks while Riley looks down at me with irritation. I shrug at the latter. I didn’t lie, I just didn’t know I actually did have a personal vendetta against her dad. Rowan takes a step forward. “And if my memory serves,” he responds, “The last time we met you offered to let me wear your testicles on my chin. He looks me up and down. “How are you feeling about that attitude now, moments from your death?”

  I shrug again. “I mean, the offer is still out there. Flattered you’ve been thinking about it all this time, actually. Might have to take a rain check, though. Hey, Riley, trust me one last time?” Rowan’s smile falls and Riley looks between me and the sages.

  “I’d really rather not, but fine,” she agrees. “Anything is better than going with him.”

  I smile. “Keep those pearly whites clean and that breath fresh for me, Rowan. I’ll follow through on my promise next time.” Then the atmosphere changes. The Original realizes what I am about to do and starts to form some kind of spell. I grab Riley with my right arm and throw both of us back into Markus’ window, just as that same pure energy starts forming right in front of us. I use my left hand to flip the pair off as we disappear into the black stone.