Battle of the Elements
Chapter 16 Harrison

I sat on the porch of one of the abandoned houses and thought of my mother. Had she and my brother forgiven my crimes yet? Would they ever forgive my crimes? She was probably living happily with that bastard of a husband. I remember the day he tried to beat me with a belt. My grades were slipping spontaneously and he was sick of it. He hit me once before my best friend – my dog Sherry – bit him. I remember how he yelled in pain as her teeth cut into his skin. I remember his sword cutting into her neck and his words as he told me it was ‘punishment for both of us.’ My grades never slipped again. But my grades didn’t stop my life of crime when I broke into stores. I just did it to piss him off, which was stupid, but it worked nonetheless.

I was kicked out of my home and moved in with my only friend: Dane. I met Dane three years ago when I broke into a local food store. I didn’t take any money, just food. I was going to give the food to the children next door – their mother had grown ill and their father had died earlier, so they didn’t have anything to eat – but I was caught by a local guard. He took me to jail and – to my request – slipped some of the food to the children next-door. I learnt his name was Dane and he was a knight in training. By the third time I was arrested, we had become friends. He would come down to my cell with food, on his breaks we would talk. Soon we became something close to brothers. I had a deeper bond with Dane than I did with my own brother.

I was thinking of all of this when I felt a giant gust of wind that knocked me off the porch of the house. I saw a flash of blond hair.

Bridgette

We didn’t know where Alex was, or Harrison. Melanie and Jake had gone off somewhere. I was left alone with Dane and Titania when the library door bursts open to reveal Aria.

She was battered and bruised and dressed in a two-pieced, white dress that revealed her bellybutton. She had a panicked look in her eyes. “Bridgette! They’re coming for you.” And that was all she said before she collapsed to the ground.

I ran to her but she was already unconscious. I pulled her into my arms as Titania came to us. Titania felt her pulse and nodded calmly. In times like this, she was what I knew she could be – calm, wise and powerful. Harrison and Alex came running through the door with alarmed faces as they saw the scene in front of them.

Something drifted through the air, a silence mixed with cold and something that smelled like death. I knew that mix well, Shane had taught me to recognise it the second it appeared.

Two words left my mouth as my entire body tensed up. My heart pounded, I felt my body pulsing with power. “Black Magi.”

Everything went dark. I heard the sound of punches and a few grunts before everything went silent and I felt myself lifting into the air. Felt the sensation of darkness on my skin before it roped around me.