E.C. EDWARDS - The Mighty Antimagic Spell
Chapter 71 - When Friendship Fades

“That little one?”

“Yes, it’s she.”

“That girl with that sceptic face boy?”

“I don't even know her. She had certainly just come from the world of sceptics.”

“Are you sure it’s her? Are you sure?”

“That's what I heard ...”

Several children were gathered in the school yard talking about the latest events. Elizabeth was in the spotlight, alongside with Johnny and Alexander, who was accompanied by more friends of his.

“I don’t understand why? Why did he choose you? An ignorant girl ... I had to be the one who ... My name had to stay forever in ... The total glory had to be mine!”

“Do you think I want to participate in the last event? I don't think I'm ... able to do that.”

“Then why did you enter this contest? WHY?!”

Elizabeth said nothing more. She was scared.

“To mess up with my business. I, Alexander Soimesti, had to be the one to compete in the last challenge. Me, and nobody else!”

“If you want you can replace me.”

“Listen to her! What this IGNORANT says!”

The boy approached Elizabeth with an angry gaze.

“You have the impression that you give me your ticket and that’s all, can I replace you?! We speak about magic here, not less. When you are chosen, that’s settled!”

And Alexander turned his back on her and was about to leave.

“Then ... it means that someone or something saw in me that I deserve to be chosen to participate in the next challenge.”

When he heard these words Alexander's face blackened like a miner’s face after he had been digging for coal all day. He turned to the girl and shook her furiously. The girl got unbalanced and fell on her back. She wasn’t hurt badly, but she was scared. Alexander's not-so-kind friends were there, too, laughing at Miss Edwards.

Johnny tried to defend her from Prince Soimesti but he was quickly cornered by the angry boy's acolytes, ready in case Davies dared to do something.

The girl's fear activated her Guardian, which landed near her.

Elizabeth got to her feet and that little hawk flew and clung to her hand.

“Given the fact that you don’t know how to behave I’m not sorry you weren’t chosen to participate in the last test. I thought we were friends ... and true friends don't push each other.”

Young Alexander approached Elizabeth again, this time smiling, probably for the purpose of pushing her again. Because of the anger, the boy was restless, going to and fro.

But when he was less than a meter away from the girl, Elizabeth's guardian flew toward him, grabbing the young boy’s right shoulder with his claws, causing him to take a few steps back. His cape was torn into pieces over his shoulder.

Then the hawk settled on the girl's shoulder in the same delicate manner as usual.

“Stupid creature!” shouted Alexander. “Fortioris!” he tried to hit the hawk with a blow of the wand.

“Adversus!” shouted the girl and defended her hawk against Alexander's magic.

“Look, dear ... the girl wants to fight.”

Alexander took off his torn cape, closed his eyes for a little while, and focused. In the blink of an eye, a huge constrictor snake, as long as a 6-meter python, Alexander's protector, popped up beside him. This snake also had some spikes that sprouted from his head and neck area, and those spikes not only made him look scarier, but they were also weapons that could hurt.

“Let's see what your little sparrow is doing now ...”

Alexander looked at the snake that understood his words:

“Ssttruge sssoimssul alass,” the boy whispered to that creeping creature, in a language unknown to the others.

The snake headed for Elizabeth and the hawk. The bird, seeing the snake approaching its master, flew away and at an unbelievable speed hit the creature directly in the head with its claws. The snake was dazed for a moment after the blow, after which he continued to crawl menacingly to the tree where the hawk landed.

Again the bird struck his head with his claws. The snake was dizzy again, but he came back after a few moments.

Alexander looked a bit scared when he saw that a bird as little as the hawk was so dangerous to his snake.

“Ssserpe! Ssstruge-l!” he ordered again in the same unknown language.

The hawk hit the snake twice more, making him even dizzier.

It was clear the reptile was increasingly affected by those blows. The snake, after another blow, didn’t raise his head and front of his body as he did before. He gave up the lofty posture he had before and remained coiled, curled up in one place. One would say he gave up, defeated in this fight. When the hawk flew back to the snake to hit his head again, the snake ducked his head to avoid the hit. He probably couldn't have stood another one.

"I think he was defeated, Alexander," said one of the boy's friends.

“NO!” he shouted angrily. “Ssserpe, ssstruge-l!”

The hawk seeing that the snake no longer gave any sign of aggression approached him slightly, to check what happened to him.

Elizabeth smiled softly. She was happy her hawk wasn’t killed by that fiery snake.

“I was so scared. Have you seen that big snake?” she told Johnny. “I’m glad that…”

But just at that moment, the snake saw that the hawk was very close to him, so, cunning, with unrivalled rapidity, bit hard one of the hawk’s wings and quickly coiled around him.

The bird began wriggling, but with each movement of the hawk, the body of the snake settled better around it, gripping the poor being more and more powerfully.

“That's my boy. Bravo! Kill that bird!” Alexander shouted this time to the others to further increase the fear visible on the girl's face.

“Alexander! Please stop! Please,” Elizabeth started to cry. “I beg you, tell him to stop!” cried the girl scared, watching breathlessly what happened.

Johnny took his wand in his hand and wanted to do something about it, but two of Alexander's friends, also holding wands in hands, approached him.

"Don't mess with us, Davies," one of them said, smiling.

It was Geoffrey Walsh.

“Yeah ... it's a fair fight. We thought the hawk would win and we didn't intervene,” said another friend of Alexander's.

“Alexander! Please!” Elizabeth cried, but to no avail.

Young Alexander said nothing. He just smiled like a fool, glad his snake was such a dangerous and cruel guardian, at least in this situation.

The girl, seeing that the snake almost suffocated her hawk, began to defend him.

“Fortioris! Fortioris!”

The snake was hit hard.

“Fortioris!” Elizabeth hit the reptile again.

The snake, due to the pain, began to unfold his body around the hawk and curled back into a corner. But the girl didn't stop.

“Fortioris! Fortioris!”

The wounded snake from so much magic gave up and tried to protect his vulnerable areas coiling. He went to his master, withdrawing.

Elizabeth saw the hawk coming toward her slowly, unable to fly because of the wound from the snake bite. Also, the girl saw how Alexander intended to touch her with a spell through his wand. But before he could say something, Elizabeth was one step ahead him:

“Fortioris!” she shouted again and hit Alexander hard in the hand holding the wand. Fortioris and Possidebit!”

The last two spells hit Alexander's face and disarmed him. The young man's wand came into Elizabeth's hand, after which that wand turned into many broken pieces of wood.

Alexander's legacy from his ancestors became only pieces of broken wood and useless chips.

Alexander's friends didn't know what to do. If they wanted to, as they were more numerous, they could easily disarm Miss Edwards and make her regret what she just did. But none of them tried to face the girl who became a real lioness.

Alexander had tears in his eyes. It was because he lost his wand, but also because he was defeated by a girl, an ignorant, as he used to call her.

"That wand was a legacy ..." he said in a low voice.

Even though he could easily get even a better or more beautiful one from his father, everyone would now laugh at him secretly because he was defeated by Elizabeth Catherine Edwards. Moreover, she disarmed him and destroyed his wizard weapon, which his father gave him confidently.

Alexander bowed his head and left, followed by his guardian, that spiky snake. All his so called friends ran towards him trying to show they could be helpful.

“Leave me alone!”

Most of them stopped. Only two continued to follow him, one of them being Geoffrey Walsh.

“Everyone!” Alexander shouted when he saw those guys didn't understand the message.

Miss Harmony, accompanied by another professor, brought by a student so that Elizabeth might not be hurt, came to the children gathered there.

“Alexander, are you okay?” the professor asked, seeing the boy devastated as she passed by.

The boy nodded he was fine, but the look in his eyes said something else.

Miss Harmony wanted to tell him something more, but hearing Elizabeth cry she ran quickly to her.

“Elizabeth, what happened, my dear?”

When Harmony reached the girl, she saw that her guardian wounded, with his wing down and bleeding.

“Elizabeth, my dear ...”

“Miss Harmony, please help him. Please…”

“You can't do anything anymore. It has to be euthanized and ...” Johnny’s voice could be heard, whose mouth spoke at the speed of light, without thinking.

Hearing the boy's words even Miss Harmony's face, who didn’t use face muscles for frowning, changed features and raised eyebrows and the boy realized how stupid he was.

“Johnny, again you chose to talk first and then think.”

“I didn't even think, Miss Harmony, so quick I was ...”

Even Johnny realized he told the truth this time, not nonsense. He got nothing was in his favour, not even his words.

Miss Harmony gently stroked the girl’s head and tried to calm her down.

“Dear Elizabeth, your guardian will be fine. Unfortunately, Guardians cannot be healed by magic. They’re magic creatures so magic doesn’t have much healing power over them. But we’ll take care of him and you’ll see he’ll get better.”

As she saw the professor's comforting smile, Elizabeth stopped crying. She wiped her tears and hugged Miss Harmony.

“We'll help him, stay calm. We'll put his wing in a splint and we'll take care of him. He’ll get better. But…”

“But what, Mrs. Harmony?” the girl asked, scared. “Won’t he be able to fly again?”

“No, my dear, that's not the problem. I just don't know if he gets better until the final test of the Magic Tournament, the Magic Contest of the Decade…”

Elizabeth entrusted the professor the injured hawk.

“Now I'm not interested in this contest. I just want ... Please, let's go and help him. That's all that matters.”

“Okay my dear, stay calm because he’ll get better eventually. He’ll be as good as new.”

Miss Harmony and Elizabeth left to take care of the girl’s Guardian, while the other professor drove away the pile of children gathered in the yard:

“Come on, children, get back to your work. There's nothing to see here. Go to classes or go do your homework!”