“Gwen, I’m not sure what happened,” I tried to reason. “However, I am sorry for whatever I did to-”

“Are you though?” Gwen growled, her voice becoming louder.

Mr. Willus was cowering behind his desk now. The threads poised around him were a worried shade of blue.

The classroom was silent. You could literally hear a feather drop.

I started again, praying that my voice didn’t shake. “Yes, I apologize for anything and everything that I did that might have… upset you.”

I shifted back, knocking my notebook onto the ground. I eyed her cautiously.

Gwen had a murderous look in her eyes. She stood up, and took a quick sip out of her $800 water bottle. Her face had gone a bright red color and she looked like she belonged in an asylum, if I do say so myself.

I could almost smell my own terror as my blood pressure spiked.

“She thinks she's sooo great… Well I got news for her: she’s not!” Gwen yodeled to the entire class.

Mr. Willus gulped and inched closer to the door. Was Gwen really that intimidating?

People began to whisper. A few of them silently prepared for a fight to break out. Even a few of Gwen’s friends were frowning in disapproval. The calm and warm atmosphere that had been present a few moments ago had dissipated into the air, replaced by densely packed tension.

Meanwhile, I was fuming with a cold sweat on my back. I sank down into my beanbag chair, eyes downcast.

Maybe I haven't mentioned this, but my self-confidence is... fragile, to say the least. I don’t think I’m soooo great at all. I only make ironic egotistical jokes to my friends and in my mind, and they’re just that. Jokes.

Unfortunately, Gwen isn’t my friend and definitely wasn’t making a lighthearted joke. Well, I never said that I would back down from this fight, either. Jaw set, I mustered up the courage to stand back up and meet the other girl’s mocking eyes.

I’m about to die. But at least I gotta die trying.

“I never said I was better than you, Gwen.” I spoke, as loud as I could. “I never said I was even remotely good at all this magic stuff.” I weakly gestured around the room.

“Then why are you so keen on spending time with MY sister??” Gwen stepped onto a table.

“I… Well, Moxie is my friend.” I stammered, my face fading to red.

Gwen exploded into maniacal laughter. “Oh, god. I didn’t know you were this pathetic. Your friend? Huh. Just like how you befriended all the powerful people around here?” Gwen threw a hand at Brianna.

“No wonder you won that one time! You’re a weakling who just wanted to use people. Just like how you wanna use Moxie, too. I can’t believe this. She’s so young! Why would you do such a thing?” Gwen’s voice was hysterical.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry,” I repeated. “I have no intention of using anyone. I just wanted some friends. Compared to all those great people, I’m nothing.”

A menacing smile cracked across her triumphant face. “You’re absolutely correct. You’re nothing,” she spat.

Amber’s hand found mine, and I heard the small crunch of a bean bag as Max raised himself. A corner of Brianna’s jean jacket flickered at the edge of my sight.

I shivered, but clenched my other hand into a fist.

Are they standing up for me as friends? Or maybe I’m too self-absorbed…

Gwen sneered at my clenched hand. “Oh? Are you trying to fight with those pudgy fists of yours? Then let’s see how tough you are, Mackenzie Jade.”

Suddenly she had a sword in her hand and a predator’s gleam in her eyes. A whirl of green steel flashed inches from my eyes as she whipped out her weapon.

It was at that moment when I realized that Moonshine, my own weapon, was sitting on my nightstand, back at the dorms. I was walking into this fight completely unarmed.

I dodged the swing by a hair's breadth, flying backwards in a panicked leap.

Gwen erupted from her table and landed no more than a foot from me. Like a lioness hunting a wounded zebra, she advanced.

I hopped back again, only to knock into Amber.

Amber squeaked from below me. I saw her blindly jam a pencil into Gwen’s leg at the edge of my sight as I ducked from a slash that pierced the air.

Gwen’s next strike missed me by a mile. A discomforting screech from Gwen told me that the pencil mark was going to leave quite the bruise. Muttering a silence thanks to Amber, I launched myself over a cluster of screaming students and into a bookshelf.

A heavy book bonked into my head, titled “Fueled by Fury: Emotions in Battle.”

Sticks and stones may break bones, let’s see if words can, too.

I swung the book at Gwen right as her knee came up to kick my stomach. The book crunched against her leg as I somehow deflected her attack.

I looked back to see that Max had come up with a leg of the table (what did he just do). He slammed it into Gwen’s lower back. It was followed by a short shriek and a shower of turquoise clothing particles.

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Brianna threw a pair of scissors that deflected Gwen’s next swing to the wall instead of my skull.

Ching-thunk!

Maybe it hit some electrical wires or something, because the room went dark with a few dying sparks of electricity. A few streaks of sunlight peeked through the window.

But Gwen’s sword was glow-in-the-dark.

It was a scary-looking thing that blanketed my veins with ice. Covered in green scales and small, spiky appendages. There was no way that I was going to let my friends or myself get hit by that thing.

Estimating her position, I dropped to the ground and kicked at her legs, and tried to sweep her off her feet (in a non-romantic way). She left her sword and easily jumped over my attack with serpentine grace, leaving me awkwardly sprawled on the ground. I grunted. One of my legs had landed at a strange angle, but thankfully was uninjured.

Gwen ripped her blade out of the wall and plunged it towards me. I rolled out of the way and pushed myself back up as fast as I could as she turned and darted up again. Brianna super-sped around Gwen, kicking at her legs, and Max launched another oakwood table with Amber at the infuriated warrior.

“WHY NOT USE SOME OF YOUR OH-SO-BRILLIANT SKILLS, HUH?” Gwen roared as she darted towards me again.

I rammed backwards into a wall, then hopped out of the way as Gwen slammed her weapon directly into it after me. I threw my book at her right shoulder, and managed to shatter a glass window as Gwen ducked underneath my projectile. A multicolored rain of fragmented glass splashed into the classroom as splintered rays of sunlight shone through in full force.

Pain bloomed at the side of my head as shards embedded themselves into my skin.

I forgot to mention the rest of the class. Mr. Willus was pleading from the open classroom door for Gwen to calm down (WHICH, BY THE WAY, WAS NO HELP AT ALL). Screaming students had flooded out the door in panic, trampling each other and falling over. The only ones who remained in the room were me, three of my friends, who were doing all they could to help, and a vengeful Gwen that looked more like a raging maelstrom than a human.

It was hopeless. My entire body trembled, and a searing headache was blooming where the glass had hit. A few droplets of blood had fallen down my face, partially obscuring my vision.

Gwen, on the other hand, was getting more and more angry. I guess she draws strength from her anger - maybe she’s descended from a line of berserkers?

What has gotten into her?

Suddenly, a flick of a sword’s blade flashed and shuddered into the floor next to me. Max had transformed his weapon gauntlet when Gwen wasn’t paying attention and thrown it.

“Thanks, Max!” I yelled into the air as I scooped up his Throat Slicer.

With a weapon of my own, I was able to deflect some of Gwen’s blows. Our swords made sparks fly and metals scream, but Max’s sword felt like lead in my hands. It felt as if my arm was chopped off, and the wrong one was sewn back on.

Out of my peripheral vision, I spotted Brianna blurring into a shadow as she raced out the door. Hopefully, she was running for someone responsible who could actually manage the situation properly, unlike our professor who was now cowering by the door in silence (honestly, I’m not blaming him). Max was picking up another table, and Amber was nowhere to be seen. She must have been hiding.

The practice sessions were nothing like this.

Each of Gwen’s swings were getting harder to block as Throat Slicer became heavier and heavier to hold. My own strength had drastically dwindled since the start of the brawl, and Gwen seemed to be feeding off of my weakness. Rage and a trace of glee danced on her brutal features, only to turn into surprise as Amber barreled into her with a chair.

Yelling senselessly, I rushed up to help the tangle of Amber and Gwen on the ground. Gwen, absolutely enraged, shredded the chair Amber was clinging to, in a single, lethal kick.

I threw a blind swing at Gwen, and pulled Amber off the ground.

Unfortunately, helping Amber up meant that I had a chance of being wide open to attack. Gwen took that chance.

She had merely nicked me on my right shoulder as I dodged in horror. It wasn’t fatal in the slightest, but that pain was like a thousand suns in the midst of glowing lava.

Have you ever been cut by a potentially poisonous monster-like green sword made of steel that glows in the dark and is wielded by some insane warrior witch?

It was painful and made me want to tear my arm off, to say the least. Agony shot like a bullet down my arm as what seemed to be poison devoured the wound and began to spread through my blood vessels. I squeaked out loud as panic and fuzziness engulfed every inch of my common sense while my vision began to blur.

Whatever magic Gwen’s sword had, I’m pretty sure it was meant to kill.

That was all she needed. With the split second that I stood there, clenching my arm in misery, she knocked Throat Slicer out my hands in a clean strike. Before I could react, she whipped back up, whorled her blade in an instant, and slammed the hilt into my ribs as heavily as she could manage.

I collapsed on my side, unable to breathe. The strike had me coughing and writhing in a broken heap on the ground. The poison from her sword only stimulated the pain further. Black spots danced a whimsical tango in the corner of my vision, and my head lightened.

As if time had slowed and began to grind, I saw Gwen raising her sword over my head for the killing blow, and I lifted my uninjured arm in a feeble attempt to block.

I felt a distant tingle in my hands. A shiver raced through my body as my blood sang and my bones groaned. I saw Max’s table flying through the air, behind Gwen’s twisted, raging face as she plunged downward.

I futilely drew my arms in abruptly to my head, and felt a drugged, tugging force dragging behind them as I clamped my eyes shut.

This is where I’m dying today. Maybe I’ll be able to see Mom and Dad in heaven, I thought morosely through the fog in my mind.

I hurriedly wrote a short will in my head, dedicating what little I had to charity and cursing Teresa out multiple times.

Gwen suddenly fell on top of me, her sword dropping onto the cushioned ground with a soft thump.

She was unconscious.

The lights snapped back on. I saw a blur of Mr. Willus’s threads as he ran from across the room. I heard Brianna’s machine-gun speed and more panicked footsteps. I smelled blood and a tangy scent of sickening sweetness from my shoulder.

Ah, that must be the poison, I thought in a detached manner.

I felt Max’s arms picking me up as my vertigo grew and grew.

Then, nothing but darkness. A blissful, long, welcoming darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My eyes snapped open to find myself surrounded by my new friends; Moxie, Amber, Max, Olive and Brianna.

“Am I in heaven? Did Gwen kill you all, too?” I pondered to myself in a quiet mumble.

Amber pinched my cheek gently and I blinked at her in confusion.

“You’re in the nurse’s office. No, you’re not dead,” she assured.

“Are you okay?” Max asked as soon as she had finished.

“Yeah, I feel fine.” I said after a long pause, feeling surprisingly light. I felt as if I were a feather drifting through a pink, fluffy cloud.

I looked at my shoulder and my thigh. They appeared to be unharmed. Strangely enough, even the blood was gone. Did I just sleep here for a century? Was I hallucinating? My injuries were fully recovered.

“Wow, how long was I out?”

“Ten minutes,” he grinned. “Healing spells are pretty darn quick.”

“Oh, wow.” I said, shuffling around a mountain of blankets. “I was sure it was a few centuries.” I paused as my memories flooded back. “Has Gwen been sent to a mental asylum for rehabilitation yet?”

“Well, first off, you can’t really get suspended from GDA,” Brianna explained.

“Oh.” I was disappointed. “I wish I could suspend her permanently from existence.”

“She was punished severely, though. Her sword-gauntlet was removed from her possession for the rest of the school year, she was stripped of her student-body president rank, and she now has assault on her permanent record. She also has a specific teacher that will follow her around in her classes. I assure you this teacher is not as useless as Mr. Willus.”

Whatever, I would take what I got as long as she didn’t indiscriminately attack me again.

“Good,” I said, sitting up on the bed and wiggling around.

Whatever this healing spell did, it gave me a pretty good recovery. My head was no longer spinning, and stars no longer edged my vision.

“What in the name of beans happened?”

“Dunno,” Max grumbled. “All I remember was throwing a table at her. Pretty sure I hit the shelves too, since some books fell on her.” Max said, quite proud of himself.

“There’s another thing,” Brianna said, holding up a hand.

She sighed before continuing. “Gwen lost her mother at a very young age. Since then, her… troubled mentality makes her snap out at people violently. I’ve known her my whole life, and she actually hasn’t reacted so…viciously… for two years now, until today. I’m really sorry for that.”

“Oh,” I replied, slipping off the bed and stretching out my limbs.

What else could I say?

Just like me, I thought, memories of my own mother flashing through my mind. Dad, too.

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Moxie and Olive said at the same time. The pair also hugged me in unison.

Brianna’s golden eyes were worried. “She has been very attached to her sister, since the passing of her mother.”

“I’m not gonna say if she’s right to attack, but I’m gonna say that I understand.” I said softly.

“Thank you. Not a lot of people understand her, unfortunately.”

I sighed, rubbing at my healed shoulder. “I can definitely see why.”

Nods of comprehension passed around the group.

“Oh, right. You're just in time to head over to the assembly, if you still want to attend,” Amber murmured. “The really important one that Mr. Willus mentioned.”

“What’s it about?” I asked as we walked out of the nurse’s office.

“None of us know,” Brianna said with a shrug, holding the door open for me.

We trekked to the stadium, conversing in light-hearted tones in an attempt to shove memories of today away. Finally, we had reached the stadium doors and quietly slipped in.

Only to be met with complete silence.