Andy’s attachment to the old world died while Sara was helping Tim onto Helen’s silver glider. Hundreds of people Andy never met were trying to kill him by any means necessary without ever having met him. No context. No questions about his personality or whether he wanted to be fighting to begin with. They just lifted their swords and spells and charged, doing everything aside from sacrificing their own people to kill him. That was what war was like. And as Andy stood there, unable to see from the blasts of fire and rock and wind slamming into his golden barrier, he couldn’t think beyond his adrenaline-fueled primal instincts.
One opening, Andy thought. One opening, and I’ll kill all of you!
It wasn’t prejudiced, it wasn’t a hate crime, it wasn’t personal at all—it was just a will to survive in the face of certain death. Darius was the same. He was stronger than Andy and had more mana, so he was holding up, gritting his teeth, and Andy could tell that he was preparing to charge. But he didn’t. Not yet. Once the ground soldiers smashed into their barriers and the mages and archers couldn’t attack without sacrificing their own soldiers, then they’d strike. Until then, they waited—
—a decision that cost Wiles everything.
Wiles had barely said, “It’s gonna break!” before his barrier shattered, and Andy and Darius could see the calm, unshifted grass and rock to the right of them erupt in a violent gust of flames. Time froze for a second before reality kicked in, and they could hear Wiles screaming. Then, their friend was pelted by arrows, something they could only hear before the area fell silent.
Andy couldn’t believe it. He simply couldn’t believe that people had killed Wiles.
Wiles.
The person who complained that there weren’t playing cards in Lemora, and always talked about how he was going to revolutionize Reemada with them. Not for the money (he’d sell them to everyone “for potatoes or something”). He just wanted people to play with. Andy asked him what they’d be like, and he said, “Well, Pokemon. Only there’s already monsters here. You know? Well, you know what I mean. Artists will figure that out. I’ll just add the numbers.” When Andy pressed him for a release date, Wiles had said that “Businesses require lots of people, and I can’t afford to pay them a living wage, you know?” Andy didn’t know. They were both loaded.
Wiles.
The person who joked that he had money, power, and wealth, and he still couldn’t get a girlfriend.
Wiles.
The person who was socially awkward during dinners but active during training, where communication was a requirement.
Wiles.
The only one of the three who hadn’t killed anyone but had saved enemy soldiers with Emma.
Wiles.
Andy’s close friend.
The pain and loss and fury that Andy felt in that moment was unparalleled, and he screamed. Darius was close behind, screaming, “You motherfuckers!” He released his barrier and charged, and Andy acted. He ran after Darius, shielding both with his barrier.
The first kill with the most savage. Darius swung his sword, and it crunched against a woman’s side armor, sending her upper torso slamming into someone’s face. Then he created a quick wind spell and smashed it into a group of twenty soldiers, sending them flying away like rag dolls before running in, cutting down people like Achilles in the Battle of Troy. He was like a war god, and Andy wanted to be with him. He wanted to create fire spells and watch those motherfuckers burn en masse. But he didn’t. He was the shield, and he knew what needed to be done, so he kept pace with Darius during the blasts. But it didn’t last forever. As Darius blew away the front line, it opened the area and a fresh bombardment of spells and arrows rained down on Andy’s barrier. And while he had mana to sustain it, barriers had limitations and once one cracked, mana leaked until it broke.
“Put up a barrier!” Andy yelled. “Mine’s cracking. We’ll switch out!”
Darius didn’t listen. He was in a fury, and he ripped through more soldiers, lost in the passion of war. Andy didn’t blame him, but it didn’t change the fact that Darius was fucking them both.
Five seconds later, the barrier broke.
2
Sara watched Wiles die with fury in her heart, and for the first time since arriving, she was reminded of something that time and abstraction made people forget: loss. Helplessness. The feeling of losing someone that she cared about. There was a reason that she was the way that she was, and while she wanted to change and be better, she realized that she needed to compromise. And even if there was a time in the future when she’d lay down her sword and have children, live life simply, and create a new life, she had to survive this encounter, and there were twenty thousand soldiers blotting out the landscape that she needed to fight. There would be no war-ending demonstration because large demonstrations were impossible. No one in the back would see what she was about to do, so she’d have to demonstrate over and over until soldiers’ imaginations took root and reports made it to the back lines. She would be a demon for her people, and she wouldn’t regret that much.
3
As soon as the barrier broke, Andy rushed behind soldiers a split second before arrows and spells rained down on his position. He was safe, but Darius wasn’t. A wind blade hit him in the chest and sent him flying. “Darius!” Andy screamed, but he was too busy fighting. Instead, he unsheathed his sword and fought, giving himself time to chant another spell.
4
Darius hit the ground with a thud, rolling over and over again with grass and rock flying around him until his body hit a boulder and stopped. His chest hurt, and he tried to breathe, only to realize how difficult it was. He didn’t think he was dying, but he definitely cracked some ribs. And the worst part was that, like all initial wounds, his body couldn’t move immediately after. He had no air in his lungs, his mind was hazy from his head hitting something hard along the way, and his chest hurt. Using his body wasn’t an option. So he waited for five seconds in agonizing silence, lamenting that he chastised himself for not noticing the cracking barrier when Wiles died, only to repeat the mistake with Andy. He was just so angry.
Darius barely knew Wiles in California. Darius was a jock, Wiles was… whatever he was. But he still remembered that time in middle school when they talked about Cartoon Network together over a bag of gushers one day for seemingly no reason. It was just one of those chance encounters that was single-serving yet lasted forever. Now he was gone, and Darius wanted him back. No, in a morbid way, he’d probably get his wish. If he didn’t get up, he and Wiles would be speaking in heaven within the hour. But it wouldn’t be easy. His mind was hazy, and he could barely hear Andy screaming in the distance. Still, he forced himself up on his wobbling legs, and when his double vision focused, he could finally see soldiers rushing him in a wall-of-death formation. Darius immediately looked for his sword. He couldn’t find it, so he lifted his hands and prayed his body tempering would hold—even though he knew it wouldn’t.
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Suddenly, a bright golden barrier shot up on his left. It had to have been Andy’s.
Good, Darius thought, glad that his other friend would survive. He didn’t know that, but he could feel it. It made him content.
Then, right then, amidst that despair and hell, the battlefield suddenly froze when something fell from the sky, and a bright light flashed across his vision like a flash grenade. It had equal force, too. He shielded his eyes and kneeled from the pressure. When he looked forward, he could only see a black silhouette of a person, radiant and shining light around them, appearing like an angel or God from the heavens. Noises ceased. Bloodlust faded. Time stood still. Then The Rapture hit, and Darius truly believed in the wrath of God.
5
Sara took deep breaths, staring at soldiers like a bull in a madator’s ring. Her nostrils flared, and she felt beastly as she held Qualth, preparing to exact judgment on the Lemings soldiers. Darius was behind her, Andy was to the side. Both needed protection, and that’d start after her first display of force. Sara pulled her sword to the side and let aura wrap its blade. Then she slashed it with savage ferocity, creating an arc of light like the reaper’s scythe, reaping the world of miserable people. The light came and passed with intense speed, disappearing behind dozens of soldiers before the upper and lower halves of their bodies fell in quick succession like falling rain. They hit the ground, blood missing due to the cauterization of wounds. It was a harrowing sight, so she lifted her hand and chanted a fire spell, engulfing the world in an inferno in front of her. As the fire flickered off her armor, she didn’t feel remorse—that was for later. That was for after the war, when she returned to her room with fresh nightmares that replaced the old ones. But for now—this was about survival. And there was no mercy in survival.
6
A raging war took place over the skies of the battlefield. The heroes went up as requested, but soldiers riding silver gliders gave chase—and Will was in the thick of it. He wasn’t a soldier. He became a blacksmith to avoid that. All he wanted was a job and to let the others make the decisions, and Sara was okay with that. He stayed at camp with Tim during the trip, and no one judged them for it. There were roles, and his wasn’t combat related. That was fine—until they were ambushed. Then, he suddenly found himself navigating at high speed as soldiers blew wind spells at them, trying to take them out of the air like he was a goose that hunters were shooting at with shotguns. And while he wanted to say that he grew up, accepted he was naive, and fought, the simple fact was that he wasn’t naive—he just wasn’t a fighter. So when the time to protect himself arrived, he didn’t rise to the occasion. He could only weave through the air and pray someone else would solve his problem. And three people did: Emma, who took control and covered people with barriers and created rebound spells to block the silver gliders (which sometimes knocked soldiers off, making them plummet to the ground), and Helen and Tara, both of whom were shooting wind spells at enemies.
Will thought the spells and screams and silver glider screeches would never stop, and he honestly felt like giving up. Yet somewhere amid that chaos, the ground suddenly erupted like a volcano, and the attackers stopped their assault. Will looked down and saw fire stretching out on a large swath of land. Then, a massive gust of wind hit it, creating a massive flamethrower, spreading the flames over the length of a football instantly. Soldiers started screaming as they caught on fire.
That was how it began.
Silver streaks of light flew through the area like spider webs that caught the light, causing black dots to turn crimson in a landslide of falling dominoes. The enemy silver gliders abruptly changed course, moving to the scene with screeching birds, leaving the heroes stranded there, watching the scene in horror. But it wasn’t the fear of Sara on that battlefield that scared Will and the other heroes. It was the fact that the fire between Sara and the army made it impossible for her to see what they could see from above: thousands of soldiers rushing toward their location in a stampede. There were just too many.
“I’m going to protect her!” Emma yelled. “Stay here!” She flew away.
“I’m going, too!” Helen yelled. “Take Tim, Will!”
“Not again!” Tim yelled. “Please, no!”
“Then you’re coming with me!” Helen said. “I’m not letting Andy die because of you!”
Tim burst into tears. “Just don’t make me do it.”
“Fine! Grab on!” Tim latched onto her, and then they dive-bombed too. Then the others sat there in silence, watching the two silver gliders disappear as the flames of war raged on, watching silver streaks cutting through the area and soldiers flooding in.
“I’m going, too,” Jennifer said.
“Are you serious?” Will asked.
“Yeah.”
“I….”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to go. But I am.”
Soon, the heroes split in half, with Jennifer’s group heading for the battlefield, leaving Will with a few others to watch the carnage from above.
I can’t believe this, Will thought when Helen swooped above enemy soldiers on her glider like a jet, dropping a massive meteor like a ballistic warhead. It exploded violently, killing dozens of people. It wasn’t just her. The other heroes dropped fire and wind, breaking up soldiers and keeping them from grouping together. Then, large arcs of silver cut across the battlefield, gashing the earth as the land glowed orange for almost a mile. Will watched in a trance, unable to move or think or act. All he knew was that he was damn glad to be with his team, who rose to the occasion even if he did not. That lit a small ember in his heart, and as the hour passed on, he wanted to join in. But by the time he gathered the courage, a combined force of heroes on silver gliders dropped a meteor shower on the enemy forces, cratering the ground and lighting it ablaze. It felt like the entire world was on fire, but… it was beautiful in its own strange way. And as the enemy soldiers fled in panic, Will somehow knew that this was a turning point in his life—in everyone’s life—that would change the world.
7
General Tronan, the strongest mage in the Lemings Grand Army and the head general of the most powerful military in the central lands entered King Lemings’ audience chamber and kneeled. The king could tell just by the graveness on the man’s face that whatever report his general had would be unpleasant. He gripped his armrests tightly. “What?”