• The Eve of Eternity: Chapter 17 – Desperation

    “Hark, can’t you do anything to help me out here?!” Deckard looked over at Hark quickly. “Sorry, I can’t use much of my power right now, so I wouldn’t be of much help. That fight with you took a pretty good toll on me, so think of me as being a trump card that has been used already.” Deckard looked over at Rydia, who was finally beginning to show fear in her eyes and on her face because of the dire situation. “Don’t idle too long or the flames with hit the ground and explode! Hahahaha! What will you do now Deckard?” Mahara’s laughter echoed through the area loudly. Deckard’s fingertips slowly began to glow for a split second and ten tiny firefly-like orbs began to scatter off in different directions.

    “Hark, I suggest you take Rydia somewhere as far from here as possible. I know you can’t escape, but at least it’ll be safer.” Rydia looked at him quickly. “What about you?! We can’t just leave you here by yourself!” Hark shook his head. “He’ll be fine, but he won’t be if he has to continue protecting all three of us like this. Here we go Rydia!” Hark grabbed Rydia and slung her over his shoulder, quickly speeding off to the edge of the Ice chamber wall furthest from Deckard. “Take me back over there Hark! Let go!” Rydia struggled and squirmed to get free of Hark’s grasp and finally succeeded, but ended up landing on her butt. “If you go back over there, Deckard will only be distracted and he may end up losing to that Mahara guy. If that happens, you’ll be taken away also and maybe even killed. I can’t let you fall into that situation, so I can’t let to return there right now.” Rydia slowly stood up and rubbed where she fell at. “Okay...” she slumped down on the grass and looked at the ground.

    “Not much time left until that thing hits the ground and this entire place along with those other two goes up in flames of fiery destruction! What plan are you going to pull out of your sleeve?” Mahara grinned and glared at Deckard. Deckard closed his eyes slowly. “Heh.” He mocked his opponent with one simple snicker and quickly dashed directly underneath the flaming sphere. “Time to destroy this oversized fireball!!” he yelled out as his body began to gain a yellow aura around it, almost like a barrier. The winds around him began to pick up and swirl in circles, slowly lifting him up into the air before launching him full speed into the sphere. Mahara stared in astonishment as Deckard disappeared from sight and entered the sphere. “Foolish, even that light barrier can’t protect him against my... what the?!”

    Mahara’s face suddenly turned into a look of complete surprise and disbelief as the flaming sphere was torn apart by a combination of light prisms and lightning strikes. It took several minutes for the entire sphere to dissipate but when it was done the light that came from it vanished along with it. In the center of it all was Deckard who was still floating in midair with the yellow aura surrounding him. “So the only way out is to defeat you huh? Well then, I’ll make that happen right now!” the aura slowly changed shape, turning into several small floating orbs around his body. The orbs quickly began to split apart, forming dozens of small firefly like orbs like the ones before that were released. “Don’t act all tough just because you got rid of that fireball, my magic is still more potent than yours is.”

    Mahara snapped his fingers and several hundred bolts of thin lightning crashed down from the sky, creating a loud boom and briefly lighting up the area. The lightning had struck all around the area where Deckard was at, creating small holes in the building below. Mahara slowly landed down on the street and looked around, looking for his opponent. “Did he die that easily? Hah, what a weakling!” Mahara’s laughter echoed in the empty streets for a short moment. “You call that lightning? That looked more like a flash of light than anything else. Basic magic students have more powerful lightning spells than that.” Deckard stepped out into the middle of the street a few dozen feet away from Mahara. “This is lightning.” Deckard threw a small thin piece of metal at Mahara and snapped his fingers slowly. Almost instantly there were a few thousand bolts of lightning several times thicker than Mahara’s were that crashed down above the spot where the metal piece was thrown. The lightning completely disintegrated the piece of metal, and then tore through the thick sheet of rock that Mahara wrapped over himself to use as a shield. A large cloud of dust and debris flew up into the air upon the crashing of the lightning, preventing vision of what happened to Mahara.

    Deckard slowly waved his hand and the wind began to pick up around the crash spot, blowing away all the debris quickly. Mahara’s earth dome shell was almost completely destroyed except for the bottom, and Mahara was still standing inside of it. His clothing was mostly torn and ragged, and his head was dripped in blood that was slowing sliding down his face and body. “Die. Die. Die. DIE!!” Mahara’s eyes glazed over and he dashed forward towards Deckard. The wind in front of Mahara became violent and turned into crescents of compressed air, flying towards Deckard. “What the?!” Deckard quickly began evading the crescents by dashing and jumping out of the way. To make it worse and harder to evade the attacks, spikes began piercing out of the street pointed at Deckard, one of them grazing his cheek and cutting it. “Damn!” he winced in pain and jumped up into the air, creating wind under his feet to make him float as he continued dodging the crescents of air.

    Lightning began to strike down, narrowly missing Deckard each time it crashed down. A light rain began to drizzle down from the sky, and the droplets began to turn into tiny ice spikes shoot down from above. The ice spikes quickly pierced several limbs on Deckard’s body, and grazed many more spots. Almost as if it was a reactive instinct, Deckard threw up a large dome barrier above himself to prevent further injury from the ice. The wind crescents began to change target, now aiming for the barrier rather than Deckard himself. The spikes of earth began coming out in taller sizes, and also began coming out from themselves rather than just the street itself. In a short moment, the earth spikes had created an environment that was like a thorny forest, something you would see if you were the size of a bug and flew into a rosebush. The rosebush-like spikes were suddenly lit aflame, adding to the danger that Deckard was now going through. He had switched the barrier from a dome to a full sphere, but it was now becoming harder to maintain, and was starting to crack. “What the hell is this guy?! How did he get so damn strong all of a sudden?!”

    The desperation began to show on Deckard’s face as he looked around for where Mahara was at. He was now being faced with a life or death situation, which would soon turn into just the latter if he didn’t act quickly. “I didn’t want to have to use this just yet, but it looks like I have to or I’ll die...” he closed his eyes for a moment and reopened with. His eyes flashed for a moment and then there was a series of exploding white lights that began happening all around and inside the rosebush spikes. Deckard’s barrier finally cracked, just as shards of the spikes were flying in his direction. Unable to react in time, the shard pierced his left and right legs and shoulders. “Gurrgh!” he groaned out in pain, spitting up blood as well. The exploding lights continued on for a while before finally stopping, completely destroying the field rosebush spikes and leaving an aftermath of damaged homes and buildings. When the smoke and debris finally cleared, Mahara was standing a few feet in front of Deckard, but there was something different about him.

    The wounds inflicted on Deckard were still there, but Mahara was completely unscathed. His robe was completely back to its original form and the blood on his face was dry and smeared. “Impressive, but as it stands now... I’ve already won. I’m quite amazed that you actually managed to hurt me that badly, no one has been able to do that in quite a long time. Good bye, Deckard Lightfall.” Mahara lifted his hand and a swirl of fire and wind began to form the shape of a sphere above his palm. He grinned with a menacing stare as he started to move his hand to throw the fireball at Deckard. In a mere instant, his movements were stopped short as a sword seemingly made of sporadic and wild lightning put a large hole in his shoulder from behind. “Wha... guh... who?” Mahara quickly moved forward in order to get the sword out of his shoulder. The sword quickly disappeared the moment Mahara moved, allowing him to turn around and look at who had attacked him.

    The attack had come from none other than Firomis, who was still panting in pain from the wounds he’d received earlier. “How... did you get past my Ice chamber barrier?” Mahara winced in pain and placed his hand over the hold in his shoulder that was now starting to bleed. “It was quite difficult to get past it, I’ll admit that much. I couldn’t break through it, so I simply flew over the top of it instead.” Firomis looked at Deckard who was finally climbing back up to his feet. “That barrier goes high up into the sky; no human can breathe at that altitude, let alone survive the extreme cold.” Mahara jumped away from Deckard so he could see the two of them at the same time without having to turn around. “Yes, no human can survive something like that.” Firomis’ body shimmered for a moment before his white angelic wings appeared on his back.

    Mahara began laughing uncontrollably, finally realizing how Firomis accomplished the feat of getting into the barrier. “Yes, I remember now. You are one of the Seraphim, an altitude like that is nothing for someone like you who could even breathe and survive in the cold depths of space itself. I thought for sure that wounding you earlier would surely remove you from interference with my battle against Deckard. Well then, I should be on my way, fighting Deckard by himself is hard enough, I couldn’t imagine taking both of you on together and winning. The next time we meet, I hope you are stronger than you are now Deckard, for I will surely become stronger myself. If you truly wish to become powerful, find the Light of Luminis and then I will come at you with my full power. Don’t die until the next time we meet, farewell Deckard.” Mahara took out a small black ball and shattered it on the ground and releasing a black liquid. His body quickly began to sink down into the liquid, until he was completely gone and the liquid dissipated.

    The wings on Firomis’ back quickly disappeared and he fell to his knees. “You okay?” he looked over at Deckard. A loud crash soon after filled the area with noise, as the ice chamber shattered into millions of pieces. Deckard wobbled for a moment before falling backwards onto the ground unconscious. Shortly afterwards Rydia appeared by his side and began using her magic to remove the spikes and heal the wounds he had. “Deckard... you’re not dead... right? Right?” she cried as tears filled her eyes, as she continued healing his wounds without stopping once. “He’s alive, so if you heal his wounds he should be fine.” Hark said as he slowly appeared nearby. Firomis slowly stood back up and walked over to the three. “That man... he was working for Farien wasn’t he?” Hark nodded. “I believe he was, or at least that’s what we are being led to believe from what he said earlier. He said that he was one of the children who were experimented on several years ago. I thought that only Artemis survived out of that group, but apparently there are more than we originally thought. To make matters worse, they are probably all working for Farien.”

    “We should get somewhere safe so he can rest...” Rydia quietly whispered as she finished healing Deckard. It was apparent that she had not heard the conversation between Hark and Firomis, nor did she ever take her eyes off of Deckard. “You can rest at my home then; I’ll lead the way there.”