Seventy-Ray

Chapter 70

Ray

I happily sleeping, dreaming about floating around as light, when I'm ripped from the weightlessness of dreaming by my door slamming open.

I bolt up, feeling my powers at the ready, practically pent up in my finger tips. Nox stands wide eyed in the door.

“They're almost here. It's time.” He says. I'm out of bed instantly and putting on a bra and shorts before he can react. After I'm done changing I run downstairs, only stumbling slightly, and thankfully over the bottom stair.

“Mom, it's the final battle. I want you and John to take some food and anything you could possibly use as weapons and go to the basement and hide out... If not me, then someone will get you after, hopefully to tell you it's safe.” I say and kiss her on the cheek, then go to hug my older brother, John.

“No, Ray, I want to fight.” John says.

“Stay on this street then, protect the kids.” I say and Nox nods his approval. I look back, hopefully not for the last time, at my mom and brother, wishing I could say good bye to my dad who has been on a business trip in Thailand for this entire ordeal. Nox and I close the door behind us.

“And we will address the fact that you just saw me naked later.” I say, beyond embarrassment at this point. We reach Bry's house, which we realized is the perfect meeting place, practically exactly in the middle of all of us. She's pacing back and forth in her yard, cracking her knuckles endlessly, a nervous habit. Jasper, Air and Ash are already there. We all sit down in the grass in silence, too terrified to really do anything else. Finally Wren and Marina arrive and we start... breathing, I guess.

“How do we get the news out to the town?” I ask first.

“I can take care of that, someone should post it on Facebook too.” Wren says. “The only problem is I can't fly and be human at the same time.”

“Why not? You made up a water dragon, why not a person with wings?” Air suggests. He thinks about it for a minute.

“That could work.” He nods, and stands up. He focuses for a minute, and then his shirt rips off when speckled brown hawk-wings (but giant-ified) sprout from his shoulder blades. Nox rolls his eyes and gets him another shirt and Air slashes two holes in the back for his new wings.

“I'll go spread the word.” He says, and a few minutes later we hear his voice as if it were coming from an intercom, warning everyone to stay safe and gather any weapons they can, and that if they want to fight, meet us in Mr. Finley's field.

“So, this is it guys.” Bry states, her hands shaking slightly. We all murmur, knowing that this could be either death or victory. Both of which sound kind of scary.

“We should probably go to Mr. Finley's field now.” I say, my stomach churning. We get up and make our way over, and I bite my nails, a habit I thought I kicked a few years ago, but judging by the stubs on my fingers, that's not so true.

We get there a Wren lands a while later, trying to figure out how to tuck in his wings. As we wait, slowly but steadily, people trickle to the field, some holding knives, some holding guns, some with baseball bats, just looking ready to help. A fourteen year old stands next to me, holding a knife.

“Kid, you can't fight here, it's too dangerous. Why don;t you protect your family at your house?” I say, kneeling down beside him. He turns to me with steely grey eyes, filled with determination, “My older sister and baby brother died in that fire. I will fight to avenge them or join them. No in between.” He says. I nod and pat his shoulder, though I don't know what I'll do with myself if he gets killed.

A line of shapes is approaching in the distance, and I feel my stomach tighten. Marina actually runs and throws up in the woods a few feet away.

This is it. This is where it all ends, either for good or for bad.

“Satelles is mine.” Jasper says, though other than the fact he's tried to kill all of us on multiple occasions, I don't know why he seems to want to kill Satelles all by himself. We hear the conviction in his voice though, and don't question it. My heart is pounding in my ears, and next to me, Nox takes my hand and squeezes it. Air and Ash kiss quickly, preparing for death.

Finally, the line stops, and we see they've pulled out all the stops, not only are there Sine and Fire Children, but Phoenix, Griffins, and dragons (Wren's went back to Malum, but he said that in battle he'd join us) and other creatures we've never seen before.

Satelles stands in front, Malum in back, carried in a carriage led by... unicorns?

“Holy s**t, those are unicorns.” Ash says. One whinny’s and we see fangs. Oh.

They stop a few feet in front of our ragtag team of people with kitchen knives. The ground is rumbling beneath us and Jasper grins. He stomps his foot, sending shock waves through the ground, almost like a message. Suddenly, behind us the ground rips open and five 30 foot tall giants climb out. There's screams from the humans on our side.

“Guys! Don't worry, they're with us.” Jasper calms them.

“You betray me?” Malum bellows at the giants. They nod solemnly. “Very well. Anyone else care to betray their father?”

There's a moments hesitation, but soon three phoenixes join our ranks along with four griffin, and a few of the things we haven't seen.

“If any of you-” Malum gestures to our side, “-want to join our side and be granted life, then you may. I'm sure they won't stop you.”

I look over at Nox anxiously, remembering the way he froze at the last battle, which he thinks almost cost me the whole left side of my body. He was on Malum's side for his entire life, what if he's having second thoughts. We've discussed it before, we both think it's ironic that he's darkness and he was on the evil side, like the universe finally developed a sense of humor. He looks at me and shakes his head, looking into my eyes. His fingers which are laced with mine gently squeeze.

“I'm staying here, and I'm fighting. No freezing, I promise, no matter what.” He whispers. Marina catches the exchange and gives us a halfhearted smile, too nervous for full emotion, I suppose.

It's weird how only a couple months ago, everything was normal. I knew everyone's name (save Marina and Nox), but not them. I had no comprehension of how they were people, what they went through, no idea who they were. And now, because of some screwed up ancient guy, we're all bound together.

“Try to make it through this one whole, okay?” Nox whispers in my ear.

“I'll try my best.” I grin.

“I love you.” He says, his face serious and his eyes lighter than I've ever seen them, you can even see his pupils.

“I love you too.” I reply.

“Well then, if no one wants to join us, let it begin.” Malum says, and as if it was rehearsed, everything breaks into chaos as the first line of Fire Children advance. Ash deflects a blast of fire from a few of our human helpers and the rushes into the scene, not worrying about being burnt.

A phoenix flies low over our group, which has meshed together in battle now with the other side, and lands in front of me, making the pterodactyl noise it's breed seems to be so fond of.

“Oh shut up.” I say, and send a blast of hot light into it's throat, to shock it, and then burning it with intense ultraviolet rays, 'cause that's how I roll, I over tan things. Skin cancer, ahoy! No, it's feathers actually start smoking and it's skin blisters and bursts. When I stop, it's either dead of in the process, crumpled up at my feet. I turn around because I feel heat behind me, and I see someone struggling with a Fire Child. I take out my diamond dagger and stab it through the back. It bursts to ashes and the man who was fighting it thanks me with a nod of his head. I survey the area for something to fight when I'm tackled to the ground from behind, the places where skin meets skin burning in a really painful way. I manage to turn around so I can see it, and it's a dog but... not. It looks like it was once a golden retriever, which makes me really sad because I have to kill what was once a floppy tongued, tail wagging puppy. But it growls at me, some slobber dripping onto my chest and burning, excruciatingly painful. Acid. Oh s**t oh s**t oh s**t oh s**t. All (most) guilt of killing this... I'm going to dub it a Hellhound, leaves me and I wrestle it off me and stab it with the dagger. It immediately turns to ash. I wipe the acid off with a leaf (oh sure, 'cause that'll help) but I have to ignore the pain for now. It'll stop eventually. I hope, I honestly don't know how acid works.

I help Marina, who is fighting another one of the Hellhounds and we team up to fight off some other evil fiery people, you know, the usual.

Author's Note

ten (eleven if you count the epilogue) chapters left! D: I'm considering making the epilogue chapter 80, it's not very epilogue-y. Those of you that read it, what do you think?
Anyway, reviews please! I have the whole rest of the book planned out, much foreshadowing for the sequel :D

Reviews

[Abbie]

whoa!!!!!!!!!! that was an awesome battle sequence chapter sophie! < 3 it! excelent job! :)
and yeah, it could work as chapter 80..... as much as I don't want it to end!!!! :O

[Kadessa (Kaddy)]

You know what I am going to say so I will just leave it at that
And I still add:
MORE MORE MORE PLEEEEEEEEEEASE
100/100

[Kadessa (Kaddy)]

You know what I am going to say so I will just leave it at that
And I still add:
MORE MORE MORE PLEEEEEEEEEEASE
100/100