Mage of Shadows (43 page)

Vik stared, weighed his options for only a moment, then shrugged.

"Oh well. You annoyed me since day one anyways. Kill him, Danae."

The blonde laughed, her eyes gleaming electric blue even through the darkness, "I have a better idea," She said, and slowly pressed the gun into her apprentice's unwilling hands.

Carmen stared fearfully at it, then at her master, then to me.

"Carmen…" Danae said softly into her ear, "Do me a favor dear, and kill your little boyfriend."

Her eyes wide, hand trembling, Carmen raised the gun to point it just above my eyes. A kill shot. The same spot she had hit Emily. It hadn't been a year, but it had come full circle. Now the gun was pointed at me, and I was facing death from someone I had never expected it from. This was different from fighting Vik and saving Nishi. This was someone I could never bring myself to attack, even to defend myself.

Was this how Emily felt? Why she didn't fight, even at the end?

"Carmen, no." I said, pleading. My body sagged, I trembled furiously, but I didn't move. I found with my anger fading, that my body had shut down. I had always thought I would have will enough to try and fight, to try and live through anything… but this was too much. This was something that I couldn't fight, because surviving through it would be meaningless.

"Danae," Vik murmured as he moved out of the way, "You're certifiably evil."

"I surprise even myself sometimes." The Lincoln girl boasted proudly.

My now decidedly ex-girlfriend flicked back the safety with a practiced gesture. Her hand was still trembling, but her position was locked in a perfect stance. If she fired now, she wouldn't miss. I would be dead.

"Carmen…" I didn't know what to say, if I could say anything at all. Maybe it was the rain, but the rage that had driven me from Kraven to this moment was gone. If I had any part of me that was fire, it was sleeping now, the rain having weakened to nothing. I was only Nick now, only Stratus, only human.

I only loved her. I hated myself for it, called myself a fool for it, but I did. I really was just a sucker for a pretty face I guess. I could hate myself for not having will enough to try and live, to try and fight… but I couldn't hate Carmen. Not for simply wanting to survive. In the last week, I had worried that she didn't have the will for it, and in a moment of weakness would end it all… I supposed that I didn't have to worry about that anymore.

Now, I saw the fear disappeared from her eyes. Carmen's hand stopped trembling and the gun steadied in her grip. Her dark brown eyes grew hard. Even through the night, I could see her knuckles whiten as she clenched hard on the weapon.

Carmen smiled sadly at me, "I'm sorry," She said simply. Her finger shifted to sit atop the trigger, and I fought the sudden urge to close my eyes.

Then she turned and pointed the gun at Danae.

"…Bitch!" Danae hissed in disbelief, and dove out of the way as Carmen fired on her mentor.

Vik laughed uproariously, as if the whole situation was a joke to him, even as Carmen rushed Danae and they began to fight in earnest. Sparkling telekinetic bursts of energy began to fly between them as my heart soared at the sight of it. Carmen hadn't done it, she had chosen me over them. Me.

"Oh, that is just PRICELESS!" Vik screamed at me, eyes glinting furiously in their characteristic beady gaze. He sneered at the happy look on my face, "You think you won, Aether-boy? Let me teach you another life lesson. No one ever wins, not without SACRIFICE!"

My heart plummeted as I watched him move as if in slow motion, but I couldn't do anything to stop him.

He threw Nishi off the roof.

"No!" I shouted and ran to the edge after my unconscious friend. I reached a desperate hand out reaching to grab at her with my mind-

Vik then grabbed me bodily and heaved me back from the side of the roof and against the concrete wall of the small room that contained RT's stairwell.

"NO!" I screamed again and fought, weak as I was, fought break free. I had to save her-! But he held me there, grinning darkly at my struggles the entire time. I felt lost in that moment, as somewhere in the back of my mind I knew Nishi was beyond my reach now. For a moment I felt the hope, the fight, drain out of me.

Carmen then fired the gun again, and I felt her gather more power to fight against Danae. She was fighting against them for me. Whatever she had done before, no matter how she had betrayed me up to this point… she was fighting for me now. If I stopped now, it would be the end of not only myself or Nishi, but her as well. I couldn't let that happen.

It gave me strength.

I threw my reinvigorated will against Vik's and felt him buckle in surprise; he didn't think I had anything left in me. The burly mage grunted and shoved his hands physically at me in an attempt to suppress me. But he couldn't quite manage it.

Who was he to try and stop me from saving Nishi? From helping Carmen?

I was the one fighting for the right reasons. If there was no true good, and no true evil in the world… there was still most certainly right and wrong.

Vik was wrong.

I was right.

I would win.

I locked onto that thought, and burned free. Vik yelped in surprise as the very air around us grew hot, superheated by my willpower. There was no active flame to work with, but that didn't matter. I could still make him feel exactly what he was trying to subdue. Once again, it seemed to be coming easier now that I had accessed it for the first time, I felt the rage and flame build up inside me like a furnace about to explode.

His power over me had broken, and I stepped away from the wall. He threw his hands up again and I matched his will with my own. I had weakened, but I wasn't defeated. I wouldn't fail.

I'm not proud to admit it, but I completely forgot about Nishi. The fire within had consumed my very being, my every thought. Now it howled only one thing; vengeance. I snapped my fingers, and sparked a tiny flame from the microscopic flicker created by friction. In any other state, I would have never been able to do it.

The light grew, and in it, I saw Vik's astonishment. He saw my grin. And I saw his dread.

"My turn." I said softly, and turned my power loose against him. The fire spread from my palm like a miniature flamethrower, rail-thin and arcing towards him, incandescent vengeance given form. Vik ran from it, like a chicken with his head cut off, he ran scared. I added more pillars of fire to the chase, smirking darkly at Vik's attempts to escape. The Glow of my power was in full force now. There was no way he could stop me…

Vik was no Kraven, however. His momentary fear faded into hardened resolve and he skidded to a stop some twenty feet from me and turned to face the streamers of fire that had hungrily given chase. A moment of focus later and I felt him dive deep into his power and pull as much magic from the environment as possible.

The frat leader's Magus Glow was reestablished milliseconds later, and with a harsh grunt he pulled heat from my attacks. While it was difficult for a normal mage to form and control a fire-based attack, it was relatively simple to draw heat away and disperse the flames into nothing again.

It might have been harder for him if not for the rain, but the storm and my weakening stamina had turned it in his favor slightly. I saw his grin of triumph as he stepped through the wisps that remained and broke out into a run to meet me in close quarters.

I met him with a snarl and a wall of fire that was twice his size. Vik was undeterred and met it with a howling shout, colliding with it head-on and actually disintegrating it on contact, breaking through with barely a singe for his effort.

For the first time since beginning my attack, I felt sudden doubt. Despite the difference in age, it was obvious that compared to Vik, Kraven had been a joke. There was a reason more than bluster that the Indian mage was the leader of the initiates.

His fist barreled to my jaw with alarming speed that I didn't expect from the burly wizard. I frantically attempted to deflect with my right arm but found the weight of it too much and too quick to deter completely. I managed to drive it away from my jaw and into my cheek for what it was worth.

When it crashed into my cheek like a miniature freight train, it didn't feel like it was worth much. Undeterred, Vik continued with a resolving blow to my stomach, and he then kicked my legs out from underneath me. With a gasped cry I hit the concrete hard, and I heard Vik's laughter above me, a scathing cackle.

"Not so special after all, huh, Aether-boy?" I tried to rise, and felt the not-so-pleasurable feeling of his foot grinding into my back. As if to prove some meaningless point, he rammed the same foot into my spine a few times, sending rippling bouts of brilliant agony into my already weakened system. Vik's way of reminding me exactly who was victorious, and who was the loser.

"You could have been someone. We could have taken the world, Stratus." Vik hissed, and I felt him gather power, "But you're just going to be dead. Somehow, I guess I'll have to go to the top without you, huh?"

Is this the end? I thought deliriously, eyelids fluttering dizzily. The power of fire that had boosted my concentration and willpower had broken when Vik landed his hellish haymaker. Some Aether I was. So much for making a difference in the world. I couldn't even beat Vik- hell; I couldn't even take one punch from him.

Weak.

The same voice, the whisper in the back of my mind that had driven me to nearly kill Kraven. It had returned full force- louder now. It was… melodious. But it didn't understand. I was tired, too tired to go on. There was no fight left in me.

Tired? Rest is for the dead, Nicholas. Now it's time to rise again.

The icy chill of the rain dulled suddenly in those few seconds, and I felt a strange soothing heat pulse through my body. The aches and pains disappeared, not gone, but silenced by the overwhelming power that was spreading through my limbs. It was a cry for survival. It was me- but not me at the same time.

The power, the fire that had burned inside me, fused with my very soul. Perhaps it was only a piece of it, but I had Nature's gift within me, her most deadly and unruly element given life in the form of a human.

My eyes snapped up to look at Vik. The mage was staring at me, a Hammer formed in a single fist, ready to destroy me, but he had hesitated when I had begun to glow again.

His hesitation would be the death of him.

I screamed, a dull animalistic roar and the flames were born again. They forced Vik away as they were given life from something deeper than my magic. Brought to existence by my energy, my passion, my soul.

Truly living fire. It danced around me, swirling searing heat alive with a conscience that wasn't fully human. It was more than human, it was Nature. Atop of the fire came the willpower of something greater than me. Somehow, I knew that this power wouldn't last long, so I instantly focused it on Vik.

He tried to Dash away, but my telekinetic blow came too quickly, tossing him into the concrete wall that he had thrown me into not so long ago. Nothing could stop this now, it was fate for this to happen. Vik wasn't stronger than me, no one was. My grin grew again in triumph even as lightning split through the heavens and thunder crackled eagerly above. Even the heavens agreed.

Nature bears witness to my victory, I thought deliriously, my so-called leader trapped beneath a will that was not wholly my own. Flames licked at him edging eagerly close, and I saw Vik desperately attempted to shift away from them- to regain his Glow, anything. But it was a useless struggle. He may as well have been trying to fight the storm raging around us.

I didn't control the fire, the fire controlled me. But I enjoyed it. As the flames impatiently moved inwards to wrap Vik in their warm embrace, I only felt the satisfaction that came with watching the world being set right.

"Stop, Nick!"

Ruark had leapt onto the roof and was running towards me, but his shouted words alone weren't going to stop me-

Then alongside Vik, his will crashed against mine and I faltered then. My power flickered, the fire within me and just outside puzzled. This was justice, why would he stop me? This was not my enemy.

"Let me go." I demanded as he walked to stand next to me, my voice several octaves lower than normal, "You're interfering. Let me go or you're next."

"Stop." The older User repeated gently, still holding me back, "This isn't the way, Stratus. Nature has made you its child, but you aren't fire incarnate. The flames are part of you, but don't let them consume you. Let go, Nick. It's over. Everything will be alright now."

His soothing voice just served to confuse me. I found myself shaking, dizzy, the echoing power of fire retreating back within me as his freshly drawn will slowly superimposed atop my aching mind and settled it back to something human.

"Ruark," I mumbled, "What…?"

The fire disappeared and Vik collapsed to the ground, sweating and breathing very hard. He was mumbling something to himself that sounded like, "Still alive… I'm still alive… my God, what a monster…"

"Yes, Nick." Another taunting voice that I had forgotten about said, "Give up."

Danae had her arm wrapped around Carmen's neck in an almost tender embrace, but there was nothing tender about the gun she had pointing to her apprentice's head. My heart leapt wildly again at the sight and I completely forgot about the wheezing Vik. I took a step forward and watched as Danae shoved the barrel right to side of my girlfriend's head. Carmen whimpered in sudden pain, her eyes begging for me to help her, to save her.

"Let her go, Danae." Ruark shouted, now sounding angry, "You have no right to-"

"I HAVE ALL THE RIGHT!" Danae screamed at him, "I have the gun! I have the girl! I have the power! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT, KEVIN!"

"Let her go." I heard myself plead, even as I wanted to do nothing but drop to the floor in exhaustion, "Just let her go, Danae… please."

I looked at Carmen. She was my betrayer and my savior both. I had been in the dark and she pulled me back into the light, reminded me how it felt to be warm, to be loved. She had killed Emily, her best friend, the girl I had resolved to avenge so long ago… but she had saved me, turned the gun away and fought for me.