by DM Fike
“She was choking me, but that’s not why I’m weak. I healed her with light magic. It hurt her for some reason, but it also drained a lot out of me. I feel worse than after Transport.”
Bedwyr frowned at this explanation. “That makes no sense. Light magic should not take a toll on one’s own body.”
The ground rolled in waves underneath their feet, splitting them apart by a few yards. Bedwyr skittered off to one side, somehow maintaining his balance. Avalon slammed her palm into the earth to steady it. She concentrated on the heaviness in her limbs, sending out a wide radius that smoothed the ground under Bedwyr.
Braellia extended a curved claw toward Bedwyr. “You are not supposed to be here!”
“I could say the same for you,” Bedwyr said. “You are trespassing in Avalon’s mind.”
“It is she who trespasses!” Braellia screeched. “Because of you and your unholy meddling!”
She brought down a rain of fire on Bedwyr. Protecting his face with both arms, he huddled down low into a ball so that only his back caught on fire.
“Bedwyr!” Avalon screamed. She ran up to Braellia, hands glowing almost white hot with light magic. She thrust both palms onto the exposed scales on Braellia’s arms. Braellia howled in two voices, one high-pitched and one low, as the scales melted under Avalon’s touch.
Avalon felt woozy, as if she might faint, which allowed Braellia leverage to push her aside. Avalon stumbled as Braellia fell in a heap, ethereal green skin exposed on both arms in the exact shape of Avalon’s hands. Where they once stood, a foul black cloud lingered, leaving an acidic stench.
Avalon drifted in and out of consciousness, the toll of healing Braellia sapping away most of her strength. Strong hands dragged her away from a wailing Braellia. A face hovered above her. She focused on it.
“James?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “I’ve lived through much worse. How about you?”
Avalon chuckled, feeling almost weightless, her head bobbing to one side. “I might not live through this one.”
“You were correct though,” Bedwyr said, staring over at a writhing Braellia. “When you use your light magic on the Child, it harms you.”
“Not just the Child,” Avalon breathed slowly. “Kryvalen too.”
Bedwyr’s eyebrows furrowed together. “Ah,” he said slowly.
Avalon recognized that look from long ago, when James would read unexpected results on her chart. “What is it?”
Bedwyr helped her sit upright. “When I tried to extract the Child into myself, something did not seem right. A deep, empty void that clearly did not originate from the Child herself clung to her.”
Avalon understood empty voids. “Dark magic.”
Bedwyr nodded. “I have a theory. We tried to lock Braellia up into the statue, to send her soul back into Gaea. Part of her, though, is still intertwined with Kryvalen. That chunk may not be able to pass peacefully through. Instead, it must be blocked from entering the statue and thus stay inside of you, the new Child of the Statue.”
The weight of his words bore down on her. “Kryvalen’s stuck in here with me?”
Bedwyr stared at the hand imprints Avalon had made in Braellia’s flesh. “Light magic does seem to separate Braellia from Kryvalen.”
Avalon pulled on Bedwyr’s shirt to help her stand. She thought about what it would cost if she continued to use light magic. It drained her more and more each time, making her a little weaker. The oneness inside her dwindled.
She would likely die if she cleansed Kryvalen from Braellia with light magic.
Braellia huddled on the ground on all fours, face toward them, a horrific monster ready to pounce. “I will not be denied! I am the Child! The one true connection to Gaea!”
She supposed it didn’t matter. Either she would perish or everyone else would. Avalon steeled herself by bringing up her fists, glowing brightly against her chest. “Then I’m ready for whatever comes.”
Braellia must have recovered because the ground shook violently beneath them, rending the black rock beneath them in two. Bedwyr stumbled to the ground as a crevasse opened up between them, separating him from Avalon and Braellia.
Avalon faced off only yards away from the crouching Child, a scowl etched into her beautiful face with slitted dragon pupils in her eyes. “You were never supposed to have the Indulia!” she screeched, her human voice almost an afterthought to that horrible distorted dragon roar.
“Come take it back!” Avalon shouted back.
Avalon thrust forward, letting the aching light flow through her, enveloping her hands, up her arms all the way to her shoulders. Braellia flung a lightning bolt at her, which Avalon let pass through her straight into the earth. She redirected the heat of fireballs around her. She feinted to the right, causing Braellia to follow before flipping into the reverse direction. This allowed Avalon to grab Braellia from the side, squeezing her arms tight around the Child’s shoulders, Braellia’s clawed hands unable to reach her.
Braellia howled as Avalon thrust healing light through her corrupted body. The scales around her neck and torso melted, exposing more ethereal green skin. She writhed in agony, twisting as Avalon readjusted and locked her wrists in place. The foul cloud around them grew.
But the contact threw Avalon into a new kind of torture. She screamed in pain as the blackness seeped into her. It filled her nostrils, leaked into her blood, trickled deep down into her gut where all her magic wavered. The oneness inside her waned, and her heart fluttered, as if trying to hold onto something. Avalon felt faint, threatening to collapse, but she continued focusing on that aching light, pushing it into Braellia, letting it wash all over her. Thankfully, even as Avalon weakened, Braellia also lost a lot of her power. The pair sank to their knees, Avalon barely holding onto the dwindling Child for dear life.
In a last-ditch effort to save herself, Braellia slammed her forehead into Avalon’s in an awful headbutt. Shards of melting scales cut into Avalon’s forehead, and for a moment, Avalon saw stars. She shook, completely spent. She wanted more than anything to sink into that darkness.
It’s a time to fight.
Avalon didn’t know who said that in her head at first. Ladybug perhaps. But then images of people flashed across her mind. Isolde. Nobody. Vimp.
Kay.
“It’s a time to fight!”
Avalon knew it was her own voice and no one else’s who screamed those words as the world came back into view. She found Braellia hovering over her, panting heavily, her face mostly ethereal green with only a few scales left. But she still had those awful yellow eyes, enraged, focused on her.
“If you want a fight, I’ll give it to you!” Braellia screamed.
Hands surrounded Avalon’s throat. She struggled to breathe, pushing against them. She tried to use her magic, any magic, but couldn’t get a grip as her lungs screamed for air. Braellia grinned down at her maniacally as she faded away.
A healing white light suddenly haloed behind the Child, streaks of it draping over Avalon. Braellia screeched, letting go of Avalon’s throat to face this new threat. Avalon gasped for air, its taste dry and prickly in her throat. After a deep breath, she glanced past her stringy red hair to find Bedwyr bearing down onto Braellia, his hands on her shoulders, casting his own healing light. Braellia writhed like a worm under his assault.
Bedwyr waved at Avalon as he struggled to keep Braellia contained. “Remember your promise!” he shouted.
Then Braellia’s fingers found his chest. They sizzled before blasting him with a jolt of electricity that lit the entire landscape around them.
“James!” Avalon screamed, trying to stand.
She smelled burning flesh before he reappeared in the aftermath, tendrils of smoke curling over him. He had landed on his stomach, a faint healing glow outlining him. Avalon could feel the aching light in her slipping away.
Braellia lay not far away on her back, twinging here and there, almost all of her scales gone and panicking.
“You were not worthy,” she muttered. “No one is worthy. Only I can wield the Indulia. To destroy everything.”
Avalon grabbed her by the throat. “Shut up.”
“Only I…”
Avalon didn’t hesitate. She drew upon the last bits of that aching light, binding it with her oneness and thrust it toward her palms, bathing the Child in it.
Braellia released the most agonized scream Avalon had ever heard. It merged with the foul black cloud that lingered as the last of her scales dissolved into nothing. Through the haze, a brilliant green light broke loose, poking like needles inside the Child. It thrust Avalon backward, intensifying to the point where the entire mountainside became swathed in it, blocking out even the black sun.
Avalon shielded her eyes until the light dissipated. Cracking them open, she found green grass instead of black earth underneath her feet. The sky had resumed its normal color with a more pleasant looking summer day. A fresh breeze blew away the last of the foul black haze, and in its wake Mt. Hornley rose above her, beautiful and magnificent as it ever was.
And not far away, Bedwyr lay in a crumpled heap. Only a softening light magic glow surrounded him now, his lips barely moving.
“Save… my people…” he rasped.
Then the last of his light faded.
Avalon dashed over to his side, a lump in her throat. He did not move as she gingerly rolled him over, his limbs flopping unnaturally to the sides. She pressed two fingers against his neck but could find no pulse.
“No,” she whispered. She grasped for that aching light but could find none.
Something crunched in the grass behind her. A hand laid on her shoulder. “You did it,” Ladybug said above her.
Avalon slapped the hand away, whirling around. She expected the gremlin but froze in surprise when she saw a second figure hovering behind Ladybug. Gone were the black dragon scales of before, her eyes now normal instead of hollow, her body made up entirely of a soft emerald light. She could have been Avalon’s identical twin, if not for her pointed ears.
Braellia gave her a motherly smile.
“You removed the last of Kryvalen’s hold on Braellia,” Ladybug told her. “Now she can completely return to Gaea. Balance has been restored.”
Avalon thrust a finger toward Braellia. “She killed James!”
“He made his own choices,” Ladybug corrected. “You both have. Every decision you have made since discovering your power led to this point and this outcome. If not for you, Kryvalen would still hold some claim on the Child of the Statue.”
“And now,” Braellia’s voice had lost its gravelly edge, her tone as pleasant as classical music, “you are the one true Child.” She held out one palm toward Avalon.
Avalon flinched, covering her face from a possible magical attack. Instead, she experienced a flood of oneness, more intense than ever before. It overpowered all the other magical sensations inside her, the dominant foundation of strength in her chest.
Avalon wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know the first thing about being a Child of the Statue. I’m a human from Earth. None of this should have happened to me in the first place.”
“But it did, regardless of why,” Braellia said. Avalon felt a little sick, thinking of all the other women who had died as a result of Saluzyme’s experiments.
“And don’t worry, you won’t have to carry the burden of the Indulia alone,” Ladybug gave her a wink. “You’ll have help along the way.” A muffled cry in the distance caught all their attention. “But first, we have other matters to attend to.”
Braellia floated over to Avalon, taking her by the hands. Avalon tried to recoil from her, but their palms stuck together by some inner force. She became lightweight, floating up above the ground in tandem with her, toes dangling downward. Braellia closed her beautiful green eyes. “I am ready,” she told Avalon confidently.
Avalon did not have time to ask what that meant as Mt. Hornley began to blink in and out of existence. It shifted to a new wilderness area, slowly at first, then rapidly, as the two scenes blinked into one.
Mt. Hornley disappeared, replaced by the plateau outside of Emerged Falls. Avalon continued to float in the air, holding onto something, although it was no longer Braellia’s hands. Instead, it was the lump of emerald statue, still glowing somewhere in its center. As the glow faded, Avalon slowly drifted back down to a circle of people.
“Avalon!” Impatient, Kay took to the air and aided her gently to the ground.
Nobody threw his arms around her in a huge hug before Kay could fight him off. “You’re alive!” he squealed, squishing a happy if flattened Vimp between them.
Avalon caught glimpses of Isolde, Desert Rose, and even the Lightning Titan around her. As she pulled away from Nobody, she asked, “Bedwyr?”
Isolde shook her head sadly, moving to one side to reveal Bedwyr crumpled on the ground, much like he had at Mt. Hornley. “He used The Deep to go in after you.”
“He needs medical help!” Avalon turned to Desert Rose. “Use your communicator and call for Jalamir. Quick!”
“I would love to,” the knight said dryly, “but we have a bit of a problem.”
Stepping to the side, Desert Rose pointed at the forest floor around them. Avalon let out a gasp as she saw the crowd that had formed around the plateau’s edge. All of the dragons that had accompanied Scawale had flown here, surrounding them in a sea of browns, whites, blues, reds, and yellows. The combined power of all their magic surged around them, their necks craned forward to stare at her.
Avalon gulped. “Why aren’t they attacking?”
Nobody shivered. “We were kind of hoping you would tell us.”
Avalon clutched the statue tighter to her chest. In response, the dragons shifted ever so slightly, their pupils tracking her every move. Curious at this, Avalon moved the statue again, lower this time. The dragon heads bobbed downward.
Kay stiffened next to her. “What are you doing?”
“They’re following the statue,” Avalon said.
Isolde’s face brightened. “Of course, they are! They are creatures of the statue, remember? Created by Braellia when she was possessed by Kryvalen. With Braellia gone, they’re searching for a new master.”
Nobody’s jaw dropped. “They want someone to control them?”
“Well, they’re not going to get it,” Avalon said. She pushed past the circle of her friends, making her the focal point for all those dragons.
“Go away!” she shouted at them.
The dragons stirred at this, a few of them clacking their massive jaws together. Bits of magic escaped from an uncertain few. Isolde quieted a gentle earthquake while the Lightning Titan casually redirected a few errant sparks.
“Avalon, you know I love you,” Nobody said, “but what in Sadus are you doing?”
She ignored him, lifting the statue high above her head. “You belong to no one!”
The dragons only hesitated for a few seconds. Then a handful spread their wings and launched into the air, causing both Desert Rose and Kay to draw their swords, ready to fight. More joined the initial group, until the beating of their wings around them caused a natural wind gust that Kay had to steady with his magic.
Avalon gave one last cry, shouting as loud as she could. “BE FREE!”
That’s when they took to the air, all of them, a beautiful flock swooping and swirling together in a blur of colorful elements. Trees bent beneath their powerful thrusts as they made their way across the valley toward the castle. For a gut wrenching second, it looked like they might attack again, but instead of plummeting toward Emerged Falls, they gained altitude, rising to the midday sky and shooting over the falls’ cliff face. They continued on their way until the mountains beyond swallowed them whole.
“They’re heading toward the Quawash,” Isolde breathed. “I bet they’re going back to the island!”
“As long as they’re not here,” Desert Rose said. She brought the communicator up
to her mouth. “Status report.”
At first the only thing they could hear on the other end was uproarious cheering coming from within the castle. A few seconds later, a voice came through, saying some causalities had been sustained in the dragon fight, and the injured were being cared for. Despite these grim statistics, the voice sounded nothing but relieved at seeing the dragons retreat.
“Oh, and Lady Desert Rose,” the voice said. “We’ve received word that Lord Shivant and the others have woken up from their slumber. Praise Omni!”
Kay nearly collapsed at the news, using his sword to prop him up. Isolde gave out a cheerful scream but quickly quieted in embarrassment, shuffling her toes.
Even Desert Rose broke out into a rare grin. “That is fantastic news, but we need a medical team here, stat. We have a man down.”
Only Nobody did not appear joyous at the news of the original Guardians’ return. “Oh no!” He waved his hands in denial. “I ain’t going back into Emerged Falls. You couldn’t pay me enough.”
“But you’re a hero now,” Avalon said. “I doubt anything will happen to you.”
“Nope, nope, nope. I’ve fallen for that before. See ya!” And before anyone could stop him, he popped out of sight.
“Nobody!” Avalon called, but she knew it was futile. The gremlin was long gone.
A burst of light drew everyone’s attention. The Lightning Titan, now an elderly woman again, waved at them.
Avalon understood. “She’s leaving too.”
The Lightning Titan gave an exaggerated shrug. Then her body sparked like a coil of electricity, ready to shoot out into the sky.
“Wait!” Kay cried.
She paused, cocking her head at him.
He wrung his hands. “I-I still don’t understand you, but I was wrong in thinking that you don’t care. You risked your life for everyone here. Thank you.”
A warm smile spread across her face, and she motioned Kay forward. She wrapped one hand around the back of his head so they could stand forehead-to-forehead in a half embrace. A single tear dropped down Kay’s face. She clutched her free hand into his.
Then, in a shocking bolt of lightning, she zipped away, leaving Kay alone.
