There is no darkness without light
There is no wrong without right
If one side wins the war,
The victors would have nothing left to stand for.
Prologue
It was so beautifully peaceful. Birds sang and trees swayed with the gentle breeze. Perched atop a small bump in the land, a happy little cottage sat before it all. It watched over the all but quiet valley with its gleaming glass eyes. The sun gleamed onto its crimson brick roof, reflecting off the few smooth surfaces present. In short, it was the perfect place to train a batch of enthusiastic young wizards.
The simple wooden door of the house slowly creaked open as the head of a small silver rabbit squeezed through the gap. "All clear?" whispered a small female voice from behind the door. The rabbit gingerly bounced forwards and poked his head around to observe its surroundings. The rabbit then looked back and nodded, complementing the movement with a quiet squeak.
All at once, three young wizards burst from the door, almost trampling the rabbit who had seated itself on the porch. A fourth followed them soon after. "Hey! Be careful next time! Poor little Sky almost got squished!" The other three turned to face the girl. She had picked up the rabbit in her frail arms and pressed it against her chest. Sky's ears reached up to hers and the girl needed to press her face between them just to see her housemates.
One of them, a boy dressed in dark purple robes, was pushed forwards by one the other two. He gripped his left arm and gingerly looked at her. "Sorry... I'll be more careful next time..." The girl blew her dark brown hair out of her eyes. "You better, Blake, or I'll have Sniffles eat all of your supper tonight!" The boy, Blake, flinched as the orange haired boy behind him threw his head back in laughter. "You really think that wolf's going to listen to you? Ha! You're as dumb as ever, Blossom!" She snorted in rage. "Oh yeah? Want to bet?" Her turquoise eyes burned with fury as they locked with the boy's yellow ones. "You know it!"
The final wizard, a thin girl with long silver hair that ran to her hips, clamped her hands together and yelled; "Stop it! Both of you!" The two rivals flinched and turned their attention to the girl. "Oh? Kitty's got claws." shot back the boy coldly. "Shut up Rusty!" Screamed the girl. Rusty grinned, obviously pleased with himself for some reason. "All to two do is fight, fight, fight! Well guess what? I'm sick of it!" Blossom cut her off, "Why shouldn't we fight? He caused five forest fires with his stupid magic!" "So?" shot back Rusty, "Hannah put them all out." "Doesn't matter!" screamed Blossom, "You still caused them!" The fighting continued. The girl sighed and noticed that Blake was looking at her.
"What?" Blake looked deeper into the girl's faded brown eyes. "You know they won't stop fighting, Ayla. Rusty's a fire wizard and Blossom specializes in nature magic. They just don't mix." Ayla sighed. "Aren't we the same as them? I mean, I'm light, you're darkness. We're as different as it gets." Blake stared off into the distance. "You're wrong." Ayla flinched. "Excuse you?" The boy smiled as warm sunlight touched his skin. "There is almost no difference no matter what they say. After all, in a world without light, 'darkness' wouldn't exist and in a world without darkness, 'light' wouldn't exist." Ayla stared blankly at him. "Are you saying that darkness is just black light?" Blake looked at her. "Yes and light is white darkness." Blake stared off again. "Or at least, that's what Hannah says."
Ayla smiled. Blake was such a smart, sweet boy. She then let out a tiny giggle. "What? You think I'm crazy too?" asked Blake instantly turning to face her. "No," calmly stated the light wizard, "It's just that. What you just said might be cutest thing I've heard since I started training here." The shadow wizard's face turned bright red. "Really?" Ayla nodded to prevent herself from laughing at how red the boy's face had turned. Blake smiled as he looked off into the distance. "You know, I was thinking of becoming a poet..."
Ayla covered her mouth and coughed to stop herself from giggling nonstop at the thought of a shadow wizard writing poems. "Yeah, that's a great idea! I'll be sure to look out for that. Blake..." "Vengar" "Right, um. How do you spell that?" Blake looked at her eyes filled to the brim with hope. "Are you really interested?" Ayla nodded, sending a smile to the boy's face. "Alright, it's V E N-", he was cut off by a huge noise to the far east. In a mixture of fear and curiosity, Ayla turned to the direction of the sound.
A mixture of heat, light and an abnormal smell hit her all at once. Before her, an orange and white mushroom of fire grew from the ground where a small town once stood. Smoke poured from the bottom of the fungus sweeping over the hill the town stood on. In mere seconds, the mushroom faded away and smoke had swallowed the entire hill and more.
Ayla got a sick feeling in her stomach as she remembered something that made her want to fall to her knees and cry. She looked at Blake whose eyes had gone blank with fear. "Please no..." muttered Blossom worried and weak. Rusty seamed to snap back into reality and cleared it up to anyone still holding doubts. "Crap! That's where Hannah went!"
The orange haired boy sprinted forwards as soon as the smoke began to clear. Ayla snatched his wrist. "Let me go! We've got to go help her! She would do it for us!" "I know Rusty! Just wait for the others to calm down!" Tears began to well up in his eyes. "Come on! We gotta hurry or she might die!" Blake closed his eyes in deep pain. "How stupid are you? She's probably already dead!"
Rusty shot the shadow wizard a cold look before throwing a fist covered in flames at him. Blake fell over and clenched his cheek in pain. "You don't know that! She can't just die! She still needs to teach us how to be the strongest wizards in the world!" Tears ran down the boy's face. The light wizard grabbed his other arm and stared him in the eye. "Calm down. We'll go when the smoke clears up." The fire wizard glared at her. "I know where Hannah hid the gas masks. We're going now."
"What does that have anything to do with-", the complaining Blake was cut off by his light counterpart. "Fine. Show us." Rusty grinned. "I knew you had a heart. Wait here." The fire wizard ran into the house and came out, soon after, with two pairs of gas masks. He threw one to each of his fellow wizards and housemates.
"Alright, now let's go." growled the boy as he put on his mask. Blossom nodded and put down Sky before strapping her mask to her face. Ayla turned to the fallen Blake. "You alright?" she asked tightening her mask. Blake arose. He flicks stray strands of night black away from his face as he attached the mask to his face. "Yeah, let's go."