Without another thought, Justin teleported to Max's location, right in front of the hut. A fireball went off, but Justin cast a bubble shield, protecting him from the impact and the heat. Max rushed out, expecting to see Justin standing there, and seeing precisely what he expected. They looked at each other for a long second.

"It's you. I've been expecting you," Max said calmly, as though Justin were a visitor for tea.

"Sorry if I'm late, but I wanted to bring you a gift."

"Well let's see it then."

Wihtout warning Justin shot out his hand, and fire flew from his fingertips. Max nonchalantly held up his own hand, forming an energy shield which blocked the flames, quite easily.

"Sorry big bro, you'll have to do better than that." With that, Max lifted off of the ground and began to hover in the middle of the air. He raised his arms, and from the graveyard behind his hut, the decaying bodies and skeletons of the dead rose from their graves with shield and spear in hand, and began to approach Justin. Justin was slightly more shocked than he felt he should have been by this. Even though he knew that Max had become extremely powerful and rather relentless, he hadn't expected him to practice the arts of necromancy.

The undead circled around Justin, and he threw them back with a blast of force, knocking them over and destroying some of the more decayed ones. Justin too, flew into the air, and threw a fireball beneath him, destroying the approaching army of undead.

"What, you think you're the only one that can fly?" Justin said, looking at his brother who was also in the air. Max headed for the treetops, and Justin followed him.


Meanwhile, in Rome, Alex felt a tingling sensation that could only be coming from that combination of blood relation and wizard senses, that said something was up with her brothers. She immediately snuck off to someplace she would scry on them and pulled out her crystal ball.

"Demonstre Max!" The crystal ball showed her Max, hovering above the canopy in the Amazon jungle, flinging spells at an opponent. Looking closer, she saw that this opponent was her other brother, Justin. "Oh shit" she muttered, and teleported to the location.

She appeared on the ground, and not knowing the flying spell, she began to climb up a tree. She was a good tree-climber, and the thick foliage of the jungle allowed her to get up to the canopy line. She stood up, on the treetops, and cried

"STOP!"

Justin and Max both looked at her for a brief second, and then with a wave of his hand, Max trapped her in a cage of pure energy. With his other hand, he diverted a lightning bolt that Justin had sent at him.

"Quiet, sister. This is no business of yours – I'll deal with you once I've destroyed Justin," he said, without missing a beat. Alex wasn't sure who to root for in this macabre fight of sibling rivalry.

"Justin! Do something about it!" Alex cried again, tears welling in her eyes. "This isn't how it's supposed to be!"

Justin dodged a ray of energy that would do who-knows-what if it hit him, and then spoke to Alex.

"I must kill Max before he kills me! Don't you see?"

Max reached out, with a slight movement of his hand, and attempted his heart-stopping spell. Justin resisted it, having enough magical protection that he wouldn't be able to be affected easily. Just as Max began to cast another spell, Justin cast a counterspell, and then followed it up with a draining spell, which seemed to affect Max. He reeled, noticing breaks in his own magical shielding, which he rushed to repair. During this time, Justin had reinforced his own protections and hit Max with a mental blast, which Max resisted easily.

Meanwhile, Alex was casting spells at her cage. She had tried dispelling it, but Max's spell was more powerful than she was able to overcome, apparently. She began to wear it down with small bursts of flame.

Max didn't even notice this, he was busy. He had opened a gate to the elemental plane of fire behind Justin, which was beginning to overheat him. Justin turned around and began to close it, when Max caused the flames to leap out of it. Reacting quickly, Justin dodged the brunt of the attack but still got singed. He flew towards Max at lightning speed, getting away from the flames. He was going to move the center of the battle, if he could help it.

Alex was still attacking the energy cage, this time with bolts of her own energy. It began to weaken and crack, and she felt she would be out of it soon.

Justin grabbed at Max, but Max dodged out of the way and Justin flew back a few hundred yards before he was able to stop and turn around. He waved his arms dramatically and a gate opened in front of Max – out of it flew a large dragon, which opened its mouth and breathed fire at the younger wizard. Max also managed to dodge this attack, suffering only minor burns. He summoned a large axe – it dropped from out of the sky and chopped the dragon's head off. The serpent disappeared with a poof, and the axe fell to the forest floor, chopping up foliage as it went. Max tried the trick again, this time summoning the axe over Justin's head, but Justin noticed in time, flew out of the way and redirected the axe toward Max, who gestured at it calmly, and it disappeared.

He then began to whirl his arms around over his head, and above him storm clouds grew in the sky. Justin used the opportunity to cast various curses – stunning, blindness, even the itching curse, but Max resisted them all. Soon there was a storm overhead, and Max called down lightning, which was absorbed by Justin's shield.

By now, Alex was out of her cage, and she looked up at the battle going on above her, unsure of what she could do. "STOP!" she cried again, but was drowned out by thunder as rain began to pour.

Justin created illusionary duplicates of himself, and made them all fly around in a jumble so that Max couldn't tell them apart. Max summoned a swarm of arrows, which flew at Justin and his duplicates – when they hit an illusion, it disappeared, and the one that hit the real Justin glanced off, doing no harm.

Justin took the chance while he was summoning the arrow to try and wear down Max's own shield, and being much stronger than Alex at this point, it was not too powerful for him to dispel. Max noticed it immediately and began to repair it, but not before he was struck by a lightning bolt himself, called down by Justin.

"No fair using my storm against me!" Max cried, magically amplifying his voice to be heard in the storm. He wasn't too badly injured, and he healed himself from it quickly. Justin grunted, and summoned a swarm of wasps in front of Max, who took them out by hitting them with flames from his hands. And then he turned his attention to Justin's own shielding, and began to wear that down. He easily overpowered it, and it was completely down within a second. He hit Justin with a fatigue spell, who was clearly adversely affected by it. He began to droop, but cast an invigoration spell on himself to counter the fatigue. He then tried to dispel Max's flying spell, but Max felt this happening and countered it. He thought this was a good idea, so he tried to dispel Justin's own flying spell, but Justin also countered it.

Suddenly, Max was hit from behind by a bolt of lightning. He had been watching Justin at the time, so he knew it wasn't from him. He turned around and looked down to see Alex out of her cage.

"Get out of this!" he yelled, creating another cage around her. She tried to dodge it, but the cage was too large, and she was stuck again. "This is a battle for real wizards," he said mockingly. Alex was hurt by this, but she couldn't argue that both Justin and Max were extraordinarily more powerful than she was.

"Detect scrying," Alex cast from her cage, wondering if anyone had noticed this energy spike and was watching the fight. She detected no less than 300 scrying sensors viewing the surrounding area.


Jerry was one of the 300 people watching the battle take place. He watched it on his crystal ball, tense and frustrated. No matter who won this, it would not be good for him or Theresa. She would be particularly upset, so he refrained from telling her that her two sons were currently engaged in an epic battle that would result in at least one of their deaths. And goodness knows what the winner would have in store for Alex, either. Still, he was surprised that Justin had not only recovered from the spell he had cast earlier, but it had made him all the more powerful. He and Max were currently tied on the peg board, with Alex trailing far behind.

Alex crossed her arms and pouted, trying to remember the voice amplifying spell. Oh yes...

"VOX DRACONIS!" she yelled, and her voice was amplified loud enough to be heard over the wind, rain and thunder.

"STOP THIS THIS INSTANT YOU TWO!" she yelled. "I thought we agreed not to kill each other! We promised mom!"

"Mother..." Max said, through gritted teeth as he took a force blast from Justin. "Is... MORTAL!" he cried, unleashing a ray of energy that hit Justin and cut his right cheek. Justin recouped and launched an attack back at Max.

"Justin! Stop this! Be the mature, responsible one, like usual!" Alex cried, pleading with her older brother.

"And what? Let him kill me?"

"No! Forfeit! I'll forfeit too!" she yelled, tears in her eyes and streaming down her face. (Jerry too, was crying at this.)

"He's too powerful! He needs to be...defeated!" he yelled back, unleashing a storm of fire from his hands that threatened to consume Max. Max dodged out of the way of most of the flames, and fired back an attack of hailstones, which pelted Justin and threw him back. (Jerry, watching at home, though he wasn't sure enough to change the pegs, felt that Justin was a little bit behind. He was being worn down.)

Suddenly, Max hit Justin with a mental blast. Justin gripped his head hard, the pain searing through him. He clearly didn't possess Max's willpower. While distracted, Max dispelled his flying spell, and Justin fell down through the trees.

"NO!" Alex yelled, upset at Justin's fall. She crawled down, out of the cage – Max had seemingly forgotten to enclose the bottom, and Alex had just noticed this. She climbed down, through the trees, until she could see what transpired below.

Justin smacked into the ground, still alive, but hurting and with a horrible headache. Although he was scratched up from all the branches he hit on his way down, he was aware that they probably slowed his fall enough to keep him alive. Max calmly flew down, over him, and laughed evilly as Justin writhed. Head pounding furiously, Justin used what he felt was his last bit of effort to pick up a spear, discarded from one of the undead minions that Max had raised, and hurled it toward his little brother. Then he collapsed. He came to within a matter of seconds, head no longer hurting. He looked up to see why.

Max lied on the ground, spear through his chest, breathing heavily.

"Gladius," Justin said, and produced a dagger. He went over to Max, slit his throat and stabbed his heart.

Alex, who was watching this, screamed.

"You killed our brother!"

"He was going to kill me!"

"He was defeated, you should have helped him!"

"He wouldn't have forfeited, he'd never give up! You don't think he would have killed me?"

"You killed our brother! Gladius!" she was now holding a long sword in both hands, wielding it much more proficiently than Justin would have guessed. She came at Justin, who backed away.

"Gladius!" Justin now held his own sword. He parried, and tried to calm her down. "If I hadn't done that he'd have gotten up and finished me off. I'm in a pretty bad state right now."

He pushed her back with a telekinetic blast, but she rolled with it and sprang up. She feinted left, Justin went to parry and she came right, but Justin noticed at the last second he had, stepped back and parried right.

"We can have our own non-lethal fight now that Max is gone!" he cried between blows.

"You KILLED our brother!" she repeated again angrily.

"Then so be it," he said, and parried again. This time he made his own strike, trying to get past her defenses. Finding no opening, he jumped over her, rolling in the air, and landed behind her. To his surprise, she was already turned around.

"I've seen Star Wars too," she said calmly, whirling around to strike at Justin's side. He parried.

"Then you'd expect this!" he said, extending his hand and shooting lightning out of it. It struck Alex and she convulsed, but still managed to erect a shield against it.

"Oh big brother, you think I have learned nothing about magical combat this whole time? You haven't been scrying on me in the past few days, have you? Face it, you have no record of my whereabouts."

Justin flew into the air, but Alex launched a lightning bolt at him. It snaked along her blade and came out of it. It struck him and he fell back to the ground. He was up before Alex could make it over, and met her sword again.

"This is silly," he said, still locked in swordplay with his sister. "I'm clearly the better wizard – forfeit and I let you live."

"You killed our brother! I'm not going to let you get away with that!"

"Our brother was evil!"

"But he was still our brother!" She made another feint, which Justin was not fooled by.

"You're lucky, you know. I'm quite drained from that battle with Max. Or else I might do something like this." He stepped back and launched a fireball from his hand, Alex tumbled underneath it and slashed at his legs, catching them and making him bleed. Justin sprung backwards and cut a branch above him, which fell in between him and Alex. Alex hit it with flames and hacked it away, but Justin was still retreating backwards.

"Where are you going? I'm not dead yet!" she said mockingly.

"I don't want to kill you! You're not evil. Irresponsible yes, but not evil."

"You know what, I think you're evil!" she said. Justin had lost sight of her, and then suddenly she was on all sides of him. He swung around wildly, feeling a cut in his back, until he caught a blade.

"Tricky one," he said, recovering. He feinted right and went left, and then cut her near her rib. She quickly recovered, stepping back and parrying his sword.

She then creating a brilliant bright light, temporarily blinding Justin. She went to attack, but Justin parried by feel. He then launched into the sky again, this time erecting a lightning ward.

Alex turned her sword into a bow, arrow already notched, and drew back on it. It struck Justin, who looked shocked.

"Are you really willing to kill me for vengeance? One brother died, why two?"

"Because you're evil," she said simply.

Justin conjured a rain of hailstones to fall on Alex, but she ran out of their radius and fired another arrow. Justin dodged this one.

"Without the fly spell, you're never going to win," he said. She launched a fireball at him, but he dodged this too. "I see you do know that one!"

She then tried to dispel the flying spell once more. Justin tried to resist, but the drain from the previous fight with Max proved to be too great, and he fell out of the sky. He braced himself, though, and rolled on impact, springing up with sword in hand. Alex had turned her own weapon back into a sword, and attacked with it. Justin parried again, easily.

"It seems you are intent on settling this via swordplay."

Alex didn't respond, but continued her furious assault. Justin cast the animation spell on his sword, and conjured another one. The original continued to parry Alex, while he tried to get around the other side. Alex, meanwhile, managed to fend them both off, and dispelled the animation. The sword clattered to the forest floor, and then disappeared.

"Conjured swords rarely last that long," Justin sighed.

Alex caused the plants at Justin's feet to grow, curling up around his ankles. He stumbled, and then hacked them off. Meanwhile Alex used the time to get into position, and sliced at his chest, cutting his shirt and drawing blood. Justin forced her sword away and began to attack back.

"I'm going to have to stop holding back, you know," Justin said, and disappeared. As Alex looked around, she felt something sharp in her back, and Justin drew blood. She ran forward, turning around as she did so, and saw Justin in front of her. She slashed again at his legs, but he jumped into the air and slashed at her as well.

"You didn't even try to reason with him!" she yelled at Justin as they continued to fight. Slash, parry, parry, feint, slash.

"I knew him better than you! I knew what he was capable of! That kind of person won't stand to reason!"

"And I've seen what you're capable of. How do I know you would let me live?"

"You're the one that's not listening to reason!" Alex was angered by this. She didn't know how, but she telekinetically blasted Justin back. Justin, not being prepared for this, hit the ground. Suddenly, Alex was over him, with her sword at his heart.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't kill you here."

"Because... I love you."

"You should have loved Max," she said, driving her sword down into his heart.


A.N: That is the end of Part I. Hope you enjoyed it.