*Chapter 14*

"The sunpetal bloom was just destroyed."

Wylis' white skin flushed a shade lighter as he took a step back, as though physically struck by the news. "T-That cannot be possible…" he choked. He looked to me, seeking some kind of confirmation. I had nothing of the like to give.

I looked again to the east. The immense spike of dark mana still pulled mightily on my mind. Underneath it, I could feel a spark; two of them. I immediately recognized them both. "It's Saints and Avidoz," I said. "They have launched an attack on Grador."

"We have to go, now!" Wylis' voice cracked out of sheer desperation.

"And like yesterday," Jeriah drawled, sharing none of Wylis' frenzied state. He took a somewhat lazy step, and vanished completely.

"Jeriah!" I shouted. It was too late, he was gone, no doubt strait to the battle that was to unfold at Grador. Looking into Wylis' frightened eyes now, I realized that we may have a problem. It would surely be easy enough for me and Jeriah to reach Grador in short time, but Wylis shared no such gift. And there was no way he would volunteer to stay behind, not with his home city under attack by the black order. Just how would we work this out? Just then, an idea came to me. It was more than a long shot, but it was the only shot we had. But before that, there was something that I needed to clear up. I turned to the peacekeeping captain and her unit, "You had better make yourself ready," I told her. "The black order is on the move. Even if we do stop them at Grador, there's no telling if they will move a number of their contingent onto this city, or any other. Gather you unit and alert the people."

The peacekeeper captain pounded her fist to her heart. "By your word, planeswalker," she said. "I've just one request."

"Speak," I said.

"If I could ask your name…"

"My name is Angell."

Her eyes went wide with shock and wonder, "Angell. The angel of the prophecy!?" I nodded. She and the rest of her unit dropped to their knees. "If only we had known! A million apologies, great angel!"

"Think nothing of it," I said. I turned back to Wylis, the wheels in my head spinning furiously. "Okay, I need you to work with me here. I can get us both to Grador. I think."

"Tell me what I have to do," Wylis said eagerly.

I walked up to Wylis and I took both his hands. "I need you to close your eyes and focus. Focus on Grador," I said while closing my own eyes. "When I step into the aether, I going to take you with me. But you'll get lost in the stream if you aren't focused completely on your destination. This will be strange and dangerous, but all you have to do is focus, okay?" I opened my eyes and found Wylis staring at me with a somewhat glazed expression. His mouth was just slightly open, and was I imagining it, or was there a flush to his cheeks? "Wylis!" he seemed to snap back into reality. "Focus on Grador…not on me." A small smile crossed my lips as I said this. I could feel a flush coming into my face as well.

"R-Right, Grador, of course," he sputtered.

I've never seen Wylis lose his composure before. But now was not the time. "Okay, Wylis. I'm going to count to three, and then we'll planeswalk together."

"Is this going to hurt?" he asked.

"Not one bit," I said back. "Here goes. One. Two." Wylis tightened his grip on my hands. "Three!" I took a step and entered the aether stream, Wylis along with me.

It was strange making this trip with another person. Along with the haze of blurred landscapes and mana-rushed imagery, I could feel Wylis underneath it all, both physically and mentally. No doubt I was picking up on his focus as he concentrated with every fiber of his being on our destination. Our hands remained locked together as we flew along faster than any conceivable light could well travel. And then I could begin to see shapes in my mind. I saw many buildings, people, and…what? What were those? Are they black order creatures? The closer we were, the more another feeling surfaced. I didn't know what it was, but it was the darkest and heaviest thing I have ever felt on my mind before. And then, suddenly I realized something else. We were slowing down. I don't know why, but we were losing velocity, and fast. We weren't going to make it into the city.

And then, just like that, we were ejected from the aether. We were only a few feet from the ground luckily. Me and Wylis landed in a tangle of dirt, hair, and grass, with me eventually winding up on top of him. Wylis took the full brunt of the impact and I got a nasty shock as well. I pushed myself up on my hands and said down to Wylis, "Are you alright? Can you stand?"

He reached up, pinned my thick hair back behind my ears and said devilishly, "I'm in no rush."

I rolled my eyes and got to my feet. The city was still at least a quarter mile from our position, just what had stopped us from making it inside? Just then I noticed Jeriah standing a few yards ahead. I joined his side and said, "You didn't get close enough either, huh?"

"I don't know," he said. "It felt like something prematurely stopped my planeswalk. Some kind of…" he shook his head, unable to conjure the word.

Wylis joined us and pointed to the sky. "So…uh…was it night fall when we left?"

We all looked up and I was astonished at what I saw. The sky had been seemingly overtaken by darkness. Clouds of jet-black energy swirled the length of the expanse. "What is that?" I gasped.

"Black mana," Jeriah answered. "Lots of it."

And as though by some wordless agreement, we all began running as hard as we could towards Grador. I was having some trouble, as the sharp heels of my boots kept plunging themselves into the soft earth. We made it to the gates and were pulled up short by another feeling. This presence seemed much more numerous than the others. I knew what it was. "The black order's creatures," I said to the others. We readied our weaponry and with a final charge, entered the gates of Grador.

…...

Dozens of dead bodies littered the what used to be the sunpetal chamber. Mages, knights, and regular denizens accounted for the victims. The rest of the mage unit, along with quite possibly every guard in the castle stood on the outskirts of a seemingly impossible situation. As of now, the young prince of Grador, Holloway, was on his knees. He could only watch as his companion, his young lover named Lobelia, was held in the clutches of a black order mage who called himself, 'Saints'.

"Honestly, now," Saints said to the room. "If you've more stern resistance to offer, now would be the time."

Holloway glared daggers at Saints. "Just what is it you think you're doing?"

"The standard black mage fare," Saints responded casually. "Terror, death, destruction. You know, the usual."

Lobelia squirmed in Saints' arms. "You've got what you wanted," she said. "Now just leave us be!"

Saints tightened his arm around her throat, causing Holloway to gasp in agony. "Please!" Holloway begged. "Take me as your prisoner. Let Lobelia go!"

" 'Fraid not," Saints said. "A male prisoner just isn't as attractive a target as a lady in distress. Isn't that right?" He whispered this in Lobelia's ear, renewing her violent, yet futile attempts to escape Saints' grasp. The mage-warriors around the perimeter gritted their teeth and cursed many obscenities, but the lot of them were rendered next to powerless having the sunpetal bloom, their main source of mana, destroyed. Besides, Saints told them that if they made any move at all, He would kill the girl. A simple enough feat with the right spell.

Just then, Lobelia spoke back to Saints. Not in the manner of hysterics that one in this sort of situation would normally adopt, but with a calculated calm and something of an undeniable pity. "As strange as this may seem, black order bane, I do feel sorry for you," she said.

"And why is that?"

"You are fated forever to wander the black heaven of the agony. Your life is lost; your soul is damned."

"And yet it feels too good to make a stand," Saints chuckled.

"That is bad," Lobelia said. "But this is worse; and in the name of Terra, may your judgment be swift and severe."

Saints cackled like a lunatic. "Let judgment come," he laughed. "I love this curse."

Lobelia squirmed again in his arms. And then she began a speech. It was a prayer, a plea for help; for deliverance from evil. "Almighty Terra of the white heaven of the clarity. By your grace we-"

Saints cut off her prayer with a violent yank of her hair. She squealed in pain as the mage-soldiers cried in anger. "Spare me your angel speak," he growled at her. "As it just so happens that I'm waiting for an angel too." His head suddenly snapped upwards, the pull on his mind alerting him to his quarry's arrival. "Speak of the devil…"

"She approaches," said Avidoz from a corner of the room. Saints had actually forgotten he was there. "And she has company." Avidoz went silent for a moment as he regard the other two phenomena. "One is a planeswalker. The other; a lesser mage."

"Finally," Saints said. "Maybe now I can get the fight that these sops weren't able to give me!" He laughed manically as Angell's presence grew ever closer. 'Let's see what's left of you, great angel' he thought.

…...

The creatures were everywhere; they were as numerous as they were ferocious. Me, Wylis, and Jeriah crashed through the streets of Grador cutting down creature after creature. Wylis lead the way through the wide cobbled streets, as he knew the shortest route to the castle. We didn't see any city folk on our way, which I guess was a good thing, maybe they had gotten to safety somehow. We rounded a corner and came to the castle town square. Under normal circumstances, this place would have been beautiful. But now, with the seemingly infinite shadow cast by the black mana cloud in the sky, it seemed more forlorn and desolate than it was sure to be intended. There was one other thing as well.

An eight-foot Zombie Goliath that was running strait at us.

We scattered in separate directions. Unable to stop it's tremendous momentum, the goliath collided with a beautiful white marble spire on the perimeter of the square. The marble shattered. The zombies was no worse for wear. I charged white mana into Kenziner as I prepared my first spell, but it was Wylis who acted first. He armed his hunter's bow and let loose an arrow that embedded itself in the goliath's shoulder. It howled in enraged surprise. Either it was too angry, or just too stupid to pull the arrow out immediately. I somehow doubt it was hurt much anyway. It rounded on Wylis with savage and empty eyes. "Little help please!" he called over it's thundering footfalls.

The goliath was on a mad charge directly at Wylis. I only just managed to get my spell off. "Rebuke!" the spell flew full force across the square and obliterated the zombie in mid step. I helped Wylis to his feet.

"Great spell, that," he said gratefully.

"I run four copies in my deck," I said back, knowing full well that he would have no idea what that actually meant.

"The strangest thing though," Wylis continued. "I'm hardly able to focus any mana, not now with the sunpetal bloom gone."

"Maybe that has something to do with it," said Jeriah from a few feet away. We all looked in the direction he was pointing.

"Grador castle…" Wylis moaned forlornly. From the center of the oddly shaped castle rose a building. It looked like it could have been a cathedral. It definitely looked familiar, I just couldn't think where I have seen it before. The swirling black mana that invaded the sky was definitely emanating from the unknown structure. Wylis then adopted a more desperate tone, "Oh, no, Prince Holloway!" without a word of explanation, he ran off towards the castle. We followed him up three flights of gorgeous marble stairs emblazed with various runes of an unknown origin. I had never realized before just how fast Wylis could run, me and Jeriah could hardly match his pace as he crashed through the castle's enormous oaken doors and down the curving corridors.

The layout of the castle was built like a ring, no doubt surrounding the former place where the sunpetal bloom once rested. We thundered down many staircases, barely keeping track of Wylis by the flash of his white-blonde hair just around the corners. On our downward journey, the sparks of Saints and Avidoz were becoming stronger, more pronounced all the time. We were getting close. And then we came upon a set of grand double doors, which were flung wide open. I could hear many angry voices floating from the room beyond them, and the auras of the two dark planeswalkers were chasing. We all burst through the doors amid shouts of surprise and joy.

The first thing I noticed were the bodies. They were dead mages and soldiers strewn everywhere. The survivors were huddled around the perimeter of the enormous room, their eyes locked on the drama unfolding in it's center. There stood Saints, he had a young woman held captive by her throat, who writhed in his grasp. Saints' manic grin widened like the Cheshire cat's. "Well, well, well, if it isn't the lesser of two evils!"

Before I could respond, Wylis made a move towards the figure kneeling just a few feet from Saints' position. "Prince Holloway!" Wylis knelt beside the young man and took his shoulders.

Holloway's eyes found Wylis and widened slightly. "Wylis!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, yes, it's been a while," Wylis said hurriedly. "But I need you to come with me."

"But Lobelia…" he moaned.

"I'll get her back," I said quietly. Wylis lead the prince away and I was left facing Saints and his captive. I was a good ten feet from them, I could see the terror in the girls' widened blue eyes, which were fixated right on me, better conveying a message than perhaps words could have at the moment, please help me. I raised Kenziner in with my right hand and pointed it's long, fine blade directly at Saints. "Let the girl go. You know it's me you want."

Saints' laughter carried no sound. There was only the shake of his shoulders and his smile that conveyed the gesture. "You seem to be doing pretty well," he said through a razor-like grin.

"Oh I'm just fine, believe me," I said, still holding Kenziner steadily at his face.

"Really?" he said. "Not missing your little Gideon at all, hm?" My arm trembled at that, Kenziner shaking slightly in my hand. Saints knew he had hit a nerve. "Oh, ha ha haaah! It appears the angel isn't over her little crush!"

The room went absolutely quiet. I'm not sure whether from lack of actually sound, or from the violent rush of blood into my ears. "Let…her…go…" my words were a dangerous whisper.

"I could let her go…" Saints said with mock thoughtfulness. Then he produced a five inch long poison-tipped needle from his hidden gauntlet and held it directly against the girl's right temple. "Or I could do this." The girl went positively rigid, knowing the slightest movement would result in her brain being pierced.

"You kill her," I whispered. "And I swear on the zenith that I will send you after her."

Saints laughed again. The sheer lunacy of the sound almost causing me to shrink away from it. "Well, with an invitation like that, how could I possibly refuse?" And in a motion quicker than a blink, he drove the needle right through the girl's temple. She died instantly and crumpled to the ground.

I absolutely lost it.

With a scream that I was hardly aware of producing, I ran the short span that separated me from Saints. I wanted to kill him. I was going to kill him. No justice in this world would be greater at the moment than for Saints to perish by my hands. Grief, anger, sadness, confusion, guilt. All of these feelings seemed to move by blade by their own accord. I was swinging with a reckless abandon. Saints easily evaded my strikes. My eyes blurred with tears of more emotions than my mind was capable of commanding. Die! Die! Die! my strokes connected with only empty air. I lifted Kenziner above my head and struck down with a cry of ferocious finality. Saints simply lifted his index finger and stopped by blade cold on it's tip. My mouth fell open in breathless shock. Saints gave my blade a tiny push and I sailed ten feet backwards through the air, landing on my back.

It was just then that Avidoz moved to Saints' side. "No," Saints said, holding out an arm to stop him. His pupils had dilated again, turning even the whites a ghastly jet-black. And those black soulless eyes were locked directly on me. "She's mine. I've waited too long for this."

I regained my footing. I saw Wylis and Jeriah from the corner of my eye. Wylis' eyes were wide with fear, the prince Holloway was racked over with grief at the loss of his lover. Jeriah simply stared with a hard expression of understanding. He knew I didn't want him to interfere. This battle was mine.

I retook my position, holding Kenziner over my shoulder in my battle stance, it's blade pointed directly at my enemy. Me and Saints faced off in the center of the enormous room, washed in the shadow of the dark cathedral. Looking into his midnight eyes I could feel something grow inside me. It was something I couldn't place, it felt like something I had almost no control of. It was like a powerful radiating heat that burned along with my heartbeat and caused my brain to adopt a rapt focus. The feeling grew and seemed to permeate my very flesh. And at the same time, I could feel the same thing happening to Saints. Waves of mana-heated air rolled off his body. And then I knew what was happening.

Our sparks were igniting.

This is what happened when planeswalkers met in battle. It was the undeniable and savage nature of our kind. In the face of conflict, our souls burned with a morbid excitement. The spark, as though a completely separate consciousness, was more than eager to plunge it's bearer into a battle in which it's might could finally and truly be tested. And I was not going to deny it. I wanted this fight, and I know Saints did too. Standing here in the collision of our sparks, I knew right then and there.

One of us was going to die.

*End of chapter 14*

A/N:

Me again. Just another end of chapter foot note. I just wanted to thank again the people that decided to give my story a read. And if you've been onboard since the beginning, you get an extra special thanks (and a cookie!) And another thanks for the follows and kind reviews.

I just wanted to let you guys know that it's going to be a while before I update this story again, as I'm turning my focus to my other story, a Hunger Games fic entitled; The voice of Hunger. So any Hunger Games fans reading this should definitely give that a look!

So anyway, thanks again and see you soon!

- B.D. Skunkworks