Iandore walks into the park entrance, passing by the sign marked "Whitcrest Park". It had taken about 25 minutes for him to walk from his house to the park; he arrived just in time. He heard the noises of the crowd gathering in the distance, blocked by trees that he would have to pass first. Behind the trees is a very large clearing with a very large lake with an island in the middle. Barley had told him about the history behind this park before; in the days of old, many a wizard duel was held on that island. Tonight would be the first time a duel was held there in probably hundreds of years and Ian's involved in it.
He's been trying to forget about his nausea as he made the trek. He wasn't going to let that inconvenience stop him from showing up.
He walks through the trees, the dead leaves crackling under his teal shoes. The cool breeze flows through his curly hair and around his pointy ears. He shoves his free hand in his jacket pocket.
The sounds of the crowd get louder, and he grips his staff tighter. Nausea becomes stronger, making every step he takes feel as if it were rattling his entire body.
He makes it into the clearing and arrives at a paved area with a few picnic tables, a grill, and a trashcan. The lake was still a little ways off, but he could now see the crowd. A substantial amount of students from his school have gathered to watch the duel, and in the middle of the island, Chardyr was waiting for him.
Ian grabs onto the table, reacting to an intense wave of nausea.
"I can do this...I can do this..." he whispers to himself, leaning off the table and using his staff to support himself.
His hands are clammy and a drop of saliva leaves his mouth, which makes him think he's finally about to alleviate this unbearable nausea.
And he does; he gags and runs for the trashcan, letting out his lunch and the small bit of dinner he ate.
His body shakes as he leans upward from the trashcan, wiping his mouth. "That's much better," he mutters. The burning taste bothers him greatly but at least his nausea was gone for now.
Maybe I was just stressed, he thinks.
He looks back at the crowd, and down at his watch. 7:00.
"I can do this."
He keeps his head up and walks towards the crowd.
As he gets closer, they turn their heads and see him. They start cheering and clapping and standing out of his way so he can make it to the lake and see his opponent.
He lays his eyes upon Chardyr, standing on the island, looking back at him, staff in hand.
Once Ian walks to the edge of the lake, he holds his staff in the air and recites "Bridgrigar Invisia!"
He walks across the lake as the crowd's cheers rise.
The spell fades once he steps onto the island, and he walks closer to the other elf.
"I'm ready," he says as he tightly grips his staff again.
Chardyr smirks. "Hmm...so you actually arrived."
He then calls to the crowd: "Can I have everyone's attention please?"
The crowd quiets down.
"Tonight commences the duel between Iandore Lightfoot and I, Chardyr Dalamin. Here in this park, we will find out which wizard will come out the strongest. Either one who gets pushed into the water three times...is the one who loses."
Ian gulps.
"Do you already want to leave?" Chardyr says.
"...No," Ian breathes out.
"Well, then...let the duel begin."
The crowd erupts in loud cheers as the two get into place.
Chardyr lifts up his staff and a beam emits from it, heading towards Ian. He dodges the beam and it shoots past him, heading above the crowd and exploding.
Now on the ground, Ian quickly gets back up and dusts himself, yelling "Boombastia!"
The fireworks blast from the tip of the splinter staff and over to the darker blue elf, who is pushed back by them before he could escape.
The crowd erupts again. Chardyr gets up from the ground and looks back at Ian.
"Oh, you're so going to get it!" he hisses.
Ian finds himself floating in the air again, as his opponent uses his silent magic.
"No, no, no," he trembles, trying to think of how he could escape.
He tries to resist the pull of the spell, but it was too late; he's flung into the air. Clutching onto his staff, he realizes he's about to fall into the lake.
He plummets straight into the middle of the water, still holding the staff. He immediately swims up and surfaces with a gasp, only to hear the unmuffled sounds of the crowd cheering and gasping and laughing. He flicks his dripping wet hair out of his face and sees the laughing students, now wishing he could disappear. But he still had to finish the duel.
The elf quickly grabs his staff and swims back to the island.
"Tired yet?" Chardyr smugly asks as Ian pulls himself out of the water.
"Not yet," the curly-haired elf whispers through his panting.
As quickly as he possibly could, Ian looks up from the grass and shouts "ACCELIOR!"
Chardyr is then lifted into the air and thrown across the island, landing on the other end with a large thump.
"Visage Invisio!" Ian yells. He then disappears from everyone else's vision.
"Where are you? Where did you go?" The purple-haired elf asks angrily.
He then takes a hard push to his back and falls into the water.
He grabs the edge and pulls himself up, coughing and sputtering.
"What's that you said about me not being powerful?" Ian smugly says, reappearing as his spell fades.
The 16-year-old feels himself being taken up into the air again, but this time Chardyr rises along with him.
"Well, since you think you're so powerful now, how about we take it to the skies?"
The students' howls from below decrease in volume as the two of them rise a little over halfway to the top of the tall trees surrounding the large clearing.
A powerful flame bursts out of Chardyr's staff, lighting up the entire area that was getting darker with every minute.
"BASTION FORTIGAR!" Ian yells at the last second. A shield forms in front of him and his staff, just in time to block the raging flames.
Ian points his staff towards the sky and traces a half moon before reciting "Wynda Zephyria!"
The raging wind starts gushing out of the staff and causes Chardyr to float further away into the forest, and grab onto a tree to resist the strong gusts.
Just after Ian's wind spell stops, Chardyr's anti-gravity spell wears off due to the gusts causing him to lose focus.
Chardyr falls to the ground, while Ian begins falling back towards the lake.
While he makes his descent, he hears a few people loudly calling his name through the howls of the students. Before he could look over to see who they were, he'd already plunged into the lake for the second time.
Just as he gets ready to swim back up, he feels something pushing him down.
It seems that before the duel, Chardyr had cast a magical chain spell that would trigger whenever someone was near it, attaching Ian's leg to a rock at the bottom of the lake. He has no idea how to get out of this one; he wasn't sure if the unlocking spell could work on non-physical locks, and of course, he can't recite anything while having to conserve his precious air.
But he can try to see if he can work a miracle by using silent magic.
He'd never practiced it before...but in a situation like this, he'll need to try any last resort.
He focused as hard as he could on the magic particles making up the chain and pointed his staff towards them.
Focus. Just focus.
Ian was running out of air fast.
He didn't want to stay down there any longer.
If he yells the incantation underwater, he could quickly swim back up and get back his air. If it doesn't work, however...it would be the end of him.
He doesn't know what to do.
The elf once again pointed his staff at the chain.
Gods, please work... he thinks to himself.
Giving up his air, he yells "EMASES NEPO!", and the majority of his air bubbles leave his nose and mouth, making their way to the surface.
And to his luck, it actually works.
Now noticing his lungs feel like they're going to explode, he quickly begins swimming to the surface with very little air left.
But it was already too late...his vision was becoming blurred, and he'd let out his last air bubble.
Just as he nearly gets to the surface...he can't stand the burning in his chest anymore, and his body reacts by breathing in the water.
He feels himself becoming unconscious...and his legs stop kicking. He was sinking again.
His eyes close as he peacefully makes his descent to the bottom of the lake.
Everything becomes muffled...he only hears the ambient noises underwater.
Soon enough, he hears a booming noise, as if someone else dove in...
He hears the figure swimming closer to him...and he feels a pair of beefy arms grabbing him and carrying him back to the surface...
"He's not answering his phone..." Laurel says while staring at her phone, sitting on the couch. It was nearing 7:45, and she was wanting to get in touch with him just to see if he was okay.
"He just left all of a sudden, not wanting to eat, acting strange...I know he just wanted to see his friends and all, but...he can at least just pick up his phone..."
"I think he's just fine, Laurel," Colt says. "He's probably just really focused on hanging with his friends. This...whole situation has been so tough on him. It's best we just let him be."
"But he's supposed to be home in 15 minutes," Laurel says. "I just want to know if he's on his way back."
Barley walks out of his bedroom, hearing the conversation take place. "Is Ian ok?"
"That's what we're trying to find out," his mother answers. "He's not picking up his phone."
"I have a feeling he probably didn't take it..." the burly elf assumes.
He then heads up the stairs into his brother's room. And as he expected, he saw his phone sitting on his desk. His staff was nowhere to be seen.
He walks back downstairs and sees that the staff isn't next to the front door, either.
"...Something's going on," Barley says, grabbing his keys. "I'm gonna go see what's up."
"Not this again, Barley," Colt starts. "If something happens, we'll deal with it-"
"If something's gonna happen, I wanna be there to prevent it," the elf says back, turning back to look at his stepfather. "I don't want something like that to happen again. I'm gonna go look for him."
He walks towards the front door. As he reaches the doorknob, he feels Laurel tug his arm. He looks back to see that tears were forming in her eyes.
"Barley...I don't...I don't wanna nearly lose you again..."
"You don't wanna lose Ian, either," her son says. "I'll be back soon."
He heads out of the house, closing the door behind him.
He then runs over to his van, and once again quickly pulls out of the driveway.
Barley assumed he would've gone to the park he always went to - Redwood Park, nearby his school.
He turns out of the neighborhood and drives towards the park.
When he gets there, he pulls over to see if he and his friends were anywhere.
And he couldn't see them, as far as he could see throughout the moderately-sized field.
"Maybe he went to a different park," he whispers to himself, trying to calm down.
The elf pulls away and begins driving again, wondering what other park within walking distance he could've gone to.
Then it clicked in his mind - Whitcrest Park.
He told him about those wizard duels that happened there long ago...he could've gone there with his friends to show off spells on the island. But why wouldn't he take his phone? What was he trying to hide...? Was he even trying to hide anything at all? Did he just unintentionally forget his phone? He sure was acting strange at dinner...
He turns around and starts driving the other way to Whitcrest Park. Hopefully, he would get his answers there.
When he gets closer, he sees the tall trees making up the forest and the parking lot on the other side of the road that was abnormally filled with cars. There were cars parked in the grass as well...something was definitely going on.
Then, all of a sudden, he sees flashes of light coming from above the trees and into the sky. He gasps and pulls down his window to hear distant noises - crowds and blasts of magic.
"...No, no, no," he stammers as he quickly drives down to the end of the road. He turns to the right and then behind the park, into an isolated, unpaved parking lot. He knew that if something was going on and if the police were called, they would take in his brother if he was there and he didn't want that to happen. So he parked there so he could take him to safety.
The 19-year-old rushes out of his van and runs as fast as he could through the forest until he gets to the clearing.
The further he runs, the better he could see the clearing through the trees. When he walks out into the field, he sees the crowd, who were now gasping in fear. The flashes had stopped.
Then something made Barley's heart drop: he heard a group of people yelling his brother's name.
He rushes through the crowd, pushing people aside and saying "IAN! IAN, WHERE ARE YOU?"
"Barley?" he heard a voice say.
He looks to his side to see Ian's friends running to him.
"You guys! What's going on? Did you know he was coming here?"
"A wizard's duel," Parthenope starts. "There's this new guy in town who's a powerful wizard and he challenged him. We tried to talk him out of it so many times but he wouldn't budge..."
"Where is he?" Barley says, panicked.
"He just fell in there," Althea says, pointing at the lake.
The burly elf quickly turns his head to see that he still hadn't come up.
"Come on, Ian...please..."
He trembles and crosses his fingers in hopes his baby brother would come to the surface. He knows he's a good swimmer, he can come out of this fine...
Seconds pass, and they feel like minutes.
Then it hits him.
He sees a ton of air bubbles come to the surface...which is never a good sign.
"I'M COMING FOR YOU, IAN!" Barley yells as he runs past more students. He takes a deep breath before diving in to look for his poor little brother.
The lake water is somewhat murky, making it hard for him to see well, especially since it was getting darker outside. Despite this, he keeps swimming around, trying to see where Ian could possibly be.
Not too far away, he sees an elven figure, floating lifelessly under the water. Almost panicking under the water, he quickly swims to him and sees that it is in fact his little brother, unconscious.
He grabs him along with his staff and wraps him around his arm before swimming to the surface.
Barley emerges from under the water with his brother, gasping for air and trying to keep both his and Ian's heads above the water as he swims him to safety. The crowd had gone almost completely silent.
He frantically places his limp, lanky brother on the grass, whose skin had turned a pale, lighter color.
"Ian, wake up..." Barley says, tears pouring out of his eyes. "Please...wake up..."