Hey, hey, hey, I managed to write out another chapter for you readers while I've been at the beach! Now, because I'm sure you're all frothing at the mouth for Magiya's revenge, I'll get straight to reviews and then to the chapter!

MissFiyeraba: Yay! I have a new follower! :D *tacklehug* Thanks so much for the… DESCRIPTIVE DESCRIPTION of Zhi Lao'Hu! :)
And I'm thrilled you love Magiya, many people do. XD Thanks so much!

Kirei Ryuusei: Yeah, she was moping badly for a while there, wasn't she? :( And you should know by now that Magiya doesn't give up that easily. -.- As witnessed on the ride back from Moonridge, she doesn't back down often, if at all.
Yes, peoplewatch. It's quite amusing. This past week, at the beach, I've been able to more often than usual! It's funny! XD

CommanderHawke667: Now now, I never said that. U.U (Out loud…) Anyway! I'm not spoiling anything, because I'm sure a) You would not appreciate that and b) you want to find out for yourself! :)
As for the magepaladin children… o.o Well, one of my friends said that she could never see Artix as
married… So… I guess you'll just have to wait and see the epilogue! )8D

So, here we go! Enjoy~


There was the sharp clack of claws as the griffin landed on the cobblestones in the same place as before, as he had been trained a long, long time ago. I slid slowly to the ground, not looking up at the wrought iron gates until the hybrid creature had taken off once more.

Déjà vu.

I took a deep breath, mentally reviewing everything I could remember Warlic ever teaching me about how to harness the magic. After all, a battle like this… I was going to need all the help I could get. I was going to have to remember everything I could about his lessons, and it was going to test the very limits of my mental strength and ingenuity.

I gritted my teeth as I began walking, forcing the negative thoughts out of my head.

The time for thinking is over, I decided then and there. My stubbornness wouldn't let me submit to my thoughts right now. From past experiences with big battles, I had found it helped me significantly to keep a blank mind and not let thoughts or opinions make themselves known or voiced. After all, the enemy typically expected you to have a plan. It threw them off if you just improvised, and quite often it was worth the risk.

My plan here was simple… find Vayle, kill the bitch, and…

And what?

What comes next? What comes after?

What if there is no later?

What if I trip at the last second?

What if I make some fatal error?

What if… I get killed?

Strange how that still seems to matter to me.

I swallowed all of my fears, worries, and other thoughts for the umpteenth time. I was not going to worry about them right now… I couldn't. I had to focus.

Easier said than done.

My feet carried me through the shadows around Amityvale. My subconscious refused to venture directly into the town at all, perhaps because of the deep-seated fear of being hurt by the townspeople who still held a grudge against me personally for destroying their graveyard (through no fault of my own, of course). Where I walked, I stayed hidden. I didn't know where Vayle's hiding place was, but I did know where I was going to start looking.

I did not reveal myself until I was well clear of the view of any houses or shops, and only then did I cautiously step onto the worn path that wound through the woods. I followed the path as I had before, except now, I did so with much more attentiveness than during the previous time. Now, I knew there was more than just a handful of monsters to deal with out here. Now, there was a screwed-up Necromantress with a giant, cracked magenta jewel trailing after her like a lost puppy. The area was starting to seem more familiar as I drew closer to the end of the trail, and I thought about this with a chilling realization. The last time I was around here…

He died.

Goosebumps raced down my arms as I came upon the scene once more, and it was blaringly obvious to me that the citizens of Amityvale had done very little in the way of cleaning the place up. I almost wondered why before I gave my wandering mind a right hook to get it back to the task at hand. Chunks of stone and (in one case) iron lay strewn around in piles or by themselves. Many of them had scorch marks on them, the only remaining evidence of the fight that had occurred here. My left hand clenched, and almost without my noticing I had done it, I allowed a ripple of golden magic to flow through my tightened fist, and then all I felt under my fingers was smooth, well-worn wood. If nothing else, my staff had always been there for me, even though I hadn't always been there for it.

I knelt down silently to brush my fingers against the rough surface of one of the smashed blocks of stone, where a faint dried stain of some sort of liquid that might once have been red still remained. And right now, this was all that was left of him. A few drops of dried blood, and nothing else. He had been cremated, as per his request from a few years ago, so that he would never be manipulated by a Necromancer to become an Undead Paladin. That would have been an absolute worst-case scenario for him, I reflected wordlessly, remembering what Rolith had told me about him a few months ago before… before all of this started.

"You know…"

I jumped as a voice that positively made my skin crawl came from behind me, its owner having no need to project it because of the dead silence surrounding what was left of the graveyard. I whirled around, recognizing it at once and ready to fight it. My grip on my staff tightened almost to the point of splintering it. Vayle herself sat on a section of the wall that was still standing opposite the destroyed cemetery. Her legs were crossed, and she still looked like a bitch to me. You know, that habit of hers involving sneaking up behind people has got to stop.

Her eyes scanned me, as though expecting more, and a faint smirk curled her lip before she followed up on the two words she had spoken not a moment before.

"…A lot of people would view returning to a lost battlefield really… pathetic."

I gritted my teeth.

"Then not many people would have the guts to go after a murderer," I responded venomously as I straightened up, allowing the tip of my staff to drift in her direction. She just shrugged, appearing nonchalant even as I began to prepare myself to use magic.

"No," she said simply, "They wouldn't. It's a good thing I'm not a murderer, then, isn't it?"

"Bullshit," I spat, forgoing formalities. Seems I've been spending too much time around Nythera. "You killed Artix, you bitch!"

"Now, now, if I had, do you really think that I would be here, talking to a useless hero like yourself, instead of raising him from the dead?"

"He was cremated," I said flatly, echoing my thoughts from minutes before. She blinked, then pursed her lips. I was satisfied in a strange way to see that smirk of hers disappear.

"Hm. Well, that would seem to be a problem, wouldn't it?" she asked of thin air, slipping off the wall. Instantly, I was on my guard again, and already driving at the barrier within my mind that held the magic. No way is this bitch going to catch me off guard. "That just makes it a little more difficult to bring him back," she continued serenely as that pink floating jewel came into view from behind her. That hated smile curved her lips again as I jerked back, startled.

There's another way to bring him back?

"Oh, you didn't know?" she asked, faking surprise. "I would have thought that Mage you all worship… Warling, Worloc… Whatever his name is would have told you."

"Warlic," I corrected quietly, stunned.

"Whatever," she said contemptuously, shrugging. There was a long minute of eerie silence as I stared at her, and she just gazed at me. There was no lie in her eyes. Anger, yes. Power, yes. Arrogance, yes. But no lies.

She's telling the truth.

"How?" I finally burst out, taking an accidental step closer as my staff dropped a few inches. "You said there's a way to bring him back! How!"

"Why do you think I would tell you? That icon of yours didn't… I don't see why I should."

"You were going to bring him back to life anyway!" I reasoned, pain lacing my tone. "What could it hurt to tell me?"

"Ask your teacher, little Mage," she snapped, her lip curling. "You and I have business to finish. I suggest we take care of it, because if you turn your back, I will have no hesitation about striking you."

The icy way she spoke told me that she wasn't kidding. There was a lethal truth in her gaze that would have made anybody feel like the hunted, myself included. I just nodded once; she was right. I brushed a few stray strands of dark brown hair out of my eyes, meeting her gaze squarely.

"Let's make a bet," I said unexpectedly, desperate to know. "If I win… you tell me how to bring him back."

"What if I win, Mage?" she hissed as she held claw-like fingers up in front of her face. A dark purple fire lit up her entire hand, but it did not appear to burn her.

"If you win… you can do whatever you want to me."

"Whatever I want?"

I couldn't think what she would want with me, so I simply nodded once more. If she beat me… all would be lost. She would likely kill me, and any chance would be gone.

In other words, what do I have to lose? Absolutely nothing.

The cracked magenta jewel flared slightly, and just for a heartbeat, her eyes flicked to it. The realization hit me like I had just been doused in icy water.

She's not the one in charge.

That jewel is.

I've got to destroy it…

How?

I was given no further time to think or strategize as Vayle lifted the hand encased in violet flames, pointing straight at me. Two unsteady figures suddenly sprang from the dirt below her feet, and I identified them automatically as Skeletons before I discovered I had.

Their weak spots are the base of the spine and between the shoulder blades. Not the solar plexus.

With the monsters just being a bunch of bones kept together by magic and very little else, they had different vulnerabilities than normal humans. Of course, that might be expected, seeing as they were Undead, not people. Well, not anymore.

Tapping into that spot of power at the back of my mind that was so difficult to reach, I sent two beams of light at the Skeletons as they raised their old, rusty katanas, aiming for the spots I knew would send them tumbling to the ground as a pile of bones. I didn't use more power than I needed, preferring to save my energy and focus for when I really needed them. As the Skeletons fell, I abruptly shot another question at Vayle.

"Why?" I asked, glaring at her and the jewel. My mind was whirling, attempting in vain to find a way to get past her defenses and monsters to shatter the giant cracked gemstone. "Why did you make me kill him?"

"I was going to kill him anyways," she answered with a shrug. She raised another four Undead before she spoke again. "And if he was going to die in any case for things to go according to plan, then why couldn't I have a little bit of fun? It's actually quite amusing, Mage, controlling a weaker being and making them kill a stronger one that won't fight back."

"But there's no sport in it!" I challenged furiously as I shot down another two of her Skeletons. She clearly wasn't taking this seriously.

"I never said there was."

"There's no contest, no real test! And if there isn't, then there's no reason to fight!" I shouted at her as I shattered the skull of the third Skeleton. "There is always a reason for a battle, or else it isn't worth it! If there's no reason for you to throw punches, then there's no force behind them, and the war is already over and you're dead!" I finished as, in one movement, I shot a beam of light straight through the last Undead. It didn't diminish, however, making a beeline for her and the jewel.

I was foolish to expect that to be all it took, but I still hoped.

Instead of hitting either of my targets, the beam of light power seemed to bounce off an invisible shield nearly ten feet from my adversary, shooting off into the sky in a completely different direction than I had originally intended. My shock was enough to cause me to lose my grip on the magic I had streaming through my consciousness, and I mentally scrambled to pick it up again even as my mouth began to move without my command.

"H-How did you do that?" I stuttered. There was no way she was that powerful. I had been taught when it came to magic that hypnosis, suggestion, or any form of mind control was an easy task to learn when compared to other forms of magic. Force fields, however, were on a whole other level, which brought me back to the question: How did she do that? Vayle's eyes suddenly gleamed at the uncertainty in my tone.

"Is the poor little Mage out of her league?" she mocked, her lips curling in an malevolent smirk. "Does she not know what she got herself into?"

As a matter of fact, I didn't.

Stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid! I internally berated myself. You charged into it without thinking, again! You had no idea what this crazy bitch was capable of when you challenged her!

I furiously dispatched a further three Skeletons that she sent to attack me as a cold, bone-chilling laugh rolled out of her mouth. This Necromantress was fully capable of far more than she had just demonstrated with the force field, and it was this thought that made my blood run cold. Also, said my mind softly, she hasn't entered the fray yet. She's been sending useless minions she can afford to lose.

Does that mean she's testing my limits?... Seeing my potential?

It seemed so.

"There's no point in giving me monsters that are easily taken care of," I dared. I wanted to face her once and for all, and get this fight over with. My fury and rage was beginning to rise again, and I needed something or someone to take it out on—fast. Preferably, her. "I don't think you're powerful enough to fight me head on! Or are you just a coward?"

The last word made Vayle's head snap up, and the half-conjured spell in her hand withered away. Barely concealed wrath tumbled around in her eyes, and I began to understand how she had become so successful in Necromancy. There was a certain determined light in her eyes (if a bit terrifying) that I couldn't help but admire.

"If there is any doubt in your mind," she said quietly, somehow drawing herself up even taller, "I highly suggest you banish it now." Nearly visible waves of power rolled off of the area where she and the jewel were, and I almost thought I could feel them on my skin. They made my heart accelerate, and my breaths come faster. A primal sort of fear was quickly making itself known in my brain, and all of the outer signs that Vayle was giving off just said that this chick was dangerous.

Oh, fuck.


Hey, we hit 100 pages on here! YAY!

Ahem.

Chapterly advice…

Find a serene, content setting that's moderately quiet, then turn on some music if that's what helps you think. A peaceful background often assists your story-writing skills, and makes it easier to come up with words to put on the page.

So, right now, I'm nibbling saltwater taffy while watching a pretty sunset outside the window, listening to the waves… it's peaceful.