R&R plz=) Chapter 1 Invasion of Flames

As we lined up for battle, I looked at the Flamers getting ready. Why are we doing this? I thought to myself. We didn't want to fight at all. Then I turned to my friend Phoebe who seemed to be emotionally preparing for the fight. I asked her, "Are you nervous?" She turned to me and said, "If you are referring to the part where we fight the Flamers, no I'm not, but if you are talking about the end of the battle when we are defeated, yes I am." Phoebe had always been able to lighten up any topic. I wasn't sure whether that was good or bad. However, what she said was true. We were going to lose. The odds in numbers, skill and experience were against us not to mention the fact that they had many more weapons made Zenanphyr City a giveaway.

The battle was about to begin. Before it started though, Phoebe said to me, "Let's try to stick together when we start to fight."

"Agreed."

The trumpet sounded and the battle had begun. As I was running toward the Flamers, I started to position my sword into a fighting mode. There, I fought the Flamers taking them down one by one. Since I was a master sword fighter, I had an easy time with fighting Flamers. The problem was that there were too many, and not many people were as experienced as I was. My friend Phoebe was doing very well too. In only 15 minutes, she had taken down at least 5 to 10 Flamers. And as far as I could see, she was not tired. Neither was I, and I was very surprised that we were doing so well. We had practiced fighting, but we had never fought before. With all the training, I guess that we were more confident with fighting. Phoebe turned and looked at me shouting, "If we keep this up, we may be able to defeat the Flamers!" Even though she was practically yelling in my ear, I could barely hear her because of all the shouts and screams of on going fights. I replied as loud as I could, "Yea, we seem to have an easy time defeating them." For once, I felt hope for our city.

Soon after, I heard a buzzing sound coming from the sky. What was that? Could it be.? No it couldn't, that wouldn't be fair. Whether I believed what I thought was happening or not, I was right. More Flamers had come to help the already fighting crew. These Flamers, I could see, had a better build, and seemed to have more experience than the ones that we were fighting. This must be the professional army. I thought to myself not wanting to frighten Phoebe with any false alarm. They're tiring us out with inexperienced Flamers and are planning to wipe us all out with stronger ones.

The army of Flamers landed in our city, making it more crowded than ever. I tried to stay calm. Andrea, you can do this. You have easily defeated many Flamers. You'll have an easy time defeating the other Flamers as well. I knew this wasn't true. But I wanted to be more confident when I started fighting with them. Even though the battle was supposed to be ongoing, everyone had stopped fighting at the sight of the new arrivals in Zenanphyr City. However, when the Flamers drew out their weapons signaling to attack, the fighting continued on.

I too continued to take down many Flamers, some easier to defeat than others. I had to judge them by size and muscle, for I needed to save all the energy I could. During my fight, I guess a few experienced Flamers saw how I was killing so many of their men and decided that I needed to be stopped. A whole group of experienced Flamers swarmed around my friend Phoebe and me, attacking us as best they could. We tried to stop them but they were much too powerful and we were already tired from fighting the inexperienced Flamers. We took down one after another, each seeming to take longer to defeat compared to the previous one we were fighting. With our attacks getting slower and weaker at each try, our reflexes, were getting slower as well. This proved true when all of a sudden, a Flamer struck my left arm with a blow of his fist. Not only was his punch powerful, it also burned, a side effect when being punched by a Flamer. I fell down to the ground in pain, hoping that this was just a dream that would end. Being a sword master, when I had fallen down, the fight would stop. But this wasn't a game, it was a real battle, one to the finish. If they conquered us, there was no telling what they would do with us. I thought to myself, Andrea, this is no game, get up, Phoebe is counting on you. I got up and pulled myself back together. I had realized that Phoebe was very tired now from taking on all those Flamers on her own. Other Zenanpyans realized this and started to help us. They charged at them, attacking them from behind, but they were prepared, and in an instant, fought back killing many of our city members.

I was very angry with them now. Those Flamers, they pick on the smaller cities just because it guarantees that they will win. We'll show them.

Right at the start, I could have used my special ability: to shoot ice from my sword effectively defeating many Flamers at once. I didn't though. Since there were so many of them, the temperature was too high to do anything. The ice would turn to water, and it would dry on the Flamers. Seeing that there were not many options, I tried firing the ice towards the Flamers who were attacking me. As I had expected, it didn't work, and this technique also drained my energy, so I couldn't use it very often.

The Zenanphyans had done a pretty good job from attacking behind the Flamers' backs. Even though many of them were defeated in the process, the Flamers had also suffered from major injuries. They were now weaker and the Zenanphyans had taken the lead in terms of winning.

I could see that it was not over yet. The Flamers had moved to plan B. They nodded in agreement to their plan and took their positions. At once, they began blasting fire all around the city, burning everything in sight. At first, I was not sure what they were doing, but then I saw that they were trying to surround us in a ring of fire. I turned to Phoebe and said, "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to do what we did before: Fight as best we can. There's nothing else we can do."

Once again, she was right. There was nothing that we could do to prevent them from doing this. I tried to put out the flames with my ice blasts, but they were unsuccessful, the flames were coming in too fast.

Soon, I had realized that there was nothing I could do other than fight down more of the Flamers like I had done before. I was about to tell Phoebe this until I had discovered that she had already continued to fight. With my left arm weakened and bleeding, I had lost focus. The hot flames seemed to scorch my wound making it worse than it already was. Nevertheless, I knew that I had to keep fighting. I fought down Flamers taking them down one by one once again, but this time, they seemed to have the advantage over me, for every Flamer I had thought to have stricken down, got back up to fight. This proved that my attacks had gotten weaker not to mention less accurate. It was up to luck now, and it seemed to be on the Flamers' side. Their ring of fire plan had worked. With all the smoke, I could barely breathe, and I was gasping for fresh air.

"Let's head up to the mountains. The flames may not have reached up there yet." I said to Phoebe. "Phoebe?" I looked around. She was no where in sight. I tried looking for her but it was no use. The thick gray smoke had acted as a fog barrier, and I could not see anything now. As I ran to fight more Flamers hoping to defeat them, I saw them fly up into the sky. They had trapped us. There was no place to go since our city was surrounded by bottomless pit. Knowing that Zenanphyans could not fly, they knew that there was no escape for us. It was only a matter of time before we all fainted due to the lack of fresh air. As much as I wanted to look for Phoebe, I knew that there was no chance in finding her so I headed for the mountains myself.

It was a long and difficult climb. The mountaintop was a long way up. I was already halfway there, but the smoke was as bad as it was down on level ground where we were fighting. As I went up, I saw others struggle up as well, many of them with injuries. I would have helped, but knew I would only make things worse. At this state, I could barely breathe, less to ask them whether they needed help. Instead, I decided to help myself as well as the others in a different way. With the last bit of energy I had left, I used another ice blast, helping clear the path for us ahead. We knew that smoke would probably float to the top of the mountain eventually, but it was better than getting burnt to death right away.

A Flamer must have spotted us trying to get to shelter, and he cruelly attacked us. He was much more focused compared to the rest of us since he wasn't engulfed in the smoke for such a long amount of time. He started attacking a family made up of two parents and three kids. If I had been able to see them more clearly, I would have been able to tell you their names, but the smoke covered up everyone's identity. I had hidden behind a rock, trying to rest up. While I rested, I examined my injured arm more closely. It had been badly injured and it was still bleeding. Whatever the attack was, it was starting to take effect on me and also very quickly. I ripped some cloth off my sleeve and used it to bandage my arm. It wasn't too long when I heard one of the family members that the Flamer was attacking scream. Immediately, I took a look to see what was happening. There I saw that the Flamer had carelessly, without reason, wounded a child so badly, that they had fallen to the ground unconscious and bleeding severely. He laughed with a menacing grin.

I couldn't take it anymore. I had to help them. Running toward him and gasping for breath at the same time, I used my sword and struck him as hard as I could. "Why can't you pick on someone your own size for a change?" I asked him. When he had gotten back up, I saw that I had brutally injured his shoulder. It spurted with blood. "And who do you think you are?" He asked, angry as ever. I didn't answer. I was too angry to. He had almost killed an innocent child for absolutely no reason and he had gone too far. "What, can't understand English?" He asked sarcastically. I gathered my breath and decided to respond. "I'm a Zenanphyan sword master, and I will make you pay for what you did."

He smiled once again, "There's nothing you can do." I saw him start to fly away, back where it was safe. While he was flying, he signaled other Flamer warriors to attack us. I could no longer fight. I was too weak and tired. I still tried with all my might but the number of Flamers we had to fight seemed endless.

I fought with all my effort. After the ice blast I had used to clear the air, I felt very weak. The red blurred images, or what I had to assumed to be the Flamers ran towards me. I was so tired, my eyes were practically closed and I couldn't open them. The next thing that I felt were swords jabbing my side. I couldn't see who they were, but I desperately wanted to and get them to stop. When I managed to open my eyes, the first thing I saw was a fist coming right at me. My instincts told me to move away, but my body was now too weak to respond. The fist hit me and knocked me unconscious.

What a way to end, huh. If u are interested, chap 2 is coming ASAP =)