Vengeful Spirits

Chapter 10: At A Loss

" So... Which tower is next?" Charles asked, still shirtless.

" Charles," Haela began, " you should put a shirt on, that wound is gross looking..."

" But, if Hannah gives me my shirt, then she'll have no shirt... Hang on... That's actually a good thing!" the white

haired thief commented, getting smacked in the head by Hannah.

I couldn't help but stare to the back of the group, at Jeremy and Ryu. Mainly at Jeremy, as he stared downward. Suddenly

he shuddered as if he sensed something. He quickly looked up to catch me watching him, and glared at me, with a sneer on his

face. I looked away quickly, then looked back at him again. He was still looking at me, and when I looked back this time, he

seemed to lose it.

He brought up his hand, and drew his sword, snarling at me. Before I knew it, I was using my own sword to block Jeremy's

attacks. The guy seemed as though he was enraged about something, but I hadn't done anything to him...

" James... This is it... I WILL KILL YOU!" he roared, and swung as hard as he could at me.

" What the hell are you doing?!" I cried, blocking another blow that knocked my sword right out of my hand.

" DIE!" he caught me across the head with the blunt part of his sword and knocked me off my feet.

Luckily, he had made the mistake of knocking me right next to my sword, which I quickly grabbed and charged. Everyone

else stared in shock, seemingly unable to do anything. I sliced at him with all my strength and managed to hit. I cut right

across his abdomen and saw blood spill out. He yelled in agony, and collapsed in a shivering heap.

" Are you about done?" I growled at him, still pointing my blade at his shuddering, wounded body.

" I'm far from done you fool..." he looked up at me, blood trickling out of his mouth, and his eyes full of hate, " You

will pay for that..." He started to get up, stumbling slightly, but he managed himself to his feet. He laughed lowly in his

throat, a laugh that sent chills up my spine and warned me he was up to something. The look on his face suggested this

something would end both of our lives, but he didn't seem to care. He smirked, and pulled out a small pouch. He opened the

thing, which poured out an aqua light. Reaching his fingers into the pouch, he pulled out a small, blue crystal. It was the

source of the light, and it shone brilliantly.

" What the heck is that?!" Ryu cried.

" This, my dear Ryu, is a shard from Aqua Tower's crystal. When the crystal was first engulfed with light, a few

fragments fell, correct?" Jeremy began, and she nodded, " This crystal contains some of the pure elemental energy of water

itself, and you know that my element is water. If I were to stick the crystal into any part of my body like this..." he drove

the crystal into his wound, " Then all my wounds would be healed..."

Suddenly Jeremy was engulfed with the crystals aqua light, and none of us could look at it due to the brightness. When

the light faded, he was the same, but his wounds were gone, and his eyes glowed a brilliant aqua.

" What was that supposed to do? You're still going to lose!" I yelled, " SUPER NOVA!" I blasted my attack at him and

waited for it to obliterate him...

However, he simply held up his hand and the Super Nova reflected back at me in a focused stream of white light. I dodged

it quickly and stared in horror.

" Did I mention I'm also a thousand times more powerful now?" He grinned wickedly, and shot a blast of ice at me that

blew me back into a tree... And rendered me unconcious...

~

" So... Now what?" I asked my friends. We were stuck, James-less, fighting this moron, and we knew full well we were

going to lose.

" I say, Hannah, we either run or die. Not much choice." Joseph spoke up.

" And I say we run like mad fools!" Charles cried and turned to take off on us.

" Not a chance, imbocile!" Jeremy grabbed him and pummeled him face-first into the ground.

" Ow... SCREW YOU!" Charles snarled at him, jumping up and swinging his fist at him.

Unsurprisingly, this just lead to Jeremy turning him into a block of ice with a simple touch. He turned to face us all,

or atleast the rest of us.

" Who's next?" he hissed, his expression slowly switching to a smirk as his hands turned into two swords of ice.

" Knock it off Jeremy!" Haela yelled at him, " Thunder Storm!" The sky went dark and grey, and about ten bolts of

lightning blasted the ground where Jeremy was standing. The smoke cleared and we all gazed at the hole and nothingness. And

then we pretty much lost all hope when Joseph spotted him hovering above it, probably because he was laughing at us.

" You fools! That was pathetic! I'd expect you'd be able to atleast make a scratch... Give it up and die, there's no

hope!" One of his blades became a hand again and he grabbed Haela. He was ready to slice her throat when Ryu spoke up to him.

" Jeremy, let her go..." she was looking at the ground.

" My enemy commands me?" he questioned, a venom lacing his words.

" Not your enemy, your ally... I choose to join the winning side... Yours..."

" What are you doing Ryu?!" I cried, she shot a glare back at me.

" Doing what was meant to be done long ago, I'm joining the darkness, it's where I belong." she walked over to Jeremy,

and drew her axe at us. " Let's go, it's time to die."

" Ryu, we will have to fight you, you do realize that..." Haela brought it up to her, but she didn't accept.

" Bring it on." She lunged at me, knocking me back. Haela ran to my side as Ryu and Joseph were fighting. He managed to

pry the axe from her and throw it away. I looked at where Jeremy was and where we were, and began to realize that Ryu was

leading us away from him. I was starting to see her plan.

" You're going down Ryu!" Joseph took a swing at her, but she blasted him away with flames and she ran back to Jeremy.

" Shall we finish them together?"

Jeremy cocked his head to the side at her, " No, I'll finish them... And you..."

" But I thought..." she started, but he simply sliced her out of his way.

" You thought wrong." he stormed toward us.

She lay on the ground, her blood pooling around her. The wound wasn't enough to kill, but it was going to hurt.

" Without any further distractions, you're all going to die now." he looked really angry now, " FROZEN DOOM!"

The sky darkened and a flurry of snow fluttered down. It then became a blizzard and it blasted right at us. Some of the

snowflake clusters grew into massive chunks of ice, and it all rained our way. This was it, we were finished.

" Storm of Fury!" a voice called out. Lightning rained down and shattered the ice and the wind changed its direction.

The bulk of the storm blew back Jeremy's way.

" Ahh, but what's this?" Jeremy held up a hand and halted the snow and ice. The wind and lightning didn't even faze him.

He glared our way, but not at us. He was glaring at a boy behind us.

" Your goal is to kill your friends? What sick kind of person are you?!" the boy asked him, and he sounded irritated.

" Ha! These fools are not my friends! I have no friends, and no need for them!"

" yet something inside you is telling me you care about these people greatly. After all, it's a struggle for you to

merely strike them."

" I'll kill you for that remark!" Jeremy swung his ice blade, but missed.

" You couldn't kill anyone. You would not have missed had you have been capable of killing me, especially as a still

target."

" I..."

" You want to fight? Come on." he drew his sword. It was a katana, and he looked ready to hack Jeremy's head off with

it. He was clad in a short-sleeved black tunic, and camouflage pants. The boy was quite tall, and his chin-length

sand-coloured hair was partially covered by a black hat. His eyes, oddly enough, had an eerie yellow glow to them.

" I'll gladly slit your throat." Jeremy snarled as he lunged at him.

Their blades clashed, ice on metal. I expected Jeremy to easily throw him back, but their strength was... even? That's

when I noticed the yellow glow in his arm.

" Of course," I thought aloud, " he has a shard from the Aer Tower!"

" He does!" Charles piped up.

" Yeah..." Joseph stated bluntly, " Wait a minute, Charles?!"

" A lightning bolt freed me from the ice..." he smiled slightly, then he actually looked serious. " They look about

evenly matched... While Jeremy is distracted by our friend here, Hannah and I will sneak up behind him on his right, and

Haela and Joseph will sneak up on the left... After that, I'll freeze him, Hannah will use Frozen Death, Haela will do a

Thunder Storm, and Joseph will enshroud him in darkness!"

" Charles, you have a brain?" I questioned jokingly.

" Indeed, now shall we?"

" Let's." Joseph said as he and Haela went left, and Charles an I went right. We managed to sneak up and we unleashed

our plan.

" Time Freeze!"

" Frozen Death!"

" Thunder Storm!"

" Shadow Viel!"

We followed through with the plan and it worked. Jeremy was frozen, and open for the boy to finish.

" Storm of Fury!" the boy called, and the power sent Jeremy flying right through the trunk of a tree. We avoided the

falling wood, and watched him get back up.

" You... will... PAY!" he flared up a brilliant aqua colour and water began erupting from the ground. A blizzard began,

and ice was flying everywhere. " DIE!!!"

The ice exploded on the ground and shards flew everywhere. The Aer guy was trying his best to zap the ice apart with his

lightning bolts, but a few pieces got through, which Charles fended off with a Spirit Viel.

Jeremy was freaking out and blasting ice everywhere. Each blast was stronger than the previous one, and were starting to

cause a massive amount of destruction.

I saw Ryu get up and make her way, crawling, over to him.

" Jeremy... Stop..." he stopped throwing ice, but didn't stop his storm. His attention was diverted to her.

" I know you're not going to listen to me, but I'm begging you to stop. Haven't you done enough?! You're trying to kill

people that you care about. Why? Why would you do that?" She got up and stared into his glowing eyes. You couldn't really see

his eyes, but you could tell her was staring at her, and listening. " Just stop it..." She started crying. Ryu embraced

Jeremy with one arm while keeping the other at her side. Then I saw what she had been planning all along.

Her hand wandered to her belt and she clutched one of her throwing knives. In one swift movement, she sliced open his

abdomen and, using the tip of the blade, popped the shard out of him.

He shrieked in agony. He fell to his knees clutching his stomach, the blood flowing through his fingers.

" Sorry Jeremy." Ryu picked up the crystal. " I'm sorry it had to come to that."

" Ryu..." he choked, looking up at her. " I'm sorry... I shouldn't have been a fool... I will die now. Before I die...

Before you leave me... I wanted to tell you that... I love you... I really do... And I'm sorry... Please, all of you, leave

me to die..." he fell unconcious and his blood stained the grass around him.

Ryu's eyes teared over and she knelt beside him. The weird Aer guy from before walked over and knelt down as well. He

put his fingers on Jeremy's neck, and spoke.

" His pulse is healthy, he'll be just fine. Don't worry. Just get some bandages for him, and keep him tied up incase he

freaks again." he declared.

It felt better knowing all life had been spared, but as I looked around, I thought aloud once again. " Where's Haela?"

" Yeah where'd she go?" Charles looked as well, and then he went pale, " Oh... no..." He rushed to the side of another

fallen form.

Haela was dead. Her eyes were slashed underneath, and her wrists were slit. Obviously she had bled to death. A knife lay

on the ground beside her with a note. The note read: 'I'm sorry... I couldn't take the angst of all this fighting any longer.

Please forgive and forget about me...'

" So this is how it ends..." James had woken up, and he was the next to kneel. He was sobbing beside Haela and

eventually all of us except Jeremy and the strange boy were grieving. The boy did pay his respects though, so we offered to

him that he could stay with us, and quite frankly, he seemed glad to accept.

~

And so my best friend is dead... I can't believe this. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were all children,

playing; just James, Haela, Jeremy, and myself. And now all our fighting has lead to this destruction.

I feel sick, as if I'm about to heave every last bit of my heart onto the ground at any second. Why does everything have

to go bad for me. This whole quest has brought nothing but death and pain. Please tell me all of this isn't happening.

Pretty well all we did was grieve in our tents most of the night. We had set up camp in a small clearing that was

nearby. I couldn't really sleep though. Jeremy wasn't having a problem with sleep, as he seemed dead tired. The crystal must

have zapped his strength, because whenever he awoke, he just fell asleep again. All I could hear, was the sound of James,

Joseph, Charles and the boy who refused to tell us his name, digging the hole for Haela's body.

At this point I did what most people would do. I broke down sobbing on Jeremy for the rest of the night...