TBATE| The Demon of Elshire

Chapter 18 - The Dragon and the Phoenix

Firae Wykes Pov

I was forced to sit out of most of my classes for the rest of the day following my duel with Theodore. 

At some point during the next day, we held a DC meeting when all of the sudden an explosion rang throughout Xyrus Academy.

We all rushed outside to see what had happened only to find out that the Tri-Union Hall had gone up in flames.

Shooting a nervous glance at my fellow DC officers, I quickly got to work putting out the fire with my unique ability to manipulate existing flames. I was working so efficiently in facts, that I was even doing more than some of the water affinity professors.

As I was hard at work putting the flames out I noticed some professor with a receding hairline shoot me a dirty glance, but I didn't think much of it. Humans were like that sometimes. 

Eventually though, with the combined efforts of the DC committee, a few brave students, and the various professors, we had miraculously avoided catastrophe.

With that, I left the scene a bit rattled all things considered, but nothing major transpired other than Theo accusing Charles Ravenpor of being affiliated with the terrorists. 

Honestly, I didn't blame Theo, Charles was an utter shithead however, we had no proof so we couldn't exactly do anything about it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You sure you don't want to join us, Kai?" Claire asked.

"Those insane cultists are going to launch a full-scale assault soon. We need to keep ourselves prepared for battle," Curtis added.

"I've been out scouting all day so I think any more training today will be more harmful than good." Kai waved off our concern and fiddled with the barrier artifact.

"Sorry, I'm late!" Doradrea shouted as she barged into the training room, tripping over something and falling, scattering all the mana-resistance bands across the ground.

Picking up one of the bands, Curtis spoke, "Are you trying to make us waste all of our mana training with these things when an actual battle might start soon?"

I drowned out the conversations of everyone around me and ran through some stretching drills with Arthur in the corner. I had to agree with Curtis, I didn't want to waste any mana when some sort of attack could happen at any moment. I was especially on edge ever since the Alea incident and the harassment toward Elves and Dwarves didn't exactly ease my nerves.

Soon, Kai activated the barrier and it shone with a dull red color that reminded me of my own eyes.

"Kai, I think there's something wrong with the barrier, shut it down!" Curtis yelled, pounding against it with his fist.

Before Arthur or I could think of a solution to get out, Theodore's fist smashed into the barrier, but nothing happened. 

Eventually, Claire located the emergency power switch, but we were suddenly attacked from behind.

Leaping into action, Arthur shielded us from the attacks. Theo and Kathlyn hurriedly joined in to help him and we all took up defensive positions to protect ourselves against the group of assailants that were running straight at us.

"Get in formation! This is not a drill!" Claire shouted. The sole conjurer of the group, Kathlyn, took the rear as the rest of the officers rushed forward.

After thinning out the herd a bit, we realized that these attackers were simply a diversion meant to keep us here as long as possible. As Arthur and I rushed everyone out, the two of us opted to stay behind to cover them.