Opposites: The Staff of Light [Book One]

20. Paper Runway

Annabeth

"Colton, do you think you'll be alright?" I asked, clutching my bag sleeve as Raven and Colton and I walked to our class. "I mean, if one of those guys gets one more hold of you—just you know—I swear I will kill them with fire—very literally. And are your eyes okay?  Are the contacts...?"

Colton only broke out to a grin. "Annie, you have got to relax," he said opening the door for me and Raven. We stepped inside. "You know, you worry too much. My eyes are good, thanks to you. And last night was pretty good. It's something you won't make me forget." The smile on his face relieved me. Though, something bothered me. What did he refer to last night? "Now, you're thinking which part, aren't you?"

I knew I blushed. "How did you know?"

He laughed. "Oh, come on. It isn't that easy to make you blush."

"Hey, I'm fire," I reasoned, snarling. "I'm always red."

"Well, not to me, you're not."

A new voice broke into the room. Arthur sat on the table across ours, glaring Colton with a smile as rest of his cohort mates sat behind him. "Well, what happened to your glasses, pretty boy?" he chuckled. "You were too weak to save them anyway. Oh no, wait, you were too weak, too slow."

I felt fire tingling in my veins. "You take back what you said and—"

"Annabeth," he held me down with the help of Raven. "Stop, dude, it isn't worth it." My eyes widened when I saw pages of Colton crumple into balls and levitated in the air. Like bullets, the balls struck on Arthur and the rest of his cohort, leaving them grunting and screaming. The door opened and more students poured in, but the notebook was too fast. A girl about seven even ran into the lobby, yelling for her life as three balls of paper chased her like zooming missiles. "Why are you two looking like that?"

"C-Colton..." Raven's eyes were wide with fear. She clung to my arm, watching the papers folding and zooming around. I couldn't believe Colton didn't hear the incoherent screaming.

He turned around. "Oh my—stop! Stop, I say!" But the notebook failed to listen. "I... I... They won't listen to me."

I shot a fireball at the notebook and it burned to ashes. "That stopped the pages," Raven concluded, a paper airplane flew past her head. "But the pages won't stop flying around!" Her face suddenly melted into confusion, pointing at a desk. "What the—is that a paper flower?"

"No time!" Colton cried. I could hear the frustration in his voice. "We have to stop these things!"

At his feet, little men about three inches grew from the floor. I turned to my right to see Raven summoning little shadow horses. One ate a page and it went down its throat in a silent swallow. I clenched my fists. My friends could summon little minions, why couldn't I do the same? I didn't have that talent. Suddenly, something perched on my shoulder—sharp claws and a hoot lovely to my ears. "Combust," I smiled at the owl. "You're here."

"I've been summoned," Combust hooted. "Why'd you call me?"

"We've got a major problem outside, see? I need more fire owls to help us. I need fireflies—the literal ones—and other fire flying animals." Combust flew up in the air in such grace and flaming fire red animals—little Chinese dragons (as seen during Chinese New Year), fireflies, flying fire ants, everything on fire. I even found a flying Pegasus. "Attack."

"You speak owl?" Raven asked me.

"Long story," I answered.

"How did you make the Pegasus?"

"I'll tell you later, dude. But right now—" I pointed to the air of the empty room. "—we've got a way problem ahead of us. All we have to do is destroy these pages." I looked out the windows, seeing a boy running for his life. Pages folded themselves into deeper origami. I found one extending into a paper gorilla as tall as a tree. Another seemed to be a unicorn, and though it didn't have a face, I assumed it looked angry. "And we'll need to focus outside, too."

Alice

We've been writing on our papers—as Professor Frank had said—until the door fell down. A gust of wind flew and I averted my eyes. "What is going on out there?" Prof cried frustrated. A swarm of crumpled pieces of paper—I think—barged into the room and flew all around. I glanced nervously at Tyler and he shot me the same look.

Colton unexpectedly entered the room, ignoring Jimmy. He eyed our table and glanced at the professor for excuse. As we were allowed outside, Professor Frank had been discussing something about the paper storm and all of us could use our powers to pass the pop-quiz, Mitch grabbed hold of Colton's shoulder. "What the heck is going on?" he whispered.

"I-I'll explain later," Colton said. We made our way outside as I saw flying fire animals starting pandemonium. They didn't hit any of the people, but they were burning the paper to dust. Raven passed by on a black horse (with wings?) and a black javelin in her hand. She'd been skewering the papers. She waved at us and smiled, but immediately ran off. "Right now, Raven, Annabeth and I've been trying to hold off the papers. And I've seen your professor making this a pop-quiz. And Alice, you never told me Annabeth's a splendid player for combat."

I formed my bow with ice and summoned an arrow, shooting three papers against the wall. "What do you mean by combat?" I asked. "I've never seen her get into sports before much less get out of her room a lot. The last time I saw her was a long time ago and she's never even touched a sword before."

"Well, you don't know your sister by that much. Come on, check it out." We all ran outside. I found my sister, throwing fire daggers at every page so accurately. The dagger would morph into different weapons under her control and at last, it turned into a sword and she cut off half of a giant paper gorilla. She didn't even need to cut it. The paper simply burned under the touch of the sword.

I said the smartest thing I could think of. "Woah, that is so... weird." Annabeth's back steamed and she simply burnt into flames. She looked back and I must have figured she blushed, but I couldn't tell that much to the smoke that billowed from her arms. "Hi, Annabeth, 'sup?"

She looked embarrassed. "How long have you been standing there?"

"About a few minutes or just enough time to see you battle," I gave up a mischievous grin.

Annabeth looked down, probably biting her lip like she did when some emotion inside her had been moved. "Well, you guys helping us or not?" She turned so quick and hit a paper airplane with a mini-fireball. "We've got a paper runway."