Enchanter

Chapter17

The sky above was growing dark with clouds and sigils. "Well need to go." Eli spoke in a demanding tone, "They're about to do a hard reboot on this city."

"No," Cas said plainly.

"Very funny," Eli began to walk closer to him. "Now let's get going, we've already lost too much time."

As Eli touched Cas' shoulder he pulled away, "I said no." Suddenly green ribbons of light lashed outward from his hand.

Eli leaped back dodging nearly all, but still one grazed his leg. He screamed in pain as he dropped to the ground. "Fine," he whispered faintly. "You want to fight you've got one!" Suddenly he leapt up and shot at Cas like a torpedo.

Without out time to react Cas lashed green ribbons of light out at his mentor. Holding Eli back as a mandala had burst from his fist. They stood close by to each other, looking into each other's eyes.

In the mist of their stalemate Cas said, "So this is how an encoder fights?"

"No," the ribbons shattered as Eli backed away. Deftly he swiped his hand down his arm, mandalas formed quickly one after the other. "This is how I fight!"

They raced at each other swinging fiercely blocking hits way before they even made contact. Both of them refused to give up, they just kept pushing themselves further and further. Mandalas forming just as quickly as Cas shattered them. Each one of them was equal in strength and skill but slowly Eli was becoming stronger.

"You're not bad Cas," Eli swung his fist hitting Cas straight in the jaw. Instantly he flew back and smacked the wall. "There's just one problem." He picked up Cas and threw him across the alley. "I have than ability known as fatigue control." Cas was about to pick himself of the ground, but Eli kicked him down and kept him down with his foot. "I can slowly leech energy from my opponents, by contact, through their magic-"

"Through battle damage," Cas interrupted. He could feel the energy being sucked from his body. He wanted to fight back, but no longer felt the energy to move.

"Exactly," Eli wasn't smiling. He seemed pained as if he never wanted it to be like this. A screech of gears and the sound of bells was emanating from all the buildings as they began to crumble. "There's no more time." He touched Cas and suddenly they were outside of Seattle.

Cas saw as the orb of light surrounding the city imploded sending a plain of white outward. As it touched him he heard the screams of a thousand people suffering. It was gone almost as fast as it had appeared, Seattle looked as normal as any city should, but Cas knew the truth, hard rebooting didn't just wipe people's minds it literally wiped people from existence.

"Get up," Eli suggested. "We still have three more tasks to complete and four months to recover."

Cas remained unmoved, "Just because you won the fight still doesn't mean you won the argument, I'm not going anywhere with you."

Eli sighed, "Why are teenager such a pain these days?"

"Maybe it's because we're forced to grow up before we're ready." Cas drew a healing symbol on his arm. "One day we're just falling in love and the next we're forced into a world that we didn't want."

"Look Cas you just can't give up."

"Or what they'll take my powers." Cas sneered, "All I am is some sort of test to see what angelic magic can do."

Eli pulled Cas up from the ground, "Stop talking about yourself like that."

"Why like it matters."

Eli smacked Cas straight across the face. "That is not all you are."