Black Robes

Jason: She's Too Stubborn.

An hour later Piper and I stopped at a rock to rest. I was exhausted and my magic was running low.

Piper actually saved my ass with her element just now, but it drained a lot from her..

So far we have come across: 2 bears, 3 earth quakes, 3 more chasms, a magic made ogre, 12 other magic made soldiers-Let me just say Piper can fight with just a plank of plywood. Damn-, 4 vultures, 3 poisonous snakes, and just now we came across the evil fairy horde.

Now I saved Pipers ass most of the time, but she did do well with physical combat, and that girl can fight. She did much better than I had expected her to do.

When we were being chased by over 100 fairies just now, who were gaining on us fast, Piper managed to summon water and soak the fairies, so they couldn't fly. But I did manage to create a sword and disintegrate them. Since they were magic made they just turn to dust.

So now we're leaning against a rock to take a break.

"How long has it been since we entered the Forest?" Piper pants out.

I check my arm band and see its been two hours.

"Two hours."

"ONLY TWO HOURS! You're kidding me! It has to be more than two hours!" I laugh at Piper's freak out, but I agree with her.

I push away from the rock, grab her hand, and pull her off. She groans and stumbles into me. I notice her wince and glance down at her legs. I also notice that she's favoring her right ankle and that her pants are bled through there.

"Oh shit, what happened Kitten?"

"Uh, no-nothing. I'm fine. Let's go." She moves to take another step but falls when she puts weight on her ankle. She lets out a curse under her breath when I catch her. I carefully lower her to sitting position on the ground.

I roll up the bottom of her pants and see her sock is soaked through with blood. She frowns but doesn't say anything. I lower her sock until the full wound is revealed.

"Oh Kitten, what did you do?" I turn her ankle slightly and she winces again.

"I just scratched it when I fell down running from the fairies. It's fine, we have to keep going Jason. We're so close! I can feel it, I can hear it! Don't you hear it too?"

I shake my head at her and respond.

"No I don't hear it, and we gotta take care of your ankle first. You're not ok, your ankle's nearly broken, the bone is fractures, and the wound is so deep you're losing too much blood."

"Don't use your magic! I'll be fine."

"Kitten I swear if you don't let me heal you I will hold you down and force you to drink the potion."

She sends me a glare but stops squirming so much. I carefully take hold of her ankle and say the casting for mending a bone. It heals the cut a bit so that it stops bleeding, but there is probably gonna be a scar.

"There, was that so bad?" I feel a headache take over and I know I used up a lot of my magic. I could always resort to pain casting, but I don't want to unless its necessary.

"You're weaker now. It IS that bad."

I laugh and pull her up. She carefully tests the weight on her ankle and doesn't wince. She smiles and thanks me.

"No problem" I reply with a smile of my own.

"Now let's go. You'll have plenty of time to hurt yourself later". She rolls her eyes but follows me.

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A couple hours later both of us hear the River. We have new bruises, scars, cuts, and we're both exhausted. I managed to not use up all my magic and we both went total combat as much as possible. 

"We're almost there Kitten, just keep going." Piper was hurt much more and refused to let me heal her with any amount of magic. She had twice as many scratches, bruises, cuts, and she was bleeding quite a bit from her arm. 

She shoots me her middle finger as she trudges slightly behind me. In the distance I see the river.

"Look, there it is. Are you up to making a run for it?"

"Oh yea I'm just dandy here Jason!" She snorts at that but then nods. I take her hand and she starts to pull away, but then just leaves it be. 

I start off jogging and she matches my pace, although I can tell its harder for her now than it was in the beginning.  

We break through the edge of the forest and she falls right into the river with a scream.

I burst out laughing as Darrien hurries over. I help her out of the river and she lets out a small growl in my direction as I continue to shake with laughter. 

"Congratulations.  You two are the only ones to make it out of the forest , and everyone else has already used their vile's. Now let's get you guys healed up while I explain what will happen next for the battle." Darrien motions for the healers to come heal us and they get to work. The healers give us revival brews to refuel our magic and strength, then they start to heal us as he continues.

"Since I am very well aware of the fact that you, Jason," He says nodding to me, "Are  much more advanced in this school than Piper, there will be some changes to the fight to try to make it a bit more... fair. Now no matter what I do it will not be fair and Piper, quite frankly you dont have a chance. But either way, Jason, You'll only be allowed to use your Fire element, since Piper can only use her water for now. And you will both be using hand to hand combat with which you may pick your weapons. You will have five minutes to prepare, the fight will be right here." A rack of combat weapons appear before us and he motions to them. "Pick your weapons now and you may practice. Be ready in five minutes." Darrien turns back and walks away.

"Goodluck Kitten, you'll need it. There is no way you will win, but i'll go easy on you." I wink at her and she just sends me a glare before getting up and grabbing the 3 dagger set and a sword. She turns away, and before she jogs off, she says one last thing.

"You may win, but i'll be damned if I don't try."