Academy of Elements: Earth

Chapter 36: Duel of Rose & Right

My eyes adjust to the light quickly as I take in the transformed arena. Trees, bushes, streams, and rocks are piled around the arena, the other team barely visible through the foliage.I run behind a tree, seeking shelter form any opening attacks, not wanting to let them see where we were, who we were. I knew Nora had probably filled her own team in about who I was, who Jessie was, and our skill set. Anyone who watched the duels would know how powerful this team was. Leo and I are raw power, Cassian's physical fighting, Jessie and Mackenzie's determination and aggression and Chelsea's wit.
Our plan is to hide at first, let them think we were scared or not confident in their powers. Hopefully, everyone would find weapons of a sort and then we would attack at the sound of a bird chirp. Ferns surround me as I crouch behind a tree.Something shines to my right. Quietly I pick up a dagger, sheathing it at my waist. I hear the other group muttering. I had known Nora would have said to expect a large attack, I knew that as a fact, I would have said the exact same thing.
Chelsea whistles like a bird, from her outpost in the tree she would see everything. Magic blooms around me as I duck from behind the tree and send a blast of ice towards a tan-skinned girl. She does a back handspring before twirling her hands together and blasting me off my feet with a gust of wind. I slam into a tree and she swings her fist. In the mere second, I see her movement I asses how much force she is putting behind the punch and know that if she misses she would be carried by the force.Quickly I duck her tech suit scraping across the tree. I slam into her stomach and shove her to the ground. She lands in a shrub and I swing a sword of ice towards her chest. She rolls out of the way, the bush slowly her movement. Shoving leaves off of her she throws her hands towards me and I quickly swirl out of the way, dodging the attack. I kick her in the chest and she slams into a tree.
Fire fills the world as the heat hits me. I jump back, the fire extinguished once the user figures out they had missed me.
I twirl around the ice following my movement, building up momentum until it flies at the fire user, blasting him into the foliage. The air girl charges, snarling at me like an animal.
Did she have rabies?
She lashes at me with razor sharp nails, the tip of her finger carving into my cheek. Blood drips from the shallow, stinging, gash.
I kick her in the ribs slashing the air with ice. Distancing myself as much as possible ice glows on my hand brightly. Pushing both my hands forward ice meets wind, the magic essence in the air she releases turning a light gray. My ray of power meets hers and slowly dissolves her attack, eating it away. The blow hits her and she flies through the air, knocking the back of her head on a branch. I look around for any sign of the Fire user or a teammate.
A ding sounds as the girl is removed, another sounding, this one different, sounding as one of my own teammates is removed. I spot Mackenzie twirl through the air slashing a dulled sickles through the air. She strikes the boy that doubles her in stature in the shoulder. He grunts but sends a rock hurling towards my teammate.
I interfere knowing how fast the rock was moving. Ice intercepts the blow and Mackenzie smiles at me as the sickle slashes his leg. Grabbing a vine hanging from the tree swings on it to avoid a rock that blasts through the ground where she once stood. The vine snaps but Mackenzie had expected that. She takes the thick piece of vegetation and whips the boy fighting her. He jumps back the vine wrapping itself around Mackenzie's arm, tighter and tighter.
Mackenzie looks to me, asking for help, and I strike. The two of us were unstoppable. Lightning crackles when my ice disappears, the Earth boy trying his best to survive. I freeze his arms to a tree, his legs to the ground as Mackenzie jumps, straddling his neck, his body shaking as electricity floods it.
A screech rings out and I watch as Jessie's is swarmed by a blizzard of ice shards and eliminated. "Let's go!" Mackenzie calls as she runs for where Nora must stand."No!" But Mackenzie doesn't hear me and I know that Mackenzie will last maybe two more minutes before losing.Running around the arena, the spectators watching eyes wide-eyed as the fight goes on. I check the eyesight of one of Leo's friends that I had seen him with. His eyes are glued to my right. That's where Leo was.
Rushing forwards I step into an area burnt to a crisp. Cassian and Leo duel side by side facing a Water Elemental and the Fire Elemental.
Leo stands strong, fire raging around him like a storm. Cassian blocks any attack with a wall of stone punching and kicking the Water Elemental. It would be hard for either to win, Water beat Earth in most cases, but it could completely wash out fire...
The Fire girl sends spirals of fire at random, one hitting Cassian."Duck!" I shout as the Water boy encases Cassian in water. I strike the water wielder but he feints, a ding ringing out as an unconscious Cassian is flung through the air like a rag-doll. In his place, I join Leo in the fight. Flinching as another ding goes off, Mackenzie's duel with Nora costing her.
"Burn the forest down," I tell him. "Use your full extent."
He nods and retreats back as I face the Fire Elemental and Water Elemental. Fire barrels through the air towards along with water and in the nick of time, I create a sloped wall of ice, the water rushing along the wall into the fire. The Fire Elemental drenched in water now I watch as he understands the situation. The only way he could possibly win would be through physical attacks now...He runs at me as water wraps around my ankles. I freeze the water and shatter it. The crystals fly at him digging into his tech suit. He raises his hand and fire melts the ice shards. Water coils around me as I fight, a bubble slowly wrapping up to my mouth. If I froze the water I would freeze myself, where was Leo.
Fire soaks the rest of my body like water as the bubble closes around my head. I keep my mouth shut through the raging pain, using my powers to sooth the heat from the fire.The world erupts in flame as Leo strikes. A wave of fire washes through the arena distracting the two. I join his side and fight by side with the person I had called an enemy a month ago. Our ice and fire dance as he burns the world to the ground my ice tearing through tech suits and freezing over the ground. As Leo stops gasping for breath, the Water Elemental gone the fire elemental sends swarms of fire towards us. I block them easily, ready to eliminate him but alas a branch from a burning tree falls onto him. I put out the fire by simply dropping the temperature as a ding rings out. Only Nora was left.
And from the fire, she emerges. Two swords in hand, the fire dying as she goes she stalks towards us stone-faced. Leo panting, I step in front of him. She throws a small throwing knife at her side and the hilt hits his head. He is knocked unconscious and henceforth withdrawn from the duel.It was just Nora and me now. Of course, it was just us two...No pain or regret fills her face as she begins to attack, begins to dance.She twirls through the air, ice flying through the world. I create shields of ice around my arms, blocking the blows swiftly. I lunge at her striking with the dagger I had sheathed at my side at the beginning of the fight. The weapon catches her off guard and she flips back and in doing so kicks me in the face. The floating blocks of ice she had used to support the blow fade into nothing as I rally my powers again. A ball of ice flies from my hand, hitting her in the chest. She rolls in on herself as the frigid temperature sinks through the suit.
She twirls around kicking and punching me with as much ferocity as she can. She wasn't giving up. She grabs my arm, twisting underneath my punch and dropping to the ground as I send a small slash of ice her way. I jump over her feet as she slides them beneath me. She slides around me, springing from the ground. Nora goes to kick for my side and I bring my arm up to block it.She slaps me across the face and I stop to stare at her. Those endless diamond eyes pull me in.
Memories fill the air like mist the world stopping momentarily as I think back to my first time seeing Nora.
Two students come from behind Aneltt. One, a boy strong like he was made of iron, his hair a charcoal sweep. Two, a girl of beauty. Her hair is short and flowing like the wind and the colour of chocolate. Her eyes are twinkling diamonds and her smile non-existent and I can't help but notice that her body is in just as good as shape as Ella's, Aira's, or Haley's.
Pain flashes through me as she kicks. I twirl back and kick her, ice trailing the movement and barreling into her as more memories fill the world. Stepping down the stairs I sit at the bottom step. An outline sits on the fountain rim."Nora?" I question. She twists around sending a blast of Ice at me. The blast throws me into the wall I lean against. I stand, the hoar frost on my shirt making my chest ache. She blasts the ice off of me as I sit down beside her.
"What do you want?" She asks standing up and twisting around to face me. Her eyes are red.
"I- couldn't sleep," I say standing.She rolls her eyes walking away and up to her door.
"Sorry," I say.
She turns around. "Just stay out of my way Jaxon."
"What's your problem with me Nora?"
"I've been raised hate you. My grandparents and parents both support Darkness, what he will do to our kind."
"Your kind?"
"Death Hunters dumb ass." She growls. "Our blood runs differently than yours. Ours is black, and we have been shunned from most of the magical society. And if you freaking kill him then all of us will be executed, the last group, fifty thousand people dead, this time it will more.
"How did your parents survive?"
"They hid." She says slowly.
She turns around with a sad smile and turns into her room.
This time pain fills me again, but not from a blow. I duck under Nora's sword, my dagger meeting her twin blades mid-air. We stare each other down as metal wines against metal, I stare into her eyes, anger, sadness, loss, lost hope is all I see. A tear slides down her cheek and something in me breaks as more memories fill me.
I watch her silently. Her body shakes with such ferocity she could be having a seizure. She jumps. I lunge forward grabbing her hand. She sways dangerously from the cliff.
"I don't want to die." She sobs and screams. I pull her up her face a mess, painted with tears. Tucking her into my broad chest she sobs, her breathing like a drum, loud and endless.
"What did I do?" I whisper to her as she clutches onto me.
"Everything." She responds. She sits up and tells me everything.
Her lips part in an angry scream and she lets go of her swords completely sending me tripping forward. She slides her leg under mine and I hit the dirt. I didn't want to hurt her. I loved her... I love her...
"Please forgive me," I whisper."I forgive you Jaxon."
She whispers back to me, those words like the rising sun of a new day. "Letting you go was the hardest thing I've ever had to do."
"Then don't let me go again," I tell her.
She lays beside me her hand cold in mine. Her fingers tangled in my own, grasping onto this evanescent moment, trying not to let it slip away. The grass grazes my neck as I look upon the night sky. It was an endless abyss, the stars, the hope in a nightmare.
The memories flood from me.
I wish I hadn't done it, left her for fear she would be hurt. I... I wish... I wish that we could go back to those days on the cliff and watch the stormy sea.
My dagger slices through a blast of ice and quickly she runs at me. As she does her signature move, creating blocks of floating ice to dance across I blast a wall up in front of her. She twists sideways landing careful. I shatter the ice and sending it flying for her. She ducks behind a fiery tree, the flames swallowing the fragments.
Fire burns around us as ice is exchanged back and forth. I was more powerful than her but she knew me, knew every single thought and move I would do... except one...
I slide under a slash of ice and run at her copying what she had done seconds ago. I twirl my hand and a platform of ice appears which I jump upon, creating another, and another until I throw myself over her. I twist and flip through the air sending a ray of ice towards my former lover.
She swiftly throws the blasts away as I land and two beacons of light meet. Blinding light fills the arena, the stands as our magics roar against each other. Such passion and power...
Her lips touch mine, gently, shyly. She tasted of the first rain of summer, so very delicate and pure. As she pulls back I stare into her eyes. They had been so empty a few hours ago, but now they were full, so pure, she was ice so fierce it burned, so hot it was heaven. As she smiles something in my heart blossoms. She kisses me again, every ounce of pain, suffering, and fear shared between us. This was bliss, this was fear, this was love.
Her mouth opens to mine and I taste tentatively, my tongue grazing her bottom lip. As her tongue caresses mine I pull her in tighter. She was a flower, its petals the definition of beauty, its perfume like wine, so easy to get drunk on. Her hands tangle in my hair, grasping onto me, not letting me go. She would never have to let go of me again. Our tongues dance to the sound of our heartbeats and I realize something.
Sometimes when you find that one person, kissing isn't just the act of love; it is the act of healing as well.
My ray of light blue power over takes her... She knew I would win if it came down to this... she...
A simple twirl away and she creates a wall of ice, my powers ramming into it. She shatters the wall, the ice crystals becoming needles and sends them flying towards me. As fire and fury burn around us, as heat scorches the world and broken love shatters stars, diamonds pelt my skin, one slicing into my chest despite the armor. It creates a jagged line across my heart and when the attack stops Nora stands a foot away from me, close enough to kiss.
Tears coat her cheeks, like they coat my own.
"I loved you."
Loved. Not love. Loved.
And the world goes black as the words melt my heart and her fist meets my face. 

This chapter made me cry while writing it! I don't usually cry when writing unless it's really emotional, but alas, this chapter did just that.

Question of the Chapter:

What book have you cried to?

(The only book I have cried while reading is A Monster Calls)