Shards of Moonlight || A Short-story Collection

Back to You - F

With a crashing, neon green flash the high-tech metal got sandwich-sliced clean in two, making the passenger ship divide. The two opposing sides broke apart while horrific screams filled the air with Titanic-terror. The crystal ball had hit the floor and shattered in a million pieces, causing the baby blue sky to cloud over. Lightning and thunder sang their united song of destruction above the innocent ferry, a casualty to alarming powers.

"No, no, NO!," Cassian clicked his tongue in discontentment. Time stopped in its tracks, it turned gray for some mere seconds hidden to the unschooled, magicless eye and the sound of a replay button sounded. With every 'no', the cloaked shadow caught the ball of heartbeat-like pulsating blue light. He caught a ship boy, having sent flying like a sandbag, in mid-air. At the last 'no' the passengers found themselves back on solid shore, staring at their unharmed hands, unable to wrap their minds around the fact that they survived the apocalypse. "Than-thank -," a boy of half a meter, maybe around four years old, tried to utter. Cassian snapped his fingers, leaving the child's mouth agape.

"You're welcome. Now if you'll excuse me," he stated quite annoyed at the unrequested gratitude. In the blink of an eye, the mysterious wizard disappeared before the eyes of the perplexed, slow-minded survivors.

"Now, now," the ageless man seemingly no older than twenty, pulled his hood back slowly, deliberately emitting bad ass vibes. "Sirius, I can see you, yakow?", he raised a mocking eyebrow, training his glacial-period blue eyes on an inconspicuous vortex distorting the air at the highest point of the now-deserted ferry. The topmast befitting a top-tier wizard, the wannabe best of his generation. A vicious seagull-laughter ridiculed Cassius who stood motionless in mid-air, awaiting. Only his evening-colored mantle, glistening and reflecting the mid-day sun, flapped gracefully in the sea-salty wind. Another flash of neon green and a man in his forties with muscles bulging under a skin-tight suit appeared in front of Cassius. Snarling Sirius bared his pointed incisors, commanding a wind to rise around his feet, creating a compass rose. The fight of the bare-eye did not last a split-second, while the ringing of powerful auras sizing each other up clashed in lightning of corny, white-yellow and poisonous chemical-waste green. The swords locked. The two opponents had not broken eye contact since Sirius had appeared and both preserved poker faces.

"Ophelia is pregnant," the bulky wizard suddenly broke into a malicious smile, catching his sworn enemy off-guard and disarming Cassius, whose sword slithered across the polished wooden deck. Seizing his chance Sirius struck, yet only hit empty air. His opponent had appeared in his back, striking him from behind with a shadow to his left side, shrouded in an emerald-green cloak and eyes hidden underneath the drooping hood.

"You know how I hate to harm team mates. Too bad you joined the dark side," Cassian breathed out steadily, before touching his palm to Sirius' chest making him go up in voracious flames. The soft breeze took the screams of immense pain with it into the bottom-less depts of the ocean. Meanwhile, a sailor-less ferry appeared on the horizon of Camellia, the moderate port town.

*****

"Always those oversized-mosquitos," Cassius rubbed his hands, then grumbled in dissatisfaction the moment he brushed off his gown and noticed the tears in his brand-new, feather-white long-sleeve shirt. "Those leeches," he swore in anger. At least his precious cloak had a self-repair function that did not take too much out of his magical stand-by mode.

"Uh, sir?", his assistant Elaine questioned quietly, "why did you not finish the wannabe Dracula off from the get-go? Usually, you do not require any assistance." Her buttercream blonde ponytail bobbed up and down during her scribbling something onto a clipboard overflowing with orderly notes. "Oh yeah, thanks for the quick save. You're getting better, Viv," he nodded toward Vivienne that pulled back her emerald-green hood to reveal an oval face rimmed with long, slightly wavy and blonde hair the same color as Elaine's and proceeded to verify the dirt she might have gotten underneath her finger nails.