The Fifth Element

“No!” I shouted when Violet disappeared around the corner. I struggled against Shirley and Hampton, but they had an iron grip on me. A vision flashed before my eyes suddenly, and I got a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. My visions usually came to me within flames of a fire, and when they didn’t it usually meant something big or bad was going to happen(ed), my guess was it was something awful. Sure enough, a horrifying scene of Violet’s body slumped lifelessly against an orb of glowing with orange light appeared before my eyes. Her body was tangled in orange vines which were also glowing with an orange light. A black hole crackling with blue lightning hovered in the space just above her head, and to my alarm, it looked like it was growing bigger.

I knitted my eyebrows together while I figured out what I was looking at.. Something about the scene seemed all too familiar to me, but what was it? I felt like something in my memory had been blocked.

That hole was some teleportation magic, like Shirley’s special wind type but on a much larger and sinister scale, but where did that portal lead? That question I had no idea what the answer would be, but I did know I wanted to get Violet away from that thing and fast.

I let my body go slack, and I fell halfway to the ground. I heard Hampton swear softly under his breath and they slowly lowered the rest of the way down, “How powerful was that amulet you put on him, Shirley!? Look at him!” He snapped.

I felt her lean closer to me and her fingers brushed against my cheek “Not strong enough to make him pass out like this,” she replied in her high pitch voice, which I always found so annoying. I had never had liked Shirley, and it was the same way on the other side of the fence.

I had always felt that there was something slightly off about Shirley since I met her all those years ago, but I could never quite pin it. She had been on of the other trainees in our training class, back when Amber and I had been getting certified to become personnel at the school. She had always resented the fact that we had been so much younger than her, and able to compete with her at her level. At the time I had been 17 and Amber had only been 15. Everyone else in there, including Shirley, had been at least twenty or twenty-one. We had been chosen out of many contenders, for our exceptional skills in combat and elemental magic. It probably didn’t help that I had beaten her seven out of the ten times we had sparred, that and she was a complete royal bitch.

Hampton slapped my face, but I gave him no response. He groaned in annoyance. “We are going to have to carry him to the holding cell.” Hampton’s released his grip on my arm, and I heard him begin to shuffle towards my feet.

Without a second hesitation, I reached up with my free arm and grabbed Shirley. In one fluid motion, I pushed her hands off of me and with my now free another hand, I ripped the magic inhibitor amulet away from around my neck. I found Shirley’s face with that same hand and splayed my fingers across her face, letting lose my magic onto her skin. The hallway instantly filled with the putrid sank of burning flesh, and I felt her face begin to melt away under my touch. It took all I had not gag at the feeling. Don’t get me wrong, I had burned many people in the past, but never while touching them directly.

Shirley howled in pain and toppled over backward, wrapping her arms around her face and curling up into a tight ball on the stone floor. For a second I almost felt bad for what I had just done to her, but it was only a brief second. I pictured myself blanking out suddenly, and coming to reality, only to find Violet was no with me, but being dragged down the hall and away from me. My anger was renewed, if they hurt her I was going to cook them all alive!

Hampton was ready for when I jumped to my feet. He ripped a couple of stones out of the wall with his magic and hurled them at me. I dodged them, then threw a blast of fire in his direction, which he raised a stone wall to block.

He pushed the wall at me, and I aimed my hands at the floor, using my fire to propel me up and over the wall coming at me. I hit the ground and did a somersault, before propping up on one knee and shooting another blast of fire at him. Hampton dodged it by flipping backward and twisting his body in the midair, show off. He landed and smirked at me, and I scowled back at him, cocky bastard.

I winced when I felt a tearing pain coming from the wound I had received from Danny. Vivian had done a good job at healing it, but it wasn’t completely healed yet.

That smirked dropped however when the hallway began to shake. The shaking became more and more violent, and I lost my balance. I fell to the ground and looked up to see Hampton had fallen too. We both stared at each other as if silently asking one another it the other was causing the shaking.

With no warning, the other wall ripped away, and I caught a glimpse of talons digging into the black stone, dragon talons, large, brown dragon talons. Could it be!? A stray rock hit Hampton directly in the middle of his temple, and his head fell back onto the ground. He went still, but I knew he wasn’t dead. He was too evil to die that easily. I turned my head towards the newly clasped wall. “John!?” I breathed out in relief when I saw him on Frog’s back. John pulled back his hood, revealing his golden mane of hair and a pair of blazing gold eyes.

He frowned at me “Sorry, I’m late I had to do some more investigating first to see if any of what you said was true.”

I tried not to let any of the hurt that he had not trusted me right off the bat show on my face. Why had the old son of a banshee doubted me for even a second? He had been the one who had helped raise my sister and me after our parents had died and we had been taken in by the school. He probably knew me better than anyone else, even Amber. He had been the one who had given me Nessie.

(Flash back)

Neeva paced back and forth looking very upset, and I could completely understand his feelings. I, myself was standing on the edge of the cliff repeatedly calling out Violet’s name over and over again, even though I knew it was useless, she couldn’t hear me anymore.

What the hell was she thinking!? She was going to get herself killed! The thought of seeing her dead made me physically sick. Trolls, I cared about her more than I had originally thought.

I turned towards Vivian, who was looking after Violet and my dragon in dismay. “What the hell do we do now?!” I asked her.

She pinched the bridge of her nose with her middle and pointer finger, “Ask me the question again in an hour, and I might have an answer for you,” she said. But we didn’t have an hour, we had minutes.

I looked behind me alarmed when Vivan’s eyes suddenly widened, and she got into a defensive pose. Rising above us was a massive brown dragon, so big that it dwarfed all other dragons, Frog.

“John!” I yelled waving my hands back and forth before he could rain fire down on us. I hadn’t been happier to see that man in my entire life.

“Henry!?” John said, clearly surprised and lowered Frog down, until he was at eye level with me. He looked at me with a questioning look, his blonde hair blowing in the wind.

“Oh it’s you, I should have known from the start!” Vivian said, crossing her arms and turning away. She had known him longer than I had.

“It’s good to see you’re okay Vivian,” John said, and I knew he meant it. He was in love with her and had been for years, even though Vivian acted like she didn’t have a clue about his true feelings. Personally, I thought Vivian was a stupid broad when it came to men. I still hadn’t gotten why she had picked Hampton over John, nor will I ever get it in this life time. “But I’m afraid I’m here to take you into custody,” he finished. John was a man of duty before all else, which was honorable at times, and a pain in the neck to others. This was one of the times that it was a pain in the neck.

“Let me explain what’s happening, but I’m going to have to do it over a wind whisper, but first your prey went that way,” I pointed in the direction Violet had flown off with Nessie in. John turned and looked in that direction.

A hand grabbed the front of my shirt, and my feet were lifted an inch off the ground. Two dark purple eyes, that looked so much like Violet’s, burned into mine. “What do you think you are doing man child !?” he growled. “So you’re a traitor after all!?” If it had been anyone else grabbing my shirt, I would have hit them, but since it was Violet’s dad, not to mention he had once wiped out an entire army all himself, I refrained.

“Henry, it looks like some of my men have spotted her already,” John said, pointing to a swarm of dragons flying after the speck that was Violet. John was captain of the dragon division of the army. I squinted when I saw a bright flare of light up the sky. What was that idiot doing!?

Neeva let go at me and stared after the dragons pursuing his daughter.

“Go, but do not hurt her or I will kill you!” I said and pointed at him.

John looked at me and pulled the hood on his uniform up over his head, “I’m going to need that explanation asap,” he said and sped away without another word on Frog.

After he was gone I cleared my throat, “Mr. Jaywing,” I said calmly, and Neeva looked at me, “I’m not betraying you or your daughter. John is the person I trust most in the world, and she is going to get captured anyway, so I rather it be him that does the capturing. Neeva looked at me skeptically, but I didn’t have time to argue with him at the moment.

I faced Frogs and John’s disappearing figures, they were already so far away. I had forgotten how fast Frog could fly despite his size.

I brought out a wind catcher I had kept hidden in my pants pockets, and begin forming an explanation on it from start to finish, including the part about Amber, before whispering John’s name on its surface and sending it away. I got an answer back almost immediately.

John; “I’ll look into it, but in the meantime pretend that you’ve captured Vivian and that other fellow with you. If what you said is true about Amber, then I will retrieve her promptly. Break this mirror when you’ve finished receiving this.”

“Alright John,” I said to myself, and burned the wind catcher in my hand,” I leave Violet to you.”

(Present)

“Hurry up! We don’t have much time!” John said. The wind from Frogs wings blew my hair away from my face.

“I know that,” I said, and backed up against the opposite wall and took a running start and leaped into the empty air and onto Frogs back, wincing again when another tearing pain came from my chest. “Let’s go!” I said and then thought, Violet I’m coming for you as I promised, so hang on a little longer, please! Don’t die on me!