Oberi gave a horse-like cry that sounded like a scream. She reared on her hind legs to throw sand in my face. She galloped in a circle around me, and I felt Ava’s power growing, ready to use it against me.
Enemies to lovers back to enemies. Why did I think our tragic love story would turn out any different? I wasn’t going to take her life, but if I had to hurt her in order to stop this, I would. I steadied myself, preparing to fight again.
Thewhooshof roaring flames incinerated the area, though instead of being hot, it was cool. My Air magic noticed a swirling vortex coming straight toward me, one that extended toward the sky and met up with the clouds. Ava had created a tornado made of blue Fire and sent it spinning my way!
I immediately took to the skies to dodge it. I flew around the tornado, sweeping in a circle to avoid the cyclone’s path. I struggled to resist it, forcing the wind currents to obey me asAva’s blue Fire reached out for my limbs. Her flames singed my clothes and made frostbite pop up along my skin, and I gasped in pain. The cyclone’s power nearly ripped me into the sky, until I stopped running and turned to face it. I shot out a gust of Air that was so powerful it knocked the twister sideways, taking the energy out of it. The tornado disintegrated, though traces of Ava’s blue Fire still burned in the air and all around me.
Ava was galloping below me on Oberi, but now that the cyclone was gone, she was temporarily exposed. I conjured illusion magic using my Elven abilities and followed my bond to take aim. Shackles sprung out of the sand and locked onto her wrists and ankles, yanking her off of Oberi and pinning her to the sand. I landed, holding the illusion spell in place so the shackles remained tight.
Oberi let out a screech, but Ava merely laughed. “Nice handcuffs, Charlie. Though they’re not my favorite pair you’ve ever put on me. Too bad you’ll never get to tie me up again, but you get credit for trying.”
There was yet another combustion of flame, and my illusion magic began peeling away. I attempted to resist, forcing the shackles to hold, but my magic faded at Ava’s touch. I realized she was using her blue Fire to melt the illusion shackles away, and they couldn’t hold up to her vast power.
I took deep breaths, trying to recover my strength. She’d destroyed my illusion spell like it wasnothing.A spell like that was powerful enough to hold a demigod, but Ava hadn’t even flinched.
“My turn,” Ava sang.
The beach was quiet, but only for a moment, for the sound of roaring water approached me from the right. My throat tightened, and fear overwhelmed my senses as I comprehended that there was a massive tidal wave rushing straight toward me, conjured from Ava’s powers of the ocean.
I ran further up the beach, casting my hand behind me as I fell to the sand once again. I scrambled backwards to get away as I created a mountain out of the area around me. It took a tremendous amount of effort, but I forced my demigod abilities to rush to the surface to fight for me as I raised a wall of earth that was over a thousand feet tall.
It wasn’t a second too late, because just as I’d stopped building the earth wall, the tsunami struck. The mountain of sand quivered and moaned, and sand went flying everywhere at the destructive power of the sea surge. The edges of the massive wave spilled over the top of the earth wall, but I’d managed to spare myself from the worst of the damage. My Earth magic cried out in pain as the cracks in the ground widened and grew larger from my creation of the mountain and the fall of Ava’s tidal wave. We were completely ruining this beach.
“Are you ready to give up yet?” Ava asked. Oberi snorted, and her hoof stomped into the sand.
I clambered shakily onto my feet and rasped, “Not until you quit.”
“Never.”
She’d barely gotten the word out before she cast another spell. I reached out for her, but my hands were blocked by some sort of invisible force. Ava had cast a shield, one that circled around me and left no exit. I pushed against the glass-like dome, and as I did, it pushedback.
My knees began to bend, and I realized that the circular jail she’d put me in was getting smaller. If she kept this up, I was going to be crushed. I punched the walls of the shield, trying to get it to break, but it held up like bulletproof glass.
“Ava!” I cried, but she didn’t respond. The walls of the shield only got narrower, closing me in.
This wasn’t working. Ava was trying to kill me, but I was trying to apprehend her without seriously harming her. It madefor a lopsided fight. I needed to do something drastic even if it caused her damage, because if I didn’t, she was going to take my life.
I called on my Elf abilities again and focused them on Ava. I wasted no time siphoning her magic out of her before she could force the Spirit shield to crush me. It worked, and she lost control of the spell. When her shield broke, shards of it fragmented off, cutting my lip and eyebrow. My blood splattered everywhere.
I had some of Ava’s Spirit magic now, though it wasn’t enough to heal everything. I fixed up the worst of my injuries, including my bleeding neck, before I rose to face her again.
I hoped that would be the end of the fight, but it wasn’t. Though I’d siphoned her power, Ava quickly regenerated, and through our bond I felt her magic instantly return to her.
I started to lose hope. I couldn’t take her magic, not for any longer than a few seconds. I wasn’t strong enough to stop her, only delay her abilities. Any power I stole, she’d take right back.
“You want to know something, Charlie?” Ava asked ruthlessly, while I was still spitting blood out of my mouth. “My gut told me you were going to do something like this. You were always headed toward villainy, always playing the bad guy with your guns and torture. It was like a game to you, because you wanted to make granddaddy proud and fit in with his mob, even though you didn’t. You wanted to play the part, and you’re still acting now. I hated those damn pistols. I’m so pissed that I let you pressure me into using guns. I think that’s one thing I can’t forgive myself for.”
“What?” I asked viciously, wiping the stinging blood out of my eyes. “You said you were comfortable with it!”
“I wasn’t,” Ava spat. “I’d do anything that you asked me to, and you knew that.”
My anger exploded. “I was asking you to tell me the truth, and you didn’t. Don’t put this on me! I trusted you to know where you were at.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, because I didn’t even know! I’ve never been able to do that because of my bipolar. You’ve always been the one who makes sense of the world for me. You should’ve known better, and you ignored the signs in order to suit your own agenda!”
“I can’t be your moral compass all the time, because there’s things I don’t know!” I raged. “I’m in your headsomeof the time, but it doesn’t give me perfect insight on what’s going on with you, so you need to communicate with me!”
“I can’t communicate with you because you’re a pathologicalliar!” Ava screamed at the top of her lungs.
