Young Writers Society

Mage froze.

...That crackling sounded like fire. Harry had said that he shouldn't use his own flames because they could attract light; someone else would have likely known the same thing. So if it couldn't be a person and they had already run into one thing that was surrounded by flames...

Mage wasn't sure he wanted to turn around.

"There's more?" he whispered, voice stubbornly cracking on the last word.

A large fireball smashed right into Harry's face, dissipating against it. Harry shook his head. "Ouch."

"Incoming!!" yelled Vankous.

"Thanks for the early warning," said Harry, rolling his eyes as he turned towards the monsters. There was a good twenty of them. "Okay, Mage, as good as you are, you're powers are far too slow to be engaging twenty at once but luckily, there's one person here who can use darkness. Vankous, help James if you have to, keep a lookout for anything monsters along with Mage. Stean, come with me, time to dance with fire."

"Wait, why am I with these two? Are you seriously trying to group based on age range here? Come on, Harry," said Vankous.

"What? No...," said Harry, "you're not that young...although Mage...um...how old are you again Mage?"

"And you assume I thought we were the young side. Caught red handed," said Vankous, pointing a finger at him.

"Oh please, there's no one here whose remotely close to being as old as I am and you know it," shot back Harry.

Mage had turned by the time that Harry asked his age. He already had darkness dancing at his fingertips, but the darkness - and his confidence - faltered when he was suddenly asked how old he was.

"I'm nineteen," he said. He was tall for his age and could deepen his voice just enough to pass as that old. He would have pushed it even more, but he didn't trust someone here not to question anything farther away from his actual age.

Quick to change the topic, he added, "I don't have any problems with playing lookout. I know my limits."

"Hmm, alright, that's settled there," said Harry, "the two of them are on lookout."

"Also he's lying about his age," added Vankous.

"Huh," said Harry, "you went from arguing about something pointless to another pointless fact?"

"Well kind of...but seriously though, he is lying. The temporal signature there is definitely not nineteen years old," said Vankous, "if he's lying about that, what else could he have lied about."

"Well, I mean, he doesn't sound like a typical liar, obviously I didn't fact check to see if hasn't lied yet, but from experience I can tell he didn't lie about who he was. True though...now that I look closely...he is definitely younger than nineteen, yes. Why would you lie about that Mage? Its just a number. "

"I'm not lying," Mage insisted, keeping his voice calm. Inwardly, he was panicking. Outwardly, he was doing his best to seem like he was okay with this accusation. It wasn't the first time someone had questioned his age. Kiera had, too. And while she had been able to figure it out back then, he had also been nine - he hadn't been the best liar and had still looked like a kid.

"I don't know what a temporal signature is," he said, "but it must be off. Maybe it's because I'm a demon."

He turned his attention back to their enemies, darkness dancing up his arms again.

"We should probably focus on them before they burn us," he added.

"Pfft...you clearly have no idea at all what a temporal signature is. Temporal signature off because of a demon. That's a good laugh. A temporal signature is no different between a celestial like that idiot or a rock. It can't change for any reas..."

"Vankous, I'm sure you'd love to continue that lecture for a little longer, but we are actually under attack here," said Stean. "Harry, ready to bust out The Darkness."

"You got it, you're turn to bring the ice Lazerbeam."

"Ready when you are," said Stean, smiling. Harry smiled back. Maybe this afternoon would be fun after all. The two of them turned to see monsters now getting within firing range. The creature at the front fired.

The air began to crackle around Harry, his eyes starting to glow a bright dark cyan. He spread his wings and the wind started to swirl around them. Stean smirked. His own hands started glowing bright green.

Mage was ready to argue that the temporal signature could have been different because he was from a different world than this one, but they thankfully became distracted by the battle.

With the darkness already moving up and down his arms, there wasn't much he could do besides wait for an attack to come his way.

But he would be ready when - and if - they did.

The first few fireballs shot past them in rapid succession. Neither of them bothered to dodge, the fire dissipating harmlessly against them.

Harry flew at the first few, the darkness shaping around him into a sort of battering ram formation, smothering the first few monsters. Stean flew behind him, ice starting to swirl around him as he got ready to finish the monsters off in Harry's wake.

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"So what else is supposed to be in this forest before we can retrieve that?" asked James, as he looked around, trying to spot anything headed their way.

"A few things, a couple of things I actually wouldn't fancy running into, if you'll believe that. The situation is actually quite that dangerous," said Vankous.

"Well duh, they wouldn't have called the captain in if it wasn't dangerous," said James.

"Good point," said Vankous, "well, all I will tell you is...keep a very close eye on the shadows."

"Wait...aren't we surrounded by shadows?" asked James.

"Ah huh," said Vankous, nodding.

As the battle ended, Mage listened to James and Vankous talk about the forest and what else it could have. He had already been starting to feel like he was out of place here; their conversation only made him feel more lost.

But he would happily take that if it meant no one was pressing him about his age anymore-

There was a sudden thud from behind him.

The woods are quiet, Mage realized. The thudding continued, each one growing louder and louder. They were happened so quickly. It sounded like something was slamming down into the ground, but why would it keep doing it? It was almost like it was a set of...

Mage caught a glimpse of something enormous moving in the darkness.

...footsteps.

"Harry?" he said, trying his best to keep his unease out of his voice. "I think those fires attracted another monster."

As they whittled the fireballing merry go rounds of doom down to just the last couple, Harry paused, and raised his hand. Stean, behind him, about to start launching ice shards, also paused.

"Yeah?" he asked, "aren't we going to kill those last two?"

"Well...I kinda want to kill them in the old fashioned way..." said Harry.

"And so you don't obviously need my ice...spikes, balls, projectiles...years of doing this and I have never found a word that fits," said Stean.

"Oh goodness yes, ice attacks are confusing that way, you should have been there when they taught ice combat 101...anyway...so you know what to do," said Harry.

"Yup, I'll go make sure James, Vankous and Mage haven't gotten themselves killed," said Stean, smiling.

Harry flashed him a quick thumbs and turned towards the monsters. He closed his eyes and concentrated, allowing the darkness that surrounded him to wrap him in its shadows.

Tapping deep into himself, he let his inner darkness leach out slowly...turning himself, cell by cell into pure darkness...until he was nothing more than a patch of shadows...a very powerful patch of shadows that leached the energy from anything unlucky enough to be in its path.

He swooped at the creatures, instantly suffocating them, their fire extinguishing before their bodies also crumbled into nothing but more darkness.

He heard someone say his name. Realizing it sounded like Mage, he immediately sped in that direction, forgetting to turn back into a corporeal form.

Harry didn't reply. Some part of Mage had realized that Harry wasn't remotely close to him right now, but that part of him hadn't wanted to face the truth: he was going to have to face whatever was making that thudding noise without Harry's expertise.

James and Vankous were nearby. He could see Stean coming out of the corner of his eye, too. He wasn't alone right now, but he felt alone. He was so used to being by himself that other people being there to help barely registered-

The monster finally emerged from the darkness.

It was big.

Really big.

Mage hadn't seen anything like it before. It almost reminded him of one of the dragons from Kiera's stories, but this thing had no wings or scales. It towered above them on eight enormous legs. Its tail was so strong that it knocked over a dying tree as it swept it back and forth. And the entire thing—from snout to tail—was made entirely of darkness.

...He had used his darkness to snuff out the other monster's flame earlier, but maybe, just maybe, he could burn his own fire bright enough to defeat this thing.

He tapped into his Sin and summoned a flame.

When he sent it towards the monster's closest leg, the monster let out a pained hiss—and the fire started to eat through the leg like it was acid. The monster extinguished it with a whack of its tail, but it was still something.

"I think I know how to defeat this!" he said, turning to the others—while still keeping an eye out on the monster in case it lunged at him.

James turned abruptly to see a giant shadowy monster baring down on them. "Aaargh...dude when you said, watch the shadows, would it have pained you terribly to mention the monster was a shadow?"

"I thought it would be funny," said Vankous, eyes starting to glow purple.

James shook his head and rummaged around in his coat pocket, pulling out his flamethrower as he holstered the freeze ray.

"I think I know how to defeat this," came Mage from nearby the, already fireballing the thing.

James nodded and opened fire. Vankous meanwhile yelled out "We know...obviously."

Stean landed somewhere near them.

"We leave you guys alone for five seconds and you run into literally the worst creature possible...okay...second worst but still..."

"You can scold us about that later, can you I don't know...kill this thing?" asked Vankous.

"Alright," said Stean, his hands also bursting into flame.

The monster sensing several targets ripe for the picking, charged at them.

"There's something worse than that?" Mage managed to get out. He felt like all he was doing now was asking questions, but he really couldn't imagine anything more horrible than a giant monster made out of shadows.

He pushed the thought away just as the monster swung its tail at him. He tried his best to dodge the attack, but wasn't able to get out of the way in time—it went slamming into his leg instead of his stomach.

Mage went falling to the ground.

But just before the monster moved its tail out of the way, Mage grabbed onto its tail and sent his flame Sin racing up it. The monster kept trying to flail its tail around, but Mage stubbornly stayed put on the ground—using some darkness to keep his feet from moving too much. He knew it was stupid to fight it from the ground, but his leg hurt. Something had to be broken. He wasn't sure he could get back up without taking too long; the monster would definitely attack him while he was struggling to get up.

Vankous proceeded to quickly float out of the way of the monster's giant mouth. James just about managed to fish out the flamethrower but before he could activate it, one of the monster's flailing limbs sent him flying. HIs armor, activating at the last second, absorbed the worst of the damage. Stean shot off after him, managing to catch him before he hit the ground.

"Crap, crap, crap," muttered James, dusting himself off, and nodding a thank you to Stean. The flamethrower finally charging up, he discharged it full force at the monster. Vankous meanwhile, began firing a beam of energy at its face, rooting it to the spot.

Stean flew towards Mage, who was struggling stay in place. It looked like the thing had tried to swat him away with its tail, but he'd somehow caught the tail despite falling down and was slowly setting flying fire to it. As bad as the situation looked, it was clearly under control. The monster was slowly being held in place.

Stean knew what he had to do. A couple of hits with a proper lazerbeam should fry the thing to a ....well..whatever you call fried darkness.

His hand glowed bright green as a beam of pure light scorched the side of the creature, causing it to hiss in pain and flinch, wrenching away from Vankous' containing beam. It was clearly just about to die, but it turned to focus on what it presumed to be the easier prey lying on the ground.

It turned towards Mage.

The moment the monster turned to Mage, a sinking feeling appeared in his gut. He wasn't tired from using his Sin; demons weren't as easily exhausted from that. But it was hard to simultaneously hold onto the monster's tail and burn it, especially with the monster trying to swing him off.

And now it was trying to attack him.

Its sides were still steaming and its movements were slower, but it was still moving fast enough to pose a threat.

If he could just get one more burst of flame Sin...

He took a deep breath.

Then he let the darkness that was keeping him in place disappear. He needed to focus on just the fire now, and the darkness was too distracting. The monster, suddenly realizing its prey was easy to fling around, started to move its tail closer to its mouth.

With a single burst of hot, sudden magic, flames encased the entire monster. It let out a pained hiss and flailed around in a failed attempt to get rid of the flames. The tail swung away from its mouth and Mage—who had only just started to let go—went flying off towards a tree behind the monster.

The monster fell, defeated and dead, as Mage went slamming into a tree.

He tried to get up right afterwards, but everything hurt. His leg had been hurting him earlier, but now somewhere higher up was hurting, too. The impact must have bruised or broken something; Mage wasn't really sure he wanted to know which.

He gave up on trying to stand just yet, leaning back against the tree as he tried to check if he was bleeding anywhere.