Life is but a Game

     Two figures stood outside the door to a two story house. By the looks of things, this was a typical couple that had just come to pay a visit to the occupants of the house on a warm, rainy night. Though the neighbors would say otherwise that the house was far from normal. That and the only connection the two families had was the four year old boy standing next to the man.
     “Are you sure this is the right place?” the man asked his wife. The woman repositioned the baby in her arms and pulled a small piece of paper from her pocket.
     “This is the address that he gave us,” she told her husband. She pocketed the paper and began to cradle the little girl again since her movements had caused her to stir.
     The red-haired man sighed and knocked on the door. It wasn’t in his best interests to get intertwined with the others this early in his son’s life, but after talking with Clarie about the situation, he figured that he should at least hear Burnegan out.
     The door opened to reveal a woman in her late twenties. She greeted them kindly and beckoned them in from the rain. Once inside, she took their coats and hung them to dry in the hall closet.
     “Watt and Circe I presume. Everyone has gathered in the library,” Fiernia told them, motioning toward the door opposite the stairs at the foyer’s end. “We’ve set aside some room for the children to play while we talk.”
     The couple entered the room to a breathtaking, two story library. It was quite spacious and could accommodate a good deal of people very comfortably. The walls were lined with shelves and most of those housed books of various sizes. A table or two was placed around the tomes with wooden chairs for whoever felt compelled to sit and read. More comfortable, padded chairs sat at various locations inviting their occupants for a light read and nap.
     “It’s quite impressive,” Fiernia told them. “We had to make some modifications to the house to make room for them all but I feel it was worth it.”
     “How did you come by all this?” Watt asked. “I’ve never seen this expansive of a collection.”
     “These books have been passed along in my husband’s family for generations.” She smiled at both of them. “He is an Amalfe after all.” Fiernia directed the man’s attention toward the play area for the kids and started to lead Circe to the rest of the adults.
     Watt carried his son over to the play area. “You be good now,” he said, patting the boy on the head before leaving to join the others.
     “If I can have everyone’s attention,” Burnegan called out over the adults when the final one joined them. They were seated at a long, wooden table that seemed to be used for experiments.
     “I don’t know why you called us here,” interrupted a brown-haired man before Burnegan could continue. “We have nothing to talk about.”
     “We have everything to talk about, Fahren” interjected a woman with long, brown hair. “These are our children.”
     “I understand your concern, Rose but I feel that our best bet is to forget this night and try to get as far away from each other as possible.”
     There was a slight mummer of agreement at the woman’s words. Only a few there either felt the statement was useless or wrong.
     “You have no idea, Erith, how many before you have tried the same thing.” A man descended the steps from the shadows not too far from the gathered parents with his wife who carried a small girl. When they saw who the man was, some of them detested the meeting once more.
     “What’s he doing here?” Fahren demanded. “I won’t tolerate this any longer.”
     “He has every right to be here as we do,” Burnegan told him. “He’s caught up in the same mess we are.”
     “That’s alright,” the new man said to caution his friend further. “I’m used to this sort of thing.”
     Without another word, he began to walk around the table as his wife took a seat next to Fiernia. A few hate-filled eyes burrowed into him, the majority just followed, and the remaining pair or two expressed curiousness toward the man. On his round, he would blankly state who they were while continuing on.
     “Watt and Circe Veltago. Drair and Rose Drowl. Fahren and Isis Rezefe. Geom and Erith Ordotan.” He stopped after this couple when he came upon wife. He raised his hand toward his friend. “Burnegan and Fiernia Amalfe. Seris, myself,” he stated placing his hand to his chest and then on the shoulder of the woman on his left, “and Sehe Nurtofe.” With this done, he took his seat.

     The children on the opposite side of the room played happily with each other. Blaze and Ampere, after meeting and deciding to play together, were now trying to coax Serica into their fun. Lily was trying to draw Ampere’s attention away from this so he could play with her. Kelvin and Zephyr sat off a ways building with blocks. The only ones who didn’t seem content with the way things were going were the four older boys, who were sitting away from the younger kids talking amongst themselves.
     “This is boring,” Lavin commented. He was holding one of the blocks he had stolen from his sister in his right hand. With a bored expression on his face, he let the block slide through his hand and fall to the floor where he picked it up and did it again.
     “There’s nothing here but kiddy stuff.” Leer sat there cross-legged with his hands pressed down on his ankles, a little worried to touch anything.
     “That’s because it’s all about them,” Oric said in a snide voice indicating the younger children. “I don’t see what’s so special about them anyway.”
     “I heard my dad talking about it one time,” Flare told the others. “I still don’t get it either.”
     “Hmph. Whatever.” Oric crossed his arms and glared at his little sister. A thought occurred to him just then and his expression brightened. “I know what we can do.”
     “What’s that?” asked Flare.

     “I will not participate if the Nurtofe’s are involved,” Isis stated flatly. “I know what his mother did in the times of my father.”
     “I know about your concerns,” Burnegan told them, “but I assure you that he has our best interests in mind.”
     “Just because his daughter is marked as the next,” Geom told them, “doesn’t mean that she’s caught in the same mess.”
     “I’ll say what she has to go through is pretty much the same,” Rose piped in.
     “But there is a way to keep her from going through it.” Isis turned to her with a serious expression on her face. “It’s different for our children. They have no choice in the matter.”
     Fiernia stepped in with her views on the matter. “Considering the circumstances for her to not go through it, I’m sure they won’t do it.”
     “But it won’t end her life. So why not just do it?”
     Unable to take anymore of this, Seris stood abruptly and slammed his hand down on the table. The gathered adults jumped at his sudden loss of composure and watched him as his outburst followed.
     “Just because we're not in the exact same situation doesn't mean our daughter doesn’t matter in this. Do you not remember what happened last time and the time before that? Regardless to us not wanting to be involved with one another, we have to be. Moira knows I would love to just pack up and leave Olivent and leave you people to figure things out yourselves, but I happen to have a greater moral code than that.
     “We're in the same boat and if we don't act fast, it's going to turn belly-up on us. Now I know a lot of you don't like me or my family, and you may have justified it in your heads why, but we all have to work together if we don't want to see our children die.”
     From the silence that followed where no one would speak, Burnegan took a chance to talk in hopes that he would reach them and maybe persuade them to stay and help each other.
     “I would give anything right now to stop it from happening to my son, but I can't. We must prepare now for the worst and pray that even that doesn't happen.”
     “Okay, let's assume for a second that this is all out of our hands regardless to what preventive measures we take to avoid it as long as possible. Why should we all stay here?” Erith asked.
     “No matter how far apart they all are,” Watt finally said something now that the conversation was off the Nurtofe’s he knew nothing about, “they will eventually come together at some point. Moving only delays things further.”
     “Und together ve can at least support each other for vat may kom.” Sehe took her husband’s hand which calmed him and he sat down. “Alone ve are veak and easy targets to t'ose vo vant chaos. Together ve create order.”
     “Now then,“ Burnegan looked to everyone and saw the conflict their brain waged in their eyes. Deciding to give them one last chance, he spoke once again. “I’ll understand if you want to run, but I’m going to stay here and figure things out. For my son’s sake.”
     “As will I,” Seris said and smiled at Burnegan. “I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t want to see this happen to our kids and those to follow after them.
     After looking to his wife and seeing her nod slightly for the okay, Geom said, “Erith and I grew up here. We’re not about to leave now.”
     Circe smiled to the rest. “We’ll stay here and help out as well. Running never solved anything.”
     “What about you dear?” Rose turned to her husband. “What do you say?”
     “I could care less either way,” Drair told her flatly.
     Fahren sighed and placed a hand to his head. He felt, and he was sure his wife felt the same, that they had backed them in a corner. Feeling their eyes on him, he couldn’t contain his contempt any longer until he blurted out, “Fine. We’ll stay.”
     “But don’t expect us to come calling like this every time you feel there’s a crisis,” Isis added.
     “Thank you. We appreciate this. With the help of everyone we could-” Burnegan started but was cut off by the crying of a little girl.
     Lily ran from the play area with tears running down her face. She circled around the table and came to rest between her mother and father, placing her hands on Drair’s leg and weeping into his pants.
     Drair looked down at his daughter as if pondering something. After the few seconds that she showed up, he made no sign that he would consol her so Rose picked her up.
     “What’s wrong honey? What happened?”
     “It-it hurt,” she told her mother through sobbing gasps. “He-he touched my arm and-and it hurt.”
     Seris immediately turned around and looked at his son. “If you’ll excuse me,” he told everyone and rose from his chair. He went over, picked Oric up and took him from the library.
     “If there’s nothing else,” Burnegan said as he looked around to confirm that no one else had any questions or concerns, “then I guess we should call it a night. I appreciate you coming tonight and handling this matter.”
----
     Blaze sat at his desk with several books he had taken from his library laid out in front of him. Paper rested before him, many different notes and writings scribbled on them for future reference. His computer was turned on but forgotten. The only purpose it was serving right now was the music playing through the headphones he had in his ears.
     After his talk with Serica, he had returned home and began to search for information. While she tried to decipher who it was she saw and what would happen to them, he sought information on what the person was. He knew very well what they were capable of and why they were targeted, the only thing he lacked was the proper data concerning how the person was able to use that ability.
     He came across something he found very useful and began to read more intently, jotting down the ornate circle and words associated with it. He turned his music up slightly to drown out the questions he thought of that never seemed to quit and pressed for more information.
     A slight tapping noise sounded from the window but he could not hear. The pair of eyes that looked in watched as Blaze went about his work, oblivious to them being there. A bit agitated, the person tried again, knocking this time.
     Drafeirno, who had decided that the lamplight was uncomfortable at that hour, was resting in the middle of the bed waiting for Blaze to call it a night. The noise from the window woke him and he turned a groggy head toward it. He yawned widely, revealing his sharp, pointed teeth and stretched his leathery wings outward. He blinked several times in thought at the intruder of his sleep, but detecting it as someone he knew, he nodded his head and the window unlocked itself and opened.
     “Thank you,” the red-haired girl told Drafeirno as she climbed inside. “I see someone pays attention at least.”
     She crossed the room while a dirty-blond man climbed in after her. She wasted no time getting the boy’s attention by ripping the headphones out of his ears. Startled by it, Blaze turned around to face his intruder.
     “Serica? How did you get in here?”
     “Your pet dragon let us in. He knows about importance enough to actually do so.”
     “Sorry, I didn’t hear you. What’s so important you had to come here like this?”
     “I came to get you,” she said to him. She still looked rather upset which made him look at her puzzled. “I had another vision. Sort of like the one before but it was coupled with another one.” She paused briefly. She didn’t want to say it in hopes that if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be true.
     “Isabel was captured,” Serica finally told him and he became more alert. “And the altar and everything…” she faltered a little, trying to bring herself to say it. “She… she’s the one to die on it.”
     Blaze looked absolutely stunned. Several thoughts raced through his head, all leading back to one conclusion that was more blatant than a bike playing chicken with a semi. You knew what was going to happen but still couldn’t bring yourself to accept the undeniable and turn away until you saw it through.
     He rested his right elbow on his desk, rubbing his hand across his forehead and stopping with his fingers rested in his hair. He somehow knew it would come to this. The way he felt when he first saw Isabel, her affinity for drawing, and Eva’s sudden interest in her. It was all leading back to one thing, something that seemed like déjà vu.
     A thought suddenly occurred to him and he lifted his head and opened one of the drawers to his desk. From it, he pulled out a picture that was slightly bent and old. It depicted several people standing next to each other for the group shot. Among the eight adults were two kids roughly the age of thirteen.
     “There,” he said pointing to one of the women next to his great uncle Blazenien. “Do you remember her at all over the time you’ve known Isabel?”
     Serica shook her head.
     “Her name is Seraph Vecler. She was the previous artisan Uncle Blazenien went to college with. I wanted to see if she had any relation to Isabel first to make sure.”
     “‘To make sure’?” Serica asked a bit annoyed. “I saw her there. I saw her dieing. I don’t think there’s any better way to be ‘sure’.”
     “I know…” he trailed off and stared down to the floor. “I… I just didn’t want to believe it.”
     There was a long pause between both of them, Serica knowing full well how Blaze was taking the information. Leer stood there a bit antsy. He knew that coming to terms with a friend who could die was one thing, but to sit there and chat it out like this was even worse. He was going to say something on the matter when Blaze stood up and began to gather certain things together.
     “We need to head over to Ampere’s and take him with us,” he said as he shoved most of his notes in one of the books that contained the better part of the information he had gathered. “Vanero will be a straight shot to Isabel’s. No offence Leer but you haven’t exactly perfected a teleportation spell.”
     Leer was about to protest when Serica shut him up.
     “Let’s just go,” she told her brother as she took a place near him. “His house isn’t far so you shouldn’t miss it by much.”
     The daggers he was glaring at them both could have done harm if only they were real. He sighed with indignation and placed a hand on either of their shoulders. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his destination. With one last prayer, he executed the spell and they vanished from the room.
     Drafeirno gave a disgruntled growl. The noise the three were causing had awakened him and he once again rose from his spot. Noticing that none of them were there anymore, he shut off the light with a single thought and laid down amongst the bunched up blankets of the unmade bed, not really caring if Blaze came back during the night if it meant some good sleep.
----
     A lone figure ran across the moonlit field toward his opponent, the cloak that he wore billowing out behind him in the wind that he stirred up. He quickly drew from his sheaths two daggers and readied his next moves. The swordsman he was facing knew well of the attack but hadn’t prepared himself well for it.
     The dagger-wielding man let into the swordsman with a ferocity the younger combatant couldn’t keep up with. Each slice of the blade cut him, the random punches to the face brought blood to his mouth, and the well-placed kicks nearly toppled him to the ground. Deciding to give the younger man a breather, the figure put his daggers away with expert hands and readied a punch that was sure to end his opponent.
     The swordsman saw an opportunity and took it, slashing in a downward stroke for the figures head. The cloaked man timed his punch perfectly and connected with the middle of the swordsman chest before the sword came down on him. The toll of the other attacks had worn him down and he was sent flying into the air. Trying to add insult to injury, the figure withdrew a bow from behind him and notched an arrow from the quiver at his waist. The shot was perfect and hit dead-on, sending the victim further out of the arena and to his death with a mock explosion and a shower of lights.
     The word ‘Game!’ flashed on the screen and faded away to the overall outcome of the battle.
     “You didn’t do so hot that round,” Ampere gloated. “That wasn’t even a fight.”
     Vanero growled angrily at him. He dropped the controller to the ground rather forcefully and didn’t make a move to pick it back up.
     “What’s the matter?” the older brother asked him condescendingly. “Don’t want to challenge me again?”
     “I can’t beat you when you choose that character and you know it!” Vanero bit back. “Choose someone else and I will.”
     Ampere was going back through the character select menu when something flew up out of the night and hit against the window. Both boys looked towards the window and then each other, trying to decide if the noise was worth investigating since bugs were known to fly into the glass trying to get to the light during their late nights. Another sound came from the window that sounded like the last, something other than the normal thud of an insect.
     The redheaded young man walked to the window, opened it and stuck his head out to see what was causing the noise. The moonlight didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. After a little while of searching, someone stepped out of the shadows of a tree and motioned for him.
     “Ampere,” the voice whispered up to him. “Get down here.”
     “What is it?” Vanero asked his brother.
     “I think it’s Blaze down there. Take me to him.”
     “What? Go down there yourself. I’m not your slave.”
     “Mom and Dad will know if I walk out the front door. Now take me down there.”
     Vanero sighed in a huff and grabbed Ampere by the elbow. There was a slight pop and they both appeared outside on the ground floor near the tree. Vanero roughly let go of Ampere’s elbow, crossed his arms and turned slightly away from everyone. Blaze chose to ignore this and went about his business.
     “You need to come with us,” he told his best friend.
     “Why, what’s up?”
     “I had a vision tonight,” Serica piped in. “Isabel was in it. She’s in danger and something horrible could happen if we don’t do something.”
     “If she’s in that much of trouble, why did you come for me instead of going straight after her?” Ampere asked, a bit perplexed.
     “Because you’re part of this,” Blaze told him, looking at him sternly. Ampere stood there a little confused trying to think of what his best friend meant. With the aid of indicating something with his eyes, Blaze finally got the point across to him and Ampere’s eyes lit up in surprise.
     “You don’t mean…?” he started but trailed off.
     “That’s right,” Blaze confirmed his suspicions. “Now we need Vanero to take us to Isabel’s.” He looked over to Ampere’s younger brother who was still standing a little away from them trying to seem like he wasn’t listening. “That is of course if he’ll take us.”
     Vanero looked over to the three friends and saw the pleading glances from them. His conviction to  not help them in any way wavered, but he remained silent with his arms crossed in half refusal.
     “Tell you what,” Ampere told his little brother. “If you help us out tonight, I won’t use that one character when I fight against you.”
     “You just said that,” Vanero told him, rather shocked.
     “I know. But this time I mean it,” the redhead smiled sheepishly at him.
     Vanero was about to protest against his brother further but thought differently about it. He sighed in defeat and walked in the middle of the group. Everyone made sure they had a hold of the junior high boy before he gathered himself and they disappeared into the night with a pop.
----
     The large, two-story house rested quietly in the night, showing no movement in the soft moonlight. A cloud overhead passed between the moon and the world below to cast the neighborhood in shadows. When it had slowly drifted away, five figures stood atop the awning at the front of the house. They moved across the canopy quietly as not to make any noise. They couldn’t tell that no one could hear them even if they wanted to.
     Serica, who was more familiar with the house, peered into her friend’s open window. The room she saw was in a state of heavy disarray. It seemed everything had been upturned in what looked to have been a fight. The red-haired girl withdrew her head and climbed into the room with everyone else following behind her.
     They couldn’t tell where to start looking for clues first. They just needed something to give Leer an inkling of where Isabel had been taken. Without a word from anyone, they began to search the room in different locations.
     “What I don’t understand,” Ampere decided to break the silence as he and Vanero began to rummage through the clothes that had fallen out of the closet, “is why her parents didn’t stop this? You know they would have heard something.”
     “It is abnormally quiet in here.” Blaze had made his way over to the bed and was righting the mattress. “Eva must have used a silencing spell so they wouldn’t interfere.”
     “That’s a bit too smart for her though.” Serica began to search through the scattered books near Isabel’s desk. She picked up one of her friend’s sketchbooks and looked down at a bent up drawing of a swordsman that had been drawn so many times recently. In her quiet reverie, she noticed something glitter on the floor. She shoved the picture in her pocket as she bent over to examine the object a bit further and saw that it was a cross necklace. Knowing that her friend had nothing of the sort, she surmised that it belonged to the attacker; to Eva.
     “Here,” she said as she tossed the necklace to Leer. “Tell us what you see from that.”
     Leer caught the item and took it in his hands. He stared down at it in deep concentration before his pupils turned white and he tuned himself out from the world.
     Blaze had stopped for a second to watch Serica give Leer the necklace. Seeing that it would take a while, he turned back to his work. The nightstand that held the now discarded clock and lamp had been knocked over during the ordeal the room withstood, the drawer flung open and its contents spilled on the floor. After picking up the nightstand, he went about collecting the assortment of accessories the girl had obtained over the years. There were the usual bracelets, rings, necklaces, earrings, and-
     “Hey!” Ampere called out from the other side of the room. He and Vanero had moved a good amount of clothes and had discovered something beneath them. “There’s a girl under all this. I think it might be Faelina.”
     Serica turned toward him but Blaze knelt there unfazed by the information. Slowly his weight shifted and he plopped down into a sitting position, still stunned by his discovery. Not hearing anything from Blaze, Serica turned around to see him sitting there in a state of silent shock. She walked over to him tentatively, a little fearful that he had discovered something to suggest that Isabel wasn’t taken unharmed. She knelt down in front of him and tried to bring him out of his quiet reverie.
     “What is it?” she asked him, not really wanting an answer.
     “I’ve been so stupid,” he replied, taking no notice that she was actually there but rather talking to himself out loud from her prompt. “I should have seen this coming. I knew deep down from the moment I met her that it would come to this but I did nothing to stop it. I never should have gotten close.”
     “What are you talking about?” she asked him with a little edge in her voice. Blaze turned to her as  if realizing for the first time she was there. He extended his right hand toward her. It was closed around something, the cord of which looped around his fingers. He slowly opened his hand and she gasped.
     There lay in his palm a crystal necklace, perfectly cut and perfectly clear. Serica looked from Blaze to the necklace and back again. Whereas there was some inkling to the fact earlier, here lay concrete evidence to their suspicion.
     “The gym,” Leer broke the silence absentmindedly, his eyes still milky white. “They’re in the gym.” His eyes began to uncloud and he blinked several times. When his vision returned, he saw them looking at him as if he were some foreign object they had never seen. His silence made them forget that he was there, caught up in their own discoveries. He felt like he had missed something important.
     Leer’s break on the silence caused Blaze to snap out of the despondent gloom he was feeling and come back to the reality at hand. He rose to his feet and pocketed the necklace in one swift movement. He then took charge of the situation by issuing out orders.
     “We need to get to the gym and stop Daemon as soon as possible. You two,” he indicated Vanero and Leer, “should take Faelina to Clarie’s so she can heal her.”
     “What makes you think you can handle him by yourselves?” Leer asked him. “And you know he’ll have his underlings there.”
     “I know,” Blaze told him solemnly. “But we must split our concerns. Fae needs medical attention and Vanero doesn’t know how to get to Clarie’s house. We can handle those three ourselves.”
     Leer looked at him skeptically, wanting him to waver in his resolve. When it looked like Blaze wouldn’t, he sighed audibly to express his concern about the matter once more.
     “How will you get there, then? You can’t teleport yourself there.”
     “Vanero will just have to take us there first,” Ampere jumped in with the obvious choice. Vanero looked at him disdainfully at his lack of consideration.
     Leer consented to this and walked over to scoop up the white-haired girl in his arms. Before they departed, he told them that he would go back for them if they took too long. Blaze agreed with this, mainly to get on their way to save their friend
     With one more look at the clutter of accessories on the floor, Blaze felt the crystal necklace in his pocket and felt an urgency in his mission.
     I’ll save you, he thought to himself as he placed a hand on Vanero’s shoulder. I’m coming Isabel.
     With a sudden jerk into nothingness, they were gone.
----
     Isabel lay motionless on a rock slab. No movement came from her or from her surroundings. Slowly her mind blinked to life, rousing her from her state of unconsciousness. She first tried to move her arms, but found that she could not. Confused by this, she opened her eyes slowly.
     The room that she was in was dimly lit by a circle of candelabras, the distant walls indiscernible in the gathered darkness. The only other light that bled into the room was from the skylights in the roof far above her. Try as she might to gather her surroundings, she could not tell where she was.
     She tried to move her left leg to rise into a sitting position, but found that it was bound as well to the rock slab. Remembering that she couldn’t move her arm either, she tried to raise it once again. It rose about an inch off the hard surface where the strap pulled taunt against her skin. There didn’t seem to be any way for her to get out of this, even if she knew how to.
     “It looks like Princess has finally decided to wake up,” a female voice commented in a snide tone. “About time, too. I was tired of delaying this.”
     A short girl walked into the circle of light at the bottom left of Isabel’s field of view, her long, white hair trailing behind her. Isabel recognized her as Eva from the mall earlier that day.
     “Mal’vinicus has always had a flare for the dramatic,” another girl said with a hint of annoyance in her voice. Aquaria appeared at Isabel’s upper left, at which she had to crane her head to see her. “What makes you think he’d change this time around?”
     “Well he better do it quickly then,” an irritated male voice came from Isabel’s upper right. Bane walked into the candelabra’s light and stood there moodily with his arms crossed, his head turned right, to a vacant spot in the circle with his eyes narrowed. Isabel saw for the first time a pair of wolf-like ears sticking out of his hair and a bushy tail swaying behind him agitatedly.
     Seeing everyone around her in full attire made her feel a bit more vulnerable. She lay there spread-eagle in a blue, spaghetti strap, tank top and loose fitting, pink pajama bottoms. She involuntarily pulled in on herself to try to hide this fact. Instead, all she managed to do was bring her knees together with the bottom of her legs at an awkward angle and bring her arms down a little more.
     A small chuckle came from the darkness beyond the candelabras that seemed to mock the futility of her try. With the introduction of this disembodied laugh, a sense of uneasiness overcame the room, not only from Isabel, but from the other three as well. The candles near Isabel’s feet began to flicker and sway on their own accord, as if a wind had blown through the room. Eva took a few cautious steps away from the spot toward Aquaria.
     The darkness behind the two candelabras appeared to swell and become even darker than it was before. A figure seemed to materialize from the gloom and step forward to the edge of the light. At once the darkness behind him seemed to dissipate to its normal state. The fire on the candles nearest the figure danced away from him as if in fear that they would be put out.
     Gauging from his height and body structure, he appeared to be a man, old enough to be in his thirties. She couldn’t make out his face because he stopped just before the light would travel further up than his chest. He stood there before her as if all of this was commonplace.
     “Hello Isabel,” he said slowly. The calmness in his voice was more unnerving than her being bound against her will. The way he said her name was as if he would never say it, or need to say it, again. This brought fear to her eyes.
     “H-how do you know my name?” she asked, the fear finding its way to her vocal cords.
     “My knowledge of your name is the least of your worries. I know all about you and what you’re capable of. You are, after all, an artisan. Just like Seraph.”
     “My… My grandmother…”
     “Indeed.” A broad smile crept across his face. “Seven years it took me to remove that witch’s lock on my memories. But I must say that it was your face that brought most of it back. When I looked into your eyes, everything clicked. I remembered who it was all my planning was meant for. I need not worry about hunting you down any longer. You were right here, in my grasp, this whole time.
     “Out of all the planning that woman did, she did not realize that I had the power to sever that witch’s spell on my mind. When my own power can match--no surpass--that of her own, she thought a simple bind like that could last forever? She made the gravest mistake to leave you here where I could find you so easily. She practically handed you to me on a silver platter!”
     The man’s voice had been steadily rising since he started about this unknown woman. His flare of anger had caused the two candelabras near him to almost became engulfed in darkness for the fires had nearly flattened against their wicks. He stopped himself at this time to steady his nerves and regain his composure and the fire regained its normal state of trying to dance away from him.
     The anonymous figure closed his eyes for a moment and tilted his head to the left as if trying to hear something behind him. He remained like that briefly before he spoke.
     “They’re here,” he said as if to no one in particular. He turned back to the circle of light and addressed the teenagers on the other side of him. “Get to the roof and take care of them. I will not accept failure this close to my victory.”
     Without a word, the three of them ran into the darkness, toward what Isabel assumed was the door. The momentary distraction provided a little relief from what she thought was coming. With some effort, she turned back to her unknown capture. The action was like staring Death in the face for the last time.
----
     Serica knelt next to the skylight, her hands on the pane of glass as she looked down at Isabel below her. She watched as Eva, Aquaria, and Bane ran off and the figure turned back to her friend. Anger grew inside her and she slammed her fist against the glass.
     “We have to get down there,” she said hotly. “If we don’t, who knows what he’ll do to her.”
     “I know,” Blaze told her. He was racking his brains, trying to think of something for the situation. After a moment’s silence where no one spoke, nothing seemed to present itself to him.
     “Come on, man,” Ampere looked at him a bit worriedly. “You have a plan right?”
     Blaze opened his mouth to speak, but an answer came from behind him.
     “How about you admit defeat right now and we can call it a day?”
     Everyone turned to see Eva standing between Aquaria and Bane, a few feet behind Blaze, with her hands on her hips.
     “It sounds like a good plan to me,” Aquaria said, placing her left hand on the other arm while holding the latter up in a nonchalant way. She then turned glaring eyes at the other three, clenching her right into a fist.
     Serica rose to her feet to stand next to Blaze and Ampere. All six of them stood there glaring at each other. The door to the stairwell, that had remained opened when Evalyn and her gang had come out to the roof, was blown shut by the wind. The bang that sounded echoed across the nearly deserted rooftop. The sound did not cause any of the foes to flinch. Any movement would surely be disastrous.
     Ampere, who had remained near the skylight when their line had formed, saw movement from deep inside the gym. He turned his head slightly, as not to give himself away, to gain a better look at what was happening. The movement he had seen was the figure raising something over his head. He was then bringing down his arms, a shadowy scythe aimed directly at Isabel’s heart.