Chapter 10

Halley helped the man up as she finished treating his wounds, and she asked him what had happened. He said shortly after the verdict was heard, the soldier and his team were dispatched to go arrest Chadwick Myra, who was in his residence at the time. They knocked on the door and proclaimed the terms of Chadwick's arrest aloud and gave him one minute to answer the door before they broke it down.

The soldier's colleague noticed something strange in the woods by the house, so they broke away from the group to investigate it. The soldier's colleague led the way through the woods, but turns out that it was just a campfire in the woods, which was still strange. Why would someone be camping on private, gated property? They planned on waiting for the camper to get back to their campsite, so that they could possibly arrest them for loitering on private property, but the screams of their regiment drew them back to the house.

When they got there, the soldiers saw giant clay creatures dismembering and crushing their friends. They ran back into the forest for cover planning to use their teleporters to get back to the courthouse and get reinforcements. As they ran through the woods, the clay-like creatures followed close behind, which caused the soldier's colleague to trip and fall. The soldier tried going back for him, but the clay creatures got to him first and ripped him to shreds in front of the soldier.

He turned and started running as he programmed his teleporter, but the clay-like creatures cornered him and grabbed his left leg. "It was like acid was oozing out of that thing's hand and burning my leg off. I thought I was going to die, until he came." "He?" Brandon asked. Another mysterious man appeared and destroyed the creatures and sent the soldier through a portal that landed him right in front of the courthouse.

The group stood there in awe and terrified at what they heard, as did the rest of the crowd that had gathered around the injured man. They had all underestimated Chadwick's power as a Class X magician, since they had not seen or heard an account of his power before. The paramedics went into the room and took the soldier to a hospital to run tests and to get an official testimony of what he had seen.

Chaos broke out in the building. Everyone was scared and anxious since they thought that Chadwick would attack the building next, and in the midst of all this confusion, Rebecca asked where Britney and Louis were. That was when they realized that they had taken too long to deliver a message, so they went to the courtroom and found a note on the floor.

iF YoU wAnT tO

SeE YouR FrIendS AGaiN,

YoU KnOw WhEre tO go

They thought about going to the police, but Michaelangelo encouraged them to go alone, which has to be one of the dumbest things this child has done. You know who's even dumber? The rest of them. They went along with him to confront Chadwick themselves, knowing what he was capable of doing to them. They grabbed a few teleporters in the room and went to Chadwick's house expecting to see their friends tied up and about to die.

*****

Louis and Britney were tied up, but they weren't in mortal danger, unless you consider scones weapons of mass destruction. That's right. They were just sitting in his kitchen, tied to his chairs, as he offered them different treats. Now that I think about it, it was torture in a certain way since he was offering them food knowing damn well that they couldn't eat any. However, that's not what Michael and Rebecca saw.

They saw them tied up, and Michael's eyes grew storm clouds as he blasted Chadwick out of the room, while Rebecca put up a barrier around them as well as the rest of the group.

Halley and Brandon untied them while asking them how they got there, and they told them how they went into the courtroom to find someone to help them. They found the man who had jeered Queen Mother Winona and he told them to, "stop playing adult games," before someone came up behind them and knocked them out. They woke up tied to the chairs in the kitchen and Chadwick baking in front of them.

As they were telling them what had happened, William yelled to Rebecca to reinforce the barrier around them, and as soon as he did, a bomb went off. She had managed to put up a wall between her and the blast in time, and when the smoke cleared, they saw the man from before. The one who cursed Queen Mother Winona, kidnapped Britney and Louis, and apparently made the bombs that were used at AMA.

This piece of filth was an infamous illegal weapon supplier, who was wanted around the world. He had supplied everyone from the Saviours to mafia members around Wisteria. None of them were surprised that such a disgusting excuse for a human was friends with Chadwick. In fact they expected him to have a private supplier. They knew of his existence and that was enough. No one expected to actually come into contact with such a detestable form of human life.

William's fuse blew as he asked the man about his role in the bombings, and they had to hold him back as he told them that he made and supplied the bombs. Kylian tried to reason with him, implying that the man was lying to get under his skin, but it did little to change his mind. "He killed them-" William yelled. "And killing him now won't bring them back." Kylian reasoned. Louis and Brandon then joined in the attempt to calm William down before he ended up killing someone, but it still wasn't working.

Chadwick suddenly entered the room and studied everyone before telling William to kill the man. Everyone was shocked and surprised at his comment, and William calmed down enough to say, "Kill him and become a murderer like you? No thanks." Chadwick stayed quiet for a bit before the man asked him if he's okay. Chadwick then conjured a sword as his eyes glowed and cut the man down where he stood.

Brandon, horrified, just barely gathered the confidence to barely ask him, "Why … ?" Chadwick turned to him and said with the most oblivious look on his face, "He was evil, so I killed him. I'm a hero now, right? But, to this man's friends and family, I'm evil, and to you guys as well. Why are you so surprised? They're gonna do worse things to me when they capture me. Is it because I'm not the hero in this story? When the hero kills it's justice, but when the 'villain' kills it's murder." He suggested killing all of them, so that he can "be the main character" before conjuring up the clay beasts once more.

They lunged at the kids, but the group somehow managed to escape the house and were soon running across the grassy lawn for cover in the woods. The ground, however, broke below them and they were surrounded by deep crevices in the ground all around them.

Chadwick did the biggest oopsie in the book by asking them the overused, cliche question ever: "AnY LaSt wORdS?" You honestly cannot introduce secret reinforcements in a more obvious way, but let's continue anyway. As I just mentioned, reinforcements that William and Brandon had secretly called arrived at the scene in time for a sniper to hit Chadwick's right shoulder and give the kids a chance to escape.

Chadwick held his shoulder in pain as he conjured up more clay-like creatures to destroy the mini-army that was sent to arrest him. Chunks of the ground emerged from the ground and formed the deadly creatures the injured soldier had described and they attacked with no mercy. Unluckily for them, neither did our heroes.

Halley summoned a bow and a quiver of blue-tipped arrows, while Brandon beseeched a gun-like weapon to fight. Each of Halley's arrows froze any and every clay monster that she hit making them easier to destroy. Meanwhile, Brandon's "bullets" blew any poor clay figure in its way to pieces. I say "bullets" because little beams of light coming out of a gun are difficult to describe and I am trying my best here.

Kylian played a major part in this battle by draining all the water from the field and drying up the clay monsters enough for Louis's fire blasts to have any effect on them. Many of them were burned to a crisp by his Aren flames, but the ones that weren't were destroyed by an energetic and peeved Britney with pearl irises.

Rebecca mostly helped the other soldiers on the battlefield who were badly injured by placing barriers over them until someone went and retrieved them. Michaelangelo was left with the task of protecting the stationed Rebecca from possible attack, and he destroyed giant clay monsters with bolts of lightning pretty well. I would say that he should've pursued a career in fighting gargantuan, aggravated pieces of clay, but he wasn't very aware of his own safety all the while, which is something that Chadwick noticed and took advantage of.

He used his magic to trap Michael's hands and feet to the ground below him and dragged him over. Chadwick raised his sword to kill Michael, when William saw this, he called out to Kiara in his head.

*****

Let's go back in time for a minute, shall we? We're going about 17 years into the past to Kiara's birth. The heir to the South was chosen by the monarch in power before the heir was born and Chadwick had announced that the heir would be his son's second daughter, who was Kiara. Everyone celebrated her birth as they expected greatness from her.

She was spoiled by her entire family as well as by the other royal families, and anyone who wished to have good favour with her in the future. The royal family of the South constantly took pictures and videos to record her growth and to show the world their newest prized possession and future leader, but that suddenly changed when she was only 21 months old.

*****

One night, the toddler escaped from her crib and explored the palace unsupervised. She got to a secret part of the palace garden and saw a man sitting on a bench, just staring at the moon. She was drawn to him and sat next to him, startling him. He was delighted that she could see him and he placed his hand on her head and asked her, "You found me quite quickly. I suppose you want to make the contract now?" She replied in baby, but the man explained, "I'm talking to your soul, not you."

The man turned out to be the Dark Creator in one of its human forms and he ended up making a contract with the toddler's soul and made her his magician. No one noticed her contract until she blew away a mountain near the family's summer home during a vacation a month later. Her parents rushed her to get a Measured Power Output (MPO) test. It was when she broke the machine that Kiara's family realized that their daughter was too dangerously powerful to keep in the palace.

Kiara ended up spending about four years in captivity on an island in the middle of the ocean as that is what her father, Winston, thought was best for a year old toddler who was just as scared of herself as he was of her. She wasn't allowed to meet or see or socialize with other humans, so she befriended some of the birds outside her window that weren't scared of her at all.

On her fifth birthday, Chadwick visited her to check on her, and decided to take her under his wing and teach her to use her powers after seeing how she was with the animals that visited her often. She referred to Chadwick as "papa" and he taught her to use and control her magical urges. No matter what she did, he never showed that he was scared of her, which helped her love herself a bit. That and someone else's intervention.

*****

When we fast forward a year later, then we'd be at Kiara's welcoming back party into the royal palace and family thanks to her quick learning. After the party, she was swarmed with lessons in manners, grammar, and diplomacy and it was just too much for the six-year-old. One night, she snuck away from a ball back to the bench where it had all begun and she was found crying alone by a little boy who comforted her. They promised to be best friends and said they would meet in the same place the next night to seal their promise with starlight poppies, flowers that bloom at midnight.

She excitedly got through her day full of work and stress and properness and waited at the bench for the little boy. She told herself to ask the boy for his name that night, but that chance never arrived and neither did he.

She waited for him all night and waited for the next one as well, convinced that he would turn up eventually. On the third night, she thought that he might've gotten lost and went to go look for him in the palace. As she was looking, she saw the lights were still on in Chadwick's room and approached it to ask for his help.

Right before she knocked on the door, she overheard Chadwick ask the person on the other side of the line, "All the evidence is gone? Good. No, no you did well. Those Sullivans had it coming, going after my granddaughter."

*****

During the battle, Kiara was sleeping in an abandoned building and she abruptly woke up at the memory of the little boy in the garden. She stretched and crushed some of the papers next to her as she did. She studied the papers as she let out a deep sigh of disappointment as she put them back down next to her. She lay down wanting to go back to sleep when she suddenly heard William's plea to her, which made her teleport to the battlefield where she saw Chadwick about to kill Michaelangelo.

Michaelangelo closed his eyes and when he opened them he found Kiara standing above him by Rebecca. He was confused, but grateful and happy to see Kiara. She brought the rest of the group into a barrier where she told them that they were right about her grandfather and apologized for doubting them. They then asked each other what the plan was.

"The plan," Kiara said, "is to stay as far away from me as possible." She left the barrier, and Rebecca and Brandon exited after her to stop her, but she just dropped the papers she had crushed earlier into their hands before turning to face Chadwick herself.

Her eyes glistened with darkness as she walked closer to Chadwick. The soldiers who were meant to be fighting the monsters all fell through portals into her barriers with every step she took. Chadwick lunged at her with his sword and Kiara blocked his attack with her own intricate black staff. The contact of the weapons sent a shockwave and sent shivers down everyone's spine.

Kiara asked her granddad if the files she had found were true and if he truly was the leader of the Saviours and he admitted it. "Why?" Kiara asked as her voice broke. "All great leaders have to make necessary sacrifices for the good of the future generations." Chadwick sternly replied. "What about all the innocent people you've killed? Did they not deserve a chance to live?" Kiara cried. "Ira," Chadwick began, "I don't know why you're so attached to people you never even met. They won't be remembered anyway." "It's not them I am crying for," she said angrily, "It's you."

He raised his hand to resurrect his monsters once more, but Kiara ran him through before he could. "Ira," he said as his knees gave way. She cried as she offered to heal him and take him to the court, but he weakly implied his crimes could only be paid for with his life. Kiara held her papa in her arms as he fell to the ground, bleeding out, and with his last breath he whispered in her ear, "I love you."

As Kiara cried for the man who raised her, the world suddenly started to distort around everyone. Random spots of the air became dark voids and the same thing happened with the ground. Everyone was scrambling to grab their friends who were about to fall into the darkness. William noticed a dark aura around Kiara slowly growing, and called out to her, but she couldn't hear him.

Kiara's mind had gone blank as she held the cold body of the man who had raised her in her arms. She had killed him. She had taken his life. She destroyed one of the few rocks that were holding her down. She was all alone again. These thoughts, however, were overshadowed by the sounds of screams behind her. She turned to the permutations of the environment that were happening and realised that she was losing control.

She raised her arms to disconnect herself from her magic, but it wasn't working. She was running out of time and decided to absorb all the magic in the area, a power unique to the Creators' magicians. That technique restored the world to its previous state, but it made her even more unstable.

Kiara managed to conjure up one last portal and fell into the darkness after destroying the connection between her soul and her body. The last thing she saw was William and Michael running towards her, but Kiara lost consciousness as the portal closed and they never made it to her.

~TO BE CONTINUED~