Ciara wasn't kidding when she said these guys each had an element that they commanded. The moment we had been bracing ourselves was finally upon us. If it wasn't for the thickness of the trees in this forest, there wouldn't be any left standing. I could say that this wind was enough to through down a skyscraper given the chance. T was taking all I had just to stay firmly rooted to the ground, not to mention I could not see a single thing with my eyes closed. The dust and grass that whipped across my face was not making this easy for me. I needed to get my bearings right lest I would risk having the totem stolen from us from right under our noses. Someone tapped my back, but I could not tell who it was. In an instant, something was strapped around my head across my eyes. I used my hands to feel for it and found that it was a pair of goggles.
I opened my eyes and turned to see that it was Ciara who had come to my rescue. She held out something for me that looked like a gas mask. I put it on without asking questions as she was wearing similar head gear. "Give these to the others," she yelled, but her voice came from within the head gear I was wearing. I grabbed the remaining masks and goggles and began the rather hard task of getting to the rest of the artras. My armour helped a bit since it enhanced my abilities, but the wind was making it hard to move without bracing myself in an attempt to avoid being blown away. I was surprised I was still on the ground for that matter. I looked up to see how the dragons were faring in these conditions and found myself frozen to my spot instantly by the sight in the sky.
The dragons' flight seemed somewhat erratic at first glance, but soon enough I saw exactly what they were doing. The dragons flew in patterns that kept them aligned with the direction of the wind and in doing so seemed unaffected. Soon enough I could even predict which direction would be best for them to fly in. four of the dragons seemed engaged higher up in the air with what seemed like a giant Eagle. The beast was enormous, almost towering over the dragons themselves. Each wing beat was a typhoon created, and this made fighting it all the more harder. I tore my gaze away from the riders and made my way to the other artras. When I finally had Kendall and Jacob by my side we looked up at the on-going clash between the dragon riders and Abigail of the Dark Seven mages.
"What can we do to help?" Jacob asked.
"I could teleport up there and help add to their firepower," Kendall stated. We were leaning against the tree stump for support against the rough winds.
"That wouldn't work, Kendall, not in all this wind. Your fire would be blown out in mere seconds before it even had a chance to hit the eagle. Besides, there is the wind that won't let up. You would be swept away before you even got your bearings right," I told him.
"Well we cannot sit around and do nothing," he said to me clearly infuriated at his lack of use right now.
"The alpha will come up with something, she always does," I told him whilst we watched a battle of epic proportions unfold from the sky. We were about to go on like this when we heard thunder.
"I thought Ciara said it controls wind," Jacob said.
"That thunder did not come from the eagle," I said. I had noticed how dark the clouds were getting. Things had just taken a turn for the worst. Something else was coming and we in a lot more trouble than we had already been in.
Ciara finally made it to our position and we looked to her for instruction like we always did. She was the one who knew the most about magic of all of us so it was only natural that we look to her for guidance in a situation like this. "The situation just got a lot worse," she said. The sooner she said, the other four dragons landed besides us and crouched to the ground the way an animal did when confronted by and enemy. From the tree line, two Creatures emerged. Easily towering to about fifteen feet, cloaked in dark magic and radiating malice, a lion and a wolf stood before us. A distance of fifty metres from where we stood, they too were part of the Seven Dark mages. It was bad enough I had sensed the power of Travas, the Dark Wolf who had the power to cause storms, but now we were also faced with a third, a lion for that matter.
"Ciara, what is the Lion's power?" she asked.
She didn't have the time to answer that question as the lion itself burst into flames with such force that it sounded like a bomb had just gone off. This wasn't looking good for any of us. Before any of us could think of the next step, Kendall vanished. "Damn it, Kendall," Ciara mumbled before she too vanished. The two appeared right above the two beasts and began delivering a volley of fireballs whilst they struggled to stay hovering in air. The wind was not making it easy for them. Nevertheless I was stunned by the fact that they still managed to hover with all this wind. There wasn't a second to lose, the Dark mages weren't going to just stand still and let themselves be battered. The lion let out a roar so mighty it caused the ground itself to rumble although that now seemed to be besides the aim of that roar. Along with the roar came an omnidirectional shockwave of fire.
The rest of us teleported away from it and back in order to dodge the fireball. The battle had only just begun and I was sure we were yet to see worse things happen. I finally dove into the fight and so did Jacob. My friend and I had been training partners in the Artarak since we began training with Ciara and we pretty much knew ourselves well in the way we fought. Jacob was the best at flight in all of us which gave him the advantage in the air. He had no problem staying stable in the air. I decided to improvise and use earth magic since it was the least affected by the wind. Slamming my fist into the ground, I sent shockwaves towards the lion and wolf, disrupting their footing right when they looked like they were about to launch a counter attack. The dragon riders sprang into action when they saw the opening I had created, but this was only the beginning. Lightning struck on all sides of the lion and the wolf shielding them from harm and halting the advance of the dragon riders.
"Looks like they are getting cocky now that the artras are with them," Texan's voice vibrated through the whole field. I looked up and saw lightning strike two of the riders who were fighting the Eagle. 'If only we had learnt magic as kids,' I thought, 'but even if we did, would we stand a chance against beasts that hold the power of calamity.
"Isaac, you've done it," I heard a voice in my head. I turned my head around, but I couldn't tell its origin. It sounded more like Ciara, but something was odd.
"Ciara, did you call me?" I asked telepathically.
"Get your head back in the fight Isaac," I heard her yell in my head and saw that she was in the middle of blasting Texan with a multitude of ice shards. I wanted to launch my attack, but something was stopping me. Before I could tell what was going on, images began flashing in my head till I started to make out what I was seeing.
FLASHBACK...
"Isaac, you did it?" I heard the voice again. I looked to the person that was praising me and it was a little girl with glasses on.
"I can't believe it. He actually pulled it off," I heard another person say and looked to them only to see a small boy. It took me longer than I would have liked, but on closer inspection, the people around me were none other than Kevin, Ciara, Jacob, Kendall and dare I say it, Charles. He was there too, and I looked around for what they were in awe of and found that my hands were outdrawn holding a cup with in a ball of air.
"I didn't think it would work," I said, but my voice came out squeaky like I was a kid again. This was a memory from before I turned seven. My friends and I all didn't have much of our memories from then. But unlike Kevin, we knew who our family and friends were. We never had a single event in our heads, but at least we knew who we were or where we came from, but Kevin lost everything. He didn't even know his parents for that matter. Everything Kevin knew was from what we told him from our own familiarities with each other.
END OF FLASHBACK...
I now knew that long before we were ever artras, we knew about magic and I was the one person of all of us who knew how to manipulate the wind. The way this magic was familiar to me was uncanny, almost as if I was made to control the winds. It had somehow triggered the memory to appear now. And I was glad that it had appeared now of all times, because now I knew what I had to do to level the playing field, "Isaac, get your head back in the fight," Ciara screamed in my head. I closed my eyes for I needed to focus. Gathering all the magic I could muster, I unleashed a spell outwards like a blast that was meant to reverse the direction the wind was blowing in and in turn cancel it out. In one brief moment the air was still again. There was a moment of silence while the situation finally sank into everyone's mind.
"Good job, artra," I heard the Elder say before he let out a battle cry signalling an all-out attack that didn't involve the distraction of the wind. The dragon riders were exceptional. Now that the wind was gone, they seemed to hold their ground against the dark mages. They were pushing the Eagle back. Without the wind to aid her, their fire hit the mark and they could outmanoeuvre her easily. We soon saw her retreat or at least that is what we thought she was doing. The Elder told two of the Dragon riders with him to patrol the skies. The ones that had been downed by lightning had now recovered thanks to Ciara's healing magic. I had barely had the time to notice her fall back and tend to them. Six dragon riders along with Kendall and Jacob now faced the Lion and the Wolf. The storm clouds were still heavy in the sky and thunder rumbled within them.
"That was an advanced spell," Texan's voice rumbled, "perhaps we underestimated them."
"That is what Travas has been trying to get you to stop doing for a while now. Try to concentrate on the task at hand Texan," another voice rumbled and I guessed it was coming from the lion. The dragon riders wasted no time in launching a volley of fire straight at the creatures in front of them, the all stopped abruptly attracting my attention. They had all stopped breathing fire, but yet they fire they had launched still hung in the air as though it was being held there. It soon became clear that the lion had captured all the fire that the dragons were throwing at them and my next guess was that the fire was coming right back. I didn't have second to lose. I began preparing my next spell and thankfully I was ready by the time the fire was sent back.
Gathering the magic I could take out of my void at the moment I summoned a gust of wind powerful enough to put out the fire before it could do any damage. "That artra is becoming a pest," Texan's voice rumbled.
"Just give up, you are not taking our piece of the totem," the Elder called out to them when it appeared to have come to stalesmate. The Dark mages had known they would have to depend on the wind if they were going to deal with us, but now that I had taken care of it, they were outnumbered by the dragon riders.
"Don't be so sure," the other voice rumbled. Thunder was getting louder in the sky. Dopes of rain began to fall lightly, "we had hoped this wouldn't have to get messy, but I guess you asked for it. A whistling sound could be heard in the distance. It came from the direction we all saw the Eagle fleeing. It was returning, and this time the magic it packed was double what it had used for the first windstorm. The rain began to pick up, thunder boomed louder. The realisation of how much trouble we were in was now setting in deep. If the two Dark mages combined their powers of wind and storm, the results were going to be catastrophic.
The Elder turned to two riders on his right, "Help with the evacuation of the forest," he commanded and they immediately took flight. The Dark mages didn't bother chasing after them. This battle was already won in their eyes. The lion still had me captivated. Flames covered its entire body from head to paw(pun intended). Its mane was magnificent as it was ablaze in flames. If this Beast wasn't under the control of the dark mages, I would be amazed by it. It was truly a sight to behold. A lightning bolt came straight from the sky and struck down a tree splitting it in half. This was saying something considering how thick the trees were, another bolt struck prompting the Elder to order his riders to flee the skies. Our situation was looking grim, the whistling sound could not get any louder as it had us now clutching our ears. The lion and wolf only stood watching for their amusement. The feet of the wolf now crackled with electricity which wasn't surprising since he was the source of the storm.
"Ciara, what now?" I asked.
"Do you think you will be able to stop the wind this time?" she asked.
"I don't know, the Eagle is packing more magic in this spell than it did in the last one," I said to her.
"You're going to have to try," she said, "after that I will use my ice to freeze the lion and the wolf. I have a plan, but I don't have time to carry it out."
"What is it?" I asked her.
"They have us on the defensive, it would be impossible to carry it out," just as she said it, the Eagle came into view. A rush of magic pulsed from the tree stump on which the totem was. Something was off. A portal similar to that of the one and only Kevin opened up, he stepped through dressed in his light armour looking happy and totally oblivious to what was going on.
"Would someone fill me in on what is going on?" he yelled.
I felt the air go still as the Eagle was releasing yet another spell that was going to create the mother of typhoons. "We don't have time for that," I yelled at him gathering my magic for a counter spell only to hear a loud ear piercing sound come from Kevin. It sounded like he had snapped his fingers, but the sound had been amplified tenfold disrupting me from the spell I was casting. I closed my eyes waiting for the impact of the Eagle, but everything had gone silent, even the rumbling clouds above us and the roaring thunder. Not even the wing beats of the eagle could be heard. I opened my eyes only to widen them in shock as everything as far the eye could see was frozen solid. The raindrops in the air, the lightning bolt aimed at yet another tree. The wolf and the Lion, the eagle in the sky, the dragon riders, all of it was frozen.
"Well," I heard Kevin say, "now we have time."