Chapter 6 - Battle Partner

Everett Ailan's/Malefici's P.O.V

As I walked back towards the edge of the school property, I checked to see if the elf was out too. Her hand was twitching, but that stopped after kicking her like I did to her friend a few minutes ago.

I was tempted to stick around and wait for their transformations to wear off, but a shriek from at least a few miles away caught my attention.

Luzor's voice echoed in my head. "Malefici, you need to be careful."

"What? Why? The wizard and elf aren't going to bother us anymore."

"That's not the problem here!" he growled. "I should have told you this sooner, but that screaming you just heard came from a monster."

"As in one of us? What's the problem here?"

"Malefici, that thing over there is not one of us. We are more mature, and we actually have a brain. Those monsters over there will kill all of you, whether or not you're a Hero or a Villain."

"What?! What should I do?"

"You need to stay away from those things! You don't stand a chance on your own!"

I glared at the sky. "Okay, well what do I do?"

"Malefici, leave this monster be for now. There are only three Villains in the city now, and none of you are capable of destroying these things."

"Well how do we do that!?"

Luzor grew quiet, and he took a minute to come up with the right words. "These monsters haven't been seen for over 400 years. When this happened, we had to cooperate with the Heroes in order to destroy them."

"Are you telling me we need to work with them?!"

"Well not now you idiot! You nearly killed two of them!"

I turned my head back. The two were still out cold.

"Why do we need them anyways? Why aren't we strong enough?"

"Look, Malefici. You and all the other Villains might have incredible destructive power, but in order to properly kill these monsters, you need to have Light magic as well."

"Oh great, don't tell me I'm going to have to work with these two."

I could feel Luzor's hatred radiate off of him. "Shut up, I'm tired of hearing you complain! I am going to have to talk to the others about how we are going to handle this. For now, just leave the school and go somewhere else."

I shook my head in an attempt to get Luzor to leave. I walked back one more time to see if they were still out.

The wizard was still faced down and unconscious. For some reason, my hand felt inclined to touch her head.

As soon as it made contact, I felt a sharp jolt of pain. "Geez! What was that!?" I quickly retracted my hand.

"Malefici? What did you do?!"

The wizard's hair started to turn jet black where my fingers touched, and my glove started to turn white. "Luzor?! What's going on?"

The black and white spots disappeared, and the normal colors returned.

"What was that?"

"Malefici, you are a bigger idiot than I thought you were."

"Can you just tell me what happened?!"

"The only reason that didn't happen when you fought was being you were doing that out of hatred. When you touch a hero with any other feeling but hatred, it creates a bond with them."

I blinked and rubbed my eyes. "A bond? Why does that kind of thing even exist?"

Luzor coughed and had trouble forming words. "Malefici, you,um, you can no longer hurt Justine."

"Why?"

"That bond you created, Malefici. You are now linked to Justine, and you are battle partners with her."

I tripped over my own feet. "No way! That can't be right! Isn't she your sworn enemy?!"

"I don't control that Malefici, someone even higher than Life and Death does. If you hurt your battle partner in away way, Hero or Villain, that is breaking the rules of using our magic."

"There has to be a way to undo this, right? I hate her!"

"Well maybe you should have thought about that when you walked over to her! Let it go Malefici, and just deal with it!"

I sighed dramatically. "This sucks. What should I do?"

"First of all, you can't just leave her here. You need to wake her up."

I looked back over at the fallen hero. "She was beaten way too easily, Luzor."

"That's because she has only had this magic for a couple days, she has not trained very much."

I shook the Wizard until I saw her hand move. "C'mon, get up."

Her hand stopped moving again.

"Luzor, she isn't getting up!"

"For once, I wish you hadn't beaten her so badly. You're going to have to carry her to some place more private."

"For what?"

"I need to talk to Polori, to get this all straightened out. I can't do that if there are lots of distractions."

I turned the wizard over and picked her up with ease. "Where should I go?"

Luzor face palmed. "You're hopeless, Malefici. Just go to the forest on the other end of the city, there shouldn't be anybody over there."

I raced through the city while trying to avoid being hit by a bus. I would have jumped over the buildings, but it would be hard to climb with me carrying the wizard.

Once we reached the entrance of the forest, I was commanded by Luzor to put her down.

"You need to prevent her from transforming back into her human self."

"Just how am I suppose to do that?"

"Get rid of the wounds that you inflicted."

"I can't heal people you know, did you forget who we are?"

"No, no! You can't heal anybody Malefici! What you can do is absorb any kind of negative energy. Since this was caused by some kind of negative magic, you can absorb it."

I put my hand over the area where my foot connected with her torso earlier. Just by touching it, I could already feel an intense amount of negative energy rush into me.

I abruptly removed my hand once I could no longer sense any dark energy.

"She'll survive." I took a few deep breaths. I managed to prop her up against a tree to rest, and I fell back onto the forest floor.

"You didn't tell me how exhausting that would be, Luzor." I wiped away the sweat on my face with my black sleeve.

"You need to toughen up, Everett. I'll be back in about 10 minutes."

"Where are you going?"

"To talk with Polori. I need to let her know before Justine wakes up. If she does, she will try to kill you."

"Fine, but hurry up."

I watched as a black mist left my body and traveled into the wizard.

Why did I feel inclined to touch her head anyway? Maybe it was out of curiosity? Who knows.

She did seem to remind me of someone though, I just couldn't put my finger on it.

I shook my head. "There is no way it's Lucy. All of our appearances changed drastically, and you could be a clown for all I know."

I started to sense another presence a half a mile away. It screamed something dark, like me. What was I supposed to do if they tried to attack her? Was I supposed to protect her? Should I just do nothing?

A figure loomed around in the shadows of the trees. "She's right there! Kill her already!"

It was another Villain, and this one looked to be a creature of the night. He wore a black mask, a dark cape, and victorian clothing. His fangs, red eyes, and pale skin gave the impression of him being a vampire.

"Just go away, I'm not in the mood to talk right now."

He started to walk in the shadows of the trees. "You're not going to do it?"

"Not if my life depended on it."

His face twisted in confusion. "There is something seriously wrong with you. You are this close to a Hero, and you just do nothing."

"It's complicated. You remind me of someone."

"I do?"

"Someone that annoys me to no end. He keeps insisting for me to do something, but I always tell him the answer is no. He never listens to me."

He grinned and crossed his arms. "Sounds a lot like someone I know. What's your real name, by the way?"

"What? You expect me to just tell you?"

"Hmm, if you don't tell me, than I will attack her."

I grew tense. "You're evil."

"Aren't we all."

"No, you are seriously evil."

I debated whether or not it would be wise to tell him who I was. On one hand, I would get in trouble for not protecting her or hurting a fellow villain, and on the other, I would have one other person know my identity. There was no competition here, really.

"Fine. My real name is Everett Ailan, but that probably doesn't ring any bells to you."

By the time I looked back at him, his jaw dropped and fell over himself.

"Everett? Is that you? Is that really you?!" He scrambled to get back up. He put his hands on my shoulders. It was then that I noticed that we were about the same height.

"Um, yeah? And who are you?"

"It's me, Everest!"

"Everest?!?!?!"