Original Stories Fan Fiction / Realism Fan Fiction ❯ Aqua ❯ Broken ( Chapter 16 )

Chapter Sixteen

Broken

 

 

A snarl echoed through an empty room as a crystal ball shattered, shattering the image of a sleeping auburn girl. “We will have to retrieve her ourselves,” a cloaked figure snarled at the other two standing near him. They regarded their leader with a calculating eye before nodding.

 

The Night-n-Gale prince's arrival had altered all of their plans. He had broken through her carefully constructed wall of ice and hatred and set them back to square two with the plans for their “perfect weapon.”

 

“There will be no escape for that meddler or her. They will both come with us,” the second assured the first.

 

“We are forgetting that we have located our previous weapon. She is currently on a planet only a day's flight from Earth. We need not go at all if we cast that spell and send her in our place with the Letrangra that are stationed at that same planet,” the third said placidly.

 

The first's eyes gleamed with an insane light as he said, “Yes, that will do nicely. Very nicely, indeed.”

 

* * *

 

Halfway through her battle with the Letrangra battalion, a battle in which she had slain half their numbers already, she suddenly stopped and clutched at her head and screamed in pain. She arched back, her eyes wide with the pain.

 

The Letrangra immediately recognized the signs of a powerful control spell at work and drew back warily. They knew enough about this certain kind of spell to know that if they were to touch the one whose mind was being taken over, they would be incinerated instantly.

 

Arisan threw her head back and howled in pain. Her eyes snapped open and locked with Jonathan's. “Run and don't look back, no matter what,” she screamed in agony. Terald flinched as a portion of her barrier shattered and the shock waves struck him. He readjusted his grip on Lackardel's arm before he and Jonathan were blasted farther away from the battle.

 

Jonathan glanced at Terald, who shook his head, before the three of them blasted from the planet's surface. They didn't look back, but they could still hear her screams. It pained them to leave a long time companion behind, but when it came down to it, she was protecting them and they had a duty to their captain before they could rescue her.

 

Lackardel's eyes snapped open as an ear splitting, blood-curling scream escaped Arisan's mouth. His eyes blazed a darker black with hate as he tore away from Terald and Jonathan and flew back towards the Letrangra and Arisan, only to be brought up short by her barrier. He could distantly hear the other two shouting at him, but he pushed their voices to the back of his mind as he concentrated on Arisan below.

 

Arisan's entire body was enveloped by a black flame, a flame that was slowly contaminating her remaining force field turning it first muddy brown then blacker by the second. It suddenly hit him that she had never willingly betrayed him; that she had been under a mind control spell. The power his hatred had supplied him was instantly drained away, though his normal strength had more than been restored.

 

He watched, transfixed as the flame was drawn into her body and disappeared, though when she opened her eyes they were red instead of their normal amber. Their eyes locked and only a flicker of recognition passed through hers before she sealed it away completely and attacked him.

 

She dropped her barrier as she lunged for Lackardel, the Letrangra below cheering her on. Terald and Jonathan tried to grab her arms, only to have her blast them back. Her fist connected with Lackardel's stomach before he really had a chance to defend himself.

 

Lackardel was sent back several feet before he could regain his balance, but by that time Arisan was already in front of him with another prepared attack that she fired directly at his heart, intent on finishing him off instantly. He scarcely managed to dodge it by twisting his upper body away, though he was still severely burned by her blast.

 

Before she could prepare another blast, he shot towards her, his left hand drawn back behind him and transforming into a claw. He didn't think about what he was going, all he saw was the way she used to be, smiling and laughing as she always did.

 

Arisan's eyes flickered for the briefest of seconds as he flew at her. An internal battle raged between her very essence and the control spell. The only thing that kept the spell from entirely winning was Lackardel's presence. Time seemed to have slowed down so that it seemed like the entire universe was centered on only them.

 

Her inner self screamed with agony every time she landed a blow to him. She could feel herself slipping with every passing second and knew that if things continued as they were, her first and only love would end up dead and that she would lose herself completely to the darkness around her heart without him there to guide her back to herself.

 

Arisan came to an instantaneous decision. She shifted her body just enough so that her chest was exposed and left unguarded.

 

Lackardel's claw met with hers, but he plunged his other into her unguarded chest. He penetrated the armor, flesh, bone, and heart organ before he truly realized what he had done. Jonathan later said that he never could tell whose scream had been louder; Arisan's dying one or Lackardel's agonized one.

 

Before Arisan breathed her last breath, her eyes changed entirely back to their original amber and blazed brighter than they had ever blazed before. With her dying strength she whispered, “Love you… Go to Earth… and you'll find them.” Then the light faded from her eyes and her body plummeted to the ground.

 

Time instantly sprang forward as though to make up for the time that it had slowed down for. The Letrangra screamed their fury as Arisan's body fell and launched themselves into the air after the remaining Night-n-Gales. Terald and Jonathan shouted something. Strong hands closed around his upper arms and dragged him away from the swarming Letrangra. Fresh blood still dripped from his left hand, as his hands had reverted from their claw form.

 

Lackardel saw and heard all this, but retained none of it. All that stuck was the notion that Arisan was dead and it was because of him. It was his fault that she was gone, his fault that she had been on the planet's surface in the first place, his fault that they had ever even met at all, his fault for loving her.

 

He didn't feel the silent tears fall from his eyes as he watched Arisan's body grow smaller and smaller as the distance between them grew. The farther away from her he got, the less he felt.

 

* * *