Dazed

Carmen watched the red lightening attach itself to the distant hills and halted it with spindly fingers outstretched in the cold night. Margov was coming, and now he knew where she was. She would wait and she would kill him. Or she'd pass to the Crystalline Halls.

"I feel you." Margov's voice was like twisting metal in Carmen's mind. He materialized in front of her, floating before the balcony of the school.

Margov, the Red Beast. He was barely human anymore, and the damp crimson power that dripped from his skin and off of his claws was caustic on the academy lawn below him. Thank Veesh Carmen had liquidated the students. Margov had no hesitance in murdering children and the young ones at her school would be just the ones he would take. Their futures were bright and perilous to his rein.

"Why did you return?" Carmen asked, her voice small in his presence.
"I have a thirst." He thrust out his arms, and brought the lightening down on her like tines on roast. But Carmen was alert, and her blue force was opened, blocking the bolts.
His laughter was like the dead coming to terms with their lot. "Carmen. You've practiced. Does this mean you've been expecting me?"

Carmen wasn't inclined to answer. She not only had a school that relied on her, but an entire village. Banter wasn't useful if it meant he could recharge between words. She flew at him with blue fury, azure mist blasting from her pores like pressurized steam.

Her battle cry had not the same blackness as his, but it did invoke images of the Falcons of Hemos. She spun on her attack, and the mist turned sharp like talons. Margov barely evaded, but leapt from her spiral, and spun to the academy wall where centuries old brick crumbled at his back. While she recovered, he brought a light show down on her. And while her mist that was still unfolded was able to congeal into a blue shield, Carmen was weak, and his red static pushed her down to the front lawns. She hit hard, and curled in on her injuries with agony, both in body and spirit.

Margov floated down like a scathing red lantern and his clawed feet met cobbled stone near the entry gates of the academy building. Carmen tried to feel something, to conjure a breath of Ephemeral Longing, but her power was spent. How had it run out so quickly? At that moment, she only had the power to feel one thing, and that was fear.

She saw the Crystalline Halls beyond her fluttering eyelids, and knew they were near. Their image should have been comforting, but the weight of remorse for her brilliant students clamped down on her like a hammer on iron.

But wait. This feeling was familiar, even academic. She felt... dazed. Someone was taking her power, but it couldn't be Margov, for he had spoken the Oaths of Geem, and his spirit was closed off.

Carmen saw a blue cloud form behind the beast and she watched as he stepped aside to confront what was at his back.

Simone.

That little troublemaker. She'd asked all the students to leave, but she should have known Simone was never one to run away from a spectacle. Carmen's heart pained for her life, but not for long.

The cloud Simone built engulfed Margov and stifled his charge. Simone was talented in Transferrence, and with Carmen's power and hers, she might just be strong enough.

Margov roared, and sent a flurry of lightening out from his bulging shoulders. But it was contained, and it smoldered him where he stood.

The Red Beast was dead.

Simone ran over to help her teacher, and she knelt at her side. "I guess I'm in trouble for staying, aren't I?" she asked, her tiny voice ragged with exhausted breaths.

"I'll let it slide this time," Carmen said as Simone helped her stand on wobbling legs.