The Hero?

~Chapter 26~ Together We Fall

One by one.

Losing family.

Slowly losing my hope.

everyone in my chosen family was truly,

Dead.

I was gasping for air, my chest was in pain, and I didn't know why but tears were forming non-stop. I tried to calm down but I couldn't.

With the new powers and being so overwhelmed, I lost control, and I wasn't able to fly anymore. I was falling and it seemed like there was no way I was able to stop it. So I closed my eyes. Ready to meet my fate as my father destroyed and killed everything around me. I began to realize the fact that there was no way for me to stop him. 

I saw him take advantage of this, I watched him grab Sean, and take what power he had left after me draining him. I could see the pain Sean was feeling and I became even more emotionally distraught as I knew nothing could be done to save him. With a hard thud, I hit the ground, I felt like every part of my body was reacting to the fall, bones were broken and my energy was draining from my body. I felt myself fade as the sound of war surrounded me, and I could tell we were losing.

Is this how I am going to go? With nothing for my legacy but darkness and deceit? To be remembered as the rebel son of the warlord? Every second I'm in this realm of thought, minutes go by and more men and women are lost to my father and with no one by my side as this all comes to an end, I will be truly alone once again.

"W̴e̸ ̶s̶t̶a̴n̵d̸ ̵w̴i̷t̴h̷ ̴y̷o̴u̷," The familiar voices said yet I couldn't place who it was...

"A̶n̷d̵ ̶w̷e̴ ̸a̴l̵w̸a̶y̴s̴ ̸w̷i̸l̷l̸," 

That was when I recognized them, Dark... I suppose he wasn't an alter ego I created after all. He was real, and he'll always give me the strength I need to be who I truly was meant to be.

Coming back to reality, I was still gasping for air and in tears from both the physical and mental pain, I've endured when I felt it.

All that rage towards my father had finally boiled to the top, and now with Aura's powers, I felt in control again and there was no stopping me as everything healed all at once and I was back to full strength. It felt as though I was a god. I flew at extreme speeds towards my father as I summoned a dagger in my hand. When I got to him I grabbed on to him and with all the strength I had, I plunged the dagger into his chest, right in the heart. My eyes were glowing with anger and all that darkness in me was showing with a very prominent outer glow on me. It took father a moment to react, but when he did, it was not what I expected. All his darkness and power was flowing out of him into me, but as it happened I could see him aging, and with his remaining strength and power he had left in him, he tried to cast a banishing spell on me. But I had already become too powerful, and I deflected it right back at him. For once, I saw fear in his eyes instead of anger as he fell downwards, his old and decrepit body moments from giving up disappeared into the banished realm.

Everything once again slowed down for me.

"Mark..." I heard a voice speak,

I looked around and nothing.

"Thank you..." It said again in a faded distance

I felt I got some kind of closure with that Thank You, it was as though I've been waiting for it all my life...

There was no time for me to ponder that Thank you, as I saw Sean unconscious and falling fast, I quickly flew over to him and caught him just right before he hit the ground. He was still unconscious so I flew him over to the medical bay.

Once I put him down, I flew up and saw the devastation, the dead army was all subdued as there was no leader, but I saw that the men and women on my side of the war were also in a lot of pain. Many had injuries that looked fatal and I felt so guilty as I was responsible for all of this... I let Aura unleash the beast.

I found the centre of it all, where I cast the first spell, the signal for war. Right in the centre where I felt the most burnt up magic, I kneeled down and put my hands to the ground. I felt my power surge through me, there was no need for speaking the full spells, as the world seemed to follow to my every whim.

"GROW!" I shouted

Almost immediately all of nature that was dead and burnt grew into healthy green, it took the bodies of the dead army into the ground burying it with its roots and using the rotting corpses as a nutrient for it to continue to flourish. The leaves of trees surrounded the injured on the battlefield and healed them enough where their injuries were not going to kill them. I could feel all my magic depleting from overuse as this was spell was not meant to have been maintained this long, but I kept at it nonetheless. 

"Mark!" I heard someone shout, but I was too concentrated on what I was doing to figure out who it was.

It wasn't until I felt their hand on my shoulder did I realize it was Sean. I looked up to see his injured face and his weakened stature.

"You need to stop this before you hurt yourself and drain so much magic that you'll lose your powers," Sean said to me in a soft worried tone.

"I can't... I caused this if I have to lose everything to make it right, so be it," I said to him before turning back to what I was doing.

I don't know what he was thinking after I said that, nor will I ever, he might have been injured but he still had enough strength to block me from reading him. But moments after, he grabbed my face and kissed me, this halted everything I was doing, I stopped maintaining the spell and we fell to the ground in a moment of passion. He was my home... There was no fighting anymore, no backstabs no pain, we just kissed in the grass.

But something felt different this time, he was lingering as if he didn't want to let go. I broke from our kiss, he looked into my eyes and gave me a soft and loving smile before closing his eyes and his body slowly going limp. That was when I saw it, the wound and the blood. A wound the exact size of the dagger I used to pierce my father. He bounded himself to Sean.

If one gets hurt so does the other, as they've become one.

The oldest spell in the book... I was in so much pain, there was nothing I could do to bring him back unless I could bring back father, and no one has ever entered and exited the banished realm, it was a lost cause. I had lost Sean forever, I've lost my happily ever after, I truly lost it all, I felt so defeated even though we won the war... I looked at his beautiful face and I held his body in my arms.

And wept.