Twilight Wings: A Supernatural Romance/Action

Chapter 5: The Clash

He ducked low, under the strike, and popped up, cracking a vicious punch right into my chin. I staggered backwards, and in his free hand he drew his pocketknife, stepping in to follow up the punch with a stab. He stabbed at my chest, but I flung down my free arm and knocked his hand away. I then whirled and stabbed him once in the side with my blade. He cried out in pain and stepped back a few feet.

He didn't seem to be all that affected by the strike, and as he stepped back he let out two shots from his pistol. The bullets bounced harmlessly off of my cloak again.

"Why are you here?" I asked him.

"Wy, ain't it obvious enough? I'm tryin' ta clear y'all out and make some room for Lord Malice and Sir Slaughter to come through. Without y'all in our way, we'd have this here town in the palms of our hands! Now, be a good death spirit and put down the sword before I shoot your little head off. Tomorrow, we're gonna attack, and you don't want to be there when that happens," Slate Face said.

"Tomorrow...oh no. Emma, get home! Get Jacob and tell him that we need to get ready!" I yelled.

"But what about you?" she called.

"Just get him! And if you can, swing by the school and tell Mr. Tholos about this al -" I started, but was cut off by a bang.

After the bang had echoed out, I felt a pain in my chest. My vision went red for a second, and all I saw was blood spraying from my chest. I coughed and Slate Face just stood there laughing, putting his gun away. I heard Emma scream in the background. I slammed into the ground, blood staining the grass around me.

"So, partner, I see that you're not wise enough to keep your guard up durin' a shootout. That's the way it'd work out in the Old West. There'd be a long period o' talking sometimes, and then one of the gunslinger's 'd just pop his enemy right in the chest. No warnin' at all. Now, while you lay here dyin', I'm gonna just take your girlfrien' and rip 'er apart too," Slate Face said, evilly.

"You...you're not doing that," I said, struggling to stand up. Slate Face slammed a boot onto my chest and forced me back down, cutting off my air flow.

"Yes,  I-" Slate Face started, but now it was his turn to get cut off.

All I saw was a blur of colors and Slate Face went flying backwards. Slate Face slammed into the ground, landing hard. I managed to struggle up while he was down and I looked around to see what had happened. It wa sthen that I noticed a girl standing there.

The girl was in our grade. Her name was Tessa Sheets, and she was one of the solitary types who don't like to talk much. She always sat at the back of classes and didn't volunteer much. She had black hair and gleaming blue eyes, and now she was standing here with gleaming purple energy swirling around her hands.

"What in the world..." I started to say.

"Don't let your guard down again, you idiot, he's getting up!" Tessa said. I turned back around to see Slate Face staggering to his feet.

Tessa snapped her fingers and a bolt of the purple energy that was around her hands shot out and nailed Slate Face right in the chest. He stumbled backwards, and finally he just threw down his gun and held up his hands.

"I give up. Now y'all have a witch on your side, I'm done with this. I'm headin' back to my place. but remember. Tomorrow's the night. Tomorrow, we're comin' through, so y'all best be ready," Slate Face said.

He sunk beneath the ground slowly. Tessa tried to fire a couple more bolts at him, but he was gone. I sat down, exhausted. Tessa ran over to me and put a hand to my gunshot wound. This time, blue energy came out of her hand and flowed into my wound. I felt the bullet slowly dissolve into nothing. My muscles grew back together and my skin closed over the wound. Tessa had healed me.

"So what the heck are you?" I asked her.

"I'm a witch, and I'm surprised you didn't notice either. I know what's going on, and we have to stop it. Tomorrow night, right after school, we'll have to do it. Mr. Tholos is going to come too. We'll sit here and wait for them to come through. And hopefully we can stop them. He's going to summon them in the big forest outside of town, and then we'll take them on there," Tessa said.

Emma rushed over to us. She crouched down beside Tessa and shook the witch girl's hand. With a nice "Pleased to meet you" she then turned to me with a scream of "Az, are you okay?!" I nodded and gave a sigh and stood up, dissolving my uniform and my sword.

"I'm fine. We need to start preparing though. Tomorrow night, they're going to summon them right outside of town in that big forest. There's no way we'll be able to take them all on at once though, so I have a plan," I said.

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"We're going to run away?! And leave the townspeople defenseless?" Jacob yelled as he, Emma, Mr. Tholos, and Tessa were all gathered in Mr. Tholos' office at school.

"Well, Az has a point. They'll follow us into the wild, and then when we're out there, we can find some allies and possibly find a way to take them down," Mr. Tholos said.

"Alright, then it's decided. We'll get out into the wild. And we'll pray that this plan works," Tessa said with a grin.