“Will!” Alea wanted to look down to check on her friend, to make sure he was just unconscious, but didn’t dare take her eyes from the monster.

  She thinks he’s still alive, but right now she needs to figure out how to kill this thing or else neither one of them would make it.

  She slowly lowers Will to the ground, standing back up and summoning her fire. Even as weakened as this thing is, she doesn’t know if she has enough firepower to take it down.

  She had dropped her sword in a panic when Will had yelled at her to get away before he sent that insane attack at the monster.

  She had her fists, that would have to be enough. She takes one step toward the spider, ready to blitz it and try to take it down. The spider leaps towards her at the same time she leaps at it.

  All of a sudden a blur shoots down from above and lands on top of the spider. It’s hit so hard a slight shockwave of force shoots out from it, knocking Alea back from her charge.

  Alea stabilizes herself and looks back at the spider. It takes her a second to notice that the it’s dead. She thinks even the spider might not immediately realize it.

  A second of silence goes by and then the spider divides into a hundred different pieces. Torn apart by an insanely sharp blade, too fast for her to follow.

  “Taleya!” Amos yells as he appears in front of Alea, his face a thundercloud of fury.

  “Already on it!”

  Alea turns around to see her master leaning over Will. She seems to be casting a bubble of something over the boy, encapsulating him inside it.

  Amos rushes past Alea and pulls something out of a spatial ring she hadn’t seen him wearing before this.

  In his hand is a beautiful flower. A dark green stalk, each petal a different shade of blue, and the center a stark and vibrant white. The entire thing seemed to glow with a golden radiance that almost made it hard to look at it.

  “Is..is that a grand treasure?!” Alea asks, her eyes wide in amazement.

  “Quiet girl!” Taleya yells at her. Her face almost as angry as Amos’s own.

  “Open a path for me Taleya.”

  “You’re going to have to be quick. The boy is almost gone.”

  Taleya manipulates the bubble she had Will inside of and a small opening forms. Amos wastes no time and lowers the flower to Will’s chest. He presses it against Will’s skin, ripping Will’s shirt out of the way so the flower can touch Will directly.

  After a delay of a couple seconds, the flower is quickly absorbed into the almost dead boy.

  All Alea can do is stand there, powerless and afraid, tears running down her eyes as both of her masters work over the boy who had quickly become her best friend.

  The second the flower is fully absorbed, Taleya completely reforms the bubble around Will.

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  Her master wore a mask of pure concentration and focus. She had seen master Taleya use her magic enough to be able to recognize that multiple fluctuations of complex magic were occurring inside the bubble. Her master was doing multiple things, possibly effecting time in multiple ways, at multiple speeds, on different parts of Will’s body; all at the same time. She was sure she wasn’t grasping even a fraction of what Taleya was doing let alone truly understanding the sheer difficulty of what she was attempting.

  A half hour passes. Alea’s tears had dried up, but her fear and anxiety had never gone down. Amos just stands there, arms crossed, his eyes never leaving his apprentice for an instant. Taleya’s hands stay splayed out over Will, her focus never wavering for even a fraction of a second.

  Finally, after the full half hour, Taleya’s hands drop and a look of exhaustion comes over her face. Her shoulders droop, sweat beads on her brow, and her breaths come harder than normal.

  She had rarely seen her master so spent. What she had just done, or tried to do, Alea was still unsure of the results, must of been immensely more difficult then Alea could imagine.

  “Alea…..Alea!” It took a second time for Alea to notice her master had tried to get her attention. She was so fixated on Will that not much existed for her in that moment as she tries to tell if he is going to wake up or not.

  “Calm down. He’s going to be fine.” Taleya says.

  As a feeling of relief was beginning to come over Alea, a massive pressure fell down onto her. It hit her like a ceiling weighing an unimaginable weight suddenly falling down on top of her. She couldn’t move, she could barely breathe. She wasn’t able to get more then the tiniest of gasps into her lungs. It’s like she was being pressed into the earth by an immense gravity and squeezed by the world’s biggest constrictor snake all at the same time.

  And then Amos was in front of her, staring down at her. The weight of the world was in his eyes as he seemed to judge her wanting.

  “What. Happened.”

  Two words. Two words spoken with a finality that told her she had no other option but to tell the truth. But when she tried she couldn’t get the words out. It wasn’t just her fear, although she had rarely been so terrified, his aura crushing her wasn’t allowing her to speak.

  “She can’t answer with you squeezing the life out of her Amos.” Taleya said. Her hand resting on his shoulder in a comforting way.

  Shouldn’t she be trying to restrain or control him instead of comforting him? He is trying to kill me isn’t he?

  The pressure vanishes from her and she pitches forward slightly. She partially catches herself and falls to one knee as she gasps for breath. Her pulse a rapid drum in her ears. Her panic increasing as the reality of what almost happened hits her square in the chest.

  She starts to hyperventilate. I almost killed him. I almost killed Will!

  The murderous intent infused in Amos’s aura sends her emotions higher. At first it was fear that he would strike her down. But then it turned to a desire that he would deliver that punishment. She had almost gotten Will killed!

  “Alea.” Taleya goes to one knee beside her apprentice and lays a hand on her shoulder, like she had done to Amos. “Calm down. He’s going to be ok. Slow your breathing and relax your mind. Just like I taught you.” Alea listens to her master’s soothing yet commanding tone, a tone she has heard many times before. Almost like muscle memory, Alea feels herself responding, getting her breathing and emotions somewhat under control. “Good girl. Now tell us what happened.”

  So Alea did. She told them everything. How she had over confidentially and arrogantly bullied Will into searching for a monster to hunt. How she had done the same to get him to try and blitz the monster without trying to do any recon on it first. How, if it wasn’t for Will, she wouldn’t be here right now.

  And finally how he had used every ounce of elemental power he had to try and kill the spider so it couldn’t kill her.

  When she was finished she felt drained in a way she never had before. Spent and wrung out. Her emotions empty.

  She did have one question though. “How was it still alive after Will’s attack? Why didn’t it die?”

  “We’ll talk about that later.” Taleya said. She had stood back up and was looking at Amos. Alea had only just noticed that Amos was looking at Taleya with a frightening intensity.

  “Will he be able to fight?”

  The words came out clear. But a part of Alea thought she heard a slight tremble to the question. But it was so faint, if it was even there at all, that she wasn’t sure if her hearing was playing tricks on her or not.

  They’re small actions but they are such a huge help in helping me to make this little baby side hustle a real way for me to help support my family.