Spoiler (Click to Show)
There had been a few, and they gave him the thrill of true combat. One battle in particular was truly exhilarating, leaving him in a hospital in critical condition for a long life threatening time. However, he did discover that during his recovery, the painkiller he had been given was just so good. He couldn’t live without it. After stealing around a year’s supply of morphine IV, he and his puppets escaped from the recovery center and returned to one of his many theaters.
Too bad it was wrecked. He had a lot more…but he liked this one most of all because of its golden-edged red stage curtains. They had just about burned to nothing. He was still looking at them when all of a sudden, a cold feeling of dread made him look to the bodies again. From the stinking mess, a black shape swirled to life. Red eyes flashed into view, and the shadow looked him over.
Abra was stunned at the sight. He felt as though the creature was looking right into his soul. Reflexively, he put both hands to his chest. At the same time, he readied himself for an attack, as a faded, nearly invisible light blue creature flickered into existence beside the Dark mass.
“Show’s over.” Abra found himself saying. “Do stay for the credits though.” he added quickly, an escape plan forming in his head. These two were probably with those other people that wanted him dead. He didn’t like their otherworldly look.
“I don’t care for credits.” the shadow hissed. “I’m Vamprina, and my partner here is Volt. You challenged us?”
“I did?” Abra queried. He placed one hand on the chin of his mask, as if deep in thought, and suddenly he whipped it off, sending a roaring wall of flame in the pair’s direction.The light blue figure snapped away from the flames, flashing bright white and streaking all over the place like a bolt of electricity. The shadow laughed and vanished, allowing the heat to scorch the bodies where she had just been standing. Abra returned his mask to his face. If he had visible eyes, he would have glared with them.
“Seriously…” Vamprina snarled, her voice lingering in the air. “That was the worst move I’ve ever seen. Are you really a professional or are you just warming up?”Abra didn’t like being made fun of. Rather, he liked to make fun of his opponents, but he was unsure of how to respond. In that split second of confusion, Vamprina appeared in front of him, and he was about to warp behind her when something struck him in the back…hard.
He stumbled, summoning cards to surround him while he recovered, and when they vanished he saw the blue figure, Volt, standing in front of him. He swung a ball of light around in the air, and in the next minute there was a blinding explosion. The force of the blast threw Abra right out of the theater.
Fortunately he didn’t suffer much damage, since he had more card shields around him. They had been weakened slightly, but were still functional. He began to rise, and suddenly his shields began to glow. Fractures appeared all over them, and the next instant they splintered into nothingness. A black streak flew overhead, nearly impossible to track. So Vamprina had sharp wings? Another thing to avoid.
Abra half rose and was struck onto his face by Volt again. He was getting mad. What sort of fight was this? Their combat was more like play than anything else. The magician leaped to his feet and whipped his arm at Volt, sending a fleet of cards at the young creature. Volt blazed bright white, and split into a confusing array of jagged lightning streaks. They reformed into Volt once the card threat had gone, and the lightning bender hovered before Abra, smiling.
He found this funny? How dare he! Abra warped seconds late, right into the face of his other foe,Vamprina. She grabbed his arm and a shock ran through his body. Milliseconds passed. Abra lost all sense of time and place. He didn’t know where he was, who he was, or what was happening. Reality returned, and he saw with horror that his Dark enemy’s fangs were embedded in his arm. His power drained, and he fell to one knee. Cards bit into Vamprina’s body, and she released him with a vicious hiss.
“Enough!” Abra cried. “Why don’t you two join my show?”
Vamprina hovered out of range, her eyes flashing dangerously. “No thanks, human. We’re not interested.”Abra dodged Vamprina’s blade energy, mocking her with a little dance as he avoided her attacks. “I insist.” he responded.With that, he swept off his mask again and released a score of knife-wielding puppets from his portal. Vamprina landed, turning her wings towards the multitude. The smile on her face drove home a sudden realization for Abra. She was a melee master. He was in trouble. The puppets surrounded her but were unable to land a strike on her body. Every blade that swept at the Dark creature was blocked and swept back with violent force. Any who tumbled to the ground were incinerated by Volt’s electricity. He was always near, zapping away at the crowd whenever they had an advantage.
Abra clenched his fists. The lightning creature gave Vamprina an unfair advantage over his minions. Marionette appeared by his side in seconds. “Marionette,” Abra said. “Your target is the mall lightning creature, Volt. You know what to do.” The puppet nodded and stayed by his master’s side.
Vamprina circled in the air, and then surged towards Abra again. He had a new helper. She didn’t know what it was capable of, but something told her to avoid it as much as possible. She needed to know what it could do before attacking. The Dark female’s body burst into micro-particles, and she vanished completely.
Confusion overwhelmed Abra. What kind of demons were these? He had never fought anybody with such powers as this before. These talents were like a new breed of magic. If he survived this fight, he wondered if the creatures would allow him to speak afterwards. Maybe they could teach him to do these outstanding works too. He’d be the best magician in not only the world, but the universe as well.
Marionette watched Volt carefully, and as the creature exploded into fingers of electricity, the shadow puppet’s strings fired into the core of the blast. The strands found their mark, and the struggling warrior was pulled back into existence. At nearly the same moment, Vamprina appeared a few feet away from Abra, ready to lunge at his chest. Marionette twisted Volt around, and Vamprina’s ears shot up and sideways towards the puppet. Her face followed a millisecond afterwards, and her eyes narrowed to blood-red slits.“Let go of him.” she snarled. “I’m not going to tell you twice.”
Sensing the venom of Vamprina’s words, Abra jumped about, clapping his hands. He had found her weakness. A spray of cards nearly hit the Dark female as she twisted in the air, coming to her ally’s rescue. Cards whipped by, and one severed the tip of her left wing. She shrieked and turned back to Abra, who released more puppets in response. The pain distracted her, so she landed to take care of the puppets. They had purposefully put themselves between Vamprina and Volt, allowing Marionette to make a move. The shadow puppet jerked Volt’s hand, and with some difficulty, a bolt of lightning surged towards the Dark female. Vamprina dodged the attack, hissing ferociously, countering with energy that flew from her wing blades when she moved.
Vamprina survived the first wave of puppets, faltered with the second, and then vanished with a frustrated cry that chilled Abra’s blood. The magician hated it when she did that. In a way, he was impressed with how his foe did it, but the fact that he didn’t know how to do it disturbed his thoughts.
Vamprina appeared once more, and Abra was ready, warping behind her and releasing a thick barrage of knives from his portal. The Dark female took her eyes off Volt for a few seconds to avoid the attack, and the patient Marionette seized his chance.
Lightning stabbed from the darkening clouds above, and Vamprina received the full brunt of the strike. She wavered in the air, crash-landing to the ground. The sound of the impact echoed through the nearly deserted neighborhood. Volt’s eyes widened and filled with tears. Vamprina did not rise. She stayed where she was, and Abra began to tiptoe towards her, giggling and saying all sorts of things the lightning bender couldn’t discern from such a distance. Rage filled Volt’s naturally shy and cautious spirit, overflowing in an explosion of harsh emotion.
He fought the strings affixed to his right arm, and a sudden energy imbalance allowed him to reach beyond Marionette’s annoying power. In a split second, he had converted some of Vamprina’s Dark energy to Light, and the blast struck Marionette so hard that he swayed violently. Abra turned towards them for a moment.
“You guys are so annoyingly talented…” he began, and Vamprina’s wing energy found Abra’s legs. She hadn’t meant to harm him too badly, so the energy did not cut his legs off, but it did cause him to fly backwards for quite a distance. He smashed forcefully into a nearby building and remained there, stunned.The Dark female grinned and shot back towards Volt. Marionette fired more strings at her, but she was too wise in their abilities now to be fooled. Her evasion was unmatched, and the next moment found her teeth in Marionette's neck. The energy she received was overwhelmingly powerful. Vamprina fell to the ground once more, her body trying to make sense of the energy it contained. Pain exploded throughout the Dark one’s body, and she whimpered at its touch, tears streaming from her eyes.
Volt’s rage knew no bounds. His fangs extended and with a swift bite, Marionette’s string snapped free from his right arm. A destructive bolt surged from within it, smashing beside Abra, who was running towards Vamprina with two card swords ready to deal the death strike. He had run out of cards up to now, since the annoying blue thing vaporized them when he attacked Marionette with the converted energy. Abra had never felt this energy before. When it was near him, every cell in his body nearly tingled loose with excitement.
But the lightning attack was too close to give him more than just a tingle. He got nearly numb with shock, stumbling in surprise. His target was too weak to stand, but she still struck out with her razor talons as he fell her way. Abra warped to save himself from a truly painful experience, and landed flat on his face a safe distance away.
Meanwhile, Marionette was having unbounding trouble keeping Volt under control. The blue creature was furious and shockingly focused. In a few seconds, he had bitten himself free and attacked Marionette with a type of aggression that surprised both of them. His strikes did not cease until the puppet vanished, and then Volt turned to Abra.
The magician backed away a few steps. “I’m sensing serious underestimation here…” he began. “Thing is, it’s not me, it’s you.”
With that, Abra pulled a needle from his portal, plunged it into his arm, and injected all its contents into his body. His costume changed, and Volt sensed the energy surge and pulled his own trick.
The pure Light creature’s skin darkened to a navy blue, and both eyes and electricity turned blood-red. Vamprina’s still body began to change. Six feathered wings replaced her black bat-like ones, and her entire body color went from the color of night to the shade of pure snow. Vamprina’s eyes opened, glowing with light blue purity, and the joy of transformation welled within her.
Volt leaped forward, transforming for an instant into a jagged lightning bolt. This attack scorched Abra heavily on the side of his chest. However, he didn’t seem to notice the pain. Knives and fire rained from his portal face, and a few fire-eaters and sword swallowers appeared. Vamprina ducked under a blade swipe, avoided a thick cloud of flame, and then suddenly an idea dawned on her. Abra kept himself far away from them so that he could have time to attack. Obviously he wasn't used to melee, so that was the key to winning the fight.
Volt came out of his element morph, turned at Vamprina’s signal, and his fists transformed into balls of painful electric light. Vamprina’s wing edges converted to thin light, as sharp as lasers and just as precise.
Abra saw them coming. In a rage, he released more puppets, threw hats, and set many of the props his performers possessed on fire. He couldn't hear their screams of surprise or see the shock on their faces. He didn't even realize his right leg was completely burning up. Volt shot past, blasting the flaming area with the wind of his motion. The flames went out, and Abra continued to swipe crazily at Vamprina as she hovered just out of reach, sending blast after blast of Light energy into his face and chest. She knew what his portal head could do now, but she didn't want to hurt him any more than necessary. Abra began to weaken under their frequent melee attacks, and the pair slowed.
Vamprina closed her eyes, and began to shine. Her body blazed brighter and brighter, and all surviving characters around them shielded their faces. Even Volt found himself squinting, and the radiant female’s beams beat down on Abra. Abra recoiled, but he wasn't hurt, just surprised beyond belief. This was almost too hard to believe. The morphine effects suddenly stopped, and every part of the magician’s body healed.
Vamprina and Volt landed before him. Abra spun about, looking himself over. “Hmmm…” he murmured. “Not bad…not bad. Except you forgot one thing.”Vamprina cocked her head. “What is that?”
“My trickery of course.”
Abra summoned Marionette, and the two prepared for the strike they had withheld for so long. The blast suddenly came, but it was not from them. Darkness bloomed from the impact area, and Abra flew helplessly through the air. Marionette had dissipated as soon as the blow registered, completely KO’d by the powerful strike. Abra warped to prevent a painful relationship with another building, and ended up in an awkward heap on the other side of it.
He began to get up, and a shock ran though his body. Abra collapsed again, unable to move, a tingling feeling spreading throughout his body. He giggled despite himself. It tickled a lot. Volt had paralyzed him with an electric charge. These creatures were so fun to fight, and had very interesting ways of doing it. He was dying to ask how they got their talents.
Vamprina walked to the downed magician and knelt beside him, converting back to her original form. “I hope we weren’t too rough.” she said.
Abra couldn’t grin, but he somehow knew they sensed