-98-

All was going wrong. All was going wrong!!

How did he get up?!

How did she get here?!

"Looks like I won't even have to look for her!!" He lifted his arm and I yelled as I slipped down it and rested against his shoulder.

"Mystery!" Ethan too?!

"This is getting better." Aurelius chuckled before spinning on himself and throwing me off his arm and I think at them as their worried voices were closer to me as I landed.

I froze a sheet of opaque ice over the two sides of the hole in me to keep any internal organs inside as I sure couldn't heal myself right now or had enough concentration and time to even try.

I threw myself on my knees and swiped my hands in front of my and created a half circle of dirt to block to waves of fire coming my way and in consequence block them from hitting behind me.

"Mystery!"

"What are you doing here?!" I yelled at Audrey and she flinched. "I left you there for a reason!!"

"Don't start fighting now!!" I heard the gruff voice of a man and looked over at the elf man I fought in the underground, so he must have been the one the help them both to this point, Ethan with his limited magic knowledge couldn't have.

"Stay out of this!!" I ignored my body's want to crumble to the ground in favor of more important stuff and vaulted myself over the barricade I made and ran at Aurelius, hands out behind me with flames coming from them to boost my speed, jumping to kick him but getting my leg caught and slammed in the ground wasn't part of the plan.

"I had enough playing with you, it was fun seeing you think you could beat me." He threw me and I went through my barricade and rolled on the ground.

"Mystery!" Audrey ran over and helped me on my knees.

"Run while you can Audrey, run." I said to her as I stumbled up and sent a barrage of icicles his way which he just deflected. "Idiot stop!" I yelled at the elf man that tried rush Aurelius, coming at him with boulders and lightning. "Fuck this!" I ran after him.

The elf had his leg bent so I pushed off his ankle to step on his shoulder to jump over him and summon a lightning bolt from the sky directly down at Aurelius as I flipped over him.

I elbowed him in the back and the elf decked him in the face before I passed to his side and struck with lightning again, redirecting it through me to match the lightning strike the elf sent of his own.

I was really out of breath and badly off, I am not blind, I can recognize my own short coming but I still stood ready to fight as Aurelius' form was shadowed by dust.

Despite my body's protest I whipped it back in a back bent, low enough that I fell on my back, to avoid the shadows lashing out from the dust cloud.

I looked at the still standing elf before the left of his face slide to the left and the rest of his body fell straight down, the pieces of him rolling apart as I watched in horror at this gory display before I got kicked in the chin making my head snap back and then grabbed and thrown again.

"It was fun playing with you but now it is time to end this." Aurelius smiled as he stepped out of the shadows, my limbs shaking and weak as he approached.

His head slightly tilted to the left as a small rock hit.

"Don't touch her!!"

"Run you fools!! Run while you can!!" I yelled at the two other humans here.

I watched him fade into shadows and appear by Ethan, grab his sword and shove it through his chest before throwing him to the side with a simple backhanded slap before grabbing Audrey by her wrist and lifting her before slamming her into the ground.

"Stop!!!" I yelled at him.

"I failed to kill you many times throughout history, you purple eyes always stopped me, the decay, the great war, the red day calamity, the eternal night months, you always won.... But not this time~." I heard him list the names of the greatest human disasters and realizing it was his doing each time just made him scarier.

"Leave her alone!!"

"What for?" He asked me with a sinister grin as he snapped her arm, like a twig and it enraged me, training to gather my strength as I screamed in anger, louder then Audrey's own screams of pain but my body was working against me. "You can't hurt me, I am magic itself, if something is an endless resource and make up my body how do you think you could beat me?" He turned back to her.

Get up Mystery.... Get up.... Get up!!!!

"This is a deadly spell.... And forbidden?" I said as I read it, looking at Belladonna, having been reading a spell book she gave me to learn by heart, one she wrote herself for the next head mage. "So why is it in this book if is forbidden?"

"Because this spell might be forbidden but could be the last resort in a fight."

"How so?"

I slammed my hand into the ground, a painful hit from a rock pillar sent me flying, smacking into Aurelius' back and grabbing his wrists.

"Because as you read this spell is a bind."

I quickly recited the spell that came to mind in a whisper before he could get me off him as he let go of Audrey and trying to pull me off.

"And?"

Light blue ghostly chains rose from my back and looped around his limb before entering back into my skin through my feet and hands, binding him to me.

"You bind them to you, you die and they die, it is deadly spell no one can escape and is to only be used when an enemy cannot be killed another way, that's why it is forbidden, it is a deadly spell no one can escape."

"How the hell to you know this spell?!" He screamed in anger as the chain around his neck tightened, he tried to become a shadow but he couldn't escape these chains as he screamed in anger and turned back solid, trying to move his arms and legs to summon magic but I didn't let him.

"Do it Audrey!!" I yelled at her as she cried over her arm. "Get him while I hold him!!" He was still strong enough to feel these chains straining and I feared he was strong enough to escape this inescapable binding spell.

Audrey shakily stood up but looked determined and closed her eyes, concentrate you can do it.

I suddenly felt the air turn dry, not from the lack of water but the lack of something as all type of magic was suddenly gathering into an empty void manifesting at a dark mist in front of her chest.

"You fool!! If I die you will die with me!! This spell binds our souls!!" It was the first time I heard true fear in his voice and cursed as Audrey stopped concentrating and looked horrified at the news of what this spell was.

"Don't stop!!" I yelled in panic and headbutted Aurelius as I felt one of the links in the chain give out just a little.

"This will kill you?!" Audrey yelled.

"Doesn't matter!! Do it!!"

"No!!" She shook her head with more tears rolling down her face then before. "I can't have you die on me!! Not now!! Not ever!!"

"Audrey!!" I yelled but smiled and looked at her with the most loving smile I could muster despite my struggle. "It will be all fine." I said softly.

"I can't loose you!!"

"Audrey you need to do it or there will be no hope left."

"Arianwyn...."

"Audrey do it, all of the world counts on you.... Don't worry.... I won't die." I promised her the impossible.

She looked ready to fall into pieces but closed her eyes and with trembling shoulders, the feeling of disappearing magic came back.

"No!! You can't do this!!"

"Have fun in the forest of lost souls you monster!!" I growled at him as my magic was ripped out of me along with him fading away between his screams.

What might have been five minutes felt like days before the spell fell away because there was no magic left to hold it and no one left to hold, the magic keeping the ice over my wound was gone, every magic was gone....

And I felt so tired.

I took a few steps, smiling tiredly, it is finally over.... It is all over.

"It is over, for real this time." I told the elm's uprooted trunk while looking at it before my smile fell, my legs gave out and my eyes closed.

I collapsed on the ground unable to move, knowing very well I was fading away from life and fast, like I was always told, nothing can live without some type of magic in it and that's why we just blocked them from using it and didn't take it away.

I breathed out a sigh as I felt a familiar hand rest on my cheek but heard nothing and let myself be taken from this world.