White Robes Of Death

She took refuge under the huge tree near the glade as she watched Renaeril make his way towards her. On the dirt road, he comes across a bunch of rowdy boys the same age as them. The group fell silent as they saw him, Nefaaya wondered why. She saw one of the kids with brown hair whisper something that had made the others laugh. Nefaaya doubted that it was a whisper, based on how Renaeril reacted the whisper was meant to be heard by him.

Instead of fighting back, the boy had turned a blind eye to what they're doing. The group looked back and made a funny face at him. Nefaaya, annoyed that time, raised her hand and shot water in their direction. The one who whispered loudly, stepped and stared at the hill where she was standing. She didn't wait for them to say anything more before Nefaaya shot another water in their direction. This time much closer to the target she was aiming for.

She opened her hand, a waterball forming in her palm as she recited the chant for Water Number One. The group looked at her, dumbfounded and afraid. Nefaaya pulled back and grunted as she threw the ball of water in their direction. The group immediately ran away before the ball of water hit the ground.

When Renaeril came at her, she was expecting that the boy would laugh at her but instead he barely looked at her when he asked for the reason for her actions.

She blinked, "because they're making fun of you."

"You would only make the situation worse," he said.

"What are you saying?"

"They're making fun of me... because I am always playing with you," he said, flustered.

Nefaaya froze and stared at him. Truth be told she didn't know what to say to what he said.

"Then you don't want me around," she replied.

He shook his head, his white hair falling down on his face. "I never said that... just let me deal with them."

"You could have scared them off with your sword," she said. "If I were you. That's what I'll do."

It was his turn to be shocked.

"What?"

Renaeril shook his head, "it sounds like something you wouldn't do... I guess."

The two of them continue their practice in silence to keep up with the times when they weren't allowed to do so. Sometimes they also sharpen their sword skills. Nefaaya was already an abled enemy for Renaeril but the boy had grown more adept than her.

Renaeril stood in position waiting for her to strike. Nefaaya ran to him and slashed her wooden sword. But Renaeril had easily parried and twirled it with just one arm. She pulled back and spun, striking to his left side. The boy bent, dodging the blade. She had no time to react when he slapped her wrist. The sword escaping her grasp.

As they lay on the shade of the tree and watched the moving clouds above, her mind flitted back to what Renaeril had said. About him not expecting her to do it. In truth she was shocked by it. She realized it was really something she wouldn't do before. She didn't know why she had thought like that to the kids who bullied him. But the only reason she could come up was: *Perhaps my old self is losing its grip on this new body.* She find it a lame excuse for her behavior.

One morning on a cloudy day, Nefaaya's attention was caught by a glinting blue object in the sky. She turned towards the window and found nothing but the slow moving gray clouds.

"What is it?" Nefri asked and looked up from her book.

She shook her head and sat, "I thought I saw a glint. A blue glint."

Her mother put her book down and looked at her, before she walked towards the window and observed the sky. Gold Spirits danced around her as she enhanced his vision.

"Impossible, there's so much cloud," she said. "Perhaps a trick of light."

The two had disregarded what Nefaaya saw for that. But her eyes kept looking back on the window, staring at the sky as if searching for what she had disregarded as a trick of light.

"What did you think it was?" She said when Nefri didn't stop what she was doing.

Nefri looked at her with seriousness and apologized before she started explaining, "during the war, we have an encounter with a Tower "

"What is it? This Tower?"

Nefri looked at her sharply, "you should have known this thing already."

She flustered. Another failure for her side.

"Towers, these are weapons usually brought in war. It was used for group chanting. You know that a mage has its own limitation in the amount of their power. Towers do the trick for it, they're often run by ten to twenty Mages putting their hands in this huge circular glass crystal. While the Main Mage would use all the collected energy to start the chant," she explained. "Usually it would have taken an hour to fill an average size Tower with energy."

Nefaaya blinked, "how devastating it was."

Nefri shook her head, "it's terrible."

Later that afternoon, news had arrived that the army of the Empire had already landed on the North Steeps.

"We couldn't be sure on the accuracy of that news," Nefri said as she headed back to their house. "North Steeps was two weeks' horse ride from here, and it still depends on the horse."

"Then maybe the tide had changed," Renaeril's mother asked.

"Sure it is," she said confidently but Nefaaya sensed the fear and uncertainty in her voice.

As the four of them were heading towards their house, something had stopped her mother from her feet. She looked back and abruptly chanted an Enchantment Spell to improve her vision. Nefaaya covered her eyes and saw the blue glint above them.

"What a beautiful light," Renaeril's mother said. "What do you think it is?"

Nefaaya looked at her mother and saw the fear and her refusal to accept what she was seeing above the village. "We have to leave this place."

"Mother, what is it?"

Her eyes darted from where Nefaaya was, and before Nefri could say something. Nefaaya sensed it. A force that was drying her power. She put her hands on her chest as she felt pain that had come from stealing her power. Nefaaya ran on the side of the road and started vomiting what she had eaten earlier.

"What was happening?" Renaeril's mother asked, nervously.

Nefri stood in the middle of the road, unknowing what she would do. Nefaaya felt her feet giving away.

"How did they get here so fast," Nefri asked no one in particular, eyes seeing nothing.

She approached her mother and Nefaaya said, "Mother we have to do something."

As if a realization struck her, she stood and immediately ran towards where the platform was.

She followed her, Renaeril and Reina trailing behind them. The crowd was still there when they had arrived at the platform. Her mother immediately made her way towards the podium all the while calling the name of the village chief.

"What is it?" The village chief asked.

"We have to leave this village," she announced.

The people on the platform shot Nefri a look. Some irritated and some with pity.

"The glint," Nefri said desperately as she pointed at the glinting sky. "It was something that was dangerous. It shouldn't be here in this place."

The mayor looked at the sky, squinting his eyes at the glinting light above.

"The tragedy that destroyed village Nakahara before, you know it right," Nefri started. "It was the same glint that I saw when we came there."

The man looked at her annoyed and said, "but there was no glint."

Nefri looked at her and then at Nefaaya, and lastly at Renaeril.

Renaeril's mother walked, "I'm taking her home."

Nefri fell beside her as if all the strength had left her body, but above them the blue glint continued growing more brightly. Terrifyingly surging and drying the energy around them.

They were about to take the first step in the stone stairs when Nefaaya felt a strange feeling. A sense of something sinister lurking behind her. She looked back and from the sky where the glint was a small fireball was descending on the lowest part of the village. Neffaya, Renaeril, Nefri, Reina and the villagers watched as the fire touched the ground, enveloped with silence covered by solemnity.

Then an explosion. Dirt flies at them, wind surges all around, the air simmered with heat and humid. Before it started pulling them back, as if they're being sucked to where the explosion had happened. The villagers dropped on the ground and when the explosion was already, one by one the turned where the explosion took place.

On the lowest part of the village where the fire descended, a crater had formed. Nefaaya wasn't sure of the size but it was as big as their house.

Above, they heard a hissed, she looked up and saw many of the same fireballs descending slowly towards the village. She raised her hand and was about to throw a waterball at it, but Nefri pulled her wrist.

"No," she said. "We have to run away from this place."

The scene unfolding above the village had made the people run, shouting in fear and confusion. Should they go home? Or run as fast as they can.

The four decided to move in haste as they headed towards Nefri's house. But it was soon cut by a fireball that touched a few meters away from their house. The ground shook and Nefaaya was thrown back. She saw Renaeril as he slammed against a tree, the others she lost in the bright light that had followed. Smoke rose from where the explosion took place, rising from the ground like an inferno.

Slowly, she stood and looked around, Nefri was beside the boy whom she had hugged tightly.

"Mother," she said worriedly.

Nefri barely opened her eyes, before she stood. Renaeril helped her.

"Miss Nefri," he said.

"No boy, I'm fine," she said and looked around. "Where's Reina? We have to leave this place."

The three looked around until finally they heard Renaeril's cries. Nefaaya slowly turned her back. And there she saw Reina, who had been speared from her gut by broken wood that had come from the explosion.

The three moved to her side, the woman was barely conscious as she looked up.

"Lord Trevor," she said. "I want to go home."

"Shh," Nefri touched her forehead. "You're already home Reina, you have a family, a husband and a good boy with you."

Reina looked up and stared at Nefri. His eyes glazed with confusion. Beside him Renaeril stood dumbfounded. She reached for the boy's hand and tightened her hold into it. Not just for him, but also for herself, for she cannot accept what she was seeing.

Reina smiled, "Reina, you're here to save me again?"

Nefri wiped her tears and nodded, "yes, always."

"My son Renaeril," she said. "He needs someone to protect… him... For her mother cannot protect her..."

Her hands fell to the ground. Renaeril ran to his mother and cried to her dead body. Nefaaya stood there watching as Nefri and Renaeril mourned Reina's death. All around her the sounds of explosion echoed. Fire rose in every part of the village as the fireballs made their way towards the village ground. The platform where they had come from burst in rocks and flames as a fireball descended on it.

She burned everything in her mind, as hatred and her anger dominated her being.

Nefaaya looked up and saw from above, a group of five people in white robes with gold embroidery. They flew high above their village. They raised their hands in chorus and shot something like lightning in five different directions.

The light hit the ground, at first she thought it would explode but from where it had fall a white glinting pole rose from the ground

"No!" Her mother shouted and sprinted, dragging the two of them away from Reina. Renaeril tried to escape but she held onto him tightly. She glanced back and saw something similar to a thin wall appeared in the poles, slowly moving towards to connect to the other poles.

As they increased their speed, so did the movement of the thin wall. Nefaaya had already concluded what it was—a cage that would seal the villagers inside the burning village.

Nefri pulled back.

"Mother?" She asked.

But Nefri didn't answer, instead she shouted. Gold Spirits surrounded her restlessly. She drew a sign in the air before she started chanting the chant for the first spell in water attribute.

"Water that gives life. Hear my call. From the waves of force that controls the world. The God of Sea who birthed the sea. The One-Eyed serpent who is just and stood guard at the Great Waterfall. I call upon your power, push forward to End Of The World."

Nefaaya confusedly stepped forward. Beside him Renaeril was still sniffing at his loss.

"Renaeril," Nefri shouted. "After this, dragged Nefaaya away from this place."

Despite being confused, the boy nodded at her.

"What are you talking about?" She asked.

"We wouldn't be able to reach the forest before they lock us in this place," she explained.

"Nefaaya," Nefri said. "See the world."

Then she smiled at her, as if she knew that Nefaaya would.

"Water Number Twenty-one!"

The water around her sizzled and suddenly a huge wave rose from her feet. It surges forward towards the two kids, standing dumbfounded as they stared at the huge wave in front of them. It pushes them to the nearest tree in the forest.

Still wet with water, Nefaaya stood and ran towards her waving mother, but the wall had closed before she could even reach it. From the sky she saw a man in white robes surrounded by the same Red Spirits that she had. Nefaaya screamed as she slammed her fist against the wall, screamed even more because she knew what was happening, and screamed until her throat had gone rasp as she watched Nefri turn to ashes before her eyes.