The Dragon's Gift

Chapter 15

The commanding officer comes in and blares the same old trumpet. I get up and walk into the cafeteria. Pancakes again today. I grab a plate. I get several pancakes. Kai sits next to me. Instead of eating, I pointlessly poke my food with the fork.
Soon enough, breakfast is over. I walk down to the training grounds. We continue training with our weapons, but that's cut short in order to allow us to train more with elements. Time flies, and soon, I'm learning to use water as a shield. I get better and better with my wielding. We have to spar again today. As usual, I fight with Kai. He moves first. I'm about to jump forward when my feet suddenly feel glued to the ground. Unable to move, I think for a solution.
"You like my gravitational manipulation?" Kai asks.
"Well two can play that game," I say, wielding water up to his knees and freezing it.
"Hey! That was mean!" he says. "Try and get out of this one," he says. Out of nowhere, a portal opens up and five comets come straight at me. I easily redirect them to the ground.
"Comets are mostly frozen water, genius," I say. He shoots a gust of wind at me; a blue ripple follows behind it.
"Wasn't that green last time?" I ask as I wield a water shield to protect myself.
"Yea but I increased my mastery of wind since last time," he says.
"You're not the only one," I say as I loose a blast of blue fire. He dodges.
"New trick? That won't stop me," he says. He jumps impossibly high, with the help of wind, I assume. But before he lands, I form a pedestal of ice beneath me so I can see him. Then, using the same water from the ice, I make several snake like tendrils grab his legs and I then freeze them. He strikes the ice with a blast of wind and falls to the ground. The rest of the ice on his legs falls off because of the jarring impact of landing. I dissipate the ice beneath me and land just as jarringly. He slings another gust of wind at me. I easily leap out of the way. I'm about to drench Kai in a torrent of water when a horn sounds.
"What is that for?" I ask Kai.
"I don't know," he says. Suddenly, shouts and cries can be heard from the courtyard. I grab my glaive as Kai grabs his swords. We run over to the courtyard. I see at least a hundred elves.
"How in the world did this happen?!" I shout to Kai.
"I don't know but let's show them who's boss," he says.
"I have no problem with that," I reply. I shove my way through the thick of things. I see an elf with hair just as red as mine. Our eyes lock on each other's for a second or two. I feel such anger coming from him. His demeanor begs me to attack. I gladly comply. Rushing for him, I loose a cobalt sea of flames. For about twenty seconds, I keep up the attack. Yet when I stop, expecting to see a burnt corpse, instead, I see the elf who somehow produced a transparent with a purple hue and strange symbols along the edge. It looks, alien and mystical. A second later, it's gone. The elf now charges at me. Before it gets to close, I strike his sword with one stroke of my glaive. It flies out of his hand. I'm about to kill him, but he utters some incantation and I'm sent flying back. I land hard on my back. Almost immediately, he's standing over me, about to use some dark magic to seal my fate. Just as I think it's my time, I see an elbow smash into his jaw. He stumbles and whatever sorcery he was in the middle of was stopped. A hand helps me up. Kai.
"You've got to stop getting yourself into these situations," he says. I see an elf charge at him. I create a shard of ice in order to stab him.
"You've got to stop letting your guard down," I say. I turn just as the same redheaded elf regains some sort of consciousness. He now has a translucent sword that seems to be bound by an unseen force. He swings at me. I bring my glaive up to meet it, half expecting it to go right through it. It doesn't, and clangs metallically just as a real sword would. He glances to his left. I take advantage of it. At just that moment, I thrust the glaive into his knee. A audible crack sounds as he falls back. Apparently, I broke his knee. He looks at me with pleading eyes. I can't kill him. Instead, I pick him up with my hand under his knees and neck, and I expected him to be at least one hundred to two hundred pounds, yet he only felt like fifty or sixty. I carry him to the medical area in the combat university. I explain the situation to the doctors and nurses on staff. They agree to help him but he had to be bound once he received medical attention. He gives me a grateful look. I return to the fight and find Kai. He's in the middle of a fight with a tall and skinny elf. I wield a string of flames at him. He falls. A kick in my side spins me around to face my attacker. I respond with a well placed punch to the jaw and follow up with a swipe of my glaive. Clutching his wounds, he says something user his breath and a faint glow emanates from his hand. In a few seconds his cut is gone. How am I supposed to kill these elves if they can heal themselves so quickly? I think to myself. I leap forward and land on top of him. Before he has a chance to react, I quickly stab him. As the sun sets, the battle rages on. I pull my glaive from a dead elf and I wield the gold blood off with water. Looking around, I see numerous elves who still outnumber us. Kai is in the middle of fighting two elves. He seems to be handling himself quite well, but I decide to join anyways. I rush to his side. I knee one of the elves in the gut while Kai kicks the other in the face. The one I'm fighting tries to punch but due to exhaustion is slow and I catch his fist mid-swing. I twist his arm back and shove the glaive through his back. I hate it, but I guess it's either kill or be killed. I turn to help Kai but he's already stuck both swords in the elf's stomach. This onslaught goes on for several more hours. Soon enough, the sun starts peaking over the hill. I fight tirelessly. With a seemingly endless amount of adrenaline, I fight like I've never fought before. Everything goes by in slow motion. I feel like I could go on forever. The sun is already well into the sky by the time the fight is over. I look behind me. I can't believe the horror that I bear witness to. Hundreds dead, elves and men alike. Some gruesome and bloodied, others killed neatly and hopefully, painlessly. I walk around checking all the faces, just making sure it's not anyone I know. I see Kai. On his back in the dirt. I kneel, hardly believing it. I try to figure out how he died, but I can't find any stab, cut, or anything. Just as I give up, he jumps up.
"Gotcha!" he shouts.
"Dude! Not cool! I thought you were dead, you stupid clown!"
"I didn't even look dead," he says.
"Not near as dead as you'll look if you ever do that again," I say as I punch him in the arm.
"It was just a joke," he says.
"The battlefield is no place for jokes," I say.
"No, it's a place for battle, hence the name battlefield," he says mockingly.
"Oh be quiet," I say.
"Fine, but it's your loss," he says. I roll my eyes.