He has?" Dess asked in a worried tone.
"Yeah. We can't find him, but, uh, this is Mei. Mei, meet Dess, Charlotte, and Felix." Gerald explained, gesturing to each person as he said their name.
"Oh, hello," Dess waved. Mei stared at them and then gave everyone a quick wave.
"Finally! Another female," Charlotte said, half-joking and half-seriously. "I've been surrounded by boys and non-binaries for far too long."
"Wow, thanks Charlotte," Dess said sarcastically.
"It's nice to meet you all," Mei said.
"How did you find us?" Dess asked Anthony.
"We found some camp remains and we decided to wander around until we found you," Anthony explained.
"Alright," Dess replied. "Maybe Cade left a note. Did you find anything?"
"Not that we know of," said Anthony.
"Where should we head now?" Felix butted in before Dess could ask the
same thing. "We are just wandering around aimlessly, to be honest,"
"I don't know. Any ideas guys?" Anthony said, looking around at everyone.
"Nope." Charlotte shrugged.
"I have the Emerald of Courage, as you remember," Dess suggested. "Maybe we could find out what that does."
"Speaking of rings, we have the Sapphire of Wisdom," Anthony said, showing it to everyone. "Does this seem like a good idea to all of you?"
"Alright. Not a solid plan, but sure," Felix said.
The group started off with Anthony barely keeping hold of the Sapphire of Wisdom and Dess fidgeting with the Emerald of Courage. The Sapphire started to make static-y noises and spark little by little, as the group knew Cade had the element of lightning, so eventually, Anthony just got pulled into a random direction with the ring in front of him,
"Gosh-darn it, Anthony! What was that?" Charlotte exclaimed in an angry tone.
"The ring," Anthony said calmly, before he was hurled out of sight. "AAAAAAAA!!..."
Then they all started running after their guide. His screaming was the trace that they followed.
Eventually they heard Anthony's shouting come to a stop as they came to a clearing.
"A mountain?" Dess asked, expecting no one to answer.
"Uh, yeah. An old one," Charlotte said.
"Anthony's stopped at the entrance of the castle," Felix noted.
"Yeah, let's go over," Mei said. "Follow me."
Dess sighed softly and everyone started to follow her to Anthony.
"Hi guys, it feels like the ring wanted me to be here," Anthony said, when they finally got over to him.
"Hmm...weird," Charlotte wondered aloud. "Maybe--"
"Hey, does anyone hear that?" Dess interrupted. "It sounds like heated conversation."
"...killed my entire family!" they heard Cade's voice say.
"I did it for a reason you'll never understand!" a deep, angry voice said.
Everyone's eyes widened. They looked at each other, hesitated, then followed the sound of Cade and another person arguing.
They rushed up the stairs, and straight across from the stairway, they saw Cade and another person, who looked like an older Cade, maybe twenty years old, moving in a perfect circle, staying the same distance away from each other. Cade had his scimitars out, his eyes glowing yellow, which meant he was angry. Probably ready to attack. The other person had what looked like--
No, it couldn't be--
Dess's fire daggers!
They were ignited with fire, which meant that the other guy--who looked like Cade's older brother--had the element of fire.
"CADE--" Charlotte started to shout before Dess covered her mouth.
"Shh!!" he whispered angrily.
"What was that?" Cade's older brother asked dangerously.
"Shut up, Blaze," Cade snapped. "You're trying to distract me, aren't you? Well, if that's the case--OOH, a hot air balloon!"
"WHERE?!" Blaze asked excitedly right as Cade yelled his battle cry and lunged for his brother.
Blaze turned around, deflected Cade's dual swords, grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him into the air.
Cade's scimitars dropped out of his hands.
"Well, well," Blaze taunted. "That was not much effort."
He threw Cade against the wall. He walked over to him, raising one of his daggers, when Dess came out of their hiding spot and hit Blaze with a ball of fire.
"Ow!" Blaze shouted. "Who was that?"
Dess nodded and crossed his arms. "It's time to fight fire with fire!" they said as everyone else came out from the stairway.
YOU ARE READING
The Devil's Bane: (slightly more than) a short story
FantasyDess Gafe is a normal thirteen-year-old in his village. Then, on Thanksgiving Eve, his older brother Tom, who had been possessed by the Devil, destroyed Dess's town before his very eyes. He ran into the forest with his friends Charlotte and Felix. T...
