I'll Protect You in the Dark

The Face-Off

We walked over to the spot where Zach had told Mason he'd seen Meredith.  We were listening and looking for her.  I was getting more and more frustrated as the hours passed and I couldn't find her.  Adding to it was the pouring rain that had started a few hours ago.  

"Meredith!  Come on out!  I'm ready for you!" I screamed.

"Zoe!" Herleva scolded.  

"No! I'm tired of this!  If she's going to kill me, she might as well get it over with!"

Suddenly the forest lit up.

"Get out of the way!" Mason screamed as he pushed me out of the way of a humongous fireball that whizzed by us.  

He threw both of us to the ground, and I heard her voice as I got up.  She was there, among the trees.  Like in the dreams...

"Didn't I tell you to be careful what you wished for?"

I dove at her, tackling her and knocking the wind out of her.  

I smirked, "I didn't really want to sit through the dialogue, so I skipped to the action."

Suddenly other demons jumped from the forest, at least ten of them.  Herleva, Timaeus, Mason, and Eustachius began fighting them off.  Ariana was casting spells left and right to kill them off, and it was working pretty well.  Unfortunately, more came out of the forest, ten at a time.  

Meredith laughed, "You can't kill me until you kill all of them!" 

"Play ball," I muttered.  

I dragged Meredith over to a tree and tied her up with vines, and growing the tree bark over her so she was essentially attached to it.  I began fighting the demons, blasting them.  They just didn't stop.  We had already fought off six groups of them.  They were also getting tougher to kill.  The demons in the seventh group were way harder to kill than the demons in the first group.  Suddenly we heard a burning sound behind us.  We turned around, and Meredith had burned herself out of the tree.  

"In hindsight, maybe that wasn't such a good idea with the tree," I commented.

Meredith's hands flamed, and she began throwing fireballs at us.  Now we were fighting demons and Meredith.  We were still had five from the eighth group, and the ten from the ninth group were coming after us.  Ariana began throwing spells at Meredith, and we were instinctively defending her from the demons.  They were both fielding each other's spells.  I glanced at my watch in between fielding demons.  We were already five hours into the fight.  We went on like this for three more hours, and we had finished the eighth group.  

I heard Ariana yelp.  

"Ariana!" Mason yelled. 

I turned around.  She was on her back, on the ground.  It looked as if she tripped on the root of a tree.  The fall had knocked her wand out of her hand, and it lay out of her reach.  Meredith was standing over her, grinning.  Ariana looked over at me, and seemed to know her death was coming.  She smiled sadly.  I felt like my legs were made of lead.  Everything was in slow motion and I couldn't move.  I closed my eyes, not wanting to see her end.  

Then I heard a roar, and Meredith's scream.  When I opened my eyes, Meredith was on the ground, a giant wolf standing over her, and Ariana was scrambling for her wand.  

"Zach," I whispered.  He seemed to hear me, and looked up at me.  I nodded, and he nodded back.  I turned back around, and kept fighting.  

Zach joined in the fighting, biting and killing demons alongside Mason.  If we weren't fighting for our lives I would've appreciated this.