Chapter 22
Chanelle continued rotating through her elements and cosmic energy, not finding anything that managed to cut through Bardot’s diamond armor or keep him back for very long.
“You need to retreat,” I thought at her, having linked our minds. “Your magic is good, but—”
“Good?” Chanelle wheezed, exhausted from keeping herself and the students safe from diamond projectiles. “My magic’s the damn best. Versatile and deadly. Like all the best bi girls.”
I huffed, ignoring her taking this lightly. Despite her positive attitude—for the students’ benefit, no doubt—her body became sluggish the more this fight dragged on. While dodging projectiles wasn’t easy, close combat was a non-starter for her, and Bardot kept trying to box her in.
“Look, diamonds are damn near impossible to destroy,” I thought. “Your whip isn’t the weapon that’ll break that armor apart.”
“You’re right,” Chanelle pulled her whip back until it vanished. “They can melt, though, can’t they? Everything melts.”
“What are you planning?”
“What temp do you think? Like 10,000 degrees or some shit.”
“A little over 4,000,” Jennifer thought, much to the mental murmurs of everyone’s surprise. “What? I pay attention in science class. And knowing when minerals melt is fascinating.”
Now that she, Tia, and Olivia had woken back up, they had a solid defensive line.
Layla and Amani guarded the door from encroaching fiends.
They were drawn to the massive source of magic that Bardot and Chanelle released.
Jennifer and Olivia channeled their psychic branches, enhancing my partial manifestation strength to create a telepathic link between everyone.
I wished they had a bit more magic at their disposal. Then I’d be able to connect to one of my other manifestations, reach Milo or another Global Guild member, or better yet, figure out what happened to my core self.
How I desperately wanted to find out where my core self was, but I couldn’t abandon Chanelle during this battle.
“Tia, you wouldn’t happen to have an ice shield or something resistant to light and heat?”
Tia cocked her head. “I might be able to whip something up.”
“Sweetie, love the pun.” Chanelle smirked.
Tia groaned at her choice of words.
“What are you planning?” I asked.
“Something spectacular.”
“Let’s end this.” Bardot summoned a great sword made of diamond, then conjured several diamond spikes to protrude from the blade like jagged branches. “I’m bored with your silly little whip trick.”
“Oh?” Chanelle channeled her magic. “That’s a first. Usually, my whip is quite entertaining. Never met a man who wanted me to wrap it up, unless I was wrapping him up.”
“Gross, Mrs. Whitehurst,” Tia, Olivia, and Amani thought at the same time toward their homeroom teacher’s suggestive commentary.
“Well, seems you’re all out of steam with it anyway.” Bardot pointed his blade at Chanelle, revealing the oversized length of his blade that filled half the office space.
“Honey, no.” Chanelle created sparkling lights around her arms, weaving them like threads. “Now, Tia.”
Tia signed a complex enchantment, summoning webbed barriers made of ice and steel and black glowing energy. It cloaked the girls at the edge of the office.
“I prefer the whip for style, but my branch allows me to control primal and cosmic energy in any form I choose,” Chanelle explained as the sparkling lights covered her entire body. “Your diamonds are strong, but this armor burns hotter than the stars above.”
Chanelle had transformed her whip into a full-body suit of armor made of literal starlight. She was too bright to look directly at, even Bardot winced despite his diamond visor to filter the shine.
“You said something about ending this, right?” Chanelle barreled toward Bardot, and each step she took revealed a secondary element to her armor—a warped black train of a dress that flowed behind her.
When Chanelle reached Bardot, she swung a fist, missing him completely. It was a feint, one meant to cast a light pulse of telekinesis which flung her bizarre dress forward. The black train wrapped around the pair, locking them close together.
“What are you doing?”
Chanelle’s train turned sticky and oozed around them like a horde of fiends bound together. No, like tar meant to bind them together. She made fabric out of literal tar to trap Bardot in place.
Chanelle hugged him.
“Get off me, you bitch.” Bardot struck Chanelle with his free arm, wrestling to break her grip.
“Kill ‘em with kindness, I always say.” Chanelle tightened her grip, intensifying the heat of her armor until Bardot screamed.
It burned with such intensity that he stood immobilized, unable to continue his assault to break free. Chanelle’s starlight burned so strong, it seared the enchantments shielding Bardot’s thoughts.
His mind whirled in overdrive, lost in the agony that his receptors kept signaling. His diamond armor held strong for now, but it burned too hot for him to handle.
Even though the armor hadn’t melted yet, the suit was too hot. It burned him from the inside out. Chanelle didn’t relent—not until chunks of diamond fell away piece by piece, revealing red flesh, blistered flesh, burned flesh.
Bardot thrashed against the scalding tar, desperately dragging himself away from Chanelle’s starlit armor, which now melted Bardot’s broken diamond armor until the liquid bubbled and sizzled to nothingness.
Every desperate strike Bardot made did nothing to faze Chanelle. Her armor wasn’t built to handle the heavy-handed blows, the erratic bursts of telekinesis, or the stray diamonds hurled as a means of escape. Still, Chanelle held out until every single diamond disappeared.
“You’re finished.” Chanelle panted, struggling to maintain her starlit armor, but holding the form strong until Bardot collapsed at her feet.
The broken behemoth writhed in agony, wincing with every breath.
Chanelle’s starlit armor fell to pieces, shattering into a million specs of sparkly dust that fluttered out the window, caught on a breeze.
It hurt to stand, hurt to breathe, hurt to smile, but Chanelle maintained her composure.
She wanted the girls to see her walk away from this battle with her head held high because one day they might find themselves in a fight just as dangerous.
Like Milo, Chanelle believed in optimism and the effect it had on outcomes. Belief could win a battle just as much as talent. A lovely sentiment, though I disagreed.
Tia dropped her barrier, staring in awe at her teacher. Chanelle truly was the most badass educator I’d ever met. Why she picked this path over the guild life, I would never understand, but I was grateful every day knowing she had.
“Is it over?” Olivia asked.
“No,” Layla said with disdain. “He’s still alive.”
“He’s down for the count,” Chanelle said. “This part is over.”
“Still, there’s all the fiends running around,” Amani said.
“One thing at a time,” Chanelle said, summoning a floral whip made of pink petals to detain Bardot.
I’d seen her summon the floral whip on several occasions, mostly made from a flurry of colorful petals, but not this time.
Perhaps a nod to Campbell’s magic, it seemed like something Chanelle would do.
A small way to honor the fallen guild master.
Using the pink pedals, Chanelle bound them around Bardot’s arms and legs, extending the length of the whip until she’d looped them tight.
“You bitches,” Bardot snarled. “I won’t be brought down. I’m a god. A god ordained for greatness. I am a member of the Celestial Coven. You don’t stop me. You’re nothing!”
“Keep it up.” Chanelle tightened the floral bindings. “I’ll add some starlight to those roses.”
“You think I’m afraid of you?” Bardot thrashed. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“You wanna know fear?” Jennifer tilted her head.
Name: Jennifer Jung
Branch: Psychic (Empathic)
“Don’t engage,” Chanelle said.
“No, he doesn’t know fear.” Jennifer channeled her empathy, siphoning as much fear from the building as she could, stealing it from the minds of everyone on the street, and pulling in the fear until a mass of dark blue energy hovered above her. “Let me introduce him to it.”
A silhouette of a creature made of all white, representing Jennifer’s empathy, carried the fear over to Bardot. The beast opened the man’s mouth and shoved the fear unbound down his throat. He choked on terror, mind lost to the delirium of a thousand horrors he’d never noticed until this moment.
“That’ll shut him up for a while.” Jennifer stumbled, having severely overexerted herself.
“Good.” Layla kicked the petrified Bardot. “The bastard deserves worse.”
With that, Layla went over to Campbell’s body, offering the fallen guild master a moment of silence, then moved the body over to a couch.
“I wish we could do something more for her,” Chanelle whispered.
“We can clear her guild of these goddamned fiends,” Layla said furiously, hiding the lump of sorrow in her throat. “She worked hard to make this the best guild in the state. Let’s remind everyone that’s still true.”
Layla turned, channeling her claws and fueling them with banishment. Amani walked beside her; Jennifer forced herself up and joined them. Tia and Olivia followed too.
“Well, Dorian?” Chanelle thought, revealing her intrigue now that the dust here had mostly settled. “What’s going on around the city?”
“I honestly don’t know,” I thought.
“Maybe you can tell Milo to get those top ten enchanters to do some of the heavy lifting,” Chanelle thought. “I know he was supposed to grab them today.”
A hell of a time for the Celestial Coven to strike. I didn’t know if it was hubris on The True Witch’s part or if she truly believed she had enough strength to challenge the top ten enchanters when they’d all gathered together.
“I’m sort of disconnected from myself at the moment,” I explained.
“Then you need to go resolve that,” she thought. “Don’t worry. I’ll secure Cerberus, and I’ll watch over the girls.”
I studied Layla and the others as they banished fiends. They didn’t need protection. They were ready for all the hardships and horrors that came with the industry.