A couple of bullets grazed by our heads. Oberi turned and began shooting fireballs out of her horn. Charlie wrapped his arms around me and squeezed as our powers united once more. Like Kallie and Marcus, we didn’t have to think about what to create. Our magic worked for us, and the cafeteria shook with a massive earthquake as the ground completely split open, leaving a cavern in the ground miles deep. From the depths, my Fire magic and Charlie’s Earth magic intertwined to summon magma, and it sizzled as it bubbled up from the mantle. The magma grew, forming into itself as it became a massive lava monster, one that groaned and moved of its own accord.
The guards shot bullets at the lava monster, which did nothing to stop it. The massive beast swept its flaming hand out at a pile of guards and made contact. The magma left burns on their skin, and the force of the lava monster’s blows killed most of the guards on the first hit. The lava monster continued its fiery rampage, chucking guards across the room and destroying whatever it came in contact with.
One of the guards noticed that we were controlling the lava monster. He raised his hand, and a battle orb exploded out of his palm. It missed me, but hit Charlie directly in the chest, sending him flying off of Oberi. The lava monster dissipated with the blow, the magma sinking back into the crevice we’d made in the earth as Charlie hit the ground almost fifty feet away.
“Charlie!” I yelled. He struggled to get up. That battle orb must’ve hit him hard.
I instantly incinerated the guard that had hurt him, but a whole battalion of guards had noticed Charlie was down and were running across the room to advance on him. They raised their hands and their guns, to throw an assault of bullets and spells that would surely take him down.
Oberi tossed her head and stomped her hooves against the floor as she let out a bray.No one shall harm what is mine!
Oberi’s form turned warm underneath my body and took on a white glow that obscured all of her features. My legs moved as her middle expanded, and I realized Oberi wasgrowing.The illusion saddle shifted and changed to fit as Oberi’s body morphed into something larger. Through our bond, I felt her body shift from feminine to masculine. I clung to Oberi’s neck, which became long and scaly underneath my hands. Horns formed at the top of his head, and his feet became massive, clawed, and reptilian. A long tail grew behind him, one with a poisonous, pointed barb at the end. Poisonous spines ran along his back, and leathery wings folded over my legs to protect them. His jagged scales were an arrayed mottled color of brown and black, with sharp points at the end. From this point on his back, I was more than twenty feet up. The cafeteria could barely contain him.
I couldn’t be more elated. Oberi had changed into a very large, very angry, and very male wyvern.
HA HA HA HA!Oberi bellowed.PUT ME IN A TINY CAGE NOW, YOU INSOLENT FOOLS!
Oberi began spitting venom at the guards who’d surrounded Charlie. The venom was purple, and once it landed on the guards, it began eating away at their bodies like acid. The venom consumed skin and flesh, until bones poked through and holes were made in the guard’s bodies. They perished horribly, letting out cries of agony as they suffered horrifying deaths.
Oberi bent down and picked up Charlie with his long fangs. Charlie yelped as Oberi deposited him behind me, before the wyvern continued his perilous rampage.
I SHALL TAKE YOUR LIVES ON A WHIM!Oberi screamed. He lifted his giant feet and began crushing guards underneath them, roaring as he did so. Oberi lifted his tail, and used the curved pointer to stab guards in the chest. Their bodies filled with venom, and the purple substance pooled out of cavities in their chests as the guards collapsed on the floor. They gave a few convulsing movements before they choked on the foam that was gushing from between their lips.
“What’d he turn into?” Charlie asked in astonishment, doing his best to hang on as Oberi rocked us back and forth.
“A wyvern,” I replied, just as Oberi gave an earth-quaking roar that split the cavern in the room even farther in two.
“What’s that?!”
“Uh, basically a dragon hybrid, poisonous tail, spits venom,” I replied nonchalantly. “This form definitely comes from you. Air type.”
With the appearance of Oberi’s wyvern form, the guards finally gave up. Those that still remained alive ran screaming from the cafeteria, preferring to face the Warden’s wrath rather than continue to fight us. Once the room was empty, Oberi’s sides were left heaving, his wings shuddering as he attempted to contain his lust for revenge.
Marcus giggled. “Blood, blood, blood everywhere!” He splashed in the red puddles like a little kid. Rishi meowed loudly, batting at his shoes.
Holy hell, he was actuallyenjoyingall of this. Kallie was completely bewildered as she stared at him, then turned back to us. “I don’t know if this is hot, or disturbing.”
“You can think about that later,” I said. “Either way, nobody’s getting in our way now.”
I now have all five of my forms. I am complete and unified. I feel as if I am a god! Oberi extended his wings. They slammed up against the cafeteria walls, which nearly buckled under his weight.
“Take it easy, big guy.” Kallie patted Oberi’s scaly paw. “We still gotta get out of here.”
That we did, and with Marcus going around purposefully starting fights and causing a ruckus, it was taking us way longer than I wanted it to. “We still need to get to the Warden’s office. You’re gonna have to shrink down if we want to get through these hallways.”
Aw. But Ilikebeing big and ferocious, Oberi complained.
“You can eat all the guards you want later, but for right now, you’re gonna have to wait,” Charlie said. “You’re too big to fit through the door, let alone the rest of the building.”
Oberi grumbled, but shrank back down to unicorn size. We went back into the hallway, but as we did so, I noticed the temperature in the building had definitely elevated. A thin trail of smoke hovered throughout the hall and my Fire magic tingled inside of me, telling me something was wrong.
We turned down another corridor, and that’s when I noticed it. Flames were licking up the walls of the building, spreading over the ceiling and the classrooms at large. They were monstrous, large flames that could only be cast with magic, ones that ignited everything they touched, even the stone. The flames were spreading quickly across the prison, and screams echoed through the hallways as inmates and guards both struggled to escape the inferno.
My journal… the fire. Another one of my aunt’s visions had come true.
Perish in the flames of my judgment.The Warden’s speech echoed through my mind, and I gripped Oberi’s mane tightly.
“The Warden did this,” I said. “He set the Institute on fire. It’s a part of this test he’s making everyone go through.”
