“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’sarms and legs, extending the length of the whip until she’d looped them tight.
