We encountered Dark a little further on. His aura was so vast and powerful that it was visible, a gray mass that blended into the air around him like mist. We could barely see him; he seemed more like a silhouette than a person. My whole body trembled furiously and refused to move forward; my instincts begged me to flee, and my mind assured me that I would die if I faced him.
He walked slowly and had left behind him several houses on fire and with perfectly circular holes, a trail of overturned and destroyed SUVs and police cars, as well as a lot of corpses of police officers and civilians who carried long guns.
They were most likely gang members, but what were so many of them doing there? Were they from a rival gang and, along with the police, tried to kill Dark? Or were they part of Death and turned against him?
The mansions Dark was heading to belonged mostly to politicians and businessmen. The garage door of one of them opened, and a black SUV sped out. But Dark immediately cast a spell so powerful that it completely disintegrated the front of the vehicle. The rest of the SUV started rolling across the asphalt. Toffson positioned himself directly in front of it and gathered all the magic he could muster to stop it. The wreckage of the SUV collided with Toffson and started pushing him violently. He nonetheless brought it to a halt several meters later. The rest of us rushed to the wreckage to help the people inside, but there was only a badly injured bodyguard and former Governor Dipshet, who was slowly crawling out of the vehicle.
At that moment, Dark appeared behind us. He was a black silhouette with no eyes, no face, no features, but completely covered with white lines that spread in all directions, like veins or cracks. He probably wanted to attack Dipshet.
I created a bubble-shaped shield large enough to cover Dipshet and us. The rest of my team contributed some of their magic to strengthen it.
But at that very moment, we heard a scream behind us. We turned and saw Dark piercing Dipshet's chest with his arm; Dipshet was screaming in agony. Dark had most likely teleported inside our shield just before I finished creating it.
Toffson approached Dark and threw him a punch with all his might. At the moment of impact, Dark's face contorted as Toffson's fist went through it as if it hadn't touched anything, only to return to its original shape afterwards. Toffson kept punching him, but it was as if he were hitting thin air. That's when I noticed: Dark's body was made up of many pieces floating in the air, and each of these white lines covering him were the spaces between each of these pieces.
Dark withdrew his arm from Dipshet's chest. Before he did anything, I dispelled the shield and tried to create many more to enclose all of Dark's fragments, but the aura surrounding him was so powerful that they were destroyed as soon as I began to form them.
Lancel created a shield several meters in diameter that completely enveloped Dark and began to shrink it. The rest of the team immediately focused all our energy on helping him. Perhaps we could contain him that way, even if only for a minute, while reinforcements and paramedics arrived to help the survivors.
We gradually shrunk the shield, although we had to use all our energy so that Dark's aura wouldn't destroy it in an instant.
Apparently, Dark realized what we were planning because he immediately gathered an impressive amount of magic in front of him and unleashed it on us. It was so powerful that it not only destroyed the shield effortlessly, but it also struck us with such force that I was sent flying through the air and even lost consciousness for a few seconds.
When I woke up, I was lying on the floor covered in blood. I had a broken arm and leg. I could barely move.
"Are you okay?!" I yelled at my team as I crawled across the ground to turn toward them. I saw them lying on the ground, covered in blood. "No!" I screamed and slowly crawled toward them to try and heal them, but Dark started walking towards us, so, bracing myself with my good arm, I tried to stand up. I wasn't going to let him hurt my friends anymore, I wasn¿t going to let him hurt anyone else. I had to protect them all, even if I died trying! No one else was going to die because of me!
And at that moment, I unleashed the power of friendship. A golden aura enveloped my body and healed all my wounds. I immediately stood up and encased Dark in a shield so powerful that his aura couldn't destroy it, even though it was much smaller than the one Lancel had created. I used all my power to shrink it even further, but Dark grabbed it with both hands to open it. At that moment, the shield exploded with tremendous force.
But it didn't harm Dark in the slightest. He kept coming towards us. I created another shield to stop him, but the result was exactly the same.
With Dark just a few meters away, I had no choice but to rush towards him to stop him somehow, any way I could. I stood in front of him and gathered all my magic in my hands to stop him, push him back, anything.
But just as I touched him, he slapped me so hard I was sent flying and crashed through several houses in my path. I ended up landing hundreds of meters away. My mouth tasted blood, and I was struggling to breathe. All my ribs were shattered, and at least one had punctured a lung. The pain in my chest was unbearable. My fingernails turned purple, and I felt an urge to cut a hole in my throat so I could breathe, but I knew that wouldn't do any good. With what little strength I had left, I tried to get up. It was useless. My legs trembled, and I collapsed to the ground again.
All the power I had quickly transformed into pain and fear.
And then Dark appeared in front of me, several meters away, and began to approach. He was surely coming to kill me. So, I gathered all the magic I had left to stop him, even if only for a second.
If the shields weren't working, then I had no choice but to attack him directly. With a bit of magic, I lifted the cars nearby into the air and threw them at him, but the exact same thing happened as when Toffson tried to hit him. I threw every spell I could at him, but the aura surrounding him completely absorbed them before they could reach him.
He didn't stop for a moment, and soon he was less than a meter away from me. Still lying on the ground, I gathered all the magic I had left and created the last shield to contain him within it. Needless to say, it was useless: Dark continued advancing at his usual pace. He was now a mere ten centimeters away, so I had no choice but to brace myself on the ground and launch myself at him, hoping to grab one or more of those fragments that shaped him. I stretched my arms out in the air and tried to cling to his waist, but all the pieces that made him up scattered the moment I touched them. In the end, I passed right through Dark as if he were a ghost and fell to the ground, where I vomited blood and nearly lost consciousness from the pain of landing on my already shattered torso.
And he just walked right past me as if I didn't exist.
I turned to him and saw him heading toward the first mansion we'd seen when we teleported here. He went into the garage, opened the door of the SUV parked there, and carefully pulled out a woman's body and carried it with both hands. She lay motionless, her hair stained with blood, especially around the back of her neck. Considering all the bullet holes in the SUV, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened to her.
Dark slowly came out of the garage. Although he was just an eyeless silhouette, his gaze remained fixed on this woman. He stopped mere inches from me and let out a guttural wail that must have been heard throughout the neighborhood and surrounding area. His aura then filled with profound sorrow.
His cry lasted only a few seconds, though. I regained my composure and used all my strength to crawl toward him. I had to stop him, even if only for a second.
A single second would be more than enough.
I reached for his ankle and slowly approached him. My nails were completely purple, it was getting harder and harder to breathe, I felt more tired at every moment, and a voice inside my head was telling me strongly that I was going to die.
I kept crawling forward until I managed to touch Dark with my fingertips. His ankle, a black, broken mass, distorted every time I touched it.
And then Dark disappeared along with the woman he was carrying so tenderly.
He teleported to a place so far away that I stopped feeling his monstrous aura.
I had failed.
I couldn't stop him for even a second.
I could barely breathe. I was bleeding out. My eyelids felt heavy. But despite everything, I couldn't stop thinking about that woman Dark carried with such care, with such affection, even. Surely her death was what caused Dark to transform in that way. But who was she then, and why was she so important to Dark? Why did those gang members attack them? What had Dark done during the months he disappeared?
And then I blacked out.
Just to open my eyes is a completely different place. I had been there so many times that just seeing the Styrofoam roof with damp stains told me it was the Saint Money General Hospital.
I glanced to my right, and there I saw Heartrice sitting. Parts of her face were bandaged, and she was wearing her civilian clothes: a sweatshirt and baggy jeans.
"Thank you," I told her since she was surely the reason why I hadn't died.
She didn't answer and just avoided my eyes.
That's when I noticed my arm was handcuffed to the stretcher. I looked to the other side, and as I feared, my other arm was handcuffed too.
I looked around the room for the rest of my team, but there was only one police officer.
I tried to gather a little magic, but I couldn't.
I settled myself on the right side of my house and brought my neck as close as I could to my hand to touch it.
As I suspected, he was wearing Bephelometh's necklace.
"I'm sorry," Heartrice said without looking at me. The officer stood up and approached.
"But I did everything Tantrum told me. What did I do wrong?" I asked desperately, even though I already knew the answer: I had failed, I had let Dipshet and everyone else die.
"Herobert VII," said the officer, "you are under arrest for terrorism, anarchy, homicide, organized crime and conspiracy with Dark."