Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 5 Chapter 24 Mistress of the Elements By Amethyst

I crouched down where I appeared and took a moment to look around and get the lay of the land. It looked like I had appeared on top of a wall, roughly thirty feet high and overlooking a large cobblestone courtyard, and a tower that stood at the center of it. The tower was on a tiny island that was surrounded by an actual moat and had large bonfires burning at each corner.

The building itself appeared to be made mostly of stone and vaguely resembled a pagoda that I saw on my trip to Japan with Mom and Dad a couple of years ago. Back then, I had thought that visiting another country was cool. After the things I had seen and done recently though, it was hard to believe that I was the same person as back then.

My life certainly had changed since meeting Shannon and sure, a lot of this was crazy and scary, but it was also so damn exciting. I fought Demons and went to other worlds; it was like a gamer’s dream come true. Mom and Dad would totally freak out if they knew that we were doing this stuff, but we were the only ones who could. We had earned the power to do it.

Yeah, it’s a comic book saying, but with great power comes great responsibility. We have a duty to protect the people in our world who can’t protect themselves from the Demons, whether through powerlessness or ignorance. I take my responsibilities very seriously.

Sometimes I felt like I was in over my head though and this was one of those times. I mean, Shannon was a powerhouse, even before she had Xuriel’s mark unsealed, and Sarah was too, and Sarah had experience and some real wisdom going for her too. Annie was a total badass even without her Celestial powers, Mason had his psychic power, and both Ellie and Ziralin were freaking Fae before getting their wings. It was kind of hard to see Ziralin as my friend Beth sometimes, even with the glamour, because she had grown so far beyond the person she once was.

Even Lisa, Michelle, and Rebecca had something going for them. Lisa was a Witch and probably one of the bravest people I knew. Michelle was like a catgirl version of Ziralin before she got her mark; strong, fast, she healed fast, and magic just slid right off her. Rebecca had the whole pseudo-succubus thing going for her now, and I was sure that she could probably take on a Demon on her own if she tried.

Then there was me; plain, ordinary, and practically fading into the background. The rich girl riding on her best friend’s coattails. There was no doubt in my mind that I was probably the weakest of all of us who had earned or inherited a Celestial’s mark, and usually, I was okay with that. I contributed how I could and got to do things most humans could never even dream of, but sometimes, I just wanted to stand out on my own just once.

I guess this was my chance to do that, to prove myself by taking on one of the Demon King’s generals. By myself. “Fuck, I am so screwed,” I thought to myself as I looked around and tried to form some sort of plan. We were supposed to hit them hard and fast and not let them help one another, and here I was wasting time.

At least with those fires and the moat, I would have all four elements available to me, but this wasn’t my usual kind of fight. I liked to know something about the Demons I was facing before the fight, to take time to observe them and get a feel for who they were and how they reacted, and then come up with a plan to take them down. The one thing that I had going for me was that I’m smart, and I liked to use that. This cowboy stuff wasn’t me.

As quietly as I could, I unslung the rifle from my shoulder and got into the sniper position that Annie had taught me. Then I brought the rifle to my shoulder and looked down the scope to scout out the tower and the demonic aura that I could feel coming from within. Whatever it was, it was strong, terrifyingly so if I could sense it while not in my Celestial form.

I didn’t dare transform yet either. If I did, I would be wasting magic energy, and as soon as I did, that Demon would probably detect my aura. Maybe with one well-placed magic bullet, I could avoid a fight. At the very least, I could try to get a read on my opponent.

He, or maybe she, was sitting in a meditative stance on the bottom floor of the tower. They looked sort of like a black-furred werewolf, but their clothes and body type made it hard to determine their gender, if they had a gender, as I knew it at all. Not that their gender, or possible lack thereof, mattered. They were a Demon general, and not to be taken lightly.

I had them in my sights and carefully controlled my breathing as I lined up my shot when the Demon turned and looked right at me. They knew I was here. I reacted instantly, jumping from the top of the wall and changing to my Celestial form as a rock spike erupted from the spot where I had been laying a moment earlier and my rifle clattered to the ground.

My opponent stepped calmly from the tower, their voice carrying to me on the wind. “Hmmm… A Celestial, and using a human weapon. Did you truly think that you could kill Falora, Mistress of the Elements, with such an attack? I felt you the moment that you appeared in my domain, all that you see here is mine to command. I am intimately familiar with every grain of sand, every drop of water…”

“What is it with Demons talking themselves up like some monologuing comic book villain?” I wondered bitterly as I tried to take in my opponent. If she could command the elements like me then this could be a tough fight. It might come down to who was more creative which would be bad because she probably had a lot more experience than I did. I needed to buy time and think of a plan, so I interrupted her to ask, “Should I know you? I can’t say that I’m familiar with the name.”

Maybe that wasn’t the best idea because her reply was an angry roar as she gathered fire from the closest of the bonfires and launched it at me. “Okay, Jen, mental note. If you’re going to interrupt the Demon’s monologue, do it with an attack,” I mentally grumbled as I intercepted the fire with a shield of water from the moat.

The meeting of the two caused a sizzling sound, but it was the water that held. Most of it was evaporated, and honestly, I think it was the element of surprise that really saved me there as she stared at me wide-eyed. I couldn’t afford to let up though, so I directed my mind to the air around me as I reached into my ammunition pouch for a handful of Shannon’s magicked bullets and launched them at Falora with a hurricane-force wind.

The bullets struck a hastily formed stone barrier and detonated their divine magic. Her barrier exploded, sending rock flying everywhere as I winged backward to avoid the shrapnel. What was left of the barrier collapsed, showing Falora unharmed and I mentally cursed at the glare she gave me. “Shit, that was my best chance to finish this quickly. She’s going to be taking me seriously now and I can’t keep this up for long.”

Not for the first time, I wished that I had another power from my Celestial mark. Sarah had told me that the mark, and the powers they granted the bearer, were something uniquely suited to them. The others all had some sort of divine energy as part of their Celestial abilities. I, on the other hand, had control of the four basic elements and while that is awesome, it makes killing Demons a pain in the ass sometimes.

It takes finesse, concentration, and a lot of mental and magick energy to manipulate the elements and make them do exactly what I want them to do. That shield and the wind had taken a lot of juice, and since it looked like I was going to have to stay in the air to give myself time to counter her attacks, devoting energy to that was going to drain my reserves too. I was already draining the first okka crystal in my pouch dry to keep from poisoning myself on Heil’s tainted magick energy.

Falora had similar powers to my own, so I needed to figure out a weakness to exploit, fast. This was going to be a battle of attrition otherwise and once I ran out of okka crystals; I would lose. I also needed to keep my mind on the battle, because if she slipped up, she could regenerate and keep the fight going, but I couldn’t afford to slip up even once.

I barely avoided a barrage of stone shingles from the roof of the pagoda by erecting a stone barrier from the ground, but Falora countered the retaliatory spikes that I launched from it with a wall of her own. I followed up with a powerful burst of wind from her right, but she just shifted her barrier to block that too. Then she got serious.

The water in the moat gathered at Falora’s command, turning into a massive waterspout. It was huge and she sent it right at me, so fast that there was no time to move out of its path. Draining the second of the crystals, I raised a stone barrier at record speed, formed a second barrier of hardened air between me and the first, and braced myself with a counterwind.

The water twister punched right through my first barrier and the second slowed it, but I was still sent flying into the wall encircling the courtyard. The counterwind I had summoned had barely served to slow me and take the brunt of the damage as I slammed into the wall in a symphony of pain that forced the air out of my lungs as I fell to the ground below. I could barely move and hissed from the white-hot pain that engulfed the left side of my body as I tried to get up and get back in the air.

This was bad; I used so much magick energy trying to counter that waterspout that I had to drain the third of the okka crystals. I had one crystal left and my left wing and probably a few ribs were broken. I was fairly sure that I had dislocated my left shoulder too. Dammit, I was going to lose like this.

Falora had said it herself, this was her domain, and she knew it intimately. She could sense every attack that I threw at her. I had only gotten lucky at first because I surprised her by having the same power and then with those bullets. I needed something she couldn’t sense and counter before it got to her. Something like the bullets.

I had a few more in my pouch, but my gun was a dozen feet away and there was no way I could reach it before she could finish me off. I doubted that I would fool her again with using the wind to launch the bullets either. All I had besides the bullets were my bracelet, my portable bunker, that stupid joke gift that my boyfriend got me for Christmas, and the okka… I had to fight not to smile as a plan came to me.

I couldn’t get up, I was going to need all of the energy that I could summon to pull this off, and moving hurt too much right now anyway. I turned my head to look at my rifle, my left arm in agony as I reached toward it. Meanwhile, my right hand was removing my gift from its holster slowly and carefully as Falora stalked toward me with a lupine grin that said that she had won, and she knew it.

She stood several steps away, looking down on me with that grin, and started to monologue as she saw where my gaze and outstretched left arm were directed. “Foolish girl, did you really think yourself a match for the Mistress of Elements? While in my own domain? You are beaten, even if you could reach that pathetic human weapon…”

This time I interrupted the Demon’s monologue with an attack. I pulled the trigger and waited until the flare hit her in the chest before replying, “I wasn’t reaching for that weapon, I was reaching for this one. Hurts, doesn’t it, you bitch? Magnesium burns hot. Oh, and water is not going to put that out.”

I couldn’t believe that worked. When Mason had given the flare gun to me as a sort of joke Christmas gift, he said I might need it. He had said it jokingly as he quoted, “May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.” Still, even I thought that it might be useful in case there was no fire for me to manipulate nearby in a fight. I can manipulate the elements, not create them, after all. I was never going to doubt his hunches again.

Falora was screaming as she frantically tried to put out the fire that was rapidly consuming her clothes and fur, but I wasn’t done yet. I dropped the flare gun and reached in my pouch for the last of the okka crystals, the one still brimming with divine magick energy. I focused my concentration on it and let it fall from my hand to roll toward the still screaming and burning Demon.

One thing about crystals is that they’re a mineral and I can control those. They can also be grown, so I used my power to make this one grow. At my urging, and with a lot of energy, that little violet crystal sphere grew into a massive spike that impaled Falora through the chest and there was enough holy magick permeating the crystal, even at its larger size, that Falora’s still-screaming body turned to dust. I laughed, which was pure agony, and muttered, “Who’s the Mistress of the Elements now, Bitch?”

It took forever, and a lot of pain to get to my feet. I was running low on magick energy after that stunt, and I was in bad shape, but I limped over to retrieve my rifle. The flare gun was already holstered, and I just needed to get rid of the okka crystal formation that I had made before I could go home and rest. I sucked all the magick energy that remained from it and then used my powers to turn the whole formation into dust. I didn’t want to risk any enemy Demons finding it and putting it to use, and I could always grow more later if we needed it.

With that done, I touched my bug-out bracelet and painfully hissed, “911” to go home. As much as I wanted to find Mason, Shannon, and the others, I knew that I was in no shape to do so. I was in agony, my vision was getting blurry, and could barely stand right now. Besides, I believed in them. They would find a way to win, even if it seemed impossible. Because that’s what we do.