Cleaning Up Our Mess

“Don’t give up!” I could hear my mom screaming at me from the stands. “Don’t you dare quit! Keep pushing!”

I dribbled the basketball as fast as I could. This wasn’t what I was good at. I hated every second of it. But I needed to do this for her. If I couldn’t—I’d be in trouble again.

One of the other players slapped the ball out of my hands and broke away quickly.

The crowd cheered as shoes squeaked, and everyone moved.

No! No! No! I thought, turning instantly and forcing my long, tired legs to carry me in pursuit.

There was no way I could let him score. If I lost the ball and let the other team have a point, I’d—No, I needed to make sure it didn’t happen.

Even if it meant I was benched, I wouldn’t allow it. At a full sprint, I raised an elbow, and as the thief prepared for a layup, I jumped. My hand barely missed hitting the ball, but my elbow connected with his face, sending him to the ground with a painful thud.

I landed, looking down at him proudly as the referee approached, blowing their whistle.

The next thing I knew, I was choking on a mouthful of peppermint schnapps, watching as a lightning bolt struck down the troll preparing to go pro-wrestler on me from the nearby rooftop.

Jumping to my feet with a start, I dodged the body as it splattered against the cobblestone. Looking at the heap of corpses around me, Rionriv stood on the other side of the troll's body with an empty potion in her hand.

“Hey, you okay?” She asked, tossing the bottle over the corpses.

“Yeah. Status?”

“Status?! Fuggin’ bad, Iz!”

Rionriv took a blast of necrotic energy and collapsed. Without hesitation, I bounded over the fleshy barrier and slapped a healing hand to her shoulder.

She gasped back to consciousness, shaking her head, “Damn cultist. I can’t pinpoint it. It keeps bouncing in and out of corporeal form.”

“It’s using a shift spell?” I asked, poking a head over monster corpses in the direction the caster had fired.

That was when I heard a piercing scream. Aesandoral’s scream.

It curdled my blood, immediately drawing my attention in the opposite direction. I turned to see her standing atop the monster that had knocked me out. A dozen arrows stuck from the beast’s head as she continued to fire down at the weakened point until it swayed and collapsed under its own weight.

Her body was covered in blood, gore dripping from her face as something caught her attention. A single ear twitched before her entire body shifted with unnatural speed.

As soon as she was facing her target, the arrows flew from her bow and connected with the knees of the remaining gargoyle.

“Oh god, no, no!” Calix begged as Aesandoral raced over toward him. “Don’t do it!”

“You deserve this, you bully!”

“Screw you, you dirty knif—.” His tone changed as he flipped to swipe at her core, but it was already over.

Aesandoral dodged back, and with a flash of red energy at the tip of her arrow, an explosion rocked the earthen form. Stone fragments scattered across the road, blending in with the rest of the carnage.

Then, a pair of sinister bolts of energy cut across the battlefield towards the raging archer.

But she had sensed it, gracefully backflipping out of the way and, like a feral animal, locking her gaze in the direction of the threat.

“Sixty feet!” I shouted out from my pinned position. “The caster will be within sixty feet of their last location.”

Two blasts hit the troll corpse beside my head. Instinctively ducking down lower with Rionriv, I covered her head and scanned the area around us.

I remembered writing this spell into the story and giving it both an upside and a downside. The upside was that you escaped the worst of combat most of the time. But the downside? If you didn’t end your target quickly, it became predictable by mid-combat.

“Everyone else down?” I asked Rionriv.

“Think so. I got four, you two, Zin two, Aes three.”

Two more blasts fired out overhead, impacting a nearby building, scattering wood and glass over the battlefield. Shifting my head, I looked in that direction and saw the shadow of Zin stumbling around inside a shuttered shop.

“Next shot—” I shouted out to the triop. “Get into position facing the direction of the last blast. Hold your fire until you see the purple glint of the spell wearing off.”

The shots came once more, and we moved. The three of them were getting into a hiding spot, ready to attack. Or at least I hoped. Meanwhile, I rushed toward the location of the last beam.

Stopping in the center of the street, I readied myself while scanning the area. It would appear any moment, and when it did, I would—

A palm pressed to the back of my head.

“Time to die, problem child.” A serpentine creature hissed as a cold energy pooled at the back of my skull.

The magic dissipated as blood splashed over my body. Its scaled form crumbled to the ground before me, revealing a trio of arrows and a singular scorch mark scarring its back.

Following, I collapsed to my knees and released an exhausted sigh. With a glance over the mid-campus battlefield, a killing field of our own making, I caught my breath.

An exhausted-looking Rionriv and Aesandoral approached, holding wounds as they drank down potions. Both appeared to have crashed from their bloodlust and were examining the battlefield much like I was.

“We did this to ourselves, huh?” Rionriv asked, inspecting the bodies.

“We may have gone a bit far with training,” Aesandoral added, looking at the café and then me. “Maybe we should try a new café.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I huffed, pushing myself up. “Maybe we take a break on—”

“Whooo!”

That was when a still-drunk Sharzin appeared from a shadow, tripping over the snake-person’s corpse.

Pulling her arrow from its back, she tumbled into my arms, giggling and pointing towards the battlefield.

“Iz! I killed some rats and mosquitoes when you weren’t looking. Whoo! Combat experience! Let’s. Keep. Going! Huuurrrrgggg—”

Sharzin then vomited onto my chest before passing out against me.