Royal Purple

It turned out that we never needed to worry about missing Professor Gregory.

He leaned on the wall right outside of his office—arms crossed. “I wondered how long you would take. Did Fairburrow step up his trap?”

“You knew about that?” Gregory’s cocky expression made me want to punch him in the face so badly. “Why didn’t you warn us?”

“Dramatics.”

Only a miracle would have the ability to stop my fist at this point.

“I caught them up on everything.” Val took a step forward. “You were right about that.”

“I’m always right,” Professor Gregory said, pushing himself off the wall and toward his door. “Come on in. From your faces, it sounds like you lot have a lot of questions.”

Gregory’s office had changed little since last time, with the same weird posters covering the wall. He added some metallic black box to his desk. It flashed bright green every few seconds, though judging by Gregory’s reaction—or lack thereof—that was pretty normal.

Why does that box just feel… wrong? I just got an icky feeling looking at the thing.

I took a seat on his strange blue leather couch next to the other two. “How much do you know?”

“Enough. I will say, you used a pretty simple way to break the chain, but nice job realizing how Val’s cage worked.”

“You never told me how you know all this.” Val leaned back, tossing her legs onto the coffee table. “Not that I think any of us actually suspect you. But even you have to admit, the amount you know makes you kind of suspicious.”

“Maybe it does. But I can guarantee you that I’m on your side.”

I crossed my arms. “How?”

“Because, if I wasn’t, you three would’ve already lost.”

The confidence that he spoke with was something unmatched. I’d met several people who had that ability to speak like something was already guaranteed to happen: Isaac, my dad, but the way Gregory did it just blew everyone else away.

“W-We did come to get some advice, specifically about what to do with Isaac’s research.”

“That you did,” Gregory snapped back on topic. “As Mary was saying. You have an opportunity in front of you, or problem, whatever term you prefer..”

“Little weasel.” I spat.

“We could use your help there. In a fight—”

“No can do, Val,” Gregory said. “I’d love to sweep in and knock Fairburrow out, but I’m contracted. Any fight would break that.”

“Contracted?”

“Restrained is probably a better word. I signed a bad deal when I was younger.” At least that’s what he said, but from the slight hesitation, I got the feeling his opinions of that deal went a lot further than bad.

“Fine.” Val crossed her arms. “What can you offer us then?”

“The ability to make your fight a lot more interesting. But that’s not important right now. You all came here for information on Fairburrow, and for that I’m very happy to oblige.”

Gregory pushed his chair back. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” I got up, hesitant.

Gregory grinned. “You wanted to beat Fairburrow, right? Well then, let me show you how.”

                                                                             ☀ ☀ ☀

In the most Professor Gregory move ever, we walked straight over toward the sparring grounds yet again. I don’t even know if we’re technically supposed to use the grounds.

“Val, I’m assuming you’ve told them a bit about Fairburrow’s magic?”

“I—” She stopped. Wait, that should’ve been the first question we asked her. “He’s a Varie, one of the strongest fighters I’ve met to boot. Though he just uses orange most of the time.”

“You’re understating it if anything. Man is a glorified arsonist, though you would never know by just meeting him.” Gregory scowled. “Fire can destroy, it can burn villages and give innocent people horrid deaths. But it can also create life, cook food, and warm people in winter. Fairburrow only concerns himself with the former.”

“He really doesn't like Fairburrow…” Mary muttered. “I’d not really got that impression before.”

“I’m the strongest user of orange on the planet. When Fairburrow disgraces orange, he’s trying to disgrace me.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Teach you three how to fight him. I know how strong the three of you are, but Fairburrow’s a coward. He’ll play dirty and invalidate your strength, so—”

“Watch it” I blasted out a tsunami as Gregory snapped his fingers, sending a blast of fire the size of a castle straight toward us.

“Let me give you a crash course on how Fairburrow fights.”

“A trial by fire? I can handle that.” Thick jets of water blasted me back toward the back of the arena, with the other two girls right on my heels.

“Don’t expect him to give you space.” Gregory took a few steps forward, letting his inferno nearly double in size. This heat feels like it's gonna sear off my eyebrows! “Judging by Isaac’s burn marks, Fairburrow stuck him in a corner and overwhelmed his magic. He isn’t the type to use the exact same strategy for two Prismas in a row, but you have to keep that in mind.”

I spun back, and instantly met with a big stone corner. We played right into that…

The next hour was more of the same, with Gregory coming up with a trap, and the three of us having to maneuver some way out.

But the thing that caught my attention way more than any trap was Gregory’s control of orange. I could do some cool stuff with orange: send shots of fire, burn things, light candles, but all of that looks so basic compared to Gregory.

He set out shots at the speed of yellow, created walls with the staying power of green’s vines, let tidal waves of fire continuously bathe the arena in flames.

None of that even came close to the fact that his flames were powerful enough to single-handedly let Gregory fly.

At least that was something only Gregory could do.

“Don’t overwhelm him with just water! He won’t be afraid to electrocute it.” Gregory floated over a jet of steaming water, leaned back to pass by Mary’s vine, and simply tilted his head as Val’s dagger missed by millimeters.

“At least pretend like you’re putting in effort.” I barked.

“You’ve all had enough dodging practice, right? Come make me end this!”

“He really hasn’t changed since I met him.” Val landed on the dirt a few inches away. “We need some kinda plan.”

Gods, a bit of my actual magic and this would be over. There wasn’t a single move Gregory had made that would’ve prevented me from sneaking into a bleacher, trailing his shadow a bit, then blasting him all the way to Everbit with a bit of blue and yellow. I hate the Church so much sometimes.

“I-I may have something…” Mary glanced toward me with a bit of worry in her expression.

What did I do? “Shoot.”

“Gregory talked about him cornering us earlier, right? We just have to do the same back to him…” Mary knelt down, drawing her finger across the sand. “My green doesn’t do well against his fire, so I’ll pressure him from the corner. Val, if you could take the sidelines too.”

“And that leaves me to attack him head-on?”

“But not too hard, Princess.” Mary hesitated. “W-We want Professor Gregory to not realize he’s getting cornered.”

“That’s just going to make us weaker!” Every atom in my body wanted to fight it. I went fast and blew things up along the way. Always had been that way.

“I knew it…” Mary sighed. “Fine, we’ll adapt.”

“I—” Why does she look so disappointed? “No you’re right. Let’s do it your way.”

“W-W-What?” Mary nearly fell over from the shock. “A-Are you sure, Princess?”

“Yep, I’ve made up my mind.” I glared daggers back at Gregory. “This is life or death, and you know how hard my mind is to change.”

“I… that is true, Princess.” Mary let some tall, winding flowers sprout from the dirt. “Let’s head out.”

“Sounds good to me.” Val dashed off toward the sidelines. “Y’all do your part. I’ll be fine.”

I nodded one last time toward Mary, then dashed off in a flash of white.

“Welcome back.” The second I reentered the fray, Gregory wasted no time bathing the battleground in flames. “Bit boring with just Val holding me back.”

“Just be glad I can’t go all out. This would all be over otherwise.” Steam exploded as I lobbed a great big ball of water right on Gregory’s flames.

“Don’t assume you’re the only one with cards, Ruby! Fairburrow won’t be so kind.”

So we're both keeping things hidden…

“Take another tsunami if you’re so confident.” I tossed another tidal wave Gregory’s way.

He took one step back, then another. It’s working!

Between Mary’s whipping vines and Val being a general nuisance, we’d slowly found a way to drive Professor Gregory back into a corner.

“Not bad, not bad. Using my own strategy from earlier and turning it against me. But you’re underestimating my firepower!”

The ground shook. Gregory’s hands glowed orange as flames began to dance around his palms—condensed and seconds away from exploding.

“Get back!” Val shouted from my right. “I’ve seen this from Fairburrow before, we can’t tank it.”

“Can’t? Then we’ll just have to stop it first!”

My body flashed white, barely a blur on the sparring grounds. If we couldn’t block it, I’d just have to stop the attack before it could begin.

“No you don’t.” Gregory shot a burning ball of magma from his head, straight toward my stomach.

But it wasn’t enough.

I blurred right, letting the magma fly inches from my waist.

And stopped right next to Professor Gregory, with a small shard of ice pointed at his throat.

“You pass.” Gregory grinned. “Bingo.”

“Thanks for making it interesting.” I let the ice melt as Gregory’s hands slowly cooled down.

“Fairburrow’s hiding out back at the Church’s headquarters. He’ll reappear in a few days; don’t bother going after him.”

“Another trap?” Val walked back toward us.

“What else?” Gregory scoffed. “But I have a sneaking suspicion that if you prepare the right way, you all won’t be the ones falling into it.”

“T-Thank you, Professor.”

“Of course, Mary.” Gregory turned around and started to walk away. “One more thing about Isaac’s research I forgot to mention. Release it all at once, and you’ll be a drop in a bucket. Release it slowly, drip feed news and sow doubt among the people? That could make things very interesting.”

“But—”

“Let him go.” Val placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “None of that matters if we can’t beat Fairburrow first.”

It hurt me to admit Val was right, but I’d been thinking the exact same thing. The time was coming to avenge Isaac. There wasn’t a force in the world that could keep me away from that.