#99 Losing Loved Ones

This has to be a freaking nightmare. I can barely believe what I am seeing, but this time, it's... real. Painfully real. Lysandra is dead, and facing me with a scary amount of dark aura surrounding her. Unlike the others, her body is looking almost... fine, as she hasn't been... dead for long. I feel my blood boiling with anger, and all around me, loud growls are echoing my feelings. I can't believe she went that low.

"Mara, tell me this isn't fucking real..." Whispers Liam.

We are back to back, as he has to face his father with his brothers, and I can feel the anger, but also the fear in his voice. Unfortunately, this isn't an illusion this time. It's very real. This dark magic is using the people we lost against us, and Luna is the one doing all of this.

Before I can even make a decision or answer Liam, they all start attacking at once. I hear Nora's voice scream in my head as William jumps at her, and Selena jumps to avoid an attack from Levi. The Black brothers didn't wait though. They all jumped like one to face the huge, angry black wolf.

Lysandra jumps too. Perhaps because she was a warrior, she's much faster and precise than I anticipated. I roll down on the side, finding myself almost next to Nora, who jumped to my side just prior to facing her cousin.

*Mara, we need a solution. We can't face them!*

*They are dead,* Suddenly says Nathaniel. *Nora, Selena. They are dead. Those people aren't the ones you remember.*

*Easy to say for you...* His wife growls.

"Selena, I'm sorry but he is right. I can't... feel any life from them. They are just empty bodies moved by dark magic."

*Then do something about it, you're the magic specialist!*

She's stubborn in not wanting to fight her once best friend, and I can't blame her. I don't want to fight Lysandra, or William. Only the Black brothers are actively fighting the wolf that was once their father, but I guess the feeling has to be much, much different from ours. I feel Nora's pain, her distress so heavy I almost feel my own heart sinking.

When Lysandra jumps on me again, I'm ready. I jump down, rolling under her, and get up right in time to blast a fireball on William. The body is thrown to the side with a terrible burnt smell, and my fire consumes it.

*Mara!*

“Nora, I know it's hard, but... Nathaniel is right. And while we are losing time here, Kelsi, Ben and more are in danger. She didn't put her hands on Tonya and Bobo either, so perhaps…”

The mention of her best friend seems to be what helps Nora decide. With a furious growl, she suddenly increases the white aura around her, almost chilling the air with an icy cloud of steam. I see her turn around and jump on Lysandra, freezing that body as soon as she touches it. I fire up my hand, and, without looking, send a fireball her way. I need to take a deep breath. I try to seem fine because they need me to lead here, but... I think I just can't process Lysandra's death yet. She was one of the closest people I had to an actual, living relative... I turn to Luna, even angrier now. She wouldn't have wanted that. I can almost hear her voice... Lysandra would have told me to stop being a crybaby and bloody move on. She was a warrior, and she knew I was too. She said our blood as Jones’ made us strong women, and I need to hold on to that right now. If I let go, if I allow myself to be weak, it will be our downfall...

I turn to Luna, who has her eyes on Selena. The white wolf is jumping from one side to another, as quick as a lightning bolt, but she hasn't attacked yet. I can tell she's struggling internally. For Selena, the strongest of us to be so hesitant, I can't see what she's seeing, all the memories that are probably tormenting her right now. I can"t even see this wolf as Ben and Bonnie's older brother. All I see is that dark mass around him, the darkness that animates this body... All around us, it's the same. Bodies animated by this dark magic are fighting their once allies. Some are emerging from the ground they had died in, perhaps just minutes before. I'm angry, and also sad. Our enemy has turned into something much worse than bloody mud golems, something much more difficult to face. It's as if all of Silver City's past had suddenly come back to life to haunt those trying to save it... Even with my short history here, I feel overwhelmed. I can't begin to imagine what everyone else is facing... The Black brothers are facing their Father with difficulty. I can't imagine the monster he was alive, if he's that hard to kill now. Liam barely mentioned his father to me, but... I can see it.

The darkness is much more powerful around the dark wolf, so much I can barely tell if it's his fur, or his darkness. He violently attacks his sons, one after the other, going for their injuries or weaknesses, or trying to take advantage of them. Nate is violently bitten on his flank, and Damian jumps right in, to bite back. Liam is on the other side, trying to look for another angle to attack, and he jumps and shapeshifts with exactly the right timing to tear open the wolf's flank. Just as he does, Judah growls, and turns around to bite him violently.

"Liam!"

*Don't worry about us!*

With Damian's help, and Nathaniel who jumps back in to bite their father too, they manage to have him release his fangs on Liam, but I feel his pain. Unlike the three brothers, their father doesn't seem to feel any pain... Still, they just take a second to step back, check their injuries, and they dive right back into this fight. They know where their fight is, and they know they need to contain their former abuser. I take a deep breath. I need to trust Liam... I need to trust them.

My fists clenched in rage, I turn to Luna. She is the one to stop.

"See?" Chuckled Luna. "You're going to tell me to forgive the Witch, but... can you guys forgive someone who does such a thing to your loved ones?"

I look down, as her hand is pointing to the remains of Lysandra... Then, she chuckles and glances to the side, to Selena, still struggling to face her deceased best friend. I take a deep breath.

"We aren't going to forgive you, Luna. And... I never asked you to forgive her."

This time, she loses her smile, and glares back at me.

"There's no way to forgive someone who does that to somebody you loved, is there? Especially someone like your mate. I would kill anybody who touches Liam, and he would do the same for me. I'd be even more ruthless towards someone who doesn't even respect his death..."

The memories from before all come back. The grave, with those unreadable words, and the spells. Luna's pain, when she was missing her mate... I only felt a fragment of it, and she hadn't even realized the truth yet. I can't imagine what she went through. I take another deep breath.

"It was normal for you to hate the Witch," I continue. "All that hatred... No one is a fucking saint, to forgive someone who does that to the one you loved the most. When I first heard the tale, I wondered... I wondered why the female wolf would forgive the witch, and be so kind to her. The truth is, the tale was embellished, and distorted the truth. It ignored your feelings, and the pain you went through, Luna."

"Shut up..." She hisses. "Don't start talking like you understand my pain! You have no idea what I went through, the darkness that wretched witch put in my heart!"

As she says that, a violent blast suddenly hits me. I feel myself rolling onto the ground, again and again, until someone traps me under four legs.

"Nora!"

*Don't move...*

She uses all her weight to lay down on top of me, her claws in the ground as we are both trying to resist that strong wind. I feel her ice-cold fur, and how she's trying to shield the two of us with her magic. Suddenly, a deafening bang is heard, and a scream. The wind that was blowing violently at us stops right away, and the scene appears in front of our eyes. Selena, growling and sending electric sparks all over and Luna, holding her burned hand.

*That's the thing when you start playing with bodies, you have to take their pain too!* Growls Selena.

Despite her growling, I can hear the... cry in her voice. She's trembling. A few steps behind her, a burned body is on the ground, still fuming... So she overcame it, after all. Perhaps seeing Nora and I in danger made her decide. Now, her lightning magic is literally electrifying everything around her, and she’s slowly stepping up to Luna, ready to fight.

"This damn witch magic..." Hisses Luna. "If you want to play with it, you'd better be sure you can handle it."

The darkness around her grows again, and I get back on my feet right in time for the first attack. A rumbling appears under her feet, and she suddenly rises two enormous rocks from the ground. They levitate until eyes height, and right then, she suddenly throws them our way.

*Mara, Nora!*

This time, I'm the one to jump in front of Nora, and use my water magic. I don't know where it comes from, but my thoughts are suddenly so clear, I know exactly what to do. I invoke the stream inside and, putting my hands in front of me, I suddenly erect a gigantic water wall in front of us, like a wave emerging just in time to block the rocks. As soon as they hit it, I know my water isn't going to be enough to stop them, but that's not my intention. Using the stream, I make those rocks follow the flow, and, with one large movement with my arms, I send them like a curveball right back to Luna. The whole action lasted perhaps three seconds, but Moon Goddess, that felt good.

She sees it flying right back to her, and dives to avoid them. Selena uses the opportunity to strike. She jumps to a prodigious height, and dives like a lightning bolt right on Luna. With deafening thunderous booms, the ground is struck, multiple times. Bang, bang, bang. The lightning forks down and rips the ground apart, sending burnt soil flying all around. Nora and I start running at the same moment, and I send two fireballs right in front. They disappear in a sudden cloak of dark fog appearing around Luna. Just like the hurricane from before, the darkness gets thicker and starts spinning all around her, as she steps back to disappear in the shadows.

*Nora, stop her from using the ground!*

The white wolf nods, and suddenly stops running, burying her paws deeper instead. All around her, the cold suddenly spreads like a white fog. While she stopped behind me, I kept running, the ice gradually covering all the ground in my steps. The battle is raging all around us, but this is the epicenter. I just have time to dive as I see sudden dark fireball-like things fly at me. Is she using fire magic too now? We're pushing her to use more magic! She tries to expend the darkness, as Selena is restlessly striking her from above. Nora's magic is covering all the ground in that area, and I have to be careful as I am half sliding onto the mirror of ice beneath my feet. Her white magic is much more useful, as it surrounds the area, trying to keep Luna's dark hurricane contained this time. Still, we have no idea where she is in that thing, now as big as a bloody building. I keep running to get closer, and sending fireballs as Selena keeps jumping or running to try and blindly send lightening bolts into this, hoping we will hit her.

Luna isn't just hiding though, she's fighting back. All our powers combined are forcing her to stay where she is until we hit her, but she won't let us win so easily. The darkness is trying to scratch Nora's ice and fight the white mist to expand, and Selena and I have to constantly run and be on the move to avoid her attacks; She attacks us non-stop, no one can tell who is the prey, who is the attacker now. I'm trying to locate her in the darkness, but I have to jump and avoid all her attacks constantly.

*Girls...*

Nora is struggling to keep her contained. She's using a lot of magic to keep the ice as a barrier from the ground, and the white mist around us to prevent her from attacking; Moreover, she's the one most exposed. The Black brothers are now facing more undead wolves, all coming towards us, but they can't cover such a wide area to keep them all from attacking us, the dark hurricane is too wide and Selena and I keep moving around it. At this rate, we're going to get killed by another undead wolf, or Luna will use their attacks to get us first.

*Damn it!* Suddenly roars Selena.

A wolf just jumped from behind to bite her, and although she managed to burn him right away, she got stuck on the ground for one too many seconds. A huge blast suddenly comes her way. I raise my hands, trying to prepare a defensive magic circle, but...

*Mara, watch out!*

I feel a violent hit in front of me, just as I thought I had sent the magic circle to protect Selena. Something dark covers my vision, but the shock isn't as violent as it should have been. Something inside rings, like an alarm gone crazy. Something's wrong. My inner wolf howls her pain, and I feel as if something inside just got... torn apart.

I painfully roll down, and struggle to get on all fours. What just...

*LIAM!*

That name wakes me up like a slap. I look to my right, and he's there. Liam, lying on the ground. Lying on the ground with... with a large hole in his stomach. My heart sinks. No, no, no, no...

"Liam? Liam!"

I grab his fur, any part of him I can, but he's not moving. He's... Liam's not moving. Not at all. His eyes and mouth are open, but he's not moving. He's... he's not responding. I grab his fur, and try to shake him, but no. There's... nothing. I try to feel him with my inner wolf, but it's... faint. Our bond, it's... really... going away.

"LIAM!" I scream. "Liam! Liam, wake up! Liam, don't, don't... Li... Nora! Nora, please!"

She turns her head to me, conflicted.

*Mara,* she cries in my head. *If I let go here, s-she will...*

She seems almost stuck where she is, but I don't care. I don't care. My mate is dying! Liam is dying, he's leaving me, he's... I scream, as loud as I possibly can, because I just can't contain it anymore. I scream all of my anger and frustration, all of my pain echoing on the whole battlefield like a mad woman. Because I am fucking mad, and I can't take it anymore. I won't. None of this.

"...I'll end it," I whisper, tears rushing down my face. "I'll end all of this, now. Nora, please. Just... save Liam. I beg you."

She stares at me, her blue eyes so conflicted. I know. I know that if she lets go, Luna will have the time to take us all into her hurricane, and Moon Goddess knows what worse. But right now, I can't. I can't even imagine that Liam will die right here, like this; Nothing else matters to me.

"Go."

We turn heads, and suddenly, a new chill grows throughout the area. The white mist gets even more dense, and a new layer of ice expands quickly under our feet.

Naptera just appeared, and she's down on her knees, her palms against the icy ground, her eyes on the dark cloud.

"...I'll hold it for you, so you'd better end this, Mara."

Nora runs over as soon as she understands Naptera is taking her place, and gets above Liam right away.

*Oh, Moon Goddess...* She whimpers. *M-Mara, I think it's... too la...*

"Don't say it," I growl, shaking with anger. "Just... Just do whatever you can. I beg you."

I take a deep breath, and leave a kiss on Liam's cheek, caressing his fur gently. I just want to hold on to him, one last time. I hug his body, still warm. My hands are trembling in his fur, shaking so much I can barely hold on. I need to hold on to the little life left I feel in him, and... end this.

I slowly stand up, and, decided like never before, I walk right into this hurricane.

*Mara, don't!*

"I'm not scared of her bloody darkness," I retort, my throat tight, carrying my anger and my pain with me. "She wanted to show me darkness, she's going to fucking get it."

I'm not scared at all. I was born from that darkness.

I am a damn dark witch.