I Wanted To Post This Cuz I Think It's Awesome. Lemme Know What You Think Plz!!

I wanted to post this cuz I think it's awesome. Lemme know what you think plz!!

Aindreas truly didn’t mean to catch the eye of Eiran. But now, facing down the bastard, Calen, panting and kneeling over his stomach where Aindreas knows he had hit Calen with acid, he can’t find it in themselves to regret it. Eiran had caught his eye at a neutral ground's nightclub, and they orbited each other like stars for months before Eiran had made the first move. Enemies to lovers was not something Aindreas had ever predicted for himself, but the gentle demeanor and sunshine exterior of Eiran was irresistible.

Hero and villain stand on opposite sides of a ruined street. Sand decorated the ground and parts of the road had holes melted into them; some of them were still sizzling. Buildings are leveled around them, sirens blaring somewhere off in the distance. Most of the leveled buildings are covered in sand, Calen had struck out wildly in the desperate hope of hitting Aindreas; they were equally matched in long range combat, Aindreas’ acid proved an effective shield for the sand Calen threw around. Aindreas himself had not been very careful either, kneeling on both knees on the pavement of the leveled city, he knew that several buildings, especially foundations, had been melted through when Aindreas’ aim had been off. Calen had the wonderful ability to infuriate Aindreas into carelessness.

The sun was setting, fiery rays of red and orange light spilling across the leveled city. Light was dimming in the world, like the light of Aindreas’ eyes. They are at a standstill, after throwing magic at each other for what felt like hours, neither of them making any substantial ground on the other. The sounds of emergency services rushing towards the crumpled buildings were the only sounds in the otherwise still street besides the panting of both hero and villain. An unspoken agreement hung in the air. One of them would not feel the summer sun again.

Calen is the first to rise, stumbling to his feet, unstable from the injuries and exhaustion. Aindreas doesn’t move, he doesn’t need to, acid had been pooling in his palms since he stopped moving, just like the copper taste of blood in his mouth. He knows his only hope of surviving the battle was taking out Calen in one fell swoop. There isn’t much hope for him, he didn’t have the proper training that Calen did. Maybe if he did, Aindreas could win.

“How could you?” Calen says as his voice cracks. “Eiran is mine! He belongs to me.”

“He’s not property,” Aindreas says back, shouting over the distance that separated the two. “I’m sorry that it came at the cost of your friendship, but he chose me!”

Calen’s face turns red over the white sheen of exhaustion. The sand surrounding Aindreas rises as Calen raises his trembling arms, and even as far as Aindreas is, he can hear the muttered spells Calen whispers, pleading with the magic in his spirit to give him energy. Aindreas, limbs protesting, rises out of his kneeling position to his feet as well, calling upon the ever-faithful magic inside him to defend himself from the attacks that he knows are forthcoming.

“Veniat ad me, virtus mea defendat me,” Aindreas chants, the acid that had been pooling in his hands rises, twisting and writhing in his palms, suddenly alive. The magic is slower, writhing through his arms, sluggish where it had been quick before. When he quit St. Henry’s School for Magicked Boys, he never expected to end up here. He wanted to change the world, reform society on the whole and for the better, not spend his days fighting meaningless battles. What a waste of a career.

Calen could taste his fury, the palpable need for revenge tingled on his skin and seeped into his brain. Eiran had always been his, they had been friends since high school. They’d sworn a blood oath to each other when they graduated from St. Henry’s, they were as close as brothers. Then, out of nowhere, Eiran had started to pull away from him, from their mission.

They had always vowed to protect the city, to preserve it just the way it had always been. Aindreas had swayed Eiran to the wrong side of the decades long battle. Calen would win if it meant the end of him; maybe Eiran would see where he had been wrong when Calen was gone. Because they were wrong.

Calen began to chant louder, his voice coming out clearer as the magic in his spirit responded to his plea for strength. His feet lifted off the ground, sand whipping itself into a frenzy around him. He shot a hand out in front of him, shooting magic, wind, and sand towards Aindreas. Aindreas’ mouth was moving, and a wave of liquid acid shot from his palms, protecting his body and melting the sand onto the ground. Calen threw another wave of sand, this one washing down from the sky like the waves of an ocean crashing down onto a beach.

Aindreas barely blocks the second wave, his arm pushing itself up from where he stood, trembling as it is raised. Calen grins; gotcha. He summons everything he has in him; time to end this, once and for all. He shoots sand as fast as he can: up, under, on the left and right. Even as the amount of sand tapers off with each wave, the acidic defense is also. Exhaustion seeps into Calen’s bones, his arms lag and the magic answers his calls slower, the blasts sluggishly making their way through the air, falling where Aindreas stands. But where Calen is weaking slowly, Aindreas weakens faster. Sand begins creeping its way behind Aindreas’ defenses. Then, a wave of sand isn’t met with a wall of acid. The weight of the sand brings Aindreas to his knees. Calen has the briefest notion that he should stop, Aindreas is down, but the niggling feeling that Aindreas deserves death refuses Calen’s small attempts to quit the battle now and run for his life.

Aindreas groans, a pained sound winding its way through the air as he hunches over his side, blood pooling in the fabric of his clothing. Sand was sharp, all the better for cutting the dog, the filth, the cretin. His own wound throbs, as time passed on the defensive, the biting wounds ate away at his skin. The burning and sizzling also cauterized the wound, stopping any bleeding before it started. As Aindreas would bleed, Calen would retain his strength.

Calen mustered one more effort, even as his knees trembled, and his vision foggy. Calen piles up sand above the cowering man, dumping pounds of sand on him, burying him in sharp rocks, cushioning his dying body in earth. As his vision goes black, he grins, sharp corners and blood leaking through his teeth. He had won, and now it was time for him to rule.

(A call is placed when two super-powered individuals are found collapsed on the same street. One of them would spend the rest of their life in prison. But for now, first responders load them into separate vehicles. Digging into a pile of sand was lent to the fire fighters, the task difficult. The man buried underneath could hardly be classified as human, but if anyone was the monster, it was the intact body on the other side of the street. The buried man’s skin was more cuts and bruises than anything else, and the blood rapidly pooling out of several large injuries had the paramedics scrambling for emergency blood bags. He would be lucky to survive with severe scarring.)

Aindreas had the briefest recollection of flashing lights and pain, so much pain. A finger forced his eye open, and a bright line shone into it, and as he flinched away, he could hear the shouts of “Survivor! I have a survivor here!” There was movement, Aindreas wasn’t sure if it was the ground beneath him or himself. Maybe both, probably both. He came back to himself, blinking crusty eyes open to a white hospital room. Shit. He couldn’t be here. It’s dark, the blinds drawn closed and the lights dimmed. The kindness is not lost to him, especially because of his eyes’ sensitivity.

He opened his mouth to do, what? A hoarse, croaking sound forced its way out as Aindreas leaned his head up, the rest of his body held down by some immovable force. His vision was still blurry and spotty. A plastic cup of cold, so cold but so so refreshing water was pressed to his lips. He drunk it greedily, trying not to gasp or choke. There was a person holding the cup, someone important, who was it? He tilted the cup slowly, allowing Aindreas only a few sips at a time. Blinking away the exhaustion and the confusion, Aindreas turned his head to look at the person next to him and proceeded to choke on the water flowing down his parched throat.

“Careful there, Addy,” Eiran said as he chuckled softly, wiping the spilt water on Aindreas’ chin. “I really don’t want you to go out via drowning after surviving your fight.”

“What are you doing here?” Aindreas asked, his voice was hoarse, and his throat ached from the small effort. Eiran leaned back into his small plastic hospital chair and smiled sadly, not looking him in the eyes.

“I didn’t want you to be alone.”

“Why aren’t you with Calen? He’s your best friend.”

“Calen almost killed you; he was ruthless and used too much force. How could I support him after that?” Calen spoke softly, a hand coming up to cradle his chin. He was looking at Aindreas with soft and loving eyes. Aindreas knows that he is a bad person for it. Eiran was happier without him, but Aindreas couldn’t stay away.

“So did I, we were both fighting for our lives, intent on killing each other.” Maybe Aindreas was wrong for doing so, killing was never something he ever wanted to make himself believe he could do; but after the first time someone died in his arms, the system itself and the rules he ascribed himself too seemed broken. His mother had been diagnosed with cancer, her body was weak from working two jobs to support Aindreas, so the treatment only drained her more. Dropping out of school to help pay the bills was the only way they would continue to survive. Since then, life had become a game of survival, and he was really bad at it.

Eiran searched Aindreas’ gaze, his eyes unwavering in their intensity. “I don’t blame you for what you had to do to survive, I know Calen is wrong.”

“So was I,” Aindreas said weakly, dropping Eiran’s gaze to where his hand met Aindreas’. “I wasn’t just defending myself. I was attacking him.” The unspoken repercussions of his actions hung in the air like a fog, waiting to devour Aindreas in a flawed system. He wouldn’t fight it, dragging Eiran through years of court appearances and witness stands just for him to be condemned.

After Aindreas’ mother died, his father always absent from his life, going back to school was impossible. He wanted nothing more than to be a hero, gallivanting through the city and saving people, people like him. It seemed almost impossible, until it wasn’t. Aindreas wanted to think his mother would have been proud of him, but he wasn’t sure.

Aindreas wanted to change the world for the better, improve the broken system. Everyone deserved a chance, right?

(Outside, the police gathered. Heroes are called and a gathering of magic so great it pales in comparison to the Council of Mages and Magicked Folk begins to collect. They were preparing. The villain inside the hospital was dangerous. Even injured, the magical capabilities of any scared and cornered mage were worth the extra protection. A group of protection mages lift spells around the whole hospital, and a group of offensive mages begin to discuss strategy. The villain inside the hospital will not surrender easily.)

Calen was pissed. He had been awake for almost two days, and nobody had come for him. The midday sun filtered through the window, heating his room and his blood. His mother and father had called, insisting they were busy with the upcoming semester. The group of freshman mages were apparently more difficult than previous years. His mother and father ran the top university for magicked folk. They supported him through high school and college, he earned his way into the college that they ran, no matter who said it was rigged. His whole family worked for what they got, just like everybody who succeeded in this world.

The people who didn’t obviously just didn’t work hard enough. His parents had made sure he knew that from the beginning. When he questioned it, they had brought him to the camp of free loaders underneath the city bridge. It was clear, well, they made it clear, that no one there had a job, nor would they ever contribute to society. They deserved to be homeless; they deserved to suffer.

When Aindreas dropped out of school to help his mother, as stupid as that was, Calen could maybe understand. But then Aindreas had to come back up from the weeds of the unworthy to try to revamp society as a whole; how stupid. His mother was poor because she just didn’t try hard enough. Calen thought Eiran understood that, until Aindreas just had to come in and manipulate him into thinking he was in love. How ridiculous. Eiran had always and should always be loyal to Calen.

Calen could understand why his parents didn’t visit him; they were busy, too busy for their injured son. But the fact that Calen had yet to Eiran made a vein pulse in his forehead and an uncomfortable feeling settle in his chest. It never went away, the disgusting feeling festering in his chest and often crawling up to the base of his throat. As Calen sat in the hospital bed, covered in bandages and casts, his fists refused to relax from their clenched position and Calen began to believe Eiran was a traitor.

When they met in high school, Calen thought they would be together forever. A stupid idea, now that he thinks about it. Calen only ever wanted to improve an already wonderful society. Everyone who was successful worked hard for it, and those who didn’t weren’t. He thought Eiran understood that.

Eiran came from a family that painstakingly worked their way up the social and capital ladder to end up at the top. Eiran wasn’t always rich, yet somehow Calen understood him. But then Aindreas came in with his sob story about how he didn’t need to work for power or influence. Like he expected things to just be handed to him. And frustratingly enough, it was. He never finished high school, never worked his way through college, never put his everything into getting an apprenticeship like Calen did.

Why? Why did he succeed? Why did Calen fail? He worked so hard. The burning in Calen’s nose refused to make its way to tears tracking down his face, he would not cry. So instead, he sat in a hospital bed, alone, with his fists clenched at his sides and his glare directed at a small patch of the wall in front of him. Feelings were weakness, if his father were here, he would be boxed over the head. Yet the feelings rushed in, unbidden and unwanted, boiling inside of him, clogging his brain and his senses until all he could think about was his rage. Cold fury like a frozen blade, a ruthless thought of revenge, cut through the fog in his head. Aindreas was always going to be tried for the destruction he wreaked on the city, but without the lawyer support that Calen and his parents had, he would end up in more trouble.

What better way to get back at Aindreas than to prove to him that Eiran never changed. Calen would swoop in at the right time, being sweet and promising that he had changed. Eiran would never know until it was too late. Eiran would never leave him again. A cold grin stretched across Calen’s face, seeds of malice being planted into his head in the fury and open wound of Eiran’s betrayal. Yes, everything had to go to plan.

Aindreas would rot forever, like he was always supposed to. Calen would rise to power, just like he knew he was always going to as well. Eiran would make a wonderful first war trophy. Proof of Calen’s superiority. Calen even bet that Eiran would look amazing in chains, tied down like the traitorous dog he was at the foot of Calen’s throne.

(The police and heroes finally begin their invasion into the hospital. Cries of alarm go out from scared nurses and startled doctors, but the invading forces don’t stop until they come to a door. The chief of police and the most powerful hero in attendance are the first to enter, drawing a cry of alarm from the inhabitants. The sun sets behind the mountains in the distance as a villain is packed into the back of a police van, never to see the light of day again.)