"Why?" Jaxsin questioned as his flame seemed to get stronger.
"If she doesn't wake up, she'll self-destruct," the second Elijah said coldly, which caught our attention. Jaxsin stared at them for a long moment before he pulled back his fist and took a step back to give them space.
"What do you mean self-destruct? And why would we trust either of you?"
Jaxsin had good reason to question them, but I could sense their nervous energy while picking up on their concern for Brianne.
"Jaxsin." I was able to get his attention. "I think they're telling the truth."
"Can we explain later? It's already working," the dark-haired Elijah announced and pointed to Brianne's legs. Our eyes widened at the sight of Brianne's legs. Symbols that resembled black cobras were beginning to spread across her flesh like a fast-forward plague.
"Fuck," I cursed, and the twins were suddenly on each side of her legs.
"Can you stop the spread in time, Elijah?" the dark-haired one inquired.
"For Brianne, I will. But if you fucking take credit, I'm kicking your ass," he snapped. "I hate you."
"You've said that your whole life," he barked while his hands began to glow a plum purple. The spread of the black energy stopped right there as he inhaled deeply and slowly let it out.
He kept doing it while Elijah hovered his hands over Brianne's legs. The dark energy began to ooze upward. Their hands were shaking as the energy continued to rise up. Brianne's legs looked more normal as the last bits of dark force floated out of her skin and into the air.
We watched in horror as the energy quickly swirled in the air and morphed into a large cobra, its hollow black eyes locking onto Jax before it snapped forward.
"Eliyahu!" Elijah ordered, and Eliyahu caught the snake before it could strike Jaxsin, who didn't seem fazed by the experience.
The snake fought his hold while his tail began to freeze. The ice spread quickly, but it wasn't fast enough as the cobra slithered through Eliyahu's grasp in an attempt to bite him.
I tried to lift my hand up to stop it, but we all watched a tip of a wand go right through its head. The shrill hiss was silenced by the ice that crept in to finish the freezing process.
We all looked down to see Brianne's black eyes and frowned as she was the clear culprit of the stabbing wand.
"Oops?" There was no hint of sorrow in her emotionless voice. "Took me a little longer to wake up."
Elijah grabbed the ice snake and threw it in the air, and before Eliyahu could do anything, the snake burst into flames and was nothing but ash a second later. Now we all looked at Jaxsin as he shrugged. "What? Can't do anything with a frozen snake."
None of us said anything before we worked on standing up. I helped Marianna, only for her legs to give out.
"Shit!" she cursed and leaned against me as I held her. "What happened to my legs?"
"It's a lingering effect," Eliyahu announced. "It'll go on and off until you can be seen.” She stared at him for a long minute before looking at Elijah. Soon she was frowning, which made me question her silence.
"Marianna?"
"Neither of you is the one I plagued," she declared, which got Jaxsin's attention as he moved to hook an arm around her waist and put her other arm along his shoulders.
"That's what I was wondering," Jaxsin muttered and looked at Elijah. "You're the one in a coma."
"Not anymore," Elijah huffed but gave Marianna a look. "I know Brianne's asleep, but thanks for taking care of me."
Marianna didn't say anything while Eliyahu grumbled. "So when my ass took care of you for two damn years while doing my job, it meant nothing to you."
"Can we argue about that after we save shit?" Elijah questioned. "We're already running out of time to begin with."
"We ain't running to save anyone if we don't know what's going on," I prompted. The two of them rolled their eyes and got to the point.
"The Shadow Kingdom set today up. This isn't the day of the event."
"What do you mean?" I questioned. "It was announced weeks ago."
"It was falsely implied," Elijah corrected as his eyes darkened. "Anyone on the official attendance list of the games thought today was the event. Anyone who wasn't invited or had a correlation to the events knows that today is a testing day."
"That makes no sense," Jaxsin acknowledged. "The kendo tournament was moved to today to accommodate everyone, and what testing?"
"The tournament was moved to the day the universal portal was the thinnest. The Shadow Kingdom hired a bunch of succubi and a dark mage to manipulate the administration into squishing all the remaining competitions into one day," Eliyahu revealed. "Nothing is going to make sense right now."
"Suc-what?" I questioned what he'd said the Shadow Kingdom hired.
"Later," they said in unison before Elijah added, "The blast was set out to either take control of Brianne's dark side or kill her, which is what we prevented."
"Well, killing failed," Marianna pointed out.
"But you guys said she'd self-destruct," Jaxsin reminded.
"The side effect of the blast," Eliyahu announced. "That's why we need to get out to the stadium before we're blamed for the deaths of thousands."
Jaxsin swiftly lifted Marianna into his arms and I prepared to move, but his statement clicked in.
"Wait! Blame you? You're one of the enemies," I pointed out. "Well, both of you are."
They exchanged looks before Eliyahu pulled something out of his pocket and presented a badge.
"Eliyahu Hamilton. Official double agent under the sworn law of Witchling Elite Forces. I'm this douche's real twin brother, but I've been living in a different universe up until recently."
"Wait, what?!" we all gasped, and Elijah rolled his eyes.
"Ya. Apparently, the shit of a twin threatened me my entire life, forced me to screw up my friendship with Brianne, faked being me on multiple occasions, got me fucking paralyzed, and then induced the nurses to put me in a coma so I'd rot and die. And now he wants to put the ultimate blame of killing thousands of people on my name, while he’s a fake-ass shapeshifter imposter whose ultimate duty is to kill Brianne and Jax before graduation."
We were gawking before Jax shook his head and blinked a few times. I noticed his eyes were back to normal as he looked at the twins and immediately frowned. "There's two of you?"
"Ugh," they both groaned in irritation before the ground shook.
"Fuck," Eliyahu cursed. "Earthquake!"
We were running seconds later and soon enough we managed to get through the narrow path that led right into the open stadium.
We skidded to a stop as the ground shook tremendously, but it was nothing like the crazy mayhem happening all around us. Students were screaming, people young and old were running on the field, and a sole source of energy was hovering in the center of the chaos.
A blonde girl with short hair hovered in the air, her arms out as waves of dark magic rushed in all directions while slithering cobras attacked people who were attempting to flee the stadium. That seemed to be an impossible goal; people banged on the unopened doors for dear life.