Bartimaeus doesn't reply, but simply writes the story hastily before she turns the page.
The air was cold with a deadly touch and the full moon glimmered through the dense layer of clouds in the sky, blocking the shining stars that shone scattered about. The old oaken trees of the forest scattered throughout in utter silence as the air grew still--tall grass covered the ground along with other green shrubbery. A faint rustle was heard within a tree, breaking the long silence of the peaceful forest. Up in the trees a tall man stood. His eyes were a dark green color and his head was shrouded by a dark-green hood which topped his cloak. His face was dirtied and scarred from prior battles. He leaped down and brought a longbow with him which he sat resting upon the tree branch. This man was known simply as the 'Redwood', a rogue mage who strangled unwary travelers with a powerful vine.
Alucard strode nonchalantly through the forest with the raven Bartimaeus perched onto his shoulder with an open eye, occasionally shooting his jet black eyes place to place as if it sees something, only to return to its prior position. Alucard suddenly stopped, his heavy dark boots crunching upon the leaves and shrubbery of the forest. He had came into a clearing when Bartimaeus tapped his shoulder with a talon, indicating that Redwood is near. Alucard simply looked forward with indifferent pale yellow lenses glowing on his mask, waiting for the deadly and swift vine to lash out at him.
His vine came.
Alucard swiftly held up his hand, catching the tip of the thick and thorned vine in his glove. Alucard simply brought the vine down and slammed the heel of his foot upon it, silencing the plant. Alucard looked up and saw the glowing green eyes of Redwood as three vines danced behind him in staccato. Alucard chuckled.
"Your murder spree ends here," Alucard sternly said as he took a gentle step forward, releasing the dead vine from under his boot. "It would do you better to simply surrender."
"I have no intention of doing so, IRIS operative." Redwood said as he leaped down from the tree branch, landing softly on the greenery below. Alucard took another step towards Redwood--a black ball of arcing energy was charging in his right glove, yearning to open a portal to the void and burn Redwood in a fiery inferno.
"Very well," Alucard replied as he lobbed the ball forward. The ball landed in front of Redwood and opened a large rift to the void with a fully charged inferno burning hastily within. An explosion followed, covering the air in ashes and burning the shrubbery. Redwood gasped in pain as his skin boiled from the intense heat. He sent out a vine swiftly cracking through the air at Alucard, whom blocked it with his arm harmlessly. Redwood raised his arm high and the ground rumbled--a tree emerged from the ground with a grinning face and glowing green eyes as it swing a heavy wooden arm at Alucard. Alucard jumped over it as Bartimaeus flew high in the sky. He shapeshifted into a fiery phoenix and spat a fireball from his mouth which hit the treant in the back, shrouding it in a bright flame. Alucard took the final attack and shot off a lance of void energy into the treant, slicing it clean in half. He made for Redwood, sprinting in a linear motion. Redwood simply stared in disbelief as Alucard raised a leg and lept into the air, his foot shrouded in powerful void magic. It made short work of Redwood's face, and sent him painfully throbbing against a hard shell of a tree. Bartimaeus changed form into the Voidcrosser sword and landed into Alucard's hand, whom swiftly pointed it at Redwood's neck.
"You have lost. Come with me or die." Alucard simply commanded. Redwood looked up in pain, his teeth clenching. He shot an arm up at Alucard who slit his throat with the Voidcrosser. Redwood dropped to the ground, lifeless as his neck bled and sunk into the earth. His body would decay and fertilize the soil, helping the trees which he spent all his life with to prosper for the same exact reason he killed--to grow the forest.
The end.
Copyright © Bartimaeus 2014, all rights reserved.