Brutal Injuries

*** Trigger Warning: Violence, Blood/Gore ***

It was a blackened, mangled body. The neck and back contorted in bizarre angles. A few more charred objects rained down from the sky. They looked like the remains of shoes, a book bag and a wand. The rest were just blackened lumps.

Jacki and Aayla froze in place. The students near the pair were as stunned as they were. A few seconds later furious shouts resounded from the other side of the building. Snapped out of their daze, several students shrieked or directly fainted. Others began scurrying away in fear.

Brushing off her shock, Aayla cursed and checked the body. Serious burns covered most of it. Their chest had a slight indent. A broken pendent hung from their neck. The faint smell of burnt flesh rose from the body. Aayla fought the urge to throw up.

Was that person still alive? She held her finger under the person's nose. Air faintly brushed passed her finger. Aayla continued to check the burnt person. They looked like a student. Fortunately, they should be unconscious.

"They're still breathing… Medic… Somebody get a medic!"

Most of the remaining students watched in shock. One vomited from the smell. Several of the braver ones ran over to help. Aayla motioned for them to stay away.

"Stay back! Don't move them until a doctor gets here. If they've broken their spine, that could kill them."

Once again, smoke and debris flew from the opposite side of the building. Aayla released her shield and used it to block the debris raining down from the sky. Her face paled. What the heck was going on? Where are the teachers? Someone cursed before they left to check on the situation.

She turned towards the unconscious student behind her. As long as the fighting didn't get any closer, then everything should still be fine. If the fight gets closer or a medic doesn't arrive soon, then the student probably won't survive. Honestly, she was surprised that they were still breathing with those injuries.

"Hey! Um, miss with the shield! That guy's burning!"

Aayla glanced back after deflecting another round of debris. Smoke rose from the twitching body. A faint gurgle rose from their throat. She looked around for helpers. Most of the onlookers were gone by now. Aayla grabbed one of the remaining students.

"You! What year and major are you? Can you maintain a simple barrier?!"

"Third-year, earth elemental magic major. My friend's a third-year stellar magic major though."

"Are they here and can they maintain a shield?"

"Yes, and duh! Their major is –"

"Then get them over here NOW! The rest of you stop gawking and get me a doctor! MOVE! QUICKLY!"

Aayla turned her attention towards the smoking student. A shadow fell across her back as the earth rose to form a sturdy wall. She scanned the body. Most of their clothing was in tatters, but there were a few rings and other pieces of jewelry still tightly clinging to their body.

Pieces of those tattered clothes were catching on fire and their jewelry had a slight glow. She couldn't take them off with her bare hands due to the heat. When Aayla focused her mana on the body, she hissed. The burns were riddled with fire element mana. That mana caused further damage, causing some stage three burns to become stage four.

That mana was blocking any treatment. A simple cooling spell aggravated the fire element, so she was forced to stop. An idea suddenly popped into her head. She looked at the New Moon Bracelet. It had one purple gem, but the rest were clear. Five gems, five main elements. This thing loved to guzzle mana as well.

Aayla closed her eyes, and focused on her breathing. She tugged on the fire element mana with her own. Enraged, the fire element mana flared to life towards her. Bits of her clothes smoldered in the heat. It even attacked the Full Moon Bracelet. An extremely fatal mistake.

When the fire element mana touched it, the mana could no longer be freed. As if extremely afraid, the fire element mana tried to pull back. Unfortunately for it, the bracelet had become a bottomless pit. With an alarming rate, the fire element mana was sucked into the bracelet.

The fierce resistance was squashed. Seemingly content, one of the gems now had a faint crimson color. Aayla hurriedly put out the smoldering flames on her clothes. With the mana gone, she quickly got to work.

One of the remaining onlookers lent her a knife. Aayla quickly cut off the ragged clothes and removed the any jewelry that should could. She started a weak cooling spell to start cooling the burns. Whenever the victims breathing got weak, she would use an underwater breathing spell.

Originally, it was to help people get oxygen from water, but apparently it also helped to get more oxygen from air as well. She silently thanked Ramona for that little tidbit of information. Someone handed her some bandages. Aayla applied a quick cleaning spell just to be safe and started to loosely wrap the burns.

"Hey guys! I got one! I got a medic!"

Aayla finally looked up from her work. A few students surrounded her and watched with mixed nervousness and hope. A golden barrier had appeared in a dome above the group. The dome flickered out of existence as Jacki led a young professor to the group.

"This is the student?! I thought you said 'alive', not 'charcoal'."

"They're still barely breathing, sir."

The young professor sighed in relief as he noticed the student's life force hadn't completely died. He turned towards Aayla.

"Are you the one who's maintaining the cooling spell?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Make it a bit stronger if you can. I'm going to try a healing spell, but it will take some time for the spell to make a difference with this damage. Whoever had that barrier up earlier, bring it back up and maintain it for as long as you can."

The man stopped talking and returned his attention towards the corpse-like patient. He could feel the mana on the other side of the school building going crazy. Time was running out. The patient soon glowed with a faint golden light.

Aayla continued to focus on her cooling spell. Aayla watched in amazement as the 'near corpse' turned into a badly burned human. The burns slowly healed right in front of her eyes. Their breathing improved from faint to shallow.

The professor's brows furrowed. Something was interfering with the healing spell. A sticky, fire element mana had burrowed its way deep into the patient's body. This was the work of a specialized spell or artifact. He couldn't heal the deeper damage fast enough to outpace the fire element mana.

He was pleasantly surprised that the student treating the patient before he arrived had gotten so much done. Most importantly, there should have been serious fire element mana contamination on the patient's skin. However, it was completely gone. That was key to the patient's survival. Did that brown haired girl take care of it?

"Stop with the cooling spell. I need to try something different that outside magic may interfere with."

Aayla immediately stopped her spell. Internally, she was already uncomfortable. Her mana was mostly depleted already. Her regeneration and holding capacity weren't nearly good enough, but it worked for now.

A water bottle appeared next to her along with Jacki's smiling face. Aayla disregarded her manners and chugged it in seconds.

"When did you leave? I completely didn't notice that you went to get a professor."

"Just after you started your cooling spell. With no one coming back after such a long time, I decided to go myself. You've been at this for almost an hour, you know."

"Really? It's been that long?"

"Yeah. Are you alright? You didn't use a lot of mana, but you look like you're about to pass out."

Aayla flinched and tried to hide her awkwardness underneath a smile.

"I'll be fine. It's just stress from this entire situation."

"What happened to the fire element mana? ... You didn't suck it into your body, did you?"

The professor's ears twitched at that last question. This was also his concern. Aayla merely shook her head then held up her left hand. For some reason, that question felt a bit dangerous to her.

"No. I have an artifact that could consume it," Seeing Jacki's suspicious face, Aayla hurriedly continued. "Ramona – I mean Deputy Heston knows about my artifacts. I'll double check with her later but everything should be fine."

Jacki slowly nodded her head while the professor's attention returned completely to his patient. Aayla sighed in relief.

"Anyways, where's everyone else? I thought that we had security and medical offices all over campus."

"There are few offices around these parts, and the classroom buildings are spread far apart. Finding professors or university staff still shouldn't be this difficult. Something very strange is going on."

Aayla thought back to when she and Jacki left the building. A certain noble brat and his goons were messing with some other students. They were highly volatile, and were on the other side of the building. If she recalled correctly, Lyse specialized in fire and lightning magic.

"Could the fight involve Lysander Foryl?"