Over the next few days, the team worked tirelessly on the project. Kaz mending broken components and tied sandbags down to ropes and levers as a group of performers practiced day and night.
On the final day, posters were plastered all around town. The sky turned into stars. Kaz stood in the backstage area, looking out at the audience hall that slowly filled with patrons. Mark was standing on the stage and turned toward Kaz with a nod. They had made the first big step. The people poured in as numerous as the countless nails it took to bring the stage to life. It reminded him even more of all the adventures he had been on, and about passing the torch to others, as young stagehands took to work.
The curtain was down and the performers were taking the stage and others slid in the props and false stairwells for the show. The roof was open and men on rafters stood ready with the firework show.
Kaz slipped away with some short farewells to the team and made his way up into the rafters and sat on a metal walkway next to some firework cannons. Mark scrambled to get them together with his astute clipboard in hand, and as the curtain call came, he stood to an audience eager for something new. He stepped forward and the show began.
The wind mage sat with a smile on his face as he watched dreams come true. The finale was drawing near and he lit the firework canon next to himself. The sky was lit with multicolored explosions. It was then a pain gripped his chest. A sixth sense told him to look up, and standing on the edge of the open roof, illuminated by fireworks was him. The leader of his clan.
“You always had a soft spot for these things. Let’s see how you feel when I rip it away,” he said as cold as he ever was and raised his hand to the heavens. A storm began to brew and the winds picked up.
Kaz dashed up to the top and stood on a metal beam facing the man. Without words, he stared him down. “It’s about time we finish this,” he said as a tornado formed overhead. The audience gasped at the sudden change of weather. The funnel of terrible wind bore downward.
Kaz dashed beneath and sent his own tornado upwards colliding with it. Fireworks burst around them, casting shades of blue, gold, and red around them along with rains of sparks. The tornadoes’ clashed and shook the railings. The crowd cheered thinking it was part of the show now. Kaz’s hands tensed and his face held fury. The two mages rushed each other with a symphony of wind. They sprang from one walkway to the next and flipped through the air. Vacuums of wind ripped through the air and blades of wind sliced at their garments. Every shot directed upwards, to preserve the people below.
The whirlwinds of winds clashed and the two pushed all their mana into it. The rafters tore and the firework cannons erupted before they could be shot off. Kaz’s arms tensed against the pressure. And with a final push, he could breathe long enough to see an opening. He dashed to the side and was on his opponent within seconds. The tornadoes that had clashed whizzed by him. Kaz placed a hand on his old clan leader's gut. “You won’t live,” he whispered and let lose a fierce burst of wind. The blow sent his clan leading rocketing into the air but he was shrouded by a barrier of wind. Before Kaz could follow up, his enemy cast an obscuring cloud of wind and vanished.
The crowd erupted in applause and Mark stood awestruck but soon joined in with the audience and gave an approving nod. The bloody and battered Kaz nodded back. His past had finally come back to him, but the theater was safe and the crowd was elated. The wind mage collapsed on a metal walkway that overhung the theater and rested.
WC 672
Total WC 2756