[ WP ] A war begins as a bar fight , becomes a regional war , expands to become a world war , and is concluded in the same bar it started in .

The five-seven pistol hung like weighted led in my right hand. 
 
 `` So this is what it comes down to? Huh.'' I asked the Fire Mage standing opposite. 
 
 Bar-stools were strewn over the floor, and bloody bodies crumpled against the walls. Even the bartender was still holding a bottle of Jack Daniels and an empty glass, his head arched back with a thick red bullet hole in the middle. 
 
 Flame scowled. `` You have yourself to blame. You hesitated.'' 
 
 I leveled the pistol at him. It was one thing to kill an enemy, but how could I kill my best friend? The fleshy graze on his right cheek said as much. 
 
 `` Oh, do n't give me that look,'' he hissed. `` I was drunk and drugged, you should have ended it properly.'' 
 
 My hand began shaking. `` Flame, I could n't. Not you.'' 
 
 `` You bastard. There's a time to be soft, and it ai n't now.'' He raised a palm at me, a molten ball of red magic pulsed in the center. 
 
 What had started as a few drinks, turned sour. Someone slipped something into Flame's vodka, and then all hell broke loose. It was a simple fist fight, just him and I. Which somehow turned into a regional war, mages versus soldiers. It was actually quite fun at first. 
 
 But soon we had the entire world fighting the same battle that started in this little bar. An innocent scuffle blown out of proportion. And now we were back here, just the two of us and a whole lotta blood on our hands. 
 
 `` I'm... Sorry.'' I pulled the trigger. 
 
 He sent a blast of fire my way. Gunpowder melted inside the flame and then it hit me, a wave of scorching heat, that roasted me from the inside out like a marshmallow. 
 
 I lie back, tear rolling down my cheek as his footsteps approached. My limbs shook in shock, hot with fire. 
 
 `` Why?'' He asked. 
 
 I looked up at the face of a friend, his expression wide with terror. Flame collapsed onto the ground next to me, he grabbed the scruff of my collar. 
 
 I could n't feel the shakes, or his tears as they dropped on me. I was dying but may as well be dead. 
 
 He beat down on my chest with red fists, the anger in his eyes intensified and then dying out in wracking sobs. 
 
 `` Why did you let me win? Why?'' Flame asked. 
 
 I looked into his eyes one last time, seeing his pain, before closing my own. 
 
 *That's why... * 
 
 

