"Finale"
(Part 2)
For a brief moment, nobody moved. Zayra approached the group
and glanced around as if there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, even
offering a smile. “Why is everyone staring? I have come to help.”
Denahlia didn’t take her eyes off the woman. “We don’t want
your help,” She muttered. “For all we know, you’re here to kill us—“
“Stop!” Azelie stood in front of the Hunter. She turned back
to the former Queen. “She means what she says, and she isn’t using her thrall.”
“How is that possible?” Kaidan spoke up. “I saw her
memories; Troy made her Gift insatiable and immutable, and the science doctors
broke her mind! She has no control over her Gift!”
Zayra tilted her head and regarded him. “Perhaps it was the
sight of the memories that the doctors hid that gave me the control I needed.”
She glanced between them all. “I don’t want to rule anymore. That was something
imposed on me, a bastardization of the motivation I have to use my Gift to make
the world a better place. I am here to join the fight against Troy, for the
good of the Realm.”
No one moved to welcome her. Zayra stepped closer to Azelie.
“Just watch,” she said, “I can prove it.” She turned to the young Paragon. “I want you to have your voice back.”
Azelie stared at her, wide-eyed. A thrill ran through the
group, as none of them had ever heard this woman’s physical voice.
“I... I can...” Azelie stopped and clapped a hand over her
mouth. The curt, raspy whispers grated over her throat. She winced at the
feeling, even as tears welled in her eyes at the realization that at last, she
could speak!
Lizeth stepped forward, cradling a single blue flame in the
tips of her fingers.
“Here,” she offered, “let me help you with that.” She
touched the flame to Azelie’s throat, and the young woman gave a deep gasp.
“Thank you...” Azelie spoke in clear tones now, a strange
accent overlaying the voice they had grown used to hearing and conversing with
in their thoughts. But by the ecstatic grin on her face, there could be no
doubt that this voice was well and truly hers.
Zayra grinned at Erlis.
“Have I proven myself?” She asked.
The old healer maintained an icy glare.
The screaming outside grew more intense as the sounds inside
the throne room died.
Edri curled her lip in disgust. “We don’t have time for a
stand-off,” she growled. “We have a fiend to catch, before he destroys
everything!”
Jade gave a pained grunt, and slumped against the nearest
pillar.
“Can’t... move...” she moaned.
Lizeth came around to stand next to her, even as Edri yanked
off her left glove to expose her brilliant-blue hand.
“I’ve got this,” the soldier grunted. She gripped the wing,
feeling the joints and muscles knit themselves back together. Jade couldn’t
restrain a cry of pain, so Lizeth diffused the agony with a spurt of bluefire.
At last, the pair pulled away. Jade stood up, waggling her newly-repaired wing
experimentally.
“How does it feel?” Damaris asked.
Jade flung her wings wide, bracing for the jab of pain that
would tell her if the wings could not bear her weight; it never came.
“It feels all right,” she answered.
Azelie winced, raising a hand to her head. “I’m glad we were
able to resolve that,” she said. “Because it sounds like Troy has just
discovered Aurelle’s deception, and the others are in danger!”
“What are we waiting for, then?” Velora growled. “Let’s get
back out there!”
The group arrived at the entrance to the castle, in full
view of total chaos.
The angry villagers were vainly attempting to set fire to
the mound of twining branches spewing from Javira’s side of the courtyard,
while the glacier overtaking the other side of the courtyard spread a thick
layer of ice over the flagstone ground, while the archways glittered with
vicious icicles.
“What do we do first?” Denahlia asked, glancing between the
two. She recognized some of the villagers facing the threat of flame and root,
but at the same time, she could see Beren trapped within the glacier, nearly
frozen solid himself, while his power grew far beyond his control.
“Where is King Beren?” Zayra pushed to the front of the
group, scanning the frozen surface. “I want to help the king.”
Erlis nodded toward the frozen side. “It might be more
prudent for those of us with fire powers to help him, highness,” she glanced
toward Damaris and Lizeth.
Damaris spread his hands, willing the balls of flame to
consume his arms past the elbow. Those within arm’s reach of him stepped back
at the flash of heat.
“Way ahead of you,” he declared.
Kaidan nodded. “I will try to calm my sister.”
Velora flexed her claws. “I will go with you.”
“As will I,” Edri stepped forward.
Velora scowled at her; the memory of the captain’s betrayal
still hung fresh in her mind.
Edri merely sneered. “We are both armored; we stand the best
chance of surviving those roots.”
Zayra stepped closer to Azelie. “The two of us will work on
calming the crowd, see if we can’t wrest thrall away from Troy.”
“And I will fly up the tower to see what I can do for Korsan
and Aurelle,” Jade said, spreading her wings and lifting off.
In the middle of the courtyard, Troy was busy
shadow-hopping, even in his physical form. He couldn’t quite float as freely as
he once could, but at least jumping from window to window up the tower where
the illusionist and the mage hid wasn’t so very difficult. He glanced down from
his high perch halfway up the tower, just in time to see the group scatter in
separate directions. Jade headed right for him.
“Not today, sister,” Troy muttered, hopping to another
window, one in the covered walkway just above the ice wall. Grinning to
himself, he focused his jacking ability on the young Phoenix and cranked it up.
Down below, Damaris felt the fire coursing through his whole
body like his skin might explode.
“Oh no…” he murmured, before the flames covered his whole
body, and still grew.
“Damaris,” Erlis noticed his condition and stared at him
with concern. The dragon scales unfolded over her arms as she reached for him.
“Calm down.”
“I can’t!” Cried the boy made of flame. “It’s not me! I
can’t control it!”
Lizeth set her mouth. “Troy,” she muttered, glancing around
at the shadows, as if he might appear. She couldn’t distinguish his shape in
any of them. “At least he’s melting the ice,” she pointed at the massive dent
in the glacier, clarifying and widening by the moment.
“If we don’t get him calmed down before he reaches Beren,
Damaris will start melting him!” Erlis
declared, trying to grasp the boy’s hand and finding only flame. “Damaris,” she
tried again. “Listen to me! You’ve got to let go of your fire; the more you struggle, the more hold Troy has
over you!”
“I’m trying!” Damaris screeched. “It won’t let me! It’s
pulling me apart!”
Lizeth could see them approaching the dull, solidified form
of King Beren. “I’ve seen this before,” she told Erlis. “When I first began
manifesting my Gift, I didn’t know what it was, either, and it felt totally
beyond my control.” She turned to the nexus of flame before them. “Damaris.”
She called to him softly. “Breathe.”
“What?”
“Just breathe.”
“It’ll burn me! I’ll die!”
“Breathe!”
“I’m trying!”
“Look at my flame,” Lizeth held her palm out, a bubble of
flame the size of her head dancing and swirling over it. “My flame is your
flame. Now watch what I do.” Concentrating on the ball, she reduced it till it was
no bigger than her eye. She clenched her fist, and it went out.
“How did you do that?” Damaris wailed, even as his flames
spiked higher, dangerously close to the frozen king.
“Breathe, Damaris,” Lizeth said again. “My flame is your
flame. You can make it smaller. Picture its size, and picture it getting small
enough to fit in your hand.”
“Are you sure I’m not just unlucky?” Damaris stopped, inches
away from Beren’s body. He wasn’t as frantic, and the flames didn’t escalate as
much as they had.
“You have control over this, Damaris. Troy can reach you in
your fear, but if you put away your fear, you put away his power over you.”
“Okay,” Damaris replied. “Breathe.”
The flames reduced, down to about the boy’s own height.
“Breathe,” he told himself again, and the fire receded from
his head and feet, concentrating on his arms.
“Breathe.” The third time, it slowed until he held two orbs
of spinning, swirling fire in his hands. He looked up at the two women, flames
dancing in his eyes. “I did it!”
Lizeth nodded to him with a grin. “Now let’s free the king!”
Blue and gold mingled in steady concentration, while Erlis plunged her dragon’s
claws into the ice to scrape it away.
>>>>>>>
On the other side of the courtyard, Velora, Kaidan, and Edri
could barely see anyone through the mass of roots blocking the way and
furthermore barring any exits along the outer wall. Edri drew her sword and
began hacking away at the vicious branches, but for every one she cut, three
more grew and twisted into its place.
“Javira!” Kaidan called. “Where are you?”
“Kaidan!” they could hear her voice over behind the corner,
where a new mass of tangled roots sprang up. “Help me! It won’t stop!”
The trio fought their way back to her, but the closer they
got, the more frustrated Kaidan became. He winced as his hand brushed over the
branch.
“What’s the matter?” Velora asked, yanking a root out of the
way to widen the path.
“It’s my Gift,” Kaidan muttered. “I haven’t had the time to
get used to it, so whenever I touch a root, I get a little bit of Javira’s
memories coming to me.”
Edri reached up to swing at a thick overhead root, when it
suddenly shifted away from her blade. “What the—“
All three of them froze as the roots seemed to peel away
before them, forming a clear path. Justin clambered down from the top of the
pile and joined them, moving the roots with his mind. “Please,” he said, “allow
me.”
Velora watched with mild interest as a red-faced Edri
sheathed her sword, and the four of them walked comfortably amid the twisting,
curling roots to Javira, who sat on a throne of roots while fresh ones curled
out from under her hands. The longer they grew, the more she amassed around her
person.
“Help me,” she begged her brother.
Kaidan wagged his head. “How?”
“You can reach into my mind, can’t you? That’s how your Gift
works; perhaps you can turn off my thoughts, knock me unconscious or
something!”
Kaidan sighed. More roots curled and spiraled around them,
but Justin kept them from overwhelming completely.
“I’ll try,” he said, gritting his teeth and preparing to
climb up toward his sister.
Velora saw the root headed for him almost too late. “Look
out!” She lunged for him, boosting his position out of the root’s way. Kaidan
flailed to regain his balance, and his hand brushed the exposed part of Velora’s
wrist. She fell back with a cry as an entire wall of roots crowded between
them.
“Velora!” Justin cried, crouching beside her as she covered
her head with her hands. Roots surrounded them completely, cutting them off
from the Twins.
Edri waited for the young woman to stand up, but Velora
continued to writhe on the ground. “What’s happening to her?” she asked,
drawing her sword to cut away the roots.
“I don’t—“ Justin backed up as Velora bounded to her feet
with a snarl.
“Soldiers!” she
shrieked, glaring at both Justin and Edri. “Everybody scatter! It’s
an ambush!” She threw back her head and
howled before charging straight at Edri, claws outstretched.
“No!” Justin lunged between them, throwing up his hands to
push Velora away. Her strike caught him across the face, leaving three long
scars across his forehead not unlike Edri’s own. As the young Wolf reeled,
Justin explained. “She touched Kaidan; it sounds like she’s stuck in a memory
of being a hunted refugee in the woods.”
“Make a break for it,” Velora
growled, crouching in an aggressive stance. “I’ll hold them off!”
“Velora, stop!” Edri cried. “You’re not an Outcast anymore!
We’re trying to work together!”
“She can’t hear you,” Justin said, glancing in her
direction.
That brief space of time was the window Velora needed. She
lunged, catching Justin in the throat with her claws. A spray of red erupted
below his face, and he sank without a sound.
“One down,” Velora
growled, her claws dripping as she stared at Edri with a feral gleam in her
eye. “I’ve saved the best for last.”
Edri felt her breath harden in her lungs, as the lion surged
forward within her, eager to put this young pup in her place. She firmed her stance and
flourished her sword.
“You should not have done that!” she growled, and the two
women collided with mighty screams.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
Aurelle ducked behind the wall, doing her best to stay
within the patch of sunlight streaming through the hole in the roof. The
shadows weren’t safe anymore.
Korsan swept in, weaving spells behind him as he went. His
talisman flashed as he scraped his staff along the stones, tracing runes and
wards around the door and especially around the bright spot in the room. Coming
to stand next to Aurelle, he closed the circle, sealing them both in as best he
could. Only then did he allow his body to sag, leaning heavily on his staff as
he gasped for breath.
“There,” he breathed, “that should hold him.”
As if to test his words, a dark cloud swept across the
light, and a solid object connected with the door.
“Ah-ha!” Troy’s voice seeped through the wood. “I’ve found
you!” The door shook as he rammed it again and again. “I can do this for the
rest of eternity if I wanted to!” screamed the Shadow. “You, on the other hand,
won’t last forever!”
Aurelle shivered, clinging to Korsan’s shoulder. “He’s
insane,” she whispered. “How are we ever going to stop him?”
Korsan slid his arm around her shoulders and stroked her
milk-white hair with gnarled fingers. “We can only hope the others figure
something out.”
Outside in the hallway, Troy flared his Shadow again and
again, searching every crack and seam for some way past the wards. It was easy
enough to jack the Illusionist, once he made eye contact with her in the
window. He squelched her power, shrinking it to almost nothing, and the dragon
he’d been fighting disappeared.
The Mage, however, was a different story altogether. Troy
ceased his fruitless activity and turned his energy to thinking. He should have
been able to mute the Mage; after all, weren’t his Magic abilities fueled by
his Gift? Yet even as Troy negated that Gift, the old Mage had knocked him flat
with a spell and escaped with the Illusionist. Where did his power come from,
if not a Gift? Could it be that he had acquired some organic skill? That would
explain why he was stuck out in the hallway, while the room seemed
well-barricaded against him.
“Hey!” a familiar voice snapped at him from the end of the
hallway. Troy pasted on a smile and turned.
“Well, Miss Denah—“
She moved faster than anyone he had ever seen. Her fist
clouted him across the face almost as soon as he saw her.
“I told you never to call me that!” she growled at him.
Troy chuckled and rubbed his face. “Ever the charmer,” he
gushed. “Thanks for helping get my body back, by the way.” This time, he saw
the blow coming, and shadow-jumped out of the way, laughing to see her
over-balance and stumble into thin air. “I’m sure you had everyone convinced
that you were here to stop me!”
He saw her blink; which vision would she switch to this
time?
“I do intend to stop you,” she grunted, stalking forward
with a strange gleam in her eye. “Seems to me that having a body makes you
quite punch-able.” She swung, and he dodged—but she met him there, too, sinking
her fist into his torso as if she expected to go right through it as she could
with his shadow-form.
Pain radiated through Troy’s body, making it difficult to
breathe and keep his balance.
“Aww, what was that?” Denahlia taunted. “No witty reply as
you melt back into your little black cloud?” She grinned and pulled out her
guns. “Let’s see how well you catch a bullet this time around!”
Troy timed his jump for the exact moment she pulled the
trigger. He reappeared in the blackness behind her. “You forget, Hunter,” he
said, grabbing the back of her neck as she couldn’t defend herself with her
hands full of empty guns. “You can punch me—but I can also punch back.” He tossed
her toward the wall, willing her face to smack against the stone, but she
tucked her feet under herself quicker than that, and pivoted to face him. She
tossed the guns aside and balled her fists.
“Fight me, coward,” she snarled.
Troy scowled at her. He nearly jumped, but Denahlia lunged
for him and grabbed his wrist.
“Oh no you don’t!” she said. “We’re doing this without
powers. I’ve had more than enough of them anyway. We scuffle for real.”
Troy smiled at her; just how weak did she think he was
beyond the shadow-jumping?
“Winner take all,” he agreed, and flipped his hand around to
grab her wrist, yanking her over his shoulder.
The Hunter and the Shadow wrestled in the hallway at the top
of the tower, back and forth. Denahlia could keep her balance fairly well, but
the longer she fought, the more she realized that her opponent took his blows
without wearying as she did. She could match him in strength for only so long,
but he recovered far too easily from having his face smashed into the wall or
his limbs broken and dislocated.
Seeing his constant, maniacal grin only made her more and
more angry, though she knew better than to let her guard down even a little.
“I said,” she snarled at him, punctuating her words with
blows to the vulnerable parts of his body, “No. Using. Powers!” She bounded off
the wall for a two-footed kick, shoving him through the wooden railing and down
the center of the spiral staircase, a drop that should have taken him all the
way down to the floor of the tower. She raced down the stairs to catch his body
on the ground—only to encounter him just in the act of swinging himself back
onto the staircase through a similar gap further down!
“Don’t worry, honey,” he purred, clapping both hands around
her neck with iron-like fury. “This is all-natural for me.” He squeezed
tighter, and blackness seeped on the edge of her vision. “No powers,” he
whispered in her ear as her sight faded faster than her hearing and her body
went limp. “Only Shadow.”
Troy stepped over the unconscious body. The two self-committed
prisoners upstairs could rot in terror for all he cared. There was just one more angle
to try.
>>>>>>>>
Series Finale, Part 3 (Final) >>>>>>>
SEASON 1:
SEASON 2:
Episode 1: "Upgrades" Episode 2: "Strategic Maneuvers"
Episode 8: "Damaris and the Dragon"
Episode 10: "The Zodiac at Zero Hour"
Season Finale: >Part 1< >Part 2< >Part 3<
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