Flash Fiction Friday: "Flashes of Inspiration" No. 19

Picture Prompt

#19 "I Am The Storm"

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The rain pelted through the trees, and the ground seemed to soak it in and transform into loose, slippery-smooth mud as she ran. Priscilla concentrated on the path ahead of her as tree roots snaked out from under the earth to wrap around her ankles. The cliffs around her moaned and quaked, and the low roar of a violent wind reached her ears before the powerful blast literally swept her off her feet. She threw out her arms to catch a branch as she slid past, but everything bent just beyond her reach.

A squelching, sloshing plume of mud thrust into her back, and she landed hard on the ground, out in the open. Pris struggled to her feet as she surveyed her surroundings: the archaeological camp, or what was left of it. In the pelting rain and blistering wind, she could see the last few tent poles, a couple large trash bags tumbling about like balls in a bingo wheel, and the two large utility poles that once anchored the generators in place--soon to be torn up.

"PRISCILLA!" someone screamed. Pris squinted to see Derrick waving at her from a rise at the far end of camp. Massive floodlights barely cut through the driving chaos behind him. A vehicle of some sort--a way off Fourtouna! She swept the raindrops out of her eyes as she fought to make headway across the rapidly disintegrating ground.

An explosion and a blast of heat behind her arrested her progress.

"Jussst where do you think you're going, little girl?" hissed a booming voice as another fireball whizzed over her head and landed closer to Derrick's position. He dove out of the way, but Priscilla instinctively knew that if she advanced any further, Egamad would just target the vehicle and the rest of the team to get at her anyway. She turned to face him.

"You can keep your tantrum to yourself, pus-face!" she taunted. "I'm not going anywhere!"

SHOOM!

Priscilla felt the static electricity lift the hairs on her whole body as a lightning bolt struck the ground just a few feet away from her, followed closely by another. The sheer force of it shook the ground beneath her feet, and she crouched to maintain her stance. The bright light sent strange, blobby shadows dancing over her vision, and Priscilla shielded her eyes until her sight readjusted. Would the amulet around her wrist absorb the electricity? What was the point of it being so hidden if it ended up being nothing more than a bit of extravagant jewelry?

"Now, now, little girl," Egamad crooned, his voice a little softer now, with a familiar ring to it. "Is that any way to talk to your oldest family friend?"

Priscilla lowered her arms as the solid, physical form of Egamad stepped out of the curtain of burning trees: the pale, lanky body of none other than Tony, dressed in his customary jeans and nerdy graphic t-shirt. The t-shirt that was now clinging to his body, being so completely weather-inappropriate--further evidence of the demon's appropriation.

"No!" Priscilla roared, rushing forward. "You can't! I don't--" How was she going to do battle against this nemesis if he was literally using her best friend as living armor?

Egamad/Tony threw back his head and laughed, chucking a few more fireballs in her direction for good measure. Priscilla darted out of the way, fully aware that every step gave the demon more ground, as he inevitably herded her where he wanted her to go.

"Foolish child!" He roared. "Can't you see, I'm so much more powerful than you could ever imagine!" He thrust his hands forward, and a massive wave rose out of the churning sea, crashing onto the cliff behind her.

Pris had to scramble forward as the soil and rock of the cliff behind her crumbled and sank into the waves of the Atlantic. Another bolt of lightning struck the ground in front of her, and she looked up toward the sky.

A gust of wind shifted a chunk of the clouds out of the way, and she could see them both clearly: her father the storm god and her mother the wind goddess, hovering in midair and waving their arms, a pair of cosmic conductors directing this symphony of chaos. And glittering against the dark clouds, she could see the faint strains of supernatural energy, tethering them, controlling them, siphoning from them, all leading down to the ground--to him.

"Do you see it?" Egamad hissed in her ear. She whirled around to punch him, but he still looked like Tony, and that instant of hesitation was enough for him to shove her backward into the bushes. "Isn't it beautiful?" he gushed. "By the way, you cannot break it, even if you wanted to. It is their blood debt to me, and it will only be satisfied with like blood. So now they are mine--and very soon, I will have you!"

Around her, the branches came to life, bristling with thorns and crawling over and around her arms and legs, squeezing tighter. Priscilla pulled and thrashed against them, grabbing the sprigs with her hands and ripping whatever she could.

In the midst of pulling, she felt something else pulling the stems off of her--a fierce cyclone sucked her up out of the bush, sending her spinning and tumbling along the ground.

"What are you waiting for?" A blast of wind from her mother's hand slammed her flat against the ground as Egamad taunted her. "Stand up!"

Priscilla gripped the ground for balance, only to have it ripped from her hands again as the cyclone sent her flying up in the air. 

Then the hail began. Massive chunks of ice hammered all around her, sending Priscilla scurrying in circles to avoid getting hit.

Egamad cackled again. "So this is the little girl who knew too much, the one who just wanted to have a normal life, so much that she was willing to turn a blind eye to her own parents' true natures in order to get what she wanted; How's that working out for you, honey? I suppose I do have you to thank, for freeing me as you did; in all those thousands of years I spent trapped in that gem, nobody ever thought to put together the incantation--and certainly Trikymios and his little fling never figured that anyone would be smart enough to do so... least of all THEIR OWN DAUGHTER!"

Priscilla lost all sense of direction in the thundering hail--one moment, she was running over solid ground, and the next, she fell straight down into the roiling sea. Halfway there, a waterspout arrested her descent and smacked her full in the face. The wind buffeted her sideways, sending her further out over the open water. A giant rumble of thunder heralded the arrival of a massive typhoon, a swirling mixture of wind and water that closed around her, pressing in tighter and tighter and holding her in place as Egamad emerged again.

"And now it has come to this," he mused. "You've come all this way, solved all the puzzles, opened the very temple of Trikymios and Auraea--for what? A wooden box with a few relics inside? Would you really allow me the ownership of your parents, just to keep that box? Because you know that I will; they promised themselves to me, so I am within my right to keep them--but if you turned over the cache to me, I could give them back to you, and end this turmoil."

Pris pushed against the squeezing current, fighting to gain the use of her hands. Every time she opened her mouth to respond, a gush of seawater seeped inside. He was wrong about the cache! Why would he be talking about relics and "just a box" as if he didn't know--Priscilla closed her mouth and thought. Perhaps he didn't know what her parents hid in the cache inside their temple! He might guess that it was something important, since they essentially forfeited their divine forms and attempted to default on their blood oath to keep it hidden... but what if he didn't know that he had it in his grasp even now?

She glared at the enemy who wore the face of her friend. "What about Tony?" She demanded. "He was never a part of this; if you don't get out of him and let him go free, then there will be no deal at all."

Tony's eyes rolled and his head wagged as Egamad vented his frustration at the measure of her priorities. "I knew that you harbored feelings for this boy; why do you think I chose him as a host? You think YOU were the one to choose my prison-stone to heal him? It was always going to be someone close to you--but if it makes you more agreeable, than yes, I will swear that everyone in your sphere of influence will go about their lives unharmed if you hand over the cache. Just think of it, girl: one small decision, and your life can return to exactly what it was before all this mess began: no terminally-ill boyfriend, no failing grades, no distant, oblivious parents..."

She could feel the pressure of the typhoon slacking a bit. He sounded as if he thought she would really accept his deal. Priscilla thought of her parents, inflicting such devastation on the world without even knowing.

"You underestimate me, demon!" She shouted at him. The typhoon resumed its squeezing, but Priscilla had slipped a hand around the amulet on her wrist. She felt the stiff prongs concealed in the filigree--sharp enough to pierce skin, perhaps. "Too many times, I've been shoved to the background, ignored, passed over, outright rejected--You think I don't know what a legacy I've been given? You should have offered it to me when I had nothing to lose; with everything I've learned about my parents and about my true inheritance, I know now that even if you did call in the debt you hold over my parents, I would eventually find a way to rescue them from your clutches and defeat you once and for all!" She worked her hand around the top of the amulet and squeezed hard. The prongs on the underside bit into her wrist, and she felt a sustaining, stinging pain, like salt water on an open wound.

Tony's face glared at her as Egamad pelted her with more hailstones and sent the typhoon wavering closer and closer to the cliffs. If he wanted to, he could smash her against them like a bug on a windshield. "Defeat me?" he shrieked. "Foolish girl! Look around you! You don't have any powers like your parents--you are not of their blood! Between you and me, I have more claim to their lives than you do! Even now, I control them, and with that control, I can wipe every puny human off the face of the Earth if I wanted to! You aren't strong enough to withstand the storm I can bring against you--Admit it, I've won!"

Priscilla kept squeezing the amulet between her hands, until she could feel it: a deep thrum of power tingling from her hands, up her shoulders, and down through her whole body. Repent, the riddle had said. Feeling the coursing, otherworldly power, Priscilla wondered how she could have ever gone through life without acknowledging the truth of her heritage. "No, you are wrong," she told the demon. He stared at her, as Priscilla Del Vento-Thiele raised her head and narrowed her gaze straight through Tony's eyes, to the monster hiding within. "I am strong enough--but I don't have to withstand the storm."

She released her grip on the amulet, feeling the warmth of its power spread through her body. She saw the way the typhoon around her rippled and folded away from her as she brought her hands to rest at her sides--and from the way his grin faltered, Egamad noticed too.

"And why would you not resist me?" He growled, still maintaining the air of danger--but Priscilla was no longer intimidated.

"Because," she answered, curling her hands into fists. "The truth is in the name my parents chose for me: Priscilla Symone... or Procella Sum." Inhaling deeply she declared her identity: "See, they knew it all along: I AM THE STORM!"

In one swift motion, she thrust her hands out, ripping the swirling typhoon in two and sending the waves crashing away from her--and the wind, rather than trapping her or pushing her around, became a solid surface for her to walk on. She funneled some of it up to her hands, letting it curl around her wrists before bringing her palms together and pointing her fingers like a gun. A straight jet of super-speed air blasted Tony and his demonic inhabitant straight in the chest, and Priscilla followed close behind. Now she wielded the power of a storm god and a wind goddess. Now she would make this demon feel her wrath.

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