Chapter 44 All Together

I just barely escaped with my life. With the black spheres latched onto my trail, mimicking my movements. I couldn't outrun them. My wings worked hard to narrowly escape an explosion behind me. Shadows flew out of my hands, coiling around in a shield to keep me from getting thrown off. For a moment I thought those were all the spheres there were. I swooped down low towards the ground, only to be tackled by one that appeared right in my face.

It was impossible to stop at that speed. I could see the cracks spread out across its curved surface. My body pulled upright to flap my wings against the momentum. I felt myself fly right through the sphere. Nothing happened. A few seconds later, I slowed to a stop. My feet skidded against the ground and I turned in one swift motion. Heavy breaths coming in short gasps.

The sphere was gone, followed by an abrupt explosion in the air. I glanced up to see it shatter into tiny pieces. Confusion wore on my face. Someone tugged at my sleeve. I looked down to see a silver haired girl standing next to me unharmed.

"How did you-? Iris, what're you doing here?" I asked, filling up with anxiety. I'd told her to stay, although I would have been dead if not for her.

"I can help," she replied.

"Who are you?" Sara spoke, appearing a few feet away, staring daggers at Iris. For a second I thought I sensed fear in her tone. "Are you sure you want to get involved? This has nothing to do with you."

Iris simply stayed silent, observing her from afar.

"Do not mock me!" Sara screamed at her in a sudden change of tone. I stepped in front of the eleven year old whose silent stare was enough to rattle the enemy.

"It's her eyes…" Iris mumbled from behind me, her gaze still unwavering.

I wasn't sure what she meant by that. Sara didn't waste any more time conversing. She floated up into the sky, releasing another series of black spheres towards us. Suddenly something white flew past my peripheral vision. A second later, white lines penetrated the spheres, freezing them in place. I traced the lines back to Iris. My eyes widened, looking down at her feet from under which they originated.

Her eyes flickered to me for a split second. I understood. Although reluctant to leave her alone on the field like that, I nodded.

"Take care of those things for me. I just need to get close enough to attack," I said, spreading out my wings to take flight.

Dust kicked up and I flapped my way into the sky. I watched Iris redirect the spheres towards the ground, releasing them just a second before they exploded at a safe distance. Sara gritted her teeth with an angry face, sending more blobs of black into the air. I gathered my energy, heading straight towards her. Her ominous red eyes flashed at me. I could feel the cold wind from the spheres that headed my way. Lines of white pierced them, knocking them out as I carried on.

Sara hovered backwards in a fright. My shadows flew towards her, layering over the sphere around her. She gasped, Panic-stricken all of a sudden. I clenched my fist and the sphere shattered. Shadows flung at her, wrapping around to bind her in place.

I moved to face her, watching her struggle.

"Wait! Stop! Don't kill me!" she begged for her life.

Part of my head pounded with anger, thinking about everything she'd done up till now. I gritted my teeth. The shadows tightened their hold around her, choking her. All of a sudden, she broke into a laugh.

"I'm already dead, you idiot! It won't be so easy to kill me a second time," she said in between laughter. It was almost as if the shadows did no damage to her. Her eyes flashed brighter as the air grew cold around me. I caught sight of a faint ring of purple floating towards me. It darkened as it approached, turning into a sphere. More appeared from all around.

"I'll just keep coming back…" she said in a taunting manner, partly singing the words to me.

Anger blared through me, feeling my energy escalate. The cold air grazed my skin and I retaliated, releasing a massive black wind in the circumference around me. The spheres cracked as it hit them. I held back enough to keep them from exploding.

"Dixon!" Meryl's voice rang in my ears all of a sudden. My eyebrows twitched as my head snapped towards the sound behind me. I stared hard at the sphere closest to me. I could've sworn I saw a face behind the cracks. Sara laughed continuously, feeling the hold of shadows slightly loosen around her. The spheres exploded. My shadows grew out of my hands into a sphere of my own to shield me from damage.

I whirled around in fury, only to find her gone.

"Where the hell are you?" I yelled, looking around angrily. I noticed the sky go purple, slowly turning darker by the second. Fear recoiled as I began to realize what was happening. The sphere around me turned completely black. I could hear her laughing in the distance.

"It's your fault for getting so close to me," she was shouting with triumph.

"Damn it…" I muttered. My breath fogged up in front of me. I wrapped my arms around. The temperature dropped in an instant, followed by a sudden crack.

My energy burst out in waves, feeling short of time. At that moment, the sphere shattered, exploding into me, against the motion of my powers. I pressed harder, releasing a massive energy to counter. A vein pounded at the side of my temple. The cold bit my skin, making it slightly crack. I could feel my muscles tremble, surrendering to the greater power. They ached badly underneath.

"This marks the end of an era. No more king of shadows… After you die, the others will be a piece of cake," Sara mocked, breaking into a laugh again.

Her voice was like poison to my ears. I gritted my shivering teeth, feeling numb all of a sudden.

"No way in hell…" I shouted out to her, barely able to make out the words.

That moment, my eyes caught sight of something white, floating towards me. I quickly reached for it with shivering arms. A groan escaped me as I stretched my fingers just enough to touch.

The sphere overpowered.

My face pulled inwards, as my skin tore off, bit by bit. Vision completely disappeared from my right eye. There was surprisingly no pain. I watched my right arm shatter into tiny pieces, my skin ripping off like clay, followed by my right leg disappearing from my body. I was suddenly propelled towards the ground at a discomforting speed. My wings remained unresponsive behind my back.

I closed my one eye, letting myself drift into the darkness.

"It's over…" I whispered with half a jaw.

There was a loud thump and my body went completely still. I could hear someone screaming in the background.

.

"Damon, let me go. He needs my help," Cheryl explained, trying to twist her arm free from Damon's grip while limping on one foot.

"I can't. I have orders not to let you fight," he responded, standing still, effortlessly holding onto her elbow. Cheryl turned to look at him.

"When did he give you that order?" she raised her eyebrows questioningly.

"Shadows don't usually need to be spoken to, to receive orders," he replied.

Cheryl opened her mouth to respond to that when a sudden bang cut her off. Both their heads turned towards the huge explosion in the sky. Her eyes went wide for a second, watching a winged person fall from great height. His body settled limply onto the ground several feet away from her. At that moment, something in her brain went off.

She screamed.

Damon's hand jerked back, feeling a sudden shock from her elbow. Sparks emanated out of her, eyes electric all of a sudden. Her body transitioned into lightning, streaming like luminous veins all over her arms and legs. Damon jumped back as sparks flew out of her legs. In a blink of an eye, she was gone.

Sara descended slowly towards Dixon's limp, partially torn body. Half of him was just a mere shadow, lying lifelessly with little smoke emitting from the surface. The other half of his body had somehow survived. There was skin torn off the middle of his face, although no blood was visible. Parts of his clothes were ripped. The right side of his jeans had shredded all the way to his knees. His favorite leather jacket was missing a sleeve.

She bent down, reaching out to poke his face. Her ears picked up a faint scream in the distance. It grew louder by the second. She paused to look back, only to be tackled by a massive force, throwing her several feet away. Her back grazed against the rough ground, tearing at her purple skin as something yellow latched itself onto her.

"How are you able to touch me?" she screamed back, reaching for Cheryl's face, only to have her hands go through her. Cheryl screamed louder, releasing all her energy as the electricity coursed through. Sara gritted her teeth, feeling paralyzed while shivering under the sudden pain, pain she hadn't felt in ages. It tore through her senses.

"S-s-sto-op…" she pleaded but Cheryl was in no mood to listen. She grabbed her by the collar, pulling her up and threw her several feet into the night sky. Gale sent down lightning from the clouds, hitting her accurately this time. Cheryl lunged at her, blasting through the cold air at such speed that her body turned to a ball of lightning. It hit her in an electric explosion, passing through her. Sara felt a sharp pain escalate into her entire body. Her throat choked up as it stiffened, preventing her from screaming out.

Cheryl ricocheted off the ground to hit her once more. Sara's body stayed in the air, becoming victim to a series of consecutive attacks back and forth. From afar it looked like streaks of lightning beautifully being swiped across the sky. Cheryl's angry screams filled the place, quickly turning into mourning cries.

.

"It's not over yet…" I heard Darke's voice from above, followed by his shadow hovering over my head.

My one eye flipped open, only to realize I didn't lose my vision. As my senses returned to me, I reached up with my right hand to feel a surprisingly cold surface over the right part of my face. There was a bulge where my eye was supposed to be, yet I could still see. I stared at the hand that looked like it had been dipped in shadows. There was a subtle smoke releasing from the surface, disappearing into the surrounding air.

"What…?" I whispered with disbelief and utter confusion, having already accepted my death moments ago.

My body jerked up into a sitting position, looking myself over hurriedly. My entire right side was a skinless shadow, giving off bits of smoke like a slightly unstable form. Iris rushed over to me in distress, stopping beside me. Her breath came in short gasps as if she'd been running for a while. I could hear screaming in the background.

"You're alive!" she breathed out some more.

"What happened?" I asked.

"She pulled you out of there just in time before your body could suffer more damage," Darke answered.

"It's Cheryl," Iris added in an urgent tone. "She's fighting Sara right now."

"What?!" I was up onto my feet with surprisingly no pain and very little effort.

"Relax, she's doing better than you did," Darke informed, gesturing towards the sky. I turned to look up at the source of all the screaming. A yellow ball of lightning bolted towards Sara's still figure, missing for some reason as it launched straight towards me. For a second, I contemplated whether to move. The ball of lightning became clearer as Cheryl's electric form approached, flying straight at me. I only had seconds to react. I caught her in a hug that made my shoes skid back several feet. My wings stretched out behind me to slow down the impact.

"You're alive!!" her muffled voice spoke out of my torn up jacket.

"Fool… you should have kept weakening her. She will escape again!" Darke was saying.

Cheryl gasped, turning around in a single motion to look back up as if just remembering. He was right. Sara had disappeared.

"No…" she murmured.

"Stop it," I told Darke, "It's easier said than done."

"Of course it is. You all keep flying off without a plan," he replied, making flying gestures with his hands.

"Fine. What's your plan then?" I rolled my eyes at him. I noticed the girls staring at my face constantly without blinking. Was it that odd? I couldn't really tell what I looked like at that moment. It didn't feel any different.

"You'll need to work together. Trap her inside a confined space that she cannot escape from."

"I can do that…" Iris answered with a nod.

"You'll have to weaken her first," Darke added.

"Cheryl," I turned towards her, holding out a hand. "I need your help. You're the only one who was able to injure her."

A wide smile spread across her electric face, sparkling like never before. Her figure glowed brighter under the night sky. The sky in this realm was surprisingly not as dark as it usually was. It was partially blended into an evening orange towards the bottom.

"Iris, do you sense her anywhere?" I asked, eyes searching for Sara.

"She's…" Iris trailed off, turning towards her left. There was a very light purple ring floating in the distance, almost as if trying to blend in with the scenery. "There." Iris pointed at it, white threads extending out of her palm, shooting speedily towards the sphere. It jerked back as a couple of threads latched onto it. All of a sudden, it turned darker, revealing a very angry Sara floating inside of it.

"You little-" she spat. Her glowing red eyes were visible even from inside the sphere.

My wing sprouted out from behind me. The right one felt different, like it was on fire. Miasma seeped from it like smoke. I nodded at Cheryl who charged ahead at full speed. Iris twirled her finger around the threads that pulled on the sphere, holding it in place. I lifted off my feet in a steep flight, hovering a few feet above ground. I cut through the dust clouds like a knife, slowly steering up towards Sara.

Shadows escaped my arms, trickling out of the right side of my body as if it were leaking. They lunged at the sphere, coiling around from all sides.

"Get off!" Sara growled at them.

Multiple spheres appeared around us. Cheryl's body shot through like a bullet, piercing each of them without giving them the chance to expand. Like a lightning bolt, she blasted at an incredible speed. The explosions that occurred were not nearly as impactful as when the spheres turned darker.

My wings fluttered through any incoming shards. I clenched my fists and the shadowy layer tightened around Sara's sphere. It cracked inwards, poking holes for my shadows to seep in. In a matter of seconds, the sphere shattered, the same time as my shadows coiled around her neck.

Cheryl quickly latched onto her as she fell, sending thousands of volts of electricity into her body. She crashed to the ground and my shadows quickly expanded around her. The ground turned black underneath. Like a quick sand, Her body began to sink in.

"No… You can't trap me… not again," she whispered weakly as her arms and legs melted into the darkness. Her body felt paralyzed. White threads formed around the edges of the shadowy platform, outlining it.

"You can't hurt anyone anymore," I told her, landing beside her in a crouch.

Cheryl watched from over my shoulder. Sara's body sank into the circular platform until only her head remained above ground.

"This is the part where you tell me how to reverse all the damage you've done," I asked, not really expecting a straight answer, but if anyone would know how to get Meryl and Ricky back, it would be her.

As expected, she broke into a laugh, almost spitting at my face. I backed away, waving my hand over the shadows. Her face continued to sink again.

"There really is no helping you," I told her with a deep sigh.

"Your friends…" she suddenly spoke. My eyes quickly snapped towards her with expectation. The sinking slowed. She grinned at me mockingly. "You'll never see them again…"

I felt my eyebrows twitch involuntarily as I balled my hands to fists. Only her eyes were visible above ground, glowing, shimmering constantly. Suddenly, Iris's words came back to me for some reason.

'It's her eyes," was what she'd pointed out.

A cold wind blew my way. I whirled around with a striking realization. The sphere was large enough to eat up an entire building, growing, expanding, right behind Cheryl. Sara had been aiming for her this whole time. She had no clue.

"Cheryl… behind you," I gasped out the words. She simply half turned to finally notice the large object towering over her. Had I not been distracted trying to converse for answers, I would have noticed sooner.

"Damn it…" I cursed as the thing started to crack.