A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 45 Team Meeting 3

"I like your plan. But I need you to wake these two up before you go." He said, much more calmly than he felt.

Standing this close to a creature like Callin was seriously unnerving him. He actually found himself wondering if even his prodigious telekinetic shield would be able to withstand a direct attack by Callin. He had never even imagined the day that he would wonder that, having long known how seemingly endless the depths of his power truly was. But Callin like this was a force all his own, with unknowable depths of powers.

Ahleena finally glanced down at the girls, then resumed her motionless vigil. Jacob narrowed his eyes, wondering if she had just dismissed him. Then he realized the girls were waking up. She had reached into their minds and shook them, so quickly and effortlessly that he hadn't noticed! This truly was a side of Ahleena he hadn't known existed.

"All I really want is my very own bottle of Motrin. And a nice spot to hurl my cookies." Carmen mumbled, sitting up bleary-eyed and confused.

Next to her, Raina groaned like a wounded calf, sitting up and blinking around, her expression twisting in rising agony. Jacob instantly enveloped them both in his shield, stretching his already weakened telepathic-psychic shield to its limits. He couldn't have them being rendered unconscious by the Flayers psychic attack tainting the air. He needed them both.

He saw motion at the tree line and wasn't surprised when both Ahleena and Callin sprinted forward, their battle cries blending together in a symphony of demonic threat. He tore his gaze away, crouching next to the girls and holding out his hands to them.

"Trust me. Allow me. I'll guide us." He said simply, enveloping their hands with his and linking his mind with theirs.

Something within Raina's mind fled from his touch, too dark, too fast, for him to sense what it was. It stunned him momentarily, but he shoved that aside and focused instead on what he needed to do. He would deal with this...this anomaly later.

Raina and Carmen were too weak, too confused, to really offer any resistance to the intrusion of his mind as he reached past their forward thoughts, reaching past their subconscious minds where memories lie, reaching deep into their cores. Wrapping his power around theirs, winding all three together like strands of liquid fire, then pulling it all into himself. Pulling it as close as his own, where he had complete control.

Then he sent his thoughts flying out towards the tree line, flying to battle.

Ahleena spun in place, dropping onto her ankles as she went, her sword sweeping out like a bolt of lightning. The Flayer shrieked as it toppled, its legs cut in half by the wicked edge of her psychic power. Thirty feet behind her, a Flayer swiped downward through the air, sending its power slashing through the air at her unprotected back.

But she was already rising into the air, back arching and legs tucking in close, flying overhead, avoiding the telekinetic waves in the air. In mid-air she twisted like a cat, snapping her swords together in front of her, releasing a blinding flash of light, blinding the Flayer for just an instant. An instant she used, landing in front of it with her swords slashing downward, cleaving through each shoulder and biting deep into its chest before she savagely yanked away.

The Flayer died before it hit the ground.

She turned to face the next Flayer, then paused. It was jerking weirdly about, like a giant invisible hand had reached down out of the sky and was shaking it about. Then it screamed as tiny, glittering black spurs suddenly erupted from its chest, cutting their way out so violently that shreds of flesh flew through the air, mixed with a crimson cloud.

Just as quickly as they appeared, the black thorns receded, and the Flayer hit the ground, unmoving. All around her, multiple Flayers were jerking about, their shrieking agony rising to the sky, as black tendrils ripped their way out from inside them.