Take Back the Light

Chapter 30

She sank down to her knees, wrapping her arms around her stomach. Each shuddering breath brought in more pain, and she felt the raging dark energy invade her mind.

This is the end. I can't escape.

She didn't know if those thoughts were her own or just amplified negativity from the dark water, but Alana could feel the dread and hopelessness of the situation nonetheless. As she cried out in pain and fear, thoughts of what she was leaving behind surfaced.

She hadn't gotten to say proper farewells to the gang. All she had done was wave to Eli before slipping out if the hideout. That had been stupid. Maybe if she had trusted them more to tell them where she was going, they wouldn't be at the bottom of the Great Abyss.

And then there was Will. Five years of living and training with him and she was going down the exact same way as he did, in a flurry of red and black courtesy of Doctor Blakk and his dark water.

At least I can see Will again if this kills me, Alana thought, but as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she realized that Will wasn't the only one she'd lost anymore.

The two Paladins who'd been killed in order to buy the Caelums time- Marcus and Donatella. Without Cipher blocking her memories, she knew that the two had always loved having her around.

And then there were her parents. Evanlyn and Nathanael, perishing during the fall of the West. Their kind smiles, warm eyes, constant encouragement.

Alana couldn't fall now. They wouldn't want that.

She had to fix what Blakk was doing to Slugterra, and one day, she had to go back and fix the West. She had friends to save and light magic to protect.

Alana thought past the pain and cold, silencing her cries. She dug deep down, desperately pulling up the magic that flowed through her veins that hadn't yet been attacked by the dark water.

She focused on her emotions. The devastation of losing her parents and her home realm, the fear she felt when she saw the Shane Gang fall into the Great Abyss, the determination she now felt, because Alana refused to let this be how her story ended.

For a moment, everything was blue. Warm spread through Alana's body, radiating out in every direction. She heard a voice yell out, and she was pretty sure it was her own as the dark energy fought back. But her light overcame it, swelling up from the heart of Slugterra. She felt it running through the world, the life force of every plant and slug and person, all funneling through her body and coming to her defense-

And then Alana was opening her eyes, looking up at the gray ceiling of the citadel.

She gasped as her senses came back to her, wrapping her arms around herself. She was so cold- what had happened?

Groaning, she sat up. Her head was throbbing, and there were cuts on her arms. Broken glass littered the ground around her. As she carefully got to her feet, she began to cough violently. Her lungs felt freezing cold and clogged.

The dark water.

Alana stumbled forward as she remembered what Dana had tried to do. The glass tube, the dark water gas, and then she had released a burst of slug energy. Apparently it had been strong enough to not only save her life, but wreak havoc on the room. Smoke and dust drifted through the air- part of the walls and ceiling had crumbled away.

The glass separating the ghouling area from the control room had shattered, but that half of the room was empty. Three bodies laid on the ground in front of the door. It looked like they had tried to rush out of the room just before the explosion of energy.