Endgame (Book 3)

Chapter 47

Rebirth.

That was the meaning of the very first moment which was actually important from my time in the pod.

On my sixteenth birthday, I had become a superpowered being with absolutely no explanation. I had undergone a metamorphosis, and the person I came out as was completely different from who I was before.

And now I knew why.

I thought I took a breath, but I had no way of knowing if that's what I did.

I wasn't in pain anymore. In fact, I felt happy, light, and peaceful, none of those things stressful or hurtful or worrying. A nice change.

But I also wasn't completely dead, either.

I pondered what I was looking at below. How could I get out of this?

My physical body was far below me, pale and blue (and not the good kind of blue, the dead kind of blue). Not far away, Cassie and Metagor were struggling to contain Zero, who was slowly fighting against Cassie's grip on him. Metagor sat on top of him looking like an oversized frog struggling to hold on.

The state I was in gave me the sensation of flying, but I couldn't control my movement.

I could only watch as Cassie finally lost it and Zero rose to his feet, throwing Metagor off his back. Smiling and cackling all the while, his skin flared a deep, ugly green.

I glanced at the rock that still wasn't very far from my physical body's location, dead and drained. All that energy couldn't have disappeared. It had gone inside of me, but there was no sign of it now.

If I was dead, where did it go?

As if in answer, a long blue tentacle sprouted from my body and snaked through the air towards me, faster than lightning. It connected with my chest, establishing a link between the both of my forms.

Then, without warning, it yanked on my aerial projection and drew it back into my body, causing me to plummet down, down, down until I landed jarringly in my real body.

My eyes widened in shock, and I leapt off the ground in a panic, squeezing my fingers together to check if they were really there and looking myself over. Everything was the same, but I knew something had to be different.

I whirled around to see Zero and Cassie locked in battle. Cassie's hands moved quickly while moving herself backwards, throwing anything she could find on the ground telekinetically at her adversary. But every attack was just knocked aside or blasted to pieces by electricity. Zero was getting closer to her, every step heavy and unstoppable.

I took a step, expecting to knock him to the ground with a charge aided by superspeed, but nothing happened. No energy around me, no movement, no whoosh of air.

I didn't panic. I had been in this situation enough times to know that when a power stopped working, a new one would soon take its place.

Instead, I tested out my flight by using that first step to launch myself towards him for an attack from above. That power was still in control.

And so was my lightning, too, I realized as I directed a strong bolt towards Zero.

It hit him square in the back, but it didn't faze him much. I had succeeded in drawing his attention.

From behind him, I waited in the air as he turned around, his shoulders moving up and down as if he was still chuckling at some unheard joke while no sound escaped his lips.

Cassie retreated and floated over to Metagor, who hadn't moved at all since Zero's throw.

"Ready for round two?" I asked with a grin.

He snarled, quickly rocketing into the sky and, in one fluid motion, blurred to my position. Reacting to slow to defend myself, I raised my hands in time for him to punch me hard enough to push me away in the sky.

Rolling around until I could regain my balance, I decided to go on the offensive. I couldn't move nearly as fast as he did on the ground or in the air, but that didn't mean I didn't have any tricks up my sleeve.

I spit out a glob of blood that had come up in my mouth when he hit me.

Flying straight towards him, I held my hands beside each other and began to form a long, coiling lightning whip.

Before I came within range, I slung the whip out wide so it would wrap around Zero. When it did, I altered my course to avoid flying straight into him and headed right past him, where I pulled on the electrical whip to throw him into the ground as he had done to me.

It all went as planned. To prevent him from getting up, I threw an endless amount of lightning bolts at him until I could hold him down with my hands.

I flew down to stand over him, his head facing me backwards. He didn't try to move.

I stretched out an arm to contain him in a force field, but I couldn't feel anything forming where I wanted it to. Guess that was gone as well.

I shouted to Cassie asking her to come over.

"One second! Metagor's badly hurt! I think Zero hit him with something- he's bleeding!" Cassie said this without looking up. "Hold Zero off until I can get over there! I'm getting Metagor to safety!"

She raised her arms and Metagor's body was lifted into the sky, moving away from the wreckage and into the grass, limbs hanging down. Cassie got him far away without taking a single step while I watched Zero, wondering why he hadn't moved. I decided to take a look at himz

As I got within a few feet of Zero, wary of any sudden attacks, his arm shot out an impossibly long distance and thrust itself deep into my chest.

I looked at the blade his hand had transformed into, noticing it's remarkable similarity to Sage's from the pod. The pain was dull, and if anything, I was just relieved he had done something.

I grabbed the arm and pushed the blade deeper into my chest. I was aware of a choking sensation in my throat, and I had no doubt blood was bubbling up from the internal wound.

This was how I would beat Zero and take back Jay. The vision was happening now, but it wasn't of my death.

I glanced to my left, and sure enough, Cassie was standing right there, her hand outstretched, face twisted in horror.

I smiled and closed my eyes.