As expected, Metagor attacked first. With two great flaps of his wings, he was hurtling to me at an alarming speed.
I brought my arms together to focus my lightning better and leveled a long-reaching charged blast his way.
It was a direct hit. But he didn't seem fazed by it in the least. Smoke came off his skin, but he showed no sign of slowing.
I narrowly dodged him by flying below him. I turned in midair to keep him in my sights above me, but that meant putting my back to Sage.
Metagor went right into the wall of water. I thought he would go all the way through, but he just landed on it like it was solid and came right at me again. I flew all the way to the top, noting that his weight would make it difficult for him to maneuver as well as I could.
A sharp slicing sound pierced the air, and a sharp object protruded from the roof of the dome directly above me, just missing my head by a centimeter.
I let gravity take over for a moment to get away from the ceiling. I should've known Sage would be able to make the dome itself dangerous. To keep her busy, I threw a ball of lightning her way.
Not a moment later, Metagor slammed into me from behind. His spikes dug into my stomach as he wrapped his arms around my torso.
He folded his wings in and his full weight pressed down onto me as we both fell to the metal surface of the facility below.
I struggled in his grip, watching the ground quickly approach. I knew he was far too strong to break free of, though.
I forced myself to stay calm and keep my powers under control. Something was trying to force its way to the surface, but I didn't know what it was, or if I could trust it.
I closed my eyes for a moment, concentrating. Then, I opened them again as wide as I could and let lightning pour forth...right into Metagor's.
He let loose with a loud roar, instantly letting go of me to clutch his eyes.
Not a second too soon, I flew out from under him and watched as he fell right through the thick metal.
Now for Sage.
Apparently, she had that exact thought at the same moment. With a twitch of her hand, three fluid streams of water were thrown out of the water behind her, slicing the air between us. I threw my left hand out in front of me, moving it from left to right and charging the air. The water shots sizzled against the electrified space in front of me, and my charge dissipated.
Before she could come up with another attack, I dove towards the base of the liquid she was using to lift herself up, plunging my arm deep into it and sending up as much lightning as I could muster.
She couldn't react quickly enough, and I watched as her body convulsed above me. She lost control, and water came crashing down around us.
I got down on my knees, covering my eyes and mouth with my hands, as water rushed into the empty space that had created the dome. It felt like someone was dropping tons of steel over my spine. I gasped from the impact, and water rushed into my lungs. So much was beating down my back that I was knocked clear off the platform and into the frigid water.
I couldn't figure out which way was up. My body spun around in the water, and I couldn't right myself enough to get my bearings. I could try to fly out, but I would risk going deeper into the sea or hurtling myself into rock.
Not knowing what else to do, I curled up into a ball and tried to hold on to life. I wrapped my arms around my legs and buried my head into my chest.
The damage had already been done, but I was still holding my breath. Feeling the water in my lungs, I refrained from opening my mouth and making the problems any worse.
I knew I should probably have been dead, but I refused to think about it. I was alive, and now I needed to get out of this mess.
I pulsed, sending out electricity around me in a small radius from every pore in my body. The darkness was briefly illuminated, and I could see well enough to figure out that I was drifting deeper and deeper under the ocean's surface. Luckily, I also saw where I needed to go.
Even with all the experience my predecessors' memories afforded me, I hadn't a clue of whether or not I could fly underwater. None of them knew how it worked from what I had seen. But I was too far down to have any chance of swimming up, and I only had a few options left to me before I would be lost with the current.
And yet, now that I tried to use it, it failed me.
No emotion would overtake me. I wasn't going to lose control over myself as the other versions of me had before.
With that thought, I sent out another pulse, maintaining it this time.
Clearly being able to see the sky, I focused on one point that seemed to be as close to directly being above me as I could get it. An ability Jay II had seen close to his death, calling lightning down from the heavens, was my only chance at getting up there.
Something was triggered inside of me. A blue glow emanated from deep within my chest and instantly spread across my body. It encased me--no, became me--from head to toe.
In seconds, the sky grew a dark shade of gray. The clouds were gathering, and I could tell thunder was sounding off inside of them. I was doing it.
A flash of white. A boom! that vibrated the water even at this depth. I pulled my electricity into the palm of my hand and redirected it above me, to the surface of the water, without letting go of it all.
See, the thing is, whenever it hits the ocean, lightning never goes as far down as I was right now. But it does hit the surface, and I had timed the bolt of electricity I now thrust into the air above to meet it right where I needed it to.
I was pulled into the trail of electricity in the water, my body disappearing and traveling along the bolt until it reached the lightning. This was the tricky part.
The moment I touched the lightning, I reformed my hand and redirected a small portion of the energy towards the facility, which, lucky for me, was made entirely out of metal.
For a second, I was the electricity, and I was encasing the entire thing. I was able to sense all of the heat emanating from a floor close to the bottom of the structure. Knowing it would be unwise to try to put myself in the action while my body was intangible, vulnerable, I decided to reshape my body on the floor below.
Less than a second had passed, but I was inside and where I needed to be. In a flash of light, my body had already reformed inside the compound.
Once I got my bearings, I scanned the area quickly. No one was here, but the sheer size of the place hadn't registered in my mind until now. This floor alone would take a normal human about ten minutes to cross at a normal pace. The floor over me had to be just as large.
I quelled a bit of fear that rose in the pit of my stomach. Now was the time for me to end it all.
The level I was on was just for storage, it seemed. Empty containers and boxes littered the area, but they didn't come anywhere close to filling the space. The solid grey metal that made up the walls, the ground, and the ceiling could be seen from anywhere. There were an elevator and a vent on one wall, and I was too smart to attempt the elevator, so the vent would be my only way up.
I pulled the grate away with small tendrils of electricity as quietly as I could. Avoiding making contact with the chute that would alert those above to my presence, I floated up the shaft until I was above the floor where Di-Men would be. There was a similar grate on this floor, and I peeked through it to see what was laid out before me.
I sucked in a sharp breath. What the hell was this?
In all honesty, it looked like a cult gathering. Large circles of people of all filled the area, eyes closed and hands joined. Elementals. Definitely earth. Their mouths all moved silently as if they were chanting.
All the way across the room, standing behind them all, was Jay's father, eyes glowing a glittering black. Something resembling a grin crossed his face. I had made it just in time to stop him before it was too late.
But I had missed something. Where was his wife? Where was Ashley?
Suddenly, everything around me began to hum. I felt the wall of the chute with my hand, and as I had expected, it vibrated under my fingers. Sweat broke on my brow. It had already started.
I gritted my teeth together. I was losing time. It was now or never.
Not wasting a second more, I blasted the grate from its position and erupted from the wall like a rocket, soaring above the crowd and crashing down in the center of the room. Before my father could react, I forced as much electricity as I could muster into the ground, electrocuting every person nearby. All of them shouted out in pain before crumbling to the ground.
They were dead before they hit the floor.
But that wasn't enough. There had to be hundreds of them still left, and I didn't have the speed to kill them all at once. My only chance would be to-
My thought was broken as a spiked elbow smashed into my back from behind.
I looked down at my stomach, and glowing blue blood began to leak around the spike. Its ugly black veins pulsed around my skin, a hole torn all the way through my clothes.
Metagor ripped the spike back out and grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around to face him. I was in shock. There was no pain.
"You've failed, child," he said. Those weren't his words.
Blood bubbled in my mouth. My legs buckled under me and I sunk to my knees. I searched all around me, unable to speak.
"Looking for someone?" Sage emerged from behind him on his right. My eyes moved over her, mouth moving without sound.
"Your mother? Ashley? Yeah, they're not here anymore." She shrugged. "Your dad did the honors."
My eyes widened. I couldn't move. I think I was paralyzed.
Heavy boots could be heard making their way towards me. I knew who it was before he reached me.
Moving to stand in front of them both, Jay's father stood over me, shaking his head and clucking his tongue.
"You've got to pay more attention," he told me, as a teacher would his student. "Now, I want you to watch as everyone you've ever cared about literally comes crashing together around you. As they die, of course."
My head drooped. None of my muscles would budge. I was frozen.
Metagor was right. I had failed.