Lightning Strikes...

The storm was no joke. Leaving the hurricane frog behind, we had to walk on foot and with each step in the direction Caspar pointed the winds got stronger, the rain got heavier, and the sounds of thunder were louder.

“What will happen if we are struck by lightning?” asked Rita scared.

“If the electricity is formed by the Yellow Demon, you can absorb it, right, Nina,” Gengis didn’t reveal any fear in his voice, but I would be surprised if he wasn’t even a little bit scared.

“Well, if my reaction was as fast as a lightning bolt, maybe. But I don’t think I am.”

Purple particles came from Gengis’s hands covering right above us. Once a lightning bolt came the particles protected us, but they were all consumed and Genis had to create more. The process was not that fast.

“If the lightning strikes come faster, I don’t think I can protect us in time, we need to think about other options.”

Agnes Stein looked deep to the storm.

“I think… I can use my instinct to dodge the lightnings.”

“This is part of your signature?” Gengis asked.

“Not exactly…”

“One wrong move and we all will be dead.”

“I believe in you, Agnes Stein.”

Despite my words it was she who didn’t trust her power.

“Even if I could know when the lightning would strike, I still would need a way to defend us, like your Void Bubbles.”

“…or those lightning rods that Casper has invented,” Gengis was deep in thought and used his particles again, this time making long structures that reached the ground.

“I still would need to warn you about the right timing. And there is no way my voice would be as fast as my instincts.”

There was a moment of silence as we slowly walked ahead, thinking of a possibility. We took a long time to notice that Rita was trying to say something in her timid voice in the middle of the storm.

“I think my signature can make it work. I can connect our minds. We can’t read each other’s minds or anything like that! It’s like we will be in perfect synchronization. I just need your consent and also, we can’t get too far apart, and I’m sure I’m not as fast as you guys…”

Without saying anything, Gengis picked Rita up from the ground and placed her on his shoulders.

“Now we won’t have any problems, right?”

We weren’t so sure and each rumble of thunder made our hearts rush.

“It’s now or never,” Agnes Stein finally said and we saw blue threads of energy connecting the four of us.

It was weird. It was really not mind reading, but we could feel something from each other. I felt an enormous sense of duty, mixture of insecurity. The strongest feelings were revenge and fear of what was to come.

We started running to the eye of the storm, Agnes Stein leading the way with me and Gengis trying to keep up with her. With sparks in her legs, she was faster than us, but we were maintaining a rhythm.

Even before Agnes could transmit anything from the empathy connection a lightning bolt came straight to us. I was caught in the improvised lightning rod, but it was destroyed in the process with Gengis needing more time to create another.

“Wouldn’t you tell us when an attack would come? So Nina to be able to block with her Stanza?” Gengis said angrily.

“It’s hard!”

Not many steps later, I felt the instinct. It was hard to describe, but it was a certainty that something would happen, even without any proof. I created the Void Bubbles over our head and, when the lightning came, it was consumed by my power.

We kept doing that, with me feeling the instincts of Agnes Stein and, when it was wrong, Gengis had already done another lightning rod to protect us. The biggest problem was that I couldn’t make the Void Bubbles follow us like Gengis could with his purple particles.

The more we ran, the more constant the attacks were but, with the four of us working in perfect tune, we weren’t hit by any of the attacks. Until we reached a crater.

That crater was in the eye of the storm, but the lightning didn’t strike inside. We finally felt safe from the sky.

And there was someone in the middle of the crater, half of its body was shining in a yellow light as we would expect from an Elemental Demon, with two key differences: the first was that it was not the size of the other Demons, it was much shorter, more or less the size of an adult human; the second was that the other half of its body wasn’t shining or had the cute horn turned to his back, it looked human.

When we saw it, Gengis dropped Rita on the ground without any care and jumped in front of us. In his own way it looked like he was trying to protect us.

The strange demon looked back, and we could see more of his human half. His short, spiked hair was somewhat familiar, but I only understood who that was when Agnes Stein spoke.

“Adrien… is that you?”

The creature didn’t answer that he kept looking at us with a crooked smile on his human face.

“A Demon fused with a human?” Gengis asked.

Agnes Stein walked forward, but the Paladin grabbed her by the shoulder.

“It’s my brother! I’m going to talk with him!”

“Do you think that is your brother? That is a Demon. How they looked like a human, I don’t know, but our mission here is to destroy them.”

“You are not going to destroy my brother!”

“That is a monster that have already killed a lot of people! The king ordered us to stop it. If you can’t focus on the mission leave it to us.”

“Let me talk with him first! Maybe I can put some sense into his head, and he can control the Demon!” begged the girl, holding back tears.

The Paladin let Agnes Stein go.

“Nina is the most important person for this mission. If you get hurt while trying to talk to your brother, I will use her to stop this Demon once and for all.”

My friend agreed with what he said and got even closer to the creature, still cautious and ready to defend herself if it attacked, but hopeful of bringing back her brother. And we all could feel this hope as we still were connected by the empathy threads.

“Adrien, it’s me, Agnes. I know you remember me. Can you answer me?”

The man’s eyes weren’t even focusing on her; his electric gaze was still focused on us behind.

“Please, talk to me. I’m still using the glasses you bought me. I had never seen the world so clear then with them. Can you tell me what happened to you?”

The creature didn’t answer with words and when we noticed what was happening, they moved towards us like lightning. Luckily for all my other companions, they were not the target. One second later, they appeared in front of me, with their demon arm oozing electricity and the last thing I saw was their punch.