Chapter 41

Meeting of the Minds

We ran. Big surprise, right? I couldn’t believe it, besides obscenities my mind raced with how unfair it was to spawn us there. Did someone decide that? Did The Admins know what we were doing? All this work could be flushed down the drain from a bad fucking spawn.

“Stephen!” I yelled over the loud thundering foot falls as the monster gave chase after us. “Do you still have that weight disruptor thing?”

“Uh,” he fumbled with his glove. “Yeah, it’s still here!”

“Throw it to me!” I caught it, just barely.

Now what? I knew it could help us, but I needed to figure out the best way to implement it. If I turned around and took its attack head on I might be able to hold her back, but I would be effectively sacrificing myself. And we couldn’t do this without both of us. I had to save us both. Think Darcy…

The inevitable happened. She caught up and leapt the final few feet, preparing to crush us under foot.

“Darcy! What the fuck do we do??” Stephen yelled while flailing around like a lunatic. I hoped no one was watching.

I looked at the device in my hand. If I couldn’t stand and hold it up to her… there was only one other option.

I cranked up the device to max, it rocked like mad in my hand. Shit, that wasn’t going to work.

The shadow around us grew deeper as she plummeted from above, coming closer to us by the second.

I skidded to a stop.

“Darcy, what the fuck!?” Stephen stopped too and came over to start dragging me.

But before he grabbed my arm I tossed the device straight up. It was an easy shot. The target was so massive. Stephen stopped and watched it fly. I held up my hand, directing it the best I could, feeling the revolutions and making sure it landed… yes! It attached to the bottom of one of her giant feet. I swiped my hand to the side, using my powers to switch the device onto max.

I tackled Stephen to the ground, and prayed. We watched as the monster came down… and the device did it’s job, pushing with an intense force downward, It nailed us in the face, pressing us painfully to the ground. But, it held the monster back and from the force of it it tipped her back, knocking her over. The device exploded with a loud pop, freeing us from the force, and the feet and the whole monster itself sailed back over our heads.

I yanked Stephen to his feet and we were running again. Narrowly avoiding the cracks that sprung up along the ground as her enormous body landed, shattering the earth. A wave of force hit at our backs, actually helping us to run faster.

Up ahead, a blessing. The clearing was there, all of our teammates had gathered, completely losing their mind clapping.

But it was far too early to celebrate. Stephen knew it too, he stayed totally silent as we continued to run. We narrowly escaped with our lives. We had to make this count, all our work had to be for something.

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I saw Angelia in the distance, running around, trying to get people to calm down and stay in their spot. She’d done her part and divided them cleanly into two groups.

We didn’t even make it all the way there before the monster roared and began the process of getting its hulking body back up and moving. Hopefully that would buy us more time.

As we entered the clearing the crowd cheered for us. Well, I liked to think a little was for me but it was probably all for Stephen. I could complain about that once we survived all this.

Stephen stopped in the middle between the two crowds, beginning our prepared speech. "Friends,” his voice traveled through the crowd, a perk of the Class President system. “Today is the day we have been preparing for. Today, we will all unite and finally destroy that monster!” He pointed to her, where she still struggled to get back up.

The crowd went wild.

“All you have to do is stand firm. No matter how bad it gets, do not run. This is our only shot at this. I will unite all our wills as one and victory will be ours!” He fist bumped the sky and the crowd screamed even louder.

I took up position on the right side of the crowd. Stephen nodded and fell into his spot on the left. Angelia came up in between us and gripped our legs, giving them a squeeze.

“Good luck, you two. I did my part. It’s all yours now,” she said softly.

I squeezed her hand and nodded, the only way I could express anything with my helmet on. Stephen whispered a thanks too and then she melted into the crowd. No one knowing just how big a role she played in this whole thing.

The crowd was mumbling amongst itself. Stephen spoke up, “Only one last thing. I need you all to will our victory. Just imagine giving your strength to help, open yourself up to me. And remember—this is only possible because all of you have the courage to make this final stand.”

The crowd yelled again, in time with the monster roaring, finally up on her feet again. She looked thunder pissed. And, somehow, her eyes were still locked onto me. Well, keep staring bitch, I’ve got something to show you.

Stephen and I shared a look and we nodded, closing our eyes in unison. I sent my energy out. Even with all the practice, it was still a little difficult to get going and I’d yet to get used to the double vision viewpoint. But my power built and built, my inner flame lighting and becoming a bubbling mass of energy. My consciousness left and I reached out to the closest person.

I hadn’t used Mind Link on a real human brain before so I went slow, hesitating. My mind was unintentionally filled with the image of melting brains. But I swallowed my anxiety and ever so gently reached out to the person’s flame. It reacted just like the dummy brains, the energy spilled out into my own, filling me with power.

My anxiety qwelled by how similar it was to the fake brains, I went faster, getting up to twenty five brains in around thirty seconds. With my body's vision I glanced ahead, staring at the cthulhu monstrosity in full sprint. We had a few minutes before she’d be on us.

With that new timeline fresh in my mind, I went a bit too fast on the next brain. I took on too much, too fast, and my power jostled in my grasp, feeling like an overflowing cup I’d been carefully trying to walk with. But I righted it, forced them back to me, like the teacher showed me. I continued on, slower, but still hyper aware of the passig seconds.

It took me another forty but I managed to get my whole half of the crowd, the very last brain I touched was a familiar one: Angelia. Her energy was stronger than all the others. Whether it was because I knew her better or she had more latent energy than an averge person I had no way of knowing. But it was fitting to end with her, our very first friend that made this whole wild ass journey possible.

If Stephen and I were better at all this mental Magic stuff we would have been able to communicate mentally and tell each other when we were ready for the next step but we hadn’t been able to squeeze that lesson in in time. So the only way we could tell each other we were ready was to expand our energy and brush against the others.

And that’s what I did, just a brief reach, I swiped against his energy. Nothing at first but then he swiped back, twice. Which meant he still wasn’t done yet. But that was good, because that gave me time to start up the formation.

We had many ideas for what to make with the energy, like I said before, a Spirit Bomb immediately came to mind. But we went through maybe a grappling hook (huh?), a cannon (why go to the trouble of forming something to shoot a blast and just, you know, shoot the blast!?), and a chainsaw (my suggestion, how fucking cool would that be!?) but all of them were far too complicated to make a giant form and hold for any period of time. So, the solution: a hand.

A fucking huge ass hand.