Ele ran through the hallway towards the kitchen. The door to the kitchen was closed; she didn’t remember closing it, and it wasn’t the type of door to automatically close. Ele briefly channeled as much quan as she could to both lift her and to pull everything magnetic towards her. The lift in her step helped speed her up, and the other effect resulted in some thumps of pots banging into the wall of the kitchen and the door, as well as soft thumps from hitting things behind the door. With her increase of speed, Ele channeled another burst to lift her up, and then as she was in the air, a burst to pull her down. This resulted in Ele kicking the door with a force much greater than her frame could normally provide. The door to the kitchen opened outward towards the hallway usually; the kick from Ele broke it off the hinges and pushed it into the kitchen. Ele landed on her back but was otherwise unhurt.

The door to the kitchen teetered upon a round shape and had some worn-out boots poking under it. Across the floor of the kitchen, pots were scattered about. Most, if not all, knives and utensils made in Ascalon were made of non-magnetic materials. Since the material was expensive, pots and pans were made of cheaper magnetic metals. Ele smiled that she had guessed correctly about the people behind the door and started to get up.

A flash of lightning appeared over her. She could feel the heat of it as it flashed in front of her face, missing her by inches. Ele looked behind her and saw Ve running down the hallway. Ve briefly had her eyes closed, probably for throwing the lightning, and that was why she had missed. Ele used quan to help lift herself to her feet and make her light as she ran through the kitchen. A single leap took her over the round object and the door it was covering. Sensing quan being channeled, Ele dove behind a prep table, using her own ability to pull her fast to the ground. She hit the floor with a painful thump as the air was knocked out of her. A second thump from some pots that were pulled and landed upon her. One hit her in the small of her back, the other in a leg, and a third one caught some lightning in midair. A glance behind her revealed a molten chunk of metal that used to be the pot. Ele was happy she only used a burst of quan as a molten pot pulled towards her did not sound pleasant.

“Eletheria! If you surrender, I will let you live. You will have a comfortable life, marry a nice man, and have many children!” Ve shouted over the noise that suddenly started. The creaking of the wood frame from the torn-open door, the pots still wobbling around on the floor, the unconscious man under the door—Ele could hear people running through the great room of the manor.

“How many others have you killed to maintain your power?” Ele yelled back while scrambling around a table. She thought she heard someone outside the kitchen door that led outside but wasn’t sure.

“I lost count, probably less than the number I killed to free our people,” Ve shouted back and a bolt of lightning zoomed over Ele. It struck a shelf above her that contained some bowls and other items. The wood exploded into little splinters, and the items on the shelf fell. A clay pot hit Ele in the shoulder, and some jam broke open near her legs. Ele heard someone drawing a sword outside the door she came in from. There were footsteps right outside the door leading to the great hall. She was trapped!

“I do this for the good of our people. So, they will not suffer as I and countless others suffered,” Ve said in a calmer voice that sounded close by. Ele guessed. Ve was at the doorway leading to the hallway. Ele tried to move, and her shoulder spiked with pain. She couldn’t help but let out a pain-filled groan. “Ele, please, forget about the boy…” Ve started to say.

“HIS NAME WAS ACANTHIO!” Ele yelled as she stood up and looked at her aunt who was indeed standing in the door. As soon as Ele came into view her aunt dodged to the side as if expecting Ele to try and zap her. Ele couldn’t see a way out so she looked up at the ceiling and channeled all the quan she could muster.

A bolt of lightning tore through the house, leaving a hole large enough for a horse to fall through. Ele powered up her quan then leapt upwards and pushed herself as high as she could go. As she flew straight up, a trail of pots and pans flew upwards towards her. Her Aunt followed her through the hole about a hundred paces below her. Ele dropped her field, allowing her momentum to carry her upwards for a bit. The dropping of her magnetic field caused all the pots and pans, and everything that was following her to be pulled towards the other powerful field. It took only a second for her momentum to cease and for her to start falling towards the ground, moving towards the south due to the downslope. Another second later she resumed her field but not as powerful this time. She didn’t want to fly high up; she just wanted to land safely and run away. As she tried to power the field to reduce her speed down her vision started to darken around the edges. Focusing on the ground, she pushed through the mental fog as the choice between burning out and falling to her death was an easy choice.

Eletheria hit the ground hard with her left foot first. She remembered people telling her to try and roll with a fall but she couldn’t control her fall well enough even to attempt something like that. A sickening snap was heard from her left leg as she landed. Instead of rolling, she crumpled into a small ball of pain. As she screamed out in pain, a flash of light flew over her head. She imagined that Ve would have landed a killing shot if she hadn’t collapsed. Even if that was the case, she was as good as dead now. Ele pulled her leg pouch off and, using the knife from the kitchen; she made a splint. With the pouch between the knife blade and her skin, she hoped the leather would be too tough to cut immediately.

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“Did you know while I was a slave, I had three children?” Ve’s words as she shouted them pierced through Ele’s fog of pain. Ele could not remember if Ve had said anything else since she had hit the ground. “You had a sister and two other brothers.” Ve continued, and suddenly Ele became aware of someone else nearby.

Ele looked up to see Sal standing near her. Ele had landed on the lawn between the house and the neighbor’s wall that she had leapt over. Sal was standing on the wall about ten paces above her. Sal was looking at his mother as she talked.

“After the revolution, I tracked down each of them. I was going to offer them a place with our people, but each of them reminded me of the men who used me when I was a slave. They spat at me when I told them we were G’Aeris. You don’t spit at a God!” Ve yelled at Sal, who stood silently on the wall looking directly at her. “I killed them and the families they were with and swore that no matter what the cost, no one else would live through what we lived through before the revolution.”

Sal still did not speak to his mother. He did pull a ball and chain from his leg pouch. He started spinning the ball around in fast circles while allowing more chain out. Ele was briefly mesmerized by the reddish-tinted chain as it spun around. Soon he had it spinning in a giant circle in front of him. Ele felt her hair raise as power was being channeled. A flash of lightning flew across the yard and went straight toward the ball at the end of the chain. With her goggles still on, she wasn’t completely blinded by the flash. The eye that wasn’t as filtered did have an after-image on it, but she was able to see the ball on the chain glowing as it got closer to her.

She was getting closer to the chain. The spinning chain had distracted her, and Sal had a small rod in his other hand. Ele could tell he was channeling his energy into it to generate a powerful magnetic field—powerful enough to pull on the metal bar in her corset and lift her off the ground. Across the yard, some pots were slowly tumbling towards Sal.

“I joined the Pax Electricia to get free from you. Once I was there, I learned something,” Sal said as he kept spinning the chain and started floating a little in the air. Ele has pulled up the wall and hovered there for a moment. From the top of the wall, she saw a carriage on the other side about fifty paces away from the wall. The carriage was also slowly being pulled towards Sal as some metal was within its materials. “I learned how to fight back.”

As another lightning bolt flew to be absorbed in the spinning chain, Sal made his field flicker a couple of times so Ele started lowering to the ground. She reached out with a hand and pushed against the wall so she would land on the side away from her house. Once she was on the ground, Tony ran towards her and started pulling her towards the carriage. “AAAAH!!!” Ele cried out in pain as Tony did not realize her leg was broken. She tried to give some lift, but her quan wasn’t coming, or it wasn’t enough to make a field worth lifting anything.

Sal brought his field back up with more power behind it. Ele could tell as she felt herself dragged back towards him even with Tony holding onto her. Ele started pulling her shirt upwards, much to the surprise of Tony. “The small of my back, there is a metal rod there. Pull it out!” she yelled at Tony. He quickly reached around and felt the rod. Once his hand was on it he pulled on it but couldn’t get a good grip. He pulled at the various cords and knots tied back there, but they were not budging.

“Bend over, let Sal’s field pull it out!” Tony said and he helped Ele by holding her hands and him sitting on the ground. The rod was being pulled with such a great force that Ele’s back was lifted up towards Sal. A second later, threads tore, and the rod flew out of the corset. Ele fell to the ground with a thump and a scream as she landed on her injured leg.

When Tony rolled Ele off of him they both sat on the ground momentarily and watched Sal. Through the use of multiple fields, Sal pulled metallic objects towards him in the air. His flickering ability allowed him to pull something towards him at an angle, and then he would drop the field so the object would fly towards Ve. Occasionally Ve would throw a lightning bolt at Sal but they were mostly absorbed and used to power another field. Ele could see whenever Ve powered a field of her own as the spinning ball would pull forward occasionally, and then an object or lightning bolt would fly towards Sal.

“The plan was we leave,” Tony stated as he returned to his feet and helped Ele up. They moved to the carriage and Tony helped Ele get in the driver’s seat. Tony climbed in beside her. Once they were in, he turned and whistled at Sal. Once Sal heard the whistle, he dropped his fields and fell on this side of the wall. Gracefully he rolled on the ground and ran towards them.

“Let’s move!” Sal yelled as he hopped onto the back. Tony commanded the horses to move, and Ele could see them trying to pull the carriage, but it wasn’t moving. She turned and looked behind them to see a frightening sight.

Ve floated over the wall surrounded by a field of floating metal objects. Even while Ve was a good fifty paces away she was able to generate a field that pulled the carriage towards her. Sal’s chain spun in a cone shape in front of Sal. A noticeable pulse of Ve’s field happened, and the horse moved the carriage forward a step. This jerked Ele, and she turned to look forward. Seeing no progress, she turned back around to look at Ve. Behind Ve, flying through the air, was another carriage, luckily with no horses attached to it. The carriage flew in a graceful arc that appeared to be aimed straight at them.

Ele tried to dive off the carriage but the pain in her leg slowed her down. Tony grabbed her arm and leapt off the side of the carriage, pulling her in with him. The pain in her shoulder was nothing compared to the landing on the ground next to the carriage. The fall would have hurt more if she had not landed upon Tony. Sal powered a field and flew upwards and towards Ve. Ele’s view was of the street, and she could see carriages passing by, struggling with the field Ve was generating.

As Sal flew upwards, he kept making his field stronger and stronger. This forced the flying carriage to alter its course straight towards him. The carriage under Sal was also being pulled upwards towards Sal but the weight of the horses held it down. As the carriage was getting ready to impact Ele could almost see the pulse and change of direction Sal was trying for by the movement of the ball and chain he was still holding. With her goggles on a flash of white light blocked out Ele’s light of sight to Sal. With his focus on the flying carriage Sal did not move in time to avoid a lightning bolt. The place where he had been was now occupied by a carriage that crashed to the ground.

“NOOOO!” Ele screamed as she sat up and looked at Ve. The pain in her leg and shoulder flared but Ele held out her hands and called upon all the quan she could muster. The edges of her vision grew fuzzy. A small lightning bolt flew out and was deflected by a flying pot. The bolt changed course some and hit Ve on her right shoulder. Ve wide eyed and open mouthed turned to look at her burnt shoulder and she wavered before dipping below the wall out of sight. Ele tried crawling over to the carriage that crushed Sal but she was being dragged backwards. Tony not caring about the pain he was causing her, dragged her by her legs back to the carriage. Pain and exhaustion overwhelmed Ele and she fell unconscious.