The Gemini Age: Book One

[17-1] Stand as One - Part One

    Pain was nothing new. Pain was just pain. Skye had suffered it many times in the last few days alone and not one of those times had stopped her moving forward, no matter how intense or humiliating the experience had been. If she focused her mind, she could move through the pain that bolted through her body to what lay beyond it.

    What lay beyond the pain was power. Each shot of agony surfed through her body on waves of raw, untethered energy, brighter and more potent than most of the magical material that hung in the air. It was powerful, and it flooded into her body with such speed that it threatened to overwhelm her weakened mind if she tried to think about it.

    Trigger still laughed. Don't let him, she told herself.

    She did not need to think. She needed to do.

    It hurt to remove her arm from her side and raise it at Trigger, but seeing the joy wipe from his face in an instant made the discomfort worthwhile. "What're ye doin', sprog?" he said, fumbling around his belt.

    Skye stood up as straight as she could and grunted when she tried to smile. "Winning," she spat.

    The lightning bolt leapt from her hand without a shred of warning, darting through the air in a spiral of fire before striking Trigger's chest. The Nomad had no chance to cry, let alone move out of the way, and the smoke that poured from his body as he fell down confirmed he would be staying down. Striding into the middle of the road, Skye regained control of her body and magic and began to feel the pain in her side again. Each shot of suffering brought sparks to her fingertips, a sure sign that she had more energy to vent.

    Engines grunted further down the road, and Skye looked up to see a convoy of black SUVs and vans. The sight of such a dense group of vehicles driving through a crisis zone towards the heart of a city siege all but confirmed Skye's initial suspicion that they were enemy soldiers, Nomads rallying to a call from Trigger. She smiled. They had perfect timing.

    Lightning flew down the road, thunder cracked through the sky, and heat reigned in the air before any of the faces inside the vehicles were visible to her. Her lungs burned with every lash of lightning and, as soon as one stream of electricity ceased, energy hammered at her extremities to release the leash once more. It took all Skye's concentration to stay awake and on her feet, and she barely noticed the people tumbling into the road before their vehicles disappeared into columns of smoke and fire.

    The second convoy followed right behind the first, unaware it stood even less of a chance of survival than its predecessor. Skye swung her arm towards the vehicles and let the lightning fire away, the jagged bolts flashing off the dust-flecked windows of the surrounding buildings. Electricity coiled around her arm and lashed out with rogue branches, swinging closer to her face with every second she channelled the energy in one continuous stream. When the last vehicle spun out in a fireball, a sense of satisfaction masked the growing pain in her head.

    Her relief vanished as quickly as it came. She was done, yet the lightning still whipped from her fingertips with mounting enthusiasm. The more she fought against it, the further the winding coils crept up her arm until they engulfed her shoulder and seized control of her limb. Skye watched in horror as her aim lunged wherever the lightning demanded it go, striking through buildings and vehicles alike, deafening her with the constant clamour of thunder it called to the earth. She could no longer feel the rest of her body.

    Defiant, Skye tried again to cut off the energy. With her teeth grinding, she attempted to force her muscles to relax and sever the path of lightning through her body. It took less than a second for the energy to retaliate, and the sudden grip of heat around her arm evicted every thought from her mind to leave behind the castoff feeling of helplessness. Her skin screamed as it burned, and her glove smouldered before it split apart with the sheer force of energy and tumbled to the ground in charred tatters.