Rising Shards

Oka whimpered on the ground, clutching either her neck or the side of her jaw, I couldn’t tell. I stood frozen in terror as Jeans looked down at what she’d done.

“No…no way…” I said. I shook my head because I didn’t have time to be panic-frozen and rushed to Oka’s side.

“I’m…I’m…” Oka whispered. I gently moved her hand to see a gash across her jaw, thankfully not her neck. It looked bad, but it didn’t look fatal. I helped her hold her wrist cloth to her wound. “I’m alright…”

I rose, feeling something brewing inside me that I couldn’t put away. My trembling hands turned to fists as I turned to Jeans.

“Zeta, I can explain,” Jeans said. “This wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t get so mad. You know how you getting mad hurts me so much—"

“SHUT UP!” I yelled. “I’m so sick of you telling me all this is my fault!”

“Don’t talk to me like that.” Jeans said. “You’re changing again.”

“No, just stop. Talking!" I screamed. "No more. You keep twisting this. You keep turning this into a brick wall. You keep saying I built it. But you did.” I pointed at her, with more malice than I had ever put into pointing.

“Zeta, please. Stop this.” Jeans said.

“I was happy before you did this to me! I used to not be so scared! But you couldn’t have that, could you?”

“You’re sounding crazy.” Jeans said. “I need you to calm down because you’re really freaking me out. I told you how much it hurts when you get angry.”

“But I got better,” I said. “In spite of everything you did to me, I got better, and I made new friends. I have a new girlfriend, who’s the kindest, nicest person I’ve ever met, and you just tried to murder her. And you’re trying to say it’s MY FAULT?”

“Zeta, you’re doing it again,” Jeans said. “You’re hurting me. I thought I was your best friend.”

“I hate this. I hate this so much,” I said. I picked my bloodsaber up.

“It won’t work,” Jeans said. “I broke the blood collector. It’s over, Zeta. I know you’re not strong enough to beat me with a puddle of a rainstorm. Even if you broke your own skin, there's no way you could get the blood to drip right to work with it, either. I know you're not strong enough to harm yourself like that, either.”

I started stabbing the sword on the ground, sounding like mad babbles as I screamed at the sword, desperately trying to get the spot where the cord and blood collector once was to somehow prick my fingertip. I scratched and clawed at it, feeling like my deepest, most feral Cani side had taken over.

“I can’t believe you’d to stab me in the heart like that,” Jeans said quietly, using her sad voice that always made me feel like everything was my fault. “I thought you loved me.”

My head whipped up, and I felt pure rage as I looked at her.

“I. Don’t. LOVE YOU!” I yelled. “I love Oka, and I’ll always love Oka, and—” I froze. My nose was warm. 

A familiar kind of warm. 

My nose had started to bleed.

I stared at Jeans, who looked as shocked as I felt.

“Zeta, don’t.” She held a hand up, but any feeble attempt she could make at that moment was too late.

I held my bloodsaber up near my nose and let blood drop into it. I didn’t know if this would work, but it was all I had left.

I felt crackling energy in the air. Static bolts flickered around. I felt it within me. The blood from my nose ignited my bloodsaber.

“This is worse than anything anyone’s ever done to me, and if you don’t stop right now—"

I was done listening to her. Before she could finish another sentence, I instinctively aimed my bloodsaber at her, feeling a massive blast of energy come from my hands through the blade. Jeans wasn’t prepared for the storms I rocketed towards her.

Jeans fell back, trying to hold onto her strong expression. Another lance of lightning shot from my hands and struck her, knocking her down again. I saw her sneer falter. She struck back, launching sparks my way from her sword.

“Do you really think you have a chance?” Jeans said. “Do you know how strong I really am? You can’t beat me alone.”

“She’s not alone!” Oka yelled. She had gotten to her feet, holding a healing plant she’d conjured to the wound near her neck. I couldn’t help a moment of massive relief that she wasn’t severely hurt, or worse. She gripped her bloodsaber in her other hand and joined my side.

“You change nothing,” Jeans said. “I’m still thousands of times stronger than both of you.”

“Shut up already!” Oka yelled. “You can’t win. You’ll never win.”

Oka and I blasted everything we had at Jeans, and our powers, rain, lighting, wind, plants, all barreled down towards her like missiles. She tried to dodge, but there were too many. I saw the fear in her eyes of knowing that. They smashed against her, rocking her head back and forth, then hitting every part of her body. She tried to stay grounded, but we were too much.

Jeans recovered quickly and sped around us, trying to hit us with her Elka infested sword. We each covered for each other, barely stopping her or pulling the other out of the way. Jeans frustration at us not being easy targets set in, and she stumbled more than once. She drew down pieces of armor to cover herself, but we knocked them off as they attached to her and blocked her blade as well as we could with our own bloodsabers.