Awakening Part 2: Promised Ones

What Jayde first saw as nothing turned out to be something. Just, a really big something. A giant black mass stood in front of her, towering. It had no discernable shape, just a large head, and a face that she guessed was supposed to resemble a human's. In reality, it looked like someone took a human face, mutilated it, then tried to stitch it back together. The hulking mass moved slowly, as if encumbered by it's own weight. Soon Jayde realised it was moving in one direction, and it was moving toward Johnny.

Johnny lay on his side, struggling to get back up. He had most of his weight propped up on his arms, his head looking straight up at the mangled face of the black mass. He looked like hell. His hair was everywhere, and he had mud all along on side of his face. His lip was bleeding and his arm was scraped and bleeding on one side. He slowly raised one arm, a blue missile growing feebly in his hand as the black mass moved toward him inexorably.

She saw the whole thing unfold in front of her in slow motion. She had no idea what to do. She wanted to help Johnny but part of her told her he knew what he was doing, yet another part told her to shut up and look at him. She highly doubted it would be affected by anything she could conjure up. As she stood there contemplating, her wall around her emotions weakened and before she knew what was happening a clap of thunder sounded across the sky. She was startled and looked at the now dark sky that had been blue just a moment before. She looked back at Johnny and the mysterious figure, trying to read his face. His concentration wasn't on anything but the black mass, which made sense now that she thought about it. She sighed, frustrated, and decided to do what she could and if everyone hated her for it, then they could kick her out of this stupid mission and send her somewhere else. She looked back up at the sky and the thunder grew louder. Strong gusts of wind started to blow and she directed them at the mass. She could no longer see but somehow she knew what she was doing. Suddenly a bolt of lightning flashes down and strikes the place where the mass was last seen. She had a feeling this wasn't doing anything but it felt good to release her emotions in such a way anyways.

She heard a primal roar through the maelstrom, and she could sense that whatever it was that was in front of her was in pain. And it was pissed. She heard the mass take a giant step toward her, Seemingly forgetting Johnny. What she didn't see is that the bolt of lightning, so infused with her rage, had damned near taken off a third of the mass of the spirit.

She could somehow see more clearly through the storm than anyone would expect, though she felt no wind nor rain so she began to realize she had the power. She was not affected. Despite this fact, she was too ignorant and blind in other ways to notice anything but the looming figure coming toward her. This is good, right? It's away from Johnny. Her head was spinning and it occured to her that the others had seemingly disappeared. She had no time to dwell on it though. As she got more worked up and more frightened, the storm increased drastically. Wind as strong as tornadoes blew, rain was falling in torrents, and thunder roared continuously throughout the sky. Another bolt of lightning came down on the mass as she began to harness her powers and get them under control.

Johnny stayed on the ground, rolling onto his stomach and putting his hands over his head to shield from the maelstrom. As Jayde began to focus her energy on the mass, she began to see a shape some to it. It took on the shape of a man, with a ghastly demonic face. The shape moved slowly, as if encumbered by it's mass. Another bolt came crashing into it, and Jayde saw almost half of the creature get blasted away, the blackness simply fading as it fell off of the creature.

With a snap, the creature reformed, much smaller this time, but also much quicker. It took a second to collect itself, becoming aware of it's size, still about twice the height of Jayde. It's head snapped up, staring straight at her, as it let out a primal scream, jumping at her. It moved much faster than Jayde could have expected.

Its sudden movements surprised her, though with her small size and incredible sharpness that seemed to be part of her focus, she was able to duck and just barely avoided being run over by it. She then blew an incredibly powerful gust of wind into it, giving her enough time and power to concentrate before sending multiple bolts of lightning into the entirety of the mass.

The creature roars inhumanly, seemingly stunned for a second before it shakes it's body, and darts to the side, so quick that Jayde can barely follow it. It's flits around, trying to skirt her vision, before suddenly jumping once again.

She whips her head around, trying to follow its movements but is always a split second too late. As her focus shifts from the storm to following the figure, the storm lightens. She hears the figure behind her but doesn't have time to react quick enough.

The creature darts past her, raking her back with long claws. The claws score her back, leaving long scratches, and tearing her shirt. The creature lands in front of her, and starts to jump again. As the storm lightens, Johnny manages to get to his feet, keeping his eyes on the creature with keen senses.

She cries out in pain. The scratches burn as she falls to the ground. She no longer has the energy to control the storm and it quickly dies. She looks up at the creature, quickly becoming hopeless. Suddenly, on instinct, she focused on the earth's energy and she felt its surging energy running through the ground. She placed her hand flat onto the ground and she immediately felt herself healing. From the ground, she continues to focus the energy, but toward the creature. She imagined gathering it into a big ball of energy and thrusting it toward the mass. The Earth surged and exploded upward where the creature stood, sending it flying backwards, giving Jayde enough time to get up.

The energy slams into the creature, causing it to fly backward, shrieking loudly. It lands on a ground with a thud, stunned for a second. It starts to get up-and gets thrown back down by a blast of ice. Great sheets of ice come up and wrap the creature, holding it in the ground as it shrieks and thrashes, trying to escape fruitlessly. Jayde sees Johnny, his hands glowing a pale blue as he limps toward the captive creature.

She smiles at Johnny, surprising herself with an overwhelming feeling of relief and gratitude. She watches in a sort of amazement as Johnny advances, never having seen any other powers to that extent.

Johnny advances upon the restrained creature, his face a mask of rage and hatred. He walks up to the creature, stanind over it. He raises his hand, a giant ice spike forming above the thing's head. "Fuck." Johnny says. "I can't even think of a great tag line here." Johnny throws his hand down, making the spike impale the creature's head, and it dies, spasming.

She hides a smile as he makes that remark. She watches the creature die and suddenly feels proud of herself. "Nice touch," she comments dryly. She looks Johnny over, noticing his pretty severe wounds. "I could help with those" she adds, a little more to herself than to him.

Johnny waves her off, stumbling up the hill, holding his side. "The others. We have to see if they're ok."

She rolls her eyes at his stupid boy ego that everyone seemed to have. "Whatever." I don't really give a shit about them she can't help but think. They threw her into this, not telling her anything, and disappeared. How kind She reluctantly follows him, her adrenaline dying down. Her usual attitude returning, she resumes hating everyone, realizing breaking down is much less preferable.

As they reach the top of the hill, they see the other running up to them. Jack walking on point, Corey walked behind him, with Alissia in his arms. She looked badly injured, lying limp in Corey's arms. There were scrapes all over her body, her clothes torn. Her face was scratched probbably the worst. She was almost unrecognisable. Jack waved solemnly as he saw them. "We saw you guys dealing with that Devourer. Wish we could have helped, but those waves of Tormented needed our attention." He looked back to Alissia. "It's good to see you both on your feet." He said seriously.

As hard as she told herself she didn't, she cared. She knew this was her reality now and they were all she had. Her reluctance fell away and she walked closer to the group. She asks quietly, "Can you help her?"

Jack merely looked at her with a cold face, then turned away. Corey spoke softly. "It's possible. It's out of our range, though. We need to get her back."

She was watching Jack carefully as she listened to Corey before looking at Alissia. She didn't know what to say, she looked back from Jack to Corey to Alissia and finally rested her gaze at Johnny.

"Let's head back then." Johnny said, and Corey nodded to him. The group gathered around, holding hands as the now familiar sensation of travelling threw Jayde's stomach in knots. They re-appeared in the middle of a forest, with small pine trees all around. Before them was a small cabin, with a single chimney, puffs of smoke rising from it.

She looks around, unsure of where they are. The traveling made her feel weaker than the other times and she stumbled a bit as they landed. "Where are we...?" she mumbles, as if to herself.

Jack, standing right beside her, answered her. "Mother's house." Corey knocked on the door to the house, and the door swung open as if by itself. He walks into the house with Alissia in his arms. Jack turns to Johnny. "You might wanna head in there too, Wolfhound. You don't look too hot." Johnny nods silently, and heads to the cabin as well.

She watches them go in, a concerned look on her face. She hadn't known the severity of anything. It hadn't even been reality until she fought for it. Suddenly, she realized she had been holding onto Jack. For support or for emotional stability, she didn't know. She let go quickly. "Sorry, I didn't.." she cut herself off. Little things like that didn't seem to matter anymore. They all needed support.

Jack merely looks at her and smirks. "Don't apologise kiddo, that one was rough, even for us." He takes a long sigh, scratching his head absently, the long silence stretching out. "So, who were you? Before you got here, I mean." He asks.