After All This Time

Chapter Forty-Two

Everyone was looking towards the stairs, but I didn't know at what.

"We're a little busy here, Grace." I heard Luther call.

Then slowly, everyone started walking towards her, Diego asked, "What are you talking about?"

I still couldn't hear her over the Kugelblitz, but I had to shut her out and focus on the paradox in front of me. A few more seconds passed by, and then an explosion of fire came from down the hall, spraying everywhere, and at everyone.

"Shit!" Diego and Luther yelled together as they dove away from the flames. Sloane, Lila, Viktor and I all looked at the bursting flames, Sloane was the closest to it, but she couldn't move away from it or else she could be sucked into the Kugelblitz. The fire was continuously being enflamed in the hallway, so Grace didn't just make a cocktail molotov, Grace got a goddamn flamethrower. Fei and Allison hid behind a brick wall as Grace shot the fuel towards them. We all turned our attention back to the Kugelblitz before any of us messed things up, hoping that someone else would handle her.

Grace started shouting in a robotic voice, in some kind of worshiping way of speaking, "The day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption hath come."

Just as Luther started to peak his head around the corner again, Grace turned to him and nearly set his head on fire, "Shit!" He dove back into the corner.

Sloane, Viktor, and Lila started working faster. Condensing the Kugelblitz much more quickly than before. I had to be very careful, but at the rate that they were doing this, I had to speed up my process. I started conjoining each blackhole into another, making two of them 1, doing this with all of them at once, while keeping their pulse at a steady and slower rate. I did it once, 15,000 black holes turning into only 7,500 in 3 seconds, then fusing them together again with one another, making it 3,750. But they were each getting bigger the more that I fused them, so by the end, there would be one black hole that Sloane would condense down, which would be difficult. But I was quickly reducing the amount of bees in the hive to help them, but there would be one angry hornet in the end.

Diego called to her, "Hey, Mom, Mom, Mom!" Grace stopped shooting flaming gas and looked at Diego, "It's Diego. Don't make us hurt you."

"The day of vengeance was in my heart..." She pulled up the flamethrower and shot it at Diego, catching his shoulder on fire, but he jumped behind a brick wall, "...and my year of redemption hath come!"

Lila was looking at the flames behind her, worried about Diego, but we could all feel her power being lost.

"Lila, I need you." Sloane said to her.

Lila glowed white and blue even more than when she started, both sides of my nose were dripping blood onto the ground, the Kugelblitz was getting smaller, and everyone was struggling. Then out of nowhere, the flames stopped and Grace disappeared. I didn't know how, but I couldn't think about that right now. I had been reducing the Kugelblitz's black holes at a rapid rate, I had joined them together so much that there were only around 234 of them left, the paradox the size of a basketball. I didn't have many to join together left, but it was exhausting. My breaths became heavy, and my eyes started watering from how much energy I was putting into it. But we were almost there, I licked the blood off of my lips and pushed through.

"Christopher, now!" Sloane shouted at him.

Christopher floated down from the ceiling and completely took himself apart into small triangular prisms and then floating the different pieces of himself around the force field of the Kugelblitz. All of us started shaking, Sloane was struggling to keep herself in the air and condense the paradox, Viktor and Lila were shaking from putting so much force and pressure around the Kugelblitz, and I was fighting to morph the last 30 black holes, while still trying to reduce their pulse. Luther, Ben, and Diego all started to come around and watch the Kugelblitz that was around the size of a softball, as Christopher slowly closed in on it, getting ready to trap it. Viktor was still mildly straining, but it had gotten much easier for Sloane and Lila, unlike me. I pushed together 15 of the bees together, and then again, having 7 of them now. I morphed 3 of them together as the paradox became the size of a tennis ball, and Christopher started closing around it. My legs started shaking, and tears were rolling down my face as I pushed through, but we had to get this done soon because I was starting to get light headed. I softly wailed as I pushed 2 more black holes together, and then the other set of them. There were only two bees left, I strained as I pushed both of my hands together, like I was holding each of them in my hands, and pushed as hard and softly as I could. And then finally, I made it into one. Sloane, Viktor and Lila quickly made it small enough, while I only had to focus on the rate that it was going. And then the Kugelblitz was the size of a jellybean, Christopher formed and fixed his body around it, and the glow throughout the room faded, the only light being Christopher. The glow from Sloane's hands stopped, and Viktor and Lila's did as well as they put their hands to their knees and started panting. I dropped to my knees, breathless and began to catch my breath, and I looked up at Christopher, and the glowing blue light inside of him. Allison walked towards the glowing cube slowly and stood in front of it like everyone else did.