The Cloak Guard

The Sculptor, Part 6

Eustace watched as the seven people confronted him, or the Sculptor, and felt a swell of fear. He desperately wanted them to stop him and the Sculptor, but he'd seen them fight, seen what they could do. He didn't think they'd last very long against the Sculptor.

He suddenly felt a slight pang in his chest. A stroke of fear.

But, that wasn't him.

If he could breathe on his own, he would have inhaled sharply. The Sculptor was afraid. Of them. But why? What about them...

The past few battles flashed across Eustace's mind. He had seen the Sculptor send powerful forces against all seven of them but he'd never really entered the fray himself. Eustace had thought it was because he hadn't needed to, that he thought his formations were enough. But...was it possible that...

He felt it again. The fear, along with something else. It was like part of him was slipping away. He'd felt it before, whenever Travis had shot his body with lightning or when Gabriela had struck with that bomb blast. That some part of him was vanishing. And now he knew what it was.

His power. The Sculptor's power was draining away. He'd said that he wanted to take these guys' power for himself but it wasn't to make him stronger, but to make him strong enough. For some reason, these guys were his weakness.

Which meant they were the only ones who could beat him.

"So you figured it out," he heard the Sculptor say. "Too bad. It's over now. There's nothing they can do to stop me. They'll never be able to finish the job."

Eustace would have flinched if he could. To finish the job...was to kill him. It was the only way. And Eustace felt he deserved it. He'd unleashed this monster on the world, letting him kill who knew how many down there as well as his own father. If he had to die to beat him, so be it.

Please guys, he thought desperately. I don't have anything to live for anyway. So just end it.

"Alright, so how do we do this?" Franklin asked.

"As a team," Travis replied, already prepping himself. The instant the others arrived, he'd felt their connection, his power reaching out for theirs. Now, he let it out and six bolts of yellow light shot from him, striking each one of them in turn. Once they did, light bloomed from their chests and reached out to the others as well until they were all connected by a spider-web of light. An instant later, they were back in their uniforms from the school battle. Travis in yellow with his own insignia of a cloud and lightning bolt in the shape of a T on it, Franklin in green, Madison in blue, Gabriela in orange, Sumin in indigo, Emily in violet, and Luke in red.

"Really Travis?" Franklin asked, giving him a look.

"What? You have to admit, it completes the moment."

"What moment?"

"This moment. Right here."

"These things are really comfortable," Emily said, stretching her costume out. "Flexible too."

"Little too flashy for my taste."

"We're gonna die," Luke said dryly.

"If we don't focus up, we will die so let's please do that," Gabriela said. "The focus bit, not the die bit, obviously."

"Take down the Sculptor, save Eustace, save the world," Sumin said.

"Cloak Guard," the Sculptor said, snapping them out of their musings. He was snarling at them though Travis thought for a second that he heard something else when he spoke. And judging by Sumin and Gabriela's expressions, he wasn't the only one. "You think some silly costumes will change your fate. All it does is makes me want to kill you more. You think just because you dress the same as your predecessors makes you like them? They were some of the greatest warriors this world and many others had ever seen. You are pack of children with no clue as to what you're facing." He raised his hands and the wind began billowing around him, forming a funnel cloud. Lightning flashed and rain came down, except the water seemed to be steaming. The diamond tentacles rose up and the balls of nitrogen coalesced in more monstrous forms. "I was trapped by them for decades upon decades, lost in the endless expanse of space with no hope to return! I have waited so long for my destiny, to fulfill my purpose. And you will not stop me! I will destroy you all, no matter what it takes!"