Specials

Chapter 23- The End?

Chameleon awoke, again, chained to something. Fear shot through her, before she calmed herself by looking around. All the rest of her team was around her, opening eyes and looking around groggily. Except for Kia, who still just slumped there, like a pale, lifeless doll.

"Ah, finally, finally awake!" The Undertaker swooped (literally swooped, his huge black robe made for impressive entrances) back into the room. "Are you ready to make history and grant me ultimate power?"

"No!" Angel spat at him, straining rebelliously against the chains that bound them, like Chameleon, spread out on the wall. Utterly defenseless. But at least Angel still had spirit. Unlike Chameleon, who was pretty sure that right now she would do anything to get out of this stupid position that she found herself in again.

"Well TOO BAD!" The Undertaker yelled, "You're going to be my powersource whether you like it or not!" He stepped across the room to a handle on the wall, then pulled it out. From the wall wheeled a huge, cone-shaped machine that bore a slight resemblance to a telescope. The Undertaker adjusted the black metal machine so that the smaller end was pointed Kia, while the other was pointed at himself.

"Since she's already dead, I'll give you all a quick demonstration. Of course, live victims are preferred, but I still should be able to get a good power surge out of her," The Undertaker grinned, turning a crank on the machine. As he turned, a loud humming noise filled the room, and Chameleon could feel the walls and floors vibrating underneath her. The noise reached a climax so loud that Chameleon couldn't even hear her own shouting, and then a strange thing happened. From Kia, a mysterious silver substance began flowing out of her. It appeared as insubstantial as a mist, and it was floating right up into the smaller end of the machine. As it came back out the other side, now seeming slightly more substantial, it covered The Undertaker head to toe, slowly seeping into his body. At last, the substance stopped coming from Kia, and the machine got quieter and quieter until it hummed to a stop. The Undertaker slowly blinked his eyes, which were now a brilliant silver, as a slow smile spread across his face.

"You see," he began, in a voice that seemed to echo slightly, "Now I have all the advantages of her powers, without the disadvantages such as being pulled into the spirit realm when hurt." The Undertaker drifted slowly through his own machine as a demonstration. He then turned and looked at the rest of the group.

"Who wants to go next?"

*

The whole time The Undertaker had been talking, Angel had been watching Jania get angrier and angrier. Her slim face contorted in rage, cuffed hands curling over and over again into fists, fingernails biting into her own palms. Angel was pretty sure they had said Jania was a hero, but this seemed to be anger greater than any villain-like Angel-who was fueled by anger to do the deeds that they needed to do. Angel had been trying to determine exactly what had happened to make her so angry, when suddenly Jania's bubble of anger exploded.

"STOP HURTING THE PLANTS!" Jania screamed.

"What?" The Undertaker, along with all the other teammates said.

"Can't you feel it? That humming noise- the machine was leeching life from the forest around here! Al- The Undertaker uses life magic, but reversed, and he somehow figured out how to put into a machine." 

"Oh, you figured it out, didn't you," The Undertaker grinned, "Does that bother you?"

"YES!" Jania yelled viciously.

"Aahh- the greatest irony... a machine that runs on life essence being used to extract the magic from a life magic user!" The Undertaker laughed, pointing the machine at Jania. As it hummed, a greenish mist started hovering out of Jania's chest. Jania screamed with every ounce of her being, and the greenish mist, instead of being sucked into the machine, dispersed into the room. As it made contact with the room, greenery began to bloom. A tree shot up from the ground explosively, splitting the stones that made up the floor. A similar thing happened with bushes and crawling vines. Nettles wrapped themselves around The Undertaker's ankles.

"What the-?" The Undertaker stammered. Jania continued screaming, and plants continued filling up the room. Vines and flowers wormed their way into the chains that bound the team, shattering them so that they were free. But there wasn't much left to do other than watch Jania do her thing, and to watch plants fill up the room. As Angel watched, Jania seemed visibly changed. Starting from her feet, a black dust spiraled up her legs, to her arms, reaching up to her neck. Finally, The Undertaker's machine shut off as plants infiltrated it and stopped its gears.

"Oh, dear," The Undertaker said softly, as nettles continued climbing slowly up his body, "It seems like I've lost." Then, he flashed an electronic blue, then blinked out of existence. The team had won. But it didn't feel like it. Everyone remembered that they could move, and ran to Jania's side. The black dust had continued slipping up into her face, and now almost reached the top of her head.

"Jania! Are you okay?!" Angel asked. Jania only made a soft crying noise.

"Angel... She uses life magic. In exchange for all this new life that she's created, she gave up all of her own. She's dying," Dawn said softly.

"NO!" Angel felt the familiar boiling anger that came before outbursts of power, before Angel realized that there was nothing left to kill. You could not defeat death itself.

And slowly, Angel felt their vision darkening, until the world went dark.

The Games were over.