ShadowSong [Book 1 & 2: Complete] [NaNoWriMo16/17]

Chapter 36 - Mercy

Super long chapter. Buckle up cupcakes.

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Banshee hated being weak.

She hated the way Andrew helped hold her up. She hated the way her legs were shaking, the way the shadows seemed to slip away from her. She hated the way she couldn't shift into them, like they didn't recognise her.

Most of all, she hated feeling like every seizure she'd ever escaped as Olivia by transforming into Banshee had finally caught up with her. She felt like she was once again in nothing but Ericka's costume, waking up, disoriented and knowing deep down that she'd screwed up.

Because minutes after the effect of Melissa's gun had worn off, Banshee's strength hadn't returned. Her body still trembled, recovering like it'd been Olivia who'd taken the blast, not Banshee. She couldn't shake it off.

With her lack of resilience and the way the shadows still ignored her, there was only one conclusion Banshee could reach: her transformation might look in tact, but right now, she didn't have access to any of the powers that made her a Luminary.

Some instinct buried deep in her gut knew she was right--and that only made the fight below even harder to watch.

With Andrew having helped her out of the tree and onto one of the wide, starstone bridges linking the rooftops together, Banshee's view of the battle between Ella and Melissa's Manifested forms was perfectly, frustratingly clear. Ella stood with her arms folded, calm and content to let the seven spirit heads of varying sprouting from her back to fight the battle. Only one refrained from the fight, the longest and thickest of them all. That one coiled around Ella's body, shielding her from the blasts of sunlight that Melissa's guns unleashed.

The other six lunged and snapped at Melissa without pause. Despite her armour, she dodged them with surprising agility. She knocked them away with the butt of her guns, struggling for every centimetre of ground against Ella that she gained. Melissa's guns were powerful, but that was exactly the problem. Every time she blasted one of Ella's spirit heads with perfect accuracy, it would be destroyed and two more would take its place.

Melissa had realised as much and taken to physical hits to fend off the heads, but even for a Manifested of this calibre, six attackers was too much. Every minute or so, Ella would force Melissa into blasting a head, and though the flash of daylight would buy her a moment of reprieve, a few heartbeats later, her vanquished foe had doubled.

Yet another flash of daylight erupted through the night. Ella's spirit heads now numbered eight as it reformed at twice the strength. Melissa seemed to gain a metre or so from it, but almost immediately began to lose ground again.

Banshee's grip must have tightened on Andrew's as he helped her along, because a moment later, he spoke a single word.

"Don't."

Ella spread her arms wide, her forearms and hands extending past her shield of white-blue spirit-head energy. "What's wrong, little miss justice? Can't seem to find your mark? Or is it that there's just too many?"

"Your tricks will not save you!" declared Melissa's Manifested. "Once you have received a fitting punishment for your crimes, the Luminary you protect will be next!"

"See," said Ella, coiling spirit energy around her hand to form the vague shape of a gun. She stretched it out, making an exaggerated movement out of aiming towards Melissa. "That would require you actually getting past me first."

And on they fought--or rather, Melissa fought, while Ella just watched on and laughed.

Banshee grit her teeth. She'd defended Manifested against angry, terrified crowds before, but never had she felt the need to help them take down the object of their focus. Ella had been ready to give up her fragment before Melissa's arrival, she was sure of it. But now... now she was completely drunk on the Other's power.