Official Report
3412 Abby Ln
Tondzaosha, Idaho
The sorceress’s staff glowed a brilliant florescent violet, and a great lightning bolt thundered into the agent’s shield.
Power crackled, sizzling against Amy’s barrier, and she set her jaw, grunting against the strain. Light cascaded all around her, pulsating and throbbing into her shield. The agent let out a piercing scream. Tears streaked her face and Amelia looked away, the illumination growing too intense.
‘You are not alone,’ A voice whispered in Amelia’s ear. ‘You have the power to defeat her. Like me, she is but a shadow, an imprint of her true self. Your cause is just, your will is righteous, yours is the greater power.’
“Ashtar,” Amelia whispered the name, heart pounding in her chest. She squared her jaw and swung back to the sorceress.
The light, like everything else, was an illusion. It could only blind her if she let it. She blinked and the illumination dulled to a soft glow.
A smile touched the agent’s lips, and she pushed out, hands joined. Her shield burst out, and a sweeping wall of energy cascaded across the pavement and struck the sorceress.
Leoffa crossed both arms over her face, staff, held in the crook of her arms, glowing a brilliant violet, as the attack swept over her. Her feet slid across the blacktop and her hair whipped back behind her shoulders, but she planted the weapon in the asphalt and anchored herself in place.
Before her first attack had abated, brilliant white bolts of energy burst out from the Agent’s hands. Leoffa howled, raised her staff, sending out her own blasts of power rushing to meet them. The projectile lights slammed into each other with a powerful concussive detonation that rippled out in every direction.
Energy fizzled through the air, searing into the forms of the fallen children, and each dissolved into nothingness with a loud agonizing shriek. Amelia winced, but blocked the images out of her mind, reminding herself that they were just illusions.
She risked sneaking a glance back at her brother. He was watching the entire confrontation, his child’s eyes wide and face expressionless.
‘Come on, Brian.’ She thought, willing him to do something, anything to help himself, but he didn’t even so much as bat an eyelash.
Amelia peered back in time to catch the sorceress sending another blast whizzing out from her staff, but Amelia grabbed it out of the air and tossed it over her shoulder.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.” The agent moved forward, stepping through the children’s ashes.
Leoffa smiled, a spark of malicious glee alight in her eyes. “Oh, I’m just getting warmed up.”
Amelia dropped her fists, both of them coming alight with a brilliant white luminescence. “Bring it, bitch.”
Leoffa brought her staff up, slamming it into the blacktop with so much force cracks appeared, stretching in ever lengthening lines. The ground rumbled and Amelia hurtled forward, flying toward her opponent, but a shape rose from asphalt hurtling toward her, forcing the agent to dive away.
An arm protruded from the ground, formed of concrete and stone, its fingers curled into a fist and pounded into the ground in the agent’s wake. Heedless of the danger, Brian’s child form stared into space, wide-eyed and unmoving. Amelia dove toward him, throwing up a shield around them both when she was close enough.
A massive fist came down on the barrier, and Amelia clutched her brother tight, gritting her teeth against the pressure. “Brian, please,” she pleaded. “This will never end if you don’t help yourself.”
He did not reply, and Amy spun back around as the fist again impacted her shield. She spread her hands. A wave of force rippled out and sent the giant hand careening away. She hurled bolts of energy after it, blasting away at it, marring its surface with cracks and fissures.
Thunder crackled in the sky above and Amy glanced up just as a bolt of lightning crashed into her protective barrier. Blinding bright light filled her vision, and her shield shattered, the resulting concussive shock wave sent her soaring away. She blinked away the light, as she had the last time, but by then it was already too late. The giant fist hurtled into her and she tumbled to the ground, collapsing in a heap of broken bones, mangled flesh and shards of asphalt and rock.
Time slowed, and though the agent tasted blood in her mouth, she forced herself to move. She told herself that it was all an illusion, a trick of the mind, but it did nothing to lessen her pain or mend her broken body. She pushed herself up, shrieking in agony and groaning in pain with each movement, but somehow she climbed back to her feet.
Leoffa was waiting.
The sorceress lifted her foci. A gust of wind blasted into the agent. Amy brought her arm’s up to ward off the attack, but she didn’t act soon enough. The blast of air caught the Agent square in the chest and sent her hurdling over the ground and into the brick wall of the school building.
Light shot out from Leoffa’s staff and fragments of the blacktop rose and shot toward the agent, molding and shaping around her torso, arms and legs. Amy clenched her teeth, bursts of energy sizzling out from her fists, but each attempt to blast away the asphalt only proved more futile than the last. Every clump she sent hurtling away was replaced by two more. Before long, her body was covered.
“Well, I was hoping for more of a fight,” Leoffa’s lithe form stepped forward. “But I suppose it doesn’t matter. In the end, victory was all but assured.”
The sorceress hoisted her staff, and light pulsated from within the gem. She tipped it forward, and a beam shot out, and blasted into Amelia with brilliant violet intensity.
Time slowed to a crawl, and a piercing cry rang out. Amy’s head throbbed, and she felt a heaviness fall over her eyelids. She struggled to fight it, but it felt so… wonderful. She could just let everything go and all her worries, all her troubles would just float away. The purple luminescence burned even brighter and her eyelids drooped closed. A plaintive sigh escaped her lips. Sleep, she needed to sleep.
“Let her go!” A voice called out and Amelia’s eyes snapped back open.
Brian stood facing the sorceress, fists clenched at his side, jaw set and the fire of defiance burning in his eyes. He no longer wore a child’s face or body, but his adult frame.
“Well.” Leoffa’s face stretched into a grin. “Look who’s come out to play, at last.”
The beam of light redirected, slamming into Brian, its energy crackling and growing more intense. The younger Van den Broeke, crossed his arms across his face as if to shield himself and by some miracle, it seemed to work. A shimmering dome of energy surrounded him and the light slammed into the surface with a massive burst of illumination.
“Of course,” Amelia whispered, realization dawning on her. This was Brian’s mind, whether he had powers in the actual world was immaterial. The only limits here were those he placed upon himself. Amelia realized the same held true for herself.
A Telekinetic wave surged out from the agent, the asphalt which encased her limbs and body shattered to dust raining down on the pavement below. She hovered in the air for a second, then she dove feet first, soaring toward the sorceress who had all her attention focused on her younger sibling.
At the last minute, Leoffa spun around, but not in time to defend herself. Amelia’s attack struck her opponent and sent her reeling away. The sorceress planted her staff and righted herself, sending a blast of sizzling energy at brother and sister, but Amy batted the bolt of power away and Brian’s shield absorbed it with barely any effort.
Amelia threw her hands out and Leoffa’s slender frame shot into the air, her staff falling from stiff fingers, and clattered into the pavement with a dull thud. Brother and sister met one another’s gazes, Brian nodded and Amy pulled her arms back, before throwing them out again. The sorceress rocketed toward the oak doorway, her arms windmilling through the empty air.
She shot through the opening, but she whipped a hand out, grasping hold of the wood with such ferocity her fingernails scratched the varnish. Leoffa gritted her teeth and threw her second arm out, leveraging herself enough that she had begun to pull herself free.
For a moment it seemed as if she might make it, but then Brian stepped forward, threw his palms out and Leoffa hurtled back into the opening. The door slammed shut, and her shrieks of rage could be heard muffled through the door. It rattled as if struck by a pair of massive fists, but remained closed.
A heavy chain and padlock appeared in Brian’s hands. He hurled them across the playground and the chain struck, wrapping around the doorway three times before the padlock closed with an audible clack.
Brian turned back to Amelia, threw his arms around his elder sibling and wept. The playground faded into darkness and the next thing Amelia knew they were back in the real world, Brian’s arms around her, openly weeping. Tears of her own stained her cheeks and she clung to him tight. At last, she had her brother back.
