Chapter 12
Despite there being no walls in the desert, Lucy, Tabitha and Aminah sure felt like they had their backs up to one.
"I'll tell you what." Diana started casually "Even though I suddenly feel an urge to pummel you all, I wouldn't be able to sleep too well with that on my conscience."
The three girls were tense, Aminah and Lucy were almost shaking, but for different reasons.
"So why don't I just let you leave, and then everyone will be happy" Diana suggested "well, except for the other music class people, but they're down already, so no need to worry."
Diana was actually about to leave the room. Once she had taken care of the other students and teacher, she felt something pulling her towards it in the distance, it felt like some sort of portal or gateway, she assumed it was the way out. Directly after knocking the others out, she no longer had a desire to punch anyone, and felt rather bad for having done something like that without even thinking. Before Diana could leave, however, these three walked in, which for some reason reactivated her intense drive to fight.
"Diana, we need to ask y-" Tabitha began, but was interrupted.
"No!" Aminah cried out "We started this fight, and we're gonna finish it!"
"..." Tabitha looked at her with confusion "Hold on, Aminah, this might be our only chance to-"
"So that's how it's gonna be then, huh?" Diana looked down and placed her hand on her hip "I didn't want it to end like this...well, actually I kind of did."
Aminah cupped some sand in her hands and turned it into an a-4 piece of paper. She rapidly folded it into what appeared to be a paper airplane and threw it in Diana's direction.
The plane approached her rapidly, it was no longer made of paper, in fact it looked identical to the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit that was used during the Cold War by the Americans, just around the size of a paper airplane.
Diana responded by picking up her own clump of sand and cupping it in her left hand. She began to swing her right hand over the pile on her left outwards just like how a rich buffoon might throw money at a strip club while yelling "make it rain".
Just before Diana could complete the motion, the miniature B-2 nosedived straight down.
*BOOM*
The sound of a shotgun came from Diana's hands, and all the sand in her left hand was now in the air, flying at three times the speed of sound. Diana had modified the sound of hand rubbing against sand into that of a bullet going off, effectively turning her 'make it rain' motion into a shotgun.
Though Aminah and the B-2 had expected some manner of direct attack the second Diana picked up the sand, they were not prepared for her to shoot tiny sand particles at supersonic speeds at it.
That being said, the nosedive paid off. Though the B-2 was less than a meter above the ground, it still flew at her at around 5 meters per second and would reach her in less than half a second at this rate. The B-2 prepared its attack
Diana kicked up some sand at the plane. *SHWOOM* it went. Suddenly, there was a 2m tall and 8m wide tsunami between the B-2 and Diana.
It was Aminah's turn now. She dug her right hand into the sand and pulled forwards as hard as she could before slapping the massive clump in her right hand with her left. For a brief second, a piece of paper existed between her hands, and in that moment, Aminah closed both of her hands together to turn the paper into a crumpled up ball. Still crouching down, she removed her left hand and continued the pulling motion with her right.
A baseball flew through the air from Aminah's hand towards the B-2 and the impending tsunami. This may be Aminah's only hope at landing a hit on her. The elaborate plan she had created was thought up of as things went along, Aminah relied purely on her ingenuity and resourcefulness to carry her, but without a doubt, if this attack missed, Diana would attack her, possibly with something even more dangerous than the sand-bullets, with the intent to finish her off. Aminah would not lose her powers again.
The baseball was less than a centimeter above the B-2 and slightly ahead, flying around three times as fast, and the tsunami was less than thirty centimeters from the nose of the plane.
The B-2 accelerated and pulled up slightly.
Aminah was banking on the fact that a baseball is much more dense than water, and capable of displacing it with ease, as well as the fact that the tsunami could not be deeper than half a meter thanks to its position relative to Diana and the B-2/baseball.
*CRASHH* the bomber and baseball had been absorbed by the wave.
Diana had won, all she had to do now was flick sand at Aminah and the others, and then she could return to the blissful state of not wanting to fight anymore.
Then, Diana heard a noise coming from the still-present tsunami.
*CRASH*
The source: a baseball. Directly behind it: a small B-2 bomber that had been created from paper that was once sand.
Diana had no time to react, the ball was still moving at over 10 meters per second directly towards her stomach, and the bomber was now climbing and showing her it's open hatch containing a bomb the size of a grain of rice.
Diana was faced with a troubling situation. Heading towards her stomach was a baseball that, though not enough to knock her out, would send her into a daze. Heading towards her face was a bomb the size of a grain of rice; it would likely knock her out. Aminah's plan was use the baseball as a diversion and as a means of guaranteeing that her main attack would connect. Diana and Aminah had talked quite a bit before, but never would Diana have expected that she'd be capable of such a cunning and self-correcting plan.
If she tried to stop the baseball, the bomb would hit her, knocking her out.
If she tried to stop the bomb, the baseball would hit her in the stomach, causing her to lean forwards in pain and run her forehead straight into the bomb.
In both scenarios, she'd get hit by the bomb, Aminah was confident that she had outsmarted her opponent. Though she could not see her because of the tsunami that was slowly dying out, Diana's only option was to take the bomb and admit defeat.
*inaudible*...*BAM* something behind the wave went. That had done it. Aminah was victorious.
Looking at the top of the gradually receding wave, she saw the bomber fly directly up for a brief second before disappearing. It had accomplished the task it set out to do, to hit Diana with a bomb, and vanished with a sense of fulfillment coursing through its thin pipes.
A sense of relief came over her, she had just used her own powers to defend herself and her friends, all by herself. She looked over to Tabitha and Lucy, expecting them to applaud her or congratulate her on what she did, Tabitha in particular, since Aminah passed out basically instantly in their first encounter.
But, she didn't see the smiling faces of her two best friends. Instead, she saw them looking at the spot where Diana is with deep concern on their faces.
Why would they look concerned? Aminah had just won. She dropped a tiny bomb on her head with the force of a firecracker, more than enough to knock someone out.
Aminah heard the sound of the tsunami dying out, with small droplets hitting her lower legs and feet. She turned her head, hoping to see an unconscious Diana on the sand next to a crumpled piece of paper.
"It was a good try, I'll give you that" a voice said.
Aminah saw Diana.
"Anyone but me and I'm sure you'd have gotten your way." Diana spoke "Weren't you listening when I said my ability was invincible?"
Diana had avoided the attack. Well, not really. Faced with two unfavorable options, Diana chose the one that would have the least negative repercussions. In hindsight, her method was rather simple. She turned the *SLAM* of a baseball hitting a stomach into a *BOING* of a baseball hitting a trampoline. The reason it was inaudible is due in part to the fact that the force of the impact was rather small thanks to the ball's low momentum, and in part because there was a 2-meter tall tsunami that was not only effective at insulating sound, but also could generate a thunderous *SWOOSH* as it carried water forwards.
From there, the recoil of the collision sent Diana stumbling backwards, causing the bomb to land on the sand with a *BAM* as it exploded.
Aminah's plan had not worked. Once again, Diana's ability was more capable than her own. Aminah heard Tabitha running towards her.
"How kind of you, to go nearer to Aminah so I get a better shot at both of you" Diana taunted "I appreciate it, really."
Tabitha was getting angry with Diana's stuck up attitude.
"Though it won't help you much..." Diana crouched down and started slowly rubbing her hands on the sand "...I sure hope you brought water bottles!"
*sizzle* the sand went. Not just around Diana's hands, but everywhere. The air around them was beginning to distort like it does over a campfire. Their lungs and skin began to heat up, and their sweating intensified.
"Good luck making anything with sand you can't even touch!" Diana began laughing at her own power.
Diana had heated up the sand to the point where it could no longer be touched, save for her own hands since they were immune to the effects of the power. With the ground so hot, none of them could touch it, so Aminah couldn't make any paper from the sand, and it was only a matter of time before she and the others passed out.
"Are you stupid!?" Tabitha yelled at her "The temperature will knock you out too!"
"It's only my right hand doing the heating!" she responded "My left hand's making a whoosh to blow cool air all over my body!"
Diana could not be in a more advantageous position. She was heating up the air around the girls while cooling the air around her own. It was only a matter of time before the heat got unbearable and they'd pass out. Even if she needed water, she could put sand in her mouth and touch it with her left hand to turn it into the life-bringing liquid, whereas Lucy, Tabitha, and Aminah could not.
"HAHAHA!" Diana laughed menacingly "Invincible, I tell you!"
"Don't worry Aminah," Tabitha looked at her with a small but confident smile. "We'll think of something!"