Chapter 52: Lightning


Katie couldn't move a muscle. She couldn't breathe. She felt the field around her pressing hard against her from every side, like a smooth wall made of metal, trying to crush her. The only spot where she couldn't feel the wall were the spots where Gergio and Lydia were being pressed against her sides. Still, it was their presence that worried her most. It was possible that what she was about to try would injure them, but then again, it was also for their sake that she needed to break free, no matter what.

Even with her face flattened against the barrier, Katie's expression changed noticeably to one of mighty determination, as she activated her powers again, feeling her strength and endurance increasing in seconds. She still couldn't move, and she couldn't break out of the enclosing barrier, but the pressure had diminished to almost nothing. With her powers active, the field had stopped contracting, and seemed to be repeatedly growing slightly larger and slightly smaller, as if not sure how else to obey its master.

That was when a look of worry came over the face of the "closing man," and Katie spoke to her friends in clear, strong voice.

"Are you two alright?"

"It's a little tight back here..." Lydia replied from her place, "It's pretty uncomfortable, and I can't reach my weapon."

"This is infuriating, and I want to kill whoever's responsible for it." Gergio added, "Still, it's not uncomfortable, exactly. Just annoying that I have to fight without using my hands."

That was when Katie remembered Gergio's powers, and the moment that the idea shot through her head, it seemed to occur to him as well. Soon, she spoke to the "closing man" directly.

"If you surrender and let us go, we won't hurt you."

"You won't hurt me anyway." he said angrily, "You're trapped, and nothing can get through that barrier."

"Wrong again. Sound can." Katie said firmly, twisting her neck just enough to spin her and both of her allies, still inside the closing field, around like a top. At last, when they stopped spinning, just as she'd planned, the one facing the closing man was Gergio, and he'd opened his mouth, before either of their enemies realized what he had planned.

"Fus Ro Dah!"

A mighty blast of force shot out from the edge of the field, sweeping the closing man into the air, just as Katie's punch had done to that other one a short time before, and kicking up dirt and sand into the air as well, so that for a moment, Marcus himself seemed to have disappeared. Even before the dust had cleared, however, Katie felt her body changing shape again as the barrier that surrounded her vanished, and Gergio and Lydia were released as well. Even as she checked to make sure that she was back to normal, however, Katie knew that the fight wasn't quite over. They'd defeated those first three, but that still left Marcus himself, and considering that he was the mastermind behind the whole plan, he probably would have tried to get his hands on the best star gem potion for himself. Katie was relieved to be out of that constricting force field, but she wasn't about to let her guard down.

However, as a few more seconds passed, and the dirt and dust settled; even as it become obvious that the last of their enemies was either dead or out cold, Katie realized that Marcus had vanished completely. She couldn't see him at all anymore, but nevertheless, a moment later, she heard his voice, light and airy, seeming to come from all around her.

"For some reason, I wasn't expecting that. It's irritating to have to rely on my own abilities again, but I will, if I need to. You mark my words, though. Even though I'm the only one left who can still fight, you and your whole army are still going to die."

Then suddenly, in a blink, he was standing in front of Katie, and placing one hand on her arm.

At once, a powerful, numbing sensation began to travel through Katie's body, and she felt something tearing through her body; scorching her from within, but not like fire. She'd only felt like that a couple of times before, but she knew what it was, and immediately tried to wrench herself loose. However, even as she moved back, she found that Marcus was moving back along with her; not by walking, but by gliding, ghost-like, along the floor. Katie could feel her mind starting to seize up under the grip of that strange man, when another sound echoed through the chamber.

"Fus Ro Dah!"

At once, a blast of force washed over Katie, whipping her hair and mail around like a cloak in a gust of wind, and hurling her backwards, along the floor. However, it seemed obvious to Katie that the blast from the dragonborn had actually been meant to defeat Marcus, and in that respect, the attempt had completely failed.

While Katie was lying on the floor, Marcus was still standing, if "standing" had been an appropriate word for describing it. His feet were on the ground, and his upper torso and head were at their normal height, but his whole body had changed. Katie and her friends all stared in amazement at the body of Marcus. His whole body looked completely non-physical and strange, like pulsing, bright energy being twisted back and forth in a jagged pattern, and shining like a candle. It was the very thing that Katie had feared. Just as Glenmoril had been a true mistress of fire, and Ancano of ice, Marcus had empowered himself, most likely with a star gem, to become a being of the third most common element of attack magic. He was a being of lightning.

As Marcus' body re-formed, taking on a human shape once again, however, Lydia rushed forward furiously, driving her sword into his body, before Katie could warn her against it.

In a flash, Marcus's form had changed fully, transforming to resemble a small bolt of lightning, divided in certain places, to make it look roughly human-shaped, and for a moment, Lydia, with her sword still in his torso, seemed to have frozen up. Soon, however, she dropped the sword with a cry of pain, as forked bolts of lightning shot out from the body of their foe, striking both her and Gerio, and knocking them backward, and to the ground in pain. For just a moment, their bodies seemed only to twitch uncomfortably, though fortunately, neither of them had been incinerated, like the knights who'd tried to barge into the building. Instead, the lightning monster seemed satisfied with having put them both out of the fight, and turned on Katie again, as she was just starting to crawl backwards, towards the door.

For a moment, the lightning-being seemed to flicker just a little, and then it was gone. However, Katie could feel that he was still nearby, and in just a moment, she noticed a flickering glow shining on her, from over her shoulder, and knew that she had to react fast.

Katie hadn't used her sword very much since she'd acquired her new strength-boosting power. Perhaps she'd been worried that she might grip it too hard by accident, and damage it somehow. Still, in that moment, she knew that she needed to use it. Quickly, she pulled out her sword and clamped its handle against the floor, rising to her feet quickly.

Katie's sudden motion had been fast enough to throw off most opponents, but a being made of lighting was much faster than someone like Ancano had been. He'd rushed to catch up with her, seizing her arm, and at once, a series of things began to happen all at once.

A burning sensation did start to go off in her arm, of course; more intense than she'd expected it to be, and her whole arm felt like it was burning. However, most of the rest of her body felt more or less fine, and she wasn't sure why; at least until she noticed what was happening to her sword. Her whole sword seemed to be glowing with power, and the lightning being that had attacked her was giving off a high-pitched sound, not unlike a shriek, except more scratchy and harder to listen to. At last, Katie felt his grip on her shoulder weaken, and was able to pull herself loose from him, her arm still in horrible pain, and it continued to be in pain as she watched the lightning being trying to recover from the sword wound that it had apparently suffered.

First, it looked as though it were badly wounded, with its power severely dimmed. Then in a moment, the lightning that Marcus was made of grew suddenly brighter again, and he seemed to be even more furious, though for some reason, he was still bent over, as though wounded. To Katie, that meant one thing; she'd somehow found a means of hurting him, but that didn't mean that he was finished. In fact, it might make him even more dangerous.

Quickly, Katie moved the sword into her other hand, and was pleased to find that it didn't hurt her other arm. Soon, she was running for the temple's main entrance, carrying the sword as she went, and for some reason, her enemy hadn't caught up to her yet. She still wasn't really sure where he was when she burst out of the entrance that she'd recently used to enter the temple, shouting to the assembled army as loud as she could.

"Everybody dig your weapons into the ground! It's your only chance! Hurry!"

A couple of soldiers immediately obeyed, but most seemed unsure of what to do, until they heard the captain give the same instruction in his own loudest voice. Soon, all of them were crouched over with their weapons in the ground, and it was a good thing too. Katie hadn't gone more than a yard from the temple before Marcus emerged after her in his lightning form, and much to her dismay, he didn't seem to be wounded or weak anymore. Still, Katie reasoned after just a moment, she'd lost track of him for a while. She didn't know, for certain, how he'd recovered, but it seemed to take him a few moments. At the very least, that would explain why he'd taken so long catching up to her.

For several moments, Marcus floated in the air, as though gravity meant nothing to him, looking around at the various soldiers, all with their weapons in the ground, and then down at Katie, who'd grabbed a large spear from one of the nearby soldiers. However, after seeming to spend a few seconds in thought, he spoke again; loud enough for the entire army to hear him.

"That's cute." he said a bit angrily, "but there's more than one way to crush you and your forces."

In a moment, he'd aimed one arm downward, and in no time, it seemed to descend like a real lightning bolt, shooting towards the ground, but when it hit its target, that target wasn't the ground, or any of the soldiers, and Katie gasped in alarm as one of the horses burst into flames. Just like that, the fire had shot out from the body of the dead horse, fueled by more lightning, which Marcus kept pouring on, until the flames grew so large, than several of the soldiers needed to make a choice; release their grounded weapons, or be scorched by the remains of the horse. At last, one of them let go of his sword handle, and no sooner had he done that, than a lightning bolt had knocked him to the ground, burning a searing hole in his armor and the front of his chest.

As soon as Katie saw what was happening, she shouted furiously up at Marcus, growing desperate as it quickly became clear that the one weakness she'd discovered wouldn't be enough.

"Marcus! Stop! Why are you doing this?!"

However, Marcus didn't look swayed by that question, and he didn't reply. Instead, he kept aiming his hand at one target after another, firing with impunity at foes who could clearly do nothing to harm him. It was horrible, and Katie was furious, so at last, she began to drag her new spear through the dirt as she traveled through the camp.

At one time, Katie might have just assumed that nothing normal would harm the lightning monster, but she'd already found that his powers had more than one weakness, and it wasn't too much to suppose that he might have more, if only she could find them. Soon, she was running through the camp, eventually reaching the camp's mess hall, where she found several large, heavy barrels and pitchers. Many were full, but many others were empty. Soon, she'd seized three of the empty pitchers and carried them back outside, taking careful aim as Marcus continued firing, having apparently forgotten her. At last, she threw the first of the pitchers at him, then the second and the third.

The first pitcher had been wooden, and had burst into flames when it reached Marcus, falling to the ground in ashes. The second had been made of iron, and had passed through him harmlessly. However, when the third pitcher had reached him, only a second later, Katie could barely believe what had happened to it. It seemed to actually shove Marcus back through the air before breaking, and for a moment, he seemed to be hurt, and was rubbing his back, where he'd been hit by it, as though he were a physical being.

In a flash, Marcus turned on Katie again, seeming to descend to her location as a bolt of lightning himself, but it was a mistake. With a single, sweeping motion, she drove her grounded spear directly into his chest before he could stop himself, and it clearly hurt him just as much as her black sword had. Lightning darted out from his body in all directions, until he finally managed to get loose from her spear, and back off a few yards, looking livid.

However, Katie had realized something important when that third pitcher had collided with Marcus. He was vulnerable to certain types of earthenware; just as vulnerable as if he were still a physical being, and though she wasn't sure precisely what type of earthenware that pitcher had been made from, it seemed that Captain Coorsman knew exactly what it was.

"Porcelain!" she heard him shouting from the other side of the field, "He can be hurt with porcelain! Everyone, if you have a free hand, grab a dish or cup and follow me. He'd over here."

"Porcelain?!" Marcus almost shouted, still furious, in spite of the fact that he'd clearly been hurt, "What is this insanity?"

"I should have guessed." Katie said, however, "Tolfdir would have predicted this. Lightning spells don't travel through porcelain, so porcelain doesn't pass through you. In fact, there are quite a number of substances that block or disrupt lightning spells; water jets, rubber, ice and grounded metal objects. You may be able to change into lightning, Marcus, but that doesn't make you invincible."

Marcus looked as though he was pulsing all over with fury, but soon, he'd taken off, traveling up and up, further and further, and vanishing into the sky. For a moment, Katie wasn't sure what he was up to, but then she spotted him. The sky was only slightly cloudy, but it was enough to keep the glare of the sun out of Katie's eyes as she looked up, and there was a tiny figure, high up in the air, falling towards the ground, and he wasn't even in his lightning form. At last, however, as she watched in curiosity, Marcus changed again, back into a human lightning bolt, then took off into one of the clouds. That was when Katie realized two things, which, up to that point, she hadn't understood.

For one thing, Katie knew why it had taken Marcus so long to pursue her out of the temple, but more importantly, she'd come to an important realization about metamorphs in general. If they were hurt while in their transformed state, they usually had one simple way to heal themselves; by turning back into their normal form, and then transforming again. That was what Marcus had been doing, which had stalled him from pursuing Katie at first, and it was why he'd risked a mid-air free fall from such a huge height; to heal himself and come back to the fight fresh. Still, there were distinct disadvantages to such an approach, and in another moment, Katie found two more porcelain pitchers, and drew her black sword, cutting each in half, then putting her hands through the rings used to hold them up, so that she was holding one half-pitcher in each hand. They were useless for holding drinks by that point, but, she decided, they might hold something else.

Quickly grabbing both of the half-pitchers and the spear, she rushed out into the middle of the army camp and drove her spear, handle-first, into the ground. Then she looked up, and began to see what Marcus was attempting. He seemed to be leaping from one cloud to another in the sky, and every time he touched a cloud, it would begin to shine. Then, he would leave the cloud with another leap, and a lightning bolt would descend on the army camp from that cloud. Those lightning bolts were usually striking tent poles or horses, but even when they did strike some metal substance, which was embedded in the ground, Marcus didn't seem to be suffering from it, because he wasn't connected to them. It was a devastating method of attack, and, Katie thought angrily, a cowardly one as well. Every time one of Marcus' weaknesses was found out, he seemed to put more effort into fighting them from a greater distance away, and making it less and less possible for them to counter-attack. In fact, Katie felt that she really had very little chance to actually defeat him. Still, she had to do the best she could. Gripping her half-pitchers in her hands, she activated her powers, feeling her resistance against the elements increasing severalfold, and with the power of her ring, she shot up towards the clouds, high overhead.

Of course, Katie knew that the hardest part of her plan would be catching up to Marcus and getting under his guard somehow. Even when she was using her levitation ring, Marcus was still much, much faster than her, which meant that she basically had to get the drop on him somehow, or surprise him, or else trick him into getting closer to her. Unfortunately, however, he seemed to have noticed her long before she'd reached his location, and his reaction was, at first, just to look at her in surprise. Perhaps he hadn't realized that she could fly, or perhaps he just hadn't expected her to leave the safety of her grounded spear. In a second or two, however, Marcus had attacked, sending a bolt of lightning right towards her. Fortunately, however, she was able to react fast enough to raise one of her half-pitchers into the path of the lightning, and it never quite made contact with her body, rebounding off the porcelain mini-shield that she'd devised.

However, Katie soon found that blocking that one attack had actually gained her very little, because before she could blink, Marcus was behind her again, just as he'd been in the temple, and that time, she had no spear to protect herself with.

Viciously, Marcus actually seemed to dig his hand right between her upper and lower back, and Katie felt the lightning attack traveling through her flesh and into her spine. In spite of her increased resistance against the elements, the pain was intense and horrible, and soon, she'd lost control of her levitation ring, and had begun plummeting downward. However, Marcus had begun to see her as the worst of his enemies, and kept up his attack, keeping up with her as she fell, and driving his hand even further into her body.

That, however, was when Katie made another move as she fell, in spite of the pain. Whipping around in midair, she swung one of her half-pitchers at Marcus, only to have him change position and driving his lightning fist into her stomach instead. However, for a moment, he hadn't kept track of her other hand, and soon one of the half-pitchers had slammed against his own lightning hip. Then, in another second, the other pitcher was around his other hip, and Katie had him at last.

Marcus was beginning to have trouble; his body spreading and dividing madly as he tried to break free of Katie's grip, but she'd grabbed him by the waist in between her two half-pitchers and was squeezing him as much as the somewhat fragile pitchers would allow. Still, some of Marcus' limbs were reaching around her and continuing to electrocute her from various angles, so the battle was far from over. Katie had counted on still being able to fly at that point in the plan, and without that, she was pretty sure that even if her plan worked, she was still going to die from it. Nevertheless, she looked down at the ground, searching for the place where she'd anchored the spear.

It took Katie only a moment to pinpoint the location of the spear, and fortunately, it wasn't too far off; being almost directly down. Still, Katie had to wrestle with Marcus some more, pulling and pushing him through the air as they fell, and especially when he fought back, to try to maneuver him directly over the spear, and even in that moment, even as Katie felt her flesh starting to sear under his attacks, she still wanted to give Marcus one more chance.

"Marcus!" Katie exclaimed furiously, "Stop this! Just surrender and stop all this killing and conquering! Listen to reason! You're not stupid! You understand logic!"

At that point, however, it was obvious that Marcus was trying to stop their descent, but had only succeeded in slowing it as he shouted back, "I only learned your logic so that I could oppose it! You think your logic and your truth are so precious?! They're nothing but a trick to keep normal folks down! I will never stop, and you can't stop me! Nothing and no one can ev..."

At that moment, Katie felt herself turning over in mid-air as the words of her enemy were cut short. For a moment, she released her porcelain shields and tried to regain control of her ring with all her might, feeling herself slow just slightly, until, in a moment, something struck her right in the gut. Then she was suddenly flipping over again. After that, there was nothing but darkness.


When Katie woke, she was in the medical tent again, although the only people there with her were the doctors and one nurse. For a few moments, she looked around, but nobody else was there with her. At first, Katie wasn't sure why, until she looked down, and started breathing much harder, over what she saw there. There was a recently-mended gash, all the way down her stomach, and unless she was mistaken, she was also thinner than she'd been before.

As quickly as she could, Katie sat up and turned to face one of the doctor's, searching desperately for information as she asked "What happened, doctor?"

"You won, and you're going to make a full recovery." the doctor said with a smile, "The last marauder is dead, and he left behind..."

"No, no, no!" Katie exclaimed, clutching her head in both hands and shutting her eyes tightly, "Look, do you plan on doing any more operating or not? I mean, it's obvious that you operated on me while I was out, without my permission, and what you did...!"

"No, the operations are over." the doctor replied, starting to look concerned, "As I said, you're going to be..."

At once, Katie looked around for her bag and her potions. Most of her potion bottles seemed to have been shattered, aside from her first bottle, which she'd found in her possession on the day that the dragon had attacked her hometown. It was still in one piece, without even a single crack or scrape, and it still had half of a potion in it. In seconds, Katie had taken some powder out of one of her pouches, mixing it into the bottle and watching as it turned red. Then she drank the whole potion, and in less than a minute, the gash disappeared from her stomach. However, though the potion had healed her wounds, it hadn't restored her previous appearance. She was still thinner and more drained-looking than she'd been during the fight with Marcus, and during her whole journey with Lydia and across Skyrim, so in another moment, she turned to face the doctor again, looking very grave.

"You took something out of me." Katie began, but the doctor interrupted her quickly.

"All we did was remove the damaged tissue. You'd gotten a bad infection when you hit the ground, and it spread like mad. We weren't sure how to deal with it, and we tried a few things, but that only made it worse. In the end, an operation was the only way to get rid of it completely. You're lucky that... Well, if you don't mind me speaking frankly, Miss Katie... You're lucky there was so much of you to begin with, or one of your internal organs might have been infected by now."

Katie sat in that tent for several seconds, thinking about what the doctor had said, and contemplating the things that had happened to her. Ever since her journey had begun, she'd been suppressing her real dreams and desires; refusing to express them, and yet, she'd never let go of them, and never needed to worry about losing track of them, because she still remembered her life with her parents, and the time she'd spent in the Slow Sabrecat. It was in that life, that she'd grown into a very large, and in her eyes, a very impressive young lady. She remembered how Lydia had disliked her figure when they'd first met, and how she'd paid it no mind at all. Suddenly, totally against her own will, her appearance had changed, and that wouldn't have bothered her so much, except that as she looked at herself in a nearby mirror, she felt that she was starting to look less like herself, and more like Lydia; more like a warrior.

The thought filled Katie with revulsion. It was fine for others to look like that, of course. That was their choice, but not her. That wasn't what she wanted for herself. In fact, though she didn't really care what others thought of her, in a certain sense, Katie had always been somewhat vain.

All of those thoughts ran through her head, but in the end, she willed them away, and didn't express them aloud to the doctor or anyone else, deciding that it was just one more problem, which she'd need to deal with when she got the chance.

"Now..." Katie said at last, turning to face the doctor again, "I think my friends and I will want to leave soon. How soon do you think we can arrange that?"


Author's Notes; Katie and her friends are now in other worlds, which aren't present in Skyrim.

Yeah, I know Marcus' powers were kind of predictable. After all, I've already done fire (Glenmoril) and ice (Ancano,) so it was only a matter of time before I did lightning. It was inevitable, though. I had to do it at some point, and I think those powers made him a sufficient threat; even against the forces arrayed against him.

Marcus is a bit strange; clever, but not reasonable. I think that's the main reason why I knew his character would work in this story. There's plenty that the heroes can discuss about him later as they try to figure him out, though I honestly think Katie won't bother much after this. She knows he was in the wrong, and why. I think, in her mind, that's about as far as she needs to dig.