Control Revamped
Chapter 15
Power of Friends
"Come on guys, we cant lose to a spineless blob!" I ran in with my katana drawn, and stopped before Chaos as I swung to sever his head. Just as before the blade touched his neck, it opened up and the blade slipped through without contact. Quickly reacting, I used the same swift motion to flip sideways and land in a one armed handstand, then slice at his knees, only to have the same result. As a last resort, I used the force of that swipe to spin myself around, and land an axe kick on his head, but Chaos split in two and made a copy of himself. Both of them grabbed my foot during the swing, and swung me into the metal fence next to us, leaving me caught in it.
As I stared at an upside-down world while I was stuck there, I could see Trozae curve in from the right in a spindash, and allow the Chaos clone to absorb her, only to then be injected with a paralytic neurotoxin. The clone came splashing down in a puddle, and the original Chaos quickly absorbed it's mass, leaving out the toxin. Just as he was half way through absorbing it, he then lashed the entire mass out to his left and whipped it at Crystal, whose blue flame shroud was immediately extinguished.
"Need help bro?" Grim ran up to me while Chaos was distracted by defending against Liz's white flames, and pulled me outta the fence, although I landed on my head. I flipped myself upright and thought for a moment, taking a close look at Chaos. At that moment, I noticed something odd about him. He shouldn't be able to withstand that heat so easily, or produce such a mass for himself. There had to be some trick to it. Then I noticed something glowing in his stomach.
"What the hell is that?…" At that moment, Chaos slung an arm around toward me, and pinned me to the fence, slowly coating my face in his liquid form and suffocating me. I was just about to black out, when I saw a green flash, and I was dropped. The last thing I saw as I lay on the ground was several flashes of blue, yellow, white, green, and indigo.
A short while later, I woke with a circle of faces in my view, five very familiar faces. I could barely understand what they were saying due to them all taking at once and my head still spinning. But I knew what the first thing I said was. "Where's Dani?…" Everybody froze. They stared around for a moment, and Lauren had a slight glare on her face.
"Oh not this crap again…" She stormed off and found Dani hiding in the crowd with all the random people who were watching the fight. DanI looked as if she had no clue what was coming. But after so many lectures, we're sure she knew. "What the HELL Dani?! You can't keep running off like this!"
"I told you guys… I'm not cut out for the team… My Chaos Emerald should have gone to.. Well, anyone else!"
"Damnit Dani!… You are NOT worthless to this team, or anyone. Without you, we would all be dead! Without you, countless innocent people would be dead! You gotta stop treating yourself that way… Otherwise, we WILL have to boot you from the team…" As Lauren stormed away, Dani just sulked among the crowd, the paparazzi for once not feeling the urge to take a storm of pictures.
Far off in an uncharted fraction of a cave system deep beneath the heart of the continent, Scourge was laying back on a chair he had swiped from an elderly man, checking out an old golden pocket watch he stole the same man's father's grave. "Chaos screwed up again today. I swear, he's nuthin but a mindless little freak. Without being able to get those Chas Emeralds, he's got nuthin. I'm glad he's not part of our group.
"I concur." Metal was leaning against a wall, playing target practice with the bats. "If it weren't for the fact that he's still a decent fighter, I personally would have destroyed him ages ago."
"Don't forget, you two have been dumbfounded by the same group an equal number of times." The two of them looked to a pair of red and green poisonous eyes hiding at the back of the room, staring from the shadows. "Maybe it's time… that I join the game… my pawns.."
That night, Dani was randomly walking around the Grand Canyon, where she knew she could get some time alone. Thanks to Chaos Control, it wasn't too hard for her to get there. Nobody else on the team knew. Or so she though. At that distance, there was no way for her to contact us. But one team member was more compassionate than the rest, and followed her. A startled Dani turned around to find that the one following her was Ashley. "O-oh… Hey Ash…"
"Hey Dani…" She quickly caught up and took a place beside her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Listen Dandan… I know how you feel… I use to think the same way as you.. Sometimes I still think I'm worthless to this team… but then I look back to all the great things we've done. Remember the battle against Black Doom?
"Heh… yeah… I cut off his left arm."
"… Why don't you ever use bladed forcefields like you did then?"
"They aren't that good… None of them are very sharp, unless I'm in Super Form."
"Oh yeah… guess that makes us a perfect team. You're the defense, and I'm the offense, with my laser claws."
"I guess so…"
"Aww, how wonderful. Friendship at it's finest. What worthless droll…" The two of them turned their heads to the left to find Mephiles seeping out of the shadows of the canyon, finally revealing himself to the team.
"Mephiles…" Ashley hissed as she transformed into Ashez. "We know it was you who convinced Drew to lay under the falling building that day…"
"Yes, it was me. And it was me who convinced you all that using the Dark Form was right. I can clearly see that plan had failed… Ah, Danielle… what a pleasant little girl… always willing to stand back and let the real fighters handle it all." At that moment, they turned around to find that the real Mephiles was behind them, and the one in front was just an illusion. "Why don't you just sit back while I destroy Ashley?"
Dani was paralyzed. Mephiles was a physical embodiment of darkness. One of her worst fears. Mephiles could see this in her gaze, and smirk spread across his face. In an instant, she was sealed in an orb of darkness, leaving her unable to see anything past it.
"You bastard!" Ashez charged at him on all fours, and leapt above him and she came down with all claws barred, ready to tear him apart. Mephiles simply dodged to his left and grabbed her by the arm, then making his own arm grow gargantuan and brutish, swinging her into the cliffside, and leaving her in a crater. As the dust closely cleared, she revealed to be deformed, and badly injured. Her hand fell and her Chaos Emerald bounced out, rolling across the ground.
"… I'm useless… I cant even fight when I want to… This team is better off without me…" Dani was about to just curl up in the shadows and left herself slip into the darkness, but a faint light slipped into her world. A green shine at the bottom of what seemed to be an endless pit. She slowly dove down in the darkness, swimming to the bottom as the light in her view grew stronger, and she herself began to shine sky blue. Once she reached the bottom, she found Ashley's green Chaos Emerald awaiting her.
".. This… This is Ashley's…" She began to think back to all the times her teammates defended her. All the times they saved her. And the kind words they've said. Their encouragement. The people she had saved. "… I cant give up… I cant just sit by any longer…" She slowly stood on the bottom of the pit, and held one Chaos Emerald in each hand. "This is for Ash… for Nicky… For Lauren, and Drew, and Trey, and Ivy! For the team!" The aura around her began to slowly seep through the shadow barrier, and a moment later, a miracle took place. "Chaos… CONTROL!"
In a green and sky blue explosion of chaos energy, the shadow seal shattered, and in it's place stood Dani the Fox, but with green markings, her sweatpants cut short, and the sleeves off her shirt, the jacket gone. She had borrowed Ashez powers. She had become Razor Dani.
"WHAT?! HOW?!" Mephiles stepped back for a moment, unable to believe her spike in power.
"This is the power of the friendship that you earlier called 'worthless droll'." Dani suddenly created a forcefield beneath his feet that bounced him into the air, and as he came falling back down, Dani created a forcefield aiming at him in his path, covered in a dozen bladed spikes. Mephiles crashed into it and was pierced in an instant, liquid darkness pouring from his wounds. "Not done yet." At that moment, he was bounced back into the air, only to land in a heap inside an spherical forcefield. He pummeled at it's sides to escape, but found it no use. He quickly glared at her and growled loudly.
"You'll all die… By MY hand!"
"Doubt it." In a split second, the inside of the sphere was coated in blades, and the barrier collapsed on Mephiles, stabbing and crushing him. As a last insult, she swung the barrier into the cliffside and left him in the wreckage, then ran over to Ashley and took her to the nearest hospital.
