CHAPTER 53: Without a Trace

"Elyssia, use your magic to break down this damn device!" Elias panted after he grew tired of shooting peas at the glass.

"All right . . . here goes nothing . . ." I mumbled to myself. I swept my right leaf in not one, but two circles ― something that I've never done, and something that I never wanted to risk . . . up until now.

For extra luck, I decided to recite a random phrase that I found on a sheet of paper inside a book. I felt as if it had some meaning, so I thought, why not give it a go?

"Nos fiant unum sumus. Tibi non licet nostras gaudium!"

To my immense surprise, and delight, I saw the walls crack slightly. The only problem was that the cracks were so small that it was hard to notice that the walls had even submitted to my magic.

"Veerrryyy fffuuunnnnyyyy, deeaaarrrieeee." Scuttle scoffed.

"Very funny indeed, idiots. Now prisa, Scuttle. We've got a girl to kill!" Mar tittered.

And then the weirdest thing happened.

Scuttle started turning into a snake, then a snowflake, then what looked like a Ghost Pepper. Finally, she transformed into a whirling tornado around Mar, who giggled and giggled. After that, there was a blinding flash of light, and there Mar was, floating off the ground, a reddish glow emitting from her body.

"Thank you, buddy." she snickered.

"Yes, bless you, Scuttle! Bravo!" Zomboss hooted.

Mar floated right through the glass and into the room that was starting to become a hot oven.

"All right, Elyssia Antonia, it's time for me to kill you and suck out your soul!" she crowed as she came closer and closer.

"Elyssia, close your eyes! NOW!" Peater warned.

The room was getting hotter and hotter, and it felt as if I was going to die as my crystals started melting.

"Hold on, Elyssia. I know that it's hard, but we'll make it." Peater encouraged me.

I closed my eyes and squeezed Peater's leaf. Although Mar was trying to open my eyes via telekinesis, I held strong . . . until the second weird occurrence of the day came rolling around.

"Enough, both of you! Look, if you're going to hold on to that idiot, then I'll suck out both of your souls!" the puppet screeched.

After she uttered those words, a weird sensation came over me, and I could tell that Peater could feel it too, for he started glowing.

"Tibi non licet accipes animas nostras!" we began in unison.

Elias looked surprised and proud after hearing this, Mar looked horrified, and Zomboss looked shocked, appalled and angry at the same time.

"Tibi non enim permittitur, nunc et nos fiant unum sumus. Vos non potestis!" Peater and I continued.

"Animas independens est gaudium!"

With that, the walls of the Z-Chronic shattered with resounding crashes, clangs, bangs and clanks.

"Holy crud! The roof!" Elias shrieked, pointing at the conical roof that was slowly falling.

"Hold . . . on . . . ugh . . ." I grunted as I created a blast of wind that sent the roof of the insane device smashing into the wall.

Zomboss let out a scream of anger and disappointment.

"Oh, for the love of brainz! Twenty decades . . . wasted!" I rolled my eyes at that statement.

"You said twenty months, Zomboss. Stop being a drama king! Oh wait, I forgot ― you're a girl! Tsk, tsk . . . how silly of me to forget! After all, you're a big old sap!" I mocked.

"Yeah! You scream at your own shadow!" Elias joined in with the mockery.

"Ha, ha. I'm, like, dying of laughter over here." Zomboss huffed, forcing a sarcastic laugh a second later.

"Well, I'm so sorry to say that you haven't seen the last of my precious Z-Chronic!"

With that, he pressed a red button on the remote, which rebuilt the walls, and put a steel ceiling on top.

"Get the hell in!" he barked, tossing Peater, Elias and I back into the Z-Chronic.

"Oh, no!" I gasped as the capsule heated up again, which caused me to start sweating and melting.

"Holy . . . this guy's none other than Satan himself!" Peater whispered as he felt my forehead, which was blistering hot.

"All right. Now . . . I'll just leave you to your own devices! Toodles!" Zomboss simpered, before he swept out of the room.

That left Mar to deal with.

"You might have protected your souls from Scuttle and I, but haven't protected your minds . . . have you?" Mar hissed as she floated towards us.

"Now Elyssia . . ." she began, before I pinned her to the ground with an icy arrow.

"Elyssia, be careful!" Elias warned.

Shaking my head, I conjured a hammer and started beating Mar's body with the object until it shattered with a final scream from the voodoo doll. A puppet-like spirit ascended from the broken pieces, before it disappeared, leaving Scuttle's shapeless blob to float around in the air.

"You'll pay for this!" she screeched, her abnormal speech problem gone.

"Yeah right!" I retorted.

"Who the hell are you talking to? We don't hear or see anyone!" Peater sputtered, Elias nodding furiously in agreement.

"One last taste of vengeance for me!"

NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS, SCUTTLE!

"Oh, hell yes I will, no matter how much you don't want it to happen!"

With that, Scuttle made me start beating Elias and Peater. Although I didn't want it to happen, there was nothing I could do about it. Finally, Scuttle retreated my mind, and I was left to fall onto the floor, weak and possibly dying.

"You idiot!" Peater growled as he slapped the crap out of me.

As I looked into his eyes and Elis' I could see that they were purple, which meant only one thing: Scuttle had got them.

"S-sorry . . ." I mumbled as I healed Elias and Peater with two waves of my leaf. "

"And you know what? You're crazy! You're outta control! You're a freak of nature, Antonia. Your family never did care about you. They didn't give a crap! So there! Have fun with your life, jerk!" Peater screamed.

I gasped as I made the sordid conclusion: I was unloved, and I was always being taken advantage of.

"No . . . Peater, no! Why would you do this to . . . me?" I gasped as tears started streaming down my face. Peater's eyes had turned back to their normal colour, meanwhile, and he was regretting what he said and did.

"W-wait . . . sorry! It's just ―" Peater attempted to protest, but I wasn't going to get any deeper into this emotional quagmire.

No, sir! I was running away, and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

"I'm going away. I'm going so far away that you'll never find me again. You can keep all the memories. If you're gonna be so dang willing to let someone else control you and beat me up, well . . . I have no business hanging out with you!" I snapped coldly as I blasted a hole in the wall of the Z-Chronic and ran right through it.

"Elyssia, WAIT! I . . . need you . . ."

Yeah. I need you about as much as fish needs a bicycle, which is to say that I DON'T need you, and you DON'T need me. SO THERE!

With that last telepath, and one last kick at the crumbling walls of the mansion itself, I was out of that damn house.