Mushra: it's shorter than the past two, Jordan.
Me: Again, readers can take this as a break from the lengthy chapters, which will most likely be coming very soon again, if not very very soon XD
Mushra: or you're felling behind.
Me: YOU'RE falling behind.
Mushra: …?
Me: ENJOY!

Chapter 6 – Power and Control

Barely dodging the whizzing boomerang whose sound I knew so well, I end up on my rear, staring up at the water Enterran who is now watching me with a strange and foreign determination.

"S-Sago, what…?!" I stammer to ask, still a little out of breath, as he catches the boomerang. And he leaps at me where I sit on the ground. Instinct tells me I should fear the lunge, and feeling that fear, I roll out of the way onto my hands and knees. "What are you doing?! Are you TRYING to make me burn you?!"

He said nothing in response to that. He throws the whizzing blade again, and it a grazes right past my face as I had stood—slicing some stray hair. I look back at him like he's gone crazier than me, and I see him raising his forearm.

"Aqua dragon!"

I watched in awe and disbelief as he summoned his Aqua Dragon at me. It came into life, water seeming to be pulled from the air itself to form a long slender dragon, thicker than Sago, and far taller in its length as it swirled upward, around him, and then after me.

"Sago, stop!" Heather yells as I stumbled backwards, panicking and throwing up my hands—spurts of flame shot and blast through the edges of the dragon, but it was still on its path to take me down.

With a scream, I felt it ram me, painfully and chillingly, with slicing teeth trying to grab me, but I rolled away from its watery mouth, and threw my hand up, sending a blast that wasn't nearly what I wanted it to be, but it still blast half the dragons face.

"Sago, what the heck is wrong with you?!" I hear Heather yell at Sago again, but he doesn't respond. I barely dare to look at her and take my focus off him, but I just happen to see him blast her back before turning back on me.

He leapt at me, bringing down his blades with spinning force, and I knew the attack even before he called out, "Aqua Tornado!"

I threw my arms up to protect my head and neck, and found myself blast onto my upper back and sent rolling, wincing and groaning in pain as I lay on the ground for a moment. I gasped at the pain shooting down my back from my shoulder blades and fought the sting in my eyes as I looked up at him, advancing on me again. Why was he doing this…!? He was my friend, what the hell was going on?! I could hear Ryuma laughing in the back of my mind and shivered and whimpered.

He raised up his hands, putting his palms together. He stared me down, standing in aim as he called out his next attack.

"Aqua Vortex!"

"NO!" I screamed, throwing up my hands to counter-attack his blast of water, and found that I did, with an equal vortex against his water, steam left in the wake of our attacks.

I hurried onto my hands and knees. He still advanced. He wasn't stopping, whatever this was, I could see it in his eyes; he wasn't stopping. So what choices did I have?

I could run, run like I had been, run from every threat around me.

Or I could fight.

I was gasping as he stopped and stared me down, halting attack for now and I could see Heather watching out of the peripheral of my vision, perhaps because he'd stopped. But no…his eyes, he wasn't stopping.

As I stood, closing my gasping mouth, and began breathing greatly through my nose, I realized I was making my choice. Standing almost straight, leaned forward a bit and extending my claws, I realized I'd decided. I would fight.

Heather didn't move, but I cared for nothing but Sago who began pacing me and so I paced him, curling my fists. He narrowed his eyes, and that's when I launched. With what could almost be taken as I growl of some sort from me, I slashed out at him, catching his shoulder which caused his cape to fall to the ground. I didn't wait for his attack, I knew I couldn't let him attack again if I could help it. I swung a kick for his stomach, which he caught and twisted me until I landed flat on my face on the ground. I kicked at him with the other leg, though, and he stumbled back.

I move into a crouch, watching him, glaring him down. He spins his razorang and I watch it as if daring him to throw it again. Only for me to launch, and willing that flame into my forearm as I had in training with Heather, I hit him in the center of his chest and blast him back into the wall of a store front. I took that chance, noticing the impact caused him to drop his weapon, and I ran for him, throwing a hit for his gut which he blocked, but he wasn't fast enough to stop the hit to the jaw that rocked his head to the side.

He suddenly crossed his arms, like an X, between us, only to shove his palms into my chest with an added blast of water. I rolled this time, though, instead of landing completely on my back, and I popped back to my feet in no time.

"Aqua Tordano!"

This I could dodge, unlike his dragon. I crouched and hoped like hell that my legs would have the strength for this; just as it was nearing me, I shoved off from the ground, and with a spin sideways, I'd jumped and spun over the attack. Landing with a gasp of surprise and rush of more adrenaline, I turn on Sago and started clawing at him, but the claws are sending out flaming claw strikes of fire, most of which he dodged and I was partly thankful for but mostly pissed at right now. One caught his arm, though, the same one I'd burned before, and he dodged the next, sending my fist and attack blasting into the side of a building.

My hand was caught in whatever was beyond the bricks, and I struggled, looking back at Sago. He was winding up an attack, I could see from how he raised his arm. Panicking, I struggled, growling in annoyance, trying to work my hand around or out of this thing and it wasn't working!

"Sago!" Heather called again, but she still hadn't stopped him, and I had to wonder why.

"Aqua dragon!"

That dragon was coming, it was curling around Sago by now, I knew without looking as I felt the steel of whatever the HELL I was caught in. I felt it and grasped, thinking maybe I could crush it. I shot a look back to Sago to see the dragon catching sight of me. I began yanking mercilessly now, gripping the steel until suddenly whatever I was caught it was yanked out through the wall…by me.

It was broken steel, jagged, and torn almost triangular to a point at the end. I heard the dragon roar, and I looked to it just in time. In the suddenness of it, I raised the steel and brought it down at the dragon.

I sliced straight through. I could only appreciate the shock of it, and the shock on Sago's face that seemed to dismiss that dark determination for a moment, before it returned. And I was racing for him now, wielding a make-shift blade made from the broken piece of steel.

He raised up his razorang as I brought my blade at him, and he countered most my hits, catching my arms with the other flip side of his blades. That is, until I gave a risky shove into him while he wielded his weapon, and I slashed, catching the lower side of his stomach. He winced and backed away. And then suddenly he threw his hands at me and blasted me back with another call of Aqua Tornado. It sent me flying to make impact with the second level of a building. I heard people yelp inside and was briefly and barely reminded of the fact that were other people around.

As I landed with a sharp shooting pain into my legs, my back pounding, I watching him preparing another attack and I growled, knowing the pain and risk of injury that was coming. I felt my heart pound as my chest rose and fell faster, and the blood pumping through my veins and pounding in my arms seemed to be on fire.

I raised up my hand, and as I heard him call Aqua Dragon again, I heard myself say (more than I actually intentionally said), "Fire Ball!"

The dragon roared at me and my attack with its mouth wide, and the growing fire ball (that started the size of my palm and kept growing) was swallowed by the dragon….and blasted it into steam and rain. I stared at what I'd done, perhaps foolishly with the fact that my friend was trying to kill me, but he seemed just as surprised…and I...saw a smile. Confused and annoyed by it, I went back on the defense and prepared myself, really realizing as I thought of my next attack… I'd just officially given a Hyper Enterran attack.

I…I gave one of my attacks a name! I think I'd done that fire ball before, but it hadn't grown like that, it wasn't nearly as powerful! Did giving it a name give it more strength? Or did it give me more control in using it? Control in using… That attack had worked so perfectly…

I heard the yell before I realized I'd gotten lost in my might and was almost late to blocking Sago's down swipe of his razarang, which I knocked his weapon downward with my steel blade and swiped at him, and as he spun, I lunged at him, only to roll in-air and kick instead of ram.

I knocked him down and back, landing on my hands and knees, half on my side. I'd dropped my blade a distance away, damn, but I still had my attacks…maybe I could figure out more of them. Taking a breath, I imagined one I'd done, one I'd felt—the only one that seemed to come was the—

"Flaming Claw!"

The swipe of my claws sent not three, as they'd been thus far, but FIVE streaks of swirling flame straight for the water Enterran, and he narrowly avoided the full brunt of them, just catching one in the side and he cried out. The cry turned my stomach and I hesitated, gasping from the rush of it all.

He looked to me again, though. He was STILL going… I took my stance, growling…and I noticed him pass my blade. And I charge him. He tossed his razorang, which I dodge, and as he blasted a vortex of water at me, I blast fire balls at the vortex, blasting it into nothing but steam. The steam left between us, I leapt over him to his surprise with the fogged vision—even flipped, catching his shoulder with my arm to help push me further away which almost knocked him forward. He caught his razorang just as I rolled and took up my steel make-shift blade. He charges me again and I do the same, but neither of us call attacks this time.

Considering he was going for briefly weapon battle, I had other plans already. Just as I neared him, I dropped and did a slide that would have won me home base in baseball, and moved to my hands and knees just in time to spin and sweep my leg to trip one of his—and he fell forward.

As he did, I pounced like a predator, blade in hand as I tackled him onto his back on the ground, razorang sliding away, and I put my blade to his throat.

"Jaden!"

Heather called my name this time, and that was the second thing to stall me; the first being the realization of reality through the rush of it all. I had a dangerous weapon to Sago's throat, and if I wasn't careful…

Gasping, I just stared him down and began trying to find words.

And through his own gasping, he began stuttering out words before me. "Jaden, I'm sorry! I'm very sorry!" he begins, gasping a bit more. He doesn't put his hands up for mercy or in defeat, but that determination was now completely dissipated from his eyes. "I-I needed to…to put you into that same situation that was hindering you. But with more control, I thought this could do that!" he was…explaining himself. The bitter side to me that wanted to whoop his tail more for what he'd just put me through was very much considering if he was bringing up false explanation to literally save his neck, but my heart believed the intensity of his eyes. He looked sure as he went on. "You need to be forced to use every height of your power, and to also be in a situation where you…were facing a friend, but with no one ordering for their death, or yours…"

I swallowed, finding my mouth was very dry. I briefly glanced to Heather, who was still only standing and watching, before I looked back down to him.

"This…is what you needed, Jaden…to feel your strength, and to find your control…"

I watched him in silence for a time, before I removed to blade and dropped it away from the both of us. I climbed off of him, just barely catching his razorang vanishing. He did this to help. I took a breath that turned into a sudden and intense gasp. And then I turned and broke into a run, a strange burst of…something inside me pushing me to do so. I ran, and I ran, hearing them briefly call for me, but I'd return to them soon enough. I need this. I had…I had just been freed, and I needed to run with it.

I race faster than ever, through the city, past the civilians, and then beyond the buildings to the brief open land before reaching the grassy hill that lead to a forest and to the gift of a portal that had brought us to this world. I ran, almost leapt, up the hill until I reached the top. I looked over it, the scars of kidnappings' past still there, and my heart pumping, I raised my hands and I felt power, I felt powerful!

Raising my forearm, I called out a Fire Ball attack, small scale, and blasted away the scales left over from those disgusting centipedes. Then I looked the wounded and dying trees that were barely hanging on. They had no hope of returning to their former life, and I launched at them with kicks and punches, separated them from their prolonged end and giving them their proper fall and grave lying upon the ground.

Then I returned to the patch of grass that lead down the hill, and reached to both the trees and the bushes that lay at the foot of the portal, the wounds in those patches of green.

Those needed to be gone.

"Flaming Claw!" I scorched marks upon the scratches on the ground, turning to others and calling out, "Fire Ball, Rain of
Fire!" a few flaming balls blasts the ground, followed by streaks falling in a swirl from above to burn the ground like drips of liquid flame. "Flame Frenzy!" I called as I envisioned great flames with a slam of my forearms and fists upon the rest of the bug-brought wounds on the ground. Flame burst from my fore arms, in swirls, with lava like swirls following and cracking across the ground, bringing small but intricate swirls and cracks of volcanic rock upon the ground.

Gasping, I moved back and overlooked my work, assuring there were no stray flames that would cause unneeded damage, and there were none. And I looked at the area, now reborn. It looked different, darker, but due to it being by my hand, I felt comforted by the look of it, especially the cracks of volcanic rock (still cooling but almost completely cooled) carving through the earth and almost…decorating the ground. Black, surrounded by green, with intricate gray/black, shimmering rock that still held reddish orange glow at the moment. To me, it….looked beautiful.

Suddenly, with a deep breath and a sigh, it was as if some intense blast of relief and joy that brought me to my knees, something I could only describe as euphoric or lethargic or both burst into my chest, choking up my throat and I laughed before the laugh turned into sobs.

I sat there, sobbing and savoring this feeling. This bursting in my chest, and the fire in my veins, and the pulse of strength in my very muscles and bones. I could feel it, in all of me, every inch, every emotion, every sense.

Smiling with eyes shut, I found myself speaking aloud.

"I have the power…I have the control…I can change it. I can make…my place here…" I open my eyes, and looked towards the city, remembering all that I'd experienced there thus far, and I smiled wider as I held myself tight. Shutting my eyes again, the old fantasies begin to flood back to me.

Being here, bring brought here with my sister and best friend, to live as Enterran's, or even to find we'd been born Enterran's and taken back in time. But we'd always been meant for Enterra, to find friends in the boys and maybe more, the latter perhaps girlishly foolish. But it had been beautiful, all of it, the possibility of being something greater, in a greater place. And here I was, in something greater, and I WAS something greater, even if it didn't live up to the same ideas I'd had in imagining it.

That sick voice of the serpent Lord tried to speak once more, joined by the laughter of Dr. Parasite, but I shook my head to deny them. I had the power to make this world a nightmare or a dream come true.

And I was now determined to make it the latter.

Mushra: well that was crazy.
Me: but needed. Like I said, it had a purpose.
Mushra: Suuuuure it did.
Me: you just read that it pushed Jaden to where she needed to be!
Mushra: did I? did I, Jordan.
Me: *rolls eyes* PLEASE, if you liked, review~ and look for the next chapter coming~!