Chapter 46

I slowly walked towards Bandor as he picked himself up off the ground. He seemed surprised that I had thrown him so easily. I was surprised myself. My whole body tingled, as if I had huge amounts of excess energy that I needed to get rid of. I had no problems with getting rid of it at his expense.

As I approached him, he slowly began to smile that evil smile of his. I think he was looking forward to this experience. That's because he was under a severe misconception.

"You can't win, you know; you can't beat me," he said, laughing cruelly. "You can't kill me because, according to the Ancient Prophecy," he said the name sarcastically, "I can't die yet." He laughed again. I looked at him intently.

"That's where you're wrong," I informed him. "I don't really care about the Ancient Prophecy right now. It can take care of itself. I warned you that if you ever messed with my girls again, I would kill you. You did; I will. The Prophecy can sort itself out. I figure that either I won't be able to kill you, although I intend to try, or if I do, the Prophecy will simply adapt itself and continue on. That's why it's a prophecy; it must finish itself." For a second, I thought Bandor looked worried.

"So you're really going to try to kill me?" He asked incredulously. I shook my head.

"Nope. I'm not going to try to kill you; I am going to kill you. This time you don't get to pick on helpless girls. Pick on me. See how well you do with someone your own size," I said. He snorted in derision.

"Those two are what you call helpless girls? You are delusional. I'm glad you sent them away; Megan scares me more than you ever did," he confessed. "But you misunderstand; I had nothing to do with her being taken prisoner," he insisted.

"Not originally, no. They had no idea who they had; just someone with powers. But if you weren't buying those powers from them, it wouldn't have happened. And your innocence in the matter ended when you arrived here shortly after they took her, didn't it?" He looked surprised.

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"Can the crap, Bandor. Try your innocent act on someone who will believe it. I looked in her mind when we restored her powers. I saw some of what you did to her those three days you had her. That's why you will die, not because your flunkies took someone that they didn't recognize." I saw Bandor's expression change.

"You restored her powers?" He asked in disbelief. "That can't be done. How did you do it? And you only watched part of what I did?" He asked hopefully.

"Yeah, I didn't bother to watch it all. It was sickening, and you're such a creature of habit anyway. I was pleased at how hard she fought you. I knew you could never break her. And forget it; I have no intentions of telling you how her powers were restored. I was looking forward to drying up your supply of powers to absorb and watching you shrink to nothing. I guess I won't get to do that now. Are you ready to die?" I asked encouragingly.

Bandor nodded his head slowly, as if agreeing to himself that it was time, then made a small movement with his hand. Suddenly, there was a dagger in his hand, and he threw it at me as hard as he could. I watched, as if in slow motion, as it sailed towards me. I reached out and caught it out of the air as it neared me. I tossed it up in the air and caught it again in midair as it reversed itself. Just before I threw it back at him, I noticed a certain part of my mind glowing, in that area where I assumed new powers were residing. I smiled as I wrapped some of that power around the dagger and threw it back at him. It shimmered, cycling through various colors, as it sped towards him.

I saw Bandor bring up his black shield to stop the dagger. It pulsated, unable to establish full power due to the interference of the area. The dagger stopped at his black shield, remaining motionless as it cycled through numerous colors. As it hit one particular color, it sped through the shield, striking Bandor in the stomach. I heard him scream as the dagger penetrated. I watched him pull it out and throw it to the side. There wasn't much bleeding, but it was obvious he was in pain.

"How does it feel, to be in pain?" I asked, goading him. "You've caused so much pain to others; how does it feel to experience it yourself?" I could see him getting angrier as I talked. He gave a growl and charged towards me.

Bandor was fast, about as fast as I was. I didn't expect his tolerance for harassment to be as low as it was. I was unable to completely duck or deflect his hand as he swung at me. He hit me on the side of my face. Had he connected where he was aiming, it likely would have been fatal. As it was, my movement affected where he hit me, and my backward movement robbed him of much of the force of his attack. It still hurt tremendously, however. In reaction, I grabbed his arm as it went past me and twisted it, causing his shoulder to roll with my force. I heard him gasp in pain, just before I flung him against the wall. As he dragged me with him, I moved slightly to slam into him instead of the wall, concentrating the full force of my movement and the unmovable force of the wall on his midsection. I heard his scream of pain again as the force centered on the dagger wound. He pushed me away as he rolled along the wall to get away. As we both got ourselves under control, we faced each other, several feet apart. He looked at me, the surprise and confusion plain on his face.

"You're stronger, and faster. What's happened to you?" He asked.

"The Power of the Rainbow," I answered him. "You've had the information all along that it was more powerful than your black power; you just refused to believe it."

"But... you're not supposed to have it yet! That isn't supposed to happen until the end of the Ancient Prophecy!" He exclaimed. I laughed.

"That would've been true, had you let things continue as they should have. By interfering this time, by your actions against Megan, you forced things to speed up. You brought about the realization of the full power of the white and purple energy, by causing their exposure to the Power of the Rainbow." I saw the look of surprise on his face as I said that. "Oh yes, Megan has the same powers also. She just hasn't realized it yet." I didn't quite understand the odd look in his eyes.

I quickly realized he was just keeping me talking to distract me. Just as I was finishing speaking, he kicked me in the knee, sliced his hand across the side of my neck, and kicked me in the stomach. As I stumbled backwards, he grabbed the dagger I had thrown on the floor. It was still shimmering with the rainbow colors. He screamed in pain, as if his hand had been burned, but he still held onto it long enough to plunge it into my abdomen.

It didn't hurt nearly as badly as I thought it would. As I pulled it out and dropped it, I noticed that the hole had already partially closed, although I could still feel the pain and damage from inside. I also felt a strange numbness in the hand that had touched the dagger. I put the pain out of my mind, as I grabbed his hand that was closest to me. I pulled him in sharply, slamming his chest into my straight arm. Then I pulled him into me again as I dropped to the floor on my back. As he flew over me, I pushed my feet up into the air, flipping him into the air over me and slamming him into the ground on his back. I heard the whoosh of air as it left his lungs.

I jumped up more quickly than he did, and as he came up, I hit him in the head with a roundhouse kick. He saw it coming at the last minute and managed to avoid enough of it to continue living, but he slammed into the wall behind him. I saw his eyes glaze slightly as he rebounded away from the wall, trying desperately to get away from me. I straight-armed him in the back, slamming his head into the wall again. He spun down the wall quickly, finally getting away from me, his face covered in blood as he limped away to the other side of the room.

Bandor sagged against the wall, looking at me, his eyes slightly out of focus. For the first time that I could remember, I saw what looked like fear in his eyes. I saw his eyes move furtively to the side, and then he dived for a gun that was lying on the floor. I moved quickly towards him, and as he brought the gun up to fire, I kicked it out of his hand, sending it flying through the air to land twenty feet away. As long as I was in the vicinity and kicking, I figured what the hell, and kicked him in the head, sending him flying in the other direction. As he fell, he rolled, landing against the wall. He quickly bounced up and moved, trying to keep me from cornering him. He was beginning to look a little frazzled.

We moved slowly towards each other, warily circling to try to find an advantage. I jumped into the air towards him, seemingly trying to kick him in the head. That's what he thought, anyway. As he moved to the side, looking pleased with himself for evading the kick so easily, I reached out with my hand as I flew by, grabbing his hair. I then jerked hard downward, flipping him over backwards in a somersault to land heavily on his stomach, his face impacting the cave floor violently. He was up, although slowly, before I could stop and turn around to follow up the advantage, however.

By the time I stopped and turned around to face him, Bandor was on top of me already. He punched me in the stomach right on top of where he had stabbed me. As I doubled over and froze in pain, he chopped me across the back of my neck, grabbed my head, and tried to drive it into his upraising knee. I twisted to the side just in time to avoid it, with his knee just grazing the side of my head. I broke away and stumbled backwards. I looked back up just as he lunged at me with a knife he had picked up.

I had milliseconds to react. As he lunged towards me with the knife, I slipped to the side, grabbed his wrist, twisted it, and slammed the open palm of my hand into his elbow, forcing it to bend in the opposite direction it was designed to go, probably shattering it. I had picked up that little trick from Victoria, watching her disable one of the men at the Fair in the last cycle. I heard Bandor scream as he stepped backwards, his arm hanging loosely at his side. I moved in and kicked him hard in the knee, probably breaking his kneecap. As he started to fall, I backed away, thinking that I was not ready to kill him yet. He still had way too much time to suffer for everything he had done to my family. Then it hit me, clear as a bell. I couldn't do that. If I intentionally made him suffer, what was the difference between him and me? Sure, I could say he deserved it, and he probably did, but wasn't it quite possible he said the same thing each time he tried to hurt us? Sure he was warped and wrong, but did that make what I was going to do right? Two wrongs didn't make a right. I had to kill him, to protect my family, but I didn't have to, I couldn't, torture him. I needed to make it quick and clean. I could have sworn I saw a fleeting look of disappointment in his eyes, through the pain in them, as I reached my decision.

All of this flew through my brain in the brief seconds it took him to pull himself up from the floor. One arm was useless, he could hardly stand on the one leg, and he was obviously in great pain. But all of that was just damage from the fight, not done to deliberately inflict pain. I needed to finish it, and now. Besides, he was still a dangerous opponent; one false move and the situations could easily be reversed.

I moved in quickly, punching him in the stomach over his knife wound. I knew how much that had hurt when he did it, and I was counting on just as much shock when I did it to him. I slashed the edge of my palm across his shattered elbow, watching his eyes glaze in pain as I hit it. I kicked him in his shattered knee again, and as he started to fall, I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and held him up against the wall. I saw the resignation in his eyes as I chopped the side of my hand against his throat. I drew back my hand, and slammed it forward to shatter his nose, intending to drive the fragments of it into his brain to end the fight forever. Just before my hand connected with him, there was a flash of grey light, he disappeared and I was left holding a handful of air.

I thought about cursing out loud, but I really was not that surprised. I had known all along that there was at least a possibility I wouldn't be able to kill him. I didn't know if he teleported himself or if the Ancient Prophecy caused him to disappear, because it wasn't his time yet. It really didn't make a difference to me. I just knew two things; I hadn't killed him, as disappointing as that was, and he wouldn't be bothering my family for quite awhile.

He wouldn't be bothering my family for awhile because I had hurt him badly. In fact, the slash across his throat still might cause his death, if I'd shattered his windpipe. That thought made me feel good for a minute. I doubted that was the case, but I could dream, couldn't I? But even if he lived, he would be out of commission for quite awhile. As far as I knew, the black side had no healers like Megan, and even if they did, I doubted that they were of her expertise. I knew that with his energy he would eventually recover, but it would take awhile. I guess if I couldn't kill him, a lengthy incapacitation was the next best thing. Enough of that, however; I had problems of my own. I needed to do something right away about the dagger wound. It was deep and serious. I didn't know if it was life-threatening in itself, but the internal bleeding could easily kill me.

I reached out with one of my new powers, dulling the pain somewhat. That merely kept me from collapsing and fainting, but didn't repair any of the damage or heal me any. I needed to get to Megan for that. I called into view the house where everyone was waiting, seeing the girls in the living room. I reached out and touched one of the areas of my mind where I saw a certain new power. There was a flash of green light and I was standing in the living room, a few feet behind Amy.

I realized with interest that no one saw me standing there. I instantly understood that I had used something slightly different from Sarah's teleportation power, and that no one would see or detect me until I moved or spoke. I watched Amy as she confronted Sarah, mad as a wet hen. Megan was looking awfully pissed also. Sarah was looking frightened, tears running down her face, but she was sticking to her guns, bless her little heart. I felt suddenly guilty about what I had dumped on her. Standing up to a thoroughly ticked off Amy and Megan was not something I would want to do myself, much less a petite 14 year old girl who was new to her powers. I heard Amy talking, her voice rising in anger.

"I swear to God, Sarah, if you don't teleport us back there right now, I'm going to..."

"You're going to what, Amy?" I asked softly, my voice carrying throughout the whole room.

There was a stunned silence as everyone seemed shocked into motionlessness. I saw a surprised, confused look in Sarah's eyes. Then Amy whipped around so fast I thought she would wrench her neck out of place.

"Daddy! Oh God, Daddy!" She screamed as she launched herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist as she leapt into my arms. I felt her trembling all over as she held on tightly, as if for dear life, as she whimpered incoherently. I was shocked. Amy never gave herself over to such displays of emotion. She was affectionate and loving, sometimes even emotional, but she never lost control this dramatically. She must have really been scared. I held her as well as I could, considering the pain I was in, stroking her hair and telling her it was ok as I tried to calm her down. I tried to enjoy her embrace, as the look in Megan's eyes told me this could possibly be the last nice thing I would ever feel if she let me know her true feelings when she got her turn at me.

It seemed like hours but was probably only a few seconds before it penetrated through Amy's fog of tears that I was wincing every time she moved even a little. She immediately dropped down out of my arms and looked at me, her face a mask of concern.

"You're hurt, Daddy... bad. Where?" She asked quietly. I saw the concerned look on Megan's face as she moved quickly over to my side. She arrived just in time; between the two of them, they managed to catch me and lower me to the floor just before I would have ended up there myself, not gently. Because of the lack of bleeding, it was not immediately obvious where I was injured. Megan started checking me out as Amy knelt down, putting her scared, pretty little face close to mine.

"Where, Daddy?" She breathed quietly, pleading with me for information. I took her hand and laid it on my stomach. She and Megan looked at each other, their gazes speaking volumes, and they quickly unbuttoned my shirt. They missed the wound on the first pass, as it was almost closed over on the outside, but then noticed it as they looked closer. I saw the puzzled look on their faces as they tried to determine how the little wound they saw could be causing the problems I was experiencing. Through the mist of pain clouding my eyes, I saw Megan's face suddenly pale as she apparently realized what was going on.

"Help me get him up on the bed, quickly!" She urged the girls. They picked me up and dumped me unceremoniously on the bed, the urgency in Megan's voice impressing upon them the need for speed over gentleness. Megan sat next to me on the bed, laying her hands on my wound. Almost immediately, the whole room was filled with purple lightning shooting in from everywhere. Other than possibly the time in the last cycle when Megan had healed Victoria after she was shot, I had not seen such an impressive display from her. It continued for at least two minutes, and then died out. I immediately felt better, although I was very weak. I looked up from the bed and saw a bunch of concerned female faces. I also saw Kim and Heather, Lisa and Lori looking on, their mouths gaping open in surprise, stunned at the show Megan had just put on. Their eyes were huge as they looked on with interest.

"What happened?" I asked weakly. Megan smiled tightly.

"First things first. Did you kill Bandor?" She asked tersely.

"Unfortunately, no. I was 1⁄2 second from killing him when he disappeared. He will probably leave us alone for awhile, though. He is badly hurt and nearly dead," I told her.

"Oh. Kind of like how you're going to be when Amy and I are done with you after you recover from your present condition?" Megan asked, smiling. I did not make the mistake of thinking her smile was friendly or that she wasn't serious. Even if I had, one look at Amy would have corrected that wrong assumption. I had two very pissed off women sitting next to me, lovingly holding my hands. Making sure I didn't run away, no doubt.

"So what just happened?" I asked, hoping to change the subject. I saw a look of concern come over Megan's face.

"I've never seen it but I've heard of ancient legends that speak of it. It has many names, one of which is 'Power Inversion'. What it refers to is the ability to take power directed at you from someone else, invert it, and then use it against the person who used it against you," she explained.

"That doesn't sound good," I commented. Megan sighed.

"If Bandor has learned to do that, it is not good at all. That makes him much more dangerous than he already was. We may not be able to defeat him if he can do that," Megan confirmed. I saw the look of concern on all the girl's faces.

"Couldn't we just refrain from using our powers against him? Take him out by hand? I almost did this time," I stated.

"Yes, we could. But that makes us considerably less powerful. That means it's just a standup fight against him. It only worked this time because his powers didn't work either. He wouldn't have to abstain from using his powers against us. That makes the whole fight heavily weighted against us. I'm not sure we would win." Megan definitely looked concerned. All the girls did also, except Becky.

"You're forgetting one big advantage we have," Becky stated calmly. We all looked at her. "We have the Ancient Prophecy on our side." I gave her a small apologetic smile.

"I'm not sure that's all that big a comfort to me, Becky," I said. "You're talking about a prophecy that almost no one in the world knows about. It's also a prophecy that, until a short time ago, when it became obvious that Sammi was someone other than we always thought she was, even we didn't believe was anything other than a local legend. Hell, Becky, you were the expert on it and you didn't believe in it." Becky gave an embarrassed little smile. "Now it's our savior? I hope so, but I'm not sure I'm ready to hang our existence on it just yet." The girls all looked at me as if I was a heretic. I guess I was at the moment, to them. It wasn't that I didn't believe in the Ancient Prophecy. I was one of its biggest advocates, if not the biggest. But I didn't think now was the time to profess that. I didn't want everyone sitting back on their laurels and expecting to be saved by a prophecy. I was a firm believer that God, whoever or whatever a person believed he, she or it was, was a firm proponent of the 'help those who help themselves' theory. Miracles happened when there was no other possible way that the situation could be resolved. They didn't happen right off the bat before any other way was tried.