by Beca Lewis
On the way to the meeting, I had felt the trees’ energy pulsing through me opening more of my memory of how to access the power within me to fly and to produce that lightening.
James was smiling at me. His brother and the other men from Beru’s village stood open mouthed staring at what I had done.
Everyone else looked as if they had expected it. “Well, that’s a relief,” Niko said. “You were cutting that close.” Seeing my puzzled face, he added. “Yes, we knew you could do that, it’s one reason we needed you back in Erda.”
Niko turned to Aki and asked, “Is it enough?”
Aki looked at me and whispered, “It’s best to tell the whole truth here, Kara Beth.”
I knew she was right, so I answered. “I’m not sure. We’ve been practicing, and I am better than I was a few days ago, or even this morning. But we can’t wait to find out. The Riff is only a few miles away from another village.
“I am going to need everyone’s help to do this, that is if you are willing. I’ll understand if you don’t trust me enough.
“However, I don’t think we can do it without everyone. All I can promise you is that I will do everything not to let you down, and to destroy Shatterskin before he gets to that village.”
Zeid stepped forward. “I’m ready. When do we go?”
“Now,” I said. “I have assignments for each of you. Then we go.”
Everyone stepped forward, and tears rushed to my eyes in gratitude and love for every one of them. Tears might not be expected for a leader, but it was my way.
I looked down to my left wrist at the two bracelets that sat there. My friendship bracelet from Johnny, and the one with the jasper stone given to me by Professor Link.
One was my past, and one was my future. Seeing them both there reminded me that I was of both worlds and that was what made me stronger than Abbadon’s Shatterskin. And I was going to prove it.
Shatterskin Fifty-Five
Thirty minutes later some of us were above ground and moving towards Shatterskin. Teddy and his team had tweaked our earmuffs again. We needed even more protection from the sonic booms that Shatterskin was sending out. Working against the Shrieks had helped perfect that part of our protection. We planned to stop Shatterskin before he stopped us—well killed us—but we had to get close enough to do it. Getting close enough was one part of the problem.
The other part was that our entire plan rode on the belief that if we sent enough heat and energy towards Shatterskin, he would melt the same way I had melted the metal down below. When I had explained that was our plan there had been complete silence until John spoke up. “Seriously, you are going to melt Shatterskin. Are you crazy?”
“Probably, but I’ve been told that it will work,” was my answer.
I didn’t tell them who told me, but they thought it was the Oracle and I wasn’t going to say otherwise. I agreed with them that on the one hand, it sounded too simple to be true that all we had to do was melt him.
But, on the other side, it wasn’t simple at all. We had to get close enough to blast him, without him killing us first. Not a simple feat. In fact, it seemed impossible. Shatterskin could shatter trees and rocks. Our bodies would not be able to sustain a hit from his sonic blasts.
All our earmuffs were doing was lowering the decibel level of the sound, but even what we didn’t hear could kill us. So we needed to be where he didn’t expect us.
Which meant our first plan was to make him think we were someplace we weren’t. To do that, we turned on our shields. We didn’t believe that our reflecting Shatterskin’s sounds back to him would hurt him. All we wanted was Abbadon to send Shatterskin after us.
As soon as our shields started reflecting, Shatterskin turned our way. The sonic sounds and the horrible noise of the trees as they were ripped from the earth was terrifying. It was hard not to break down watching the death of everything in Shatterskin’s path that couldn’t get out of his way.
Cahir had evacuated everything that could move far from what was going on, for which we were grateful. The Ginetes and Whistle Pigs were deeper underground hoping to get behind Shatterskin before he collapsed the tunnels where we had just spent the last few days. They were also busy preparing Shatterskin’s final surprise.
The rest of us were above ground. Really above ground. But not behind our shields. We were flying. Not the way I had flown underground. I could not sustain that kind of flying for long, and we had a long way to go. Instead, all of us were riding the pileated dragons.
Riding the dragons was almost as terrifying as watching the destruction on the ground. We were flying as high as we could over Shatterskin’s head, hoping that he couldn’t see us. Below us, we could see the ripping of the earth and trees as Shatterskin passed. Even as high as we were, we could feel the vibrations from the thunderous noise it made. We had to get behind him before he noticed that we were not where we had attached our shields to the trees.
Suzanne had given us each a harness that we placed over our dragon. The harness was not for the dragon. They knew how to fly us to where we were going. They were for us. I knew I was not the only one terrified of flying on a dragon. No one had done it before. What if we fell off, or froze to death? It was so cold I was shivering within minutes. Or maybe I was trembling from fear.
I could see Ruta and Beru riding together on one of the larger dragons. Beru was holding onto Ruta for dear life. I wasn’t sure which one was more terrified. They both hated heights. Ruta especially. But Ruta had to be there. He had a task to do that only he could do.
I was riding Lady. I knew we were asking a lot of the dragons. We were heavy. They weren’t used to flying with a passenger, but it was the only way to get where we were going fast enough.
I had asked about the Sound Bubble, and Suzanne had looked at me as if I was crazy. “You and that bubble. We’ll ride it again, but for this, it won’t work. It would shatter, and it can’t get high enough. One blast from Shatterskin and that would be the end.”
All of us were tuned into Link’s channel, and no one was to do anything until everyone was in place. After what seemed like an eternity, everyone checked in and said they were ready.
Massive dust clouds were rising from the ground, whipped up by Ariel’s wind. The dust obscured our view of the land, but it also obscured Shatterskin’s view of what was going on above his head, and behind him.
We were wearing goggles. The dragons were not, but they had assured us, through Lady, that they would be okay.
“Now,” Link said, and Lady and I began our descent.
It was now or never. As we dove straight down through the dust, the noise level increasing, I touched the star around my neck and saw what I was looking for: Shatterskin’s Achilles heel.
“Go,” I shouted to myself, and jumped.
Shatterskin Fifty-Six
Lady had gotten me close enough to fly to the opening behind Shatterskin’s neck. We knew there had to be an opening because the Shrieks had been seen swarming over Shatterskin every time they brought him a new battery. It seemed obvious that they didn’t need all those Shrieks for that job, so we figured that they were hiding how they got inside of the machine. They were protecting Shatterskin’s Achilles heel.
My plan was not to kill Shatterskin from the outside, but from the inside. It was something he would not be expecting. Actually, we didn’t believe Shatterskin was thinking. We were sure that Abbadon controlled Shatterskin somehow, and the answer lay inside of that metal skin.
All I needed to do was find the hole and fly inside without dying on the way—no big deal. The perspective that the star had given me revealed the opening, and I thought that once inside we had a great chance of stopping him.
The plan was to melt the battery and whatever else was driving him, and then deal with Shatterskin’s body when it was still
and silent. At the very least, I hoped to stop him from making any sounds. If we could prevent him from moving, that was even better, because the Ginete and Whistle Pigs needed me to stop him as close to where they were going as possible, since he would be hard to move as dead weight.
As I headed towards the opening at breakneck speed, I was happy that everyone else was as safely out of range as possible. They were either high up with the dragons heading to another destination, or far below building the final trap.
My flight from Lady to Shatterskin was the longest few seconds of my life. I knew if I didn’t hit the opening on target I would die. I only hoped that I would die before I shattered apart into a million pieces. A split second away from the door, I fired a beam of lightning at it to melt the covering and make the opening big enough for me to pass through.
There was a mind-blowing moment of fear hoping that it would work before I hit the hole and slid in. I could feel the edge of the hot metal rip along my left arm, but the pain only helped me focus.
We had thought that once inside Shatterskin we wouldn’t be affected by the sound. We reasoned that he had to have some system that blocked his own weapon from shattering his insides. Luckily we were right. The only sound I could hear was coming through the opening that I had made when I blasted the covering off of the entrance to Shatterskin’s insides.
I hovered inside using my newfound flying ability, and a second later, the Priscillas flew in through the open hole, each of them holding a small shield Teddy had made for them. They had waited until the door was open before leaving Lady and following me, using their shields to block as much sound as possible.
For them, with their tiny bodies, this was almost a suicide mission, but I couldn’t persuade them not to come. I was never so happy to see anyone. But we didn’t have time to celebrate. We had only just begun.
I took their shields and welded them in place with the energy from my hands to block as much outside sound as possible. Once I closed the opening, my job was to find the battery and melt it. The Priscillas were to pull cables and cut wires wherever they saw them.
Inside Shatterskin it was pitch black, and although relatively quiet, he was always moving, and we had to stay suspended in the air to keep from being banged against the walls.
My backpack contained balls of tree pitch collected by Ruta for me. I stuck them to the metal and then lit them hoping they would stay. But if not, at least they would fall inside of Shatterskin and maybe do some damage.
Once we had enough light, I could see what looked like the battery and headed towards it, blasting it as I went.
Two things happened that scared the ziffer out of me. One, I tried to talk to Link and the team and let them know where we were and realized that I couldn’t hear them. Which meant they couldn’t hear me either. And two, Shatterskin starting shaking himself, throwing the Priscillas and me against the walls.
I yelled to the Priscillas to grab onto me, and we descended together holding on to a cable that led to the battery. Pris shouted in my ear, “He must know we are inside, so make it quick.”
As if I didn’t know. The tree sap started giving out, and I stuck more on the walls and lit them with a blast of energy. Some stuck, others didn’t, but the light they gave off made it easier to keep my eyes on the target. I did my best to avoid the things that were shaking loose inside of Shatterskin. I wondered if he knew what he was doing or if it was the machine’s version of a death rattle.
I knew that even after I melted the battery, we were still in trouble. Because our communication was down, we couldn’t coordinate our plans. I couldn’t believe how much I missed everyone’s voice in my head. I had thought it was annoying, but I would have given anything now to hear something.
We were on our own. The problem was, once we stopped Shatterskin, the rest of the team would begin their attack thinking that we were safely away.
“Well then we better be safely away,” Pris said, reading my mind. Thankfully we could still hear each other even though Pris kept insisting on actually yelling at me.
I knew what she was doing. She was making me angry. Angry worked. The Priscillas tucked into my jacket to be safe as I blasted everything I had at the battery. The shaking stopped and the Priscillas flew off to cut wires because we could still hear faint booming sounds.
We had stopped him from moving, but not blasting sonic booms. There had to be an extra battery. I stuck pitch balls everywhere to light our way. We cut wires and melted anything that looked as if it contained power, but we could still hear the booms.
La called, “Up here!”
We all looked up to see her at the top of Shatterskin’s head pointing at a black box behind his eyes. Ah. The brain. Time to blast it to kingdom come. “Get back,” I yelled, and flew at the box blasting it with every bit of energy that I had. I let the anger fuel me. The view from the star had begun to fade, and I knew I was drawing my last bit of reserves.
It had to be enough.
Shatterskin Fifty-Seven
“You’ll have to help,” I signaled to the Priscillas when I realized that the box was still intact even after all the lightning I had directed at it. That seemed impossible, but the Priscillas joined me, and we sent every ounce of energy that we had to that little box. Nothing happened.
I was terrified out of my mind. After all this, we couldn’t stop Shatterskin? No one would be able to get close enough to stop him unless we ended his sonic blasts. What if the box was made of something that could not be destroyed? Perhaps we had lost after all.
I thought of all the people of Erda counting on us to stop this monster. I thought of my family that had taught me about illusion. And I knew we had forgotten one crucial thing.
“Stop,” I yelled. “It’s done. I know it is. We destroyed that box. It only looks like it is still intact because Shatterskin is using the power we are sending him to block our view of what we have done and to produce his blasts. We have to withdraw everything from him now. The only power Shatterskin has right now is to produce an illusion, and we are feeding it.”
Not doing anything while the sonic blasts continued, knowing that the sound was shattering everything in its path, was the hardest thing we had done yet. But Aki’s training kicked in. We calmed ourselves. Pris hummed. We closed our eyes. I thought about the power of Love and how it had saved my family and me in the Earth Realm time and again.
Then the Priscillas and I were at peace. And the noise stopped. It had worked. Opening our eyes, we could see that the box had been destroyed, and it was only the illusion that had kept us from seeing that our blasts had dissolved it.
In the back of my mind, I realized that Abbadon was much cleverer than I had thought. But I tabled that thought. We didn’t have time to deal with it right at that moment.
The rest of the team would be beginning our final part of the plan, and we had to get out before it started, and there was no way to tell anyone that we were still inside.
After so much noise and movement, when Shatterskin came to a stop, and the booms had ceased, the silence was deafening. There was still a little light left from the pitch balls, but it was fading, and the four of us didn’t have any energy left to relight them.
We should have been happy about the stillness and silence, but we knew that meant that Pita and Teddy’s teams would now be doing their part of the attack. Well, it wasn’t an attack as much as it was a removal.
Until we were trapped inside of Shatterskin, I had thought it was a great plan. Now it looked like we would be removed along with him. Shatterskin began to lurch, and the four of us screamed. Any other time I might have laughed at the squeak the fairies made when they screamed. My scream wasn’t much better. Not enough energy to give a good yell.
We screamed, not because Shatterskin had come alive again, but because we knew that the ground beneath him had opened
and he had begun to sink. I was proud of Teddy and Pita. Their plan was working. While we had been busy shutting Shatterskin down, multiple teams of Ginete and Whistle pigs had been frantically digging.
The trees were helping of course by lining the walls of a hole big enough to drop Shatterskin into. But they had to wait until we shut off the movement and the sound to finish it.
With a silent and still Shatterskin, they would tunnel to the surface and open a circle beneath him. Shatterskin would then slip beneath the surface and would end up deep in the earth.
Eventually, Shatterskin would sink low enough to end up in a molten lava flow that the Whistle Pigs were directing his way. He would be gone forever. But then, if we didn’t get out, we would be gone forever too.
“I have a plan,” I tried to tell the Priscillas, but the words stuck in my throat.
That’s when I realized that we were running out of air. The pitch balls were consuming the last of the oxygen.
Pris answered me inside my head. “We heard you, so what is it?” In my mind’s eye, I pictured the plan and hoped the three of them understood. They nodded. We had one chance.
We each grabbed a burning ball of pitch and flung it through one of Shatterskin’s eyes. I could only use my right hand. My left arm had stopped working. It had also stopped hurting which didn’t seem like a good sign.
All four of us screamed as the balls burned our hands, but we managed to get them to fly together at Shatterskin’s right eye burning a tiny hole in it.
A small amount of air rushed in, and we each took a deep breath and then helped La, the smallest of the fairies to scramble through the hole. Then we waited. Either someone was out there or not. But at least La would survive, and Shatterskin had been stopped.