Hours ago...

Jessica:

The three of us stood in a large open desert-like area, the boys holding their swords out and to the front of us, both of them anticipating when the monster would come for us and from what direction.

I stared at the sky. "God... I know I can't do this alone. But still, let us survive this, let my sword be the one to finally bring this man's horrors to an end. Please, Lord."

I opened my eyes- Tyrin was in front of me with a wild grin. "Wanting to pray before fighting me? Should it go to my head?" he asked.

"Go," I said. The boys shot away from me in flashes of color, appearing several meters away on either side of Tyrin. Tyrin swung his sword at me as I quickly jumped back just in time. A bag of iron hit him from the side and fell to the ground, the dust in it just falling and mixing with the dust around Tyrin. Tyrin just looked at Kyle. He shook his head.

"What do I care about your pawns- bring out the goddess."

'He probably means me,' said Raven.

I shook my head. 'Every time we switch, the attack the previous one was charging just dissipates. We want maximum effect-' I shot left quickly as Tyrin fired a pulse at me. The large near apple-shaped man was tossed to the right as he did, Xao getting a shot in at that moment. Tyrin went sputtering on the ground but recovered. 'Only one personality can fight here.'

' Jessica... get him for me.'

'This started with the three of us,' I thought. 'Fittin that we end it.'

I watched as Kyle shot over to Xao, Tyrin quickly getting to his feet. The boys were talking and- Tyrin opened fire on me with his handgun.

Two rounds missed me, the third ripping through my right hip. The wound was a graze- me shooting into a jump and moving and past him.

Two balls of energy started to orbit my form when I came out of my jump. Tyrin turned to me and drew his sword, me having to quickly jump again.

As I came out of my jump I watched iron dust raining down on the man and dropping over his shield.

What was Kyle doing? If we couldn't see him we couldn't see him through the shield- wait... the dust was settling on the bubble of his shield. If it went down, we would know the instant it did.

Tyrin shot across our brown field of battle. When he stopped he turned and opened fire at the boys, Kyle and Xao quickly firing away, but not just in time this time.

When Kyle came out of his jump he was screaming in pain, his right hand hanging limply. Kyle screamed and suddenly lobbed a bag of dust into the air, it opening mid-air as he did- then he jumped. Out of his jump, he tossed another bag, then jumped again, then another throw and on and on he continued.

What was he even doing?

I turned and saw Tyrin following him, moving his left hand slowly, now trying to anticipate my friend's movement. 'Stop him!' Raven shouted in my head. I pointed both swords at Tyrin and unleashed bolt after bolt at him, them just redirecting around his shield and he continued to follow Kyle. 'Let me front. I'll do an overcharge!'

'We do that we'll be seriously injured- make that a last resort okay?'

"Go ahead Tyrin, shoot him, you drop your shield and you die!" I screamed at the monster.

Tyrin didn't even look at me. Several pulse blasts also impacted him, Xao firing at him from another direction.

What in the heck was Kyle doing? Now he was just throwing his stakes into the air- Tyrin shot across the battlefield, my electric charges now hitting the empty ground where he had been, along with a pulse firing across and blowing dust harmlessly.

Tyrin came out of his jump, his left hand going up as Kyle came out of another jump- Kyle was blasted off his feet the second he came out of a jump, two gunshots quickly following Tyrin's first attack.

Kyle hit the ground. I screamed. What was he even trying? Was he okay?

Tyrin looked over at Xao now, the teen-looking pharaoh a few meters from me.

My constructs still flew around me... Kyle might have been alive but he wasn't moving. Were the constructs powerful enough to knock out that shield yet?

I shot right as Xao shot left. I came out of my jump to see Tyrin now following Xao with his left hand. What he did to Kyle he probably believed he could just do to all three of us. "Bring out the goddess brat, or I'll just gun the three of you down one by one!" he taunted.

I pointed Henry at Tyrin, one of my constructs slamming into the blade and a massive amount of electric energy ripping out towards Tyrin. Tyrin's entire form was enveloped in energy, different colored dust flying out all around.

The energy from my attack dissipated and I dared to look. Tyrin looked right back at me, his eyes a little wide. He then grinned. "Not enough kid, bring her all the way out."

Xao was now just keeping his arm up, several hundred feet from both of us. I could see a look of fear starting to come on his face. He screamed, a pulse firing from his wrist as Tyrin fired back.

My older brother flew backward- Tyrin screaming.

On all fours on the ground, Tyrin coughed out blood. "No... no it won't happen like this. Bring out the goddess girl. Bring out the monster that fought me all those years ago, the thing that was so powerful it toyed with me..."

There was no follow-up shot this time, Tyrin was nearly crying in pain. My eyes went back to him. Iron dust was surrounding him, no doubt already in his eyes.

Kyle had been mixing his iron dust into the dust around us. When Tyrin stopped watching him because he was "down" he had been able to mix it around so the second Tyrin dropped his shield to fire on me or Xao, the dust could be triggered and enter the man's shield.

Kyle had just made an opening!

Wait...

I looked at Tyrin, feeling like I might actually pity him. "You still don't know what happened that day do you?" I asked, watching his hands for an attack, even as I was kinda gloating here. "That was just my other half waking up. That power was just us killing ourselves to kill you- I don't even know if I CAN do that again let alone if I would survive the attempt- but there is not and never was a goddess in this body," I said, pointing at myself. "All this time- how much time and effort have you put into fighting us- Tyrin..." I gave a laugh, "Tyrin, this is exactly what it looks like. You're about to be destroyed by a bunch of children."

He looked up at me in disbelief as I quickly raised my swords into the air, firing energy into them and out, curving it back into my surviving construct. I hadn't dared do this while Tyrin was able to just fire on us openly, but now I could charge my attack to its fullest as, apparently, he could barely move now.

Tyrin struggled to his feet and shot across the battlefield. He came out of his jump and- dropped to the ground, screaming in pain once again.

"Jessica, end this!" Xao screamed at me, coming out of a jump several meters behind me.

I pointed my sword Sally at Tyrin, my construct now a huge ball of electric energy. The ball fired into my blade, a massive blast of energy erupting out and vaporizing the area around Tyrin, a massive crack echoing out and overwhelming my ears.

I dropped to the ground.

Had we finally won? Was the monster finally dead?

I turned my head to where Tyrin had fallen. Bits and pieces of metal and cloth had been mixed into the ground, even the cyra alloy of his blade now spread among the dust.

To my horror, however, I also noticed that in the crater around Tyrin, a large horizontal hole- one that had no doubt been carved when Tyrin unleashed his sword attack again- directed at where Kyle had been laying.

Xao stood over me. "Xao... get me up... Kyle... please don't be gone. Kyle, please..." I tried to get up but suddenly fell back. Apparently only the adrenaline had kept me from noticing that the injury to my hip was actually pretty serious.

Xao hoisted me up and fireman carried me over to our little brother.

He laid me down next to the body. Blood had mixed into the ground from the gunshots already.

I push myself up looking at my brother. I brushed the hair on his head and- he turned to look at me.

"He... he missed?" I asked.

"The dirt under me moved," Kyle said. "Guess it was just a blind shot anyway ya know?"

"What exactly did you do? Why did he fall like that?"

"Once I got that dust into his body the first time he fired, the fight was over. He either retreated, or we would win. He jumped and I just kept firing my magnetism at him. Apparently, when he came out of that last jump he thought to try one more attack and- I was able to pull whatever dust was inside him towards myself the second his shield went down- including that dust trapped in his eyes."

"Geeze..." Xao said with a chuckle. "Brutal."

"Not like he deserved better." Kyle spat saying that. Xao slowly turned Kyle over, the boy giving yelps of pain. Kyle's right upper leg looked nasty along with his left arm and the right part of his chest... no... Kyle choked a few times. "I knew if I did this that would probably be it. I had to have Tyrin give me an opening," he coughed several more times.

"You're gonna make it Kyle- you're gonna make it!" I shouted at him.

"What are you two gonna do? A drastic deal with a trickster?" he even laughed on that note. "Ya know, for a minute there, I had allowed myself to hope. I guess your god only sorta came through. We beat Tyrin, but what everyone wanted was that we all end up together... it's fine really. Maybe he was upset at me, I prayed to him trying to get something without even believing in him. Kinda a jerk move there ya know? Just using him like that."

Xao knelt. "Kyle..." he said, his head dropping into his hands.

I pushed myself to my feet and collapsed back down. The adrenaline was now calming down even more in my system as I felt waves of pain. I sobbed. "This is what you want... Jesus please, don't just make me watch him go..." I turned my head. "They have pharaoh drugs around here, go find them Xoa, now!" Xao disappeared in a flash of colors.

"Why bother?" Kyle said, with a few more coughs. "Those things can take hours to heal someone," he pointed at his chest wound. "This will have finished me off long before then. Besides, there's blood and metal in my lung, healing chemicals can't just remove that... I'm sorry... I'm just gonna go." He closed his eyes.

"Kyle... Kyle?" I grabbed and squeezed his hand as it laid now lifeless on the ground.

Xao appeared beside me. He looked at our brother, just laying there, only the small breezes moving his clothes. "Is he..."

"Just inject him!" I shouted. "Do it!"

"It won't matter if-"

"FREAKING DO IT!"

Xao injected him.

I squeezed Kyle's right hand. "God... we're doing what we can but... please, keep him in this world." In the distance, I suddenly heard gunshots going off. I slowly stood up, turning to look behind myself. "He's in God's hands now... what's going on?"

"THIS IS THE FBI! Everyone put their hands up, you will not be told a second time!"

I watched as several men in plain clothes around the train station were running around the train station, fleeing men in black body armor. "I... I think they're in riot gear... someone is moving in to... take down Jacobson?" I asked.

Xao and I just watched, not knowing what to say. Men were being arrested, the charred scene of my fights being quickly overrun with investigators.

Xao finally spoke up. "You think we should be worried about them figuring out what happened here?"

"Even without werewolves in their ranks thwarting that, I doubt they're gonna think a girl was throwing lightning at people out here. It'll be the weirdest crime scene ever but... what do we do?" I asked back. "We... we should move Kyle."

"No... no, we shouldn't." Xao said.

"Xao the humans operate on him- human drugs only paralyze pharaohs they don't actually dull pain or knock us out he..."

"Kyle's passed out anyway," Xao said. "I think the best chance he'll have is if normal humans try to remove what got in his lung."

"He's going to heal so fast, they're not going to understand what's happening... I had you do what I thought would help most." I sat in the dust. "We acted rashly, turns out. There's no way to save him now."

Xao sat down next to me. "Looks that way."

I bit my lip. "We have to get him out of here." Xao nodded to that. "I'll distract them, you get Kyle out of here... God forgive me, I wanted to save him. Jesus, I wanted to save him, I really did..." I started to sob.

Xao stood up and left to get Kyle's... body.

I staggered towards the police.

In a few minutes, I had men surrounding the "poor injured girl". My tears were real, even if the reason I gave was fake.

Was he really gone?