Shields of the soul

The object pierced his body so suddenly that there was no time even to scream or groan in pain, only to let out a sigh. The tip of the violet-green crystal appeared in her face, stained with blood. Her blood. She saw the reddish liquid running down the crystalline surface. She continued her vision down to the point where the spear emerged from the upper right part of her abdomen. A wine-colored stain appeared on her red sweater.

"Gwen!" shouted Kevin in disbelief.

She looked up to see Albedo in front of her, who was beginning to lower the arm pointed in her direction. To her left, Kevin was trying to get up from the ground as fast as he could.

She turned again to Albedo and saw him turn his back and walk toward the machine at the epicenter of the clearing. After three steps away from him, Gwen felt the base of the spear that emerged from the ground shatter, causing her to lose her balance and fall to her knees against the ground. The young woman rested her right hand on the point where the crystal came out of her abdomen and watched the crystalline structure lose its luster and turn to sand in her hand.

Oh no! This way the wound goes.... Thought Gwen.

The bloodstain began to grow at an even greater rate. The girl put both hands over the wound on her abdomen but began to feel a warm sensation descend over her back. She could not compress both the entrance and exit of the wound.

Her senses were beginning to weaken and Kevin's voice again shouting her name became more and more distant, although he was running towards her.

"Kevin!" Gwen kept her gaze focused on her wound, the rosy luminosity of her eyes swinging with difficulty "Don't you dare come here, I'm fine!"

"Are you crazy?" Kevin stood halfway between the machine and Gwen.

"Don't come!" Gwen's breathing was getting faster and faster. She raised her head and faced the young man. "I'm fine..."

Memories of when he had held Gwen by the arm, preventing her from going toward the victims of the first explosion, filled her mind. The moment he removed the plush from her hands, as well as the words he said more to himself, to justify his attitude, than to convince Gwen.

Kevin stopped running and stared at the girl for a few seconds. The way she was bent over, her hands dirty with blood, her face already beginning to look pale. They both knew that this was a serious injury, however, they were also aware of the destruction Albedo could cause if he achieved his goal.

The young man lowered his vision and shook a quick negative with his head, then turned his body and started running towards Albedo without saying anything.

I'm going to kill this bastard! Thought Kevin.

Albedo was only a few feet from the machine, and although the villain didn't stop for a single second from walking, Kevin saw that the glow that represented Albedo's single eye was staring at him.

The crystalsapien raised his arm slightly, still pointing toward the ground, and made a trail of crystalline spines emerge from beneath the ground. The air had been filled with the sound of stones scraping against glass with each thorn that sprouted toward Kevin.

The teenager jumped to the side to dodge the attack; but, as suddenly as he touched the ground, he already had to jump back again as new spears sprouted from the ground. Kevin bent his knees and jumped towards a crystal in front of him, trying to touch its surface, but the instant his finger touched it, the whole structure crumbled, causing him to fall against the ground in an awkward manner.

New crystal spears started coming towards him, and Kevin's right leg was narrowly missed. The young man spun around on the ground and stood up quickly, dodging three more crystals that came at him from the right.

Kevin turned his arm to the side to try once again to touch the surface of one crystal, but as he imagined, the indestructible structure turned to sand before he could even touch it. He looked at Albedo, who was already a few steps away from the device; and although the creature had no mouth, its torso swayed to the rhythm of a loud, debauched laugh.

Suddenly Kevin heard a high-pitched, agonizing scream behind him. It was Gwen's voice. Desperate, the young man turned toward the girl and saw her still kneeling against the ground. Her left hand was palmed slightly away from her abdomen with a violet circle and runes drawn in the air. Her right hand, in turn, was resting over her wound, with blue flames escaping through her fingers and white smoke rising from the wound to the right side of Gwen's face.

She is cauterizing the wound... thought Kevin.

Albedo's laughter grew louder, as if he thought Gwen's cries of pain were the funniest thing that had happened to him that afternoon. And to make matters worse, Albedo reached for his machine. The device was oscillating a strong white glow, with green lightning bolts coming out of the top of the structure.

"What the hell am I doing?" growled Kevin, staring at Albedo, who returned his gaze.

The young Osmosian set off again toward the villain. He was running like never before, although the distance between them was still quite large. Albedo again raised his hand against the ground and made the thorns sprout toward Kevin. With only a few meters to go before the trail of crystals reached the younger man, he stopped running. He retracted the muscles of his body as if he were going to jump to the right but interrupted the jump.

The green-violet crystal pierced Kevin's left calf, and he grimaced in pain. Crouching down, he positioned one hand on the ground so that he wouldn't become unbalanced and tear his muscles even more. He raised his head, threw a victorious smile in Albedo's direction, and said:

"I got it."

Albedo pulled his arm towards himself, to interrupt the creation of the crystal, but it was too late, Kevin had gained access to the most resistant material among twenty-three galaxies.

The skin around Kevin's wound began to take on a crystalline appearance. In a matter of moments, his entire left leg was a violet-green color, with rainbow streaks dancing on its surface. The young man felt an enormous charge of energy fill his body as the crystal coated more and more of his body. He felt his mind beginning to cloud, making it difficult to think clearly. He knew that every time he absorbed something concerning the Omnitrix, his rationality was always the one that paid the price. He focused his attention on the image of the crystalsapien in front of him and repeated it to himself like a mantra, trying to give his mind one last command before losing his mind:

Destroy the machine and then finish this bastard off! Destroy the machine and then finish this bastard! Destroy the machine and then finish this bastard off!!!

As soon as the last strand of hair was filled with neotadenite, Kevin pulled out his left leg, breaking the crystal spear that pierced it, and advanced toward Albedo. He felt invincible! He advanced against the trail of thorns as if walking through dry branches, shattering everything in his path.

Albedo, realizing that his plan was now at risk, turned to face his machine and concentrated his energy in the center of his chest, then opened his arms pointing to the ground on each side of his body, causing a great glow to descend from his chest to his legs and sink into the ground. At the same instant, three circular walls radiated out from under the ground and positioned themselves in sequence behind his back, separating the space between him and Kevin.

Kevin lost his balance when the ground shook with the appearance of the walls, but he didn't fall. And those who think that the huge walls made him give up are mistaken, for now he felt even angrier. How dare they get in the way of his goal to destroy the machine and finish off that bastard!

The first punch against the first wall was enough to crack the surface from the bottom to the top. The second opened a hole big enough to look through from the other side, but not big enough to get through. The third made the crystal wall shatter into a V-shape making room for him to advance. There were two left.

At the edge of the crystal cage, Gwen was still on her knees, but now with her forehead resting on the floor. She was biting her lower lip so hard that a trickle of blood was dripping from it. Her right hand was resting on the wound on her back, the last sparks of blue fire escaping through her fingers.

It was certainly not the most appropriate way to deal with an injury like this, but he had no choice. He couldn't maintain enough magical concentration for a healing spell, and it was either cauterize the wound or die of hemorrhaging. For a brief moment, when she was almost losing consciousness, she felt a strange sensation wanting to invade her being, but the pain of the first contact of the Hyacinthum Sanar's flames was enough to quell that feeling.

Gwen put her hands on the ground and lifted her head, moving slowly, each stab of pain halting her continued movement. She looked at the walls in front of her and for a moment wondered where they came from. Then, as she saw the first wall fall, her attention turned to the man in the violet-green crystal who was advancing madly towards the second obstacle.

The girl stood up from the ground, her right hand still resting on her abdomen.

"Kevin..."

Her voice was weak and certainly not capable of overcoming the deafening sounds emitted by the punches on the second wall.

Gwen looked up at one of the seven huge crystal columns that delimited the circular boundary around Albedo's machine. She noticed that the violet-green glow with luminous beams was beginning to fade, with the crystal becoming more and more opaque from the ends towards the bases. It wasn't long before the teenager understood what was happening: Albedo was gathering the energy needed for the next stage of fission.

The girl turned her attention to Kevin who had just opened a hole in the second wall (apparently the closer to the goal, the denser the wall). There wasn't going to be time!

Gwen coated her hands with mana and chanted in a loud voice:

"Adfishio Potentia!"

The energy in his hands fragmented into tentacular beams and advanced toward Kevin. It latched onto the young man's arms and legs, immobilizing him. Gwen felt a stabbing pain tug at her right side as she pulled the mana tentacles, pulling Kevin toward her. The young man flew across the space between the huge crystal columns and was thrown behind Gwen, who, at the same instant, undid the spell.

The moment Kevin went beyond the limits of the cage, the neotadenite that clad him began to shatter and crumble, so that by the time he stopped rolling on the ground of dirt, stone and roots, his body was back to normal.

"What happened?" asked Kevin, rising from the ground. "Did we succeed in stopping him?"

But Gwen didn't answer; instead she summoned:

"Presidium!"

A path of violet light started in front of Gwen and began to draw a huge circle around the crystal columns on the floor. As soon as the path completed its shape drawing, several beams of light emerged from it towards the sky. The beams began to bend toward the center of the circle, drawing a huge semi-spherical cage. The "bars" of the cage began to curve progressively to the left, stretching and resting on each other to the point where there was no longer any free space between each of the beams, ending the protection in a huge mana dome.

"Gwen?" asked Kevin.

Keeping her face toward the dome, Gwen answered:

"Kevin, get out of here!" Another stab, this time in her back, making her look pained, but without losing her posture. "We couldn't stop Albedo."

"And what do you think-"

Kevin interrupted himself as he realized what was happening, then said:

"Gwen, this is crazy!"

Gwen moved her hands in front of her body as if wrapping mana around her arms and then positioned both open palms in front of her body:

"H-hespera Sophian!"

From her palms, waves of mana expanded in a circular fashion and formed a second dome of energy, this time pink, above the first dome.

Gwen's eyes were glowing brightly, and from time to time the glow fluctuated, but soon they began to radiate a pinkish hue in proportion to the efforts the girl was making to ignore her pain and keep the spells under control.

Suddenly, the muffled sound of the explosion inside the domes was heard. The semi-spherical surfaces grew like homemade bread inside an oven, swelling larger and larger.

The floor shook violently. Gwen tried to keep her balance. Her musculature remained stiff and her clenched teeth ached with such force.

The top of the first dome shattered, releasing the energy of the explosion into the second defense and causing it to swell even more.

Gwen felt her mana draining away. She didn't know how much more she would take, but she knew that if she failed, thousands would die in moments.

"Patrium Dacuritatum!"

A small dot at the top of the dome appeared and opened up as a yellowish circular tissue. Then it began to grow, coating the entire semi-spheroidal structure until it reached the ground. The instant it touched the base of the dome, the fabric hardened into a thick shiny shield with rune details.

I can't take it anymore...

The second dome was beginning to crack at the top like armored glass, drawing cracks, but not losing its shape.

Kevin kept his arms in front of his face to protect himself from the brightness radiating from within the explosion. The temperature in the place was increasing more and more, as a result of the thermal energy that was forcibly contained within the shields.

The young man could not do much, but only observe the herculean effort his friend was making at the moment. Then he noticed that the wound on Gwen's back was starting to bleed again. It was obvious that this was going to happen!

"G-Gwen!" shouted Kevin, but his voice was inaudible amidst all the noise in the room.

Kevin noticed that Gwen began to levitate off the ground. At first a few inches, progressing to a few feet until she was above the dome.

"Thrasius!"

Kevin saw a crystalline surface sprout from the ground and grow up the sides of the dome, coating the third shield with yet another protection. However, what was catching Kevin's attention the most was Gwen. A violet light was growing from within the wounds on her abdomen.

The crystalline shield was about to reach the highest point of the dome, when the tops of the second and third shield broke off, radiating a white light into the sky. A very strong wind began to punish the region, causing the clouds to drift away from the column of energy.

Kevin leaned one hand on a rock that lay on the ground and absorbed its matter, trying to be heavy enough not to be blown away by the wind. Still with one hand in front of his face to protect himself, the young man raised his head toward Gwen.

The girl was still flying in the same place with her arms positioned in front of her body. The winds made her hair swing back violently, and the light coming out of her eyes and from her wounds was stronger and stronger. Gradually his fingertips also began to turn violet, growing spots that expanded to his forearms.

Even as the energy from the explosion leaked through the opening at the top of the dome into the sky, the second shield shattered inside the defense, Gwen moved her fingers, as if drawing runes in the air, and then said:

"Twista combetitus!"

Kevin turned and saw the rock beside him begin to rise from under the ground. The huge rock levitated into the air, accompanied by several other rocks of different sizes that appeared in the area. The rocks were gathering together until they formed a huge stone serpent with a blue aura. The creature slithered around the base of the dome and curled up, climbing around the defense and leaving only the top open as an escape valve.

Another burst was heard as the third defense broke through, causing the white glow to escape through the stone serpent's loops. The magical creature held firm, preventing the sides of the dome from expanding to the sides.

It was a few seconds that seemed to last forever, until finally the column of energy began to thin out to the point where it became a small line toward the sky. The stone serpent began to lose its blue aura, with the stones dropping away from each other and falling towards the base of the dome. The crystalline surface of the fourth shield turned into small glass fragments and dissipated into thin air, letting a dense white smoke billow out from the surroundings.

Kevin's eyes watered and his lungs became irritated by the hot smoke, causing him to cough.

"Where is Gwen?"

The silhouette of the girl began to descend from the sky through the dense mist, turning in mid-air and facing Kevin. The smoke slowly cleared, allowing him to see his friend:

Several strands of Gwen's hair were violet. Her eyes were differing; her right eye had a pink iris, while her left eye's sclera was pink, with a whitish iris. A violet stain spread over the left side of his face and neck. His hands and forearms were completely violet, with the spots going up to his elbows. Although there was a lot of light emanating from her body, the girl's eyes lacked brilliance.

"Gwen?" Kevin stepped back.