Page 149 of A Touch of Gold and Madness

Golden had disappeared.

Chrome scanned the sprawling lawn for the Kinetic who’d escaped. “It wasn’t an Elemental blade, so he’ll heal.”

“For now.”

“I’ll fucking carve the skin from his body. Alive.” Chrome’s jaw was clenched, his fists tightening around his sword.

With a final look at one another, we pushed our way back into the mayhem. The numbers were lower, but the fight for the Hollow’s survival was far from over.

Combining the use of our magic and fighting skills, we blasted and sliced through bodies, deftly whirling around Kinetics with speed, side by side. We fought on an intuitive level together, instinctively knowing when one needed a weapon or assistance.

The antidote healed me while the Mushweed rejuvenated my energy, making me feel fresh for the second round of this fight. My magic on both sides surged. Wind acted as a sentient being on my behalf as I held back on my Kinetic powers. The electrical voltage fed off my anger, growing at an intensity so strong that it threatened to explode frommy body. I needed a release.

Chrome, having sensed my increasing anxiety, met my eyes. “What do you need?”

“A release.”

“Not exactly the time or place for that, but I wouldn’t be opposed…” he said, slicing his blade clean through the neck of a Kinetic Warrior. Blood sprayed his face, and the rain washed down his neck.

Heat flooded my core at the fucked-up image that flashed in my head. I rolled my eyes, running my blade through the chest of a neon-haired man before jerking it back, spinning, and carving through the abdomen of a warrior behind me. “Fucking on a battlefield,” I said, throwing an elbow into the ribs of a woman. “That would be a first.” A punch to my jaw rocked my head to the side, sending a blinding pain through my skull.

In the next breath, the offender was blown to entrails. Frustration bubbled in my chest. “I had that!”

“I know,” Chrome said, stabbing the side of a man’s neck. “But he hurt you.” He whirled. “Pissed me off. Told you I’d kill anyone who ever dared to hurt you again.”

I answered with a blast of Kinetic magic from my palm into the face of an incoming man. But the magic didn’t want to relent. It wanted out, clawing at my chest, wanting to unleash its wrath on the battlefield. “You might want to move. Something is happening.”

The little hairs all over my body raised as static electricity built and built around my aura.

Chrome paused to look at me in confusion but still sent a pressurized blow to a Kinetic he dealt with. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t—don’t know,” I said, wincing from the effort it took to try to hold it back. “My Kinetic magic is—it feels unstable or something.”

“Fuck,” he said. “What’s your energetic source?”

“I don’t know,” I groaned. Chrome stepped in front of me to fight off the horde as I froze, unable to move.

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t know? How do you not know that?”

“I just don’t! Mine always worked differently. I draw my energy from all types of wavelengths. Father would never tell me.”

“Fucking bastard. It looks like a form of electromagnetic energy. You’re gonna have to let it go.”

“Chrome, I’m scared.”

“I know, Rainbow. But you gotta do it. Trust me.”

I hesitated, feeling the electricity promise to fry my veins if I didn’t listen. “Okay.”

“Good girl,” he said. “Let it go. There’s no better time than now.”

So, I did.

Instead of blue energetic volts, pure white streaks of lightning exploded from my body and into the sky. The light from my magic blinded the battlefield. The release of pent-up energy was euphoric, sending electrified pulses down from my neck to the base of my spine.

Thunderous booms crashed around us as the volts cracked through the air to the ground.

Lost in the power, I didn’t think to even try and aim the strikes away from my allies. I froze. The lightning strikes slowed to a stop after several minutes. Turning my head, I came nose to nose with turbulent, quicksilver eyes. Energy poured from his aura, and he was alight with electricity. His currents raced violently in a way I’d never seen.

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