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Good

I felt a shudder running through the aetheric - a thicker atular physical world, alas to liquid Few things in the real world could stay at that balance point, but I’d always thought the aetheric was nothing but that - a place where everything, always, was transitional

The shudder that ran through the aetheric ca it to a violent halt

It fought the back aves of power This was the dangerous part; if the forces got too far out of balance, things would happen that none of us could anticipate or control We were dealing with the power of several nuclear bo where you want to apologize for aaround

I signaledthrough the storm and into the thick black water beneath it The area directly beneath it was devoid of life; the residents of the sea that nored the area had prudently departed

Good I didn’t want to be responsible for any ood people all - spread thees of the store of the water - not that water was static, of course, which hat made this so difficult Water, like air, was always in motion Unlike air, it had real density, and it took a lot e in it on the , Lewis

I’d pushed rees, but I could sense that there were e So the tereein odd places, like pockets of gas in awith- an oddly thick ripple in the aetheric, maybe - and then I saw one ofcontrol of her weather working She vanished into the heart of the stor

Then I felt her stop

Soile balances that the Wardens had built - layers of control, of forces, of risk -

began to shatter like a glass tower in an earthquake I desperately struggled to hold on to e’d achieved More Wardens were being attacked around me by invisible forces -

battered the same way I had been earlier, but with far deadlier results I could sense terrible things happening, but I had to hold on Hold on The strain increased I was strong, but this was too much for any one Warden to hold on to and then the storan to move

No way I could stay with it as it roared closer, heading for the Grand Paradise

So ht Up Out

I was just far enough away to survive what happened next

The storreen color, shot through with drifting flecks of red and jagged cutting edges of black

The power that the Wardens had been ht, and I felt it rip throughapart my aetheric body I re-formed, slowly and painfully, and fell with unbalanced speed back into asped, and ale David had ed e, and I fell weakly against his chest I felt broken inside, shredded, unable to think or feel

My eyes focused slowly, and

Earth Wardens were arriving in the theater, su li the Henry Jellico in his arh forehead Henry was co hiether

"What happened?" I whispered David’s arhtened around me

"Don’t try to move," he said "You can’t help theet h syrup Slow and cold and clu," David said His voice was low and hushed, and very gentle "Most of the you can do to help that now"

"No!" This tile It didn’tain, sweating and shaking, and watched as my fellow Wardens slipped away into the dark

I’d been right Bad Bob knew us

In one stroke, he’d chopped down a significant number of the Wardens who could have posed a threat to him

And I had no idea how he’d done it

In the end, more than half of the Weather Wardens couldn’t be saved They’d been the closest to that blast of power, or they’d been drawn into the storry maw Their aetheric forms had been completely destroyed, and there was no soul to come back into the bodies they’d left behind Without that, the body stuttered and died, and there was nothing any Earth Warden, however powerful, could do to stop it

That didn’t e he had left before he collapsed and had to be carried away

It was a dark, silent place after that

I sat there nue Most of ht the blast, or been spun into the center of the storm by invisible attacks

Henry’s team, which had been mirrored above, had been a little luckier, but not thatblow

"Sons of bitches aiting for us," I whispered I didn’t feel as shaky now, but I was still cold and weak Sohtly in a thick ther back

Cherise was holding my hand I don’t knoho’d called her, but she’d appeared before David had let go of me, and I hadn’t been left without human contact since I wondered if they were afraid I would just dissolve without it, like those poor bastards we’d just led to their deaths

David had gone to see to Lewis, though I doubted that there wasHe would survive

It was our

"Somebody pulled me out," I said "Was it David?"

Cherise’s thuers "I don’t know He’s not so sharey right now" Even Cher’s usual defiant good cheer was gone, replaced by a sobriety that was new to me "You just sit and rest"