A Touch of the Master's Hand

Flickering Lights

Earlier...

Jay gasped as he saw Lloyd being dragged up into a tree by the monkeys. His first impulse was to try to help. If only he could zap farther. But he knew he couldn't, especially not without risking hitting Lloyd or someone else along the way. He almost leapt down to try to race after them. He would have too, except that a monkey suddenly emerged with a scream.

"Ah!" Jay almost fell, but the monkey's aim was for Zane still putting out the remains of the fire with Nya.

He stood upright on the bough he was in and zapped. The monkey screamed and ran away, shaking the branches, and Jay clung onto the nearest branch in front of him to steady himself. No sooner had the branch stopped moving when another monkey threw a rock at him from the side.

Already in a zapping sort of mode, Jay tried zapping the rock instead of the monkey. It bounced off harmlessly, and as Jay tried to get out of the way at the same time, the rock still scuffed him. It was enough to make him lose his balance for real this time. Tingling fear spiked through him. He tried to grab the branch— any branch!

But too late.

He did not even scrape the bark.

He plunged down right into darkness, without knowing what happened before he crashed into water and was submerged.

It took him a few seconds to move as hunkered half-sunken. Then as his aching lungs woke him from his stupor, he quickly kicked off a bottom that he could not see in the blackness and swam for the top with a gasp as he broke free. After a few heavy breaths, he looked up at the light of the hole he had fallen down from. He seemed to have ended up in some kind of underground river-cave, but he did not have long to think about it as he saw the monkeys scurrying down to investigate where he had fallen.

Jay cringed.

He did not dare electrocute them now that he was all wet. He thought for sure he wouldn't be as easily hurt as other people by it, but it was quite an elementary concept that electricity and water did not mix.

Instead, he searched the water frantically for his flail. One could almost say he flailed about for it, but he suddenly stopped at the sound of two monkey shrieks side by side. An ice ball and a water blast knocked two monkeys down. A third fell backwards at the brink of the gleaming hole.

Wading and shivering, Jay watched as Nya popped her head through first. He smiled just a little and began swimming for the rocky bank.

Nya grabbed onto a vine, and Zane followed after. Then suddenly there was a strange jolt through Zane, and Jay jumped. So did Nya. For Jay, it only meant he started to swim again straight afterwards, but for Nya this was a critical moment for being distracted.

In her jump onto a nearby ledge, a monkey suddenly landed square on her back. They fell, and Zane, who was trying to orient himself from whatever had happened to him, threw another ice ball at the monkey. His monkey fell, but Nya still fell too unable to reclaim her vine, and she clattered onto the stony sharp ground instead of the water where Jay had fallen. It did not sound like a good clatter either, and Jay cringed again and harder at her cry.

"Nya!" he called.

Zane fell too, but with a better landing. He quickly froze the top of the hole and the monkeys down there with them were either knocked out or frozen into ice cubes. He hurried then for Nya. Jay leapt after them, scraping out of the water like a dog. He stumbled once or twice, his mind racing and his heart pounding, and he certainly forgot all about his weapon.

"Nya!" he cried again.

He collapsed near at hand as Zane tried to help her to her feet.

"Ah!" cried Nya.