Chapter Eighteen: The Difference Between Lightning and Plasma

Sanda's P.O.V.

I grunted in pain as the Plasma Elementia scraped me with a small blast of plasma. It was hard to avoid any of his attacks when he was just as fast as me, if not even faster. I did my best to avoid his onslaught of plasma attacks, but the best I could do was block and cancel out his attacks with a few bolts of lightning. It was hard to believe he was so strong when we became Elementia at the same time. Atiyama really wasn't lying when he said that guy was a prodigy.

I fired several bolts of lightning at him when I saw an opening, but Plasma avoided them easily. "I thought you were the Lightning Elementia?! You're so slow!" He was in front of me in less than a second, his fist connecting with my cheek and knocking me away.

I quickly regained my composure and flashed back to him, sparking more than usual. "You call that a punch?! A girl has hit me much harder many times!" I spun around and kicked him in the chest, moving as fast as I could at that point. I felt heavily relieved when I felt my foot connect, finding it satisfying to watch him go flying for a change. My relief screwed me over though since I didn't think to follow up my kick at all. He easily regained his composure and flashed back to me in seconds. I quickly blocked with my arms as he shot me with a blast of plasma point blank, pushing me back rather far. I kicked the bottom of his blast, changing its direction and causing it to fly off into the ground right behind me.

The sleeves of my shirt were burned, though I was surprised to see that my arms were relatively fine. I guessed that this was what it meant to be an Elementia, and how different we were from normal humans. I didn't let my emotions get the better of me that time though. I flashed to the Plasma Elementia, my whole body encased in lightning. He flashed to me as well, his whole body glowing mint green and giving off sparks of the same color.

We then began fighting with hand to hand combat, him parrying my punches and kicks while I blocked and dodged his. We were both moving so fast that if I lost focus for even a second, he'd pummel me in an instant. We both started to connect our hits little by little, just scraping each others bodies with our punches and kicks, but our hits soon started to actually connect as we started to get used to each other's fighting styles. I was the first to land a punch to his face, but he landed a kick to my gut right after, sending each other flying back with those hits, but we immediately caught ourselves and flashed to one another again.

We began moving even faster, our fists and legs colliding a few times, and the sparks emanating from our bodies burned the ground. At one point, our fists collided so hard it created a small shockwave that tore up the ground underneath of us, but neither of us looked away, knowing the other would take the moment of distraction to land another hit.

We both punched each other one last time, both of our fists colliding with the other's cheek. For a moment, I could see his face, and the face I saw shocked me to my core. I told myself that his punch just threw me off slightly, "There's no way that that's who I saw... My mind's just playing tricks on me... I've gotta stay focused!"

When I flew back from his punch, I realized that something was off when I just continued to fly and not crash into anything. I hadn't even realized we were both flying in the sky, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Once again, I didn't have time to be amazed as I saw a barrage of plasma beams flying right at me. I flashed again, moving at lightning speed and skillfully dodging the barrage as I headed for the source. It got harder to dodge the closer I got, but I wasn't going to let that stop me.

Once I got close, I fired a lightning bolt at him as he continued to fire, the bolt colliding with one of his blasts. The collision caused a massive shockwave that sent both of us flying back from the force, the sky around us shaking from the impact. Both of us were left shocked by the reaction of our two elements clashing. I thought it'd simply cancel out his plasma like before, not cause such a massive shockwave.

I quickly regained my composure and fired several dozen lightning bolts at Plasma while he was still stunned from what had happened, but he also quickly regained his composure, firing just as many plasma blasts back at me. Each of his beams and my bolts clash, causing several more shockwaves to occur. I looked at Plasma to see him looking intrigued and he suddenly smirked. "Uh oh." was the first thought that crossed my mind.

"Hey! Why don't we try using all of our power at once and seeing what happens?! I bet it'd be pretty epic!" I even heard him laugh at the thought. "Whoever's stronger will win the clash. That's how we settle who's better today." His smirk turned from playful to vile in seconds. I bit my lip as I thought about it. I didn't wanna listen to this guy, but it was the only way to prove who was really stronger at the moment. It was obvious he was smarter and better at fighting, but which one of us was actually more powerful than the other was a mystery. If I didn't accept this offer, Plasma was going to kill me for sure.

"Fine! Let's do it! Don't cry when I win though!" I flew back, pulling my arm back and gathering as much lightning as I could into my palm. Plasma smirked as he did the same with his arm, gathering a bright, glowing ball of plasma in his palm as well. Thunder began to rumble in the sky from how much electricity was running through the air, coming from the lightning ball in my hand flashed brightly. I put everything I had into that little ball of lightning, and before firing it, I whispered something to myself. "I am not going to lose today..."

I fired a massive bolt of lightning, thunder booming throughout the sky, and the Plasma Elementia fired a massive beam of plasma at the same time. When our two elements met, there was a loud crash and a massive shockwave so huge it almost reached us both despite the many feet in between us, shaking the air and the ground so violently there might as well have been an earthquake. Despite everything happening around us, I refused to lose my focus. I continued trying to push his beam back with my lightning bolt, but we were at a stalemate. We were both giving it our all, so we were evenly matched when it came to elemental power at that point. My shirt sleeve completely burned off and the sparks from our elements began striking the ground, breaking it apart and starting a couple fires. Thankfully we were in a wasteland, so no animals or plants were harmed.

I focused on the clash of our elements, though neither of them would budge. It seemed like it would be a battle of stamina, which I would have had the advantage in if his element wasn't also lightning based. If this continued, I knew I was going to lose, so I did the only thing I could think of. I held out my other arm, my other shirt sleeve getting torn up in the process, and I instantly used up every last bit of energy I had at once. The lightning bolt grew larger in an instant, hitting the point where both of our elements were colliding, and both of our attacks bursted, causing the biggest shockwave yet, a mix of yellow and green sparks.

Both of us were hit by the shockwave, the Plasma Elementia's hood being torn off as he fell to the ground and bits of my clothing being torn up as well as I fell. I barely caught myself, almost falling over completely as I stumbled, but he was hit so hard from the force he crashed right into the ground. Since I caused the shockwave, he had received the stronger end of the burst of our elements. I looked over at him as he sat up slowly, shaking his head. He may have had white hair and glowing, mint green eyes now, but his face was unmistakable. His voice was the same, his height and body were the same, and even his style of clothing was the same. This was the person standing before me when I passed out the day of my Unnatural Disaster, someone I knew very well.