CHAPTER 168: CROSS ATTACK

"We can’t keep taking hits like this," Ning said grimly. "One more combo attack and Melayne will die."

"I won’t die," Melayne said weakly, but her words were confirmation alone that there was a possibility she would die if she were to get hit again.

The elementals seemed to sense their despair. They moved closer, the lightning one crackling with energy while the water one swirled ominously. It felt like they were toying with their prey.

"This is it," Roman said quietly. "We’re actually going to die here."

Just as hopelessness was settling over them completely, Lucille suddenly shouted.

"Wait! Lightning!" Her voice was excited, almost frantic. "The water elemental, it is weak to lightning!"

The information that she gained from the second analysis spell told her as much. It cost a bit of Navi to use it, but she didn’t care about it at the moment since she needed it.

"The Water elemental is weak to Lightning, and the Lightning elemental is weak to water!"

Everyone turned to stare at her.

"What do you mean?" Jax asked.

"Listen!" Lucille said, her voice cutting through their despair. "These are Storm Siblings. They work together, but they’re also each other’s worst enemies! We weren’t supposed to fight two bosses at once without any help. We just need to get them to fight each other!"

"How the hell do we do that?" Jax asked, dodging as the water elemental sent another spray in their direction.

"I got the water one’s info too," Lucille said quickly. "It’s invulnerable to physical damage and can heal itself with water spells. But it’s weak to fire and very vulnerable to lightning!"

"So we need to hit the water one with lightning and the lightning one with water," Lucille said.

Melayne finally got back to her feet with Roman’s help. "But how?"

Jax had an idea. He lit his earth threads on fire and whipped them at the water elemental, hoping the flames would do something. The burning threads struck the creature’s form, and for a moment it looked like they might be making progress. But the damage was minimal. The fire itself didn’t do much damage.

Lucille had long since raised her staff, a spell formed long ago for the Water elemental. A crack sounded from the sky and a bolt of lightning came down. However, before the lightning hit it, the Lightning Elemental jumped to take the hit.

"Damn it!" Lucille cursed since the Lightning elemental was completely invulnerable to her attack. "It’s protecting its sibling!"

She switched to her fireball spell next, and a few seconds later, a dark ball of fire flew toward the water elemental. This time it reacted, shooting a jet of water to intercept the attack. Steam rose from where fire and water met, and in the confusion, the lightning elemental struck again.

"Move!" Ning shouted.

They all scattered, barely avoiding the electrical discharge that spread across the arena floor.

Jax’s mind was racing. They needed to get the elementals to fight each other, but they kept protecting one another. Unless... maybe he could use that against them.

"I need to transfer the lightning from one to the other," he said, an idea forming. "Lucille, you still have that bow, right?"

"Yeah, but arrows aren’t doing anything to either of them," she replied.

"That’s not what I need it for." Water threads began flowing from Jax’s fingers, and he handed several strands to Lucille. "Tie these to your arrows. Shoot the lightning elemental, but make sure the other end of the thread touches the water one."

Lucille’s eyes lit up with understanding. "You want to use the threads as a conductor!"

"Exactly!"

She quickly tied the water thread to one of her arrows and drew back her bow. The shot was near perfect. The arrow struck the lightning elemental while the trailing thread landed on the water creature’s form.

Immediately, electricity began flowing back through the thread. The water elemental writhed as the current hit it, the first real damage they’d managed to deal since the fight started.

But the water threads couldn’t handle the electrical load. They started smoking, then simply vaporized from the heat.

"It works!" Jax said excitedly, already creating more water threads. "But they don’t last long enough!"

"I’ll help," Melayne said, pulling out her own bow. "I can’t damage them directly, but I can sure as hell conduct some electricity."

They fell into a rhythm. Jax would create bundles of water threads, Lucille and Melayne would tie them to arrows and shoot them into the lightning elemental while making sure the threads contacted the water one. Each successful hit dealt significant damage to the water elemental, but the threads kept burning out almost immediately.

Ning and Roman stood cover, ready to alert them should there be some change.

"This is taking forever," Melayne said, frustration evident in her voice. "The threads vaporize too fast."

"Can any of your other thread types conduct electricity?" Ning asked.

Jax shook his head. "Only water threads work as conductors. The others are resistant or they’d just burn up even faster."

"What about that Lightning stone you got?" Lucille reminded him. "Could you make Lightning threads?"

"I haven’t learned it yet," Jax replied. "I could do it now, and the Lightning threads produced probably would have the conducting properties we need. But they’d be made of lightning Navi, which I fear the lightning elemental could just absorb them directly."

"What about Metal threads?" Ning suggested. "Metal conducts electricity too?"

Jax paused, considering. "Metal... yeah, that could work."

"Do it," Lucille said. "We need something that lasts longer than two seconds."

Jax nodded and quickly began weaving earth threads around all of them. "First, some protection. Earth threads should give us more resistance to their lightning attacks."

He wrapped each of his teammates in a network of brown threads, creating a crude but effective grounding system. "I need to get rid of my remaining Navi first," he explained.

Then, he brought out the Metal Emerald stone and began absorbing it.

The stone dissolved into his body, and immediately he felt the change. Silver metallic threads began flowing from his fingertips, gleaming in the arena’s light and feeling much more substantial than his water threads.

"Alright," he said, handing bundles of the metal threads to Lucille and Ning. "Let’s see if these work better."