Carrie, still dizzy, clenched her teeth and closed her eyes for an instant. She took a deep breath, forcing her concentration, and carefully controlled her telekinesis to place Liam and his mother-in-law in a safe location, hundreds of meters away. She set them down gently on the ground, making sure both of them were stable before fully releasing them.
With that done, she opened her eyes and slowly turned in the air. Her expression changed. The tension faded and was replaced by cold determination. She focused all her attention back on Pennywise, who had transformed into Godzilla by feeding on the collective fear others had toward those titans.
Pennywise had already stood back up. His enormous body cast a crushing shadow over the ruined terrain, and now all of his attention was fixed on Carrie, who floated in front of him, small in comparison… but unwavering.
"You will regret not letting us go." Carrie said, her voice trembling slightly, not from fear, but from restrained rage. Her fists clenched instinctively at her sides.
Pennywise did not respond with words. In his Godzilla form, he only showed a huge, twisted smile. His jaws opened slowly and, one by one, his dorsal spines began to glow with an intense blue light, the glow advancing from his tail, traveling up his back, along his neck… until it gathered in his mouth.
Carrie's eyes widened.
She recognized that attack.
She had seen that atomic breath on television years ago. She knew she couldn't take it head-on. Even so, she didn't panic. Her lips pressed together and her body tensed, because she could feel every minute movement Pennywise made within the range of her extra sense.
Her perception was clear. Too clear.
And now, with all her powers amplified, her flight speed was nothing like before. Her body responded instantly to every thought. Because of that, when Pennywise finally fired the atomic breath, Carrie propelled herself to the side with a clean, precise movement, dodging it effortlessly.
"Boom"
The beam shot past her, ravaging the ground and the surroundings. The impact lifted enormous amounts of debris, shattered the asphalt, and shook the air with a shockwave that made everything around vibrate.
Carrie frowned and extended both hands. She focused deeply, using molecular telekinesis to increase Pennywise Godzilla's temperature. She could feel the energy wrapping around his body, feel the heat rising… but something was wrong.
It wasn't that his temperature wasn't increasing.
It was that the temperature didn't seem to affect him at all.
At most, it only seemed to cause him mild discomfort.
"What…?" Carrie thought, grinding her teeth.
Pennywise Godzilla responded by attacking. He tried to strike her with his massive arms, then with his tail, then by charging with his entire body. Each attack was brutal, capable of leveling buildings… but Carrie always dodged, moving fluidly, spinning in the air, rising, dropping, veering away by mere centimeters.
A mocking smile appeared on her face.
She felt proud.
Happy that she hadn't abandoned the training Liam had put her through, even when she'd often thought about giving up. Now she could clearly see the results. She could watch Pennywise Godzilla's muscles tense before each movement, anticipate the attack before it even began, and dodge it with ease.
She took advantage of those movements to use her telekinesis, pushing him at key points, throwing off his balance, forcing him to fall again and again.
But something didn't add up.
Carrie realized it was useless.
She wasn't dealing real damage.
They were only dragging the battle out, neither of them truly able to injure the other.
At that moment, as Pennywise Godzilla swung his tail again, something changed.
He vanished.
Carrie lost track of him for a fraction of a second. Her heart skipped, and before she could react, her telekinetic sense detected a presence behind her.
Too close.
She felt the massive tail just moments away from hitting her.
"No… I got careless." Carrie thought desperately. "Having all this power… and several minutes without him being able to touch me… I forgot about his teleportation, the same one he used in the dream."
There was no time for anything else.
At the last second, she concentrated all her telekinesis on the exact point where the tail would strike, creating an invisible, dense mass, trying to reduce the damage as much as possible.
"Bang"
A horrible sound echoed.
The tail slammed into what seemed like air… but wasn't. It was an enormous concentration of compressed telekinesis. Even so, the force was overwhelming.
Seconds later, Carrie was sent flying at high speed, losing control, until her body slammed violently into the ground.
The impact kicked up dust and debris all around her.
The silence that followed was heavy.
"¡No! ¡Carrie!" A desperate scream could be heard from far away. It was Liam, who had been watching the fight, unable to look away. When he saw Carrie being thrown, it felt as if his heart stopped for a second. His breathing became uneven and, without realizing it, he clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug into his skin, blood slowly beginning to seep between his fingers. He didn't care about the pain. He silently hated himself, despising how weak he was, for being completely unable to help Carrie in that fight.
His mother, beside him, covered her mouth with both hands. Her shoulders began to tremble as tears streamed uncontrollably down her cheeks. In her mind, there was only one thought: that thing had killed the girl. Fear crushed her chest, stealing her breath.
...
Carrie had managed to soften her fall by making the ground fragile with her molecular telekinesis, breaking it just before impact. At the same time, she used her flight to reduce part of the momentum. Even so, she couldn't stop all the damage. Her body rolled a few meters before coming to a stop. She felt pain in every muscle, every bone, and she was sure some were close to breaking. A thin line of blood ran from her head, slowly trailing down her forehead.
She closed her eyes for a second, breathing with difficulty, clenching her teeth to keep from screaming.
"Carrie, are you okay?" Liam's voice echoed in her mind through telepathy, filled with worry and urgency.
"I'm fine, but I can't hurt him." Carrie replied, frustrated, as she slowly lifted herself back into the air, wiping the blood away with the back of her hand.
At that moment, an idea crossed her mind. Her eyes snapped open. She remembered a class where they'd talked about an extreme situation that could cause devastating damage to anything if executed correctly. From that day on, Carrie had obsessed over the subject, studying molecules, structures, and reactions, trying to recreate that effect with her telekinesis. One part she had already mastered… but the other, she hadn't—until now.
Her lips curved slightly, a mix of nerves and determination.
"I have a plan." Carrie said telepathically, her voice firm.
"Do it." Liam replied without hesitation, sending her all his trust.
With that, Carrie nodded decisively. Her posture changed, her body straightened, and she flew straight toward Pennywise Godzilla, who watched her from a distance with a mocking smile, tilting his head slightly as if amused.
Godzilla unleashed another violent tail strike and teleported again, appearing abruptly. But this time, Carrie was ready. She propelled herself sideways by mere inches, barely dodging it, and with a quick motion of her hand, used her telekinesis to knock him down again.
The fight intensified. Again and again, they exchanged blows, each one fiercer than the last. The air trembled with every movement.
Over time, Pennywise Godzilla began to change. Enormous spider-like legs burst from his body, twisting unnaturally, which he also used to strike at Carrie, closing off escape angles and making it harder and harder to dodge.
Pennywise also seemed frustrated. He had even tried to use his deadlights, tilting his head and opening his eyes unnaturally. But every time Carrie sensed the intent, she simply closed her eyes and kept fighting blind, fully trusting her telekinetic sense to guide her movements.
Even so, Carrie was frustrated too. Pennywise hadn't used his atomic attack again since the first time, and she needed him to for her plan to work. Every passing second increased her tension.
Then, right at that moment, Pennywise Godzilla seemed to have an idea.
His entire body began to glow little by little, lighting up with an intense blue. The light ran along his spines, his limbs, his chest, growing stronger and stronger.
"What is that?" Carrie said out loud, unable to hide her surprise as she narrowed her eyes and analyzed the energy with her sense.
Pennywise responded only with a horrible smile, stretching his mouth in an unnatural way.
A few seconds later, Carrie felt something different. It wasn't exactly the same atomic breath… it was similar, but much stronger, more concentrated, more dangerous. Her heart raced, but she managed to suppress a smile. She didn't want to raise Pennywise Godzilla's suspicions.
She waited.
A few seconds later, Pennywise Godzilla seemed completely covered in blue light, vibrating, on the verge of unleashing his final attack.
And at that precise instant, Carrie acted.
She clenched her fists, tensed her entire body, and concentrated all her molecular telekinesis to heat Godzilla's body as much as possible, pushing the temperature far beyond what it already was, forcing every molecule, every bond, driving it dangerously to its limit.
Carrie gritted her teeth and extended both hands.
For an instant, heat stopped being just heat.
The molecules in Pennywise Godzilla's body began to vibrate unnaturally, forced, compressed, agitated beyond equilibrium. The blue glow intensified, but something was clearly wrong. The dorsal spines flickered irregularly, as if the energy could no longer find a clear path.
Pennywise Godzilla let out a strange roar—not of fury… but of confusion.
Then Carrie changed abruptly.
The heat vanished. Not gradually. Not naturally. Cold fell like a sentence.
In a fraction of a second, Pennywise Godzilla's incandescent body plunged into impossible extreme cold. The air around him crystallized, vapor froze instantly, and a layer of black frost spread across his scales as the thermal shock tore at his internal structure.
The roar turned into a fractured bellow.
The dorsal plates creaked. They didn't break, but they sounded as if something inside was splitting apart. The enormous spider legs stiffened abruptly, rigid, unable to move fluidly.
The flow of blue energy stopped suddenly.
For a second… Pennywise Godzilla was motionless.
Carrie didn't give him time to adapt.
Heat again. But this time, worse.
The heat returned before the cold had fully settled, expanding from within, pushing against still-contracted tissues, opening microfractures that hadn't existed seconds earlier. The gigantic body arched violently, as if something inside were struggling not to collapse.
The dorsal spines exploded in erratic blue flashes, the glow rising and falling uncontrollably. The atomic breath he had been charging diverted, leaking out in chaotic pulses that scorched the ground around him without direction.
Pennywise Godzilla fell to his knees.
But that was not the end. Carrie, sensing Pennywaise Godzilla gravely wounded, gave him no respite. She frowned, raised both hands, and with a sharp motion inverted her power. The extreme heat vanished instantly and was replaced by unnatural cold. Pennywaise Godzilla's body froze within seconds, dealing even more damage to his already fragile structure from the instantaneous temperature change. The sound of something cracking rang out clearly, like ice breaking from within.
Carrie brought a hand to her head as a sharp pain throbbed in her temples from pushing her powers so far. Her breathing was ragged, but she didn't stop. With a restrained cry, she extended her arms toward the ground and, using all her strength, opened the earth beneath Pennywaise Godzilla. The ground split violently, forming a massive fissure, and Pennywaise Godzilla fell uncontrollably into it. The impact made the earth shake violently, rattling everything around.
Trembling with effort, Carrie took the final step of her plan. She clenched her teeth, closed her fists, and with all her strength forced the earth to close over Pennywaise Godzilla. It was harder than she'd imagined. The resistance was brutal, as if something below were trying to stop her.
"AHHRG" Carrie screamed at the top of her lungs, a mix of pain and effort, pushing even harder. She felt a burning sensation surge through her body, as if something inside her were about to break. Then she felt it. Something gave way. The earth finally slammed shut violently, crushing what remained of Pennywaise Godzilla. Dark blood and deformed fragments of Pennywaise Godzilla began to seep from the ground, staining the earth around it.
At that same moment, Carrie felt something else. With her extra telekinetic sense, she perceived whatever Pennywaise had done to prevent them from reaching the town's exit deactivate, as if an invisible barrier had suddenly vanished.
But it wasn't over yet. Carrie could see those fragments of Pennywaise Godzilla beginning to move, slowly pulling themselves together, dragging toward one another.
Seeing that, Carrie didn't hesitate another second. She spun in the air and flew at full speed toward Liam and his mother-in-law. With a quick gesture, she lifted them with her telekinesis, wrapping them carefully, and together they shot out of the town, putting as much distance as possible between them and what remained behind.
"Well done, Carrie, you have no idea how proud I am of you, you saved us back there." Liam said once they were outside the town. His voice trembled slightly, his eyes filled with relief and admiration as he looked at her.
"Mmm, you taught me well." Carrie replied with a tired smile, taking a deep breath as the headache still lingered.
Liam fell silent for a moment, jaw clenched as he stared ahead. His thoughts were clear. Then he spoke with determination. "You won't fight alone ever again after today, now it's my turn to get stronger." Liam said, keeping his gaze fixed forward, as if already mentally preparing to face and kill those supernatural beings.
Carrie smiled at that, a sincere smile despite her exhaustion. "I wouldn't mind protecting you always, and besides, I won't stay the way I am now. I'll try to learn to do more things with molecular telekinesis—this is only the beginning." Carrie said confidently, softly clenching her fists to reaffirm her resolve.
Liam nodded. Then, unable to help himself, he turned his head and looked back. At the edge of the town, he could see Pennywaise in his clown form, standing there, watching them leave with eyes full of malice.
When he noticed Liam looking back, Pennywaise smiled slowly and raised a hand, moving it lazily, as if waving goodbye. His gesture was calm… far too calm.