After they finished with their formation. Both teams have the same strategies, letting the leaders go in first while the other three support him. The leaders in this case are Marc and Barack.

Pearl frowned a bit, he’s looking at Don on the other side, a pretty tall buff guy with spiky hair, perfectly built to be a warrior or some sort, but he’s on the backline — casually crossing his arms and waiting.

"Rina, can you take the big responsibility?" Marc asked as he looked at the basement trapdoor, still intact after the explosion.

Rina understood and nodded, even when Marc wasn't looking at her.

“Before we have to beat you guys up, mind introducing?” Alize, the archer from the other side yelled out.

“We’re here to pick up our daughter, not to fight! Can we talk this out?” Mei yelled back.

"Our?" Pearl tapped his staff on Mei's shoulder.

"Yeah, Rina told me we should be a good family figure for Es, so might as well be moms and dads." She answered

Pearl glared at Rina, who was whistling it off.

…

On the other side, they took the pride of starting the fight.

"Allow me to start it off." Alize said, charging her bow up and ready to shoot, yet no arrow to be seen on it.

"Elemental Spell: Water Shaping." She quietly mumbles, as water around her gathered on her bow, forming into an arrow.

Water Shaping: Allows the user to shape water at their own will while still keeping the nature of water.

Alize’s mana began circling around her, covering the air like an aura. She began casting another spell on top of that.

“Archery Spell: Bird’s Eyes.”

Bird’s Eyes: Allows the user to control the trajectory of the arrow at will. But the damage of the arrow will still drop as travel distances go.

With those two spells combined, Alize pulled the bowstring back for a split second, then sent the water-made arrow flying towards.

voot

In response, Rina also quickly sent an arrow towards Alize’s arrow, with the intention of colliding the two. Rina’s arrow did not have any spell casted on it, but she aimed it pitch perfect to hit the water arrow.

splash

The two arrows collided — Rina’s arrow slowed down a bit going through literal water, while Alize’s arrow got deformed and scattered around the air. Only for it to form back again into an arrow, still charging towards the group.

Rina’s arrow can’t quite reach Barack’s group, but Alize’s arrow sure did thanks to the head start. With the power of Bird’s Eyes; Alize controls the arrow to aim at the seemingly youngest member of the group, Mei Magmal. When the arrow passed through Marc who was standing in front, he tried slicing it with his sword, but the sword went straight through the arrow.

“Elemental Spell: Icycle Shot.”

When the arrow almost reached Mei’s forehead; she spitted out a freezing ice ball directly at the arrow. Which makes the thing freezed up. She then used her staff to break it into pieces.

“Fancy opening they had.” Rina said as she armed another arrow. “We can’t afford a long-term fight. On your mark, Marc.”

Marc nodded. With only an arrow, the other team caused trouble, surpassing both Rina and Marc. They never thought someone would use water combined with Bird’s Eyes, a high-ranking archery skill. 

Of course Rina could use Bird’s Eyes too, but the risk is higher than the reward; she’d have to dodge the possible enemy attacks both on herself and the arrow, but if she focused too much on dodging, the arrow would drop it damage for flying too long. Alize’s plan was near perfect, when she used water, the arrow could’ve flown straight ahead with no worries of Rina’s arrows or Marc’s blade stopping it — and she doesn’t have to aim it correctly, she could just switch targets at the last second.

“Are you all ready?” Marc asked the team, holding his sword Migi Gedan like stance.

No answer given, everyone stays completely silent and gets in pose, as well as the other team.

Red carpet has been rolled out, now it’s the matter of how the walk. The rubbles underneath caused by the explosion will make it hard to walk without looking down.

“Now Rina!”

Rina folded her bow; hiding the strings to turn it into a wooden stick of sorts — held it like a staff and started running towards the enemy team. Marc, Pearl and Mei followed along her sides.

“Lance?” Don raised his eyebrows in a bit of a surprise.

The lance is a well-known formation for calvaries. Sending a valiant knight up front and charging in, two people will go behind the first knight, then three and so on.

This formation works well when you’re on a high speed horse, ramming through and penetrating the enemy line of defense, but never recorded in practice it works on foot against mages and warriors.

“We’re still doing the Separated and Gathering formation, split out.” Barack commanded everyone.

Marc’s team almost reached where Barack’s team was standing; their team now splitted up with four members around 10 steps from each other. If one member gets caught in the lance’s path, the other three would have an easy time flanking the formation from its sides, which means hitting Pearl and Mei first while Rina and Marc are stuck in the front.

But, that is in theory, if they decided on a traditional lance formation foot.

“Left, two steps North West!” Rina called out while still running.

They don’t have time measurement to use o’clock, and it is a situation that you can’t just think of a degree. So they use steps instead, two steps is like a 10 o’clock angle. And that, by the way, was Don’s direction.

Don — well-prepared, stood still and braced himself, not moving an inch. If Rina were to run into him now, chances are the formation’s going to break and their team will be surrounded in no time, of course, if Rina’s the one to let that happen.

“Elves Vision: Wind Dance.”

Air molecules and wind particles quickly form around Rina’s hands and feet — a unique spell among elves to manipulate wind; forming it in one place then using it to cut things like pressured water do, while improving the user’s flexibility and speed.

Secondary pioneer of the Freedom Group: Rina Wenswood.

“Wall.”

Don stomped his foot on the ground, creating an ogre height and 10 meters length wall in front of him. Not strong enough to withstand a normal lance attack, but enough to slow down the leading Rina and her wooden stick, Don thought.

woot

“Hey there handsome!”

A voice can be heard above Don; it’s Rina. By using flexibility, momentum and her natural stamina; she easily did a backflip over the 2,5 meters tall stone wall, passing directly over Don’s head.

crash

“Look here!”

This time, it’s Marc who leads the formation — his iron sword turns into an obsidian color when he sliced through Don’s 6 centimeters thick wall. His blonde hair flew and fluffed through the air rapidly as the cold breezes hit. The stone wall got cut down in a single slash, allowing the rest of the team to follow up.

clack

Rina’s boots touch the ground as she landed. She then keeps on running.

Don, not minding that and also doesn’t mind fighting three at once. Immediately turned his fists into a rock and struck it towards Marc.

“He’s mine” Pearl from the back whispered. 

Just before the fist hit Marc’s blade, he and Mei duck down and dash to the side to dodge it — leaving space for Pearl to go in, also turning his wooden staff into stone and clashing it with Don’s fists.

“■■■■” Pearl opened his mouth to say something towards Mei and Marc, but no sounds were given out. At that point he notices Don’s mana rising up. ‘Did he stopped me from speaking?’

‘You’re not a no-brain tank it seems.’ Pearl thought as he fell back a bit. They have no information on Don but Pearl can safely assume he’s a guy using stone magic and sound magic, cutting the sound wave leading out so that Pearl can’t speak; or he did but the sound wouldn’t lead to any ears. Don isn’t a fighter, he’s a mage with muscles. By using stone magic to cover his body, plus with his raw strength, it’s enough to break some jaws.

Sound magic is a rare one, manipulating sounds can make stealth missions and infiltrations a piece of cake, while also communicating far-distances. Shame Don isn’t the leader due to how taciturn he is, otherwise he can give out commands immediately without the enemy team knowing.

“Don’t let him crush your skull, be safe.” Mei said as she and Marc continue running

The other SSSs are staying still, especially Nea, the girl with glasses; she’s standing the farthest among the three from Marc’s team.

“Barack, the elf.” Alize said, charging her bow again with water arrows and aiming it at Rina. But she doesn’t seem to be using Bird’s Eyes, probably a one-time thing with high mana cost.

“You go.”

Rina is running towards the basement trapdoor, her mission was to rescue Esmeralda while the other held everyone back. Water arrows are constantly being fired towards her; she doesn’t understand how water can hurt her, if it’s high-pressured water, surely it must have an insanely high speed, but yet this is normal arrow speed.

But arrows are still arrows, with her mana draining from using Wind Dance, Rina began to sweat as she used it combining with her natural good eyesights to dodge those long-range arrows with ease.

One more arrow flew towards her, she took a glimpse of the trajectory and prepared to dodge it.

“Archery Spell: Bird’s Eyes.”

The arrow, flying midair, immediately changed direction and aimed towards Rina’s forehead.

“No way-” Rina noticed this and panic, as she uses her wooden bow, now a staff to hit the thing — as we know is useless against water. The arrow is only centimeters away from her forehead.

“Elemental Spell: Ice Form.” Alize smirked.

The arrow switches from water to an icycle arrow immediately. It then struck Rina on her forehead, causing her to concuss and fall down, the arrow then breaking into pieces, after that some blood can be seen leaking out from her forehead, where the tip of the arrow hits.

“That’s the last bit of mana I have, using loads of long-range spells is not my type you know.” Alize said as she sat down on a rock nearby, heavily breathing.

Two temporarily out of the fight:
Rina Wenswood (semi unconscious) and Alize Frostinellie (out of energy/mana)

“Marc.” Mei said as her and Marc dashed towards Barack.

“I see, trust her.” Marc clenched his teeth.

Meanwhile…

“Hey Barack.” Nea called out with her hands behind her back.

“You’re done?” Barack turned around to look at her. In response Nea shook her head.

“I’m done with two mages, but need more on the blonde hair and iron armor guy and the elf.”

Barack nods.

clank

Without even looking back, he blocked Marc’s sword strike with his hand, metals can be heard clashing against each other. His sleeves were up to reveal a pair of sharp blades attached to both hands. The other hand he also blocked Mei’s fire staff.

Unlike Don and Alize, who creatively use their strong points together as one, he just does whatever he does best.

“Marc, go get those two. I’ll hold this beret guy.” Mei said, hinting towards Alize and Nea.

“No one identify a person by what they’re wearing, Miss Big Wizard Hat.” Barack answered, as he put forces into his blades, pushing Mei and Marc back two steps.

“Elemental Spell: Year Zero.” Barack put both of his hands on the ground, from the rubble he touched, ice began to crawl towards Mei, who immediately used fire magic to melt the thing. Which to no avail. Ice began crawling up her foot, leg, hips and covering her hands, stopping at her neck.

“G… This is so cold! Marc I can’t move.” Mei’s body began to tremble, but it can’t be shown through the ice layer. She slowly turned her head towards Marc.

“One moment” He answered as he tried to block the continuous attack from Barack’s hand blades.

Marc saw an opportunity after Barack missed a heavy strike, he then held his sword blade downwards, slashed up from Barack’s hip left to his right shoulder. Barack, not a novice, noticed this disadvantage and moved one step closer to Marc, using his left hand blace to block the sword and his right hand to strike Marc on his face.

Barack’s blades are attached to his back arm wrist and concealed behind his long sleeves suit. So sadly if he attacks directly the blades cannot reach any target to hurt them, so the purposes of the blades are to block.

A normal punch won’t do much to a swordsman who knows when to brace himself, but not Barack’s punch.

“Magic Spell: Iron Fist.”

They have to remember one thing, Barack is an A-Ranking mage after all.

clank

Sounds of metal clashing again, this time it was Marc’s iron armor gauntlet clashing with Barack’s iron fist; Marc instinctively raised his arm up to block his face, which worked but with the bad positioning and not enough time to brace. One punch from Barack was enough to send Marc back down three or four steps.

“Is there a problem with you and normal magic?” Marc flicked some dust off his gauntlet.

“That would be too easy.” Barack answered, deactivating the iron gauntlet.

“I really don’t want to do this.” Marc held his sword tight again, with his eyes roaring in haste and his positioning doing the traditional Nebenhut sword stance. “We have a policy among us not to kill anyone, so please don’t die from this, Barack Novendex.”

Sweats began covering Marc’s shoulders, back and head. His hands began to tremble, his sword began to scream.

“Longsword Move: Divine Slash.”

“Marc?” Mei, just some step next to him called out in confusion. “Is that…”

His sword is covered by a black mis- no, dark roaring flames are raging in pain and bloodthirst on the blade of his otherwise normal longsword. As he slashes down towards Barack’s direction, air molecules are being ripped in half, space and time corrupts on where the powerful slash passes through. Eventually the black fire jumped out of the sword and followed along the slash trajectory. Going directly towards Barack.

“Woah there, trump card already?” Barack kneeled down and braced himself.

“Elemental Spell: Quartet Guardian.” From Barack’s hand — water, fire, earth, air. Four primordial elements gathered around to make a square shield, with a quarter of the shield being water, another quarter being fire and so on with air and earth.

And just in any case that won’t be enough.

“Magic Spell: Barrier”

One more layer of barrier, a bit weaker in front.

shriek

keeet

sizzles

When the two contact, they’re like an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. The two struggled to remain their place in existance and fought desperately to gain control over the other. After a moment the two exploded, creating a big fog covering the air.

Marc almost fell down to the ground, he used his sword to stab the ground and hold on it to stay kneeled. While Barack is sweating, struggling to defend himself against the powerful slash.

“I wanted to say don’t use that move again, but thank you.” The heat from the black fire melted the ice that was captivating Mei. She then rushed to put up some fire magic to warm herself.

“cough”

Mei and Marc's eyes both look at the fog, there Barack is kneeling down and coughing aggressively. His skin has gone tan and covered in dust and sand from the explosion.

Two more temporarily out of the fight:
Marc Omal (out of energy/mana) and Barack Novendex (injured)

“Have you seen enough, Nea?” He asked as he switched from a kneeling pose to lying down on his back.

“Quite, thank you.” The sleepy girl with glasses said; she abruptly appeared behind Marc and Mei without them knowing.

Marc and Mei turned their heads around in surprise. Only to see a short girl, around Mei’s height, in the SSS white uniform cracking her bare hand knuckles.

Just a moment ago…

On the ground, Rina opens her eyes to see Mei and Marc hitting Barack to no avail, even when his back was turned — she knows this fight won’t last long. She quietly looked over at Alize, her enemy archer, who was resting quietly and did not bother to get involved.

Rina took the opportunity to get up and sneak in the basement trapdoor. There, she found who she needed to find.

“Rina!”

Esmeralda, in her teenage girl form, called out for her in the middle cell. The door wasn’t locked but Esmeralda was tied up by a fresh iron chain on her neck onto the wall, it’s not easy to bust it out without something sharp and fast.

Sharp and fast…

“Kid, do you trust me?” Rina asked, patting Esmeralda’s head. In which she nods aggressively.

“Okay… lean your head forward a bit, and don’t move or look back.” Rina said, she then backed up a bit and changed her staff back into a bow again.

Esmeralda understood the situation, immediately leaned her head towards, straightening the chain as much as possible.

striek

She armed her arrow and began stretching the string backwards. Aiming directly at the chain.

“If this fails and hurts, don’t tell Marc.”

“No promises!”

woot

kirik

The arrow tip hit directly on the chain and not the gap between it. Enough force to break the thing, bringing freedom to Esmeralda.

“Okay, we have to go before they noti- woah there…”

Before Rina can lead Esmeralda outside, she already flung herself in Rina’s arm and hugged her.

“They took me from Miss Chup’s place…” Esmeralda began hiccuping.

All Rina can do is to stand there quietly and rub Esmeralda’s hair.

“We know.”

“They force me into transformation…”

“We know…” Rina began to rub Esmeralda’s head slower and slower, comforting her.

…

That moment lasted not longer than three minutes, they know they have to get out one way or another. They’re in the middle of a city, no one has intervened in the fight between the 8 of them yet. But a crowd has already surrounded the place, with the annoyed adventurers instructed by the Adventure Guild not to stoop in the SSS’s business.

But in the midst of the battle, no one out of the eight think enough to care about what the public thinks.

Rina and Esmeralda stoop out of the basement to witness tragedy.

On the Pearl vs Don side of the battle field, Pearl’s ears were bleeding while he’s on the ground and Don was stomping on his back, no serious wound to be seen but Pearl can’t seem to get up. Around them are a lot of rocks that seem to be wet, Pearl is fluent in earth and water magic so this might be an explanation, but so is Don in earth magic.

On the other side, Alize and Barack are sitting next to each other on the boulder while Nea casually dodges every Marc’s blind wild sword swings, playing with him. Mei is on the side heavily breathing and unable to move on her knees.

Ready for combat on Marc’s team:
Rina Wenswood (still have a wound on forehead)
Esmeralda (fine)
Marc Omal (on the edge of exhaustion)

Ready for combat on Barack’s team:
Barack Novendex (bad bruises)
Alize Frostinellie (fine)
Don Leoniluos (several small head wounds and burnt)
Nea Vitones (fine)

“Tch…” Rina armed her bow again, trying to find a good target while no one was looking this direction.

If she shoots at Nea, who is moving constantly, she might hit Marc. If she used Bird’s Eyes, there’s no guarantee she’ll have enough mana to use Wind Dance and escape from this bad positioning. Best bet are the other three, but then what? If she actually kills them, it’s not good, if she missed or even injured them, the other would know her position and begin attacking. And she doesn’t even know what Nea’s capable of, but from the look of it, the girl beat up Marc and Mei at the same time.

“I’m so useless…” She mumbled as she dropped the bow and held Esmeralda’s hand.

Suddenly, Alize stood up from the boulder she was sitting, charged a bow and shot it directly towards Nea and Marc.

Nea jumped up very high, over Marc’s head to dodge the arrow behind her, the thing then pierced into Marc’s shoulder, injuring his ability to swing his sword. While dropping down from the jump, Nea gives Marc one final kick in his upper arm, effectively concussing his ribs.

Marc dropped his sword to the ground and fell down, the only left standing is Mei.

“Mom!” Esmeralda yelled out.

Rage (Weak): A passive skill, once active will increase the dragon’s overall stats except Luck 2 ranks (example: from F > D-Rank) while also decreasing Intelligence to the lowest rank possible. Ways to activate the skill is unknown, but it has something to do with family.