“Hold on, you can not-” Marc tried to turn around, but immediately got pushed to turn back by the one searching him, and a spear pointed straight at his chest by another guard standing by. At that exact moment, Mei’s palm started to ache: it was a signal sent from Pearl, he was calling for an emergency, possibly in trouble, and Mei was not not prepared to make the teleportation circle.
“Captain.” Mei turned around to whisper at Marc while the guards were finishing up searching.
The two exchange a look, Marc bit his lips and paused, before actually giving Mei a nod. To which she mumbled something using her sound magic for Esmeralda to hear, through the window of the adventure building, they could barely see the kid looking out at them all confused and afraid.
“Elemental Spell,” Mei whispered under her breath. “Ice Age.”
Around them was grass, stone, dirt and buildings. But then what happened; Marc blinked, the moment his eyes closed and opened again, the whole area around them was ice. The guards that were searching them were covered by ice, the carriage, their horse Tuna, the building walls and every living organism, except for Marc and one other.
The man in the red suit with the word “AAA” on it charged towards her without another word, it was when he was abruptly stopped by a sword swing from Marc, who just got the sword from Mei’s hip when she spawned it in.
The man stayed quiet the whole time, dashed back to fix his mask before tilting his head from side to side, cracking his neck like knuckles and got to confront Marc again.
“slash” Marc swung his sword from right to left, aiming at the man’s hip. But then the very next thing he knew, the AAA was perfectly balancing himself with one of his hands on top of Marc’s head, entire body upside down.
‘He’s fast!’ Marc widened his eyes in shock, then with one simple push from the suited man’s palm, he was quickly sent plummeting downwards jaw first to the ground. Mei took this opportunity while the AAA was descending to create multiple ice spikes towards him; the man raised his sleeves up to his mask and tanked it all like nothing.
“That suit!” Mei whispered, observing as the red suit in question started to give out a decent amount of energy, before releasing a huge shockwave in the area, destroying the ice Mei initially created, freeing Tuna and the three guards, also sending her backpedaling a few steps.
At that exact moment, only chaos happened in their mind, the scene of catastrophe like Sulkos flashed before the two’s eyes again. Marc quickly got up from the ground, with blood dripping out of both nostrils he charged forward the man in the red suit to try and occupy him again.
“Mei! Go save the others!”
“No! Stop telling us to leave you!” Visibly furious, Mei shifted her focus towards the guards who attempted to neutralize her and fought them off.
“You need to keep Vel safe for me!”
“But!-”
“You’re wasting your time!”
Mei blinked again to see Marc dropped down to the ground with a spear anchored on him, that was when a line of tear ran from Mei’s eyes down to her lips, her voice cracked when she looked away: ”I’m sorry…”
“I sacrifice a part of my identity…” Mei whispered
“Grab her!” The guards charged following the AAA.
“Magic Spell: Flash!” Mei said, followed by a light source to replace where she was standing.
Meanwhile, inside.
Everyone was curious about the whole ice and battle happening outside, they got out of their seats and gathered around the windows, the doors to get a better look for themselves. Esmeralda was safe from the creepy man trying to hit her on again, that was when a loud thud caught her attention. Mei appeared with a blink of light, dropped down from the air to land on her knee, before anyone else could react or made the connection between her and the woman who was just fighting outside; Mei dashed over to grab onto Esmeralda. That was when the kid noticed something was off; the smell of iron, Mei was bleeding from her nose a lot, and there’s blood penting up in her mouth. She also looked up to see Mei hair was different, still the smooth brown she’d known and loved, but instead of being grown to her back, now it was very short, to the point of the strands not even passing her ears.
“I sacrifice a part of myself! cough… Flash!”
A lot of blood was drooling out of Mei’s mouth when she exclaimed. Then another light source appeared to take over hers and Esmeralda’s position. The little dragon then opened her eyes to see that they were at their forest rendezvous point where the team first split into two. Ten minutes walk until Avora Dungeon where Pearl and Rina were.
“cough“
“Ah!?”
Frantically, Esmeralda held onto Mei to try and help her from losing too much blood, that was when the girl was caught by surprise to see Mei Magmal; completely naked with only her wizard hat and her staff, was kneeling and coughing more and more blood to the point of it forming into a puddle on her hand and won’t dry soon enough, Mei didn’t care about any of that but started to use her own blood and draw a circle around her.
“Mei! Your… Your hair, your clothes, and… Your wrist?”
Upon looking at Mei’s hand up onto her wrist, Esmeralda noticed something strange; colors—crayons or markers which are not properly drawn on top of her veins, multiple of them dashed across in quick sharp lines both vertically and diagonally while stretched longer and wavy like snakes—these were permanent colors that had been there for who knows how long? The kid also took notice of some strange bruises or scratch marks on Mei’s upper body that was always covered by her clothing; wondering just how many stories are in those?
“Es…” Mei carefully designed the circle, not minding the kid’s question or the fact that there’s nothing to cover herself with, she used her last strength to look over at Esmeralda and whispered. “Help me draw… Pearl needs us, Rina needs us, use my blood.”
She collapsed on the ground, conscious but unable to move, she still opened her eyes wide to move her hands and draw.
… Earlier on top of the Avora Dungeon.
clang…cling
The combined attacks of Rina and Pearl did little to nothing, arrows can’t pierce stone, spells, strangely, could not hurt it as much; physical ones like throwing boulders at it could only help the golem get bigger if it self combined with them.
“Beam of Agony.”
Pearl shot out a giant purple beam from the tip of his staff, only being able to take the golem’s head off while costing Pearl a good amount of his mana, but the thing didn’t need vision to continue fighting as it charged forward Pearl, causing him to quickly dodge away while Rina can take her turn trying to damage it. The back and forth from damaging to evading between the two had been going on for a good while; they soon ran out of breath, exhausted almost to death while the golem wouldn’t even understand that concept. Could they run? No, not here, not when they already knew that the golem's faster than them.
“I don’t have enough…” Rina looked at her palm for a moment, biting her lips in agony, knowing that she could get them out of this but unable to. “Pearl! How long!”
“I don’t know! She must be busy, too!” Pearl sent another signal towards Mei’s, he could still sense his older sister’s energy from here, so she was not unconscious, out of mana or anything. Meanwhile, he still managed to keep his attention on dodging the creature’s every mindless swing.
“Fine…” Rina took her time to line up the next shot, the elf got into a lower stance, leaning backwards with her left leg stretched frontwards. She pulled back the string on her bow and arrow before it and she was blown by the surrounding wind and her eyes slightly lit up. “Elves’ Vision… Heaven Piercing Ar-”
slam — crack — thud
“RINA!”
The golem; as if sensing danger, with one extremely quick motion, removed its own arm and threw it towards Rina, impacting her directly on her forehead and blood was spilling out. Pearl only saw she collapsed on the ground immobile when the golem; one arm still intact, swung it at him.
Pearl used wind magic to elevate himself to barely dodge and rushed over towards Rina who was definitely not responding.
“No…” Pearl opened his eyes wide when he noticed; the golem was aiming at him and not Rina after already neutralizing her, proven by the fact that it was swinging its attack more carefully between both of them. Did this mean he would be using her as a shield?
Pearl did not think of that, as the golem striked towards his head again, his eyes went down to Rina’s wooden bow.
“Pick it up, Mr. Magmal.”
“You are not a mage.”
“You are the —[inaudible].”
“Your sister on the other hand…”
Those haunting sounds called for him again. Maybe, sometimes it’s good to be covered in the dark.
voot
The golem striked Pearl while he was not focusing and knocked him out, or did it?
“...”
Pearl endured the whole thing, the punch from that golem hit his forehead, causing his jaw to slightly dislocate and his eyes blurry with little sense of direction or balance left to be considered fighting. That was when the golem also noticed that… The mage was not wearing his glasses like two seconds ago before the strike hit; his glasses were hung on his cape while on his hands Rina Wenswood’s bow, the same bow that had the ability to retract itself and to become a staff, Pearl was holding a wooden staff.
“No one’s here to stop you, the youngest Magmal…” He calmed himself while his eyes relaxed, almost to the point of half opened. “Let me do this, just one minute.”
“Spear Move…” The golem put up its foot in an attempt to stomp Pearl “Point Jab.” Its entire leg from foot to knee was broken into multiple pieces, collapsing on top of Pearl, but there was a barrier protecting his head from the debrises falling down.
The Golem did not give up, though losing its balance; it leaned towards Pearl in an attempt to squish him with its entire body.
“Spear Move: Dragon’s Fangs.” He whispered, using the wooden staff to continuously stab forward at the golem’s body as the thing was falling down, breaking the thing into multiple small pieces while it was still midair. Until what’s left of an enchanted protector, was merely a lot of pebbles on the ground.
The fight was over, Pearl laid down half conscious on the ground, probably was not the best idea to take a blow to the face like that. At that moment, a light source started to cover him, Pearl realized what this was and tried to reach his hand towards Rina, he had to touch her! But one more blink, two more blink when desperate and tired… He went unconscious, leaving the battleground.
…
“Oh no… She’s hurt, what is all this?”
A silhouette could be seen dragging Rina away from all that, making sure to get a retractable bow and a magic staff nearby.
I don't think 2.5k of words is a lot, I've read a chapter with more than 6k of words
i beleieve that's not the message eh
Man their situation just keeps getting worse. To think it all started when some crooked cops decided to play bandit and kidnap a child and then they were the ones labeled criminals for the crime of rescuing the child from the bandits. Are there no laws in this world regarding law enforcement and abuse of power? If there are I really wanna see these AAA bastards face some justice for everything the group has been through.
Lettuce all wish for a nice closure at the end of this rough journey for these lovely characters
ramen