Instantly, everyone gets up.
“-What are they?” Diego asks, looking at us.
“-Goblins. Hundreds of them.” We answer.
“-Can you reach them?”.
We shake our head. They are moving too fast. We didn’t have time to prepare. We are too separated, so we could only manage small attacks.
And somehow, they keep seeing us, targeting us with their froggy like tongue and munching our meat. Soon, we wouldn’t be able to risk attack with so many bodies, otherwise the others may see it.
There was not much that we could do.
Rosa is already on the top of a tree, targeting the closest enemies. Anna is warming herself up, determination on her face. Soon, the wave of Goblins would be upon us.
Lucas grabs his two sticks and connects them, forming his battle staff. Since he is usually at the backlines it’s easy to assume that he is the weakest of the group, but it’s just that he knows his magic doesn’t work as well with him as it works with the others. The smartest decision was to keep himself safe, healing the others. And Lucas was a smart man.
In truth, fighting that many Goblins, he would probably do better than some of the others.
We pick our saber, and together with the others, we wait.
Rosa keeps shooting, killing a Goblin every time she loses an arrow.
But she soon would be out of ammo and the Goblins were approaching quickly.
When one of the creatures tries to jump at her, she finally loses the bow and picks her katana.
She gets a clean cut, separating it in half.
She jumps to another branch, killing another Goblin on her way. Like the wind itself, her movements never really stop as she spin from place to place leaving body parts to fly. She moves precisely, with almost delicate movements. But all of them lethal.
Which fits for someone who learned how to kill at six.
From everywhere, the Goblins attack.
They leap from the trees, come running from behind. Some of them have knifes, cleavers. Others have hatchets, bows. They scream and laugh, maniacally.
But, most importantly, they die.
All of the Shinning Siblings keep spitting Goblin’s blood constantly, cutting, smashing, breaking and tearing them.
And we, of course, do our part.
We are always observing. We watch from every direction. We have no blind spot.
We see when two Goblins jump from the tree, trying to target us from behind. We see the three more coming from the left, the two coming from the right. We see the one trying to use its friends as a distraction, waiting to target our legs. We see the archer aiming at our head, trying to get a clean shot. We see them all, and we see much more.
It’s much easier to avoid being hit when you know exactly from where the attacks are coming from.
When they strike, we strike back. We cut their bodies with not much difficult. When we are together, we are way stronger than when we are alone. We move between their blades and we make them bleed in the process. They come from everywhere, but we keep dodging it.
But unfortunately, it’s just too many Goblins. We can’t avoid them all.
Not that it really matters.
Another Goblin jumps at us and his knives slice through our human body.
We react at the same time.
We separate ourselves, exactly the necessary size to avoid the slash, and only air is cut. Meanwhile, we split on the knife, which gets red blood colored.
No sense in letting anyone getting suspicious. We need to look like humans. And humans bleed when a knife passes through them.
The Goblin slashes again, smiling at the sight of the wound. Seven others approach from the trees, four ruining from the left, five from the right. All of them seconds away of targeting us.
We keep avoiding most hits, faking injuries when necessary. For all our speed and awareness of the surroundings, it was just too many of them, too much pressure altogether. It was impossible to maintain a human form and not being cut.
This was proved by the way the body of my companions looked.
All of them had cuts.
Anna and Rosa are doing better than the others, but everyone bleed. Daniel keeps healing them, but the Goblins don’t let him focus. He can afford nothing more than a glance at his companions, having to dodge and strike back at the same time. He keeps healing everyone, either way.
Diego is the one at the most disadvantage. His style favors open places, where he can keep his momentum and use his strength to cut through everyone. Unfortunately, there are just too many trees here, so his speed is limited.
An arrow aimed at his eye misses its target only barely, and a small cut appears on his left cheek. He manages to kill two Goblins with a large swim, and turns fast enough to deflect a hit, with enough strength that the Goblin that tried it was cut in half, from down to up. Two others attack from above, while one more jumps at him from behind. Somehow, he kills them all, but a fourth falls on his shoulder, and stabs his back. He throws the creature away with a roar, quickly takes the knife off his body, and gets back into position.
It was unavoidable. On this battlefield, he was operating with way less than his normal ferocity.
But surprisingly, he wasn’t the one doing worst.
That would be Lucas.
It’s not that he wasn’t skilled or fast to dodge. He was. But the constant attacks were making it impossible to target all the Goblins with his illusions. Without it, he wasn’t as good as the others during a melee. He was the only member that haven’t been trained during his youth, and learned just by experience.
Lucas cuts a Goblin throat with a fast swing from his left hand. With his right, he stabs another on his stomach, then pushes the knife sideways, opening the way for the creature’s inwards spill on the ground. While he does it, a Goblin scores a cut through his left leg.
He groans loudly, but he doesn’t fall, and returns the favor by piercing his knife into the Goblin’s forehead. He manages to dodge a hit from a fourth Goblin, slices the face of a fifth one, takes four fingers of a sixth. Then he gets cut again, this time on his left shoulder. The cut on his leg was halfway healed, and the one on his shoulder immediately started being healed too. But, for how long could Daniel maintain it?
Perhaps today we would find the limits of his power.
Rosa Jumps at Lucas direction, landing with an outburst of wind. All the Goblins in Lucas vicinity lose their footing, which cost them their lives as both Rosa and Lucas start to kill them. With her katana, Rosa is capable of cutting Goblin flesh like butter, and chunks of them fall on the ground every time that she swings. Many are cut in half, but most lose only parts of their face or a limb. All get fatal blows. All get covered in blood.
But the truly gore happens at Anna’s side.
With her strength and speed her punches are enough to make a Goblin’s head explode. When they jump at her, she hits them first almost all the times and their bodies offer almost no resistance to her fists. The ones lucky enough to get close to her and slash at her flesh were only managing superficial cuts, and dying right after it.
Some of them had literally holes on them, all the size of her fists.
Then, she jumps at the direction of some Goblins on her left, and we know that she made a mistake.
From a little above, four Goblins dive straight at her. We saw when they climbed on the highest trees, trying to stay out of sight. We saw them looking at her, waiting.
But what could have we done? We were still attacking the Goblins discretely, but we couldn’t risk letting the others know what we were doing. Too risky to get too much involved this close to the fight.
Not being able to dodge mid-jump, the Goblins crash with her.
They roll, and even rolling she is able to kill two of them before they can do anything. One of the survivors was able to perforate her left thigh with a small knife and now was weaponless holding himself at her back, biting at her neck. The other fell in front of her and was stabbing at her repeatedly. She is able to deflect most of the cuts with her knuckles, but now all of them. She spins and uses the Goblin at her neck as a shield, and then spinning again, she gets hold of her assaulter head and smashes it on a tree.
Unfortunately, the next second she was already overwhelmed again.
Before she has even finished killing the last Goblin, another grabbed her feet, and two others jumped at her head. She manages to keep her footing, kicks the head of the Goblin holding her and dodge the other two. But an arrow pierces through her shoulder and another Goblin shoves her to the Ground.
She falls, and Goblins start raining at her. For each that she manages to kill, two more appear.
We see her getting butchered.
She keeps fighting back, keeps killing, trying to get back to her feet.
But the Goblins don’t let her. More than a dozen are on top of her, and many more keep coming. She has a hatchet buried on her right arm, two knives stuck around her body. And a dangerous number of cuts.
“-I WON’T LET YOU” Daniel screams while hitting the Goblins around him, running at her direction. We know that, at this moment, his whole power is focused at Anna.
But the Goblins know what he’s doing and don’t let him approach.
No matter how much he heals her, it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t stop getting hit.
Then, for the second time, Rosa lands with an explosion of wind.
The Goblins that manage to stop themselves to being throw away die when she cuts them. Soon after it, Lucas appears and starts to take the blades off Anna’s body. Usually that wouldn’t be advised, but the blades needed to leave in order to Daniel to be able to properly heal her.
“-Hey hey, I got you, do you hear me? I got you…”
She spews blood as an answer.
Rosa keeps the Goblins from approaching them, but soon they would be too much for her to handle.
Diego comes screaming, killing everything on his path. With his help, Lucas is able to get to Anna, and kneels at her side. He lands a hand on her face, and starts healing her directly.
Lucas gets up and starts slashing with a fierceness that wasn’t there before. On his left, Rosa does the same, maiming one Goblin per second, while on his right Diego keeps slaying them.
Even in the most difficult times the Shinning Siblings manage to get together, each watching the others back.
Us, of course, being the only exception.
Since the beginning of the fight, we started drifting away from the others, baiting a portion of the Goblins with us. Now, we are finally far enough that none of them can see what’s happening with us. Which is perfect.
Because now we can fight seriously.
Noh.estheimn· Aug 24, 2021
