65. The Second Crisis
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V struggled to his feet in an attempt to retreat. He was no help here, woozy from the never-ending blood loss, and sporting a useless arm. He needed to get to L, Luna, and Eika. Perhaps the four of them could find a way to retreat. V watched Alice and the small mousekin as he withdrew, the small animal girl leapt toward Alice, in a flying kick maneuver. Alice easily cleaved the mouse girl in half with her broadsword. That was sort of weird, V assessed the situation, the mouse girl had quite a lot of confidence for someone who ju-. Before V could finish the thought, four exact copies of the mouse girl sprinted toward Alice, and another two jumped at her from the nearby rooftops. The last thing V saw before he turned a corner was Alice kill three more of them as five more of them appeared from the nearby alleyway.

Swearing to himself he moved as quickly as he could. The mouse girl obviously had some sort of duplication ability. V was fairly certain that was an unwinnable situation unless there was a limit to the amount of... clones she could make. V had come into visual range of a few of the golden spirits on the ground, having already noticed the flying ones. He was hoping they were not created with the order of "Attack all champions who are still standing." Otherwise, he would be in even more trouble than he already seemed to be in. V slowed down, not wanting to charge into a legion of aggressive golden spirits. He would first have to figure out if they considered him an enemy or not fir- for the third time today, V's train of thought was interrupted as he was thrown to the ground again. Several of the flying spirits had landed nearly on-top of him. As V regained his footing he looked back, the spirits were collectively blocking a strike that seems to have come from a massive axe. Massive was not even the word, surreal was more accurate. The axe was the size of a small car, V groaned, it was obvious that this was the work another champion of some sort. Suddenly the axe shrunk, to the size of a toothpick. The spirits who had braced against the strike stumbled forward as they suddenly lost the opposing force.

It took a moment for V to realize what was going on, but a miniature human was running toward him, between the legs of the spirits. Only a few inches in height. However, after passing the spirits the mini human suddenly became massive, bigger than O. The axe he was wielding also grew back to a ludicrous size. V only dodged the massive axe strike at the last second, diving sideways. Several more of the flying spirits descended to help their brethren against this new threat. Their interference bought enough time for V to stand back up. "V! Keep running away!" Eika's voice called to him from further down the street. She was running toward him, her sling in hand, a fierce look in her eyes. V waved her off has he moved toward her. "Just grab Luna and get out of here, we can meet back up in the forest nearby, we have to get out of the city!" Eika's pace slowed and confusion showed on her face. "W..we are running away?" As they closed the distance between them V nodded "We can't help here. We have to escape; I don't know how I’m going to get L out of here but I’ll try." Eika slowly started shaking her head. "No, we can’t! We can’t leave everyone behind. Eika can’t leave everyone behind! Not again! Alice was so nice, and all the sick people! They will die without help!" The collar on Eika's neck was starting to glow, clearly preparing to force her to obey. V opened his mouth to convince her, but Eika screamed "Watch out!"

V turned around, the man had once again disentangled himself from the flying spirits, and now carried a slingshot, he pulled it back and shot a tiny rock toward V. That did not make any s.... V's eyes widened as a sudden realization hit him. He yelled for Eika to drop to the ground, as he did the same. A moment later a massive boulder passed not even a quarter inch over V's head. The boulder crushed multiple of the standing spirits as it flew down the street, finally landing on a few of the patients. Eika jumped back up immediately "No! NO! STOP KILLING THEM THEY DID NOTHING WRONG!" Eika looked like she had snapped. Perhaps the stress had gotten to her, days of caring for the dead or dying, overseeing Luna, worrying about L and V. Perhaps her comparatively innocent and simple mindset could no longer take the stress. V pulled himself up from the ground and grabbed Eika with his good arm, trying to pull her along. "No, we can’t leave! I can’t hide anymore. Mommy wanted me to hide but Eika can’t be a good girl anymore! Eika can’t hide!" Eika was looking at her own hands like she was horrified by them.

Meanwhile, Luna was trying to whistle a little tune she had heard one of the city guards singing when they were here a few days ago. "Oh right, I can’t whistle hahahaha." Luna bonked herself on her head as she continued to make slow progress rolling the Crafting Champion toward the guy without a face. "Now I know why people don't roll people around. It’s exhausting..." A hand flew past Luna's face as someone was crushed underneath the chaos happening behind her. O was destroying spirit after spirit, and so far, only two or three of the injured laying on the ground had been killed. Luna wondered why everyone was not running around doing things, but then remembered that most of the people here could not move. After all Alice said they had limited space. When someone could walk, she turned them out and replaced them with another injured person... She passed someone who was conscious who reached out toward her "Don't leave me! Take me as well!" Luna looked at them, their face reflecting off of her eyes as her ears flicked in the wind. "If you lay really really really still, I think you will be safe!" Luna happily said as she continued rolling "Hup!" she made more effort noises as she wiped her brow "Only a few more rolls... probably. I wonder if L made it?"

L, for her part, had dragged herself over to what she hoped was Luna's "Faceless man." her breathing was labored and she could feel her heart pounding horribly fast. She was still in overwhelming pain. She wondered if when she had activated her abilities, the icy fire that erupted out of her back and head actually also erupted inside of her body as well. It felt like it did at-least. "Hup!" She heard Luna's strange noises and struggled to set up enough to view the girl. Luna was a few bodies away, rolling another one of the patients toward L and the man with the bandaged face. "Maybe this was a mistake. Why did I follow her again?" L muttered in her own mind, but it was meaningless to regret it now, she was out of energy and would not be crawling anywhere else at the moment. "O hey there! You made it! Nice!" Luna said pleasantly as she desperately struggled to align the body she was rolling alongside the "faceless man." L struggled to speak "Why did.... what is your p... Luna?" Luna looked at L in confusion "Maybe you should wait to talk. You don't sound very good at it yet." Luna shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked around "I wonder if that other spirit is going to be here soon..." Almost as if in response to Luna, the spirit she had enlisted rounded the bend carrying the women with no left arm or eye. "O hi there goldeny spirit man! Thanks for the help!" The air around them was growing hotter. L looked around again, the green flames were coming closer, at-least the fire only hurt champions. L was happy that not everyone here would be burnt to cinders. "Now I just gotta find how to turn it on..." Luna was patting down the crafting champion. "Hay L, where would you keep stuff on your body if you wanted to hide stuff?" L failed to respond to the inane question, but Luna was untroubled. "Oh wait, I think it’s in his pants, I guess that makes sense, it’s the only clothes he has on!" Luna started rummaging through the Crafting Champion's pants as L watched, filled with regret at her choice to follow Luna.

V threw Eika to the side as he dove again to avoid another size altered projectile. The man was mostly shooting at them, as he had been re-swarmed by spirits. He seemed capable of fighting them off, but not long enough to give any real chase to V. Another few patients fell victim to the projectile. Eika was already back on her feet, and had run over to one of the people who had not been entirely crushed, the projectile only catching their arm. Eika was sobbing "Please no, it will be ok! It will be ok!" She was trying to stop the bleeding from the persons now crushed arm. V did not really care about the crushed person, but seeing Eika like this made him feel a lump in his chest. It was really sad and pathetic. The girl only wanted to help these people. As V struggled to rise again, he realized he was running out of energy. The relentless pain and blood loss was taking its toll. He felt bad for Eika, but there was nothing he could do but run away with her, he was unsure if he even could stop to try and help L at this point. As he looked at Eika trying to stem the blood loss of the injured person, a strange feeling came over him. "Please... please don't die..." Eika was covered in blood and tears, her ears sagging so low they might as well just be limp rags. V's blessing tingled at the back of his mind. He had never felt this before, for some reason the blessing was waiting for his command to activate. V attempted to examine the feeling; he was... unsure if it was even his blessing that was waiting for his go ahead. The feeling was so foreign to him that for a moment he wondered if it was someone else's blessing. He shook his head, no it was his, he could feel it in the back of his mind, struggling to be free. V shrugged internally, what's the worst that could happen? He gains fire wings, kills the size changing guy down there, and then died because his body turned against him? It's not like his body was doing well right now anyway, and besides, who knows who else was around. At any moment a new champion could show up looking for blood. V willed the blessing free of whatever it was waiting for, pain lanced through V's brain and he collapsed as if he was being tased.

┌——————┐
Rule Violation in Progress!
└——————┘

┌——————┐
                                      Has
Mother's Pain Has Activated!
                                          Activated!
└——————┘

V could barely see through the tears streaming out of his eyes as his body fell limp, he had lost all motor control. Eika's sobbing however had suddenly ceased. She fell to all fours. "Eika is done running. Mommy, Eika is not a good girl. Eika will not hide anymore. I am sorry to disappoint you mommy, but Eika is angry." Eika's ears stood straight, their rounded tips had turned pointed, Eika's canine teeth grew longer and razor sharp. "I TOLD YOU TO STOP KILLING!" Eika charged toward the size changing man, running on all fours. She jumped and dove right through one of the golden spirits, it exploded as her body connected with it. Before the man could react to Eika's extreme speed, she had bitten his neck and was hanging off of it. The man grew to the size of a small house, reducing the damage Eika's bite could do. She released her bite, and fell to the ground. Jumping off the nearby debris, she launched herself toward the man’s large eyes.

"Hey L! I don't suppose you could help me get this guy’s pants off?" Luna looked over at L's heaving body as she tried to catch her breath. "No... I guess not. Well, that is ok, I once had to move an entire sack of rocks that some other homeless kids had placed on me while I was sleeping. I should be able to do it!" As the heat in the area became sweltering, Luna struggled with the man’s pants. L cursed herself, she was going to be burnt to death and she was not even holding her sword. In her haste and frankly clearly mentally impaired state, she had left her sword behind. Although, she doubted she would have been able to crawl with it. "It was not in his pants." Luna reported pleasantly. A wall of green fire had come into view, standing inside of it was a man of average build. His brown hair was standing up, as if he was being electrocuted, although he was clearly in perfect health. He was holding one of his hands half raised in a weird gripping motion. L wondered if perhaps he was dragging the flames along with him. It was clear that the Champion of Fire was just walking the wall through the entire area. A fairly good strategy L admitted, even if he did not know who was a champion, all he had to do was make sure his fire touched every location here, no need to seek targets. "Hostile Target identified." A strange mechanical voice came from the Crafting Champion. "Oh! Hey! I guess it's ok that I did not find it! Nice." Luna sat down next to L. "Let’s watch together!"

 

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