Tattered clothing, labored breaths, and wild black hair. Mayumi was center field, wrestling with their enemy.
She found a fragment of freedom to avert her gaze, only to catch her companion, Sebastian, be swatted away in a wink.
Her eyes narrowed to see in the near absolute darkness of the atmosphere. But he was nowhere to be seen. Drawn down by gravity and the gallons of poring rain, Mayumi mouthed his name.
Following a massive detonation of thunder, yellow lightning flashed from the furious, murky clouds.
Just taking the second to glimpse at her tormented mates was life-threatening. The plants had become giant after soaking up moisture and swayed even more lethal.
She ducked and dodged, straining to endure and find the opportunity to reach Artie's company. It wasn't just her; every standing hunter struggled to gain ground.
The grassy field they fought on was slippery and hardly recognizable after the flooding began. It made her stride much slower, which, at the time, was detrimental because the deadly vine returned its attention to Artie.
Mayumi observed this, then dashed in earnest. Her arms flicked in front and away from her torso as she kicked up water while sprinting. Desperate and choking back the looming tears that knocked at the barricaded doors of her eyelids.
"Y-you're okay, you're good," she muttered. Distraught, but assuring herself that everyone was okay. Sebastian, Artie, Rachel, and Laria, they were alive; they were fine.
It was no comfort that as she ran, the pulverized body of another hunter was volleyed past her like a tennis ball smacked by a racket. The rain, or maybe their blood, splattered on her face.
Whoever it was must have been weak; they weren't her allies. No, her friends were stronger. They could survive.
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5-" started Mayumi, slowly counting.
She utilized every trick she'd used on her patients in her past occupation. Stating notions in her mind and affirming them as true, counting to ten, and dreaming of a happier future. Her plethora of psychology techniques usually kept her calm, but then she was deteriorating.
"Push through," she conveyed to herself.
The distance between her and the downed party was too great. She knew this but ran regardless. Assuring herself that she'd make it in time.
The heavy green vine winded up above Artie's gathering. Thoughtless and callous, it plunged for the kill.
Still over 20 yards out, Mayumi's heart plummeted. She outstretched her arm toward the faraway scene and dropped her jaw with a lamentable scream.
The monster dropped. Taking her prayers with it to the ground.
Merely inches before crashing and killing everyone there, something lit. A golden spark flickered from the trench that housed Artie's group.
Since the ground was flooded, an unpredictable surge traveled across the pool and assailed the dozens of standing hunters.
Mayumi's body and extended arm shuddered violently. Thin volts of electricity coursed through her, but she toiled to remain upright. The high-level fighter halted and hunched forward in discomfort, trying to regain control of her constitution. Nearby thumps alerted her that others were not so durable and that the shock was enough to cut the connection to their consciousness.
Just as Mayumi managed to gain her bearings, a blinding, silent flash discharged from the same location. It took seconds before she could see again, but when he looked, the vine was half its original size.
Blasted clean in half, it was seemingly eradicated by space itself.
"W-whats that?" Questioned a concerned woman.
Upon the remark, Mayumi turned to the stranger who'd pointed toward the sky. Yards above the ground was a hovering and illuminated human-ish form.
"Artie?" she mumbled, squinting to analyze the figure.
A gleam of lightning was cast behind the still, inhuman shape. The sudden flash temporarily lit up the character and confirmed her assumption. It was Artie; however, something was amiss.
Even in the duskiness of the sky, he shined like a headlight. Perfectly unmoving.
Artie's form had altered. Making him almost unidentifiable aside from his black feline ears and tail. His brown skin was peeling, starting from his neck. And a radiant, golden light burned underneath his shaving flesh and prominent veins.
His insides glowed from within like a carved, candle-lit pumpkin, and his eye sockets emitted strings of elastic lightning.
Simply suspended in the sky, he was inanimate. Frozen in both mind and body as if he was bewitched.
Mayumi called to him, but there was no response. Just an alien presence.
Based on the accounts of others, she'd had a rough concept of how the 'Bluemoon Priestess' behaved and looked.
To an extent, she considered it an entirely new entity aside from herself. With no governance of her body or memory of the time possessed, it hardly seemed valid to regard it as 'Mayumi.'
She wondered if Artie was there too. In the cold, empty compartment of his mind, powerless as his skeleton moved against his wishes.
`
The plant monster seemed to have paused when the flash occurred. The damaged vine remained frozen, but other parts became active again. Rattling the drowned earth as they haphazardly ascended.
Most hunters had awoken but were still depleted and in shambles from a long, failing fight. It appeared like the onslaught would continue, even after the series of fortuitous events.
Following a twirl, the first destructive whip nose-dived toward the earth.
Before it collided with the ground and likely extinguished another soul, there was another tremendous white out. It coated the entire field and sky like an unprompted and startling camera flash. Seconds later, an immense, window-shattering thunderclap exploded and assaulted everyone's drums.
It all happened fast, and once Mayumi regained her sense, she saw a cluster of obliterated trees to her right. It was far enough that the damage didn't splash over and injure them too.
It seemed like a random, unguided lightning strike, but oddly, the assailing vine had discontinued its attack. All of them did.
Mayumi pivoted her sight toward what she assumed was Artie. His body hadn't moved, yet his head was tipped toward the location that had been shredded.
As she looked onward, another lightning strike blasted from blackened heaven and hammered the same charred area in the forest.
It was believed that lightning never struck the same place twice. But one after another, scattered beams of electricity hurled toward the earth and leveled the land around a central area.
A massive crater was left in place of bountiful trees. Along with the dead land fell the giant, suspended vines. They crumbled to the ground like puppets whose strings were cut.
Wide and startled eyes glimpsed at the mess. Wishing for their nightmare to end.
The threat did end, but the storm continued. Rachel yelled for help at the southern border, and the hunters snapped from their enthrallment. Mayumi rushed to her and analyzed Laria, whose heart had nearly stopped. Another group located Sebastian, who'd crashed yards away from the field, just barely breathing himself.
He and Laria were laid side by side while the sole field medic tended to them. There were many incapacitated, but those two held priority. Either due to the severeness of their wounds, or their exceptional reputations.
The doctor performed whatever medical acts they could. Yet, sobs and wails berated the darkened zone as the hunters prepared for the worst. More distressing, they could barely see their friends' faces in the worsening weather, just their shadowed and broken bodies.
Rachel wept and clung to Mayumi. The Asian woman did not shed tears, but she shivered uncontrollably. Squeezing her sobbing companion and still telling herself.
"It's fine; it'll be okay."
Things only became worse.
Between the lack of sun and primitive medical practices, little could be done for the two. Only ten minutes after their procedure, Sebastian had stopped breathing.
Screams and hysterical cries outburst after the doctor's sour notice. CPR was applied, but only as a desperate act to keep him. His guild, the Black Blades, endeavored to reach him but were thwarted by Wana.
It was a bitter, tragic moment for everyone. But, out of respect, Wana wanted to allow Sebastian protagonistic peace. She believed it was more befitting for the spirited man than delirious waterworks.
The calm usually came before or after a storm, but it endured for nearly a minute on that dark day. Only the sound of pouring rain and periodic thunder booms persisted over their silent sorrows.
