Loop Two - Chapter Thirty-Six - Chains

Morgan moved instantly, stabbing out towards the girl with the horn in a long forward lunge that would have skewered the girl through the neck if she didn’t move.

But she did, hopping back and tossing the horn to her left hand while moving her right to the side. A spear appeared next to her and she caught it easily before scanning over their group. “Hey, sorry, I’m busy right now. Can you not?”

“The horn’s magic, she’s protecting it,” Morgan said.

“Secondary focus,” Amber said. “Take her out first, hit the horn if it feels like a good target of opportunity.”

“Got it,” Jade said. She sounded a bit faint, nervous and afraid, but still willing and able to fight.

“Let’s kick her ass,” Cassy agreed.

The girl looked at all four of them, then grinned. “You’re no fun.” She jumped forwards, spear stabbing out towards Morgan who took a step back, then twisted her body around and away as the spear continued, almost stabbing her through.

“Variable length!” she shouted as she parried the spear with a flick of her rapier. Morgan side-stepped, then pushed forwards, but the spear had become short again, blocking her path once more.

As long as the girl stood her ground and only had one target, she could pressure Morgan out of her range forever with relative ease. So I need to give her more than one target.

Amber rushed around, moving to flank at a shallow angle around Morgan. She saw horngirl’s eyes flick her way. Then, the moment she refocused on Morgan, Amber threw a brace of knives.

Horngirl smacked them out of the air with a twirl of her spear, but that meant she was no longer keeping the point towards Morgan, and Morgan was able to cut in closer.

The girl jumped back, making space for herself, then she ducked as Jade’s scarf whipped out over her head and smacked into a tree trunk with a hard crack.

“Dang, these numbers aren’t very nice,” Horngirl said. She grinned then, and brought the horn to her lips.

Amber threw her knives again, hard and fast, but it was too late, the girl’s horn blared and the fog around them shook and trembled. Amber braced, expecting... something to happen, but the girl just lowered the horn and stepped back some more.

Amber followed, still moving towards the flank. Morgan was in the middle, and Jade on Morgan’s other side. Amber glanced around quickly. Where’s Cassy?

Then the fog shifted and a boogieman came charging out of it, mouth slavering and clawed hands swiping towards Amber.

She met it with a quick spin, chakram cutting through one of its reaching arms before Amber went low and chopped through the joint of its knee, sending the monster crashing to the ground. When she bounced back to her feet and took in her surroundings again, she noted that she wasn’t the only one having to deal with monsters all of a sudden.

Morgan sliced through a pair with contemptible ease, never taking her eyes off of horngirl, but Jade had a harder time of it. She wrapped her scarf around one monster’s neck, then flung her scarf up and over a low-hung tree branch. The other end of her scarf wrapped around another monster as it ran towards her, and she backed up. The running monster’s charge stopped with a hard tug that wrenched the neck of its companion.

Then Jade raised an assault rifle and fired a burst into the monster before her before retrieving her scarf.

Horngirl didn’t waste her distraction. The moment Morgan’s back was turned she spun and launched herself... right towards Amber.

Amber ducked to the side, barely dodging the first stab. She flung her arm out to push the spear away, but it flowed out of reach, the tip rushing back towards horngirl.

Then it shot forwards, snake-fast, and Amber hadn’t gotten her feet under her.

Oh, Amber thought as a searing heat pushed into and out of her chest.

Horngirl was grinning as she shortened her spear, splashing herself across the front with a wash of blood at the same time.

The spear rose, and it was clear she was aiming to chop towards Amber’s neck.

She heard her friends screaming, saw a blue blur descending...

Then Amber pulled back.

She stumbled to the side, then spun, the inner edge of her chakram catching on the speartip and pulling it to the side even as she continued to turn.

Horngirl’s blow went wide, missing Amber’s chest.

Amber flung her other arm out, flinging her knives with the motion, and with the spear momentarily caught, she couldn’t smack the knives out of the air this time.

Horngirl grunted as a knife thunked into the meat of her arm.

She tugged her spear back and backstepped, making space while Amber adjusted her footing and paid her a lot more attention. She resisted the urge to touch her chest where the pain had been.

“That stings,” horngirl said as she reached up to tug Amber’s knife free.

Amber recalled the knife the moment the girl’s hand was almost around its hilt, and horngirl hissed as the knife cut her hand on the way out.

“You can always surrender,” Amber said.

She was running low on mana, she realised. Hopefully the fact wouldn’t be obvious in any way.

Morgan pushed forwards, then dipped back as Horngirl swung her spear around in a big loop that sang through the air. Jade came in from the other side, dropped to one knee, then fired her rifle at the strange magical girl.

Amber almost screamed for her to stop, but then she noticed that Jade wasn’t hitting anywhere near horngirl. Not that the girl knew that at first, she flinched back, using the stretch of her spear to throw herself back behind a thick tree for cover.

Amber and Morgan punished the move, Morgan moving in quickly and slashing out at the girl’s arm, cutting through the black fabric of her robes and into her arm a little. Amber flung out more knives, and she grinned as one of them thunked deep into the horn.

“No!” Horngirl shouted. “That was expensive!”

Jade’s rifle clicked empty, and she turned it to the side and started to fiddle with the magazine.

Horngirl flipped around the far side of the tree and shot towards Jade, who was, for a moment, caught flat-footed.

Then Cassy came rushing down from above, catching horngirl in the head with the heels of both feet and ploughing her into the ground with a loud cry of “Surprise bitch!”

Horngirl rolled and quickly got back to her feet. The horn was missing, dropped next to Cassy, so she used her now free hand to wipe the mud off her face. “Rude!” she snapped.

“Yeah, just wait,” Cassy said. “I’ll show you real rudeness in a second.” Cassy twirled her broom around with a grin.

Horngirl growled, but she was scanning team Svalinn now, checking each of them out in turn and clearly weighing her options. Amber prepared herself to fight, her fingers itching to throw another brace at the girl. The fog all around them was receding, being beaten back by the bright sun and dissipating exactly as it should have a long time ago.

Which is why Amber saw the other figure approaching. “Watch out!” she said.

Jade dove away and rolled to get out of the way of a figure in black who shot past her and landed closer to horngirl.

A man, in similar dark robes and with a head-covering hood. He had a sword by his side, and a black oval mask covering his face.

I know him, Amber realised. Not from this time, but from a previous loop. “Watch out, he has magic chains,” Amber said.

“This bunch has been giving you trouble?” the man asked.

“Hey, they’re pesky. Like little cockroaches,” Horngirl said. “Wanna kill them?”

“We have no choice,” he replied.

“Cassy, down is right!” Amber shouted.

Cassy jumped, then grinned and swept her hand from left to right. Amber had already jumped up, planting a foot on a nearby tree so that when gravity shifted, she was now using it as a stable platform. She flung her arm out, tossing her knives towards the black-clad enemies.

Horngirl yelped as she was flipped around and started to fall sideways. She extended the length of her spear, and it caught between two trees so that she came to a sudden, hard stop.

Right where Amber wanted her.

Her knives flew true and horngirl gasped as all three thunked into her back.

Gravity reasserted itself, and she crashed to the ground with a groan.

The other magical had wrapped some chains around some of the trees around him, keeping him even.

He looked at horngirl and shook his head. “Another loss,” he said.

Amber recalled her knives, then almost dropped them. They were bloody. Way too bloody.

“Magic chains,” Morgan said. “So, he’ll be tough in mid-ranges.”

“Good with a sword too,” Amber said. “Be careful.” She swallowed past the bile that wanted to rise in her.

Morgan nodded.

Cassy twirled her broom and then sat on it to fly back and behind Morgan.

Amber glanced back and noticed Jade slipping a fresh magazine into her rifle from behind a tree. The magical wouldn’t be able to see her from where she was. Good.

Amber looked at the man, and saw very little to speak of how he felt facing off against all of team Svalinn.

“Tch,” he said before leaping forwards.

Morgan did the same, and there was a quick, violent clash as sword met sword. Amber saw a chain rising out from behind him, like a scorpion’s tail, and she flicked her knives at it and at the man.

He ducked aside and away, then moved his chain to intercept her knives as they came racing back towards her.

Morgan punished the motion, moving in closer and gaining ground.

There was another exchange that Amber couldn’t follow at all and Morgan was thrown back.

The man turned towards Amber, planted a foot in the ground, and shot towards her, sword point singing ahead of him.

Amber threw her knives at him and hurriedly grabbed a pair of chakram to defend herself as he came charging in. This was going to suck, she realised.

“Hey, back off!” Cassy screamed. She came dropping out of the air, both heels kicking towards the man’s head.

He stopped hard with a heavy jerk, and Amber saw the chain trailing from his waist to the ground anchoring him in place.

With his momentum suddenly stopped dead, Cassy’s two-legged kick missed, and she landed hard right in front of the man, between him and Amber.

So he stabbed her through, and Cassy’s scream harmonised horrifically with Amber’s own.

***