I smiled.
“Please, be careful,” she begged, and then she nodded, understanding my instructions.
I could hear Lanette right around the corner, so I pulled out my flame whip and waited for my mark. As soon as I saw her tiny feet pass between the row of trees, I snapped my weapon, wrangling it around her ankle.
She yelped, the small girl dropping on her back. Pixie shouted her name, but before she could retaliate I flung the rascal in the air and tossed her against the body of an alder.
“You fiend!” Pixie growled, charging at me like a bulldozer. For someone packing on so much armor I expected her to be a bit on the sluggish side but the triple weight champion was quick on her feet.
When Lanette dropped on the ground again, I dragged her behind me like a ragdoll. With both of them distracted on me, I gave the couple time to flee.
“Ugh-aa-gh-aggh!” Lanette cried as she held onto her head, protecting it from the rocks as I continued to sweep the grass with her.
“You let her go!” Pixie cried, still chasing me. She was hell-bent on stopping me dead in my tracks, so she slammed the ground with two fists and created a tall wall of rock in front of me.
She rattled my momentum and I nearly crashed into her wall. When I turned around, I swung the little girl with me, tossing her right into Pixie to angle my escape. Luckily the half dome wall wasn’t a complete circle, and I was able to curb its shape. Though not so lucky, Pixie was a quick manipulator of the terrain, summoning another wall that nearly rammed itself into my jaw as it sprouted from the ground.
The brute boxed me in, and there was nothing between me and the duo but my flame whip and my will to fight.
“Are you all right, mouse?” Pixie said, comforting Lanette.
“Gah, I think that asshole gave me a nasty bump on my head!” Lanette lamented, rubbing her temple as Pixie settled her feet on the ground. She turned her eyes and glared at me. “I say we return the favor! Off with his noggin!”
A moment of fight or flight—the reaction was a rush of hot adrenaline that sucked all the air in my lungs. It was suffocating, heart-racing, scary and exciting. I fixed my footing ready to fight. I wasn’t going to back down no matter the odds, prepared to stand my ground no matter the cost. It could have been worse, I could have had no weapon at all. Seeing as I had one, I was going to give it all I got, and take these bandits head on!
“Eat dirt, criminal!’ Pixie let out a battle cry, slamming her fists together. Lanette followed through with a barrage of crescent blades, chasing the trail of erupting rocks coming for me.
Feeling fortunate that I had fed my agility, I weaved through her projectiles. With the hero’s blessing I had an additional 10% to my base, the extra helping me big time. However, I still had my struggles, the bigger problem of the two being the wind sweeper. It was easy to dodge objects you could see. But when it came to Lanette’s wind magic, I was breaking a sweat.
She nipped me again, this time on my shoulder. When she noticed I staggered, she summoned a huge wind boomerang.
I barely step-dodged it, Lanette’s magic catching me, slicing my flame whip in two. She rendered my most adaptable weapon obsolete, the flames along the shaft fading out.
Great, I hissed inwardly, trying to find an area to hide so I could recollect myself. But these girls were relentless. Running out of options to slow them down, I tossed a bottle of sleeper dust their way, Lanette ready for it. She flung her wing boomerang at me, causing the bottle to ricochet my direction.
Putting my arm over my nose to avoid inhaling the fumes, I leaped forward and out, ducking behind a cluster of trees and ultimately behind a rock. It was time to swap out weapons, my thunderberd the perfect candidate for this dynamic duo. They wouldn’t think twice about me having a cyber weapon. You can loot them from any cyber sense freak, the only downside was not being able to power it via magitek. Which I wasn’t able to do anyway with it being an XDH tier.
“All right, here we go,” I exhaled, trying to pump myself up to go out there again. The impatient earth fae got me right up my feet when I heard a large bang, something striking the rock I was hiding behind.
“Nowhere to hide!” she war-cried, my body pivoting around to the rock covered with cracks. Before she could toss another blow I stepped back, only to find her tiny friend blocking my escape.
“Hiya! Going somewhere?” She flung the boomerang at me again, but this time I was ready for her. I jumped behind a tree, the boomerang slicing through the body with ease. It was like running a hot knife through butter, and it was the perfect distraction for me to zero in on her.
“What an idiot,” Lanette giggled. I could hear her boomerang returning to her, and just as she caught it, I rushed in for my power swing.
The head of the tree was perfect for cover. As it fell, it made it easy for me to swap positions, drawing closer to the duo. I came charging in with my halberd, full speed. With no time for the brat to react, I slashed at her, slicing clean through her face.
Shit, it wasn’t deep enough!
It would have been if she hadn’t used her wind at the last possible second to lean back. My eyes noticed a gap between her shoes and the ground, Lanette landing on a bed of gusty wind.
I only nipped her cheek, the girl fleeing as her magic propelled her backward. But I wouldn’t let her get far, chucking my blob of goo and hoping that it glued onto her.
Jackpot! Finally, some good fucking news!
“Gah!” Lanette yelped, the goo slapping onto her shoulder and bringing her down. My swing was strong, reflected upon my strength. I went in for the follow up. With her grounded, taking her out should be easy, as long as I could close in fast enough before her tank of a friend jumped in.
“Oh no you don’t!” Pixie growled, summoning fragments of the rock she obliterated at me.
“Here goes to burning all of my resources!” I tossed the pocket black hole at her once I ducked her projectiles, shutting down Pixie.
With a satisfying thump on her armor, the pocket black hole triggered. I could tell by her careless reaction that she didn’t know what the hell I’d flung at her, and she was cocky enough to think she could take whatever I had under my sleeves. Unfortunately for her, the pocket black hole was very effective, Pixie breaking into a blood-curdling scream as she was being pulled into the vortex. She clung onto a tree while the fragments of rocks and specks of dirt disappeared into the vacuum. The big girl clung on for dear life, streaks of tears sliding down her face from the sheer strength of it.
Given that Lanette and I weren’t as affected, I was glad to see that the vortex was concentrated in the trigger zone. I wasn’t in its radius, which meant that I could finally take on Lanette without any interruptions.
Lanette, still struggling to get up, looked at me with a mixture of skepticism and excitement. Amusement danced in her eyes as the goo worked its magic down her arm and over her hair, gluing her in place.
I paced over to her with my halberd. She looked up at me, not fearing for her life one bit.
“You’re out of commission, and soon, your friend will be worm chow.”
“I underestimated you,” she admitted, brushing off some of that brazen attitude of hers. “I won't make the same mistake again.”
“You say that like you have options. You’re not getting out of this mess, a mess you put yourself in.”
She grinned ear to ear. “Aww, you don’t look like the type who would kill kids. I can just tell. You got that face. You know, that punchable pussy face!”
“Keep talking like an adult, and I just might mistake you as one.”
