"Is an advance." So Seng said as Airys took the life of his prey. "I'm serious, I was expecting it to take longer."
Echsos was sitting in that place where he had lain during the self-perception, looking at the cliff from his back to Natsume and Seng.
"Don't you know what I'm thinking about?" asked Natsume hiding behind some trees to the boy's right quite far away.
"I already told you that I don't choose what I receive" Echsos turned his head to the left and was silent when he could not see Natsume, he looked to the right and continued: "If I concentrate I can try to receive something from you but it is confusing with that Seng power. "
"It's important to know every detail thoroughly, so stop snooping," he explained for the umpteenth time. "Are you finally getting something from me?" Seng was standing leaning against a tree just behind Echsos about eleven meters away.
"Hmm, nothing yet."
"Not even what am I thinking?"
"No."
"I think maybe that's the limit of his range." Natsume walked up to Seng, who used his resonance to keep the chatter between them and Echsos bored remarks.
"Maybe, but remember that the further we've gotten away the longer it has taken."
"How long will that girl take anyway?"
"Don't have trust in her" Seng muttered from hunger and the desire to beat the Brat to death.
"Well/"
"Wait" Seng interrupted her. "What did you say Echsos?"
"Huh? Ah!" Echsos got up. "That you should have more faith in Airys!" he exclaimed, not because he defended that phrase with special force, but because he received information about what they were talking about without listening to them.
"Heh… I already think I have an idea of the limits of your ability" Seng declared with a despotic and smug smile of him.
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Airys did not clearly remember Echsos's comments about the people who were persecuting him, when he told them about his brothers he also told them something about another couple of people who were coming after him and that thanks to the opportunity they caused he was able to flee from his stepbrothers.
In front of her were not two, but three. Andra, Erena and Maryon. In her adolescent head, everything stopped for an instant as she caught glances with them.
"Maybe I can fool them or ignore them" she thought. "Yeah, they don't know me, I just have to play dumb"
"Hey, isn't that the girl that was with the other one?" Andra reached out and pointed at her. "The one with blue hair."
"Damn it!" yelled Airys and followed Seng's first and foremost combat style instruction, the rule that comes before all rules, number zero:
If you face someone stronger than you, run away.
She let go of her hard-hunted meat and sprinted with all her might straight into the forest.
"Sorry." Andra flinched as she understood the disappointed look Erena gave her. She truly was a moron.
"Go get her!" ordered the dwarf, she burned with frustration at having to depend on those two retards to capture her. Seriously, if Andra hadn't said anything about her they would have questioned her.
"I'm on that!" Maryon pointed her hand straight at Airys, then flicked his hand to the skies and performed an Olympic boomerang throw that left him proud. He stood happily with his fists on his waist, Andra watched him admiringly. "Won't you go?" he commented to her with the same face as Erena before he disappeared.
Andra sighed, she stayed still because she believed that he was going to transport her through the air as well. However, she wouldn't waste any more time, she jogged in place for a second and made Airys's momentum look like a joke.
Airys, as soon as she could, took a leaf from a tree to summon Hojita and look back, blinked hard to make sure her eyes weren't lying, something so strange was not possible.
Andra jumped with great force, traveled about twenty meters and when she had about a meter left to hit the ground; out of nowhere she pushed herself even further forward and advanced another ten meters.
Airys didn't understand at all, but the best way to put it into words is to say that she ran in the air, without moving her legs, without touching the ground. That's right, an illogical feat that broke the little knowledge of physics that anyone would have.
However, that was not all. She heard Maryon's boomerang approaching, luckily Hojita was already there with her and conjured a blast of air to stop the projectile.
Hojita suffered a heart attack when Maryon appeared next to the boomerang and had it not been for her to release the air in fright in each direction he would have saved the boomerang in the air.
"Demons!" She complained when his finger brushed the boomerang and the air knocked him over. "Of all the creatures, something that drives the wind, gross" he muttered with his butt muddy on the ground, Andra passed him by the side of him with a mocking face and hier hand on her mouth. "Do not laugh!" he got up and picked up his boomerang for another try.
The huge brunette was coming by leaps and bounds towards Airys and she knew it. Hojita from Airys's shoulder fired several blasts of air that Andra dodged and even ignored.
" Pipi piiii!"
"What the hell?!" Airys turned around and indeed, what Hojita said was true.
That boy with the weird skin was in the air above the trees preparing a boomerang throw.
First a flying athlete and now a flying kangaroo hunter, why did they have to have such absurd resonances? Why was this happening to her without even discovering hers?! This shit isn't fair!
Airys didn't really have a plan of action other than running away from them — impossible with those powers — because she never imagined an outrage like that. A wave of insecurity crossed her mind, her breath hitting, though she had energy to spare and her vision clouded a bit.
"What I do?" Maryon's boomerang went in her direction on a curved path. "What I do? what? what?!"
Hojita pulled her cheek with both hands to pinch it, it hardly hurt, but the incessant and sincere beeps from her best friend, her little fairy, caught her attention.
"Pi pi pipipi piiiii!" Hojita spread the palm of her hand and pointed with the other.
Airys took a second to understand, but once she received the message from her, her doubt dissipated a bit, increased the pace and reaffirmed her confidence in the one thing that she had always done well in her life.
Unfortunately, Maryon had to teleport to his boomerang without it reaching her and he had to throw it high again. Maybe that was the least of it, in two insurance shots he would get to her, if Andra doesn't reach her first. He carried his boomerang into the air and verified his assumption, Andra was less than ten meters from Airys and he better measured his launch so as not to be left behind.
What was not expected was what the Brat would do.
Airys leaned against a tree for a second and kicked hard at a mound of sand as she would at Seng's face if she could. The little tactic was useless for her to hide because Andra only advanced through the dust without losing sight of her.
"Are you giving up already?" she asked, stopping a couple of meters from her.
"No way."
The sand in the air shimmered and turned into a wolf the same size as Airys standing on all fours, made of sands, somewhat blurred and transparent.
His name was Sandy.
Andra also noticed that Airys's sword had disappeared, instead a strange silver edge swirled around her torso, a serpent of steel. The snake stood up on Airys's free man — the right one— while still turning Airys's torso one full circle.
Airys called her Sutil.
Sandy growled at Andra surrounding her on the way to his mistress, Sutil hissed aggressively, and Hojita flew over Airys's shoulder with her eyes focused on the boomerang on the way.
"Do you think we won't be able to fight you and your creatures?"
"I trust the five of us will do well," Airys sputtered.
"Fiv/"
Before she was able to ask, Andra received a surprise attack from Terry from behind her and while she covered herself with her arms, he pushed her against the trees with the force necessary to knock down dozens of leaves.
In the months she spent training with Seng, Airys learned to fight, use the sword, meditate, enhance her body with her soul, and much more... she doesn't know any of its resonances yet, right, but she didn't waste time at all, because she discovered three other invocations.
Airys smiled, she is not weak!
Because the spirits adore her!
Ha! As if that matters. Maryon had achieved the best trajectory for his boomerang, he would spin through the trees in style, when he was away it would return straight to Airys, a couple of uses of his resonance and the matter would be resolved, neutralized witness. That was the magnificent plan, however, this is not an ideal world where everything written happens.
With the whistles of Hojita and the command of Airys, Sutil detached herself from her and was propelled straight to the boomerang. Maryon's power is impressive, it allows him to achieve things that anyone can't do, to appear suddenly, to leave scenes, basically to fly… BUT, as well as good it is something obvious once you see it. Even someone newbie to the infinite possibilities of Resonances can assume that the boomerang is an important part of the technique. And that isn't wrong.
Maryon fell, that little girl took away the options, no... actually his strategy of throwing that in the air, falling and transporting himself before hitting the ground is by nature stupid, unless...
He closed her eyes and disappeared from his current location.
He appeared behind the boomerang. Sutil focused her attention on landing a lethal cut on the young man's neck. Maryon opened his eyes and smiled.
…that your reflexes are strangely sharp.
He stuck his tongue out at Sutil and in the instant, in that micro second in which the blade brushed his tongue, it disappeared again and reappeared in front of his boomerang, caught it and saw with satisfaction as the snake of metal was falling.
"Ready and now..." Maryon got ready for another of his launches in the air, his smile faded when he realized that Airys was riding on Sandy who was fleeing at high speed. "Shit!"
Airys will be clumsy, but stick around to fight? She is not that stupid.
The great thing about Sandy is his ability to move regardless of the terrain. In itself it is a huge wolf that can carry more than one person and run without problems, plus it can undo and reshape parts of its body at will, so there is no path that represents an obstacle for its legs, a true fantasy off-road.
"Go with Seng" she said and Hojita took off at full speed in front of them.
In truth she would love to go back to Seng and the others carrying the news of having defeated the guys who were chasing Echsos, she would be great —especially if she brings the lunch —but that's crazy. Before having the luxury of believing she can beat that pair; or threesome, she has to be cautious about going blank. Her invocations only exist in this reality because they consume her soul energy and she has not proven how long she is capable of having them all at once before that happens. In fact, she has never been blank.
"Hypocrite" she said. Ah, it's okay to let her suffer hunger, pain… let her stay lela for an hour? Of course not! What a terrible punishment! The best teacher of all, yay...
And to make matters worse, that guy was still chasing her through the air.
"Stop running away!" Maryon yelled for the fifth pitch in a row that nearly got to her, unable to take advantage of Airys' abrupt changes of direction. A feat that if not for the resonance of it would be impossible.
"I have to lose him... I can't let him follow me... or can I?" Airys thought, however, before she decided something she perceived as Terry was defeated and therefore called off. "Terry... never mind, he already did his job"
"As I get close to her, she will surely use her fairy to blow wind at me." Maryon believed, worried that something like what happened a while ago would happen again. His reflex are incredible, his eyes? Not so much, that fairy is tiny.
He focused on seeing her well as his boomerang traveled through the air, if this continued like this, his energy would be depleted and she would escape.
"And those two were left behind!" he ruffled his hair as he fell and transported himself to the new location of his boomerang. "What a hassle!" he threw it again, it was just at an angle that under any other circumstance would lead him directly to have a great shot to approach his target and finish him off, if not for that speed ...
Maryon got a good look at Airys's back, she saw him too. She noticed something, he also.
———————————————————————————————————
Sandy's speed was the highest of the Airys invocations, except for Hojita when she dedicated the control of the wind to direct herself to a specific place.
Invocations share a special bond with the person who brings them to this world. For decades' experts have debated whether they are actually other beings or if they are parts of your soul separated from the limits of the body.
The undeniable thing is that invocation, invoker, both feel the other's state and position.
That is why Airys broke down when she noticed that Hojita was killed suddenly, about to reach Seng and Echsos.
"We don't want them to be on the alert, do we boy?" Garyon said after having crushed Hojita with his hand.
———————————————————————————————————
"Those three are not the only ones"
So Airys guessed and her face filled with dread.