The thick smoke spread in all directions and reduced visibility around Olivia's targets to near zero.
"What is the meaning of this!?" Ophelia's annoying voice was instantly recognizable and made it even easier for Olivia to swiftly reach her target. Olivia barely managed to finish her question when she felt cold steel at her throat.
"Don't move a muscle!" Olivia warned Ophelia while pressing the edge of a dagger against her neck just short of piercing the skin. "Try that electric shit and you'll end up with a blade through your throat."
"Sofia!" some girl shouted from close by.
"On it!" another girl answered.
"H-hah!?" Olivia almost lost her balance and nearly sliced Ophelia's neck open when a sudden force pulled on her from the side.
All of the smoke was rapidly pulled back by some powerful unseen force into a single point nearly as fast as it spread from the smoke bomb. And soon enough the one responsible was revealed: one of the two cat girls sucked the air with all her might until she sucked up all the smoke. With big, puffed cheeks she closed her mouth and after a few strenuous seconds loudly swallowed.
"U-ugh, I don't feel so good," the blonde cat girl held her stomach just beneath her chest plate that hardly covered anything more than her chest. She wobbled in place as her face turned to unhealthy colors until the other cat girl ran up to her and supported her.
"Hold on, Sofia!" the cat girl with candy colored hair encouraged her sickly-looking friend. "You've swallowed far worse things than this."
"Ukh! That doesn't help," Sofia said weakly, looking like she was about to barf.
"Y-you," Ophelia turned her head and looked at her assailant. "H-how dare you! Unhand me at once, low-life scum! Sofia! Portia! Don't just stand there groping each other like felines in heat and do something!"
"Don't even think about it!" Olivia turned her hostage toward the cat girls to use as a human shield if necessary. "Do both yourselves a favor and just get out of here! I have no business with you."
"Of course not!" Ophelia interjected. "Nobody here ever has dealings with dirty vermin like you! Do us all a favor and jump out a window!"
"Keep talking like that and you'll take a flight! Where are the other kids you kidnapped over the years together with your father?"
"They're right there," Olivia nodded toward the huddled group. "Are you as blind as you are stupid?"
"Where are the others!? This isn't even a fraction of all that went missing!"
"I never cared where they threw out the useless ones. Thrown over the city walls? Used as fertilizer? Carved up and served at one of those peasant taverns? Maybe you had a piece for supper?"
Olivia snapped and sunk the blade into Ophelia's throat.
"HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!?!" Olivia screamed in agony and was blown from Ophelia by a sudden jolt of lightning. She got slammed against the wall and fell on the floor.
Ophelia turned around. A narrow red bruise was all that there was on her neck where a dagger should have been stuck through.
"Does your stupidity know no bounds?" Ophelia asked as she tilted her head, exposing her neck even more, and held her hands behind her back. "As if I'd just let some vermin do me in like that!"
A shuriken flew through the air straight at the center of the biggest jewel in Ophelia's armor, but was knocked off by a spark of lightning just as it barely connected with the surface.
"Got any more?" Ophelia asked with a smug face.
A fucking barrier, Olivia grimaced as she got back up. Doesn't look like she's actively controlling it though. Which is it? Some artifact that gives her powers while also protecting her or are those her powers that come with both offensive and defensive mode?
"Oh I thought about playing with you, but you're even weaker than I expected," Ophelia said. "Portia, entertain our new friend until the guards return with daddy. Break a leg or two if you want to, but then you'll be the one carrying her. I want this wannabe ninja alive for many play dates to come."
"A jaw breaker then," the cat girl said, sunk her hand into her absurdly long candy colored hair and a couple seconds later pulled out a jaw breaker that barely fit in the palm of her slender hand.
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