The moon was full and the night sky was full of stars. With the beach being a little ways away from the city the stars could be seen so clearly without light pollution. Amaya, Light and Nicole sat in the sand where they had let the doctor's ashes into the ocean. Emily and Jakub were down the beach standing hand in hand, but only for a few seconds before Emily became embarrassed.
Nicole's eyes lit up and widened, she started to tap on Light's shoulder. "Look! Look! They're holding hands!"
Light started to shake Nicole back and forth from the excitement she felt for the two. That was right before Emily got embarrassed after realizing they'd been holding hands.
Emily pulled her hand from Jakub's, flustered and struggling to even make words come out clearly she kicked Jakub in the shin. "Idiot…"
Jakub smiled even though he was in pain from the kick he was happy because he could tell she was too but just embarrassed.
Nicole palmed her face because she was annoyed at Emily not being able to admit how she feels. Nicole and Light have been rooting for the two of them but it's been very one sided. Nicole knew that Emily liked him but she's just afraid to get close to him.
"Thank you though… for being here with me. For not even second guessing Elena when offered to come here and for accepting that we were meant to be partners. Thank you for sticking with me and everyone else even when things don't seem to be going well. Thank you." Emily told Jakub as she stared off.
Jakub began smiling even more. "It's not a problem, I'm glad to have met you guys. Especially you."
Emily started to blush. "Let's go back to everyone."
As the two began walking back an explosion went off between them and the group. It didn't have a shockwave but sand was flying away from, everyone covered their faces so none would get in their eyes. Once it settled there stood a woman in the crater left in the sand. It was hard for any of them to make out her features because of the lack of light on the beach. Although the moon shined brightly on her it wasn't sufficient enough to see her clearly.
"I sensed reapers over here so I figured I would introduce myself. I am Rose, Captain of Reign. I'm sure you've heard of us being a- wait you seem different than the other reapers. I can… I can hear a heartbeat. Ah this makes sense, you're the two Nicholas spoke of, the two that he's toying with." She began laughing.
Jakub and Emily stood as if they were going to fight but sensed something off about this woman. They could sense exceptional strength emitting from her Grims energy. Amaya stood to her feet quickly on the opposite side of the woman. Prepared to fight alongside the two of them she summoned her conductors and began flowing her mana into them.
"I can tell you're behind me human… please don't interfere unless you want to die here." Said Rose
Amaya chuckled "Me? die here? No matter what you are you're not beating me."
"Oh really? Would you like to test that?" Rose replied as she turned to face Amaya. "I could kill you in an instant if I wanted. Though something does seem different about you compared to other humans."
"Only one way to find out." Amaya shouted as she ran toward Rose. Closing the distance quickly Amaya swung her daggers one after the other trying to at least land a hit for now. Rose kept up with every motion dodging each strike. The longer the fight goes on the more the combat chip in Amaya learns. It's studying the habits of Rose as she dodges and teaches Amaya ways to counter the dodge. Water burst from Amaya's dagger toward Rose's face, the pressure from the water could've knocked anyone unconscious but she dodged it once again.
"A water type? A blue soul? Interesting." Rose said as she jumped back a few feet. "Then I definitely have the advantage. You are a strong fighter and I can tell you were learning my techniques quickly and would soon be able to counter me. But I too am a blue soul type." As plants burst from the ground around Rose and Amaya closing them into a dome of thorns. "No way in… No way out… And as you can tell I'm an earth user, your water is useless against my plants."
"That may be the case but I can pull water out of the air thanks to vapors caused by condensation. You can't stop my power just by closing water away from me." Amaya replied
"The idea wasn't to take water away from you. It was to cut the others off from helping you. You will die here girl." Rose rebutted
Amaya ran to the side and flipped, swinging both daggers in the air. Water flew from the daggers and took shape of long blades flying in an x formation. Rose formed a barrier in front of her out of thorns and the blades hit and splashed off of the barrier. Rose smirked as she figured this fight was going as she planned. Amaya now knew her long range water abilities were not going to work since she can only form and shape water within a ten foot radius she knew she had to close the gap. She ran toward Rose as Rose launched thorn after thorn from the ground up toward Amaya. Amaya dodged each thorn as they came up. A thorn formed in front of her as she lunged closer to Rose trying to stab her with one of the daggers, she was forced to jump backwards. Caught in the middle of jumping backwards a thorn formed behind her at a rapid rate thrusting upward at an angle and stabbing through Amaya's right arm, forcing her to lose one of the daggers.
Amaya dropped to a knee and began breathing deeply. Grasping her right bicep, where the thorn stabbed through she winced in pain. "This is nothing, it will take more than this to stop me." She took one more deep breath in and then out. "Flow state." Amaya uttered under her breath. She was moving much more rapidly; it almost appeared as if she was walking on air and not even touching the ground. Rose was having trouble keeping her eyes on her but continued bursting thorns in her direction. The gap between them was now less than ten feet, meaning Amaya could manipulate the water around Rose also. Amaya smiled because she knew now was her chance to strike but as she took one more step a green flash went off by her left foot. From the flash came out a thorn like a landline being set off. It shot through Amaya's foot and then spread around it like a cage to hold her foot in place. Amaya screamed in pain.
"We have to get in there!" Jakub yelled
"I don't want to use the black hole so close to the city it's too dangerous." Emily replied
Light was punching at the dome with her metal fists but it was doing nothing.
Nicole was in a panic, she covered her ears after hearing the scream from Amaya.
"You thought you could beat one of the captains of Reign? You? A mere human? I'll give it to you. I did underestimate you but now… you die." Rose said as she raised her hand, summoning a thorn behind Amaya. The thorn was long and sharp, spinning as it closed in on Amaya's back. Amaya struggled trying to get her foot out of the trap but it would not budge. All she could think that this was it, this was the end for her. Then she realized how close she was and that Rose believed the water had to come directly from Amaya. Amaya used the injured arm to quietly summon two water needles behind Rose. Rose realized she was up to something and turned around to see the needles, fast enough to avoid them from hitting vitals but not fast enough to avoid them entirely; they both stabbed through her legs. The thorn about to pierce Amaya dropped and stopped spinning.
"Wait Jakub you idiot! Absorb the mana!" Emily angrily said
"Oh you're right!" He replied while sticking his left hand against the thorns. Draining the thorns completely of their mana his right arm now was glowing the same green as the thorns. The dome vanished and in front of them stood Amaya with a limp bleeding arm and a cage around her foot. Rose was on both knees with bloody almost bullet-like holes on her thighs. Neither of them were able to move; they were just facing one another.
"With my dome able to be removed from play, I guess this is my time to leave." Rose said as she placed her right hand on the ground and pushed launching herself up and away from their line of sight.
"Must be her Grim's ability." Jakub said
"Amaya!!!" Nicole ran toward her as the cage vanished from her foot. "Just lay down, I'll heal you." Nicole began healing Amaya's wounds and as always her nose started bleeding. With neither of the wounds being life threatening it didn't knock Nicole unconscious to heal her.
Amaya smiled. "Thank you Nicole. Thank you all for destroying the dome, if you hadn't I may have died today too."
"We'll never let you fight alone again." Light replied
They all agreed.
"You'll get her next time, we still have to deal with Reign." Jakub said while messing around with the thorns he consumed.
"This is all of our fight now, we'll do this whole thing together. Take down the heartless, take out Reign and take out the vampire queen. No matter who or what gets in our way." Emily said
"The pain will subside eventually Amaya, sorry I can't do anything for the pain." Nicole informed her
"It's okay, you guys are the best, you know that?" Amaya asked
They all smiled and hugged her, except for Jakub who continued to play with the thorns.
"This is a lot of fun." He said while launching thorns from the ground into the air.
"Idiot…" Emily replied
Everyone began laughing.