The air grew colder as Maeve took several steps back. The chill extended its merciless hands till the audience, consuming them in its cold wave. The judges and referee debated whether to stop the fight right then and there, but refrained from following through with their decision.
"So…Cold." Nova shouted in a pained voice, but nobody heard her. Her eyes felt frozen shut, as if glued together by the world's strongest adhesives. Her limbs rejected any movement, sticking out stiffly from her body and stretching further with each passing second. "It hurts." She thought, unable to move her imaginary mouth and shout it out this time. Her screams echoed only in the isolation of her mind, not heard by any other soul present in the Arena that day.
– MOMENTS AFTER NOVA WAS KNOCKED OUT –
"Well…That was easier than I thought." Maeve said as a heavy sigh left her mouth. She walked back to collect her crescent sickles, eyeing Nova all the way in case she sprung back to consciousness. The slow burning sensation left behind by the last kick was radiating from her core to every crevice and skin fold on her body. It was surprisingly agonising and spread at an astonishingly fast pace.
Even the barely conscious Nova could tell that the pain was far worse than it should have been.
She could tell by the way the pain was spreading that it would soon make its way to her head and she would completely black out. "Maybe this is her power. To somehow destroy the opponent's body from within."
The voice in her head trailed off and everything finally went dark as the warmth invaded her mind.
Maeve sharply turned around as a strong wind washed over the Arena, concentrating itself around the audience, but also making its rounds around Nova. Her body still remained unconscious on the ground, but Maeve noticed several subtle differences.
The relaxed posture of an unconscious body had been lost to a much more tense, much stiffer stance of sorts. Maeve didn't know why, but she couldn't see Nova's new position as anything except for a defensive stance despite the fact that she was still lying on the ground.
Amongst other details was the constant twitching of the girl's eyes. It was barely visible, but Maeve could see Nova's eyeballs moving frantically around under her eyelids, almost as if they were searching for something. "Searching for a target." Maeve's subconscious suggested.
Maeve jumped back, making sure to distance herself further from Nova's writhing body. Something wasn't right, and the teachers could sense it too. Several of them jumped out of their seats as Nova's body began twitching, starting from the tip of her toes and soon taking over the rest of her body.
A few screams from the students alerted the teachers still sitting in the stands. "Is he okay?" "Can you call someone?"
Wolfe felt an odd sense of relief as every set of eyes looked over in the direction of the commotion. The cold eyes that pierced into the soft flesh of his back everyday had suddenly looked away, and an odd comfort washed over him despite the supposed seriousness of the situation. He too looked over at the commotion, but couldn't make out the reason behind it since the crowd surrounding it had grown exponentially larger within a few seconds.
Wolfe looked back at the stage, checking if Nova's jittering had finally ceased. His mouth fell to the floor as he witnessed the state Nova was in. Suddenly the cold fear within him resurfaced, gripping his heart tightly and restricting any movement.
Sharp, conical prisms of ice spun in the air around Nova's body, forming a field of sorts that barred anything or anyone from entering or leaving. At first it looked like the shards were harming Nova but it soon became clear that they were here to protect her.
"But from what?"
The horror of the situation settled faster in some people's minds than others.
Maeve looked over to the stands where the people were gathering. She had a clear view of what was happening in the centre of the crowded circle. Though the details were fuzzy due to the distance, she could make out the shape of a boy lying on the stands, his familiar green hair flying over his face and shrouding it as if hiding something sinister. His hands and legs, just like Nova's, were shaking violently and no one dared approach him.
"No." Maeve thought. "It isn't that they aren't approaching him. It's almost like they're being pushed back."
Maeve recognised the boy. His green hair had enticed her since the moment she set eyes on him, and he stood out quite a bit in class, even if he didn't mean to. "So you were the one sending out all those strong winds from earlier, Ray."
Wolfe was already looking around in search of Richard Emblaze. He would surely have an answer to what was happening to Nova. He had to have one. No matter how hard he tried, Wolfe couldn't seem to find the red and black haired man anywhere among the crowd.
"Why isn't Axel here yet?" He wanted to shout out, but the thought of finding Richard occupied his mind. Axel had told him that he would arrive within 5 minutes since he still needed some time alone. But he had promised to show up. He couldn't betray Nova by not showing up.
"AAAAHHHHH!!" The first scream echoed throughout the Arena as everyone shut both their ears with the palms of their hands. Wolfe squeezed harder as the sound crescendoed, but it was futile.
The second scream amplified the first, adding to its ear-piercing timbre.
"What's happening?" Maeve questioned desperately as her ears began bleeding. Nova still lay on the ground, finally able to move. "But at what cost." Maeve thought.
Her hands were finally set free from their invisible bindings and Nova clawed at her chest, digging her fingers into the flesh through her crumpled clothes. She pulled her hands outwards, scraping against the surface of her chest, but barely damaging it. The tattering cloth of her t-shirt clung on desperately, protecting her chest from being ripped into shreds.
Her mouth was wide open, sending out a glass-shattering scream that Maeve could only see as a siren. Whether it was meant to attract some unknown entity or warn it to stay away, Maeve did not know. All she knew was that her legs were finally giving in, and her mind was numbing under the disorientation of the high pitched scream.
"So damn noisy." A heavy voice came from behind Maeve. A sinister voice that could only belong to the unknown entity she had been imagining until now.
"Should I silence them for you, sir?" Another voice asked politely from further behind. Maeve wanted to turn back immediately, but the agony from her ear-drums nearly tearing apart along with the insurmountable mental pressure weighing her down from behind wouldn't let her. She could not turn back, no matter what, because she would surely lose her life if she did.
"Go ahead. But make sure they aren't harmed beyond repair. We wouldn't want to break our precious pawns so early into the game."
Several teachers rushed to apprehend the intruders standing behind Maeve, but were swiftly defeated by the man sent forward to silence Nova and Ray. Maeve's mind finally gave in as the disturbing sight of spewing blood enveloped all around her. So many lives lost within seconds. So many stories, brought to an abrupt end.
"We've truly lucked out this year, don't you think, Raiz?" The question was rhetorical, and the man running around murdering the opposing teachers seemed to understand that too. "To think that we'd find three pieces in one place. The royals really messed up this year." His manic laughter filled the air as the deafening screams from Nova and Ray went silent. Backing this laughter were the horrified screams of the students who had just witnessed a massacre take place within seconds.
In such a short span of time their lives had gone from joyous to melancholic, and none of them could do anything to change that.
Wolfe, just like many other students, had fallen to the screeching. He had no idea what was happening and had no idea what he was witnessing either. Unable to use his body anymore, all he could do was helplessly watch as the barrier around Nova shattered and her shaking ceased.
He watched as Nova's nose was covered with a piece of cloth soaked in an unknown liquid. He watched as Nova was carried along with another student, one that he wished dearly to forget about, on the shoulders of the man called Raiz.
"Wait…No… Stop…" Forming sentences was hard in such a situation. His friends were in trouble. All the teachers, including the judges and the referee, had been executed on sight. There was nobody to protect the students, or to stop the invaders.
"Why?" Wolfe asked before his eyelids began falling over his eyes and the questions continued prodding his mind.
"No!" He screamed helplessly as he saw Axel's unconscious body slung over the shoulder of a third man.