The girl and I trod the depths of the underground tunnel. It had no lights that could pave away the darkness. All that we saw were plain silhouettes of the moonlight, basking us with its grace. As we reached the end of the tunnel, the sea of forest greeted our eyes.
"It's still nighttime?" the girl grunted. "How long have I been asleep? It should be morning already."
I wanted to answer the gothic lady and tell her she slept for twelve hours. I knew it was that exact time since I was counting it inside my head. Under normal circumstances, twelve hours would be enough to see a glimpse of light coming from the sun. But in this world, the sky was as dark as charcoal.
There was also a possibility that the sun would shoot us with its rays soon. The two of us could only wait for now.
"Well, we have thirty hours a day, that's for sure," the girl continued, and pushed herself upwards from the pit. She gave me a lift and hauled me above ground.
'Thirty freaking hours?!' I gasped, but my expressions were not showing on my face. All I could do was blink a thousand times to show my surprise.
The girl giggled upon looking at my baffled orbs. 'She must have thought that I had a shocked face upon hearing the time.' That was the only explanation I could deduce right now.
"Do you have a different schedule back in your world? Oh, wait. Don't answer that. Spoil me later, okay?" she said, and covered my mouth.
She forgot I was a puppet. The girl already failed to remember our goal right now. It was to take down this bat and steal its voice box.
I wanted to know what we were up against this time. Although bats prefer to hunt during the night and sleep during the day. Sometimes it changes (I think), but it was what I knew. Maybe this world was different, after all?
"Keep your eyes peeled for a gigantic bat that has humongous wings like this, whoosh! Like that! It usually flies above our heads, or sits upside down on a branch. So always duck your head every time you approach a tree!" the girl explained, but she hit something along her way.
With a thumping sound, the girl crashed against a bough and hit herself on the head. Her body jerked backwards from the impact. The little girl caressed her head and touched a mountain forming on her skin.
It was Mount Everest, for Pete's sake!
"Like that! A perfect example of a bad example!" the girl proudly said while pounding her melon chest.
She was adorable as ever.
But right now, the sinister, obsidian aura surrounded us, paired with a thick fog that obstructed our gaze. The girl squinted her eyes and wiped off the dust from her eyelids. She also continuously barked every time the girl inhaled something nasty from the air. I was a puppet, so I did not feel irritated or pain in my body.
"Where did this come from? I've never experienced something like this the last time I remember." the girl voiced her concerns as she fanned the smog.
An automated voice echoed inside my head and gave me instructions for what to do. "[Wind gale]," someone told me. It was not a suggestion, but a command to help my owner.
' [Wind Gale].' I thought, and raised my hands.
A twister appeared at my palms as it directed the fog away from our vicinity. The wind almost pushed me back, but I maintained my balance and stuck my foot onto the ground. It helped me reduce the recoil of my spell as I blew the mist away from us.
It was the first time that I saw and conjured magic. Unlike the girl, I chanted nothing. There were no fancy words that I needed to say, or even hand gestures I needed to do. All the spell required was for me to think it out loud.
I also imagined a hurricane forming in front of me. Since I did not know how natural tornadoes occur, I thought of the wind circling violently, but not enough to drag us inside. After projecting what I had pictured, there was something that caught my attention. The spell activated by itself and spewed right off from me.
The girl shielded her face and tried using another set of spells to counter the magic. However, as she turned to me, the girl knew it was a magic spell that came from an ally, not from something that wanted to kill us.
After a complete minute, the vicious cyclone disappeared. The girl opened her mouth and approached me with gleaming eyes. I wished to apologise to the girl if I did something wrong, but it made me amazed at what came out of her mouth afterwards.
It was the opposite of what I had expected.
"You. How did you do that?" the girl asked, still with her glittering orbs. "You did not even need to chant that spell! And that magic came from me! I really love using that spell. Are you a part of me? A part of my arcane? Tell me if you are!"
I raised thousands of question marks on my head, thinking about what the girl had mentioned to me. 'A part of me?' I thought, but nobody gave me the answer, not even the little girl. There was not a thing that I understood from what she had said, but it was far too late for her to repeat that to me.
"Right. You still need a voice box. How stupid of me." A pinkish blush enveloped her cheeks as soon as she realised my present condition.
During our conversation, the girl grabbed my body and pounced on me. I thought she had finally lost her mind, but the girl proved me wrong.
A jet-black luminance beamed at us and hit the ground from where we were from before. It left a deep crater as the light came into contact with the soil. All the weeds that were beside our feet turned into unrecognisable substances. After a few seconds, these plants turned into liquid and crippled the neighbouring crops.
"I have never had the chance to say this, but, dang! That was a close call. Thank you, father, for giving me this insignia!" The girl's insignia glowed a bright shade of violet that almost blinded the two of us. The colourful radiance happened as soon as she stated her gratitude to her father. I did not know what she meant, but I plan on laying all my questions to her once I receive my voice from the bat.
The beast that we had been hunting for ten minutes had shown itself to us. A figure in the distance flapped its way towards us and bared its fangs. Its wings had pointed edges, enough to razor the nearby branches and trees. Every time that the bat beat its wings, a gust of whirlwind followed afterwards, fluttering the leaves on the ground.
"That's the one we're looking for," the girl said, and pointed her hands at the placental mammal.
"The plan is simple. I shoot the bat with all my magic and hope it becomes weak and falls on the ground. Don't ask if my plan won't work, because it will work!" The girl raised her palms and directed a magical attack towards the nocturnal creature.
She summoned a set of fireballs in the winged monster. The bat effortlessly eluded the attack, but the ignition still hit it at the tip of its wing. The blaze spread like wildfire and climbed towards the bat's body.
The monster shrieked and flew above the trees. It tried removing the flames by rolling its body over the boughs. The bat exhausted the flames, but it transferred the blaze over to the plants, creating a forest fire.
The green scenery shifted into bloody red as the fire devoured anything on its way. I suspected that the temperature of the girl's flames was above 1,500 degrees Celsius. Our situation continued to become worse as we prolonged the battle.
"We need to take the bat out... before the forest becomes a den of charcoal…" the girl stated, while coughing out the smoke she had inhaled. The occurrence looked grim, and we needed to kill the bat if we still wanted its voice box for me.
The girl launched another magic spell, this time creating a stream of water from her palms. But because of her condition, her head spun as she became confused. She convulsed, collapsing to the floor with the pain as the girl tried to aim her spell at the bat.
But the winged creature sidestepped the torrent and headed for her sides. The bat tackled the girl, forcing her to tumble towards the bark. Thanks to the insignia strapped around her neck, a barrier appeared beside her, but it was not enough to stop the initial force of the bat.
"GAH!" The girl coughed out a puddle of blood as soon as she crashed against the tree.
She could not do a thing against the towering creature, even with those spells the girl had released. I, who stood there watching the two of them fight, did not know what to do. It was the first time that I saw an enlarged bat. Although I was a puppet, my mind shivered from the fight.
I could not move a muscle, but I had to do it. The bat was approaching the girl's way, and I needed to do something. But an unseen force tried to stop my movements. I desperately dragged myself to budge towards the girl, but my limbs refused to heed my order.
That was when I heard the automated voice once again informing me about the girl's words she said from before. "I need you to stay away from me as much as possible. I can handle myself, okay? Just leave me if things get out of hand."
Her words echoed inside of me and became the latches that I needed to break.