Kira's pink cheeks bloomed into crimson ones, and her clenched palms shivered; who was this girl who even dared to accuse her of, of…anything? Based on what right did she think it was fine to ask her something like? Still though, more importantly, was it true? Was the dark water still inside her?
Kira- " Finley, Mincha! We are leaving. Now!" Her tone spiked for a second, but still imbued a commandeer sound- the moment they heard it, the two gathered their belongings and rushed to catch up to Kira, who was already some fastened steps away. Whatever was going on, she knew that she had to ask Feth about it first, he would know. He should know, he convinced her that her abilities would be useful…that she could be useful on her own.
A sudden hand grab made her twist around and snap, angered and frightened: " LET GO!" Which Lian did immediately, but still kept her stern sight on Kira.
Lian- '' Please…just listen to me for a moment", she asked, slowly lifting her hands up, but the firbolg wasn't in a talking mood, flapping her twigs around to put some distance between them. Finley dropped his baggage and jumped between the two, demanding Lian to back off.
Finley -" Miss, if you upset my muse again, I'll…I'll stop bringing desserts to our tea meetings."
Lian- "…Then you talk to her. I somehow recognize the liquid inside of her as something dangerous. To her and us", explained the girl as succinctly as possible. " Listen, I don't do anything to her. Just let us go to the Union and tell them about this. Or go by yourself, either is fine, just-"
Finley stuttered for a brief moment, as their memories rewinded to the incident from the lab. "FINLEY!", yelled Kira, snapping him back. " We're leaving right now!"
Finley -" But Kira…what if she's right? I was there, remember? Feth's experiment…"
Kira -'' The Mister wouldn't put me in harm's way you fool! I'm his assistant!", the girl cried out, wiping her frustrated teary eyes. " He removed the water, remember? While he carried me to the medics? I remember him doing it, Finley."
The teen looked confused, unsure if his mind was playing tricks or what, but he had a hard time recollecting something like that happening.
Lian remembered the name of the fog librarian she met a while ago and the lasting impression of creepiness he let out. " What did he do?", she asked, with more anger in her voice than she wanted.
Finley slowly turned around and without much deliberation, told her everything.
Kira-" Shut up, shut up! Don't say it like that!", thrashed the girl around, stomping like an angry child. Her sister then arrived, with the rest of their luggage.
Mincha -" Kira…why are you crying? Wait, are those tears…black?"
The coral firbolg wiped the tears away and stared her red-shot eyes at her hands. There was a dark spot on the. Her palms then started shivering, followed by her whole body. Then, a reassuring touch shot a cold jolt through her body and she saw her sister's own sad, tired eyes; but her face was comforting. " Mincha…", Kira whispered. " Help me…help me flee Mincha", she said it much louder this time. "They'll hurt me, sis…to get to it, they'll put me down…help me."
Mincha avoided looking at her sister and held her palms tight. It didn't feel right…but still, this was the first time Kira asked her, her useless little sibling, for aid... Before she could tell her choice, though, she saw Kira's head twigs reaching out to her. So, she replied in kind with the same action.
The twigs formed a cocoon around Mincha, wrapping her in a red and white clump attached to Kira's back. The cocoon then slowly lost its size, becoming smaller; in turn, the red firbolg grew in size. It took just a few seconds for the transformation to complete and for Kira to grow into a larger, thinner version of herself. Coral branches, mostly red ones with a few white ones, stuck out prominently from her elbow, shoulders, and other parts of the new body. The new firbolg was mostly Kira, but a few elements of Mincha remained visible.
She angrily shrilled at Lian, forcing her to take a few steps back. Kira then grabbed Finley and used her new legs to launch themselves in a large jump, right towards the veil of ashes that beforehand disintegrated boulders. The teen scared out of their mind, yelled but soon found out there was nothing to fear. Kira transformed her left hand into a crude launcher and shot a compressed, small bullet made out of the dark liquid.
The veil dissipated in a vortex of ash and wind, leaving a temporary window through which the coral firbolg crossed through without hesitation. Her landing was rough, though, as she squirmed mid-jumped, with visible pain aches making her body bend and contort in painful positions.
Still, she made sure to keep Finley safe, landing on her back on the cracked ground of the arena.
Multiple -" Lian, what the hell is going on? What was that?", asked frantically both Brigit and Arim, who were unsure of how to act next. As an indirect reply, she asked them to contact Krass and tell him that Kira had black water in her. " That might clear…somethings. Ogda?", she then turned towards her familiar. " Help me, please," she asked, reaching a hand out to him. In turn, he hesitated for a moment but then agreed to do as she asked.
Ogda -" What's the plan?"
Lian -" We can't let her escape. But at the same time, I don't want to harm her either. She's scared, but I also think that the liquid is doing something to her as well." Lian then maniacally flutters her hair and lets out a weird cry, like a bubble filled with all of her frustrations just bursting. " Ahhh! For now, let's just find a way in-", but the firbolg was already in the middle of his preparations. The insides of his palms turned red and the temperature around them increased, while at the same time, he was rolling around them a small ball of heated water.
Ogda -"...Everyone, stand back", he yelled before throwing the boiling ball into the veil, making another opening in it, which was already starting to reform. Lian jumped on Ogda's back and the two leaped right through it. To their surprise, a small band formed behind them, followed by Arim and Zinc, Brigit and to her dismay, Maci who attached herself to her cowl at the last second, and Giol. Tommen stood behind but left his partner a phone so the two could keep in touch.
The Union members saw the commotion and at first tried to run towards the crashed and apparently injured firbolg, but stopped when Maci all of a sudden yelled out - "She's got dark water in her!" Blitz, without missing a beat, turned towards Feth, who in turn wiggled a fog finger to shut up.
...
The wounded and dazed Kira looked around, frantically looking for something or someone:
Kira -" Mister Feth", she let out through a cough, "help me…the exp-", but before she could say more, the dark water exacerbated her cough and she couldn't even speak anymore. Then, a deep voice came to her "rescue".
Voice -" Use the boy", said the bellowing tone. " He can help you escape!", it commanded this time, and the girl swiftly turned her face towards Finley.
Kira -" Yes…he can", she whispered. " Finley…you want to save me, don't you? Save your muse, right?"
Finley -" What? Kira, what, what…?" The teen checked their head for injury, still dazed from the crash.
Kira -" Look around you, Finley. We're surrounded. They'll listen to that red-haired one and capture me. Lock me. Treat me like a subject for them to study. You saw what happened in the laboratory, Finley…what I can do for them…"
Finley -" But…Feth?"
Kira -" Feth is not all-powerful. He can't protect me by himself. All I can do right now is run, Finley…please…"
The teen clenched his teeth and everything before his eyes seemed to move in slow motion. He had to make a decision now, before…before they would capture Kira. " Right…right, there's no other option", they thought, before punching the ground, while Kira pressed a finger on their forehead. The yellow dot revealed itself, expanding way beyond what Finley was capable of until then. All of a sudden, everything cut to black and the teen dropped on the floor.
A wave of energy traveled from the unconscious human, and stopped at the edge of the arena by the veil. Everything it touched until it found that border turned to a strident yellow. The ground, the boulders, and the people, everything except for the sky and what was beyond the ash veil was turned to a golden hue.
Multiple -" What the hell?", screamed everyone who could no longer distinguish their yellowed fingers from the expansion of the hue. Their eyes hurt, and their balance was thrown out entirely.
Kira took this opportunity to lay low and skeeter away with the help of her vines and branches. Slowly at first, but then she accentuated the pace and tried going in a zig-zag motion, aiming for one of the exits of the arena. Just a few more meters and she would have been out, but a boulder that appeared blocked her exit. She turned around and saw Giol shape, in a throwing posture, while he was talking on the phone with someone. Above the blocked exit stood Tommen from where he could easily distinguish the shapes from the colors and gave his partner helpful instructions.
Tommen -" Left, she's running to the left", yelled out the Finish young man and another boulder cut her escape route once more.
Kira roared with rage, which unfortunately for her gave away her location to Arim, Zinc, and Brigit. The three traded careful blows with the coral firbolg, who was now larger, stronger, and more unsettled than before. Their strikes forced her back to the blocking boulder, which enraged Kira even more and she started to lash out at her counter. Her vines wiped the attacker, keeping them at a distance, while her sharp-pointed head twigs extended straightforwardly, in a fast and deadly puncturing attack. The attackers found that out the moment it chipped with ease parts of Zinc's tough armored skin.
Ogda, using his body's liquid properties, softened the strikes by deforming his body into his blobbier form.. At first, Kira laughed, thinking she had the upper hand, but then noticed that none of her attacks failed to harm the water firbolg.
Kira -" Goddam slimeball! Leave me alone!"She yelled out, way too focused on him to notice that Maci and Lian dragged Finley behind a cover.
Maci -" Ok, we got the sleeping princess out of there…now what?", asked the teen, who just followed Lian's gut.
The girl, in turn, closed her left eye and focused all of her right's blazing vision on the boy's dot. " Don't know, I'm just winging it here", she replied in haste, using her power to scour for anything. Which, to her dismay, came once again in the form of her voice from back when they failed the pact.
Voice- " There…like we used to do…follow the link and…CUT IT!"
The command and know-how came like second nature to Lian, whose body felt like it knew exactly what to do. But at the same time, I felt a shiver down her spine. If she did as the voice instructed, something bad would happen to Finley. "Asshole, that harms him, the wielder as well as the pathway…There must be another way. No more shortcuts!" thought Lian, feeling more frustrated by the voice than scared by it. She observed how the yellow pathway was fed by a dark drop with the energy required to keep the power up. Her hands felt like it could touch…both the path and the drop.
Lian- " I see something. Empty lines, the yellow one, and the drop that keeps it active…but don't know how to stop it. I can't remove it!"
Maci scratched her head, processing everything she said through a lot of "uhms" and "ughhs" between her many questions. Until-" Well, can we make it go slower? We just need to waste the drop's power, right?"
Lian- "Delay…yes, that's it!", she remarked, happy that she fought her and the voice's first impulse. Her phantom hands overlay the dead paths over the yellow one, connecting multiple ones towards endpoints. This wasted the energy shortly after and soon enough, the entire field of yellow captured back its stolen colors.
Kira -" Wha…what is going on?" The coral firbolg looked around desperately, watching in fear as the landscape returned to normal. She tried to search for Finley, but just realized that he was nowhere to be found…she was alone, surrounded, and with no escape. A few moments later, the Union members closed in and the coral firbolg fell on her knees.
Feth -"...Kira", whispered a sweet, sober voice, slowly approaching the girl " Red pearl, look at me…tell me what worries you." Feth's large form cast a shadow over her, letting his fog surround the coral firbolg. She was scared and desperate, but a bit of happiness soared over her mind.
Kira -" Mister…you came for me", cried the girl, with tears that seemed to be mixed with soot.
Lian vision almost gave out, but before that happened, she caught a quick glance at what was happening. And she saw Kira's vortex spiraling out of control, extending all over her body; and for a moment, one of the mystery strings as well, attached and spawning out of Feth. Her thought was- "Ogda's string?"