A gentle breeze woke Finley up, with a throbbing head, dry mouth, and a body that was hurting all over the place. After taking in where he was, he coughed out his partner's name: " Kira?!" Instead of the shiny red, symmetrical face of the coral firbolg, a large man with long hair and a combed beard cast his shadow over him.
Tommen-" Oh, you're awake? Medic, medic!", cried out the man, to Finley's painful displeasure as he discovered that loud sounds were like needles to him right now. The artist asked him to stay put, relax, and then started to retale everything he knew.
Finley- " I…I made a terrible mistake, didn't I? Trying to help her escape…". He grabbed the blanket covering him tighter to his chest, trying to soften his shaken hands.
Tommen- " I don't think you should put yourself down that easily, but I admit that the stunt you pulled wasn't helpful." Tommen pulled a chair and took a sit right next to him. "Also, I've been meaning to ask, but what about her sister? The white coral?"
Finley's pupils shrunk for a moment after he realized that he had forgotten about something- " Mincha? What about her?", he asked defensively, thinking that Tommen was judging him like everyone else when it came to Mincha.
Just then, a medic and a hurried into the room and asked to be given space, for they were "in a hurry. We've got more people waiting outside". Tommen took a few steps backward, leaving the staff to do their check-ups and tests on the boy. "Well, can she help out somehow? Is she even aware of herself while they fused like that."
Finley lifted his arms, then legs, and opened his mouth as the medic asked him to, but all the while his mind was focused on what the artist said. Mincha didn't even cross his mind until then, for which he felt a bit guilty for, and realized that he hadn't considered what happened to her. " From what they told me, whenever they fuse, Mincha…goes to sleep and her body shriveles until it becomes a small seed…But if we wake her, she might be able to…Tommen, we need to return to the arena, fast!"
With a content smile and a hearty chuckle, the artist gave him a thumbs up. He then asked the medic if they could borrow a wheelchair " I'm big, not resilient. My body is too sore to carry you back!"
…
Half an hour has passed since Kira's rampage began and it started to weigh on the ones keeping it in check. The stalemate also showed signs of falling apart, as one by one, more and more vines and branches managed to slip by the defenses and steal more energy from the ash veil to feed the puddle of black water. To what end, the defenders could only guess, which they feared that they knew already: it somehow wanted to summon a lake, a river, a sea of itself.
Arim and Brigit were the first to show signs of tiredness, from weary eyes to slower reflexes. The Union members had a vaster quantity of stamina, but they felt that it was slowly reaching the bottom. Fortunately for them, though, the two water elementals finally made their move, circling the rampaging coral, moving slower and slower to where they thought the stomach could be. With each engrossing, the two stopped focusing on keeping their anthropomorphic forms, returning to a more basic form.
Ogda now looked like a puddle of overheated blue slime with a single diamond eye, which increased his mobility and he easily managed to dodge the branches that tried to stop him. Feth, sporting a dense cloud-like body with two emerald eyes, didn't even have to evade the attacks; his new body instead opened holes in itself, letting the vines by through him.
Once both got close to their target, Ogda again felt something weird and familiar. He sensed a flow, the course which the dark liquid traversed through the firbolg. " …Connected more and more, aren't we?", he thought, letting a disappointed sigh out. Still, it wasn't time for mopping around and he quickly realized that he could use that sense to follow where the liquid was coursing from. He easily slid across the giant coral fortress, going up and down, left, right then left once more, until he arrived at the endpoint.
Feth- " Oh? Did you find it? Are you sure about it?", asked the accumulation of clouds with awe and wonder.
Ogda- " Positive. I can feel it. "
Feth- " You can feel it, eh? Fascinating."
Ogda gave him a side glance, before responding as sarcastically as he could be: " Extremely. But I guess that's something about us liquid elementals, right? We might have a sixth sense about this." Ogda decided not to face the librarian during his observation, but he could feel the fog firbolg smirking. With each new realization about Ogda, Feth became more and more thrilled and excited.
Feth-" Ok, ok, ok…then, let's cool down for a moment", he declared, before dropping the temperature around Ogda. " Now…slowly heat the space where you think the source lies. "
As asked, Ogda's body started to boil inside, raising the heat where he was positioned. It took only a few seconds for the dark water inside Kira to react violently to the sudden change. When it tried to move, though, its movement slowed once it entered a cold zone.
Feth- " Right, 2 o'clock, 43 centimeters", shouted the cloud and Ogda moved without even questioning his indications. The same thing happened again and again for each instruction, which frightened the water firbolg a bit. He knew that the librarian was probably responsible for this situation, that he was a liar and his schemes probably didn't end there- but he still automatically trusted him, with no input needed from himself.
Feth- " Crap! M…Ogda, it split in two!", followed by two accumulations of fog getting denser in the places where the sources headed towards. In response, Ogda took longer than required to think of a solution, even though the risky one was the only one he could do in such a short time.
Feth- " What are you doing, extend yourself around them and force them to accumulate back! You'll hurt yourself a little, but that's not an issue." The water firbolg didn't even react, frantically turning left to right, thinking of a solution. This, though, pissed off Feth, enough that after a few more hurried instructions, to make him forced his tone:
Feth-" LISTEN TO WHAT I SAY! MIDDLE ONE!", yelled out the librarian, shocking Ogda out of his daze, into another one. The only thing that's ever called him that was the Voice. The sudden stun gave the sources enough time to go in different directions; Ogda noticed that, and his priorities shifted back to their original plan, asking for the closest source. Feth, realizing what he had done, went silent for a moment…but since Ogda was ignoring the remark for now, so should he; the two managed to corner the source water that went to the right, forcing it out of the coral firbolg after a while.
Just as the ball of slimy, oily darkened liquid jumped out of Kira's fortress-like body, a shining blast of intense heat shoot from above. Ashen, catching a glimpse of the liquid, knew it had to be destroyed immediately and took the shoot.
....
Ogda- " We're not done", he yelled through wheezes and heavy breaths. " That's only half of it."
Afterward, Kira's size dropped significantly, and the number of her vines lowered as well. The good news kept coming for a short while, though, as the puddle reacted to the sudden change in balance and started to seep into the ground, digging something. A small geyser, 1 by 1 meter, ate at the ground while it spewed more of the dark liquid from somewhere else. "Terrible, it probably tried to form a larger sinkhole, but it got desperate", cried out Ashen before using the last of his strength into another, much more powerful heat blast that evaporated the geyser and most of the dark water puddle around it.
Unfortunately, for them, though, he also used the last of his energy for it, having nothing left to spare to keep up the veil.
Ashen- " Forgive me, Masso, but I couldn't allow that atrocity to sour this land!"
Masso- " It's understandable old man", he replied, taking a glance back at his daughter, whose blade sheath was trembling from her unsteady palms. He knew what frightened Brigit like that, but he also figured the girl wouldn't have forgiven him if he left her out of the defensive squad. Still, she did enough for now; more than he hoped for, so he squeezed her hand and gave a reassuring look, which calmed the girl for a bit. " More than understandable. Now, Brigit, can you do me a favor? Can you check on your teacher and his boyfriend? We need to make some changes to the line-up, ok?"
The girl didn't reply, just took a deep breath and nodded her head. A few moments later, she was gone like the wind.
Masso- " Azin, Zinc, you two grab onto those two-", he ordered, pointing towards Lian and Maci, who were among the only ones that remained in the stands "-and get them out of here."
As commanded, and some leaps later, Arim and Zinc got a bored ok from Maci and a shyful one from Laci later to skip further away from the conflict under the boy's arms.
Maci- " Now what?"
Arim-" Hm? I honestly don't know. Ogda and Feth managed to suppress half of the threat, but now we lost Ashen's barrier and it doesn't look like the rampaging vines are slowing down. If worse comes to worse, Masso might take extreme measures."
Maci- " Wait…meaning what?", the teen asked naively, but then saw the somber looks on their faces and realized what he meant. " That's a joke, right? He wouldn't do that, right?"
Finley- " Maybe…But I won't allow that to happen to Kira or Mincha."
…
Krass- " Oi, Feth! You still can't find the other half? It's even smaller than before!"
Feth- " True, but there's the issue that it divided itself into more pieces. And those parts are constantly moving around, shifting from place to place…Hmm, Masso, you might have to-"
Masso closed his eyes, taking a deep breath: " I see…fine. Perren, Victor you're with me. You deal only immobilizing blows! I'll be the one who'll be to blame for taking out two lives today!"
Both stood silent near him and patted him on the shoulders. Ogda and Giol wanted to say something to change the situation, but they were also at the end of their strength. All of their attempts at stoping the rampage would be useless if the vines manage to get out the arena and regain strength from the other, living supplies.
The three warriors checked their gauntlet and prepared to go in a state required to do what was needed from them. To their surprise though, in the path arrived two humans, to Masso's and Perren's annoyance with Arim.
Finley- " I'm not giving up on them, Union boss, those lives are my pact partners and I'm responsible for saving them from this."
…
Masso grabbed the teen in his arms, while the rest of the team formed a defensive shield around them; at their leader's call, they charged forward, forming a safe path for Masso and Finley to get closer to the behemoth. The teen flinched at the sight of his partner's disfigured body, but still, he couldn't keep his sight away from them. When the two got close to Kira, Finley activated his ability, and Lian did the same from a safe distance. The excess energy from the teen using his power went towards two points, which the amnesiac could see with her new, controlled ability.
With her help, Masso managed to pinpoint Mincha's possible location- somewhere on the back, surrounded by a larger mass of vines and brambles. Which posed no threat to the newly reinvigorated Perren and Victor, who easily carved them out of the way.
Once they landed on the back, Masso grabbed onto one of the vines and, carefully, got it closer to the teen's forehead.
Masso- " Are you sure this is-"
Finley- " Do I look like I know?", cried out the teen before forcefully pushing the vine on his dotted sign. He then started to use his power like a madman, forcing more and more of the excess on feeding Kira, and Mincha simultaneously. The first sign of a headache came, and he almost gave up almost. The constant force-feeding worked after a while, with Kira starting to roar and wave frantically while losing in size at the same.
A bulb began to form on her back, separating from the main body, while dozens of drops of black water started to fall from it. The Union members evaporated the drops before reaching the ground, leaving no trace of the water behind.
The rampaging being soon disappeared, leaving behind only two small coral-like beings. Once the two returned to the same size, the red one started to shrink and feed itself into the white one. Kira's body retreated from sight, leaving only Mincha behind, who didn't transform as her sister did. She remained the same, just more frightened and dazed than before. She didn't see what happened but could feel that Kira had gone to sleep.
Mincha gasped, unsure of what happened, and left out a scared callout for her sister- " Kira?"