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"There's more in the woods all around us! If we don't make it back we won't make it at all!" Jack screamed, clutching a little girl under each arm. Wendy was still being cradled protectively by Romeo, and Cole was leading the way, his clothes still stained black by the darkness surrounding them.
The storm was still raging, powerful, unstoppable, lightning lanced from the sky, thunder boomed, and rain still drenched them all to the bone. Soaked and shivering, the young mages pushed onward.
They could hear the dragon spawn snaking through the woods all around them, both Asuka and Kylie were clutching tightly to Jack's arms, as tightly as the fear clutched at their tiny hearts.
"LOOK OUT!" Cole screamed as a spawn lunged from the woods, gnashing it's fang and almost managing to take Jack's head off of her shoulders.
Jack shrieked and reacted instantly.
"Arc of the armored rose! Thorny breath!"
A blast of poison tipped thorns of green and red speared the creature burst from Jack's mouth, punching holes into it's scaly armor.
"Run!" Jack yelled, unwilling tears in her eyes from the shock of such a near death experience, something she and the rest of her comrades had been having all to much as of late, welling in the corners of her eyes.
They all broke into a sprint, Wendy was shivering painfully hard in Romeo's arms, occasionally breaking the silence of the crunching footsteps with a heartbreaking wrenched cough.
Romeo gritted his teeth, seeing her in so much pain made him feel like someone had torn his soul in half. He could feel the fires raging below the surface of his skin, as if he was boiling from the inside out.
The boy ran as he thought of happy times, of when he was running through the fields with this same girl he now carried injured in his arms. Hadn't it been just hours ago when they'd been so confident? They'd had to strongest of the country there at their sides, they'd been in the stronghold of a guild that hadn't been discovered in thirty years. Yet all of this pain and suffering was happening, when mere hours before they'd been arguing in the courtyard of the castle, they were now in the darkened, dangerous forest, running for their lives.
"I think...we're gonna make it!" Jack proclaimed as they broke into the clearing, sure enough, there it was, the mammoth hole that Cole's tortured roar had ruptured out of the earth.
They made to dive into the hole, but Cole flung them backwards.
"Spawn! They've taken over the tunnel!" He exclaimed, pushing back against Jack's chest, forcing them all away from the entry.
"How many?" Romeo demanded.
Cole looked up at him with a fearful desperation in his scarlet eyes.
"To many." He replied.
"We need to get away from here, before they pick up our scents."
Cole hissed, scrambling quickly away from the dragons, waving his arm to lead them all back into the forest, where they collapsed around a large gnarled trees roots in exhaustion.
Romeo gritted his teeth to stop from screaming in frustration, Wendy was getting worse by the second, and if they didn't get her to Cheila or at least some form of medical aid, he didn't know what would happen.
"We need to get away from here, before they pick up our scents."
Cole hissed, scrambling quickly away from the dragons.
"We'll have to go directly to the castle, there's no other option.
Romeo stated, setting Wendy briefly down on the ground to rest his shoulders for a moment.
Said girl was in a blurry half awake state, she was rarely blinking.
At the moment, Wendy seemed to be struggling to say something, but her lips were refusing to move in the proper way to make words.
Finally, she spat out.
"Go...you can..." She said, her voice trembling so hard that it cracked painfully at the end.
"What?" Jack asked, moving to her badly injured friend, who was currently leaning back in Romeo's arms, he was keeping her propped up since she didn't have the energy to do it herself.
Wendy took several heavy breaths, her teeth were chattering and she was shivering violently in the dreadful downpour.
"You can...go alone...leave me...here...I slow...you down..."
"SERIOUSLY!?" Romeo yelled, so loudly that the sick girl jumped.
As if to combat this suggestion, Romeo slid his arm under Wendy's knees and put the other around her shoulders, lifting her off of the ground again. He staggered under the weight for a moment, than he pulled her into a comfortable position and looked down on her.
"Wendy, after all this, we are not leaving you. We would never do that. No matter what you say or do, we will never leave you behind. So get that idea out of your head and focus and resting. You need your strength."
Wendy whimpered softly, she was in obviously in pain but all she wanted was for her friends to get to safety.
"Alright, let's move." Romeo declared to his other companions.
Cole and Jack nodded, Jack taking both Asuka and Kylie into her arms again.
Kylie squirmed in protest.
"I can run myself! I'm fast! If you carry me it makes it harder for you!" She exclaimed.
Jack knew she should protest but seeing as she'd have a hand free to protect both of them and she knew Kylie could easily keep up.
"Alright, but I want you to stay right next to me, right in between me and Cole, behind Romeo, understand?"
"Ok!" Kylie agreed, happy to be on her own two feet, where she felt the most comfortable.
Jack set her down when she suddenly realized what she could do.
It was risky, but it just may save them all.
"Kylie..." She began slowly, earning concerned glances telling her to stop her suggestion from Cole and Romeo.
"Just how fast can you run?"
Kylie stared up at her with her round, sparkling eyes.
"Real fast." Was her reply.
"Do you know how to make it to the castle from here?"
"Yup."
"How fast could you get to the castle, do you think?"
"A few minutes."
Cole was shaking his head, long black locks swishing back and forth, and Romeo just stood in horror at the mere idea, Wendy didn't seem to be aware of the situation, but even she sensed the tension.
"Kylie."
Jack knelt down and put a hand on the little girls shoulder, setting Asuka down and using the now free hand to brush the fiery red locks from Kylie's face.
"I want you to run to the castle and get help, lead them back to us, we'll keep heading straight for the castle. Kylie, listen to me. Go straight to the castle, no matter what, no matter if something starts chasing you, if someone tells you to stop, don't listen. Kylie, run as fast as you can."
"As fast as I can?" Kylie asked incredulously, often enough she was being told to never go as fast as she could.
Jack nodded, her own soaked orange locks shifting. Lightning lit up the air and an instant later thunder boomed.
Kylie jumped, frightened by the sound.
"Kylie, we are all counting on you to go and get help. Anyone you know. Orchid, Onyx, Natsu, Gajeel, Zahn, Sofie, Laxus. Anyone you know. Do not go to anyone you don't know, even if you think they are from one of the visiting guilds. Understand?"
Kylie gulped and nodded hard, she didn't understand why tears were welling in her eyes.
"Alright then, I want to see the biggest take off you've ever done."
Kylie took a deep breath and got down into sprinters position.
"Ready. Set."
Jack swallowed the lump in her throat, praying the girl wouldn't be hurt.
"GO!"
Jack barked, and Kylie's tiny feet began to pound the ground.
A blue magic circle erupted on the ground, and a huge amount of mud from the downpour sprayed up in their faces and Kylie took off, her curly red hair whipping in the air behind her.
The three older mages looked after her while Asuka just about burst into tears at the sight of her friend being sent off.
Jack steeled her gaze.
"The farther we get before she begins to lead someone back the better! Run!"
With Kylie.
Her lungs felt as if they had been set aflame as she ran, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been allowed to run so fast. Her hair was dragged out like a trail of fire in the air behind her, her polka dot jacket, unzipped, was whipping. Kylie panted hard as she ran, her blue eyes wide and filled with fear as she ran toward an uncertain goal. She'd not been lying, she knew the way back to the castle, she really did.
Thunder boomed in the air above her again, lightning cracked downward, and Kylie squeaked out of fear, no one there to comfort her.
Tears spilled from her eyes and she pumped her arms, the faster she got to the castle, the faster she got back to her friends.
Yes, the littler girl viewed them as her friends, of course she did.
Gotta make it for Asuka. Gotta make it for Jack. Gotta make it for Cole. Gotta make it for Romeo. Gotta make it for Wendy!
This thought repeated over and over in her mind as she sprinted, spraying up mud and dirt behind her, performing mammoth leaps of over four feet to hurtle roots, bushes, and other obstacles.
That was when a dragon spawn, armored and terrifyingly large to the three foot tall six year old, loomed out of the shadows.
Kylie screamed in horror, her voice cracking as she wailed, skidding straight toward the monster.
She steeled her gaze, no matter the tears flowing freely onto her freckles cheeks, she glared at the monster she was fast approaching and barked.
"GET OUT OF MY WAY!"
She somehow managed to urge herself to go even faster, and shot into the best form of a side kick she could manage.
She slammed into the monster dead in the center of the chest, and, turning herself into a living projectile, she drilled a hole dead through it.
She screeched to a halt after this, as the dead body of the dragon wobbled before tumbling limp to the ground.
She turned, trembling from head to toe, and stared for a long moment as the Kylie-sized hole she'd torn through the beast.
She reached up and touched her hair, horrified to find it sticky with the dragons innards. She gulped hard as, after a brief search, she found a small puddle at the foot of a tree, partially sheltered from the rain.
Kylie looked into the puddle, and her appearance frightened her.
Her hair had flecks of blood in it, her pants had been splattered with the liquid seeing as she kicked her way through it. She was covered in mud, her jacket smeared with brown.
She had a single large streak of blood across her cheek.
Swallowing hard, Kylie took several deep breaths, trying to compose herself.
Hours ago, she'd been playing happily with her best friend, now, she was covered in mud, grime, and a monsters blood, running through a forest that had once been lovely and beautiful to her, but was now dark and unforgiving.
Looking into the puddle again, Kylie didn't bother to try and wipe away the blood on her face.
Turning in the direction of the castle and getting into sprinters position once more, she forced all thoughts of the kill she'd just made from her mind.
Gotta do it for my friends.
In a blast of mud that buried the body of the spawn behind her, Kylie took off again, and Mavis help anything that got in her way.
The fate of her friends rests on her shoulders, will Kylie make it? Please favorite, please follow, please review! Thanks for reading!