Ch. 35 Reize. It was going to have a different title, but I didn't get to the bit that will have that title.
My sincerest apologies for missing a weekend. Hot water heater broke, we may have to move… my stress level is about to go over nine thousand.
I'm going to try to move updates to every other week and see if that's manageable.
Their opponents appeared out of nowhere when the first of them reached a certain point, as though there was some invisible tripwire.
"Big Sis… Big sis?" No, Nell was far from stupid. "Get out of my sister!" she yelled, fists clenched around the hilt of her blade as she hefted it and charged forward. Iris automatically noted which one and recalled its properties. The Peacemaker was effective against the unholy, which would be a big help if they were trying to win this battle.
No, what they had to do was keep them here long enough to free them. Iris dug for the bottles she'd filled with Jess' potion.
"Sickle Rain!" Edge called, slicing the air with his scythe. Dozens of small sliver crescents flew from that rip in space, headed towards Alvero. They wouldn't do much damage, but trying to dodge them should keep him busy for a few seconds.
Or they would have, if he had any sense of self-preservation.
But that required a sense of self.
At least they knocked him back a little. "Focus on the swordsman!" Flay ordered. "He has a technique that allows him to grow stronger."
"Gee, I'd like to, but I'm a little busy here!" Tony called, dodging a swing of Yula's huge mace. "Oh hell no, that's not fair!" The head of her mace had flown into the air, and now there were more of them up there, waiting for their chance to catch someone off guard. "Tell me somebody has a technique to get rid of those!" No one answered. "Oh that's just great."
"Like, stop mobbing them!" Renee ordered. "I can't get a clear shot!" Her sword spun in front of her, ready to fly, but she couldn't target anyone without risking hitting someone. At least Iris was hanging back as she prepared her technique like a sensible person. Too many people on the battlefield led to injuries from friendly fire, Lorr made damn sure people learned that on the first day of class.
"Found it!" Iris held up one of the bottles.
Then cried out, turning her head to try to keep the glass from hitting her face, as one of Alvero's flying stars broke it.
"Iris!" Edge ran over to her, which let Renee head forward and finally get a shot in at the blond. Well, no, it was probably dark brown, but it was hard to tell under all that dark aura.
"So, they can still think in there…. Or is their dark lord doing the thinking for them?" Flay wondered, his usual battle grin slowly turning into more of a smirk.
"I'm alright, Edge. I really shouldn't have said that out loud."
"Wow, I never would have guessed that it was a bad idea to, like, tell them what it was." Renee rolled her eyes, then grabbed the front of Iris' dress and pulled her behind cover. Edge followed, after glancing back at the battle. "How many more of those do you have?"
"Three," Iris told her, not yet fishing them out.
"Alright. We're going to have to be smart about this. How good is your aim?" Renee asked the two of them.
"Iris and Nell are both clumsy. I'll take one, I have a good throwing arm." He'd gotten plenty of practice with kunai.
"Iris shouldn't keep one, they'll expect it," Renee knew. "Tony's got pretty good aim."
"Let's tell Flay he has one," Edge suggested.
Renee smiled brilliantly at him. She really liked the way this guy thought. If she didn't have Tony, she would be making inquiries as to his pedigree.
"I should keep one." When they looked at her, Iris reminded Edge that, "I can ride up to one of them on Diemia."
Renee and Edge looked at each other. Edge didn't like the thought of her getting so close to them, but they both had to admit it was a pretty good idea. "They might think that we've taken them all away from you." Renee nodded. "Good plan."
"Thank you." Iris nodded, half-bowing over her staff again.
"Give me Tony's, I'll hand it off to him. Who do we try for first."
"Yula," Edge said firmly.
Renee arched an eyebrow at him. If she hadn't gotten such a good impression of him, she would have assumed he was an idiot for suggesting that, since Alvero had that power-up technique Flay had mentioned.
Edge snorted. "Alvero's no challenge."
"I can reduce his power with the help of Jiptus," Iris said, shifting her grip on her staff. "And Yula is Nell's sister."
Renee shrugged.
"I'll call for Diemia right now," Iris said, after giving the two of them their bottles. "Hopefully that surprise them."
"Full frontal assault? Sounds good." Renee looked her up and down, considering. Maybe she wasn't that bad after all. "When Flay thinks I've given him one, he'll be over the moon. You and Tony should try to get the other one then."
Edge nodded, glanced at Iris, and headed back to the fight, charging like he was going to throw something right then. It should be a good distraction. Renee nodded in professional approval as Iris summoned her mana and charged in an instant later after Edge had knocked Alvero off his feet with a call of, "Harvest!"
Unconcerned for her 'ally,' the possessed Yula ignored his plight, ignoring a hit from Tony's own scythe as well in order to launch more rocks into the air. "Grr, not this again!" Tony complained, grabbing Nell and pulling her out of the way of a falling one and blocking a throwing star with his scythe as she recovered her balance. "Worry about yourself, kid! Hey, a little help here?"
Or that was probably what he said, it was hard to hear over the scream of Flay's summoned drill and the pounding of Diemia's feet, stone on stone. With Yula pinned between them, it was easy for Iris to dump the elixir down Yula's back.
Yula staggered, but was ready to fight again by the time Iris had slung herself down off of Diemia. "Big sis…" Nell looked hopeful, but when she saw that the dark aura was still there, only diminished she steeled herself to attack again. "Break Slash!" She cried out in pain when Alvero used the opening after Yula was knocked back and Nell was left trying to recover to hit her in the side.
"Nell!" Edge cried out, cursing himself. He hadn't been able to get in position to hit Alvero while he was distracted, and now he'd hurt Nell.
"Knock it off!" Tony yelled at her. "I know she's your sister but how do you think she'll feel if you get hurt trying to save her, huh? Back off!" he told Alvero, taking a swipe at him before tossing an X-Heal at Nell. "She's been doing this the entire time," he griped at Renee as she pulled him to the side and palmed him the bottle. Delinquents got a lot of practice passing notes and bottles in class: he'd know what to do. "She just keeps ignoring the damage she takes, and I'm stuck playing healer!" Because there was no way Flay would take that role if he could get out of it.
"Iris! Now would be a good time for your technique!" Flay called as he felt the electricity he'd summoned into his body during a lull in the battle desert him.
"Right, Jiptus!" The poison mana weakened Alvero, countering the power absorbing more and more darkness into his body gave him.
"Grr… This is actually making me miss that blond traitor!" At least he could get rid of nuisances like the falling rocks. Tony made like he was racing towards Alvero so that he and Renee wouldn't be too tempting a target… then threw the bottle to his side, hitting Yula in hers. The dark aura disappeared for a few, hopeful seconds, and even when it returned it kept flickering, on and off, dark and light.
She swayed and Edge opened his bottle, grabbed her, and tipped it down her mouth, hoping it would be more effective if it wasn't blocked by clothes or skin. This meant they didn't have any left for Alvero, but he didn't really care. The others shouldn't be too much longer anyway: if Renee thought that Isolde was competent she probably was.
Yula sputtered, coughing, her weight sagging into Edge's arms and Nell cried out in warning as Alvero charged. Better to kill Yula than let her go free. Nell tried to block him but she simply didn't have the mass, but she held him back for a few seconds, enough for Renee to join her in holding him back and Tony to yank on Yula's arm, telling Edge to, "Get her out of here!"
The two of them carried her behind the same trees Edge and Renee had taken cover behind a few minutes ago. After they put her down, the two of them ran back to the battlefield, knowing that Nell would come after her sister and they would have to help Flay keep Alvero busy. Iris and Renee were hot on Nell's heels. They were too focused on Yula to notice a gathering patch of mist going the other way.
Iris already had an X-Heal ready, and she followed that with a Cure Jar, in case that helped.
"Big Sis!"
"Uh… Nell?" Yula was still dazed after those potions?
Renee tipped her head back to look at her pupils. She'd seen this before. "Either of you got any food on you?" The pallor, the way her cheeks were slow to regain color when Renee pinched one of them?
Man could not live on heal jars alone, but they would keep prisoners from dying. The fact it left them emaciated and unable to think clearly without the nutrients the body and brain needed was just a bonus for dark alchemists.
"I've got lots of things," Iris said, surprised Renee wouldn't know that. She was an alchemist. Renee didn't have food on her?
"If you've got soup, see if she can keep it down. Then fish, meat. Watch her closely and hit her with a heal jar at the first sign of trouble." People who ate after long starvation could drop dead, especially with the amount of food Iris was going to have to give her so that she could get back on her feet as quickly as possible. "Have a nectar ready. When Isolde gets here, she can sent them back to campus. She'll be fine once that happens," she told Nell, seeing the question on her face. "We've got a good infirmary. She'll be fine." Provided they got her out of here before Alvero broke past the men or any more enemies showed up. Speaking of which, she'd left the men to handle things by themselves? Edge, Tony and Flay?
Wait, was that Flay she had just heard crying for help? Had Alvero powered up that much that quickly?
She ran back to the battlefield, summoning her mana on the way. It hadn't been a good idea to summon him when she already had five other allies to keep track of, but with Nell and Iris busy she might need the help.
The three of them wouldn't have had any trouble keeping Alvero busy… if it had been the three of them.
Tony was frozen, looking at the mana that had appeared out of the mist. A small red-haired girl with a scythe? They almost looked related.
Was this his mana? It seemed fated, somehow. She was looking at him.
"Thank you for rescuing me," she said to him, and before he could stammer out that he hadn't really done all that much she asked, "Would you like to make a pact with me? I'm…"
"Yes!" Yes, a thousand times yes! This was his dream! This meant alchemy, Renee, everything!
"Alright!" She seemed delighted by such an enthusiastic response. It was obvious that this was an alchemist who truly wanted a mana, who would take good care of her and use her power to the fullest.
The two of them were oblivious to Alvero's struggles to get to the mana, to recapture her inside his own body. Flay might have thought that the mana was making a terrible mistake, choosing Tony, but obviously he couldn't allow the forces of evil to recapture her. Edge just figured that the fewer interruptions they had, the sooner the pacting would get done and the sooner Tony would get back to helping them keep Alvero away from Nell and Yula.
When Renee joined Edge, Flay broke away from the stalemate to clap Tony on the shoulder. Or try to: his hand went right through. "Sweet!" Tony grinned. "Hey, Renee! I'll get her to Isolde!"
"Tell her to hurry!" Renee told him. "This guy's almost dead!" She could see that in the azureflame's light, and Flay had told them on the way here that if they killed them, the bad guy would just take them back. They had to free Alvero before they finished him off.
"Don't worry, he heals," Flay reassured her.
"Oooh?" Renee spun her sword in front of her as she felt her mana strengthen her. "Isn't that handy."
Tony crouched at Yula's side once he got there and called on his mana. "Hey, can you make these two intangible too?" Wait, he couldn't call his mana 'you.' What if she left him? "What's your name, anyway?"
Several floors away, Nikki's ears pricked up. "Hey, did you hear someone scream just now?"
Roxis shook his head. "No, but we'd better hurry." They'd lost too much time being frozen.