Lulubell grabbed Sundance by the throat and threw him across the wreckage. He landed on an upturned car and turned around over it, coughing smoke and spit. Eve turned to him and made a face, confused. The child clung to her like a magnet, shaking, grumbling.

"Are you okay?" Eve called out, watching Sundance groan as he climbed to his feet. He was huffing already.

Sundance turned to her, laughing, loud as a bell. "I'm not out yet!"

Eve smiled, choosing the smarter route of silence and tossing back pages in Sundance's book as he leapfrogged over her. "Upra!"

The red paint he shot from his mouth disintegrated Lulubell's rose petals mid-air, burning her shoulder. Lulubell charged Sundance and started throwing punches while Sundance did his part of dodging or misdirecting them. Sundance glanced in the way of Viola fending off her own opponent with her crossbow, face pockmarked with scratches, a soldier. She was doing much better fighting.

Lulubell smirked and swung at him while he was inattentive. Sundance lunged away but Lulubell's fist still skated across his cheek and knocked him down. She jumped over him and started pummeling him with her fists, catching his mouth and making it bleed, and Sundance crossed his arms over his face, protecting himself. Lulubell kneed him in the stomach, knocking away his breath and his hands from his face.

Blindly, Sundance covered his face again, spitting blood onto his arm as he rolled his legs into her chest and tossed her off him with them. As she was down, Sundance took off running into what remained of the dust and smoke compressed in the air. There wasn't much but the screaming from the civilians covered for him and he looked for an ambulance or police siren but he heard neither.

"Come out, come out wherever you are!" Lulubell screamed to him, scowling. "We could do this the easy way or the hard way, Sundance!"

"Lomas Bleez!"

"Harima!"

Lulubell summoned a rafflesia flower shield. It opened its pink petals and caught Sundance's boomerang, altering the color. Lulubell smirked as she sent it back at him, faster and the pink-red of a blood moon. Sundance gasped and leapt over it, panting. He dropped to the ground as the boomerang passed over him, scraping across his back and tearing his shirt, as he had an arm again.

Lulubell reached his face without needing to run and kicked him in the chest. Sundance rolled out of the way as she stomped the concrete with her boot, making a crater in it. Sundance tripped to his feet, fidgeting. Lulubell ran to him and he swung at her, unthinking. She caught his hand and threw him into the ground, holding him down by climbing onto his back. Lulubell put a fist in his hair and an arm around Sundance's neck, suffocating him. He wrestled an arm through her chokehold, squirming like a fish on a dry surface.

Eve turned to Sundance's first spell, watching and waiting for it. "Sundance, head up! Upra!"

Sundance turned his head and blasted red paint into the air like a fountain. Lulubell was hit and burned, releasing Sundance out of the headlock. Her boots were dusty with and she'd taken a few nasty gashes and scrapes. Blood soaked into her dress, her teeth were stained gray.

"You're dead," she snarled.

"Mirar!"

A mirror appeared and shot out a shining beam, hitting Lulubell and shooting her off him. Resh ran over and jerked Sundance to his feet. "Are you okay?"

"Never been better," Sundance said with a laugh.

"Phil." Eve acknowledged as he walked over, the book in his hand glowing.

Phil laughed as he walked over. "What's up?" He noticed the child holding onto Eve, his tiny fingers sweaty and hot on her neck. "Where'd he come from?"

"Long story, let's just help them before we're out of the game too."

"I'm with you."

Meanwhile with Viola, Lilja turned back pages in Viola's book. She had a bleeding cut on her forehead and dirt on her dress. The chartreuse light coming from the spell book burned her eyes. "Quarrelo Ezo, Quarrelo Ezo, Quarrelo Ezo."

The barrel of Viola's crossbow shimmered and unleashed three orbs of light. They rolled toward their opponents but they were slow-moving like turtles in a horse race.

"Kurasu!"

A cross-shaped shield made of shadows appeared, catching the gold spheres. Viola jumped back as they exploded, breaking a quarter of the shield but nothing more. The shield dissipated and Kage, their mamodo opponent was running toward them, jaw clenched.

"Kuraza!"

A shadow spear formed in Kage's hand while he was running and he struck out, slashing with it. Viola braced her body for the attack and the blade cut into her arms, blood gushing out of the lacerations on her skin but that didn't take her down. She had trained for hours, days, weeks to predict what went next in a battle.

"A spell!" Viola screamed to her book-owner.

Lilja turned around curiously. A woman was on the ground, her lips were blue and her eyes were open but they wer. Lilja knew her face so she approached her.

"Lilja, behind you!"

A sphere of black shadows wisped red was careening toward her. She collapsed onto her side, covering her head with her hands and Viola's book with her body. But the black orb still touched her arm and burned the skin, like acid. She didn't feel it much and while on the ground, Lilja wrenched open Viola's book and flipped pages.

"Didn't you know it's quite unkind to attack a lady while she's down? Deime."

Viola's crossbow transformed into a rifle, the barrel longer and heavier and covered in a protective shell of iron. She stood it against her chest and ran to Kage while firing spinning gold rings from it. He dodged most of them efficiently but one exploded on his shirt, unleashing fire and light, burning him. He swung a fist at her but she blocked his hand with the rifle and used it to swing at him instead, clipping him in the jaw and knocking him to the ground but Kage caught himself on one hand, bending back to bicycle-kick her. She blocked him again and Kage turned his face to his book-owner.

"Hiro!"

"You got it. Koherai!"

Kage was engulfed in purple light and he shot his legs into Viola's stomach, throwing her off and a few feet away. She landed on her feet but Kage was faster, stronger with the strength from the spell. He knocked the rifle out of her hand and it whirled across the broken concrete. Viola lunged out of the way of his next punches and looked to Lilja for a spell.

"It's no fun unless the odds are evened," Lilja nodded, turning back a page. "Play fair, won't you? I do. Rio Deime."

Viola's rifle disappeared as she hit her fists together. Light exploded between them and she received gauntlets with spikes on the knuckles, a faceguard, and protective leg guards. There were white and orange flames painted on the faceplate, her gaze was heavy, cold-blooded.

Kage and Viola went back to battle. Every fist thrown was intercepted or diverted. The purple aura around Kage dissipated halfway through their fight and he took one of Viola's punches to the face, the spikes from her gauntlet cutting blood across his face.

Kage grunted and touched his face, where she'd cut him, and glared at Viola. "Reinforcements keep coming in for these losers. We don't have a chance in winning right now. We're outnumbered. Big time."

Viola stopped. "You're aware? You can't be…"

He didn't answer her but Kage called over his accomplice with a whistle, the girl with pink hair and an eye-patch. She didn't hear him as she hurled a fist at Resh but she couldn't move out of the way in time as Sundance frog-punched her. "Hiro, we're leaving. Let's get out of here."

Lilja lifted an eyebrow and closed the book in her hand.

Viola's armor had already receded but she didn't look satisfied with the outcome of their battle. She ran over to Kage with Lilja watching, reaching out her arms to grab him but he turned back around and dodged her surprise attack. He caught her arm and threw her over his shoulder, slamming her into the ground. Viola coughed blood into his face.

"Just because we're aborting our mission doesn't mean we still can't beat you. Watch your tongue, little girl, you'll get it cut that way."

Viola was seething. "What mission? What's going on?"

"You wouldn't understand," Kage snarled but she saw his bookkeeper, a boy with a blue tint to his dark hair and gray eyes with splotches of the same color under them. He didn't look human as though he couldn't understand the definition of reality. "Lulubell, we're leaving! Come on!"

Viola turned and saw Lulubell block a combo of punches from Resh, throw her into the ground, and punch Sundance in the mouth, busting open his lip. The fight would remain at a standstill so Lulubell grabbed her partner and ran at lightspeed over to Kage, maneuvering through their battle wreckage and the civilians on the ground.

He took Lulubell's arm and turned to Viola. "Next time, it won't be so easy, you just got lucky. We'll continue this battle another time."

"Don't g–"

"Leave them be, Viola."

Viola growled and watched as they were taken away in a tornado of black rose petals.

Lilja sighed and turned to the body on the ground, dropping to her knees to look at it. The woman's eyes and mouth were open, there was no blood on her except for a scrape freckled with dirt on one hand.

Viola approached. "She can't be…"

"Hey, what's going on?"

Sundance, Eve, Phil and Resh ran over. The child wasn't with them and when Sundance saw the woman's face, his eyes widened. "No...she was...she just was-"

"Sudden cardiac arrest. Little could be done to survive this...CPR may've delayed it but without right-away medical attention, this woman would've had zero chance in surviving. My prognosis was right." Lilja informed. "Fear killed her. Being torn from her child during a crisis. What's sad is that now her child must grow up without her, never to witness her child's future endeavors in person but on the other side only. Oh! Someone tell me where Kyo and his mamodo are, I haven't seen them since our chance meeting."

"They're going back around Trakai Castle. Amera wanted to take a better look around and get some more insight on our enemies." Resh answered, looking away, frowning.

"Let's pray to God that they succeed," Lilja said, cutting her eyes at Viola. Sundance watched as Viola dropped her face and gaze, ashamed, humiliated by her bookkeeper's stare. He remembered Lilja chastising he and Eve about their teamwork but Lilja and Viola didn't make for a functional team either. It was the pot calling the kettle black. "Should we go?"

"These people...there's no way we can just leave them here to die." Eve objected, lifting a glare to Lilja.

Lilja sighed and turned to Eve with her icy, villainous smile, challenging her. "Most of them are dead or are breathing their last ones on this minute. Don't you see the blood, the bones stuck out of their arms and knees? A miracle can fix them and I am not that, neither are you. If I cannot do anything, what makes you think you can?"

"They shouldn't have had to die like this."

"Wrong place, wrong time–"

Eve sighed and placed a hand on her forehead. "Whatever. Forget I said anything."

"You are getting worked up over nothing."

"This isn't nothing!" Eve screamed. "These are people's lives we're talking about! Why aren't you upset? Are you kidding me right now?!"

"I did not know them so I cannot relate," Lilja informed, rolling her eyes around the terrain. "They are not my family or friends. They could be criminals for all I know. It's difficult for me to feel genuine sorrow and feeling for people I do not know."

"You're unbelievable–"

"I am, yes, but am I single in that instance?" Lilja said. "If you prefer angelic and kind, call Mommy and cry, cry, cry to her, if you prefer the blackest soul, call your fabulous ex-boyfriend and whine to him, if you want reality, call me and I'll explain to you what it is. You look like you'd prefer the tough road and I believe I know with whom."

"You don't know shit," Eve snapped.

"Maybe," Lilja replied dismissively. "Shall we go?"

Eve's glare shifted to the ground and back to Lilja. She knew why Lilja was provoking her but she couldn't walk into her trap, one that she'd slipped into so many times. "I'm going to take a walk...alone."

"Can I come?" Sundance asked.

"No."

Sundance stomped his feet, looking aggravated. "But I want to!"

"What don't you understand about taking a walk alone?"

"I don't get why I can't come!"

Eve dropped to her knees and grabbed Sundance's shoulders, shaking him. "Are you not listening to me?! I just said I wanted to be alone, by myself, without you! Stay here!"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"Because I won't let you be alone anymore!"

She froze and her hands fell from Sundance's shoulders. Eve stood up and closed her eyes, looking into the memory of a girl alone in her house, sobbing. Eve made a face while she was thinking about it and opened her eyes, meeting Sundance's determined glower.

"Fine..."

Sundance beamed, satisfied with the outcome, following Eve as she went ahead.

"There's another hotel not far from here, you can meet up with us there when you're finished with your...walk."

"I'll remember that."

"You could've done better," Ophelia acknowledged as Lulubell and Kage reentered the castle with their bookkeepers. Caleb was throwing darts at a dartboard, most of them hitting their mark. "But if it were me, I wouldn't have made it such a spectacle with those shrieking humans and whatnot."

Lulubell rolled her eyes.

"So unless you want your books burned, I would listen to me," Ophelia sneered, glaring between Lulubell and Kage. "I don't like to threaten and I would certainly hate for the corpses of your bookkeepers to pollute the water but animals need to be given boundar–"

"Knock it off with the empty threats, I'm not even the one being threatened and you're annoying me. Stop being annoying."

Ophelia gasped, running over to Caleb after he said that. She looked offended. "Caleb! How can you say that? Why would you say that?"

"Freedom of speech," Caleb sneered. "Your bullshit threats don't scare anyone."

Lulubell and Kage exchanged smiles while Ophelia gasped again, her hands covering her mouth. "Why would you say that? Humans...I'm nothing like one of those repulsive creatures!"

"You've forgotten that your partner is human," Lulubell affirmed.

"Yes." Caleb said, turning an eye to Lulubell with the littlest acknowledgement. Ophelia frowned. "Everyone, get out. I'm tired and all this ignorant shit in one room is getting on my nerves."

Lulubell and Kage left the room with their partners but Ophelia didn't. Her gaze took to the window where she saw a blur of movement, a floating white dress. Ophelia turned to Caleb but he was back to throwing darts. "Did you see that?"

"No," Caleb answered, throwing a dart and hitting bull's eye, his glare was dark and ridiculing. "I didn't see anything."

Sundance ran over to Chainz and Itosagi when they came through the door, beaming as he saw them. "Hi, guys! Hi!"

Chainz regarded Sundance's giddiness doubtfully. Sundance was hyperactive 24/7 but the perkiness wasn't like him especially when he and Itosagi were on different terms. "Hey."

"Poyu, poyu."

"Oh, you must be Ishimaru and Seiku! I've heard so much about you!" Lilja said as they walked in after their mamodo. "I do hope you've heard just as much about me!"

Seiku nodded. "Sure."

Kyo had his feet on the table, sighing at Lilja. He and Amera had arrived an hour before with no new information on the castle. "You say that to everyone."

"Force of habit," Lilja smiled, climbing out of her chair, passing between Ishimaru and Seiku as she reached her suitcase and retrieved a few beeping microchips, the size of a zip-drive. Lilja tossed one to everyone, her voice authoritative. "When we get separated, I brought these. There's a teeny button on the side that you can click and you could talk out of."

"Why would we get separated?" Ishimaru asked, turning the microchip over in his hand.

"I said, by chance, Kamikatsu-san. Pay attention." Lilja answered, ignoring Ishimaru's glare and putting two microchips in Sundance's hand. "Explain to Eve when she wakes up, Sundance, won't you?"

Sundance turned to her, gnawing on one of the microchips, his head tilted. "Explain what?"

Lilja placed a hand on her forehead, sighing.

Trakai Castle was looked at with honor, a beautiful piece of architecture in pictures but what it had become was indescribable–the bridge was stained with dirt and blood, the historic walls were either cracked or collapsed. The sky was white. The air smelled like rain and wilderness as it had been raining only minutes prior to their arrival.

"Something doesn't feel right," Sundance informed, testing his feet on the bridge. "I feel like we're walking into something bad, a trap or something…planned."

Eve walked over, placing a hand on his shoulder but as Sundance turned to her, she saw that he looked at her with doubt. "We'll be fine."

"Eve, this is–"

"You're a smart boy."

Eve fell back a few steps, behind Sundance, silent, breathless, her heart racing. Caleb and Ophelia were standing at the far end of the bridge, Ophelia's book closed in his hand. He wore a white T-shirt, jeans, a baseball cap. Ophelia had her same clothes and the same smile but her eyes were brighter, the poster-child of sadism.

"I heard a disturbance and smelled something terrible and we find you." Ophelia informed, grinning. "Lucky us, we get to play with you two first and your friends get the pleasure of fishing your pretty corpse out of the water when we're done."

Caleb opened Ophelia's book. "Did your little…entourage skip out?"

Eve looked at him, mystified, but he was reading silently through Ophelia's book to care. "What–how do you–"

"Let's just say we were expecting you," Caleb answered vaguely, smiling over Ophelia's book. "Ralodo."

Ophelia unleashed a blast of snow from her hands and Sundance pushed Eve away, dodging the blast after her. The snow became water under his feet. "Eve, I need a spell!" She wasn't talking or looking at him or anything. "Eve, come on, give me a spell!"

Sundance ducked Ophelia's fist and threw his knee into her chest, between her ribs. She gasped a little and headbutted him from under, shattering his balance. While that was so, she grabbed him by the shirt and slammed his face against the wood. The sound of Sundance's head clashing with the surface was loud and discomforting.

"What's wrong, Eve? Did I say something mean?" Caleb asked. Sundance's book was shaking in her hands. "If I did, well, I don't know what to tell you. Relirium!"

Ophelia exploded into a spiked, beautiful flower of ice and Sundance climbed to his feet, coughing as he ran away, clutching the arm that had taken the blunt of Ophelia's ice. The arm he was holding was bloated and bleeding, the skin was blue.

Sundance looked at Eve, spitting blood at her feet. He was becoming angry. "Eve, just give me one spell! He has some brain-control over him, that's not Caleb! Don't let them play you like this!"

"No, Sundance…you're wrong." Eve replied, opening his book but not reading from it.

"Ramando."

Sundance jerked his face toward Ophelia but she hadn't moved from where she stood. He sighed, relieved.

Ophelia smiled. "You've been caught."

"What?"

Sundance and Eve looked down after Ophelia's declaration. Ophelia's evaporated snow had solidified and locked Sundance's feet under the ice, preventing him from escaping. Sundance made a sound of horror and he used his fists to try and break himself out of the death trap but his efforts were futile. Eve opened Sundance's book to the first page, his first spell, and Ophelia watched them, entertained.

"Upra!"

Sundance fired red paint from his mouth and at the ice covering his feet, he broke one foot free but Sundance was unable to get out the other. He fell onto his side, gasping, energy-depleted.

"Sundance!" Eve screamed, clutching Sundance's book tighter. The book was glowing but very little. "Upra!"

A lesser amount of paint shot out of Sundance's mouth but it still couldn't melt the ice. Sundance looked at Eve, desperate.

"Primando."

Caleb's voice. He was nearby but she couldn't see him. Her level-headedness was lessening.

"Where is he? Where is he?" Eve shouted, looking over the bridge. "Where did he go? If I–there's no way–"

"We can win…you just can't be drawn into their game."

"I'm trying–I just don't know, I don't know that I can do this–"

"You can't do everything alone, you know, Eve."

Ophelia's hands started to glow silver and she pointed her raised hands at Sundance. Eve watched the spell make nightmare happen. Sundance clutched his throat, shaking the hand around it, his eyes rolling up into his head as he was pulled into Ophelia's game. Shudders broke through Sundance frequently, an internal way of combating the attack, but otherwise he couldn't escape it. Sundance collapsed, convulsing as he went down.

"That's a shame, he was fun."

A cold hand closed over Eve's arm but she remained staring at Sundance. However, her question was for the enemy. "How did you know?"

"Didn't you know? I know everything. I'm invincible."

"Whatever. Just wait until Sundance wakes up, you'll be dead." Eve snarled against the uncontrollable racing of her heart.

"Is that what you think?"

"That's what I know."

Caleb jerked her around to him and she glanced at him. He looked older, different, nothing like he did from before. He had two years over her and his eyes had become tired and swollen, his hands puffier, his body somewhat bloated from an addiction. Those features remained but there was something new in his face, something that was always there but she hadn't noticed until now.

He nodded, cutting his eyes at her. "You know."

In a split second, his hand was in her face, on her face, and she was falling onto the bridge with the heaviest pain, emotional and physical, making the sky spin and fade in and out above her.

Caleb shook his head, leering. "You should've stayed where you were."

Eve closed her eyes, falling again while Caleb and Ophelia floated above her, laughing.

I had my first writers' meltdown with this story and I just couldn't write this chapter without deleting every scene after writing it (I could seriously make up one full chapter just of the scrapped scenes of RP) but I conquered it at last.

Enjoy the chapter! R&R!