A Burning Castle

by Balendalin

A group of Magical Girls on a hunt for a newly formed Witch.

10. Pyres Alight

Chapter 9: Pyres Alight

Charlotte laid on the hard dirt ground looking up into the empty blue sky, barely noticing the oddly placed sun that was rushing across the horizon. Compared to the black sky and darkness of night that they had come from, even this confusing skyline was somewhat a relief to Charlotte.

"Is everyone okay?" Rebecca broke the silence, but it was clear that she was struggling to speak through heavy breaths.

Charlotte turned her head towards Rebecca, who had firmly planted herself on the ground with her legs out in front and her arms holding her up. "I think I'm good." Although given that her legs were a mixture of numb and pulsing in pain, she couldn't tell how truthful her response was.

"I'm in one piece still." Victoria gave a less enthusiastic response. She was still standing, with her spear planted into the ground and her head pressed against it with her eyes closed. From what Charlotte could see though, she was barely standing on her feet and was relying solely on her spear to keep her standing.

Both Charlotte and Rebecca looked down over to Athena for a response. Athena was face first in on the floor, almost in a fetal position, but clasping her tome tightly to her chest. But although it looked as if she may have been unconscious, she slowly released a hand off of her book and moved it out from her body. She gave a thumbs up towards Rebecca, before pulling her arm back to her tome.

Charlotte was concerned at Athena's lack of responsiveness, especially as any green glow that had been coming from her eyes and tome had vanished. She had no idea how Athena's magic worked, or if she suffered any effects when her summoned companions were attacked.

Rebecca on the other hand seemed unconcerned as she gave a small smile before turning away and pushing herself up from the ground. Charlotte wasn't sure how she had the energy stand unsupported, let alone push herself up from the ground. But Rebecca moved all the same, away from them and further out from the archway tunnel.

Charlotte was just about able to drag her head upwards to watch where Rebecca was going. They had exited off the street where they had been expecting to leave, on a small square of grass, with a stone path leading up a shallow hill. A distance up this path, the hill spiked up in elevation where it then led up to the walls of the city Castle, which Charlotte presumed would be their last stop before encountering the Witch in person.

Normally this section of green would be flanked by a few buildings whilst the grass itself remained empty, other than during festivals. However, the buildings were gone, leaving only the large open greenery. Where far off to the left the front face of the Cathedral could be seen and to the right the grass seemed to continue all the way past the horizon. Yet about halfway between where the 4 of them were resting and the castle walls, Charlotte could see 4 structures spread out in a fan, two on either side of the path.

The structures were tall enough that Charlotte could see them over the heads of what seemed to be silhouetted people that were crowding around them. The structures were made up with piles of wooden logs, which were piled all the way up to create a platform. In the centre of the platform a large wooden pole rose up and climbed high up into the sky, long above the ground.

On the platform was a silhouette similar to the crowds around the structures, however each had a strange haze of coloured light around them. A dark blue and pink haze surrounded the ones on the left side whilst a purple and an orange tint surrounded the ones to the right hand side. The silhouettes of the platforms, were completely frozen stationary, dissimilar to the crowds, whose heads seemed to bob up and down in an in-sync pattern.

"They haven't noticed us yet." As expected Rebecca spoke in a neutral, unconcerned tone. But Charlotte found it hard to tell what Rebecca's feelings were, given that her swords returned to her hands after a quick flash of lilac light.

"We'd better go deal with them, before they try throw another train at us." Victoria responded with exhaustion and a slight tone of annoyance. She slowly moved her head away from her spear and yanked it out from the ground and started using it as a support as she slowly pushed herself forward up the pathway.

"Victoria wait." Charlotte happy with the idea of Victoria moving head first off into the crowd up ahead, especially when both her and Athena were still on the floor. She knew though that Victoria would likely need a stronger reason to stop herself, "It'll be safer going around one of the sides, rather than down the middle." Charlotte then pointed off to their right, at the vast open space that they'd be able to move across unobstructed, and without the black void to their left side.

Victoria continued to take a few steps forward before stopping. She pulled her head up and took a full scan look at her surroundings, with a few seconds spent lingering on the view of the Cathedral. "Yeah, you're right." Victoria gave a few nods of her head, "But we can't spend too much more time avoiding things."

"We're not too far from the castle, so we won't be taking too long." Charlotte knew that they were still racing against time to get to the Witch. But it wouldn't matter how fast they got there if they didn't have the strength remaining to defeat it, or in their haste not make it at all.

They needed to move as a group though and Victoria seemed to have no intention of waiting, so Charlotte pushed herself from the ground with her right arm. On standing up there was a wave of sharp pain that ran through her legs, which nearly caused her to fall, but it didn't last long before it subsided to a faint aching feeling.

To her side Rebecca had moved back to help Athena back up onto her feet. It seemed as though Rebecca had mostly been successful, as although Athena was on her own feet, she had one arm swung around the back of Rebecca's neck to keep her steady. She gave a quick smile towards Charlotte, which only slightly helped ease her worries.

In the short time of the two of them getting up from the ground, Victoria had already gained a substantial lead and had stopped using her spear as a support. The direction she was going though would only give a small amount of space between them and the silhouetted crowd. Charlotte suspected that this was so that Victoria would be able to jump straight into a fight.

Charlotte sped up to Victoria's pace, which for Charlotte was almost a running pace, and kept up alongside of her. A glance behind her confirmed that Athena and Rebecca were managing to keep pace, just slightly further behind. Whilst they were moving, her attention was taken by the coloured hazes on the platforms.

"Are you able to see who, or what is up there?" Charlotte could see the silhouettes on the platforms, but couldn't see whether they differed in any way to the ones in the crowd. She also hoped that whoever it was, was part of the labyrinth and not someone who had been unwittingly dragged into the labyrinth.

"I doubt anyone would have gotten this deep in, especially without them passing by us first." Victoria was quick to get to the root of Charlotte's question. But without any follow up, Charlotte assumed none of them could properly see who was actually on the platforms.

A few seconds of silence passed before Athena shouted from behind, "The crowds, they're looking at something in front of the platforms." She was pointing specifically at the edge of the crowd closest to them. Charlotte looked at the silhouettes, which seemed more 2D than 3D, and it seemed that Athena was correct. Their heads were turned towards something a small distance in front of the structures, rather than up and towards the silhouettes on the structures.

Charlotte expected that she would have been able to see more about the silhouetted figures as they got closer. They, however, stayed completely black with shadow that obscured any detail that Charlotte may have been able to see. The figures themselves seemed to stay flat even as she got closer, almost as if they were cut out of black painted cardboard pieces. The figures also produced no shadows themselves, and no matter what angle Charlotte looked from, she was never able to get a side on view of them. She got the impression that they were twisting in response to them getting closer.

The figures up above were covered in a similar darkness that refused to betray and details, however they were different in that they had full bodies. They were noticeably shorter than any of the crowd and had what seemed like differing hairstyles and clothes. Whilst the crowd below was bobbing up and down and twisting in a strange fashion, the figures on the structures were frozen still up against the central pole.

Surrounding the figures was a light mist that was reflecting coloured light off of it. The colour was strongest directly around the figures with the outer edges of the haze being a light grey colour. To Charlotte it looked as though the light was emanating from the figures themselves, even if it was only reflecting off of the mist and not illuminating anything else around them.

Charlotte began to slow her pace down as they reached only a few metres from the edge of the crowd surrounding the orange figure. Unsure of whether she would be able to safely move into and through the crowd and wanting to make sure Athena and Rebecca had full caught up from behind.

Victoria, on the other hand, sped up her pace into a charge. With her head ducked down and moving her spear head low to her side, she rushed at the crowd. She abruptly stopped just in front of one of the silhouettes and swung her spear and body hard to the right. The blade of her spear cut through the air and the chest-lines of three silhouettes without any noticeable resistance.

Victoria stopped her swing a moment after it exited from the third silhouette and she twisted her arms to go for a follow up stab down onto a fourth. As she stabbed down she was met with nothing but thin air, as her target had vanished in an instant. After Victoria's first attack all of the silhouettes surrounding the closest structure vanished, with no trace left of their existence. Victoria had already committed to her attack and lurched forward slightly when her spear met with no resistance until it crashed into the hard ground.

The disappearance of the crowd opened a large amount of space that Charlotte previously was blocked from seeing. As she had presumed, the structures were made from piles of wooden logs and branches, stacked up in a mostly orderly manner from bottom to top. A short distance from the front of the structure she was able to see what the silhouettes had been looking at.

Stabbed down into the ground was an ornately carved wooden staff, which reflected the light of the sun due to how polished its surface was. Along the bottom and top of the staff were 3 bulges carved on the staff that had sharp edges to. The staff was slightly taller than Charlotte was, even with some of it planted into the ground, and it seemed at least twice as thick as the shaft of Victoria's spear.

On the floor leaning against the staff was a small and round wooden shield. The shield's body looked as if it was made from two differently coloured types of wood. A light brown wood made up the majority of the shield and was rough and unpolished. A darker coloured wood had been used to create the pattern of a bird with flaming wings spread to the sides. Around the entire shield was a thin band of shining steel that encased the wood.

Hanging from the front staff, resting on top of the shield, was a necklace made out of small golden chain links. Attached to the bottom of the chain, hanging over the centre of the dark wood bird, was a bright orange jewel-stone that had been shaped to look like a feather. The jewel had a thin layer of gold around its edges, enclosing the stone around its sides and its back.

"Is that a Gemstone like one of ours?" Any questions Charlotte may have had about the silhouettes vanished as fast as they had done. The jewel piece looked way too intricate in design to have been made by a normal jeweller, as well as having the golden encasement much like her own. It was also attached in ominous fashion to weapons, which she could only think of how her own weapons were summoned and almost dependant on her own gemstone. The off putting part was the lack of any glowing light or shimmering coming from the stone itself.

"It looks empty inside." Victoria spoke in a serious tone and with an unexpected shakiness to her voice. Victoria turned around to look at Charlotte quickly with an expression of confusion and almost fear, before turning towards Athena. "Please tell me that we're wrong Athena."

"Let's get a closer look before deciding anything." Athena at least sounded less worried than Victoria. The look on her face though, was the opposite of the mostly calm impression her voice gave. Athena sped up past Charlotte and Victoria and knelt down in front of the shield, with her full focus on the gemstone.

Charlotte moved forward to stand to the left of Athena, whilst Victoria moved to her right side and Rebecca standing behind Athena looking over her head. She quickly glanced to their side, at the remaining crowd of silhouettes that had not moved in any way other than tilting their flat faces towards her.

Charlotte then turned her attention back to the Gemstone, which she now had a much better view of. Victoria had been right in saying it seemed empty, to Charlotte it seemed almost like an ornament made of blown glass. Compared to their own Gemstones it looked like a faked copy that had made up for the lack of depth with a more intricate shape.

"It's definitely something to do with our Gemstones." Athena's voice remained calm, although her face had now changed to an expression of confusion. She then reached out for the feather Gemstone and wrapped her fingers around the back of the gold to pull it forward a little.

The moment she touched it, a black mist swirled out from inside the centre of the Gemstone. Athena dropped it from her hand and jumped up to her feet in order to take a few steps backwards. The black swirl kept expanding until the orange colour had been completely drowned out by the black mist. It didn't stop at the boundaries of the hollow Gemstone, as the metal casing slowly started to change colour towards a dark grey metal that refused to give off any shining reflection.

In a few seconds the entire necklace had turned black and grey, losing the bright orange colour as if it had lost its life to a spreading corruption. Moments after this roses with deep black, velvet like, petals began to sprout out from random places on the shield and spear. The roses pushed out from the wooden sections and twisted to reveal the inside of their petals, with only a dark spot in the middle.

Charlotte took a step backwards as more and more roses began to sprout all over the weapons, with some sprouting on top of other roses. It only took a few seconds of this before both the spear, shield and blackened gemstone were blocked from view by the black rose petals.

The flowers stopped sprouting as abruptly as they had started and remained perfectly still and only reflecting a small amount of light. Charlotte couldn't remember ever seen a flower that had formed anywhere near as perfect as each of these roses had, and most definitely not in such a black colour. So she stretched out her arm and moved slightly closer in order to touch the petals of the flowers, almost hoping that they were real to the touch.

Yet, much like Athena before her, the moment her fingers connected with one of the flowers the petal seemed to crumble into an ash like powder. The crumbling seemed to spread across the flowers like a strike of lightning, with a wave of them disintegrating at once. Even though there was no wind, the powder quickly floated off away from the four of them directly towards and into the bottom of the closest wooden structure.

The ash like powder filtered between the pieces of wood and made their way deep into the structure and out of sight. Victoria abruptly grabbed Charlotte's right arm and pulled her backwards and in line with where Athena had moved back to. Charlotte turned to look at Victoria, but she wasn't looking at Charlotte and instead looking straight ahead with her spear with its tip lowered and ready.

Charlotte turned her head up to see that all of the ash had buried itself within the wood logs, where she could now see a slight orange light deep in the centre of all the wood. Then came a rushing sound and a blast of air as the entire wooden structure set ablaze in an instant. To her sides, the other girls recoiled backwards as well as turned their bodies and covering their faces away from the heat, yet even though Charlotte couldn't feel the heat itself she could feel a strange tingling across her left arm.

She looked up towards the top of the fire, where the other silhouette had been and seemed to still be standing frozen. Charlotte couldn't tell if it was a trick of the light, or if being so close to the fire had started to mess with her eyes, but the coloured haze around the silhouette had changed to a dark black mist and it seemed as if the shadows around the middle of the platform had become stronger, rather than being drowned out by the fire light.

"What can you see?" Charlotte could just about hear the shout from Victoria above the sound of the hot air that was rushing around them.

"Whatever is up there, it doesn't seem effected by the fire at all." Charlotte struggled to shout back down to Victoria, the air around her making it hard for her words to make sound. Unsure if she had been heard, she turned around, knelt down and placed her hands around her mouth to make sure her shouts could be heard. The three girls had moved a few metres back from Charlotte by this point, but a thumbs up from Victoria confirmed that she had been heard.

She turned back to see that the flames were now reaching a greater height, but the biggest change was that the flames had changed to a much darker red colour towards the centre compared to the orange and yellow flames around the edges. Around the silhouette the flames were somehow the darkest, as if they were casting a deep shadow upon themselves. From the chest area of the silhouette came a slight orange glow that seemed to pulse in brightness. When the glow was at its brightest the dark red flames grew higher, whilst when at its dimmest the flames seemed to calm slightly.

Charlotte felt as if her eyes were locked on the orange glow, with the rest of her surroundings fading into a blur that she could no longer recognise. As the glow pulsed she could feel a tugging feeling from her own chest, that pulled her forward and pushed against her chain-mail. It was synchronised in a pattern of pulling her forward and then a release, with each subsequent pull getting stronger than the last. Alongside the tugging was a wave of vibration that spread across her body from her chest, which was likewise getting stronger on each pulse.

Charlotte could just about tell she was slowly being pulled forward but couldn't manage to pull herself away from looking at the glow and her thoughts seemed to blur out. This lasted until an arm came around from behind her right shoulder and pulled hard back around her neck, pulling her slightly off from the ground and throwing her backwards and to the ground.

The moment Charlotte's eyes were pulled away, she seemingly snapped back to consciousness and the pain rocketing through her entire neck. Along with the pain was an intense rush of dizziness and the edges of her vision blurring to darkness. To combat this she took in multiple deep breaths, realising that she must have stopped breathing while she was stood staring at the glow.

After a few moments had passed and she had taken in multiple deep breaths, Charlotte raised her head as much as her hurting neck allowed her to. Next to her was Athena who was kneeling down, face turned from the fire and a hand held up to block and heat from her face, Rebecca was standing a bit further back and off to their left and keeping watch of the remaining silhouette crowds.

Victoria though was off to the right, rapidly pacing around in a circle and flailing her left arm from side to side. Along with her flailing, she was shouting random sounds in between blowing hard on her arm. It quickly became clear why she was doing this when Charlotte saw a huge patch of reddened skin stretching across her arm. On the reddened skin was the clear sign of darker red patterns that looked like small rings, identical to Charlotte's chain-mail.

"Victoria, your arm!" Charlotte shouted as much as her shortness in breath allowed her to, and still only just loud enough to be heard over the fire.

Whatever had happened, Victoria had take another serious injury and it was distinctly Charlotte's fault. She had no idea how serious the burns were or if they could be healed in a similar way to before in the cathedral, but the feelings of guilt and fear were quickly building.

Victoria abruptly came to a stop and held her arm behind her body out of sight from Charlotte. It was clear from the expression on Victoria's face that she was trying, and failing, to hide how much pain she was in, in part given away by her constantly shifting her arm behind her,

"I'm fine, we need to move." Victoria managed to keep her voice steady, but her calm was betrayed by a sharp breath of pain. She seemed intent on trying to ignore it though and began moving with some speed towards the next crowd and structure.

As she passed in front of Charlotte, Athena put out a hand and grabbed onto Victoria's wrist, just below where Charlotte had seen the burns end. "Stop Victoria, at least let us check it before we move."

"I will be fine Athena." To Charlotte it seemed as if Victoria was trying to sound reassuring, even if it was a failing attempt. "I can still use my arm and we're nearly to the end. Once we're out you can do whatever you want." Victoria pointed her spear up towards the castle as she spoke and moved her arm around in demonstration. Although up close the damage to her skin looked much worse, as if parts of the skin had been melted to a clearish liquid.

Athena shook her head as she let go of Victoria's wrist, "I swear, you two are going to get yourselves killed like this." It was one of the few times that Charlotte had heard Athena annoyed and felt conscious that her annoyance was in part directed towards her as well. Athena gave a disapproving sigh before pushing herself up from the ground and lowering a hand down to help Charlotte from the ground, whilst Victoria resumed at pace.

Charlotte reached up to Athena, trying as hard as she could to avoid any of her metal armour touch Athena's skin. Charlotte was quickly surprised when Athena managed to pull her all the way off the ground, before Charlotte had even started to push herself up, almost causing her to fall forward onto Athena.

Charlotte took a moment of looking down to get her footing, before starting off towards Victoria. Although by the time either Charlotte or Athena had even started moving, both Victoria and Rebecca's weapons were already mid swing towards the silhouettes. Their blades swept through multiple of the silhouettes without any kind of resistance, and once their blades came to a stop the entire crowd disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Through the middle of Victoria and Rebecca, Charlotte could see a large two headed battle axe in the centre of where the silhouettes had just been. The axe had been planted into the ground with its haft pointed straight up towards the sky, and the haft section above the blade into the ground. Around where the blades connected with the haft, a deep purple gemstone hung down from a golden chain necklace. The stone was in the shape of a star with the top and bottom points elongated, each of the points were tapered towards the middle where they seemed to form a central oval.

"Try taking it with your spear this time." Rebecca spoke almost instantly after seeing the gemstone, presumably already prepared to see it there. Charlotte was unsure if it was a good idea at all to touch the gemstones, although she couldn't deny being curios as to what might happen. Victoria seemed to agree with Rebecca, as she nodded and lowered her spear and stretched it forward. However, Charlotte could clearly see her arm shaking violently as she tried holding the point of her spear steady as it moved toward the necklace.

As Victoria was struggling to reach, Charlotte and Athena caught up with Victoria and Rebecca, giving Charlotte a much better view of the objects. The axe seemed to be made out of a mixture of two metals, a dark purple coloured metal that made up most of the body of the blades, and a bronze like metal used for protruding symbols running across the flat of the two blades. The insides of the blade were covered by the bronze and were all rounded off, dipped inwards into the body of the blades, allowing for the user's hands to slide all the way up without being cut. The haft of the axe had been made out of a soft white wood, with the dark purple metal used to create a spiral pattern all the way to the bottom of the haft.

The gemstone was as she had expected it. Similar to the last one it seemed surprisingly intricate in its design and cuts, as well as keeping the strange dead feeling to it. Charlotte's view of the gemstone was soon blocked by Victoria moving close enough and her spear about to catch onto the golden chain.

The instant that Victoria's spear made contact with the golden chain, a flash of pale blue light came from the gemstone along with a cracking sound that had been loud enough to be heard over the fire behind them. Victoria hastily jumped back, almost crashing into Athena in the process, and returned her spear to her strong arm before slowly taking steps away from the axe.

The gemstone had turned from a distinctive deep purple to an opaque blackness before Victoria had finished moving backwards. In the next few seconds, the gemstone was covered in a sheet of sharp black icicles that seemed to only reflect the light of the fire to their side, rather than reflecting the sun's light. The ice spread fast up the necklace and across the surface of the battleaxe, progressively getting longer and thicker until the icicles on the blades were around the same size as Charlotte's arms.

On seeing the ice grow at such a speed, Charlotte hastily took a number of steps backwards as well as raising her shield arm up to eye level, in preparation for if she needed to summon her shield. Athena had grabbed hold of Victoria to steady her and the two of them were slowly pulling themselves further away. Whilst Rebecca was slowly pacing backwards, attention fully towards the structure, with both of her swords raised horizontally across her body.

Charlotte quickly looked up past her arm for a second to see the axe had turned into a large crystal of ice with multiple protruding spikes, running across the spikes were thin cracks where a deep purple light was glowing out from inside the crystal. The moment after she saw the purple light, there was a sharp snapping sound that sounded as if it was almost directly next to her head.

"Get down!" Rebecca shouted before she turned and threw herself to the ground, swords now gone and hands covering the back of her head. The light emanating from the ice was rapidly growing in intensity. In response Charlotte crouched to the ground and clasped her hands into fists, calling on her sword and shield to appear. A short flash of light later and her weapons were in her hand, and most of her body was behind her shield once she ducked her head down.

The snapping sound was followed up by a rush of air to flow over Charlotte's shield and into her face, with the gust being surprisingly cold against her skin. The gust pushed against Charlotte's shield for a few moments, causing her arm to sting in pain, although nothing hard hit against the shield as Charlotte had been expecting. Instead the gust of air seemed to reverse in direction and pushed from behind Charlotte, the sudden shift almost pulling her forward off her feet.

Looking up from over the edge of her shield, Charlotte saw a number of shattered splinters of ice, amongst a larger mist of particles of ice that were shimmering in the light, floating in the air. The gusting wind took little time in picking the mist up and it floated towards and into the wooden structure, in an almost identical manner to the ash from the previous structure.

"Rebecca!" Charlotte shouted and gestured to Rebecca, who was still head down on the floor, to try and get her to move. Charlotte could see that all the shards of ice were moving away from Rebecca's position, making it safe to move, but she worried that Rebecca would be much too close if the wood blazed up.

Rebecca glanced up for a moment after hearing her name, before scrambling to her feet and running towards and past Charlotte, with her head still instinctively down. Charlotte turned her head, following Rebecca to make sure she was okay, and saw that Athena and Victoria were standing a few metres behind.

Whilst she had her head turned a blast sounded from behind her, joined with a shock wave of air rushing past her head. The blast sent a sharp wave of pain through her shield arm, causing her muscles to either seize up or shake uncontrollably. The pressure on the shield itself caused her to be pushed back slightly, leaving in her in an awkward leant back position that strained her legs.

Once the shock wave had passed, Charlotte waited a few moments hoping that the pain in her arm would subside. And while the sharpness of the pain faded slightly, a throbbing pain remained across her arm, with her muscles still shaking in a mostly uncontrollable fashion. She tried to ignore the pain as much as she could and moved her head back up over her shield.

The haze of ice had disappeared into the structure, which was now engulfed in a mixture of pale and dark blue wreaths of flame and giving off a plume of thick turquoise smoke. And once again the flames were warping around a glowing light that was floating just above the middle, a dark blue light that seemed to be the only thing producing actual light.

On seeing the light, Charlotte pulled her head back down and looked back to the other girls, who had also turned their heads away from the light. Without looking at Charlotte, Victoria was gesturing for her to come closer to the rest of them. Charlotte pushed herself up from the ground with her legs, although she struggled to raise her shield up close to her body, and ran over to the others.

"Let's split up and get the other two at the same time." Victoria spoke in a raised voice to be heard over the fires, just as Charlotte reached them. The three of them were crouched down slightly and grouped in a way that their bodies were shielding each other from the light and heat coming from the fires.

"Once you set it off, straight back to the path in the middle." Athena was shaking her head slightly, but was the first to stand up fully, "I'll take the close one with Rebecca and you can take the further one." She continued whilst looking between Charlotte and Victoria, although more so looking to make sure Charlotte had heard them both.

"That sounds good to me." Charlotte wasn't overly convinced that splitting up was the best of ideas, but Victoria had started already started moving. So, not wanting to be left behind or to leave Victoria on her own, she turned and rushed to catch up. And even though Athena was the first of the other three to stand, Rebecca and Victoria were both already a good distance ahead, with both of them reaching the separating road before Athena and Charlotte had got to full speed.

Victoria rammed the bottom of her spear into the floor far in front of her, just before the stone of the road, and pushed down hard before jumping into the air. She used the slight bendiness of her spear, along with her momentum, to vault herself across the entire span of the road. Charlotte noticed her arm slip and lose grip on her spear though, causing her to have to scramble to keep her balance once she hit the ground. Whilst to her side Rebecca took a short jump to the middle of the road, then straight to the other side without issue.

By the time Charlotte reached the road herself, she hesitated for a moment, wondering if the road itself was safe. Before deciding that in her armour there'd be no way she'd manage to jump it even if she wanted to, so she continued at pace over the road. The stone surface crunched under her feet for the few moments she was on it, but nothing untoward seemed to happen by the time she reached the grass again.

Up in front, Rebecca had reached the closer of the two crowds and, with her swords held blade outwards towards them, crashed into the crowd without any sign of slowing down. As expected, the crowd vanished in an instant, leaving just the last crowd that Victoria was in the process of charging towards.

Rebecca quickly came to a halt once the crowd had vanished with her swords positioned towards her new target. With the crowd gone a tremendously large war-hammer became visible, with a pink gemstone, shaped in the pattern of a 3 leafed lotus flower, hung from a golden chain at the bottom of the handle.

The handle of the war-hammer was almost as long as Victoria's entire spear and was made from what looked like vivid cerise painted wood, with a varnish to make it shine. There were multiple steel fastenings along the handle, with two protruding rings that Charlotte assumed marked where upper and lower bounds of the user's grip space.

The end of the handle, pointed upwards currently, had a spiked metal end with a circular hole where 4 white ribbons were attached. The white ribbons each had a red streak that ran down the centre where they met a small metal ball. The ribbons swayed back and forth in the air, as if the balls were weightless, and gave off a high pitched chiming sound each time they switched directions.

At the other end was a shining white sphere, which connected the wooden handle to the main body of the battle hammer. The sphere looked as if it was made out of ceramic, with thin blue lines painted at equal intervals around the sphere, going vertically from the handle to the hammer.

The head of the hammer seemed to be made from three distinct sections, joined together with rings of the white ceramic material. The front of the hammer was a flat cylinder, that was at least a forearm's length in diameter and just under half that in thickness. It seemed to be made completely from a grey metal, although it gave off no metallic shine, and had a twisting pattern etched around its circumference.

In the centre was where the handle connected in, three times the length of the hammer head but slightly smaller in its width. It was primarily made from an outer layer of the ceramic material, but instead of white it was a dark navy blue, with channels of grey metal recessed slightly in the ceramic outer. The metal channels formed similar spiralling patterns as were etched onto the hammer head.

The last section was a large spike, created from multiple thin metal cones layered on-top of each other. It was made from the same grey metal that the other sections had been and had a blue line of paint spiral from the base all the way to the tip, creating a drill like impression.

Rebecca moved up close to the hammer with her swords extended towards the necklace, but held off from touching it yet. Charlotte pulled her attention back from the hammer and back to Victoria, who had already reached the edge of the next crowd. She didn't slow down, as she watched Victoria plough into the ground with her spear point down for a charge.

Within an instant the crowd disappeared from sight, leaving no more of the silhouettes in the vicinity. This time though there was a spear placed upright, with the point facing upwards to the sky. This time the gemstone seemed to hang down from the centre of the spear, with the golden chain fitting through a hole in handle.

Victoria had come to a full stop on seeing the weapon, much further back than Rebecca had with the hammer. As Charlotte got closer she recognised some of the details of the spear itself. The whole spear was just over her height, the handle made from a light coloured wood, and the spear head being made of a green tinted metal in the shape of a leaf. Other than the hole midway up, it was identical to the spear Victoria was still holding.

The gemstone itself was a dark blue colour and in the shape of the leaf spear head, but with the tip pointing downwards. Unlike the other three that Charlotte had seen, this one seemed to have small sparks and stars moving and shifting under the surface which gave off a soft blue glow, whilst the surface of the gemstone gave off a slightly less clear reflection than the other 3. The stone itself was shaped differently, and much more intricately, but its colour was identical to the gemstone worn by Victoria.

Charlotte came up next to Victoria unsure what to say or if she should say anything at all, especially as she could see her spear trembling with now both of Victoria's arms shaking. Charlotte took a step in front of Victoria, partially blocking Victoria's view of the Spear, and pointed towards the dark blue gemstone on Victoria's Bow.

"It's just part of the Witch's illusions. And even there's a reason its here, all that matters is that you and your gemstone keep shining."

Victoria had been staring through Charlotte, as if not even seeing her there, until the end where she slowly turned her head fully towards Charlotte with a distinct look of fear mixed with shock. She then opened her mouth for a second, as if still thinking through a response, but was cut off by a shout from Rebecca.

"Ready?!"

Both Charlotte and Victoria flicked their attention to Rebecca, ready with her swords, and Athena who was turned away from the necklace, but had the pages of her book flicking over at a tremendous speed.

"We're ready!" Charlotte shouted back before turning again to Victoria, "I can do it if you want." To which Victoria simply shook her head, steadied her shaking arms and moved forward and up to the imposter gemstone. Charlotte kept close behind Victoria as she placed her spear point directly over the centre of the gemstone.

"GO!" Rebecca once again shouted over the noise of the area, this time though Charlotte's attention wasn't diverted from the gemstone in front of her.

A moment later Victoria stabbed forward, digging her spear as far into the gemstone as she had the strength for. For a split second Charlotte saw the gemstone shatter like glass and any light inside of it instantly vanish. The next instant, before Victoria had even finished her movement, a plume of bright blue fire burst out from the broken gemstone and up in a cylindrical plume around the imposter spear.

Charlotte took a step back and raised her shield in quick response, although a by now familiar wave of pain flooded through her shield arm and up to her shoulder. In front of her Victoria had managed to quickly spin away from the flames and had her head down and eyes shut tight.

The blue flames didn't last long, along with the pain in Charlotte's arm reducing in intensity, as it if was simply a burst of bright flame rather than an actual fire. Looking over her shield she saw that the imposter spear and gemstone were gone, replaced by a small pile of ash on the ground.

Victoria was moving, with her head down and arm extended towards Charlotte, away from where they were stood and back towards Rebecca and Athena. Although her eyes were still closed, she managed to find Charlotte with her arm and grabbed hold of her, "Lets go".

Charlotte turned and helped to guide Victoria in a straight line, unsure as to whether she had been blinded by her proximity to the blue flare up. Although Charlotte noticed that Victoria seemed to make no attempt at looking back, whether she could see properly or not.

Over by Rebecca and Athena it seemed as though their gemstone had frozen over and shattered apart, similar to the last one. And Charlotte could see the mist of ice particles sparkling in the air as they began to be picked up by a wind and drift towards the wooden structure.

Expecting the coming eruption of flame, Charlotte steered herself and Victoria on a wider distance from the structure. Charlotte quickly checked for Rebecca and Athena, who had already begun running towards the road in the middle, before pulling her head below her shield again. It wasn't long before the slight shock wave of air and the orange glow hit Charlotte, but behind her shield she ignored it.

They kept running towards the middle road, only stumbling a few times along the way due to their steps not matching up. By the time they reached the road the pain in Charlotte's arm had faded to the point that she was able to mostly ignore it again, while Victoria was looking up, although through squinted eyes.

"You both okay?" Athena shouted from up the road where her and Rebecca had stopped to wait for them.

"No problems with us." Victoria replied swiftly, followed with Charlotte nodding and giving a smile towards Athena, who seemed more exasperated than anything else.

"Straight to the castle then?" Rebecca was able to not shout, now that they had caught up with them.

"Straight to the castle to end this." Victoria's determined response came, as she barely even slowed down before letting go from Charlotte and rushing past the two stopped girls towards the hill leading into the castle grounds.

Charlotte could see Athena shaking her head slightly, but without much hesitation the three of them began running to catch up with Victoria. Charlotte looked up ahead at the short road ahead of them, which led to a small hill and the outer wall gateway to the castle grounds. Once through there, she expected that they'd finally find the Witch and give them their opportunity to destroy the labyrinth.