CHAPTER2: This Is Bad...VERY Bad!
"SHIN!" Himeno screamed, trying to rush forward. Shin could barely open his eyes and his lips were turning an odd blue shade. The plants were strangling him to death!
Hayate grabbed her arm and spun her back behind him. "Stay back, Himeno! We don't know what this is!"
"But we can't just STAND HERE! Shin is dying!"
He fixed her with a level glare. "I don't want you doing anything foolish. If you get hurt..." He didn't finish that sentence.
Goh came up, brown eyes full of concern. "I don't know what happened," he explained quickly. "One minute, we're planting the seeds and Shin jump starts them with a little leafe and then, BAM, he's swallowed up inside!"
"Did you try burning them?" Hayate asked.
"Are you CRAZY? With Shin still trapped in there?"
"Mannan, try to freeze the thing."
Mannan flew over and layed a hand on the base of the odd vines. The freeze started climbing up the vine but it wasn't enough. "I can't get 'em all!"
Himeno jerked free of Hayate's grasp and ran over. "Let's pret! Maybe that'll do it!"
Mannan took her hand and then...and then that weird feeling came over her. It was like she'd slipped out of her skin and was nothing, hovering over the situation and watching it through a screen of ice. And then, the weight inside her mind of Mannan's consciousness along side hers. Himeno opened her eyes and saw the world through Mannan's; all frosty around the edges, able to see the water in the air frozen through the clouds overhead. She ran at the vines with Mannan whooping and hollering in her mind. "Yeah! Let's go kill that plant! WOOHOO!"
Gritting her teeth at the headache from his screaming, Himeno jumped in the air and flung a hand out, shooting ice darts into the branches to cut Shin loose. He started falling to the ground, almost unconscious, and would have hit except for the gust of wind sent by Hayate to stop him from landing. Himeno peered with the second site of a pretear to find the core of the monster. Except...there was no core. No core! What WAS that thing then?
"Himeno, what's wrong? Finish it," Goh called.
"I can't...there's no core," she shouted back, flipping backward to avoid an angry swing of vine. Mannan screamed in pain as he threw a shield up to keep her from being lashed by another on her left. "Mannan!"
"I'm okay, just kill it already," Mannan said weakly.
Several slashes of solid air, bolts of fire and quick water lashes drew attention away from her and Mannan and to the rest of the knights. Himeno flew upward, using Mannan's power, and surveyed it from above. No, she was very sure...this thing wasn't evil at all. She could feel the leafe from it but, instead of sucking it up like the Princess of Disaster's seeds would do, it was throwing off A LOT of it. So much so that it was like a throbbing pulse against her body. Maybe...maybe this thing WASN'T made by anyone evil.
"Hayate," Himeno called, watching in near terror as he just missed getting stabbed through by a particularly nasty vine. She heard Mannan say something like, "I knew it!" before she ignored him. "Hayate, it's not absorbing leafe!"
"WHAT!" he shouted back, eyes narrowed and focused, Goh jumped clear over his head, launching a bout of flame from each hand, twisting as he landed so that he was crouched down low and Hayate could fan those flames into an inferno. It never ceased to amaze her how well they all worked together.
"It's not absorbing leafe! It's making it faster than it can handle. That's why it won't die and that's why it has no core! We need something NOT of Leafenia to kill it!"
"Like what?"
Himeno thought quickly, running over anything she could think of in her mind. "Weed killer! Sasame!" She knew if she called, the Knight of Sound would here.
Sasame appeared instantly and flew straight up as another vine swung at him. "What's going on?" he asked, hovering near her side.
"Get some weed killer, from the real world! Quick," she instructed.
Sasame disappeared again.
Now, all they could do was just bide their time and keep this thing from... Himeno dropped down to avoid another blow, shooting more ice darts to sever limbs. Maybe she could cut it down a bit, keep everyone safe-
"HIMENO!"
Himeno and Mannan both screamed as a vine they hadn't seen whipped out of no where and slammed into them, driving them hard into the ground. HImeno gasped, body arching when Mannan was ripped out of her, unpreting so suddenly it hurt. He was unconscious and bleeding.
"Oh, no, Mannan!"
"Himeno, look out," Hayate shouted, shooting solid air in her direction, slicing through the vine coming her way. He flew over to them, grabbing them both and moving them back.
"Hayate-," she tried.
"Stay here!"
"But, I've gotta help...HAYATE!"
Hayate left her with Mannan, who was groaning and wincing in pain. Fine, she'd stay with Mannan. She was the one who got him hurt after all. Himeno tried to pull his hand away from his side, but he wouldn't let her. "G-go help them," he managed to get out, smiling weakly.
Sasame appeared then with two large plastic bags full of weed killer. "Shin, raise a- what happened to Shin?" he asked.
Himeno looked up from Mannan's side to where Hajime was holding a now normal hued Shin. "That plant thing attacked him. Hurry, Sasame!"
Sasame nodded and flew over to Goh and Hayate. Kei was still at work and probably couldn't come. Hayate took three cans, shaking them as he flew off to the left. Goh stayed on the ground and Sasame went left with Hayate. Hayate pressed the nozzle and started spraying, using a controled wind funnel to carry the chemicals to the right places. The plant began to shudder violently as Goh and Sasame joined in. It took all of the first bag and most of the second before the plant collapsed over and died.
Once it was nothing but a withered stump, Goh charred it down until it was a blackened splotch on the ground. Sasame and Hajime were with Shin, helping him to his feet while keeping him distracted from seeing a plant burned down. Hayate came over to Himeno and Mannan, carefully moving Mannan's hand from his wound. He examined it, a worried look making his eyebrows draw down but, after a bit in which Himeno didn't even breath, he sat back with a relieved smile.
"Just a scratch and some bruising. Nothing major," he answered her unasked question.
"That's great," Hajime said, hugging Mannan around the neck. "Whoa...you've got a real battle scar now, Mannan!"
"It's not going to scar," Hayate corrected irritably.
"Still, it's pretty cool, though!"
"There is NOTHING cool about almost getting killed, Hajime," Sasame added, his tone still the gentle one he always used, but it had a sterner underflow that made the younger knight cringe and mumble an apology.
Himeno helped Mannan to sit up, fighting back tears. "I'm sorry, Mannan," she whispered. She hated preting just for this reason. In battle, the knights get hurt, not her.
"S'okay," he mumbled, giving her a weak smile. "How's Shin?"
"He's fine," Goh answered with a warm smile. "A little shaken, but he's not hurt."
"Would anyone care to explain what happened?" Sasame asked, reaching down without looking when Shin held his hand out. When Shin was upset, he tended to need the touch of one of the older knights to reassure him.
"I dunno," Goh shrugged, shaking his head. "We've done this a hundred times before. Mannan planted the seeds, Hajime watered them and Shin gave them a kick to start growing faster. Only, they grew too fast and seemed to mutate."
Himeno's mind flashed back to the almost overwhelming amounts of leafe she was sensing. "Do any of you feel it, too?" she asked. it was like being in a sauna without the heat.
They all stared at her. Sasame hardest of all, something very close to worry on his face. "Demon larvae?" he asked softly.
It took her a second to catch on to why he was so worried. Oh, right, Takako! His girlfriend (she was guessing fiancee from the ring she was wearing nowadays), Takako, had been the Princess of Disaster. But, she had quit...hadn't she? Himeno thought again about it and decided that it didn't feel evil. "No, no larvae. It feels like...it feels stuffy here, y'know?"
Sasame and Hayate exchanged a look. Whatever it meant, they had discussed this before. Himeno was momentarily angry at them for keeping her out of the loop. She was the Pretear, wasn't she? Why the hell were they hiding stuff from her AGAIN?
"Are you sure of that, Himeno?" Hayate asked, the blank mask falling over his face again.
Himeno nodded.
Neither of them said another word. "We should get Shin and Mannan inside and in bed," Sasame said after the pause.
"Hey, what aren't you two sharing?" Himeno demanded.
Both gave her quelling glares. Sasame, glaring? He'd only ever done that once...when he had changed sides.
"WHAT! You two are hiding something from us?" Goh demanded.
"Now is not the time," Hayate said firmly, his eyes promising her lots and lots of yelling and plenty of "tulip-heads" in the near future. Just as they were getting close, too.
Kei popped in then, golden eyes wide and worried. "I'm sorry I couldn't get here sooner. What happened?"
Hayate and Goh filled him in quickly and he had the same reaction as Hayate and Sasame. His face went blank. "I see. Well, let's get them to the safe house and in bed."
The safe house had been Takako's idea. Since none of the knights built homes in Leafenia and they spent a lot of time in the real world now, it made sense that they buy a house to live in. Actually, Natsue, Himeno's step-mother, bought the house for them all, as a thank you for saving Mawata. It was big, but not so big they couldn't keep it clean. And Takako had spent time as a maid in Natsue's mansion. Takako. For some reason, her thoughts kept coming back to the former Princess of Disaster. Was this maybe her doing? Maybe...just maybe, she hadn't changed...NO! Himeno shook her head, refusing to believe that. Takako was GOOD! She wouldn't turn back, not with Sasame here.
She looked up when someone offered her a hand. Hayate. Forcing a smile to her face, she took his hand and stood up. "Thanks," she said.
Hayate didn't answer her. The others had already left while she was lost in thought. He opened a portal into the real world and guided her through. Whatever was going on was bad. VERY bad!