(This one is also a bit late, but it's an improvement. Okay, enough talk, let's get this started! Ah, and please don't neglect me the pleasure of reading your reviews!)
The group remains still for a moment, keeping their eyes fixed on the distant figure of Hugh. He remained floating over a still-smoking area of the roof, and although they couldn't quite see it, his fists were clenched and he was at the peak of his rage. Daachan's shining eyes quickly locked their gaze toward the group a distance away and both it and Hugh had similar intentions.
"So, who do you he'll go for first…?" Miro asks meekly.
"You." Ricca replies. "He's pretty much intent on killing you, anyway."
"Yeah, but…" Miro begins. "I mean, why not William? I'm sure that Daachan has quite a beef with him…"
"Naah, it's gonna be you." Matthew says, him and the rest of the group, including William, beginning to shuffle a distance away from Miro.
"You're the one who took Daachan out first." Kate points out.
"…Glad to see that everyone's on my side…" Miro says, looking around at the group who had each put themselves a good ten meters away from himself.
Hugh, meanwhile, finally took action and began zooming toward the group at an amazing speed.
"…Do you think this is going to hurt?" Miro asks, remaining still.
"Oh yeah." Kate says, nodding.
"Great…" Miro mutters, sighing. He waits for a moment and, before he could take action even if he was actually going to, was smashed by a huge shoulder check courtesy of Hugh. Miro went sprawling backward, tumbling and rolling with flailing arms until he made a comparatively soft landing on the grass quite a few meters away.
"…Jeez, I nearly felt that." Matthew mutters. Deciding to take action, he opens up Anna's backpack and finds a taser among her many items. Sneaking as carefully as he could behind Hugh, he quickly drives the taser into his back and turns on the power. Violent sparking could be heard, but Hugh only laughs.
"You're pretty stupid, aren't you?" He asks, quickly turning around and grabbing the arm that Matthew held the device in. "Don't kid yourself thinking that you can beat me!"
He lifts Matthew's arm up, swings him once with as much ease as someone could swing a small pillow, and throws him, hard, into Anna. They both hit the ground in a heap, stunned.
"I will burn you to cinders!" He shouts, holding his arms in front of himself.
"Hmm, he knows the word 'cinders'." Ricca mutters. "Pretty impressive for a troglodyte."
Suddenly, Daachan's power allows Hugh's arms to catch fire, and he releases a huge stream of flame toward the unconscious two.
"Find safety." William suddenly says, holding one hand out and causing Anna and Matthew to vanish from sight. The fire passes over where they were, but once it had dissipated, nothing lay there but charred grass.
Hugh growls and turns his, or rather Daachan's, eyes toward him.
"Oh, so you want to ruin the fun?" He hisses.
"I will not allow you to harm these people. They remain under my protection." William states, stepping toward him. He was still considerably weakened, but was making his best effort to disguise it. "And you, the demon, and your host are evil. My mission is not complete until I have destroyed you."
"Ooh, big talker!" Hugh replies mockingly. "Look at yourself, Whitey, you're in the crappiest condition here!"
"I beg to differ…" Miro mutters, still lying on the ground a distance away. Hugh ignores him and continues.
"But if you wanna go, we'll go! C'mon, gimme your best shot!" Hugh says. William complies and quickly summons roots to tie around Hugh's legs. Hugh smirks and crosses his arms, not yet moving.
"You will meet your end." William says, his entire body beginning to glow blue. He shuts his eyes, making a large number of icicles form upward from the ground, each with sharp points. He then raises his arms and they detatch from the ground, floating around and circling Hugh with their points aimed toward him. He then lowers his arms swiftly and the icicles shoot toward Hugh at all angles.
Instead of moving, Hugh allows Daachan to do the work. The aura that surrounded Hugh suddenly intensified, both burning away the roots and melting the icicles so quickly that they never had time to touch Hugh.
"Oh, is that all?" Hugh says, sounding disappointed. "What a shame. Oh well, time to beat the bleach out of you."
He begins walking toward William. Quickly, William summons up another of his flaming root-blade things in one hand and a sharp spear made from pointed bone in the other.
"Ooh, that's pretty neat." Popuri comments. "I didn't know that bones counted as nature stuff…"
"Y'learn something new everyday." Kai says.
"Nobody cares, you two." Nami points out. "Now just watch the fight, we need to know when we'll have to run."
William makes a lunging motion with the spear, but Hugh catches it with ease and pulls it away from him. He then breaks it in his hand and throws it to the ground. Undeterred, William swings his blade and nearly catches Hugh off-guard, But Hugh manages to pull his head back just in time to only receive a small nick on the cheek, coincidentally in the same exact spot that Miro's female alter-self had nicked him previously, so it stung a bit more.
"Oww…" Hugh mumbles. He then smirks. "Tch, what's with you bunch and cutting my cheek? Oh, but thanks for reminding me."
With that, he focuses Daachan's power, using it to effortlessly heal the cut, leaving nothing at all behind. He then takes one more step toward William.
"But back to the point." He continues, his smirk still present. William tries to step back and slash at him again, but by the time he raised his weapon, Hugh swung his arm at it and smashed it forcefully into flaming pieces. William cringed and held the now-injured wrist that he had the weapon attached to, staggering back slightly. Before he could do much more, Hugh thrust his arm out and grabbed William by the throat, lifting him off of his feet.
"You're really not as tough as I thought." Hugh says in disappointment, chuckling a bit. "Are you seriously this weak?"
"No." William replies simply, despite his throat being in Hugh's grasp. He places one hand directly in front of Hugh's face, the hand beginning to glow blue. Before Hugh could do much to react, William causes a sphere of water to appear, Hugh's head directly inside it. He then shuts his eyes and makes the water freeze, encasing Hugh's cranium within. In surprise, Hugh drops William, who lands on his knee but quickly stands up again.
William then glows a shade of brown and shuts his eyes once more, causing the earth below Hugh to rise up around his legs and hold him in place. Before he could do anything else, though, Hugh swings his fist, strinking William and sending him to the right. He hit the ground hard and remained there, breathing heavily.
"William!" Ricca exclaims, running toward him. She reached William quickly and kneeled down beside him.
William kept his eyes closed, attempting to steady his breathing.
"William, are you okay?" Ricca asks, lifting his head in her arm and placing her knee underneath.
"…It is no use." William says weakly, slowly opening his eyes to look up at Ricca. "…I am too weakened to use my power to its fullest extent…"
"Well… Wh-what can you do?" Ricca asks. "Nobody here is strong enough to fight that guy but you, but if you keep on fighting…"
"There is no other choice." William says. "I will have to… transfer my power to someone else."
"…Oh." Ricca says. "I thought you were going to say that you'd have to fight him to the death. But yeah, transferring power would be better."
Hugh clenches his fists, the glow of Daachan's eyes visible through the ice. He suddenly yells, and the ice shatters into pieces, hitting the ground around him.
"Very cute…" He mutters angrily.
"I must hurry…" William says.
"Who will you give it to?" Ricca asks.
The entire group in the background immediately raised their hands.
"It must be someone… who has experience in fighting Hugh, and the demon." William says. "Someone who can find their weaknesses."
The group all groan and grumble in disappointment, lowering their hands.
"Oh, crap…" Miro mumbles, knowing what was coming up.
"It… will have to be Miro." William says finally.
"Miro? Why not me?" Ricca asks. "I'm probably a better fighter than him, even without knowing exactly what their weaknesses are."
"You may be correct…" William mutters. "but I cannot bestow you with this power. It would be placing you in a danger which I could not allow. You are a high priority."
Ricca widened her eyes slightly, and then smiled, nodding a bit.
"So… You're putting Miro up instead, just to protect me?" She asks.
"Yes." William says.
"That's… so nice for you to do…" Ricca says softly.
"NO IT'S NOT!" Miro yells.
"I don't think this is the time for low priorities to be talking!" Ricca snaps, looking at the still-sprawled-out Miro. She returns her gaze to William.
"But Miro is hurt, too. Wouldn't he have just as bad a chance as you?" She asks.
"Incorrect…" William replies. "His body will be healed in the transfer."
"Okay. Hurry, we don't have much time." Ricca says. William nods and slowly closes his eyes.
A pure white glow began to emanate around William, very weakly at first, but then increasing in strength. Along with the glow, white sparkles began to escape from William's body. They swirl around him for a while, collecting more and more until they were a large, glowing sphere. As the sparkles escaped William, he began to change. His expressionless face softened, slowly becoming more human, and his hair began to darken from white to brown.
"…Hold on, what the hell am I waiting for?" Hugh asks himself. Quickly, he kicks his legs out to smash the earth that they were trapped in and begins walking to them, smirking.
"Hurry…" Ricca urges. Finally, every last bit of power had left William, and was now floating above them in a large, glowing ball of energy. The ball began to move toward Miro. Hugh noticed this and dashed at it, jumping and trying to punch the sphere. However, as soon as a fist landed, he was hit with a surge of energy from the ball. He winced and fell back, looking up at it angrily.
"Okay, mental note: Don't touch the ball of energy." Hugh says to himself, looking directly at it. "Let's fry it, Daachan!"
With that, the glow of Daachan's eyes intensified, and fired beams much like what the giant Daachan did. However, they simply bounced off, not doing a thing to it. Daachan itself realised something and telepathically gave the message to Hugh.
"…Oh, I get it. Your power and that power are opposite, so you can't hurt each other. But how come it hurt me? …Oh, right, I'm human, so those powers can hurt me. So I should just wait? Okay."
The glowing white sphere made its way to Miro, floating above him. It then came down on Miro in small sparkles like before. Miro began to feel something. He felt… lighter. Somehow less injured. He began to sit up, but once his body was healed, the ball came crashing down on him, resulting in a huge flash of light. The light began to dissipate as its energy seeped into Miro. Once it had done so completely, he was revealed to be standing there, facing Hugh, looking almost the same as he was, but his hair was a less intense red, like it had been mixed in with a bit of white. Also, his eyes seemed sharp, and his skin a slightly paler, yet healthy tone.
"Oh… HELL YES!" He exclaims, a smile planted on his face. "I feel so friggin' cool right now!"
"Umm… Why does he still have emotion?" Elli asks, tilting her head.
"It must be different for different people or something." Cliff replies, quite unsure himself.
"Now… witness my power!" Miro exclaims, planting his feet on the ground and beginning to growl in focus. He continued doing so, as a golden aura surrounded him, and began to intensify. Finally, he let out a shout and his hair became a bright gold, pointing straight upward and-
"QUIT SHOWBOATING!" Kate yells angrily.
"…Sorry." Miro says, the aura vanishing and his hair going back to slightly-lighter-than-normal. He continues looking at Hugh, and decides to try something. Holding one hand out, palm-up, he causes a small sphere of blue light to appear above it. The light solidifies into a normal-sized ball of packed snow, which falls into his palm.
"Heh, you're going to open up with a snowball?" Hugh asks incredulously, his chuckling warped evilly by Daachan's influence.
"'A snowball'?" Miro replies, smirking. He throws the snowball, upward toward Hugh. It was a very high shot, and Hugh's first impression was that he simply missed by a ridiculous amount, but then something very unexpected happened. The snowball suddenly unpacked itself directly above Hugh, revealing at least three tons of powdery snow.
"…Oh." Hugh mutters, the snow suddenly coming down on him all at once, in a huge heap.
"BOO YEAH!" Miro exclaims, shaking his fist in triumph. "It's the opening set, and Miro's up by one big point!"
Just then, two beams of red light shoot out from the snow, hitting Miro directly in the chest. Miro cringes as the beams continue trying to bore into him, and after a moment he staggers out of their way.
"Ooooh…" Miro says, looking down at the two burnt holes now in his shirt. "That smarts…"
"Don't fool around!" Kate warns him. "You don't know how strong Hugh and Daachan are!"
"I've fought them both, how tough could they be together?" Miro asks.
At that moment, the snow pile explodes, revealing Hugh yet again. He didn't seem phased, other than being angrier than he previously was. Daachan's eyes were still blazing, and didn't seem to have lost power due to the beam they had just fired.
"You stupid fool. Don't you get it?" Hugh asks. "You can't beat me! I'm the Alpha Male of Forget-Me-Not Valley!"
"Well, you're defintely a brute…" Miro mutters, getting himself into a ready position.
"And you're a runt!" Hugh retorts. "Now, enough talk, let's finish this for good!"
Slowly, the blurred, faded lights come into focus, and Matthew finds himself on a cold, hard floor, lying partially on top of the still-unconscious Anna. He blinks and attempts to shake some of the grogginess off.
"Ugh… Heh, some party…" He mutters, chuckling. He then recalls what had happened, and gasps. Trying to look around, he notices where he was. He was back at the mall, in a hallway that they hadn't explored yet. The gorge was within distant sight down one end of the hall, as was the gaping hole in the roof that Hugh had created.
"What…? How did…" He wonders to himself, slowly getting up and into a sitting position next to Anna. As he tried to recollect himself and wonder what exactly had happened, Anna slowly began to re-awaken as well. Groaning, she squints her eyes tight and began to shift around. Matthew looks to her, waiting for her to wake up.
Anna finally does, slowly opening her eyes. She sees Matthew, and then looks around, confused.
"Where are we? What are we doing here…?" She asks.
"We're at the mall again." Matthew says. "I'm not sure how, but there's probably some reason… What's the last thing you can remember?"
"Umm… You asking me 'What's the last thing you can remember?'." Anna states.
"…Before that." Matthew says, sighing. "Before we ended up here."
"Oh." Anna says, nodding in understanding. She gets up to a sitting position and thinks for a moment "Umm… Oh, you were flying. You were coming toward me, and then… Oww."
"Oww?" Matthew echoes, confused.
"Yeah. I just remember getting this big bump on my- Yeow!" Anna suddenly exclaims, after pointing to an area of her forehead and accidentally poking a lump that she didn't know was there. Matthew just notices it, too.
"Ooh… Wait, do I have one, too?" He asks. Anna notices a goose-egg that Matthew was also sporting and nods.
"Then I guess we hit into each other…" Anna states.
"Yes…" Matthew agrees. The memory suddenly comes back to him. "Oh, that's right! Hugh, he lifted me and threw me into you!"
"Oh yeah…" Anna says, nodding. "But then he… but then why are we here?"
"I'm not sure…" Matthew says. "But there's no need to worry about it right now. We should get back, I don't know how long we were out for."
"Do you think we're too late?" Anna asks. "I mean, he looked pretty tough, I don't know if they could last a long time…"
"I don't know…" Matthew admits. "But I'm sure that William wouldn't let him hurt anyone."
"But William was really hurt already…" Anna points out. "And he didn't exactly come to your rescue."
"…Maybe he did." Matthew says, looking around once more. "It would make sense… Come on, Anna, we should get back."
The two teens stand up on their feet, stretching a bit before proceeding down the hall opposite the gorge.
As Hugh and Miro began to fight, the rest of the group cleared off to give some space to the competitors. Two people who didn't move, however, were Ricca and William. William had passed out from weakness, but slowly recovered, opening his eyes to Ricca. He gasped, and looked at Ricca intently.
"R-Ricca! I remember everything, I'm so sorry…" He stammers out. Ricca looks at him and smiles.
"Shh, don't worry…" She says. "You're back, and that's all that matters."
"No… No…" Wiliam mutters. "I put the fake orders of my parents above you all… I don't know how I could have been so-"
"You couldn't tell. You didn't know better." Ricca reassures him, calmly stroking his hair. She was acting quite calm; obviously if Miro or someone else had done something along those lines, Ricca would have never forgiven them without some form of harsh punishment.
Thankfully, Miro and Hugh were trading shots a distance away, and were not in any way disturbing this little moment. This, perhaps, was either a random chance, out of respect, or a creeping fear that both competitors had of what Ricca might do to them if they got too close.
"But I… I had control, but I still hurt you. I could have prevented myself from-" William begins. Ricca, not about to allow William to put more stress on himself than he was already going through, quickly cuts him off.
"Will you quit that?" She snaps. "I know for a fact that if you knew of any other way… if you could have seen any way to keep me safe without hurting me, you would!"
"But-"
"Even if you're not sure, I am!" Ricca says, sounding quite strong of her opinion. "You never showed it, but I saw the real you in there…"
"…You believe that…" William says, almost in a questioning tone. Lowering his gaze, he thought for a moment. He himself, with his re-discovered emotion, was very surprised that Ricca could be so forcefully forgiving. Of course, being forceful was well within her nature…
"Yes, William, I do…" Ricca says. She gave a smirk, the kind that she gave when she acted like the usual Ricca. "I mean, you're way too much of a softie to hurt me too badly."
William chuckled weakly, and looked up to Ricca. A smile was now etched onto his face, which was risky for him to do because after not smiling for weeks, he could've very well pulled a muscle.
"Ricca… Why are you being like this?" William asks, the question deciding to bring itself up. "You're not usually like this, not around other people for sure…"
"…You're not other people." Ricca replies, her smirk becoming a warmer smile. "You're a high priority."
"Heh… That much I managed to get through…" William states. "And I wasn't kidding… Ricca, I… I think it's time that I said… I-"
"I get the idea." Ricca reassures him. "If you didn't, would we have had all of those talks? Those meetings? That moment at the Fireworks Festival… By the way, Matthew saw us at a lot of those, it seems…"
"What? Oh, great…" William mutters. "I suppose we should hurt him badly once we find him…"
"Yes." Ricca agrees. Slowly, casually, she leans a bit closer to William. "But right now… Let's have a talk…"
"Good idea…" William agrees, and with lack of being able to raise his own head, allowing and helping Ricca to do so.
"A close talk…" Ricca adds softly. After a moment, a mere three inches separated their faces when…
"GANGWAY!" Miro yells as he is sent flying toward the two at a ridiculous speed, most likely from some attack of Hugh's. Ricca gasps and makes a quick decision.
"…Oh screw it!" She says, quickly lowering her head and meeting lips with William. This had killed two birds with one stone, by both finally kissing William and ducking under Miro's flailing body.
That… helped speed things up… William thinks to himself, shutting his eyes and hoping that this moment wouldn't have to be interrupted again.
As this time of unbounded emotion occurred, Hugh was stepping toward Miro again, with Ricca and William right in the middle.
"Hey, kiddies, unlock those lips!" He demands, continuing to walk forward. "We're fighting here!"
Miro, having quickly recovered from the blow he had suffered a moment ago, happily used his newfound powers in a display of physical ability that he definitely did not have otherwise. He made a bounding leap over Ricca and William, with a front flip added for style, and landed a few meters in front of them, facing Hugh.
"Leave them alone!" He warns. "If you disturb them, you're not going to live!"
"Yeah? And what're you going to do?" Hugh asks, smirking.
"That's not what I mean." Miro corrects him. "If you ruin this moment, Ricca will surely kill us all!"
"Pssh, please…"Hugh mutters. He takes one more step forward, but is quickly met by Ricca's penetating glare, coming from the eye that Hugh could see. He stops, and seems to consult mentally with Daachan for a moment.
"…Okay, maybe you're right." He finally says. "The power of a mean teenage girl might just be a threat to us…"
"I thought you'd agree." Miro says. He quickly gets into a fighting stance again.
The rest of the group, having heard this even from the safe distance they were at, seemed a bit confused.
"…Why would Hugh be concerned of what a normal girl could do to him?" Kate asks, trying to think up any good reason.
"Hmm…" Gray begins, putting a hand to his chin and lowering his cap in thought. "…It's like that… that thing, the eyes, what's it's name…"
"Daachan." Nami says.
"Daachan then…" Gray says, nodding. "It's more like it's concerned with the matter…"
"Yes, it is…" Mary says in agreement, also beginning to think. "It's as though Daachan itself wants to keep away from Ricca. The jock boy-"
"Hugh." Kate corrects her.
"Okay, Hugh…" Mary says. "Hugh seemed fine with it until Daachan told him something…"
But back to the cool part, Hugh was also putting himself into a fighting stance.
"You should give up." He says. "We're tougher than you, even with Whitey's power, and you know it!"
"You're a crappy liar, Hugh. We're on equal terms. The Goddess gave just enough power to equal Daachan, and I have just enough smarts to equal your strength. Besides, what can I say?" Miro says, his eyes narrowing and a determined grin spreading across his face. "I'm stubborn."