Drowned By The Messenger
It was a dark, cold night where Claire with Socrates, Adrian, Lisa and Lucy found themselves at a school in Australia combating against sphere's made of water chasing them and casting powerful magic that consisted of the water element. The spheres were about the size of an average watermelon but as they came into contact with student lockers, it was apparent that they were heavy in build as well. Two were chasing Claire and Lucy in the corridors as they were basically running for their lives. Socrates dealt with those in one wing of the school, while Adrian and Lisa dealt with separate wings and levels of the school as these magical spherical creatures appeared in masses. Andre and Mark ventured around the areas of the city and the local beaches of Melbourne searching for clues of where the next Astral Beast was. But after their orders, Andre only spent a brief 10 minutes around the city and returned to their hotel, working out at the gym, while Mark was nowhere to be found in the night. May herself stayed at the hotel rooms, supposing to be at their call, whenever they needed her but she disconnected the hotel phone and watched the high definition TV with lifestyle shows that revolved around issues about fashion and how to become a supermodel and their dramas.
"Why are we at a school running for our lives from stupid little balls of water!" Lucy yelled out, never imagining the thought of this coming to reality. "I can't take this anymore, we have to confront them Lucy we can't run away all the time!" Claire stopped facing the spheres, with her wand in attacking position. But as they made their way towards her, the spheres looked much more bigger that before. One shot out fast jets of water, while the other cast water walls that were heading at both Lucy's and Claire's direction. The water walls rose up high and fast, one by one and they were getting closer and closer to the girls' direction. Claire decided that it wasn't the best time to confront them and caught up to Lucy in her pursuit of escaping the battle. "Think that running isn't the best option now?" Lucy said, with snark knowing that she was right.
"It looks like this corridor is going to end soon and their water walls are getting closer, we are going to have to find another solution." Claire yelled, realizing that there were stairs at the end of the corridor. "We'll go to the next level and plan our attack from up there." Claire suggested.
"Anything's fine with me as long as we don't have to keep running away from balls that shoot water at us all the time!" Lucy agreed, in a very comical tone.
As they got up the stairs, they felt relieved, as it seemed that they have lost the water spheres. Then BANG, an upheaval of a large water penetrated through the second level's floors from under. "Looks like your wish is far from reality Lucy…" Claire said with deep regret, she was disappointed from another round of running in the corridors to evade the assaults of water that was directed at them.
It was now two by two, that the bursts of water from below penetrated through the marbled floors of the school, Lucy screaming hysterically in fear of the water getting closer and closer.
"I just bought this dress from the designer shop at the city! And now it's getting all wet." Lucy wore an elegant pink silk dress that proved to be expensive attire buying it for $1200 at a shop in the fashion districts of Melbourne. It was short cut and paired with her high-heeled boots that were a leather navy blue, she found her legs uncontrollably shivering in the cold. Her legs dripping from the unbelievably cold water that was struck at her by the sphere's got her incredibly mad and gave Claire an irritating headache due to Lucy's constant complaints. As they ran the opposite direction compared to last time on the first level of the school in the corridors, Claire could see Lisa finishing off water sphere's with her gun, aiming bright lights that eventually dispersed the spheres up with one bullet.
"DUCK!" Lisa yelled out to Claire and Lucy, Claire directly following her orders while Lucy finding incredibly hard to "duck" for cover. "But I'm wearing this leather high-heeled boots!" she cried out. "Just get down for cover!" Lisa yelled back, as her plan was wearing thin from Lucy's reluctance. Lucy, humourously tumbled down on the floor accidentally rather than purposely getting down low as Lisa requested. Lisa witnessed this, shrugging her shoulders. "Good enough." She said to herself. As the water spheres drew closer, Lisa drew out 2 bigger guns, putting her regular alchemy gun inside her pocket. She reloaded them with bullets, massive in size and stretched her neck, twisting in all directions. After her warm up, she aimed the guns towards the spheres. "Hasta la vista… Baby!" she said, before firing her shots, creating mini explosions as the bullets were in contact with the spheres. The spheres were destroyed to little drops of water, which eventually soaked both Claire and Lucy's clothes. "You got my clothes wet! Great one Lisa." Lucy said in sarcasm, disappointed that her pink silk dress was now completely wet.
:"You really only wanted us to duck just to say that one line right?" Claire said, with joking around with Lisa's intent.
"Well every moment has to have a great scene in it." Lisa said coolly, blowing the smoke off the top, pouting her lips and shaking her hair with her fingers as if she was modelling her victory. "Girls!" Lisa announced to grab their attention. "The way to defeat this water spheres is to strike an object inside their core. Beyond their watery bodies is a core that once struck defunct their systems and dispels their water… Eventually they just turn into the dead cores that they truly are." The girls nodded their head, preparing for the next possible upcoming attack. Lucy readied out her fan, while Claire kept her wand in attacking mode constantly.
"Let's go girls."
Adrian from the top floor ran to the second floor, wondering what all the commotion was all about. "Girls! What's going on? I just heard explosions occurring here."
"Don't worry Adrian, us girls can take care of ourselves." Lisa replied. Lucy smiling, a glint of her teeth can be seen while Claire was jumping and continuing along ready for attack.
Soon, a dozen water spheres began appearing from the other side of the corridors. "Everyone ready? Charlie?" Lisa faced Adrian. "Angels?" she then faced the two girls beside her. The 3 nodded in reply. "Then lets go… Full Throttle", the four posing as if it was a movie sequence. Lisa firing from her gun rapidly, Lucy throwing her fan across (unbelievably not ruined after in contact with Lisa's bullets or Claire and Adrian's magic) and Claire and Adrian summoning beams directed at the water spheres. Explosions of the spheres then created the corridor to be drenched with water, water levels going at ankle height for a few brief seconds until the water was eventually lead down due to the stairs.
Lisa than giving high fives to both the girls but was still reluctant to give one towards Adrian. Adrian smiled shaking his head and then gave her a high five. Lisa too, was joyed and then concluded the celebration by giving him a hug.
"You're clothes are wet." She said, laughing.
"And yet you seem to intent to keep yourself bone dry" he said in return, in amusement
The four regrouped with Socrates, who apparently was calling for help when he was surrounded by the water spheres. As the four cleared them off, Socrates hugged them with deep affection; it was a sign of him being extremely happy with gratitude.
"These sphere's keep coming, it doesn't look like we can get rid of all of them cause there are too much!" Lucy complained, Claire, Lisa and Adrian rolling their eyes as she did this.
"I believe that there is a key with these spheres. There must be a core, and I believe the only place that we haven't looked is the school hall." Socrates told.
"So shall we take a look then?" Adrian suggested, the 4 nodding their head in agreement. As they opened the two wide wooden doors of the school hall, they were struck with fear of the massive water sphere that nearly took up all the space, but despite the other miniature water spheres, this one appeared to only remain stationary, however also had pathways stuck to the wall that held it up. The smaller spheres were produced and released from those paths.
"How are we going to get rid of THAT thing Lisa? That body of water is so large that it doesn't look like any of our magic can penetrate through the thing!" Claire said in shock.
"Oh no incoming!" Lucy alerted, as plenty of water sphere were striking towards them, but unlike before, they approached them with full impact as if they were bombs. The group split up, as the water spheres were apparent on going on direction.
"What are we going to do?" Lucy yelled out, her yell echoing loudly in the hall and even creating a bit of ripples on the huge sphere.
"Her yells can even penetrate water…" Socrates muttered.
The group couldn't find a solution to the problem. Lucy's fan eventually got stuck inside the large sphere, rendering her attacks useless. Adrian, Socrates and Claire's attempts seemed pretty useless into aiming for the core as well and surprisingly Lisa's effective bullets with the small water spheres were ineffective against the giant sphere. Lisa, outraged with this accidentally shot off-target, hitting the pathways and even destroying it, causing the large sphere to lean on one side.
And then there it was, the answer to defeating the large sphere. It occurred to Lisa that if they were to destroy all the paths, then the sphere will drop on the floor, making way for targeting the core and destroying the beast.
"Everyone! We have to destroy those pathways that are attached to the wall in order to defeat it! Trust me."
The group agreed and then aimed their magic and attacks at the pathways. As all the paths were destroyed, Lisa's theory proved correct as the sphere then dropped to the school hall's floor and was defeated. Though because of the quantity of the water, high water levels in the hall were reached and the water eventually being released from the two doors at the entrance of the hall being opened. Everyone tried to hold onto something and they struggled in their pursuit to resist the flow of the water, however they managed and at the end they looked around the school high seeing such ruin that was made from the flood of water.
The large core in the end appeared to be a canoe that was split in half after it was dropped to the floor. However a large silhouette of the canoe remained floating where it was from the start. Small strands of the silhouette flew towards Claire, eventually going inside her from the chest, Claire fell unconscious and eventually she developed large and dark bat-like wings.
Lucy, seeing her fan on the floor on the far side of the hall ran towards it and grabbed it in her hands. She closed her eyes and clasped her hands together, with the fan opened in front of her. With this, the dark strands let go of Claire and then went towards Lucy's direction, her taking in the darkness instead of Claire. "Why does the shadows go to Claire now?" she thought, when the ritual finished.
Claire fell to the floor, Adrian catching her and as she woke her eyes were now the same as in the airplane. They were purple with shattered darkness travelling around. Claire blinked, and then they were gone. Adrian let out side smile.
The group exited the hall, knowing that there was nothing they could to do repair the damage caused. The first thing they realized is that as the cool winds were rushing in the night, they were extremely cold and in need of heat badly. Lucy, as usual found time to complain about this issue, but unlike most times, everyone else found room to complain as well. Their yells almost sounded like wolves to strangers who passed by the school after midnight. In the end the group persisted and stayed at the school waiting till morning to move, the headmaster shocked to see what he saw at is school.
"You call this getting rid of the bandits?" he shouted towards them. "You almost destroyed the hall!" The headmaster looked around the corridors and saw how wet inside the student lockers and classrooms were. In the end, he called off the school day due to "Destruction" and the many students who go there rejoiced in their sudden day off that they heard from phone calls. Others who received the news when they reached the school were disgusted that the news wasn't mentioned earlier and how they went all the way to school just to hear that.
"Can you explain the meaning of this?" the headmaster said, yelling his lungs out.
"Lets just say, we gave those bandits a hard time. And they wont be coming back to the school… Ever." Adrian said with charm and smiling cheekily.
As they finished their round, apparently clearing up the "Night Bandits" for the school, everyone but Claire made their way back to the hotel rooms. Claire on the other hand requested that she needed some time alone, passing a beach. Then, her amulet reacted and there at the beach she saw a woman standing in the sands fully clothed. The woman looked back to Claire, with a sad face and then dropped to the water, her body floating away… and eventually disappearing.