Aryl slammed backwards into the wall of a building, groaning as she tumbled towards the ground below her. Miriella managed to catch herself, just barely, before she would have flown over the same building, and stood shakily on the roof, trying to catch her breath as she coughed.
Katiya growled and threw a punch towards Jeredeau. Unfortunately, the energy summoned to her gauntlets bounced right off Jeredeau and the light-element threw the mermaid backwards with a flick of her hand. Anayis caught her friend before she could slam into anything hard.
Aryl struggled up to her feet, gasping as a sharp pain shot through her probably-broken ankle. She lifted herself into the air so she didn't have to stand on her hurt leg and drew her gun out, concentrating on calling extra energy to it. She sent the blast off towards Jeredeau, and it clipped her in the shoulder. The light spirit turned, a glare on her face.
"Did you expect that to hurt?" she asked, incredulous.
"Yes." Aryl said, before cursing as Jeredeau threw energy towards her. She was ready for it this time as she dodged out of the way and started rapid-firing purple energy bullets towards the element.
"Aryl, watch out!" Miriella shouted in a very panicked tone as a blue crescent of energy flew towards the amethyst princess's back. Aryl dropped herself out of the air, managing to avoid getting hit besides her hair getting a bit singed and then turned around to see who had attacked her, only to see Kiri floating there, her eyes pure white and her katana glowing.
"Jeredeau!" Miriella shouted, turning to glare at the light spirit, "This is your doing, isn't it?!"
"Oh big whoop." Jeredeau rolled her eyes, "A lot is my doing, are you really surprised?"
Miriella growled, flying at Jeredeau, who charged up another light blast and threw it at her, sending her flying backwards with a scream.
"Miriella!" Aryl shouted, as she dove out of the way of another slash of Kiri's katana. Aryl flew towards the diamond princess, tackling her to the roof of one of the buildings, "Kiri, snap out of it!"
The diamond princess just snarled and kicked Aryl, pushing her off and flying into the air, charging up another blast. She didn't get a chance to do anything with it, though, because a moment later she was hit in the back by an arrow of energy and she flew back towards the roof. Aryl squeaked and dodged out of the way, and the diamond princess crashed into the roof, unconscious.
"Kiri!" Aryl shouted, surprised, crawling over, but her ankle wouldn't let her move too fast. The amethyst princess checked her friend's pulse and confirmed she was okay before lifting herself into the air and flying to thank Anayis and try and attack Jeredeau again.
Katiya, meanwhile, put the unconscious Miriella down on a different roof to recover and flew back towards the other two conscious mermaids.
"We're going to get our asses kicked if we don't get backup soon." Aryl said, dodging out of the way of a light blast and sending off another barrage of purple energy bullets towards the vengeful light spirit.
Katiya had learned her lesson and didn't try to punch Jeredeau again. She flew up, high above where Anayis and Aryl were keeping Jeredeau occupied (but not much more than that) and scanned the skies for any sign of incoming help.
It only took a moment for her to notice someone on their way. Caren flew back towards them, Madison and Coco right behind her. Madison gasped and immediately flew into the battle, putting her hand into the pouch at her side and drawing out two dark red energy knives. She threw them at the light spirit and flew in Aryl's direction.
"Maddie!" Aryl shouted, surprised, swooping over.
"Caren said you were in trouble, but this isn't exactly what I expected!" Madison said, dodging to the side to avoid a light blast, "What happened to Kiri?! And Miriella?!"
Aryl shook her head, "Ignore Kiri for now, and Miriella will be fine." She said, "Watch out!" Aryl pulled Madison down to avoid another light blast and growled, shooting Jeredeau a few more times.
"Nothing we do is doing anything!" Anayis said, flying up beside Aryl and lowering her bow.
Aryl frowned, "If Lexia was here and Miriella was awake we could try full power, but…"
Anayis glanced at the two idol mermaids floating to the side with no idea what they could do to help. "Hold on, I have an idea." She flew over to them and Aryl glanced at Madison, who shrugged.
"Keep her distracted! Katiya, come help me!" Anayis shouted. Katiya flew towards Anayis and the two warrior mermaids flew at Jeredeau.
XXXX
Noel breathed a slight sigh of relief as Orfio appeared in front of her, an eyebrow raised.
"You know, there are other, better, ways to get my attention than shouting at the sky and hoping I'm listening." He said, glancing her over.
"This is kind of important!" Noel snapped, "Jeredeau has Kiri- maybe more mermaids! Possibly including Lycoris."
Orfio blinked, then cursed, "Milli doesn't-"
"She has no idea, yet." Noel sighed, "We can't tell her- she'll freak out."
"I know." Orfio said, shutting his eyes. A moment later he opened them and cursed, flying away from Noel. Noel's eyes widened and she chased after him.
"Orfio, where are you going?!" Noel shouted after him, struggling to keep up with his speed.
"Jeredeau's in town, fighting." Orfio said simply. Noel's eyes widened even further and she continued to fly after him.
Suddenly Orfio stopped quickly, managing to, just barely, not hit Lexia as he flew.
"Watch where you're going!" Lexia shouted, annoyance and stress evident on her face.
"Jeredeau's in town, you should-"
"I KNOW she's in town!" Lexia snapped at him, "I happen to be flying to get the rest of our miniature army and I'm kind of hoping that they're all in the same general area!"
Orfio moved to the side, "Noel, go with Lexia and help her. I'll go make sure everyone fighting right now is okay."
Noel nodded, "Make sure no harm comes to Lycoris or Milli'll have your head."
"Don't I know it. Be careful." Orfio took off again and Noel turned to Lexia.
"There's really no time for introductions right now, so lead the way." Noel said.
Lexia nodded and took off, Noel on her heels- Lexia was much easier to keep up with than Orfio.
XXXX
Edur sat by the window in Milli's house and frowned. He was (finally) fully recovered, but something felt wrong. He couldn't tell what it was, but he felt like something was going on or happening and he had no control over it. He walked out of the bedroom he'd been in and into the kitchen, where Milli was standing, silent.
"Milli?" Edur asked, frowning. The lightning element looked up at him.
"Oh, hey. Feeling better?" Milli asked.
Edur nodded, "Yeah. I'm gonna head down to Tokyo for a bit, okay?" he asked.
Milli nodded, "Sure. I'll come with you- there's something I want to check on." She had a pained frown on her face, and Edur frowned as well.
"Is everything alright?" he asked.
"I hope so." Milli said, shutting her eyes and teleporting both of them, "I really hope so." She said, once they appeared.
Edur glanced around, "Hey, we're not far from Kiri's." he said.
"To Kiri's we head, then." Milli nodded, and the two started walking, ignoring the stares from random citizens of Tokyo due to their strange color schemes.
Once they reached the apartment complex that Kiri lived in, Edur headed towards the stairs, Milli only a few steps behind him.
"Edur! Milli!" A voice shouted, and suddenly Rayza ran into view. Edur turned.
"Hey, Rayza." He said.
"Downtown- it's Jeredeau!" Rayza said, "You two should go help- I have to go get more people before I head there."
Milli glanced at Edur and the two of them nodded, "Right, see you there."
Rayza nodded and took off again as Edur and Miriella ran towards the scene of the battle.
XXXX
"You sure this is going to work?" Caren glanced at her microphone apprehensively as Katiya tried to explain something to her.
"No idea." Katiya admitted, "But it's better than nothing, right?"
"I suppose…" Caren frowned.
"It'd be better if your entire team was here, but I can attempt to stand in for your missing member." Anayis said, unstrapping her microphone and putting her bow away.
Coco nodded, "Okay."
Anayis nodded to Katiya who squeezed Anayis's hands for good luck and took off towards the two still-fighting warrior mermaids. The dual-mermaid shut her eyes for just a moment. When she opened them, ready to begin singing, Orfio and Noel came into view.
Anayis relaxed just slightly and turned to the two idols behind her.
"Wait here, I'll be right back." She said, flying in Orfio's direction. Noel spied her two teammates and frowned.
"Noel, I know Milli's told you about it, so go help those two hurt Jeredeau, 'kay?" Orfio asked the idol mermaid as he saw Anayis flying towards him. Noel sighed softly and nodded, flying towards her sister and the yellow princess. Anayis threw her arms around Orfio.
"You're here!"
"Of course." Orfio smirked, before pushing her lightly away from him, "This isn't any time for this- come on."
Anayis nodded, "Does she know what to do?" she asked Orfio, gesturing towards Noel.
Orfio nodded back, "Yeah, Milli would have taught her."
"Good." Anayis said, strapping her microphone back on her belt and grabbing her bow and arrow as Orfio flew up towards Jeredeau.
"Ah, my counterpart." Jeredeau said, stopping her barrage of attacks on the exhausted Aryl and Madison.
"Remember that little conversation we had awhile ago, about you choosing your heir?" Orfio asked, crossing his arms.
"Well, of course." Jeredeau said.
"I suggest you think fast." With that, Orfio threw a blast of darkness towards her. She quickly countered with a light blast and ducked down, flying towards Katiya, who was ready with a punch. The punch didn't really do anything, but it did manage to distract her long enough for Orfio to hit her with a dark blast.
Jeredeau turned in his direction, angry, and threw a hand up in the air, a portal opening below them. Out of it flew a very possessed Lycoris and Rina.
Madison's eyes widened, "Oh no." she muttered.
"Rina!" Miriella's voice rang through the air- she'd managed to get on her feet, and though she didn't leave the rooftop, she could clearly see her possessed friend about to attack Aryl.
"You take blondie, I've got Rina!" Aryl said to Madison, who nodded, leading Lycoris away from the battle at hand.
Orfio glared sharply at Jeredeau who simply smirked, holding a hand out towards Kiri and waking the mermaid up.
Kiri, still quite possessed, flew towards Katiya, effectively causing all three mermaids to be distracted by trying to knock-out-without-hurting three other mermaids. Anayis was the only attack-enabled mermaid left, and she had no idea how she was supposed to help when her arrows continued to do no harm to the light spirit.
"Anayis, go try and heal Miriella." Orfio said.
Anayis glanced up at Orfio, before nodding and flying towards Miriella, leaving Orfio to face Jeredeau alone for a bit.
"I have been looking forward to this for a very long time, Orfio." Jeredeau said, staring her counterpart down.
Orfio cracked his knuckles, "You have no idea how long I've wanted to punch that little face of yours in."
Jeredeau charged up a light blast and Orfio a darkness blast and the battle of elements began.
This seemed like a really good place to end the chapter, sooooo…. Here you go!
Lots of battling in this. I'm really REALLY sorry for how long it took to get out, but I don't think I spelled anyone's name wrong this time! (Big deal.)
It took forever to edit because I was really busy, and it took so long to write because of both busyness and the fact that battles take me ages to get right. For a chapter mostly made up of fighting, 6 months is standard. --;;
But there is good news! I'm determined to do one thing over my vacation, which lasts for two more weeks, and that is to work my butt off and update this at least one more time, if not two. If things go well, I'd like to have the Jeredeau saga done by February. Hopefully. (Last time I said something like this… well, it didn't happen. No promises.)
Next chapter: More fighting! Yay!
While this saga has focused mostly on Jeredeau and getting stronger to beat her, the next one is going to focus more on inner strength and insecurity. I've got the basics planned out, and I'm really itching to write it. I think you guys will like it. =D Don't worry though, there's still going to be fighting- after all, this fic has warrior princesses in it for a reason.
Drop me a review and let me know what you thought! (And threaten me with bodily harm if the next chapter isn't done in two weeks, kay?)