A Witch's Recharge!
"Being shot in the foot hurts, doesn't it?" mocked Michael as he remained in his spot. Originally he had to get closer to Marburg and Melody to make the shot, due to Spectra holding him in place, but due to Marburg's rather uncontrolled and random attacks, he had positioned himself close enough to Michael, where he could one or two quick shots in.
Marburg's eyes grew wide and a smile spread across his face. He had found someone to replenish his source of magic with. "Little girl, is your name Spectra?"
Spectra looked up from her spot, firmly attached to Michaels' foot, and over at Marburg, "Ye-yes," stuttered Spectra. Was this the witch Foreman, Iblis, and Grecko were trying to reawaken? Spectra's eyes remained locked on Marburg as he smiled. Despite the friendly smile and the nicest of introductions, Spectra could just feel the dangerous aura that surrounded him. It wasn't even like she was surrounded in water either, his aura was more like rock. As if his aura was encasing everyone around him in a marble coat. It was thick, heavy, and suffocating.
"Come here," commanded Marburg while curling and uncurling his index finger. Despite his almost honey-like tone and pleasant disposition it was obvious that it was a command and should be treated as such.
"Ye-yes sir," replied Spectra, despite the fact that she didn't want to. The terrified portion of her brain was commanding and taking over the reasonable portion of her brain, that told her to run and never stop running. She was under Marburg's complete and total control thought Spectra as she slowly began to slide from her spot and over to Marburg.
"NOW!" shouted Marburg, his voice rising with anger. Spectra whimpered, but began to slider faster over to Marburg, her fear propelling her forward with great speed. Marburg smiled, he reached outwards about to grasp Spectra's little head when he felt a sudden and powerful blow to the side of his head. Marburg was lifted off of his feet and into the air. His body was carried sideways by the force of the unexpected blow, he collapsed onto the floor.
Ash landed carefully onto the ground his fist, with Xander's heavy metal gauntlet supporting it, had smashed into Marburg's face, forcing him away from Spectra, while inflicting one nasty wound, "Whatever you guys do, we cannot let him get a hold of her!" shouted Ash, he wasn't sure how Marburg was planning to do it, but he knew that they shouldn't let it happen under any circumstances.
"Why?" asked Xander, "what do we care about if Marburg embraces the little girl, I don't care if the old man is pedophile. He's dead either way." His reflection in the blade was the epitome of arrogance and ignorance.
"He is not a…" began Ash before he froze thinking about Xander's use of word, "he is not a pedophile. Remember what Iblis mentioned? She mentioned something about feeling drained after spending some time releasing Marburg from the Prison Jar. Then the Prison Jar sealed his magic away, my guess is about 3000 years in a jar without nourishment didn't exactly aid his magic reproduction. Chances are he simply drained magic from Iblis, Foreman, and the other witch…so now he's planning on recharging."
"We go from shooting a little girl to shooting an old man," muttered Michael as he looked over in Marburg's direction as the witch once again rose to his feet, "man, are our morals screwed up." Michael sighed as he lifted his bow back up and carefully aimed at Marburg.
May's reflection grimaced, "its not like its our fault…they both attacked us first…besides now we are protecting a little girl!" She tried to reason with their rather barbaric and somewhat twisted approach to this dilemma.
"Say what you want," said Shi as Melody sent the yo-yo driving for Marburg's feet. Marburg jumped backwards and upwards avoiding the spinning blades as it swept beneath him. "I'm not interested in protecting the little girl," continued Shi as he recoiled back to Melody's had, "I'm just interested in kicking this guy's ass."
Marburg cackled as he looked down upon his new opponents, "really? You think you'll be able to 'kick my ass'? What stupidity! But don't worry I'll CURE you of your stupidity once and for all once I am fully recharged." Marburg returned his attention to Spectra, "Spectra! Get over here now!" Spectra's eyes widened with fear, as once again she began her slow approach to Marburg.
"Not so fast!" shouted Melody. Shi's flaming string shot down the path in between Spectra and Marburg. The blazing barrier successfully keeping them separated from each other. Marburg grimaced as he saw Spectra flinch backwards at the insanely powerful and scorching flames before him.
"Never mind!" shouted Marburg, "if you won't come to me, I'll go to you!" He sent himself flying from his spot over to Spectra.
Ash jumped into Marburg's path, blocking him. "How sweet of you," mocked Xander, "you saved us the trouble of going over to you to knock you out!" Ash brought his arm and straight down on top Marburg's head, smashing Marburg into the rocky terrain below.
"Pesky little insects!" shouted Marburg as he brought his body back up with amazing speed. He reached out and gripped Ash's throat. "Can't you just sit still and wait for me to infect you! Its like watching kids fight over who was first in the line for the coliseum, you are all going to see a man die anyways so stop annoying me!" Marburg began to slowly tighten his grip on Ash's throat as he watched him squirm.
"GET…YOUR DIRTY HANDS…OFF OF MY PARTNER!" shouted Xander as the gauntlet lit up once again. The metal gauntlet transformed into a Xander's human form, Xander quickly brought his leg around into Marburg's face. Marburg laughed it off.
Marburg's hand soon shot out once more and wrapped itself around Xander's throat, "a weapon that thought that he could actually harm me? Did you fall asleep in the class that your obviously terrible teacher taught you that weapons are weaker then meisters? If your partner couldn't harm me, what makes you think you can!"
"What about this!" shouted Michael as he let another arrow fly through the air and into Marburg's cheek. Marburg remained perfectly still even as the arrow began to burrow into his face and disappear.
"What about what?" asked Marburg as he turned his attention to Michael, "your Soul Wavelengths are nothing in comparison to your teachers and even he wound up short. Even together you have no hope of inflicting any real wound." Marburg smiled as he tossed both Xander and Ash aside and onto the ground. He bent down and grabbed onto Shi's string, regardless of the flames. He grimaced in pain, his weakened body was still being affected by such attacks, but he ignored it. He lifted the burning string above his head and reached past it, finally grabbing hold of Spectra.
"Finally…you will all be plagued by this failure for years to come…considering I don't kill you all!" A white light began flowing off of Spectra. The white light shot of her body, almost immediately transforming into luminescent light green aura. This light green aura shot right back into Marburg's body, refueling his body.
"Don't you just hate it in a video game when you almost kill the bad guy and then he just heals himself again?" said Ash as he watched Marburg's body become a glow with the new green energy.
"I don't what you are talking about," said Xander, "Cause I actually got a life. I don't sit around and play video games like you." Ash shot Xander an annoyed look.
Another green ball of fog began to gather in Marburg's right hand while his left hand still held onto Spectra who he was still draining. He smiled as he eyed each of the students individually. "Such a sad ending for you all. If the circumstances were different, we may have actually have been friends…too bad I'll have to kill you all."
"Looks like you just got a big ball of gas to me," mocked Shi, although he knew full well of how dangerous that thing was. "And why the hell would we be your friend, you big worthless bag of…" Shi was going to continue but Melody interrupted him.
"Don't worry," reassured Melody, "based on his last throw, we can probably assume it won't explode until it hits something so as long as we dodge it, we should be safe." Not only that but Saul was able to intercept it meaning that its speed probably wasn't so great.
"Of course," said Marburg, "compare my last wimpy ball of fog to this one. I'll tell you this much, the power I had before is nothing compared to the power I have now."
"Yeah, right," stated Melody, still fuming at Marburg because of her teachers' deaths, "last time you sucked magic out of Iblis, Foreman, and a third witch…you expect us to fear you when you are sucking it out of a little witch? It makes no sense…three witches have more power then one."
"Wrong," boomed Marburg, "before I had to leave Foreman, Iblis, and Grecko with enough energy to be able to transport me out of here…so I drained about 50% of each of their energy…however, that idea has flown the coop…so I decided to drain 99.9% of young Spectra's energy…she'll still live, but she probably won't wake up for about a month. Finally, you forgot to factor in the fact that she is a younger witch…she is still at the peak age of magic to be flowing into her body…she has more magic stored in her body then Foreman, Iblis, and Grecko did!" Spectra let out another scream of agony as the color drained from her face.
A flurry of arrows shot through the air all of them aimed at Marburg. They all drove through the air and pounded into Marburg forcing him backwards, but his grip on Spectra didn't diminish. Michael quickly created another salvo of arrows and aimed at Marburg again, "drop the girl."
Marburg smiled as he eyed the archer and the bow, both of them staring confidently at him. "Wanna fight?" asked Marburg, "I already showed you what I could do…" another arrow whizzed through the air and sliced at his cheek, "not even going to let me…" a third arrow this time it inched closer to the center of his face.
"He said 'drop the girl'," reiterated May, sternly, "if you don't do as he say we're going to keep shooting you." Michael loaded another arrow and carefully aimed for Marburg's face.
"You can shoot at me all you like," invited Marburg, "but its not going to change a single thing…" another arrow came loose from Michael's bow, flying straight for Marburg. This time Marburg dodged to the side, letting the arrow skim past him. If he hadn't had dodged the arrow would've shot him in the eye.
"Can't make your eyes any tougher then anybody else's," explained Melody, "it was either dodge or have eyeball shish kabob."
Marburg turned his attention to Melody about to speak, but as soon as he did he immediately turned his attention to Ash and Xander as they made a clean slash with their blade. Marburg jerked his arm upwards, but he couldn't avoid the blade completely. The blade made contact with Marburg's arm, slicing it open and leaving it with a nasty wound, but not severing it like planned.
"Shit," cursed Marburg as he examined his left arm, "trying to distract me where you can slice my arm open and force me to drop Spectra? Tsk, tsk, tsk…I guess Foreman was right…you guys truly have no respect…" Marburg smashed the large green ball of fog that was floating in his right arm. The ball exploded filling the room with the same noxious gas that infected Saul.
"Shit," coughed Melody, "guys hold your breath." Melody began spinning her yo-yo around her in her the air, trying to create a whirlwind to blow the fog away from her. But the fog was thick and heavy and remained floating in the air, probably due to its magical properties.
"That's not working," muttered Ash, "I guess our only option is to knock him out before this gas does the same thing to us as it did Saul." Ash charged forward at Marburg, he made a single punching motion bringing his fist through the fog and at Marburg's arm once again. Marburg jerked his arm back almost instinctively as he brought his right leg around. Marburg smashed his right leg into Ash's side, kicking him to the side. Ash quickly returned to his feet.
Michael fired a single round of fast shots at Marburg. Marburg dodged each arrow with the utmost grace and speed. Marburg grinned widely as he dashed forward, closing the gap between himself and golem archer. Marburg quickly struck out with the palm of his hand slamming it into Michael's chest, forcing the air out of his body. Michael fell backwards, gasping for breath in the poison-filled room.
May was flung out of Michael's hand and her bow chimed against the stone floor as she let out a horror-filled scream, "MICHAEL!"
AHEM! That was fun. Well, for me and the readers at least. Michael, May, Melody, Shi, Ash, Xander, Saul, Rochelle, and Spectra, probably felt that this was one of the worst days of their lives. Well, unless one of them is masochist (like Ash maybe? Nah, he's not…or at least as far as I know). Be prepared this arc ends here! (Here being the next chapter, or maybe the one after that).
Also, I'm thinking about adding a fourth pair to the group. Any thoughts?