Sunday, 4 November 2018, Glastonbury, England
After Marianne's mission in bringing the crystal ball to Arcturus, things would be with an even better communication and running less risks of the girls being caught, which even so they would still have to be safe in relation to the return of Leclerc that had been attacked the day before, having to return the next day to the mansion, soon after taking the time to train with the other girls, where she was a little exhausted, but she could notice that the difference there was very clear in power, in such a short time they were all with a much better use of magic and in general strength.
At the end of the training, she takes a potion as well as takes a rest, eating a little, while Laura goes talking to Bernadette about the transport back, in this case the van that would bring the Frenchwoman back home.
" Whew... I don't know how you guys put up with training like this every day, I just died," Marianne said.
" It's a worthwhile training, we will need it if we are to survive the invasion of the cultists' base " Diana said.
" It's tough, but worth it, we had no idea how strong we were, but now you can really get a good idea, wow... " Akko said impressed.
" And now that Mari has faced one of them you can see what level they are at, which might help us to know that we can stand a good chance against these bastards," said Amanda.
" Even so I still think that we should not underestimate at any moment the level that they can reach, even more so that they can be bluffing or just be the most inferior, after all we will face from the most varied, even the leader herself, what you can't have much idea even " Cavendish said
They all nodded their heads, while Leclerc simply looked at everything eating, enjoying the food that had too much, being able to devour it at will, without worrying.
Until after a while everything is ready and it's the French girl's turn to say goodbye to all of them, taking her bags, the girl gives them all a hug, waves to them and goes through the portal to the outside.
" (Well then the van is waiting outside the road near Luna Nova, now we just have to go from here, I hope that no cultist comes to disturb us or anything, it's not enough to be worried about what happened yesterday).
Attentive, the dark haired girl goes walking through the forest, looking everywhere, with a thousand worries, she didn't want to risk a second, she was full of pressure, until she gets to the road and at that moment she just gets in the van and goes following the way, where the vehicle is starting to leave.
" Whew... I thought I'd never get this far " Said the brown-eyed one.
A little far from there there were three cultists on motorbikes, on a road nearby and they were communicated about a suspicious van that was stopped there and then it was identified that Marianne Leclerc who got on it started to leave the place.
The motorbikes were coming from the opposite direction, they had three of them, while in the direction of the road was one, this without anyone realizing, simply the Frenchwoman was just looking at the phone to see the messages and what had appeared again on social networks.
" (Now it's stay here until I get to Bristol, that really is going to be a long journey... It was ok, I was really paranoid).
The motorbikes were getting closer, when passing by the van the bikers make a U-turn, as well as the other one that was behind and right on time they start shooting against the van, what with the noises on the spot Marianne uses a kind of magical force field to protect her and the driver from suffering worse damages, only that the van was constantly fired, so much that the driver stepped on the brake and stopped the vehicle.
" Seriously this, we can't have peace at any time " Leclerc said.
Attentive the Frenchwoman looks to the outside noticing that the bikers stopped shooting and she takes a deep breath, the bikers simply got off the motorbikes, walking with the guns in their hands, they went towards the doors of the back compartment, but they ended up flying when they were pushed out, hitting the whole group at once and riding on top of the door was the Frenchwoman.
" Take that you bastards! " Said the dark haired one who then went sliding with the door down the road.
Quickly the brown-eyed woman used her magical arms to take the weapons from the hands of each of the cultists, who, even unarmed, looked confidently at the ninja witch, who remained cold at the same time.
" Ohhhh so it looks like the little girl has taken the bait? " Said one of them.
" It's no use taking away our weapons, we still have this " Said another of him who was taking out what looked like a scroll that then turned into a staff and kept emanating magic.
" I have that too " Marianne said shrugging her shoulders.
" Roman attack her, show what we are capable of " said the other who was standing with his arms crossed.
Roman who was the one who revealed the staff first starts conjuring a spell and throwing a ball of magical energy towards Leclerc who simply creates a defensive glyph in mid"air, which causes an explosion in front of her, the same smiles as he disappears and amidst the smoke tries to hit the Frenchwoman who dodges and still hits a shot with a spectral club he made throwing the wizard towards the group which he simply cushions the blow with style.
" Look at that little girl really seems to know how to fight " Roman said.
" Just get out of here and don't bother " Said the dark haired one.
After the smoke dissipated several spectral swords were around her, which she herself is throwing towards the whole group at once, at the same time she is starting to go on top of them, kind of disappearing with each step she got close, leaning over the swords that were stuck on the ground where she hit a punch on one of them, Then she dodges from getting kicked by another one that she simply makes one hit the other and uses it as impulse to give a kick that gets in the face of another one that came on top with everything to try a stab with a spear, but it almost doesn't get Mari, who keeps calm, but forgets the last one she had. Being hit by a kick that makes her be thrown in the midst of confusion, but this one does not give up to go up.
" Surrender witch! We are much stronger than you! " Said the
" Keep wasting your time here, soon the police will arrive and you will be arrested," said a confident Leclerc who was holding her mobile phone and keeping a call with the police.
" Hmpf, do you really think we are afraid of the police? What a pathetic witch," he said, laughing until he was punched hard in the face by Marianne.
" They'll learn to have it " Said the Frenchwoman after she landed the punch and the cultist stopped in the middle of the group.
" They'll just think it's all an act! Now don't take it lightly! This girl is not messing around! " said the other.
" (Shit, they're right, I'm not going to waste my magic here for nothing, I already know what to do... There are four of them, so let them try to defeat me another way heh).
The four start to disappear and with that the French girl starts to run, turning a keychain she had in her pocket into something, it was a broom which she throws up in the air, being narrowly hit by a spear, only that she simply uses a substitution spell for a tree trunk, she ends up surprised when she was going to ride the broom, but takes the spear of the other cultist disarming him with a basic spell being thrown at his face what she takes advantage of the spear in hands to defend from the onslaught of the two remaining cultists, taking the opportunity to disassemble the broom into pieces, where she goes making platforms, which she propels into a mortal that results in her sitting on a broom.
" Bye bye suckers! " said the French woman, starting to fly away with her broom.
" Get her! " said one of the cultists.
Marianne simply knew that by the open road it would be risky, so she enters the forest with the broom, and the other cultists start to get the weapons that were left on the ground, starting a chase in the air, where Leclerc was dodging through the few trees of the forest and the cultists went full speed trying to follow her, and they separated in groups, with two going through the forest and the other two looking from above.
" (Now I have to give it my all today, Hellene would be proud of me if I showed how good I am on a broom heh).
Concentrated the Frenchwoman was staying on a route through the trees without much fear, while the cultists from above tried to stop her using some form of creating walls in front of her, while the ones from behind were shooting with machine guns, which forced her to increase her speed a lot, kind of to survive somehow in the middle of all the confusion that was following her every second.
Her coldness ended up being the determining factor, since the ones above her didn't realize that those barriers were hindering the ones behind, even more when the Frenchwoman accelerated, and one of them was left on the way when she bumped into the wall.
" That's it! One of them is already gone " said the excited Leclerc.
Then she goes up to the outside of the trees, to the outside, where the others above take the advantage to start shooting, but it was kind of complicated to hit her, as she was changing the rhythm of flight all the time, until in a moment she disassembled the broom creating platforms, where she started running over them, going up little by little without the cultists noticing.
" Damn it, that witch won't die soon " said Roman who comes across Marianne beside the two of them.
The Frenchwoman makes them both hit their heads at the same time falling from their brooms towards the trees and continues her flight away, leaving only one of them who was still in the middle of the trees trying to follow.
" And now they've finished them " Said the dark haired one relieved.
Marianne goes the rest of the way flying on her broomstick, going at full speed to Bristol, where she arrives at the train station, even panting, she buys the ticket and gets on the train relieved, sitting there and opening her mobile phone immediately, sending a message in the group about what had happened.
[Marianne: That was a close one, the idea of vans is already half saturated, they just nearly killed me, they came at us shooting, but I managed to protect myself and the driver, then I made a run for it, there were four of them, they were quite powerful] 15:31
[Bernadette: I was already getting worried with what I heard, they said the van was shot, good that you came back ok, the police said they heard a call and thought it was an act until they checked and actually noticed that a shooting happened there, but they didn't believe in the hypothesis of magic] 15:32
[Marianne: It was terrifying, luckily I trained a lot today and remembered what I went through in the forest, apart from that I put my broomstick flying skills to the max against them, it was actually a more peaceful escape than being surprised by gunfire] 15:32
[Hellene: Baby! Ahhhhhhhh, I swear if I lost you I don't even know how I would react, it's so good that you're fine and I'm full of pride for the escape made by flying brooms] 15:32
Leclerc spent the rest of the way attentive in the train, looking at the surroundings, for all the trip until Edinburgh, so that when she arrived there she kept her eyes alert, until she was picked up by Bernadette's car that was waiting outside the station, where she goes to the mansion and from there she is received by hugs and a reception all honeyed coming from Hellene as it always uses to be.
" Love! Love! Love! Ahhhhh you are whole! I... Ahhhh... You're all right! " Said McLaren already crying with worry.
" I had to be pretty ninja on that one, I escaped the best way, I feel I could defeat them, but we can't afford to waste magic, knowing that I still had to return home in one piece, so I decided to make the smart decision than risk fighting four witches, even more so since I was at a disadvantage " Said the Frenchwoman scratching the back of her neck.
" You made the smartest decision, just being here with us shows that it was really the best decision, and tell us in more detail how it went, as it could be useful " Bernadette said.
" I'm so terrified, but I make sure I tell you so that this doesn't happen anymore, we've achieved the most important thing, leaving the crystal ball with the girls, now we have an even greater advantage of strategy " Said the dark haired one who was all motivated even though she was scared.
They went on talking about the recent attack, in a room where the sounds are all inhibited and the cultists still let themselves be fooled by dolls, from there Leclerc released everything she had to release, she spoke from the moment she was surprised by the armed men, to when she managed to escape by hitting them one by one until there were none left to tell the story, which was a great relief for all of them to hear about it.
" Ahhh, so they have those weaknesses too, so in case we are in a worse situation, we can resort to hiding in the woods around the mansion " Croix said.
" They hide there, but we're going to take them down one by one, that'll be great," said Hellene.
" There is where I can also have the best control of my magical powers " Jasminka said, which they all didn't even notice her presence, but agreed with their heads, especially the two who got to witness the demon form that Antonenko has sleeping.
" Every day I feel that our achievement of rebuilding Luna Nova into a future without the cultists will be a reality," Meridies said with a huge smile on her face.
" As Chariot always said, your magic is to believe in yourself " Bernadette said.
From there they were already discussing some alternative plans in case the defense plan wasn't enough or didn't work, so that they could gain time in relation to the cultists and so they could feel what will be a battle in which they won't have the least chance of winning, even more because they are getting strategic advantages every day that goes by, and they are confident that the biggest risk will be worth.
Far away from the cultists
' base the group that tried to attack Marianne arrived at the throne room to report the success of the mission and no doubt Daryl already knew what had happened, but made a point of pretending he didn't know.
" What's up? How did it go on your mission? " said the woman herself as the four of them trembled in terror in front of the leader.
" Sovereign... We... We... " Said Roman who was immediately speared in the back of the head and then speared at the fish while the others were scared to death.
" I want words coming out of my mouth, without trembling! Are you real men or not? Speak like men! Fail like men! " Said the leader to them who swallowed their saliva.
" We did not succeed sovereign, we failed, the witch deceived us and still managed to escape, she made us all run away without any direction to find her, even more so because she used a whole planned escape tactic, there was no way we could... " Said the other, who was silenced but not yet dead.
" Silence! I don't care about excuses, now this damned that was captured is safe in the mansion, who knows what she decided to do in the outskirts of Luna Nova, but there is something very suspicious here! The only mission you had was to capture her, and you still failed to accomplish that mission... I will not kill you! Now I want you to keep your eyes peeled to find out what this witch left in Luna Nova! And bring it to me! " said the leader and the three of them nodded and bowed and then ran out of the throne room.
From there they were getting relieved not to be killed, but Daryl was infuriated, simply in the middle of the road, she was not going to be able to gather information with Marianne who had managed to escape, just as nothing was of any use, things were simply closing in and she knew something might happen.
" (These damned girls know something that I don't, they have a plan in mind that I have no idea, I'm sure, I hope it's not my paranoia, it's not possible that these girls dying of fear have some plan to plan a counterattack, let's attack the mansion massively, there won't be any left, even if they resist, they won't have the strength to attack us back, which honestly would be wonderful, so they would be weak enough for our whole army to crush them).
From there Daryl continued the rest of the day on the throne, the other members that survived went to Luna Nova later, where they searched the whole place, but all they found were messages that were cursing the cultists themselves, as if they knew they were going there, which they then took back to the base to analyse everything more thoroughly, but then the furious leader tore everything in anger from the messages, which could be useful to find the DNA and trace where they came from.
Marianne managed to survive a surprise attack from the cultists, escaping in style, but all because of a very important mission and that still remained successful due to the cultists themselves having no idea of the whole plan behind it besides not being able to touch Marianne's fingers who escaped from the clutches of the witches, which indicates that with each passing day victory becomes more of a certainty.
See you, fighter witches...