Faragonda and Griffin as well as Saladin were a bit speechless for all kinds of reasons. "They should have retreated…" Saladin sighed, his heart had stopped when the kids had decided to fight that monster on their own with so many civilians in the crosshairs.
"Retreated? They missed to call in for back up not to mention they missed another check in…So they're black zoned," Faragonda didn't quite know what to do with herself. "You NEVER fight alone…why do they keep forgetting to…" This was less than stellar.
Griffin more and more saw her shortcomings in teaching her students how to work in groups and run with systems not around them. "Misery was the one to talk to the advisors… only she knows of the check-ins, but she didn't tell the others…foolish girl." She was a bit pissed at the girl but actually herself. "Why aren't your boys just dosing off; they know! They should know…" She growled at Saladin this time around none of the other teams could buffer for the Sorceress's mistakes. "And that healer of yours is staring at the stars." She bickered on as she clenched her fists.
"They are too swamped… and still in TRAINING," Saladin gave her a side glance. "They missed to designate a person, not to mention Seth is the only one standing from Lion's team. I could ask you the same question, why aren't your students not smart enough to use the advisors to their advantage? You do teach them to make life as easy for themselves as possible, asking the advisors should be natural." He mirrored her, not to get into a fight but rather to show her that blaming one another would be senseless.
"Come on, you two, don't fight, that will get us nowhere…" Faragonda tried to soothe the argument as she already could see Griffin ready to go on the offensive.
All three had been so sure that the kids would do so much better at least better than utter apocalypse. Yes, the tests were designed to fail, but... This was a bit on the nose; how unprepared their theoretically second years were and they were rather on the higher end of grades, knowledge and experience. Surely, this test wasn't just for the kids, but a harsh reality check created by the Orders for the staff of all the schools.
Predator Karim raised his hands to calm the Headmasters down, "Please, calm yourselves, they aren't that bad. See it positively, they don't give up. That's a good trait." Always the sunshine he was he tried to console them.
"Not yet," Nerrocean grumbled. He could already see their exhaustion and even with the three girls trying to buffer there was no saving grace now, this would end any minute now with all unconscious. He had hoped they had been smart enough to figure the pit wholes out. Yet the kids had jumped into each one with a head dive.
Fane snorted unimpressed as always and crossed her arms, "They suck. No two ways about this Predator Karim. Stop sugar coating." She - politely - retorted yet with a certain intensiveness.
Karim chuckled amused at the Vampire Lady's comment and posture. "I'm not sugarcoating. We designed the tests to fail, they are at it for about half an hour and still have living patients. They could already be down and all dead. That's not the case, this is a win," The Werefox held strongly against it. "Why so negative? There's no reason, they are young. It's easy to see what they need us to train with them, so that's a win as well. Not to mention that they can handle a lot more stress than I suspected. That's a major win, too." He challengingly halted next to her his interacted robe touched the ground again. Calm, majestic and in no hurry at all an ever so slight smile on his lips.
"Ts. I just state the truth. They are green behind the ears and reckless, stupid," Fane glared back at him yet moved to give him a bit more space. "There is no win in being able to withstand the stress one creates. It's NOT a win. Anyone with common sense would request backup. There even are PROTOCOLS for it. They know them." She wouldn't butch on her evaluation.
Karim's ears twitched from the shouting being raised in the testing ground, "They know them, but appliance is a thing learned through experience, WHICH they have not. If you wish to be a teacher and not the mean kind everyone hates, you should work on your attitude, Marksman Fane." He remarked on the side as he squinted his eyes to pinpoint the problem inside the test ground.
"If it means they stay alive, I don't fucking care how much they hate me," Fane whisper hissed back as her focus switched back to the test as well.
Shanna had problems writing all her notes down so Gwaine had started to help her out. While Riven simply stared in disbelief at the horrendous outcome of the test. Yet definitely proud that they had managed alone to kill that monster anemone.
The kids couldn't even hear themselves over all the crying, bitching and shouting of one another and especially the dummies, who were agitated, to say the least and short of revolting. Besides their effort to sort things out the desperation of everyone had taken over, which made communications a thing of impossibility.
Dean shook his head all this fighting and arguing was giving him a headache. "Urggh..." he sat in front of a dummy, who had some weird blackish thorns nearly as long as his hands stuck into his calf.
"Please take them out, take them out!" The dummy pleaded.
Dean reached for another bandage he would need to stabilise the thorns before one of the Fairies or Sorceresses could heal the wound...eventually. "Sorry, I can't. You always have to leave the knife in the wound, eh, I mean thorns. If I pull them out now you might bleed out..."
Yet the old man cramped up trying to reach his leg himself, "Please, aahhhh, get them out!" He teared up as some weird ass black smoke rose from the thorns.
"What the?!" Dean looked up. "Tasu! Shit." She was nowhere to be seen. Sweat dripped down his forehead. 'What do I do?! Is that... Black Magic?' He searched the crowd but couldn't see any of the girls with so many dummies in the way. Everyone was swamped apparently.
Amber and Volcano had been too scared to use their fire magic on the anemone spores not to mention they were spent and rather helped dig out people. Their concentration was lacking theoretically they needed a break, all needed one, but there was no time.
With only a minute of meditation Snow, as she had forced herself to do, couldn't help everyone. Snow had used her magic to freeze the slime on the skin of a few people like a dried blood crust the slime crumpled down and broke off. Snow was simply pushing forward, there was no time. "What is that stuff?" She took a piece and inspected it. Before it had been only slime, like if one had a slight cold and blew their nose, except the slime had developed a different consistency by now. "That hmm... are those..." she squinted her eyes there were some rice-like corns in that slime thousands of them barely bigger than a needle tip. Yet when she infused magic to get a read her eyes widened. "Eggs?!"
Misery close by used her poison magic to ease the pain of some dummies and looked up, "What eggs?" Her magic glow subsided as she let go of the dummy's arm she just had broken the blue spot curse and with most of the spores and its source gone hopefully it would stay away.
Snow quietly waved her over, "Look here…" She nudged her in the side and handed the ice piece over.
"What in Magix?... But that would mean…" Misery looked hastily around, but she couldn't pinpoint anything that could lay so many eggs. They hadn't even seen a bird and that slime had been there before the anemone. "It' can't be from that giant sludge, can it? The spores were-"
Kitty could feel it in her stomach a curse, a strong one at that, building up rapidly. It had gone under before however right now nothing was more prominent. Her head darted around and stopped abruptly, "Dean!"
"No, You can't!" Dean had just looked away for one second to help another elder dummy to get the wound press on correctly. And suddenly a swell of muddy soup exploded from within the crowd right next to him.
The dummy who pulled the thorns out grinned wildly, "Hail to the-!"
"SHUT UP!" Kitty bared her teeth as she punched that guy into the next wall heavily panting like a roaring tiger she suddenly stood above him, still holding on to the dummy's clothes. "Shit…" She had been too slow. She stared at her goop-covered arms, "Damn y…" before her eyes rolled back and she slacked to the ground like a wet sack, as did the dummy.
"KITTY!" Misery wide-eyed charged forward just to be held back by Snow.
"No, don't! Look!" Snow pointed out to all who had been hit by the goo they were dropping like flies.
Dean, Kai and Amber simply had been too close. Nebula jumped backwards but too late she had already grabbed Amber's arm as she had collapsed and goo had hit her hand as well. The tiniest amount. Nebula stared at her hand light magic simply evaporated into the air in tiny sparkles. Same with Amber in front of her. The two collapsed within seconds.
Once again, the crowd panicked, but most already were unable to run so dozens of them simply fell victim to the goo explosion.
Blade's eyes darted, "How? What?!" She ground her teeth as suddenly an axe flew past her head and deflected an energy shot.
"BLADE! TAKE COVER!" Mercury roared up to her. 'Another attack - by the dummies!?' They had checked and fought against injuries, a monster and curses. And on top of it all now they even were attacked by people of all things. Mercury searched for the shooter to no avail. The stampede and outcry of people made it impossible. He felt his hand tremble in anger and desperation. 'How do we survive this!?'
"I'm scared…" A little kid clung to his cloak out of the blue.
Mercury gave it only a second glance before with shock he turned towards it once more. A flickering image before it changed into some grown-up with goo all over him. Mercury kicked him away and retreated, with two big jumps, straight up to the roof of one of the resealed quarantine houses. "By the Dragon…" A moving shadow to his right. He had let go of his second phanto-axe faster than he recognised Julius.
"F-" Julius hastily let go of the roof edge so as not to get his head cut off. He just had tried to get up onto the same roof and away from the goo, just to land his ass in it. His sight blurred. "What but I…?" He looked at his arm, free skin, a cut in his armour from the fight, goo. "Retreat… you got to…" He mumbled up to Mercury who had raced to the edge to catch him but had failed his friend's arm still reached out. With a thud Julius fell to the side, unmoving.
"TASU!" Breeze pointed out into the crowd she had pinpointed the guy that had attacked Mercury stumbling away. "Wind Cutter!" She shouted and sent off a wind sickle, her grey coat raging in the gust she had created.
"No! That's too… strong…" Blade could only watch how indeed the guy got smashed against some rubble. Tasu was saved. Yet the backlash explosion scattered the goo like a hose. Fleeing dummies even Dusk, Keith and Seth got hit, not because they were too close but simply because of who had bumped into them as they tried to get out of the death camp racing towards the glooming border. The tiniest bit was indeed enough. She could swear some had stumbled towards them intentionally but there was no telling if that assumption was true or not.
"Shit, I, I-" Breeze shocked looked at Blade. She gestured wildly and then noticed the white slime on her neck her whole hand was covered from one touch to her neck. "But, we… how?" She distanced herself from Blade.
Everything was lost now. So many were down for the count, the whole camp was infested with goo a puddle of death with countless victims inside; that slime with eggs was everywhere besides all efforts to quarantine its outbreak and the blue spores still claimed victims as no one had enough magic to break that curse; Injured and hurt dummies, buried beneath rubble or trampled, scared, hurt; Skull signs displayed in an accelerated speed at the critical patients' site.
'What do we do!? Come on, think!' Blade was as speechless as anyone else left. She swiped over her forehead and felt something sticky that drew strings. "What?" Only now she noticed that some slime stuck to her fingers from her face.
"IIIIIHHH, get them off!" Snow shouted at the top of her lungs. Some whitish cloud had risen from patients where she hadn't frozen the slime yet. And that cloud moved, grew and dispersed around her and Misery emerging from the dummies on the ground.
"SHIT! They are hatching! Hold your breath!" Misery turned the air into a poisonous cloud around the two, but these white swarms popped up everywhere on the ground.
Tasu was surrounded as well and fell victim to a whitish cloud before she could even cast a spell.
Blade frowned, "Hatching?" She simply couldn't keep up with the discoveries. Lost for words everything below her went from worse to Armageddon. She pulled upwards and tried to get rid of as much slime as possible, and surely noticed what had Snow spooked. Tiny, white, crickets of some sort. "YIKES!" She sent a magic shockwave through her system and blew some of them off they were hatching from the slime on her skin as well. So hyper-focused as she was Blade felt the bites and recognized the tiny red dots on her skin, nearly invisible. There definitely had been others with them from the get-go of this test, she had thought it to be rashes from running and falling, but no.
"What do we do!?" Breeze had countered the hatchlings the same way as Blade with a magic shock to her system, but she was secreting slime in masses herself now., more than Blade. She had no idea how long she could counter them. "We got to help the boys…"
There was no point though. Anyone who still had been on the ground level was lost in a swarm of white crickets. Vast numbers of skull signs plopping up like snowflakes. No matter how well the students might have defended themselves so far everyone fell victim to the sheer size of the cricket swarm that emerged from the quarantines as they had dug through the ground to the outside and joined the smaller swarms. The dummies had no chance and were overrun. No one could stand against them. Well, all besides Misery and Snow in their poison cloud that killed everything within contact but those two wouldn't be able to go anywhere.
"Really!? Urgh!" Breeze was ready to simply blow everything away with a tornado.
Blade caught her arm and shook her head, "Don't, that only will make it worse." She shocked them both with magic, but Breeze kept secreting slime same as Blade.
"Worse!? They gonna call the damn test anyways! Let me at least-!" Breeze bickered as she pushed Blade away.
"We got to-" Blade started but she had no answer. There was nothing they could do.
Breeze growled as she fletched her teeth, "There is nothing left to do! We're done!"
'Yeah, but then why? Why haven't they...' Her eyes fell on the test ground.
"Blade! Go to, eh, the elf guy, no Codatorta, I mean… the crisis headquarters! They must have some solution for this shit! They said request within reason!" Misery's voice resounded from Blade's bracelet and scared Blade half to death. She had forgotten they had an intercom.
"If they had you already would have gotten it, when you asked, Misery," Blade hissed at her, tension was so high teeth grinding she tried to figure out the solution to all this.
"I only ever asked for the start supplies!" Misery bitched back.
Breeze growled, "What!? But. - Are you kidding me?! Why?!" Her head began to spin, this whole test was giving her a headache.
"I have no freaking idea what we can request! For the HUNDRETH time! I came back with supplies everyone was happy. Afterwards, that wasn't my fucking job anymore! I even did the stupid check in-"
"Check in?!" Snow's voice resounded as well from the call a bit more muffled. "We had to check in!? But then we already should have, how long are we-…why didn't you do the next one!?"
"Yeah, Misery…" Breeze nagged so fucking annoyed, but less energetic than before. She simply wanted this to be over. She was done with this shit.
"What do you mean next one!?" Misery hissed back over the intercom.
Snow groaned, "Protocol is every thirty minutes. By the Dragon, we got black-zoned!" Her voice was so high-pitched pitched she was barely understandable.
Breeze blinked as she shook her head, she was as furious as disoriented, "Black zoned?" Her flight was unsteady more slime dripped even through her clothes. It began to show wet spots.
"Black zones. Dangerous areas, where one needs to gather more forces at first. Never mind." Blade sighed. This was pointless. "Wait! Wait- you are saying we have a full Crisis Headquarters… right?" Blade looked to the teacher line-up.
"A full what?! No idea, everyone had a job, Votzaak is in the frontlines fighting, your Professors do their everyday shit- and… shit…" Her voice sounded pressed.
Blade searched for them both down below, "What's wrong!?" But she could already see. The cloud was fading rapidly a pile of white crickets around them. There were some ice magic sparks but Snow was finally depleted. "Guys! Misery tell me who did you talk to for the check-in!?" Nothing. Only a fading cloud that mixed in with swarms of white crickets. 'No, no, no!' Snow's ice spell had not gone off and the poison cloud lifted as crickets seemed to make it in.
"This is bullshit…" Breeze dropped a good meter before she recovered just before her whole posture slumped together.
"No, you don't give up now. Breeze, just stand by and give me a head coun-!" Blade looked back from the teachers to her classmate, "Whooaaahh!" Blade just by a hair got hold of Breeze who simply fell from the sky. She caught her but they were so close to the ground that they were like a billboard to those damn crickets and Blade got rushed by a huge swarm. "Oh, fuck!" She let go of Breeze and raced to the edge of the campsite. 'Sorry, sorry, sorry!' Her eyes stung tears from the cutting air.
The white cloud of death right behind her. Slime on her skin just not as thick as Breezes -yet.
'Not fast enough, I'm not, arrgh,' She let herself drop out of her Winx put all that Light magic into her muscles and pushed off the ground for one long jump. She passed the border of Votzaak's spell and had a hard landing on the other side. To her surprise though another simpler border had spread out in her path still encompassing her. Her breath was heavy the world spinning. She looked back behind her where the smaller border linked with the big one and a way opened for the crickets. "You got to be…" Blade coughed and scrambled to her feet nearly slipping. A raging glare at Votzaak as she raced to the line-up. 'To whom do I talk!? Which elf is…? Fuck, shit…' With little head start this would be a race against time.
'Oooh, think she makes it? Anyone wants to make a bet?' Votzaak was snorting so hard in the psi-link while his posture remained stoic as ever. He had found his answers. This was simply a wrap-up now.
'Grandmaster Votzaak… I think we need to DISCUSS the difficulty level… of the tests YOUR Order prepared for the kids…' Aithlin had been on board so far, but that enemy attack, by terrorists had been the cherry on top. Yet this wasn't the right time, he kept an intense stare on Blade and the swarm of crickets behind her.
Codatorta wasn't happy at all, 'You let them out!? If I find one cricket in my arena after-'
'I believe that is what the secondary border is for,' Itzcali took it rather chilled. It wasn't a comedy show to her but rather a valid test for the harsh realities life could bring. She had wondered where the enemy attack part of the test would come into play. 'You can't just move ten meters and be free of all your troubles.'
'I. Don't. Care.' Palladium protested. 'No one sends White Stream Crickets after MY Fairy students, not for fun, not for training, EVER! We have Royals under them, by the Great Dragon! Do you want to get evicted from your Council seat!?' He was beyond furious with Votzaak although it barely showed in his posture either, he didn't want to break Blade's concentration.
Blade cut a hard corner sand sprayed up as her feet came around. The additional field did not extend any further and stopped short of the line-up of the teachers. Blade had hit the brakes at her intended target. "Master Codatorta! Blade Ashfallow here, our triage checkpoint on Meadownia needs backup ASAP! Enemy attack, BLACK magic-draining goo; anemone blue spores - a sleeping curse; white crickets slime stuff - they bite and people drop like flies! All personal down! High casualties!" Blade looked behind herself. "For fuck sake, Shadion!" She dashed upwards drew the crickets to the sky shot a few Dark magic darts towards the cricket cloud, dropped out of Shadion and with a steady aim shot a faster light dart after them.
"Which check-" Master Codatorta had to watch a harsh landing on Blade's account as her shoulders hit the sand. He had flinched and nearly jumped in to catch her as the gentleman he was. Yet Keryth had held him back.
"USE THE BRACELET GPS, DAMN IT! I don't have t-" Blade hissed back and watched her darts explode and promptly she ready more light magic darts. "I'm the last one standing, give me ANYTHING!"
"Emergency request from black-zoned checkpoint Z delta 36, priority one! Black magic, fauna threats and enemy encounters; high risk; high casualties. Any free forces, respond."
Votzaak grinned, 'Nice, someone knows how to get what they want…that wasn't a black magic attack and she knows it. He.' He adjusted his big hat, "Black Magic Hunter Division emergency transport on the way." His hands glowed up. "Request healers and additional response team, a good one, Aithlin." His hands brimmed with magic already.
The elven Master didn't even side glance at the Leprechaun, "Eques Iolas, Hunter Division needs-"
Itzcali simply interrupted, "Hunters on the way five minutes till arrival. We'll bring air support." She in astonishing speed turned on her paws and dashed away like lightning to the hangar of Red Fountain.
Aithlin breathed in deeply and shook his head at that display. He had simply continued to inform his team more quietly, "An adequate team will be recalled and redeployed; two minutes." He proclaimed.
"You're kidding!?" Blade wide-eyed stared at Aithlin. 'Two minutes… against that…' She went utterly pale. She barely could keep away from that swarm that was after her while she kept swapping between her Light and Dark magic to create explosions as her darts clashed. Not to mention she didn't know that the eggs on her skin stuck in the slime would hatch. She had no time left to shock her system. Or knew how much magic she would need in the first place to get rid of them all.
Avalon and Cei kept a close eye on the students left behind in the main circle. Votzaak had built everything to only deplete magic. The crickets would take FOREVER to be deadly – but, it still was a possibility and no way in the Shadowlands would they overlook something.
"See, I told you, young Blade is fast enough. You are too pessimistic," Karim smirked at Fane. "They did well. Forces will arrive in time. Most of those casualties can be revived or reverberated with the right spells." With a bit of a high snout, he crossed his arms as he side-smirked at Fane.
"Great, massive waste of Magic cause of incompe-" Fane rolled her eyes and then perplexed looked to her feet. "Oh, come on, I'm not even part of this…grrrr" She growled as she spotted the teleportation circle.
"Have fun," Nerrocean snickered as his fin twitched Fane's face was priceless. "Don't let the bugs bite." He waved her goodbye short before bursting into laughter.
Nabu exhaled relieved, "And I thought he would send me in, since I actually can heal…" He wasn't keen on trading places with Fane on this one, if Votzaak had called upon her, there still were a good number of traps even grown-ups would have their problems with.
Griffin, Saladin and Faragonda on the other hand had their stomachs turned upside down. This was bad or rather abyssal. "I'll definitely raise the difficulty for those training sessions in Red Fountain…" Saladin pressed for air and mumbled half-loud.
Shanna shook her head, "I'll have TALK with YOUR Grandmaster." She glared at Nerrocean.
Gwaine and Parcival had focused on checking the auras of the other students as well to ensure their safety.
Riven had run off as well.
"What's wrong with Riven and Itzcali they…" Hagen perplexed had come back from storying the weapons back into the armoury, "What is that white cloud?" When he had left everything still had been fine at the campsite.
Blade dashed around unsure where to go, back to the breeding pot was no option of course but there weren't any good places to go just flat sand in the arena. The additional border followed her everywhere she kept going and kept the crickets within its borders. 'Two minutes how am I to!?' A light purple-pinkish streak across the sky darted towards her from above. A white blur. A heavy hit as she got swiped from the ground. A burning sensation that took her breath away as she got pulled up high into the sky throughout her entire body. Everything was so fast she wasn't sure where up or down was at first.
Fane broke through a small cloud high above higher than those crickets could follow. Her huge wings flapped in the air. She wasn't in a morph per se. It wasn't like Wizgiz bird form. It was an actual magic projection of a bird. Like Fane was the centre of a magic construction but it imitated a living being, a bird, not just a sphere shield or a sword. "Don't struggle." Fane gave a short warning or rather order not that Blade was truly able to recognise what was going on in her disorientation. One powerful wing beat before Fane folded in her wings. With a shockwave of Dark Magic, she raced down towards the cricket cloud outside of the main campsite. She flared up her dark magic like a cone cloak it covered her from the beak on. Fane dashed once through the cricket cloud and obliterated them in one go. "…" An annoyed sigh. As the burned crickets fell like smouldering ashes to the ground, they couldn't withstand her Dark Magic at all.
Blade's head was still spinning, she retched up that speedy retreat and the attack made her stomach turn. But now she noticed what was going on. She was held in giant bird claws a soft up and down movement with every wing beat as Fane hovered in a safe distance to the campsite. Blade's entire body shivered greatly as she felt slime pool out of her skin as well. She got the jitters and wanted to push away not to infect… "No, you…"
"Shut it, keep focusing your magic to burn the eggs in your bloodstream and hit the rhythm to coincide with the swells," Fane hissed at her a lacking explanation clearly she expected the girl to know what that meant. Fane in her giant bird of prey waited, waited a second longer then irritated looked past the young Fairy as she held on to Blade with her bird's claws. Fane quickly assessed everything from above.
Blade realised, there was no way slime or crickets would be able to touch Fane's skin through that projection so that was the reason she had not let go, "You…"
"Urgh, I said-" She halted her admonishment. "You have no idea, do you? Change to Dark magic," Fane commanded and not a second later as Blade had followed the order Fane infused the young Fairies system with an overwhelming might of Dark magic on her part.
Blade's breath got stuck there for a second. The magic rushed through her system into every inch of her body. Her skin burned and tingled and as she could feel another swell of slime building up, the magic infusion hit even harder. Blade like a snail dripped massive amounts of slime from every pore. At first, it scared the shit out of her this would mean that the crickets would hatch any second. Yet not only did she sweat slime as if she was a soap suspender. The slime caught fire as it laced her skin. Fane's Dark magic burned that stuff to a crisp as it was too much magic to absorb and the eggs popped prematurely before anything could hatch. Now Blade was covered in burned slime a horrendous smell in her nostrils. "Urrgh…" That made her gag but she kept it down. Still, the nausea lingered and made it hard to concentrate or was that the exhaustion settling in?
"If you gotta barf then barf," Marksman Fane commented dryly. "Can't have you choke on it."
Blade grimaced, "No, it's fine…" She felt it coming again but gulped it down a second time. Suddenly she was in a free fall, the burned slime broke off her skin before she got immediately grabbed again. Now the talons wrapped around Blade's stomach. A very tender, careful, squeeze however strong enough.
Fane ignored the elevation of the girl, "Why do you make everything so hard on everyone? It's a bad habit…"
"…" Blade with a bad aftertaste in her mouth looked up. She was short on bitching back but that Vampire Lady wasn't grinning or enjoying this at all. Only a stone-cold gaze at the campsite, taking care of her was a distraction from the actual problem. Blade noticed that Iolas and his team moved out.
Fane started a rapid descent in a spiral aimed towards the elf team broke short before them and swung Blade directly into Virion's arms before she dispersed her bird projection. "Eques Virion, your patient…" Like a leave in fall her feet touched the ground. "Eques Iolas, best entry point is…" She used some magic to draw a very detailed map into the air.
Virion checked Blade out, though as expected she already was fine, although a bit depleted of magic, "You'll be fine." He smiled kindly upon her. "Who's your healer on sight?"
"Where are the critical patients? What is in the quarantined houses? Who in your team is essential for healing others? Where have you seen them last? How many attackers? How many escaped? Have you seen any more Tree Anemones in the area? How high is the spore intensity," Ararel barraged Blade with a bunch of questions.
Blade blinked at him still a bit lightheaded, "What? Is the test not over? You are here…we failed." She admitted begrudgingly.
"Debriefing comes after the planet is safe and is held with your mission advisor, there are still people in dire need not to mention your team," Ararel stated clearly. "This isn't a test. This is a real problem. So, please, we need the information if we want to get the campsite back."
Blade was so confused, like any of the kids, she had thought once the grownups showed up, they lost, it was their test after all. Yet even now, the test wasn't called. "A real… problem…" She half smacked her palm against her forehead as she realised what he was saying. 'FUCK. WE- ARGGHH…this could have been so easy!' She tensed up as she bit her tongue so hard.
"Oh, enough sulking already," Fane had stepped up to them with Iolas. She simply grabbed Blade's hand and heaved her to her feet. "Enemy attackers?"
"Two… I think…maybe more" Blade promptly answered, that Vampire was kinda scary looking all pissed like that. "At least two…Why -You kinda know this… you watched…"
"I work with the information I get from you nothing else," Fane admonished her she had enough of these stupid mistakes. "Now think, where are your healers and essential teammates?"
Blade searched for words and the right answers. It had been pure chaos after all, "Eh… Keith was… with Nebula… at… ehm. Mercury is on the roof of quarantine two. Julius is next to it. Snow and Misery are close by. Dean was in the middle of the black goo attack… Volcano is at the house wall… Tasu was on her way to Mercury? But… eh…they're not…" That wasn't quite the information Fane had asked for.
"Right, so nothing. Did you see any attacker leave? What weapons? How did the 'goo' spread? It's definitely the most potent curse in that camp." Fane kept going. She simply pushed for answers with no nonsense or gave Blade a minute like the Elves would have wished for.
Blade shook her head trying to get rid of that daze, "A gun, no, well, a firearm. I just saw an explosion of goo and a shot flew by. I don't know how the goo spread, well it splashed…I." She had no clue how to report all this. She had been overwhelmed herself. "People bumped into others so more got the goo on their skin and... and..." Blade breathed out deeply as she shook her head. "Quarantine to the right is, was, mainly blue spots, middle one had both, to the right is slime… well crickets. The critical patients are…" She quickly gave an update on the general areas as that was easier.
"Right, Ararel, give us a nice breeze, keep the goo down. Sarlen, burn them... once gathered. Tolith, Daeleth you search for spores. Once we got most crickets we crack those quarantines before they suffocate," Iolas gave his orders. He was calm and collected. Not one of them had scolded Blade in that sense. They all were simply focusing on problem-solving.
"Suffocate!? But we had plants and everything," Blade blinked scared.
"Magic is magic, the crickets might have eaten them, good thing is that at least when it cracked they got a rush of new air," Iolas explained quickly and raised his staff. "We'll make secondary camp here. Haldir called Crisis to get us a new campsite and transport for all these people, we can't stay here long term. Kids first."
Ararel already had moved on with Thallan, Sarlen and Keryth. They kept a shield up while he amassed his little wind tunnel and Sarlen readied his fire sword.
Blade could hear engines and looked above an owl, a tweaked one at that.
"Hey, you slackers," Itzcali waved from the loading ramp, "I got some more supplies and a few antidotes! Why are the civilians still in the mud?" She chuckled. This was kinda fun. She wasn't as tense as normally since it indeed was only a test, yet that didn't make her less focused on the task at hand.
Riven jumped out with a crate of antidote to everyone's surprise, "Yoh." He placed it down and cracked it open.
"Drop whatever you have and get more," Fane rolled her eyes and dashed upwards again in her bird projection. "I'll cover you, guards, now stop chatting and get to it!" She demanded.
The crickets had been sucked up camp wide by Ararel's wind spell and burned within seconds. The spores seemed to be gone for the most part, the grown-ups simply covered themselves with a bit of flaming magic skin wherever skin showed. Iolas and some others cleansed the goo with one massive convergence spell. Fane flew watch and helped to get rid of the rubble her strength was no joke she could move half the houses without breaking a sweat, those bird claws were impeccable. The students and kids were plugged from their locations. The quarantines were carefully opened and the same wind tunnel spell was a great way to get spores and crickets out of the way and were set on fire. It was a sight to be seen. It took them barely five minutes to reclaim the space from the crickets. Blade was a bit dazzled by the sheer speed. Not one word wasted, no command unfollowed, precise, focused, clear chain of command. No hick-ups, nothing.
Time was fluid to Blade as more people had been dragged out especially those at the edges. Saddened her gaze wandered to the space where all the dead people were barred up.
"Hey, wake up," Zhoron snipped in front of her face. "We got to help Virion. He can't heal everyone. Just bandage everything you can. There's nothing you can do wrong here. Apex Itzcali brings enough supplies in and takes the patients off our hands."
Irritated Blade shook her head, "Yeah…" She refocused on the next dummy to her left.
Mercury was up again as well. He was not even a few patients away, "They are so good…" He frustrated had to admit.
Snow walked by to get more bandages from the supply stack, "We should have…" She stopped. They hadn't even managed the camp when everything had been 'okay'. The grown-ups let them look like total armatures in comparison.
None of the woken students had missed that realisation. OR the students on the stances laughing their asses off. Pointing, giggling, also others simply had a keen eye on the grown-ups analysing their strategies. The Joined Track was in the grant arena of Red Fountain in broad daylight taking these tests. Of course, that drew attention. The kids had noticed some at the weapons test, but the triage challenge had drawn them to the scene like flies to a corpse.
"Ts. It was a test for us. How were we supposed to know we were allowed to cheat from the start!" Breeze growled on her way back with new bandages and pressed a few bandages into Snow's chest as she was slacking behind. She noticed the laughing guys on the ranks close by, yet another group enjoying their grant failure. "UUURGHHH! I've had it." She dashed up the wall and halted in front of the handful of Specialists.
Half scared the boys stumbled backwards, "What?!" One answered rather defensively at first before the presumably noble got his posture back, "I don't think you have time to waste here, Witch."
"Sorceress. And you're right, I don't, but you have plenty," She amassed her wind magic and simply lifted him together with his friends.
"HEY!"; "WOAH!"; "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Of course, that didn't go unnoticed by the test advisors and the Order members helping them out. Breeze simply dashed down with the boys in toe.
"What are you doing?" Ilrune walked up to her unsure what she was supposed to do. He wasn't happy at all. Fane landed right next to him.
"I found the Specialist back up from Red Fountain. They were a bit lost inside the forest," Breeze's eyebrow twitched. She was pissed at those guys alright and her tone was a bit cheeky, she was out for payback. Some satisfaction after all this crap.
"The what now?!" The noble dude squeaked, "This is your colossal failure, leave us out of it. Sort it out yourself, Witch. The nerve!" He was ready to turn around and leave, stuck up as one could be.
Before Ilrune could say anything, Fane stepped up to the boys and their hidden giggling and smirking subsided instantly under her pressuring aura. "Well, that's great. I was wondering when it would arrive. MOVE. IT." She pointed towards the patients who only had minor to medium injuries.
"BUT-"
Fane's eyebrows drew in, a menacing hiss, "But what?" A diabolical grin. "Are you refusing an order from a higher ranked? Do you really want that on your stainless record?"
"I, ehh, No." The boy gave in. "You bitch…" The boy growled half-loud at Breeze as he was about to pass her by and promptly regretted it, laughing time was over now.
Fane grabbed him by his suit, "Fine, no free master training for you, thirty laps, move and on the double." She pushed him towards the outer wall of the arena taking another step towards him.
"You have no right to," the boy puffed, "Who do you think are talking to?!"
Fane's eyebrow twitched and with a massive up flare of magic, she straight up walked to him without stopping this time.
The boy's breath got stuck as he moved backwards, "I- eh. I … I didn't-" He stumbled over his own feet scared shitless hitting the sand. His friends rushed to the injured and away from that rebuke faster than a lightning bolt.
Aithlin looked to Votzaak, "Your Marksman should focus on the test…"
"Ahh, she's just a bit bored, again. Besides, there isn't anything that Fane hates more than people bullshitting around when there is something better to do. Well, besides," The Grandmaster smirked, "insubordination and making fun of her wards. She's a prideful Vampire."
Codatorta chuckled, "I see why you like her." He looked back to Saladin who wasn't intervening either they were on the same page. "Seems like we get a few more volunteers." He snickered as he watched some more witches fed up with bandage duty, which they sucked at, simply flew off to grab willing and unwilling onlookers.
Sanari Cei shook his head, "That noble boy thinks his last hour has rung… just look at him run. He'll collapse in five rounds if he keeps up that speed… I hope Marksman Fane has better restraint with these students, otherwise, we'll see a lot of infirmary visits." He noted displeased.