(A/n: Well this chapter is loooong overdue and a little short. I am sooooo sorry for the wait. Nothing personal held me back from updating, rather it was a video game, hahaha... But yeah, I'm gonna try and go back to my two chapters a month schedule, maybe even do three to make up for the hiatus. I'm not sure yet. As a reminder / / means no specific persons POV. Please enjoy)


Chapter 46: Out Of Time

Stan

"Neither of us wish to hurt you, Kenneth. Please step aside."

Kenny remains ominously silent, much to Yuna's dismay.

Stan shakes his head. "Talking won't help. One of us is gonna have to distract him while the other goes after the monster." He and Yuna did a bit of strategizing moments ago, after he demonstrated Kenny wouldn't let anyone get past him.

"I'll-" Yuna begins to say, but gets cut off.

"I'll keep him busy," interjects a familiar voice. Stan and Yuna see Craig approaching them, his tone and the gleam in his bright silver eyes giving away his malevolent intent.

"You intend to cause him severe harm," Yuna says as she narrows her eyes at the teen. "I will not allow it."

Craig stops, his eyes narrowing smugly. "You gonna try an' stop me?"

"Of course," Yuna answers without any hesitation. "You are no longer Craig, so I'm willing to knock him back to his senses if need be." The smugness in Craig's slanted eyes quickly change to anger.

"Cut it out, you two," Stan says before things escalate any further. "Our enemy is the monster, not each other."

Craig huffs, though his eyes remain in a glare. "Sorry," Yuna murmurs. "But I still refuse to let 'Craig' anywhere near Kenneth."

Stan agrees. Craig is not acting like his usual self. "I'll distract Kenny then. You two can take care of the monster."

"Who are you to give me orders?" Craig takes a step towards Kenny.

Yuna swiftly stands in between the two. "Do not take another step," she sternly warns Craig.

"Cease Your Dawdling Or The Monster Will Kill Its Weakened Victims," Chris says impatiently.

Stan tenses up. Just what has the monster been doing to Cloud, Henrietta, Ingrum, and Wendy?

"Stan."

The teen blinks. "Kyle?" He looks over to where the rest of his friends are at, they're all looking his way.

"I've come up with a plan, so be sure to relay this to Yuna as well afterwards. Don't bother telling Craig, he won't listen."

"Tch, screw this."

Before Yuna can react, her vision is suddenly darkened even more by black smoke. Craig roughly pushes her out of the way, but Stan promptly moves in front of Kenny. He tries not to appear daunted by the heated scowl that's now directed at him. He grips his katana's handle tightly. "Whatever plan you have in mind, Kyle, you guys are gonna have to do it without us."

"You're that eager to die, huh?" Craig utters threateningly. He doesn't flinch when a grey orb flies straight between him and Stan, though Stan did since it was so sudden.

"You better not lay a hand on either Stan or Kenneth," Yuna warns, her arm outstretched. The smoke is still obstructing her eyesight.

"You're only wasting time, Craig," Stan says. "Leave Kenny alone."

He sees Craig's eyes look past him and at Kenny. Assuming he'd been ignored, just when Stan prepares himself to stave off Craig's attack, a red barrier protects him from the same spell that was used unsuspectingly on Yuna. Craig swiftly moves past Stan, who turns around in a panic. Thanks to the scarlet glow, he's able to see Craig aim what seems like a dagger at Kenny's chest. The taller noirette's lips spread into a wide, crazed smile, very eager to spill blood. "No! Craig, stop!" Stan yells. Hurried footsteps sound from behind him, then the blur of a body tackles the sliver-eyed noirette to the ground. He grunts upon impact, but maintains a secure grip on his dagger. He glares heatedly at the figure on top of him, though they are unable to see his fierce gaze.

"I warned you," the female says in an ominously soft tone of voice.

Craig growls, not intimidated in the slightest. "I'll kill you first then, you fucking bitch!" He thrusts his weapon at Yuna's face, however she seizes his wrist, the tip of the blade stopping inches away from her nose. She strengthens her grip, intending to break the bones in Craig's wrist. The teen grits his teeth and raises his free hand to punch Yuna in the stomach, but she catches his fist with her other hand.

"I'll make it so you can't use your hands for awhile."

"Ngh, l-like hell you will," Craig retorts. He struggles to free himself from Yuna's firm grasp.

As Stan watches the two, unsure how to intervene, Chris' barrier begins to disappear.

The large monster lets out a laugh. "It's a great shame we cannot watch what is surely a comical quarrel occurring amongst you ants at the moment, we are still rather busy."

Stan glares at it. "What the hell are you doing to them?"

"The outcome of our spell depends on what happens to us." Stan is a bit surprised the monster gave him a truthful answer, though it was vague. The ominous response fills him with immense dread.

"If we were to attack it, then-"

"Well this will be tricky."

Stan looks over to his right to see Kyle and the others. He inhales a sharp metallic scent. He almost forgot Raven sustained a pretty bad injury, however she was stabbed in the chest, not in the shoulder. So someone else got injured.

"Now what do we do?" Bebe asks, sounding and perhaps even looking uneasy.

Kyle is silent for some moments. Craig's grunting can be heard over the slow rainfall. Kyle sighs. "We don't have much time left. There's gonna be a slight change, but we're still sticking to my original plan."

The monster chuckles. "Good luck," it says mockingly.

Kyle turns his head to look at Stan, seemingly ignoring the monster's remark. "Keep Kenny preoccupied for two and a half minutes."

Although Stan is curious as to what Kyle meant by them not having much time left, he can pretty much presume something will happen after the two and a half minutes are up. Perhaps it pertains to the monster's unknown spell. Stan complies with Kyle's order by nodding his head. "Okay." He sets his sights on Kenny's right-hand side where Craig and Yuna aren't tussling at, and runs towards the big monster, prompting Kenny to rush after him. Kenny is in front of him in a matter of seconds. Stan stops, then leaps back a few feet. Before Kenny can take one step, Stan quickly casts a dark blue barrier around the teen.

Instead of smiling at his success, Stan frowns at the empty look in Kenny's eyes.

/

"One of you will distract Kenny while the rest of us will do as much damage to the monster as we possibly can. Once it's weakened, we'll leave Stan...and maybe Craig to deal the final blow."

/ /

Once Kenny is detained, Kyle's plan kicks off with the redhead aiming one of his pistols at the monster's head and firing a few bullets. Raven and Leopold dash towards the monster, Leopold morphing his auras into hand blades once more. Bebe, Clyde, and Tweek stay behind and hurl a barrage of magical orbs at the monster's head.

The loud, reverberating sounds of the gunshots send a warning signal into Kenny's brain. He turns around but Stan's barrier prevents him from going anywhere. He stands there, as if looking helplessly up at his Master.

"Retaliate without mercy," the monster says. Stan knows instantly that it's another command. He sees Kenny curl his hands into tightly clenched fists—a white aura brightening around his left fist and a black aura encasing his right fist. He raises and arches his left arm back in preparation to punch the barrier.

"Shit." Stan looks towards Kenny's Inner Guardian. "Yuna!" He doesn't know for sure if the spirit heard him or not, the light of his barrier isn't bright enough for him to see her clearly. He continues speaking to her anyway. "Take away Kenny's gloves, qui-augh!" Stan grips his chest with his free hand when his barrier gets destroyed. He recovers from the acute pain to block an oncoming fist with his katana, the powerful force of the strike rattling the bones in his body. He maintains a steady grip on the handle with both hands, otherwise the next few punches would've ended him. Kenny begins to pressure him with nothing but punches, causing him to skid backwards. He becomes more worried about his arms breaking rather than his katana's blade.

Instead of piercing through the back of the monster's big craimum, the bullets seep into its flesh as if they're being absorbed. The different colored magical orbs hit their mark, but only the green ones do slight damage. The monster chuckles to mask the pain it felt. "Heh, that tickles." Groans sound from below it. "Though we can't say the same thing applies to you alls friends."

Leopold and Raven stop, now standing in full view of four inert individuals a couple of feet away from the monster's thick legs. Within the red barrier, it appears Cloud is the only one who managed to remain conscious, though it looks like he could faint at any given moment. He smiles weakly, which pains Leopold to see.

"Don't worry about us." Even though Cloud tried to sound reassuring, the weariness in his voice doubled his host's concern.

Leopold shakes his head. "What if...what if we end up killin' you guys?"

"Leopold." The teen looks over at Raven. "Look closely." He averts his attention back to the barrier. At first, he's confused, not sure what he's supposed to be looking at, until he notices it, although just barely. Ingrum's, Henrietta's, and Wendy's bodies are very faintly lit up by silver auras.

"Is he-"

"Hmph, did you think we didn't notice that you were reducing the effects our incantation with your healing all this time?" The monster asks. "We merely let you carry on with the process, so you can weaken yourself even more."

Cloud smirks. "Heh, if doing this was truly a waste, then I would've stopped minutes ago." The monster snarls at his arrogance.

"Let's proceed, Leopold," Raven says. Leopold nods. Together, they advance even closer towards the monster and jump high. Landing on its broad shoulder, Leopold stabs the side of its head with one of his aura blades, but the pointy tip doesn't puncture through its skin. Raven slashes at its head with a prickly, black vine, it remains unscathed.

"Try as you might, but your attempts are useless. Now get your filthy feet off of us." The monster shrugs its shoulder to shake them off, but stops when its head is assaulted by bullets and colorful orbs once again. It suppresses a grunt by clenching its fangs. "It's definitely the human that possesses magical energy slightly akin to our own. He'll pose to be a great threat if left alive any longer. Once these pesky humans and spirits become immobilized all over again, we are going to kill him first." It grins expectantly.

By now, Yuna would've incapacitated 'Craig' had he not protected his hands with his black auras. She was so close to breaking the human's bones, she was sure of it. His bones felt like they were one squeeze away from shattering to pieces. She could overpower him with her own auras, but she gets the feeling that if she does that, 'Craig' would boast about it. She imagines him smirking.

"You need to use your auras to beat a human? Pathetic."

Deep down, Yuna doesn't really want to hurt the teen, despite the surging heat of anger welling from within at the thought. She only acted because 'Craig' was going to kill Kenneth. But something has changed. 'Craig' has gone still.

"Has he given up?" Yuna wonders, though she doesn't let her guard down.

"Kenny is gonna kill Stan."

Yuna did not expect to hear him say that. She instantly doesn't believe him. The corners of her lips curl downward into a frown. "How dare you try to dissuade me with a conniving lie."

"So you really didn't hear Stan call out to you a minute ago?" Yuna faintly recalls hearing someone's voice in the background under the sounds of gunfire and magical orbs propelling through the air, but she was intent on making 'Craig' here a nonthreatening issue to have fully noticed. How did this human hear Stan over the commotion? "Fine. I'll let you see for yourself."

The smoke clears away, allowing Yuna to see again. She stares into silver eyes for a few seconds, discerning that the teen spoke the truth, then lets go and stands up while turning around. She makes a troubled expression at what she sees.

"Oh no..."

A few meters away are undoubtedly Kenneth and Stan. Kenneth is throwing nonstop punches at Stan, who's sluggishly blocking them with his sword. He won't last for much longer. Yuna disappears in a grey flash of light, using Teleportation Dash to get closer to them expeditiously. The sliver-eyed noirette stands up and faces the group near the monster and frowns. The instant Yuna reaches out a hand to stop Kenneth, the three of them come to a quick halt, Kenneth's fist an inch away from Stan's panting face, the fringes of his hair fluttering from the burst of air his best friend's fist generated.

"..."

The slowly falling contaminated raindrops that are pelting against the tower's rooftop fill the cool, eerie silence. An evil laugh soon overlaps the soft pattering.

"Fuck..." Kyle curses nervously, both of his arms held out, his pistols aimed at the monster's head.

"It appears..." the monster turns around while grabbing Leopold and Raven from off its shoulder, its smile broadening triumphantly. "You alls time is up."

Silver eyes glare contemptuously at Kyle. "Useless fucking idiot."