Voice Of Frost

"What!?" Whose voice was that? Rui didn't recognize it and it sounded close to her. Was there someone else here with her? That was absurd. If there was someone else next to her then they were going to die as well.

"No, I won't be dying anytime soon," the voice said as if it were reading her mind... Or rather, it sounded like it was coming from her mind.

Was she losing it? Had she gone insane or was hallucinating because she was only to die?

"Heh, neither of us will be dying anytime soon," the voice in her head corrected.

"Who!? Where!?" Rui had no idea what was going on. How was there enough time for her to be thinking this? Wasn't the dragon right on top of her? The fire should have hit her around ten seconds ago but here she was still fine.

Rui lowered her arms and opened her eyes and what she saw shocked her. All around her, the world had been frozen. Everything was coated in a layer of ice. The dragon in the air was frozen in place and was somehow hovering up in the air even though its wings weren't moving. Even its fire was frozen in a layer of ice.

She looked back at the knights and saw them running towards her with panicked looks on their faces and their arms outstretched as they saw that their commander was going to die. What happened here? It almost seemed like time had frozen for her or something. Or was this what the afterlife looked like?

"You're not that far off about time being frozen for you. Though, you better get out of the way now. I can only keep this place frozen for so long you know."

"Who are you?"

"Now's not the time to be asking that. Move now!" the voice ordered her.

"Huh?" Rui looked back at the dragon and saw that it was very slowly moving towards her. She looked at the knights and saw that they were also moving in slow motion now, and they were gradually speeding up.

"Oh!" Rui ran away from the dragon and towards the knights where the fire wouldn't hit her. Immediately after getting out of the dragon's line of fire, everything sped up again to normal and the dragon whooshed over the place where she just was, bombarding it with a pool of fire.

"Commander! Wait!? How are you here!?" The knights stopped when they saw that Rui was okay.

"No time to explain." Even if she wanted to explain it, she couldn't. She didn't even know what happened herself so how could they expect her to tell them about it. But that aside, they didn't have any time to waste with chit-chat. "Took you all long enough to get out here. It's time to take that thing down," Rui pointed at the dragon who was staring at Rui with its slitted eyes.

It was just as confused as her and the knights about how Rui got away when she was right in front of it. To everyone, it looked as if she suddenly teleported to them.

"Where's the siege weapon?"

"It's still back there," the knights told her. They had abandoned the machine because it wasn't going to help them in their fight against the dragon. In the first place, the machine was only useful against big stationary targets and not moving targets.

"Well move it here."

"I thought it was useless?"

"We'll find a way to bring that beast back to the ground, and when we do, we need the siege weapon to be ready to move when that happens."

"Wait, did you always have that tattoo on your hand commander?"

"Hm? A tattoo?" Rui held up her hands and looked at them. On the back of her right hand, there was a tattoo that was dimly glowing. It was hard to tell what shade of blue it was but it looked like it was teal, the same color as ice. Furthermore, she didn't even know how to describe the shape of it. If she were to guess, it was a symbol of some kind.

"When did this get here?"

'I have always been here.'

"What!?"

"Is there something wrong, commander?"

"Did you not hear that?"

"No." The knights didn't know what Rui was talking about.

'They can't hear me. I'm your head,' the voice came again. Rui almost shouted out loud in response to the voice talking again but caught herself.

"Is there something wrong, commander?" The knights looked at Rui with concerned looks on their faces. They had no clue what was happening to her.

"No, I think I might've hit my head and was hearing things. Let's continue."

"Are you sure you're in the condition to fight then?"

"Yes, I'm fine. More importantly, watch out!"

The dragon was flying towards them and was getting ready to attack them. They needed to move to the side now or they would all get hit by a stream of fire.

"We don't have time to get out of the way!"

The dragon was flying too fast and they wasted too much time standing around doing nothing when they should have been running. If they tried to run now, they would all still get hit by the flames. It was too late for them to get away from it.

'I'll handle this.' the voice in Rui's head said. Once again, the air around her became fidget cold and ice began to form. The knights all felt the temperature drop and looked at Rui who was the source of it.

"Commander, why are you-"

Ice shot up from the ground around them and collided with the dragon's flame breath as it passed over them. The fire and ice canceled each other out and stopped the dragon's attack entirely.

"What was that!?" The knights all looked at Rui.

"I don't know."

'You don't need to know what is going on. Instead, look behind you.'

*Crash!* The dragon landed on top of a house nearby and glared at Rui. Its eyes had a fiery look in them and it made her shiver. She wanted to hide behind a rock to get out of its gaze, and it took all her willpower to stand her ground. It opened its mouth to let out another breath attack and the same thing happened again. Ice appeared around the knights and flew into the fire, canceling both of the attacks out.

"How are you doing that!?" a knight asked the question that everyone wanted to know.

"What makes you think I'm the one doing it!?"

"Wait, you're not!? Didn't you say that you use ice magic!?"

'Just say it's you, please. Saves headaches in the long run.'

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