Black eyes burn

From the back of the cavern, two great bats rose upwards, before swooping down on the group of comrades. Simultaneously, a great mass of bats came from the same direction, rushing towards the group at extreme speed.

"Let me take the center!" Himari shouted, as the three threats to their lives plummeted towards them.

Haru and Himari jumped to a new spot.

Himari readied her blade and closed her eyes. The bats' calls disappeared, and her mind focused.

She brought her blade down. There was a flash, another, and another. And 3 cuts longer than the blade seemed extended through the black cloud.

Yea , the black cloud reformed once again. Himari jumped back towards Vadik, who shined the lights at the bats, hoping for any sort of deterrence. Seeing there was none, he threw a light into the midst of them, and started to draw his blade from his back.

Roshi held up his hand.

"No need to draw you to know that blade now. Everyone, don't get flustered. This is clearly going to be a battle of attrition. So make sure we fight as one as well as we can, and don't rush recklessly into situations you don't fully understand. Like a certain someone who shall not be named."

Gao punched his gauntlets together. "Got it bossman." He exclaimed with a wide grin

Roshi chuckled.

For a good while, the team darted left and right around the room, staying away from the main mass of blackwings and claws, cutting the small ones down, while staying away from the two large ones chasing vehemently after them. However, no matter how many they cut down, the cries only ever became louder. And it wore on them more and more.

Vadik pushed a bunch of raving bats away with his blade. He looked around him, and saw the formation start to slip because of the intense pressure on all fronts. He squinted, and looked towards Mr Etzem. He shrugged, and mouthed a single word.

"Speak."

Vadik thought for a moment.

"The person who kills the most bats from here on will gain all the points from this quest to use however they wish."

"Wait, so everyone can just get Roshi's equipment."

"That'll throw off the team balan…" Roshi started

"It's a deal." Everyone said in unison.

Roshi face palmed

This moment of calm was quickly interrupted, as rocky spikes with an aura of flames rushed towards them. Many of them were caught off guard, but Neji swung his hammer at the largest and most vital ones, giving the others enough time to get out of the way.

Roshi surveyed the area as swiftly as possible to find the source, only to find two eyes staring back at him, hate glowing in its eyes. Then, out of thin air, a rocky spik- no, a great spear, was formed in front of his eyes. As he was about to move, a loud roar erupted from his right. Everyone fell to their knees.

Mr Etzem squinted. As the spear came crashing down, He teleported into the midst of the frozen comrades, and as the spear was just a fraction of time away from him, it stopped. And it started to shake. Then it began to break apart into many different pieces, before coming back together again, and being thrown at the bat whose screams had consumed the minds of the eight new phantoms. With a squelch, it was never heard again.

Mr Etzem looked at the bat flapping its wings before him, and bounded towards it. Many bats tried to block his path, but were sent straight to the ground once they got within a certain range of him, splattered against it. The hate in the large bat's eyes turned swiftly from hate to fear. It tried to flap its wings, but to no avail. In desperation, it called to the rest of the bats in the cavern to help it in its state. They formed around it, with some of their skin becoming torn and ensnared by extreme pressure. Onwards they strived though, first trying to pull it away, then trying to flap in unison with their rupture lord. They began to make progress, but by then, Etzem was right in front of them all, or to be more specific, above.

Soon after, an amalgamation of bats lay dead on the ground, blood and fur splattered, with many swords forming a circle in the centre of the one inhabiting the middle.

Etzem started to whistle a haunting tune, looked at all of them, and smiled under his mask.

Yue awoke with a start. She looked left and right and found herself in a familiar place. She sighed, as Natasha bounded towards her, while Katlyn scrolled upwards on a translucent green screen.

"Oh, you're awa-"

"You're awake!" Natasha shouted.