Finding The Middle Ground

Carl and I ran at Austin and Amy with our weapons readied at our hips or over our shoulders, and the two launched a ton of blades out toward us.

Carl swung his axe down at the blades coming right for us, and through an opened tip near the front, he pulled the trigger with those weird bullets and shattered them like it was nothing, leaving a perfect opening for me.

I pushed my legs forward no matter what kind of fatigue I was feeling. The strands never traveled that far down on my body, and only stood solidified in my forearms. With the fatigue slowly whittling away at my overall stamina, running at full speed was nothing but a pipe dream. The sad reality is that I was getting close to stopping.

I clashed with Austin's weird blades, and more shot out of his sword... yet, they stopped without even touching me.

I slid upward and kicked his forearm. He had a pretty tight grip on his forearm, so when I slashed again after my initial kick, he didn't move and tried to swing down on my head.

Usually, when blades clash, they end up perpendicular to each other, so when his sword came down near the top of my head, and Carl reciprocated that strike with his own going the same direction Austin's was coming down, sparks shot out and Austin was stunned in confusing.

"You never told me you were so accurate now!" I told Carl, sliding underneath his legs after crawling back up to my feet.

"Go get our number three," Carl said, holding the axe widely.

"No offense, but without strands, you're not beating Amy and me," Austin said with an arrogant voice.

"I'm well aware," Carl said. He charged with his axe coming downward, and Austin shot a blade near Carl's chest.

He flipped the gun around to his front, shot it toward the ground, and launched himself up in the air.

"Put yourself in an easier position why don't you?!" Austin said with that same arrogant smile.

"Let's go higher then!" Carl shouted out in midair.

The gun rotated around his body and shot at Austin's feet. The bullet didn't explode like it usually did, and instead sat for a moment, generating more power, and blowing Austin up into the air.

"What?" He muttered, turning to look over at Carl.

The axe, attached by a long strap, came around widely while midair and cut off his leg.

While this was ongoing, I ran over by Illya's side and tried to wake her up.

"Illya! Hey! Wake up! Are you okay?!" I asked her, lifting her head up while looking at Austin and Amy.

I tried shaking her, looking at the darkened white stone on her left hand... to which nothing happened.

"Alright, then I have to bring you out of here!" I told her.

I gasped out of instinct and turned toward Austin, who threw a knife in my direction.

It exploded like a burst of arrows in the air, which would indiscriminately kill Illya and me.

Carl tried to prime the gun, but the blades were too fast.

I pulled up my katana, blocked one from entering my stomach, and caught one before it stuck into my throat, but before I could make another move, the tendrils I feared so much blocked me as they originated from Illya's position, and her body rose up.

She didn't get up on her feet, but the tendrils pushed her up into the air and steadied her head while she reclaimed consciousness.

Carl slid on the ground with his axe in hand, keeping an eye on Austin and Amy from behind.

"How in the world are you even alive? Shouldn't using Sky's abilities tire you out?" Austin asked. He flaunted his purple scarf around his neck and kept his eyes fixated on Illya.

It seems no matter how often Carl and I beat him up or threatened him, he was more focused on Illya.

I rose my hand and tilted it to the right, telling Carl to move. He nodded, prepared his gun, and disappeared into the smoke of settling dirt from his last encounter with Austin.

"They are tiring me out. Not even I have infinite stamina... you're waiting for me to use it, aren't you?" Illya asked Austin, and he nodded.

"I heard you were saved last time you used it, but Sky can't come to save you now," He said with a smile.

I was closely watching Austin, and he stomped his foot three times on the ground. It wasn't playfully, nor unintentionally, as they all had the same amount of distance between the two.

"Illya, he stomped his foot, he's planning something," I told her.

Her eyes fixated on his foot, and he smiled again.

"If you won't do it, perhaps we should find the middle ground?" He said.

He rose his hand to snap his fingers again, and I saw the glint in Carl's scope cross over my eyes for a split second.

A loud, booming noise came out from his direction, and a blade shot out of the bullet sent to Austin, dragging in the ground, and stopping as it tapped him on the cheek.

"Boom," Austin said.

His arrogant smile expanded so far against his face, it felt like he was an inhuman monster.

The ground was completely shredded into what appeared to be a juice made from dirt, grass, and rock.

It disintegrated underneath me, and I was caught by the tendril before anything bad happened to me, but everything around us was ruined.

A sound rang in my ears drums as the ground was dug up. I covered both my ears and eyes, dropping my katana. When I opened them after the noise subsided, the ground was dug up like a meteor hit the Earth, and underground pathways of sewers and pipes were exposed to the open air.

Austin and Amy were nowhere to be found. They escaped.