The slither and the crying beauty

In a forest, somewhere very far from where humans used to live, a group of people were now facing a creature. A creature no ordinary human can fight or even survive the encounter. Yet this group of people were no ordinary people. Hunters. People who exceed the typical human power. People who use special abilities. And they were fighting a horror. An abomination of a creature, the everlasting fight between humankind and the horrors.

A large serpent, which was glowing red, attacked the girl, which was right in front of her. With a very powerful tackle, the horror expected to hit her, yet as soon as its head was close to the girl, she jump away with a beautiful backflip and landed a few meters behind, evading the strike.

"The creature is not that fast, the problem is its scales. They are the reason the water is boiling. The creature is basically a hot frying pan in the water." Shouted Alice to her teammates.

"What was this weird metaphor? Anyway, we need a plan of attack." Replied the man with two shields.

"The usual tactic, tank for us, we deal the damage" Alice said and ran straight towards the water. She jumped right in the lake, but before she touched the water, a strong soundwave came out of her legs, and pro-pulsed her further. Doing such a move allowed her to travel across the lake without touching the water.

The man with the shields started to act as well. Closing his arms together, the two shields became one and the shield started to glow. And right after a large beam of light emitted from the shield and shined right into the eyes of a serpent.

Now temporarily blinded, the large snake started to move its head very chaotically, as well as trying to hit the shielded man with its tail. The hit was so hard the man flew away from just the hit. His shield protected him, however he was now pretty far from the battleground and it would take him several seconds to get back. And those seconds could be very crucial.

"Thanks, Mason" Alice said "Everyone, attack the freakin worm now!"

As soon as she said it, she started to dance. At least that would appear as dance, since her moves had so many different twists and rotations. She was moving her hands very fast, then moving her legs as if she was punching and kicking air. And she was doing it very gracefully. With all the pirouettes and handstands. However she was not hitting the air. After every swing of her limb, the semi-visible crescent shape distortion came out and flew right towards the snake and hit it at all the different places.

At the same time, the dark haired man in the back was aiming at the snake with his fire rifle.

"Aim for the eyes, Blake!" Said the pink haired girl standing next to him.

Without any reply, Blake took a deep breath. It felt like the time slowed down for him. He could hear his own heartbeat. He was waiting. Waiting. And right after his heart beat, right in the middle of two heart beats, he pulled the trigger. No gunshot was heard. Yet after mere milliseconds the serpent screamed. At least that looked like a scream. With no vocal chords, it could only open its mouth wide and move even faster.

Now a visible wound was seen in the place of its left eye.

"Good shot, Blake" said Alice and ran towards the beast. Using her soundwave, she jumped onto the beast and barely touched its body; she used it to jump higher. And now she was higher than the beast. And as soon as she almost touched its head.

"Bullet resonance"

Barely touching its head with her finger, she shoots a strong and quite visible sound wave concentrated in a line. This attack looked like she shot something out of her finger. The shot damaged the serpent by removing some of its scales from its head.

"Nice shot Alice!" shouted her teammates. But suddenly, the serpent swung its tail towards Alice. Concentrating her powers, Alice used the sound wave to negate the hit, however something strange happened. A sudden burst of pain occurred in her chest. Unable to concentrate the energy required for her attack, the tail just hit her with a very strong power and sent her flying somewhere in the woods.

"Alice!" screamed Mason who just recovered from the previous attack. He ran towards her.

"Everyone, distract the enemy!"

Finding Alice lying under a huge pine tree with some visible wounds, he ran towards her.

"Alice, Alice, answer me!" he continued screaming.

"Dude for freak's sake, just little quieter" she said trying to stand up.

"What happened? Why didn't you block the attack? Are you still recovering from that sting? I told you, you needed to spend more time in the hospital" said Mason, helping ALice stand up

"Dude, I AM fine. Just got a little too confident, that's it. What we need is to finish that thing off. Lets go"

"No. No Alice. I do not allow you to go." replied Mason. His face was confident as he was saying it.

"I'm sorry? YOU don't allow ME? I am the leader. And I say what to do. And right now, I am commanding myself to go back to fight. And you will not stop me!"

"Fine, just, be careful, ok?"

Ignoring him, Alice walked past and went towards the fight.

Meanwhile, her group was fending off the creature. They managed to evade the attacks and counterattack. It seemed that the creature was losing.

"Alice, you ok!" cried the pink haired girl.

"Yes, prepare for the last move. We will finish this fight in 1 go."

Everyone knew what this meant. Whenever they needed to finish off the beast they were fighting, they were using this attack. A combination of moves and skill of every member. This was both their ultimate weapon and the weapon of last resort.

Everyone ran to their positions.

Mason ran in front of the group and used his shields to create a massive energy barrier between himself and the beast. Pink haired girl ran towards the beast, throwing her dagger into the beast. As the dagger pierced the scales of a beast it stuck in its body. And a thin string was coming from the dagger.

"Now Bellarosa!" screamed Alice.

Pink haired girl activated her ability and her hair started to rise. Blue electrical waves were spiraling around her.

"Null static" she said as her pupils started to glow blue.

Then a strong electric shock came down the string towards the dagger.

The beast was paralyzed.

"Faster, I cannot hold for much longer!" she screamed.

Not wasting any time, Alice ran towards the horror and stood right in front of it. Holding her hands in a way that looked like she was holding something she said:

"This is the end, stupid horror"

As she said, a large visible distortion of air appeared around the beast. Soon the beast broke free from the paralyzing effect and tried to hit the group, but as soon as the tail hit the barrier around, its tail bounced back and the creature hit itself.Taking his rifle, Blake took a shot, yet he did not hit the beast. He overshot it by a few centimeters. However instead of flying past, the bullet hit the barrier created by Alice and bounced back and hit another side of the barrier. And by such, the bullet was flying forth and back bouncing from every wall of the barrier until its speed increased tremendously and finally it was flying towards the beast.

With an insane speed, it penetrated the beast head and flew towards the group.

"Hold it for a few more seconds Alice." said Mason who was still holding his shield.

But as soon as he said it, he saw Alice falling down. She fainted.

Her sound barrier was no more and the bullet flew right through the barrier Mason was holding, easily shattering it and flying past until it hit Belarosa. It was so fast no one really knew what happened.

Before even the body of the beast fell down, Alice fainted and milliseconds after the shield barrier shattered and the pink haired girl fell down as well.

"Blake, quickly, check on Belarosa, I will check on Alice." shouted Maso.

Luckily, Alice was ok and just fainted.

"She is bleeding!" screamed Blake.

Quickly running to her, Mason took out the first aid kit. Applying pressure on the wound he told Blake to run to the portal and bring help.

"Shit shit shit!" he cried while performing the first aid…

—------------

"Wh-what happened?" opening her eyes, Alice stood up. She was in the infirmary. "Where am I?"

Standing up, she exited the infirmary. She was already on Earth. Looking around, she saw people transport the large body of the beast they defeated.

"We won…" she said "But where is everyone?"

Walking around for a few minutes, she found her group in one of the infirmary rooms. They were gathered around a girl lying on the bed with lots of bandages around her waist.

"Guys!" She ran towards them. "I am sorry for what happened. I didn't think I could faint that easily. It was probably because I did not really eat today…"

"Alice" Mason Interrupted her. His look was very serious as if he wanted to say something important. "We are just glad you're okay!"

He grabbed her and hugged her.

"Wow, take it easy champ. I might fall in love, you know" replied Alice.

The group told her everything that happened after she fainted. And after that the group just sat silently for a few minutes.

"I am sorry, that was my fault. I should've gone back after that hit. I needed to go for help" said Alice, finally breaking the silence.

"It is fine, I am fine, please guys, don't be so serious." said the pink haired girl.

"Alice, we… the committee… after we told them what happened, they decided to put you on hold for now" said Mason.

"What!?" replied Alice with a significant amount of visible shock on her face "what does that even supposed to mean?"

"For now, you are stepping down from the leader position and your rank will be dropped down one level."

"That is freakin ridiculous! They don't just rank down the leader, just because I messed up one time" furiously said Alice. Everyone in the room could feel the energy around and no one dared to say something to her. Except for one.

"I know. I insisted." continued Mason "Look Alice, you need to take a break. You could've died today! I think it is best if you rest for a bit"

"Mason…" Alice said very quietly. She walked towards him and looked right in his eyes.

For Mason, it felt like an eternity but he kept his posture and seriousness. He was ready to take anything, but he was not stepping down.

*Slap*

"That is how I feel now. Slapped and betrayed" said Alice. It looked like she was holding her tears from coming. She stormed off the place. No one dared to stop her.

"That is for her best" Mason kept saying it to himself, as she left.