The Determination

"When he heard those words, Asher froze. It was not fear that made him stand still but dormant memories he'd long had buried. He had to act…to move but his feet refused to budge even as one of the sharp tentacles aimed straight at him. The moment he realized she was depending on him made the entire world spin. Asher's chest tightened and he fought the urge to vomit.

"Even If you try to escape…you'll still be a failure." It was regret who spoke. Listening to her didn't spark anger but instead made Asher realize that he was still the weak little bandaged boy from a few weeks back and no amount of soap or affection would wash the truth away.

Just as the tentacle was about to pierce through him, Clara shoved him again to the side, blocking the tentacle with her metal hands, causing sparks from the friction to fly everywhere.

Watching her from the side Asher realized that the witch wasn't a fighter. Her movements were clunky and unbalanced, but she still persisted in blocking the feral Dremin.

"Don't even dream of it…You'll just get in the way." Fear spoke up before the boy could muster any courage to help.

"STAY THERE ASHER! Just Stay clear!" Clara shouted before Asher could rebuke the boyish voice. Fear was right and even if he wanted to deny it, Clara made it obvious that she didn't need the 12-year-old's help.

Defeated, he crawled further away from the tentacles as Clara weaved over to a cabinet and grabbed a purple diamond-shaped crystal. She then tried to insert the crystal into her arm, but the Dremin was faster. It sensed the agitation and pinned Clara to the wall making the crystal fly towards Asher.

Clara was fighting the beast off, barely holding it back while Asher stared at the crystal, the anxiety welling up inside him.

"Be a good little boy and hide…She told you to hide." Fear was right again. She asked him to stay, and he would listen. 

"Look at you…here you go getting someone else killed. What's the death count now?" Regret laughed at Asher whose eyes were welling up with tears. The boy's body tensed as he watched her dodge the attacks...his fists tightened. He gritted his teeth.

"I was never good at listening." Asher mumered as he grabbed the crystal and ran towards Clara. It took effort to recall the faint memories of the training he used to watch as a child.

"Deep…Breath…observe your surroundings…Dodge." The tentacles were comparatively slow for Asher who had the experience of being a street rat. He managed to dodge most of the tentacles while the rest slightly grazed him.

When he reached Clara the sludge has mostly covered her entire body up to her neck. It slowly creeped up to enter behind the edges of the mask.

"STAB my ar…." The sludge covered everything. Next, the feral Dremin would cocoon her body and induce a series of dreams to feed off her, but Asher would not let that happen. 

He dodged one last tentacle and jumped towards the wall where Clara was pinned. He aimed the crystal like a knife and its tip at where Clara's hand would be only to be swatted away by a tentacle sending him flying across the room and into a bookshelf.

"Now look at you…got both you and girly killed. What's the point now." Regret chided as Ash watched Clara's hand pierce through the sludge and grab into the falling crystal. 

With panicked swiftness she pierced it into her left arm which began to slowly glow brighter and brighter with heat, frightening the portion of the sludge holding her to the wall. Free at last she quickly removed her left arm and threw it beside the rampaging Balar, producing a small explosion which stunned him.

Finally able to get close to the main body, Clara grabbed the potion she made earlier and poured most of it over Balar causing the mass of writhing sludge to grow docile and halt its consumption of the room.

Now came the tough part. She drank what was left of the potion and sat beside Balar's head where the sludge was slowly drifting back into. She took a deep breath and slowly calmed herself with the help of the potion. It contained fairy dust. Fairy dust was a strong relaxant and being in the right state of mind was important when trying to feed a Dremin calm emotions.

In about a few minutes the sludge all returned to Balar's body which regained a decent amount of his form back.

While this happened, Asher didn't watch in silence. He felt guilty for hesitating to help and began to nervously clean the room of the debris.

When Clara was done, she looked at the boy and realized what Asher was doing. She sighed and walked over to him, grabbing the broom he was holding.

"When you asked for a hands-on experience, I didn't expect to lose an arm." She made another one of her dumb jokes, but it made Asher calm down. It made him crack an awkward smile. He hadn't expressed one in a long while.

"You've done enough today…go rest…The white flame knows I need a shower." Clara ruffled the boy's hair before rushing him out of the room. Asher walked to his room on the second floor while thinking the whole day over.

He didn't know that once he left Clara slumped at the door's side till she reached the ground. With gritted teeth, she grabbed onto the stump where her metal prosthetic used to be and cursed.

"Blights…for an arm that isn't here it's quite a handful." She tried to make herself laugh off the phantom pain till Stephan showed up suddenly in front of her. He was smiling per usual, but Clara had lived with this man for a long time now and she knew his smile hid pain.

When he realized that she saw through him, he quickly turned around and began to clear the rubble. It was his way of helping and she appreciated it nonetheless.