Something dangerous

Chapter 4

“Another day of finding nothing,” Lance says as he pulls his spear out of the snake-goat’s sixth and final heart.

“We’ll just have to try again tomorrow, I guess. The Archmage wouldn’t send us here for no reason,” Greta replies, sitting on the branches of a tall tree. She drops in to rejoin her teammates, walking off a forty-foot fall like it was nothing. “Did you find anything, Trey?”

“Nothing. Just animals. No Noctis here.” The girl says while sitting cross-legged on top of an armored horse.

“It’s getting dark, anyway. Might as well get back to the gate. I need to report back to Sir Bellan.”

“Yeah, you do that. I’m craving some butter roast.” Lance’s stomach growls at the thought of food.

“I want too. Let’s go together.” Astrea replies, her stomach growling.

“No, we all have to report back to the Captain. We can have dinner after that,” Greta replies, though her stomach growled as well. Her teammates smile at her. She turns around and starts walking, embarrassed.

They head back to the warp gate at the edge of the forest, being guided by the beacon they were holding that lets them see the gate’s silhouette from any distance and through anything. They’ve had a long, uneventful day so far, investigating the Mortesh Forest under the orders of Valebryn’s Archmage, along with other groups scattered around the vast woodland. This was their third day on the job, and so far, they didn’t find anything unusual, not even a hint of Noctis activity.

The last rays of sunlight touched the sky as they silently walked through the forest, all of them staying alert for anything unusual. Though their magical skills were better than most people, only Astrea sensed something in the distance. A person accompanied by a swarm of wisps, fundamental creatures born from the forest’s overabundance of magic.

The surrounding creatures camouflaged his presence, making it almost impossible to distinguish him from the forest’s regular inhabitants. She focuses her senses, trying to discern whether he is a threat or not, and she feels his gaze sweeping over them from a distance. When it landed on her, she opens one eye and looks back at him, making the boy hide behind the trees.

She found him interesting, not just his looks but also his magical essence. It was not as polished and orderly as her and her teammates, but it matched, and maybe even exceeded, her own magical energies. And if that was true, she needed to bring him back with them, for his own safety.

Luckily, she didn’t have to find an excuse to capture him. She watched him say goodbye to the wisps and catch up to them, speaking an unfamiliar language at first, then speaking as if he was a toddler. She was so confused by his behavior that she failed to sense the massive creature running towards them.

…

Naoya excitedly watched from the bushes as the knights fought the giant vampyr. The lady called Greta fought with her sword, not up close and personal like one would expect, but by sending golden waves of magical force from her weapon. She was the team’s archer, except she used a sword… to perform long-range attacks.

I mean, it looks cool, but really?

“Lance, Trey! Keep its back towards me, I’ll target the nape!” The lady orders her teammates as they dodge and weave around the vampyr, thrashing around violently.

“Aye!” Her two teammates reply as they draw away the monster’s attention. Greta runs to a tree and up its trunk with no regard for gravity, stands on a branch, and charges up her sword, which starts glowing with a golden hue.

The man called Lance faces the monster head-on, fighting it with an assortment of weapons that he summons out of nowhere and wielding them all with mastery. He tries to drive a lance into the monster’s side, which breaks, then summons a massive mace to swing at the monster’s jaw as it tries to look at what tried to poke its side.

As its head hangs in the air after the impact, the girl called Astrea summons chains from the ground and swiftly slams its head down, further dazing the monster. They step back as Greta finishes charging her weapon, holding her weapon in front of her with a blue force surging around her.

“Ex…” She chants.

Wait, wait, wait. Is she doing what I think she’s doing? That’s copyright, isn’t it?

“Ex… treme Strike!” She finishes, and slashes her sword in front of her, sending a massive golden wave of light towards the creature’s nape.

Oh, wait, nevermind. Copyright strike avoided. Phew.

The slash hits the monster cleanly, sending a shockwave to its surroundings. As the dust settles, it stays immobile on the ground, everyone waiting with bated breath to see if it is finally dead.

Without warning, the vampyr screeches again and shoots upward, straight through the forest canopy. The knights scanned the treetops, trying to find its massive shadowy form, but Greta, still on the tree, moved a second too late before the monster shot down from the sky, directly on top of her. Her late reaction causes the vampyr’s claws to graze her legs and turn them into a bloody mess, and her teammates catch her as the monster composes itself from the fall, preparing to attack once again. Naoya, in his hiding spot, started worrying. He felt bad simply watching these people fight the monster, and even though they were more powerful than him, he wanted to help.

Luckily, he had already encountered this creature lurking around the forest a few nights before. The wisps told him that its weakness was the sun, specifically exposing its back to sunlight, explaining its nocturnal prowl.

“So how are we supposed to kill it now. There’s no sun!” Naoya says to himself in a panic.

Then just make the sun! You can do it!

Suddenly, he hears a small, cute voice say directly to his mind. He looks around and sees, for the first time, a small floating ball of pink light with delicate wings and an origami sakura on top of its form.

“Wait… who… the wisps?” Naoya says instantly recognizing the flower.

Yes, it’s us! We’ve evolved thanks to you, but now’s not the time to elaborate. We have to defeat the vampyr, or all those knights will die!

“Yeah, but how? I can’t make a sun; the best I can do is a campfire!”

Don’t worry, we’ll help you. Let’s get to a higher place first. The creature says as it floats around the edges of the battlefield, Naoya silently following.

Lance and Astrea try to protect themselves and Greta’s unconscious body from the vampyr’s relentless attacks. While doing so, the girl senses the boy and a fairy silently moving toward the top of a tree, and she eavesdrops on their plan.

“Alright, we’re pretty high up now, what do I do?”

Remember how you made a small fire to light something? Now try doing that, but instead of letting the flame pour forward, try to keep it in a small bubble.

“Like this?” Naoya closes his eyes, clasps his hands together and points his index fingers forward, forming a finger gun. He produces a small flame at the tip of his fingers, then pushes it into a small sphere.

Yes, like that. Just keep making flames inside the sphere. I’ll help you contain it. Just keep pouring more fire until it glows really bright, like the sun!

“Oh, I get it now!” Naoya focuses once again when suddenly, a dark, transparent bubble, like tinted glass, forms around them, and someone speaks to them.

“Keep charging. We’ll distract it. Bring it close. Bubble hides light.” It was the voice of a girl, the same one that threw him into the bushes earlier. Naoya spots her looking at them from below and nods back. She talks to her teammate as Naoya focuses his entire mind on making the sun.

This is it, Naoya. Your first heroic feat, don’t mess it up! He thinks to himself as he feels all the magic from his body and surroundings pouring towards the small sphere in front of him, slowly glowing brighter and brighter than ever.

“Is that it?” Lance asks Astrea, pointing at the dark bubble on top of the trees while dodging the vampyr’s attacks.

“Yes. Bring it close. Back of vampyr. Face that,” she says as she pulls out a rock pillar under the vampyr’s head, stopping it from rushing towards her.

“Alright, let’s hope this guy can actually pull it off.”

“He will. One minute.”

As they distract the monsters, Naoya continues building up the flames, which have now grown brighter than any light bulb, seeing its brightness even through his closed eyelids. He was slowly feeling exhausted from producing so much flames and keeping them contained. Unsure of how long he can last, he asks a question.

“Is this enough?”

“No. Ten more seconds. Keep charging,” he hears from the bubble.

“Okay, just a bit more.” Feeling determined, he forces even more magic into the mini-sun, and after a few seconds, he hears the girl again.

“Dropping bubble now. Keep sun steady. Few seconds. Then shoot sun. Kill vampyr.”

“Here we go!” Naoya exclaims.

“Now!” Astrea shouts to Lance, and he jumps away from the monster as a blinding flash of light suddenly envelops the forest. The vampyr’s shriek turns into screams of agony, its body burning from the sunlight, unable to move from the pain.

“I can’t think of a cool catchphrase! Fire!” Naoya says as he lets go of all the flames he’s been containing, shooting a beam of light forward, which even knocks him back a bit.

The beam expands and burns the entire area where the vampyr once was. After a few seconds, the forest turned back into nighttime.

Naoya, amazed with himself, looks at the fairy and celebrates.

“Yooo, that was so cool. We did that! That was so… so awesome…”

He loses his strength and falls off. He saw the fairy fly towards him as he fell and braced for impact even though he couldn’t move his body, but to his surprise, he slowed down, landing on the arms of the girl wearing a beret. She smiled at him as his eyes closed.

His final thoughts before losing consciousness.

She’s cute.