Natural Order

Ariana breathed steadily. Her gaze was locked firmly on the enemy before her. 

The enemy flourished its dagger. A strange sheen followed along the path of movement. It thrust the dagger forward with a strange visual warping. She didn't attempt to dodge or deflect. Her arms swung on with the sole intent of grabbing the enemy by the head. Her eyes narrowed, and her intent was clear.

The enemy stepped under her arms and ducked to the side, grazing her chest and torso. It burned a bit. Her hands clapped together hard with a shockwave. Her gaze remained locked onto the enemy. She swung her arms around to the side, splintering the wall in her path, and hammered at the enemy, once again aiming for the head. 

It dodged backwards and stepped back. 

She glanced to the side to check on Sophie and Ellie. 

Sophie was still holding Ellie. Ellie was gasping for dear life and still looked ill, but she was weakly gripping one of the picks in a shaky hand. Sophie cradled her close with one hand, still glittering golden, and her other hand held up her staff. She nodded to Ariana. 

Ariana's focus returned solely to the enemy. 

The enemy's armor took on a strange sheen that trailed behind its movements. She ran at it full sprint with the intent of planting its head into the ground with her fist. 

It slipped to the side and slashed at her arm. She swiped to the side, and her fingers caught the side of the enemy. There was ripping of cloth and creaking of metal as she nearly struck true. Revealed underneath was a pale, delicate-looking skin. The enemy gasped and stepped back. 

The enemy looked around... then bolted for the window and leapt out. 

Ariana followed without hesitation. 

She chased the enemy across the darkened and empty highway. 

The enemy tossed more knives at Ariana. She blocked what she could with her arms. Several of them grazed her arms and across her cheek, and three of them landed firmly by her wrist. All of the points of contact had a slight tingle. She yanked the knives out of her wrist and hucked them at the enemy. 

They came to the base of the tree on the opposite side of the highway. Ariana felt winded. She was running on fumes, yes, but she was fuming. 

She sensed some of her own magic nearby. 

She glanced around. 

The seeds she dropped earlier were scattered about. 

Ariana's gaze turned back to the enemy again. 

She summoned more water and swung wide twice with it. The enemy ducked under the first and leaped over the second. 

Ariana sent a third wave while it was on the air.

The enemy took on an odd sheen once more and defied all reason and logic. Space seemed to bend between it and the wave. Ariana knew she was looking at a straight shot; it should have been a direct hit, but everything was distorting in ways she couldn’t comprehend. 

When everything was normal once more, the enemy stood in place. It staggered slightly. Whatever it did must have taken a lot out of it. 

She took her opportunity to strike. She unleashed the latent magic in the seeds scattered earlier, and they sprang into a chaotic mess of pumpkins and vines. 

The enemy leaped away from the mess, narrowly avoiding the smashdown of a car-sized gourd, the largest Ariana had made yet.

She chased with more vines. She felt herself getting tired; she knew her magic was running low. She launched one more large pumpkin, and as it flew, she pulled up her status screen and put the dozen or so level points she gained from the other assailants all into her magic pool, now almost triple what it was when she first arrived in this world.

Ariana’s blood boiled with the new surge of mana. 

The enemy took that moment of distraction to land a blow on her leg. She cried out and swiped for it. It managed to avoid her strike again and stepped to a safer range once more. 

Ariana roared out and summoned another barrage of whipping vines and crushing vegetables. She added in several swipes of razor leaves and blasts of violently blooming flowers that left lingering clouds of pollen. She flung out a bombardment of explosive flowers to distract a while longer.

She looked into her skills as quickly as she could for something to fortify her magic. Magic, magic, magic, anything with the word magic. She found something and took it with the points she had. 

She took Magic Drain.

The enemy took this second opportunity to close the gap and plunged the dagger into her shoulder. 

Ariana managed to grip the enemy firmly by the shoulder. There was a crunch of bone. The enemy screamed in a shrill way. 

Ariana made swift use of the newly gained power. She took her other hand and gripped the enemy by the face. She gripped harder, and there was a cracking of metal and wood. An ominous blue flowed from the enemy into her hand. 

The enemy screamed again and pulled itself free from her grip. The sleeve of the gripped arm and the head coverings were ripped free as it escaped. 

Underneath was a pale elven woman with glowing silver eyes and long, disheveled black hair. Her now sleeveless arm dangled limply. Her dagger stayed embedded in Ariana’s shoulder. It burned steadily on Ariana’s wound. 

Both were heavily wounded and down an arm.

The woman started to laugh. 

Ariana sprinted at her and slammed her to the ground, pinning the frail elf underneath her.

“Damn”, she scoffed, “I didn’t think a caster would be that strong.”

“Why?!” Screamed Ariana. “Why did you do this!?”

The woman spat back at her. “You know why. You hurt my boys.”

Ariana was stunned. The rage slowly drained out of her. “What?”

The woman snarled. “My boy would have gotten away if it wasn’t for you, now he’ll be executed!” 

Ariana sat up, as if that would increase the distance between them.

“And to top it off… You killed the rest of my boys. You ruined everything. Why shouldn’t I return the favor?”

Ariana was in a daze, realizing everything she’d just done.

While in this daze, a sharp pain slipped into her stomach that kept spreading. She looked down and saw that the elven woman had stuck a knife in her gut. 

“Hah… not even a demon can resist this one’s poison…”Ariana felt the sharp pain crawling up through her stomach, into her chest, and through her limbs. 

She doubled over, barely able to process the world around her as her vision faded out like burning film. All that remained was swirling patterns of turbulent black and white, and red sharpness at the edges of her vision. 

She could almost feel the shape that the poison was carving through her body. The pain it brought and the danger she felt were the only things that existed now.

Danger. 

She focused on that. 

She couldn’t tell if she was moving, only that the thought of it alone was excruciating. 

She couldn’t tell if she was breathing, only that her lungs seemed to be packed with nails. 

The only thing that wasn’t pain was the danger she felt. Whatever she was doing outside of the pain, it kept the danger directly in front of her. 

It lingered there. 

She tried to perceive something, anything else. 

As she tried, the danger spiked. 

She felt an impulse, and she followed it. The sharpness receded and attempted to shift. She strained as hard as she could to maintain its place in front of her. She could feel that she didn’t have long until the pain completely overtook her faculties.

She kept reaching out to sense anything other than pain and danger.

Then she felt it.

There was a blue energy that flowed under her feet. 

It stretched up from the ground around her and towards the sky. 

She reached out to it as best she could and clung to it. 

She cast Magic Drain. 

She felt the energy flood into her, far more magic than she anticipated, and it too was painful. It felt like she was about to burst down to her soul, and every fiber of her being strained against the very fabric of reality to stay in one piece. It was almost as if the world itself would rip her into atoms for daring to touch whatever she did if she lost focus for a second. 

The danger spiked at her again.

She felt a new impulse and followed it. 

She sensed that something was pulled toward her. 

The danger slowly faded.

As did she.

She could feel the magic she borrowed tearing its way out of her, leaving behind only the shape carved by the poison that racked her body. 

There was a distinct gap in the danger somewhere to her left. 

It steadily spread until the danger was gone completely. 

She succumbed to the pain as a triumphant sound echoed in her head.