Every man to himself

'Hair not dyed, I look like crap and I'm not even in a dress. Quite vulnerable, but the show must go on.'

Something freeing about fighting for half a cause. She could fail to her heart content. No kids will die, no punishment, no consequences.

She hunched forward, seaweed man jumped up faster than the shape shifters.

Before realizing it the humanoids saw two of their own slashed into halfs, the optic illusion of a person faded away, leaving a seashell on the ground.

Many eyes were watching behind the almost black shrubs in the edge of the metal forest.

She jumped away from a sway of a whip.

"Cool arm dude." She complimented the seaweed man.

"Out of my way...I need to learn!"

"Then phase out and go looking for the desert."

"I SEARCHED EVERYWHERE." The screech of a crying, dying man echoed in the area. Amplified by the metal of the forest.

Silence stood heavy, one humanoid carefully collected the injured friends.

The ringing of metal when the axe blocked an arrow shifted the air.

Arrows pulled all the way back on the bowstring, targeting Karaza who was slightly board, calculating when to use the apple.

'I could go back to the forest but if he screamed again while I'm there I'll be permanently deaf.' She looked at the other option in the empty grassy area behind the enemy. Knowing that area like the back of her hand she concluded that the grass was long enough to cover her laying down and activating the apple.

'This could work..'

"It's not anywhere!" A high pitched voice screaming in the sky yelled. On a broom needless to say.

'Screw me she's back!' Karaza gritted her teeth.

"Well hello everybody!" She landed between them, unfazed by the arrows.

'You total saw them when you left you hypocrite.'

"Oh hi dude! whatcha doin'? How's the family?" She greeted the seaweed man who just shot acknowledging look before breaking down.

"THEY'RE GONE! KILLED AND DISMANTLED. I... I JUST WANT TO.."

"To.. learn to..." His breath and broken pipes couldn't lift his grief, though he wished he could lift it up and throw it far away.

'Move on.'

Karaza looked down, questioning her right to fight here, when the duke's orders are a shred from the past and thinking for herself is the reality of the present.

"...Sheesh, you can have this, I don't need it this much." Roxy handed him her frame but he showed his own wrapped by the seaweed in his pounding chest.

"WHERE? where is the desert?"

"Beats me." Roxy shrugged.

The group of humanoids were watching the girl on a broom with mixed looks, some cautious other out right terrified.

"Is that.. Are you the walking plant?"

"That's meee!"

That cheerful wave jolted them away from her direction.

"What did you do?" Karaza asked like a disappointed mom.

"Nothing! I'm a cutie! They used to love me." She defended.

"Before you saved us only to humiliate us!" One humanoid yelled, distinct from the others with the pearls on his ankles and arms. The arrows directed at the humans once changed its direction to her.

"Come onnnn, it was a prank!"

"How could you say that!" The feminine humanoid shouted. Almost everyone gritting their teeth and clenching their jaws at her presence. Except the seaweed man, he was recollecting his nerves.

They remembered when they were scattered on the ground, chewing the dirt, wounds bleeding. The radish shaped parasite munching on a boar with spikes covering its back like a hedgehog; their natural predator.

The parasite looked down the hill at their relieved faces. Walking in tiny steps toward the boar's heart, chewing an opening to get inside.

' wonder...What expression will they make if I...'

The relief quickly flipped into terror as the possessed boar marched toward them.

"That's all I did! No one even died." In a heartbeat Roxy was explaining, behind Karaza. The human mortified by the fact she was at least 15 meters away from her seconds ago.

"Such a cunt!" Karaza growled at the story. "How was their faces?" She whispered to the parasite.

"Quite hilarious if you ask me." She mumbled.

'That's strange.' The human thought, placing her elbow on Roxy. Leaning into the danger to seek comfort.

'The wild creature don't operate like humans, grudges weren't a thing. It's normal to ally with someone you fought minutes ago if the situation called or even for shits and giggles.'

She stole a glance toward the teenage-jeezer she's leaning on.

'Ah! Is that why I can't do the civilian socializing thing? Cause in human's affairs a wrong word can have permanent mark?'

'They cosplayed as humans for too long, now they're functioning like such.'

"There's arrow coming toward you ma'am." Roxy deadpanned, snapping her from her thoughts.

Roxy untangled herself from her, putting her hands on the other's shoulder for momentum before jumping and stepping on her shoulder for a higher jump, catching her broom and flying away.

A swing of compact sound waves turned the arrows into broken sticks. The impact knocked some humanoids away.

The swing carried more than one big sound wave.

"You could've summoned the broom without all that." The vain in Karaza's forehead appeared.

She looked at the foes in front.

"Well you know the gist, it's nothing personal."

The dice like compact sound waves rolled over, now scattered between the foes.

The sound bombs exploded, knocking them all unconscious.