The first battle is usually the worst

After taking one last moment to look at the situation and psych herself up to get into her first real fight ever, Mina jumped out of her hiding spot and into the middle of the road where the guards could easily see her.

“Hey, stop ri-”

Before she could even halfway finish a sentence, Nik went in and started blowing them up, literally. The moment he stepped out from their cover, a glow appeared in his hands as he condensed his magic into balls which he then threw at the guards. The guards didn’t even have time to turn to face them before Nik’s magic balls hit them, exploding on contact.

“AHHHHHH!”

Everyone was caught by surprise as Nik pulled out two daggers which quickly began to glow, and roared, charging the guards. The guards recovered from the explosions quickly though, and turned to face the incoming threat.

‘Seriously?! He’s not even letting me do a heroic opener?! That’s like, good guy 101!’ Mina thought angrily as she created her bow. Then, as Nik leapt blades first at one of the guards, Mina fired off a shot at the other one to keep them from going for his back. The arrow struck the guard in the shoulder, dealing visible damage to the armor and catching them by surprise. Meanwhile, the first guard pulled out his sword and blocked Nik’s knives, only for the knives to explode, forcing the two apart.

“Um, sorry about my crazy friend there, but we’re here to stop this arrest!” Mina called out in an attempt to salvage some degree of heroic aura.

“AHHHHHH!” Nik screamed like a crazy person, seemingly forgetting about Mina, the other guard, and just basically everything but the guard in front of him as he aggressively swiped his glowing daggers at them. Said guard was now playing it safe, wisely staying out of range of the explosive knives, his feet glowing as he seemingly glided across the ground. That said, as dangerous as Nik’s power was, he clearly wasn’t actually using any strategy or technique, meaning the guard could easily just retreat away from him while focusing his attention on Mina.

‘I’m starting to think I should have just done this myself and told Nik to go get Iro or something.’ Mina thought to herself.

“Stop this arrest? But, why?” The guard not being attacked by Nik asked.

“What do you mean why? You’re corrupt guards taking advantage of a dumb rule to arrest whoever you feel like, and I’m a hero who stops people like you!” Mina declared. Unlike the angry sneers or arrogant scoffs she expected though, the two guards simply sighed tiredly in response.

“Listen young Miss, you’re clearly new to the kingdom. This is just how things are around here these days. Now why don’t you call off your friend here’ and we’ll let you off with a warning.” The guard said gently.

“AHHHHHH! STAND STILL AND TAKE IT YOU COWARD!” Nik screamed again, having achieved nothing but irritating the guard he was trying to attack.

“Yeah, well the way things are sucks, so we’re gonna change it!” Mina replied as she nocked another arrow. The guard talking to her let out a sigh, then pulled out his sword and raised his other hand, which began to glow with a teal light, and pointed it at her.

“Very well. in that case I here by arrest you on the charges of intentionally interfering with an arrest, and attacking a kingdom guard, and you will be punished with the full authority of the king. Sky Blast!” The guard said, and fired a glowing burst of air from his hand.

Mina didn’t let herself panic at the sight, and channelled all her dodging skills from playing dodge ball back in school and dived out of the way. As she dove, she let her arrow fly. The guard braced himself and moved to avoid the invisible projectile, but it wasn’t aimed at him, it was aimed at the guard Nik was attacking.

“Gah!”

The arrow struck true, hitting the guard in the leg and making him stumble. This finally allowed Nik to land another attack against the guard, his glowing knives making contact and exploding once more.

“Bingo.” Mina said with a smirk, before the smirk quickly fell. “No, that sounds stupid for a catchphrase.”

Seeing this, the guard not being attacked by Nik decided to take things seriously. He sent a volley of teal air blasts at Mina, who just barely managed to dodge and fire arrows at him in return. The guard opted not to try to dodge the invisible arrows, instead powering through them surprisingly well. His armor gained a few more minor scuffs and dents, but otherwise he seemed fine, a fact which made Mina frown.

‘Seriously? He just tanked them? My arrows do that little damage? Am I seriously struggling to beat a generic grunt?’ Mina questioned as she and the guard traded shots.

Still, despite her disappointment in her power, she was still winning. The guard’s blasts were just slow enough that she was able to dodge them, meanwhile her own shots were landing almost every time as the guard simply couldn’t see her shots or read her movements well enough to dodge. And despite her disappointment with her power, she was still doing damage with each shot. It was a war of attrition, and she was set to win it, something the guard quickly realized. So, he changed tactics.

Lowering his firing hand, the guard brought both hands to his sword, and leapt into the air. His feet glowed, and he began practically skating on the air towards Mina extremely fast. Within seconds he was practically on top of her, catching her by surprise and making her fall to the ground wide eyed. He then swung the flat of his blade down to hit her in the head, and unable to dodge, Mina brought her tomahawk up to block the attack just like she’d been taught. Her tomahawk, which she did not have.

Before she could remember that fact though, one suddenly appeared in her hand, coming into existence the same way her bow did. However, unlike her bow which seemed to coalesce out of air into something that looked like glass, this weapon was very clearly made out of lightning.

The guard’s attack came down before the weapon could fully form, but it did it’s job regardless. The moment the metal blade made contact with the still forming lightning, a shock traveled right up the blade, through his armor, and into the guard’s body.

“AGHHHHHHHHH!” The guard screamed in pain as the lightning lit up his whole body, and he fell backwards smoking slightly as the shock ignited some of the cloth parts of his armor.

Mina stared wide eyed in shock, both at the collapsed form of the guard, and the lightning tomahawk that was finally formed in her hand.

“Woah.” She said aloud. “Cool…”

“Ohhhhh…”

“AHHH!” Mina screamed, and threw her lightning tomahawk at the groaning form of the guard.

“AHHHHHH!” the guard screamed once more as the tomahawk discharged into him, before he fell completely limp.

Cautiously, Mina crawled over to him to check him. She poked him, and got no response, so she went up to his head and cautiously pulled his helmet off to see that he was still breathing, just unconscious. Mina let out a quiet sigh of relief when she saw that.

“AHHHHHH!”

Nik’s scream reminded Mina that she wasn’t alone, and so she turned to look at how he was doing. He was throwing bombs, that’s what he was doing. He’d seemingly given up on using his knives in favor of just throwing his magic bombs at he guard, who was retaliating with his own sky blast projectiles. To Mina’s absolute shock, Nik had enough presence of mind to actually avoid the blasts, rather than just mindlessly keep charging and taking the hits. Still, unlike with her fight, those two were in a proper stalemate, meaning Mina needed to intervene.

Taking a quick moment to summon a small rain cloud to put out the smoldering cloth on the guard she’d taken out, Mina considered her options.

‘An arrow to that guy’s face should be enough to turn the tide… but do I really have to beat him right away?’ she thought. ‘Nik is holding him off pretty well, so I could take the time to figure out my catchphrase.’

Decideing to let Nik do just that, Mina pondered on what to use as her catchphrase. But, it didn’t take long. deciding to channel a little bit of her culture, Mina pulled out one of the few cree words she had in her memory as she pulled out an arrow.

“HEY! Guard jerk!” Mina shouted, drawing the guard’s attention. “Taste Yotin!”

With the declaration of her new catchphrase, Mina let her arrow fly, striking the guard right in the chest and making him stumble backwards. This allowed Nik to pelt him with even more explosions, knocking him into the wall. The guard managed to brace himself on the wall and push off of it, sliding under the rest of Nik’s thrown bombs, but before he could get back up to attack Nik again, Mina sniped him and sent him sliding across the ground.

“AHHHHHH!”

This gave Nik the opening he needed, and he jumped on the guard and began slashing at him with his explosive daggers, managing to get 4 hits in before the explosions knocked the two apart again. This time however, the guard didn’t get back up, while Nik easily recovered from his own explosion and climbed back to his feet, quickly looking around to see that both guards were down.

“*HUFF HUFF HUFF* Seriously Diad?! You made me fight both these two on my own?! This was your idea, so you couldn’t have at least helped a little?” Nik complained, referring to Mina by her mask name.

“Wha? What do you mean I didn’t help!? I did more than half the work!” Mina yelled at him. “I took down one completely on my own, then helped you with the other guy. You wouldn’t have been able to touch that guy if I hadn’t distracted him!”

“Half the work? You didn’t do anything! I was dealing with both these guys at once the whole-”

“So uh, can we just go now?” One of the teens asked, interrupting them.

“Or, are you going to kidnap us now?” The other teen continued.

Both Nik and Mina stopped their arguing to look at the teens, who were just standing there looking confused.

“What? No we’re not going to kidnap you, you can just go.” Mina told them. “Actually, why are you even still here? Shouldn’t you have run off back when we first saved you?!”

“There wasn’t exactly anything for you to save us from, but whatever.” The first teen said.

“Bye, hope to never see you two again.” the other teen said.

The two then casually walked off, as if they hadn’t just been saved from being unjustly thrown in prison. Once the two were out of sight, Nik turned back to Mina.

“ZIP IT!” Mina said, cutting Nik off before he could say anything. “We can talk about how blind and stupid you are later. Right now, lets just get back to the others.”

And before Nik could attempt to argue otherwise, Mina spun around and walked away, forcing Nik to follow.

Unbeknownst to the two of them, a cloaked man was watching them go, clinging to the side of a wall well above them.

“I knew it, she is the one. I’ve finally found you, and now all I need to do is follow you.” The cloaked man said to himself.

…

“No, I’m not being a creep. This is just basic intelligence gathering, nothing more and nothing less.”

…

“Huh, I didn’t even realize that woman was-AH! Stop distracting me! I need to keep up with those two so I don’t loose them!” the cloaked man exclaimed, dropping down to the ground to follow Mina and Nik.

…

“Yeah, that’s a good point. How did she not notice all the fighting? Oh well, it’s not important. Now hush up, don’t distract me.”