Chapter 17:

Chapter 17)

Avalon


Iris lowered her hand in an attempt to grab mine. 

I complied, grasping her hand and raising my self from the ground. Feeling lightheaded, I shook off the pain and formed my sword into my hand. 

"Can you still attack? You took a pretty serious cut. You're still bleeding, too." Iris said, pointing at my chest, which was still bleeding.

"I'm fine, but what about you? It seemed like you froze up when you attacked the nightmares. Are you fine?"

"Yeah. I just let all the problems get to my head... But seeing your courage fighting those nightmares helped me realize that those problems will go away if we can just end it here."

It was pretty strange to see Iris freeze up in the moment like that. In the time I've known her, I thought of her as a no nonsense girl who sometimes let loose, but I didn't expect her to be the type to worry about everything that could happen due to something happening. It isn't her fault though, since the city could definitely fall, as I heard Iris mention that the people weren't properly trained to fight against the nightmares.

"It looks like the nightmares can move, it was just taunting you at first. Now the question is, do the nightmares have control of themselves, or is the large one controlling them all?" Iris questioned.

"Well, since it reacted to you when you went to attack it, I'm pretty sure that it is actually controlling them, but maybe it can only control one at a time?"

"We'll see once we start picking them off. Go and try to kill off two at the same time, and I'll attack the nightmare it controls."

"Got it!"

Now that the plan was set, I immediately rushed towards a pair of nightmares. I could feel the stinging pain of my chest with each step I took, but it didn't matter, as I raised my sword to collide with theirs. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see another nightmare dashing towards me, raising it's sword to swing to my chest, but it froze in it's tracks, as I saw Iris cut it's body in half along with the other two nightmares I had been reflecting. A purple aura seemed to have came off her sword, as even though her sword did not reach the two nightmares, the aura acted like a blade cutting them in half, just like before when she saved me from that nightmare back on Earth.

"You gotta teach me how to do that sometime!"

"This? Sure, but let's deal with what's ahead of us first!" Iris, quickly finished her sentence, as a nightmare had stalked her from behind, crashing down it's sword but quickly being reflected by Iris with ease, before she kicked the nightmare with her foot, releasing her sword from theirs and cutting it's head from it's body.

We had repeated the process of countering and killing the nightmares, the number of them slowly trickled down until it was only the large nightmare left. Still standing in it's spot in the middle of the field, I saw that it's mocking smile now turned into a pained and frustrated frown, staring at us with what seemed like deep intent to kill.

Figuring that the two of us together could definitely take down this nightmare, I rushed in with my katana head first, if we were able to defeat that huge nightmare in the plaza, then I'm sure we can defeat this one with ease.

"Wait! Don't just go in without analyzing the enemy!" Iris shouted, grabbing my shoulder just before I was out of reach.

"Why not? It's the only one left, and it doesn't have any more nightmares it can use to defeat us. It's done for!"

"Don't you see what happened to all those gladiators that tried to defeat it with the same mindset of rushing in and thinking later? They turned into nightmares as well! Just wait until we can get a good idea of what it can do!"

Since Iris definitely had more sense in combat than I had (Only being on Avalon for what seemed like only days) I figured that listening to her would be better in defeating the nightmare.

"So what do we do? If we can't rush in to attack it how do we know what attacks it will use against us?"

"I think I have an idea."

Uh-oh. hearing her say that word definitely did not sit right in my head. Last time she had an 'idea' or a 'plan' ended up in me almost dying. What would happen now?

"What is it?"

"I'll just throw my sword at it."

"What?"

Lifting her sword without restraint, she took a step back, before letting loose her sword, which it's blade pointed directly at the nightmare. Without moving from it's position, it's sharp claws quickly countered the sword away, before moving back to it's original position.

"What did that prove? All you did was just throw your sword at it!"

"No, now I understand completely what this nightmare can only do: counter."

"Counter? Just by throwing your sword you knew it can only counter"

"You don't see? By throwing my sword, I let myself open to attack. It should've ran towards me the moment my sword let go of my hand, but it didn't only countering my sword where it stood. Analyzing it's attack, I can now defeat it with ease."

"Wow... Okay, so how are we going to defeat it?"

"Simple. I'll go in to attack the nightmare head on. When it tries to counter my sword, i'll restrain it, allowing you to attack it from behind."

"All right, I can do that."

Knowing how to attack the nightmare without wondering how it will attack, it was time to defeat this nightmare once and for all, as soon as Iris gestured to attack, we rushed in.

Momentie
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