prelude to emeth: part two

the night sky continued to irradiate its presence down below, watching diligently the cloaked girls break out of the city, darting on the rooftops as she went. she leapt off from roof to roof soaring high into the air, arms outstretched as if she was flying, landing back down onto another house. she swiftly jumped, again and again, leaping from one rooftop to another and running along the rooftops. her right hand clenched deeply onto the leather pouch that was containing something inside. she could feel the heat radiating out from it, almost like it was alive.

she was heading straight south, she felt alive more than ever but scared, she was never like this before, she was always calm and collected. she knew what she wanted to do, her mind was set on getting out of this kingdom as quickly as she can, even if she must use it again if it becomes drastic.

she then heard something strange that pricked her ears in the distance in front from down below on ground level. the sound was very soothing and crackling, the caped woman felt whatever was coming whooshing at high speed directly towards her, she felt alert and panicked, she can see nothing was ahead yet sensed the thing was hunting her down like prey.

she stopped on top of one of the houses to calm herself, mere moments later three giant behemoth fireballs curved up from below her, advancing with incredible speed in her vicinity. her mouth opened in shock; underneath her cloak, her eyes widen in sudden awestruck.

"Do they already know I'm trying to escape the kingdom?" she thought to herself as heaping golden balls of flame rushed towards her. she snapped out of her daydreaming and darted towards the searing fireballs, each one she dodges elegantly and gracefully, using her feet as a force to narrowly evade each fireball and kept on going.

 however, as she succeeded in doing so before she can jump off the house, the fireballs crashed into the same house behind her, making a violent explosion right behind her. causing her body to be rag-dolled high into the air, the force from the explosion ripped the hood of the cloak of the woman, revealing her face. she had deep blue eyes that were chilling to look at, her face was smooth and perfectly round, she had natural red lips that pouted slightly when she spoke and pale skin. Her white hair flourished proudly, shining like the moonlight illumination.

"Agghh" she stammered aloud as she was caught off guard by the knockback of the explosion.

Her arms flailed wildly trying to rebalance herself before falling to the ground. her heart is racing as she spun around in circles, she didn't know how to react or to adapt to her circumstances. it felt like nothing was going her way, there was always something that had to deny her preventing her from reaching her goal.

her body flipped forward in the air like an acrobat, high above one of the street squares. it had a large circular fountain in the middle that sprouted continuous water jets that spewed up in the air and curved back down. she managed to reposition her body mid-air so she can survey the street square as she fell, her eyes locked on with intent to discover three men down on the ground. They were in a triangular formation around the fountain, each one was draped in white clothing that covered the entire body aside from the face, gold coating lines went around at the edges of the white cloth with stars and moon symbols sprinkled throughout the fabric. all three held a long-jagged wood staff that twisted round, at the top is a blue smooth orbed crystal that was wrapped around by the wood in place in a claw-like shape, it emanated lightly glowing light.

the cloaked women's mind clicked; she realised those shrouded men are part of the royal army. she looked down at them while falling, their staffs held high in the air with the blue crystal shining brighter by the second, waving in a circular clockwise motion.

"They gonna hurl more fireballs at me, not good I won't be able to dodge it in time," she thought to herself as she was falling, her heart was pounding in fear and excitement, is this the end of her as felt the gushing wind brush up against her clothes and hair tucked into the hood with her descent.

The shrouded men chanted aloud in unity; their low voices reverberated with each word in doing so. in quick succession new fireballs were being birthed above wooden staffs, quickly circling round, growing to about twice the size of the orbs. The men then lifted their staffs slightly that soon promptly rocketed the fireballs towards the descending girl. Her heart beating irrationally and her breathing rippling with each second the balls of heat came closer to her.

In an act of desperation to save herself, she willed her body into a defensive position, her legs scrunching up and her arms shielding her face from the encroaching fate. She tensed to harden her body hoping to reduce the incoming damage.

Contact was made, and all three fireballs crashed into her with high velocity into a cascading of fiery explosions, rivalling the brightness of the moons. the sounds of the explosions crackled and churned as they blazed in glory. Smoke erupted around from the epicentre of the explosion, blanketing it to make it hard to see through it. The girl was immediately thrown to the side of a building with great force with a trail of smoke following her, before landing on the ground with a great thud. Areas of her clothes are burnt with small embers accompanying, slowly fizzling out. Her hood was crisply burnt, forcing her face and hair to be revealed to the night. Her exposed skin was patched with black burns and tinted with red as if she came out of a piping furnace, especially the front of her arms where it took most of the abuse from the fireballs.

She lay unconscious for a few seconds on the stone ground before slowly reawakening and sluggishly picking herself back up, she used the wall behind her as support. Her body felt weak and disorientated from where she stood without the wall supporting her.

“Augh damn its hurts like hell” she grudgingly blurted out. Her mind ached, she felt like crying but couldn’t bring herself to do it. After a few seconds on her feet, she made an audible gasp when she realised, she wasn’t clenching onto the pouch that she longed to smuggle out of the city kingdom. “Where did it go!” she angrily stammered out, her eyes widened, scanning around the city square trying to spot the pouch.

She took a bit of time until she saw the pouch that idly sat on the ground beside the stone fountain on her right side, she expressed a short relief before it was cut in half as she looked further ahead behind to witness the same shrouded men, conjuring the same fireball attack. her heart dropped fearing the worst will happen again with flashbacks from the previous result.

She sprang out from the wall and rushed towards the pouch as best as she can before the sages can activate the attack. the more she pushed on, the more it became increasingly futile it would be as she can see the fireballs already being birthed above the staff and the chants nearly being finished. Her mind was flooded with fear of the ever-looming danger, but more so being outweighed by a flurrying of invigorating anger washing over her, she was getting tired of not fighting back or showing any sort of resistance against these sages.

she abruptly halted her advance on the pouch and quickly formulated a circular motion with her hands and finger aiming at the sages. Within an instant multiple arrows created out of fire sparked to life, glistening, and glowing more than white hooded sages’ fireballs. Each arrow was larger and wider than her arm, scattered evenly on each side of her, locked onto the white sages. “I’m done playing pacifist princess, I ain’t going down without a fight you hear me” she hollowed out with such determination.

She swiftly commanded her arm upwards into the arm and launched all twenty arrows into their midst. Instantaneously the sage's attack went, causing a rippling of fiery explosions from the arrows and fireballs like an explosive fireworks. The city square paid the price of a such brutal explosion, chunks of the fountain scattered unorganised around the ground and stalls crackly burning slowly.

A few arrows brute-forced their way through the explosions, lunging towards the white sages. The collision was made that met with a screeching howl of agonizing pain from the sages. Their bodies were being encased with orange flames and bare skins were being soared and partly melting slowly, dripping off to reveal the red flesh. Each of them was knocked down to the ground one by one as they collapsed from the sheer pain.

The girl slowly strutted her way towards the pouch and picked it up with grace. her eyes glaringly cold while sharply staring at the unconscious sages. “that’s enough of that roadblock" she hissed out quietly under her breath, her head spun to face the south gate that was ahead of her, its presence was looming and towering above her. “still got a bit to go, not long before I’m out of here” she calmly said under her breath. She breathed in and out heavily eyes closed, releasing the tensions she stirred up during the fight with the sages. Not a moment later her feet shuffled back a bit, pressing hard into the ground. then thrusting her entire body forward as she ran forward once more through the street. her legs moved in an irregular rhythm, from recovering from the full frontal impact of the second wave of fireballs.

"I'm nearly there about time" she piped up with enthusiasm, she finally arrived at the southern gate wall of the city-kingdom. the wall was separated and unconnected from any wooden buildings that were housed inside. each block on the great wall told stories with its chiselled surfaces broken down from the age of time. large slumps of stone sat vertically atop the wall with spaces apart near the edges, used as railings for those daring enough to stand. a carved-out wide sharp oval shaped hole was intruded through the middle of the wall that led to the outside, it was as wide as the road itself. the middle was partly filled with a criss-cross pattern rising to the roof of the hole, acting as the barrier to freedom for the girl.

the girl was nervous, her body tensed from where she stood with her hands firmly gripping the pouch. she continued to look behind her to see if anyone is following her. no one was close enough to her, only seeing the rest of the streets empty and clear. she had to trust the fact that she can get away without being caught by the kingdom's forces. "here I go" the white-haired girl announced softly under her breath.

As she took her first tread towards freedom, an all-familiar sizzling sound soared towards the girl like a flaming arrow, striking hard right against her shoulder blade. A new pain burst across her back as an arc of orange flames seeped out from a scorched spot on her already tattered cloak from the previous encounter, before she even knew what happened or react, that same smouldering flame shook out from her limbs causing her knees to buckle, promptly to kneel on one leg as if defeated even before this attack began. Her other arm was gripped tightly around the pouch as the fear in her eyes became apparent. her eyes widening, surveying the scope of the vicinity, she quickly observed familiar clothes appearing out of the darkness above the rooftops of the house from both sides like a wave of shadows coming together. "more of them are here damn it I'm so close not now!" she harshly screeched

She held herself down on one knee while trying desperately to gain her footing. As she reached up for another step forward, more attacks came at a rapid pace from two directions; without hesitation, she once again commanded her arms in a perfectly straight angle, facing each side from where the shrouded white sages situated on the roofs, then swiftly thrusting her arms upwards to ninety degrees. "let's see if your feeble attacks can break this" the girl huffed under her breath. as if on cue, large fiery blazing shields sprouted instantly out of thin air, surrounding the girl's arm. each flaming shield was as big as the girl and stared at the white attackers daring to harm its creator.

With an ear-piercing howl that accompanied the barrage of arrows and fireballs flew into the flaming crescent of defence, shrivelling away at contact, stoking the great flames that protected that surrounded the girl. The flames immediately started roaring as they engulfed all incoming attacks into nothing but ashes. some of the mages audibly gasped as their attacks were rendered ineffective by such a  fiery defence. her determined face grew into a proud smirk for a brief second before alternating back into a serious one as she spun around with the fire shields. each shield rearranged its formation into perfect smouldering spheres of heat. each ball grew brighter and bigger by the moment as she flawlessly channelled the arcane magic inside of them, before using her hands to thrust them away while guiding them towards the white sages up above the rooftops, to pummel them violently. blood-curdling screams erupted from above, followed by cascading rippling explosions on both sides, even destroying parts of the building from where they anchored themselves on.

The white-haired girl stood briefly, admiring the destructive masterpiece she conjured up, she felt a little guilty about causing this but brushed this off as necessary action needed. "I'm sorry this is enough" she whispered under her breath as she stepped forward once again, her left hand ached from clenching onto the pouch for so long with great strength.

"This doesn't have to end like this Hecate you know" another familiar voice spoke out from behind her in the darkness, Hecate stopped in place as if commanded by the sonorous words that reverberated through her bones. she slowly twisted around to unveil who it was with her eyes. it was a young man in a white unstained military uniform that stood out among the night sky, golden yellow tassels hung downwards from the edge of the shoulder, obstructing the shoulder from said view, with a golden yellow that ran along the shoulder connecting the tassels. the shoulder collar circling around him coloured in a hue blue like an ocean at sunset. his immaculate black hair struck out in pristine perfection against the night airs. his facial expression was serious yet tranquil that irradiated out of him that was almost infectious if too close, his bright orange eyes stared deeply at Hecate as if etching his way into her soul. The same white cloak draped over his body flowed gently with every slight movement of his muscles beneath; the faint glow of his armour glinted upon those eyes as he looked back at her sternly.

Hecate instantly regained herself from what had just occurred and calmed her breathing before speaking back to this new intruder. "back away Xander! don't try to stop me." Hecate responded hesitantly with an angry expression, slowly shuffling her feet backwards a bit while bringing her left hand with the pouch towards her chest.

He merely smirked with a twitch to his lips before closing the distance between them to within touching range, "you don't really want to fight me here now do you? I'd be very disappointed if you did, my dear Hecate" he spoke as if making small talk, his voice was soothing yet retaining its intensity of the message. she getting uneased about where he was leading this conversation but didn't seem ready to give up on whatever he had to say. her face displayed the same deterministic expression as she looked at him as if ready to fight.

he slowly lowered out his left hand as if to offer it up to her while retaining his light smile, "you can still be forgiven for the sins you caused tonight, just come quietly with me" he deeply whispered into her ear. his other hand lightly gripping onto his sheathed sword stowed behind, the sheath stowed behind was coloured black with dashes of light green lines etched along each side. his gentle yet firm grip on the blade masked his ticking patience with Hecate's wavering decisions to come with him.

Hecate's expression never faltered at his presence, her eyes unblinking and filled with determination to see through her plan. her lips shifted into a light nervous smile before responding back, "guess I won't be forgiven then, I will remain a "sinner" in all your eyes." she responded in a cold tone.

"so be it then" his voice sighed yet never lost its calmness as he retracted his hand away from her, his other one slowly unsheathing the hilt of his sword.

her eyes grew wide as the sharp glint of the sword shone brightly like the sun against the darkness around them, Hecate immediately pulled up her free hand in a claw-like form, and at that moment a bright green fireball whirred around alive that resided in that hand. she quickly spun facing towards the wooden gate and shot it towards it, the green ball of ember hurtled through one of the holes, leaving the rest of the wood charring and burning around that hole. escaping the confines of the gate and into the outside world.

Hecate waved her hand in a cheeky expression at Xander before promptly clenching that first, causing small ember particles to hover around her body to then instantaneously transport herself directly to where the green fireball that's outside the city gates before fizzling out. she felt the breeze of freedom caressing her skin as she darted further away from the outskirt of the wall and gate. Making her way to the nearby forest and soon out of sight.

Xander watched this scene with utter amazement as if witnessing some kind of spectacle. "my my this should turn out interesting right before the big day tomorrow." he spoke calmly yet a hint of frustration stirred beneath those words. he turned his attention towards the approaching foot soldiers from behind him their armour clanked heavily and spears bobbed up and down with each step. "sir give us your order to chase after her" one of the soldiers stammered out.

"don't bother she's heading towards where those beings reside in, no need to go chasing after her, you may be relieved for the night" he replied in a calming manner, his eyes looking diligently around before heading back to the heart of the city.