Ch 1.47: Offense

The monsters were gaining on Elaina as she argued with herself. Come on, this trap—I mean, it’s not a trap, it’s a restraint—is a restraint, damnit! She thought back to Combatives, talking aspects with Tira, about how Tira had flirted with her during class the previous day, how later they’d— No, not that! It was [Fear Response] fucking with her senses, [Pain Response] too from the cut on her leg. With the two skills now it took actual conscious effort to not imagine how Tira had looked the night before, that striped bodysuit, the cut out in her crotch.

Stop it! Restraints, monsters, running. Those were the things she needed to focus on. Tira had said that aspect control is about perception, her own understanding of [Restraint] trumping everything else. And the thing she wanted to make was a restraint. It was a trap too, but a trap meant to restrain, not harm. Any damage done to the bastards following behind her was just a happy accident. She reached for her aspect once more, intentions clear, understanding of her objective clear, and convinced of exactly how she was going to restrain the Red Order.

And she wasn’t strong enough.

She’d finally figured out how she could do it conceptually, but she still couldn’t do it. She knew how to get there though. Fuck me. She grabbed the side of her skirt, undoing it with her aspect and letting it unwrap around her as she ran. The burning in her loins intensified as she ran out, [Humiliation Factor] finally kicking in. Even with that, running bottomless through the school grounds, without any people around it wasn’t enough to get the full bonus of double to her power, but it was something. She focused on earlier in the day, fencing braless, being caught in her wet shirt by Flora, absolutely debasing herself in front of Prisma…

Snap!

The sound of Elaina’s first creation rang out almost immediately after she made it, and relief washed over her. More snaps followed as the bear traps she had left behind closed on the legs of the creatures following her. She could sense through them, feel the crunch of bone as they trapped her pursuers in their teeth, but not all of them activated.

Elaina looked over her shoulder, seeing she’d incapacitated a good number up front and stopped an even greater number behind in fear and confusion, but some had made it through the initial wave due to the small amount of traps she’d been able to make and their haphazard placement.. She cursed herself for missing them, but she still had a backup plan.

She spun around, planting her feet. The wall before was fine as a scattershot measure, but this would require precision. Legs spread, she activated [Personal Restraint], locking herself in place to increase her power again, crotch bared to anyone who’d look. And to her horror there were people to see her, not just the creatures chasing her but the armored Endrin guards that had followed the horde as well.

Shit, they were supposed to stay guarding the gate! She bit her lips and did her best to ignore them, but the idea of all of them seeing her like this, just holding her skirt to her side with nothing on but her shirt, sent [Humiliation Factor] even further up. This was it, the strongest she’d ever been.

It was mentally taxing, to sense which traps had been activated, to leave those there, to dematerialize the chains and stakes from all the remaining ones, to make more traps now that she had even greater power, but once she did she had the tools she needed, a handful of trapped creatures in front her and an army of floating bear traps around them. She launched them towards the the creatures that she’d missed, clamping on their ankles, knees, even heads as they approached. Each snap slowed or dropped one of them as Elaina stood helpless, sheer will the only thing she could fight back with.

There was still one persistent one running at her with a trap on each of its legs, but Elaina conjured a chain between those two traps and sent it falling to the ground as well. She sighed, releasing herself from  [Personal Restraint] as she looked back. The ones that had faltered and stayed behind the line had turned their backs on her now, engaging the Endrin guards that had come up from behind. I can’t abandon them. Elaina was about to make more traps, more chains, anything to help the guards that were risking their life for her, but then one of the guard’s helmets was sent flying towards her, the body of armor it had been attached to falling, headless.

She jumped back, horrified at what she’d seen as she tried to get away from the head flying towards her, but what she found wasn’t what she had thought she’d find. The helmet was in front of her, true, but there was no head in it. She looked back, seeing another suit of armor missing an arm, having dropped its halberd and engaging with a side sword instead. Many others were injured, but none bled.

“They’re hollow…” Elaina didn’t have time to think about what that meant beyond the fact that there weren’t actually any lives at stake behind, that she could run away without endangering anyone, so run she did.

She astounded herself with her own speed, coming up to the corner of the north side of the school almost twice as fast as she would have been able to just a week ago, before she even remembered that she was still bottomless. She let out a small shriek and managed to get her skirt back on before she rounded the corner proper. Still no underwear, still no bra, still in a transparent wet shirt. Gods, this really did have to be today, didn’t it? At least it helped with [Humiliation Factor]. Though she still hadn’t gotten the full bonus from rank two of the skill yet, she suspected that she might need it before the night was over.

If the previous battle had been chaos, the north face of the castle was pure madness, a wide stretch of the lawn taken up by disparate fights between scattered students and monsters a like, a handful of the armor guards littered throughout as well. It was easy to see why Doctor Thoms had said there needed to be someone in charge. In the middle was a large cluster of those suits of armor engaged with the clear danger to this group, a single starhound, but nearly twice as large as the ones Elaina had seen so far. The east side of the school had had more of the creatures for sure, but they had at least been concentrated, the defenses focused. Without a fence and gate to funnel them towards though, the smattering of monsters on the north side were more spread out, creating a larger battlefield despite the lesser number of enemies, and pandemonium for all.

A couple of the creatures noticed Elaina. Shortly after rounding the corner she noticed the first one turn towards her and make a break from the battlefield in her direction. Well, this is why I’m here after all. First to help out with these creatures, then make her way to the cave. The starhound was going to be a problem, and she was running low on mana after fixing the fence and her bear trap trick, but she would have some time to recover some on the run through the forest. She hoped so, anyway.

“Elaina”, a soft voice said from her bag.

“System! Are you okay?”

“There is too much here for you alone. You— you need allies. Someone you trust, give me to them, add them to the System, make them stronger.”

Someone she could trust? Well, it wasn’t the creature running in front of her, surely. It only took one bear trap to its face to stop that one, but more were coming already.

That wasn’t her only problem though. The bear traps were taking too much mana, far more than she could afford to use, and she hadn’t quite realized how bad it was before when she had both skills helping. Fixing the gate had been hard, the physical force of moving it and wrapping individual chain links around it alike, but for the amount of mass the bear trap actually was it was still somehow more taxing than an equivalent amount of chains. She had less than a quarter of her total mana now, and she wouldn’t be able to rely on them to finish off the things in front of her, power boosting skills or no. Maybe the System’s right… But she didn’t recognize any of the students fighting in front of her, none of these second and third years who were actually allowed to fight, much less trust them. She’d have to manage on her own for now.

A quick shackle and spike in the dirt incapacitated another one running at her for the time being, and she swerved around it as it reached out for her. It was so disturbing, the vague humanness of these things that were definitely not human, even though she could read the only emotion it had—rage—as easily as she could on any actual person.

“Form up!” The voice shocked Elaina for a moment, and she looked over, trying to find whatever student or teacher had said it, but she only saw Red Order, one particular one in the center that looked more human than the rest catching her eye. It was a man, naked save for a red crystal codpiece and a few other, smaller crystals on his body. His right hand was pointing directly at her, and that same wrist had a crystal stiletto jutting out from the side and forward, an extended dagger that Elaina did not want to be on the receiving end of. “Future Singers,” he continued, “take down this one today and earn your crystals!”

They charged, nearly the entire force of them, more even than had come after her at the east gate. Elaina froze, trying to think of her options. Bear traps wouldn’t work, too mana intensive, chains and stakes it would have to be. She activated [Personal Restraint] and focused on the ones in front, locking the ones she could to the ground, but some got through regardless, the ones running on all fours, movements too fast, too tricky for her to follow and shackle. And then the worst thing happened, the one she’d shackled behind her had pulled, hard, coming up with some muster of strength enough to yank the spike holding it down out of the ground.

That was going to be it, wasn’t it? One coming from behind as she was frozen, unable to move without letting the ones in front of her loose, and even then not holding all of them back. She wasn’t even scared, really, thanks to the damned [Fear Response] she had, just accepting her fate as she closed her eyes, her only remaining desire being to hold back the tears forming in her eyes. She almost got a measure of peace from that too, not being able to see the oncoming horde of monsters, but she could still sense the chains around the ankle of the one coming from behind as it lumbered towards her, could feel each step as it moved closer, closer, closer.

And then stopped.

She was confused for a moment, but kept her eyes closed. That one had stopped, but she would still soon feel the rending of her flesh from the ones she’d missed in front. Right? Any moment now. Elaina opened her eyes, tears still streaming down them, to see the mass of monsters in front of her stuck in place, all glaring and growling at her, but not moving forward.

“Get back, dud!” Elaina craned her neck over towards the sound of the voice the little bit her skill would allow, just enough to see a sword behead the creature that had stopped behind her, and to see the sword’s wielder as well. “It’s the duty of the strong to defend the weak,” Waine said, “So let us handle this.” Elaina would have felt gratitude from nearly anyone else, but this person she just wanted to punch in the face, life just saved or no.

And then she stepped into view. Prisma ran forward, rapier in one hand, other thrusting forward. A plume of flame erupted from it, raking over the creatures in front of Elaina, sending them back and writhing in agony, a dozen beacons of flaming light amidst the rainy night. Prisma jumped forward, cutting down the closest one with ease and skipping over to the next one, platinum blonde hair flowing through the air in one wet mass as she moved.

Someone I can trust.