Ch 1.48: Teamwork

Someone I can trust?

Elaina let go of [Personal Restraint] as Prisma danced in front of her, cutting down the flaming creatures, the fires going out individually as they collapsed to the wet ground. She’s keeping the fires going until she kills them, stoking the flames with her aspect so the rain doesn’t put them out. Only a few seconds passed before the last of the squad that had been rushing Elaina fell.

“Weaver,” Waine said, grabbing her shoulder, “get back, we’ll cover the retreat.”

Elaina threw his arm off of her as she jumped back. How could he manage to be such an ass even when he was saving her life? This has to be more humiliating than anything I could do to myself. “I can’t, there’s people in the forest! We need to clear these things and—”

“Look out!” Elaina looked over to see the starhound leaping at her, right before she felt an impact to her side. She flew out of the starhound’s way, tumbling over the ground with the person that had called out and tackled her, Prisma, until they finally settled, the blonde girl kneeling over her. “Elaina, you need to pay attention!”

She’s right there, on top of me. Gods, she knew she shouldn’t be feeling these things in the middle of an attack. Blushing, she pushed Prisma off and spun to see the Waine holding his arm up towards the monster. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll hold this thing back while—”

The beast charge him with a shrieking howl-growl, and he froze up, eyes widening as he realized how ineffective his aspect was against the creature, letting out a scream as its teeth closed in on him.

Its jaws closed with a loud snap, right where Waine was standing, right where his head had been moments before Elaina had conjured a rope around his waist and pulled him back, sliding him across the mud and back to the girls while he was frozen in terror. “We’re even,” she said, stepping forward.

“How— how do we fight this?” Prisma stammered out.

“I’ll hold it back,” Elaina said, pulling the top of her shirt open, buttons popping off as she yanked the collar. There was no way to make it look like an accident, but with less than a quarter of her mana left she needed to be more exposed regardless. Not even sure it matters when I’m already in a transparent shirt, but whatever. She was still blushing from when Prisma had landed on her earlier too, embarrassed both from how they’d ended up and at the fact that she’d nearly gotten herself killed by arguing with Waine of all things. “It’s resistant to aspects directly affecting it, but chains are just as effective against it as they are anything else.”

She hoped that would be true, anyway. This thing was huge, far larger than the ones she’d struggled to fight with Carline’s help. [Humiliation Factor] was up again, not nearly as much as when she thought she was bottomless in front of human guards, but at least it was something.

She conjured up a chain, really wishing she could bring out her crystal one, though she didn’t think that was a good idea in front of Prisma and Waine. Well, not Waine at least. Eyes flickered towards the System at her side. It’s going to have to be her, but I can’t risk it while he’s looking. She’d just have to wait till he was occupied.

The starhound was charging them again, Prisma flanking off to the side as Waine stepped back. Elaina activated [Personal Restraint] again and whipped her chain out, going for its legs rather than it’s throat so it wouldn’t get disintegrated by the monster’s mane. She wrapped around it’s front legs, conjuring two stakes and jamming them into the ground through the links of the chain. “Go now Prisma! But avoid its mane, it’s dangerous!”

Prisma leapt, obeying without hesitation as she sent another plume of flame towards the monster. Steam rose into the air, rain disintegrating in the heat as she maintained a steady stream of fire and crept towards the burning monstrosity. Holy shit, this is working better than I thought.

A cry of pain rang out behind Elaina.

“Bearer of the corrupted one,” a deep voice said as she looked over, seeing the Red Order member who had commanded the horde of lesser monsters walking forward, holding a skewered Waine Ferris up on the stiletto jutting forward from his wrist, “surrender, and I will take you to my lady alive.”

Waine’s body was flying at her now, thrown with tremendous strength, forcing Elaina to drop [Personal Restraint] to catch him, the impact sliding her back towards the starhound. The pale man himself was coming up on her not far behind, wrist-dagger poised to stab through Waine’s chest and right into hers.

Prisma’s blade caught it, driving the attack away at the last moment as she lashed out with a jet of fire towards the man while he retreated. She was already on him, dashing forward and strike out with sword and flame alike as he parried and stepped back.

“Weaver.” Elaina looked down, Waine’s face staring back up. “Put me down, kill that fucker.”

She furrowed her brown, fist clenching around his uniform. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he pays for making me worry about an asshole like you.”

Waine exhaled, half laugh, half cough as blood came out of his mouth. “You do that.” His eyes closed, but his chest was still rising and falling, still breathing. If I’d let Carline come…

No, regrets were after the battle. She set the boy down, knowing the only thing she could do for him now was to end the fight as soon as possible. She started towards the duel in front of her but then felt the pulling, her stakes coming undone, chains unraveling from the starhound.

She instinctively tightened them, turning back to the beast as she saw get its jaw around them. The flicking mane started eating at them as it yanked at them, corroding the metal as she tried to tighten it until she ended up snapping them herself, the monster bounding at her the very next moment.

“Fuck!” she said, running away from Waine, doing her best to draw the beast off. The thing was a slow, lumbering mass covered in burns at this point, but it was steady in its assault towards her, still too fast and too close for her to get out of the way in time.

She conjured a rope and wrapped it around her own wrist, yanking herself out of harm’s way the instant before it was too late. She let out a sigh of relief as the thing turned towards her, ignoring Waine, relief that lasted only a second before the searing pain began, a familiar burning on her thigh.

She let out a cry of agony as she looked down, seeing a bit of the smoky tendril writhing on her skirt, burning through to her skin. In a panic she reached out for the clasp with her aspect, tossing the skirt aside as she looked back up to face the creature again. The sting remained, but the smoky tendril had flown away with her skirt, leaving her bottomless yet again, but without the constant burning.

There would only be moments before it was on her again, and it was charging dead center this time. Dodging wasn’t going to work, so she took a deep breath in spreading her legs like she had on the run earlier and freezing herself again. The creature seemed to glide slowly towards her, rain droplets floating to the ground in slow motion as she reached for her aspect, thinking about how shameful she must look right now. That Red Order member, Prisma, Waine even… She hated the boy, wouldn’t be interested in any boy regardless of how much of a prick he was, but the thought of him seeing her like this was still too humiliating not to turn her on, and the fact that it turned her on was even more embarrassing on top.

This was what her maximum power felt like, the doubled bonus from [Personal Restraint] and the additional doubling from a fully active [Humiliation Factor] coursing through her. One simple thought and a bear trap the size of the starhound’s head appeared, clamping down on the creature’s neck as it lurched forward, stumbling to the side and crashing right next to Elaina as its mane started to die off, revealing nothing but the burned husk bleeding dark black ooze from it’s neck.

Elaina released herself again, shaking as she did so, nerves grinding against her body despite her subdued fear. It had been close, both in distance from the creature and in the fact that her mana was now completely drained. That doesn’t matter though. Manaless or not, she had a job to do. She looked over to Prisma, was about to run towards her to help when she cut down towards him.

The gruesome looking man smiled as he caught the blade in between the stiletto and his wrist, twisting his arm and snapping the metal, receiving only a minor cut leaking blue blood in exchange for disarming his opponent. He had burns on the left side of his body, but there were no more flames as Prisma backed away.

“All out of fire, deary?” he said. “Let’s hope your pretty friend over there has some mana to spare, at least.”