566: One-Trick Hairball
As Samira pulled by the ears the white hairy creature out of her top hat, one by one Mary and her crew recognized the mystery pull.
“I-Isn’t that…?” Remi couldn’t even begin to imagine what that person could possibly be doing inside the princess’s hat.
A white hairball that didn’t even reach five feet in height, with signature foxlike ears that seemed way too big. The pretense of her hiding her hiding her identity behind a mask at the Forge of Champions was laughable, in contrast to her ruthless oversight of those games.
“Felicia,” Mary said, putting on a smile for her acquaintance and partner in the games. “You’ve looked better.”
Indeed, Remi thought. Even though it had been a while since Remi saw Felicia without the mask, she couldn’t remember the little beastkin ever putting on such a lifeless expression with no light in her eyes.
Felicia didn’t answer. She didn’t even bother to look at any of Mary’s trio. She stood next to Samira like a stupefied doll, slouched, with her dead eyes pointing at a random bush behind Mary.
Seeing no response from the hairball, Mary finally asked Samira, “What did you do to her?”
“Me? You must be joking,” Samira scoffed. “I wasn’t the one that dropped a building on her head.”
“She’s dead then?” Mary asked more like a confirmation of something she suspected.
“Of course,” Samira confirmed. “And whether you killed her directly—along with hundreds of others with the spell you stole—or indirectly with your actions in the Forge of Champions, her death is on your hands. I must say this pull turned out to be absolutely perfect. Perhaps karma itself guided my hand?”
“Wait, wait, wait, that Felicia is dead!?” Brittany finally lost it. “And the princess can summon the dead!?”
“So what?” Mary dismissed the threat. “Samira always relies on her summons to do her dirty work. And this one is just a little shitty hairball. She wasn’t a threat to me when she was alive, and she certainly isn’t a threat now that she kicked the bucket.”
“Tear up that annoying armor,” Samira commanded.
Felicia instantly curled up into a ball and spun in place, accelerating to dizzying speeds. She churned the ground beneath her with her hair that turned into thousands of deadly spikes and launched herself straight at Mary.
Mary just barely jumped out of the way of the white spinning death ball. Felicia tore up several trees to splinters before finally stopping at a larger trunk only to bounce off it and fly straight at Mary again.
Mary spat out several pink bubbles straight at the incoming shredder, but they bounced right off and flew into random directions to explode in the distance. Mary had no choice but to dodge again, eating dirt to stay unharmed. In response, she touched a boulder at launched it at Felicia, but even that was woefully insufficient to stop the spinning shredder.
“What’s happening? She was able to take on anything back at the tournament! Why is she holding back?” Remi asked, confused, and worried about Mary’s apparent powerlessness.
“Because she grew too reliant on that armor,” Samira explained, watching Mary’s pathetic state. “Letting the thieving armor absorb all of the magic as it consumed and copied the spells used against the wearer. However, it cannot steal anything from a vessel. Against summons that armor is just dead weight.”
“Oh no!” Remi looked on at Mary’s desperate resistance.
Each time the princess escaped by the narrowest of margins. Mary manifested a magical orange glowing sword in her hand to strike Felicia as she flew past her, but the sword was disintegrated into a thousand magical particles upon contact.
“Fuck this!” Mary shouted, frustrated.
When Felicia bounced back for another direct strike, Mary ran straight to Brittany.
“Huh—?”
Mary grabbed Brittany, spun around, and put the blonde directly between herself and the death ball.
“WAIT-GHYAAAAAAUAHA!!!!!” Brittany screamed in agony as Felicia’s hair tore into her guts and finally ground to a halt in a gory soup.
Mary used this opportunity to summon another magical sword and plunge it straight into Felicia’s heart. She turned the magical handle for good measure to cement the deathblow. Felicia grunted, went limp, and fell apart into black and red aura around Mary’s magical orange sword. The red and black aura then flew back to Samira who had a dissatisfied look while Mary—sweating and breathing heavily—let go of Brittany’s mangled corpse.