3rd person POV:
While the after effects of Aksel Olvasen pummelling his fist into the shimmer still hadn't subsided, Astrid was running towards the Frontier's entrance.
With half-breaths, she gasped in pain over the static lingering in her ears, making her head pound in tandem with her rapidly beating heart. Like a hammer constantly beating on an anvil, her mind was almost scattered with thoughts and worry.
'Arthur…' She repeated his name in her mind, over and over again.
As she reached the entrance, she placed her hands on the Frontier and started chanting.
However, a layer of shimmer enveloped the entrance and then with a small explosion blasted her back.
The skin over her palms burnt and the smell of flesh melting infiltrated a second after the burning sensation invaded her.
"Ugh---ahhh…" She whimpered, coiling into a ball as she held her hands against her chest, reeling on the ground. The shimmer concentrated around the entrance and then another deafening screech resounded over the entire city, followed by a crack that splintered the sky into half. Another flash of lightning blinded everyone and the soldiers started to fall to their knees, wincing and groaning in pain.
The shimmer thinned around the entrance and then augmented the part covering the city once again. As if confused about what to do.
A thin stream of white spilled like holy water from her palms and painfully, the skin started to mend itself.
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As the pristine skin started to regrow over the charred and exposed muscle of her hand, she limped over to the shimmer once again.
This time, instead of chanting, she just channelled her Arcanum's unique property into it.
Astrid Aalto's Arcane Art revolved around "Sealing."
She could seal and unseal almost anything. However, it was directly correlated to her understanding of the object she was about to apply it to. If she knew about her skin's nature, she was able to seal the injuries away completely.
The chants she recited were necessary for situations where she was blank about the object.
And now that she understood what the purpose of the Frontier and Shimmer exactly was, she placed her blood red hands on the Frontier once again. Instead of pulling it all apart and creating a giant gash into it, she pressed her body against it.
The dome rippled outwards, one after another, like the rings that form when a pebble is dropped into a still pool. They moved quickly at first, then slowed down as they travelled further from the centre.
Her image on the semi-transparent surface covered both by Frontier's dome and the bubbly Shimmer garbled.
As the ripples bumped into each other at the far end of the dome, they retracted back suddenly. A semi-viscous mirror-like surface formed on the dome and the next moment it sucked her in.
The disturbance vanished and shimmer reduced its protection from guarding the dome.
Outside the shimmer, Aksel Olvasen looked up at the crack in the shimmer and smiled to himself.
"Well, well. The Gods really are such fickle beings." He spoke to himself. "Should've at least put in a mechanism to recognise their own worshippers." As if finding it very amusing, he chuckled to himself and lightly tapped on the charred surface where he had punched a few times. "I hope this serves as a purpose for what I wanted. Pretty sure Arthur left that girl outside so she can relay changes inside to him if things get worse."
Turning on his heel, he moved back and sat on the hood of his car as a police helicopter whirred overhead.
"Hope he gets out before Sif leaves the house though." Mumbling to himself, he held a cigarette to his lips and looked at the sky with half-open eyes. "I will be depending on you to inform him, girl."
He paused and the image of Arthur's childhood flashed in his mind, making him shudder. He shrugged the memory away, burying it back down. "Just return alive, my son. I will handle the rest."