A heartbeat pulsated in my ears as Valor ran to Five.

"What is going on?" Marideth asked.

I rubbed my fingers, crushed the tense air against my palm and my veins raised to the fore. "My enemies. Sandream get them into the other room."

Sandream never moved, giving me a blank stare.

Adu grabbed all the women, pulling them by the hands. "Come on, you too mother."

I growled. "Sandream you potato-headed- Valor come here. Grab that table!"

We prepared defenses. To think an alarm would have been raised.

One of the slaves escaped mother…

Of course, they did. I should have...

My thoughts were unpure, but my actions were not as simple. Five drew out his sword, while I crouched behind the table, arrow gun drawn, knife slotted into my belt, and heart ready for the battle to come.

A shimmering chill coursed through me. Adu came up from the sub-chamber and said, "They are inside." He looked at Valor and laid out his palm. "A weapon would be nice."

Valor froze. Sandream looked through the window. I said, "I do not have more than my knife and bow."

Valor turned, looked around briefly, and approached the window. He sidestepped Sandream and kicked over a mirror. It shattered, but Valor crushed his feet inside the mirror and ripped out a piece of curved metal.

Adu frowned. "What jokes you runneth?"

Valor said, "Only the best kinds."

Sandream slapped Valor on his back and gestured his attention to the window. Valor immediately groaned out aloud. "Son of a bastard, they bounded us."

I came to the window and saw no sun or green lawn outside. Only a dark cloudy endless sky, I cursed my rotten luck.

"Any way out of this?" I asked.

Valor sighed. "Only someone with cracking abilities can break the bounding."

Five said, "I can do it."

Valor looked at him weirdly. "You? Cracking encoding? You will have to use pure power. It will waste your body away faster."

Adu cut in. "Why is the sky so dark… also where is the castle and-"

"Do we have an option?" Five asked without looking behind him.

The door was knocked so hard it shook.

Sandream shifted to the side as a metallic silver liquid came through the window splashing against the floor.

That liquid formed into the melting figure of a man.

The hell was that? Sandream shouted out, "Septorial Raid Skin eight hundred! Throw water at it!"

What? The figure's arm formed into a spear and flew pass my neck. Valor pushed me out of the way and kicked up a pot sending it flying.

It hit the figure, while the water drenched its face and its form shivered. Those ripples washed over its body with a strike of violence. The scream it bellowed broke the stiff quiet.

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Oh, that worked.

Valor stood before it, axe drawn. Janilla called, "Pot!"

I ran, grabbed one, and threw it. Janilla caught it after it hobbled in her hands. The figure struck at Janilla with its spear-like arms. Valor came down in front and knocked its attempts wayward allowing Janilla to escape.

Sandream took out her long twin knives and rounded the metallic figure.

Valor shouted, "Push it out the window!"

Sandream nodded her head and rushed. She tried to go low. The figure swung and threw her back with a parry.

Valor sidestepped and twirled, the figure ducked and deflected the attempt. No matter how sneaky their attempts, they all failed.

The figure spun, its sharp swords for arms that kept them at a distance.

That door rocked forward, cracks appeared from the edge of the wall. Something big was coming. We could not deal with too many enemies swarming us.

I grabbed two pots and ran down into the sub-chamber. Reaching into the room with Marideth and the concubine held up in one corner, while Janilla gathered water into the pot.

Yelps and grunts of the ensuing fight raised an ache in my chest. I waved my hands to calm her when her eyes filled with dread touched my face. Janilla rushed forward and that was when I felt it.

I ducked as the water flung right in its face. It froze, screaming, and flayed about knocking off the torch's stone arms, pots, and the basket of clothes. I sidestepped right before Sandream bashed into it.

The figure splashed into the tub. It started raging, flinging its arms and legs erratically. It pushed itself out of the tub.

I pumped my foot into its face and pushed it down. The low pool of water started turning silver under the back of this increasingly soggy figure.

A pain ripped through the top of my shoulder. This bastard sliced me with its arm, so I grabbed it.

The fingers burnt in anticipation of me winning this struggle, yet the edge got deeper into the pit of my neck. Blood peeled down the silver edge with each passing moment.

The noise, the screams and clashing metals told me fate was not looking good for us.

It pushed up, my knee crackled under the pressure. Sandream punched it and knocked it back down.

Janilla said as she backed away, "The new Septorial Raid Skin melt into water too easily, we need to drop it into the sea. It will melt away if we do."

I shouted back, "Does it look like I have a sea lying around!?"

Janilla glanced away deflated. The figure pushed upward more, me and Sandream were struggling to hold this thing down. I shouted, "Where is Valor?!"

Sandream replied, "Big-bigger problems!"

I groaned. A loud high pitched thud drew my attention to Janilla slamming the lion head orifice that loosed the water into the tub with a piece of that stone arm.

She slammed it again and chipped off a huge piece of the head. The figure was pushing itself up. She slammed it again and broke off the jaw.

A torrent blew out, hitting the figure upside the head eliciting a rabid scream. We pushed it down back, and my leg went through the body, which got soggier.

The water rebounded off the wall above Marideth and the concubine, deflecting water all over.

Sandream used her elbow and crashed it into a basin above the bath. It broke, Sandream took it and pushed into the torrent deflecting the water back into the tub.

"Push him!" I shouted. All three of us, kicked, punched and pushed the figure into the bath.

It screamed, its arms became mush, melting and sagging into the bath of water. It was gone now, nothing more than a metallic molten mess. The ground became its own pond ending at my ankle as the torrent slowed to pattering water drops off the lion's shattered chin.

There was a growl and more screams. A huge crash and the ground shook now and then. Marideth asked with irritated waves of her arm, "What is going on up there?"

Sandream threw the piece of tub aside, and Janilla sat in the water, while I wiped the sweat off my face. The pain in my neck had me gritting my teeth, yet the wound on my neck was not deep, thanks to my quick reflexes.

Next time, I might not be so lucky or was it fate? Closing my eyes in frustration, for fate still hurts.

I said, "Marideth stay down here, please." The water reddened in one section and that was behind Sandream. "Sandream, you're bleeding."

Sandream glanced behind her and came towards me with her legs showing slim streams of blood flowing into the pool. "I'll be fine."

Five said that and was dying right in front of me. Everybody died in front of me. My eyes met Janilla's uncertain ones. I passed Sandream and gave Janilla my open hand which she took. She raised out of the water and into my embrace.

The drops of water off our wet clothes and cold skin tapped along with the resounding thuds that complimented the shaking ground and cracking walls.

I inhaled and balled my fist. "Let's go."