Chapter 14 Melodia
The next two months came and went as I fell into a comfortable routine. I’d go to school, get glared at by Anna, go home and study magic, then fight a doll roughly every two weeks. As it turned out, Break liked to alternate between two parts of the city. One of them was close to my house, while the other one was closer to where Anna was. So we ended up switching every other week from me to the three other girls, and then back to me.
Yes, three. They’d managed to find the fourth and last person and gotten them to join up. And it just had to be someone I already knew and who didn’t like me.
About a week after the whole thing at the Legion arcade, I had found them fighting that week’s doll alongside Claire. And she was wearing a set of clothes that had to be a transformation. Instead of a pair of shorts and jacket, or bodysuit, or a dress, she’d ended up in a matching set of blue and white ruffled shirt and skirt. Her glasses also got replaced by these cool looking blue goggles.
I never found out how Claire ended up joining her team, and I was okay with that. I’d rather not have the three of them throwing me ugly looks every time I arrived just in time to watch them take down the doll.
Weirdly enough, I never saw them show up when I fought one of my own dolls. At first I figured it was because they wanted to abandon me to fight alone, but the longer I watched the fight in front of me from my little rooftop hiding place, the more likely another explanation looked.
This week’s doll fight started while I was in Anna’s side of town, so I figured I’d take the chance to observe the other three girls and see how they were doing in terms of magic. Not because I wanted to talk to them about it or anything, I just wanted to see how I was doing compared to them.
I had quickly found the vortex still half formed in the middle of a tiny alley. I heard Anna’s voice off in the distance, so I had transformed and floated up to the top of one of the buildings. From here, I’d be able to watch them without being noticed. Plus if things got bad, I could jump in and help them out.
No I wasn’t hiding, I was observing from a stealthy place. Completely different.
And what I had ended up observing wasn’t good. This week Break had brought a doll with a big hulking upper body with four arms, and a long snake tail. It was weirdly fast, slithering around the alley too quickly for the girls to keep up. Rashell’s Air Bullets ended up flying past it, Anna shields were slithered around and Claire probably had the worst time of them all.
From my guess, Claire’s magic and concept was based around either freezing or ice. You would think it would be the perfect thing to fight something which didn’t want to stand still. But no, her one spell was to create a slow acting mist, freezing everything inside of it. Every time she tried to use it, the doll ran away. And if she tried to make it bigger, she would probably end up filling the whole narrow alley and freezing the four of them.
There was also something else bothering me. No matter how bad things went, or how much of a beating they took, the other three girls refused to use other spells. It made no sense, maybe all of their other spells wouldn’t have helped, but with how long they had to learn, that didn’t make any sense either. Rashell and Claire were newer to this than me, but not by much. And Anna had been doing this for at least a week or two longer, there was no reason for her to not have more spells.
The longer I watched them all get kicked around the alley, the more I had to accept the truth. The reason why they never showed up to any of my fights was because I was a way better fighter. Those days of exercise and self-taught fighting were paying off. I took down the dolls way quicker than they did, so by the time they arrived, the fight was already over.
I winced as the doll slipped past another one of Anna’s shields and then smacked her into the wall with its tail. When I had decided to watch, I told myself I would jump in to help them if they needed it. I hadn’t expected them to actually need my help.
I had already tried helping them in my own way, but the doll was still a bit too fast for me. Every time I tried to cast a spell to increase the gravity in an area, the doll got out of there before I could finish. I was a fast caster these days, but the doll was still faster.
I watched as Rashell jumped at the doll’s back, her fist pulled back and ready to punch the thing. She yelled out as she was about to land the hit, only for the doll to grab her with two of its arms without even turning around. The doll swung her around and threw her right at the wall. Anna had been about to get back up when Rashell smashed into her and the two went back down.
Claire let out a yell and started charging at the creature. She didn’t even have her arms up to punch it or anything. In fact, I was pretty sure she didn’t have any plan at all. The doll turned around and in a blink it was right in front of her. I saw her hesitate and that was all the doll needed. It grabbed her and soon there were three girls collapsed in a big pile next to the wall.
“Why won’t you go down?” Anna yelled as she and the rest of the girls got to their feet. Was I going to have to go down there and fight it myself? It was starting to look like I was.
The doll came to a stop in front of the girl and brought its four arms up. It slowly cracked its twenty knuckles as the rest of the girls backed up into the wall.
Well, it was time to do something about this. With any luck, they wouldn’t end up yelling at me by the time this was over. I jumped off the building and took aim at a spot on the ground right behind the doll.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
[Gravity.
Spot on the ground.
Circle with a circumference of six feet.
Multiply gravity by two.]
I needed to make the circle as wide as possible to make sure the doll couldn’t get away, but it worked. The doll stopped in place, probably surprised by the sudden weight it was feeling on its body. I was about to land on its body when I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye.
The rest of the girls must have taken the doll’s sudden stop as hesitation and were now charging right at it. And right into the increased gravity field I made. I landed right on top of the doll’s head as the rest of the girls ran into the field and fell on their faces.
“The heck is this?” Anna demanded.
“Why does my body feel so heavy?” Rashell complained.
“Is that Melodia?” Claire asked as the three of them all looked up at me standing on top of the doll.
Time froze for me as I realized I had to make a decision right here and now. If I dropped the spell, the doll would maybe get free, but I’d be able to fight alongside the rest of the girls. But if I kept the spell up, the doll would be open to a beating, I’d just have to do it alone. So the real question was if the help from the rest of the girls was worth it.
I jumped back, getting off the doll’s head and landing on its back. I pressed down with my boots trying to dig them into the doll’s scaly skin as deeply as they could go. I kept one of my boots dug in before pulling out the other one and kicking the doll in the side of the head. I brought my foot back down before aiming a finger right at the doll’s head.
Maybe if I took the doll out fast enough, Anna and the rest of the girls wouldn’t be as mad at me.
“Gravity Crush,” and for the first time since that fateful night when Pickati gave me my magical powers, a doll managed to avoid the crush. It dropped the floor and flattened itself before slithering back away from the spell which fizzled out due to the lack of a target.
Well, it might not have worked, but I was still on the doll’s back and its crawling had put it even deeper into the increased gravity zone. And most importantly of all, when I aimed my fingers my second time I aimed straight down at center mass.
I opened my mouth to cast the spell when I noticed something coming right at me. I brought my arms up just in time to block the two fists flying right at me. I grit my teeth and dug my heel back into the doll’s flesh, barely keeping myself on its back. I looked past my guard to see the two other arms coming right at me. Unlike the last two, these were open with their fingers reached out for me.
Well if the doll was going to try and grab me, two could play at that game. My hands lashed out at the last second and grabbed the doll’s wrists. The doll hissed as I managed to keep the arms in place. Looks like the doll was fast, but not as strong as some of the others.
Its head turned back as the dolls hissed at me with its upside down snake face. I flinched back just in time to see the doll’s shoulder move. I followed the movement before ducking under the doll’s two still free swinging fists. The hissing had been a distraction and I had almost fallen for it. Stupid sloppy me.
Sloppy or not, I still needed to finish this now. Even if I was able to shut down two of the doll’s arms, it still had two more for me to worry about. I had to think of something quick… and I think I knew what to do.
I freed my boots from the doll and jumped up while making sure to keep the doll’s arms gripped tight. I swung forward before kicking out and hitting the doll in the back, right between its arms. It let out another hiss as I pulled on its arms while pushing down with my legs with all I had. I kept going until I heard a tearing sound.
I flipped back, the arms still in my arms. I glanced at them and got ready for another spell.
[Gravity.
Objects in my hands.
Multiply by four.]
I landed on my feet and jumped forward, swinging the doll’s arms down like a pair of clubs. I smashed into its shoulders, breaking off its two other arms. The doll let out another hiss as I swung one of its arms right at its neck.
There was a sudden cracking sound followed by a crash as the doll’s head hit the alley wall. The rest of the body collapsed as the whole thing started to dissolve. I let go of the doll’s arms as I let all the other spells I had up drop aside from Internal Stabilization.
I leaned back on the alley wall and took a nice break. Looked like I could destroy a doll without using Gravity Crush now. Guess that was pretty nice to know. To be fair, I’m pretty sure I’d never done that much damage to one before.
“The heck… was that?” I looked over as I suddenly realized I’d dropped the spells which meant the other girls were now able to get back to their feet. I guess I had kind of left them stuck to the ground. The three of them were now up and slowly walking towards me, their eyes wide and their jaws low.
I looked down at myself and noticed I was covered in the doll sludge. It was starting to fade, but it was still pretty noticeable. I couldn’t really do anything about it except wait for it to disappear.
We all stood staring at each other for a few seconds until Anna blinked. I felt my heart freeze as her face transformed into an angry glare.
“Hey wait a second!” She pointed a finger right at me, her yell enough to break the other two out of their daze. She marched right up to me, seeming to grow in size with every step. “Did you hit us with that weird power of yours too? Were you trying to get us out of the way or something?”
She grabbed onto my jacket and soon there were three angry faces who were way too close to mine and I was done.
I gripped her hand and forced it away. In the split second before she could do anything else, I cast a spell.
[Gravity.
Self.
Negate gravity.]
I kicked off and went up the building to my hiding place. I rolled onto my back as my transformation undid itself. It was fine, I could manage to get back down without it. I took a second to catch my breath before hearing all three of the girls yell a name.
“Break!” Not the name I would have expected, but better than them yelling mine. I rolled back over onto my stomach and crawled to the edge of the building. I hadn’t seen Break in a while. I think he had stopped showing up to my doll fights after the second time I tried to crush him under a dumpster. Bit weird I managed to do that twice, but sometimes life was like that.
“Well if it isn’t the weaklings,” he taunted them as the other three stood around and glared at him. “Have to say, I wasn’t expecting you three to take care of the doll so quick. You three have help from Ribbon?”
I grimaced at the dumb nickname he had given me a while back. It’s not like I asked for a giant purple ribbon to be tied around my ponytail. Heck, I hadn’t even asked for a ponytail.
“Who cares?” Anna yelled back. “We took down the doll, that’s all that matters.”
“Oh it matters a lot,” he sneered, “the dolls are only going to get stronger and stronger, and unlike Ribbon, you three are as weak as the day you started.”
Well this was disturbing. Not only did the three of them spend time talking to Break instead of trying to destroy him, they also weren’t learning any magic. Content with the information I had and not wanting to interact with the other girls anymore for today, I backed off and headed home for the day. I was going to have to tell Pickati about all this.
At least now I knew I was getting stronger than the other girls. As long as the pattern held and we got a doll attack once a week, I should be able to take care of them by myself once the others couldn’t anymore.