Chapter 20 Melodia

The doll rushed right at me and swung with one of its giant fists. I jumped back as the fist hit the spot where I’d been standing, sending up a cloud of dust.

I jumped on the doll’s hand and ran up its arm. I made it as far as its elbow when it pulled back. I kept my balance as I got to the top of the arm. I aimed a finger at its shoulder only to hear some rumbling from below my feet.

I glanced down just in time to see something starting to emerge from its arm. I jumped off the doll as spikes erupted from its skin. The doll roared before swinging its other fist at me.

[Gravity.

Outer self.

Standard gravity.

The ball at the top of the glass.]

The world turned upside-down as I started falling up out of the way of the doll’s attack. I dropped the spell and started falling back towards the ground. I never made it though.

Instead I landed on the doll’s fist by pure chance. I blinked twice at the unexpected development before pointing my finger at the flesh at my feet.

“Gravity crush!”

I knew that Gravity Crush was a costly spell and best saved as a finisher, but I needed to damage this thing and I doubted my hands or feet were going to do the job.

The mini black hole appeared and swallowed up the doll’s hand. It roared as it pulled back and I heard a ripping sound. I finally landed back on the ground as the doll raised its new stump of a hand. Black goo was pouring out onto the ground and then fading away.

It roared before charging right at me with its other arm raised up and ready. I jumped and altered gravity again to fall through the air towards another piece of the playground. I was still close enough to feel the impact when the doll slammed its hand on the spot I’d been standing in.

I kept falling until I grabbed onto the monkey bars. I dropped the spell to allow gravity to go back to normal before pulling myself up and landing on the bars. The doll looked up at me and growled.

The creature charged at me as I started running across the bars, making it to the other end as the doll reached them. Instead of smashing them, the doll grabbed the base of the monkey bars and pulled. I stumbled and caught onto the bars, hanging on as the doll ripped the monkey bars from the ground and held it up in the air.

I held on as tightly as I could as the doll wildly swung the bars around. After a couple of swings, the doll stopped and started looking around the ground. It let out a confused whine as I held onto the bar it was holding over its head.

It must have thought it had managed to throw me off. Maybe if I hadn’t been able to shrug off the worst of the movement with Internal Stabilization, I’d be on the ground. But I had it on so I was up here and it had no idea.

I looked at the heavy metal bars I was holding onto as a vicious idea filled my head. The kind I would have felt bad about if I didn’t know what the dolls wanted to do to the world.

[Gravity.

Object I’m holding.

Increase gravity by six times].

The doll let out a groan as its elbow buckled. I jumped off as the monkey bars crashed down on top of the doll, pinning it to the floor. I wasted no time and ran up to the doll and pointed a finger right at its face.

“Gravity Crush!” The mini black hole appeared right in front of me, absorbing the doll’s tiny head and a good chunk of its shoulders.

I panted as the spell on the monkey bars ended, the whole thing collapsing into a pile as the doll underneath faded away. I put my hands on my knees and slowly breathed in and out. I was pretty sure that was the first time I had used that much mana in a single fight.

At least it was over now.

And as soon as I thought that, a green blur blasted past me and into the wrecked monkey bars. I covered my eyes to avoid the burst of dust that came my way, fanning it away once it stopped. The dust cleared to reveal a somewhat injured Rashell looking right past me…

Oh right.

I turned around just in time to see a familiar looking fist hit me straight on. I sailed past right into the monkey bars and crashed into a spot right next to Rashell.

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I struggled out to see another giant doll looming over us. Between its legs I could see Anna and Claire still fighting theirs. Looked like I was the only one who managed to take theirs out on their own. Disappointing, but probably what I should have been expecting.

I pulled myself out of the monkey bars as the doll swung its fist into the now thoroughly wrecked pile of scrap metal.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Rasehll making it out just in time too. The two of us stood on opposite sides of the doll. It looked like it was having trouble deciding which of us to focus on first.

After a second of indecision, the choice was taken from it as the words ‘Air Bullet’ filled the ruined playground. A burst of wind smashed into the doll’s head. The doll roared before turning towards Rashell. I glanced around at the wrecked remains of the playgrounds surrounding me.

…Would it work? It was risky, but it might be my best shot. I had an idea, I had to hope Rashell could distract the doll long enough to pull it off. I ran towards the center of the destruction and came to a stop, my eyes locking onto the doll’s back.

I opened my eyes as a circle of purple light appeared at my feet. It started expanding outwards, leaving the padded ground a light purple tint as it went. Objects in the circle started to float, having lost their gravity and gotten pushed up by magical force.

The line reached as far as it would go, leaving me standing at the center of the circle. All around me were the floating ruins of what had once been a playground. Hunks of metal and plastic ready to be reused as something else.

I locked eyes onto the back of the still distracted doll. The debris cleared just in time to let me see Rashell get knocked down again. Instead of chasing after her, the doll turned towards me. It started lumbering towards me, but it was already too late.

Somehow, I doubted Pickati thought I’d use the new pre-made spell on the same day he taught it to me. Boy was he was going to be in for a surprise later. I smirked as I reached the last part of the spell. I needed to pick a target, and there was a pretty big one right in front of me.

“Gravity Barrage!” With those two words, the doll became the sole source of gravity for every loose object in the circle. The circle pulsed, sending out a shockwave as every loose bit of metal and plastic went flying right at the doll.

I could see a few sharp bits stab into the doll right before the big wave hit. The doll was buried under metal and plastic until I couldn’t see any of it anymore. After a few seconds, bits of goo started leaking out from the pile before it collapsed onto the floor. The bits and pieces fell to the floor as the doll they were attracted to dissolved to nothing.

“Wow,” I almost jumped as I noticed Rashell had gotten back up and ran up to me at some point, “how did you do all that? I thought your spell was that Gravity Crush thing?”

How? What did she mean ‘how’? What was even going on with Anna’s group? Rashell was still waiting for an answer and she was starting to get that annoyed look on her face.

“Second… spell,” I managed to get out as we got interrupted by Claire yelling something off in the distance. Oh right, we still had two more dolls to deal with.

Rashell and I ran to the fight and split off without a word. She ran to help Anna while I went to Claire. The blue clad girl wasn’t doing the best against the doll. Her big spell was a mist that slowly froze anything in it over time. So far, she’d had been forced into a cycle of casting the spell only for the doll to run out of it and attack her, forcing her to cast it again.

Of course with me around, this whole thing was going to be a lot simpler.

The doll charged out of the freezing mist and swung its fist down. Claire jumped out of the way as I leapt past her. I stretched my leg out and kicked the doll square in the chest, pushing it back and landing next to her.

I knelt down and got ready for what I knew would be my last big spell of the day.

[Gravity.

Circle with a circumference of five feet.

Multiply by six.]

Both the doll and I fell to one knee at the same time. I sucked in a bunch of air as Claire hovered over me.

“Can’t move,” I grunted, not sure if I was talking about the doll or me. She narrowed her eyes before looking up at the doll. She placed her hands out towards the doll.

“Freezing Mist,” she called out as a blue mist started appearing around the doll. With all of the increased weight, it had no choice but to sit there and slowly get frozen. The ice growing over its joints probably wasn’t helping either.

Claire set her hands down as the mist cleared to show a frozen statue where the doll had been. Without a word she ran forward while I dropped the spell. She jumped and punched the giant doll right in the center. There was a cracking sound, as the whole thing started breaking and falling apart.

I sat back down as Rashell and Anna finished off the other doll in the distance. The three girls all ran up to meet each other. They all high fived together. It looked kind of fun… No, I didn’t need it.

Still, that was one tough fight. I used so much magic, and now I wanted to go home and sleep. Look at me, supposed to be this big hero saving the day and I’m laying here exhausted. Talk about pathetic.

“What did you say?”

It was at this moment that several things hit me all at once. The first was that the rest of the girls had walked to where I’d been sitting at some point. The second was that I had whispered that last part of what I had thought out loud. The last was that the girls were close enough to hear me. And by the looks on their faces, it looked like they thought I was talking about them instead of me.

Why did this always happen to me? Did I anger some sort of god? Was I cursed? I already knew magic was real, so maybe curses were real too.

Oh, Anna was still yelling at me. And the rest of the girls were glaring at me too.

“…Just so sick of your attitude. All you do is go around with your high and mighty attitude and act like you’re better than us.”

A tiny part of my brain wanted to say I was better than them, at least at fighting the dolls. Too bad the rest of my brain was still stuck in place. Even if I was better at fighting dolls, the rest of the girls had me beat in ‘acting like a normal human being’.

Anna and Claire yelled at me a little longer, while Rashell just looked disappointed. When I didn’t respond they walked away, leaving me by myself. After a few seconds, I saw Arturo and Pickati emerge from some nearby bushes. I’d almost forgotten my brother was here to be honest.

“Hey,” he said as he loomed over me, “are you okay?”

“If I make myself weightless, could you carry me home?” I asked as he simply knelt down with his back to me. I forced myself to my feet and undid my transformation before climbing up on his back.

My face felt wet for some reason, I wasn’t sure why.