“Over here Gumball!” A large stone fist slammed into the rocky wall, but Tofi swiftly leaped over, landing on it before racing up the statue’s arm.
“Insect!” Fu said, using the other arm in an attempt to flatten Tofi, but she was just too fast, doubling in speed, causing the arm to collide with the other and making it slightly crack. Using his strings, which have thoroughly imbedded themselves throughout the entire statue, Fu detached portions of the statue, molding it around him to form a half-dome barrier which he hid in.
Jumping up to the head where Fu was, Tofi smashed her fist into the barrier, but nothing happened, boggling her. “Tough,” she said when suddenly she was smacked from the head of the statue, crashing hard into the dirt.
Fu had carved a portion of the back of the statue, forming it into a hammer which now hovered in the air with his strings.
From within his protective barrier, Fu’s voiced resonated, “This statue’s been bathing in flux force for who knows how long. All I have to do is concentrate the flux within this statue into a single point and your punches can’t do diddly squat!”
Tofi, rising from the dust cloud, wiped herself off, smiling and stating, “You got so much stronger Gumball,” she giggled. “This is so much fun!”
“Errr… Fun? I’ll show you fun!” Even more pieces of the statue detached, quickly surrounding her. They shaped numerous things; a large sword, a ball, even small versions of the stone statues. “Attack!” he shouted.
Tofi jumped as a stone statue flew by underneath her. Sensing something, she swiftly raised her hands as a stone sword smacked her. Slamming her knee into the sword, it cracked in half. Gripping the end, spinning again and again, she tossed it, causing it to collied with many stone statues, obliterating them. “Whoa!” she said, flying forward with the sword itself, crashing into the floor. “Whoops…” She accidentally got caught up in the strings when spinning it. A large stone foot smacked Tofi, sending her flying through more strings floating through the air.
“Try this!” Fu caused the strings to tighten into a ball around her, but she busted out of them, jumping off the cave wall as a giant stone ball slammed behind her. Landing on the floor, many smaller statues lunged at her, though she smashed each one into small bits. The onslaught however was relentless as Fu kept reshaping them with this strings.
“Tofi, we’re back!” Lily’s voice rang out.
“Lily?” when turning she realized there was no one there; Being a ventriloquist, Fu had thrown his voice.
“Gotcha,” he said, reforming the bits and pieces of the statue, trapping Tofi in a half-dome, right after, the huge leg of the statue Fu rode, crushed it.
Popping out from a hole she dug under the earth, “Phew, that was a close one.”
“Oh Julian… forget Izzy, she’s nothing compared to me.”
“Huh?” she looked over to see a statue perfectly shaped like Julian, the doll. With him, another woman.
“Julian!” Tofi shouted in disbelief when the large stone ball, split in two, smashed into her from each side. After, many more pieces followed, forming a large ball. Fu compacted it until Tofi was sealed, or crushed, whichever came first.
“See you get out of that,” Fu said, sighing a breath of relief. Then, the ball started to crack. “No!” Fu said, directing most the flux into the ball, preventing it from cracking, however, in pushing most the flux within it, the statue itself became brittle and frail. Its leg, which had a large crater in it from Rumple when he was sent flying by Lily, began to crumble under the weight it was holding, and so, Fu quickly refocused some of the flux into the leg.
“He-he,” the boulder blew into tiny bits as Tofi emerged, hands and legs pressed in opposite direction. “You got me there.”
“What’s it gonna take to keep you down…” Fu said. From above, a light static shock slapped Fu’s wooden forehead. “Ow,” he said, before looking around; no one was near. “For a second there I almost thought…”
“This has been a lot of fun, but play time’s over,” Tofi said. “We’ve got to catch up to everyone else.” She burst forward, smashing her feet into the damaged leg of the statue, snapping it off.
“My leg!” Fu said in shock.
Tofi bounced off the crushed leg, slamming her fist into the other. Punch after punch, it began to crack.
“Get away!” Fu sent another stone sword at her, but when she leapt away, he accidently severed it himself. “Ahh!” Fu shouted as the statue, fell to its knees with a heavy thud! Fu swung both arms down at Tofi who was watching below as the statue fell.
Tofi launched off the ground, driving right through the crevice in the center of the two arms as they heavily smacked the earth, causing a few rocks to fall from the ceiling. With another powerful jump, she flew toward the stone head, gripping the edge of its carved ear. “Ring around,” thrusting the head forward, “the rosey!” it ripped it off, causing it to spin many times over.
“Wa-a-a-a-a-a!” Fu said within the dome, wooden face showed signs of growing sick.
“Heyah!” Tofi shouted, kicking the head off the shoulder off the statue; the giant statue fell forward with a loud thud, crumbling into smaller bits.
Fu, undoing the half dome protecting him, “Uh…” Dizzily, he tittered back and forth before he fell off the head, landing on the ground. Gazing above, he realized a large boulder detach from the cave ceiling. Fu held his puppet hands out in defense, but the rock was destroyed before it could crush him.
“You okay Gumball?” Tofi said.
“Tofi… Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you save me?”
“Because we’re friends, right?”
Fu wooden eyes glimmered. “I tried to kill you, all of you…”
“Tamma says we shouldn’t let bad stuff win, and we beat bad things by being good and helping each other; even when someone was mean,” she said, crossing her arms and puffing her cheeks out. “Are you done being mean? Our friend’s needs our help…” she said, reaching out her hand.
***
Blood splurging from Rai’s mouth, he fell to the floor. Glancing up, he quickly intertwined his fingers, shooting an ikken bullet at a ghoul attacking, killing it. Its body rolled down the stairs a bit before coming to a halt. Looking up the stairway, the Minus had just made it to the top! “Dammit…” standing up, blood dripped down his arm; the sleeve of his coat had been ripped off. There were still a fair number of ghouls standing in his way, and behind him, many more were running up from the bottom. Looking forward, the ghouls crept closer, drool dripping from their mouth, when one attacked causing Rai to stumble back as he fell avoiding its claw. Tripping over his feet, he rolled down the stairs, before jumping up as more attacked. One arm of the ghoul, smacked into his stomach, propelling him off the stairway! “Ah!”
“Gotcha!” Neptus said, grabbing the hood of Rai’s coat. Riding his galatic wave back onto the stairs, he masterfully swiveled around the ghouls toward the top; any ghouls that incidentally jumped on the black wave, stumbled as they got carried away by the forward motion of the wave. “Jump!” he said, and Rai, acknowledging it, jumped, safely landing at the top.
“No you don’t!” Rai said, running after the Minus, it was already half way to the primordial.
Neptus held his hand on his chest, gritting his teeth as he directed the wave off the stairs, bringing the many ghouls with him, releasing it once they all were off the side, causing them to drop to their death. Hurriedly, he flipped around, deactivating the wave and landing on the stairs. “I have to give Rai enough time… to stop the Minus…” Looking down countless ghouls were making their way up. “Riding my galactic wave takes too much of a toll on my core when I don’t have a surface beneath me… Guess we’re going straight down!” he once again activated the wave, taking it directly down the stairs, expanding it to the entire length of the stairway, catching every single ghoul on his way down, forcing them with him. Shifting left, he crouched as a ghoul’s claw swept by before proceeding to duck and dodge every single ghoul on the way down. Soon, the wave was starting to slow, disappear even; Neptus couldn’t hold it anymore! Releasing it at the bottom, he collided with the floor, rolling against it before rising back to his feet. Every ghoul he dragged down the stairs, gradually stood up, gazing at him with a thirst for blood. Neptus, held up both his fist. “I’m not dying here… I swear it!” The ghouls rushed him.
“Discharge!” Fire burst forth, roasting the ghouls directly in front of him. Right after, a spinning ball with spikes on it tore through many more ghouls, before turning around and heading toward Neptus.
Neptus held his hands up in defense, when the ball unraveled and Eiji appeared.
“Gearbearer to the rescue!” Eiji said.
“Eiji?”
“Neptus!” Lily said appearing. Gazing at the many ghouls still rushing down from the holes, including the ones still present, she said, “Where’s Rai?”
“He’s up top…” Neptus said, breathing heavily. “Dealing with an evolved Minus?”
“Evolved?!” Lily said.
“It’s controlling these ghouls… or directing them. Can’t say which,” Neptus said.
“Then we got to find a way up there,” Eiji said, slamming his fist into his hand. “However…” he gazed around at the last remaining ghouls running down the holes.
A ghoul lunged at Lily, but with a thrust of her fist she hit it square in the head, crushing its skull against the floor. Gripping her wrist, she hunched over. “Ow,” her wrist was throbbing.
“Lily you should go ahead,” Neptus said. “Eiji and I will hold the ghouls off… with your abilities you’ll be more useful than I am.”
Straitening up, she said, “I hate to say it, but my legacies charges are all used up; that last one only came because of the torches we collected on the way.”
“Neptus, you go,” Eiji said. “I can tell you’re at your limit, at the very least you’ll be out of harm’s way.”
“Yeah, we’ve got this!” Lily said, giving him a thumbs up.
Nodding, Neptus raced forward.
“You ready?” Lily said.
“Lily… you should head back,” Eiji said.
“Head back, why would I do that?”
“I don’t want to see you get hurt again… and to be honest, I’m nearing my limit too,” Eiji said turning around, blood was dripping from his mouth.
“Eiji…” Lily said, standing beside him. “We’re in this together, for better or for worse.”
Eiji’s eyes widened. With a confident smile, he said, “Then let’s show them what we’re made of!” He jumped into the air, the cape wrapping around him, before he erupted forward in his spike ball shape.
Lily rushed after him, avoiding fatal attacks, and cracking them across the skull when possible.
On top the stairs, the Minus was nearing the primordial.
“Hold it!” Rai said. He was at another angle facing the primordial. “Take one more step, I dare you!” Looking at his wriggly rooted legs, he murmured, “We’ll I guess steps would be more accurate…” Spikes emerged from the ground, cutting him across the waste while partially tearing through his cloak. “Almost forgot,” Rai said as spike after spike appeared, forcing him back and preventing him from getting any closer.
“Why… humans… always interfere…” it said using Mocorri’s body.
“Because we’re all kind of stubborn!” Rai shouted, and he blasted an ikken bullet jumping from the side of a spike pillar. It cut through the air, heading straight for the glowing gem, but the Minus placed Mocorri’s body in the way, instead piercing the deceased man’s skull. More larger spikes emerged, completely blocking Rai’s path.
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The Minus moved closer, placing Mocorri’s body before the plant.
“Ikken!” Appearing high above, propelling himself into the air, Rai aimed directly at the primordial.
The Minus seeing this, summoned a pyramid of enlarged spikes to protect it, however at the same time, Rai shifted his aim towards the Minus, blasting multiple ikken bullet’s that tore the whimsey rooted tentacles holding Mocorri’s body.
Immediately, Mocorri’s dispersed into flux force, leaving a seed shinning green and brown behind.
The Minus roared, slamming its fist into the ground before rapidly rushing towards Rai.
Rai colliding with the ground, took cover behind a spike pillar, but the Minus crushed it with its arms, sending him sprawling backwards, before he collided with someone.
“Need help?” Neptus said.
“As much as I’d hate to admit it, yes.”
“Did it get the primordial?”
“No… its in there,” Rai said, gesturing to the pyramid. The energy was so abundant, even the roots encasing it started to glow, bringing the light back to its normal state within the cave.
The veins along the Minus started to glow red, a stark symbol of its rage.
Below, Lily and Eiji were slowly being overcome by the number of ghouls.
Eiji, bulldozing over some, bounced high into the air, where he unraveled, grasping Lily’s hand who jumped up as well.
“Take this!” she shouted, thrusting Eiji toward a pack of ghouls. At the same time, Eiji formed back into the spike ball smashing into the ground and taking many ghouls with him.
Eiji rolled back until he was next to Lily. Back to back, they both looked exhausted.
Lily gripped her wrist in pain as ghouls ran her way, when suddenly, the ghouls closest to them were sliced into small bit by strings.
“Wee!’ a blur rushed by, colliding with countless ghouls all the way to the trunk of the tree in the center.
“Tofi?!” they shouted.
“I’ve never been so happy to see you,” Eiji said. “Wah!” He ran as another ghoul attacked, but Fu appearing on Eiji’s shoulder, sliced it in too.
“These guys are like butter compared to Tofi,” Fu said. “Careful, there’s still a lot of them. Tofi won’t be able to focus on protecting you guys at the same time.”
Lily, dodging a ghoul, gripped the octopus’s arm, spinning around and thrusting it forward where it knocked many others over. “What’re you doing here,” Lily said to Fu.
“If you’ve come to rejoin Plu’s legion, its already too late,” Eiji said, crossing his arms stubbornly.
Landing beside them, Tofi placed her hands on her hip, saying, “Gumballs our friend.”
“Tofi… You sure that’s wise… What if he betrays us again?” Lily said.
“Then I’ll put him on time out, again,” she said with a smile. Furrowing her brows at the ghouls coming at them, she once again burst off.
Lily, though in the middle of battle, walked over to Fu, “This is your last chance, you’re not getting another,” then she darted off into the fray.
“Well, if Tofi say’s you’re in, then you’re in. Would have been a pain anyways to reprint the shirts, I’ve already ordered so many...” Eiji said.
“Hm,” Fu said. “Then let’s kick some ass!”
“Plu’s legion is back in action!” Eiji said, racing after Lily with Fu.
“Speaking of Plu, where is it?” Fu said.
Hearing this, Lily, stopped, looking around, “Perhaps it’s with Rai?”
Up top, Rai focused in on the Minus. An evolved minus was identified by something that has two cores, instead of one. This Minus had one where the gem resided, and one near the bottom half of its body.
“Neptus, can you sense it?” Rai said.
“Yeah…” Neptus said. “I’ll be honest… I might only have one more attack.”
“Well it can’t use Mocorri’s power’s anymore, I’ve severed the roots entangling him, and he turned back into—”
The Minus roared advancing as its wooden claws tore through the wood floor.
“Here it comes!” Neptus shouted, bracing himself.
The Minus slammed down but they jumped away.
Rai closed both fists, slamming down on its head, but to no avail as he was swatted away.
Neptus blinked to avoid it. It crushed spike after spike in attempt to hit Neptus who danced them for cover.
All of sudden, ghouls started to appear from the cliff side opposite of the stairs.
“Damn, it sent them around!” Rai said, as the ghouls charged them. The Minus seeing a ghoul run past it, snatched it up, ripping it in half as it howled in pain, before thrusting one at Neptus.
“Crap!” Neptus blinked to avoid it, meanwhile, Rai avoiding another ghoul, was smacked directly by the other half that the Minus threw, sending him toward the edge.
Gripping a root protruding from the severed super-tree, it peeled backwards until stopping short of ripping off side. “Close one,” he said, gazing down.
***
When the smoke cleared, Eloise was still standing strong with her arm raised to the ceiling.
“Why… won’t you die…” Stella said. She swung again; however, nothing came forth. Crap… I can’t use my legacy ability anymore.
“Is that all?” Eloise said, causing Stella to anger.
“You’re still stuck… once I’ve regained some flux—”
“Found them,” Eloise said, smirking. Her web of electricity had been steadily extending throughout the entire cave along the ceiling, something Stella didn’t catch onto. Every once in a while, she sent a jolt of electricity down to detect the surroundings.
“Found? What does that matter, you can’t do a single thing about it!” Stella said.
“You should have left when you had the chance,” Eloise said, and a surge of electricity rushed up toward the web, obliterating all the falling rubble while at the same time sending a bolt of lightning directly down, striking Stella.
“Ahhh!” she shouted, falling to the floor. Smoke sizzled from her slightly burnt body. “This whole time…” she muttered.
“Seven hundred,” Eloise said, placing the hilt of the blade away.
“…What?”
“That is the number of times I’ve struck myself with the attack you were just hit by when training. With your current strength, you would die of flux exhaustion before ever getting close to taking my life.”
Though most of her body was completely paralyzed, Stella was able to use her fingers to dig into her pocket. “You were toying with me the whole time…”
“You wait there, I’ve got apprentices waiting for me.” As Eloise turned to leave, Stella planted a black seed into the ground. It expanded rapidly, wrapping her in roots. Turning Eloise noticed this, blinking, she crushed her fist into the earth where Stella was cocooned in roots, however, only roots remained. “Coward.”
***
“Is that Rai?” Lily said, seeing him dangling. She tried to run up the stairs, but a ghoul appeared from behind, slashing her across the back. “Ah!”
Tofi appeared, smashing the ghoul into the floor, though even she was starting to tire. “I’m pooped…”
Eiji, unwinding from the ball, fell to the floor onto the floor. “I’m all used up…” his looked dizzy, staring at the ceiling.
“What now?” Fu said, his strings were weakening, sagging to the ground, and those he had wrapped around the creatures, loosened, freeing many ghouls.
“This doesn’t look good…” Lily said.
Electricity rushed in from the corridor they entered through, hastily spreading across the entire ceiling, immediately after, bolts of lightning rained down, smiting every single ghoul in the cave simultaneously.
“Eloise!” Lily said with a wide smile.
Rai, after climbing back up top, noticed the Minus closing in on him, as were the ghouls, but as the electric web spread out, it too struck every creature that wasn’t him or Neptus, killing them instantly; all but the Minus who was temporarily paralyzed.
“Neptus!” Rai shouted, placing his arms out.
“Got it!” and he did the same.
“Ikken!”
“Galatic Surge!”
Rai and Neptus launched their attacks, aiming to destroy both the Minus’s cores at once.
At the same time, it shook off the paralysis, hastily shielding itself.
Neptus summoned all his remaining power, as did Rai.
Below, everyone witness a large explosion on top.
“Did we.. do it?” Neptus said, looking over at Rai; a large root crashed into his Neptus sending him far off the top of the tree.
“Neptus!” Rai shouted, but then he fell to the floor.
The Minus had its top core completely destroyed, and half of its body seemed to be shredded. Even so, it rose, however, noticing something strange with the light within the cave it turned its body towards the primordial. Within the spikes of the tree that were protecting it were three ikken bullet holes. They had pierced through the them! The Minus rushed over, tearing away the spikes only to reveal the pod with the primordial dying as it reverted back into nothing, leaving only fire from Lily and Eloise attack earlier, and regular luminites along the walls to light the place.
Soon, the entire place began to shake as rocks crumbled from the cave ceiling.
“The cave?!” Lily said.
“Quick, we have to get the two and get out of here!” Eiji said.
“On it!” Tofi said, but before she could rush forward, she fell onto the floor.
“Tofi!” Fu said.
“I’m okay… just… a little… tired…” and she fell asleep.
Up top, roaring, the Minus turned to Rai.
Lying on the floor with his cheek against it, he couldn’t say a word. His vision was slowly disappearing, however, with what strength he had, he managed to lift his middle finger up, smirking as he did. Slowly, he saw the Minus slither its way over. Each time he closed his eyes, upon barely reopening them, the Minus got closer, then everything went black. He only barely opened them again, seeing something, though he was too out of it to really contemplate if it was real or not. It almost looked as if the Minus was on its back, and another large creature was standing over it, rapidly tearing it to pieces. Upon losing consciousness again, when he reopened his eyes, Neptus was standing before him.
“Come on! We’ve got to go,” he said.
“N-Neptus?” Rai muttered. “Where’s… the Minus?”
“It looks like the damage we caused ended up killing it after all,” he leaned back revealing the roots of the Minus scattered across the floor with two seeds, one glowing blue and purple and the other blue and green.
“Guys!” Lily said, running over, she was carrying Tofi on her back.
“Come on! This place is coming down!” Eiji shouted.
Neptus wrapped Rai around his shoulder, but after the first step, they both fell over.
“I got them,” Fu said, tiredly wrapping his threads around them and hoisting them into the air.
As everyone ran towards the exit, from one of the holes high above, a figure hidden within the shadows watched.
When Rai started to near, the large root that was Plu, came back to life, turning its head left and right before spotting them below.
“The corridors collapsing!” Eiji said.
The large root quickly emerged nearby, running along the corridor and keeping it up.
“Plu!” Lily said. “Thank you!”
Exiting the passage on the other end, Eloise appeared. “This way!” she shouted. As the entire cave collapsed, Eloise continued to destroy enormous rocks, one after another, to the point she was even breathing heavily.
Rai and Neptus, who were being carried by Fu’s strings, collided with the floor.
Fu, gazing at his wooden fingers, was baffled as he realized he couldn’t move them.
“Thanks Fu, I can take it from here,” Rai said, standing.
“Same,” Neptus said.
They continued to race to the entrance of the Eris Cave, until at last they were nearing it. One by one they escaped; Rai and Neptus were at the tail end of the group.
Eloise at the forefront, waiting for everyone to pass her by, witnessed yet another large portion of the cave collapsing. She launched another attack, coughing up blood herself after doing so.
“Almost there!” Neptus said.
A ghoul emerged from the shadows, lunging at Rai, tackling him down a small slope, but no one saw it.
The ghoul’s momentum, caused it to fall off of a steep cliff.
Seeing Neptus run out of the cave, Lily said, “Where’s Rai?”
“Huh? He was right behind me?” Neptus said, turning to the cave.
“Dammit!” Rai said, getting up and running forward. Above his head another large rock fell, nearly crushing him, however, he felt a tap on his back, forcing him forward, narrowly avoiding the rock. With a final lung, Rai burst through a sheet of falling dirt, rolling outside of the cave as it collapsed behind him. “Made it…”
“Apologies,” Eloise said. “I should have arrived quicker to aid you.”
“No worry, the gear-bearer was there to save the day,” Eiji said, holding up the okay symbol with his hands.
“What of Mocorri?” Eloise said.
“Turned out to be a lunatic… All he wanted was to help some crazy Minus take over the world…” Neptus said.
“I see…”
“That’s not all,” Rai said. “Seem’s there’s… another rotten apple waiting for us… back in Atlas…” Rai fainted. On his upper back, a gaping hole.
“Rai!” Lily leaned over. “Eiji, do you still have the thing I gave you?”
“Yeah,” he said, pulling it out. This stuff hangs in there pretty good,” he stated, lifting it upside down.
Lily took it, tilting it, though nothing came out.
“Try infusing it with your flux,” Eloise said.
“Okay,” and when Lily did, the liquid poured out, filling Rai’s wound until it completely sealed, though it left a large scar. Rai’s sweating receded, and he slept peacefully. “It worked,” Lily said.
Back in Atlas the entire group, minus Rai who was still unconscious, and Tofi, who was sleeping, stood before Chancellor Plut.
Sater stood right in front of the throne, versus toward the side, meanwhile, Urena stood right beside the Chancellor who sat comfortably.
“Explain yourself,” Eloise said firmly.
“Mocorri’s betrayal is surprising news to me as well…” the Chancellor said.
“She means the papers where you planned to kill Neptus and Rai by caving in the Ceres tunnels!” Fu shouted.
“Bold claims coming from a toy,” Chancellor Plut said.
“TOY?! I’ll show you.” Fu used his strings to race towards the room with the drawings, bringing them back before everyone. “See!” Laying them out, terrible drawing of Minus and the fearaligator were displayed.
“You’ve based your accusations off of a child’s drawing?” he said.
“What?! No… These aren’t them. There were drawings of creepy hands and… the secret passage below,” he said. “You can’t hide that!”
“And what of it. Since when was it in the Empires duties to explore every inch of another kingdom without permission, have you forgotten your pact with the Axien Church, or must I reach out to them concerning today’s actions…”
“You’re a liar!” Lily said. “This Kingdom, it’s disgusting, and you’re the reason for it all!”
“How dare you!” Chancellor Plut said, standing from his throne chair. “You come to my Kingdom, by my request, sneak into our private chambers, and what’s more, you’ve destroyed the primordial!”
“But we did manage to kill all the ghouls,” Eiji inputted.
“At the cost of the entire Eris cave!” the Chancellor Plut said, face red. Sitting back down, “It’s unfortunate… now we’ll have to switch all the slaves over to pulling the rubble from it. I’m afraid we won’t be able to compensate you for any shards at this rate.”
“So be it. It’s time we go,” Eloise said to the rest.
“One moment, Eloise. I didn’t say you had to leave without compensation, now did I?”
“What’re you getting at?” Eloise said.
“A gift, for you Neptus.” Waving in another servant, they handed Neptus a sliver tray with a dinner lid over it.
“What’s this?” Neptus said.
“We happened by a slave who happened to be carrying these,” Chancellor Plut said, swinging keys around in his finger.
Neptus eyes opened, quickly lifting the lid. Inside it, two hands.
“I gave him the chance to free himself, but he found it rather difficult without those attached,” Chancellor Plut said with a chuckle.
“Uncle… ” Neptus muttered. Urena, hearing it belonged to her uncle, fainted. Dropping the tray, holding both arms forward with rage in his eyes, “Galactic-” a bolt of electricity knocked Neptus unconscious.
“Neptus,” Lily and Eiji said, coming to his aid.
“Haha! Like brother like sister.” Sater was frowning, obviously no enjoying the current situation. “Hey, wake up,” Chancellor Plut said, nudging Urena with his foot, when a bolt of electricity slightly shook him.
Sater quickly withdrew her rings on her side. “Eloise, don’t….”
Electricity wrapped her body, and roots emerged from the ground glowing yellow. “I think you’ve come to mistaken who you’re speaking with, Chancellor. Do not mistake me as someone who is completely restrained by a pact between the Empire and the Church.” Her eyes glowed, pulsing in yellow electricity. “If I find out you’ve so much as laid a finger on that girl, if anyone has, I will unleash the full force of Thundertyde on you, and I will kill you.”
Sater was sweating, anticipating Eloise to attack.
Chancellor Plut gulped, slipping further back into his chair.
Soon, Eloise flux force calmed. “Come, let us leave this rotten kingdom.”
Lily picked Neptus up, and everyone turned to leave.
Eiji stuck his tongue out at the Chancellor before walking out.
Outside, on their way back to the Illuminus Empire, Eloise gazed over at Lily. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing… I just feel bad for Neptus is all.” Neptus, Rai and Tofi were all sleeping in the Eloise carriage. It was much bigger, being carried by two trojan horses even.
“He’s got a kind heart, you all do,” Eloise said. “You may hear many people tell you to throw that away, but never do, its where true strength lies. One day, I’m sure he will free them all.”
***
IN THE PAST
During the first round of the placement exam, Chloe, covered in blood, lay on the floor unconscious, barely clinging to life. Standing over her, eyes emotionless with blood smeared across his face… Neptus.