The other three approached the castle. Julian called Fiorella to let her know the second wave could land before turning back.
"So who's got this?" Einer asked, hands on his hips.
"Gimme a second." Julian said, slathering more dead bug juice onto the bear, who jerked to life and slowly approached the door, alongside Julian casually walking besides it.
"Julian?" Cassandra asked.
"Go easy in case there's someone behind the door? Already on it, babe."
The bear prepped both hands as it twisted it's fists before the mighty door. It punched one door each, with both falling to the ground in a single motion, allowing free access to the castle itself.
As the three stepped inside, there wasn't a single person in the hallway. This didn't seem good. Cassandra knew this layout meant one of two things. Either Chelic was genuinely underprepared, or the few people he does have lying around here were on an entirely different level and the guys outside were meant to scare the commoners out. And in this case, it was the latter. Some kind of shuffling could be heard from the inside on all sides, so she held her axe and kept her sword and spear on her back.
"Daciana, you're up!" the voice from near the hallways bellowed out. Julian looked around for any place they could hide, but the entire royal legacy seemed to be hollowed out. The footsteps to their left got louder, and one set got louder before becoming dead silent. Julian leapt for the bear and barely touched it, and the bear was able to match the strike the muscular girl tried to crush him with. he jumped back, standing upright to let her height tower over them and match Julian's bear. Her two friends came to meet her, with Serafina grinning at the trio when she caught up.
"No. Way." She laughed to herself. "If it isn't Cassandra!" She yelled out. "Oh, you two missed out with her! Trying to take her down was some of the most fun I've had since I joined you guys!"
"You mean when you failed to take the greave from her?" Finbarr asked. Julian glanced at him. This guy was fighting along Serafina, who was in the top ten fighters the Legion had, while this girl that clashed against his bear was almost certainly on her level. But this guy? He hadn't done anything, and he was just wearing a white polo shirt and worn out jeans. His glasses looked a little small, and his curly hair was styled pretty well.
"So is the guy next to you a high ranking member?" Julian asked, pointing at the guy.
"Oh, Finbarr?" Serafina asked. "Yeah, number five. All things considered, he's more of a support guy, but he's probably one of the best we have for that, considering that he can…"
Serafina threw something past her at thigh level, but looked like she just shutdown mid sentence, tripping before turning to dust when she hit the floor. Cassandra instinctively turned around with her sword in hand and clashed against Serafina's emergence after she caught her knife in midair and went for the neck. The knife was flung across the room, and Serafina disintegrated to go and get it back. Aubrey bounded against the wall and landed a perfect kick to Cassandra in the brief window she was distracted. She flew across the room where Serafina reappeared with the knife in her hand, embedding it into Cassandra's midsection. Cassandra swallowed the scream building up inside her, and got back up to see her smug face silently mocking her.
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She never removed the knife which was still embedded in her, but she was concerned this part of some kind of plan, where she'd pull some move or trap if she tried removing the knife. So with nothing else to do, she took her sword out and began slashing. She kept aiming for the stomach, but Serafina would quickly turn to dust and reform a few meters away, just as she was about to hit. Serafina didn't even seem to be trying to hit her back, just disappearing and reforming again in a new stupid pose each time. So when she came back again, Cassandra threw her sword towards her, quickly taking her spear out and thrusting it forward. Serafina looked shocked for a second, jumping like a startled cat backwards before turning into a cloud of unfocused dust. before appearing next to Aubrey, who was trading blows with Julian's bear and trying to avoid Einer's ice.
Einer was trying to freeze the others. But using his powers in a place like this wasn't a good idea. If he used up too much ice he could make it harder for anyone else getting in. Too much ice in one place and that could easily kill someone, friend or foe. But his current attempt at pathetic spikes to weaken people with the occasional wall to separate Aubrey and Finbarr wasn't working. When he shot forward a particularly large blast of ice that pierced Aubrey's arm, she punched the bear away, pulled it out, and let a primal scream out.
"Serafina!" She screamed. "Stop playing around and get a chandelier down!"
Serafina did as she was told after flipping off Cassandra with both hands, running away afterwards and scrambling to climb up the staircase to reach a chandelier. When she got up, she took a second knife out of her pocket and cut the string connecting the light to the ceiling in one swift motion, causing both it and her to crash to the ground. She jumped off at the last second, leaving her slightly disoriented. And as Serafina felt her senses come back, she was overcome with a chilling sensation, as she wasn't able to do or move anything. Her head was the only exposed thing, so she turned around to see Einer behind her, a cold mist covering his hand as he casually turned back to Aubrey.
Aubrey ignored everyone surrounding her and plunged her fist into the chandelier. Julian stood back to observe just what he was seeing, and Aubrey stood up, the chandelier perfectly merged with her fist. Julian quickly crushed a dozen bugs between his hands and slathered them on the bear. The bear leapt towards Aubrey in one burst of speed, and Aubrey charged up one final punch, landing it straight into the bears stomach.
The bear didn't have time to roar before it was split in half. Julian watched as the corpse fell for the final time, looking up in horror at the titan of a girl looking towards him.
"Guys, we gotta run!" Julian screamed. He led the escape, running to the door on his left while Einer threw up an ice wall, followed by another a few metres from the first.
"I'll regroup with the rest and get back!" He yelled to Cassandra before running out of the castle.
Cassandra felt the earth shake around her as the first wall was shattered. And with nothing else she could do, she followed Julian out.
She ran through the hallways, some of them having crude drawing painted shoddily on the walls. She heard commotion, and followed the sound. There was a scream heard, and Cassandra finally found herself in the throne room. Chelic was there, but the cold leader was gone, replaced by a whimpering man with a bruised eye and surrounded by shards of glass. Julian was on the other end of the room, getting up from what had to be something painful.
"Levin?" Chelic asked, combing his hands through his hair to get all the bugs out. "I don't care what you do here, but if these three are gone by today, you're number one!"
And with that final panicked message, he ran upstairs. Julian tried following him, but Levin quickly stepped in with a blade made of light, that was only stopped by Samuel sweeping his legs and tripping him up.
"Well, I guess it's time we finished this." Levin sighed. "But now that I have free reign, I wonder if any of your friends will recognize you by the end."