One step forward, two steps back.

Never has the phrase resonated with me as much as it did back then. The despair we felt was clear on our faces. The plan was flawed, barely even a plan to begin with, yet it was the only one we have.

Having pulled it off once before was nothing short of an absolute miracle.

Now you’re telling me we have to accomplish the same near-impossible task all over again immediately right after the first?

I think Irene put it best when her droopy eyes turned and caught sight of the frenzied Adalia, stronger than ever before.

“Fuck.”

My sentiments exactly.

Adalia underwent a radical change in demeanor after her little feed. She was a figure standing tall, whereas before she would move about with a distinct slouch. Then there was that strange sense of cognizance present in the way her misty eyes drifted across the room, a type of heightened focus that was absent before.

Something must have happened.

“The more she feeds the stronger she becomes?” I asked.

“There’s a reason no one wants to deal with a Matriarch,” Irene let out a weary breath. “Still on board with the idea?”

“Like we have a choice…”

Ria, Amelia, and Ash. The three of them stood in opposition to Adalia. Two out of three looking absolutely for wear. Ash especially, sustaining more marks and scratches than I could count. The jacket and pants I gave her were practically bloodied rags and tatters at this point.

Ash had been through a lot. And unlike Ria or even Amelia, every injury was permanent, every wound still bled.

I don’t know how much longer she’ll be able to keep going. I’m not keen on finding out either…

This seriously has to end.

“Again!” My shout was loud, heavy, but it wasn’t strong. “One more time!”

Amelia led the charge, followed by Ria soaring from right above, Ash trailed along, a dazzling glow manifesting another sword in her hand. Every one of them, prime and ready - a concentrated smoldering orb in the air, a lunge forward with claws extended, a sword arching sideways.

And Amelia blitz through them all, effortlessly. None of the attacks came close to even touching her, negated, as she weaved, dodged with not a single movement wasted.

Focus had replaced frenzy.

Before any of them could recover, Adalia had already gone on the offensive.

A pounced to the side and Ash was sent soaring to the other side of the room, then springing off of her, with a fleeting swipe, Ria was sent staggering away in another direction with a painful screech. Downwards, with a graceful landing, she bolted for Amelia, a hand raised, reaching - then missing.

Adalia struck again with an irritated growl, and swiped only air. Three times, four times, missing all times. Amazingly, Amelia was keeping up, not only that, she was able to match Adalia’s aggressiveness with strikes of her own.

My eyes weren’t able to match their pace. From one end of the room to the next, soaring through the air, springing across walls… this was a whole other level.

A true fight between Matriarchs.

Amelia kept her sister at bay long enough for Ash and Ria to recoup. Once more they entered a fray, but even they had trouble emulating the speed and ferocity the sisters lashed out at each other.

There might still be a chance. One more window to victory.

But will it last?

Resolve was a burning glimmer in Amelia’s eyes, strength brimmed her every movement, determination laced her every scream, every shout of effort. But endurance, every breath that funneled out of her lips was getting heavier and heavier.

Even with Ash and Ria backing her, even with the flames burning bright, even with the sword slashing in every direction, the fact remained unchanged that Adalia was still unharmed.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere in the chaos, a sprinkle of blood splattering to the ground. Amelia gave a ferocious shout, a deep bleeding gash lining her left cheek.

“She won’t make it…” Irene’s words were hush, grim. I didn’t want to hear it.

“She will,” I responded and said no more.

Another strike given, another wound inflicted. The blood that dribbled down her arm seemed to speak against my words.

“No, you’re hoping she will,” Irene spoke again. “But she won’t.”

I felt anger take over. Anger and desperation.

“I know! I know that already, Irene! You’re telling me this - you think something will change if you do?! I can’t help her, I can’t help any one of them!”

“So you’re just going to stand there and do nothing?”

“WHAT CAN I DO?!”

“MOVE!”

It was the first time I heard Irene shout. The first time I saw her lose her composure. Seeing her scowling at me, straining for breath, my anger immediately subsided.

“You’re just standing there, watching, hoping everything goes according to your plan - everybody is acting on it, clinging to your idea, everybody! Everybody except for you! You want to save the Elf, you want to save the vampire but you’re not doing anything about it! You’re scared.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” Irene insisted, the crimson glow of her eyes waning from fatigue. “You’re scared because a part of you still thinks you’re wrong. Am I right? You don’t want to find out, you rather they find it out for you. Have them bring her to you because you don’t want to go in there and get bitten with that uncertainty on your mind.”

The ground gave a rumble, a strong rumbling that brought me stumbling to the ground, brought me leveling with Irene’s gaze… it was unbearably the way she looked at me. I wanted to look away but I couldn’t. Words were sloshing around in my mind but I didn’t know what to say, yet I opened my mouth anyway.

“Does it even matter how it happens? I’m here now, I came, I’ve already risked myself!” I said, untangling the jumble of words in my head, spouting shit I didn’t even believe. “I’m still risking myself! I am not backing out! What does it matter if I charge in or not?!”

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“Because charging in would mean you have a choice!” Irene shouted back at once. “You don’t want that choice. You don’t want that slow, agonizing limp towards your death. You rather there be no choice at all. And if you can get that vampire to come to you, you won’t have to make that choice.”

No words were jumbling around in my head, no nonsense was teetering at the tip of my tongue. Now I genuinely had nothing to say. I didn’t want to have nothing to say, I didn’t want to just lay there looking at her strained expression in silence… because that would mean admitting she was right.

The battle raged on, and still, I was lying there. Still, I was silent. Still, she was right.

“You can’t claim to want to save these people and not be willing to do whatever it takes,” she continued, her voice growing softer. “You can’t talk about doing something and then not doing it. You can’t have made me follow you all the way here just to make me watch you fail… don’t do that.”

There wasn’t any anger in me anymore… right then, I just felt… strangely hollow.

“I thought you didn’t want me being reckless about my life…” I muttered.

Her stare into mine. And mine into hers. We both reflected back at each other. I saw myself in hers, and clearly… she saw herself in mine.

“I don’t want you to be a hypocrite about it, either,” she said.

“What do I do, then?”

Her answer was as simple as it could be. “Now you choose.”

Choose… make the choice. Either go out there, charge, and die trying. Or sit here and die, having never tried at all. Either way… I’ll get my answer soon enough.

Slowly, I stood up. Quietly, I assessed the situation.

There it was. The inevitable outcome.

Amelia was struggling again, weakening… movement still quick, but dull. Attacks swift, but imprecise. She won’t last. None of them will. Something had to be done.

At this rate, she will never come to me.

So now I have to go to her.

“Irene,” I called out, turning in her direction. “Do you think you can still use your red smoke thing?”

There was a plan brewing in my head. It was a one-in-a-million shot. But it was a plan, nevertheless.

Irene caught my eye and it clicked for her almost at once. “You’re gonna try and subdue her…”

“Can you?”

“The way I am, I can only keep her still for a moment,” she said. “Only a moment.”

“A moment’s enough.”

Elf, Phoenix, Succubus, Vampire. Way I see it, every person here has their own way of subduing a person.

With Ria, it’s her tendril-like flames. Irene has her aphrodisiac effect. Then Amelia can bite. Ash… stronger than most of her kind, was she? Well, brute strength can be useful.

So… why not use it on Adalia all at once? Restrain her with everything we have. Buy me enough time to get to her. Don’t know how it’ll last so I need to be fast.

I started limping.

“Go now,” I told Irene. “The rest will follow.”

With a nod of the head, Irene began dissolving into a stream of red cloudy vapour, wafting away towards the sound of battle, leaving a trail of red in her wake.

Faster… with pain lashing out at me, I forged on. Once lifting up the broken foot became unbearable, I started dragging it along the ground, feeling agony surge up my leg in tremors.

Heaving, straining, moving.

Barely a quarter across. Doubts started forming. I couldn’t let them - I won’t let them form. So I held them back, screaming out loud. “Irene now!”

There was no going back now after that.

Adalia was inches away from a strike at Ash before she received a faceful of red smoke which streamed into her nostrils, her lips, causing her to freeze - to wince.

She took a stumble and buckled… her knees hitting the floor.

The others took a step back, clearly stunned. Amelia especially, had turned my direction, confusion filling her expression.

I was halfway across now, and Irene had already spilled out of Adalia’s lips, having done her part and instantly took form again, collapsing to the ground in exhaustion.

Can’t let up now. Ria was up next.

“Fire!” I told the phoenix in flight. “Restrain her arms!”

Momentarily, Ria stayed hovering in place. Then I heard a screech and that’s when I knew she understood.

She took flight, slightly dampening the flames that encapsulated the room and instead channeling them into forms of sturdy blazing tendrils that sprouted from the earth, extending itself towards the vampire still on bent knees and coiling itself around both her arms and legs with a crushing grip.

Adalia let out a roar of anguish, as the binds seared her skin and the smell of burnt flesh began to pervade the air. She struggled, she writhed, she did everything to pry herself loose.

And make no mistake, she was getting loose.

I was three-quarters of the way and at that point, words were no longer necessary. That brief moment in time where my eyes met Adalia’s, it was brief for a reason.

Already she was on her knees, already she was fronting her sister’s deranged floundering, and already she was spreading her jaws wide open.

Another piercing cry, as her sister’s fangs sank into her neck, another attempt at a struggle, before her body went limp… motionless, subdued. Yet it was only for a moment…

Inevitably, she will snap it out of it. Absolutely, she will find a way out. For that, we needed a contingency, something to hold her over for just a second longer… we needed another piece.

Ash. The vacant stare of her emerald eyes. I met them again. First time was merely a flicker, the second time was even more than that. The third…

Would you listen to a third?

“Restrain her arms, Ash...”

It wasn’t a scream, it wasn’t a shout. No beckoning, no pleading… I just asked her.

And apparently, that was all I needed to do.

Though no words were thrown my way, and no sense of recognition met my gaze, I didn’t need it. The fact that she was moving, the fact that she understood me was more than enough for me.

Ash went and locked her arms around Adalia’s shoulders, ensuring that the final piece of the plan could be put into place - me.

Faster, with every fiber of my being, faster. I shambled, I winced… I groaned out loud from the pain but I wouldn’t concede.

I was so nearly there.

Then Adalia’s eyes fluttered wide open. I needed to get there fast.

She thrashed around, squirming wildly in place, writhing her arms as her hands folded into fists, her fingernails breaking into skin.

I was practically galloping at that point. The moment I saw her head flailing about, bashing Amelia’s head with her chin, I knew it was only a matter of time.

The three doubled their efforts. Phoenix Tendrils tightening, Vampire jaws clamping, Elf arms pulling.

More and more, inch by inch, I crept closer. So very nearly there, mere meters away from contact.

Then Adalia did something I had completely forgotten she could do. Something that I’ve heard her do so many times over.

Adalia screamed.

A high-pitch rippling scream.

And all came falling.

Everything and everyone came falling.

Ria, Amelia, and Ash. One by one they hit the floor with a resounding thud.

The flames that shrouded the room in a blaze were instantly snuffed away as Ria reverted back to her human form, flameless, on the ground.

Adalia’s screaming continued to linger on, ensuring no mystical being could oppose her any longer. And they couldn’t. The screaming just wouldn’t stop.

Good thing I wasn’t mystical.

With a yell of my own, I dove at her and forced my arm right into her wide-open mouth. The force of it sending the both of us careening across the floor with me on top of her.

Wasn’t enough, she wasn’t biting.

“Goddamn it.” I took in a breath, realizing what my next course of action needed to be.

Just one more little movement. I flicked my arm upwards and up to her fangs it went. The moment it pierced into skin and burrowed into flesh, the exact moment I felt the blood gushing away from my arm, it had already started to take effect.

Slowly slip away… Ria said that. And I was feeling it. It was like the world was slipping by me.

Second was… second was… heart. My heart was always consistently pounding against my chest. Throughout the night, it had always done that. It wasn’t doing that anymore…

Adalia wasn’t reverting yet… just a bit more… drink a bit more.

Breathing… last to go… I struggled for air, I heard myself take a gasp, but the piercing pang in my lungs wouldn’t be relieved.

With a frenzied, it’ll hurt more… it was logical, what Irene said was logical… Adalia just needed a bit more.

There was an echo that sounded… or was it? Something muffled, something like words…

Suddenly Ria was there… a blurry crimson light in the orange sky… dragging her way towards me. I saw her lips move but I couldn’t hear a thing. I wish I knew what she was saying.

A bit more.

Ash was up now. Her eyes were so distinct, so green… so full of life. Was that… emotion? The way her face was moving… was that it? I saw her reached out, her lips were moving too, but I didn’t know what she was trying to say.

I know she looked worried. That’s all I knew.

“I… I’m okay…” I told her. Or I think I told her. I don’t know what I told her.

More… just a bit…

Irene was all the way so far away… she was up, finally. She wasn’t moving… she wasn’t doing anything… she was just… staring.

You see? I wasn’t scared at all… I did it, didn’t I?

Didn’t I?

More blood… just more…

But she wasn’t biting… why?

Downwards, vision blurry, I saw… Adalia was… she was… sleeping. She was… normal looking. No veins surrounding her eyes… color returned to skin… fast asleep… like a normal girl.

Did I do it?

I don’t know.

The sun was rising. That’s all I know.

Through the glass panels, the rays… were shining through. It shined over me, over Adalia… over all of us.

I didn’t know anything.

I felt something sway away. It must have been me.

I fell, I think. I saw ceiling…

My eyes heavy… was I going sleeping?

Or I was dying?

Amelia was there now. She was blocking the ceiling...

Staring... she was staring.

She was saying.... what was she saying?

Thank... you?

I don't know… I don't know to think about anything.

All I could think about right then… was the sun I saw just now.

The sunrise was really beautiful.

It really was.

My eyes finally closed.

Sleeping...