"WHY?" Iris shouted, appearing briefly beside Eli as he fired off a barrage of magic bolts from his rune gauntlets at the giant wasps zipping around them.
She disappeared again before he could reply, appearing in the air with her feet planted on the back of a wasp. She grasped its fragile wings in either hand and grunted as she ripped backwards, tearing them from its body and sending them both tumbling towards the ground. She blipped again and landed in a crouch.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" She slumped her shoulders and complained, watching the wingless wasp right itself and start scurrying across the ground towards Eli.
Only Autumn's eyes were visible beneath the full suit of rock armor, which itself was only half visible beneath the swarm of wasps that crawled around her and cracked at the stone with their dagger-sized stingers. Instead of hands, her armor had long spikes at the end of each arm which she used to skewer wasps or swat them out of the air.
She leaned back until she stumbled, rapidly stepping to keep her balance until she slammed into the trunk of a redwood and splattered several wasps on her back. She briefly morphed the stone helmet to reveal her mouth and shouted Eli's name, then morphed it again to cover her entire face, eyes included. She leaned forward and charged towards Eli with heavy stomps.
Eli whipped around and unslung his staff from the holster on his back. He charged a powerful blast and leveled his aim at Autumn's chest plate, completely obscured by angry wasps. Iris blipped behind him and kicked the crawling wasp away before it reached his ankles, then she stomped on it repeatedly as Eli released the blast.
Autumn felt the blast hit her like a charging bull. Momentum carried her feet forward while the force of the blast stopped her upper body in place, sending her careening backwards and into the ground. The armor crumbled around her as she stood with a groan and stretched her neck, surrounded by chunks of stone coated in wasp innards.
Victoria chained carefully spaced aura bursts to lure wasps into clumps and move them around the battlefield. She led a pack of them in a wide circle around the surrounding trees, then funneled them into a crevice between two large roots where Titus was staged and waiting. He summoned three spears of light in the air above him and thrust his hands forward, sending the spears flying towards the wasps. The wasps hit by the spears were ripped apart in a gory, goopy mess.
He held out both palms, fingers half-curled and tensed as he conjured healing bolts and fired them towards the remaining wasps. Though the energy was meant for healing, he overcharged these bolts far beyond what the weak bodies of the wasps could handle. The first bolt hit and was absorbed into the wasp's body, the wasp briefly glowed white from within before rapidly bloating and popping violently. The next two bolts missed, then the next three hit and finished the last of that group.
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Iris stomped until the wingless wasp was paste beneath her boot. She sneered at the goop covering the bottom edges of her robe and stomped one more time out of spite. She turned and saw a wasp racing towards her. It swung its abdomen forward, a long glimmering stinger outstretched. The stinger plunged into her shoulder as she blipped. She reappeared, stumbling from the mana loss from her unexpected passenger. The wasp clung to her with its legs, its hideous mandibled face staring back at her as it pushed the stinger deeper until it ripped out the other side. The arm hung limp at her side.
She reached into her bag with her good arm and pulled out a rusty dagger. Screaming in the wasp's face, she reached around and plunged the knife into the wasp's head. Then again into its thorax, then again and again. When the wasp went limp, she dropped the knife and squeezed her good arm between herself and the wasp, shoving forward with a grunt until the stinger was pulled from her shoulder and the wasp fell to the ground at her feet. She swayed and stumbled, then collapsed to a knee. Her lungs constricted and she wheezed horrendously as she fruitlessly tried to gasp for breath. She heard her name and more words she couldn't register as her vision closed in around her.
Autumn, now wearing a new set of armor equipped with small wrecking balls for fists, swung and splattered wasps out of the air as she shouted to Titus, "Iris is hit!"
Eli and Autumn closed in on Iris and cleared the wasps in the area. Victoria sprinted between them and slid to a stop near Iris, releasing a wide aura burst centered on Iris that scattered and confused the remaining wasps.
"It's bad!" Victoria shouted.
"Move!" Titus shouted, bringing his full sprint to an abrupt stop and charging a pair of life bolts.
Victoria stepped aside, and the first bolt hit Iris in the back, shoving her forwards and sprawling her out on the ground. The next one hit her in the side of the shoulder that had been stung with enough force to roll her over on her side. She was motionless, then gasped a strong, ragged breath.
Titus resumed his sprint while Victoria stood over her to body-block any incoming wasps. They were recovering from the disorientation now, and had begun swarming in a circle around the group. Victoria counted roughly a dozen left.
"Magma?" Autumn asked aloud.
"No!" Eli said quickly, "Vic, can you get them in one spot?"
"I can try," Victoria replied.
Titus arrived at the group, sliding the last few feet on his knees and coming to a stop beside Iris, "she's still fading!" he shouted, rolling her onto her back and checking her pulse.
Eli charged his staff. Victoria released a series of small aura bursts above and below the circling wasps, constricting them into a narrow band. Then she released a stronger burst on the ground ten yards in front of Eli, doing her best to mimic an angry and aggressive aura. She sustained the burst as long as she could, as the band of wasps flew over it they swooped down to swarm and sting that spot on the ground.
Eli released the bolt from his staff, it ripped forward and exploded with a deafening boom at the center of the wasps. Chunks of wasp and splatters of goop burst outwards and coated the group, followed by a short rain of the pieces that had flown upwards thumping and splatting on the ground.
Autumn stomped over to a few straggling wasps, crippled from the blast but still clinging to life as they crawled aimlessly. One by one, she stomped them into goop-splatters with her heavy stone boots.
"She'll live," Titus said before Eli could ask, still kneeling beside Iris and pumping healing energy into her, "she's gonna feel like shit when she wakes up, though."