The misted form around the chasm snarled and screamed in a cacophony of terror and rage as they surged forward like a tide of darkness. Some of the indistinct forms solidified into the charging bodies of centaurs, giants, minotaurs, and other heavily muscled creatures. Dozens of quicklings, their long sharpened nails glimmering in the fading light as they dashed ahead of the crowd. Their high-pitched laughter shrieked over the gathered families as they watched, ignorant of their danger.
The quicklings swept into the edge of the cloud, the wet sounds of their claws tearing and stabbing through the onlookers' bodies before leaping off to their next target. As the first startled bodies dropped to their knees, blood billowing from their wounds, only then did people begin to realize their peril. The gathered crowd erupted into chaos and motion, each with its own goals.
Some of the more timid races, bunny people, caladrius birds, and others fled from the attackers, all the while others were stepping up to defend their retreat. Dana Wilde, fought his way through the crowd as he struggled to strap the armored gauntlets he bore as weapons to his hands. Laverne, by his side, pulled out her dagger from her belt… throwing it with all her might at a quickling on top of a girl on the ground. The silver-skinned imp jumped up and out of the way of the blade, hissing at her before moving on to easier targets.
“We have to get the non-fighters away from the battle,” Dana said, charging into the fray. Swinging his cestus into the nearest enemy before reaching down to help up one of the fallen. Cries and screams filled the air as a giant charged the crowd, stamping through one of the booths that had been set up, reducing it to kindling before swinging the tree he was using as a club at the people gathered.
Members of the school’s security, bolstered by members of the Town’s Guard that were on hand for the festival ran to meet the invaders on the field. While many of the students, no strangers to combat themselves, drew arms to protect their visiting families. A massive centaur with a bulging muscular torso plunged a spear into one of the approaching guards, laughing as he fell to the ground.
Mere minutes after the attack had begun, and already dozens of bodies lay twitching and moaning on the ground as the security forces were slowly pushed back by sheer numbers alone.
“Where the hell did they come from?” Meara had found them in the crowd, her bow already drawn as she fired at the giant harassing a group of gargoyle girls.
The harpies and angels in the air were met by other flyers, streaming out of the purple rift with a terrifying scream. They met in mid-air with a clash that was even heard down on the ground. Dana moved as a piece of flaming debris came flying down from their clash.
“We have to pull together or this is going to turn into a slaughter.”
* * *
Brea Keener had been down by the lakeside with a siren friend having a cigarette when the attack happened. A rift opening nearby let out some thuggish-looking orcs that immediately started in on the first person that met their eye, a small faunus girl who seemed to try to shrink before their attacks.
“Hey!” Brea flicked her cigarette away, standing from the rock she had been sitting on. “Quit it!” She screamed at the orcs, the force of her yell knocking them back off their feet. Her siren friend, Talli, clicked her tactical staff out to full length and ran forward to help the faunus girl. Her blood ran cold as the orcs regained their feet, drawing out wicked-looking blades as they were joined by a group behind them that seemed like a writhing mass of claws and teeth charging up behind them.
“I don’t think this is part of the fair, Brea!” The siren ran back towards her, knocking a thrown weapon out of the air with her staff.
“Me neither… get her out of here, the admin building is pretty fortified, hide her there… grab anyone else you can on the way.”
The faunus and siren looked at her in confused panic. “What about you?”
“Gonna do what I’m good at…scream!” Brea shouted at the ground in front of them, kicking up dirt and rocks from the sheer power of her voice and launching it at the advancing creatures. “Go! I’ll cover you… all of ya!”
Brea waved her arm at the other students who had been taking a break by the water. She took a deep breath, getting ready for another scream as the orcs and the rest ran at her and she unleashed the loudest cry she ever had in her life.
* * *
A halfling girl screamed and ran, passing right through D’Arcy’s body as if she wasn’t there while she was lingering in one of the food tents with Cherri. The ghost straightened up and called after her.
“You know that is very rude!” She patted at her chest, smoothing down the stray strands of ectoplasm that had shifted with the girl’s passage.
“Sweetie? I think she might have had a good reason.” Cherri murmured, her bright and cheery attitude dulled as she pointed behind the ghost girl to the screaming crowd already fighting. “Looks like we got to get movin, D’arce.”
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Another one of their classmates, the zombie girl Gail Grimm jumped to her feet from the table where she was sitting. With a twisted grin, made all the more unsettling by the many wounds on her body, she pulled out a chainsaw from the thin air behind her and revved the motor.
“Now this is more my kind of party!” The zombie ran straight into the crowd, black smoke rising from the chainsaw as she swung it side to side at anyone looking at her even a little aggressively. D’arcy closed her eyes, building the fires of anger in her, and drew her sword before she and Cherri ran after their friend.
They watched as Gail ran up to a lizardman in armor as he struck down one of the Academy’s teachers and with a mighty chop lopped off the tail of the creature, one of the few parts not covered in metal.
“Ha! Jokes on you, I can grow that back!” With a triumphant yell, the lizard stabbed his sword right through Gail’s chest, adding another new hole into her torso.
“Jokes on you! I’m already dead!” Gail cackled as she swung her chainsaw through the lizard’s neck, his head dropping to the ground, with the look of surprise still on his face. “Grow that back, jerk!:
A scream sounded across the battlefield shaking the windows in their panes, causing all three girls to straighten.
“Sounds like Brea, her yells always seem to have more of a tinge of anger than the other banshees.” D’Arcy searched the crowd, trying to locate any of her other classmates. We should find her and the others.”
“I need to find my sisters, Blue is okay but Mint only fights from behind her computer screen. I have to make sure they are okay.” Cheeri looked stricken, not wanting to leave her friends.
“Alright, go. Find them and meet us by the east garden gate as soon as you can.” D’Arcy swung her blade at another attacker coming at them. ‘Only if you can, hide if you need and we’ll find you when this is over!”
Cherri nodded, her slime boby flowing across the floor as she ran back towards the dorms to find her family.
* * *
Jett and Daeva ran through the crowd, trying to work their way towards the center of the battle coming up short as an agre swung a spiked chain at them, both girls leaping out of the way at the last second. They drew their weapons getting ready to fight as the creature reared back for another strike, but he never managed to throw it.
A massive black hammer crashed into the ogre’s face, knocking it off its feet. Phoebe Langfield, the sasquatch from their class swinging the massive hammer up over her head and bringing it down on the ogre once again. Spells flew threw the air launched by both sides as the security forces worked to erect a makeshift barrier. Several banshees used their sonic attacks to keep the assault at bay while they did.
The huge hairy sasquatch grinned down at her two friends, holding out the huge hammer. “Told you.” A quickling leaped at her, its claws digging into her chest with a nasty hiss but she didn’t flinch. She just grabbed the imp by its wings and flung it away.
“Have you seen Mr Wilde?” Jett ashed the large woman, seeing as she towered over most of the fighting.
“I think I can see him and Miss Oleran near the front.” She pointed out over the sea of bodies to the small human she could see dragging someone who had been injured back to healers behind the barricade, arrows streaking out from Maera hitting anyone who took a step towards him.
“Let’s move towards them,” Daeva cried out over the din as a harpy plunged from the sky to crash into the ground near them. A quick look determined the twisted maw of the harpy not to be that of a student before she stomped her boot down onto its head. Jett swung her scythe in wide arcs to keep a group of ravenous-looking kobolds from getting too close, Phoebe’s hammer coming down on one of them crushing him to the ground. The remaining kobolds fled yipping and barking as the girls started their journey across the battlefield.
* * *
Sally Mae stood among the other werewolves as they shifted almost as one when the rifts first started opening. Snarling claws and flesh roiling as the pack ran to meet the charge. A giant warbear was tearing through a group of onlookers and the wolves veered from their path to charge it. The smaller wolves leaped at the larger monster as it reared up on its hind legs, latching onto it with their powerful jaws.
The bear clapped at the wolves with its claws as it tried to dislodge them with no luck. A dark elf running by notched an arrow and fired it into one of the werewolves, causing it to drop off the bear to the ground only to leap back into the fray. Sally Mae went towards the dark elf, trying to take the bow out of commission but she was stopped before she had gone even a step.
Akuji, the demon girl reported held out a hand to stop her progress. “I got this one wolfie!” She waved her fingers in a strange gesture, twirling her fingers at the elf as flames shot out from her hands to scorch the elf where he stood.
The wolves continued piling onto the dire bear, clawing and scratching and biting at the large beast as it struggled. Tearing out chunks of its flesh as the bear dropped its weight down into two giant claws onto one wolf that got distracted just a moment, long enough to get stomped, its bones breaking and body twisting under the force of the impact.
The werewolf girl was watching out for one person and only one person… she kept scanning the crowd for the form of the minotaur she had faced the week prior. The one that had taken her brother from her in such a violent way and finally she found him… his horned head looming over the crowd some fifty yards away.
“Thanks Red…” Sally Mae patted Akuji on the shoulder before running back into the crowd, making a beeline straight for her target. Once she got close she found the entire area around the monster was filled with enemy combatants frozen in stone in positions of fear and fright and standing directly before the mnotaur was Ruska Glimmerclaw, the president of Spiritwood Academy. The gorgon was angry too, her entire body seethed rage as she pointed angrily up at the minotaur.
“Where is your boss? This is not what we agreed to, none of the girls were going to be hurt.” She bellowed up at him. “Stop this nonsense this instant before I am forced to take things into my own hands!”
The minotaur watched the gorgon as she vented her frustrations. He was armed this time, an immense double-bladed axe slung over his shoulder.
“The boss is unavailable right now but he wanted me to give you a message. Thank you for your help leading up to this great day… but you are no longer needed.” The minotaur swung his axe at the President, her eyes flashing green as she realized what was happening too late. The axe hit her full on the flat of the blade striking her thing body and bending it at an impossible angle before the gorgon shot off into the distance at a shocking speed. One minute she was there, the next, she seemed to be a small dot heading for the mountains that surrounded the campus.
With a satisfied smirk the minotaur, slung the axe back over his shoulder… only then seeing Sally Mae. “Oh? The little wolf girl from the mountain? I did not think you so foolish as to try attacking me again… But I am more than happy to finish what we started.”