Rena

Rena watched with shock as Ray broke into Tier 10. The second wave of new mana in the last five minutes. Ray must have been close with the last one. The wave of mana lit him up as he skidded through the ice, sending a wave of yellow glitter at the Xnarthan guarding the portal.

Rena backed him by sending a few fire eagles, their effect was minimal, the Xnarthan could see them coming too easily. But they still had to counter them, and that consumed time and mana. System, mana please.

Mana gained: 7,871 mana: A complete list may be requested later.

Tier 8 (13,377/24,800) (8,003 spent)

Well, at least the System was nice. Tier 8. Rena was officially the highest tiered person in her family. A fact that nearly made her reconsider her take on this attack. But it wasn't enough. Rena would rather be Tier 6 than die here.

Oh, they were winning here for now. But so what? The Xnarthan had a big portal right there. The fact that they were waiting for reinforcement was pretty bloody clear, too. The lot of them were going to die in minutes once whatever reinforcements there were on the other side of got their things in order.

But hey, at least she got to see this battle. Rena wasn't a battle junkie, in fact, she hated violence with a vitriol that only someone who’d witness massacres would have. But she recognized the necessity of it. The huddled Elves were proof that the Xnarthan needed to go.

As deaths went, dying trying to rescue a bunch of innocent people from the Xnarthan was an achievement. Not to mention the amount of torturers they'd killed in the last few hours. A few dozen? Or was it less? Wait, it couldn't be…more. No, that was unlikely.

Hmm, it would be better to die with the Elves actually free. The Xnarthan were holding their attention, but she could do something about that. Rena kicked the noble beside her on the shin.

"In a few minutes, target the Elves' chains quickly, before the Xnarthan can do anything." she said, conjuring a few eagles. The eagles were worth just ten mana each, not really damaging. But they were very distracting. A thing Rena had found out young was that a little mana was all that was needed to kill.

Torrin followed her orders, attacking the restraints. Rena followed, conjuring a thousand mana's worth of little snakes and throwing them on the restraints. The snakes coiled around the chains, making quick work of them. The Elves got up, slipping as they did so, but soon making their way to the corner.

The Xnarthan had done them a favor by putting them on the far corner from the portal. Or maybe they had just done it because they had moved the other ones already. Rena liked the latter theory more. But it was done.

And the three main players had been wreaking havoc among the Xnarthan while they were distracted. Ray was a maelstrom on ice. Slipping, skating as glitter surrounding him. A few minutes ago, he was dying. But a Tier,, and he was suddenly a monster walking.

Rena smelled something fishy, and looked at the cat. The cat had been the most tightly bound prisoner there. A Fae? Rena couldn't think of any other creature that could help Ray so much. The Fae had telepathic powers too.

Ray didn't know it, but Rena was a bit more well-read than he thought. After all, she was technically eligible to be a noble’s spy. Though she didn't know what that noble was thinking when he demanded she spy for him. Perhaps he thought it would help his candidacy for idiot of the year.

A wave of arrows rushed towards the Elves that were hurrying towards them, forcing Rena to retaliate. A flock of eagles countered the arrows while blades of light fell on the Xnarthan, even killing a couple, courtesy of Torrin.

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The two of them worked well, a bit too well for Rena's taste. Now, where was she? Yes, the idiot noble. No, just noble. The idiot part went without saying. The idiot had approached her and demanded she spy for him. Just like he had demanded she marry him. But this time Rena had complied.

And promptly fed him false information. The fool was far too easy to fool. Hmm, that was a nice sentence. The fool was easy to fool. Ok, she was getting distracted. Perhaps that 'battle potion' she’d had before wasn't a good idea.

In her defense, Gordon was persuasive, and she was nervous. The last time she had encountered the Xnarthan…wasn't a pleasant memory. Rena might have just been three at the time, but the smell of her burnt friends wasn't something she could forget.

How the Xnarthan thought burning her friends because they were 'suspected Elves' would make her anything but rebellious puzzled her to this day. But it was enough to say that she enjoyed killing the Xnarthan today.

The 'powerful Xnarthan' that had died by the dozen without killing a single one of her group. The same ones that had been reduced to a bunch of targets that could fight back. Just a bit, not much, or they died. Hmm, that guy in the back was acting up a bit. Did he really think he could play smart on the same battlefield as her?

No, wait, that was the drugs talking. The logical decision was to coordinate an atta-oh f the logical way. A line if birds should kill the idiot.

"Gordon, bounce your ball in there a bit, I want to see if I can kill a few of them." Rena said, twisting her hands as she made a butterfly with her hands. Why she did that was not something she could know, but it could probably be surmised to be the drugs. A line of butterflies emerged from her hands, heading straight for the Xnarthan. A thousand mana down the drain.

But Rena liked her new self. The old Rena would be obsessing over her incoming death. The new one was more interested in having fun and killing Xnarthan. Tarrit would be proud. Or maybe she would be horrified. In her defense, she was three, it was hard to remember what your friend liked from when you were three. Just ask any Human. The other species did not count.

Wait, where'd the cat go? The Fae cat was missing! Ray would be- Rena felt something brush against her leg and looked down to find the cat sitting on her feet. Why the heck had this thing decided to come here? Did she look like a cat station? Wait, why was it sniffing? Did she smell? No, she couldn't - oh, she was going to kill Gordon if he’d given her a smelly potion. And then the cat bit her.

Rena screamed, raising her leg in reflex, but was shocked to find that she wasn't able to. What the heck was this cat?

'Hmm, that's a nice potion you've got in your blood. Did you know that Human blood isn't toxic to Fae? A Fae has special filters that can filter out the harmful substances.' a voice said in Rena's mind. Rena felt the potion's effect wear out as the old Rena came back, panicking as she saw what was coming.

'Oh, you don't really think that you need the potion, do you? Yes, the thing is useful, but it just enhances certain parts of you. I think it's better if you have your mind back, just concentrate on what the Xnarthan have done to you. Oh, don't look at me like that, the fact that you have a grudge against them is obvious.’

‘Now here you go, I added a little bit of magic in there, so you should heal right up and get some mana too.' the cat said as it stopped drinking her blood. Rena did not know why she didn't feel more angry about this, but she was unable to conjure up any strong emotions about it. Just surprise.

'I should drink a bit of your companion's blood too before I start forgetting things again. Tell Ray to get me more cookies, those things help a lot. Oh, and you should really start helping. The portal is starting up again, I expect more people will arrive in five minutes or so.’

‘Though Ray is looking quite fine isn't he?' the cat said, sinking its teeth into Gordon. Rena could once again not feel anything about it, the blank was worrying, as if something was holding her emotions away.

'Oh, just how much potion has this kid drunk? I should be able to recover to a good amount soon. I changed my mind, tell Ray to get me this potion, it's less tasty but ooh if it isn't good stuff. Hmm, the kid has a bunch of stuff in there.’

‘A hardcore druggy, is he? Well, no worries kid, Grandpa Norithius is here to drink away your addiction. What a mix…' the cat continued on, but Rena felt that ignoring it might be better for her mental health. Hmm, he was right about Ray, though.

The fight was mesmerizing. Ray, a spinning top on ice, moving around as he burned, drowned and froze the Xnarthan to death. The Shadow Princess teleporting around in concert, wreaking havoc across the field.

The two were monsters, dancing people to their death. Rena could almost picture it, as they moved, the ice forcing Ray into curving motions as they alternated targets, moving in a strangely mesmerizing pattern.

The dance bettered by the monster in the sky, Anita, the Void Princess, the black diamond of the continent, perhaps the entire Empire. An inspirational genius that was currently focusing on killing prestigious agents of the Empire. Rena felt almost honored to be seeing the three geniuses in action.

And then the drugs wore off.

'Oh no, we're all gonna die!' her mind screamed as Ray slipped back, throwing fire at the portal as it lit up. Well, she did tell them it was a bad idea.