Twenty-One vol.2

A scrap of a blade against teeth sparked, alluding to the two weapon's toughness. As the wolf bared its head down, she felt her arm creak. A crackle of lightning collided with her weapon and Rose jumped back. The wolf, perhaps cautious as well, jumped back in retreat.

"Hmm," Rose glanced at her slightly charred hand. "I suppose I should expect that it can send out lightning from any point of its body."

She was thankful she had been the first to clash with it because trying to shut her nerves down was useless. Not only did her body not operate directly through information from her brain, she could also heal. Mana channeled and she was right back to normal.

"Be careful of directly touching it," Rose said, "Its lightning can numb you at its lowest output. Based on what we saw before it woke up, however, unless you're lucky, it should be able to fry you to death at maximum."

"The hell?" Elsa asked, "Isn't that too damn overpowered for the first floor's boss?"

"Guardian." Lilias corrected.

"Boss or Guardian, either way, I doubt we're supposed to actually fight it," Rose replied, "There is a clear door behind it. The first floor is about risk and reward. We're, most likely, supposed to run past it, avoid its attacks as best as we can, and enter the door.

The creature watched them with narrowed crimson eyes. Slowly, it paced forward, one step at a time as if they had garnered its careful interest. Rose shook her head and took off her satchel, throwing it up until it landed behind them, outside of the hole. Just like so, she was freer to move in this oncoming.

". . .you two are thinking of killing it, aren't ya. . .?" Elsa asked.

"Certainly," The dragonian answered, her twin swords already breaking apart. The right splitting into sections of blades, mana between linking them. The left breaking down its middle to reveal a chamber of pulsing mana ready to be shot out.

"Not interested?" Rose glanced at Elsa.

Elsa laughed, digging into her satchel and gripping a mana bomb in her left hand and the pulse pistol in the other.

"Of course I am," She grinned, tapping thrice on the pistol, "I still have 7 mana bombs. Add the gun in burst mode, and I'm ripe to go."

As expected, Rose smiled, though their tactics could differ, it seemed the three of them were the type to face something head on if possible.

"Alright, don't directly touch it, and run if you see even a slight spark coming your way," She said.

"Aye aye."

Rose nodded and glanced ahead. The creature shook, having made a decision, its paws stamped the ground, creating mild shaking, and it charged once more. Her mind ran, she took in its information, its abilities, and created counters.

"Lilias, your spirit should work well against it, you'll be the frontline. Go in and see what happens for the moment," She said, remembering that even her flames had trouble burning through the girl's armor when they last clashed, "I'll burn away any lightning that goes astray and aid you. While Elsa, stay back and look for a chance to injure or blow it; a leg or two preferably."

The dragonian's tail shook and she took a step forward. Under her attire, a tattoo shined azure above her chest; hazy blue forming around her in a ghostly armor of something that was mana and yet not quite. In the end, she looked more devilish than usual with extended tail and horns that flickered.

"Right."

She kicked off, dirt shifting, and ran with two swords in hand.

The wolf was before her and the two clashed.

Lightning slammed into her, crackling. Her figure shook, the illusionary armor spasmed, but mellowed it all until the flash of hot white was made void. Lilias blocked its snout with crossed blades, ignoring the sparks of electricity, and it bared its fangs—snapping its teeth to eat her—half-part puzzled and she smiled, crimson eyes narrowing as her swords slashed upwards in an effort to rip into it.

Lightning flashed and the wolf disappeared, zapped back, and reappeared meters away.

Lilias blinked her eyes in mid-action.

She turned her crimson eyes and spotted Rose's figure run past her.

"Alright, wrap it with your weapon on my move!" Rose yelled as she ran, instantly recognizing a counter to the beast's ability to flicker from one place to another. She doubted that was something it could just spam. 'Trying to one-shot it is possible, but whose to say it won't simply survive and flicker again?'

Her blade glowed crimson. She skidded against the ground, forced her stride to a stop, and slashed.

A wave of flames flew across the earth.

The creature snarled and flickered, body leaping momentarily to reach the air and evade her area-wide attack.

Lilias Aunbren slashed her right sword.

Her weapon extended, formed around the air-bound creature, then tightened with a tug, ripping into the fur of the wolf and splashing red as the crimson sword tasted blood with the scream of the creature and dragged it slamming back into the earth.

"Watch out!" Elsa yelled.

Rose jumped back from the beast.

As Lilias held her weapon with both hands, tugging against the screaming and scrambling beast, keeping it in place as it tried to escape, seven bombs rolled, ticking, and exploded in a flash of blue, taking the wolf's hind legs as it screeched into the air, crashing back down from trying to stand.

Rose stood next to a struggling Lilias and watched the creature do the same in pain. Evidently, her hypothesis was right that it couldn't flicker immediately after just flickering, that it couldn't flicker out of a space its natural body couldn't pass through, i.e when entrapped, and that it wouldn't be able to flicker in the air since its paws left the ground.

"Don't look so relaxed," Lilias spoke through gritted teeth, hands pulling her weapon while the other was stuck in the ground besides her. "A cornered beast is the most dangerous."

"Huh?"

Lightning rumbled.

Lilias's extended blades exploded from the creature with sparks as they retracted back.

The wolf howled and the wind ripped apart, lightning shredding the ground forward until it covered the area in sparkling clusters that protected it from them. It growled, staring at them with crimson eyes laced with rage.

"Well, I'm not surprised," Lilias spoke as she stood, grasping her two weapons again.

Rose looked at its still collapsed figure within the storm. As much as it could try to be intimidating, it couldn't even move.

"It can't run away with two missing legs," She said as she watched the field around it crackling with lightning.

"But we can't get to it with hecking lightning in the way," Elsa responded, stepping beside her, "And it's blocking the door."

"I could likely walk through the storm," Lilias said, "Though it seems stronger, and I'm unsure if my spirit can keep up with a bombardment of so much at a time. It could fry even me."

Rose shook her head as she paced back.

"You don't have to do that, it doesn't look like it has full control of the lightning once released completely from its body," She observed the beast, glancing upward, as she began pacing back, "Lilias, could you give me a lift?"

"Hmm?"

"What?"

Her mana channeled and her body strengthened as she walked meters behind.

Then she turned around and glanced at the two girls.

"Its storm of lightning doesn't reach too high into the sky for me to reach."

She spoke as she broke into a run.

"So, give me a lift."

The dragonian dropped her weapons, spun around, crouched and cupped her palms under her. Rose tucked her feet within the girl's hands, calculated the throw, and jumped at the moment Lilias lifted their arms, full force propelling her into the air.

"Are you sure you can even jump over it?!" Elsa's yell came from below.

Rose grinned.

<Igris> angled down.

"Positive."

An explosion of flames echoed from its tip and her figure propelled further into the sky.

". . .what the hell. . ."

She was high enough that not a single bolt reached her, and, learning from the previous instance where she used the force of her weapon's explosion to her advantage, she hadn't been injured by the propulsion of her weapon this time thanks to channeling mana through herself beforehand.

Rose smiled at the rush of the wind and spun her sword until it pointed into the air.

An explosion came from its tip and she dropped towards the earth, right towards the epicenter where the wolf laid.

It tracked her movement with its head, eyes shaking.

Ir roared and the lightning in the area receded, channeling at its throat.

'So you can't use multiple abilities at once.' Rose narrowed her eyes as it pointed its storm at her. "Sorry, you're late."

Her sword plunged into its skull as her feet touched its blood-riddled fur. She stood upon its snout, golden eyes looking into its shaking crimson.

"Goodbye."

Its head exploded and blood splashed.

Rose's flames devoured her figure as she made contact with the ground, precisely only burning up the blood of the beast that reached her.

"Hmm?" She ignored the new door that had spawned before her and glanced down at an orb as it too touched the ground.

Within the mana orb, within the misty blue it held, there was something else, and Rose tilted her head as she recognized it as a miniaturized image of the beast they had just killed—floating there leisurely as if asleep.

"Hold on, hold on," Elsa stepped to her side as Rose picked it up, "Isn't that a rare drop?"

"What?" Rose asked.

"She means it's a spirit orb, but that isn't rare when dealing with a Guardian, only uncommon," Lilias translated, "We could sell it or. . .one of us could use it."

Both the homunculus and the dragonian glanced at Elsa.

". . .why are you two looking at me like that?"

Lilias turned to Rose.

"I think Elsa should be etched with the spirit."

"Huh?"

Rose nodded. "I agree. But how do we do that?"

"Huh?"

"If we didn't already have people here who can manipulate mana, we would have to go to an actual place, but we do. . ." Lilias paused, realizing that the two girls looked at her in confusion. She sighed and pointed at the orb. "The spirit inside is the soul of the beast given form through mana. Technically speaking, all you have to do is transfer it from the orb and onto her body. If she's able to wield at least one spirit, and it doesn't reject her, it should work without an issue, and the image of the wolf will appear as a tattoo somewhere on her person. Then the orb would become a normal mana orb."

So, all three of them could etch spirits onto bodies, as all three of them could control mana to a degree, but Rose stepped forward, nodding with orb in hand.

"I'll do it then," She said, "Stand still, Elsa."

Lilias stopped her.

"It's not that simple," The dragonian said.

Rose glanced at her. "Then do you want to do it?"

Lilias shook her head.

"Aunbren's do not handle mana. I've learned that."

The homunculus raised a brow. Remembering explicitly that the girl had told the android that she inherited the mana path, she frowned. "But you can, can't you?"

"But I won't," The dragonian replied, "I don't mind teaching you, however."

Rose silently stared at the girl for a moment. "You're awfully tethered to your family's name."

Lilias shrugged, "I suppose we both have things that control us. As I've previously stated, we are similar in some ways."

"Maybe," Rose replied, disliking being compared to the girl, disliking that the girl compared mere family name to her situation. "But at least I try to break my chains."

Expressionless, Lilias narrowed her crimson eyes against Rose's gold. "Why do you think I'm in this dungeon chasing a dragon?"

A cough rang.

They turned their attention at a mildly annoyed Elsa.

"God you're both like arguing siblings sometimes." Elsa rolled her eyes. "Are we doing this or not? Show me how to do it too, would'ya?"

Rose stared at the orb, and took a breath as she listened to the hum of her core.

"Sorry," She said as she glanced back up, "That's not something I should have said."

"That's quite alright, I'm at fault as well," Lilias replied, "Now let's start then, shall we?"