Group B VS Austin and Amy (2)

The ground, and everywhere around us, exploded into blades.

The blades of grass were sharp. Tall blades shot out of the ground violently and my body was even lifted into the air by a blade that pierced straight through my stomach.

Both of Rin's legs fell off, and Ren's hair was cut into nothing. Her chest was pierced, right underneath her heart, and Amy was unscathed, watching the blood trickle down from the blades around us.

"Too bad! You lose!" Amy smiled again, and as soon as she said it, I felt it.

Rin, Ren, and I all started to suffocate as our lungs began to fill with water.

The blades had pierced our chests in one way or another, exactly what they weren't supposed to do, and now, we paid the ultimate price.

"It gets a little boring after a while if we're being honest. I mean, come on! Our Incarnations together are so strong, I don't think Sky could even beat it!" She said.

I coughed up bloody phlegm as I was beginning to drown. I held my breath, knowing that for any moment at all, I needed time to process my death. This was it... there was no going back from this, is there?

I watched over Rin and Ren, watching them struggle in place... but with Rin, something was happening in her forearms. They were glowing as if something was trying to react to her suffering...

Those Strands... aren't they magic, can they save us right now?

Come on Mandi... think!

That Incarnation to fill my lungs with water, it's unstoppable... or so it's said to be. There has to be a way to counter this!

My mind was moving at a million miles a minute. I felt that time shorten as I could no longer hold my breath. I had to sit there and drown in a mix of water and blood.

This can't be it... come on!

As a basic, primal impulse, my eyes lit up in motivation, and I snapped a blade that was puncturing my stomach.

Part of surviving... part of what Sky showed me on the Isle, while fighting Dani, and while holding his own against all of Quake twice... you can't be afraid to be hurt. That is what loses you the battle.

I stabbed myself in the chest, right at the very bottom of my lung, thanks to the anatomy I learned in Tavian's base.

Water poured out of one of my filled lungs, and I could finally get a short breath of air, realizing that the other one was still full. The best news I thought about after I stabbed myself...

Was that the Incarnation had a limit? A limit, in which it could be used, and for how long it worked. My lungs weren't being filled, and as I tilted my body, the water poured from the other one as well. I was almost completely clean from water at this point.

Rin and Ren were still struggling, but after observing what I was doing, they followed right behind, stabbed into one of their lungs as well, and looked down at Amy from the raised position we were all at.

I slowly slid down one of the blades with my hands and feet, and once I hit the ground, I collapsed.

I could not take in enough oxygen to continue to fight... but because of Rin's strange activation of strands, she stood tall and healed from all the damage as Ren fell to the ground just like I did.

"There's no way... there's no way you should've survived that! Austin! What do I do?!" Amy screamed out as dramatically as possible.

She gripped the sides of her head and screamed out in a weird annoyed shout, and I could hear Austin's voice from her body.

No... that's not from her body... it's from my head...

"Snap your fingers," He said.

Snapping... that's the activation?! But... she didn't snap her fingers that last time...

Snapping... snapping?

I threw the broken half of my bladed ring at Amy's right hand as she rose it to snap, and the ring cut straight through her wrist, leaving her severed hand to flop on the floor.

And out of pure curiosity, I snapped in her place.

Blades shot out from the ground underneath Amy, puncturing her, and causing her to become stunned in midair from the surprise.

As I looked toward Rin, to tell her to go finish the job, she came running at me with Ren on her shoulder.

She quickly grabbed me by my arm and slung me over her other shoulder. I was surprised to see that she was able to carry over 200 pounds between both Ren and I combined on her body while sprinting, but while looking back toward Amy, I understood why.

It was like the feeling of immediate danger... a source of adrenaline was pouring from that battlefield.

Rin's precognition was amazingly correct as blades shot out in an even higher concentration around Amy's impaled body... we wouldn't have survived that, no matter how lucky we were.

I pulled out the radio on my hip and channeled it to communicate directly with Sky himself.

"Sky... we're alive... Ellios is missing... but we lost... Amy and Austin are on the loose... we need medical help, we're leaving," I said weakly into the radio.

I dropped it on the road we were running along, and along the way, Rin ran into Illya.

"Tell me what happened, why are you running?" She asked.

I was more than sure that Illya would take this opportunity to finish us off... but she didn't do any such thing. She wielded her golden strands around our bodies with blood pouring from her nose, healing our wounds and draining our lungs of all water present.

"Amy used her Incarnation... we barely survived... we barely even put a dent in the two of them... we're not meant to fight!" I yelled out as I regained some of the missing air in my body.

"You're wrong... you weakened them, I know you did. Their strands aren't infinite... I'll finish the job. You go meet up by that smoke over there. That's a flare I shot, and Dani is over there. I'll kill Austin and Amy myself," Illya said. She summoned two golden sabers as Rin set both Ren and me down on the floor.

"You're not going alone... I'm not injured as much, and I'm going to kill her. Not you... I'm going to be the one to kill Austin and Amy," Rin said, her forearms glowing with white strands again.