93 Back in the game

Part 1

"Gustav!! Look! Look!! Its the ground!! Real ground!!"

"Yes... Indeed..."

"And this is a wall!! A real wall!!!!"

"... Yes..."

"And look!! A demon!! A real, physical demon!!!"

"Huuuuman fooood!!!!"

"Oh! One second..."

"Blaaarghhhh!!!"

"..."

"Anyway... Where were we...?"

Gustav was observing with worry as Evlin just finished blasting a demon with her crossbow using raw magic.

For some reason, the girl wouldn't stop gazing at her surroundings and going "A real this!!! A real that!!!" every time she saw any kind of object.

Even when piles of monsters tried to attack the two she would just smile and laugh while saying "Real things to punch!! I can finally punch things again!!!".

Gustav was starting to be concerned that maybe Evlin had spent too much time in the white void and was handling the real world with way more excitement than she needed.

"I can feel the cold breeze of the mountain!! I can feel cold!!!!"

"... Huh..."

"God!!! I can't believe I'm finally out of that place!! I don't want to go back to the white void for at least a thousand years!!"

"Evlin... Now that you're back..."

"Oooff..."

"Evlin!!!"

While she was busy singing about how much she was enjoying being back in the physical world, Evlin suddenly fell with her face on the snow and became unable to move.

"Evlin!!! What's wrong!! Does it hurt??"

Gustav rushed towards her to see if there was anything wrong but he couldn't find any injuries anywhere.

"Huu... Ry..."

"... Eh...?"

"Hun... Gry..."

"..."

"I can't remember the last time I ate anything..."

"..."

"Please tell me you have some food..."

Gustav wanted to find a small corner to cry on. For a moment he thought to himself "This is the girl I was killing myself to protect...??". The brave leader of his team was acting less like a hero and more like a child who got sick from playing around too much while visiting an amusement park for the first time.

For a second Gustav almost felt nostalgic feeling he was in the company of Marceus when he was younger.

"I have some food on my rucksack... But please, try to focus... We are in the middle of a war zone..."

"Aye, aye, boss..."

"..."

Now that Evlin was back, Gustav needed to reorganize his thoughts.

Recovering Evlin meant that Xadi had been dealt with. But they also needed to save Ashley, get the cursed weapon from the demon leader and defeat Marcus.

While the crossbow magician was enjoying filling up her belly, Gustav was trying to come up with the best course of action of what his next move should be.

Ashley's safety was clearly the top priority. But according to Lilith, she was being guarded by the demon leader, who from what Lilith and Daren reported, was much stronger than any enemy they've faced before.

They weren't clear on which was stronger, him or Marcus, but they figured it would be best to just assume they were about the same level of danger.

So now that they had their team leader back they had two choices, face the demon leader or face Marcus.

Defeating the demon leader would mean getting Ashley and the cursed weapon, but they didn't know truly how powerful he was, plus, they were on some kind of truce with him right now.

Defeating Marcus would also be risky since he now had a whole team of slayers by his side.

"What to do...? What to do...?"

[Gustav... Gustav can you hear me??]

[!!!??]

"Eh...!?"

Gustav was taken by surprise from suddenly hearing Ashley's voice inside his mind. He hadn't seen Ashley ever since the dryad took her body.

He was so shocked he almost forgot to answer her.

[Ashley!!?? Ashley is that you??]

[It's me... I need your help...]

It really was Ashley. The dryad might have taken over her body but her mind was still there stuck deep inside. He was hit by a huge sense of relief from finding out his friend wasn't gone after all.

After calming down a bit he returned to talk to her. Maybe she figured out a way to separate from the dryad or run away from the demon leader?

[My help...?]

[I need you to give me Marcus's location!]

[What??]

[I'm going to take the demon leader towards him!]

[WHAT!!??]

"Huh...!?"

Evlin saw Gustav making a face as if had almost been hit by a bus. He was shaking with fear and could barely move with his mouth wide open.

"Gus...? You ok...??"

"Evlin... It's Ashley!!"

"Ashley?? What!? What happened with Ashley!? Where is she??"

"Hold on... I'll put you in our conversation..."

Gustav extended the range of his power and allowed Evlin to enter the telepathic chat-room. Evlin didn't understand how her sister was able to talk right now since as far as she knew, Ashley was still fused with the dryad. Maybe she managed to get her body back by will power alone?

[Ash!!! Ash, sis!! Are you there!!??]

[Evie!!?? Evie, thank the heavens you're ok!! I haven't heard any news from you for so long, I was starting to imagine I had lost you too!!]

[Sorry, sorry, I was having some technical difficulties... Wait... Losing me too...?]

[...]

[Ash, what happened??]

[Evie... The demon leader...]

[...]

[He... He... He killed my brother...]

[Oh, no...]

Evlin could feel the suffering in Ashley's thoughts. Even if she herself never liked Xadi she knew that he was still Ashley's family. No matter how horrible he was, he was still someone who used to be important for her in the past, so she must clearly be in a lot of pain right now.

[Ash... I'm so sorry... I wish I could...]

[Evlin...]

[...! Yes...?]

[I... I want to make him pay...]

[Huh...?]

[Will you help me...?]

[Ash... What are you trying to do...?]

[The only thing I know how to do well... I'm using my big brain to help everyone...]

[...]

[I managed to get my body back from the dryad. I can use it to lure the leader towards Marcus and make both of them destroy each other.]

[You got your body back? How did you do that?]

[... I told the dryad that I would give her some dumb sword that she was trying to obtain... It's not really important...]

[Dumb sword...?? Wait... You mean-]

[Evlin focus!! I need Gustav to contact the rest of the group and tell me where Marcus is!!]

[Ash, this plan is crazy... If you really have control over your body back, then let's reunite so I can return you to normal.]

[I can't... The leader won't leave me alone until you show up and talk to him...]

[... What...?? Why would he... Oh, wait... Let me guess... He wants to capture me and use my magic for something stupid...]

[... Yeah, pretty much...]

[Of course... Still... how do you plan on leading him towards Marcus??]

[I have a plan.]

[What kind of plan??]

[Ah, he's coming over here!! I have to go! Give me the location of Marcus as fast as you can!! Please!!]

[Ash...?? Ash!!!]

[...]

"I can't reach her..."

"Evlin let's not panic... First, we should- "

Before Gustav could finish his thought, Evlin increased the power on her legs with healing magic and the boost from the silver metal and leaped towards the sky like a super-hero.

Gustav could only watch as the girl continued to rise towards the heavens with an absurd speed.

"Evlin!!! What are you doing??"

Evlin didn't have any time to waste. Her sister had just announced that she was going to try and trick the demon leader himself by leading him into Marcus, which meant she needed to find the weapon-kid and fast.

If she messed that up her sister could actually die this time. This was a risk that Evlin was not willing to take.

As she began to fall from her jump she saw the ground slowly starting to approach. But at this moment, she tried using an ability that she unlocked by remembering past experiences.

During the night when Marcus attacked, she managed to escape alongside with Ria through a wind-scar by turning both their bodies into a pair of rockets using raw magic to blast them into the portal and run away safely.

Evlin then realized that she had not been using her basic power, the raw magic, as well as she should.

She considered what would happen if she could control the power output more properly and tried to use it to boost herself into a flying motion. She changed the greaves on her legs into wooden boots and began to release bursts of raw magic from the bottom of it. It looked as if she had a fireplace coming out of the back of her feet, but instead of fire, it was pure magic energy.

Her body stopped falling from the sky and before she noticed, the burst of raw magic was making her fly in midair, giving her a good view of the whole kingdom.

"Whoa..."

As soon as she realized she didn't need to worry about her worst enemy, miss gravity, she started to remember the nice sensation she felt when she was flying blindfolded while being guided by Gustav, a small nice feeling of freedom as if the whole sky was her playground.

For the first time in her life, Evlin was not afraid of falling from someplace high. She was simply enjoying the cold breeze of the air as well as the scenery below thanks to her newfound flying ability.

"I did it... I did it!!! I finally did it!!!"

[Evlin!! You're flying!!??]

[Gus!!??]

[How are you doing this??]

[I'm releasing raw magic beneath my feet to burst me into the air... I was going to use this to help me conquer my fear so I could finally fly with Sphinx...]

[This is amazing!!]

[Hehe... Thanks!]

Evlin wanted to keep enjoying her new power, but she then remembered the reason she jumped in the air in the first place. She gazed briefly upon the kingdom and spotted what she was looking for. A small girl with twin ponytails and carrying with her a pair of silver katanas.

"There you are!!"

She didn't saw Marcus anywhere but she knew Mia never left his side. She deduced that these katanas were the boy in his weapon form.

[Evlin...?]

[Gustav... Tell Ashley that I've found Mia and Marcus...]

[What!? You did??]

[Yeah! I'm going to send their locati- Huh...!?]

[Evlin...? What's wrong?]

As Evlin continued to observe the small girl, she noticed that the katanas were starting to vanish and that her whole body was starting to combine with them.

[Gustav something is wrong with Mia... She's... All covered in silver energy or something...]

[... What did you say!!??]

[Wait a minute... Are those... Are those Auren and Ria??]

She saw that her two friends were right in front of the little girl and that she was approaching the two with a psychotic smile on her face.

[Gustav, Ria and Auren are in danger!! I gotta go! Sorry!]

[Wait!! Evlin!!]

Evlin gathered more power and released even more raw energy from her boots, bursting herself towards Mia's location.

Part 2

"Tell mom and dad and the rest of our sisters that I love them when you reach the afterlife!"

Mia pointed her blade arm towards Ria and Auren who were on the snow with barely any energy left.

But as soon as the silver girl rushed towards the two with her weapon-hand, Ria raised her hand in one final desperate move and opened a wind-scar, which caught Mia by surprise.

"What the...??"

"Say goodbye little sis!"

Mia was one step away from jumping into the portal and desperately began to try and stop herself. However, since she was in a fused state with Marcus, her speed was much greater than before, and simply stopping was much harder than it looked.

Her whole body had entered the portal and she suddenly found herself in some kind of beach in the middle of nowhere. Auren couldn't believe that they actually managed to get rid of Ria and Marcus.

"Ria!! You did it!!"

"... Did I...?"

Ria tried to hurry and close the scar but she soon panicked when she realizes some kind of silver claw was coming out of the portal and latching onto the snow on her side from Mia's back as some kind of third arm.

As soon as the portal stated to close, the claw started to shrink in size pulling Mia's body from the other side of the scar and bringing her back to the demon kingdom.

The scar finally closed off while Mia landed on the snowy terrain and rejoined with Ria and Auren again.

"Nice try big sis..."

"Dang it!!!"

"How many scars does that make? Two? That means you only have one left for the rest of the day huh!? You going to try and run away again?"

"..."

Mia once again formed her metallic blade arms and pointed at her sister and Auren.

"Any last tricks?"

None. Ria was completely out of energy to make any more shields and even wind-scars proved completely useless as her sister was just way too fast, small and agile to be stuck so easily into one. They needed another plan, and soon.

At least, that's what Ria was thinking until she saw some kind of object approaching from the sky behind Mia.

"... Huh!?"

"What's wrong big sis? Can't even talk anymore?"

"... You might wanna look behind you..."

"...?"

Mia wasn't sure on what she meant but she assumed she might as well follow her advice since she clearly had the advantage over the situation.

"What in the world...?"

"Taaaaaaaaaag!!!"

But as she did so, she was met by some kind of wooden boot coming right towards her face.

"Kuuuuaaaahhhh!!!"

She was drop-kicked in the head from the boot with immense force and was sent flying into a building, completely destroying the outer wall.

"You're it!"

The owner of the boot was grinning from ear to ear for finally getting payback from having her birthday interrupted by the twin-ponytail girl.

"Maaaaaaan... That felt good... Hey guys!"

Ria was looking at the one who just fell from the sky and kicked her sister right in the face. The leader of her team and one of her closest friends.

"Evlin...!!!"

Auren approached as well, hardly believing that their leader had finally woken up from her sleep.

"You're back to normal!! And... Were you flying just now??"

"Well..."

She started to explain her new ability but Auren and Ria simply jumped on her and hugged the poor girl with all their strength as if they couldn't believe she was really there.

"It's you!! It's really you!!!"

"Evlin!! We missed you so much!!! Please don't ever leave us alone like this again!!"

"Can't... Breath... Need... Air!!!"

"Sorry..." x 2

The two finally released the crossbow girl, who despite being happy for how much they missed her, still had unfinished business to take care of.

"Time to switch positions guys... You two reunite with Gus and come up with a plan on how to deal with the current state of this battle."

"But... What about you...?"

Evlin looked at the building she had kicked Mia into and saw the little girl drenched in silver bursting out of the rubble while screaming in rage.

"Wraaaaaaaaghhhhh!!!!!"

"Looks like I'm going to be babysitting two troublesome kids for a bit..."