189 United we stand

"MARCY!!!" Detra shouted after suddenly waking up from her fainting while being drenched in sweat.

She noticed Marcus and Ellie just staring at her with shocked expressions while Lilith remained composed. She was now also wearing a piece of cloth to cover her eyes in order to avoid the sensitivity of the sun. It seemed like they were in the middle of a meal.

Detra then began to rest her face on her palms after realizing that everything was just a vision and that the actual Marcy was long gone already.

She wanted to start crying again but the woman knew they still had a job to do and that they had bigger problems to deal with. So she tried to take a deep breath and swallow all her grieve to properly face her group again.

Ellie approached the blond lady with a pair of sad eyes before trying to talk to her, "Detra..."

"... What...?" Detra asked while revealing her face.

"Marcus... Told us what happened..."

Detra just stared at Marcus for a moment and then shifted her gaze back at Ellie, "So what...? This changes nothing!"

The woman stood up and came closer to grab something to eat as well.

Ellie tried to approach her again, "Detra... Are you ok??"

Detra just glared at the young girl. At any other moment, she would just reply with a bit of sarcasm while pretending not to care what about what anyone thinks with something like 'I'm never really ok, but it's not like complaining or bringing it up will change anything'. But not today. Today Detra felt like she finally had enough and was tired of pretending she wasn't angry with everything.

"DO I GODDAMN LOOK OK!!????" she shouted while throwing her food on the ground, "I just saw my only daughter again... My only daughter that I killed because of some idiotic demon that ruined my life!!! How do you think I feel!!??"

Ellie kept looking at her with pain in her eyes. Ellie was so used to the woman keeping a composed expression no matter the situation. This was her first time seeing her so frustrated.

Detra then began to crouch while doing her best to hold her tears and silently cursing everything and everyone.

"Detra..." Ellie tried to say.

"But!! It's fine!! Wanna know why??" Detra explained before glaring at Lilith, "because... I only care about myself... So none of you need to worry about me and my problems..."

"Detra..."

"After all, I'm the big, bad, goddess of the east, I deserve everything that comes to me because I'm the worst living being on the planet!! So... Let's just all pretend none of this ever happened and get back to focusing on how to get past the ring of fear so we can return to our mission..."

"Detra..." Ellie kept trying to say but was someone else spoke first.

"Is this really what you want...?" Lilith interrupted.

Detra just glared at her again, "what was that...??"

"She invaded your memories... And played with your emotions... And you just want us to pretend that none of that happened??" Lilith asked, sounding as if she was insulted by Detra's proposal.

"What are you trying to say...?" Detra questioned.

Lilith then bent her knees so that Detra could look clearly at her, "I want to make something very clear... What you did to us... all those years ago? That was terrible... And there is no excuse for your actions... No matter how hurt you are or how righteous you think your mission is... Hurting others is never justified..."

"..."

"But..." Lilith looked like she was having a hard time spitting out her next words, "I can see now... why you are the way you are... And while I still don't know if I can ever forgive you... There is NO way I can just let go when someone plays with the emotions of others like this... Even if they are your emotions..."

"..."

Lilith then extended her hand to Detra, "so... say what you really wanna say... and just this once... I give you my word that you will have our support..."

The former goddess of the east looked at Ellie who placed her hand above Lilith's, as if showing a sign that she would give her support as well. Marcus came next, and for the first time since she could remember, he didn't avert his eyes from her, and just looked completely decided and ready to help as well.

Detra began to show an even angrier face, but not to Lilith or any of them, but to the one that caused this situation to take birth in the first place, the one that was walking around with her daughter's face. She then grabbed Lilith's hand and for the first time ever since the two of them met, they felt like they were on the same wavelength.

"I want this talking garden dead!"

Part 2

Marcus, Lilith, Ellie, and Detra all marched towards the deepest parts of the ring of fear.

Upon reaching the middle half, they ended up coming face to face with the entity of the forest who was still using the appearance of Detra's lost daughter to speak to them with the power of fear magic.

"So... I take it that you guys have made your decision?" she asked while sitting on top of a rock with her arms crossed and glaring at all of them.

Marcus stepped forward and spoke in return, "before anything... We just want you to know... That we get where you are coming from..."

"Do you, now...?"

"Yeah... We do... We all are experts on acting upon our instincts and ending up doing dumb harsh decisions..." Marcus continued, "and we know that everything you did, you did it because you were just trying to defend yourself when you were feeling threatened and scared..."

The forest did not say a word, since she could read their minds and already knew where this conversation was going.

"But here is the thing... You still did something really disgusting to one of our members... And we can't just overlook that..."

"Really...?" The forest replied while noticing Detra glaring daggers at her for still disrespecting the memory of her daughter like that, "here I was under the impression you guys were on bad terms with each other..."

"We are..." Lilith admitted, "but I think we all agree that you are not much better... You can read our true intentions, but instead of trying to talk and reach some kind of agreement, you just continued to throw more dangers on top of us without any intention of letting us communicate..."

The forest then stood up from her boulder and walked forth to make a declaration, "I do not make deals with humans... Not now... Not ever..."

"Well... You're about to make one now..." Marcus announced, "because you just managed to piss off every single one of us present here... so you either let us go through and reach the ring of time so we can keep going with our plan and train there to prepare to fight against Mia... Or..."

"Or what...?"

Marcus then glared at her while changing his arm into a blade and pointing at the girl, "or we get to your core... and make sure you can never harm anyone again... your call!"

The forest began to giggle at that announcement, "Oh my... this is just so... typical... You guys always think you have the higher ground on everything... You all decide to barge into my house and playing with my area like you own the place... and the minute I try to object to that, I become the bad guy..."

Ellie stepped forward this time, "this has nothing to do with you trying to defend yourself... this is about you insulting the memory of a girl who just wanted to play with a friend and got punished for that... and... about the one who misses her..."

Detra remained silent. She had nothing to say. She knew where this was going to go and just wanted to start already.

"Yeah... You guys can all just go ahead and jump off a cliff... None of you are welcome in here and unless you wanna get hurt, I suggest you to leave... NOW!" the forest declared.

"Not gonna happen... We are moving forward... whether you like it or not!" Marcus stated.

The blond girl just released a devilish smile, "Is that so?"

"Is that so!" Marcus, Lilith, Ellie, and Detra responded simultaneously. Detra then instantly started to bury her face on her palms of pure embarrassment.

The group then began to feel the ground shaking beneath their feet. They turned around and saw that the terrain of the ring of memories was coming towards then, almost as if it was being moved artificially.

They kept observing as the ring of fears and the ring of memories continued to merge with each other, while the culprit responsible for that started to approach them with slow steps and walking in front of two other figures emerging from the red fog.

The memory of Evlin, using her earth magic, managed to enter the ring of fear, and alongside the memories of Mia and Marceus, were all staring at Ellie's group with full intent to kill.

Marceus assumed his weapon form and became a pair of blades for Mia to wield.

Marcus and Ellie just exchanged a look and began to set up their battle positions.

Marcus grabbed Lilith's hand and activated his fusion power, making Lilith turn her hair completely white and giving her her vision back by sharing his eyes with her.

Ellie assumed her weapon form as well and began to take the shape of a crossbow for Detra, who also used this chance to start unleashing her power of ice in the air, making the temperature drop.

The forest started to give her final warning, "this is your last chance... step down or-"

Before she could finish, Detra froze her inside of an icicle and immediately shattered her with a silver arrow produced by Ellie.

"Do. Not. Speak. With my daughter's face..." Detra announced.

The memory of Evlin then spoke next after having the consciousness of the forest transferred into her.

"Death it is then..."