Ehh? You Hired People to What?? (Seika, Hinata)

This morning, Seika had woken up feeling absolutely wonderful! Her body was refreshed, and she'd had lots of water to drink last night, but surprisingly did not need to go to the bathroom. Even Aphelia was being extremely agreeable; she didn't even scratch the girl's face when their alarm went off! All in all, the day was looking to be going great, and in fact Seika wasn't sure if anything could improve her mood from the perfect morning. As it turned out, Aphelia felt the same way. The feline was prancing happily across the guild hall, waiting for someone to open the refrigerator so that she could pull out her favorite packets of sliced meat. As far as Seika could recall, there wasn't any elk left, but thanks to her great outlook (surprisingly sunny, for the prickly cat) the mage guessed that Aphelia wouldn't mind for today, at least. In fact, the spirit did not make any noise of complaint, outwardly that was. Between the mind link that the bond mates shared, Seika could detect a bit of exasperation when her friend realized that all there was to eat was ham, or turkey. However, beggers couldn't be choosers- I'm not a begger, Seika, the feline hissed, reading the girl's thoughts. Snapping her mouth shut even though she hadn't even been saying anything, the girl made a movement of zipping her lips shut, locking them at the corner, then tossing away the key. Little did she realize that in thinking about a key in her hand concretely, she had unknowingly materialized the zodiac key belonging to the Gemini spirit. When she threw the make believe object towards the ground, it was an actual object, not just air. And immediately upon contacting the stone floor, a poof of smoke appeared and the two celestial spirit twins, Star-Gemi and Moon-Mini, popped out. Their expressions were scolding, even though Seika honestly didn't understand how deer could even look that peeved and threatening. Not threatening bodily harm, but... Seika was still afraid of the lash back she might get from their arrival. Wait, how had they even arrived in the first place? Did they summon themselves??

"Hi guys! I missed you, how have you been? I haven't seen you in so long! How did you even get here? Did Aphi summon you?" Seika asked curiosity, reaching over to pet them each on the head. Instead of allowing her to do so, Star-Gemi backed away, nudging his sister with him. "What are you doing. You dropped our key again," the male twin grumbled, looking around him to see that there were, in fact, no enemies in sight. The spirits had expected there to have been some kind of tussle resulting in Seika pulling their key out of her inter dimensional storage place. Knowing how clumsy the girl could be, they had assumed she dropped it in battle while trying to summon them. "Huh? I didn't drop your key! I don't even have your key or anything!" Seika held up her hands, palms facing forward, show casing their extremely empty state. The twins dead panned as they stared at her. "Yes, you don't have it. Because you dropped it," Moon-Mini finally said, the crescent shape on her forehead slightly glowing as she activated her magic. Nearby, on the floor, the shining zodiac key began to glow in the same way. The fawn's brother spotted the light and clambered around Seika to see what was there. Upon getting confirmation that indeed, Seika had tossed it away to land there, he turned back to the mage and snorted. "We'll just be de summoning ourselves, then," were the last words she heard before they poofed away in another smokey cloud of magic.

Blowing out a huff, the girl looked around for Aphelia, who seemed to have taken advantage of the momentary chaos to make her escape. Narrowing her eyes, Seika refused to let that happen. She shut her gaze off from the world and reached into her core, tracing out where that thin current of magic branched off from her own and connected the mage inexplicably to her bond mate. Aha! Eyes blasting wide open, Seika flashed a smile to all of her guild mates who were in the room, before she stumbled off into the direction of the pull. It was difficult to follow, a little, because well- it seemed like Aphelia was either trying to avoid her, or just moving around a lot. Like, a lot a lot. But since the feline would never deliberately try to escape the mage's notice, it couldn't be that. Unless...? Well, to think of it, they did play hide and seek an awful lot. Seika ran away from Aphelia, too, on missions and stuff. But she wouldn't do that the other way around! That just didn't make any sense. Shrugging to nobody in particular, she fluffed up her hair as she searched the city of Elysium for her feline friend. The trail was quite strong by now, or at least the bond was tugging at her magic with no small amount of force. Seika was just about to follow it up a hill, that led more outside of the underground city and up into Sin, when an enormous glacier fell out of the sky in front of her. Wait, the sky? There was no sky! There was just the ground, that acted like a rocky kind of ceiling, what with the civilization existing underneath the hollowed sort of cave thing that made up Elysium's sanctuary. Squinting up at the ceiling, then, Seika blinked with wonder when she realized that now there was a sky. It looked like the rocky top of the place had never existed. Even though the sky wasn't blue or anything, since the dark magic of Sin's monsters and the amount of death and decay had clouded the atmosphere so much, she could see what might have been the sun, filtering through all of the corruption in a very slight way.

Seika pulled her gaze back down, sliding over the giant ice berg until her eyes were resting on the part that was right in front of her, barely a meter away. She took one step forward, then another, until finally she was within arm's reach of the enormous hunk of ice. Maybe it wasn't ice? What if it was a frozen amount of spit that a giant who lived above Earthland had decided to freeze and throw over the island until it hit the land below? Seika, no. Nearby, Aphelia suddenly materialized into thin air. Her expression was disgruntled, as though she were disturbed by either the presence of the giant amount of ice that had fallen from the sky, or... "Oh my gosh, Aphi! You're here! Did you get bored of waiting for me? I was just about to come find you?" The feline deigned to look slowly in Seika's direction, before she said out loud, "I've been here for five minutes, watching you stare at this ice berg." Inside of their heads, Aphelia began to lecture her about how there was no possible way it was made of spit, and the amount of enzymes it would have contained to break through the upper wall, even with gravity, would be tremendous. After all, the guild protected this city of Elysium and had reinforced the area with such great magic that an attack like this had to have been an accident, or the work of a powerful force. The reason an accident was much more plausible was because the city was protected from natural disaster, but mostly magical defenses were directed at either savage creatures like the monsters that roamed freely in the nation of Sin, or premeditated offenses from hostile mages and the like. Because the barriers worked with intent, they could be circumvented by considering something an accident.

"Seika, get out of your head. Pay attention to the ice berg." The cat wheezed, suddenly overcome by a desire to smack her bond mate upside the head. Blinking in confusion, the girl pushed up her glasses and nodded with determination. "Right! Ice berg! Um... wait, but I was! Aphii, I was thinking about how it could have gotten into here! See, because I was thinking about how the defenses protect Elysium, and it must have broken through them in order to land here. Right? So I was thinking about the ice berg! Aphi, it's not fair of you to say that I wasn't," Sucking in a breath, the feline shifted out of her domestic cat form and into the Sibylline shape that resembled a human so much. Now taller than Seika and with proper fingers and opposable thumbs, the older girl clapped her hand over the mage's mouth. "Shh. I didn't say you weren't thinking about it. I said to pay attention and stop worrying with your brain." Slowly, she brought her hand away from the girl's face, waiting to see if she would keep talking. Thankfully, Seika obediently paid attention to the ice berg and shut her mouth, a scenario which the spirit took with a grateful sigh. Meanwhile, the giant mass of an ice floe began to shake slightly, until finally it erupted into a scattering of little shards of ice. Instinctively, Seika tried to angle herself and put her back to the explosion, but Aphelia had already pulled up a shield in front of them with magic. She held the girl in place to make sure she didn't turn away, because they needed to keep watching. "Oh! There's a person?" The girl's voice rang out with curiosity as she saw what could have been a man, or some other humanoid figure, slowly get to its feet from a place in the center of the rubble. From what Seika could see, they were shivering, probably from being trapped in the giant ice berg for some time. Ahh, it would be so terrible to be stuck in one of those for a long while! Seika shuddered at the thought. Ice made it so hard to do fire or spark magic; she wouldn't be able to live like that! Hesitatingly, the girl made a move to step towards the man, but Aphelia held her back. Rolling her eyes at the spirit, the mage tried to peel off her friend's arms, but the taller girl only tightened her grip and gritted her teeth at seeing her bond mate's attitude. "I'm protecting you, so don't move, idiot. We don't know anything about him," Aphelia hissed. At that, Seika just shrugged, the movement obvious even though her arms were currently being pinned. "He looks nice though! And cold. I would hate being cold. We should hug him to warm him up!"

"I accidentally hired a group of mages to kidnap someone. Please rescue them." His voice was low, and shaking just as his body was quaking. Still, it carried enough through the quiet area, the pulses of magic shifting around the pieces of the ice berg that were littering the area. Seika sniffed the atmosphere, only to recoil when a ton of frost magic hit her senses, apparently dissipating from the giant block of frozen water. Wait, what did he say? "Y-You kidnapped someone?? By accident? How do you even do that?? And wait, how did you get here? How did you break the top of the city, there's a giant hole in the ceiling!" Seika shrieked, and the man winced. Aphelia had no pity for him, though. She released her bond mate and stalked up to the man. "Why should we care?" Seika blinked at that. "Um, Aphi, actually, like if it's a person? They shouldn't be kidnapped, right? You would be mad if I was kidnapped! Right?" At that, the spirit gave her a humorless smile before turning back to the man. "Answer me." Still pale, and seeming to be barely standing on his feet, the man whispered, "I don't know who you are, or where I am. They- sealed me away inside of the ice. I can't tell you anything else- this is the girl, I made a mistake, I can't let her suffer for it-" he pulled a scroll out of his bag, and on it was a drawing of a young woman. Obviously very beautiful, even in grey scale Seika could see that she had dark hair and a striking appearance. Wait... "Hey, this kind of looks like Eva! Um, Ivara," the mage clapped her hands, overjoyed at the memory of her friend. Even though she had kind of fallen asleep at the end, or something like that, the mission had been a lot of fun regardless! Plus she had gotten a glittery key out of it. Aphelia also leaned in closer to the scroll, her eyes suspicious. "You kidnapped Ivara?" Her voice was soft, but threatening. The man waved his hands in panic, even though they were visibly trembling. "No! I mean- yes? I don't know who Ivara is! I wanted them to kidnap my wife, but they got the wrong person," he admitted, and Aphelia snorted. "There's plenty to unpack there, but we don't have time. You said they got the wrong person? It's likely an acquaintance of ours, who bears an uncanny resemblance to your wife." The feline pulled Seika away from the man, scanning him up and down. "Enjoy your time in the ice," the spirit hissed before she waved her hand, gathering up all of the slowly melting chunks that had broken away, sealing them back up into one giant hunk with the man still inside. Breathing heavily with disgust, the girl glared at Seika, her red eyes piercing into the mage's own. Nervously, Seika pushed up her glasses. "This ice is from the Silent Glaciers." That was all Aphelia said, but the girl perked up at the name. "Ooh, let's go! I wanna see Ivara again!" The spirit's eyes were dark as she told Seika that she was sure her friend wanted to see her again, too. Then in a whisk of blinding fire, they teleported away.

2,348 Words

It wasn’t every day that Hinata found herself doing a mission. Wait, no that wasn’t right. It felt like every day she was off doing some stupid task or another. Whether it was filling out paperwork, patrolling around and looking for trouble, or searching for some inane material. Today it felt like she was doing the most boring of the tasks. Looking for herbs. It was something she was surprisingly good at simply because she had tried so hard to get all the herbs she could on previous jobs. It was incredibly boring work but it usually paid off by giving her a lot of that sweet tasty money. Oh why did her life have to revolve around money so much!? Well now was no time to go rethinking her priorities. She travelled far and wide to get to an area with a big ol’ forest where she could gather herbs from. There was no point in going out to a desert or an ocean to do this kind of gathering. The herbs she sought after were very specifically located in forests and pastures. And neither of those two could be found anywhere in a desert or ocean environment, or so she thought.

Her travels and searches brought her to meet a strange old man. They met in a village and they talked for some time. He seemed honest enough for her to trust him completely. He will surely enlighten her on the choices she should make, but she will have to be intelligent on the way she was going to ask him this question about the local herbs, she will not want to implicate him in such an endeavor like… herb gathering if the herbs were not in public areas that anyone could go to. Without him having the she didn’t want to make the same mistake as those who trespassed to get what they wanted. After discussing the possibility of finding the herbs in the area they both came out of the building, they seemed to be stressed, anyone could see it in their eyes, they wanted to stick together but would feel guilty if it ever came to be learned that the herbs they wanted to get wouldn’t be quite so easily obtained. They finally have a good background, she know now that whatever her choice, they will not come to lecture her and that they will respect it for once.

But they overcame that struggle. It was seriously just a bump in the road and before long they were both walking out in the forest and picking up the more basic herbs. The old man was happy to start work again. He claimed it’d been quite some time since he had come out here to do this kind of work. Hinata didn’t share his excitement but whatever. She mustn't forget that if she was there, it is because she was on a job. She had now finished cleaning the herbs, she was sitting on a wooden stump a little on the rise. She wondered if she should take the wood and make a small staircase, she could use it to scale up to high spots easier. The old man, wandered about and noticed that she had finished. “Good job, you can go look over there now, you've finished up over here.” He was glad that he had some company. That way Hinata could come back and help him out whenever she wanted, it's always a pleasure. He noticed that she was not leaving, she remained where she was, inspecting herbs some more. He wondered why she wanted to stick around and do this.

So she did. Hinata rummaged through the herbs she collected, put them in labeled baggies and before the hour was up she’d finished up. Nice, she’d gotten quite a good collection going already. She was still far, so far from being done. She was like… maybe ten percent done with what she needed to do which was probably why the old man was hurrying her along. She thought about the thing that she was going to ask him, “I have a question about these herbs...” He responded, “Ah, herbs are a very broad subject. I am ready to listen to you young lady. You should know that at your age, I was a great herb collector, very popular with girls.” He laughed, before regaining his seriousness when he noticed the expression on her face. She then intertwined her fingers, before asking him. “What I'm about to tell you could put you in a very complicated situation where you could lose a lot.” He then took off his helmet, put it at their feet, turned to her, smiled and nodded as if she should continue, but said to her before. “Look at me. It’s the job of the elderly to be helping the younger ones like you, who are the future of our world.”

Hinata wanted to say something but the man went on, “this is the most beautiful thing that I can still do. You see all these herbs, and all the others, they all make up a large part of the ecosystem of this place, and you know for whom? For the people that live here. And for all generations to come. This is what this forest is to us. Most people have forgotten their roots and despite all the internal problems that we have known and that we know, we do not stop to think about nature anymore. So hurry up and tell me everything, and if possible, I'll help you. Hinata didn’t really know how to frame her question though. It was something to do with the nature of herbs themselves. She had a connection to plants and could control them, of course. But there was something more. She wondered if she could possibly replicate the effects of herbs just by being around them. It was a strange concept, she knew, but it was one she wanted to investigate. For all she knew, she would be stumbling onto something truly incredible with such a discovery. But who knew? Maybe it was a waste.

It was decided, she was going to tell him, she knew now that she could really trust him and that he will help her, she thought he was not someone who can make such a crucial choice for such young people. But she didn’t ask her question yet. She continued gathering herbs as she walked to the next major herb collection site. These herbs were colored red and had many streaks of purple in them. They were poisonous and that’s why she handled them with care. She doubted she could really get poisoned by these because of who she was, but she still kept a certain to keep them in contact with her gloves and not her skin. Gathering herbs was not so difficult so long as you held your breath while doing it and made sure not to like… eat them. It was good that she was with this old man because it meant he could help her if things went south. There was always the chance that she would get exposed… But whatever, gathering herbs for this much money couldn’t come without risks. Just thinking about that plentiful and yummy moola was enough to put a smile on her face.

Things didn’t last like this forever though. Within a half hour of blissful herb gathering they were attacked by some wild animals. Supposedly they guarded the herbs around here, for reasons Hinata would never understand. But now was no time to wonder why random enemies liked to attack and all that jazz. It was time for action! Hinata leapt to the side, weaving her energy into the ground around her and calling a forest to her aid. Large trees sprouted from the ground and created a makeshift wall that would have been very difficult for her to make if she had been in a desert. But thankfully she was already in a forest so this process was relatively simple. The trees rose up to be several dozen meters high. Great, that’d bought them some time. But not much of it. As soon as the wall of trees went up, the animals attacked it. Their claws and teeth were sharp enough to puncture the wood but they couldn’t body right through it just yet. The wall was strong enough to give them a few moments to strategize. Hinata turned to the old man and asked, “so what can you do in terms of combat?”

The old man just stared blankly at her and shouted, “look at me! Does it look like I can do anything?” He then shook his head and Hinata realized that she was on her own. She shaped the bountiful energy around her and used her connection with plant life to pull the man away with vines and tie him to a tree. She wrapped him so much that hopefully the animals wouldn’t even notice he was there. In the mean time Hinata focused on the animals that were clawing through the wall she had made. She wanted for one’s paw to break through then she shaped the trees around her to grab hold of them while they struggled some more. She was very thankful that they were able to be restrained by the forest because if they couldn’t… she would be out of options. The only problem right now was that there were more animals approaching. There were three behind Hinata that had just made their presence known with some howls and growls. She finished contorting the first ones so that they would be a nonissue then turned around to face her new foes. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to any of this. Just hungry beasts.

These beasts were much larger, scarier, and overall more gnarly than the first batch. Perhaps they had used the runts as bait? Hinata performed the same technique, raising a huge wall of trees but the enemies just charged forward and tore through her makeshift wall without any effort whatsoever. This wasn’t good. Hinata stomped her foot and made a tree sprout under her. It shot straight up, bringing her with it. Within moments she was high above the heads of the beasts who jumped at her tree, breaking it in half. She shot a vine from her hands and used it to swing from tree to tree like some kind of forest spiderman. She tried to keep herself in the range of the fight so that she didn’t completely lose the animals. She wanted them focused on her and not the old man who was helping her gather herbs. Though as she swooped around she could tell that the animals were quickly losing interest. They started sniffing around and trying to help their friends who had been wrapped up by trees. “Oh no you don’t,” Hinata muttered under her breath as she swung around to land behind the creatures to attack.

“Sorry but this is where you all just go and die.” She drew energy around her and focused it through her body. A number of huge trees sprouted in every direction around the massive beasts and enclosed them in a dome. She then pushed her energy through the trees, fragmenting them into incredibly sharp shards that embedded themselves into the beasts. It was like they had been attacked by thousands of little tiny knives that went right through their hides because they had so much energy pumped into them. There wasn’t even any wailing. They had been disposed of just that quickly. It was a good victory, but the downside was that Hinata was feeling quite drained. There was very little she could do in terms of upkeeping such powerful displays of might. She was going to have to take some time to restore herself to her previous levels. She stumbled around the forest and found the vines that she had wrapped the old man in. “Alright let’s go,” she said as she pulled the vines off to reveal a very scared old dude. “We’re not even half way done, don’t tell me you’re quitting on me!?” she told him.

The old man took a few minutes to regain his bearings. But after that they were good to go. They walked along and Hinata brought up something that had bothered her for a couple days now. She recalled a couple teens that had a relationship and they had been pretty beaten up about it. Hinata hadn’t cared at the time but she brought it up to the old man to get his opinion. If this man was supposed to play the role of adviser, she then told him the whole problem. “Well in some places, as you surely know, students of the dojos are not allowed to maintain a romantic relationship between them and yet two students of this dojos do not respect this rule. I surprised them and they were waiting for the choice I was going to make. Clearly I didn’t care but they were more worried about getting kicked out. They do not know if the owners will denounce them or if she will keep their myself.” The smile he had on his face had not faded, he always seemed so happy, he replied then. “I think I know these two. Maybe not the exact same you’re talking about but I’ve seen this happen more times than I can count.”

“They always remind me of my son and his wife. Me and most members of the elderly community can spot this stuff a mile away.” The old man started rambling on about something but Hinata was hardly paying attention. Something had set of her internal alarms. Something was amiss. Yes, she had restrained those beasts. Yes, she had eliminated the other beasts… But still, something was still out there. She felt the ground shake. Something told her that this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. But she was already exhausted. She had little else she could even do. She jumped up into a tree and left the old man down there on the ground while she tried to figure out where exactly the tremors were coming from. It almost felt like an… earthquake… Just as it dawned on her, the earth beneath he tree split in two. An enormous chasm of space was created and it was all she could do to create a branch to run on as the tree fell into the abyss. Unfortunately, as the laws of gravity set in she started falling faster than she could run up the tree branch. It didn’t help that the earth was still moving further apart.

With a leap of faith Hinata blasted off from the tree branch and grabbed for the edge of the earth that quickly grinded to a halt. This chasm was probably twenty five meters wide by the time whatever caused this earthquake was through. “What in the…” she asked as she caught her breath. There was no way that this level of natural disaster was natural. She slowly clambered up the wall of the chasm, using her affinity with plants to create foot and handholds in the side of the earth. After about five minutes she climbed over the edge of the chasm and back onto “safe” land. And that was when she finally realized how much energy she’d used. She patted the herbs to make sure that she still had them in her pockets and then collapsed on the ground. The last thing she saw was the old man she had been gathering with. He was… he was crushed by a tree that fell from the earthquake. She regretted leaving him be but if she had to carry him too then they’d both have been goners. She tried to push those thoughts out of her mind as her vision started to blur.

“Is this the one?” a voice asked. “Looks like it,” said another. Hinata could barely see the outline of two burly looking fellows walking towards her. One scooped her up and said, “glad we caught her off guard.” The other said, “you’re lucky she managed to escape. We’re supposed to capture her ALIVE, if you didn’t remember. But you never tell me the plan do you? You just go off doing whatever la di dah and half the time we don’t even kidnap the right person.” “Oh hush up,” the first one said, “we go the right gal. Look, blue hair. Hangs out in the forest with an old man. How many people like that do you know of?” And that was the last thing Hinata remembered of that day. She dreamed of the earthquake. She thought of all the damage it’d caused. She thought of how that town she had visited earlier would probably be destroyed now. She didn’t even want to think about what kind of monster could cause that much chaos in a single move. It made her twitch in real life. But that was life. There were good forces and bad forces. She just happened to get caught up in some bad stuff.

Hinata woke up in a cold cell. She could tell that the cell she was in was entirely comprised of metal. That wasn’t the end of the world for her, since she could grow her own plant life if she needed it, but it still didn’t bode well for her. She barely lifted an eyelid as she tried to figure out more about where she had been taken. She wasn’t getting any obvious vibes though. All she knew was that there was a very inconvenient lack of elements that she was used to manipulating. Whoever put her here was probably very good at capturing people with special abilities. That, or they were just sadistic enough to have a jail like this. “Now what did I do to end up here,” she wondered. It was a good question. Mostly because she didn’t do anything wrong. They’d gotten the wrong girl, but she didn’t know that quite yet. Just her luck. Go out and collect herbs and end up captured in some sick kidnapping scheme. She wondered if these people knew just who they were dealing with. She hoped, for their sake, that they would be able to make this whole headache worth it in the end.

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5418 total thread words

At first, when Seika stepped out into the freezing cold, she wasn't even sure where they were. Looking over to Aphelia, the spirit gave her a terse nod in return. So they were at the Silent Glaciers, then, it was confirmed! For some reason, though the mage couldn't help but feel confused about the whole situation. Ivara was supposed to be here, at the Silent Glaciers, but.... she didn't see anything except for white mist? And like, a bunch of glaciers? Maybe that was the silent part of it, like nothing except for the quiet and the ice. Seika put a hand to her chin and rubbed it way too thoughtfully, when Aphelia interrupted her thoughts. "Let's go," she said, and the girl nodded enthusiastically, dropping her arm down before bringing both up to clap in excitement. But wait, where were they going? Seika glanced up and all around them. She could see fog, but it was hard to even think of a direction they were meant to go. Unlike with Aphelia, the girl had no special bond with Ivara that she could use to connect their magics and track her that way. "But how will we find Eva- um, I mean, Ivara? It's super cold outside... could you smell her? Oh, but you wouldn't want to shift anyway, right Aphi?" The taller girl hadn't even got a chance to reply before Seika changed her answer. Irritably, the spirit smacked Seika across the shoulder. "Would you wait for me to answer?" Seika shook her head vehemently, "No! I don't want you to answer! What if I got the question wrong? Then your answer would be wrong! It's better for me to make sure that I'm asking what I want first, and then I can see if you can answer. I don't want to waste your time, Aphi, cause I know how important it is to you," she went on for a little while, until Aphelia cut her off. "If my time is so important, stop wasting it. Let's go, idiot." Seika felt like the idiot that the spirit was claiming her to be. Go where? Why did the flame bubble spirit keep saying for her to carry on when she had no idea where they were carrying on to?? "But where are we going to? Aphi why won't you tell mee?" The other adjusted her hat before shooting Seika a scathing glance. "Underground. Can't you feel it? This is where your friend is." First of all, Ivara was both of their friends, even if the spirit refused to admit it! She was prickly and all, being a feline turned human, but Seika knew that she still cared about the mage they had met on that mission against Key a while ago. Suddenly, the girl thought she heard something. She dropped to face plant into the snow, shoving her head as close as possible to the ground. Aphelia groaned, but she made no move to stop Seika, probably already knowing what she was trying to due thanks to being able to follow her train of thought in her head.

"Aaaah!!" A beam of dark energy shot out of the snow, nearly zapping the girl in the face. She scrambled backwards, doing a miniature crab walk in her panic to get away from it. Meanwhile, Aphelia calmly threw a shield around each of them, though her eyes were narrowed. It was easy enough to negate the magical attack, and once the area was quiet again, they took a moment to breathe. The spirit was scanning the area around them for signs of who might have launched the offensive, in case they were so bold as to try again. She caught a sign of magic out of the corner of her eye and zeroed in on its location, only to spot a man in armor. It was ornate, with carved, heavy plate. Immediately upon being spotted, it seemed like he had some kind of sense for when someone's eyes were on him, because they snapped in Seika and Aphelia's direction. "Ehh? I thought they already saw us!" The spirit wanted to just straight up face palm at how obvious her bond mate was being. "Seika, now is not the time! Hide!" The girl stared at her friend before saying slowly, "But there's no place to hide around here? Oh wait, eek!!" She leaped around as an enormous shape came hurtling towards her, slow as it soared through the air. Still, it seemed extremely dangerous and heavy. The mage squinted at it, realizing that it was some kind of spear or javelin. It looked so large that she hadn't thought the handle was an actual place to grip the weapon but rather a giant beam or something! "Wait, woah, Aphi, look how tall they are! So cool!" She pointed at the stranger- well, now there were two strangers! Waving to them enthusiastically, the mage was knocked upside the head by her friend. "Idiot. Now get down, and don't tell me there's no cover. Use the snow." Trying to hide in a sea of very obviously plain white drifts did not make things very easy for the girl. She was wearing dark clothes, and even if her hair was a grey that could have maybe kinda sorta blended in, there was no possibility of hiding. "Not that kind of hiding, it's not like you have to to disappear from plain sight. Just get away from being a sitting duck," the spirit grumbled, answering her thoughts out loud. Just then, one of the strangers began to sprint forwards, in something that was like a charge. Seika oohed and aww'd until he slammed into her like a truck, or more accurately, collided with her shield and sent her flying away. Even though the fall was broken by Aphelia's shield that she had intelligently cast in advance earlier, Seika was winded from the shock. Wow, that had been scary. Shaking her head, still slightly confused, she heard Aphelia shout at her nearby. While the spirit's words themselves were largely incomprehensible, she heard what her bond mate was saying in her head crystal clear through their mental link. "Eh? Someone behind me?" Seika turned around, only to see nobody there. She then realized that Aphelia had been thinking about the person behind herself, and the mage understood at that moment that her friend probably had plenty to deal with on her own. For that reason, then, it seemed like she would be alone to take on this thug.

Trying to deal with giant people reminded her of that time at the Demons' Den with Asami. Aah, that had been so much fun! She wondered if she would see Asami again some day soon. "Not if you keep standing there, idiot! Do something!" A ways away, Seika could hear her bond mate's voice cutting through the freezing cold of the Silent Glaciers. Shrugging to herself, the mage pulled up a bubble shield, surrounding herself with sparks and light. It was chilly out here, but surprisingly, she felt rather warm. Just then, Seika realized it was because she was on fire! Whew! How had that happened? Watching her opponent closely, the girl finally managed to understand that it was due to that weapon he was using. It was a large, two handed broad sword, and appeared to be made of some kind of dark, woven metal. She said woven because there was this pattern on it that looked like those criss crossed baskets she used to make when she was little and trying to catch fish. Either way, it must have had some kind of enhanced physical properties as a result. That wasn't what Seika was focused on, though. Instead, the girl was mostly thinking about how to avoid the dark flames that were shooting out of the tip and along the blade. Even though the fire that was currently alight all around her did not seem to be causing her any pain or harm yet, there was no way to tell how long that would last. She could always heal herself, but it would probably be a bother. Just then, her thoughts were disrupted when the brute began to rush at her, his body like an enormous boulder. Eyes widening until they were shaped bigger than saucers, Seika threw herself out of the way just in the nick of time. His sword came swinging at her face, and letting out an eep, the girl ducked. Unfortunately, she didn't manage to push her body down far enough, and it sliced across what should have been her neck, if not for her sudden transformation into a snowy fox. Blinking at the ground, which was much closer than it had been only seconds ago, Seika scampered away, towards her friend, who was currently fighting the other brute. They were even taller than before! The mage frowned at that thought, getting distracted by the concept of possibly being over eight feet tall someday. No, maybe they were even taller? Like, ten feet? Seika's tail lashed around as she tried to think about the possibilities. At that point, Aphelia had noticed her bond mate's distraction and screeched from nearby, "Seika! Do your job!" Before then continuing to hack away at the brute she had been up against, who was decidedly about to be down for the count. "Aah, whoops! Okay, on my way, Aphi! Oh wait, wrong way! This is the right direction, yup you're over here! Hi there!" She beamed up at the stranger, but judging by his dark eyes that appeared to be bleeding blood lust, he wasn't interested in talking with her at the moment. Um... she should probably go on the offensive, right? Blinking at that thought, Seika conjured a mess of sparks, happy to see the brightness against the cold and wintery landscape. Even though the sun was shining off of the snow and making it look quite beautiful, there was a dark fog, and some kind of dampening magic thrown over the entire atmosphere here. It wasn't very cheering. Seika resolved, therefore, to make it much happier! She threw out the sparks in a shower that covered everything nearby, including over near Aphi and the brute she was against. The spirit groaned when she saw what her bond mate was doing. "Too dramatic, Seika, why are you being over dramatic-" but she never got a chance to finish.

The girl had snapped her fingers, and each individual small spark blew up into a geyser of flames, flickering silver and other shades. Since they were in a cold climate, they began to change into snow, the intricate flakes thin and delicate. Easy to eat. Seika suddenly felt hungry, and she put her palm in the air, waving it around and creating another shower of snow. From there on, it was easy to put her head under the falling chunks of snow and gulp them down her throat. The thugs were just watching, slightly dumb founded until the flames found them and began to flicker at their edges, pulling them inside. It wasn't particularly painful compared to normal flames, but Seika's magic was the type to sap out the energy slowly, preventing someone from moving and escaping the area. It was one way to definitely take care of them, because the flames would be eating at the two for hours. Nothing could really come in our out without also being consumed by the area, but it was just... "Too flashy, Seika," the spirit groaned, staring at the inferno of a bonfire that had consumed the icy waste land. Shrugging, Seika focused briefly before all of the flames turned into snow, avalanches suddenly pulling the brutes down to the earth instead of the hungry jaws of fire. "There! Okay, Aphi, let's go! Let's gooo," of course, she still wasn't sure exactly where they were supposed to be going, with all of these declarations of ooh, let's go! Hurry up and let's go! Etcetera. It was all very confusing, but she guessed that Aphelia did have a plan. "Of course. It involves being sneaky, though." She shot Seika a glare that the mage didn't return, instead holding her hands up in a placating position. "Don't worry, Aphi! I can be super ninja like! We're going to save Ivara and everything!" The spirit continued to look at her bond mate suspiciously before she sighed. It couldn't be helped; after all, the only reason they were even here in the first place was because of Seika. The flame bubble spirit adjusted her hat. She didn't care about Ivara whatsoever. Not even the slightest bit. She was definitely set in that way of thinking. "Ooh, Aphi, look what I found! It's people!" Jerking her head up at that, Aphelia stared into the faces of four more mages, each holding some kind of weapon. Two had what looked like either long axes or perhaps halberds, while the others carried a sword and shield. "Seika... please," the spirit groaned. It looked like another fight was brewing. Why were there so many people outside here, anyway? It was a sign, at least, that they were near wherever Ivara was being held captive. As the two females kept their gazes trained on the patrol; well, Aphelia was watching intently while her bond mate was bounding up to meet them and say hello; wait, Seika wasn't supposed to do that! Aphelia grabbed her friend's arm, but it was a lost cause. They had already been spotted. "Hi! I'm Seika! We're looking for a girl who has super dark blue hair, she's taller than me, and really pretty. Can you help?" The group seemed to exchange glances, communicating with each other silently. Aphelia rubbed her temples, pulling her hat further down over her brow to hopefully block out the white noise that was Seika as well as the head ache coming up from the mages. They seemed familiar with fighting along side each other, meaning it would be troublesome to deal with. "Seika, do a storm or something," the spirit hissed, ready for this all to be over with sooner than later. It seemed like their attempt at a clandestine mission had failed early on. Hopefully whoever had captured Ivara thinking it was that man's wife or whatever wanted her to be alive, even if they were found out. Actually, speaking of that man, how had he even known his wife was supposed to be kidnapped? Wait, he'd hired them, hadn't he?? And all he could give in the way of details was just... literally nothing! They'd had to discover that it was the Silent Glaciers on their own! Aphelia fumed silently.

2,450 Words | Seika: 4,798 | Ivara: 3073 | Total: 7,871

Welp. Kidnapped. That was her current status. She guessed her goal was to get out of here for one. Probably beat up whoever was responsible for two. And probably go find all those herbs she collected that were no longer on her person for three. Then for four she still had to go out and finish collecting herbs so that she could go home and collect all the rewards she was promised. But yeah she was probably missing a couple dozen steps here and there but at this point she didn’t want to really think about how shitty her plan was. She stood up, then immediately fell forward and smashed her head against the bars of the cell. It was especially bad when she realized her hands were bound and she couldn’t even hold her hands up to defend herself. The whole process made a big ol sound and it really did not do her any favors with her current predicament. All was well though. She rolled onto her side and let out a big groan of agony. “Why did this have to happen to me?” she asked the floor. That’s when she realized she wasn’t alone. She saw a figure…

“Why did it have to happen to you?” someone asked her, “well let’s see here. We were paid to kidnap you. Something about a crazy lover. You know I don’t really fuss about the details. I get an order for a specific body and I deliver it. Right now you’re being held here. Nothing else to it. Just be a good girl because I want you alive. It wouldn’t do us any good if our cargo got killed now would it? You would be out one soul, I’d be out my payment, and let’s not even talk about all the other ramifications. So just sit there, be a good girl and let’s just make the exchange.” Hinata didn’t know why this guy was yammering on. She guessed it was nice to know why she was kidnapped. Wait, did this explain much? She never thought of herself as some beauty queen. Why would anyone want to kidnap her? She guessed she had had some relationships in the past that didn’t go well but that was hardly a reason to seek revenge on her. None of them had been serious enough to warrant a kidnapping at least. She let out a deep sigh, why her, she wondered again.

As Hinata laid there she couldn’t help but feel drowsy. She fell asleep. She dreamt of being paid for her job, she dreamt of shopping. She might have gotten some new shoes the other day, but the next thing she wanted to buy was a weapon. With her line of work, it was probably a good idea to have a weapon at the ready in case worst came to worst. In truth she hadn’t even give much thought about what kind of weapon she wanted. She had always figured that people carrying around weapons blatantly were obtuse. Now that she thought about it, she would rather take on someone with no weapon than a towering greatsword. Anyways, “Welcome, welcome,” a blacksmith said when Hinata stopped at the front of his shop, “you looking for a weapon girly? You look like you might need one.” The blacksmith looked over his new customer slash worker and suggested, “well if you can never go wrong with a simple sword. A dagger is a reliable choice as well. What are you protecting yourself against?” Hinata couldn’t think straight though. She slowly fell out of her dream. She woke up to be in the same god damn cell.

Hinata struggled to fight to wake up and then she found herself a little more attentive. She pushed her energy through her body, growing a tree branch that reached over to the man who was dozing next to her and took his keys. She then pulled the keys back over to herself. She then took the keys and quietly let herself out of her cell. Good. She was finally free! From step one of her little plan. She still had to find all of her shit. She walked around and thought about her dream. It was just a reminder from her inner subconscious that she needed a weapon. Hinata grimaced at the thought of having to use her money instead of bartering and thought as if she was replying to that blacksmith but she really wasn’t, “Enemies. I can’t see myself walking around with a sword so I’ll take a dagger. I’m not well versed in weaponry – what are the different variations of daggers? Ah why am I worrying about this now?” She had been as vague as she could think of and hopefully wouldn’t have been this awkward in a real life conversation. But she would soon regret thinking so much about this stuff.

Hinata poked around. This place was pretty unsecure for a dungeon. It was basically just a hideout for criminals, or so it seemed. She walked along and quickly found a window to slip out of but she didn’t know where all her stuff was yet. She tiptoed along and found her stuff tossed in a corner with the trash. Great. Now she was going to smell like garbage. She collected her stuff and then started to head back towards that window, but the guard noticed her. He had likewise tiptoed after her, seeing what she would do and now they were in for a fight. “Come on I really don’t want to have to fight you,” she told him with a groan, “can’t you just let me go? How much are they paying you? I can double that I’m sure.” She wasn’t exactly poor nowadays. She was saving her money up for something, she didn’t know what, but she at least had money in her bank that she could use to pay for her own god damn ransom. Or whatever THIS was. She shook her head exasperatedly. It was almost too stupid to comprehend what her situation was when she thought about it.

“Well, if you beat me there’s still a bunch of other people to beat before you’re really free. It’s up to you how difficult you want to make this.” Wasn’t that the truth. The man grabbed a selection of daggers off the various racks around his little hideout and laid them out on a table to be examined. In the mean time, an assistant went around and tidied up the shop because that was also in his job description. He picked up tools and armor pieces and put anything that looked broken into a large pile. It was no different than picking up toys at home. Hinata watched all this and asked, “so what exactly is this operation of yours? You look like incredibly formidable mercenaries to have all this equipment.” Hinata was willing to entertain the thought of staying around but she really had to be going. She just wanted to buy some time so that she could get out of here when the opportunity struck. When that came thought was up for debate. She felt like all she had to do was get to that window but… she didn’t know whether to call his bluff or not. It sucked.

“Well it was nice chatting with you,” Hinata said with a yawn, “but I really got to get going.” She then flowed her energy into a nearby crate of wood and used that to send shards of deadly spikes towards the man. He waved a hand though and the projectiles were sent aside, killing his assistant instead. Wow, that was cruel. Hinata didn’t waste any time though. She remanipullated the wood so that it flew not only through the assistant but also it circled back around and impaled the dude in the back. It wasn’t exactly what she was expecting from this fight but that was what it was. She then found the window and left out of it. Finally, she was scott free. She didn’t even have to fight that many bad guys. Just one!? But she had forgotten one crucial detail. There were two people that had captured her. And one was currently missing. She didn’t know what to think, but maybe it was best that she didn’t because she could operate just fine. She slipped out the window and found herself in a forest again. How convenient. She then checked her list of herbs that she needed. She still had a lot to look for…

She wrapped up her day by collecting all the herbs she could. There wasn’t much to contend with. All the beasts and such that usually defended the herbs were long since gone due to that huge mother of an earthquake that had been created to capture her in the first place. She gathered them up though and completed her list. She even went down to the nearby town to see how much damage had been done. She found that the town itself was actually pretty well off. It had its own set of defenses that protected it from being destroyed and people were just putting the finishing touches on reparing stuff. The most damage was caused by stuff flying off of shelves and stuff like that. Anyways she walked on in and saw what kind of money she could get for the herbs she gathered. She asked the differences between some of them too. “There are a couple of different types. I suggest you simply pick one that feels right in your field. If you’ve no experience with herbs just picking a genre will do just as well. But if you want my recommendation I’d recommend this one here for you.”

“You misunderstood me,” Hinata said, “I’m here to sell herbs, not buy them. The herb salesman held up a run of the mill dagger which had a white handle, which was different from the typical harvesting tools Hinata was used to. “This baby won’t do you wrong. If you hit your mark this will leave quite the injury if you get in a fight. plus you can wear it at your hip would look a bit more threatening.” Hinata was just about fed up with this guy. She said, “can you just… you know what, never mind. I’ll just sell my herbs elsewhere. If you really don’t want my business then…” But she was drawn to the blade that the man held up. It was like a herb collection tool but it was so aesthetic she couldn’t help but want to buy it. She had to shake her head and turn around and walk out the store. No, she wouldn’t be going back there to buy that. No matter how much she wanted to. Instead, she headed off to a park and waited for a bit. Her plan was to sneak in and steal it to see if it was really worth having or not.

But she decided not to. She headed off home without another worry in the world. She had accomplished everything she had set out to do, minus the kidnapping and now she was home free! Except that was anything but the case. There was still the matter of that other kidnapper who was on her tail. She’d killed his partner, see, and now he had to capture her. So he’d follow her throughout her journey. And before long he would catch up to her. Just as she was about to leave the forest he would make his presence known to her by coughing oh so innocently. Hinata turned to see a familiar face. Well sort of familiar. She’d never seen it clearly before. But she knew instantly that this guy was the one who’d wronged her. “Well well well, so you thought you would just go off on your adventure and head on home? No, I’m sorry but there’s still a lot in store for you. You’re coming with me. And this time I’ll make sure I put you in appropriate restraints. There’s not going to be any escape for you anytime soon.” Hinata smiled and snapped her fingers. The man was drug underground by roots. It was a good time.

But then he travelled underground and captured Hinata again. It seemed that her escape wouldn’t be as easy as she thought. He took her back to the hideout and strapped her in with chains that made it so she couldn’t use magic. She was going to have to fight her way out… again…

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total thread words: 9967

Ugh, Seika was getting reallyy tired of these people here. Even though she normally loved to meet people, and talk to the, this was just...! Aphelia agreed, she felt it in her mind, or in her bones, or whatever. Through their psychic link! And both of the girls agreed that this had all dragged on far too long, because they just wanted to find Ivara and leave already. Speaking of Ivara, now that the mage was thinking about it more closely... she thought she detected the girl's magical aura from nearby! Blinking quickly in interest, Seika was about to rush off in that direction when Aphelia's firm grip on her arm prevented her from fleeing the scene. "Seika, we have to take care of these people first," the feline groaned, ready to just face plant into the snow at the idea of her bond mate running off and leaving her to fight four versus one. The first enemy person sent a flying icy bolt towards them, nearly taking off Aphelia's hat. "Seika! Stop them from moving!" She pointed to the other three, who were suddenly lunging forward. Even though the two bond mates were still a decent ways away, with how fast they were sprinting ahead, they could be upon them in seconds. Seika frowned, a little bit sleepily- how was she even sleepy at this point?? Aphelia groaned before she growled. "Fine, I'll just have to do it myself." Grabbing at her core, she pulled magic out in bounds before tossing it on the field of snow in front of her. Essentially using Seika's magic, the girl wrapped a green net of power along the ground until the three who were trying to reach them were caught and unable to move. Then, borrowing one of her human mage's spells, she shot at them with a series of sparkling bubbles, which exploded upon contact, stunning all of the three. From there on, it looked like the fight was almost over. The fourth one, in the back, who had sent the initial attack, appeared to be fighting one versus two, the odds suddenly turned in an extremely short period of time. However, what the two girls had failed to account for was their battle prowess due to fighting together for so long. It had all been an elaborate ruse, and before either of the two good guys- um, whoops, the protagonists- er, whatever, the group of the two, mage and pet together, could react, the three burst from their bonds in a flare of powerful magic. The one in the back had sacrificed his magic power, falling into exhaustion, in order to free his friends. Aphelia hadn't expected that at all, and now the three were almost directly in melee range of them. The least Seika could do was throw up shields, bouncing back one of them several to a location several meters away. The others, though, they proceeded to slam into the shield itself without receiving the reflection part of the ability. And lo and behold, they had some kind of ability to phase right through it, because in another split half of a second, one was on Seika, while the other tackled Aphelia to the ground. Unfortunately for the poor soul who had chosen to take on the spirit, she instantly morphed into a tiger, breaking free of their hold and instead pinning them to the ground. It wasn't pretty what happened next. Her jaws bit down easily and clawed off their face and that was the end of that mage. Nearby, all three of the remaining ones, even the guy who had seemed to be almost dead from running out of magic power, winced. It seemed like they either shared some kind of link with each other or were just so intrinsically connected that they had a physical bond. Shrugging to herself, Seika blinked up at the mage who was still on top of her.

She was a girl, and looked really pretty! "Wow! You're so so pretty, I wanna be as pretty as you when I grow up," Seika told her, beaming. With a snarl, the foreign mage extended one of her arms up above her head, a swirling ball of ice curled in her hand. With a scream she brought it down on Seika, slamming into the thin shield that covered her skin. Underneath her, the girl winced at the loudness. Even though she was enthusiastic sometimes, even she didn't try to break peoples' ear drums like that! And what was that about the ball of ice! She had to be more careful with things like that! If Seika hadn't had a shield up, it could have like, taken off her face or something. Pouting, the mage summoned all the strength she had and tried to throw off the female mage, but much to her dissatisfaction, she was no where near a person with enough strength. For that reason, Seika slumped backwards, her eyes looking at the snow above her head. "Um... can you get off of me?" The mage finally decided to ask, her gaze still locked on the flurries that were falling above her. Wow! They were so pretty. She wanted to make a snow man really badly. Maybe they could with Ivara after all of this was over? That was a good idea. She would definitely as Eva- um, she meant Ivara, of course, after all of this was over. "What are you doing?" The girl glanced back down to where the stranger was currently pounding on her body with a dagger, as if trying to cut through the shields that were layered over her form. Sparking through the blade of the knife was what looked like a mixture of lightning and ice, but was thankfully unable to cut through the protective layers on Seika. Even if she couldn't actually move at the moment and make her escape, she still was unharmed, due to the defensive nature of all of those spells. "Seika, close your eyes!" Instinctively, the girl listened to her bond mate's command, and squeezed them shut in a blink. A blinding light filled the area, and even through her eye lids, the mage could see how bright it was, shining and filling the dark space in her head that she had been met with. "Woah, so shiny..." she muttered, before realizing the flash had faded and she was left with a burning red of the under side of her eye lids. Cracking them open just a little bit, Seika also finally understood that the weight of the other mage had disappeared. Taking a quick look around showed her that the female mage was lying a few meters away, her body bent weirdly, maybe even melted? It was hard to tell, but for sure, she was burned very badly, her skin bubbling up at the touch. Wincing, Seika looked away, towards Aphelia. "Aphi! Thank you so much! What happened to that guy who tried to get you?" As she spoke, she ran towards her bond mate, enveloping the spirit in her arms in a brief hug before the taller girl managed to shove her off. Ignoring that, Seika began to check over her wounds, running a diagnostic spell before declaring, "You are absolutely fine! But I mean, I would've felt if you were hurt, right?" Aphelia rolled her eyes. "Yes, you idiot, I am fine, so please don't touch me." Seika pouted at that. So rude!

"You won't be for long," the voice came from in front of them. It was the second mage, the one who had been caught in the trap of the net. Even with his legs still rendered useless, it seemed like he had figured out a way to use magic to free himself physically from the net. So while he couldn't technically move thanks to the grounding effects of the spell, he was floating above the ground, hovering in the air. "Woah! You look so cool, mister! Where's your friend, though?" Seika asked curiously, her eyes alight with excitement at the sight of the floating man. He was just so cool! She wanted to be able to fly like that someday. "You can fly, Seika," Aphelia muttered, annoyed at how the girl had already forgotten that she herself had flying powers. They both did, actually, along with teleportation, even if Seika was barely able to use it. "A-anyway, we don't have time for this right now! Sorry mister, but we have to go rescue Ivara! Take care of your friend! Um..." the mage was kind of at a loss for what to say. Like, she hadn't technically meant to hurt the two mages who had tackled her and Aphelia, but like, they had been trying to kill them? So she felt like it was kind of only even to have beaten them up, right? Aaah, but beating people up was mean! Seika tugged at her hair in dismay before shaking her head vehemently and pulling at Aphelia's hand. "Um, it sucks to run out of magic power and I'm sorry about your walking ability! But we have to leave! Aphi, come on!" Allowing herself to be dragged away by Seika, since she was too surprised at the girl's actual focusedness on the mission at hand, Aphelia followed along in a surprisingly easy to lead fashion. However, as soon as they were seemingly lost again in the blizzard of snow, unable to see or be seen by the two remaining mages of the squadron, Aphelia snatched her hand away. "Try to find Ivara's trail again," she commanded, and Seika obeyed without much hesitation. Earlier, they had been able to catch a small, faint feeling of Ivara. She had a very distinctive nature, like a mixture of a lot of different things... but especially plants! Ooh, and she felt really zippy. And fast. Like, lightning! Except without the lightning or electricity part. That didn't really feel like Ivara... "Seika, focus," Aphelia blew a ton of air out of her mouth, already frustrated again. "Right! Mmkay, sorry! Ooh, I think I see her!" Aphelia turned to her bond mate, her eyes dark. "See her?" "Yes, right there!" Seika pointed up ahead, above ground. That was strange, because Aphelia could have sworn that earlier, when they caught that hint of Ivara's presence, it was buried deep under the earth's surface, in some kind of cell or maybe a different prison. She wasn't sure. But it was weird to have spotted her here. Unless... well, it was possible that she had already escaped on her own. After all, the mage had seemed to be a capable enough fighter, judging by what Aphelia had briefly noted through Seika's own thoughts and vision, the last time they had encountered the stranger.  "Who are you?" The spirit's voice rang out through the dusty white landscape. Regardless of the snow and the howling wind that was filling the space all around them, it was perfectly audible. The girl stopped in front of them. "It's me, Hinata. I escaped them, don't you remember me?" She bit her lip, glancing at them nervously. "We need to keep moving, I think they're behind us. They could show up any minute now," her voice, which had been loud enough to project earlier, began to fall down to an urgent whisper.

Her heart pounded with suspicion, but Aphelia did not say anything. Instead, she turned to Seika, pulling the girl close and tucking her into her chest. "Don't look," she breathed, before suddenly beginning to glow with a tremendous light. The super nova of energy blasted through the area around them, melting away Ivara's body in the burning, concentrated pulse of magic. After a few minutes that went by surprisingly quickly, the spirit released her friend. "She was a fake," Aphelia said lowly as Seika began looking around the area, slightly panicked, wondering if Ivara was alright after whatever had just happened. "She was summoning a patrol. I could sense it." The taller girl hesitated, wondering if she should mention also how the girl had called herself Hinata instead of Ivara. Assuming that the clone had been created off of an off shoot of the girl, from some kind of spell or something, it stood to reason that while she might not have had all of her memories, she would at least know the identity she was supposed to be personifying. That meant that Hinata was her true name, right? Aphelia couldn't be sure, but either way... she didn't know if she should tell Seika, in case the girl was disappointed by how it looked like the other mage had lied to her about her identity. "She said her name was Hinata, so for now, let's call Ivara by this new name, okay? It'll be like when you found out her name was not Eva," Aphelia tried to explain to her bond mate. Unfortunately, now that she thought about it, most of the time, the mage ended up calling her friend Eva anyway. Hopefully she would get the hang of it soon. Trying to stay focused on their task at hand, which was making a rescue attempt, the girl pulled her friend along by the hand, searching the area for any possible sign of Hinata. Just then, the ground disappeared from underneath their feet. "Ehh??" Seika shrieked as they were engulfed in a free fall, plummeting towards the ground that was probably some where underneath them- but it was nowhere to be seen, as there was just darkness underneath their feet right now! Aphelia curled a pair of shields around the two, desperately praying that it would be enough. She injected them with as many bubbles and pumped the space between the shields full of magically infused air. With any luck, it would not only protect them from any impact but also slow their fall, like some kind of make shift parachute. Seika had begun just flat out screaming, not really sure what was happening. Eventually, though, it felt like they just kept falling, and falling, forever. The screaming dialed down into sobbing, which then dried up as her tears became stale. Blinking and wiping away at her face, Seika peered down into the blank black area under their feet. "Um... is this like, endless or something?" She no longer seemed to be as afraid as before, probably because it seemed like they would never actually hit the ground. Aphelia shrugged in an almost imperceptible fashion. She wasn't sure who could be listening in on their conversation and didn't want to give any interlopers clues to what they were thinking. It was extremely dark in here, but for some reason, the mage thought it might have been getting brighter? "Aaah!!!" In a heartbeat, she crashed into Aphelia, who had been squashed onto the floor from the impact. Their shields had... kind of protected them? At least, from the damage, but not from the force. The momentum of gravity that should have had the two be squashed flat, all of their internal organs probably splattered, instead hadn't had its chance to work damage on their bodies. However, the feeling of the impact had remained. Aphelia made a noise of something between incredible discontent and plaintinveness. Wincing, Seika hopped off of her bond mate, who was still lying on the floor, half heartedly still alive. She wanted to do nothing except for pass out in this moment. Eventually, after a few minutes, Aphelia slowly peeled herself off of the floor. Nearby, the mage had been casting healing spells over and over again, trying to soothe and alleviate the pain, much to the spirit's appreciation, though she would both never admit it and never acknowledge their help.

"Oh my gosh! I think I can hear Eva!" Seika took off running at a sprint, and Aphelia's eyes furrowed in confusion. Hear Eva? She meant Hinata, that was for sure. But the spirit had extremely good senses, and she couldn't hear anything. In the distance were several pulses of magic, almost as if someone were fighting. Among them, was there the other mage's magical signature? It was incredibly difficult to understand which was which, since they were becoming intertwined, especially from this distance. Most likely, Seika was trying to do something rash, though, so with a groan, Aphelia pulled herself up on her feet and started after her bond mate. This was such a pain, literally.

2,741 Words | Seika: 7,539 | Hinata: 5,169 | Total: 12,708

There was a bunch of stuff that Hinata didn’t really like about her situation but she had a job to do. The only thing that stood between her and completing this job of hers was a whole lot of enemies in her path. It looked like it was going to be a lot more difficult to complete than any other that she had gone on. But whatever, if this was what stood between her and victory she would have to hurry up and beat these people up. She focused into her inner self, drawing the energy she needed to work her ‘magic’. So she ran off ahead, looking at the giant beast that she was supposed to get rid of along with three enemies who were supposedly the one who set this beast loose. And in the distance she saw someone that she thought she knew. But they were too far away. Maybe it would be clear that they were going to help, maybe they wouldn’t. It was too soon to tell. She had lots of enemies to deal with, more than she expected, and she was just going to have to accept that. What a big majorly hyuge let down.  

So who did she want to take on first? The most obvious answer would be to get rid of all of them at the same time. So she flowed her energy into the earth. She called upon roots to entangle and ensnare the lot of them but it was hardly effective. She couldn’t spread her energy all out like that and expect it to be very strong. She needed, absolutely needed, the full extent of her power to restrain just a couple of the people or just the animal on its own. The animal was massive, had big rounded ears, it snarled. She definitely saw why someone might want to get rid of something like that. She could also see why villains would want to tame something like that. Either way she was going to have to deal with this somehow. For now though, she ran like her life depended on it because it did. She called up walls of trees, vines, flowers. Nothing seemed to be good enough to stop their movements. She really needed to hide. She then surged her energy just enough to produce a forest. It didn’t matter to her if they saw her but this needed to be done.

Now that the forest was made she could at least hide a little bit. She didn’t know much about these people or the animal they brought with them but she did know that not many animals could scale trees as large as this. So she sat in the branches and waited. There wasn’t anything else for her to do really but wait and see if there would be a good opportunity to attack. The enemies entered the forest and decided to look for her instead of getting out. Every once in a while they would blow apart an entire tree with one powerful ability. And to Hinata’s dismay, the bearlike animal was able to scale trees as well. Though it wasn’t really scaling so much as tearing into the bark. It was somehow much too large to climb a tree and not have to worry about fatally wounding itself by falling. It was something that Hinata wished it wasn’t smart enough to realize, because she could have easily pushed it onto the ground if she wanted to. Drat, she thought as she hid in the leaves and waited for an opening to be made available to her within the next few mins.

So she just sat there and waited. She was pretty well hidden. It helped that her affinity with the forest was good enough for he to stay hidden too. She made no noise and it was almost like she was using a stealth technique but she wasn’t. people passed on below her. Now was her chance. She dropped down and at the same time she commanded the trees around her to wrap around them. Haha! She got two of them wrapped up nice and tightly. They launched fire from their mouths, among other things but she ducked and swerved as she descended. Soon two of them were contained very nicely in a dome made of wood. But that wasn’t going to be the end of things. Before long they would have the opportunity to dig their way out, or blast their way out if they could withstand their own attacks. But for now Hinata was limited to facing off just against the animal and one enemy. Both of them looked confused. Well, the enemy looked confused. The animal knew what it wanted. It wanted to eat. And Hinata was the tasty meal ticket that it had been waiting for for all this time.

Hinata dove into some bushes and used the forest as cover again. But the animal had her scent now. It could track her very easily. It snooped around for a few minutes and then came point blank close to Hinata who squealed and created branches to ensnare the beast. It didn’t do much though. Hinata had to pull all the stops. She made the trees around her explode into the beast’s hide, she made a number of thorny vines grow from her hands and wrap around the beast’s mouth. It took a lot of time  but eventually she subdued the animal. Yes, that was one problem down, unless the others came to save the beast. She had to kill it before they got a chance. She squeezed and strangled the now helpless animal until it started foaming at the mouth. It almost looked like it was going to explode with pure malice. However it didn’t. It took a few minutes but the beast was ultimately rendered dead. “Great. Now All I have to do is handle you folk and I can go on my merry way,” she told the others. Speaking of which, the ones she put in the dome had managed to carve out an exit point. Ouch.

“Okay, Enough is enough,” she told them. She ran at them, right headfirst into an attack that knocked her backwards. She hadn’t even seen it. Had they used wind or something? That was the only logical explanation. She rolled to the side and was pushed up to her feet by a gust of wind. “Yep, that’s definitely wind,” she said to herself as she tried her best to see the changes in the air. She couldn’t, because one couldn’t exactly see air. But she could see how the leaves and bushes reacted. She used that as a basis to dodge the blasts of air coming towards her. She ended up having to make makeshift shields out of wood just to block the wind currents. And that was just one enemy! When the other two joined in it made it neigh impossible to attack properly. So that’s when she had to get creative. Just when one was about to send out a powerful blast, Hinata made a branch push his hand towards his teammate. That was enough to do the trick. It blasted one of them to smitherines. “Good, only two of you left,” she said happily. This was getting easier.

Now that the two knew just how powerful their opponent was and how craftily she could turn their attacks against them, they were extra careful with their wind blasts. But that wasn’t going to be enough. Being careful meant they would be more choreographed and that mean they would be more predictable. Hinata hid again in the trees, waiting for them to turn their backs. Then she impaled them both with spikes of wood that left them lifeless. She panted, and saw someone she thought she knew but once they saw the spikes they just turned and ran. “Hey, wait up!” Hinata shouted, but she really couldn’t be bothered. As far as she was concerned, she’d handled everything quite nicely. And with all of that taken care of, she could finally find her way out of this mess and back to safety. “Now where exactly is the exit,” she wondered. She had made this forest but it wasn’t like she knew every last detail of it. She didn’t know where it began or ended really, especially after having moved around this much. “I hope this doesn’t take too long,” she said as she got to work looking for an exit point.

Before long she saw Seika and waved, “Hey! Are you here to rescue me!?” If this was the real Seika she would go with her and that would be the end of that!

S rank job COMPLETE!!!!


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