Dare cowered behind her shield, her breaths coming faster and faster. God, what had she gotten herself into? She saw that Yumi had triggered the wall around herself, Rose, and Tempest, and she figured that they were going to leave her behind. That’s what she would do if the decision was up to her, after all. Dare took a slow, deep breath, and made her choice. She jumped to her feet and transformed the shield into a pen, which she slipped into her pocket. “To hell with it all,” she murmured.
Yumi looked back, letting here head cover outside few of her face. “So, kill some and take her. I can do that.”
Yumi moved her arm and let her weapon expansion out. “I’ll leave Dare to you Rose. You and Tempest seem like you’ll be able to calm her down. I don’t think she wants to hear what I have to say.”
Yumi stood in her mech, he blue mech. Her best invention will finally be used to help others. She’s not going to back down. She can’t let them harm her friends. “I’ll step in if I need to, I’ll let them cut my armor to protect you.”
"Just be careful darling." Rose tells her as they then get to Dare "Come on we have to go. Two of us are wounded and the other two can't hold off the shadows without harming ourselves or getting hurt by the shadows." Tempest offered his hand to Dare, even after what she'd done. "Come on…I know somewhere in there you know you can do the right thing…please." he softly said to her, still holding in the wand core with his other hand
Dare spun around to Tempest, and backed away, the rough bark of the tree scraping her neck. “There’s no ‘right thing’ anymore,” she whispered. “I just wanna live. I don’t care about anything else. If you can get me home, then I’ll go with you. Simple.”
Tempest looked to cause him more pain than any of his current (healing) wounds "Just…come on…I don't want you to die…even if you don't care anymore if we do." a tear fell that he angrily wiped away
"You move or we leave you I'm not having any friends die for you!" Rose growled "And if you try to hurt any of my friends again…I will kill you."
Dare nodded. “I understand.” she said firmly. “I’ll go.” She readjusted her glasses and looked Rose right in the eyes. “I don’t know who you are, but you don’t look to be in the position to make death threats. You’ve got other things to worry about.” She gestured at the shadow warriors.
Rose's eyes turned a pure purple and she vanished, joining Yumi in the fight against the shadows
Tempest couldn't look Dare in the eyes anymore "L-lets go." he simply said and turned, using the cover his friends provided so they could put some space between the shadows and Dare since they seemed to really want to kill Dare to prove to their master that they were better servants.
“On it.” Dare glanced back at the shadows, who looked quite determined to kill her, and briefly wondered if it was better to risk trying to get infected. There was a solid 70% chance that it would end in her ultimate demise, but it might also prove to Zerack that she was determined enough to become one of his trusted servants. But then she’d have a collection of rather formidable individuals trying to remove her from this mortal plain, which wasn’t a great option either. She decided to stick with Tempest for now.
He wasn't very vocal with her now, and while still in his canine like form he was letting more emotion show than he would like to have let on. Every now and then he would look back to Dare to make sure she was still following. There was no little happy go lucky little spark in them anymore. He hoped his friends were okay as they got further away.
Rose and Yumi were holding the two shadows back and Rose was not going for just holding them back. They wanted to kill her friends…and the person Tempest still wanted to protect. She got in close to Jester since he was the most dangerous of the two and was using her staff like in bo-staff combat, then shot a spell from the top part. The spell slashed him across the chest, causing his smile to fade for a second before stabbing into Rose's arm, pulling the knife from his grasp while it stuck into Rose's arm.
Dare saw that Rose got stabbed and took in a deep breath. If she wanted to make them trust her… “Hold on for one sec!” she called to Tempest, running back towards the battle and taking the pen out of her pocket. “Sword!” Dare ran in front of Rose and slashed at Jester’s arm with the intent of lopping it off his body. “Come on! You can’t win this! Let’s go!” she yelled at Rose and Yumi.
Jester seemed to feel pain more than Patches did so when the arm thudded to the ground he shrieked in pain and dropped to his knees. Rose shot an energy blast from her staff top that hit the mute warrior's chest like a sludge-hammer and caused them to stumble a bit enough for Rose to grab Yumi's arm and rush off to where Tempest and Dare had been heading
Yumi transformed out of her mech. She still didn’t feel safe at all after what had just happened. Yumi couldn’t do much then, but now she couldn’t trust Dare. Dare tried to kill Tempest, how could Yumi just forgive her? She wasn’t going to let people go alone with Dare anymore, and she was going to be tougher emotionally so people will take her more seriously. Yumi wasn’t scared of what happened, she was just angry. Angry at herself for not coming sooner, angry at Dare for betraying Tempest, angry that this garbage had to happen. Yumi shut her mouth as they ran, not speaking at all, the only thing that could be considered a sound was her almost silent steady breathing and footsteps.
Tempest soon had the four of them stop once they had ran a couple of football fields distances away. Tempest seemed especially winded, battered up and gasping for air but at least able to stand on his own two feet "Thank you Yumi…and thank you again Rose." he nodded to them "Zerack's gonna need some time to put back together his warriors and any ferals we've destroyed." he told the three of them.
"And I got a new souvenir." Rose raised an eyebrow as she held up the knife in her forearm, pulling it out, bleeding a light drizzle of gold. "Tempest you need to sleep. Dare you're pretty banged up too so get some rest as well. Yumi and I are pretty well off right now so we'll take watch."
Yumi sighed. “Rose, no, I need to tend to you and Dare’s wounds before they get infected. Yours isn’t that bad but it could get infected easily, especially from us running.”
Yumi ripped something more fabric from her shirt, grabbing some weeds. Although she was mad she wasn’t going to make Tempest upset anymore. “You seem fine now but after a bit of not treating it, it will start to itch and turn infected, then it’ll be bad for you.”
"Thank you sweetie." Rose said to her and her smile returned after being treated by Yumi.
Tempest pulled the core from his now thin wound and handed it back over to Rose "So you can put your wand back together to help Yumi." he explained
Dare just nodded, and almost collapsed on the ground, exhausted. She had no idea what she was going to do next, or how to get the others to trust her again, but she knew that she had to make them believe in her, or else they might end up being a bigger threat to her life than Zerack. She fell asleep against the trunk of a tree, curled up in Tempest’s sweatshirt and clutching the sword like it was a teddy bear.
While Yumi and Rose conversed Tempest pulled the locker trick that his sister Ember could do much better. He pulled fresh a fresh long sleeved shirt for himself and set an old but warm and clean hoodie over Dare's lap so she could find it when she woke up.
Ember said something Erika couldn't fully understand, only hearing the word "Tempest" as she pulled her along.
"What?" Erika ran barely alongside Ember. "I…" she huffed, "don't know…where we're going."
Ember skidded to a stop suddenly "He's close…I feel Rose there too…but there are two others I don't know…be ready for anything." she whispered to Erika as she let go of Erika's hand and slung her bow from her shoulder, her boots crunching the snow as she drew near to where the rest of the hunted and Haven members were resting.
Erika gripped her stone-cold metal bat in nervousness, knowing that when it came down to it, she would rather run than fight after what had happened before. "You'd better be right about this, else I might not survive running away…"
Rose heard footsteps and put the snapped ends of her wand back together, the core repairing it instantly "We're not alone." She muttered to Yumi as she clenched her wand in her hand.
Dare woke up immediately at the sound of footsteps and hopped to her feet, her sword at the ready. “Crap. We should run,” she whispered.
Tempest looked towards the sound of the footsteps. The pendant around his neck started to glow gently "No…it's someone I know…it's my sister." Tempest's eyes lit up a bit as he called out "Ember?"
He was answered by a female voice "Tempest?" Ember got into view, her bow string slack and at her waist as her feline-like eyes scanned the others then locked with her younger brother's
Erika wasn't surprised there were other people; she was surprised at the amount. "Hello..?" She was unsure of herself, "I'm Erika."
Yumi looked up, a bit startled. She jumped a bit but hid her fear quickly. She learned how to hide it well through her day. She felt more confident in herself, she’s never felt so powerful, it was kind of strange.
Yumi smiled. “H-Hi, I’m Yumi.”
Well, I’m not past stuttering. I’ll work on it. Yumi thought to herself, she wasn’t going to be useless anymore.
