Paul and Jessy decided to move behind the beast. With Jessy's strength ability, he was confident his level-5 spear would injure the beast and screamed in anger when it simply got stuck in the hide, neither hurting it nor coming back out until he tugged hard enough to lose his balance and fall backward.
Paul was slower to act. He touched his shoulder and a strange fluorescent green surrounded his body and soon he had armor on. On his shoulders, little missile ports popped up and fired. They impacted and exploded but the beast was not defeated yet.
[Quest updated: Progress toward friendship: Dobin Plantwell 100%]
Lana got an idea. "Toss me!"
Blaine looked at her as he was getting ready to let lose a flaming arrow, "are you crazy?!?!"
"Lana!"
She looked over to see Chekof bent forward with his hand laced in front of him. She ran toward him, bounced off his interlaced hands with his power added, and summersaulted into the air. She threw out climbing rose whips in each hand and wrapped them around the lower canines of the beast who now had his full attention on her. She withered the whip in her right hand, grew a stinging nettle and threw it into the beasts gaping mouth. It screamed in pain and rage.
Chekof took advantage of the situation. He transformed both hands into his werewolf claws. He jumped up, crossed his claws and sliced an X into the beast's abdomen causing a lot of blood to spill onto himself and the cave floor.
Dobin threw a level-6 earth spear aiming for the heart but missed and got a lung instead. Paul fired off two more explosive missiles while Karlen also went for the heart with his sword.
Lana, meanwhile, landed on its shoulder, stage-2 armor already on. She gave the gristlehair a nice big hug and extended her thorn spikes from her armor. With the white energy infused, they went through the beast's hide with ease. Karlen pierced the heart at the same time. The beast was dead.
Blaine never released his arrow as he froze with what she was doing. In his mind, he was suddenly 6-years-old and his family in the manor was on high alert. The ground was trembling as the enemy of humanity was approaching. Even at this young age, he was called to help in the fight.
Only he wasn't the one controlling the body. It was Kyle.
There were ten of those monsters. They destroyed the land that had been a bridge between their island and a far bigger island that was once called Ireland. Several of his family members, most with multiple abilities, threw everything they had. Many died. One person, an uncle had leapt up, just as Lana had. He was grabbed out of the air by the Walker and crushed in its powerful hand. Blaine fell to his knees, despite the combat around him as fear gripped him.
With the battle won, Lana kicked off the beast, giving it momentum to fall one direction while she tumbled to the ground in the other direction as if it was just another Tuesday. She stood up and saw Karlen's sword and the hole in the chest of the beast.
"The crystal goes to your team, Karlen." She then looked around to take stock in the teams.
She saw Rene tending to Sean. Dobin moved toward the back of the cave to check on the others. That was when she saw Blaine. His face was white as snow with terror or maybe a look of horror plastered across his face. She ran to his side and put her arms around him.
The teachers smiled at what they saw. Two of them helped remove the injured students who were held captive. They had Rene heal them well enough to move on their own then left to take them back to the shelter.
Karlen carved out the crystal from the beast's body. The rest went close to the cave entrance to perform sentry duty until they were ready. Lana had crouched down by Blaine and soon the couple was engulfed in a green cocoon. Kai was very interested in what was going on. He and Nis were the two teachers who stayed behind. These were the three best teams. They wanted to see how they would deal with the presented challenges.
When Lana when to Blaine's side, she knew something really bad was going on. She removed the silence globe from the bracelet and wrapped them up in her vines. She had never done this, including another, and was satisfied by the results.
After ensuring the globe was active and they were concealed, "Blaine, what happened?"
With tears in his eyes, "you could have died!"
Lana nodded, "but do you think I'm that easy to kill? We are working as teams to increase survivability, correct?"
Blaine sighed and told her why he froze. Then he continued, "A few hundred years ago, our island was actually only visible a few days a year due to how the ocean tides flow. An ancestor decided to build a mansion and refused to take no for an answer. They called him crazy but the first three floors of the house were often under water. At some point, the climate changed and our island was no longer an island. The water had shifted and the mansion was no longer near the water. We had a passable land mass that allowed us to travel all the way to what was once mainland Europe without having to use a boat."
Blaine continued, "after the Walkers came, they turned it back into an island through the shear force of their attacks. We had more land so we grew a lot of food and such. However, two-thirds of my family died in that attack. Kyle was pivotal thanks to being able to use two abilities at once."
Lana nodded and held him. "I'm sorry you had to endure that but this beast was not a Walker. You helped me train. You know my skills. With us working as a team, we support each other."
Blaine nodded as he held her close, "I know that but my fear of losing you kicked in. I can't lose you."
"I know," Lana smiled. "It will take more than a level-6 beastie to take me away from you."
He smiled at her then kissed her. Taking a deep beath, "I feel better now. Thank you."
"Let's join our friends, then. We are still in a combat zone and this is dangerous."
She turned off the globe and put it away. Then she withered the vines and they joined their friends. She noticed everyone was still safe, so she asked Paul to join her, Blaine, and Dobin in the back of the cave to discuss the way forward. She had some ideas.
Dobin smiled at one of them and formed a level-6 battle axe in his hands. Lana then placed her hands over Dobin's and channeled her white energy into Dobin. He combined her energy with his and transformed the axe from earth to obsidian.
They then did the same thing to create a spear. They carried the two weapons to the front of the cave. They presented the new weapons to Jessy and Almin who tried them in the corpse. They worked. The twins high-fived then Lana announced the other thing they talked about.
"I need everyone to listen up carefully. I know we decided to do this as a team but this fight made a few things clear. The beasts in these mountains are too strong for most of you. We also need Sven to evolve," Lana looked right at Kattie when she said it.
"If I call your name, come stand behind me: Karlen, Blaine, Chekof, Dobin, Jessy and Paul. The rest of you, have a special mission. You are to go back down the mountain. I want you playing the one-shot game we played before. I know points are established based on the number of points from crystals we acquire but if we want to survive the next outing, we need the rest of our teams stronger. Sven is to be fed the corpses and the crystals of all the beasts slain. Yes, this will set us back but the rest of us will be gaining points up here. We should still be okay."
"Rene, it was a hard choice but I'd like you to stay with the rest of the team. There are more of them but it also means you can fight more at once than we can. You will all increase your fighting prowess while increasing Sven's power. We need better gear, but we need gear made from these stronger beasts. You work on improving yourselves, we will work on getting what we need for better gear."
"In addition to that," Lana pulled all the remaining armor and weapons from her bracelet, "I want those of you who have never seen this stuff to see if it can help you. If not, it does us no good to hold onto it. Take it to the shelter and see if you can trade it for items that are more beneficial to the party."
While they all looked through the gear, Lana and Dobin returned to the back of the cave. They had one more set of weapons to make before they set off. Dobin formed a longsword and a shortsword made of earth then Lana channeled the white energy and the energy she used to make the climbing roses into Dobin's palms. He repeated the process of transforming the weapons. This time, the weapons had little barbs along the blade and Lana smiled but she was also feeling a little weak. She had put a lot more energy in the weapons than she planned to.
Dobin put his arm around her to help her back toward the front. Blaine saw Lana leaning on Dobin and ran to her and picked her up.
"What did you do?" Blaine asked her with a worried expression.
She chuckled weakly, "we made you a pair of swords."
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