A/N: Okay, since I have some free time on my hands, I’ve decided to start early on Chapter 15.

Chapter 15 : Ties that Bind

"When everyone is perfect...perfect just got raised to a higher level.

My advice, stick to the higher level then."

-Shaz-

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Trust.

How is it that one can believe in another so easily?

Peter always thought that trust had to be earned. He was right.

His thoughts ran off to a time not so long ago, where the 6 of them, just the 6 of them were alone to themselves. It was in that solitude that Leon became sentimental. Again.

“…Who do you trust with your life?”

“What?” Peter, Jason and Eric asked in return. They were sure Leon couldn’t have asked something as odd as that.

“Who would you trust with your life?”

The rest exchanged glances among themselves, Leon only staring straight ahead. They knew he was waiting for an answer. Otherwise he wouldn’t have even asked.

“Well…my parents would be first,” Ken said, shrugging.

“Same here,” Chris said, followed by Jason.

“Ditto,” Eric chorused.

“I agree. Parents do come first in this case, unless it can be proven otherwise,” Peter answered. It was only then did Leon turn behind to glance at Peter for a fraction of a second, before he nodded.

“True. How true…” he said. To the rest, he appeared to be on the verge of being melancholic.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Chris asked, patting Leon’s shoulder. The boy responded by patting that hand instead, his lips curling up into that smile he almost always gave.

“Nothing…I just feel…sorta melancholic for some reason,” he said.

I knew it, Peter thought with a grin of his own.

“Did a girl bring you down again?” Jason asked, an almost sympathetic smile working up his own features. “Trust me, I’ve been down that road. Quite recently as well,” he said, that smile now breaking into a hollow chuckle.

“No, not that,” Leon replied, shaking his head. He still never made contact with any of the others, still just staring off into the distance.

“Well? There’s sure gotta be a reason, right?” Eric asked this time.

The bespectacled boy never replied it immediately, but sighed once, before giving his answer.

“I just…wondered who can I trust with my life, should a time such as that ever arise,” he said in one go, pausing in mid-sentence just for the effect.

“You can trust your own folks, right?” Chris asked.

“Yeah, I can. Well, that one’s a given. But I meant, who can I trust, outside? Among all of you guys and whatnot.”

That caught them by surprise. Surely this was something rather different than what Leon would think of, even if he was the most sentimental of the group.

“You can trust in us, right?” Ken offered, looking at the rest, as if the answer would stare him right back in the face.

They did nothing except look at each other with raised eyebrows and curious looks.

“Hey, Leon, don’t worry, okay? You can trust us, the same way we trust in you,” Chris offered, going all the way to wrap an arm around Leon, the rest huddling in closer.

“Dude…lighten up. We’ve all been friends since the 5th grade. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve got each others’ backs, right?” Jason asked, the rest nodding.

“Yeah, you see? So c’mon, don’t bring down the mood with your emo-ness, alright?” Jason asked, the rest laughing.

Even Leon himself cracked a smile before wrapping his arms around Chris’s and Peter’s shoulders.

“Thanks guys. And sorry for acting all mushy and emo out of a sudden. I just got thinking, that’s all,” he said, the rest proceeding to hit Leon playfully on the back.

All was well, then.

Peter could still remember the smile on their faces that day. He could even picture it now.

The only thing was…’now’ is not exactly the best of timing. The rest were either giving cold stares or utter concentration.

After all, how could one keep a laugh while killing Dark creatures that would otherwise kill you in an instant?

“Ken! Behind you!”

Peter only managed to yell it in time before a pawful of blades for claws almost gave Ken an impromptu hair cut –not the good kind.

“Thanks,” Ken replied, void of all emotion before killing said monster.

There seemed to be no end to them, as far as Peter was concerned. They just kept coming, no matter how many of them had been slain.

“We gotta stop them at the source!” Chris said as he fired 3 arrows at once, striking 3 separate creatures.

“Virgil! Someone take him out!” Eric yelled before sending several rather unfriendly spikes form the ground itself to Virgil. Eric rarely used his skills in the Earth element, so this must have been something that demanded it.

Instead of avoiding it, Virgil merely created a wall from the ground up, stopping the spikes dead on.

“Flank him!” Jason said, conjuring a wall of water to literally flush several of those beasts towards Virgil, who in turn made a pillar to lift him off the ground, avoiding the sudden mini tidal wave.

Chris then fired several arrows that had cylindrical-shaped arrowheads at Virgil, who constructed a small wall from the pillar to deflect the arrows.

Instead, the arrows exploded on impact, almost sending the alchemist off the pillar, if he didn’t grab hold onto it before plummeting.

Leon, who was at the pillar’s base, held Cherisher at the ready, the cylinder cocking once. He then slashed the pillar, a small explosion emitting from the blade itself. The pillar gave way, sending Virgil plummeting anyway.

Virgil then transformed the broken pillar into a spiraling slide, which he used to slide down unscathed. Jason, who was already at the base of the slide itself, casted a large stream of water up the slide, sending Virgil on the opposite direction and off the slide itself.

Trisha almost felt like laughing at Virgil if the situation wasn’t as dangerous as it is. She easily spent about 10 full magazines for both guns and those beasts were not getting any thinner by ranks.

The boys were all a rather far distance from her, and she was dealing with a considerable amount of those creatures, but she didn’t mind. She could hold her own ground, and then some.

She held her guns close to her chest before the twin pistols began to glow red. She then unleashed a hailstorm of hot lead at the Homunculi around her, the bullets exploding upon contact.

Trisha’s mana count wasn’t as adequate as the rest, so she had to make her casts count. Every single one of them. Just like how every single bullet counted to her.

“Up right!” Ken bellowed to Chris, who shot away one Homunculus before it could strike. He couldn’t see an end to this. Virgil was practically untouchable by the rest, even if they coordinated their attacks.

“We gotta stop him –kill him, if we have to!” he yelled to the rest. They even paused for that fraction of a second, unsure if they heard Chris right. Still, it was a possibility that Virgil had to be neutralized –permanently, if need be.

Virgil, who was still perched on the pillar, heard Chris clearly and looked like he flinched. He gritted his teeth before slamming both hands on the pillar, sending several tendrils of energy trailing to the ground, which began to tremble.

The rest were beginning to lose their balance, but the tremors ended as swiftly as they began, and everything, even the Homunculi, seemed to just pause in their tracks.

Then from the ground itself, small hills were beginning to form, slowly taking the shape of something humanoid –and large, as in giant large.

When the forms fully constructed themselves, they revealed themselves to be ogres. Big, grey-colored ogres that were wielding axes as big as some cars. They easily stood at a height of sixteen feet, their menacing red eyes glaring at them, their bare, sharpened teeth exposed.

“Damn…Virgil’s not pulling any stops on this one, eh?” Ken said, readying his sword.

Jason was at a loss of words. Never had he encountered something so big. He wasn’t even so sure if he could take them on.

“Destroy them!” Virgil yelled, and the ogres roared with an intensity that could rival thunder.

“Get back! Get back!” Eric yelled, taking several steps back before slamming both his blades onto the ground, several spikes rising from the ground and lunging themselves forward to the giant beasts.

The ogres, 5 in total, slowly approached them, some smacking away the spikes with their giant axes. Even the ones that managed to hit them merely crumbled and broke, sending the ogres a step backwards or so, as if they were only rudely shoved back.

“What the…?” Ken gasped as Chris fired several of his exploding arrows that didn’t even make the ogres stagger in their movements.

“What are they made of?!” Eric yelled as the rest began to slightly back off.

Leon raised Cherisher before a flash of light engulfed it. A second later, Leon was holding his M4 on his left hand and his katana again on his right. Trisha was looking curiously at them.

“You combined them both to form Cherisher?” she asked, Leon nodding as he gripped the grenade launcher.

“It’s a little complicated bit of magic right there, but yeah,” he said, smiling again as he turned back to aim the rifle. He then fired all 3 rounds cleanly into the most forward ogre’s face, and the result was immediate.

The ogre fell backwards, its face shrouded in the still-billowing smoke of the grenade rounds, but it disintegrated as soon as it hit the ground. It definitely was dead.

“So…the head’s its weak spot, then?” Eric asked. Ken was already raising his sword, Brotherhood, up.

“Well, we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

With that, he swirled it around several times, ice shards materializing above him. He then lunged it at another ogre, who just wasn’t fast enough to parry them with the axe, and was struck full on the face.

It disintegrated soon enough, the rest already readying up their separate attacks. “So we just need to score headshots?”

“Seems that way,” Trisha said, showering one more ogre with another hail-fire of exploding round full on the face, sending it down.

Virgil, who clicked his teeth, slammed the ground to summon up more Homunculi, a variety of the smaller lion-wolves and the bigger ogres.

“Dammit, doesn’t he ever run out of juice or something?” Jason asked as he concentrated a water bubble over one ogre’s head, effectively drowning it.

“He uses mana from his surroundings instead of mana from within himself,” Ken explained, creating an ice wall to halt one ogre in his tracks while Peter proceeded to use the sharp edge of his Sakabatou to good use.

“We gotta put an end to them right now!” Chris said, firing a salvo of arrows at Virgil, who easily just casted another makeshift wall to stop them.

As Chris swore in a colorful mix of Cantonese and English, Trisha scowled at a now sneering Virgil. He was practically taunting them, sending all those things to do his dirty work while he just stood there dodging their attacks almost effortlessly.

“We have to work our way up to him. We stay here and it’ll just end in this stupid stalemate,” Leon said before bringing his M4 and his katana together, the same flash of light appearing before Cherisher appeared again.

With that, he dashed forward towards Virgil, slashing away at anything that came in his way, even striking down several ogres by their legs. The rest took it as a call forward, and they too moved further in.

Virgil continued to summon more Homunculi but the group only broke in further, sometimes even ignoring the beasts. Leon slashed his sword several times, gunshots thundering from it as the furious red bullets sped towards Virgil, who created that wall again. The bullets exploded in the wall but it remained intact, Virgil crossing his arms. “Hmph, no matter what you guys pull off, I’m always protected right here.”

“That’s what you think.”

Virgil only turned behind fast enough to see Chris raised on a platform of ice, his bow drawn. Virgil managed to dodge the arrows in time, barely grazing his right cheek in the process. He was about to transfigure a spear as a response, but a loud explosion pushed him off the pillar itself, shrapnel and rocks fragments pelting him.

Chris’s explosive arrows may have missed Virgil, but it made contact with the makeshift wall behind him and exploded, removing Virgil from his safe spot.

The white boy could only yell for a few good seconds before slamming his fist for a second onto the pillar as he cascaded down, transforming it into a slide, once again. He then jumped off it after sliding for a few seconds, just in time to avoid a headlong collision with another water pump.

He latched onto the back of one of his ogres, the others ready to strike it down. But Virgil had other things planned out. He had to up the playing field by a notch.

With that, he placed a gloved hand onto the ogre’s head, sending the same electrical sparks all over its body.

The ground around the ogre seemed to lift off, bit-by-bit as it transmorphed into different platings that seemed to latch themselves onto the ogre.

Even the giant itself seemed to transform slightly, its teeth growing much sharper and curved more to the sky above, its muscles widening and growing beyond what they would deem anatomically possible.

“Damn…he pimped-up his ogre…” Jason muttered, staring at the more offensive-looking monstrosity in front of them. It was when the axe transformed into a giant guillotine that was easily the size of a bus that did the rest backed-up a little.

“This is hard,” Leon said for good measure. True enough, the high-ogre lazily swatted away the ice spears that Ken lunged at it, and even though several of Eric’s earth spears slammed into its face, it only seemed sucker-punched for a second or two before it roared its discontent, raising it’s rather intimidating guillotine.

As the rest were trying to work out its strike zone, Leon just dashed forward and readied his sword, the center gap glowing blue. He then slashed the blade upwards, a blue arc ensuing from it.

It met the guillotine’s blade and seemed to pass by it before it disappeared. Nothing happened for a good second, and then it happened.

The guillotine, still raised high as the ogre prepared to swing it down, severed halfway. The blade looked like it was cleanly cut as the gap was still gleaming, as if it had been polished. The unattached blade then fell onto the ogre’s right shoulder, the shoulder guard breaking as the giant roared its pain –or whatever it felt.

The blade and the shoulder guard then disintegrated like any fallen Homunculi would, the ogre still clutching onto a half-sized guillotine that still posed a threat. More than anything, Trisha was forced to think that its weapon now looked like an oversized chopping knife.

For a moment Trisha thought she had become bonkers or something as she suppressed a sudden fit of laughter. The ogre, wielding that chopping knife of a guillotine made her think of some giant demented housewife.

“Shoot him off or something! He’s right there!” Ken roared, sending more ice spears as he ran towards the ogre, the rest spotting Virgil perched on the ogre’s shoulders.

Surrounding the ogre seemed like the best option, flanking it so that it wouldn’t get a clear target.

The ogre proceeded to sweep the guillotine once over then ground, Eric, Jason and Peter leaping away as the blade passed by underneath them, the sheer force of the swing generating a small gust of wind.

Trisha was already making her way up towards the ogre’s back –unnoticed- as she tried to tackle Virgil from a close proximity. The rest occupying the ogre’s attention was a good distraction, if any.

She was practically running up the length of its back, channeling her mana to her soles to enable her to achieve such a feat. It’s not a very unique skill, if compared to the rest, but it still appealed to her nevertheless. It was when she reached its shoulders did she creep up from behind, intending not to appear in the giant’s field of vision.

It was still busy trying to swat the others as they did what they could to bring it down. Considering that it was now almost twice as huge, and more than twice as hard to take down, they were managing. Barely.

Trisha checked her twin pistols, seeing fit that it had enough bullets in them. Still, she summoned an attachment for the guns that she hardly used. It was a pair of blades that attached themselves to the lower barrel of her pistols. She knew better than to try and confront him head on without countermeasures.

And she chuckled ever-so-slightly as Virgil just stood there, his back facing her as he just surveyed the situation. She’d have this element of surprise with her. And that was all she needed.

Virgil himself thought this was going on well. They -unlike himself- had their own limits to their mana, so they couldn’t go on like this forever. The only one that he couldn’t see was Trisha. Strange, was she trying to back out now? It seemed impossible, knowing her.

“Freeze, Virgil.” The voice was as cold and solid as the very foreign object now pressed against the back of his head. He actually couldn’t help but let a smile work up a way up to his lips.

“Trisha, how nice of you to work your way up to me,” he said, sounding quite delighted. Trisha herself wasn’t sure if he really was. Still, she had to do what she had to do.

“I said freeze, Virgil. Stop the Homunculus’s and surrender. I don’t want to do this the hard way,” she said, still all ice.

Virgil chuckled. Yes, chuckled.

“Homunculi, Trish. The correct plural of Homunculus is Homunculi,” Virgil said, his back still turned to her. Even so, she still had an inkling feeling that he was grinning widely.

Don’t you dare to correct me verbally, dammit. You’re not Leon.

She was so tempted to pull the trigger, but she knew better.

“Whatever. Now are you going to come quietly, or not?” she asked, just a hint of impatience in her tone.

“As much as I’d like to obey your ever word, princess,” Virgil began.

Oh goodness, not another Leon-line…downright to the ‘princess’.

“But I have to decline that offer.”

Before she even saw it with her own eyes, Virgil had already ducked out of view from her, and elbowed her sharply on the stomach.

She couldn’t even gasp out the pain, but she staggered several steps back, gritting her teeth. Virgil has his hand to the ogre’s neck, before the same electrical sparks surged from the glove once more.

She couldn’t even shoot. Her abdomen screamed for her attention, her eyes blurry. Does getting hit in the gut really hurt that much?

“I’m really sorry, Trisha. I really am. But I’m not going down without a fight. Not after I’ve come this far to prove myself to you,” he said, with a smile that was so warm that it almost seemed impossible, coming from him.

If it wasn’t for the fact that he was currently this slightly off-his-rocker guy, she would’ve believed that he was being a nice, sincere boy by his statement.

She tried to regain her composure, knowing he might strike her if she left him an opening. But she had a doubt in her mind. After all, he did fancy her, right? Would you hurt someone you were trying to fight for?

What she saw next left her jaw slack.

As it would for the ground, Virgil managed to transfigure a spear from the ogre’s neck. And he seemed so naturally fine with it. Even the damn ogre didn’t flinch or react to Virgil just practically pulling something out of its neck!

“I know this may seem unsettling to you, dear,” he said, now looking apologetic.

Unsettling? Unsettling?! Even the * word* unsettling doesn’t begin to describe it!! And what’s with the ‘dear’ curveball?

“But as an Alchemist, I can transfigure anything, including whatever I created,” he finished, brandishing the spear, for a show of talent more than anything.

“I must warn you, Trisha. I am rather skilled with a spear. I won’t go easy on you,” Virgil said with that oh-so-playful tease in his tone, which just made her purse her lips. I wasn’t expecting you to, twat.

She then extended the blades of the attachment, just spanning them slightly ahead of the gun’s barrel, to which Virgil’s eyes twinkled in curiosity.

“Oh. Kitty’s got claws.”

Oh how she wished she could just wipe that stupid smirk of his face. Well, maybe she could. The blades could do so much more than that too, if she wanted.

And she was off.

“Take this!” Ken yelled, slamming his sword down to cast an ice wall around himself, impaling several smaller Homunculi.

When the ice wall dissipated, Ken discovered a rather odd…outcome.

“Is it just me or are there less Homunculi now?” he asked out loud.

Peter paused for a second after cleanly slashing one lion-wolf in half. Ken wasn’t kidding. There appeared to be lesser amount of them around, save the several larger ogres that were still quite hard to take down.

What he found strange was that the Homunculi never strayed from the group or attacking any of the bystanders that were a rather large distance away from.

It wasn’t long before what remained were the larger ogres that were just too slow to keep up with the group. Virtually all the other smaller ones were gone.

“Hey, look!” Jason yelled.

The rest looked at him for a brief second, then to where he was directing at. And there on the high-ogre’s right shoulder was Virgil, dueling with Trisha.

“Trish!” Leon yelled before an ogre almost took a swing at him before he sent another blue slash at it, severing its head right off.

He almost made it to the high-ogre before his left shoulder was seized roughly.

“What?!” he barked at Chris, who kept him still.

“No, don’t. You may distract her or something,” Chris reasoned, still keeping his grip taut.

“I can provide backup. The sooner we take out Virgil, the sooner we can get this over with,” Leon retorted, but not resisting Chris’s restrain.

“Then let her handle it. We’ve got to still deal with the others before they stray,” Chris said before letting go of Leon, firing several of his exploding arrows at an ogre’s face.

He knew Chris had a point. And if he assisted her now…maybe he would be a distraction. Still, he wished he could help her, even if she didn’t need it. He turned back to see her delivering a right kick straight to Virgil’s gut, and he smirked.

That girl can handle herself.

How does *that* feel, huh?

She couldn’t help but let that evil smile work its way up her lips as Virgil clutched onto his spear just a few meters away from her, his other hand grasping his gut.

“Okay…maybe I deserved that,” he confessed, Trisha huffing.

“You deserve a whole lot more than that for an ass-whooping,” she said, reloading her pistols.

“Touché, Trish. Still, I told you I wasn’t going to give up that easily,” he said before dashing right for her. She fired several rounds at him, all parried away as he spun his spear at blinding speeds, creating a makeshift shield.

She had to leap over him, firing several rounds, all of which were swatted away by him lazily. She had to admit, he was skilled.

He jabbed the spear’s blunt end at her, which she managed to dodge in time and lunged the pistol’s rather intimidating blades at Virgil’s underarm, but he managed to dodge that as well.

“So you’re aiming to kill, eh? I must say I’m rather heartbroken,” he said, smiling ruefully. Just how many faces did he have, exactly?

She never replied, instead just shooting him continuously, while Virgil lazily parried shot after shot as he bridged the distance between himself and her.

“It’s pointless, really,” he said as she staggered several steps backwards to reload. “I excel in one-on-one fights like these.”

“So do I!” she yelled as he was merely inches away from her, swinging both blades at where his face was mere seconds ago. He leapt backwards, still smiling, still smug.

“That may be so, darling, but I have the advantage here, I have to admit. I have every seemingly possible advantage right here,” he said, indicating to where they were at. He was right, really. Up here, he could conjure up any means to trump her, as kick-ass she was.

She decided the only thing to do was to rid him of that advantage. She dashed forward, lunging at him with both blades brandished. She knew what she had to do was grim.

Leaving him without hands was a dark thought, but there was no other way to remove the gloves. It wasn’t as if he was going to give it to her if she asked nicely, even with all the eyelash-batting or lip pouting.

He merely looked surprised as he saw her coming head-long at him. His eyes betrayed a hint of what Trisha thought was utter amusement. Still, with one fell strike, he spun once to avoid her completely, and then stopped to wrap his arms around her.

She practically froze where she was; utterly shocked that Virgil would even try something like that. And it wasn’t good. Virgil had locked her straight to her wrists, rendering her unable to even budge, let alone shoot him.

“I know what you were trying to do, Trish. And I’ll honestly tell you, it won’t work,” he barely whispered, sending shivers down her spine –not the good kind.

“Now I really don’t wish to fight you anymore, Trish. Really, it’s heartbreaking for me,” he said with such warmth. “And I know they’ll catch you before you hit the ground, so…”

Wait, what?

“See you later, Trisha. And I’m really sorry!” he said, before throwing her bodily off the ogre’s shoulder.

She couldn’t believe it. No way. No effing way!

She felt herself suspended in the air for a brief second before she felt herself plummeting towards the ground, and she couldn’t even scream.

Well, not for the first second or two.

She screamed her lungs out as she shut her eyes, not daring to look at what was going to happen next. Was this how she was going to die? Falling off an ogre, being thrown off by some looney git in the first place?

The next thing she knew, she stopped. She literally stopped falling. Instead, all she felt was the gust around her, messing up all her hair as she opened her eyes to peer for the first time.

She could see the thin, nearly invisible wisps of air surrounding her, and as she looked down, she noticed she was still descending, but at a slower, safer rate.

As Trisha looked around, she saw Peter with his arms outstretched, pointing at her direction. It was only then did the reality of it grasp her mind. Peter must have conjured up a suspension made entirely out of air to catch her.

When she landed, Trisha got up to inspect her hair, of all things, first. She didn’t need a mirror to tell that it was rather disheveled.

She couldn’t register anything else much. Her heart was still thumping hard against her chest as she experienced what was the most near-death experience in her life. The stubborn lump in her throat wasn’t helping much, either.

“Trisha. Trisha!” she heard someone yell, approaching her as she bent over slightly. She had to catch her breath. Trisha felt that she had the wind knocked off her. It was ironic that just moments ago nothing but air –lots of it, was all that had her in place.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. Tell Peter I said…thanks,” she said after finding the composure to look up.

“You’re welcome,” Peter replied from behind her, with the slightest hint of haughtiness in it.

“You wanna sit this one out?” she heard someone else ask. She knew who that voice belonged to.

“No thanks, Leon. That bastard just threw me off that thing. You think I’m not gonna beat the living shit out of him?”

She didn’t mean to glare at him. She was just really mad at Virgil right there and then. As Chris and Ken -who were next to Leon- flinched, the bespectacled boy merely smiled understandingly, and nodded. She was glad he knew the truth, then.

“Well, now that it’s done with, what do you suppose we do to knock him off his high horse? Err...I mean, ogre?” Jason asked.

“It’s impossible, at this rate. That bloody thing he’s on is just too hard to take down,” Eric said, rubbing his sore elbow.

It was then something happened that left the rest just standing there, unsure of how it could have happened.

A bright object that seemed to be spinning out of control came out of nowhere and slammed through the high ogre’s face. Through it.

As it disintegrated unrealistically for something of its size, Virgil transfigured a slide from what remained of the ogre, and because it wasn’t enough, he fell off the end of it and crashed onto the ground from what was easily 15 feet high.

The group eyed the spinning object as it boomeranged its way towards its owner, who caught it as it stopped whirling, revealing it to be a rather over-sized axe.

“One strike. All I needed was one strike,” Shaz sneered, flexing his muscles as he heaved the axe over his shoulder.

“Showoff,” Trisha heard Leon sniff as the six-foot tall youth made his way to the group.

“How is it…” she mouthed, Shaz looking at her for a good second before replying.

“I can channel my mana right to my arms, granting me a ridiculous amount of strength, enough to lift Authos off,” he said, pointing the axe forward.

It had a rather modern look to it, with gears and metallic components that Trisha could make neither head nor tail of. She noticed that behind the blade it had something that resembled boosters. Was it all for decoration? Trisha had to tilt her head slightly to read the inscription on the blade.

In remembrance of my true love.

In size, the axe itself was even bigger than the overall size of Shaz’s torso, and that was saying something.

Took you awhile you to get up here, didn’t it? We could’ve used your help earlier,” Leon said, arms crossed.

Shaz looked annoyed for a second before he shrugged. “I was busy mopping up the stragglers.”

“Now, batter up!” he said before lifting the axe in a stance that Trisha felt like he was going to just straightly throw it at Virgil, who was still trying to get up.

Trisha heard several metallic clicks that unmistakably came from the axe, and the boosters she saw earlier began to light up. Then they ignited.

Her jaw fell a good inch or two as she realized what had happened. The axe had its own jet propulsion system.

Shaz then roared before throwing the axe, which began to spin wildly as the jets burst to life, sending it hurtling towards Virgil.

He created several walls from the ground to block it, all of which were passed through by the axe like they were made of potato chips.

Virgil managed to throw himself to the ground before the axe smashed through the final wall and through what would have been himself.

Shaz smirked as the axe came back to him.

“Alchemists may have this fancy know-how of all that transfiguration junk, but they can’t deal with someone who can just smash his way through them,” he said before he confronted a lion-wolf with his bare hands, smashing his fist straight through it. Eric could have sworn he saw the disintegration trail off from his fist like smoke.

“That felt good,” the tall youth said nonchalantly before receiving his axe. “So Virgil, think of giving up yet?”

Virgil, who now looked rather worn, wiped what appeared to be blood from his lips. “Not in the slightest. I know how to deal with Berserkers like you,” he said before taking out a rather large test tube from his pocket.

He then opened the cover, spilling its contents in a certain pattern. He then clapped both his hand together, generating far more electricity than he ever did, before slamming his palms onto the strewn liquid.

Smoke appeared all around him, engulfing his immediate surroundings in its white shroud, well out of sight from the rest.

“What’s going on? Hey, Leon, wha-?”

Shaz turned back and he froze. The rest saw the expression on his face and all turned to see Leon.

He looked almost grief-stricken. His jaw was slack, his face pale, and what Trisha assumed to be cold seat running down his face.

“Leon?” she asked, now quite scared herself. What could possibly be happening until Leon just became this frozen? She stole glances at the white blanket of smoke, where still nothing happened.

It was when she touched his chest –a feeble attempt to see if his heart was till beating or something- did Leon blink and shook his head.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, the rest now converging on him too.

“Bro, what’s wrong?” Chris asked, leaving a hand on Leon’s shoulder.

“Stop him…we have to stop him, now!” Leon yelled, ignoring the rest as he ran forward ever so little, firing several shots of Cherisher into the smoke.

“Stop him? Leon, what’s going on?” Trisha asked as the rest began to exchange looks at the smoke and Leon, who was looking quite desperate.

“Summoning! He’s summoning something! Stop him before he completes the spell!” Leon yelled, firing random shots that penetrated the cloud and setting off distant bangs and booms.

“What? Summoning what?” Trisha restlessly asked as the rest now began to hurtle whatever they could into the smokescreen.

“At this rate, something big. Really big! Peter!” Leon barked, the rest all stopping. “Blow away the smokescreen!”

The boy merely nodded before thrusting his hand sideways, sending a violent gust of wind towards the smokescreen, billowing it away, but not before what appeared next roaring out loud, seemingly annoyed by it’s premature revelation to the rest.

A great dark violet claw emerged first -slamming onto the ground as it trembled- before the rest of its body followed suit. What stood before them was what Trisha only believed to have existed in fairytales, or at least, in Medieval Europe.

A wingless dragon, at least several stories high, stood before them with its red reptilian eyes looking at them with such savage haughtiness, Virgil standing on the base of its towering neck.

“Oh damn…” Jason seethed.

Damn was right. This thing looked impossible to beat, as far as they were concerned.

“Is this a good time to call in an air strike, Leon?” Eric asked weakly.

He never replied. All he did was back away, slowly.

“So…it appears even you all have something you can’t tackle, isn’t it?” Virgil asked, sniggering loudly. It was curious as to how his voice carried on while he was on the dragon’s back.

“So what’s your plan them. Virgil? You’re going to stomp us out, and then what?” Leon said, gripping onto Cherisher tightly.

“Well…I’m not so sure myself, now that I’ve summoned this big guy out…” he replied, looking quite lost in thought. This made Shaz gawk.

“He’s got no idea what he’s gonna do next?!”

“Well, I don’t, not really. Still, getting rid of all of you, save for Trisha sounds like a good starter, no?” Virgil said before the dragon took a thundering step forward, lunging its neck forward.

“Get away!” Leon cried, the rest running in separate directions as the dragon’s mouth snapped violently at them.

Eric slammed both his swords to the ground to conjure up a giant earth pillar, much like the one Virgil himself made earlier, and it collided with the dragon’s head dead-on, making it stagger several steps back, it’s head crashing dizzily on the ground.

Shaz then ran to the bas of the neck, dragging Authos along the ground as he did, and then in one movement, the jets fired up again, lifting himself up and the axe several feet up into the air as he slammed the blade right at the neck, the force of the explosion splitting it cleanly.

The dragon didn’t even manage to give a last roar as its head disintegrated within seconds, leaving a very large, headless body behind.

Wait, that’s it? Trisha thought, unbelieving for the first few seconds. Did only 2 of them manage to slay a dragon that easily? Then what was all of Leon’s worry for?

Chris and Jason were actually rolling on the floor, laughing. “1 minute! It didn’t even take a minute for them to kill that thing!” Jason cried, Trisha herself suppressing a chuckle of her own. Virgil’s trump card appeared to be nothing short of an epic failure.

But his reaction caught her attention. He didn’t seem afraid, or even the slightest bit embarrassed. No. He was annoyed, of all things.

“Strange…the split should’ve occurred by now…” Virgil mused, crossing his arms in confusion.

Then the seeming impossible happened. The dragon –still missing its head- stood upon all fours as if the decapitation never took place. Then the neck began to sway a little before the cross-section of where Shaz had cleaved earlier began to grow and split until not one, but two dragon heads shot straight out of it, the wound healed.

Shaz, who joined the laughing mere seconds ago, was now left speechless. Both the dragon’s heads were snarling at him and Eric each as Virgil grinned.

“That’s not a dragon we’re fighting,” Leon said, readying his sword.

“What?” Trisha asked, readying her who twin pistols.

“It’s a Hydra.”

“A what?” she asked again. She hated not getting any answers.

“Something like a dragon, only it doesn’t breathe fire or fly,” Peter explained. “It however has the ability to-“

“Grow back lost heads?”

Peter only looked at Trisha for a moment or two before nodding. “If you put it that way, then well, yes.”

“Wonderful. Now how do we kill something that sprouts back heads?” Jason asked, gritting his teeth as he held Patriot at the ready.

Leon and Peter looked at each other. The only known method they both studied in killing a hydra was to destroy its body in its entirety. But how were they going to do so?

“Ken!” Peter yelled. “Drive a large ice stake through its head!”

Ken obeyed and conjured up a rather large ice shard that was roughly the size of a car, and then sent it flying towards one of the heads, stabbing it right through. The head then fell onto the ground with a thunderous boom, shaking the earth.

“Why?” Leon simply asked.

“Without cutting off the head, we can just try killing it like this, right? There’d be no need for it to regenerate,” Peter reasoned, and Leon smirked.

“Peter, sometimes I wonder why you never got a scholarship to Harvard,” Leon said before sending several of the crimson red orbs at the remaining dragon head, Jason conjuring yet another ball of water at its head too.

Though much more agile than the ogres, the dragon couldn’t escape the water ball in time and was slowly drowning. Before, it gave up fighting and its head hung in the water sphere, lifeless.

“There. That should do it,” Leon commented, Jason breathing in slightly harder.

“Thank goodness. I’m beginning to run low on mana,” he said.

It was a fact. The rest were all rather exhausted as it was. They had no means of recuperating their mana like this in the middle of the battle. Now was a good time if any to take hold of Virgil before it was too late.

But he was still smiling. What was there to always smile about?

“If you think it’d take that much to kill a Hydra, you’re wrong,” he said, before the worst yet had to happen.

The seemingly 2 lifeless dragon heads now shook again before they split again into 4 very alive heads.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Eric yelled as the 4 heads snarled.

“It’s no use! How do we kill it?” Shaz asked as all of them now backed up. Facing 4 of them was not going to be easy.

“If you guys can cover me for a few seconds…I may be able to cast a slash big enough to split the whole body in two,” Leon said, still quite deep in thought.

“Won’t doing that just make it split into another Hydra?!” Trisha gasped, but Peter shook his head.

“No. Hydras can regenerate their heads but not their entire body. The regenerative powers come directly from the body itself, so destroying it may kill it for good.”

“It’s worth a shot. How long do you need, Leon?” Chris asked, summoning several spheres of what appeared to be fire around him.

“A few seconds…ten, give or take. I’m going to put all my remaining mana into this one,” Leon said, raising Cherisher up.

“Alright. Let’s go!” Chris said as he fired several arrows, the spheres of fire shooting fire bolts that followed the arrows, killing one head, and splitting it into 2 more.

The rest followed suit, attacking the Hydra as the gun barrel on Cherisher began to spin wildly, the center gap glowing blue. He knew he only had one shot, and he had to make it count.

Virgil saw what Leon was doing and immediately he gritted his teeth. “Oh no you don’t!”

All of the Hydra’s heads then focused on Leon, and they lunged for him.

“Cover him!” Peter yelled, summoning a storm gust that stopped several of the Hydra’s heads form reaching Leon, Ken impaling one of them with some ice shards as Shaz decapitated one, Eric creating a pillar that smashed straight into one of its necks, snapping it.

They split almost immediately, Trisha counting at least 10 heads now being unnaturally balanced by one body.

She heard Leon yell from behind her and instinctively she got as far away from his slashing radius as she could.

Leon then slashed downwards, a great blue arc ensuing from the blade and flew on towards the Hydra’s body.

It almost made contact when the Hydra made one seemingly impossible sidestep, dodging the slash but not without losing a couple of heads that didn’t make it.

The luminescent arc then disappeared shortly after missing its intended target.

“Damn!” Leon yelled, before collapsing onto the ground, Trisha yelling his name as she rushed to him.

‘That’s it. I’m out of mana. We all almost are. It’s too late now,” he said, sounding resigned. It was so uncharacteristic of him.

“There’s got to be another way. There has to be, right?” she asked, clutching onto him as he couldn’t even find it within himself to even get up.

“There was. But we’re all almost out of mana now. We’re a miracle short of a basket of mana potions right now or-”

In that instant, Leon was engulfed in a bright, warm light that sparkled around him. Even Trisha could feel the warmth herself, and felt slightly better, as if some of the battle’s fatigue was taken right off her.

“-…a White Mage…” Leon finished, then getting up instantly to turn around. Trisha got up to, to see a long-haired girl clutching onto a white, wing-shaped staff with her right hand outstretched to Leon’s direction.

“Just couldn’t live without me, can’t you?” Rosemund Wan asked, smiling warmly at Leon, who was so tempted to hug her right there and then.

“Rose! You’re a life-saver!” he said instead as she just giggled at him.

“I try. And how’re you holding up, Trisha?” she asked, Trisha returning the smile.

“I’ll hold,” she said with a wink.

Rose smiled serenely once more before walking forward ever-so-slightly, observing the situation.

“So…a Hydra, huh? That Virgil guy’s really good at being a major bother, isn’t he?” she asked with a slight hint of amusement in her voice. She could’ve sworn she saw Trisha roll her eyes as she muttered “You have no idea…”

“Well then this may help,” Rose said before bringing her staff forward, the blue gem in the center glowing.

It then shone brightly for a brief second, and the boys –Trisha included, were engulfed with the same soft white light that Leon was showered with earlier.

“Whoah, who casted the Mana Replenishing spell?” Jason asked as he created a wall of water against the Hydras, Peter gliding along back to the ground with a trail of wind currents behind him.

“I did,” Rose said with a grin, Ken laughing as he fired several ice shards. “Good to have you on the team, Rose,” Peter said, the rest all now regrouping back, the other boys either waved or greeted Rose.

“So you think you can take it down now?” Rose asked as they thought for a good few seconds, the Hydra still trying to break through the wall of water.

Jason looked thoughtful too until a spark hit him.

“Guys! Group huddle!” he said excitedly, beckoning all the boys to a hushed discussion, leaving Rose and Trisha to remain out of it, quite perplexed.

“Do they do this often?” Trisha asked, Rose shrugging as she giggled again.

Leon heard her and peered up for a brief moment, only to have Ken force him back into the discussion, the girls trying their best to suppress their now seemingly hard to control fits of laughter.

It was a few seconds before they broke from the discussion and Leon approached Rose.

“Rose, you think you can spare us a few more support spells? I think we’ve got a sure-shot way of killing it,” he said. She could have easily doubted that, but it was that twinkle in his eyes that led her to believe that he had confidence in this plan.

She couldn’t help but smile at that.

“Sure. But It’s gonna be kind of taxing, buffing all of you at once,” she said, leaning forward on her staff.

“It’ll take just awhile, I promise. Trisha, you in?” Leon asked as he was getting ready to head forward.

The girl just nodded, a smile leaning in on her lips.

“Alright. Now let’s show this bastard what the Aces can really do!” Leon yelled, the rest roaring in agreement, save for the girls.

Virgil and the Hydra, now breaking through the wall, charged forward at them as they began charging head-on at the monstrosity.

Rose took in a deep breath before non-verbally casting a whole myriad of spells at the boys, increasing their speed, agility, and overall strength by a few notches.

Shaz went ahead, heaving Authos off the ground as he dodged one Hydra head and ran up another, using the same mana-steps skill that Trisha exhibited earlier. When he was at the highest point, he leapt mid-air, being directly above the Hydra’s body.

With one more roar, he spun several times, almost glowing as fiery-orange as the axe’s jets before he threw it onto the Hydra’s body. It crashed onto it, not piercing its skin but slamming the beast straight to the ground, pinning it there.

Eric almost staggered as the ground shook once more at the tremors, but remained vigilant as he spun Redeemer several times before slamming them onto the ground. The ground around the Hydra itself caved in, trapping it and preventing it from moving away. Eric then created several of the same tendrils Virgil made earlier, but this time he made them immensely large and stabbed the beast with it, holding it down further.

Jason held Patriot with both hands as he readied himself for the next step. He swung it from his extreme right to the left, creating a great arc of water midair.

Peter held Sakabatou on his right hand as he concentrated a large amount of air around the arc of water, pressing and balancing it firmly until it was the perfect shape, and then lunged the whole thing forward.

Ken leapt forward towards the water arc and slashed Brotherhood once, freezing the entire sheet until it became one giant blade of ice that Peter continued to lunge at the middle of the Hydra’s many necks, Ken also propelling it further.

The giant blade then cleaved right through them all, leaving them headless as the severed heads dematerialized.

Chris then fired what appeared to be arrow after arrow of what was seemingly made out of pure fire as they all gathered to form a rather huge stream of fire. The stream then engulfed the necks, burning it immediately.

“Ah, I get it. He’s cauterizing the wounds,” Rose commented, rubbing her chin.

“Sorry?” Trisha asked, not taking her eyes off the trail of fire that worked its way to the base of the Hydra’s neck.

“Cauterizing. It’s like healing the wound by burning it. That may stop the cell regeneration that the Hydra needs to well…regenerate.”

Trisha only nodded as Leon, who was standing quite a distance from the Hydra, raised Cherisher and began what he did earlier.

“Damn! No you don’t!” Virgil yelled, almost slamming his fists onto the Hydra when Trisha caught him first.

She fired a hail-fire of her enchanted bullets, all flying towards him. Before Virgil managed to finish transfiguring anything, every single one of those round exploded mere feet from him, sending him flying off the Hydra and onto the hard solid ground.

This time, Leon did not utter a single word as he slashed Cherisher down, and then slashing once more sideways sending yet another blue arc towards the beast.

This time, it did make contact with it, and severed it cleanly into 4 with both horizontal and vertical arcs.

It did not regenerate, but instead, dematerialized like it should’ve done ages ago.

Virgil, who was staggering up, tried to transfigure something, anything but was blasted off the ground again by Trisha as she continued to pelt him with round after round after round from her position far back.

The boys were all panting heavily, unable to get up as they were virtually out of mana right there and then. Even Rose herself was unable to replenish anything as even her mana count was quite drained out. Buffering multiple targets at once wasn’t something she normally did.

As Trisha walked forward, she noticed her pistol’s chambers were empty. She was truly out of ammo now. She only had the blades to use. Was it really necessary?

“Trisha…wait,” she heard Leon gasp as she walked by him.

She turned around to see him tossing something at her. She immediately grasped it, feeling its cold, familiar metallic form. She opened her hands to confirm her thoughts. It was a bullet for her gun. One bullet.

She merely looked at him. Was he thinking the same thing she thought? Was he really expecting her to kill him?

“One bullet in the middle ought to do it. Right in the middle,” he said, sitting down to try and rest, his still breathing heavily, his gaze unyielding towards her. She hated sometimes when his deep brown eyes could just connect with hers. “I know you can make the right choice.”

She nodded and walked grimly towards Virgil, who couldn’t get up himself. Apparently her barrage earlier was too much for him to take.

The first thing she did once she reached him was to take off his gloves forcefully and folded them, tossing the pair aside.

“Smart move,” he commented before coughing out. Still trying to be smug.

She still had that bullet clutched in her right hand, and she was pressing it so hard against her skin that it began to hurt.

She opened her hand and held the bullet in between her thumb and index finger, examining it. It was every bit as gold and gleaming as one of her own. How quaint that as close to gold as they looked, all bullets were made out of copper at the jacket.

“So…you’re going to really kill me, dear?” she heard him ask, and she almost squished the bullet.

“Don’t tempt me,” she growled. “You endangered my friends. Threatened to kill them. Threatened the safety of anyone else who stood in the way. You said that piece yourself! You’re a threat to us all, Virgil. And I have to do what I must.”

One bullet.

She summoned one of her pistols.

Right in the middle.

She slid the bullet into the vacant, empty chamber.

I know you can make the right choice.

She cocked it, and the round was in. The safety lock was off.

And she aimed the pistol right at Virgil’s head.

Right in the middle.

He looked shocked, shaken, terrified even. But after a few seconds of continuous blinking he began to realize something.

“Not up to it?”

Her finger was against the trigger, ready to pull it. Why did have to be still so full of himself, even when staring death in the face?

She’d done it a million times before. She’d fired round after round without hesitation before. Why was it so hard to do it now? So hard to pull the trigger, which seemed to be glued shut from her?

She actually took a second to see if the safety lock was truly off.

Yeah, it was.

“Well, I have to die by your hands, Trish, let it be done. I wouldn’t let it happen if it was anyone else. Just you,” Virgil said, closing his eyes. It was as if he was taunting her to shoot.

If this was what he wanted, then fine.

She could at least grant this bastard something in the end, right?

She strengthened her grip, and fired.

Alcohol was never advisable for a melancholic time, but Trisha couldn’t really give a damn.

“Do I even want to know where you kept this stash of cherry-rum?”

Leon barely hid his smirk as he took a swig from his own bottle.

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies, dear.”

“Do you want to join Virgil?”

“Hey, if it wasn’t for my bullet, you’d have to skewer him,” Leon rebutted.

“Oh shaddup.”

Trisha hit Leon playfully on the shoulder just as he was taking another sip, making him spray off his drink. Trisha never remembered laughing so hard in weeks.

“Will you both just shut up and get a room already?”

Both Leon and Trisha glared daggers at Shaz’s direction. The others laughed as they took sips of their beer. They figured that they owed themselves a stiff one after what transpired recently.

But Trisha felt she didn’t need to join in the fray as Leon proceeded to playfully swat Shaz on the chest, regretting his actions alter as he soothed his hand.

She almost felt like she didn’t deserve to celebrate. This trouble was indirectly (and as if she would admit) her fault. Virgil was after her, wasn’t he? Leon intervened yesterday because he was being a friend. And this whole mess transpired into something much uglier.

“So…how long do you think Virgil will last in there?” Jason asked.

That was an excuse to turn back, if any.

“I’d give him a few days,” Ken said, looking bitter.

“Give him a few hours,” Shaz said for good measure.

That sent them laughing again.

Still it wasn’t enough for Trisha to laugh or lighten her up her mood.

“Hey, I thought I was the mopey one,” Leon said, nudging his shoulder against hers.

“Yeah, well…I’m not in the mood, really,” she said nonchalantly.

Leon remained silent for a few moments, studying her look. Was she really this depressed right here, right now?

“Anything you wanna tell me?” he asked, and she glanced at him for the smallest second.

She just stared straight forward after that, not wishing to look at Leon at that moment.

“I’m sorry Leon. It’s just-”

“I’m not one of them yet?”

She turned to look at him, straight in the eye. He was smiling at her, yes, but his eyes said otherwise.

“No, it’s not that! It’s just-”

She couldn’t even complete the sentence. What was her reason, exactly?

“It’s ok, Trish. You know I’m fine with it,” he said, still smiling. Was he honest?

She knew he’d ask again sometime soon. He was just too stubborn about her wellbeing.

“Other than that, I commend you on my tip earlier, Trish.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“My tip. One bullet, right in the center.”

“Oh,” she chuckled. “That. Well, yeah. I sorta knew you meant Virgil’s gloves. I mean, if I was aiming for his head, anywhere would’ve been fine right? Not something as painfully specific as the middle.”

“But you were quick to know that shooting the Alchemist Circle on his gloves dispels everything he transfigured. I mean, imagine what would’ve happened if we left the campus field in that state.”

Trisha chuckled for real this time.

“So you think the judge would go easy on Virgil?”

“Maybe. I don’t really care about that prat,” Leon finished, taking yet another sip.

Trisha managed a weak smile before staring ahead herself. Today was a stupid waste of her time, by her books. All of this could’ve been avoided, really.

But still, she hardly spent time with Leon and his motley crew. If this was how they bonded, well, she wouldn’t mind spending an occasion like this every once in awhile.

Maybe next time she’d let them do all the work. Seeing them fight was much more entertaining than being in the middle of it, anyway.

And she knew without a doubt that none of the boys would agree with her on that one.

…Wouldn’t they?

A/N: Ah yes, this brings another short arc to an end. If you were wondering, yes, Virgil is still alive, and that one shot Trisha fired? It was to the gloves she grabbed from him. Destroying the gloves meant that all the pent-up mana inside there were released and it fixed all the damages to the campus grounds, such as the holes on the ground, the earth tendrils, the huge gaping hole Eric created etc.

Next up! We’ll see a more realistic or should I say, more down-to-earth approach to the plot line. I haven’t figured out exactly *what* it’ll be about, but time will tell.

This is Leon, signing out.

Cheers.