Re:Monster - Re:Vival

Day Five

"Careful guys... it might be a variant."

The man with the shield spoke up cautiously, alerting the others that they should show the same cautiousness. He referred to me as a possible variant but... what is that? I knew not being able to speak would be the most annoying part of it all. I needed to hurry up and kill something with a telepathy ability or something similar.

"Kara, take the left. Wren, ready a fire spell. Eri, keep it distracted. Make sure that spell hits."

The three of them nodded in response to the shield user's commands. What a bunch of idiots. I mean, I get that I was a skeleton so my intelligence should have been close to nil but come on. Who explains their plan right in front of the one they're trying to take down? At least use hand signals or something.

The large woman with the mace followed her orders first, moving to my left while the young boy I assume is a mage stayed near the leader. Smart, considering he was the only real threat. No matter what the others did, I had to take down the kid first. After all, I was a little more vulnerable to fire than other skeletons. A fact I only had myself to blame for.

The excitable girl charged in first. The distraction. I intended to knock her on her arse and charge for the boy but I was surprised by the girl's skill. She didn't let up with her punches and kicks. If I dodged her punch to the left, she'd thrust her foot towards my legs in an attempt to trip me. She kept me on my toes. However, she wasn't the only issue. The mace woman was a pain as well. Any time the girl showed an opening and I went for it, I'd find a mace coming for my skull, forcing me to back off and miss my chance. These two, at the very least, were used to working together.

Annoying. That was the only word I could think of to describe the pair of women. Every time I got used to their movements, they'd change them again. Mixing and matching different styles and swings on the run wasn't an easy thing to do but even that wasn't the most annoying part. They were weak. That was the annoying part. Before I died, guys like them wouldn't take a second to take out. It was aggravating.

No, I guess it wasn't their weakness that was annoying me. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, not that it showed on my face. Then it happened. I let my anger get to me and lashed out at the martial artist girl. Surprisingly, I landed the hit. It was a powerful, direct hit to the side of her head. I understood almost immediately as I saw the mace woman's shocked expression. Without knowing, I'd fallen into their rhythm. Lashing out had broken me free.

In that moment, they panicked. The girl stumbled for a moment while the mace woman took over. She swung her mace horizontally, attempting to take my head off. I ducked, responding with an elbow to the gut followed by a patella to the same area.

As she doubled over, I was about to land a blow to the back of her head when the other girl grabbed me from behind, locking me in a full-nelson.

"Now, Wren!"

The leader stepped away, allowing the boy, who was holding his staff out in front him to finish mumbling something. As he did, the red gem in his staff began to glow and a ball of fire appeared in front of it. If that hit me, I was dead. My instincts were screaming that fact at me.

I reacted as fast as I could, activating [Evil Eye] to delay the launch of the fireball for a moment. After that, I activated [Slippery Skin] to slip out of the girl's grasp and quickly position myself behind her, using [Grapple] to keep her in position, unable to move or defend herself as the ball of flames was launched towards us.

The fireball hit. Hard. It knocked both of us off our feet, landing a short distance from the impact. It hurt. This was the first time since coming back from the dead that I'd been hurt so goddamn much. The flames never even touched my bones but it felt like my soul was being melted. The burning, yet still alive, body of the girl i'd used as a human shield had been gradually eating away at my own body. I threw her off of me and drew my sword, having lost the bone at some point during the explosion.