Tribal

15

The two mantises burst into Hollow's throne room. "Where is she!" Ash shouted. Hollow looked up in confusion.

"Ah, the mantis lords. Welcome, I assume you mean your fellow lord we currently have in custody?" Hollow was remaining calm in his tone.

"Yes! We need to take her back home immediately!" Reed demanded.

"I assure you there is no need for the urgency, she is safe and healthy. Please sit, let us talk." Hollow said, unaware of the situation.

"Urgency is definitely needed, she is a murderer and must be tried by mantis law!" Ash spoke loudly. When Hollow heard this he stopped. After a short while he stood.

"I will take you to her room immediately." He quickly led the two mantises out of the room and down the corridors. when he arrived at Acacia's room, he unlocked the door with his master key and opened the door. She wasn't in the room.

"Where is she?" Reed asked.

"She was supposed to be here, unless." Hollow finally understood his brother's nervousness. "We need to go now." He turned to the lord. "Split up, she could be anywhere." He took off in one direction while Ash and Reed went the opposite way. A few hallways over a incredible battle was taking place.

Hornet threw her needle at Ghost, which he blocked and moved toward her. He thrust his nail towards her but she dodged, she was always a more agile fighter than him, he didn't want to use spells, they might miss, and if they did he could damage Hollow's palace, he didn't want to attract the anger of his brother anymore than he already was. Acacia and Quirrell were fighting so fast that Hornet couldn't make out who was who all she could do was hope that Quirrell was the better fighter, she had let herself get distracted thinking about Quirrell and Ghost had grabbed one of her horns and threw her down the hall she quickly adjusted herself and launched a barrage of threads towards Ghost he charged a dash a flew towards her, dodging the threads along the way. 

She grabbed a few of her spike traps and threw them down the hall towards Ghost, he hit all of them out of the air and continued to swing his blade in her direction, she knew a single hit from him would be devastating to her, likely wouldn't defeat her immediately but she would be in pretty bad condition he swung his sword and she ducked underneath, then he did something she didn't expect, he held his hand to her face preparing a spell, she couldn't dodge it so his spell hit her right in the face. It threw her even further down the hall when she stood, she realized she hadn't been hurt but she felt incredibly sluggish and tired. She couldn't fight like this! She was likely to be defeated now. "What did you do!" She demanded to know.

"Its a simple sleep spell sister. I have no desire to hurt you. I lured you to a spot I knew I could hit you and then cast my most powerful sleep spell. Even if I can't land another hit on you, you will likely pass out soon." Ghost was proud of his tactic. Hornet was not.

"You..." She began to sway side to side. "Asshole..." She began to fall forward, Ghost dashed forward and caught her. He walked over to where Acacia and Quirrell were fighting, Acacia was dodging all his strikes, but she could not land a single hit on him, it was a battle of patience and perseverance, whoever had more stamina and will to continue would be the victor. The battle waged on for what felt like forever, luckily for her however, she had grown up training. So her endurance was far greater than the pillbug's she could see him begin to slow down, she found an opening a struck a pressure point on his side, he collapsed on the floor. Ghost had asked that if they ran into anyone and they had to fight, if she could try to avoid hurting anyone. She agreed, luckily she knew that pillbugs were weak where their shell sections met, a light jab to the area would cause them to involuntarily curl up into a ball.

She tied him up so he couldn't uncurl, when Quirrell realized this, he just sat there. There was nothing he could do after all. Complaining would get him nowhere, and he was physically stuck in his shell and unlikely to be able to escape soon. He heard Ghost's voice from outside. "She is asleep, I'll leave her here next to him, when she wakes up in a few hours she'll be able to cut him lose, and will likely be furious at us." Furious was an understatement, the sun itself was jealous of the amount of fire Hornet had when she was angry. Quirrell decided that his best bet was to just sleep while he waited for Hornet to wake up. Ghost laid his sister down next to her husband. He and Acacia stood and left. They began to run down the halls again dodging and weaving past guards and servants eventually they made it about halfway down when they were stopped by two familiar faces.