Woven

Finale: Chapter 20

Aly

Aly waved her scythe around, tearing through yet another wave of demons. She didn't care about it being hard to form, she just wanted to wield its glorious pick blade. She didn't have a HappyMo or anything that could summon it for her, so she'd used the time she'd had to form it out of the ground, pliable as it was. Now she was slicing through the army of demons like they were made of paper. It was good fun and took her mind off of things.

Understanding what her goal was, defense of the dome, however contrary it felt, was important to her, since it gave her a sense of purpose. Aly thought about Kyo in there, all alone and probably having his own battle. He'd better be all right. If he wasn't... what? He was right, she barely knew him. So why did she feel like she had such a connection with him? Whenever he spoke with telepathy, his inner voice was weird, but it always reminded her of... no, but that couldn't be. He was still awake and moving even before Aly fell asleep.

Blinking out of her reverie, Aly deflected an axe from one of the minotaur demons, spinning closer to the beast and slicing through it with the edge of her weapon. She found it fascinating that instead of falling to the ground and spouting blood, they simply faded into darkness. To her, it was a little disappointing, since she had seen more than her fair share of gory video games or anime, so this fantasy violence was really nothing.

Aly found herself leaping around with her scythe, spinning and flipping just like her fanime character, Mii-chan would. Aly had never been athletic, but it helped to use wind to her advantage. And since her weapon was already formed...

"Transform!" She yelled. Aly didn't care if she sounded cringy; she was having fun and she wanted guns. She broke her scythe in the middle of the pole and each half of it morphed into a glowing, pink pistol. They were really flashy, casting pink and purple sparkles over the surrounding beasts. Aly let loose, blasting round after round of ethereal ammunition into her audience. Crowd. Mob? What was a good word for a waiting group of monsters? Ugh, she was no good at narrating.

The field around her was pretty clear, so she heard the loud shattering noise from behind her. That was weird. Aly was pretty sure the only thing behind her was the... oh. She had turned to see what it was and watched as the shards of what was once the Reaper clattered down like a broken window, surrounding a small, white-robed figure in the middle.

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Ryan

Another one bit the dust, jammed in the jaw by an ash-covered rock spire. Ryan felt as if every monster around his was targeting him. He supposed they were, since they probably chose their target based on smell. Not that he was calling himself smelly, but he felt pretty much alone, isolated as he was within this mob, so it was probably a lot easier for them to mob him rather than go off in search of another target.

Happily, though, Ryan obliged the demon scrambling for their taste of his sword. The fighting style he'd created around it required a lot of twisting and turning, so he aided it, blasting jets of wind from his free hand or rooting his foot in the epicenter of an earthen whirlpool. With the combination of his ferocious fighting methods and his manipulation of the ground, huge clouds of dust were thrown up, clogging the air around him.

And that worked to his advantage. Even as he was focusing on destroying immediate threats, Ryan was able to feel new ones that entered his shroud of dust. These demons, if he could spare the concentration, were immediately speared with rocks from below, destroyed by a thrown projectile, or simply choked when the cloud suddenly collapsed around them.

Eventually, they seemed to get the idea, for none were now entering Ryan's area. So, instead of wait for more, he condensed the surrounding cloud into manipulatable threads of earth, swirling around him like tentacles. With the obstruction gone, he was able to see his surroundings; countless demons crowded in specific locations, including his. Thankfully, the number was six, which meant none of his friends had fallen yet. And still, they were somehow holding the horde back from the Reaper.