Fight!

Kara and Jeane were upstairs, your Step-Father was behind you. You had to worry about a gang of goons surrounding the building, a bunch of sharks inside and in particular one Kismet and one Nadine that were a few feet away. Your Step-Father, in the middle of your calculations, pats you on the shoulder from behind.

“I believe in you, sweetie.” He says while sweating bullets. The man wipes his brow.

You blush. “Sh-shut the hell up, ‘My Lord’!”

Kismet cocked his head to one side. “You still want to keep up the act? Very well. Why not? There’s no reason anyone else needs to share a secret that only you and I know.” He waves his hand without looking. The doors burst open from the outside as Kara and Jeane are immediately set upon. Your mind is running a mile a minute.

Can’t do anything about that right now. One thing at a time. Take out the fish, first. You thought, drawing and lunging at Nadine with the same forward motion. Your sword leaves a noticeably wake as it approaches the shark. Only to you and her does the fight feel like it is playing out in normal time as Kismet doesn’t even have time to react. Luckily the tip of your sword just barely wizzes past his face and he moves to look a second later and already sees you and Nadine in a new Position.

The Shark ducked the swing, but you drew it in, canceling the followthrough to try and jab down, instead. Before you could carry that action out she lunged for your mid section from her lower position with her fist. You responded by stepping back, and as she stepped forward you converted your jab into a parry, feeling the hard ringing of your hand as Nadine strikes the blade instead of your side.

All of that happens before Kismet has time to look over. He does manage to see Sam trying to slink away.

“Capture him!” He orders. More sharks jump from the water, at least three huge males, and begin closing in on your Step-Father.

“Dad!” You scream as he’s about to be surrounded. You have your attention drawn back to Nadine as she hooks a right towards your head, then a left. You side step both narrowly, gritting your teeth.

She trying to take my head off!?

“I want her ALIVE!” Kismet called out, noticing the same thing.

“What the hell?” Nadine frowns.

“That’s not fair, he’s tough! How am I supposed to do that while he’s tryin’ to kill me, man!?”

“That is your job, not mine.” Kismet glanced up to the balcony, feeling something was off.

You turned as Kismet luckily provided a distraction and tried to reach Sam, but it wasn’t enough.

“Where you lookin’?” Nadine uttered, grabbing your shoulder from behind. It was luckily your left because the moment she got a grip it felt like a vice had gotten hold of your arm. You screamed out in pain and fell to one knee, but spun and swung up horizontally. Nadine had to let go, but not before crushing your shoulder painfully, causing you to lose that side. She nimbly leaned back under the flourishing swing, then continued stepping forward with determination.

“Dammit! If you care about fairness-” You were frustrated to have your attention drawn two places at once. Your own fight and your Step-Father’s imminent danger. You were the one who originally thought to take things one thing at a time, but you also tended to get a bit irrational where your family was concerned.

Nadine grinned, showing a full mouth of sharp white teeth. “Don’t care if it’s unfair for you. I just want it to be fair for me.” She explained, kicking towards your chest. You raised your sword, but guarding with one hand was iffy and you lost your balance, sliding back closer to Sam. Still, things were rough. That was until and explosion of colour rocked the upper level.

“What?” Kismet gritted his teeth.

Upstairs moments ago Jeane and Kara were being surrounded. “This is so ghastly! I am going to get in so much trouble if I have to use my magic here. Can you do something?”

Kara turned her head and looked, smiling and offering a thumbs up as she said. “No.”

“Those two things do not go together, you fool!” She uttered angrily. Kara looked down at her hand in response and turned her thumb down as if only just realising.

“Ugh… whatever. If we are to go down regardless.”

The first goon, a City Guard that was hired and controlled by Kisment, closed in and tried to grab Jeane all of the colour was suddenly drained from the environment, leaving it black and white. Those standing within like Kara and the others were as anomalies standing within what should’ve been just an illusion. Kismet could see from the ground the creeping black and white, consuming colour of the area in a circle from the balcony, then the explosion. With colours bursting out like fireworks. The mooks were blown back but not affected by the explosion. The dust cleared, showing one Jeane holding her hat and one Kara looking very drained, slumped over the bannister. But, there was something else.

They looked up to see a floating being behind Jeane. The creature was a tall slender female shape with wide bat wings and a long, slender tail. Her skin was perfectly white and her eyes an unnerving perfectly solid black. She was wearing barely any cloth, save for a loin cloth and a covering over her chest. She looked down at her claws on her left, then her right, then smiled wide.

“This offering is sufficient for two-minutes.”

“Just two…?” Jeane grumbled.

“I want to be fed more delicious colours and shapes.” She offered in a posh tone, licking her lips as she eyed Kara.

“Not that one. As much as I’d like to…”

“Very well.” She sighed.

“Next time I’ll find a painting or- or something else.”

“That will certainly do wonders for you next time, my dear Contractor.” The creature reached out as one of the guards decided to lunge forward in a panic at the sight.

“Deamon! Kill it!”

The being simply shoved him back to collide with the wall, his form sinking into it and flattening until he became something like a moving image on the walls. The lifelike paint struggled in vain and the eyes moved wildly as his lips quivered. The being kept eye-contact with the others, grinning cruelly as she reached a claw out, poking it into the wall. Slowly the colour was drained from the man until he was just an unmoving set of pale lines like an engraving on a tombstone.

Liam quietly backed out while the others attacked out of an unfortunate fight or flight instinct that landed on fight. The Deamon raised her other hand and effortlessly launched a colourful ball of gloopy paint at them both. It landed, then exploded out sending globs over both of them and out into the warehouse. One happened to land on one of the male sharks. The immediate recipient of the attack, the two men who were coated began to melt and scream as the rest of their body began to turn into paints matching the base colours of their skin and clothes and eyes and hair before just pooling on the ground. The Deamon floated over, landing in the paint and absorbing all of the colour into herself.

“Anything else?” The Deamon glanced back at Jeane.

“No. Nothing else.” Kismet said behind the thing. It turned back with a smug look that was wiped from her face the moment he lifted his blindfold for just an instant. Jeane watched in horror as her summoned creature lost its form and faded out until just a few drips of paint on the wood floor was left. The eyepatch was back so she did not even see how he did that, but she knew immediately that he was dangerous. Kismet stepped towards them, saying cryptically.

“You’re wondering. Asking how. There’s simply an order to things and your Patron is far, far weaker than mine.”

Below the shark that touched the pain was beginning to panic and scream. The others stopped what they were doing to try and drag him to the water.

“Get him in! Help him!” Nadine shouted, not caring that Sam was slinking away. She looked down to see that you were gone. You had used the distraction to rush to your Step-Father’s side. You still were not sure what was going on up a level but it was not as cut and dry as one side loses the other wins just yet so you wanted to secure your family. As you were about to reach him you saw him stop suddenly.

“Why’d you stop! Get out of here, please!” You begged, realising what it was too late as he turned slowly with his hands up.

“Minnea?” The little rodent was clinging to him, feet dug into his pockets and hand tightly clutching his collar as the other was clutching a dagger to Sam’s throat. You felt Nadine coming up behind you and could feel the tide shifting above as well.

I could secure him by killing her. You thought.

“It’s my family, Fin.” Minnea uttered.

“He has your family?” You blinked.

“He IS family! I can’t let you escape. Just give up, alright?” The mouse begged.

“You proved your-” She stopped, going limp and falling into your Step-Father’s arms. Your eyes caught his hands briefly pushing fingers into spots on her slender body. Sam smiled.

“Well, this is a turn. She said they were family. That means this one makes a good bartering chip, right?” He chuckled.

***

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this story and want to read more of it, more Chapters are currently available to read at https://www.patreon.com/TVWintergreen I upload new chapters every week day with extra content also being released constantly to my discord for Extra Tier Members."