Elemental | KTH | ✔️

| THIRTY - ONE |

You could feel how anxious all of us were, the Haunters were almost never ending. Once one wave were destroyed, the screeches from another could be heard. The Commander also muttered to Thatch, that he could feel the creatures that couldn't get through the barrier, just patrolling around the edges, almost trying to find a weak spot to try and get in.

Tae was almost stuck to me. He was as close as he could be without physically touching me. My skin ached for him, and even my magic was pulling at him, which didn't surprise me.

"Sir?" I called out quietly, making the Commander turn to look at me.

I knew Tae wouldn't like what I was going to say.

"Can I test the theory of the Haunters... wanting me?" I said very quietly, only making sure the four of us could hear me.

Tae's head snapped down to look at me, looking completely bewildered.

"Absolutely not" he breathed out, shaking his head.

Commander Asher looked between us, "in what way, Verity?"

"We will move away from the group. I mean I'm not sure what gain if we know it's true, but it's still information, when we don't have any" I muttered.

The screeches around us, echoing from the barrier made my skin crawl once again.

"Move further into the grounds in front of us, so we can all help if needs be" was all he said.

Tae physically tensed, and as I took a few steps away, I turned back to look at him. His eyes were already jet black, the tiny threads over lapping one another , as his lips curled over his teeth. He wasn't doing that action at me, I knew that.

"Taehyung, I would not agree to it if I knew the both of you couldn't handle it" the Commander added after a few seconds of silence.

The others watched us walk, and the Commander called out the plan, making them all glance at one another. You could see that this also made them uncomfortable.

We stood about one hundred yards away from them, giving enough space all around us so we could see. We stood with our backs to one another, which was comforting in a way since we were touching.

"This is stupid, baby" Tae breathed out very quietly.

"I need to know" I replied.

Tae sighed, I felt his shoulders ease against my back.

"Even if it's true, we can't do anything about it" Tae said back quickly.

I didn't reply, because I knew it was true.

As I glanced in front of me, even before Tae could sense the creatures, I saw the two grey blurs, heading right towards me. Tae span, standing next to my side as I raised a hand, shooting vines out of the ground to grab at the ankles of the Haunters, slamming them to ground just as they both went to spring away from the grass.

"Three behind us" Tae quickly said, looking behind us.

With a flick of my wrist, I covered the Haunters in vines, sticking them to the ground and I heard the snapping of their bones, along with the screeches.

I raised my other hand as I stood to my side, facing Tae and a large path of fire spread away from me, the air encouraging the fire to move faster, to reach the end goal of the three creatures.

As soon as my fire touched them, it spread around their greying skin, and they all began screaming, clawing at their own skin. I flexed my fingers, the fire turning into a pure inferno, we could barely see the creatures anymore as they crumbled to the ground.

It gave me a sick satisfaction, watching that.

Tae snapped his head behind him, "that's too many"

I creased my eyebrows together as I looked around him. There was an easy ten Haunters, breaking through the trees.

I panicked slightly, until I heard Tae's voice, "let it all go, you can do this. I'm right here, they won't get close"

With one flick of my wrist, I drew the fire from deep within my magical core. I could feel it traveling under the earth underneath me, and within a second, a large wall of flames appeared right in front of the Haunters that had began sprinting.

They all screeched, seeing the flames burning bright.

I opened my palm, sending the air through the flames, as the flames danced onto the creatures, their screams of pure panic and terror made me smile.

The smoke was coming back towards us, so I blew it away to give us a clear view.

Tae and I stood there, watching the creatures fall to the ground, a few had managed to move a handful of feet away from the wall of fire still glowing brightly.

Once I drew my fire away gently, letting it seep back into me, Tae turned to look down at me, "you are fucking amazing"

I couldn't help but smile, and as I turned to look at the group behind us, my smile quickly disappeared.

"Yoongi!" Tae screamed, seeing exactly what I was also seeing.

On top of the building, we saw the Haunter standing there on the slatted roof, and it had already began jumping by the time Tae had finished calling.

The Haunter landed right behind Hobi, and just as it reached out to claw at Hobi's back, Yoongi was right there, just as Hobi tensed and fell to the floor.

The creature was torn into two pieces, as Yoongi sunk his teeth into it's neck, ripping it apart.

Tae grabbed my hand just as I began starting to run, "five behind us"

I let out an aspirated sound, having to rip my eyes away from our group.

My heart was heavy as I quickly flicked my hands out, sending a lot of tiny bolts, I wasn't even sure on where they were meant to be going right as of now as I couldn't see the Haunters. But I trust they found their way to them, as I heard the screeched from the forest as the glowing bolts found their way to their target.

Once I saw them, I quickly threw stones covered in ice, going into their chests from how slowly they were slugging along from their organs being fried from the inside. Their hearts were destroyed.

Tae grabbed my hand, as we made our way to the others.

Hobi was sat up now, looking at the ground as Yoongi was knelt in front of him, a hand on his shoulder. He looked completely out of it, as it looked like he was trying to keep his breathing under control.

Just as we had nearly covered the ground between us all, Tae froze, tugging me back with my hand.

Then I was pushed onto the ground, as Tae was on top of me, and then I heard the snarling of a Haunter. I couldn't see, from the fact my face was right into Tae's chest.

I sent out bolts, not knowing on where they should go yet again, but I knew they would know where to go. Tae was heavily breathing, his arms were braced tightly on the ground either side of me as he pushed himself up.

A scream made both of us look at each other, with wide eyes.

"NO!" We heard Lily's high pitched cry.

Tae was still keeping me very close to him as we stood back up, I saw the convulsing Haunter only a few feet away from us on the floor, and I quickly shot a thick vine out from the ground underneath it, severing it's head from it's shoulders.

My mouth parted in shock, as my eyes began to fill with tears.

Jin had the Haunter's grey head in his hand, before he threw it behind him.

Elle, slowly fell to the floor, gripping onto the soft part of the side of her neck. My hand came up to cover my quivering mouth, as Tae took a step back, his hand quickly coming back to touch my own, but making sure nobody could see.

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