Crystal Legacies: Rebirth

Chapter 25

"You can't hit me now Mari, I have a human ice princess as a shield!"

Razaria squirmed in her grasp. "I don't want to be hit either Ivy!"

"Cheater!" Mari called out with a pout. "DANTE SHE'S KIDNAPPING RAZARIA!"

"Hey, no fair!" Ivy called out. "Donny isn't a part of this!

"Dante you better come save your damsel in distress!" Mari shouted not really thinking about her words, or what they would mean to Razaria with her current train of thought.

"Ivy, stop using her as a shield, you know she can't take as much damage even if it is just a sparring match!" Dante yelled across to them.

Ivy sighed and relented. She let go of Razaria who, at this point, had enough and decided she wasn't even going to wait for them to fall asleep. She was leaving and she was leaving now. If Razaria hadn't walked away when she did, they would have seen just how deep their words cut her. It sucked having things she already felt bad about shoved in her face. As she walked away, Razaria tried to force back the tears of frustration. She didn't want to cry in front of the group; she didn't need them seeing another weakness.

She was far enough away that she didn't hear Dante groan to himself. Nor did she see him shoot the girls a reprimanding look as he got up. He followed after her, taking larger steps than she had and so caught her before she got too far away. The closer they got towards the road, the thicker the trees had gotten. They had picked their camping location based on the amount of foliage between them and the road to make it hard for snipers to pick them off from a distance. Razaria had been headed back towards the country road they'd turned off of; it was a few miles away from their off the-grid camping location. So he would have had plenty of time to catch her even if he hadn't caught up to her quickly.

"Hey, they were just playing around," Dante said as he grabbed her arm, trying to get her to stop walking.

When he saw the tears that had started to fall down her cheeks during her escape attempt, Dante felt even worse over the situation. He wasn't exactly sure what he had said wrong but she'd only got up from the group after he said something. Therefore, in his head, it had been his fault somehow.

"It's true though," Razaria started, finally stopping in her tracks. "I will always be a problem for you guys. I'm not trained, I'm not strong, I can't win a fight against anyone like you."

"We can work on all that," Dante responded, choosing his words carefully.

"You guys all trained for years to get to where you are!" She yelled at him. "Who's to say that when we get attacked again I won't become a liability to you? Or anyone else for that matter? If one of you guys got hurt because of me I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Don't you get that?"

"I get it. No one likes when their friends get hurt, fault or no fault," Dante expressed as he let his hand slip down from the top of her arm. "But trying to run away isn't the solution. I know my father Razaria. He won't stop coming after us just because you leave. It'll just be that he could get to you a lot easier if you're on your own and then turn right back around and use you against me. It's better if we stick together."