TBATE Duality

Chapter 7

Jade Leywin POV

It's been a little more than 2 weeks since we started our journey to reach Xyrus, in these 2 weeks Art taught dad, Adam and Jasmine his [feint step] technique, while I explained the pressure trick to Angela.

We also celebrated our fourth birthday, by having cake I have no idea how mom managed to bake a cake since we're quite literally in the middle of nowhere, we also received gifts; just like in the novel Art received a knife from Jasmine, while I got a wand from Angela.

We are now on the grand mountains, making our way to the top where the teleportation gate linked to Xyrus is situated, something I always wondered was what kind of idiot choose to place a teleportation gate at the top of a mountain, I mean those things exist in order to make travelling easier so wouldn't it be logical to put it at the base of a mountain so one doesn't have to climb all the way up?

As I wondered about that I started feeling several presences ahead of us, at our current speed we will reach them in 10 minutes or so, I know who they are, I mentally prepared for the attack I know I can't interfere since if me and Art fight seriously alongside everyone else we wouldn't have much problem in disposing all of them, since they only have 4 mages on their side while we have 6 mages plus me and Art, while I don't like our chances in taking on an enemy mage I'm sure we would be able to take care of the non-mages allowing everyone else to focus on their mages.

Which means I have to come up with an excuse to prevent him from joining the fray.

"BANDITS!!!" as I think about a way to stop Art, Helen shouts as we reached the point where the bandits were

Immediately a couple of dozen arrows come flying our way, before they can reach us Angela conjures a wind barrier to stop them, the carts come to a halt and everyone prepare to engage the bandits, I could sense the 4 mages alongside 15 non-mages melee fighters and 27 archers.

"Leave only the women and the kids alive, and try not to leave any scar on them, after all damaged goods will sell for less"

As the man who I assume is the leader of the bandits says so I feel my blood boil in rage, I manage to calm down knowing that I can't change anything about this event, I can see Art as he grabs his knife with a honestly quite scary expression on his face, mom also notices this and immediately pulls us both into a hug.

"Don't worry I'm here, your dad and the other Twin horns will protect us ok?" mom quickly said this as she probably thought we were scared of them.

"Jade we should help them, you're a conjurer and I know you have some AOE offensive spells, we deal with the non-mages as dad and the others fight the mages"

Of course Art reached the same conclusion as he readied himself to join the battle, after all the plan wasn't bad since I do have several spells that can deal quite a lot of damage and with him in front of me I wouldn't need to worry about someone lucky enough to slip through my spells.

"We can't jump in Art we should stay here and protect mom just in case" I tell him as a plan to make sure he'll stay in the cart form in my mind

"What?! Don't tell you're scared, you should know we can deal with the non-mages!" Art yells at me angry that I didn't want to help our dad and the others

"It's not that but we need to stay here and protect mom, she's pregnant Art we can't let anything happen to her" I tell him knowing that with this he will fully focus on protecting mom

""What?! How do you know"" both mom and Art are surprised that I knew about her pregnancy.

"I can sense the baby with my sensory magic" I lied I knew about Eleanor thanks to the novel and while I'm fairly sure I'll be able to sense her in a couple of months right now she's still too small for me to sense her

"Okay then we stay here and protect mom do you think you can at least shoot down a couple of archers?" Art asks me as he gives up on going out.

"I could but it's best if we lay low, this way if we need to fight we'll have the surprise effect as no one would suspect us being mages also if I start shooting spells and they notice me they'll try that much harder to capture us"

"Okay..."

*CRASH*

As Art settles down our dad comes crashing in the cart just like in the novel he'd been overwhelmed by the enemy leader and he's now injured quite badly

"Dad!" "Honey!" Art and mom shouts seeing dad on the ground bleeding.

As she nervously contemplated what to do, fighting against her trauma in order to heal our father I can her him mutter something

"Cough! Alice, listen to me. Don't worry about me. If you use a healing spell right now, they'll realize what you are and try that much harder to capture you. They'll be willing to sacrifice a lot more if they know!" he stressed, his voice in a low whisper.

After a brief hesitation mom took out her wand and started healing dad, I can see her magic healing dad closing his wounds one by one.

"Art, as soon as mom finishes healing dad you take her down the road, I'll stay here and help dad, I can't augment myself like you do so I'll only slow you down, on the other hand I can dad some support with my spells" I explain my plan to Art

"What? No, no way I leave you here Jade" Art tries to protest

"Think about it mom is pregnant and we're too short to keep up with an adult running if we don't augment ourselves but I can't do it so I would only slow you down" as I try to reason with him the leader of the bandits notices us.

"Sonova— One of them's a healer! Don't let her get away!" the leader roared.

"We're out of time go NOW!" I yell at Art urging him to take our mom to safety.

As he reluctantly takes mom's hand and makes his way to reach the road, mom is too surprised to protest about me remaining behind.

As dad gets up and engage the leader once again I can sense the other 2 mages fighting Adam and Jasmine while the conjurer lays low avoiding attention.

"Damien! Forget the plan, don't let them live!" The leader barks out at the conjurer.

At this the conjurer gets up and I feel water mana gathering in front of him, moments later I can see a big ball of water being shot towards mom and Art

Just like in the novel Art pushes mom out of harms way and throws his knife at the conjurer taking him down with him.

"Aaaart!!!" I hear my mom desperate cry as she watches Art flying down the cliff as Durden tries to catch him with a spell.

Seeing her like this something inside me snaps, in my head I know this was inevitable, Art needed to fall for several reasons, hell I'm the one that made sure we would get attacked, yet seeing mom so desperate and dad rushing to her side crying made my rage explode.

I take out my wand and start gathering fire mana in front of me, I shape it and a spear made of fire forms in front of me, I aim at the leader and order my spear to shoot out.

"What the..." the leader is too surprised to see a kid casting a spell and can't protect himself in time.

My spear goes straight through him leaving a gaping, charred black hole in his chest where his heart was supposed to be.

The spell doesn't stop and keeps going until it crushes into the side of the mountain exploding and setting the archers on fire.

As they scream in pain burning to death I let out a scream of my own aimed at the few remaining melee fighters.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!"

I infuse my scream with wind attribute mana amplifying it and I can see the remaining bandits fall on the ground bleeding from their ears, my scream probably turned their brains into mush killing them.

At this I feel a searing pain from my core and lose consciousness.