MONARCH - Discontinued

Chapter 10 - Tired

Hina stalked forwards, his eyes trained on the door on the opposing side of the stream with Ava nearly toppling over on his shoulders. Her mind was blank; sloppy, and she needed sleep. 100% sure she will pass out at some point, Ava tried to stay awake for as long as possible.

And trust me, it was a struggle.

Tensing each ear in a rhythmic way, Ava's eyes were squinting against the blurriness, her hands fidgeting. Suddenly, Hina stepped on a loose piece of land, gasping as it shook underneath him. And a creature rose from the ground, Hina and Ava on it's back like a circus performance.

Ava's tail flicked against her back, slapping herself with the feathers on the tip, and the thing - that looked like a giant rock - crab - reaches up with it's claw to smash them, Hina jumping off of it's back last minute.

Ava fell off, landing on her bottom before she pulled out her sword, mumbling Monarch's summoning as Hina tried to slice of the crab's claws, only for it to slam him backwards and into the water.

Ava didn't change into her Djinn Form, that was too special for this, but instead she summon wind to bring the crab up and slam it back down into the earth so harshly that the rock pillar they stood on collapsed, and Ava fell into the water, the crab - or, it's limps - splashing down with her.

She searched the water for Hina, finding him battling another creature, and sighed, exhausted.

She barely kept her legs moving as she swam towards her companion, who suddenly caused an outburst in the water and threw the odd creature onto shore that was lined with the rock pillar's debris, and somehow picked the large monster up only to throw it back into the ground.

He ran towards it, the rage and yearning to be a true warrior practically oozing off of him as Ava crawled onto shore, panting. Suddenly, just as Hina was about to stab it, a large blade streaked past him and into the creature, killing it.

"Well that didn't take long, the next one's mine, got it Vittel." "Yeah, sorry about that chief." Ava heard the familiar voice, stumbling to her feet and walking over to Hina off - balance, looking at the child that had tried to kill her and Sinbad.

But this time, there were other people with him.

And one of them, was Drakon.

Who just saw her.

A shocked expression loomed his face before he glared at her, which she would've returned if it weren't for the fact that she was leaning heavily into Hina, who didn't seem to notice.

But Drakon did, and his glare faltered as he said, "Are you holding this poor woman captive?" Now it was Hina's turn to look surprised, "W - what? I -" "No, I'm not being held captive, Drakon. But glad you care," Ava smirked, and Drakon growled.

Hina tensed as the child with bandages covering his face stood up and walked past him to the dead creature, gawking as the rest followed without trying anything. Drakon glanced at Ava as he past her, who was staring at the floor that looked fuzzy.

"Hold on, be a bit more cautious," Drakon suddenly stopped, warning his comrades. "Oh shut up, you're not the boss of me," the kid, apparently the leader of the pack? hissed, reaching up to take the blade out of the creature, who suddenly burst into sparkles and disappeared.

"What the heck is this?" The child muttered, staring at a small block of dark blue and picking it up. "The key that unlocks the door." Drakon replied from experience, not being able to resist glancing at Ava, who had now taken to staring at the child with a gaze of emptiness and annoyance.