Magical: relating to, using, or
resembling magic
or
beautiful or delightful in a way that seems
removed from everyday life
You came to not long afterwards. You weren't sure where you were at first, everything was a blur, you couldn't even make out the voices around you, but they were familiar.
You were in a lot of pain, your back ached to the extent you thought your spine was broken (it wasn't), you could feel cold liquid dripping over your face. You couldn't feel anything below your waist, you could just about lift your arms up, but you couldn't move your legs.
"She's awake!" You were certain it was Marie's voice that called, she repeated your name a couple of times. Eventually your vision fully returned and you could see Marie leaning over you with a concerned look on her face. She looked hurt, old wounds from the GMG and what ever was happening now we're visible on her arms and legs. Behind her, you could make out some more people, they weren't facing you but you could identify them as Riko, Max and Akio. And behind them, was the destruction you'd seen from the sky. Buildings had collapsed, glass had shattered and there was the occasional body. People were fighting against these monsters, that shot lasers and attacked. There were many of them, the people were out numbered. "What did you do to get yourself this beat up." Marie laughed, gentles cupping one of your cheeks, you melted into your friends touch.
"I-I'm sorry I ran off." Your voice was extremely croaky, you could just about make out your own words.
"Oh, stop with the apologies!" Max tilted his head to face you, "I'll trust it was important."
You nodded, causing yourself more pain to your back. You were leant up against a damaged brick wall, with you mangled legs sprawled out in front of you, one look at the made you wince.
"You've broken your legs," Marie told you as if it wasn't obvious, "but don't worry, we'll protect you!" She seemed fairly confident, that made you smile a little bit. But still, you felt useless, lying on the ground. Your sword lay next to you, it was pointless when you couldn't walk.
"You're gonna have to catch us up later," Riko grinned at you before turning to fight one of those monsters. The rest of your guild mates followed suit, fighting off as many of the metal dragons as they could and not letting any of them get to you. Frustration began to build up inside of you. As if you couldn't do anything.
But you could. Really.
You had your magic.
But that thought stayed safely in your subconscious, until it was too late.
You watched your team mates fight. Riko and Marie were doing combined attacks, using their speed and gaining enough power to kick and punch the miniature dragons over. Destroying them easily. Max didn't need to pick up any speed, with his enhanced strength he could just punch them and they would fall to the ground. Akio used a mix of attacks to destroy anything he could, he stood the furthest away from you.
You wandered where Akira was, hoping Akio's silence wasn't due to something terrible. Later Marie would tell you that she was evacuated, against her will, Akio didn't want her put in too much danger. For a while, you thought the separation from his sister was what made him so angry looking. You'd forgotten about the coldness he'd usually give to strangers.
It continued like this for a while, you sat there feeling sorry for yourself while everyone fought to get rid of a seemingly endless haul of monsters. Until.
"Crap! Why are there so many here!" Max hissed as he attempted to take two out at once.
"This is," Riko tripped at her speed, the uneven ground was making it difficult for her and Marie. "Overwhelming." She agreed with Max. Her glasses almost slipped off her face, she took it as a priority to keep them on.
Marie and Akio also seemed panicked by the rising number of dragons surrounding them. The four of them began to move closer together and backed up towards the wall you were leaned up against. There was a a light blue blast through the air. You watched it barely hit your face and crack the wall next to you.
"Jesus Christ!" Marie ran closer to you, she had a protective stance you hadn't seen on her before, you weren't quite sure it suited her. "Are you okay?!"
You nodded, "it missed, don't worry," you smiled, trying to urge her to look after herself, "watch your back don't worry about-"
"Shit! Another one!" Max called, jumping and turning as he avoided another deadly beam of light. "Marie look out!"
Marie turned to see where it was coming from. But too late. She wasn't fast enough to dodge the beam of light that cut through her stomach. Leaving a gaping hole where insides should of been.
Everything moved really slowly, everyone screaming around you. Akio had completely frozen, Riko tried to react but received the next shot in the leg, Max ran slowly, almost comically to were she was falling. From the way her pink hair flew in the breeze to the how her limbs dropped was like it was on a slow motion camera. The world stayed that way for a while, spinning minutes slower than it should have until you felt the sharp sudden pain of a body falling in your lap. The first ache you'd felt below your waist was the weight of your friend falling onto your thighs. You couldn't quite find the focus to acknowledge that pain.
You murmured her name as she glared up at you. For now there was still life in here eyes, and they were welling up with tears. You repeated her name.
"I... just wanted... to protect you for once...." you tried to speak, but blood started leaking from the corners of her lips, cutting off her words.
You clutched her hand almost aggressively, you could feel the tears welling up again, there was no stopping them this time. "You've done..." you words were interrupted by chocking sobs, "a pretty awful job at that."
Marie seemed to laugh, but it came out as a sigh and a cough, Max had collapsed onto his knees on the other side of her clutching her other hand. You'd never seen a more frightened expression on his face, and you'd been with him through fires.
"Stay with us Marie," he gritted his teeth as Marie's eyes fluttered to close. "You'll be alright just don't fall asleep."
Akio stood frozen, no longer caring about the rest of his surroundings that were approaching, he could only watch. Riko had fallen on the ground somewhere near him, she was clutching her chest and breathing rapidly, as if she was having a panic attack.
"I... think it's my turn.... to apologies..." she smiled, almost peacefully, as she went to shut her eyes, at this point you screamed for her to stay awake, to not leave. To not die on a half finished sentence like your mother had all those years ago. Your lap began to feel lighter and then...
You could feel the tears in your eyes, but your cheeks were dry. Marie was no longer in your lap, but standing next to you, like she had been just a minute ago the past minute suddenly felt like a dream. "Are you okay-" she began but stopped wide eyed. As if she had had the same vision as you. "Was that real?"
You glanced around anxiously, looking for a threat bigger than the ones already being faced, specifically, anything that might shoot your best friend through the stomach in a few seconds. You weren't that only one, everyone was looking at each other in a state of confusion and horror, Marie's expression was the worst, she had seen herself die.
You panicked, you could feel your hands trembling. Marie was frozen in place. There was no way she was going to dodge anything. Max was panicked. Punching anything he could. Akio the same. Riko the same. You hadn't faced such intense panic in so long.
Then you saw it and all the others. Gaining on your group. Ready to shoot and take a life.
Raising your uninjured arm you screamed a spell you couldn't even remember, all you knew was that it was the loudest you'd shouted for years. It was followed by a ball of light in the sky, a miniature sun which released beams of yellow energy that vaporised all the monsters in your sight.
Your breathing was heavy as the light faded to normal.
"Wow..." The alarm came from Max, who felt a brief moment of safety as most of the nearby dragons had by destroyed by what he assumed was your magic. "Okay, well, I believe you."
Akio stared at where the source of light had come from, amazed and awestruck. Riko focused on the surrounding, not uninterested, but as if it was as new and as shocking as it was to everyone else.
Marie blinked a few times, processing everything that had just happened and snapping out of her daze. She soon smiled. Her lips turned up in your direction, it spoke many things. 'I knew you weren't lying,' was one of the things you interpreted, as well as 'I'm proud of you.' But the prevalent message was perhaps 'thank you.'
You smiled back.
But the use of that much magic had left you exhausted, it would be a while until you could do anything like that again. Which you planned to do. At that moment it didn't matter what your brother said.
Here and now, you used your magic for something far superior than what it was intended for.
Rather than taking a life, you protected one- and an important one at that.
And that's what you planned to keep using for.
For better, and for worse.
*********
I've literally been planning this chapter for three years and now I'm not sure how to feel.
I hope I made it clear that it was Ultear's magic that reversed time by a minute allowed you to save Marie here, but I didn't want to explicitly state and mess up the already damaged flow XD. But if it wasn't clear and was confusing let me know, I'll fix it up when I do my next round of editing~