Side Chapter Metous 9: I’m Sorry

  Colours fell to the ground under the weight of Tel’s swing, her helmet cracked, and her brain was dizzy for a moment.

  However, Tel wasn't in the best position either. Her fist was covered in her own blood. Vines and flowers were wrapped around her body, with a rge amount around her arm, strengthening it.

  “Mum..?”

  “Why are you acting surprised!? We were looking at the river, remember?” Tel was nearby and had used a pnt to catapult herself in to save Li and Tyell.

  Tyell groaned, “Oh… yeah, that makes sense.”

  “Who's here now?”

  Tel chucked some seeds into the ground. “An angry mother!” She burned her life and allowed the seeds to grow. Spurting from the ground were hard, thorny vines whose first action in life was to whip Colours with their barbed edges.

  Colours jumped up and dodged the whips. Li fired a lightning arrow construct from her [Pocket Lightning]. On the opposite side, Elly fired exclusively at Li.

  Bck vines block the bullets for the immobile Li.

  Colours paused for a moment. “Wait… I know you.”

  Tel stared back. “Thanks? Can’t say I share the feeling.”

  Colours gred back. It had been a while ago, but she had seen this woman on Earth near Nina. She didn’t do any major follow-up after it was discovered she was just a parent looking for medical support

  How? Did Li manage to get past my lie detection? No, if that were the case, they would be more prepared. This can’t be a coincidence… but if it is–

  “Mum, you need to help Li get out of here,” said Tyell.

  Tel replied, “I know, but running is not going to work.”

  Ominous bck bullets crashed into two of Tel’s vines, causing them to rapidly decay.

  –then it needs to be destroyed at the roots

  Tel threw down more seeds than destroyed ones. “Backup will arrive the moment everyone at North Metous School is safe.” She said with a smile, “We just need to hold out a tiny bit.”

  Colours' armour glowed different shades of grey and bck.

  Vines grew everywhere to attack Colours and to block and shield Li and the Stels.

  Colours just sent waves of her energy out, and many of the vines continued to decay, a few of the harder ones stayed standing for a while longer. Whenever one died, Tel threw more out to repce them.

  The warm wind strengthened, and Li began to feel her energy return.

  The vines were making it slightly difficult for Colours to move, but in her mind, she wasn’t having any difficulty. The fight was simply annoying.

  With another burst of energy, all the protection, including a new lightning wall around Li, was destroyed. Colours for the millionth time went to stab Li, but Tyell activated [My Highway] [Run Light] to interrupt the attack.

  Tel was unable to move from her stop and was bleeding due to the aftereffects of her skills, but there was still one person who was close enough to react.

  Tyell initiated a full sprint with his two main skills again, but instead of grabbing Li, Tyell cancelled his skills mid-motion and smmed his legs into Colours.

  Shit! Colours was extremely irritated, the velocity knocked her back, and she felt a pain in her stomach.

  Tyell rolled onto the ground, his legs injured, but as he tried to get up, the recently pced defensive curse on Colours’s armour activated.

  “Argh!”

  Bck stitches appeared on Tyell’s legs, tying him to the ground. The stitches pierced into his lower body, and he couldn’t move himself.

  “Tyell!” Massive veins were growing all over the pce, rger and stronger than before, smmed down to intercept Colours.

  Colours stepped back to dodge, but only now did Colours notice she was moving slower than expected. When did that happen?

  The feeling of air through the tiny cracks in her helmet gave her an answer. When she punched me? She pnned to poison me from the beginning…

  Walls of bck mana that did nothing but block people’s room for escape appeared. Separating Tel and Li from Tyell.

  Li was able to move again now that the supporting fire had stopped, but she wasn’t able to reach Tyell thanks to a wall of bck energy stopping her. Tel turned to her and started pouring her energy into Li so she could move and protect herself and Tyell.

  Colours clenched her fist. She was pying around with a bunch of low-level idiots, and her carelessness led to her being poisoned.

  “I can’t leave any traces of this…” Colours chose to go all out and make sure nothing was linked back. Her mana fred up, and the bck energy surrounding her intensified.

  Tyell’s leg was bleeding, and he could only watch as Colours decided to deal with the person who made this mission difficult in the first pce.

  Colours raised her hand, and a dark sphere was formed. It took much longer to create than her other skills and clearly used a lot more mana, but her anger was felt in the orb.

  The sphere fired at Tyell and increased in size to the point where it could cover him.

  Death

  Tyell could feel it even without his skills telling him.

  He tried to move, struggling with his restraints, but it didn’t work.

  However, before it could hit him, Tyell watched as the second Dominous Hood figure jumped in front of the bst, their camoufge disappearing under the attack. The bck energy faded away and was absorbed into the armour, which caused it to begin falling apart.

  They fell to the ground, and Tyell’s body tore apart as he tried to move to see his friend. The first thing he saw was Elly’s face as her armour started disintegrating.

  Elly’s eyes were glowing a clean white, and within them, Tyell could see the scene pying out where he was consumed by the bst and died.

  “Elly? Elly!” First confused, but that changed to concern and fear.

  “I’m sorry, Tyell,” she said. The first words he heard were an apology. “I’m a big idiot, I am only now realising all the trouble I caused you and your family…”

  She didn’t need the skill she unlocked a moment before to know what was going to happen when Colours fired that attack.

  There was more she wanted to say, more she wanted to apologise for, to tell Tyell how important of a friend he was and how working together again sounded great, but her voice had already stopped working. Her weak body, affected by the overuse of her [Future Prediction] and now [Glimpse] didn’t even have the mana to slow down its destruction.

  Colours didn’t even know what happened; her senses were failing her, but the visual of her partner diving into her attack shocked her, and before Colours could adjust herself,. A rge explosion of fire crashed into her back.

  Mel yelled, “You won’t hurt my family!”

  Colours turned around, confident the walls would stop the other two.

  “No, you don’t!”

  A bark-like vine emerged from the ground where she was standing. A seed that wasn’t grown until now blossomed after the required time had passed. The vine tripped Colours and sent her flying, but the vine decayed in the process.

  Li, who was full of energy again, jumped and [Accelerated] to max speed to intercept Colours.

  Li used her most powerful combo to ensure Colours wouldn’t get up. [Empty Pockets] [Lightning Strike] [Concentrate Lightning]!

  The bst of concentrated lightning devoured Colours. Leaving a cindered body that flopped to the ground. The attack was much weaker compared to the st use of the combo since [Pocket Lightning] was much emptier this time.

  “We need to get Nina over here now!” The time to celebrate wasn’t here yet, and Tyell screamed, still trapped, unable to support his friend, who was fading away.