//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 - "I told you they're a vengeful bunch!" // Story: Momodora: Equestrian Adventure // by Whiskas //------------------------------// Chapter 5 - "I told you they're a vengeful bunch!" The crowd of panicked civilians almost trampled her when she tried to go against the flow. But Kaho calmly pushed forward until every last pony was past her. Only then did she, oh so calmly took the bag hanging of her neck and placed it on the ground. Her horn lit up and the bag opened, it's tightly packed contents falling out on the sandy ground. Without a word, she lifted the folded leaf and placed it on the ground beside her. Then she picked up the pocket incensory which layed on it's side having been the first item to fall out of the bag. Kaho tapped the metal lightly, the magic within the item lighting the charcoal and incense inside aflame, causing smoke to lazily pour out upwards. A light bronze aura surrounded the leaf and it floated to the incensory. It floated in the smoke for ten seconds or so before tapping the incensory again, stopping the smoke. Kaho experimentally whacked the leaf against the sand a moderate distance away from her. Flames exploded in the spot before quickly fading away leaving a puddle of molten glass which solidified quickly. She nodded, satisfied before hanging a small black sachet in shape of a gift box adorned with a red bow on her neck. She took in a deep breath, feeling her muscles tense before almost sneezing as the acidic smell from the item entered her nose. Lastly she took out a small blue crystalline seed and ate it, reveling in it's delicious sweet taste. A few seconds passed and her vision visibly tinted in the same sapphire color the seed had. The incensory was deposited back into the bag which was once again hung from her neck. The high priestess was prepared to fight. The town was eerily quiet. Kaho slowly walked street after street but she found nothing aside from the glances of civilians from inside the buildings they hid in. Every other minute she could hear a scream or shout, though it was impossible to tell what was being said as the person was too far away to be heard properly. What she found most troubling was the fact that the sand monstrosities that caused everyone to panic, weren't anywhere in sight. Kaho was starting to wonder if it wasn't all a drill, until she walked out of an alley she took out to the biggest open area she's seen in the town. A small sand elemental not too much bigger than her, was slowly moving through the... she wasn't actually sure what the space was supposed to be. But it was moving away from her, which probably meant it didn't notice her with whatever senses it had. Kaho briefly considered if she wanted to fight this one or search for the bigger fish. "Well... if anything it's better to fight a smaller one and come up with a strategy for the rest, rather than blindly rushing to fight the bigger ones." She muttered, before starting to sneak towards the monster. It proved to be oblivious to her advance and kept lazily moving forward. Kaho started moving faster, the closer she got, the leaf floating up and to her right. She was less than five meters form it before it turned and attempted to smash her with it's right arm. She yelped before clumsily rolling away. As she got up from her terrible attempt at a roll the sand elemental already managed to reform it's arm and was now surging towards her. She jumped to the right as the sand moved past her and managed to tag it with the leaf as it passed her. It was hit in the left arm, where the sand briefly caught fire before melting and instantly solidifying still attached to her opponent. It turned back and tried shaking off the glass, which didn't even budge remaining stuck to it. The alive pile of sand seemed to become a bit distressed, causing Kaho to smirk. It nonetheless tried the same tactic - clearly it wasn't very intelligent. This time the priestess just sidestepped as the creature didn't appear to have the idea to attack with it's arms while rushing her. She hit it again, this time in the right arm with the same results. The monster recognized that it's tactic wasn't working anymore and opted to just smash her by combining both of its limbs into a single massive one. Kaho only jumped backwards and hit hard the arms the creature combined for it's attack. The flames exploded and it's arms melted together with the ground before the glass hardened. The sand elemental roared inhumanly and tried to pull it's arms backwards but to no avail. It appeared that the glass that was it's arms a few seconds ago was still a part of it in some sense, as the parts of it's body that were unaffected by the explosion couldn't break contact with the newly formed glass. "So it seems that the melted sand is still a part of your body and you can't just remove and replace it. Good." She mused, smiling and slowly moving forward, causing her enemy to try and back away. She carefully touched the glass - it wasn't exactly cold but it wasn't burning her hoof either. She got up on it and smacked the now single arm where it still was sand. Another explosion of fire yielded the same results as before - this time the glass was coming up to where the elemental's "head" was. It was now trying to frantically run but it didn't work. The priestess gave a last glance before smacking it in the featureless head. She jumped down and looked at the result of the fight and was subsequently surprised as her foe was still struggling. "So the head isn't the weak spot. Annoying but refreshing, I guess." She commented drily. Kaho started hitting the sand in different place to see if that yielded any result. Soon there was an entire glass statue and the sand around the base of it was moving very weakly. "This suddenly became very annoying. Come on, there has to be a way to destroy you..." She muttered starting to inspect the former threat from all sides. "Nothing special about the head... Arm doesn't have anything interesting... Aha!" She exclaimed as she noticed an object of some kind located in the chest area of the creature. "But how do I get to you? Maybe..." She took the bow off her back and opened her bag fishing out an arrow. The projectile head wasn't made of iron like a standard arrow but rather from tungsten. The whole arrow had to be designed in much detail for it to be able to fly like a normal one would. It was hard firing it from a large distance as it gave to gravity much faster than a standard one would but Kaho was an experienced archer. And shooting point blank at an unmoving target. It didn't get easier than that. She drew the string with her telekinesis - which was hard as she still wasn't good at it. The arrow was held in magic instead of being held up by the finger, though she would release the hold as soon as she'd let go of the string. She took aim and fired at the statue. It shattered upon contact with the tungsten arrowhead. The somewhat nice looking monument broke and she cursed, looking away as glass flied at her. Kaho turned back to see the ground covered in sharp pieces of glass and found the object she was looking for perched on a rather big fragment. She put the bow away before examining the object. "It's just a rock? Seriously?" The priestess commented, picking it up with her magic, then she noticed that the sand which was previously attempting to flee, ceased moving. "Well what do you know? It is because of the rock. Maybe it contains a spirit which animates the sand? I'll need to find out later because now is not the time." As soon as she finished the sentence, a massive wave of sand flew out of a street on her right stopping a moderate distance away from her before splitting into four different elementals of varying sizes yet all bigger from the one she just vanquished. "Right, really not the time. They aren't going to go easy on me." The priestess muttered worried, slowly backing off. Kaho started considering running away from this fight. She wasn't anywhere near her previous level of skill and no one was around to assist. Running away didn't always mean you were a coward, just that you knew you wouldn't be able to win the fight. She turned around and took a deep breath preparing to run but paused as the smell produced from the sachet on her neck finally managed to affect her. Kaho turned towards the elementals, fury on her face so visible you might as well attach a sign pointing to her that spelled out "Caution: Mad Mare", if she didn't break your legs for attempting first. "You want to fight!? Come and get me then!" She screamed starting to charge at them. The creatures seemed confused to witness their prey running towards them instead of away but didn't complain, moving forward, their arms ready to reach for her and grab her and crush her. The distance between the wall of sand and the mare was rapidly dwindling but just as the anger-driven high priestess was about to run into the lethal embrace, she jumped, pushing herself away from the ground. The jump took her high into the air but it was just not enough to let her jump over the enemy. Then to surprise of anyone being capable of being surprised that was witnessing the fight, the priestess jumped again mid-air, a few red leaves appearing beneath her hooves and gently drifting down to the ground. The second jump's force allowed to fly above the danger and she slammed the sacred leaf down on the second elemental from the right, the smallest one alive. The resulting explosion sent her flying onto the ground ten meters away. She tumbled for a bit before coming down to halt and getting up nearly instantaneously. Her foes already managed to turn around and were starting to spread out, recognizing that "prey" wasn't as harmless as they presumed. The testament to their thoughts was standing in between them. The entire elemental she hit was currently made of glass, the sand around it weakly struggling as the one from before. Kaho snarled. "Weakling!" She ran forward, ignoring the threat of other untrapped enemies and smashing the leaf against the glass. The resulting flames might not have damaged the statue but the force with which her weapon impacted with certainly did. The glass shattered into a million pieces and the mare ripped the rock from the inside of a larger unbroken shard. She was now surrounded by living sand, yet totally unconcerned. If anything she was got angrier. "COME ON! I CAN'T BELIEVE I WANTED TO RUN AWAY FROM YOU STUPID IDIOTS!" She screamed again much louder this time which provoked the two remaining ones. The bigger one was apparently content with watching from a distance, not moving closer. They rushed from two different sides, arms outstretched to grab. Kaho growled and ran out of the danger zone, causing the monsters to slam into each other and mix. She turned around to asses the situation, finding that they yet manage to untangle themselves. She gave an evil grin before jumping forward, the leaf in her aura hitting the conjoined elementals. A burst of heat and a large patch of glass was holding them together. The grunts of despair were like music to the enraged mare and she stood there in place listening for a second or two. That almost proved to be a fatal mistake as they quickly managed to separate as much as they could before an arm of the one on the left slammed where she standing half a second ago. She jumped to the left before dashing forward to the elemental that just attempted to strike her. An explosion swallowed half of the monster rendering it incapable of attacking. The other one attempted to disconnect itself from it's companion by attacking the glass connecting them with it's other arm. It succeeded and immediately abandoned the fellow monster, leaving it to the enraged priestess. Two more detonations followed, one turning the trapped enemy into glass, the second shattering and killing it. The mare turned her eyes towards the escapee and dashed after the retreating foe. It didn't run very far, slowed down by the chunk of see-through material which previously bounded it to it's kin. Kaho smacked it in the back stopping it in place before lunging and striking it with her right leg where the stone was. The fragile material most of the enemy was made of at this point broke and she ripped out the rock with her hoof, causing the sand to cease it's movement and fall to the ground harmlessly. Her entire leg was bleeding heavily, cuts on top of each other, shards of glass stuck in the wounds. If unattended, it would cause her to bleed out in minutes and Kaho knew it. She also absolutely did not give a damn. She turned towards the biggest elemental, the one that stayed in the back. She began charging, ready to end this farce of a fight but tripped and tumbled as the sachet's enraging effect wore off. She suddenly gave all the damns. A loud whimper escaped her mouth and tears welled in her eyes as the pain from her right leg broke through the fog of anger surrounding her mind, dissipating it. She would have screamed out in pain if she had the time but had to roll to the side to avoid being smashed by the monster instead. Kaho got up quickly, careful not to place too much weight onto her injured right leg. She hit the monster with the leaf but there wasn't nearly enough force behind it as before. Still majority of it's chest was covered in glass, slowing it down a bit. The priestess was on the defensive now, frantically dodging wild swings while barely having enough time and focus to attack herself. She managed to hit a few more times but her strikes were not as powerful as before, resulting in the monster being covered in small patches. The stone was visible but Kaho knew she wasn't capable of mustering enough force to to shatter the glass holding it in her current condition. "If only I could eat a few bellflowers from the bag..." She lamented in her thoughts before the monster finally hit her in the torso with one of it's swings. Kaho cried out in pain, feeling some of her ribs crack and was sent flying from the sheer force. She impacted the ground around ten meters away from her position and layed there, not capable of getting up anymore and coughing up blood. The sand surged forward, stopping just before her. "Is this is the ending? Well, guess I'll meet with Donna when we're both dead after all." She thought. The elemental raised it's arms and slammed down. A sword cleaved it's way through it's torso, shattering the glass and hitting it's stone. The sand which would have turned her into paste lost it's momentum before falling onto her, burying her under it. There was a shout of alarm and a moment of silence. The sunlight came back as a familiar face dug her out of the pile. Bold dragged her out with a grim expression. "Girlie! You're not dead yet!" His face brightened and Kaho couldn't help but smile weakly herself before wincing in pain. Then he looked at the condition her body as in and frowned. "Dear Celestia... I don't think she'll make it." He muttered. Kaho was not happy with those words. Kaho really did not want to die just after being rescued. So she grit her teeth and ignored the pain of her everything hurting, lighting her horn and opening her bag. "Search for..." She coughed up some more blood. "Bellflowers. Plants, green, bell-shaped. Can't miss them." She mumbled, barely hanging onto consciousness. Bold obeyed searching through her bag before pulling out three of them. He looked at her questioningly and Kaho grabbed them with her magic before flinging them into her mouth and chewing as fast as she could. She could feel the internal and external bleeding stop, wounds on her leg closing over the shards. Her vision cleared and her heart calmed down a little. She shakily stood up and noticed that she and Bold weren't the only ones here. Honey stood with Shadow a bit to the side watching their surroundings, both of their horns lit. "What's in these plants girlie? You were dying a few seconds ago!" Bold asked amazed. "They're magical. And they don't fix everything. I still lost a lot of blood, have a few cracked ribs and glass stuck in my right leg." She explained, taking a few deep breaths to calm down. "A visit to the hospital can wait!" Honey called grimly and they turned to her. She was staring at something with an unidentifiable expression on her face. Shadow behind her was pale and pointing a shaking hoof at the same thing. Bold and Kaho turned their heads to the thing the other unicorns stared at and froze. A few streets away they could see a sand elemental towering over the buildings nearby it. It appeared to be fighting, if it's attacks where of any indication. A few pegasi were flying around it. It let out a roar and Kaho noticed it had a human-like face. She turned to Bold. "Why is that thing in the village?" She asked stunned. "I told you they're a vengeful bunch!"