After a moment, she thought better of it and simply slid it into her pocket.
Vines sprouted from the ground around his feet. He didn’t resist as they wrapped up around his legs and arms, binding him. Only when he was down on the ground and completely immobile did Rachael take her wand off him.
Eva had been about to ask her if she had seen Randal around when the dryad walked up. It almost startled Eva. She was just so hard to keep track of with blood sight.
The dryad stopped a good two arm spans away, staring with obvious caution, but also with a small smile.
Eva wasn’t sure how to react. Should she throw the dryad off the pyramid now, before Anise and Emily arrived? Wait?
Her plants shouldn’t be dangerous to Eva. At least not the ones she had seen. Even the vines shouldn’t pose any more of a problem than Lucy’s tentacles had. They might trip her up, but blinking would solve that problem easy enough. Or just igniting her legs. The vines wrapped around the pillar hadn’t taken the heat well.
“Thanks,” the dryad said, breaking Eva out of her devious plots on how to deal with the situation. “I thought that pillar was going to collapse on me. And then the fire–” She cut herself off with a shudder. “I don’t take fire well.”
Eva wanted to groan. Everything would be so much easier if the dryad just up and attacked her. Instead she decided to give thanks? And offer up an obvious weakness to go with it?
It was enough to make Eva sigh.
“No problem,” Eva said with another sigh. Rather than do anything else, she turned her head to Rachael. “Randal?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
“He’s got a demon in him. I doubt he would get taken out. Wonder what is taking him so long?”
“We ran into an earth mage. Some crazy strong lady. Pretty sure she let us go in the end, though she looked like she was pretty tired. He might have run into something similar and didn’t get so lucky.”
“My group ran into Lucy,” Eva said. “Speaking of, they’re still climbing the stairs.” Though it was taking them a really long time. Mortals. “I should probably check on them.”
Rachael stepped forward and dropped the volume of her voice. “We’re going to have to take them out at some point.”
“Yours too,” Eva said without glancing over her shoulder.
Rachael shifted her weight, looking off and down to the side. “I think she’s afraid of my fire. She has been very compliant of everything I ask. Makes me feel like the bad guy here.”
I know how you feel, Eva thought with yet another sigh. Raising her voice from her whisper, she turned slightly to address both members of the green group. “Stay up here, I’m going to find my companions. Keep them contained,” she said with a nod towards the Faultline students. “Fight off anyone else. If you can figure out what we’re supposed to do here, great. Though wait for me if you can.”
Without really looking at the plant girl, Eva walked over to the stairs.
And frowned.
The first plateau was fairly far away. It also had flashes of light coming from at least four different sources.
Blinking up the staircase was difficult. Because of the angles, it was almost impossible to see where to blink. There could be uneven terrain or plants growing that would splice her up if she teleported into them.
She was under no such limitations in blinking downwards.
Eva landed between Anise and Emily and promptly ducked to dodge a glowing white battle axe.
“Seems a bit deadly for a friendly competition,” Eva said, grabbing hold of Anise’s hand before she could try to swing again.
Recognition lit up in her already glowing eyes. She shook her head, pulling her hand out of Eva’s loose grip. “Tell that to those monsters.”
Eva moved slightly closer to the waist-high wall of stone at the edge of the plateau that hadn’t been there her first time up. Emily’s handiwork no doubt. A bit of cover for any spells that might come their way. Peeking over the edge, she realized that the stairs weren’t even there. A steep slope had replaced them.
Though he had lost his cap, another of the Faultline boys was flinging shards of ice around. Water appeared out of nowhere, rushing over the earth towards his opponent. All the while, he was doing flips and jumps that a trained gymnast might find troublesome.
Eva couldn’t think of a single other mage she had encountered that moved so much. Genoa came close, but even she was more like a rolling boulder than a circus performer. The demon hunter that Eva had killed moved fast, but lacked showy flips.
Actually, Eva thought, the other hunter might be similar. Eva had only fought with her once before Arachne paralyzed her. And even then, not for very long. But she had been fairly animated.
So he wasn’t the only mage. But a kid?
Then again, it wasn’t hard to see why he was moving so much.
Randal was at the base of the pyramid with him. Large black orbs flew from his fingertips, wilting the grass beneath them as they moved. If they came near any ice or water, it vanished in an instant. Everything thrown at him simply got eaten by the orbs.
Eva wasn’t sure what would happen if one of the orbs actually hit someone, but it probably wouldn’t be a pretty sight for the three camera drones circling over the fight.
“They ran up, flinging spells at each other. I managed to slow them down with a few lightning bolts.”
“And I turned the stairs to a slide.”
“After that, they just decided to fight each other down there.”
“What is that magic he’s using?”
Eva glanced to Anise, half expecting her to respond with some insight gleaned from her hive mind.
Instead, she shrugged and gave Eva an apologetic look.
“Your third eye doesn’t tell you?”
Emily blinked, turning her head. Eva ignored the other girl for the moment.
“I don’t think I can find out without getting closer. I don’t really want to get closer.”
“Fair enough,” Eva said. “It’s demon magic. I can tell you that much. No clue what it’s doing.”
“It’s like a black hole,” Emily whispered with a shudder.
“Demon magic,” Anise said with narrowed eyes. “Friend of yours?”
“He goes to my school. Be back in a moment.”
Eva blinked down again, making sure to land where the black orbs were not. She conjured fire marbles and flung them out almost immediately. They were even lower power than the ones she had first used on Lucy, but they were also surprise attacks on an unsuspecting target’s back.
At least, she thought she had been launching a surprise attack. The student flattened himself against the grass, rolling over to one side.
The marbles flew over him. Several were eaten by one of Randal’s orbs while the rest exploded harmlessly off to the sides.
Eva blinked, putting herself facing the pyramid with the student between it and her. Just a movement to keep him on his toes.
She was about to launch another volley of orbs when a crack split the air. White lightning struck him square in the back.
Eva winced.
He collapsed to his knees, moaning in pain.
As much as she could empathize with him, she didn’t hesitate. Personal experience taught her that as painful and debilitating as it was—and deadly if they meant it enough—he could very easily get up and continue fighting if he collected his wits enough. Devon had gotten back to his feet after being hit and Devon was a wuss.
She blinked up to him and pocketed his wand.
After ensuring that Eva had the Faultline student’s wand, Randal pointed a finger towards the pyramid.
Eva blinked to him, gripped his arm, and yanked it skyward.
A black orb flew from his fingertip, hit one of the circling drones, and… passed through without hurting it.
Eva shook her head.
“They’re friends,” she said in a rush. She needed to stop him before he killed someone.