65 A chance to fly away.

It came as expected, the spells. But what was not expected, was how they would come.

...

They moved...

...in slothful bounces, at first. Like they were dragging themselves forward...all of them...all at once.

Still, their lazy motions weren't without purpose. Because in simply the most minute of their movements...they gained momentum which propelled them at greater speeds.

She could've counted herself fortunate, Scarlett...

...for being so close to this cloaked man.

A few meters further away, and she would've misjudged these spells' increasing velocity. Her sense of timing might've suffered since they weren't advancing at a constant pace.

...

Her arms crept upwards, her forehands facing her shoulder and torso. She stood completely ready to render all attacks against her as unprosperous. Yet for several seconds, as she was about to arrive at the starting point of this goal of hers, the purple spells spontaneously exploded...one after the other...before they had a chance to come near her.

Unforeseen, of course. She hadn't the foggiest clue to tell her why these spells were popping like explosive bubbles. She didn't have to wait at all either...because soon, a hint snuck up behind her...

...or in better terms...

...the hint snuck from behind her.

Not too long did her mind dwell on the cause of this irregularity, since the purple spheres all became undone in a matter of seconds. Her next priority became the reason she had to deal with any of this at all—Clover...

...wasn't there.

Her hand reached behind her to feel for something, and she did feel something; the wind. Grasping at air, her eyes widened to realise a frightening discovery. She threw her earlier mode of thinking to the side just to catch a glance behind her.

A stroke of fright coursed through the depths of her bowls. While in her mind, she figured the man in dark cloak had somehow gotten what he wanted.

"How?" she wondered, directing her gaze forward once more to make sure the man Infront her hadn't made any sudden movements.

As far as she could tell, his pose remained the same as when she took her eyes off him.

Another ponder caught her trail of thinking the moment she regained sight of the man. Since he was the lone person standing there, where he was...there was absolutely no chance he had it...

...no chance he had her.

Scarlett sharpened her focus, and as she did...she caught on to something—a shadow standing in the shadow of her opponent.

Behind this person in cloak, was another person in cloak; a ridiculous circumstance which formed a grin on Scarlett's face.

It was Clover herself, standing at the rear of this man...

But how she got behind him, not a soul knew, not even the cloaked man whom Clover had to pass to reach her current position.

Scarlett felt Clover should've stayed put and let her do all the fighting, or at least tell her she was going to pull of something like this. That was before she remembered...

...she told Clover not to speak, and to fight if this man ever were to attack.

She did according to every request Scarlett made of her. And because of that...Scarlett relented.

However for Clover, relenting would be the farthest thing from her mind in this time. The second Scarlett eyed her from behind the man...she had already begun her assault.

A charge of Spiritual Pulse came in sight, hovering in Clover's palms. And by the looks of it, she might've been compressing it from before the cloaked man chose to attack at all; when she hid herself behind Scarlett.

'Of course, it was she who cancelled his spells.' Scarlett thought. Although to be certain, she didn't know for sure how Clover nullified those spell...or even if she was the one that nullified them at all.

Regardless, she couldn't help what had already happened. Clover took the initiative...and was one step ahead of her the whole time. For this reason, she chose to follow Clover's lead...even though she had not a clue of what the dark haired woman had in mind.

...

For some time now, the cloaked man had sensed Clover behind him...even so, he chose not to reveal this fact. He kept his head straight, only facing Scarlett as if she were the biggest threat to him right now than anything else. It was unfortunate for him though, Clover had already assumed he realised she was there...so she decided to play everything out by this assumption.

After becoming satisfied with the amount of compressive energy stored within her spell, Clover stooped down...then sprung up to throw the spell in the air.

At a certain distance, her spell stopped ascending...it stayed right there in place; overhead. Neither exploding, descending, or making any sort of movement other than simply existing.

Scarlett watched, aiming to catch on to the intricacies of Clover's plan through her actions—she hadn't figured it out yet, but she would bet that the spell Clover threw in the air was most likely a distraction.

Clover on the other side, bent down to pick something up. As she curled her fingers in the dirt...what appeared in her hand was nothing more than a pebble.

And what would she do with a pebble...?

...well, what else would she do but throw it?

Aimed at the man in cloak, Clover spared no strength in flinging the stone from within her hand. She used everything she had, all her might...

...and a bit of Soul Charge.

The man merely flinched to the side, dodging the pebble targeted at his neck by nothing less than centimetres.

But Clover simply wasn't satisfied with this result. She figured long before there was a chance he would sense the stone coming, but she wanted more than him to flinch it off. So this time...she dug up two pebbles, and threw them one after the other...no different than last time.

However, unlike last time, the man dodged one and caught the next. Then discarded the one he caught to the ground after examining it for a while.

Still not pleased was Clover. She scrapped up three more stones. Throwing them with a bit less accuracy...though all were still on target.

A bit more motion poured into the man's movements as he attempted to evade. Instead of a flinch or backhanded catch, he bursted a step to the side while turning to face Clover...leaving all three pebbles to pass him by—a more desirable reaction for Clover...but still not exactly what she wanted.

A touch of irk exuded from under the man's hood...an irk which Clover didn't give the chance to escape her perception. In truth, this was the foundation of her plan; to cause him to be irritated.

Still, even now, her goal has yet to be fully realised...so she continued...

She bent down once more, this time...to fill her entire hand with anything she could scoop up in one swipe. To her surprise though, the patch of dirt which encompassed her field of vision suddenly took on a darker shade, and the cool night breeze began to feel as though it would freeze over.

"Clover...look up!" she heard Scarlett shout.

But Clover chose to disregard Scarlett's obvious warning. Because she understood for herself that if she did look up, it would only give her less time...

...

She had an almost perfect idea of exactly what was happening. And really, in this situation...it was all she needed.

The dark shade created on the ground was no result of an anomaly—it was a shadow; the cloaked man's shadow. Most likely...he came this close to pull back Clover's hood...simply to see her face...which was what he wanted since the start.

Clover wasn't too worried about letting someone see her face, but Scarlett seemed to be. She thought Scarlett was foolish, not for her worries...but because she told her to look up...

...

With his arm, the cloaked man swiftly moved to grab Clover's hood...

...that was when it happened.

An explosive gust of wind slapped his hand away while threatening to blow his own hood from over his head. Luckily his other hand grabbed at it in time...so no one caught the slightest glimpse of what was underneath.

There was also another thing though, which no one caught a glimpse of...

...another person...

...Clover.

Again, she disappeared...and not a soul saw where she went. Not even Scarlett who viewed her from afar.

When the man in cloak realized his gaze fell on nothing but transparent air, earth...and grass, he chuckled for a moment...then set his eyes back on Scarlett.

"For how long have you realised?" the man asked, clearly mentioning for Scarlett.

The red head was charry to answer. She glared at this man for a few moments before her eyes soften to a less threatening stare.

"Just now..." she said. "...when you hesitated."

"Is that so?" he raised an arm. "You do understand you have the chance to surrender at anytime, right?"

At his last word, another purple spell of his conjured into his hand; the hand he raised...

Before, Scarlett's heart felt troubled to know she had to battle it out with this half-crazed, half-reasonable man. Now however, her saliva tasted like a thick stream of terror as it struggled to slide down her throat, because apparently...there was something she didn't realize before that she knew now...

...something so significant, she contemplated deeply about surrendering the current fight, because to her...the fight was already over.

"Very well then." the man took Scarlett's indecision and silence as a moral excuse to continue treating her like an obstacle...

In a way, Scarlett really did become an obstacle. She lost the will to resist...the zeal to fight...and the ability to move. Just an obstacle, motionless...without muse.

Aware of the woman's despaired state, the man in cloak dispelled his mysterious purple ball...then chanted under his breath for another spell to appear. A spell, purple, and long like a rope.

Almost as if it would have been instinctually, he threw the rope at Scarlett. And the woman in turn stood there, thinking that this was her fate...something she should simply accept.

But then again...

Where was the fun in that?

"Boom!"

Akin to the sound of a mini-earthquake, an explosion ensued...and Scarlett found herself several dozen feet in the air. An over-dodged distance away from possible binds caused by a long purple rope.

Scarlett barely had time to make sense of her immediate situation. In the air, merely a word managed to escape her lips...

"Clover."

How could she have felt so docile? Did she really believe that this time...out of every time before now...Clover would abandon her? Or was she simply afraid of something...and the possibility of something happening?

The burning glint in her eyes which went cold due to her doubts and fears immediately sparked back into flames. At least, if she had to surrender, it would be until she had been driven to her knees. Otherwise, there still remained a chance for her to overcome...that was all the reason she needed to continue.

With an unfamiliar up-side-down view of the ground from about, Scarlett adjusted her body to directly face her opponent with the dexterity of some unusual aerodynamics. She made herself ready to attack, conjuring a spell as her eyes glowed in golden rays.

On second thought though...

"BOOM!"

She was so distracted with the goal she had in mind that Clover was able to successfully blow her away with another spell. This time in a forward direction.

Was she wrong...?

Was this not a part of Clover's plan...?

Scarlett had no lead. Her mind gave up on understanding as she allowed her body to be manipulated without resistance.

But in an unfortunate turn, just when she thought Clover's plan lied beyond her range to fathom...she realised something.

The spell Clover threw in the air earlier, the only thing Scarlett thought she understood, was not as she thought it was...

...it wasn't a distraction, since right now, it was exactly where she was headed.

...

The sight of this seemed distasteful to the cloaked man, he retracted his rope...then lassoed it towards the red head. This time around, he wasn't allowed to do as he pleased.

Three stones came hurling towards his right—nothing for him to dodge, but still adequate to angle his rope off target.

Scarlett landed on the dangerously compressed form of air. Instead of exploding as it usually does, it backed off of her as another rectangular spell similar to it kept her afloat in the air.

It was not that it chose to explode.

The compressive force in the spell ripped apart the other spell which kept Scarlett afloat. She got ejected, blown away; somewhere far.

She finally made sense of it all in that moment. Clover wasn't preparing to fight, she planned to escape.