Chapter 2236 Plucking Lives Part 2
--- Kat ---
Kat really wasn’t sure what her best course of action was. She didn’t have any stones to throw... and really that would’ve been a great idea. Alas, she hadn’t grabbed any, or at least, no extras. Kat had three but wasn’t sure they were the best size considering her own current stature. So instead, she went back to her tried and true method. Stalling for time while her demonic energy regenerates. "State your business,"
"Why should we talk to you after you just killed three people?" asked someone from within the crowd. The helmets made it basically impossible to tell who was speaking, though Kat was pretty sure it was none of the people at the front.
"A wall of fire is a pretty good indication not to cross it. I can hardly be blamed for their poor survival instincts," Kat countered, wording things carefully enough that she wouldn’t be caught in any lies, or rather, that she could say the whole thing. It was very much her fault that they died... but having poor survival instincts? That was entirely out of her control.
Apparently it was a compelling argument because none of the group seemed to have an immediate response to that. Some shuffled, a few people reloaded their crossbows... and Kat simply let them, giving no indication that she was bothered. Demonic energy was far more important a resource than crossbows after all. So they waited. The flame was burning low, more of a warning then an actual threat, and Kat was regenerated mana. The crossbows were ready and aimed... but nobody fired.
"What business is it of yours what we’re doing here?" asked someone eventually. Though this time Kat was pretty sure it was from the front group. The one on the left specifically.
"Considering nobody is meant to be past the quarantine without official approval... I feel as though it IS my business," Kat offered.
"What makes you think we don’t have official approval?" the same person asked.
"Other than the fact that you didn’t contact us ahead of time? Probably the fact that you lot immediately attacked me?" Kat offered.
Someone smacked the guard who asked that question on the back of head. While a third simply stated, "I say we attack her. She’s tiny so that probably means she’s not that strong right?"
Kat gestured to the three ice statues on the ground. "Are you sure about that?" The crowd visibly followed her gesture before cringing away. Apparently that got the point across... and sent them all back into a long silence once again. Kat was loving it. She was nearly back to full energy with all of this extra time she was getting.
Kat let herself float over to the wall, and then jabbed her tail into it. She made it look like she was just using it as a way to relax, but actually, this was her first step into having projectiles. It was a bit of a shame to break the wall like this but she was confident there were spells to fix it up if necessary.
Kat showed off visibly relaxing, allowing herself to lean against the wall, her tail supporting her as her wings stopped having room to flap. Kat waited, half certain that someone was about to shoot a crossbow at her... but nothing happened. So the silence continued. Though at this point Kat was basically full on demonic energy. There was the slight drain from the fire, but that was countered by her own regeneration.
*Is it time for me to attack then? I’m... not really losing much just by sitting here. Appoline isn’t making potions but she’s got a stockpile already. Hmmm... yeah I think I’ll keep dragging this out. I’m not against them fleeing and I’m not sure I can actually beat all of them. I certainly won’t lose, but if a bunch of them get the bright idea to just run to the dorms I don’t know that I can stop them.*
"Will she even allow us to just leave?" one of the group eventually whispered softly, but not so softly that Kat’s ears failed to pick it up. She watched as the ones nearest to the one that spoke shrugged, unsure of what to say either. Kat debated if enlightening them that she would indeed let them run was a good idea... but decided that letting them know she could still hear them was a bad call. Especially when she might get more info.
Her gamble paid off quickly when, apparently believing her lack of reaction meant lack of hearing, another of them spoke up asking, "Well can we even fight her? None of our shots have been hitting..."
"She hasn’t even needed to dodge. It’s not because she’s small you can’t hit her, but that you’re a shit shot," countered another.
"Well, even if that’s true it IS much harder to hit a small target," grumbled the first one.
These sorts of arguments started to spring up. Quietly at first, but gaining in volume. Kat realised that they weren’t all that useful and she probably SHOULD say something eventually. It was just various debates on how easy or hard it would be to injure her with this or that weapon, with some believing it would be easy, most believing it was doable but difficult, and a few arguing for them to simply leave.
Eventually, once the volume reached normal speaking and they mentioned being able to leave, Kat commented in the affirmative. "If you do actually want to leave I’m not going to stop you. I might ensure you DO leave rather then sneak back in, but I won’t stop you."
That shut everyone up. For a minute nobody was interested in speaking up. Kat was really starting to wonder what sort of bottom of the barrel idiots were hired for this job. Why did they think she couldn’t hear them? Or why did they think that staying quiet NOW would actually help?
Regardless, apparently the silence this time lead to a bit more panic. Someone took aim and tried to shoot at her. TRIED being the most important word. At the same time as they were taking aim, the person in front of them was fiddling with their amour a bit and bent to the side to fix it... right into the path of the crossbow as it was getting launched.
Suddenly there was a lot more blood and a lot less calm. Everyone was freaking out and Kat decided to move the fire line a little bit just to ensure that nobody accidentally stepped on it. There was a lot of screaming and none of it was particularly useful. Kat let out a long sigh, which due to her size sounded a lot more like a squeaky toy then she was entirely happy with... but at least the idiots were too busy yelling at each other to notice.
Kat almost wanted to step in when things started to get physical. It was hard to tell what was going when, other than their heights, everyone was basically identical. Someone punched someone else, but Kat wasn’t even sure the person getting punched was the one who fired the crossbow, as said crossbow had been dropped when the arguments had started. It had also been stood on and snapped not long after that but apparently nobody cared enough to stop things escalating at that point.
Now they were punching, kicking, ripping helmets off of people and just all out brawling. The fact they had two helmets on meant that in most cases Kat couldn’t really see anything about them. The only time two helmets had come off... well the person underneath had a third mask. Kat was becoming more and more convinced that this was just a group of Thyme and always had been.
Eventually someone was knocked onto the fire, even though she’d moved it back a bit, and so... she used it as an excuse. She let the flames linger on their outfit as they slowly started to freeze. They tried to get back up and into the brawl but apparently they had enough awareness of what was going on around to not allow that. Kicking the person back INTO the fire and then kicking them away as they froze. This one didn’t take much energy because Kat didn’t need to make it happen swiftly. Surprisingly a lot less screaming as well.
When the dust finally settled, it was hard to tell who was dead, who was unconscious and how worried she should be. Most of them weren’t even standing, but the groaning and slight shifting coming from over half of the people on the ground meant that they probably weren’t dead, or at least, she wasn’t meant to assume they were. Overall... Kat had been worried about the moral implications of what turned into a comedy act. *Now the question is do I finish these guys off? Ah who am I kidding I’ll just make sure they leave. This might have been a way to get info from us or something but frankly I doubt it was anything useful.*