Fwip. Crash. Crackle.

Roy ducked around the first knife as it careened past his head. He didn't know where this power had come from, but he wasn't about to let it overpower him. The woman standing across from him, sheathed in mist, wouldn't be his end.

"You think you're hot stuff, but I'll show you." Roy jumped forward, his hand vibrating as he crossed the distance between them. "Shaking Rock!"

Fwip.

Another knife sailed past his face as he brought his fist to bear. His entire body vibrated under the force of his incoming punch, but the woman didn't dodge. She was going to take him head-on.

Roy grinned. That was a mistake.

Fwip. Crack.

At the last moment, just before he swung his fist, she flung a knife at the ground. It shattered like glass as Roy threw his leg forward. Freezing cold grasped his legs like icy claws as the ice shattered and froze the ground around it. Icicles crawled up his legs, holding him in place and killing his momentum. Roy only had one choice.

He slammed his shaking fist into the ground around him, sending all his gathered force through the ice without hesitation.

Boom. Crack.

Ice shattered around him, the shards flying across his face in a salvo of frost. Roy didn't flinch. He already knew he needed to move. The moment he let his guard down, she would be on him. He couldn't allow her to control the momentum of the fight.

"Ice Blade."

As he predicted, she had retreated far enough away to continue throwing the blades. He pushed himself up from the ground and weighed his options as more knives formed in the air around her. His bones ached, and his feet were numb from the cold, but otherwise, he could still fight.

Her problem was that her curse took time to take effect. If she could tag him with a blade, he would start to freeze, but he also had an opportunity to react. His fist, on the other hand, would cave her skull in in one punch. All he had to do was reach her.

Roy licked his lips.

Reaching her was the hard part. He may have been wrong, but the closer he got to her, the slower his limbs moved. The closer he came to her, the harder it was to run. A charge should have brought him to her face had instead seen him only making half the distance. That was why she had been able to throw a knife at his feet.

Five knives floated in the air around her, ready to be grabbed and thrown at a moment's notice. She didn't throw them all at once, and he took that into account. She couldn't move them with her mind, but she could hold them in the air around her. How was that possible? He didn't know.

He flexed his right leg as he watched her. She was waiting for him to act and would react accordingly. Roy would have to approach her perfectly. He had five knives to deal with.

The good news was that he had a way. He took a deep breath and pushed aether into his right leg. It began to vibrate under the energy he pulled into it, and he raised it high, ready to bring it down in a first step.

"Rock Wall!"

He slammed his foot hard into the ground, and as he did so, she grabbed her first knife and threw it. Roy had it in his vision for a fraction of a second before a loosened slab of stone shot up in front of him.

Crack. Crackle.

The rock was roughly his size, and Roy didn't let it go to waste. He slammed his shoulder hard into it as the ice crashed over it and charged forward. More knives crashed against the stone slab as he charged.

Then he hit the cold air around the woman.

It was subtle, but his muscles burned hotter in the cold. Each step took longer to take. Another knife crashed against his bulwark, and the cold seeped through his arms from the stone as a cascade of white crept around the rock.

However, the woman hadn't seemed to move at all.

Roy pushed forward as white-hot air streamed from his mouth. He would reach her if it were the last thing he did. If she stood and fought him head-on, he would take her out in a single charge.

Unfortunately, the one thing he forgot was that he wasn't fighting the bounty hunter alone.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Tap. Tap.

Two objects dropped behind him, hitting the cold stone floor as Roy focused on his charge. Two more knives crashed against his shield, but he was so close to the target.

"Vine Whip."

Vines erupted behind him, breaking through the frost covering the floor and reaching for him. Roy tried to turn to fight, but he was moving too slowly. The cold had seeped into his body, robbing him of the heat that allowed him to maintain his momentum. The rock fell from his hands.

Thud.

"Let go of me!" Roy tried to fight the vines, but his arms were too slow. "Why am I..."

The vines pulled him in opposite directions, stringing up his cold arms like a doll pulled between siblings. From around the boulder, 'Cold Shot' strode in a slow circle. She was in no hurry as she held the final icy knife in her hands. Roy watched in horror as she lined up the knife with his chest before throwing it right at him.

He could not move to dodge. He could not even scream. The cold had sapped all the strength from his body. Even his thoughts felt minutes behind what he witnessed.

Thud. Crackle.

Roy wanted to scream as the ice crawled over his skin like icy daggers climbing his body. He wanted to call out for mercy. He wanted another chance.

However, he only saw the bounty hunter's cold eyes, as white covered his vision. Roy tried to fight it, but his body was too far behind. The cold consumed him, and he welcomed the darkness to escape the pain.

Erin didn't believe what she saw. It was like looking at a set of snow sculptures in the middle of a town square, except instead of the haphazard snowmen built by children, there was a man frozen as an ice statue. Her plants withered as the cold seeped into them as well, and she severed her connection to them to let nature run its course.

Wen stood opposite her, frowning as steam hissed up from her body.

"Are you alright?" Erin asked, holding out both hands as she approached Wen.

Wen's eyes snapped at her, and for a moment, Erin stood frozen under her dark gaze. She felt like a rabbit caught out on a frozen plain. The eyes of a predator stared at her, ready to gobble her up for a quick meal in the empty darkness of winter.

"It's me," Erin said, holding up her hands. "Erin."

"Erin." Wen blinked several times before she shivered. "Right."

The cold that had filled the room instantly warmed by a few degrees, and the cold aura surrounding Wen disappeared. Mist rose from her body as the warmth of the sewers returned, and Erin dropped her hands. Whatever had happened, it was over.

"I was lucky," Wen whispered. "There's so much water in the air down here. I didn't need the canteen."

"Yeah," Erin said, still keeping her distance. "We got him, though. That's what matters."

"Yeah." Wen smiled. "We did."

They both looked at the frozen statue of the man they had fought. He had been ready to torture them in the dim darkness of the sewers. However, Erin couldn't imagine being tortured into a massive ice statue. She didn't regret going so hard against him, but at the same time, she didn't want to imagine what that felt like.

Empathy for such a man. She shook her head.

"So, what do we do now?" Wen asked, approaching Erin as she hugged her arms tightly.

Erin did her best not to back away. She had seen what Wen's curse was capable of firsthand now. She didn't want to get trapped in that cold. She didn't move only because of the few memories she had regained in the last few moments.

"How many of your memories are back?"

"Most of them, I think," Wen said. "That's how I knew how to use my curse, that I even had a curse. That last glimpse into my memories gave most of who I am back."

"Must be nice," Erin smiled, but didn't look Wen in the eyes, instead looking at Roy. "What about him?"

"He'll be that like for a while, assuming he isn't dead," Wen said, her mouth set in a straight line. "Considering the knife wound, the cold might be all that's keeping him alive, but I never had a chance to use my curse like that before. My old bullets were measured out to stun them so I could get the higher bounty. These knives...I just don't know yet."

"We should go find any more stragglers, then start gathering the gems," Erin said, looking at the dome above them. "I think we can handle anything we might come across now, so we can be less careful."

"You're definitely not wrong," Wen whispered as she looked down at her gloved hand. "I'm not useless anymore."

Erin frowned. Responding to something like that was problematic. She didn't have the memories she needed to piece together the weight of that statement. Without her own memories restored, she was as lost as a stranger when Wen said that. She could guess what the words meant, and she had a decent guess, but she couldn't know she was right.

However, that didn't matter. She knew one thing implicitly. She should at least try.

"Wen," she said, reaching out and touching her shoulder.

It was freezing cold under her hand, and the heat in her body instantly leeched out from her hand and into Wen from just that touch. Erin didn't pull her hand away, though. She accepted the cold.

"I'm not myself right now, but I can tell you one thing. You're not useless, and you were never useless."

Wen met her eyes, and tears welled behind them. A tingling numbness spread through Erin's arm, but she didn't let go. Wen had to know that she was here right now and that she didn't think Wen was useless.

"We did so much training on the way here," Wen said, covering Erin's hand in her own. "You all helped me, even if you don't remember yet."

"I know I feel the same way sometimes," Erin said. But you've got to know that if none of us cared, we wouldn't be down in the sewer right now. Alex wouldn't have bothered pulling us back together if we couldn't pull our weight."

She was certain about that, even with her absent memories. Alex seemed like he had a goal. Something drove him to push through his own absent memories to bring them all together. So long as he shared that goal with them, he'd go through sha-om to see them through.

Sha-om. It was such an odd word, but it came back from her memories. Where had she learned it from?

"Come on." Erin pushed that thought aside, letting go of Wen's shoulder.

Warmth rushed back into her as she retreated from the touch. Her hand burned a bright hot red as she came away from the cold, and she quickly stuck it in a pocket to regain some of the warmth. Wen's curse was a terrifying prospect, and Erin was glad she didn't have to fight against it.

"Yeah, let's go," Wen said.

They headed out through the tunnel, leaving the ice statue behind. They would finish clearing out the path before circling back to find Jean. Then, they could retrieve all the gems they could and finally bring back everyone's memories.

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