There is a lot about me you don't know -Tales of Arcadia ENG

9- Trust

TRACK 9

Sometimes the only payoff for having any faith

Is when it's tested again and again everyday

I'm still comparing your past to my future

It might be your wound, but they're my sutures

I am the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass

I'll try to picture me without you but I can't

(Immortals - Fall Out Boys)

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Jim defended Claire, intent on maintaining the veil of shadow over them -so much so that she was uncovered- by tooth and nail. The winged monkeys were several, but even so, a few blows in the right places were enough to eliminate them.

Some were more persistent than others, some just more nimble or more intelligent, but that did not change that Jim would deliver blows with his blade to anyone that attacked, then left the corpses of the beasts lying on the ground, their eerie little eyes seeming to stare at him with animal hunger before fading inexorably. He would make his sword dance from foe to foe without a second thought, the blood splattering on the ground and thus staining it.

Having to wait before, not being able to do anything except listen and wait -because of the light, goddammit. He knew that that was gonna happen- trying to convince Steve, Toby, and Claire to not do anything stupid, had raised the desire to end everything as soon as possible.

From time to time, Jim would lean in to help Steve as well, who was just ahead and responding to the ferocity of the creatures between high-pitched squeals, ungainly kicks that threatened to bring him down more than anything else, hastily dodging and -even in a minor way- the bases they had tried to give him the previous day. They were a little dirty and inaccurate, but compared to the attempts made not even twenty-four hours earlier, they were going quite a bit better.

Jim helped him when he noticed him having trouble, even though he saw the slight injury to the blond's ego every single time. The fact he ended up ignoring it very soon. In any case, after doing what he had to do to keep Steve from getting into serious trouble, he would go back to Claire and reintroduce himself as her personal bodyguard.

And so he would return to attack, to respond to each beast with the same aggression that was reserved for him. His movements were extremely fast, so much so that he seemed to dart from one opponent to another in a blink of an eye.

From the position he was in, he could mostly see his surroundings very well. He could see his friends fighting, diminishing opponents as they went.

He could see Toby crushing the monkeys with the Warhammer, defending the unconscious Knight, causing big thuds and cracks in the ground... Something Jim thought would cause Merlin to complain later. Sure he would.

Not too far from Toby and the Heart of Avalon were Aaarrrgh and Blinky. They had each other's backs. The first Troll was doing more work than the second -although Blinky was trying his hardest- because it took very little for him to grab them and crash them to the floor as if they were basketballs, cracking their spines in the process if the noise caused each time said anything about it.

He then saw Archibald flying right and left across the room and setting the creatures on fire with large, powerful flames, gaining the advantage in air combat without even having to exert much effort. The only times he seemed to struggle was when he looked around, probably searching for his Wizard, then forcing himself to spin around again to avoid being hit by any attacks. He was somewhat reminiscent of a spinning top in doing so as if he were following a laser light that had appeared on the wall and was trying to catch it.