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

24-Wounds pt.1

TRACK 24

So, throw your fist up

Now throw your fist up

Ain't nobody goin' to take my life

Ain't nobody goin' to get the best of me

Ain't a preacher goin' to save me now

Grab a seat, I'm goin' to show you how

(Party Poison - My Chemical Romance)

********

Running up the stairs from the bottom up, thanks to both stones, was remarkably easy. She felt only a third of the fatigue and effort she was exerting, and she was advancing much faster than normal -The Arcadia athletic group would have envied her at that moment, most likely- but that did not change the fact that after a few flights of stairs, she found herself standing in front of a compact wall of branches barring her way.

The sight of them made her hold her breath, but she gave herself no time to be paralyzed on the spot.

She did not have a Ruby to set them on fire, but with brute force, she would still be able to break through. Even if it would have meant wasting time with Helena, who was surely ready to hunt her down -and who must have been quite angry because, with the power of her fist taken to the limit, there was a probability that she must have broken a few teeth and her nose with that punch- and injured her hands in the process. Which wasn't exactly welcome as a thing if to give the stones her full capabilities she had to clench them in her fists, was it?

She still let herself hit the branches with repeated punches accompanied by kicks, feeling the impact every single time. She sensed each cut forming on her skin and the burning of them, which gradually increased.

On the fifth strike, she managed to break through but found herself turning her head as she heard the sound of the Elder Witch's footsteps begin to rise in volume.

"You're seeing it wrong," she said calmly, but with a stone between her fingers pulsing with energy. Holy Crap, it was an octagonal diamond if she was seeing and feeling it right. "There's no reason to run away."

'Are you flipping kidding me? An Octagonal one, of all of them? Sure, it could have been a Trilliant, but my Gods...'

Alice let out another kick where the branches had broken down, widening the hole enough to allow her own passage, and tried to get through.

She succeeded for a good part, and then several of the branches went to attach themselves to her legs and arms, encircling and squeezing her. They squeezed her so tightly that they burned and traced cuts in her skin, tearing a whimper of pain from her.

'Crap, crap, crap!' she gritted her teeth, breathing hard through her nose. 'Balderdash! That hurts!'

The emotion she felt instantly went into Beryl a second time, dampening the one she felt and diluting it enough to be bearable. A simple push forward with the greatest speed of which she was capable of making her able to get them off her, smashing them all at the same time, though they too went to scratch her flesh more.

She therefore darted forward, dodging with difficulty a stalagmite that stretched out suddenly and almost pierced her side. And that it was clear proof that Alice had been right about Helena's stone. That she had been right to fear it, especially because of the shape of it.

"Wouldn't you like to improve the world too?" asked the woman behind her, who was advancing slowly, much slower than her own pace. Of course, it could have been because of her age, or maybe because she didn't have her own stones with her, but... it was as if she knew Alice wouldn't be able to escape anyway. As if she didn't need to run after her. "Aren't you also tired of the way it is nowadays?"