The Elementals - The Ice Princess

Chapter 44

Laney is running through the halls as quickly as she can. She has a definite advantage over the scouts. She has been up and down these halls multiple times as a student here. She gauges that she has three scouts left on her tail after dispatching the one with her whip and another one with a well timed blow with an axe. The scouts are faster than she is but she is much more agile. She purposely lets one catch up and just before it takes a swipe at her, she is able to change her illuminos into an axe and remove its hand. It squeals in pain and before the hand could hit the floor and disappear as dust, she is already delivering an overhead blow to the top part of the scouts head. As the blow was removing a portion of scout's head, she uses the momentum from the swing to carry her around and is able to hit the ground in stride again. The other two scouts seemed un-phased at losing a colleague and continue chasing her. To Laney, they remind her of a pair of pit bulls, relentless in their pursuit. Their primary concern is to stop her in any way that they can. She wonders briefly if they are to the fact that she isn't really Eira but decides to maintain her form just in case.

Laney notices that she is entering the technology wing and knows that there is a teacher's lounge just around the corner. With only two scouts following her she believes that she has a better shot of bottle necking them in so she wills her illuminos into the shape of a grappling hook that she grapples the door frame with. The speed at which she stops and changes direction lifts her off her feet as she whips around the corner and smashes through the glass on the door. It takes only a moment before she rolls to her feet with her illuminos up and in the shape of a sword. The first scout crashes into the metal door but the door does not give. The second one dives past the first and through the top half of the broken glass, but before it can regain footing on the ground, Laney arcs her sword downward and slices straight through the cloudy figure. It disappears in a cloud of smoke. As she brings her sword back up she is knocked off her feet backwards over some of the tables in the teachers' lounge. She struggles to gain her feet as she feels a bit dizzy after that blow to the head. However, she realizes that if she were to pass out or let her guard down for any longer than a second, she will die. She instinctively rolls on the ground toward the flipped over table. As she does, she sees her illuminos out of the corner of her eye laying a few feet from her.

She knows that she cannot reach the weapon with her hand and realizes that it's only a matter of time before the scout finds her. So she turns backwards and uses both feet to launch herself off the table and slide on her back to grab the handle of her illuminos. As she pushes off, the scout leaps over the table with its sharp claws extended. Laney is able to able to grab the illuminos and will it to form a short sword which the scout's momentum carries it on causing it to impale itself as it lands on Laney. Laney closes her eyes and the scout turns to dust before it can lay a finger on her.

Laney lays still for a moment catching her breath and silently giving thanks for the blue light that shimmers in the darkness. After a brief moment, she swallows and realizes that there is a metallic taste to her swallow. She knows what it is immediately, blood. She flips over on to all fours and in the silence can hear the drops of blood leaving her nose and hitting the floor below her. She reaches up and feels that her nose is crooked, the scout broke it when he hit her. She's actually very lucky that it was just a broken a nose, because a blow with the sharp side of its hand would have killed her instantly.

In the distance, she can hear a loud screech and then the taps of sharp claws making their way down the hallway. She wonders if the scouts are like sharks and can smell blood from a distance. Either way, she isn't sticking around to find out. Laney gets to her feet with her illuminos in hand. Before she begins to move though, she blows as much blood out of her nose on the floor as she can. If they are attracted to this, she hopes this will slow them down as she finds a spot to re-set her nose. After the floor has been sprayed a couple of times, she takes off in the opposite direction of the screeches. She thinks she knows a spot where she can be by herself a few minutes and it's not that far, a place she may be quite familiar with since she's been to the school. The principal's office.