Chapter 29 – Snap back to reality

Current Location: Ponderous Peat

Brent didn’t have a clear picture in his head of how the attack was going to go. But here he was, watching it unfold.

Harry ran out from under the tree, shouting “Hold on there miss, you’re coming with us!”

That was perhaps not the best choice of words, it made them sound like bandits.

The position Brent had maneuvered the fox-eared girl into gave her no time to react or avoid their ambush. Harry closed the distance, grabbed Cassie’s arms from behind and started to wrestle them behind her back, while Reisa tried to take the bow away.

Man, this would look really bad from an outsider’s perspective.

Cassie fiercely resisted their efforts to restrain her, twisting back and forth while keeping a tight grip on her weapon. “Whoa! She’s pretty strong!” Harry exclaimed, struggling to keep his footing.

Should he help? Brent realized he was just standing there watching. He jogged back over.

The situation was still looking pretty volatile, and he wasn’t sure how to insert himself such that it would help Harry and Reisa and not hinder them. This was why he hadn’t been part of the hiding group. It also looked like she had some sharp claws that could really hurt.

Back to talking. Brent cleared his throat, his heart pounding. “Um. Cassie, please. We’re trying to help you. We know you’re under that guy’s control. Can you fight it?”

“Yeah, take it easy, love,” Harry added, “We wouldn’t be doing this if you weren’t trying to kill us.”

She stopped struggling for a moment, allowing Brent a better look. Her mouth was drawn up in a grimace, and there was still the red tint in her eyes, but it was flickering somewhat. Her sailor uniform looked dirtier and more ragged than when he had first seen her.

The moment passed, and she sprang back into motion.

Reisa had nearly pried the bow out of her hands, but was taken by surprise by Cassie suddenly releasing her grip and pushing the wood forward, smacking Reisa in the face.

“Gah!” The elf backed off as the struggle began anew.

“Wait, it was working for a second. Come on!” Brent urged, trying to replicate that pause.

But she didn’t respond this time, continuing to fight. He thought they’d made progress in taking away the bow but now she was trying to scratch and claw at Harry again.

“I think you have to- whoa!” Harry was interrupted as Cassie leaned forward in an attempt to throw him off. He dug his feet in. “You have to say her name, I reckon. Cassie! Oi, Cassie!”

The fox-eared girl froze again. “Hup!” Taking advantage of this, Harry managed to bring both her arms behind her back and hold them in place before she unfroze.

“Hey, it worked!”

“Ah, using her name would make sense,” Reisa remarked pensively. “Showing her words, memories, events that remind them of who they are would help break the control.”

Harry nodded. “Well that’s fantastic. Cassie!” The fox-girl began to squirm but went still again at the mention of her name.

“She’s right,” Brent said. “Keep going, keep going!”

Harry continued. “Cassie, Cassie, Cassie, Cassie…” After the third repetition he started varying pitch and tone.

It… seemed to be working? Cassie was in a semi-frozen state, not actively struggling but shuddering every few seconds, her face was in a deep scowl.

Brent felt a bit uneasy watching this. Was it hurting her? The red tint in her eyes was constantly flickering, so he didn’t say anything.

There were limits to even Harry’s melodious voice. After a while he had to stop to catch his breath. “Hah… is she free?” he asked, panting, as since he was behind her he couldn’t see her face.

Well… Cassie shuddered again, and without her name being constantly called the red glow stopped flickering, became solid. She growled, and lunged forward, dragging Harry off balance. “Whoa!”

Apparently not.

Brent quickly stepped back out of the way. This achieved the goal of avoiding Cassie, but did not achieve the goal of preventing her and Harry from stumbling past him and toppling to the ground.

“Cassie! Cassiecassiecassie...” Harry started repeating her name again, looking at Brent and Reisa imploringly as he maneuvered himself and Cassie upright.

The message was clear; this wasn’t a permanent solution.

“I think we need another memory to break it. Quickly now!” Reisa prodded Brent.

“Why are you poking me?” he shot back. “I just talked to her once. You said before that you were traveling with her, right? Shouldn’t you know her better?”

Reisa’s face started to color. It seemed like she was having trouble processing this. “Ah, that’s true. Hmm…” She tugged on her braid.

“...Cassie, anytimenowguys, Cassie…” Harry panted.

“Right.” Reisa walked over and leaned in, still leaving maybe a foot or so of air between her and the barely contained fox-girl. It looked like she was also intimidated by Cassie’s ferocity and the claws.

“Cassie, do you remember me? We… took our afternoon meal together the other day. There was that fizzy beverage and…” she trailed off, a bit lost. “Do you remember that?”

There was no response, her words seemed to have no effect.

Reisa looked back at Brent and shrugged. So much for that.

What were they missing? Maybe it was because Harry was already spamming her name and it was drowning out or interfering with what Reisa said.

“Let’s try something besides just talking to her,” Brent suggested.

Reisa nodded, but didn’t take any action or offer any additional insight.

“Cassie, thatmightbegood, Cassie...”

“Uh…”

Things were looking bad. Brent wished Ray and Karisma were here, maybe one of them would have some inkling of an idea. He could try to find them and bring them over, but honestly the amount of noise this struggle was already generating was making him very uncomfortable.

Maybe they should just give up? No, there was no gracefully exiting this situation. They couldn’t just let Cassie go, she’d keep pursuing them or someone else, and they had no means to permanently restrain her.

Harry was occupied and Reisa was clueless. It really was up to him. Another memory… what did he even have? They had talked once and…

Well, there was one thing he could try.

Brent stepped back in. “Harry, can you let go of one of her hands?”

“...Cassie, yeahbutwhy?, Cassie…”

“I have an idea.”

Harry didn’t answer as he was still chanting, but he did shift so that one of Cassie’s arms was free. In any other scenario this might have been too risky but as long as she was kept docile by her name, they’d be fine.

Brent took up the fox-girl’s hand. It was mostly like that of a human, but the tips ended in black, inch-long bestial talons rather than nails. He made sure to keep them away from his flesh, even more glad that she wasn’t currently fighting back.

He made sure Cassie was looking, then wrapped his pinky around hers and held it up. He gestured with their hands in a rough imitation of the pinky shake they had made on the plane when they first met.

“Do you remember this?” he said, in a tone filled with mostly desperation and a tiny bit of hope.

He watched the red glow in her eyes flicker one more time… and then disappear.

At once, all the tension left Cassie’s body. She slumped, her eyes drooping shut, and Harry found himself now carrying her instead of restraining her.

“Did it work? Can I stop now?” he asked.

Brent held his breath for a few seconds, waiting to see if she would spring into motion again, but she didn’t. Was she dead? No, just unconscious.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think it worked. She’s snapped out of it.”

“Hooo!” Harry let out a big exhalation and gently lowered Cassie down to the ground.

“Good job, mate!” He patted Brent on the shoulder, his touch light due to exhaustion. “I knew you could do it.”

“Really? I had no idea if it was going to work myself,” Brent replied. He gave a slight smile, but inside he was soaring, flying through the air with elation. He’d broken a magic spell, and nobody had lost any health!

“I am sorry I could not have been of more use,” Reisa spoke, looking down. “In all honesty, I have not done something like this before.”

“Hey, no worries,” Harry said. “All the info you gave us on magic and the like was really useful. And we might still need it later.”

That was true. They had broken the control on Cassie, but the source of it, Adrian Donis, was still out there.

“So, what happens now?” Harry asked.

“Hm…” Brent hadn’t really considered that things would turn out this way. Well, they’d accomplished their goal. The only difference was that Cassie was unconscious rather than conscious, so they couldn’t talk to her or anything without waking her up.

“...We can go meet back up with the others, I guess.” He glanced back at her body. “We’re gonna have to carry her.”

“Alright.” Harry stooped down to pick her up.

“Uh, you don’t have to do that,” Brent said. Harry’s role in this had been the hardest physically and Brent felt kind of guilty he hadn’t helped.

“Nah, it’s fine,” the man waved dismissively. “I’ll get her legs.”

Brent took Cassie by the shoulders and together they lifted her up off the ground. She was lighter than expected, her clothes had gotten even more soiled from laying on the moist ground.

Reisa came in to support the girl’s mid-section, probably feeling guilty as well.

They started moving; with Harry in the front, Reisa in the middle, and Brent in the back. It felt a little like a funeral procession, and Brent thought of a certain electronic song that they could have marched along in tune to.

They didn’t hear that song, but they did hear another familiar sound; the jingle preceding another Dombey Uno announcement. It sounded pretty distant so they had to stop to hear it.

Beep boop beep beep boooop. “Goood morning survivors, and welcome to Day 4 of Battleground Survival Legends!”

Hm, was it still morning? It felt like so much had happened since the day began that it shouldn’t be anymore, but Brent didn’t have his phone, and the canopy above made it difficult to discern the position of the sun.

“On Day 3 a total of: 7. Contestants bit the bullet. This is UNACCEPTABLE!!” Dombey’s falsetto heightened to a screech. “The next Halo has formed and is closing NOW!”

Well, that wasn’t good.

Brent got chills down his spine from hearing Dombey break out of his (its?) usually jolly tone. But it also got him thinking, the low death count might mean there were other groups of survivors out there that were working together, or at least not trying to kill each other. If only they could have run into one of those instead of mind control guy.

But what was that about the next Halo?

“Map!” Brent called. The window opened up, showing that the white ring representing the safe zone had shrunk again, and their present location was outside of it. To make matters worse, the blue ring representing the Halo’s actual position was already closing in at an alarmingly fast pace.

But the cherry on top was probably the fact that the hill they had agreed to meet back up with Ray and Karisma on was outside by a good margin. Well, whatever- the others were probably aware of this too. They could get to safety first and think about that after.

“Crap. Uh, we’re gonna have to move quickly.” This would not be the leisurely procession he had wanted. Complication after complication.

“Where to?” Harry asked.

“South. Just south.” That was the shortest path to getting back inside the ring.

They oriented themselves and started to hustle, though it wasn’t much faster than a slow jog due to the terrain and the differences in their strides that they had to compensate for while carrying Cassie together.

Her being unconscious was now a huge detriment, but they couldn’t just leave her behind as the advancing pain field might kill her. Maybe they should try waking her up?

Brent glanced behind, seeing nothing, but he could hear a faint buzzing noise in the distance.

Their path took twists and turns as trees, roots and other such obstacles in the way prevented them from taking a straight line.

Bang! Bang! Gunshots sounded from somewhere up ahead, and Brent’s stomach began to churn.

Were they walking straight into a fight? Well, the alternative was getting caught outside the ring. Slowing down or changing directions might increase the possibility of that happening.

The buzzing sound was getting louder, and dark clouds crept in from the north.

“Uh, let’s be ready to put her down if something happens,” Brent warned. Much as he hated to admit it, they might need to leave her behind just to ensure their own survival, whether that would involve fighting or running.

But wait. Brent’s Map was still open, and the edge of the white circle looked awfully close. He held out hope for the possibility that they could still make it in while staying far enough away to avoid getting caught up in whatever fight was going on. They just had to-

“Run! It’s right behind you!” Ray’s voice came from behind, and Brent looked back just in time to see his form speed past, overtaking the three of them.

“I… can’t….” Further back Karisma was stumbling along, huffing and puffing.

“You have to! Come on, we’re almost there!”

And right behind Karisma advanced a giant wall of shimmering transparent purple energy, the source of the buzzing. It stretched up and out to either side as far as the eye could see, threatening to swallow her up if she stopped for even a moment.

“Crikey! That goes for us, too!” Harry sped up, yanking Reisa and Brent along.

It was all they could do to keep their balance, and even at her slow out of breath pace Karisma was almost caught up with them. Which meant the wall was too.

The buzzing sound was very loud now, and Brent was too scared to look back to confirm this.

They crossed a particularly moist patch of mud and suddenly Brent’s foot slipped, going out from under him.

“No!” He fell to the ground, nearly face-planting in the mud. Fortunately he had let go of Cassie just in time so he didn’t drag everyone else down with him, but Harry and Reisa stopped anyway when they noticed the change in load, glancing back to see him.

“Ah shite, just hold on-” Harry began, but Ray cut him off.

“No, you keep going! Karisma, you help him!”

The buzzing was now right in his ear. Brent scrambled to get a knee up, nearly hyperventilating with the thought of the wall about to envelop him.

“AAAAAAAAAHH!!!” Karisma was half freaking out as she took his hands and pulled him the rest of the way to his feet.

Then the buzzing… dropped in intensity?

“Oh. Never mind, you’re good!” Ray called.

Huh? Brent and Karisma turned around.

The wall had stopped moving, about one or two feet away from Brent.

They had just made it inside the safe zone.