[Luna & Ria]
The late afternoon light filtered through the thinning canopy of the city's largest public park.
Luna walked past with her eyes scanning the empty streets. Ria trailed slightly behind, her shoulders hunched.
"Luna..." Ria started, kicking a loose pebble. "What will we do now?"
Luna stopped, turning to face her. "I don't have a plan yet, Ria. But we have to survive... keep moving and stay alive long enough to find the next move."
As they began walking again, they entered an abandoned plaza dominated by a huge, ornamental fountain that had long since run dry. It was in this isolated space that they felt a strange pressure settling over them.
A figure appeared the gloom of the nearby trees, a pale man with perpetually darting eyes. He carried no imposing weapon but his smile was unsettling.
"Such a shame..." Malik drawled. "Two perfect little prizes, walking right into my net. You two look so clean, you must have so many beautiful secrets."
Before either girl could react, the atmosphere shattered. Malik focused his Fear Projection technique on them. The cracked fountain began to whisper their names and the shadows took on the grotesque shapes of their worst anxieties.
Ria gasped, stumbling back. She saw the terrifying, angry face of the Executioner with the staff, staring at her from the empty fountain. "Killer! " his voice screamed. "You brought this ruin!"
Luna fared only slightly better. Her vision warped and a massive, shadowy figure stood on the edge of the plaza, condemning her for relying on Ravyn. "You are weak!" the vision hissed. "You can't do anything without him and you will get Ria killed."
Luna forced a ragged breath, her strategic mind fighting through the fog of terror. She knew this fear was manufactured.
"Ria! Don't look at them!" Luna shouted, her voice shaking but carrying a thread of command. "It's not real! He's probably using Illusions!"
She whipped out a small device capable of disrupting low-level psychic fields and slammed it into the ground.
The illusions wavered but they didn't break. Malik laughed and shifted his entire power, focusing it entirely on Ria.
In Ria's vision, her ice was everywhere. She saw herself surrounded by the frozen, shattered bodies of people she hadn't encountered yet. The image of the Executioner morphed into a judge, raising a massive crystalline blade, ready to strike her down for the unforgivable crime of taking a life.
"You are a killer." Malik's voice resonated directly in her mind, overwhelming her sanity. "Your power exists only to destroy. You deserve to be put down!"
Ria cried out, clutching her head. She was trapped in the absolute horror of her own making, the crush of the psychological weight forcing her toward the pavement. She felt the urge to make it all stop.
Her mana erupted. And an overwhelming cold radiated outward, coating the pavement in a shimmering layer of frost.
In the center of the plaza, where the dried fountain stood, a series of gigantic-jagged ice pillars erupted violently from the ground. They tore through the concrete, forming a chaotic fortress of razor-sharp, blue-white ice.
The eruption was so rapid and powerful, that even Malik was stunned by the sheer force. He could not retreat fast enough.
One of the jagged ice pillars tore through his chest, impaling him instantly against the central structure of the fountain. His eyes went wide and the projected illusions instantly vanished.
The terrifying whispers ceased and leaving only the sound of the frozen wreckage.
Malik was dead. Killed not by skill but by the terrified force of a girl who had reached her breaking point.
Ria stood in the middle of the plaza, surrounded by her own destruction. She looked at the blood staining the white ice, the limp body of the man impaled by her power and the terrifying realization broke her.
She was the monster in her own fear. Ria let out a terrified sob, which dissolved into racking hysteria. Her mind recoiled from the reality of her power and her mana, still lashed out wildly.
Luna rushed forward. "Ria! It's over! He's gone! We have to go!"
"No! Get away from me! Don't look!" she screamed, covering her face.
Luna grabbed her shoulders, shaking her, trying to snap her out of the debilitating terror. But in her blind panic, Ria's arms flailed wildly. And Luna cried out in a gasp of pain. Ria's frost-coated hands with crystalline, had stabbed Luna deeply in the hip.
Luna stumbled back, clutching the wound, blood seeping quickly between her fingers but she ignored the pain, focusing solely on Ria.
Ria saw the blood on Luna, saw the injury she had just inflicted on the one person who took her as friend and the last vestiges of her control shattered.
She sank to her knees, screaming and burying her head into the frozen pavement. The tears fell, instantly freezing into tiny beads of ice. The sight of her own blood-stained hand confirmed the horror, she hurt everyone she touched.
Luna staggered forward. She knelt beside Ria and pulled the girl into her chest.
"It's okay, Ria." Luna murmured. She held Ria tight. "I know you didn't mean to. And it's over now."
She looked out at the frozen wreckage, at the body of the man Ria had killed and felt a wave of profound despair but she held onto the girl who was now sobbing uncontrollably.
"Let's go home, Ria." Luna whispered, holding her side tight.