"...Clang"
"Whooosh… boom!"
"... honey… you go… ria away…"
The sound of crashing and shouting awoke Aria. At first, she thought it was the hustle and bustle of many morning activities outside that had started earlier than usual, but the sounds of crashing and cracking furniture coming from outside her room, followed by the sound of something heavy being smashed to the ground.
Ah, it's not morning yet. Something wrong happened outside.
As realization came to her, it felt like air was disappearing from her lungs
But she still pushed herself to get up from her bed and dashed towards the door. When she arrived in front of her door and readied herself to open it, she noticed that she was still holding the egg, and it began to heat up and tremble wildly.
The egg was like trying to stop her from leaving the room, as if it knew that calamity would befall her if she ever tried to go out.
At that moment, she could hear her mom's voice much clearer from beyond the door.
"I know who sent you here," she said. "Tell them that I will no longer retaliate against them."
"They have won," she continued with a strained voice. "I have nothing left. So leave!"
"Haha, No!" A voice of ridicule rang out with a mocking tone. "The only safe one is the dead one."
Their conversation stopped Aria, and so many bad and negative thoughts filled her mind.
What should I do, Mom?
Her grip on the egg became tighter as she was worrying about what she could do in this situation.
"Boom!!!"
But, before she could even think for too long, the ground trembled from the shock. She could even feel her door trembling hard.
Feeling scared from the shock, she slid down to the ground.
What's happening outside? Maybe I could peek for a bit?
As she thought of that, she gathered her courage and peeped at the situation outside from the keyhole. From it, she could see there was a blaring fire, and her dad stood tall in it. His fire elementals were swirling around him like a blazing serpent. Much wreckage littered around him, leaving signs of his fighting to protect the important person that he has in his life, as mom was back to back with him, also fighting with all her might, together with her beasts.
Across each of them, Aria could see the dark figures of the intruder. They were covered with black attire but wrapped in metal magic armor. The magic armor looked strong enough, as it could withstand many hits from both of her parents' magic.
They kept launching magic between the two of them, as a result, most of the furniture in the house either fell apart in wreckage or was reduced to ashes.
As their fight went on, Aria could feel the heat of her dad's elemental even from behind the door.
She knew her dad was strong, the strongest elemental she had ever known.
Maybe he could—
Her thought was cut short as the ground shook again.
She peeked again, then she saw the intruder's metal magic had struck the ground heavily, sending shockwaves through the floor. This made her dad stagger from the impact. Seeing the opportunity, the intruder kept hurling many metal elemental magic at him, as if to build up some momentum for bigger things.
His situation kept worsening, and the dreaded feeling Aria had while seeing it turned out to be true.
Anti-mana gun
One of the intruders took out some kind of gun-type weapon. But she knew from school that gun weapons were banned and illegal, as they could absorb the target's mana. Means it was suppressing one's magic.
No, they would be in serious danger.
Aria clutched the egg even tighter, if it were a regular one, it might already break. She wanted to go out and help them, but fear froze her muscles, refusing her command.
"Don't be arrogant here… leave!" She could faintly hear her dad's stern voice.
Eventually, she could hear the hurling sound of a fire elemental going off beyond the door. As if telling her not to lose hope.
"Rustle… rustle…"
A rustling sound came from her side, it was one of her mom's bonded beasts.
It came from underneath the door, the beast crept to her. Sleek, cold, and scaly, her mom's serpent bonded beast, its sharp eyes flicked from her towards the wardrobe on the other side of the wall. As if telling her to go there.
Without waiting for her to follow, the beast slid to it quickly. So Aria tried her best to crawl behind it, as her legs were still refusing to move.
The beast nudged open the wardrobe and coiled around a faint, hidden latch inside it.
She remembered that long ago, her mom had shown her the space beneath it once, a particular safe area for any emergency.
Seeing her still not moving, the beast started to nudge her urgently.
With a trembling hand, she opened the latch with difficulty as it had shown signs of rusting. Then, she slipped into the hidden compartment with the beast and closed it again from the inside.
Inside, as her surroundings were very dark, all she could do was hug the cold and scaly beast to her embrace, together with the egg. Trying to calm her trembling self and disarray mind.
The ruckus outside grew louder, more shouts, thumping noises, then loud screams rang out. But in just seconds, just silence. No sound anymore.
The silence was so loud that her pounding heartbeat sounded so loud that she thought the intruder might hear from outside.
"Creak… crash…"
The silence was shattered as the hidden door above her was ripped open.
At first, she thought it was one of her parents, but then a hand shot down and seized her hair. Yanking her upward, out of the hidden compartment, with brutal force.
"There you are…" the man said with a mocking voice. "Enough playing, no more hide and seek for you."
"Arghh… let go… let me go!!" Aria was trying her best to fight back and pried off the man's grip on her.
She kicked, clawed, and even tried to hit him with the egg that was still in her embrace. Even her mom's beast attacked him, trying to save her. But, there's not much it could do without its tamer.
The man just easily slapped both of them so hard until her head's ringing and the beast was down on the floor.
"Don't do anything stupid," the intruder hissed, his gaze sharp like a knife. "Blame your bad luck, to be born with that treacherous blood that flows in your veins."
Then a sharp pain bloomed and spread from her chest, as she realized the metal magic had pierced straight through her left chest, into her heart. She gasped, the world around her blurred from the pain. She could feel her body turn limp and dropped onto the floor.
However, her mind was still conscious as if still processing the turn of events, and through it she could hear the man conversing with another one who seemed like just joined the room.
"The egg is rock hard, could barely scratch it." The voice of the man who stabbed her sounded out.
"That's fine, everyone has been dealt with. I doubt a mere unhatched egg could do anything." The new man said with a giddy voice.
"True enough. So let's just leave then. The fight had already dragged on for too long, who knows, they would be this tough, the authorities might be alerted already."
"Yeah, just make sure to erase our presence." Both of their voices started to get further away from her.
Her mind also started to get more hazy, as if telling her that her condition worsened. Her limbs started to feel nothing, from her legs to her arms. But suddenly, the tip of her finger was hot, super hot, as if it was burning.
It was all because, without her knowing it, the egg that was in her palm had pulsing wildly as it came in contact with her pool of blood. The silver veins kept getting brighter. It trembled hard, and the pool of blood around it had shrunk as if absorbing it so fast.
"Crack… crack…"
In seconds, many cracks started to form on its surface. It kept getting bigger until she shell shattered and the beast inside started to emerge from within.
It was when, through her fading consciousness, she could see a shadow of something. But her mind was too blurred and too hard for her to keep her mind awake.
Then the darkness took over her.