(Sort of a weird chapter, this one.. I think I fudged up the beginning pretty badly.. Can’t do fight scenes. >_> Oh yeah, and this time, FOR SURE, I finished editing the other chapters so that they make sense.)

Tiffany gripped her staff nervously, and activated the Esther shield tied to the wrist of her other arm. The diamond-shaped shield of energy spilling out from the small, hard pyramid-shaped core was somewhat of a comfort, thought she knew quite well that it would do little to protect her from Valerie. Tiffany slowly backed out of the kitchen and into the great dining hall.

Speaking of the witch, she spent no time in attacking. She sent great tongues of flame licking across the floor. The hem of her Calaf caught on fire, and Tiffany stamped it out and ripped her dress to her knees to avoid being burned even more. ‘Damn, that was stupid,’ she thought, ‘she’ll kill me in a duel!’ Instinctively, she turned and ran for her life. Wise decision, at that very moment, Valerie cast a freezing spell that encased the whole dining hall in ice. The effect was not instant; one could see the ice encroaching all the surfaces, but it was at an alarming rate. The younger one barely made it out of the room before the witch completed the spell.

Valerie laughed, “Little mousey, I thought you wanted a duel. Why are you running now? Unless you were trying to save some time..” She took her sweet time, not even bothering to run after Tiffany. All she did was send bolts of ice magic at her, as though the girl wasn’t worth using her powerful magic.

Tiffany veered left, right, almost every direction so long as there was an open hallway. “Where’s their weapon, where’s their weapons?!” she thought to herself frantically, referring to, of course, Ken and Ron’s swords. Valerie must have taken them after her drug had done its deed, and put it away somewhere. But where?!

Without noticing, she’d crashed into a decorative suit of armor. She jumped up as fast as she could, and noticed a Gladius lying amid pieces of armor. Tiffany secured her Arc Staff to a leather strip that hung from a thin belt tied around her waist, and picked up the Gladius. The sword was quite heavy, though it was considerably lighter than the swords Ken and Ron wielded.

When she looked up, Valerie was standing in the doorway, her eyes flashing with malice. ‘Stall her! Who was it that she’s so obsessed about? Ronald?’

“Shame your prince got killed, did he owe you money or something? He must’ve paid a lot to get /you/ to do him..” Tiffany said, trying to sound like Ron or Reika. Her aim was to goad Valerie into physically attacking her. “Good god, I wonder how you even know where his pecker is under all those layers of fat- ” She was cut short, for Valerie had uttered a banshee-like shriek and leapt at Tiffany. The older woman was utterly crazed, for she had grabbed a fistful of Tiffany’s hair and was now trying to claw her face. Tiffany struggled to throw her off. Desperate, she hacked off the portion of her hair that Valerie was grabbing onto. (Allusion to Naruto.. >=D WHOOT, NARUTO SHIPUUDEN! XD)

Her long black tresses went flying, and it surprised Valerie enough that Tiffany was able to kick her off. She infused the Gladius with her fire magic and slashed wildly every which way, with her eyes tightly shut as Valerie threw herself at Tiffany once more. All at once she felt a pressure against the sword’s edge, and she forced a sideways thrust, and heard a scream that met the sideways thrust. Was she the one screaming? An agonizingly slow millisecond later, she felt several great drops of some strange fluid splatter on her face.

Tiffany finally opened her eyes, and stared with morbid fascination at the body that lay at her feet. Valerie’s pretty head lay several feet away, her eyes still spinning and her hair fanning out behind the head. Strangely, there was very little blood; the flame on her sword had cauterized the wound. Tiffany dropped the sword and deactivated her Esther shield. She became aware of her breathing, which had become loud and ragged as though she were drowning. She, Tiffany, the one given the title of the weakest member of her crew, had beheaded the witch? It was her very first time using a sword to attack, much less /kill/ another human.

The girl took the keys to the cages from the folds of Valerie’s robes, dragged her own feet out of the hallway, and leaning against a wall, observed the scene. And a wonderful scene it was, her black hair scattered about the cool, coral colored marble. Valerie’s body and the Gladius, still flaming, lay in a heap a few feet away, and topping it all off, the witch’s had landed at the top of the pile of armor.

She twisted her features into a strange smile, and slowly stumbled into the kitchen, past Tom, who was just waking up, and fell to her knees when she reached the cages. She gripped the bars to pull herself up, and unlocked the very first cage, the one with the peacock. It stared at her with beady eyes, and didn’t so much as yank its head away when she opened its beak with shaking hands and shook a few drops down its throat.

The next cage was quite different. The puppy was submissive enough; it whined softly when she picked it up and administered the potion. The monkey, however, was altogether a different story; it grabbed at her stained, torn Calaf and her hair with its rough thorny hands. Nonetheless, she managed to repeat her all important task. When she set eyes on the yawning crocodile, she burst into hot angry tears.

Tom appeared beside her, and didn’t dare comment on her disheveled hair. Someone from behind gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze; she needn’t turn around to know that it was Ken. Zack and Allen would be back to normal soon, as well. She got up and wiped her face dry and opened the last cage, and watched as the crocodile lumbered out. Tom and Ken immediately pinned it to the ground and held its mouth wide open for her. Not long after Ron had his share, a small Kargo flew in, its small wings beating rapidly. It gave her an affectionate nudge, and took the vial and downed what was left.

Seeing that Reika had drank some, Tiffany nodded and smiled to herself and promptly fainted, not from a nervous breakdown, god no, she wasn’t a wimp, but from sheer exhaustion.