In two blinks, something unexpected happened.
The whole game stopped for a moment, staring at Pearl, who was standing over a Mei cowering and groaning in pain. His bow retracted back into a stick, and the tip was pushing on Mei's neck, a bit more force and it won't be pleasant for her.
Pearl's eyes widened, his hands trembled and sweats had taken over his face. His glasses dropped down when he nervously let go of the bow.
"Pearl, Mei, are you two okay? What happened?" Rina quickly dropped down from behind to hold the two siblings.
The two didn't leave eye contact for a solid minute. Before Mei puffed up her chest and picked up Pearl's glasses.
"Was that … ?"
Pearl rapidly nodded, he tried to hide his awkwardness and put on the glasses again.
"Yeah… yeah, that is that." He picked up the stick and turned it back into a bow; He smiled calmly while dusting it.
The two seemed to have an inside thing, which confused Rina a bit. What's "that" they are talking about?
"Pause please!" Mei waved her hands and raised her voice to signal Marc, who was still in the arrow's binding.
The match was disrupted, Marc walked weirdly over to the group while facing upwards, not letting more blood from his forehead get out.
"Are you sure you're okay, Pearl?" Rina took a handkerchief from her pocket and cleaned Marc's forehead while looking at Pearl.
"Yeah, I'm sorry, it's something with me and these. Are you okay, sis?"
"Woah, my younger brother just called me sis, is this my 20th birthday?" Mei giggled, fixing herself from grass and dust. "Yeah I'm okay, that stomach thrust did something but not as bad as what Rina's done to my arm."
She smiled brightly, raising the back of her arm to show a coagulating cut, a little bit bigger than Marc's forehead wound.
"We really should consider wound infections in the future." Marc closed his eyes, trusting Rina's hands to tend to him.
"Did she cut your shoes too?" Pearl smirked, looking down at Mei's feet, which are exposed because most of the shoes are burnt. Only the heel sole remained.
"Oh, pfft, forget these." She snickered; raised her heels up to remove the remaining of her shoes and went barefoot. "I'm getting fire-resistant shoes next time."
"So, if everyone's okay. I guess we can call this a draw?" Marc gave Pearl back his elemental staff. "Sorry, I accidentally made a hole on it."
"That's okay, the core's still in."
Everyone got back their weapons and had a good laugh about the whole thing.
"I think I forgot something." Marc suddenly said, looking at the cliff above.
"If you forgot, then it is not that important, right?" Rina swung her stick around randomly.
… Meanwhile.
"EIIK!" Esmeralda shrieked, which translated to "This is boring! Where is everyone! This is like those situations where dads left to buy the milk and never came back, right?"
"Oh right, I forgot about Vel." Marc facepalmed himself.
"Oh, yeah, I'm sorry." Rina stuck her tongue and shrugged embarrassingly. "How about this, if you can guess where we kept Esmeralda. The win is yours."
"Can we just call this a draw-" Marc said.
"Deal!" Mei jumped in and began chanting her energies.
She got into a wide stance, focusing with her eyes closed while letting go of her staff, which made it levitate magnificently in front of her.
"This… is how you do elemental." She giggled, turning towards Rina for a second.
"Elemental Spell: Total Tornado!" Mei held the staff and slammed it on the ground hard, a "thump" could be heard as wind shredded through everything.
One fourth of the jungle was blown away, literally, with no harm done on the team, well, except Marc, who did get some dust onto his eyes and wound.
"Aside from wound infection, we need to care more about what we are destroying, I suppose." Pearl rubbed his forehead and whispered, which did not catch Mei's ears.
Mei looked around a bit, frowning.
"If Es isn't in this area, then she must be… I don't know… Uh, not in this forest?"
Rina shook her head and signaled everyone to come.
The Blue Team were right, Rina and Pearl were putting Esmeralda under the cliff, but not where they expected. She was on the other side of where they were standing, such a shame.
"Oh honey, come here. Were you bored? Did Marc forget about you?" Rina happily opened her arms for Esmeralda to climb onto. Upon seeing everyone's back, she jumped up and down, demanding to be picked up.
From Rina's shoulder, she made a big leap straight onto Marc's face, which almost sent him unbalancing backwards.
"Oh wo- you're quite heavy Vel, you've grown so much that I haven't noticed." Marc was cleansed from all fatigue and now rubbing his face against Esmeralda's, chuckling.
The two shared a bonding moment, a relieving one after so many weird things happening. A journey continued, a journey with things to come.
"..." Mei stared at the two for a moment, contemplating. "Do you guys find it weird how we never taught Es, a newborn dragon to speak human tongue, or any proper living manners and she's doing fine?"
Everyone looked at Mei, then stared down at Esmeralda with total silence.
'Crap' She thought, trying to whistle and distract everyone, but she ended up randomly blowing air.
Soon, they got over it and sat down, decided to camp there for the night.
"We… are so stupid." After bandaging everyone, Rina lay down on the grass below. She stared up at the orangish turning dark sky above; giggling and shaking her head before continuing:
"We got through a restless night, and then decided to straighten our minds by planning and slashing, and punching and, and…"
"And fireballing, fighting…" Mei chimed in.
"Yeah yeah, fighting in general."
"Yeah, almost kill each other again." Mei snickered.
"Whew, that was SO random." Rina chuckled, before turning to Mei.
A long pause, staring into the fireplace.
"You two were having much fun, huh?" Pearl smiled, staring at the two.
"Jealous?" Rina winked.
"Agitated, yes." He lifted up his arms and thighs to reveal a handful of red bubbles and marks, resembling mosquitos' bite.
"You would rather get punched by Mei than to wait for a perfect shot that everyone set up for you?" Rina shrugged.
"I'd rather just gather everyone in one place to fight and not be bored to death from waiting." Pearl fake yawned.
"Agreed." Marc raised his index finger up.
"Kiek." Esmeralda jumped in, which translates to "Agree two." While raising two out of her four fingers up.
"Welp, ladies first~" Rina winked mischievously.
It was a quiet mood, no stars could be visibly seen yet, but the atmosphere was so relaxing.
"God, I've read too many love novels." Mei covered her eyes for a moment, then began rubbing Esmeralda's cheeks who was on her lap.
"Do you think, like, you know…" Mei rolled her eyes upwards, holding hand up to express thinking. "Two from this team would get into a relationship? Since we traveled all over the place and can only make bonds with each other and all that."
"Didn't someone ask Marc out back in town? What's her name again, Na...naui." Rina contributed.
"Naomi, one who made it clear that she hates garlic and wears red contact lenses, right?"
"Yeah, she's cute."
"Yeah…" Marc shook his head slowly. "I'm not ready for that."
...
"How long have we done this… years?" Pearl brought out some raw meat they had and began to set up a cooking station.
"Less or equal to half a decade prolly." Rina helped by creating some small fire with her index finger.
"That's a fancy way to say four to five years." Pearl replied. "But yeah… I'm surprised about how little we know about each other's personal life."
"..." No one answered, which led Pearl to continue.
"Mei and I can talk to each other, but you two, Rina and Marc, should you stop keeping to yourself?"
"You are very kind, Pearl." Marc smiled. "But I have nothing to unveil about myself, just a normal guy."
"Marc."
"..." No one said a thing.
"I don't want to talk about it." Marc firmly grabbed Esmeralda and hugged her, like a small teddy bear.
A long pause ensued, switching topics should be the prime option here, but one's only dare to try.
"If my dear, this didn't go as planned. I just hope that they can save themselves…" Mei casually mumbled, boinging her head side to side.
"In my eyes lies a distant joy, on our cart that went through the tunnel~"
Mei traveled across the universe, her high loud voice got more clear as the silent sky tuned in and listened, alongside the whole team and an Esmeralda with her eyes full of twinkling stars.
"...I wish the galaxy, infinitely far far away, would be brought to my front porch. For once giving me the chance to touch it before I grow old!"
"Ey-ya-eya-o…"
Mei stood up confidently, almost kicking dirt into the fireplace as she spun around maniacally.
"Ey-ya-eya-o!"
"Ey...ya-eya-o!"
Rina stood up, woven Mei's hands as they randomly danced around, not specifically into any music.
"What's left of only bricks, sand, and a pile of rocks…
… being buried by leaves. As worthless as cobblestones that turn into dust when we evolve backwards too far."
The two take a slow look behind, to see Pearl slowly standing up, readjusting his dumb glasses while seeing along.
"Worms hiding themselves on leaves. Everyone wants coal to be the goal. This is the stage where faith is imprinted, I sent a request to the force above me."
"Because for a very long time people no longer have time and faith in their love for their prayers to run after life like a roundabout."
Marc closed his eyes, stood up straight to join while everyone began clapping loudly and cheer.
"Rather I'd plant a tree
Restore a river
Heaven is home to fish, elephants and homeless cats
While nature carries so many lyrics
Write to life a letter about the old times
As if we are asking for forgiveness."
The sight started getting chaotically wonderful, as everyone started holding hands and throwing each other around to dance. The frightened and curious little Esmeralda, having the inability to fly up to anyone's shoulders, began walking backwards.
"The flickering hills and mountains are uneven, the rows of vines are covering sacks of gold.
Blue clouds playing with the storks flying along, seems so busy.
The rice is iridescent in the color of the crop, the farmer viewed them as if he's growing gold.
The wind comes to the fields so smoothly because screw those life stories."
"One more time, let's go!"
"The flickering hills and mountains are uneven, the rows of vines are covering sacks of gold.
Blue clouds playing with the storks flying along, seems so busy.
The rice is iridescent in the color of the crop, the farmer viewed them as if he's growing gold.
The wind comes to the fields so smoothly because screw those life stories."
…
When darkness has taken over and the fire is extinguished, they all lie down on the ground, dumbfounded and tripled the tiredness.
"T...this is fun and all but, can we stop by a town so I can get new shoes tomorrow?" Mei wiped her sweats and roll around the grass randomly, almost squishing Esmeralda and Rina.