"IMPOSSIBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLE!!!"
Claro screamed when the Shadow Fire sword was brought down upon him. How did this creature manage to catch his blade with such accuracy when both were moving at such fast speeds, then raise his own all in the span of a second? The knight maintained the last syllable of that word at full volume, hoping that he could stop the demonic weapon before it made contact, but there was so much force behind it.
He wasn't entirely unsuccessful, however, because the blade slowed with each reverberation of his voice. But how long could he keep this up? He was fighting to keep the sword from creeping any closer to his shoulder. He wasn't even breathing anymore. Claro had barely stopped Magnus's advanced bullets and it was impressive that he'd slowed this vile blade at all, but even his booming sound waves would have trouble completely thwarting a weapon swung so forcefully from above. The Shadow Fire was licking at his shoulders now.
Crack. The sudden crack of Claro's voice.
Another crack. If the Shadow Fire had been licking at him, then like the crack of a whip came a merciless tongue-lashing. Not in the sense that he was scolded. Rather, the knight was punished severely by that blade, the Shadow Fire filling the gaps in his plate armor and cutting him down. To think that he'd managed to avoid the eldritch flames all this time only to fall when they finally touched him.
"NO, I HAVEN'T FALLEN!"
Supporting his badly injured self with a trembling right arm, Claro caught himself when he fell forward and was now on his knees. Grunting in pain as he slowly picked himself up, the knight looked the demon dead in the eye and forced himself to concentrate through the pain of the dark embers that burned at the large gash on his chest. He cleared his throat and said at an uncharacteristically quiet volume, "Both of you will die here..."
Blood dripped from his smirk. He'd thought that he would simply defeat his opponent after a brief struggle, but he didn't anticipate that he'd be using this attack.
"This is humiliating..." Claro's voice was low.
"I've 20 years of experience..." he continued, slightly louder this time.
"AND I WAS INJURED BY A MERE...!" he was shouting now, his voice twisted with rage.
"SSSSSSSSSTTTTTTTTTRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTT RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The entire town shook. Every window intact shattered, and the fragments of those already broken turned to glass dust. The demon and the masked man would be dead in a matter of seconds. This attack required Claro's utmost concentration, but it would make their eardrums burst, their very heads explode. And they wouldn't be able to move to stop him, because those piercing sound waves stunned all who heard it and were unfortunate enough to be near.
~~~
Neta instantly fell to the ground, covering her ears. Had there been a sudden tremor? An explosion? This noise shook the whole town. Her very surroundings were fuzzy with vibrations. She couldn't tell if her eyes were bobbing up and down, as if her consciousness were fighting a seizure that threatened to roll them back into her head, or if they were the buildings that bounced. The sound of Claro obscured the sight of Parker, and Neta could no longer make him out.
This was bad. Parker and the masked man were in serious trouble! But what could she do? These sound waves were not the kind that blew opponents back. They were loud, frequent, little vibrations that amounted to a paralyzing force. Plant X wouldn't be able to penetrate them, however small.
Having collapsed from the overwhelming noise, Neta could look at nothing else but the ground beneath her. In that moment of defeat, she realized that the answer was staring her right in the face.
"The... ground... X, go under...ground..." she managed through the ear-splitting sound, tapping her ring with a trembling finger.
The vine shot out but had no intention of writhing at the surface. X burrowed into the ground straightaway and drew closer and closer toward the distant fight. Neta would use up a lot of strength extending the plant this far, but she had to save her friends from whatever this unusually loud noise was.
~~~
"DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Claro's mouth was wide open, so his emotions were indiscernible from the nose down. But his eyes were equally widened, crazed, even. The demon had cut him down, humiliated him, hurt his pride, but all that colored his face now was bloodlust.
"I HAVE WO-cough"
No, all that colored his face now was blood. His own blood. And it was this, not sound, that escaped his mouth. All that bleeding might as well have been caused by a crowbar being shoved down his throat, because it looked like something was prying at his neck to force his gaze downward. That's how much Claro's head was shaking with pain, as he examined his new wound.
A vine had pierced him through the gaps in his armor, where the demon had cut him.
"It's that... bitch... the Seed...!"
The knight grabbed the plant that had skewered him and pulled it out slowly, opening the wound and coughing some more blood. "I can't... I can't die yet..."
Letting the dislodged Plant X fall to the ground and retract, Claro reached his trembling hands into his pockets and produced four glass bottles of pink gas. "I have not failed... the Seed is still mine. But I've enjoyed playing with you, mask and demon..."
Magnus was pointing a gun at him, hoping to capitalize on the opportunity to kill the knight when he was at his most vulnerable. But Claro distracted him by tossing the four bottles of Etherflower gas into the air. He had the children to thank for these, because they shattered upon hitting the ground and provided him a smokescreen to escape.
With the strength that he had left, the knight projected his weakened voice and launched himself onto the nearest intact roof, before fading out of sight completely.
~~~
Neta could hardly feel her ears, but she was relieved. "They're... fine. I'm glad. Parker, the masked man, they're okay..."
But the young woman was still in danger. She suddenly felt the familiar numbness of her temples all over her back. One needle. Three needles. Twelve needles. Twenty.
The children's needles hit Neta in each of her pressure points. She managed to roll over and face her attackers before collapsing completely, unable to get up. The smoke of the building that Urias felled had cleared, and all fifteen of them stood before her.
"Did you really think it was over? Claro may be stronger than all of us, but his only purpose was to distract your friends so that we could capture you alive. Well, some of us will do the capturing, and the others will stay behind to take care of that woman beside you."
The seven-year-old vine user was, of course, talking about Davina. Claro had sustained serious injuries and withdrawn, but he was right about one thing: they hadn't failed yet.