Chapter Text
Jamil watched as the chunk of tile launched by one of his minions shot across the battlefield in a beautiful, clean arc, which ended in the damn thing hitting the wrong person . He supposed he couldn’t blame the thrower too much, no one in their right mind could have predicted Azul of all people taking a hit for someone like that, but he almost wanted to fling a small fire shot at the minion anyway. He didn’t, though, because in the next instant Bind the Heart collapsed anyway and Jamil needed to focus his attacks on the interlopers as they dove for cover. Because apparently, not only did Azul put his skin on the line for an unruly lackey, but said lackey actually seemed distressed enough to stop focusing on his signature spell. Or maybe he was just that shocked that anything had gotten through the shield in the first place, his expression was too difficult to read at this distance with all the smoke. Either way, if that minion wasn’t currently incapable of independent thought, he probably would’ve breathed a sigh of relief at escaping Jamil’s wrath.
When the group scattered, Sebek and Floyd hauled Azul behind an overturned table in one direction, while Yuu and Jade pulled Kalim behind some frankly remarkably sturdy pillars in the other direction. Sebek seemed irritated about being separated from Yuu (were they actually telling the truth earlier? It seemed ridiculous, but so did everything else that had happened today. He supposed it didn’t really matter, except for whether he could rub it in the face of whoever he killed second), but buckled down and started applying magical first aid to Azul. He had always been unusually sensitive to the presence and build-up of magic, but now it was impossible to ignore, even that simple healing spell seeming to make the ink coating his arms itch and burn. He could feel a presence behind him (His instincts? His anger? His magic?) screaming to quash the caster now, to feel only his own power singing in his veins, but he ignored it for now. His real priority was to destroy Kalim, the rest of the bugs could be crushed after.
Bind the Heart briefly sprang back into existence, the shield buzzing uncomfortably in Jamil’s ears and dissipating a forest strike, but it quickly flickered out again as Floyd craned his neck to get a look at Azul, who had started to stir. Unfortunately, the prefect managed to drag him and Kalim behind the pillars as soon as it did, though the act did also interrupt their attempts at a counterattack, only the monster cat on their shoulders managing a single, easily blocked burst of blue fire.
After the scramble back behind cover, and the hasty check to make sure that no one else had gotten too badly hurt, Yuu started trying to yell something at Sebek. They weren’t being quite loud enough for Jamil to hear what they said over the sounds of the battle, but whatever it was was accompanied by some very animated gesticulations. Sebek looked very confused despite apparently understanding the message, since he kicked a shovel across the floor toward Yuu, who shoved it at one of their companions sitting behind them. The two continued to yell back and forth, and Jamil wished he could hear what they were saying, though it couldn’t have been nearly as funny as the equal parts baffled and offended face Sebek was making out of context.
After a few minutes of back-and-forth, Jamil felt the buzz of Bind the Heart again, as Sebek stood up from behind the table where he’d been attending to Azul. He readied himself for whatever new plan of attack the group had come up with, but oddly enough Sebek faced toward the prefect instead, and barked at them, loudly enough for Jamil to hear across the battlefield, “This is all your fault, you know, human !”
Jamil was clearly not the only one shocked by this, as the prefect stepped out from behind their pillar to yell back at him, only the continuing presence of Floyd’s signature spell keeping Jamil from just striking both the idiots down. “ My fault? How is this my fault!? We’d be doing fine if you all just followed my plan!”
“Your ‘plan’ relied on being able to fight Jamil while Azul still had Bind the Heart! That got thrown to the winds when we all did!”
“That was just Plan A! We’re on, like, Plan D now, so you need to quit standing around and get to it!”
Grim looked up, confused. “I thought we were on Plan F?”
“No, no,” came Kalim’s voice from behind a pillar, “Plan F was the one where I died. Azul is Plan E- uh! I mean, I’m sure Azul’s gonna be fine Floyd! It’s just, he can’t really participate so the closest workable plan is-!”
Jade tsked from where he was still crouched over Azul (For his part, Azul was trying to sit up, failing, and generally not doing much to counter any assertions about his ability to participate). “Kalim is right about most of that, but we tried Plan E 5 minutes ago. We’re on Plan H now.”
“None of you foolish humans even know what plan we’re supposed to be doing! If Lord Malleus were here-!”
Yuu rolled their eyes, “Oh stuff a can in it, Sebek! Don’t you ever have anything to say that isn’t about ‘Lord Malleus?’ No wonder Hornton wanted to ditch you for an evening!”
“How DARE you! I came here because my lord wanted me to keep you safe, even though you never afford him so much as an ounce of the respect he is due!”
Jamil’s eyebrows raised at the admission of the pretense around Sebek’s presence, straight to his face, no less, but he was too engrossed in the sheer, hilarious stupidity unfolding in front of him to interrupt.
“Of course I respect him, I’m just not constantly bending over to lick his boots like you!”
“Really? How do you show him any respect, when you’re always calling him that infantile nickname!”
“I agreed to bring you! I thought I could manage just fine without some loudmouthed idiot who won’t stop insulting my entire species, but Hornton was worried, and I know he’s been worried ever since I got hurt at Octavinelle, so I agreed anyway because he’s my friend!”
The arguing pair glared at each other for a long moment, but Sebek looked away first, his ashamed gaze flicking down…toward an index card poorly concealed in the cuff of his jacket sleeve. All of a sudden, Jamil realized several things.
- He could no longer feel the buzz of Bind the Heart. In fact, he couldn’t remember exactly when the shield had dropped, being too engrossed in the idiots’ petty squabble. He raised his scepter to finally wipe out the whole group before Floyd refocused when he noticed
- Floyd was nowhere to be seen. He had completely lost track of the shock of turquoise hair occasionally peeking out between pillars. He might have used the argument as a distraction to jump across to where his brother and Azul were hidden, but that didn’t seem quite right. And furthermore,
- Kalim kept flicking concerned glances between the bickering duo and Jamil. But for the first time in their lives, he wasn’t looking Jamil straight on, but avoiding his gaze. But no, Jamil realized, he wasn’t just avoiding eye contact, he was focusing on a specific point over Jamil’s left shoulder. The same point every time. Jamil’s eyes narrowed, and he watched as Yuu briefly stopped glaring at Sebek to glance at him. Or more accurately, over his left shoulder.
Jamil whirled around in panic, just a little too slow to catch more than a brief glimpse of a massive, dark shadow looming over him, and of Floyd Leech bringing a rusty shovel down hard on the monster’s head.