As the twelve needles were implanted into Erin's body, a strange feeling started to overcome her senses. It was as if something had clicked in her brain. The strings that were binding her feet and hands were loosened and started to disintegrate until they were no longer holding her back.
"What did you do to me?" Erin asked.
"I wanted to show you what being my puppet actually means," Fex replied.
Erin went to swing her sword and moved about, yet it seemed like her movements were back to normal. They weren't slow and everything, so she tried to do what she could do before. Still, she felt like something was tugging on the back of her brain.
"Whatever you did to me, get rid of it now!" She lunged forward and swung down her sword. However, as she did, Fex moved a single fingertip, and concurrently, the course of her sword changed, missing the target and merely swung to the side.
"My body, did it just move on its own?" It was a strange feeling for Erin to suddenly lose control like that.
"Let's see what you got! " Fex shouted. He was now moving his fingers at an incredibly fast speed, and for every different action that he did, it would move Erin's body.
At first, Erin tried to resist and fight against the Fex's control, but it felt useless as if she couldn't do anything. When she soon realised that there was nothing that could be done, she stopped resisting and just went with the flow. Doing this, she started to realise something. Fex wasn't just moving her body about in a random order, but he was actually performing a certain set of moves.
Her swordsmanship was faster and more skilful than before, and the sound of her strikes when sliding through the air sounded fast and harsh. While her movements were soft and flexible as if she was doing a dance, it was swordsmanship she had never seen before, one that surpassed her own basic skills that were unrefined.
While doing these movements, she started to concentrate. She discovered that it wasn't as if the strings were pulling her along. She could still feel that her own body was doing all these movements, so it must have been possible for her to perform these as well. Right now, she was noting down all the actions she was performing, and when she had gotten the hang of it, shards of ice would leave the blade as well.
"What is Erin doing?" Layla asked. "I thought she would be attacking him, but she looks so beautiful."
With the ice surrounding her along with the beautiful skills being shown by Erin, it was as if they were all watching a performance.
"I don't think it's her look," Vorden said as he pointed at Fex, who was at the back, moving his hands and fingers.
"You are a lot better than I thought you were going to be." Said Fex. "It looks like I was right to choose you."
When Fex had seen enough, he detached the strings that were on Erin, and she suddenly stopped right there. Her body was no longer being guided by the strings. Immediately, not wanting to forget the feeling she just had, she tried performing the same movements. At the start, it seemed to be going well, but then, the movements just didn't have the same flair as when she was attached.
She tried again and again like a person who was possessed, but it was nowhere near the same level that she was performing before. "You, show me again. Do what you just did again!" Erin demanded.
"Now, now," Fex said. "If you started to demand things from me and I complied without complaints, it wouldn't be very fair, would it? A relationship should work in two ways."
"If you don't want to tell me about it, you know I can just start getting really nasty." Lifting her hands, Erin planned to use her ice abilities this time before he got close to activate his weird puppet thing once again. But her hands stopped midway as a little tingling feeling reappeared at the back of her head again.
"Oh, I'm afraid it's a little too late. You see with the needles implanted in you, I can reattach my strings to you at any point in time." Fex explained. "Now that I have shown you how my swordsmanship works, it's time that I get something in return."
Walking towards the lady, step by step, Fex got closer, and right now, there wasn't a thing she could do to stop him.
"I can't take this anymore. It's not fair on Erin. We forced her into this and it's clear that she doesn't want to go through with it! What if he's planning to turn her? I'm going." Vorden said as he barged through the roof door.
"Wait!" Quinn shouted. They were so close that Quinn didn't want to ruin the deal they had. So far, he had stayed true to his word and Erin didn't have a mark on her. He felt like he was so close to solving the problem with Peter, but after hearing Vorden's words, Quinn released how selfish he was being. Erin had no reason to be involved in their affairs.
In fact, none of them here did. Only Peter and Quinn needed to be there, and if he wanted to solve his own problems, he should have come up with his own solutions instead of trying to rely on someone else. As soon as he heard that Fex had a plan, he immediately decided to take the easy route of asking him rather than trying to brainstorm for an appropriate method.
"Let's switch Vorden. I'll teach this guy a lesson. "Raten said.
"No, they're my friends, and this time, I'm going to do something about it myself."
As Vorden ran out, he gathered a fireball in his hands and was getting ready to throw it towards Fex. However, just as Vorden was about to let the flames go, Erin's body had moved and was now right in front of him. She slashed her sword down and Vorden had to jump out of the way, rolling onto the floor.
"Vorden, that wasn't me!" She said.
"How dirty!" Vorden shouted. "You're going to use her as a shield? Why don't you fight yourself?!"
With Erin getting in between the two, Vorden was unable to use his full strength. At any point in time, Fex was able to move her to either block the attack or get in between the two of them.
Then, a gust of wind seemed to go straight past Vorden as he felt his hair rise. When he looked in front of him, he could see Quinn running past with all his beast gear on. He had his boots activated and was rushing forward at full speed.
Just like before, Fex moved Erin in front and commanded her to strike her sword, but Quinn showed no signs of slowing down, and it looked like he wasn't even going to bother dodging.
"Shadow control!" Just before the sword reached his side, he lifted the shadow from underneath his foot and blocked the attack, slowing it down.
Then, using the flash step, Quinn was able to appear behind Erin and went straight for Fex.
"Wait!" Fex shouted. "Stop! This wasn't my intention. You guys win." He said as he held up both hands.
Just what was Fex planning?
****
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