Cloey Taffel burst outside with the doors entirely open, making her meet the view of a monstrous infestation targeting everyone innocent in her eyes. The whole courtyard was ravaged by the heavy herd of monstrous Fadens, spilling out from the torn-apart gate.
It was disheartening for her to see the whole school, which she held dear, be torn apart by the shadow monsters that she had learned and dealt with for the past few days.
"Cloey, wait for us; it might be too dangerous outside!"
Manson Allert ran and stopped right beside her, his mouth open from the shock of what he met outside. "There really are Fadens here; it really is like what the books in the library said about them... that they will kill anything that's around them..."
Sheila Orbison quickly joined the others as she held on to her knees to catch her wheezing breaths, and she also witnessed the horrific scene unfolding on the school grounds.
"Wh-what should we do?! Do we call the police, or run away from the school entirely?" Sheila asked desperately, looking back and forth to her two friends.
Faden monsters of all kinds of shape and form came in gray-green waves. Their roars and screeches accompanied the shrieks and cries of the human beings trapped between the monsters growling with their fangs out.
Several people were actively blocking the monsters by utilizing their backpacks and nearby trash cans to act as walls to block their incoming attacks. Meanwhile, dozens of injured students were huddled up against the wall, terrified of the Fadens getting them.
"We have to run, of course!" Manson placed his hand on Cloey's shoulder. "C'mon! Let's get out of here before those things spot us!"
But Cloey didn't budge, only standing with clenched fists over what she was seeing. The Fadens were actively destroying the whole school; it was a travesty that can't be ignored. So took a step forward, a step towards potential death.
"Cloey, are you crazy!?" Manson said sharply. "We need to go back inside and search for another way out, like an emergency exit."
She pointed to trapped students on the other side of the courtyard. "But those people need our help; the Fadens are going to get them..."
Manson stayed silent over her words.
"I know, I know..." he croaked, the screams still in the air. "But we can't do anything here, we just can't! I know your heart can't handle abandoning someone who needs help, but sometimes... sometimes we just can't change what will happen, because it's too late and we might endanger ourselves—in the end, we're all just too weak. Cloey, it's normal to run away, to not look back and return home, to hope that everything happening would turn back to normal, in an ordinary way."
"Manson..." Cloey parted the hair curtaining her eyes to her side; her pupils could be felt blazing with determination. "You know... when I said something about Knightly Defender, it wasn't anything random, or I just said it cuz I'm afraid. I said it because I have some sort of crazy strong power that you wouldn't believe me unless I show you it myself."
"What?" Manson exclaimed.
Cloey continued. "When I first got my power, I thought I was getting crazy, having to snap at you guys, our group, the Quad Four... I thought my mind was playing tricks on me or even punishing me for having to be mean to you guys because of me selfishly wanting to get Sam back with our group at all costs, and for me being mad at you guys without thinking. But it was real, and the thing that appeared was these two cute boots that act like protective puppies, and that gave me something to play with when I feel down without anyone nearby, but I learned that this power is way more serious and dangerous than I thought..."
Sheila stepped into her view, worried eyes scanning her friend. "Cloey...?"
"I mean, if Sam was here, he wouldn't want us to run away if people who need help are nearby, especially if we are strong enough. Those who have the power to protect and be brave have to support the ones who are weak. And I do want to help all of these students and teachers in our high school; they're basically like friends, like our class with Mr. Mouch's first period class. Almost everybody there we basically knew since elementary or middle school, making all of us friends, and I believe that they would save us if we were trapped by the Fadens. So, I won't run away; if it's normal to let those people fend for themselves, then I'll gladly not be normal at all to rescue them, just like my Knightly Defender. If you're still afraid and want to go back in the school building, then go; that is what you want, but I want to go outside even if I'm by myself."
With a blinding green light surrounding Cloey, there came a pair of metal boots, their appearance unchanged from last time, as they galloped their way in front of her to protect her from any threats coming at her.
"WAIT! I thought you were kidding with having powers...!" Manson pointed at the metal boots hovering above the ground, and the left boot pointed its front tip as a warning for him to stay back. "I was not prepared for this at all!"
"Hey, hey, Lefty, don't worry..." Cloey reassured the inanimate-looking objects. "Manson is a friend, not an enemy..."
Manson momentarily looked at the empty, safe hallways behind him and then at the injured students, with the others who were still standing fighting for their very lives to block the Fadens from getting to them. He sighed and zipped up his black jacket, stepping outside the door with Cloey at his side. Now facing the reality, he admitted that the floating shoes that seemed alive were somehow his ally's weapon.
"You know, you might think of me as a freak for saying this, but I can actually heal injuries with shadows. At least, that's what I think I could do."
Sheila adjusted her glasses curiously, while Cloey jumped with excitement at the revelation.
"Oh, I knew it! I knew I wasn't the only one with a superpower; I kinda have a feeling you were hiding that from me."
"Cloey, you and Sam really mess up so many times every time you interrupt my peaceful life. The dumb stuff you two always do annoys me, but I knew you, knuckleheads, back when we were dumb enough to call ourselves the Quad Four," Manson softly admitted. "I would be a coward and a jerk if I didn't have your back, especially since I can support you with my healing."
"Heh, you look way more serious when you zipped up your jacket."
Cloey turned to Sheila. "Hey, you don't have to go with us if you don't want to. Nobody's going to blame you for being a little weak. To me, you're always strong, like giving me yummy food when I forgot to bring some snacks for lunch, heheh."
"I'm with you, Cloey. I'm definitely going to be helpful. If I can provide myself a directive for me to follow, then it would be to tend to the injured and safely get them back inside the school, where I can barricade the doors with the things in the nearby bathroom."
A sincere smile lined up on Cloey's face. "Alright, Quad Four, even though it was just the three of us, with Sam and Nate somewhere else, let's give these monsters everything we got, because we got super weird powers!"
"Let's go!" Manson shouted.
All three of them marched forward slowly, only taking one large step at a time, and then it turned into a full-on sprint, with Cloey taking on the side with Fadens, while Manson and Sheila made their way to the trapped fellow students by the lunch tables, pleading for their lives out loud as they prevented the other Fadens from reaching their sanctuary with the overturned tables and garbage cans.
Cloey stopped in front when a portion of the Faden herd gravitated their attention to the meal, willingly stepping up to face them, where they charged with their mouths to bite in order to kill.
"Alrighty then," she waved her hands and pointed both index fingers towards the group of Fadens. "Let's go, Knightly Defender! Let's show these evil monsters about the power of caring for others!"
The command of Cloey's words made the metal shoes burst with green light and power, charging towards the Fadens as fast as a speeding car, where they immediately plowed through the Fadens that were in the middle of their trajectories. Screeches of pain and surprise escaped from their guttural throats as the Fadens continued to swipe their claws at the flying shoes, but to no avail; to these enemies, Knightly Defender continued to violently hover over the Fadens, targeting them one by one as they were tightly surrounded.
Cloey leaped in the air as she witnessed the group of Fadens shrinking in size by the minute, leading to only a couple of large, tougher Fadens left.
"Yes! Yes! YES! We're doing it! We're really kicking the monster's butt. Knightly Defender, I think I'll feed you some yummy donuts or Orange Curls Chips after this!"
She glanced over to where the trapped students were, still her heart beating and aching from the worries over Manson's and Sheila's well-being. Cloey hoped that Manson's healing was good, as she thought it was in her mind.
* * *
"Help! Help us! I don't wanna die!"
"My... my arm... it hurts so much..."
Meanwhile, Manson and Sheila took advantage of Cloey's distraction against the other Fadens, and they ran up to the other side of the courtyard. Although it wasn't entirely devoid of the dark green monsters, as the smaller versions were clawing at the other students, holding them back with trash can lids.
"Hey, you guys!" Manson charged through the smaller-looking Fadens with no sharp limbs anywhere on their body, allowing him to kick one of them square in the face. "HAH! Take that! Sheila! Get inside with the other people while I make a path!"
"Right!" Sheila affirmed.
She went through the provided opening and squeezed herself through the large crowd, grabbing her own trashcan lid and began hacking away at the small Fadens that were almost letting themselves in through the cracks of the lunch tables. Sheila's timid and small body had enough strength to overcome the hardy skin of most of these creatures.
"Go now, Manson! I'm inside—you do your healing shadow... shadow healing... whatever it's called! Go to the injured!
Manson jumped over to the place where Sheila provided a path without any Fadens lurking by, and made his way to the group of injured huddling with their backs against the brick wall, some of them even lying down in the grass from being unconscious.
He made his way to the first person who looked the most injured and began placing his hand on the bleeding wound on his arm.
It was definitely not an ordinary sight; the guy in front of Manson had his arm bent in the other direction, and from the puncture wounds came a broken fountain of blood; the red liquid continued to spew from the holes of the skin's deep layers.
Just the sight of it made Manson want to hurl his lunch, to choose not to look much into a broken human mess, and gather all of his focus into a single spot for his hands to heal.
As he waited for the shadow to rise in clumps and energy to envelop the guy's wound, he looked over to see that the flying shoes that Cloey had made had their usefulness shine through by crashing into the many Fadens nearby, dwindling down their numbers one by one.
And then suddenly, the faint but uncomfortable prickly feeling, like lightly touching a newly grown small cactus, appeared in his palms. A dark shadow gloomed over the injured person as it concentrated itself over the wound, the energy swirling around for a few seconds until it finally disappeared and left a gift for Manson to see—a fully healed arm, bent in the right way without any bleeding.
Manson pumped his fist in the air, but quickly retracted his hand as he still felt the light pokes on his palms left over.
"YES! I did it again! Alright—alright, let's move on to the next patient in line." Manson glanced over at Cloey, her shoulders feeling much more slumped, along with her eyes dropping from something like exhaustion.
"Cloey, just hang on a bit—we could save these guys and beat the Fadens at the same time. Just give me a few more minutes for the others."
* * *
Cloey made slashing-like motions in the air with her two arms, believing that if she also cheered for Knight Defender physically, then it would somehow make their attacks more powerful. Even if that wasn't actually the case, she thought that it felt good to have to move around so much.
The weaker Fadens from the group had been cleared away, leaving only the big ones to deal with, while Knightly Defender tried their hardest to bump into the Fadens' tough skin, but it looked like it only tickled.
It was going to be a while to whittle its armour-like hide down until those bigger Fadens could properly be defeated.
"Cloey! The others are now okay! We don't need to worry about them!"
A voice came from Cloey's far side. It was Sheila and Manson coming to her. She also saw that all the injured were healed and were currently taking refuge in the indoor safety of the main school building. Manson really did heal all of those people without having to use any first aid. Internally, she thanked his healing powers for helping the people trapped.
"Cloey, look out!" Manson shakily hollered at her. "One of the big ones is coming for you."
A large Faden, one as big as a bus, had its claw opened up to grab Cloey and squeeze her to blood and bits. Its multiple eyes all pointed towards the distracted girl while she was looking over the friends.
Just that one moment of weakness caused her attention to falter, causing the metal shoes to shake intensely, akin to panicking, and both of them immediately rocketed themselves to protect Cloey before contact was made.
Cloey gasped and went in the opposite direction to run away from the incoming attack of the big Faden, her mind racing as she desperately wanted to live and not feel the pain of possibly getting crushed.
"N-no!" shouted Sheila.
In a single second, Cloey unintentionally opened her eyes to see.
"No way I'm gonna let you attack my friends."
A completely new voice entered the area.
Up next was a loud, reverberating sound that echoed throughout the whole school courtyard, bouncing off the walls as more of the sound repeated. The monster's intense roars suddenly mixed in with the mysterious loud sound.
And then, an orange blur buzzed through the rest of the big Fadens still alive that were unable to be destroyed by Knightly Defender. Deep impacts and wounds instantly appeared on the surface of the Fadens' skins and continued to appear until they were smashed away into dust, and then faded away into nothingness.
The orange blur finally came to a stop and appeared still in front of the broken school gates, with the sun radiating its shine over the specific features that could be highlighted.
Cloey walked towards her savior, the one who defeated the Fadens with ease.
"It's really you... You're finally back..."
Manson and Sheila stopped right next to Cloey to check out who the new guy was.
"I... I thought you were gone on some vacation," the former stated.
A boy with dark red-orange hair all sizzled up with only a yellow headband to keep it away from his red eyes. A green, puffy shirt with white patterns, dirty jeans, and yellow sports sneakers were also part of the outfit seen. For a weapon to hold, it was a wooden bat found at the sports shed next to the gym. Those features could only mean that someone finally returned to them.
A member of Quad Four.
Sam Davis, the baseball player.
"It's been a while, guys—sorry I'm late. Looks like you got those awesome powers too."