Alice hated rats with the very fabric of her being, so the fact that one large enough to look down at her was running beside her was something from her nightmares.
Her feet dug into the earth of the ground, skidding her to a stop; then she turned on her heel and created distance between her and the abnormally large rodent.
Sensing something was wrong, the rat also turned and quickly closed the distance.
'Oh hell no!' Cursing inwardly, she began gathering chi, causing gusts of wind and sparks of electricity to gather around her.
[Wind Burst: Thunder Surge!]
Enhanced by [Wind Burst], [Thunder Surge] was much more effective. With a torrent of wind and electricity, Alice ran down the path she had apparently come down. Just before she dashed forward, however, the claw of the rat had grazed her leg, causing her to stumble and lose control over her speed.
Rolling down the cracked road, she eventually crashed into the broken wall of a ruined building some distance away.
'Shit!' She thought as she let out a pained cry.
A sharp pain shot through Alice's spine like a river of agony. She struggled to ground herself through the pain as her back ached from colliding with the stone of the broken wall. Her gaze was unfocused, and her thoughts dulled as the streams of anguish coursed through her back.
Directing her unfocused gaze forward, Alice caught sight of a mass of gray quickly approaching her.
'It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.'
Like a broken record, she repeated the two words like a mantra. The pain threatened to consume her mind. She struggled to form a coherent thought under the agonizing pain in her back.
After a few moments, with the rat almost before her, her resistance to the pain had increased while the pain itself had lessened enough to allow her to take action.
Activating her two abilities once more, along with the activation of her [Snake Eyes] ability, she pushed herself off the broken wall, which had grown more cracks from her impact on it, and shot down the road once more, rolling her way to the base of the bloody crimson tree.
She shook her head to get a grip on herself and turned her gaze down the length of the broken road, with both small and large, red roots spreading from the crimson tree. At the same time, she pushed herself off the cold, hard ground and weakly stood to her feet.
Mere moments after she rose from the ground, the monstrous rat appeared around the corner, pausing as it locked its ferocious gaze with Alice's. The rat shook its body and firmly planted its feet on the ground before charging towards the wobbling Alice.
With the rat advancing towards her, Alice surged her chi, saturating her entire body. Then, instead of fleeing, she stood her ground.
Each step the rat took towards her made her body feel heavier. She fought against the pressing weight, straining her body to stand strong. Every nerve she had screamed for her to run away, and her thoughts cursed her for her stupidity, but she waited…
And waited…
And waited…
Then, once the rat reached a point where it was only a few steps away from her, she launched herself upward, jumping over the rat, making it crash into the bloody bark of the crimson tree.
Above the stunned rat, Alice gathered her chi, charging her electricity.
'Die! You nasty piece of shit!'
She expelled the electricity from within her, saturating the air with its electrifying charge. Straining her mind, body, and chi, Alice felt as if she was throwing a boulder twenty times her size, but she pushed herself anyway.
After a few moments of struggling, it answered her call.
The gray clouds that veiled the sky shifted. Like undulating batteries, they flashed and sparked quick blue lights within them. As if the heavens themselves were roaring, thunder rolled. Then, with a blinding radiance that banished all darkness, a streak of luminous judgement of lightning fell on the rat.
Enveloped by the radiant lightning, the rat's cry resounded for a moment before it was drowned by the thundering sound of the lightning.
Alice, having called lightning from the sky, often called heaven's judgment, was currently reeling.
For someone of the [Null] rank to call lightning, it was a feat only achievable by those with the blood of Merlin. Even so, calling upon such a phenomenon was extremely taxing.
She felt her chi burn away from her vessel, leaving her an empty container. Her body went stiff, and blood gushed from every orifice.
'I-it bur-ns.'
Her mind grew sluggish, and her thoughts became disjointed. A heat like white-hot fire built up in her, scalding her body and cooking her from the inside out
'Wh-ere a-m I? W-hy do-es my b-o-dy hur-t? A-m I fallin-g? Why?'
She began losing herself in the burning pain building within her. She needed release, but there was nothing to release. Her vessel was empty, and her chi had long dissipated; she could no longer use her powers. She could only suffer as scalding hurt coursed through her veins.
Then, she began regressing.
'M-maya, A-sh-ley, i-t's you-r birth-da-y to-da— Mo-mm-y?'
If she had known that this was the consequence, she would have never called lightning to deal with the rat. This was a decision she would likely come to regret for a long time— not that she was in the state to regret anything.
A weightless sensation enveloped her body as she began to fall from the air. In her current state, she would be unable to catch herself, so she would simply hit the ground like a ragdoll.
Just as her motionless body was about to hit the floor, a flash of white enveloped her vision, and a cool sensation made contact with her back as her fall was cushioned.
It was Aries who had saved her from falling directly on her head and perishing. Though she was too far gone to realize.