HunterXHunter

Markus nodded and loosened his grip and let the woman break free once he heard her story. Somebody's well-intended creation going rogue was nothing new to him. While Laetus fought the water beast, he created another, slightly smaller dome barrier inside of the original. Except the dome looked like a quarter of it had been cut off, and as such it only surrounded Laetus and the water creature. He then dispelled the original dome barrier that contained him and the woman as well.

"We should be pretty close to the shelter by now. I suggest you hurry if you don't want to get hurt."

The three water-masses re-converged into one, then flew at the wall of the new, smaller dome. When it collided, it quickly spread across the entire surface of the dome and the ground.

The woman didn't run. She stared at the dome, silent for a few seconds. Then she turned to the man who had been holding her back. "Keep that dome up."

She walked towards the smaller dome and set her backpack down. "Don't let it escape!" she shouted, hopefully loud enough for the portal-boy to hear. "If you can keep it in there, I can kill it!"

That's when the inside of the dome filled with an ever-thickening mist. Small water droplets would start to form on Laetus's skin. He would feel them sliding along his skin, feeling like tiny, crawling insects.

The woman pulled an ornate knife out of her backpack, along with a small, golden bowl and what looked like a paintbrush. Working quickly, she sliced her palm and held it over the bowl. She gasped with pain, and the bowl began to fill with blood much faster than one would expect from a wound of that size.

The water being wasn't just getting itself on Laetus; it was also looking for any kind of crack in the force-field.

Markus did as the woman instructed, and put all his focus into keeping the dome of light up. In his focus he The swirling mist inside the dome grew into an effective smokescreen, and he couldn't see the boy inside at all. And he wasn't about to let it spread further.

As Laetus created that portal, a hideous laugh erupted from within the dome. The mist stopped thickening, and the droplets of water on Laetus stopped moving.

The woman's face turned pale. She was quiet, staring wide-eyed at the boy. Her blood poured into the small, golden bowl until it overflowed with blood. She mumbled something and the bleeding stopped immediately, but she never stopped staring at Laetus.

"You... literally just let it escape, didn't you?" She said, her voice small. "I tell you not to let it escape, and within SECONDS," she shouted. "MERE SECONDS, AND YOU ALREADY RUINED IT." Tears fell from her eyes.

Picking up the paintbrush-like thing, she dipped it into her own blood.

"And now that I've begun the ritual the way that I have, if I don't spend most of my life force on some kind of spell in the next few minutes, I will die for nothing."

Holding the blood-soaked brush in her hands, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and sighed. The blood on the end of the brush began to glow faint red. She dipped it into the bowl and, as quickly as though she had flipped on a light switch, all of her blood started to glow, both within the bowl and within her body. They would be able to see her arteries as red lines running throughout her body, pulsing with every heartbeat, visible through her skin and cloth. They would even be able to see her heart as a pulsing red light.

She began to draw a circle on the asphalt in her own blood. She was slow and deliberate, somehow managing a perfect curve on the uneven asphalt.

As he focused on preserving the dome of light, Markus heard the sound of a rather unpleasant laugh. And, strangely, the fog was no more. It had disappeared. How? His structures of hard light were not brittle, and he'd kept it up the whole time.

The mist had faded rapidly, so after a moment's confusion, it didn't take long for him to notice. The boy had opened a portal to summon a towel. A sound strategy, given different circumstances. He would likely have used that towel to absorb the water creature, severely limiting its movement. But in doing so, he also gave it an opening to escape.

"It happens to the best of us," He replied to Laetus as the barrier surrounding him disappeared.

Laetus wanted to know what to do. The blood mage sighed at him. "All you can do now is stay back and let me cast my spell. I've decided to pour my life force into a being made of stone."

Her circle complete, she picked up the bowl. "Once I pass out, try to take me to the place where they evacuated the hospital. That's probably my best chance for survival. Tell them I overspent my life force. They might know what to do."

She uttered an incoherent chant into the bowl and poured it into her ring of blood. As her blood spilled onto the ground, it stayed exactly within the boundaries of the circle she had drawn. The pool of blood began to glow even brighter. It became turbulent, starting to bubble and shift as though something was stirring deep below the surface, which was impossible given that it wasn't even a centimeter deep. Or, at least, it was supposed to be so shallow.

"Thanks for trying to help, if nothing else," she said.

Markus could see the boy's guilt written on his face as he floated back to them. He clearly wanted to help out, and he did what he knew best with his portals. But the thing was gone, and there was no helping that now.

"Yeah kid, it's most likely escaped to... wherever those portals led to by now. It's best not to dwell on it too much. Water has surprising utility, which can make it hard to predict what it could do."