Ari immediately turned her head to her left. Footsteps. From the direction that she and the kid came from. Multiple people. How many? She couldn’t tell.
She threw a quick glance at Dolphus: “your friends?”
The strange metallic sound spread around them, louder than before, the source still out of sight. Was it related to the footsteps? Why did it start earlier? Could it be something else?
Ari immediately recognised the accent and the tone of the voice. She knew them all too well…
“No armada soldiers, you say?” she asked the boy quietly, her voice filled with unrestrained rage.
Ari turned towards the unseen opponent and raised her voice: “Screw you! Those are some big words for someone who is too scared to show his face! You think you’re so intimidating?! Show yourself and I’ll put that toy away directly in between your eyes, you pathetic little coward!” She pointed the tip of her bat in the direction of the footsteps as she said the last sentence.
All her thoughts disappeared. She was overrun with burning anger. She wasn’t going to go down without a fight. If she were to die here, she was going take a few of them with her.