NOVEL FROG Chapter 97: The Pinch
Finding both girls, Frost ignored the omens that were approaching him as he entered the room and closed the door behind him, jamming it with his blades. Seeing Candy’s tears rolling down her face prompted a worried reaction, and despite the enemy already trying to break in, he kneeled in front of her and reached out, receiving a grateful and affectionate hug that she didn’t hesitate to give. Candy held his back tightly while using his shoulder to rest her head and continue crying, with Priscilla trying to join immediately but only getting to hug Frost’s arm as Candy clung to him.
–Are you okay? Did they hurt you? What happened?– Frost asked frantically but kept his voice low to not startle the girls too much. However, he didn’t get a response as Candy kept sobbing and nuzzling up to his chest. He reluctantly held her head to comfort her but continued looking for answers, now staring directly at Priscilla, who was even more distraught but just as thankful to have his protection.
–Thank you so much for coming… You are our savior…– Priscilla said between whimpers, overjoyed all of a sudden despite almost being strangled to death a few moments ago as she tried to lean closer to Frost. Her admiration was so profound that she couldn’t contain her urge to pull him closer, holding onto him as if her life depended on it. But while Frost ignored her, he didn’t seem bothered by the gesture as he tried to get Candy back to her senses.
–What is happening? What are we going to do now?– Candy asked with a dreary tone and hopeless expression, struggling to get her words out and failing to support herself, having to hug Frost as well while looking up for answers. Even though Priscilla was pulling him to the side and making it difficult for him to move his arms, Frost was still able to hold Candy’s head and comfort her, only to give her a soft pinch on the back of her neck to stop her from disassociating and paying attention to him.
–I’m getting you out of here… both of you… But you'll have to run on your own. Find a way to escape while I distract them, or at least run to a safe spot in the castle until backup gets here…– Frost replied firmly, but his confident tone didn’t inspire much faith in the girls, as they panicked to hear that he wasn’t going to escort them. Priscilla continued to beg with cries while Candy repeatedly shook her head in denial, but as soon as they heard his suggestion, they tried to hold him tighter, preventing him from moving on with the plan.
–No, you can’t leave us! Please! We can’t ru-... We can’t go without y-...!– Candy wept in panic and increasing intensity, forcing Frost to calm her down by holding her face still and cutting her off with some reassuring nods, even trying to lean closer to look into her teary eyes, although it was hard with Priscilla pulling him back and trying to draw his attention as well.
–It’s okay, it’s okay… Look at me… You can do it, I know you can. I just can’t come with you, I need to do this… You’ll do fine, I trust you’ll protect the princess and yourself… You are capable of that and much more, right?– Frost replied with an optimistic and encouraging smile that Candy tried to dismiss despite seeing his genuine faith in her. But she ultimately couldn’t ignore his inspiring words and smiled subtly, though it didn’t stop her from getting anxious and letting out a few more tears. However, as much as she seemed to refuse to accept his plan, she began nodding reluctantly while Frost kept trying to cheer her up. But right as she was going to say something, the loud bangs from the door grew louder, and an alarming crack put them on edge again.
–We are going to die! Please, you have to protect us! I’ll give you anything, just please…– Priscilla exclaimed in dismay, clinging onto Frost’s neck from behind as he turned to face the door. She began to squeeze hard, which was now starting to bother him, so he turned again to hold her head like he did with Candy, who was left reflecting. And even with the princess’ constant whining, he remained calm, collected his thoughts, and tried his best to ease her worries.
–You’ll be safe, I’m leaving you in good hands… Candy is one of the best soldiers I know. I swear she won’t leave you, and you’ll get to rule this city again soon enough…– Frost replied in a convinced and promising manner, but was more stern than positive, as he was already turning to Candy for reassurance. Soon enough, she responded with some anxious nods and a shy smile, which didn’t fully convince Priscilla, but it gave her enough hope to quiet down and give Frost one last hug, waiting for him to hug her back, but he never did.
They all stayed silent for a moment, during which Candy reached for another hug while Frost tried to stand up. He gladly accepted the embrace, and while it was only for a brief moment, it seemed to comfort both girls, and they built some trust in each other and his plan. That’s why, even when they were too scared to move, they were willing to let go of Frost to stick together and escape without him. But before they could explicitly accept his order, the omens outside broke through the door, so Frost retrieved his blades and adopted a defensive position.
–Alright, there’s no time to talk… I’ll go first… Please take care and avoid fighting at any cost. Just run, okay?– Frost said with determination as he built up the courage to face the omens once again, who were ready to break in, but before they could unlock the door, Candy stood up and grabbed his arm to pull herself closer.
–You too… Please don’t do anything stupid… I lo-...– Candy replied hesitantly but in a sweet and caring manner that returned for a split second. He started to lean closer to face her, but as she was about to finish her sentence, seemingly leaning for a kiss, Frost began grinning with the resolve and confidence that fueled him in all of his battles. While completely ignoring her advances, he gave her a nod and pushed her aside to block the door, and before Candy and Priscilla knew it, he was already rushing out of the room, blades in hands, with the intent to murder as many omens as possible to clear the way for them to escape.
Candy and Priscilla screeched in unison when the door opened, and a large group of omens came flooding into the small room, charging just like Frost, except they were able to tackle him to the ground immediately due to being outnumbered. The girls backed away but quickly tried to help him up, but before they could even react, Frost slashed through the omens piling up on him, keeping his blades at neck level to not waste time with each opponent. In a matter of two seconds, he was back on his feet, standing over a floor of omen corpses, which he was able to push out of the hallway to create a small wall of flesh to take cover behind. It proved useful as the armed omens at the hall continued firing down the hallway, and thankfully, their dead teammates took all the bullets, but the gunfire quickly overwhelmed Frost.
Seeing as they weren’t moving, Frost turned to Candy and Priscilla, gesturing for them to hurry up and leave. They came to their senses and left the room, although Candy had to drag the princess out since she was too frightened to move. They managed to escape the guest room and began running, but it only took a few steps before they were caught by surprise. Frost looked back to see if they were safe, but instead, two omens from the bathrooms pounced on the girls, drawing their knives to finish them off while they were pinned against the wall. And with his cover crumbling, he had to retreat, so he didn’t waste time on running back to take out the two omens by severing their spines with a swift slash to their backs.
In an attempt to defend herself, Candy reached for the knob of the door right next to her, and with the weight of the omens that got the jump on them, both she and Priscilla fell backward into another guest room once the door gave in. They tried to reach Frost, but he noticed another group of enemies quickly approaching from the other side of the castle. Since the incoming enemies hadn’t spotted Candy and Priscilla, Frost blocked the door of the room they were now hiding in, leaving them terrified when he disappeared to take on both flanks. He was surrounded once again, but with Candy and Priscilla unnoticed and relatively safe momentarily, Frost worried about the other guests nearby, as well as Groovy and Bones since they had been cornered right at the bottom of the stairs.
More omens were coming from the dungeon and blocking their exit at the throne room, forcing Groovy, Bones, and the remaining guards to fight back to prevent the enemy from reaching the second floor. However, the enemy was also right behind, and as Frost couldn’t do anything but defend himself, they all had to hold out until backup arrived. With all the armed omens opening fire once again, Frost made sure to break all the lanterns in the hallway, or at least the ones near him, to buy himself some time before jumping back into battle. He obscured the omens’ vision and created an opportunity to escape once again, though it seemed impossible as they were in all directions, and with the ones coming from behind, he knew he had to take another drastic decision to get out alive.
He wasn’t aware of one thing, though, and it was the fact that someone was coming from the hallway, far behind the second wave of omens. Running at full speed through the left wing of the castle, Kiwy was trying to help in the fight, focusing solely on catching the omens that hid in Priscilla’s bedrooms right after Tricky left. Thanks to her speed, she caught up to them right as they reached the library. They couldn’t even see her coming as they were too eager to join their teammates in the massacre at the hall, and all of a sudden, they had a small cat girl jumping on their backs, using her claws to climb them, and taking them out one by one.
The omens at the back were five in total, with the first one getting killed right at the entrance of the library. Kiwy jumped onto his back and stabbed his neck with both sets of claws, tearing it out until he started choking on his own blood. His gags alerted the two omens right in front of him, who turned around just in time as Kiwy dashed between them, scratching the sides of their necks as she passed by. All three of them started bleeding, and while the first one bled out pretty quickly, the other two dropped and squirmed around the floor, trying to stop the bleeding and alert the others.
Turning back to see their teammates dying on the floor, another pair of omens opened fire immediately. However, they didn’t have a clear target, so they just sprayed bullets at hip level, shooting up everything around the library and praying to hit their attacker. But as Kiwy ran low enough to duck under the bullets, she slipped past them, and out of all the places they shot at, they didn’t check their sides, where Kiwy ran up a large bookcase before jumping onto one of the omens to start clawing his face. The other omen on his left didn’t hesitate to shoot at the cat girl, but he only ended up shooting his teammate, whose body dropped dead against a bookcase behind him.
To finish the last one, Kiwy jumped off the dead omen’s shoulders before he dropped to tackle the one that had shot him. She pushed him to the bookcase where the corpse was leaning on but struggled to stab his body as the omen kept defending himself with his rifle, trying to shake her off him. He even aimed at her again to not get shot himself, but she still pulled the gun out of him by the strap wrapped around his shoulder, and by using all of her weight to pull down, she made him lose his balance. The omen fell on a table next to the bookcase, where he was completely vulnerable as the cat girl straddled him before ripping his body with several scratches.
The omen started screaming for his life, and despite the two omens who were stopping the bleeding from their necks couldn’t stand up, they still crawled to help the last one. One tried to reach for his gun to shoot Kiwy, but he ended up losing all his strength in doing so, succumbing to his bleeding, while the other just enjoyed his last moments by crawling to the nearest wall to sit against it. He watched his teammate’s stomach get shredded by Kiwy’s sharp claws, suffering the most out of all of them since he kept protecting his upper torso and neck, though that only meant Kiwy focused on ripping his insides out.
Once they were all dead, she looked around the room to check all the bloodshed, and satisfied by her quick takedowns, she smiled to herself for a brief moment while looking at the omen who sat against the wall. He passed away right as she looked his way, and shortly after confirming her kills, she continued running out of the library, now heading to the middle of the castle with the tower to chase after the omens who were about to reach Frost.
But before reaching the other wing, she turned back to see that there were even more omens coming right from where she was. It seemed like the enemies on the first floor were coming from both sides since the stairs to the event hall were blocked, so even Kiwy was surrounded now. Despite this, she kept running forward until she was in the hallway filled with omens. She immediately spotted Frost and realized he was in a pinch, though he was more focused on taking out as many enemies as he could instead of defending himself. Kiwy dashed through the hallway to close the distance, but before getting the jump on the unaware omens at the back, she boosted herself on the right wall, grabbing one of the broken lanterns, which she accidentally pulled down.
All of a sudden, a loud clang came from the back, startling the omens and even Kiwy as she just held on to the lantern in confusion. They looked back to see that there was now a metal grate wall coming down from the ceiling, right at the end of the hallway, where it connected with the middle tower. It lowered slowly, but once it reached the floor, it was set firmly, seemingly impossible to unlock or open. Kiwy smiled again to see the omens coming from the right wing were now unable to join the fight, but she was even more excited to see the fear in the faces of the omens in front as they realized they were trapped between her and Frost, who didn’t need to say a single thing to coordinate an attack.
As soon as Frost saw his teammate, he took advantage of the brief moment of hesitation from the enemy to begin clearing the hallway. Most of the omens didn’t have any long-range weapons, so they could only defend themselves with their short swords and knives. But that wasn’t enough to stop Frost and Kiwy from decimating them with strikes much faster than their sword swings. As soon as they started taking out their teammates, the omens at the hall panicked to provide cover fire, though they couldn’t see much in the dark hallway, so they abstained for a second.
Only Spook got closer to the hallway to get a good view of the fight, with Reaper lighting up a single candle that he stole from one of the tables. It was still very dark, but the armed omens at the sides of the hall circled their main squad, lowering their guns to watch the action scene unfold in front of their eyes. While the helpless omens were getting massacred, they caught a few glimpses of their own kind laughing and smiling at their misfortune. Without their help, Frost and Kiwy provided a hasty slaughter to amuse the remaining omens until the only ones alive in their path were each other.
They turned to face Spook and the remaining omens, who continued to do anything but engage, allowing them to approach a little. Frost and Kiwy were confused but waited for Spook to make the first move, although it looked like they didn’t have the intention of attacking, at least not yet. So while they silently stared at each other, Frost glanced over at the room where Candy and Priscilla were hiding and threw the bloody arm of an omen that was stuck in his blade. This signaled them to leave the guest room, but once they crawled their way out to the hallway, they were met with a metal gate blocking their way.
Candy looked over at Frost with desperation, but then realized he and Kiwy were surrounded by all the omens. However, she didn’t seem concerned, or not as concerned as before, since he wasn’t going to fight alone anymore. It even appeared like she was considering joining them as she reached for a rifle on the floor. But without looking back, Frost gave her a quick gesture and ordered her to escape with the princess, so that’s what she focused on. She hesitantly turned away, leaving Frost and Kiwy to fight by themselves. But as Priscilla was panicking again, Candy concentrated on finding a way out of the guest room and getting to safety.
–Alright, calm down. I’ll find a way out, just let me think…– Candy affirmed anxiously, growing insecure as she tried to stop Priscilla from hyperventilating. She grabbed her hand tightly to not let her run off, but she had to look around for a while since it looked like they were trapped. After seeing the massacre in the hallway, she decided to close the door to not traumatize the princess any further, and instead, she got her on the bed to relax.
This guest room had almost the exact same layout as the other one, except for one major detail, a window, and it just so happened to be unlocked. Immediately, Candy came up with an idea and quickly turned to Priscilla, who caught up to what she was thinking right away, though she seemed extremely opposed to it. She began shaking her head rapidly, refusing to get off the bed as Candy tried to drag her out, even beginning to tear up again. But while Candy tried to open the window, they both heard a multitude of gunshots coming from the hall. Another round had begun, and even the princess knew they had no other way out, so the only option of escaping alive was right in front of them…