Gilded flicked his fingers open and gravity changed again.
Fucking hell. It was like being in a hamster wheel.
The bull was getting redirected, but we were being tossed around as well!
"Can't you do anything normal?!" I yelled.
"If you haven't noticed, normal doesn't exactly work here!" Gilded called back. Then, he sighed and materialized… wait, was that a flying red cloth?!
You've got to be kidding me.
"Are you serious?!" both Llewellyn and I bellowed. "It's not a real bull!"
"Bold of you to assume I don't know that," Gilded said. "Watch."
Gilded flicked his fingers and the red cloth shot through the air toward the bull, as if it couldn't wait.
The bull's head snapped toward it immediately.
What the hell.
The cloth swooped left, then right, then up, and the bull followed, horns slashing at empty air.
"See?" Gilded said, looking insufferably pleased with himself. "It doesn't matter if it's real. It matters what form it's based on."
"Okay, Plato!" Tiernan yelled, annoyed. "Just keep doing what you're doing and direct it properly!"
The bull charged at the cloth. Gilded yanked it aside at the last second and the bull crashed straight into a pillar instead.
Debris rained down.
Penguin screeched and dove under an overturned table, before rolling forward again in his Metal hedgehog form and hitting the bull in the butt.
The bull roared. It tried to disentangle itself from the pillar but couldn't. A second later it shot two explosives out of its horns, taking the whole thing down.
Fuck. If it kept going it was going to take the whole hotel down!!!
"Penguin!" I yelled.
Penguin chittered back, sounding fine.
The bull turned, glowing eyes on the red cloth again.
Gilded grinned, making it flutter through the air, leading the beast in a wild dance that brought it closer to my glyphs.
"..."
I couldn't believe this was actually working.
"Keep it up!" Tiernan shouted.
Gilded rolled his eyes but kept the cloth moving.
The bull lunged. It missed.
It lunged again and missed again.
Each time, it got a little closer to where I needed it but not all the way there.
Gilded seemed to be getting impatient too. He did something with his other hand and the floor rippled.
Wait… Shit!
The entire marble floor had gone wavy under our feet.
The bull stumbled, legs splaying as the ground undulated, but… so did we.
I lost my footing completely, slamming onto my hands and knees. Llewellyn used his sword to stay upright, while TAPESTRY tried to hold onto the pillars still standing, and each other.
"What the fuck are you doing now?!" Llewellyn roared.
The bull shot more explosives. We managed to avoid them but we couldn't even jump out of the way properly with the way the floor kept moving!
"What do you think?!" Gilded called back. "Getting the bull into position!"
"You're making it worse!"
The wavy floor threw off my balance again. I couldn't even stand properly, let alone draw glyphs!
Penguin somehow used it to his advantage, using one of the waves as a small trampoline to lift off from… and hit the bull in the balls again. The bull howled madly, eyes glowing red, but it couldn't stand up.
Penguin rolled quickly out of sight.
"Gilded!" I yelled. "I can't draw anything like this!"
Gilded let out an exaggerated sigh, but the floor settled back to normal.
"Fine," he said. "You're all so demanding."
The bull had recovered. Its eyes locked onto Gilded now, not the cloth.
"…Uh," Gilded said, sounding less confident.
The bull charged straight at him.
Gilded cursed and threw up a shield, as fast as lightning, but the bull's horns punched through it, even if just barely.
He dodged, landing hard on the floor.
…That must have hurt.
He scrambled up, massaging his elbow, and threw up another shield.
The bull went for him again.
"A little help?!" Gilded yelped, scrambling behind a pillar.
The bull kept targeting him. Gilded jumped out of the way, shooting glass knives that just splintered against the bull's side and vanished, and, when that failed, flipping the gravity of the room again.
We all tumbled around like clothes in a washing machine.
Llewellyn looked annoyed, but moved immediately, his sword flashing. He caught the bull's attention, parrying its horns and forcing it to turn away from Gilded.
Penguin shot out from under the table in his hedgehog form and slammed into the bull's balls again before rolling away.
The bull bellowed.
The sound waves changed again. The bull stumbled this time, but a second later it had already adapted.
Goddamnit.
Gilded had gotten back to his feet, looking disheveled. His fancy jacket, velvet green this time, was torn at the shoulder.
"Are you trying to help or what?!" Llewellyn roared.
"I'm not a fighter!" he shouted. "I told you this!"
"Then stop antagonizing it!" Llewellyn shouted back.
The bull opened its mouth, firing an explosive. Llewellyn dodged and the blast took out what remained of the stage.
More debris everywhere.
I wiped my face and kept moving, looking for an opening to place more glyphs.
Gilded had apparently decided to stick to the perimeter now, circling the room and keeping the red cloth moving to draw the bull's attention whenever it got too close to us.
It was actually helping. Whenever the bull seemed ready to charge at Llewellyn or me, the cloth would swoop past and distract it.
Shea's sound waves kept coming through the room, making the bull shake its head in frustration.
Ejay vaulted off a fallen pillar and landed on the bull's back, grabbing a horn and trying to ride it.
The bull spun, trying to throw him off.
Penguin took the opportunity to attack its butt again, then rolled away before a hoof could crush him.
Between Llewellyn, Ejay, and Gilded's red cloth, they managed to get the bull into position.
I scrambled up and ran, placing another glyph down.
The bull's hoof came down on it and the glyph flared. The beast bellowed, one leg seizing up.
Yes!
I placed another glyph. Then another.
My hands were still bleeding. The cuts from earlier hadn't closed properly and every glyph I drew cost me more.
Llewellyn appeared at my side suddenly.
"Use mine," he said.
This, again?!
"No!" I said.
"I'll use Protective Direct Path Magic for Blood Loss," he said, slashing his palm again. His other hand hovered on the cut for a second before he gave it to me. "Just do it."
I didn't have time to argue. I cradled his hand and placed it down on the marble floor.
The glyph I drew with his blood burned brighter than the ones I'd made with my own.
We drew five, then Llewellyn's sword came up again.
"That's enough!" I told him. "I can take care of the rest, you keep fighting! If we don't keep it engaged in place, it's going to break free again."
"It's working!" Shea shouted suddenly in my ear. "I think I got the right frequency now! Keep going!"
"Stay close," Llewellyn said, following me. "Take more if you need it."
"You need to keep—"
"I can do both."
He parried the bull's next attack one-handed while holding his bleeding palm out toward me with the other.
This was insane. He was insane.
I swallowed and swiped more blood from his hand, drawing another glyph.
The bull roared, cracks spreading across its hide.
It looked like, as the circle kept closing, the combined magic of all the glyphs was now converging toward the center, where the bull was.
Gilded's red cloth kept swooping around annoyingly but… it was helping. We were making progress.
Then—
There was a yell in our ears and the sound waves cut out. The bull's head snapped up, eyes glowing brighter.
"Shea!" Tiernan's voice yelled. "Shea, report! What's going on!"
No response.
"What happened?!" I yelled.
"Someone's attacking Shea!" Roan shouted back.