The beach was no longer a place of summer fun. The air shimmered with a distorted heat haze as the Crustacean-Beam fully hauled its massive, tank-like body onto the sand. Each step of its multi-jointed metal legs crushed the sand into glass, leaving behind a trail of smoking, vitrified footprints.
High atop a jagged rock formation, Eza sat comfortably under a dark lace parasol, sipping a glass of iced tea that didn't seem to melt despite the rising temperature.
"The sun is so terribly imprecise," Eza called out, his voice carrying over the roar of the surf. "It warms the good and the bad alike. A true artist needs focus. A true artist needs... a lens."
The giant crab let out a mechanical screech. Its two main eye-stalks swiveled with a series of whirring clicks, locking onto the two heroes standing by the sea wall. The ruby lenses within the stalks began to glow with a blinding, pulsating light.
"CHARGING: 80%... 90%... TARGET ACQUIRED."
"Move!" Konone shouted.
Two beams of concentrated crimson energy shot out from the crab’s eyes. The lasers sliced through the air with a high-pitched vreeee sound. Konone and Yui dove in opposite directions just as the beams hit the sand where they had been standing.
BOOM!
The sand didn't just fly; it turned into a molten, glowing crater instantly. The heat was so intense it felt like the sun had dropped onto the shoreline.
"Yui, we need to flank it!" Konone shouted, her flaming gauntlets roaring as she prepared a counter-attack. "I’ll draw its fire and overheat its cooling vents! You use your ice to jam its leg joints!"
"Right! On it!" Yui shouted back, but as she started to skate forward on a path of frost, her feet felt heavy.
The crab’s eyes swiveled toward her. The ruby glow intensified. In that moment, the red light reflecting off the water reminded Yui of the violet lightning from the library. She saw her own dark reflection in the crab's mechanical lenses.
What if I freeze it too hard? a voice whispered in the back of her mind. What if I lose control again?
The hesitation was only a second, but in a battle against a laser, a second is an eternity.
"Yui, watch out!" Konone’s voice was a scream of warning.
The Crustacean-Beam fired again. Yui scrambled to raise her rapier to create a shield, but her ice was thin—fragile, like glass. It shattered the moment the laser touched it. The beam didn't stop, tracking Yui as she tumbled across the sand, the heat singeing the edges of her cape.
"It's too fast!" Yui panted, pushing herself up. Her hands were shaking again. The weight of her doubt was making her slow, and on this beach, being slow meant being erased.
The crab adjusted its stance, its mechanical mandibles clicking in a rhythmic, mocking pattern. It was no longer just a monster; it was a predator, and it had smelled the fear in the girl made of ice.49Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiDNxPQqun0
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