Checkmate
Even though Love has been in plenty of fights at this point, a few of which she was almost sure that she wasn’t going to make it out of, she was still terrified each and every time she found herself about to be a part of one.
“There’s no point in hiding anymore. Reveal yourself.” The Pawn says as she slowly makes her way over around the corner to where Love is.
Love covers her mouth to muffle the sounds of her erratic breathing that she was afraid would somehow give away her already revealed location even more. She knew that it was perfectly logical to be scared when she was being threatened with violence, but she didn’t want things to be like this forever.
She was tired of being scared. She was tired of having to be saved by other people even though she was perfectly capable of saving herself. She was tired of being such a burden to other people even though she was a superhero too.
‘I am a superhero!’ Love thought to herself. “Sooner or later I am going to have to act like one.’
Love closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
‘Remember your training.’ Love thinks to herself as she manifests her bow and an arrow. ‘You can do this.’
Love then jumps out from behind the wall, aims towards The Pawn, and fires.
The Pawn snaps her fingers to cause another white sphere to appear and tosses it towards the light arrow.
As both projectiles collide they both explode and disappear in a flash of light.
As Love lands back on the ground she quickly hides behind the other wall, knocks another light arrow, and appears from back behind the wall to fire again.
The Pawn snaps as another sphere appears in her hand, but this time she doesn’t even throw it. She just waves the sphere towards Love’s arrow and redirects it into a nearby wall which causes another small explosion.
‘...Well, shooting her isn’t going to work…’ Love thinks as she quickly formulates a new plan of attack. ‘...but this might…’
As she is hiding behind the wall at the end of the alley yet again she knocks three arrows onto her bow at once, quickly rounds the corner, and fires.
Instead of aiming for The Pawn again she instead aims for the black tendrils that were holding her teammates. This causes them to weaken enough to drop the other heroes onto the floor.
“Ouch!” The Knight yells out as she lifts her helmet again. “That hurts you brat!”
“Ez! Now!” Pythia quickly yells aloud.
Without a moment of hesitation Ez uses her powers to lift The Pawn and slam her into the wall.
“...Huh…” The Pawn says between heavy breaths. “...Is that all you got?”
“Nope!” Ez responds as she proceeds to use her powers to slam The Pawn into the wall on the other side of the alleyway.
The Pawn spits out some blood upon impact this time.
Ez then lifts The Pawn straight up into the air and slams her into the ground back first which is powerful enough to crack the ground underneath her.
“Huh, nothing to say?” Ez says as she slowly approaches The Pawn.
She walks over to The Pawn, bends over, and takes off her sunglasses to realize that she was knocked out cold.
“Oh, I guess I overdid things a bit.” Ez says as she puts her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.
“How dare you!” The Knight says as she slams her shield into the ground to send her dark tendrils towards the heroes yet again.
This time all of the heroes are fast enough to jump out of the way of the attack.
…Well…all but one of them…
The Knight retracts her tendrils to pull her new hostage towards herself.
“Nobody moves if you don’t want her to get hurt!” The Knight threatens as she holds Love up by her hood.
“OH NO YOU DON’T!” Maka yells out as she sends a high pressure blast of water towards The Knight.
She just holds up her shield and easily blocks this attack.
“Alright! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” The Knight says as she flips Love over her shoulder and slams her into the ground back first.
“YOU BITCH!” Maka screams as she runs forward, creates two swords out of water, and jumps towards The Knight.
The Knight catches Maka on the top of her shield and slams her into a nearby wall.
As soon as Maka is able to catch her breath she grits her teeth and creates two giant claws out of water.
Maka then takes a few steps back, wraps the claws around each side of the shield, and tugs backwards in an attempt to pull the shield out of her hands.
“Enough!” The Knight yells out as she sends a black tendril towards Maka’s foot, wraps it around her leg, lifts her into the air, and slams her into the ground.
The Knight then looks towards the two remaining heroes.
“I guess I won’t be able to leave until I defeat all of you! If that is what must be done, then so be it!”
She takes a running start towards Pythia and Ez, jumps into the air, and slams her shield down into the concrete hard enough to crack the ground.
In the wake of this attack, a pool of darkness quickly appears below the shield.
“I think I got it!” Pythia shouts out as she jumps backwards and out of the immediate range of the dark energy. “Ez, You have to separate The Knight from her shield!”
Ez cracks her knuckles and sticks her arms out towards The Knight.
“Let’s get this over with.”
Suddenly a field of pink, blue, and purple energy envelops The Knight’s shield.
“Hey! Cut that out!” The Knight yells out as she shakes her shield in a feudal attempt to separate Ezmeralda’s powers from her weapon.
Ez pulls the shield directly into the air and The Knight along with it.
“Put me down this instant!” The Knight screams out.
“If you say so.” Ez says with a shrug as she turns off her powers and allows The Knight to fall to the floor.
As she slams against the pavement her shield slips out of her grasp and clatters to the side of her.
She tries to grab it as fast as she can, but is still too slow as Ez uses her powers to grab the shield.
The Knight stands up and stamps her foot against the ground.
“This isn’t fair!” She screams out. “Give that back!”
Ez sighs in response to this.
“...Okay…”
She then slams the shield down onto The Knights head and knocks her out cold.
“...Huh…” Pythia says with a confused look on her face.
“What’s up?” Ez says as she places her hands behind the back of her head.
“...That wasn’t how that was supposed to happen…” Pythia places a hand on her chin. “...My powers have never been wrong before…”
“I think that works in our favor.” Ez says as she looks towards her team leader. “I mean, in this specific instance at least.”
“...Hmm…” Pythia says with a sigh. “...That gives me a lot to think about…”
“...Ugh…well that hurt…?” Maka says as she slowly stands up and dusts herself off.
She then makes her way over to Love.
“You okay?” Maka says as she kneels down next to her friend.
“...Ow…” Love says as she sits up and rubs the back of her head.\
“...I’ll take that as a no then…”
“...I think I’ll be fine…I just might have to go to the nurses office when we get back…”
“Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.” Maka says with a slight chuckle. “Let me help you up.”
Love nods and holds out her arm as Maka helps her back to her feet.
Love wraps her arm around Maka’s back and the two of them make their way towards Pythia and Ezmeralda.
“The police should be here soon to apprehend these two.” Pythia says as she places her phone back into her pocket. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t expect something this dangerous to happen.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Maka says with a slight grin. “Stuff like that happens to us a lot.”
“...That is concerning…” Ez says with a worried expression on her face.
Maka just shrugs.
The police arrive to apprehend the two criminals and the heroes make their way back to the CHS Headquarters.
By the time Pythia, Ez, Love, and Maka make it back to HQ all of the other heroes are already there.
“Hey guys, how are you…woah…you don’t look so good…” Ash says as he notices all the damage that the four of them have taken.
“You know how it is.” Maka says as she rubs the back of her neck. “Just ran into some villains. That’s all. I took care of them.”
Ez makes a small yet obviously fake cough sound in response to this.
“...I mean…we took care of them…” Maka says with a small and nervous laugh.
Violet makes her way over to the others to join the conversation.
“So, who exactly were these villains that you fought off so valiantly?” Violet asks with her hands folded behind her back.
“They actually had this dumb chess theme. One of them called herself The Pawn and the other one went by The Knight” Maka says both of the titles while using air quotes.
“...Oh no…” Violet says as a look of worry suddenly flashes onto her face.
“...Hey, what’s wrong?” Love asks as she approaches her purple haired friend.
“...You were fighting against Checkmate…”
“...How exactly do you know these guys?” Ash says with a curious look on his face.
“...Checkmate is a secret team of assassins that work under The Queen…”
“...Who is The Queen?” Love asks as Violet’s worry starts to make her worried.
“...The Queen…otherwise known as Elizabella Newton…is my mom…”