Both sides rushed each other at the same time.
It was, Aru thought, like playing dodgeball. Except instead of a rubber ball, everyone had, you know, harmless stuff like swords and dangerous magic!
Fighting wasn’t something Aru enjoyed. But fighting alongside her friends? That feltlike music. Mini twirled Dee Dee in front of her, then tossed the danda high into the air as she whispered a single word:
“Adrishya.”
Vanish.
Mini had been practicing invisibility defenses for a while now, but this was the first time it worked. A veil fell over the four of them. Dee Dee hovered, utterly still in the air, like the handle of a gigantic umbrella. The asuras startled backward,shouting: “Where’d they go?!”
Aru tapped into their mind link:You finally got it!
Mini responded:Yup. Cracked it while I was sleeping.
Jeez, thought Aru,maybe I should nap more.
Now invisible, Brynne summoned the wind, which stirred the dirt and forced the goons back farther.
“Aim!” shouted one.
“But I can’t see them!”
One of the asuras uttered a magical word, and a jet of water brokethrough the dirt, splattering against Mini’s invisible shield.
“Found you,” said Navdeep viciously.
They ran forward, swords out.
“Shah!” hollered Aiden. He held out his scimitars and Aru touched each of them with Vajra so they crackled with energy.
“We’ve got defenses,” said Mini. “I’m letting down the shield.”
Aru and Brynne instantly stood back-to-back.
“Do it,” said Brynne.
Mini reducedthe shield, keeping it wrapped only around herself and Aiden. They herded the attackers with invisible jabs, forcing them into a tight circle. Brynne blasted them with wind, and Aru added the finishing touch: a golden electrical net to catch and pin them in place.
“You’re trapped now,” Brynne growled at them. “If you want us to free you, then promise to leave.”
“Fine, fine!” said Navdeep. “Justlet us go!”
Aru retracted the net. The four boys scampered away down a nature path.
Mini waited until they had become nothing more than specks in the distance before yelling, “IT WAS NOT NICE TO MEET YOU!”
Brynne laughed. “That’swhat you shout at the backs of your enemies? Not ‘Don’t mess with my squad’?”
Aiden shuddered. “Can we not say ‘squad’?”
“Why? Does it annoy you? Does ‘hashtag squadgoals’ make you mad?” asked Aru.
“Yes.”
“Then we’re a squad.”
“‘Squad’ sounds like it should be a vegetable,” said Mini.
