The Laughing Swordsman

Hex was hovering in the air, but intermittently dropped. He was losing consciousness, unable to maintain his flight.

Hex's shadow, Blackie, retracted from his body. His purple horns shrunk until they disappeared while his purple hoodie rapidly became blue. Hex's shadowy face dissipated, revealing his dark green hair and bright purple eyes.

Hex could hardly keep his eyes open. He blinked a few times, trying to wake himself up. However, his eyelids continued to fall, until he fell asleep entirely.

Hex's body fell from the air, with nothing to support it.

As for Apollo, Willow, and Layla, they were still shaken up from fear. Their minds had not yet recovered fully to process their actual situation.

Hex was falling from nearly forty meters above the ground. He would definitely get hurt from a fall this high, and even his own survival was questionable.

However, two black claws appeared from Hex's sides. They flapped as much as they could. The shape of the claws wasn't exactly the most aerodynamic, meaning it didn't slow his fall too much.

The black claws made up for this by moving up and down as fast as possible, making it appear like a hummingbird's wings.

Hex's fall was really fast at first, but it gradually slowed down thanks to the black claw's efforts.

By the time Hex had reached the ground, he touched the ground gently. It was as though he was a feather falling into a pond.

The black claws disappeared. After a few seconds, Hex got up. However, he did so in a strange way. While people would normally push down on the ground and bend their knees, Hex simply floated up while his limbs remained straight.

It was as though Hex's body was just willed upwards.

By this time, Layla had recovered. She was still a little shaken up, but was more or less back to normal.

She looked at Apollo and Willow who were still frozen on the ground.

Her furry ears twitched.

"Mm... Friends? Are you ok?"

Apollo and Willow did not respond. They both still had dead looks in their eyes.

Layla put a finger on her chin.

"Are friends sleeping?"

She tilted her head to the side.

"Then I will just have to wake them up!"

Layla grabbed both Willow and Apollo by their shoulders, one in each hand.

Her tail swayed while a smile spread out on her face.

"Wake up!"

Then Layla threw the two of them high up into the air.

...For some reason.

As for what reason that was, not even Layla could tell you, as she herself did not know.

Apollo and Willow were still vaguely aware of their situation, despite their shocked state. It was as though they were in a trance. Their consciousness was wrapped up in a ball of plastic, but that plastic was translucent.

While they couldn't do anything restrained within the plastic, they could faintly see what was outside.

As such, the two were panicking. This didn't show on their face, simply because they had no control over their body.

The two were in a strange state. While their bodies were relaxed and their expressions were dull, their minds were in a frenzy, desperately trying to reclaim control over their body.

It was not too different from sleep paralysis. The only difference was instead of an illusory sleep-paralysis demon getting ready to scare them, they were going to die from a fall of nearly thirty meters.

As Willow struggled, she could tell that her control was slowly returning. Her wings twitched.

Although it was going to be a close call, Willow was pretty confident she would survive this. She even had time to wonder how crazy Layla had to be to throw them up thirty meters in the air to 'wake' them up.

Her confidence stemmed from the fact she literally had wings and that some techniques she learned would let her cancel her momentum.

As for Apollo, he did not have wings or any technique that could do that. In fact, he didn't even have his bokken.

Apollo believed he could wrestle back the control over his body relatively fast. His progress was much faster than Willows.

The only problem was, even if he had control over his body, what good would that do? After all, his proficiency in anything fell dramatically once it left the realm of swordsmanship.

Then, a memory flashed by Apollo's mind.

It was the memory of the old man, the one who called himself The Vanquisher. Despite not having a sword, he was able to use his hand to emulate the effects of the sword.

This memory wasn't the most clear to him. This was because the events that occurred while his personality was more 'innocent', were not imprinted well into his current mind.

As such, he had to scour through his memories to actually find them. In fact, it was only now that he remembered he had the book that The Vanquisher gave him. But now was not the time to think about those things.

Apollo was able to move his limbs slowly. There was a strange feeling spreading through his entire body. It was similar to a feeling one would get after suppressing the blood to one limb for a couple of minutes before letting it suddenly come back.

Apollo's eyes closed while his hand slowly raised. He decided to use his left hand, the one that did not hold onto the bokken.

The vision of The Vanquisher slowly appeared in his mind.

He was roughly ten meters above the ground. However, he had full control over his body now.

Apollo saw The Vanquisher slash with his hand.

Then he did the same.

The sound of crackling thunder filled the air.

The ground underneath Apollo split open, while he himself recoiled so much he even traveled a few meters upwards.

As for Willow, when she was five meters above the ground, her wings suddenly flapped, greatly lowering her speed.

They survived Layla's 'wake up' call.