So far Liv had only managed the removal of one leg, the first one she'd cut down, and barely swerved out of the way of the other two that moved to knock her out of the way. She noticed that Lily had quickly caught on, if not discovering the same idea Liv had, and was now attacking the legs on the opposite side while the stranger mostly held the mana-eater in place. The other guardian had also noticed what they were planning and ripped through one of the back legs using the strange cloning ability that his mana probably gave him. With this there may actually be a chance that they'd weaken the beast, but Liv couldn't help but feel a small sense of dread, not an emotion she felt often. If something this simple could defeat this monster, why hadn't any guardians ever thought of it before? Why hadn't Hilgart done so when he disappeared three years before?
In the midst of her pondering she felt the bottom of her boot slide on something, likely a sheet of metal, and she lost her footing for only a second. In that moment another leg slid to the side and she braced herself for impact, knowing that in her current state of stumbling she wouldn't be able to step out of it's path in time, nor did she have a proper stance to swing her blade. Just before the leg reached her she felt a rough pulling force on her body and she took in a surprised breath. At one moment she'd been at the spiders mercy and now she was sitting in an alley with Lily in front of her. She felt a little dizzy and sat still for a moment to straighten out her slight discombobulation.
"Be more careful, okay?"
Liv blinked dully at the girl as she spoke her next sentence, practically disappearing for one word and then speedily returning to fish what she was saying. Liv just nodded once and stood up, pushing electricity back into her mana weapon and forming a calmer blade than before as Lily returned to the battle She was about ready to leave the alley and move back on the street to return to the fight herself, but in that instant the spider had unexpectedly been flown backwards. How far it had gone Liv couldn't be sure, she was only curious about who had done it. The stranger perhaps?
She quickly made her way back out onto the street and stopped in the middle where the mana-eater had just been standing and peered down the street at the beast. It went quite a ways, but it seemed that even with a few of it's legs missing it easily manage to turn itself right-side-up. It's eight eyes that were once a glistening black shimmered with green light and Liv widened her eyes at what she witnessed next. The legs of the spider reattached themselves with the same green light, like emerald thread piercing and pulling the appendages back together. The feeling she had earlier made sense now.
"It's transforming into a bigger form. For now, it still has to get used to the change and we can take this chance to escape."
Liv narrowed her eyes slightly and turned to the side to somewhat face the stranger who'd saved her earlier. As he spoke about the manhole that they could use and an escape route she let her Ruya return to it's original form as just a handle and she'd started walking up to him.
"Take this map and go. It's the map of the sewer and if you follow it, you might be able to get out. I know why you girls are here, but you'll have to ask that later. For now, run. And don't even think about trying to help. You were lucky that you didn't get injured when you decided to help earlier, but not this time. You two will have to run. Get the boy down the hill too. He doesn't seem to know our plan."
She stopped and took the map with her left hand after returning the handle to her mana weapon to it's rightful place. However she wasn't entirely pleased with the way he was talking.
"I'll repeat again. Don't, follow me. It's for your own good."
At that moment she tossed the map towards Lily's direction and pulled her gun from it's holster, pointing it at the stranger with a calm yet obviously annoyed gaze. "First off," she started, "I'd rather you not speak to us like we're children. We're fully aware of the risks and danger that we face with every action that we make. We are not strangers to defeat. You're not the leader of us and you're not a guardian either, so don't expect us to follow your orders."
She then lowered her gun and glanced in the direction that he'd told them to go before moving her eyes back onto him. "But it's clear we can't fight this mana-eater head on, and we have no way to put a strategy together right now, so retreating while we can is our best option."
Right, this was Liv in the midst of a battlefield. She wasn't spacey or sleepy like she usually was when she had time to be carefree, and she couldn't allow anything that would usually draw her attention away to distract her. She'd follow his plan for now, and whether or not he was going to get himself killed going off on his own wasn't Liv's concern.
"Lily, can you grab the other guardian? We need to hurry." She looked over at the stranger one more time and then slid her gun back into it's holster before turning and making a quick retreat down the broken street towards the manhole that would be waiting for them to drop into. She couldn't be sure where it would lead them, but right now it seemed to be their only means of survival. Destroying the mana-eater would have to come later.