Summary: In which a Vigilante learns that all is not as it seems and our hero is faced with a difficult choice.
Warnings: AU, Language, Blood, Violence, Canon typical violence, possible out of character moments, multichaptered, unbetaed and unedited. This fic is apart of my Swords and Sorcery Verse. It will make much more sense if you read Swords and Sorcery, and the accompaniment fic Traps and Taunts first.
Disclaimer: I make no claims to any of these characters. I simply play with them for your and my amusement. The world presented in the Swords and Sorcery Verse is in fact mine and the location of several of my own DnD campaigns.
Fires burned eagerly consuming everything in its path. Thick oily smoke clung to everything, staining pristine white walls black. An unfortunate shift in the wind encouraged the flames, whipping them into a frenzy all the while redirecting the acrid smoke upon the ones who had lit the fires to begin with. Screams broke out as the fire reached the next set of people who had been unable to flee. There in the middle of it all he stood. He wanted to turn away, to race towards the blaze, to hide, to help, but none of it mattered. He couldn't move. The flames took on a distinctly human form and reached for him and then he was aflame and burning and...
Sabo shot upright his eyes unfocused and unseeing as he gasped for breath. The sudden movement disrupted his already precarious balance and the next thing he knew was that he was falling and falling fast. His reflexes took over before he made an executive decision to do anything and he twisted his body so that the brunt of the impact was distributed over his forearms, dispersing the shockwave.
He didn't stay down for long, quickly rolling over in an attempt to gauge his surroundings looking for whatever it was that had caused him to wake up in such a manner. There was nothing there. Just trees, ferns and decades worth of dried underbrush that made the entire forest a larger fire hazard than he was comfortable with. A sharp shooting pain in his shoulder had him wincing a bit as he raised one hand to attempt to sooth it. His shoulder had been achy for days and his certainly hadn't helped much. The pain however was a very good tether to the present, a better one than actually waking up was.
Sabo took a deep breath letting the scents and sounds of the forest tie him to reality. He definitely wasn't back there, not if the scents of pine and petrichor were anything to go by. Slowly, Sabo stood up taking stock of himself. Aside from a couple of scrapes that didn't even need bandages and his now sore shoulder, he was perfectly fine. Or as fine as he ever was with the night terrors and associated problems.
He took another breath, running his hands over his face tiredly. There was no chance in hell that he'd be able to get back to sleep so he might as well get moving. A quick glance at the sun only confirmed that idea. He had a schedule to keep and no bad dream would stop him from doing so. With a sigh, Sabo hoisted himself to his feet. Glancing up at the tree that he had spent the night in, he had to groan. Of course his pack was still up there.
It was quick work to get back to the branch that he had been sleeping on and Sabo's mind wandered while he gathered up his stuff. What had triggered his nightmare this time? There was nothing around that he could think would have caused it. No scents of smoke, ash or gunpowder. The forest itself was similar in density to the one that he had spent the better years of his childhood in but the flora and fauna were completely different.
It was then that Sabo noticed that the forest was unusually quite. At this time of day, the forest should have hosted a chorus of birdsong, not the unsettling silence that he found himself in. Even if the nearby birds had been startled by his fairly dramatic and noisy fall to the forest floor, the birds should have returned by now.
They hadn't and if Sabo strained, he could faintly hear the clash of metal on metal echoing through the forest. Well that's interesting Sabo thought as he clambered back down the tree, taking care not to disturb the foliage any more than he already had.
Indecision seized him the moment he reached the forest floor. He really needed to continue on his way in order to have any chance of catching up to the elusive 2nd division commander of the Whitebeard Mercenary Troupe. The man known only as Marco was supposedly checking out a few rumors of an undead plague in a town on the other side of the forest. It was the first solid lead Sabo had had on the man in months. If he went to investigate this fight, he might miss his only chance to talk to the man that had been closest to his brother when Ace disappeared at the Battle of Cards two years ago.
Sabo frowned and took off towards the fight. The entire situation was feeling too much like a coincidence for his liking. The first lead he has in months that will solve the mystery of what the hell happened to his brother leads him to a forest in which two people are having a battle? Coincidence his ass. To many years in his current profession had taught him that there was no such thing.
The sound of swords stopped abruptly. The fight was over then. Sabo picked up the pace as he raced towards the area the sounds had been originating from. A feeling of dread filled him though he couldn't explain why. Moments later he got his answer as the wind carried the hot metallic tang to him. Sabo blanched and nearly ran into a tree in his haste to stop. He knew that scent far better than he wanted to. Blood. No small amount of the stuff either. There had to be a lot of it for the wind to have carried the stench this far already. Especially if he had been correct in his estimate of the distance to the fight. It certainly explained why the clash of swords had stopped abruptly.
He had to keep moving. That feeling in his gut hadn't abated at all yet the stench continued to curdle his stomach. He took a breath, then pushed the feeling aside as he continued towards his initial destination. While he may have been shit at any type of magic that anyone had ever cared to name, his gut was right more often than not.
Along with the acrid scent the wind carried a series of indistinct murmurs with it. He was still to far to get anything out of it, but he wouldn't deny that it was helpful in reorienting himself. At some point in his rush, he had veered slightly off track of where he wanted to be. Slowly other noises returned to the forest and Sabo was left wandering, hoping to hell that he was still going the right way when a low crooning noise echoed through the forest.
The song continued on for a moment more and Sabo blinked. It sounded like someone had simultaneously mortally wound a Griffin's cub and anger a fairy dragon. Seeing as those two species lived in entirely incompatible habitats and tended to avoid each other when forced to interact he had to wonder what was making the noise.
And how the hell had he known that he was listening to a bird song? By the Set he was getting extremely tired of knowing things he shouldn't. Yet he could wonder and worry about that later. He needed to focus on finding the bird. It was important and its song appeared to be coming from where he needed to go and it was growing fainter by the minute. The feeling of urgency that had filled him since he had first picked up on the sounds of swords in the forest grew again.
Sabo ran, pushing his body as far as it would let him, though he knew it was too late. His fears were confirmed when he finally pushed through a particularly dense patch of foliage and into the newly deserted clearing that he had been seeking.
"What a waste of time." He said to himself looking around. This was indeed the clearing that he had been seeking. Based on the sounds he had heard and what he was seeing, a swordsman and a fire mage had come to blows. Unfortunately that was all he was able to tell. The clearing was strangely clean for the amount of noise he had heard and what he would expect for a battle involving a fire mage. In fact the only scorch marks he could see were the miniscule ones dotting the leaf litter in the middle of the clearing and the one that was partially covered by the still cooling pool of blood. That was another thing that was confusing about the entire situation Sabo mused as he stared at the pool of blood. Judging by the amount present and the discarded sword lying nearby, there should have been a body in the pool. Yet no such thing was present. Where had it gone? He highly doubted that the victor, whoever it was had taken the body with them. A closer examination of the area around that pool simply confirmed that theory through a distinct lack of blood smears on the ground. The center of the pool was still wet something that definitely would not have happened had the fire mage been the victor and decided to burn the body. Hell if that had been the case, the body would still be burning.
Sabo sighed again as he slowly turned, taking in the clearing in hopes that it would give him something, anything to make this not have been a pointless endeavor. If he was being completely honest with himself, he wasn't actually expecting to find anything when he spotted it. It wasn't much, a couple of snapped twigs on a bush that seemed to have escaped the carnage entirely and what looked like half of a footprint in the mud just beyond that but Sabo knew what it meant. That was the start of a trail. Someone, probably the victor, had intentionally left a trail behind. Why? What purpose did that serve? His curiosity piqued, Sabo's feet literally itched as he held himself back and forced himself to consider all of the implications. Was it a trap? It couldn't be. Despite the lack of a body, there was no way a normal humanoid could have lost that much blood and lived.
A quick glance at the sun made up his mind for him. It had taken less than 45 minutes to find this clearing from when he had first heard the noises so he couldn't be too far behind and as he was always telling Koala, he could handle himself.
A deep breath as a token protest to what he was about to do but he let it out in a rush. The time for indecision was over. If he waited too long, he would loose the pathmaker. Besides, all of the implications had been considered and it was time for an adventure. With a wild grin, Sabo plunged into the brush, taking care to follow the trail as quietly and unobtrusively as he knew how.
AN: Hey all! I hope you're all faring well. For those of you who keep an eye on my Tumblr or Ao3 account this will look familiar. The first half of this chapter was posted there a while ago as a snippet to encourage me to work on it. The Chapter was also posted on Ao3 a while ago because i wanted to get it out when I had finished it and Ao3 has an easier quick publishing format which I needed because life happened. I have no clue when the next chapter is coming because its still percolating at the moment but I hope you let me know what you all think of this and where you think its going. I love hearing from you, so please let me know your opinions!