Author's Note: I'm so sorry, my friends, for my delayed update. I've had a lot going on, to be honest, and it's caused me a serious block. I found out that I have a jacked up hip, which may be the understatement of the year. If you don't follow me on Tumblr, then you probably don't know that because of a plethora of problems with it - not least of which is that it's actually cracked right down the middle (yeah, I've been walking on a broken hip) - I have to have surgery in a few weeks. A total hip replacement, to be exact. Keep in mind that I am pretty damn young to be having that. So, you can imagine my stress.
Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. It's sort of filler, to be honest, but I had to do something - anything - to get the creative juices flowing again. I want to say thanks to my pen-pals for encouraging me and being there for me, and thanks especially to en-lumine who helped me with some insight into my characters' predicaments this time around.
Kuai Liang wasn't quite sure what had just happened. Kenshi had finally stopped screaming and Anya…well, she was just this side of catatonic. Tears had silently streamed down her cheeks; she had gone quiet as well when Tomas gently leaned her against a rock, but now she gazed blankly into space. Blue rested her huge, fuzzy head on her master's lap, and Kailyn knelt beside her, gently pushing locks of hair behind her ear while speaking softly in the Hydromancer language. Kuai Liang couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the sight of his wife sitting there, so small, so helpless, and especially since he didn't even know why. Frowning in fear and concern, he joined her side, ignoring the Seidan wolf when she growled lowly at him, and held her hand.
"Anya," he said softly, trying to get her attention. It didn't work, so he curled his finger around her cheek and pulled her face to look at him. Faint recognition hardened her lavender eyes, and she blinked once, but said nothing. Tears prickled his own eyes, even as he silently wiped hers away, and he pulled her to his chest, running his hands through her hair and kissing the top of her head.
"Fujin," he said as he looked up. "What happened?"
"The Strega happened," the Wind God said as he and Hanzo dabbed thick, clotted blood from Kenshi's nose with rags.
"By the Elder Gods!" Kailyn exclaimed as she grabbed her sister's hand and kissed it.
"What are the Strega?" Tomas tentatively asked either one of them. He sat sideways on the rock that Anya leaned against, his arms crossed, his face downturned in concern.
"Vile creatures," Fujin explained. "Their cry is annoying to the point of torturous, and it is incessant. If you listen to the sound long enough, it will damage your brain and drive you mad. If it doesn't kill you, that is." He inhaled deeply and continued helping the swordsman.
"How come we didn't hear it?" Morgan now asked him. "How come only Kenshi and Aunt Anya heard it?"
The god looked at his daughter. "Because they weren't attacking us," he said. "They were attacking-"
"Olivia, Takeda, and Erron," Alex finished for him. He furiously rubbed his eyes and then raked his fingers through his hair before he glared at the god.
Fujin looked at him with stormy blue eyes for a long moment before at last, he nodded. "Yes," he said. Satisfied that Kenshi was okay, he got to his feet and now approached Anya to assist her. "Somehow, the psychic trauma on Takeda's mind was so great that he was able to tap into his latent telepathic skills and reach out to anyone who could hear him. In this case, his father. It is doubtful he even knew what he was doing." He knelt beside Anya and pulled her face towards him so that he could gaze intently into her eyes. "The signal – for a lack of a better word – overwhelmed Kenshi's brain. And when Anya touched him, the noise overwhelmed her brain as well."
"Is she going to be okay?" Kuai Liang asked, swallowing hard.
Fujin nodded again. "She should be," he said. "They both should be, with a little rest. But she got it worse than he did, it appears."
"How so?" the Cryomancer asked, puzzled. "You said Kenshi was directly linked to Takeda. She wasn't."
"Yes, but he's an immensely strong telepath where she is only a psychometric," his cousin explained. "His abilities can span much farther than hers, true, and he doesn't need to touch anyone to see into their minds like she does, but because of that, as a defense mechanism, he's taught himself to shield his brain from psychic injury. Anya, inversely, never had such a need. So when the Strega touched his brain through Takeda, Kenshi instinctively shielded his mind from damage. But Anya couldn't."
"Well, what's going to happen to her?" he demanded to know, clutching his wife more tightly to him.
"It's hard to say," Fujin honestly answered. "I wouldn't be surprised if she's a little out of it for a while, as if she has a concussion. She'll probably have a wicked headache when she snaps out of it. Kenshi will too. Beyond that, I don't know."
"Can't you do anything?" he hissed, the slightest hint of anger touching his voice.
Fujin looked at him in sympathy and understanding. "I'm doing what I can, Cousin," he said patiently. "They're both very lucky."
"And what about Olivia, huh?" Alex now snapped. "Is she that lucky?"
The Wind God looked at the Elite in surprise, who was scowling. Tomas jumped to his feet and went to him. He rested his hand on his son's shoulder to comfort him, but the boy furiously shrugged it off with an incoherent snarl.
Kuai Liang cocked his head at him, stunned. It wasn't like Alex to behave so brashly; he was typically calm and serene, seldom angry and never hateful. His actions now were born by true concern and fear. It was how he himself had looked, the Cryomancer imagined, whenever Anya had found herself in trouble and he was helpless to save her. It was probably how his face looked now, if he was being honest with himself.
A nagging thought pulled at the Grandmaster as he looked at his underling in vague fascination, reminded of a time years ago when he was utterly certain that Frost had brutally murdered Anya. The rage he felt towards his sister back then could have matched the expression currently stamped on Alex's twisted face. It was passionate, Kuai Liang decided. For Olivia…
While the Grandmaster fought hard to avoid admitting certain truths, Alex didn't wait for the Wind God to answer him. Instead, he stormed to Kenshi and grabbed him by the lapel, pulling him up straighter. "What did you see?" he demanded to know, yanking one of his guns from his hip holster. Hanzo grabbed for him, but he furiously pointed the .45 at the Grandmaster's face to back him up. "What did you see?" he screamed at Kenshi again when the Shirai Ryu gave him adequate breadth and urgently glanced at Kuai Liang for assistance.
He didn't need Hanzo to urge him to do anything. "Elite!" the Grandmaster immediately shouted at him. "Stand down!" Alex didn't listen to him, so he was forced to release his wife to Fujin and Kailyn's care, and rise to his feet to deal with his unruly underling. "I said stand down," he growled as he fearlessly stripped the gun from Alex's hand and then pushed the boy off the swordsman and into his father's arms.
"They…were writhing in pain," Kenshi finally croaked, tilting his head upward to face Alex, his own agony stamped across his face. The boy scowled but calmed himself, focusing his attention on the swordsman's words as he threw off his father's hands for a second time. "She was writhing in pain. There was a…one of those cobalt collars…on her neck. She…was…reciting Marcus Aurelius to block out the noise and she was crying for…her father…to save her. And then…she lost consciousness." Tears dampened the red cloth masking his eyes. "Takeda too."
At the declaration, Kuai Liang winced in pain. The mere thought of his daughter crying for him even though he couldn't hear her, even though he could do nothing, ripped his heart right out of his chest. Was that the last thought racing through her brain, of hope of salvation at his hands? Did she escape the Strega, or was she lying comatose or dead in the middle of the desert, only God knew where? He turned to face his old friend, fighting off tears as Alex's question suddenly developed more validity. He didn't even notice that the boy had cast his desperate gaze to the sky, blinking back tears of his own.
"Kenshi," Kuai Liang softly began, "is Olivia still alive?" A part of him didn't even want to know the answer. He didn't think he could bear it if she wasn't. Memories of his recurring nightmares flooded through his brain, the feeling of him cradling her dead body all too real.
The swordsman grimaced and gently shook his head. "I don't know," he said.
Without realizing he did it, Kuai Liang covered his eyes and rubbed them, fighting not to break down. His thoughts were on saving Olivia, and on reconciling with Anya, and on getting the hell out of Outworld. But at the moment, all prospects of success were grim. And then, suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder, softly patting him. The Cryomancer looked and saw Tomas standing there with an expression of worry on his face to rival his own.
"Can you tell us anything else?" the Enenra asked Kenshi. "Can you describe where they were?"
"It was…" The swordsman trailed off, massaging the apparent pain from his temples. "I think…an oasis. There was…a lake…and a waterfall."
Kuai Liang and Tomas looked to Fujin. "Does that sound familiar?" the latter asked him.
The Wind God solemnly nodded his head. "There is one – and only one – oasis in the desert like he described," he said. "It makes sense that Erron would lead them there. It's an approximate halfway point between all borders."
"Reiko…" Kenshi mumbled weakly, and all eyes were upon him again. "He's chasing them still. He sent…the Strega to kill Erron…and destroy the children's brains so he could capture them easier."
"Is Erron dead?" Tomas asked, but it was apparent he probably already knew the answer.
"I don't know," he replied. "I don't know if anyone survived. My son…" And then, behind his travel-soiled red bandana, the swordsman wrenched his face into an ugly mask of grief and he started to weep.
But Kuai Liang had all but stopped listening. A hint of movement in the corner of his eye – a little girl – caught his attention, darting away. He looked and saw that the river and the bridge beyond had vanished into a vision of his office back home in the Temple, with sparkling sunlight beaming through the windows and setting the room into hues of gold, and he unwittingly stepped towards it. He saw himself sitting at his desk, hunched over papers that he scrawled upon in his hasty handwriting. Livy, he also saw, who was no older than five – so young, so innocent – ran towards him with a big smile on her face, her long brown hair done up in pigtails that trailed behind her like ribbons.
Daddy! Daddy! she cried as she practically dove into his lap, knocking his pen from his hand as the wind from her landing blew all the papers off his desk. He groaned when she hit his belly, and then frowned when he saw the mess piling on the floor. But she could scarcely be bothered to notice. Look what I learned how to do! she cried in excitement.
Without waiting for his permission, she sat on her knees on top of his and then cupped one hand in the other. As she watched intently, her skin rippled blue and white fog wafted from her arms before cryogenic energy swirled above her palm in brilliant electric hues, gradually tightening and hardening into a pristine ice jewel that glittered in the sunlight.
That's very good, Livy, he said with a smile, the mess suddenly forgotten. You learned how to make an ice ball.
It's small, though, she complained.
He chuffed and gently pinched her cheek. It's just the right size for you, he replied.
Yours are a lot bigger.
Yours will be too, someday, he said. But I think this one is just perfect for now. He flashed her a reassuring smile.
Livy thought about it for a long moment. You can have it, she finally said, beaming.
Oh, good, he replied in a vaguely sarcastic tone, mildly chuckling as she placed the glorified ice cube in his hand.
Will you put it on your desk? she wondered, looking up at him hopefully.
It'll melt, honey, he told her. It's too warm in here for it to last.
Well, you can keep it from melting, she argued. You're pretty good at freezing stuff.
Oh, is that a fact? he replied, an ornery smile spreading on his face a moment before he tickled her side, prompting her to squeal and giggle, prompting him to do that again as he now laughed too.
And then he stopped, and she leaned back, gazing into his face with an adoring smile that he happily returned. Then she wrapped her tiny, spindly arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. In turn, he wrapped his arms around her little body, holding her tightly and closing his eyes in contentment before she pulled free long enough to kiss his cheek and nuzzle his neck.
I love you, Daddy. I'm going to marry you someday, Livy declared. As soon as I'm tall enough.
He laughed at that. I think your mother might have something to say about that, he replied, fondly patting her head.
She'll understand, she argued. You're my daddy. You're my best friend.
As the vision unfolded before Kuai Liang's eyes, tears he didn't even know he'd shed rolled down his face, and he closed his eyes, remembering that day well. Her innocent remark had made an impression on him that he carried with him always. It made him see – truly understand – just how special the bond between them was. It was that moment that had informed every interaction between them since, and it was that moment that made him feel such pain when she had declared only weeks prior how much she hated him. And now, he realized, it was why he had failed her so terribly.
And now Kuai Liang understood that loving his daughter was like sticking a kori blade into his own heart. It got him nowhere, except awake in the middle of the night, recalling the years when Livy was the strongest, the smartest, the funniest, and the sweetest, yearning for them to return as he watched her grow into a woman anxious to test her wings in this great big world, knowing deep down that there was no way he could fight the slow march of time as it stole his little girl from him. And the Cryomancer stood there, staring at this vision, he found himself wondering why he had been cheated out of a daughter who loved him, and one he could love in return.
"Kuai Liang?" Tomas' accented voice called to him, yanking him from his thoughts.
The Grandmaster looked to his friend, suddenly remembering himself, and in humiliation, scrubbed the tears from his face with his fingers. All eyes save Anya's were on him, looking for some sort of an explanation, some sort of a plan. He had none he could give except that he had to get her back. His eyes drifted to the bridge over the river, leading into the desert proper, and without realizing he'd begun to move, he bolted towards it, running towards that oasis, running towards his daughter. His little girl.
"Kuai Liang!" several voices called after him, but he didn't stop.
The Red Desert felt like the first of all deserts, huge, marrying the sky for eternity in all directions. It was blindingly white, but that was only a trick played on the eyes by the sun. In reality, it was gold and red, burning, and waterless, without features save for the endless yawning dunes made hazy by shimmering heat waves. It almost looked like an oil painting not yet dry, smeared into brown gradients of color, seemingly unreal. The occasional fire pit pointed the way, and it wasn't surprising to see that Erron Black had followed the old highway that cut through the desert many centuries ago.
Reiko crested a gently rising dune and saw the extinguished remains of a tiny campfire on the lee side, the side the sun would abandon the earliest. His quarry had burned the ghost grass, not surprisingly. It was the only thing out here that would burn, and it was the only thing out here that could be found in abundance. It burned with an oily, dull light that lasted for hours. Those who lived in and around the Red Desert told him that ghosts and demons lived in the flames, and they lured those foolish enough to look at the fire into the flames and to their death, so they all refused to look into the light.
Such superstition mattered not to Reiko; he was not interested in ghost stories told by the peasants. What mattered was that these remains were as cold as all the others he'd found. Yet, he'd gained on Erron Black and the children he'd so boldly stolen from him. Reiko knew he was closer. The Strega had failed in their mission, but not entirely. His magic had revealed that the chittering cries had – if only temporarily – incapacitated his quarry. And he drew ever closer to the oasis. Soon, he would overtake them all. With any luck, they would still be too weak to resist.
Even as she slept and blessed blackness erased all her anxiety and fear, Olivia was acutely aware of the splitting ache in her brain, and soon it became unbearable. Slowly, she blinked her eyes open, and the brilliant sunlight streamed in, casting blinding white pain through her skull. Hot sand buried her hands, and a sharp, prickling burn gnawed at her skin through her gauzy shirt. Weakly, she pushed herself on all fours. How long had she been unconscious?
"Takeda?" she croaked, her voice parched. The Cryomancer swiveled her head to the left and saw her classmate lying prostrate in the sand like she had been. When he didn't move at her beckoning, she slowly crawled to him and yanked him onto his back. Dried blood smeared his face, but when she placed her hand on his chest, she felt his lungs steadily inhaling and exhaling air. Gently, she shook him. "Takeda!" she cried, and he sluggishly opened his eyes, wincing and looking away when the sun met them.
"My head…" he moaned as he gripped his scalp. "God, I can hardly see."
"Yeah, I feel like someone buried an axe in my skull myself," she sympathized as she leaned back on her heels and looked around. It was true. She felt dizzy and nauseous from the deafening pounding inside her skull. She gently rubbed her temples, but it didn't particularly help.
"How long was I out?" he asked.
Olivia shrugged as she dropped her hands to her lap. "I'm not sure," she replied. "Where's Erron?" she asked in sudden alarm, not seeing him anywhere.
Immediately, Takeda forced himself to sit and thought about it, trying hard to remember. "I…I sent him…" He winced, looked up, and then pointed to the waterfall. "Over there."
"Why?" she asked.
"I think the Strega were hiding there," he told her after a long moment.
"What makes you say that?"
His eyes took on a faraway, thoughtful expression. "I don't know," he admitted. "I just…it was like I just knew they were there." He looked up at her. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"
The Cryomancer frowned. "I don't know what to think," she told him. "Your dad can supposedly do-"
"Don't you mention him," he hissed. "I'm nothing like him."
Olivia sighed and shrugged. "Okay," she said, deferentially wincing at his sharp tone. Her head hurt worse than after her brawl inside the Phoenix, and her hangover the next day. "We need to find Erron. I hope he's not dead."
She got to her feet and pulled Takeda with her. After they took a moment to get a drink of water, and Takeda washed his face of the blood, the two silently wound their way around the lake's shoreline and made their way to the waterfall. Apart from the occasional squawk of birds every now and then, the jungle was blessedly quiet, a far cry from the shrieking cacophony of noise caused by the Strega. Near the waterfall, they found a natural path through the trees, though it was narrow, prompting them to walk single file, and foliage grew across it in spots. Soon, it grew as dark as evening under the canopy, even though the sun was high in the sky above them. It made it hard to see the way, and so when Olivia – who was in the lead – tripped over something in the dark, it wasn't particularly surprising.
"Ow!" she yelped as she landed on her knee, her tabi boot slightly brushing the obstacle.
"What is that?" Takeda asked her a moment later, and in sudden panic, she flipped onto her butt and drew her knees to her chest.
Even in the darkness, they could both still make out the vague shape of a grotesque creature lying dead on the path. It looked like a giant rat with wicked yellow teeth and claws, but pale, bubbly lesions peeked through dense brown fur like a horrible disease. Its mouth was twisted in agony, one eye wide with surprise. A large bullet hole had put out the other one and presumably killed the beast in the process.
"I think this is one of the Strega," Takeda deduced.
"And I think we're on the right path," the Cryomancer replied, still staring at the beast in trepidation, the shadows cast by the gunshot wound frighteningly large in the monster's face.
Olivia climbed to her feet again and cautiously proceeded forward. Soon, she and Takeda found more Strega bodies scattered about. Most had been shot, but some had been cut down by some sort of blade, more than likely the strange, curved sword that Erron had strapped to his back beside his shotgun. Eventually, she found his .12 gauge, and the blade not far from it. But Erron was nowhere to be found.
"Where is he?" she asked in desperation. She looked to him as if she could coerce him to telepathically search for him, even though she wasn't certain he could even do such a thing.
But Takeda didn't have to do anything. Olivia had barely breathed the question when the Shirai Ryu gasped at something behind her. She whirled around – immediately regretting spinning so quickly because it set the dull throb in her brain into a roaring fire – and saw a motionless pair of legs lying in the midst of trampled jungle plants. Erron. She was positive. Those were his boots.
"Oh, God," she muttered as both her and Takeda dashed to the mercenary's side. He was face down in the dirt, but he was still breathing…barely. Teeth and claw marks oozed blood through blackened, crusty wounds where his shirt was torn, and one particularly impressive bite had ripped his shoulder almost in half. Beside him laid the largest Strega she'd seen yet, but its rodent face was halfway gone. That was undoubtedly the work of one of the gunslinger's hollow points.
"Mr. Black?" she yelled urgently before she rolled him onto his back. When she did, she saw more of the same types of wounds bleeding from his front. "Erron?" Olivia then cradled him in her arms, vaguely noticing his absent hat, and tried shaking him to wake him. That didn't work.
"Could he be dying?" Takeda asked her when she hopelessly turned and looked at him.
"I don't know," she confessed, suddenly afraid. If he died, what would she and Takeda do? He was their guide, their protector, as they traveled through unfamiliar Outworld. They'd never survive the desert without him. She swallowed hard. "Help me carry him to the lake where I can try to bandage him up and get him cleaned off."
"Do you know how?" the boy raised an eyebrow.
Olivia shrugged. "Sort of. My mom's a nurse and she taught me some things."
She looked down on Erron's unconscious face once more and gently removed his mask to help keep his breathing unobstructed. She had always been thankful that she had been born a Cryomancer instead of a Hydromancer like her siblings; it marked her as different and in a way, even more powerful than they. In her opinion, the power to conjure water whips and heal paled in comparison to the things she could do with ice and snow. But at the moment, what she wouldn't give to have been born a Hydromancer Healer like her mother and her sister.
But like Erron had said once, spit in one hand and wish in the other, and see which one got fuller. That kind of thinking wouldn't help him right now, and therefore it wasn't useful to her at all. So while Takeda wrapped his arms beneath the gunslinger's armpits, Olivia gripped his feet, and together they slowly carried the heavy man out of the jungle.
By the time they reached their campground at the beach, however, the cobalt collar began to take its toll again. The effects of that cursed metal coupled with her still-raging migraine caused her vision to fade out at the edges, curling into blackness, and she staggered through the sand, dropping Erron's feet when she herself collapsed like a heap. Takeda, not ready for the shift, lost control of his own footing, and he stumbled and fell as well. The gunslinger hit the ground with a loud thud, but it proved enough to jar him awake.
"Oomph!" he grunted as his kohl-smeared eyes fluttered open, revealing his hazel green eyes in stark contrast.
"Olivia," Takeda complained, glowering at her, "what the hell?"
"I'm sorry," she panted as her vision recovered. "It was the collar…I just got so weak all of a sudden." She rubbed her eyes and then raked her fingers through her hair before she crawled to the outlaw's side. "You're alive," she said to him in relief as she gently patted his head and slicked back his blood-damp hair.
"So it would seem," Erron grimaced.
"How do you feel?" she asked.
"I don't know the polite word for it," he replied.
Olivia swallowed hard as she looked at his plethora of injuries more clearly in the sunlight. There was a particularly deep and bloody claw mark cutting through his leg near his groin. It came frighteningly close to his femoral artery, she heard her mother's voice say in her head, and he was lucky to be alive. One inch further in, and he'd be dead right now. So there was no way he was walking out of the oasis today.
She looked at Takeda, who was now kneeling on the other side of their patient. "Go wet me a piece of cloth," she ordered. Wordlessly, the boy scampered off to do what she said.
Meanwhile, Erron weakly shook his head. "No, kid, don't waste your time," he urged her. "You and him have to make a run for it. Reiko's surely close to catching up to us now. I'll be fine. Survived worse than this."
"I'm not leaving you here for Reiko to find and kill," she argued.
He scowled at her and tried to sit up, managing to prop himself on his elbows. "Now look here, you stubborn little cuss-" he hissed, but she abruptly cut him off.
"No, you look here," she snapped, pushing him back onto his back with a little more force than was necessary. "You didn't leave me behind when you should've, even though we both know that I was slowing you down because of this damn collar. So I'm not about to abandon you, even if you are a grouchy, arrogant dick." Takeda returned then with a wadded up piece of cloth he'd ripped from his shirt sleeve, and instantly, Olivia began dabbing blood from the wounds on Erron's face. "Besides," she continued, "Reiko and you have both made it abundantly clear that neither one of us can make it through this desert on our own. After what I've seen so far, you're absolutely right. We'll die in a day. So like it or not, we need you, Mr. Black."
"How does your pa put up with you?" he wondered aloud, but his tone wasn't nearly as annoyed as it had been only moments prior.
"He doesn't," she retorted. "That's why he dumped me off on the Shirai Ryu."
"What can I do to help, Olivia?" Takeda asked, interrupting their bickering.
She paused for a moment and looked around, sighing. "We're gonna need a litter to drag him out of here," she finally said. "I don't know about you, but I'm not strong enough to carry him. So can you go build one?"
"I'm on it," he replied, and he scurried off to build a makeshift litter.
"Don't be stupid, kid," Erron urged again. "I'll be fine quicker than you think."
"I'm not leaving you, end of discussion," she said. She slightly shook her aching head as she unbuttoned his shirt and started cleaning the wounds on his chest. "If my father taught me anything, it's that the Lin Kuei don't leave anyone behind."
"I ain't Lin Kuei, kid, in case you hadn't noticed."
"But you're protecting one," she replied. "So our Code of Honor says that now you're under our protection as well. I'm sure my dad would agree."
Erron thought about it. "Your pa's a good man," he finally said. "Reminds me a lot of John Tunstall."
Olivia paused and tried to remember who that was. "He was your foster father, right?" she slowly deduced.
"That's right."
"Why?"
Erron faintly chuckled, and he even cracked a smile. "He tried to help the wild kids out, the ones full of piss and vinegar like me. Give 'em a purpose besides general hell-raising." He fixed his green eyes on Olivia's blue ones. "He taught me to read. My first book was this huge ol' thing he'd brought with him from England. It was a collection of stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Their adventures and such. Every night for a couple of months, he had us rugrats take turns reading out loud from it."
"My dad taught me to read like that too," she faintly smiled.
"John was like King Arthur," Erron said. "Noble. Wise. Kind. Your pa's like that too."
Olivia shrugged uncomfortably. "I wouldn't know," she said.
The gunslinger looked at her with hard eyes. "Yes, you would," he contradicted her.
"I don't want to talk about it," she said, cleaning his wounds with more urgency now.
"I think you do, kid," he said.
She stopped and frowned because he was right. "Did you…did you ever do anything that made him ashamed of you? Made him not want you around anymore?"
Erron scoffed but smiled again and shook his head no. "No, kid, that didn't happen until after he died." Then he cupped his hand on hers and made her stop her work. "Pretty sure he'd be ashamed of me for killing Billy. And for all the killing I've done since then. But not before. Never before. He was far more forgiving than he had cause to be. Think that's probably what got him killed in the end. He didn't want no trouble, even though we was all itching to deal it for him." He inhaled deeply. "If your pa is as much like John as I think he is, then he's not ashamed of you. Disappointed, maybe, but not ashamed."
Olivia nodded, blinking back tears of understanding. "You don't know the things I've done, though," she said. "I killed a man," she declared, and now the tears began to spill over, blinding her sight. Her dad might've eventually forgiven her stunt at the Phoenix. But how could he forgive that?
"And I've killed hundreds, maybe thousands," he countered. "Just for the money too. So I promise you that you ain't done worse than me, girl."
"I told him I hated him," she confessed, thinking that was worse. Especially now that she was on her own in Outworld, realizing just how much about him that she'd taken for granted. "I told him he treats me like a baby, and not to call me Livy anymore, even though he's always called me Livy, ever since I was born." She sighed, her head hurting even worse now. "But now that I'm here, running for my life from Reiko, all I can think about is him. What would he say to this situation? How would he handle that situation?" She looked into Erron's eyes again and then hastily wiped away the tears on her cheek. "Reiko was right, Mr. Black. Without my father, what am I made of?"
He didn't answer her for the longest moment, but then he said, "I think you're starting to find out, ain't you?"
She nodded. "Yeah. And I don't really like it."
"Then change it," he said, his voice taking on an unsympathetic edge. "Don't feel sorry for yourself. Do something about it."
Olivia opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it. He was right.
Silently, she nodded, and then resumed her work of cleaning his wounds. Some were worse than others, and while he did his very best not to make a sound of pain, sometimes he couldn't help himself. When he did, he'd suck down a gulp of air, or wince and groan as he balled his hands into fists. He refused to remove his pants to let her tend to his wounds on his legs, though, and even though she wanted to fight him on it, that was one battle she couldn't win. So Olivia worked quickly and did her best to be gentle with all other wounds, following the methods her mother had taught her.
When she made Erron flip on his belly so she could work on his back, he spoke once more. "I'm curious to know about this fella that's got you into so much trouble," he said.
Instantly, Olivia's eyes went wide with surprise. "How did you-"
"Takeda told me about the picture he ripped."
"Why?" she demanded to know.
"Said he was the last person you wanted to be stuck out here with, so I asked him why. Seemed like a fair question."
"Well, he's right about that," she said. "I don't want to be stuck out here with him. He's a bully."
Erron acted as if he hadn't heard her, and said, "So that boy in the picture is why you got sent to the Shirai Ryu?" he said.
She scowled. "No," she hissed. "I went to a bar and got into a brawl. That's why I got sent to the Shirai Ryu. My dad doesn't know about Alex. And I'd like to keep it that way, if you don't mind."
"He's bound to find out sooner or later."
"Preferably later," she said as she wiped the area around the bite in his shoulder.
Suddenly, a familiar arrrooooooo blasted over the oasis, heralding the arrival of something terrible. Instantly, Erron forced himself onto his back to look up, and Olivia jumped to her feet. She cast her gaze in the direction from which the horn's cry came, and saw that upon the tall, sandy cliff that overlooked the oasis stood an army of snarling, drooling Tarkatans. But she scarcely noticed them. Her eyes immediately found a figure dressed in black and red armor, his handsomely chiseled face gazing onto the waterhole, a smirk undoubtedly plastered on his arrogant face.
"Reiko's here," Olivia reported to Erron. "He's found us."
Esha Napoleon, thanks!
DarkAssassin15, that would be interesting, but as you can see from this chapter, they don't have time to make rat jerky :p
Da-Hybrid-Queen, I'm glad I could be of service! LOL I should get Erron's hat back, shouldn't I? ;)
ROCuevas, thank you, as always!
Westcoast Witchdoctor, LOL I loved that pun about the alpha, "the big cheese." That made me literally laugh out loud. Sorry about the migraine, though.
iceangelmkx, so how many days did you stay up wondering about what happened to Erron's hat? LOL Yeah, hopefully Takeda and Kenshi's mental connection is cause for some serious feels now and later, but we'll see ;)
en-lumine, Helly is the one who gave me the idea for Erron to sing that one song. My original idea was "Home on the Range," but she told me that was too cliche, so I listened to her. Aw, shucks, thank you 3 But you're the master on writing Kenshi and Takeda, so when I write them, I'm trying to mirror you. I really don't light a candle to you on that front, I'm afraid.
symphonica666, I'm simultaneously glad and sorry that you could hear the Strega chittering in your ears!
Hell-on-Training-Wheels, well, I'm flattered you think the Strega make the Xenomorphs look like kittens, but I have two words for you: face hugger. Yeah, that's the very worst thing I can think of; an alien vagina strapping itself to someone's face and forcing little baby aliens down the victim's throat. Yeah, there's no comparison there LOL I'm glad you enjoyed the fight scene, though. I worked really hard to raise the tension.
PunkRoseBlitz, oh, no worries, thank you for taking the time to review! I swear I don't try to be funny, but people think I'm downright hilarious when I'm being dead serious LOL Either way, I'm so glad you get a kick out of it. The possibilities for Erron's hat are endless.
Fenris328, I know, and I'm so sorry about that. It's been a rough couple of months. But thank you for the support.
PinkRedRose2, your wish is granted! I hope you liked it :D