Marigold looked at her reflection in the water touching the tips of her red hair and her eyelids to recognize herself. She was as pale as a corpse, the only real color being her crimson hair and eyes. She lookedlike she hadn't eaten in days, which, according to Atlas's description of her torture, was likely true.
The first thing Faris did after ensuring she wouldn't go crazy and Vanda wouldn't attempt to take over was hunt them some food.
"That shade…" Tartarus began.
"You mean Hezrou right?" Faris continued, "Did you fully catch what he said in the ancient language?"
"I wish I did."
Faris clenched un unclenched his right hand. "I feel a lot lighter," he said out loud. He dashed forward, a rush of air whooshing past as he ran, and leapt upwards, clearing 6 feet in height and 15 feet across in a single bound. Shocked, he exclaimed, "Did you activate the boost?"
"No, I didn't," Tartarus began, "You are definitely faster than those shadling were now though, maybe we should slow down a bit."
Faris felt his heart beating faster in excitement, he began to sprint and leap, bounce from tree to tree, roll as he landed and continue on, excited to test the limits of his physical ability. He eventually came across a clearing full of deer. He slowed down, stopping just as they perked up to look in his direction, he held still, holding his breath even as his heart beat fast.
"I was beginning to think you almost forgot why we were out here, you wasted about half an hour you know?"
"Sh-shut up!" Faris replied, embarrassed. He ignored Tartarus's humored chuckles. Faris turned towards the herd, not only had his physical ability improve, but his senses as well, that was how he noticed two on the furthest end from him, both nursing limps. Injured! He thought. He strung his bow slowly, two arrows pulled back as tightly as possible, and he fired. The first struck the deer in the neck, knocking it down instantly, the second struck the second deer in the flank, it was even more crippled but still alive enough that the adrenaline caused it to sprint away. Faris bounded after it, quickly catching up.
"Be careful! There's something rushing by quickly!"
Faris scoffed, still giddy over his new found ability. It wasn't magic but it was definitely some-
Faris found himself on the grassy floor of the forest, instincts kicking in he placed his arm over his face, fighting back the whirling mass of fangs and claws that tried to tear him apart. Eventually getting his feet under it he kicked out as hard as possible, hard enough to hear a satisfying crunch and a pained whining. He leapt up, staggering as he finally felt a jolt of pain, his arm hadn't just been bitten, there was a chunk missing, a chunk, now in the mouth of the chewing wolf-dog that growled viciously at him. A red-furred, red-eyed wolf dog, larger than he was. Faris took out his sword, he wasn't as skilled left handed, but he had little choice.
"I'm activating the ability now. You got to be careful, this is… extremely unusual."
Faris nodded, the wolf-dog shade took that as a lack of concentration, rushing Faris. It's faster than the shadelings! Faris barely dodged to the side, cutting its flank as it passed by. Black blood spilled out and the shade beast whined in pain. "This is really uncomfortable…" Faris took advantage of the lull in combat to attempt to calm the beast with his mind. He entered it, and immediately retreated out.
"What happened?!"
"It's completely insane… there's little point in attempting to override its mind, it will keep fighting."
Shades, by a general rule, normally had intelligence, strength, and cunning based of the species they took control of. It was why a shade like Varaug, who was stronger than Durza, could not utilize the ancient language, and was easier to defeat than Durza was. So too if a shade was made from an animal would it increase based on those animal's abilities.
"Ahhh!" Faris yelled out as the shade wolf buried its fangs into his shoulder. He was knocked down, and immobilized in his only good arm, the beast wasn't without injury however, a torn right ear, lost eye, and bleeding muzzle, it lost 3 claws on its left paw and all that was left of its tail was a bloody stump. Even then the beast was winning, it pulled and pushed and pounded of Faris, attempting to finally exhaust him enough that it could bite into his neck and kill him. Faris struggled, but the pain and lost blood made him sloppy and sluggish. Desperate, he reached into the wolf's mind once more, no longer attempting to save it like he had Marigold's. He attempted to force its mind down, weaken its movements, but it didn't fully work. It finally dislocated his already torn apart right arm, and reached for his jugular. Faris roared in defiance, attempting to headbutt the creature in the lower jaw before it could snap down, he wouldn't make it. In this moment of desperation Faris screamed out "Jierda!".
The shade's neck snapped and its teeth broke apart, it began contorting as it collapsed under its own weight and broken body. Faris, inflamed and pumped with adrenaline screamed out again. "Jierda! Jierda! Jierda!" The shade crumpled more and more, finally, unable to move, Faris picked up his sword, his arm felt empty and lifeless, like it was held up by flimsy string and twigs, it was hard to keep the sword in his grip, but with what was left of his meager strength he stabbed the shade in the chest, and as if by instinct he attacked its mind once more, attempting to siphon all of its energy to bolster his own. There wasn't much left, but it was enough to stop his bleeding and allow him to stand.
"You can use magic!"
Faris gasped, puking as he looked down at the shriveled up corpse. "I… but…" Before he could continue he heard the sounds of howls, yips, and barks, without saying another word he picked up his sword and ran as far as he could, finding a suitable clearing with a favorable wind direction he sat behind a tree and waited with baited breathing, spreading his consciousness and hiding it. Seconds later the sound of growls could be heard as the shade wolf-dogs entered the clearing, they sniffed around, tracing his area, but were confused, with the wind blowing in the opposite direction, where he came from, his smell seemed to be concentrated back were he fought the shade dog, but he wasn't there anymore.
"Dammit stupid dogs." Faris froze up just as the dogs began to whine, with his spread consciousness their fear radiated like waves, washing over him. Even then, he didn't need that to fear to feel trepidation over the voice.
"Come on Alpha." The second voice sounded. "The dogs are confused, obviously he or she or whatever disappeared, no way anyone skilled enough to slay a shade dog would stick around if they heard more coming after them."
"I saw the blood Beta," Alpha replied, grumpy. "It ends a few yards away from here, we should look for him, or at least…."
Faris began to gather all the energy from the surrounding plants and wildlife, save the shades and enhanced children. He put up a bubble of carbon dioxide and water collected from the dying plants, a ward to protect him from the fire, and absorbed all the heat in a five meter radius, preparing to jettison it away from him. As Alpha bathed the area in fire, Faris's multi pronged defense kicked in. The carbon dioxide bubble kept the air around him from combusting, the water made the good slow heat transfer, as he transferred as much of the extremely high heat underground through that conduit. The ward was to protect him from everything he missed, he could feel the power rapidly running out, but he wasn't getting tired, either the heat left him delirious. Or
"You're like a solar battery, you can't recharge on your own, you have to absorb it, you can cast magic, but only so much as the energy you absorbed, it has a high limit, but…"
"Like the ultimate handicap of mana storing crystals, it's a finite source of energy that can't be reserved." Faris activated his boost and wrapped his arms around his face, curling up to cover his vitals. Watching and feeling as his collected energy ran out, his wards broke, his bubble burst, his water vaporized, and finally feeling the blazing agony of Alpha's fires, until finally nothing…
Seya awoke to the sound of arguing. She stepped out of the room the villagers gave her, and walked out towards the main square. She saw the villagers arguing, in the center of the argument was the woman who thanked them, she was cradling her daughter, who was holding her bleeding forehead. An angry looking woman held her own child, whose arm was twisted in an awful angle.
"What the hell happened?!" Seya pushed through the crowd. Many were surprised by the strength of the otherwise slim girl, and began to clear the way. The enraged mother holding the child with the broken arm turned towards Seya.
"This whore's daughter used witchcraft to break my daughter's arm!" Her daughter was crying, her arm twisted in an impossible angle. Seya looked at the girl, eyes narrowed, her palms were dirty, she turned to Samara, who's forehead was still bleeding. She looked around, about half the kids in the crowd had dirty palms, two still gripped their stones tightly.
"Was that before or after the children tried to stone her." Seya didn't hide the venom in her voice as she cast a spell quietly, forcing the kids still holding rocks to not be able to let go. The crowd began to murmur uneasily.
-She's a cursed child
-She shouldn't have been born, we don't even know the father
-that shade, if the monster didn't attack her, then she herself is a monster too.
Their words served to only piss Seya off even more, but she was interrupted by Katya and Venka, Katya healed the broken arm, and Venka treated Samara's head wound. "Regardless of who threw the first stone the use of magic violently without a government sanction id or special circumstances is illegal."
The woman smirked until Katya stood up and inspected Samara. "This girl received several stones to the chest, arm, and on stone was bashed into her head, not thrown." She looked at the red residue still on the girl's forehead, and wiped it off, rubbing it between her fingertips, she then looked at the little girl whose arm she healed, who attempted to hide her red stained hand, red from both the residue and blood that wasn't her own. "I'm pretty sure attempting to murder someone is pretty serious as well."
"She was just playing around! They're just kids!"
Venka exploded in fury. "Just kids until the other one fights back huh?! You're disgusting!" The woman was about to step forward but Venka beat her to it, charging forward, arms extended, the woman, shocked, began to backpedal , landing flat on her butt. "I bet you think your daughter is the most special thing in the world, she can do no wrong because she's supposedly smart, and pretty, and talented! I bet she's full of herself because of that pile of shit, and because someone else shows even more talent in something, she just resents him…" Venka trembled a bit, "This girl," She pointed to Samara, "She's deaf, isn't she?" Samara's mother had shut the girl's eyes, but didn't cover her ears from the abuse they hurled at her. Venka turned to the villagers. "She's a goddamn mute, and you're trying to stone her?! And if she's a witch? What are we?! Didn't we save you with our magic!?"
The villagers were silent, then one piped up. "That knight…"
"The knight did indeed help us." Morgan walked forward, "but that knight knew the same shade… the same monster…" Morgan hesitated, then continued, stronger, "The same monster that didn't attack the girl, this "nonmagical knight" who helped save us, knew another supposed monster, who's only known crime was being a monster." Morgan looked around. "But Katya and Venka healed your sick, with magic. Bartholomew repaired your walls, with magic. And Seya and I helped you hunt, again, with magic. Tell me, tell me one thing the girl actually did, that endangered the village, other than this moment, which we all should know now is simply a nonsensical farce." Morgan waited in silence.
"She's a freak!" A little boy yelled out, looking to his dad, the father shushed him, embarrassed and avoided the dagger like looks Seya sent his way. Eventually, the rest of the villagers dispersed, annoyed and indignant, quietly mumbling retorts under their breath. As they finally cleared Seya walked up to Samara's mother.
"Are you alright?" She asked, concern in her voice.
The woman nods, doing her best to hold back tears. Her daughter remained silent and pale, she doesn't at all relax until the last of the villagers clear the area, afterwhich wet tears began to plop down her face.
Seya did her best to hide her anger at the villagers as she looked up to her friends. "We can't leave the village like this. They might actually kill them. I think we should take them with us."
Morgan nodded. "Better yet, they should stay with us for the remainder of the time we are here, they live in the village outskirts. We won't be able to do anything if they come to lynch them in the middle of the night."
"I don't need that much sleep, let them come." Seya muttered darkly.
Katya shook her head, "You're all going about this all wrong. First of wall, they need to decide." She turns to the woman, "your name is Alda, correct?" The woman, Alda, nods. Katya smiles but looks are Samara awkwardly. "Ah, erm, how do I…"
"She can read lips, and just about understand what you're saying, as long as she can see you speak." Alda said gently. "She's smart, smarter than her mother at least." She smiled, "I heard your conversation, I, I at times don't know whether I'm a fit mother, when that masked man attacked the village we could only cower in fear. And I was powerless to protect my daughter from the villagers. This village ceased being welcome when she was born, but I don't care, if she can have a better life, I'll travel anywhere."
Seya smiled. Her smile was cut short as she saw a group of twenty or so figures making their way on horseback towards the village from the main road. As they drew closer she scowled, in annoyance. The Gold Initiate in his final year glared at their group, derision on his face.
"How's Jaya doing?" He asked, the contempt dripping from his voice.
"I don't know?" Seya replied, "How about you, Surmon? seen any… bandits lately?" She smirked at his inflamed look.
"You won't be smiling for long, from the look of things you ignored those orders, you're all in some big trouble now!"
Afterword:
For those of you that forgot, Surmon was first mentioned by name in Chapter 26: or rather Chapter 26: Chapter 25: The Apple Falls Far, he was the one who in Chapter 23: Chapter 22: A rather stressful day, denied them access to getting their crystal reimbursed. The guy was "promoted" then unofficially dealt with, in a vague enough way that I could use him again if I wanted. As for what actually happened between him and Seya? That's a story for another time.