Outlands

Part 4

By Mieren

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Rowen groaned loudly and began the painful process of regaining his feet, wincing every time he stretched a section of half-healed skin. The fogs around him churned menacingly but did not close in, keeping several paces distance from where he stood swaying. More than slightly baffled at the strange behavior, he peered around for a passage in the perfect ring surrounding him. Not seeing one, he consented to sprint through the nearest bank, gasping in shock when the clouds parted for his charge. The sphere of clear air seemed to follow him. Emboldened, he sent out a weak mental shock wave, the strongest he could manage past the numerous shields plaguing him, and began moving towards the nearest mental echo. Touma.

He settled into a strenuous lope, silently praying that his son had survived long enough to be found. In his current form, he could take a great deal of punishment without fear of life-threatening injuries. He healed too quickly to worry about himself. He was more concerned with how his family and the Warlords were faring, knowing that none of them could heal themselves or any of the others under these conditions.

Unable to gage the time he had been unconscious, Rowen could only hope that the state of his partially healed injuries would be a good enough indication. With the slight limp he still sported, he could easily tell that his left heel was still missing for the most part. The two outermost fingers on his right hand had mostly reformed, but still had yet to separate themselves from his middle finger. Rowen scowled, not knowing how long he had had to regenerate, never having lost any extremities before in his new form. Assuming that the fogs had not entirely left him alone while he had been unconscious, there was no way he could judge the state of his skin's reformation.

Rowen jerked suddenly, shifting directions ever so slightly to the left. Without checking, he had known that he was going to miss his son if he continued along his previous course. He gnawed on his lower lip gently as he ran, so deep in contemplation that he occasionally forgot that he had no need to evade the boiling mists. His mind reeled furiously at him as he built up more speed, demanding to know how he had realized he was off course. Still mulling over the puzzle, he almost didn't realize that he had changed directions yet again.

"Damn it, Touma," he grumbled. "Hold still."

-He cannot. He is moving away from that which simply is.-

Rowen slipped and crashed to the ground, raising his partially healed hand slowly to his temple. Something had spoken to him. Not in so many words, but in tangled, riddled thoughts that his mind had been almost unable to decipher.

"Who are you?" he demanded stiffly, regaining his feet and resuming his lope. Whatever was speaking to him had obviously been following him for awhile, as he felt no more of a presence around him now than when he had awoken.

-I am neither of the light or the dark. I simply am.-

"That is not an answer!" Rowen raged.

-That is what the younger master informed me, yet there is nothing insufficient or inaccurate about my response.-

"There's nothing informative either," he grumbled, pausing to absorb what he had just heard. "What do you mean by 'younger master'?"

-The master who is not as old.-

"That's not what I meant! I want to know who you're talking about! Who is the 'younger master' and what is 'that which simply is'?"

-That which simply is exists, yet does not. I know not what the young master is called. He simply is that which he is.-

"Forget it," Rowen snapped testily, surging forward through another patch of fog with little respect for its menacing rolling. He could sense his son more clearly now and was unwilling to waste time arguing with something that may have been nothing more than an illusion or figment of his delirious mind.

A slight movement in the distance snapped his ruby eyes forward instantly, mind focusing on the hint of a silvery blue aura shining through the darkness. He had just pushed himself to a fiercer pace when he heard a faint echo from behind.

"Damn it, Rowen! Slow down!"

Shocked, he stumbled to a halt just before plunging into another bank of fog, turning incredulously to face three heat blotches closing in on him from the distance, two of them carrying something. A weak smile formed on his face when Dais skidded to a jerky stop beside him, eyes flashing red in the darkness. Starting slightly when he realized he had just seen two eyes on his friend, he tried to get a better look at the older man, thinking that his eyes were playing tricks on him. Noticing his gaze, Dais quickly ducked his head to force his hair to fully cover his face. His efforts were pointless, however, as Rowen's attention had already shifted to the scowling burden resting across Sehkmet's shoulders.

"About time you heard me," Mieren grumped unhappily, elbowing her ride sharply. Sehkmet flinched and set her down quickly, looking ready to jump forward if she couldn't maintain her balance on partially regenerated feet. "Hell, while you were sitting there talking to thin air, we almost caught up with you, but then you took off like a bat out of hell."

"Touma's just over there," he muttered defensively, jerking his head towards the darkness behind him. "I was going after him when something started talking to me."

"Define 'something'," Cale murmured quietly, eyes flickering to ruby and back to his usual dark blue spastically. Every now and then while his eyes were glowing crimson, he flinched, snapping his eyes shut and opening them again tentatively as though his vision was paining him. Though unconscious, Anubis appeared to be flinching as well, his lips moving as though he were speaking to someone that no one else could see. Cale appeared to be doing his best to ignore him.

"Air elemental," Touma supplied, appearing out of the darkness suddenly. Rowen nearly jumped out of his skin.

"And how would you know?" Rowen grumbled.

"It told me."

"How did you convince it to give a straight answer?" Touma's lips curved upwards into an almost mischievous smile, eyes close to dancing with mirth.

"You just have to ask in the same deranged, enigmatic way it talks to you," he chuckled softly. "It also helps if you use the demon or sorcerer tongues. It didn't really seem interested in speaking to me, though."

"Really?" Rowen drawled, one eyebrow arching slightly. "It was definitely talking about you when it mentioned the 'younger master' earlier."

"It might have been, but it mentioned the same thing to me before disappearing. I didn't get a chance to ask it who it meant. It said something about a young master who wasn't listening to him, or some such."

"That's different from what I heard." Rowen said slowly, eyes going out of focus as he scanned the gently rolling mists around them. His eyes stopped suddenly on something that no one, save Mieren and Touma, seemed to notice. "What of the young master not of this realm or dimension?"

"I don't think that was cryptic enough," Touma said slowly. "I had to ask much stranger questions than that to get a response."

-The second of the shadow's light called upon me once facing the forced avatar of this dimension. The shadow that would call upon our powers without consent now battles the second of the true bloods, the second of the first of the shadow's light, who has yet to cry to the first of the first for salvation.-

"Of course, why didn't I know that?" Rowen grumped unhappily, struggling to repeat the answer as closely as he was able in Japanese. Cale and Sehkmet exchanged stumped looks before looking to Dais, who only shrugged, face still hidden behind a mass of violet tinged white hair. Mieren straightened suddenly, one eyebrow arched in an inquisitive fashion.

"Be that the second of the true bloods called upon the first of the first, would it be that he is calling upon the first of the true bloods?"

-Yes, light from the shadows.-

"You understand that thing?" Cale spluttered, looking highly insulted. He winced again and snapped his eyes shut, opening them tentatively in a normal navy blue with a worried look creeping into his eyes.

"Of course I understand it," she sighed, her voice unsteady. "You've apparently forgotten who I am. I've dealt with elementals before, you must realize. It just basically said that Len was using his elemental abilities to fight Lanfear, who is using the powers of this dimension. Len apparently didn't do too well, because Shin is currently fighting and isn't asking Cye for help, for some reason or another."

Dais looked up hesitantly, looking as though he wanted to ask something but couldn't utter the words. Spitting out an oath, he spun on his toes to face the darkness, eyes narrowing with cold fury. Once again, Rowen attempted to get a better look at his face, again seeing nothing when the older man hunched over defensively. He was considering pulling the white-haired man upright when an explosion of light appeared above them, causing both Cale and Sehkmet to yelp in pain.

Before their eyes could readjust to the brilliance, it was gone, leaving behind only a mass of swearing and dull rustling.

"Get off of me, you pervert!"

"What are you yelling at me for? You used me to break your fall!"

"Would you two quit arguing and get the hell off of me?"

"Release the death grip on my breast and I will!"

"That's not me, Kayura."

"Ryo!"

"It's not me either!"

Blinking the last of the light out of his vision, Rowen edged over to the shouting to get a better view, jaw dropping when he saw what he was looking at. In a tangle of arms and legs were Sage, Ryo and Kayura, all of who had apparently landed directly on an unsuspecting Sehkmet. Cale was already beside them, blinking and squinting angrily as he attempted to see what was going on, his vision refusing to return as quickly as Rowen's had.

"What are you three doing here?" Mieren asked stiffly, her vision coming back almost as quickly as her husband's had. Kayura squinted up at her blankly for a moment before remembering that she too could see in the dark.

"Some sort of elemental attacked us and stuffed us through a gateway," she grumbled, gratefully accepting Mieren's outstretched hand and pulling herself jerkily to her feet, apparently badly bruised from her fall.

"Are Len and Vera okay?" Rowen asked suddenly, pulling Sage and Ryo to their feet somewhat abruptly, the latter of the two nearly falling on his face before finding his balance.

"What about Mana, Shin and Cye?" Touma interrupted before either of them could answer, absently helping a crushed Sehkmet off the ground.

"The last thing we saw was Len screaming obscenities, that he shouldn't know at his age, at the sunset before that watery thing pushed us through that little portal it summoned," Ryo muttered evasively. Sage gave him a cold look.

"There's a lot more and you know it," he snapped, looking more than slightly furious that Ryo had evaded the question. "Len may have appeared be cursing for no apparent reason, but he looked like he was in pain to me. Cye lost his mind and tried to fight alone earlier this evening after teleporting us to safety. We haven't seen him since." He paused, noticing that both Rowen and Touma had stiffened, eyes hollow. "Vera and Shin were both killed only a few minutes ago while trying to protect us. Because of them, everyone else was okay, last I saw."

A loud crack rang through the silence when Sage paused again, Rowen's fist penetrating several inches of the cold stone at his feet. He looked as though he wanted to punch the ground again, but decided against it after examining his shattered hand. Touma had only slumped slowly to the ground, eyes misting in denial. Mieren, however, looked strangely unperturbed.

"They're fine," she said absently. "What else is going on?"

Ryo jerked slightly at her casual statement, his jaw working silently for a few seconds before he managed to convince his vocal cords to work. "Kento disappeared and refuses to resurface after fighting once, but we know he's okay. A blue tiger told us to summon Anubis and told requested that he call his ancestor's companions, or something like that. I'm not exactly sure what it wanted. Then it told us to go to Zairian's Ledge. An elemental sent us here a few minutes after fusing an armor orb into Akira's arm. Len did the same thing to Shin and Vera a few minutes later."

"You mean the back of their right wrists?" Mieren asked softly.

"How did you know that?" Ryo stammered, falling into a nervous silence.

"It altered the armor somehow," Kayura tacked on when she didn't answer.

"To be expected," she answered absently, looking to the fogs as though they held the key to some terrifying secret. "Have they tapped into any of the other armors yet?"

"Not yet," Sage growled, recovering his composure. "What do you know?"

"That is not your concern," she snapped, eyes blazing. Exhaling noisily, she turned her glare towards Anubis, eyes narrowing slightly in consideration. "We should keep moving. We have to be standing ready at Zairian's Ledge before the others get there, which will be fairly soon with a little help."

"What do you mean by 'a little help'?" Cale asked uncertainly, wincing and hiding his eyes as though blinded by something that no one else could see. Both Sage and Dais flinched simultaneously and spun on the balls of their feet to face the same barren patch of stone several paces from them.

"Great," Rowen intoned numbly. "Now Sage is going mad too."

"I thought I saw something move," Sage muttered, eyes not shifting from where they were locked.

Sehkmet snorted loudly and shook his head, grumbling something about 'insane blondes' under his breath. Mieren shifted her gaze between the two unnerved men and nodded almost to herself.

"Of course," she mumbled. "Sage isn't in the proper generation, but he's not shielded, either. Ah, but if one of there others were to see, it might be different. Surely one of the three…" She trailed off, beginning a steady limp in the direction they had been heading for several hours. Dais gave her a horrified look and shook his head in denial.

"What do you know?" Sage all but screamed, finally averting his gaze from whatever he had been staring at.

"I don't know anything," she answered stiffly, eyes flashing from crimson to an unnatural white. "But I suspect quite a bit after hearing pieces of the elementals' conversations through the shield clouding my mind."

"What elementals?" Rowen asked softly. Mieren turned to him with a haunted expression.

"I don't know for sure. But there are several thousand following us."

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To Be Continued…