Chapter eighteen: Unity
Those words.
Those words were enough to make realization hit.
Raulyn looked at his Hunters, frozen. He looked at Karles. His mentor. His friend.
Raulyn raised his sword and leaped towards Karles with a cry. He stabbed the man in the chest.
The weapon went right through him, and he dematerialized, leaving the group alone.
Athena looked past Kai to the scene before her with disbelief. Raulyn's eyes had turned a bright yellow. An inhuman color. A mob color.
The captain himself looked…disturbed, to say the least. He knew, now. How had he lived his entire life without knowing what he really was? Mobs hadn't killed his parents—mobs were his parents, and he had killed them with his own two hands.
He had inadvertently betrayed mobkind. 'The Rogue' had a whole different meaning now.
Raulyn's eyes were wide.
Right when Athena expected him to go mad, the captain stumbled back and all but collapsed against the portal's glowstone frame. None of the Hunters came to help him. They all just…stood there. Watching him.
Athena hesitated, then gently placed her hand on Kai's arm. He gave her a glance—he looked as haunted as Raulyn himself—but lowered his weapon. The other Hunters looked at him skeptically, but slowly followed suit one by one.
Athena glanced at Mystia and the two other mobs. They looked as stunned as she felt. Raulyn was a mob. It almost made sense in some poetic way—how he always commanded the room, how he killed so many mobs despite being so young. His Hunter training and intelligence obviously had helped him as well, but in addition to those qualities, he had mob powers on his side. Mob powers!
Athena heard a step behind her. She turned—and immediately raised her bow when Andr entered the room. The others noticed it too, and they raised their weapons back up.
Andr held up her hands calmingly. She glanced down to Raulyn, who returned her look with his own yellow eyes.
"How?" Raulyn whispered, unbothered by Andr's presence. "How is this possible?"
Andr said nothing. Besides the grimness her eyes held, she looked as shocked and conflicted about the whole situation as everyone else.
"I am a mob," Raulyn whispered, letting his gaze glide past everyone in the room. "How… How come I never felt…what you feel?"
Athena slowly lowered her bow. If Andr wanted to attack, she would've done it by now.
She glanced back to Raulyn. "What do you think we feel?" she asked quietly.
He remained silent for a moment. "Cold," he finally said. "Calculating…"
She shook her head. "We're people. Just like you. Just like them." She gestured to the other Hunters.
"People you killed," Minerva hissed at him. She'd turned around as well, weapon lowered. The others slowly began to do the same. They all realized that Andr was too powerful for them to handle.
"A mob hunting mobs," Blazette added. "You can't sink much lower than that."
Raulyn let his head hang.
"And you," the Blaze added, turning to Andr. "You've got some explaining to do."
Andr nodded. Athena noticed she didn't seem to care about Blazette's harsher tone. She looked more confident than ever before.
"Let's go," Blazette said, turning to the portal. "We'll sort things out in the Aether."
Athena gave Raulyn one final glance before turning to the other mobs. "Someone's going to have to check if it's safe for me up there. The day-and-night cycle might be different."
"I'll go," Andr said, stepping forward.
"And attack us as soon as we follow?" Blazette said. "You're staying here. I will go."
Andr didn't argue, and Blazette floated to the portal. She observed it for a moment, then stepped forward and through the portal, seemingly vanishing in thin air as she touched the watery blue mass.
A moment of silence passed in the cave.
"You…" Athena whispered, glancing to Andr. "Andr, why'd you attack us?"
Andr didn't respond.
"Was it to make the Hunters work together with us?"
Andr sighed and nodded. "I thought we'd be way more effective if we worked together well, so I gave you a common enemy to fight."
"That's idiotic," Minerva said.
"So idiotic, in fact, that it worked," Rayallv added.
She frowned. "So you're okay with this?"
"Getting beaten repeatedly was not pleasant," he dryly said, "but I suppose I always wanted to take a girl somewhere on my horse."
"I would've rather she beat you up," Mystia said.
"She did," Ilyoin said.
"I meant without beating us up in the process."
"Was that your original plan?" he said sharply.
She fell silent. Athena turned to Ilyoin, apprehensive at his accusing tone.
"But your friend"—he gestured to Andr—"did not feel like following your example?"
Mystia hesitated. "That's…"
"It's true," Andr said. "That was the original plan."
"Hm," Ilyoin said, keeping his gaze on Mystia. "Good thing you chose differently, Ender."
"You can thank me by not betraying us," Andr said. "You thought we would, yet here we are at the portal and no one's hurt."
"No thanks to you," Galen muttered resentfully. "I only believe your word because you returned and we are still alive."
"That's fair."
"Eh," Rayallv said. "No point in keeping grudges, Galen."
"Says the man who still hates me for beating him in a Kervan-forsaken gambling game," Galen grumbled.
Blazette returned from the portal. "It's dark," she reported, "but not as dark as it is here."
"Some records say the days take longer in the Aether," Mystia contemplated. "With shorter nights, we'd have less time to travel. I guess that's a price we'll have to pay."
Athena felt hesitation rise at that. With longer days the group would be slowed down by how much she would have to stay indoors the whole time. That, and there was no telling how many hiding spots there'd be, so the risk of her getting hurt was a lot greater.
"You should not go," Kai told her. He knew what she was thinking. "It is too risky."
"He's right," Andr agreed. "You should stay back."
"I'm not going to split up with Athena again!" protested Minerva.
"Then you should stay behind as well," Andr said.
"And go where?"
"I would give you the map to the Caverns," Mystia said. "But I'll need it myself too."
Kai crossed his arms, sighing. "I know this idea will probably be rejected, but with a document signed by the captain, maybe we can safely keep you in Ironhand until you regroup to go to these Caverns."
"And where in Ironhand is that?" asked Minerva.
"That is the part you will not like."
"It's the jail, isn't it?" Athena guessed.
He nodded. "It would be the safest place for you to stay."
A brief silence fell. Minerva's skeptic expression made clear what she thought of the idea. Admittedly, Athena wasn't too comfortable with it either, even with a document.
"We can go to the Caverns using the map," Minerva offered. "And then someone goes back here with the map to get everyone else."
"Why not just wait here?" Athena wondered. "Watch the portal?"
"Because we don't know how long the others are going to be gone," Minerva said. "We could be waiting for weeks."
"We're not reliant on food. If anyone else stays who is, they can periodically go to the Aether to get some. If we run out, we'll leave the Hills to gather more."
Minerva fell silent. She couldn't argue against that, it seemed.
"And that's assuming someone is going to stay here besides us at all," Athena said, glancing to the others. "But I doubt that's going to happen."
"The Hunters won't be going far anytime soon," Andr said. "I can't teleport them without knocking them out. They'll have to guard the portal—it doesn't matter which side of it—until they build up a resistance, and even then some should stay behind to make sure nothing dangerous leaves the Aether."
"Minerva and I can guard this side," Athena said. She turned to Kai.
"We will go to the Aether," he said. "Once we have built up resistance to those teleportation effects, we will start searching."
She nodded. "Take care. And check in from time to time."
Raulyn watched the exchange before him with numb eyes. The Hunters had kept some of their attention on him, but that had diminished the more Kai and the mobs spoke. Maybe Raulyn would have helped divide their forces efficiently, but his mind was too turbulent to do so at that moment.
He still had difficulty processing what he had learned about himself.
He looked at his hands. They still looked human to him, but what was he really? A mob or a Hunter? One could not be both, yet here he was.
"Alright," Mystia spoke up. "So you two stay here while Andr, Blazette, the Hunters and I go to the Aether." She paused, then added, "On second thought, there's only two of you. Maybe we should let someone else stay with you, just to be safe."
"We don't need a babysitter," Minerva protested.
Raulyn glanced at her. Then he slowly stood up and—with a mildly unstable step—turned to the other Hunters. They looked at him uncertainly.
"One Hunter will stay here," he told them. "If only to fend off other mob hunters that may visit. Kai, I am leaving you in charge of that."
"Me, sir?"
"I trust you to keep things diplomatic more than anyone else. I will write a document as proof; we just have to hope they will believe you. Just do not show too much sympathy to those mobs, or they will think you defected."
"Yes, sir." It was good to see that at least one Hunter still obeyed him, despite the truth Karles had exposed.
Whether that was the case for the others was yet to be seen. Raulyn turned to the remaining Hunters. "And, human or mob, I am still your captain, and you will remember it. Like you, I have killed and imprisoned countless mobs over the past years. That makes me a Hunter."
They remained silent.
Raulyn snarled in frustration, snatched his weapon from the ground and resolutely stepped towards the portal.
He was the first to pass through it.