DELTARUNE: Chapter 2 (Alternative)

by White Asterisk

(Follows a Pacifist completion of DELTARUNE: Chapter 1...) Things are not as they seemed. Dark and Light appeared to co-exist harmlessly beside one another, but numerous powers were yet at play. As the very foundation of the worlds began to shift, one thing became abundantly clear. The journey was far from over. Where to walk the feet of the chosen? ... The forest beckons...

19. P18: By One's Will

-CLICK!-

[Y'know...]

/Huh?\

[I know this is gonna sound sappy, but... I think this stuff is actually pretty damn cool. You basically immortalizing all of this so no one forgets all of the.. honestly frickin' crazy stuff we did. And hey. How 'bout this? WE make a promise right here, right now.]

*(A promise?)*

[Yeah! ... That things on, right?]

/Y.. Yeah. Holy crap. You don't mind?\

[I'm saying somethin' cool, ain't I? 'Course I don't mind!]

*(/Uh huh.\)*

[Hey. Keep that up and I just won't say it.]

(*giggle* Okay, okay. But seriously. What is the promise, huh? I've never seen you be so.. open about this sort of thing.)

[... I want to promise that no matter what we're doing, years from now, to the people out there and us, that... that this group ain't ever comin' apart. It doesn't matter what happens. We've all been through too much together to ever let that be. And that promise extends to the others. The ones the dudes listening to us don't know yet... How's that? Any good?]

(... Susie~. I don't need a promise to keep that from happening~.)

*Absolutely true. I think that we would have done that, regardless of promises!*

/What they said. Had your doubts, Sue~?\

[Tch! ... Why do you guys have to always make me sound so.. uncool for the mic...?]

Because we LOVE you!

[I'll smack you.]

Out of loooove~?

[Yeeeeaah~. Just remember that I'm a BIG fan of TOUGH love. I don't think you're prepared...]

Pffhah~! ... Anyways.

Heya, listeners! I actually did it! All four of us back for another chapter!

-You can hear applause in the background from Ralsie and Noelle, followed by a party whistle, most likely from Susie.-

... Yeah, okay. I know. That was pure meh, snrk! You signed up for this amateur hour~!

But hey, I'm in a good mood. Doubt you'll blame me as long as I cut to the chase quick enough.~

As-... Oh... And by the way, you cheeky jerk, I saw the thing you did at the end there in an earlier part. I don't know who you are, but ruin my audio files and I'll track you down across the whole damn WORLDS and end YOUR world.

[Uuuuh...?]

(Wait, did another weird file show up?)

/No no. No weird files. It's just my last solo file had an audio glitch at the end about ten seconds after cut-off. There shouldn't have been any more recording going on, but for some reason a little bit was added on. Garbled frequencies... Don't worry, I can still use it as it is. But every time I try to edit that out, the audio threatens to jumble. Which.. does not make sense... I may look into a new computer if this keeps happening.\

*... Heeey, do you think this has anything to do with the Dark World?*

/What, you think we're getting interference from the True Fountain? ... I mean, it does interfere with phones and such near portals, just... there's nothing open around here. There hasn't been for a while, remember? ... Still. I.. guess that could be possible? Heavily doubt it...\ But anyways, that's enough chit chat.

... Where to start...

On that tid-bit from Bretzon and some good word from The Vale that it would indeed be a good idea to pass through... we decided to pay a visit to that abandoned, ancient city he told us about. We had gone a ways, if you recall, from where we had been ambushed and forced into an uneasy negotiation- to say nothing of what it had become on my first attempt that led to my uh... second death...

*([... ... ... ])*

What? I can't call it anything else. I did die...

[Still... Is it supposed to be easy to hear you say that? YOU DIED, like you just said.]

*Susie...*

[I know. I know. Not yet... But I just can't make myself feel right. You guys don't either. Don't lie.]

(Of course. But it doesn't happen anymore. Those days are over.)

Guys...

[... -sigh- Yeah, yeah, we'll shut up~...]

... Back to the moment, it doesn't need to be said, but I was coping more with fights. All the while, we never took a life. Just knocked everything out or scared it away, because well... if it wasn't obvious then, I'll just say it.

The one time I tried to tell Shorn what to do, like I did Ralsei and Susie before, she basically did the exactly opposite and kicked the thing we were fighting so hard that it ended up stuck in a tree on top of having what I guarantee were broken ribs. reverse psychology didn't work, either. The next thing we fought, she clapped so hard that I THOUGHT it was dead.

[Have I ever said how much I appreciated how she put you in your place on those kinds of things? Dude, it's her forest! And in strolls you, telling her how to fight!]

I get it, bad move. That's why I just decided to plan around her instead. Kinda like with early you. And since I was getting used to seeing most of the monsters and stuff in that place, the act of doing so was getting more manageable... except for if it was a freighter gator bear that came outta nowhere...

(Pff-ff-ffhuh! A what?!)

My nickname for Bizan! They run at you like runaway freighters and they look like gator bears!

[Oooh, those things... Yeah, I lopped a few of those guys protecting Ralsei while he slept.]

*... Suussieee~!*

[Wh... WHAT! The freaks didn't listen to me! I CLEARLY warned them what would happen and they came for me anyway! And you fought them- we all have before! Those suckers didn't care what we were! I don't know if we were food to them or if we were just fun to attack. But sorry~! I didn't wanna find out!]

*Still, you could of jus-*

Guys...

*Oh, oops!*

[... Maybe we should get a jar out for the amount of times we butt in on each other... Or maybe the listeners at home can make a drinking game out of it~! Hah haa~!]

Overlooking the part where a ton of them are probably not of age, anyone who tries to drink to that would absolutely get alcohol poisoning. Now-

[Why do you invite us then~?]

... Hey, Susie.

[Uh?]

How well do you remember what I'm tryin' to tell the listeners~?

[... Uuuuuh...]

Wanna narrate~?

[Er... Yeah, screw that. I'm good.]

Cool...

Back to where I was... again... I seem to recall me and Shorn fought the forest's many dangers at least eight times after that and at most twelve... all without a safety net! So, imagine what would have happened if I screwed the pooch at all... I would have been negotiating and fighting that whole way back again...

And seeing as I was already getting tired from it all, I don't imagine that would have felt good to my mental state...

All that being said, I think we can pretty clearly state that it had to be the start of night time back home. Because I was starting to feel hungry again. Not tired, just hungry. I don't think it was possible to feel sleepy when my nerves were on fire about the possibility of death looming like a sadistic devil over my shoulder.

Yet, I was never certain of the time while I was there. That world has no light, as we said before, and there wasn't any shade to tell me any unseen celestial force helped to tell time. The torture keeping track of it must be for the people there... I can't even begin to imagine or want to.

(That's an understatement and a half. During my entire time there, which you already know was longer than all of yours' except for Ralsei's, I felt like a whole day had passed, but it hadn't even been totally night time by the time I met up with Susie and Ralsei yet.)

... How...[-do you know that...?]

(... I did a bit of thinking during all of the prep for these readings. I basically know exactly how long it took for us to get to the Light World again. This is just over the half way point, without a doubt, because of what I know comes next thanks to off-mic discussion... Eheh... I'd say more, but...)

... Right. The Mic.

That said, she isn't wrong. But I should get on with it.

Shorn and I had found our way to a far less forest-y bit. The trees were frankly thin here. The thinnest and shortest I had seen, for a cause...

And that was when Shorn stopped in front of me, not even turning as she said, "We have arrived."

I stopped at her near back and then took a stumbling step back as I looked around in question... before realizing. Turning back to her, I cocked a brow. "This is it?"

She nodded her head as she continued on. "Yes. The city my former tribesman spoke of..."

Now, the reason this was so sparse of trees should seem obvious...

What rendered it so was no doubt the ruined road of stone and the crooked structures sat upon now-disheveled slabs of the same... forming a deep valley of concrete around us and making me feel utterly tiny...

These structures were pretty grand. And the shapes they took reminded me of structures you can find when looking up renaissance architecture. The sort that I just... don't have enough words to describe. Breathtaking... but trying to really think of the hows and whats that went into building them made my head hurt.

They were different from the sorts that I and the others had seen up until now. But that had been the case every single time we found new buildings or new ruins. It was impossible for me to link any architectural styles and norms together... But no matter the variety, nothing had changed about their ultimate states. Slightly older? Newer? Grand, small, complex, simple? The forest around us seemed to make fools of them all.

The many windows and doors were overgrown, eroded to hell, busted down or in- or so molded that it hardly mattered that the buildings were great and mighty. The forest's many vines and mosses and plant lives were trying to overtake them all the same, seeming to be winning.

It practically looked like the buildings were sinking like ships, crumpling in places where you could see the walls caved in and the buildings themselves gave out.. One was even hanging against another, across over the "valley" their number formed... like an exhausted colossus resting along it's brother for support, like it could go no further.

The majesty was there, but there was no care. The road was there, but it gave way all the same. There was so much obvious effort given to these buildings to create them and give them shape, but there was no life left living within them. Like every other before it, the forest won and was now retaking what it gave.

And that's what made the area haunting. It was a liminal space. One bigger than any other before it.

I felt like it was just... unsafe to be there. Like if we had to fight something there, one of those buildings could likely drop from their already slanted angles and crash down around us, if not atop us. But I also felt.. ever watched...

Thinking back on every fallen building I had ever seen, I was honestly disturbed by the fact that, clearly, so many people tried to settle this forest and yet the forest settled over them...

I don't know. Maybe I thought the forest would try to swallow.. even us, if we stayed for too long...

It made me want to find everyone even more.

A furrow on my face, I shook my head and followed after Shorn...

... As we wandered the city, I got to realizing that the area was oddly free of monsters and animals, like the place itself was so dead that nothing dared near it... Nothing about it but the nature life and obvious wear around us... Regardless of how unnatural this formation of structures might be, nothing keeps a curious animal, much less a monster, out entirely. Not unless there was a reason for them to avoid it.

... It made me think we were walking among more than just buildings, despite there being no life beyond us. And that only makes sense. I could easily imagine the dead spirits of a people watching us from every slight crevice and broken roof top, even walking past us... Imagine it, not see it. There were, of course, only buildings to see...

I ended up with this scrutinizing narrow on my face while staring at the buildings around us. "Hey. Shorn... Is there anything else weird about this city?"

As she walked ahead of me, the kytsater never turned around. Instead, she answered my question. Plain and simple. "... You walk the rows of buildings that could be said to mark our failure most. Kytsaters, none other."

I turned to her in questioning blinkage... Then narrowed. "Failure?"

"We were told as much... This place was once our... Our home. And for our misuse of the forest She governs, The Vale rightfully cast us down, like many others to follow."

It struck me as alarming. I looked around with renewed wonder at the buildings... The city had been made by kytsaters. But for The Vale to cast them down... It left me with little wonder why the majority wanted for a Promised Land.

But what I didn't really get was why they stayed in the place that had denied them...

Regardless, I asked something else as my eyes came to stare at Shorn's back again. "Does this place have a name like Anolith?"

... She looked to me after some time, only half turning her head as her tail flowed to the side. "... Sol Juno."

"Sol Juno, huh?" Totally different from Anolith. That place was named in a way that felt a life separate, despite both sounding like they had O's in their names. And so, it made me think as I folded my arms, "Does the name mean something?"

That was when a wind blew through...

At some point between the start and the end of it's blowing, she grunt and stopped before me abruptly, nearly making me bump dead into her tail as I stumbled back a bit with an "uh," eyes wide and arms up in caution.

... She looked to the ground in pause... Then, she turned her head to look at me... "... The name itself was taken from it's ruler... Juno Frān Sol..." Shorn faltered uncharacteristically as she came to drift her head toward the ground with sinking shoulders and a hand placed upon her mask...

I furrowed at her. It felt wrong to see her so obviously deflate like that. What did this Juno person mean for her? Or was that wind earlier The Vale dropping a bombshell on her? ... Considering this, I shrugged a hand up.. Then, I asked, "Was.. Juno good or... bad?" I asked the question with hesitation, knowing it was a touchy subject from her vulnerability in that moment.

... She looked up again, saying nothing... I have to think she was probably trying to find the right words, but she may have also felt apprehensive about speaking on the subject...

... In that awkward silence, we both heard a -Clack!- And that sound made our heads snap forward, me stepping out from behind Shorn... It was someone I hadn't met before, but two of us had.

A kytsater with a strong, commanding frame, a staff with a black gem in it and a six-eyed Antelope's mask, his foxen muzzle in full view... It was the Shepard, standing with yards of separation between us in an imposing posture. Stiff, yet powerful. His expression, regardless of the half-mask, was unreadable.

Shorn bristled and blinked two daggers of white into existence, plucking them from the air and jolting in front of me on guard, much to my confusion. That was before she hissed out, "Shepard Odin!"

Odin... That's one hell of a name to live up to. And to me, totally unfitting.

I narrowed at her, then at him as I took myself out from behind her and shook my head. "You're the shepard!?"

... He acted like there wasn't even a question or a cause to be alarmed. Instead, he spoke in that husky voice as if the point we were all there was to hear him talk. "When first I had been informed of your arrival by my scouts... I confess that I was not expecting your youth. A pity it makes no difference to what you bring in your wake."

I glared him down and... I admit that I drew my sword from my pocket out of anger... The action startled me, admittedly, looking down at my sword and... I felt wrong, staring at my ink-dripping blade with concern...

"You hesitate, yet it is clear." I snapped my attention back up to the man and narrowed at his slow nod. As he raised a hand and pointed it's finger squarely at me, he spoke again. "The emotion you hold for me is anger. And you thought in this moment that if you were to end me, here, the "lie" of my leadership would be disowned. And that all you would need do next is prove your abilities and close the Black Geyser."

I was actually sweating a bit, knowing he was laying my thoughts all out before me like that. And he rattled out, "And now, you're thinking, "what am I doing? Why would I choose this over trying to talk, at least. I always have to try!" ..." I felt wronged, a shiver running up my back, and grabbed at my cape with a tight squeeze, narrowing at him. But who was I kidding? That narrow was so weak it may as well have been a furrow. I was just trying to reject him...

He put his hand down and nodded softly. "Such a gentle soul, you are... And such a shame it is that you're existing for the purpose of sealing shut what serves to bring about salvation."

I fixed my narrow firmer at that and shook my head. Then, I told him, "I'm not gonna be joining you, so you can spare me!" I borderline threw my finger pointing his way as I fired back, "You're screwing with the lives of the people who live here! I would NEVER help you do this!"

He shook his head and stamped his staff's butt upon the stone road, standing unmoved. "I move to do that which would save all a life of never-ending stagnation! Look about you, child!" I didn't, but I kept in mind where we stood. "By RED EYE'S word am I given the truth of this place we stand within- my people's origin! And not the truth SHE would prefer! A truth denied me by my deity!" Shorn grunt behind her mask and visibly tensed while he went on. "The Kytsater were an advancing race of incredible intellect with eons of history! The forest was our place of rule- our garden! And yet, I would never of known of any of it!" His hand clenched around the shaft of his staff and the fist free clenched into a shaking, angry squeeze that drifted over his then-lowering head. Even now, I cannot imagine. For I have known NONE of it! All our traditions, all our achievements and all that defines us- even our faces!" His fist struck down at his side in a swipe.

...The Shepard held his staff and a hand up to the trees. "All of it was stolen! OUR "GOD" DESTROYED US!"

His volume echoed the streets and buildings around as I shook my head and breathed. "Yeah?! Well, then leave the forest! Go live anywhere else! If what you said is true, you have no reason to stay! Forget the Fountain! RED EYE is just using your anger to give them a pawn to make sure the End of Our Worlds comes no matter what! There's no way whatever they told you is true!"

"A pawn," The Shepard exclaimed as he brought his staff and arm back down. Then, the kytsater scoffed at me. "Nay. I am their Knight. And my will is clear. Far truer than yours. It seems your mind is yet confused by how little you truly grasp."

A growl exited my mouth at my irritation. I had been seriously trying to keep my shit together so he wouldn't be able to use that card.

"All that you know was told to you. Fed to you, like a newborn babe. You've had naught more for concept beyond words from this "Dark Prince's" lips. But is this enough for you? Potential lies and convenient ideas? Obviously not, for you haven't come to this place merely to pass through in search of your friends."

... I glared at him and made him read my mind for the answer. {Ralsei is my friend. Unlike you, I trust my friends.}

... He smiled and shook his head, which only served to confuse me and my shaking head. Then, as his smile faded, his reply came. "Your banality does not impress me. I can see your every thought." And then, he told me with a gesturing open hand, "You do not trust them. Not as you still yet hide that you've no memory of a vast majority of your life... and that you are possessed of a power which reaches passed the boundaries of life and death." His hand slowly clenched shut as he drew it to his side again, tilting his head with no discernable expression. Yes, I am well aware of your advantage, child."

That made me shoot him a dirty glare. It didn't feel good to have my head opened up and spilled out like that. But it also left me questioning what the hell had him so calm, even though I was a clear no-counter to his plans. I wasn't giving up. And he had to know that, because he could hear my thoughts. I couldn't hide them from him...

With all that said... Shorn was strangely silent. Even stone-like...

He scoffed, shaking his head. But I don't know if it was at the latter worry or the former... He did so as he said, "We've our secrets. Thus, we are no different..." He stood straighter and prouder. "A leader must weigh well the truths he can trust his people with... and those he cannot. It is utter foolishness to lay bare every truth. Every fact has it's accommodating weight. And many are not capable of carrying the heaviest. As is exemplified by your very state..."

He had me rolling my eyes, there. There was no way I'd let him shake me whatever way he wanted. None. But I did realize one thing: The reason. The reason that his people were so hard to bend their loyalty when it came to him... He didn't think he was wrong, whatever he truly thought. He was extremely charismatic...

"... What are these words you speak?" ... He came to stare at Shorn.

She had been the one who spoke up, Easing out of her battle stance and into on that saw her shoulders hunched and her head low. "... Years and years had I served Shepard Odin. Trust given and bestowed. I knew of him as a wise, just and trusting person. And though you share his body and voice, I know nothing about the person who stands before me!"

The woman was shaking with anger. ""We've our lives and ourselves. Should we not trust one another with our feelings and doubts, there will be none to help us bare them." ... HE gave me these words as I wept for the passing of his father, the previous Shepard, Troy. I have never again met so kind a man. So compassionate and contained... A true Shepard..." She shot her head up and flipped her knives forward in her hands. "When he banished me... Did RED EYE kill the true Shepard and see you take his place?! For the man before me today wearing his face is unworthy!"

I looked over to Shorn... then to the Shepard, who seemed to stare... and then sigh, shaking his head, wearily... He then turned his face back to her and told her, "..."Then every life among us and of the other clans. Each and every last, I shall see to it's end day. Their memory shall live eternally.""

Shorn shuddered visibly with a broken grunt... She shook her head as it drifted lower, much to my confusion and concern. I felt out of place. But that sounded like a promise. Maybe it was a promise Shorn and Odin made before she was banished... Either way, the meaning behind her reaction seemed clear enough...

I turned my head back to him as he let his staff hang out from himself with a frown. "People change, Ydith. And as I was made aware of the truths at the roots of our kingdom and our forest... I opened my eyes..." And thus did he tow his staff back into it's straightness. "With the Black Geyser's power, all shall change. Everything. This forest. The world. We ourselves. It will be glorious and we will be free of all sufferings... I would welcome you once more with an open heart... Won't you return?"

... I worried for a moment with how she turned her head back up to him... But in the end, Shorn shook her head and seemed to shiver... I could tell that she was deeply shaken. However, she still readied her knives and wearily recited. "Whatever you might believe, I cannot- will not allow this...! Your father would never smile upon what you set out to accomplish..."

With a bow to his head, the man seemed to sigh... And then, he turned his head back up to her. "Enough," spoke the Shepard. And I fore my part narrowed his way and readied my sword to show my support of Shorn. Shaking his head, he gripped his staff tight. "If this is your choice, I will no longer waste my time..." Tilting his head a bit, he remarked, "Or shall I say, you will no longer waste my time."

He turned his staff's sharp butt to the wall immediately to his right, head turning to aim.

-DROW DROW DROW DROW!-

From his staff, intense blasts of lightning bolted out in all of it's jagged fury again and again and again, hammering the building directly beside us all and blasting whole pieces free to crumble and fall! Again and again this happened, much to my confusion and my fright! The sound every jolt made was jarring each time it blared out over the area, deafening out all worded reason as the very building started to cave and crumble in on itself from all of the abuse!

Eventually, the man flipped his staff back straight in his hand as the building took a buckle so great that the ground shuddered and debris dust filtered out over us all, making myself and Shorn cover our faces and squint at the faltering building! Chunks and blocks began to fall away around us, much to my gasping panic, so I turned to Shorn and shouted over the rumbling collapse, "RUN AWAY- IT'S COMING DOWN!"

"OBVIOUSLY!" And on that, we turned and ran- on in Shorn's case shot free of the range of the fall in a single bound while I was left to run and watch out above myself for the falling cement debris! Left, right, I don't remember exactly how nothing hit me other than just getting lucky and rolling with it all while full steaming it outta there and out of the way!

By the time I was at the final stretch, I heard and SAW an urgent Shorn shout, "DIVE!"

And so at full speed, I bolt dove forward with a tremendous grunt for that final push as the building came down in a thundering crash of concrete and dust!

-CROOOOMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmm!-

... Cracking my eyes to dust and debris on the ground, I stared for some long moment as I laid there, deaf to all around me. Then, I started turning all over to find that a fine layer of the stuff had overlain the immediate area like smoke. I could feel it getting in my hair and on my sweating skin. It would have gotten in my eyes if I hadn't began squinting...

The air smelled and tasted like cement, which of course meant I probably got the stuff in my friggin' lungs at some point. It definitely caused a weak sputter or two, but I wasn't overall very driven to hack up a lung. Maybe I'm weird. Dunno. But how's about we don't think too far into it. I doubt I'll get miner's lung in the future. I'd be coughing right now, if that were the case.

.., And so came the part where I picked myself off the stone floor and started to try wandering around... only to stop when I heard, "Hu-human!" I snapped to the left in surprise as the sound of close scraping paws passed me up! "... K-Kris?! ... No... You cannot be dead! The Geyser- yo-you're supposed to seal it shut!"

It was Shorn both times, I realized, while I went silent in thinking how it was possible she could have missed me... Until I took into consideration that her mask may have been why. It was still a mask. Masks limit vision. Not that my vision was any better, at the time. I couldn't of seen even two feet in front of me...

... And here comes the part where a lot of people are gonna call me an ass...

{(Huh?]) *Uh... Wwwhyyyy...?*

... Be..cause, even though I could have piped up... I was curious with that panic in her voice to see if I'd hear anything just.. come out~. So... I stayed silent and stood there.

(... Kriiiiss...!) *Oh.. dear...*

I-I know I almost just died there for a sec, but... Well, it just popped into my head, is all.

[Holy SHIT, she must have clocked you when she found out!]

... Not exactly, but it wasn't much better... Either way, I stayed silent and listened for my own reasons. I wanted to hear what she hadn't been saying.

And what I heard was this: "No...! No, not like this! I refuse to believe it is meant to end like this!" I heard a piece of concrete roll over the road. She had began to dig through the ruined building remains. "You hopeless, stupid... Ungh! -CLNK!- What of the coward?! And of your friends?! -CLACK!- RRGH- Are you going to abandon them...?! Mmh! -GCK!- You can't! Not this way! -GLACK!- You came here to find them! ... Igh! -DACK!- N-no... No, no, not again. -clack!- ...-What am I to tell them if you die like this...? The most.. stubborn.. Irritating, yet kind child I've only just met.. And you left this earth and them behind...? By the forest, why? Why is it always your kind...?"

... In that moment, I discovered something. And it wasn't just that she had to be staring at a person to read their mind like any other kytsater... I learned that Shorn-... That Ydith was just a woman who couldn't bare her heart to people. And it also made me realize it was indeed her that said what the Shepard did to her in order to prove he was her Odin. It made sense, seeing her like this.

The Ydith in front of me was far different than the Shorn who pretended to be utterly indifferent to people. It was all a lie. A lie she couldn't leave easily... which.. might explain why she acted the way she did when I finally decided to reveal myself.

I spoke with a narrow, even as I began to feel bad for doing this to her. "If you really feel that bad imagining I might die... why do you act like you don't care?"

"Wh-..." As the dust was clearing, I saw her, covered in about as much dust as I was, crouched over a ton of ruined concrete that used to be far more building than rubble. And if it was any doubt she was seriously moving concrete trying to save my ass, there was a surprisingly huge stack of busted and broken walls about as thick as us or thicker about eight feet away from her, which meant she was throwing it that distance as well... Intimidating thought, right? Makes you realize how strong she really is. And how strong she had to be to survive in the forest...

And how bad of an idea it is to get her mad...

([You should be dead...])

*Actually, they should be a pancake.*

You're all right...

... She rose onto her legs and shook her head slowly... before she burst forward and tackled me onto the ground, causing my back to smack pavement while I just barely kept my head from slamming for what could'a been a concussion without question. I grunt at the impact and was reeling thereafter while she barked at me. "YOU WHELP! How dare! How DARE! To stand there and say nothing! Have you no shame?!" She pulled me up by the neck of my chest plate as I squint at her with a narrow, sweat trailing as she, bare inches from my face with her mask to the point that I could see the grooves in it and see those rainbow eyes just barely within the utter black beyond it. "I thought you dead!"

"And.. I thought you hated me..." I said what I wanted to say with no change in expression.

... I could see her eyes blink before she tore away and they vanished from view, her holding me less close...

I hid no anger from her. I wanted her to know that I didn't just not feel it. "That mask helps you hide a lot from people that only know how to read faces... Your feelings. Your tears... Who you really are. What you actually believe... And that's real ironic..." I narrowed harder at her and told her, "Because that's what the Shepard is doing, right...? And you hate that, right?"

"Of course, I do," She barked, drawing me in so I could see her eyes glare more clearly from the black rim her narrow was making. And believe me, I was sure that any closer and those dang things would start making me forget things. So, yeah. I was pretty scared of what could happen...

But I.. honestly had it. That answer just made me angrier. I didn't care about how freaking scary that concept was. I could only think of how ironically hypocritical that claim was...

I narrowed her down harder. I'm pretty sure it's what you call "the rising of the hackles". All I know is that I had to stop myself from screeching in her face when I asked, "Then, how is this any different? What you're doing right now."

She once again pulled away from me, but for a flash of an instant, I though I saw her eyes widen. She even release her hold on my plate, making my armor -clink- along the stone beneath...

All I did was rest myself up on my elbows, still glaring into those eyes holes with a frown. "... You're just as full of secrets as that guy and refuse to tell me ANYTHING about yourself or even let me get close enough to ask... Instead, all you do is threaten me any time I try to understand anything about you."

... ... ...

... She turned her head from me... Then, the kytsater got up off and took a few steps away toward the fallen building remains... After that, she took a lean on it with a hand while I sat up, staring at her for a prolonged moment... Then, I stood up and again dusted myself off, this time going over my back.

... She turned her head over her shoulder and spoke. "... Even still... You.. know not what memory you have made me relive, child..."

"And I'm sorry for that," I let up as I approached a bit behind her, letting my glare ease a bit. "But if you think I'll just let you treat me like crap? And just because of something that happened that I have NO involvement with? I'm not about to just stand there and take it... I came here to do two things. One may not help you, but it's not any less important to me. I will ALWAYS protect my friends. But don't you take that as room to worry. Saving this place isn't any less important, just because of how I'm treated." My brow utterly eased up as I told her straight up, "This isn't exactly the first time we've saved people previously trying to kill us, but I didn't- we didn't do it alone... I need you and you need me... Can we at least get along? It's not a need, but I do want to..."

... She turned her face from me and paused with her head low... Then, she lifted it up top the building's lip and hopped up onto the first good and flat surface among the many chunks of rubble... before she bowed her head again and said with some hesitation, "... Forgive me.. my coldness... You've seen what my warmth has given me... And so you'll have to understand it.. is not easily cast off..." Then, she carried on hopping.

... I couldn't feel proud of the way I had gotten this start, but I could feel glad about the fact that it happened... And so I began to climb, wasting no time, but also.. not.. being as swift to hike the fallen walls as she was~.

... -hrnnk~- Though, it's funny how little it mattered. Because as soon as I got up there... I found Shorn just... stopped a ways ahead of me, her stance... alert.

Blinking in all too familiar confusion, I tilted my head, a little slow on the uptake... I carefully climbed the rubble toward her, missing the blown out windows and collapsed sink holes formed by failures in the apparent turned-over wall we stood upon... before I stopped... and chanced to turn my head in the right direction. The same direction Shorn was staring...

And what I saw filled me with a fear I couldn't explain while my body chilled over, shaking.

A pair of four sharp eyes were staring us down, all completely pale yellow. They owned no pupils and sat one set atop the other in a single skull...

I couldn't move... It was like a layer of ice formed over me, but that wasn't the case...

It stalked out into the open... a king among the animals that lived here. It was bigger than that Rabbit Thing I'd seen before- at least as tall as the two story school and took the form of a tall, six-legged beast with hooves baring circlet-shaped designs and a spike in the front that surely could be sharp enough to impale. That didn't look natural, no matter what anyone said. But uh, I don't really know how anyone can explain some of the things born into the Dark World. It was like staring at fantasy dreamt up from a fever.

It's mighty body was beyond sturdy. It looked almost horse-like, only it was far too furry. Speaking of it's fur, it was downright majestic in colors of tan brown with gold accents. Long and flowing like a coat. Long, gold tails of the stuff even wisping like flowing flames from the cannons of it's hooves, only they didn't shine or glow, thanks probably to the world. It's tail, this up-standing swirl with a sharp point riding out into the same sort of flowing "flame", stood like a torch on it's backside. It's head was where the resemblance to reindeer came from... That head was deer in shape for a certainty, but the eyes were too many, obviously. The features of it's face were chisel. I could almost see the lines of it's bone structure beneath the beast's fur for it being thinner here and there. And the crowning similarity on it's head, right between it's deer ears were the tremendous, perfectly symmetrical antlers shaped like a golden circlet above it's head with containing branches. In the middle of this circle was a true fire, ever changing colors and blazing atop it's head...

There was something that felt... untouchable... about this thing... I had instinctively pulled my sword out again, my judgement hazy... but I looked down at it like it were some tiny pocket knife... Was it even worth trying to use against this thing...?

I looked up and caught my gasp in my throat. It was staring directly at me and I knew I was shaking...!

Shorn snapped her head around to me, her movements seeming distressed. "Why would you draw your blade against this manner of opponent?! You little fool! You face a King Steiner!"

And that was when it whipped it's head around in a mighty whinny of epic proportions, the voice cutting into my ear drums as I shuddered through the intense sound with grit teeth!

It threw it's upper body up as it's hulking frame rose,the flame in it's antlers changing to a white color as it blazed away. And when it's body came back down... it's hooves stamped the ground with such force that it made a resounding thunder-crack as the cement below buckled immediately! The building serving as our ground further broke down and crumbled out from under us as Shorn bolted toward me in a jump as I lost my footing and began to fall! I yelped as she snatched me by the waist and hauled us both back the way we had just climbed up, off the splintering building remains and back atop level cement ground! But when we landed, me still hanging from in her arm, we were still treated to tremors rocking the ground, Causing the Kytsater to grunt and tense in order to stay upright.

All the while, I was reeling from the massive jolt of stomach churning movement. You'd think it would get easier, but not THAT easily.

She looked back as the tremors began to subside, only to see the golden glare of the beast through the dust and rearranged building remains still sliding apart. It stalked forward, all twenty feet or so of it's towering body mass hulking higher and higher over us. There was no shred of mercy in those eyes. It was ready to deal out death...

Sensing the impending doom closing in, Shorn grunt and tightened her hold on my waist, causing me to groan from the tightness as I hung in her hold. "God, agh! Tight...!"

"I am aware- just bare it!" She crouched low as the creature watched her closely. After a moment of wait, it seemed to get impatient. The fire burning in it's crown turned yellow while the area around us slowly began to dye the same color, expanding in an orb off of the hulking beast's frame, much to Shorn's tensed alert. It brought it's head curling to the side, flame beginning to burn more wildly!

As the attack was further charging, Shorn blasted up at an angle with me yelping in tow over what she dubbed a King Steiner, clearing it's height and then some as she whizzed over it's back. I felt like I was on the world's most uncomfortable bungee jump, gritting my teeth and grunting through the whole "flight" as my stomach did flips, limbs going slightly numb from the feeling of falling that followed! But just as we landed on the other end of the freakishly powerful creature with considerable touchdown force, Shorn blasted off immediately after with yet another leap, this time at a straighter angle as she blew clear of the yellowed zone, just as the beast shot it's head up and let out a war-cry!

Everything dyed yellow suddenly BLAZED with an intense dome of lightning blitzing from off of it's body, propelling dust and smoke across the area outside of it in a sweep of blaring sound!

-DZZZRRRRRRR!- The attack HURT to hear and Shorn physically winced as she was carrying us through the air! Then came a volcanic-sounding blast like boulders stampeding over buildings! Arcing back down to the concrete road right before a set of buildings turning left, she skid her claw-extending paws across the cement to make an unsteady landing as she grunt! And as the skidding stopped, Shorn found herself stumbling forward with a curse of some kind! Still, even then as I jangled around against her side in her arm, she never fell or dropped me... I kind of wish she had, because the two massive leaps in a row had me suffering intense motion sickness...

She let me down ONLY as she came to a stop, took a knee and turned to look back at the quickly discharging dome of electricity. "It-... What power...!"

I took my time re-orientating myself and holding my stomach while I breathed carefully... Fighting against my better judgment, I made a heaving turn onto my side and looked back for myself, still breathing. And as I came to understand what I was looking at, my eyes narrowed wide at what I saw.

The now-dusty King was still stalking toward us from out of a dip that hadn't been there before, it's body coursing with trace amounts of electricity... There was a clear Fallout Zone. The buildings behind and around it were still falling to rubble around it in heavy chunks and ash! Any bits that would have hit the beast were struck away with the electric barrier coursing off it's body and broken down further. Bits of the roof and stone blocks were falling away off of the still-shifting structures, now unable to sustain their weight and some even buckling, as if they fell to bow to the king, even at the expense of their own crumbling destruction... The sheer gap in strength between it and us was paling. We stood no chance in a fight...

On the bright side, if I died, I could at least tell Shorn to screw right off from this place when we got to that part! ... Boy. Wouldn't that have been easier~?

Shorn took me by the hand and yanked me up while I was still staring at the unsettling sight. She demanded, "Get on my back, now! I will not ask again!" I stared at her before I did a double take at the Steiner. I had noticed it's head fire had begun to dye orange as it opened it's maw and breathed in, the hollow of it's mouth going from dark to the same color as fire! There may not have been shadow or light in the dark world, but seeing something nearly glow from just how bright the shade turned was just as scary.

I wasted no time after seeing that.

My body near autopilot in panic, I threw my arms around the kytsater's neck and jumped up onto the base of her tail, though she met me half way and secured my legs in her arms as she crouched. The next thing I knew, we were blasting off the ground and down the only path open to us as the King unleashed a sweeping inferno from his maw, blanketing the passage behind with the roaring red flames!

There returned the force of the wind and my stomach's flipping. Then came the next jumping blast off and ANOTHER internal flip. At that point, I was starting to feel pretty sick, so let's just say that I never want to go sky diving... Ever.

But this was hardly the worst of it.

Wanting to get down as quick as possible, I stared back as I started to shout, "Shorn, c-can't we slo-" And then stopped talking as my eyes grew and my face paled with sweat at the sight. I saw the flames crash against the stone wall like a tidal wave, then bounce free of the set path and overflowed rapidly down ours!

I jerked my head forward as we were falling toward the ground again, ignoring my poor stomach and frantically begging, "Oh my god, JUMP ONTO A BUILDING OR SOMETHING- WHY ARE WE-?!"

"I dare not!"

I stared at the back of her head like she was crazy! And after the next stomach churning blastoff sent us back into a renewed arc across the streets flying below us, I fought back my mounting nausea to exclaim the question, "Whaddya mean you "dare not"?!" All the while, I jerked my head back again to watch the fires continue to pour rapidly our way, dying the area a redder and redder hue!

And as I turned to see what was front and center closing in, I gasped! A fast approach building right in front of us with windows as the only give... But forget the windows- we were gonna crash into it's sheer stone wall!

Looking around for a way to avoid that, my eyes quickly spot the two adjacent paths leading down either an ascending or descending road of stairs leading left or right, respectively. But I wasn't really able to think further than that as my eyes refocused in panic on the rapidly closing distance from the wall! "The wall, The Wall, THE FRICKIN' WALL!"

"I'M AWARE- HOLD TIGHT!" And so I clenched my arms around her neck and locked my legs at her sides, eyes wide open and teeth gritting tight! I almost wanted to close my eyes, but to be honest, if I'm going to die, I wanted to know what killed me so I could know how to at least avoid it.

But much to my surprise, I didn't die! I mean... obviously Shorn isn't stupid enough to bash us into a concrete wall- She instead turned her body and let one hand get away from me. Then used her legs and that hand to land against the wall while I grunt and clenched my limbs to keep glued to her back.

It was when I noted that we were dropping that the panic got me again, staring now to the side at the fire, still on the hunt for our haunches and roaring toward us!

It was truly a frickin' photo finish. She dropped with me on her back at an alarmingly real speed, but it felt like the drop repeated several times for myself. My body just wasn't having it.

And I swear that I could feel the heat of the flames as she touched down on the concrete road covered by moss. just as both of her legs landed and bent, the flames mere feet from us, she EXPLODED off of the ground and up the rising stair path, leaving the fire to crash against the building and ride it's momentum like water crashing against the same kind of wall!

With my stomach flipping and my body starting to strain to keep with this high speed, high stress escapade, I hazarded one last glance behind us both as Shorn took another leap off of the stairs to keep us move, throwing me for another flip. The flames... did not pursue us further. They burned across the path and building left behind... as they cascaded down the downward path instead. It looked like the flame was truly like water. It didn't travel uphill. But I knew for fact that it wasn't lava... which made this attack even stranger still. I had never seen anything like it, neither before nor after.

... Regardless, even with my struggle to stay with it, I forced my head forward as Shorn fled her way up the last of the stairs and landed on a flat road...

At the time, I didn't look around to see where we were. I just blurt out at her, "What the heck was the problem with jumping the buildings?! We could seriously have gotten smoked back there!"

As she stared back at me and stood straighter, holding me still on her back, she responded. "It was necessary! Had I fled over the roofs, we may well have been sighted by the King in our attempted escape. Not to mention the chance there could be other kytsater nearby idling to protect The Shepard. Were we to run into either obstacle, we'd yet be in danger. Or in far greater peril!" Turning back toward her front and... giving a sighing shake of the head, I could feel her shake that ridiculously large tail under me as she began to walk forward. "With any luck, it believes the flame of it's roar incinerated us from off this earth. But for now, I would prefer that we travel with you upon my back in the event the beast still yet hunts us..."

... And then came a loud crashing out in the distance, far to our west, which caused us both to gasp and turn to face the flat building walls as we walked by... I looked up as another great boom could be heard, passed the roofs and into the sky. And I didn't see anything, but the sound of a great roar echoed out in the distance like warbling metal on metal... That basically added fuel to the fire. Shorn had made the right choice in staying below the roofs... Rooves? Eh. I'll stick with Roofs.

Even still, I shook my head and sweat, turning to look at Shorn, even if she didn't turn to me. "What the actual hell is going on in this place? Just how much does the forest hate it?"

She grunt softly and bent her head to the ground, dropping her shoulders and me by a few inches.

On that note... I felt guilty for asking. With a frown, I said, "H-hey. Don't bother yourself with what I said. I'm sorry. Just..."

Before I could finish what I was saying, a wind blew over us, briskly...

Shorn stopped in that moment and perked her head in gasp. She looked around. "H-here?"

Still staring down at Shorn, I blinked wide in true worry. "W-what? What's wrong now?"

Another wind passed over us and I honestly forget what I was asking after that. This one made the kytsater shudder as she stared the wall beside us for half a second, then bolt forward in a swift leap that saw me heaving a grunt!

Suddenly, the wall came down like a colossal domino with way too much speed and SLAMMED the street and it's twin the other end of the street over! Two ga-thunking crashes of stone sent a rush of dust and debris our way as Shorn and I zipped forth from the resulting cloud! But so did several high velocity shards of debris, one or two of whom had to have struck my carrier in the leg as she shrieked, arching in pain and letting go of one of my legs in an involuntary twitch!

"Shorn!" My call for her attention caught her gasping as she stared forward at the quickly approaching ground... far too late for her to make a difference.

She hit the road first and tumbled over, spilling me as I to slammed just about face first into the rugged road myself, armor clanging as I bowled over once or twice before settling on my side and sliding the rest of the way with a screech of metal from my armor's drag!

... Disoriented for the second time in one hour, my brain felt like mush. I could have actually been concussed for the blow to the head the trip down gave me. After all, everything was out of focus and glared... But I saw Shorn...

She was DOWN. Not moving at all. And then there was her mask... It was off. Knocked across the road and at my finger tips... Had I accidentally peeled it off?

Her hair was over her face, so no. I didn't see anything. And I was honestly a bit afraid to see anything if her eyes suddenly opened, so that was just fine...

Even still, it occurred to me like ice being dumped down my shirt that we were still in grave danger!

I gasped my eyes wide and forced an arm out, grasping that mask and then pounding my other's fist into the ground with the clank of my armor and the grind of it against the stone as I forced my front side up! I carefully positioned a knee under me in grunt, and shook in my limbs as I started to heave myself up... And just in time to take a sharp inhale at the sound of colossal hooves clomping the ground, sending shivers through the road and my spine...

I snapped my head up, even as something warm poured down from my head along my cheek. And my eyes turned wide while my mouth dried up from being agape with fear.

There it was... Death itself, stamping toward us out of the smoke and dust in contrails of the stuff, like the reaper coming to claim...

It had it's four sights on us and there was just no way, but... I couldn't do nothing. We had to get away!

I grunt and willed myself up, ignoring every ill feeling and horrible ache in me. Then... I forced myself to painfully jog over to my fallen ally, almost falling into my kneel beside Ydith with a winded grunt!

Then, I hurriedly grabbed hold of Shorn by the arm and pulled it over the back of my neck, using it like a rope of sorts to hike her up onto my back as much as I possibly could. She was... surprisingly not that heavy for a person that could heave whole boulders in a hurry. Still, she was a bit unwieldy, having that friggin' unrealistically large tail, which was now a massive counterbalance hanging down at my back. I had to hunch forward a lot more than I wanted to in order to effectively carry her.

Pulling a one-eighty and getting into a labored jog, I made an admittedly sad attempt to outrun the approaching behemoth of a deer-lookalike...

She was beginning to stir from unconsciousness with all the jostling, turning her head I'm sure to look at me, but I didn't look. I couldn't risk it. "I-it's no use, leave me...! You aren't strong enough to carry me and yourself to sa-"

"I wasn't strong enough to carry myself out of this before! Stuff it and shut it!" Powering through my pain, I could feel the gravity of my situation weigh down upon me more than the kytsater's weight, but I refused to just sit there and die! It wasn't just me, this time... "I know I can't outrun this thing's attacks and I don't care! I'm not leaving you to die to save myself! Okay?!"

A particularly strong stamp, trips me up a bit as I nearly spill over, but catch myself thanks to good ol' adrenaline pumping my reflexes. Then, I got right back to jogging... But we all know it... This would all turn out to be futile. I think the only reason it worked for that long was because that thing got some sick pleasure out of watching it's prey struggle to survive.

The beast reared up a hoof and STOMPED it down upon the ground with enough force to send a tremor through the stone and cause me to feel a jolt rocket up my legs, unsteadying me a second time before causing me to buckle and spill forward! I ended up turning onto my side to absorb the fall with my arm while we both landed over the rough a second time!

Moments later, the tremor ended and I found myself crawling up onto a knee in a hurry to get in front of the downed kytsater, turning my back to her and glaring at the beast with wide-eyed fear and desperation written loud and clear in my disheveled features. I could feel my heart beat in my every muscle and hear it in my ears. I whipped out my shield produced from my pocket as it flashed and held it up in a pale, pathetic attempt at defense against a freak of nature that I knew could end me with a step...

And to make matters worse, that sound of crashing in the distance again sounded out, this time not being accompanied by a gut-churning roar. It still sounded far away, but there was a sinking feeling like even if we got out of THIS mess somehow, there was still something else waiting in the wing. Which was just FANTASTIC.

I couldn't look back and risk Shorn's eyes without her mask on, so I begged her, "E- Shorn, you need to get up!"

"... It would do me little good, Kris..." I could feel my stomach churn at the words and the fact that she used my name. "My leg... something.. lodged itself deep... I can move no faster than your casual walking speed... Perhaps less..."

The beast stared me down, raising it's head as it's maw opened wide to showcase a deepening red that edged it's mouth...

I could feel my nerves fraying under the fear and adrenaline pumping through my every vain... If she couldn't move, there were no other options. "Then... I-I don't much have a choice...! I'm not leaving you... And you aren't dying here, alone!" I don't know what came over me, but it was hot and too strong to ignore. I could feel myself burning up and it wasn't the impending fire.

I only knew one thing in that moment beyond the hopelessness and the fear... I still hadn't figured it out all myself, but what I felt wasn't something to figure out. So, I put my life on the line and trusted in that. I didn't need to have a name for it. I just needed to use it!

The beast howled infernal fire in a massive torrent down upon us and I stood rigid in her defense, putting both of my arms behind my shield, holding it up in desperate defense!

The torrents of fire washed over us both as the beast roared! The force of the fire was so much that my shield almost acted like a wind catcher, forcing me to push back all the harder! But because of my action, the fire blazed AROUND us instead of instantly searing us from the face of that earth! ... I could feel my arms growing weaker and even see the form of my shield changing as it began to glow from the welding heat warping it's surface! My gauntlets were beginning to heat up... If it wasn't for the inner padding, my hands would have already been boiling from holding the shield at bay!

I could feel the sweat running me over as my strength further waned in my legs! And I remember the shooting of thoughts at hyper-speed through my head. Stuff like, {I screwed up again...!}, {I let this happen...}, {If only I were stronger...!}, and {If only I really was one of those warriors, then maybe I could have...!}

In the darkest moment of fear, I felt myself give in...

I could just imagine the flames overwhelming us at any moment, scouring our every burning bit from the super-heated stones and reducing our being there to a smoldering mark upon the ground... It would have made so much sense...

I mean really, us putting up a fight against a true demon like that just couldn't have been in the cards, realistically...

... But none of that happened...

The thought was replaced with a different kind of burning. That burning within my skin from before. It was unstoppable. The feeling just washed over me hot as my pulse raced and my limbs woke back up!

My shield mended and reformed back into shape as I pressed back harder against the flood of fire straining with everything I could- pushing back! My shield began to shine brighter and brighter with a blinding cold white spreading out from it's base!

At the time I saw this, I didn't know what to think. But I was afraid to let this feeling go for fear of our demise! So, I latched onto it and grit my teeth, planting my feet firmer and focusing on one goal: Protect Shorn!

It was only thanks to this miracle that I outlast the beast's long breath, the flames finally ending as they blasted passed us, where the ground burned with a field of flames around us.

The absence of a pushing force caught me off guard as I stumbled, fanning my shield forward by accident as I gasped in sweats! ... My eyes were on my shield, wide with surprise...

"... H-how did you...?!" I could hear Shorn's shaky voice ask the half question and I just about turned around to stare at her, because those were MY thoughts as well.

But just before I did, and thank god I guess, a terrible, jarringly loud roar of vitriol caught me gasping back front and up to the beast in alert as my body jittered!

The king was shouting to the sky in what I can only guess was anger, the flame of it's crown changing to take on a yellow tinge again... I knew what that meant and no defense I could muster was going to be adequate. My mind was in full panic mode. What could I do about it?

As it was charging it's attack, I watched the build up for a shaky moment in time where I didn't do anything... The lightning branches arked from it's horns... like they were the rods...! I knew what had to be done upon that little realization and I just can't understand how I was the one that did it.

I just... acted without further thought.

My body did what had to be done. My left arm brought my shield low as it flashed from that form and into sword form- only this time it was too bright to see.

Then, like I was crazy, I ran up and jumped up toward a leg's shank with my opposite arm reaching and catching hold of a rough tuft of fur, jabbing my boots into it's leg. The king's attack was imminent- I could practically feel static clinging to me! And it was confirmed when it suddenly reared up, pulling me into it's stand with it! In that very moment, with all of my strength, my body made it's next jump with legs and arm alike to launch me up higher than I thought possible with so strange a technique. But coupled with my independent effort and the Steiner's own unintentionally added lift, this act ended up flinging me higher than I could have ever on my own... and JUST BARELY in range as bolts of lightning began to go off all around me. With my sword arm primed and ready, I roared through my fraying nerves and made my desperation move!

Up, over and around. The blade glides in this motion as i swing with lethal force I couldn't replicate if I tried. Like some long lost muscle memory, this force and motion strokes the sword against the antler's trunk.. and cleaves through the ivory bone like it was made of butter... severing the entire bone clean off as I begin my fall.

Recoiling in a shrieking roar, the beast tilts it's head away from where it felt pained and discharges a "feeble" portion of the attack wildly as it rears and bucks wildly! Bolts rip through road and leave it splintered! Branches punch holes in buildings and sour up into empty black sky like a beacon! The closest any attack comes to either of us is raking a splintered path right passed and few yards away from Shorn herself as she sat there, stunned... But even this probably could of stopped her heart for a split second.

All of this and only afterwards did the severed half of it's antler crown slam the ground like a lesser fully grown trees trunk in a weighty -THUNK!- I came landing down on hands and a knee directly after with a heavy grunt and of metal clanking! The armor absorbed some of the damage, but it still hurt like any fall from so high up would. A reminder to me of my frailty... while my mind raced to desperately process what I, an average teenager with hardly any really solid bulk, had just done! I had only a second to stare beside me at the huge bone tree I had just torn off of this superior foe's head in a single swing, the severed end lit white and flaking bright dust... before it roared pain, waking me up with a gasp! I had no time to look up as it stamped freakishly close behind me, causing my panic to soar as I tossed myself over and crawled from it clumsily on my back!

All I knew were giant hooves crashing and stomping all over the place in my general area with panic and whatever else was going through the animal's mind! I cringed in on myself as I dropped my sword and put my arms up in some pitiful form of defense, overloaded with terror that any of the terribly fast stamps could be my end! One hoof BLASTS the road a few feet away from me, then another crashes directly below my then curling legs! I was a hyperventilating mess of sweat at that point as I froze in place with eyes wide, holding my breast plate and looking around...

Each hoof that stamped near me and every other besides broke the stone road in web-like shatter marks, so you can just about imagine what could have easily happened at any moment, had it gone on any longer...

But as that last hoof came to miss me, with it's remaining flaky antler's trunk aglow and marking the wound, the king steiner threw itself into a turn and started hoofing it away from me like I was it's predator... I'd say "like I was a wolf," but a wolf would get mulched by a king steiner. What happened there was the dumbest of luck...

I should have died there. As screwed up as it is to say this, it might have been less stressful. But it wasn't just me. WE should have died. Instead, the deer-like beast stampede off missing a horn and we lived to see the end of it...

... At that moment, I let my limbs uncurl and go limp, their armored forms clattering against the ground as I laid out, breathing and sweating, shaking my head...

I turned my head to stare down my sword, which I had dropped earlier upon landing and curling up.

It was no longer glowing. at some point, it had stopped and no longer had any kind of hue to it. Once again, it adhered to the Dark World rules: nothing had shade or shine.

... I looked beyond it at the horn... It was only just starting to disintegrate into a fine pile of chalky ash, losing form rapidly and becoming a long pile...

So, in other words, that was a Monster. King Steiners may be up there with perhaps the most powerful forms of monsters. But in the end, the way it hightailed after suffering a considerable amount of damage was clearly more animal than sapient. If it were sapient, it would have killed us. There is no question. It would have seen us as a threat and dealt with it.

All that said... I know my deer biology. When a deer loses it's antler or antlers, it's just a process. In time, they grow back. Bigger. Stronger. If king steiners took after deers in the same ways monster reindeers and I'm banking monster DEERS do... we were never going to be so lucky to fight the steiner at half it's power, just because we took an antler that day. And since I know that is indeed how it works... Ahem...

I never wanted to fight something like that again... but knew better than to hope against inevitability...

... Coming back down to Dark Earth... /I guess...?\

*... I guess!*

[-Snrk!- Reassuring answer, goat boy~.]

Yeah, well... Back to reality, it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't been thinking of Shorn and I gasped to myself, turning myself over and shakily climbing to my feet, jogging over to her then sat up, staring figure. On that note, I elected to just stare at her legs to keep myself from- you get it by now. "Shorn!

... From my point of view, all I saw was her body move to sit straighter. she was probably staring at me... And I was starting to realize how ridiculously tedious this was, so I looked around me for her mask. It had to be there somewhere. I dropped it beside me when I was defending.

At about that time, the sound of crashing buildings in the distance from before could again be heard, but at least with how far away it seemed to maintain being... that meant that it wasn't moving closer... I put it out of my mind.

While I continued my search, the female kytsater beside me spoke in a shaky voice. "Wh-... How...? You... wounded a King. A-a King! I know you do not possess like power, so how...?!"

I stopped my search as the sweat and blood running down my opposing brows ran opposing temperatures: cool and warm... I opened my lips several times... but only the third time did I find words. "... I just don't know. It was all so fast... I.. just wanted to protect you, even if I was bound to die for it... If it were just me, I know I wouldn't have done that." Creasing my brow and thinking back, I went on."But... It was the both of us... It wasn't just me at all. If it got through me, you were going down, too. And that thought... I just couldn't do nothing with that thought running through my head... So, there's the why, but... I just don't know how I did what I did. There's no way I should of been able to..." Honestly, it bothered me. I was fully prepared for that to be a "one last futile effort" situation and instead saw it become a "pulling off a miracle" situation. And this isn't a game, so things like that should just be impossible... Well, I just didn't have the answer, back then. More on that another time.

I decided I could think about it later and looked around us again, doing my best to avoid looking at Shorn's face. I didn't need a hole in my memory again. Just like I didn't need the dumb amnesia I was saddled with.

But... I did catch a slight glimpse of her face. Call it stealing... Her muzzle was similar to The Shepard's in that it was foxen, but her's was shorter and bore a smaller nose. As for fur color... It was white with these tan speckles. It was parted very slightly open, then spoke as her head moved and ALMOST got an eye full of her eyes. THANKFULLY, I snapped my stare away at just the right moment, instead looking out at the pot holes that beast left in the stones. "You may have wounded it... However, you did so through taking that which will return... It is well understood.. that despite being harder than most bone, a King Steiner's horns are weaker by comparison to the better portion of the beast. 'Tis said one of our past Shepards once did so with considerable effort and desperate need. He then made the error of believing himself capable of slaying the beast, hunting it... only to end life as the hunted... We were fortunate it chose to flee. It.. could well have chosen differently with great ease..."

With that learned, I groaned in discomfort to consider how... differently that could have gone. After all, just about everything it did, even on accident, almost killed us both... So, yay. I only surprised it, apparently. Still, it wasn't a complete waste of effort. Even just in doing what I did, I did learn that those antlers could be chopped off to stop some attacks... with a power I didn't know how to use well enough to rely on...

Moving on.

I should off the awful ideas and continued to comb my eyes over the area for her mask.

Upon looking down from where I had been, I did manage to find her mask mere inches away, which caused me to "oh" and kneel down to take it up. Minding where I looked, I turned my head from her and presented the mask in her direction, still crouched. "Here. I can't look at your eyes, remember...?"

"... A...A-ah. Yes..." The mask was prized from my hand by a soft tug. I gave her a couple of seconds before turning to look at her. Her face was once again hidden, but the way she was looking down at the ground was probably the most transparent she'd been. She was at a loss.

I was too. Out of the two of us, it should have been her saving me, and to be fair, we got to the point where I was allowed the opportunity thanks to her indeed saving me for a while there... And then... there we were, surprised at our weakness and our strength...

I turned my eyes to the leg still damp with blood at the back of it's thigh... She wasn't going to be very fast for a while on that. We'd need to treat it somehow, at that- and then it struck me with a realization that should have been apparent before... Shorn was BLEEDING...! Monsters don't bleed! But... when Ralsei and Susie got hurt back in the kingdom of spades, they bruised, sure, but any cuts turned out to instead flake! Not bleed...

The surprise must have been apparent, because she asked, "Is it truly that bad...?" I immediately turned my eyes up and closed an apparently gaping mouth. Turning away for a second...

I then turned right back and shook my head, calming my features. "N-no... I was just... It made me think of something," I lied, thinking it was probably not very polite to assume she was a monster. That her KIND were monsters.

Shaking my head, I thought for a minute about what could be done... and asked her, "Do you know any Healing Magic?"

She shook her head. "No, but I can stand..." She said that while she still had debris stuck in her leg. I squint in deep concern and I think she caught that.

So, she extended her leg with some pain as she grunt and I shivered to see what was actually there in her leg. It was the size of a pencil and about as wide as a house key, made of stone and jaggedly shaped.

She quickly took hold of it with some hissing behind her mask as I wised up to what she was doing and turned away, a bit squeamish.

I heard a fleshy -sshhhick!- and a clack to the ground as she growled angrily... before turning to look at her again as she grunt out in release.

Her blood came pushing out a bit, but it wasn't as much as I was expecting. The shard of stone must have missed all arteries and veins somehow, making this a deep flesh wound...

"I've suffered worse," She rasped out, causing me to snap backup to her masked face with my own mask-less one. She was wiping off her hand on her same leg and staring at me like there was nothing out of the ordinary here. Then, she went on with, "though will no doubt be incapable of what I did for us before for some time..."

That was worrisome, but it was more than understandable. With a sigh, I rolled my head on my shoulders in thought while she stared at the ground.

I had nothing. No bandages, no food, not even cloth fit for ripping off and making home-aid bandages with. The cape was too tough for me to rip and I didn't know how to unhook it from the armor...

"Bri-... Kris..."

Surprised to hear my name, now that I was paying attention to it properly, I turned my gaze up to her from the ground and blinked. "Er.. Yeah?"

She was staring at me beyond that leveled head's mask... And then, she turned away and stated, "You may call me Ydith... if you'd like... Truth be told, I-... I would be thankful if you did... I missed the sound of it... My own name..."

I blink wide in a different kind of surprise... and then let my face melt back into a thoughtful neutral... Tilting my head, I asked, "Are you sure? What about your customs?"

... She turned to me and paused... And then stated plainly, "I am not Kytsater, anymore. I can no more change this than I wish to correct the mistake which gave rise to it. Thus have I decided I no longer care for that custom... My name is Ydith. My title is Shorn. Perhaps this can be what you humans dub my "full name." I am undecided upon that point." The last bit was said with slight humor in her tone.

And while I didn't laugh or anything, I did find myself smiling. Offering her a hand, I nodded. "Alright then, Ydith. Nice to finally meet you."

She looked to the hand. And then up to me... And then, she met it with her own four fingered one, gripping tight, but trying to be more gentle... It still kinda hurt, but it was an improvement~.

Either way, I towed her up to her paws as she took a limping posture with the one, grunting at the pain that must have obviously been running it through. I gave her a gesture to show her she could lean on me, but she only shook her head... With a shrug, I just accepted that. It wasn't gonna be easy. She said as much before. I could still feel she was nervous about showing "herself" to me, but this was a major step in the right direction for us.

Walking over to my sword, I quickly pocketed it back and went right back over to sh- to Ydith. I turned my eyes back down to her leg and asked, "Is that really okay to just leave like that? It's not bleeding super bad, but it IS bleeding. And you can't keep the pressure off of it if you're doing all the work."

She grumbled to herself and shook her head at the ground before forcefully limping over to me and forcefully putting her arm over my back, much to my surprise, but I still accepted it quickly and gave her a nervous smile. "You're habit of being stubborn truly annoys me at times," she claimed.

And I just shrugged my unoccupied shoulder as I continued to walk myself and her forward, her limping. "Something tells me I'll be getting that one a lot more."

... Slowly, we were making our way through the ruined city's path. It was awkward for Ydith, I'm sure. We didn't exactly talk a lot. And the path before us was longer for our slowed pace. At some point, I expected to see The Shepard again. But his presence was never made known.

Seeing what he did before, it was unlikely he wouldn't just attack us if he wasn't still there, so I figured we really had to have been left alone. He probably planned that whole encounter with the King Steiner out, luring it to us with the sounds of him bringing the "house" down. If not, that was incredibly coincidental.

... While on a recap of the events that led to me helping a wounded Ydith, I recalled that Ydith had stopped all of the sudden before the King found us again. I got to questioning what that was about in my head... before airing it. "Uh, hey." She hummed at me as I worded my question. "Why did you stop before? You said something before it found us again. Remember?"

She shook her head and began to say, " I don't..." And then, her head perked. "Ah! That is correct!" She turned her head to me and stopped walking as she told me, "Your friends... They are here, in the ruined city!" I was instantly full attention on her as she stated, "The Vale informed me earlier that they had reached the inside. And that they were not far off!"

Now, that got me excited. I couldn't help a grin spreading across my face! "Seriously?!"

She nodded a few times to the question as I took that in... It was like Bretzon said, kinda. Fate, I guess. Although, I was skeptical of calling it the reason. I still kind of am~. I mean, who could plan ALL OF THIS out in advance? Who had the capacity? That would be NUTS!

Anyways, I smiled with my teeth. "Well, then I guess we have two things to look forward to! Cool, too, 'cause I think Susie and Ralsei at least need to see that wall of yours, just as much."

She nodded in understanding, before her head froze in mid-nod... and she snapped it forward, bristling her fur. "H-hold, I hear something!"

I shuddered into alert and stared ahead down the crooked road before us... ... ... and before long, I could hear a whole group's worth of footsteps approaching, much to my annoyance. I growled and pulled my sword out again, leaning forward from Ydith to be in front of her, but still in support. "This is seriously getting old! How many times are we gonna get attacked in here!?"

That was when the former kytsater tilted her head, her ears adjusting... She hummed in question... Though she remained silent. I took notice of her lack of alarm. In fact, she downright relaxed.

Why would she be calm about this...? Shaking my head, I snapped back around and prepared myself. My eyes never blinked... as three figures came running our way, slowly becoming more and more visible.

I reformed my stance and stepped forward a bit, sweat trailing my brow... But what I finally made out of the figures features were what caused me to soften stance and gaze out. My eyes slowly grew wide as recognition was made...

It was-

-CLICK!-

...

-CLICK!-

Sorry about the cut here, but... well, I realized this part was a bit long and that there was a lot left to tell before we got to it on the others' side.

It's just me, Kris, by the way. The guys all already went home. I'm here alone. But what does that matter? It's the end of the part.

Next time, you'll see exactly why I chose to do this, but this is where this ends for now. Sorry to blue-ball you guys like this, but there really ain't much else to say.

So. See ya all last Friday~!

-CLICK!-

...

---

Okay, confession tome. I DID have this chapter done with almost a year ago, however instead of finishing up proof-reading... I went and started writing other things. Things that you likely will not see for some time. But also things you will.

There's just one problem...

I have been getting swamped by life to the point where turning on my writing progrem has only happened when night rolls around. I effectively had no good time to write and less time to proof-read. I think you can feel that throughout this chapter. I'm definitely returning to it, one day when my mental is in a better place.

Now, I wanna follow that up with my biggest uncertainty in this chapter. And that is Kris's Miracle.

I normally try to stick my flag specifically within the realm of logic and reason. However, that isn't necessarily an all-win. Take this enemy, for example. KING is in the name. It was never going to be anything but perhaps Secret Boss levels of strong. Even the inhabitants of the forest within which it dwells know to fear and respect it.

You can't expect Kris and any number of their friends to defeat something on the scale of a King Steiner on the first encounter. It may not even be a winnable fight until much later, like with many RPG's.

Thus, I thought this an idea time to introduce a future... "mechanic", shall we say. I plan to use it more in the future. What exactly "it" is should feel familiar to a number of you. However, is it the same or different? ;P More on that later.

For now, I hope this chapter is at least a good peak at things to come and a display of how things stand. We're getting in to the goods, now, so things are only going to get even more stressful.

Well... I won't bother with questions today. Instead, I need to be frank.

I am dealing with a lot IRL and my uploads will reflect that. Don't expect them to be snappy. I have no doubt things will get in the way and I will have just as little time as I have so far to write. I hope only that what I CAN get out, you will all enjoy. And of course, I also hope to one day share my secret projects with you guys. I think one of them will be quite interesting indeed to you all... while the other will leave you with, not gonna lie, many, many questions of curiosity~.

As I said, I intend to return to this chapter again in the future because I am not satisfied with some things, specifically the early dialogue and The Exposure scene for different reasons. I know what I want, but didn't before, due to more time lent upon reflection.

But I'm just rambling, now. Gee. Rambling in detail. I wonder who that sounds like. =u=

Next chapter, we'll be returning to the Christmas Crew! I think you know what's coming, so look forward to it! Predictable as it might be, it was no less fun to write.

Since I'm late in saying this...

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HANUKKAH, KWANZAA, YULE AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR~! ^^