"Unless Layla gets here soon, this is where we die."
Damien tried to ignore her statement as he kept his focus on the ground, sending out more and more pulses to determine where the large cats were. His mind continually detailed the surroundings in the series of waves he sent out, becoming more blurry the further away they reached in his mana sense, speeding up through rocks and slowing down through trees.
Eventually, they passed over the Prowler's bodies, showing as the three quadruped beasts moved to surround them. Each of their steps set off pulses of their own which began to distort the image moving back toward him, but it was still immensely clear they were aiming to surround the group.
One stopped before them about forty feet away as the other two continued down the sides. They were in a clearing which made the fight easier to handle than if they were in a thick brush line, but it also meant the monsters had easy access to their prey. No rocks nearby or any other natural means of protection, Damien began to think of a plan of his own. After a few moments of thinking and the Prowlers creeping into position, he realized his companions had gone silent and were way too alert, making it quite obvious they knew something was wrong.
"Keep talking and stop being so alert. Prowlers will attack early if the prey acts oddly. They're fast, but probably no stronger than they look," Damien explained in as normal a tone as he could muster.
Prowlers. This one, a monster they had gone over in Beast Handling already. A beast that hunted for the sake of hunting and killed for the sake of killing. Vicious creatures that always left their territories to hunt prey elsewhere, playing with their toys until they bled out, similar to a Prowler.
They were masters of stealth who picked up how to completely camouflage their bodies by five years of age when stationary and ten years when on the move. When fully grown, on average and with their heads up, they stood around seven to eight feet tall while their shoulders sat at five feet. They were pitch black and looked like extremely large Panthers with two claws at the end of their long, white, bone jagged tails.
Unluckily, these felt just about fully grown. Luckily, the hunting pack was on the lower side, holding only three beasts. They hunted in packs with as many as six members, so the fact that this one was so small was a huge boon.
"Yeah, that's all well and good, but they are going to attack us out of nowhere, and we don't know how big they are," Ranger spoke up, "if they are Prowlers."
"They are. Definitely," Damien confirmed. "Just a bit smaller than a fully grown group. Perhaps the layer allowed them through because of that; I don't know," he continued, pausing for a moment to take a breath. "I'm going to tell you exactly where they are," He finished as the second Prowler finally got into position.
"How c-"
"Just trust me," he whisper-yelled to Rias, interrupting her. "There is one at your front, waiting for the others to get into position. Don't turn your back in any way to it. They'll jump early if you do. There is another one to my forty degrees and one creeping to be directly behind you, Ranger. It's moving slow, so we have at least another minute. They are all just about forty feet away," he finished.
"Great, so we know where we are dying from," Rias hissed.
"Can you kill them with magic?" Ranger asked.
"They can sense mana like almost any other predator man... they'd move and attack before I even touched their skins with a spear of any kind," Damien casually shot back.
"Well, why are we just sitting here smiling instead of getting into defensive stances then?" Ranger questioned with a bit of impatience, slowly lowering his body.
"Because, I have a type of magic I can hide inside my body and I don't plan on dying here," Damien responded icily as electricity began very subtly arcing across the exterior of his skin, making imperceptible crackling noises that slowly increased in volume as the energy contained began to overwhelm his ability to control it. "Rias, you're on your own for a moment. Just survive the initial hit, please. When I yell move, each of you face your respective beast and either prepare to receive a one-ton monster or hit the ground. Close your eyes if you can as well, it's going to get bright and loud."
"You think you can-"
"TRUST- me," he interrupted with force, stopping Rias in her tracks.
Damien caught them both reluctantly nodding in his peripheral vision and sighed in relief. They were willing to bet their lives on whatever he was planning, and that was enough for now. No doubt it was only because they had no other options anyway, but it was enough.
Damien examined his echolocation again and watched as the monsters settled into place, settling back on their haunches presumably. He stood as casually as he could, sweating every ounce of water he had in his body while keeping as tight a control on his mana as he could.
"Alright. Just do it. Go for it. Go," he whispered to himself. 'They're creeping in. Let's go man. Threetwoonego. Threetwoone... come on. Three- Ahhhh this sucks. Three. Two... fuck it!' he screamed in his mind.
"MOVE!" Damien screamed, lowering his body and sending mana into the ground between his Prowler and himself.
Not sure if his provocation had worked but risking his life on the chance that it had, Damien shot three spikes of earth where he hoped each Prowler would be.
'NOW'
Just as they finished impaling nothing, he extended his hands outward in two directions, shut his eyes hard, and fluctuated the voltage on his lightning to the extremes. He set them loose, one bolt aimed above the spikes while another struck out directly in front of Ranger.
For an instant, two vast arcs of energy arced out of his hands, and he was connected to the ground and Prowler's open mouth. Then, the moment ended and he felt his eyes scream in protest behind their lids while his eardrums immediately gave up on life, destroyed by the resulting sonic boom. He felt debris ripping at his body as he dropped toward the ground, feeling a wave of intense heat pass over him that left the smell of burnt flesh in his nostrils.
A half-second later he hit the ground and rolled forward, standing up and spinning on his heels as he gathered the leftover energy in the area and opened his healing eyes to view the carnage. They took a moment to adjust but were mostly ok, so he worked on healing his ears as the residual electricity he'd collected and created began to circulate around his body in the form of a protective ring.
Rias lay on the ground twenty feet away from his person to the right and was underneath a massive back monster the size of a car. The creature was rampaging, opening and closing its mouth as if roaring as she tried to continuously position her shield between them, eyes following its claws and teeth. The beast looked blind by the way it was aimlessly clawing at the ground and its own eyes, upset but hindered.
Damien took a step forward and began tilting to the side immediately as vertigo consumed him. He hit the ground immediately in a kneel to catch himself, righting his body a moment later while making a lifting motion with his arms, drawing a wide section of the earth up out of the clearing and slamming it into the beast's side, toppling it off the Elf. The wide earthen pillar disconnected from where it came out of the ground and continued onward, landing in between her and the monster's new position as she rolled away from the newly constructed barrier.
Quickly panning his vision back to the left, Damien saw where another cat lay motionless on the ground, smoke coming out of its body. Looking further left though, he realized he couldn't find Ranger in their clearing.
"RIAS! WHERE DID IT TAKE RANGER" Damien screamed, ears slowly repairing as his voice came in through them muffled.
He was just beginning to run back where he'd seen the man last when he saw Rias point weakly toward the tree line in front of him. Re-examining her, he saw her panting while lying face up with two wholly shattered knees. Thinking to assist her but noticing drag marks with pieces of clothing and blood trailing behind them, Damien began moving toward the other end of their clearing.
"Ahhrrrgghh!!"
Muffled, the noise was barely loud enough for Damien's healing ears, but still, he'd heard Ranger's cry and took off in a sprint toward where he believed it had come from. Rias would have to wait.
He jogged as fast as he could without falling to his vertigo, rounding a few trees that had been closeby to where they had been standing before everything had began and found the third cat limping away from the scorched clearing. The Prowler's front left paw looked obliterated while its body held many jagged wounds streaking from there, its tail keeping a single hand in its bone grasp. Looking toward its face, the beast held Ranger's body in its maw.
Damien took another step and cocked his arm back, coiling a much more controlled and lower voltage electrical discharge around it as a loud squelching sound reverberated from his target, Ranger's cries going mute just as the lightning arced from Damien's hand to the monster's spine.
Looking as if he were controlling the beast, his electricity created a crackling leash of energy that crawled all over its hide, forcing it to begin having mini seizures as it fought to stay standing as it cried out in pain. Its maw shut in an abrupt movement, dropping an arm to the ground as Ranger went limp.
"NO!" Damien cried out, rushing closer to the creature as it continued its shaking fit, ultimately dropping his friend to the earth as it spasmed.
The creature jaggedly rotated its body around, lashing out sporadically with its tail as Damien tried to keep control of all the electricity he could before it escaped into the ground. He upped the voltage on his energy once again and the monster convulsed drastically, legs buckling beneath it as it fell. Damien took a hard step forward and motioned his palm upward in a thrust, shooting a giant spike of earth out of the ground and through the center of the beasts lower jaw, extending out the top of its head in one clean motion. Its mouth hung open as it cried out its final wails of pain and defeat.
He retracted his lightning as he hobbled to Ranger's side, finding the man's face covered in sweat and clenched in intense concentration while being very much alive. Looking to Ranger's right side, Damien watched as the man's completely ripped open and exposed shoulder socket began to heal over where his arm used to be, stemming blood flow and closing the injury.
Damien looked to the other side of the Prowler's body and found the missing arm, albeit missing a hand. He quickly rounded the dead monster and grabbed it, yanking the mangled piece of meat out of its teeth and dropping it onto Ranger's chest.
"Stop healing!" he yelled, getting no response as the wound continued to close; the man's eardrums were either still shattered or he was focusing too hard.
Damien slapped Ranger's face and finally got a reaction as he opened his eyes.
"Wh-"
As Ranger opened his mouth, Damien rammed his hand through the fragile layer of flesh that had begun to form over the man's gouged shoulder, clearing out the area of congealed flesh before driving the man's still intact arm into the shoulder socket it had been ripped from. Ranger cried out in protest, but Damien focused on his work, reconnecting tendons while scorching closed the exposed veins and arteries that were pumping blood uselessly. After thirty seconds of screaming and tear-streaked agony from them both, Damien let go and watched as the shoulder stayed in place.
"Stop whining!" he yelled with a slight grin. "Let's get Rias," he continued, lifting the broken man off the ground and throwing his good arm around his shoulder as he began to run back to the main clearing where the Elf was, swooping up a solitary hand as he passed the creature's tail.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Fearing the worst, Damien entered the area and to his great surprise found the last Prowler with a sword lodged deep into its eye socket, thrashing its body around the nearby area. The girl had dragged herself over to a tree away from it as the monster rampaged to try and get the weapon dislodged. She was glaring at it while clearly doing her best to patch up the injuries best she could, looking as if she had only shattered her legs at this point.
Noticing the improvised wall he'd made before was now destroyed, Damien summoned a thicker one between the beast and where she lay before hobbling over to drop off Ranger next to her. Scanning them briefly as the noise of tree after tree being slammed into rang out, he found neither of them in danger of immediate death. If they weren't treated soon they could die, but for now, they wouldn't bleed out.
"Stay here. I'll be back," Damien demanded as scant amounts of energy continued circling his body. "Try and fix the cuts on that arm before I return. I'll do the important stuff for it after. Same with your knees," he finished, setting Ranger's hand back into place and once again reconnecting the tendons while scorching the wounds.
Finally, he stood up and moved away from them, creating more lightning. His veins begun to protest with each new expenditure and Damien knew he was capping out. He'd used too much mana to heal the tendons in Ranger's arm and hand so quickly, alongside what he'd used to create his wave. He should have just left it and hoped the bone kept it connected or that the school's infirmary could do something about it, but he'd been greedy. What mana he had on hand now would have to get him through the last Prowler, or he would be in trouble.
Circling back around the wall, Damien began adjusting his electricity to be less destructive and more disruptive, lowering the voltage on it. A bonus to this was that the chaotic energy became easier to handle, bending to his whims rather than acting like a wild beast waiting to be unleashed in a direction. The monster itself had moved over fifty feet away from where his friends lay and was still slamming its head into trees while dragging its face across the ground. It's paws were sliced red from where it had repeatedly tried time and again to use them to remove the longsword while its face held numerous scratch marks from the dirt, roots, trees, and rocks in the area.
Damien carefully sidled up to the rabid monster, trying to get close enough that he could maintain proper control of his electricity while it surged through the beast but not so close that it slammed into him during its turmoil. He jumped out of its way a few times as it hit its body into trees and rocks, slowly but successfully causing the sword to loosen further and further.
"Come on... come on," Damien murmured as he waited for the perfect opportunity.
Finally, the big cat charged into a large tree with one of its shoulders and dislodged the sword. The collision and feeling of the weapon slipping from its eye socket left the cat stunned and quiet for a brief moment, exactly the moment Damien had been waiting for. Thighs prepped, he shot out from behind a tree toward the cats back, getting within ten feet of it before slowing down and allowing his energy to arc into its rear from his fingertips. The behemoth of a panther tensed up and screeched loudly, turning itself around rigidly as it made an effort to walk toward him while the energy crackled, leaving singe marks and burning hair as it crawled all over the monsters face and body.
"No no no, just fucking lay down... stop fighting and please for god's sake don't leap," Damien muttered as the cat continued its relentless but terribly slow trudging in his direction.
He backed up and continued coursing the energy in and through the animal's body, supplementing more and more of it as some slipped his control. Carefully and begrudgingly, he turned up the voltage as the energy cycled inside the creature.
'Please stop,' Damien screamed inside as the creature got closer, right paw coming down onto his foot and spiking it into the ground with a claw.
He felt as the monster's breath warmed against his neck, waiting for death, and sighing in relief as he felt the Prowler collapse under its own weight forward on top of him.
"Finally," he sighed out as he sidled out from under its maw, slowly standing while watching as it glared up at him with absolute hate in its eyes. "Oh fuck you," he muttered, lessening his magic and scanning the creature, finding that the lightning had almost completely melted the thing's muscles.
Pulling his energy off the monster, he backed away from it and collapsed backward to the ground, feeling for his bond to see where people were. He smiled at knowing Kastra and Alexa were both nearing, probably five minutes out at their pace. Maybe others were closer.
"They said... *cough* they said you'd die," a weak voice called out, finishing his sentence with a slight chuckle. "That I'd be fine. Prowlers don't *cough* don't hunt unless they smell something good."
Damien felt a cold sweat envelope his back and turned his head around, watching as Cedar came into view propped up against a tree while missing both of his arms. His left wing was drooping in a manner that looked painful, dragging across the ground as his right wing was ripped halfway off, blood everywhere.
"They said, 'Worry not. He will absolutely die. She will be yours,' Apparently not," he chuckled out again, coughing up some blood.
Damien listened to the man's ramblings and felt his body heat up, face flushing with anger. If what he was saying were true, this fool was the cause of his almost death. Of the danger his group had been put in. Of potentially Alexa's death, if the beasts hadn't come for him instead.
"What the hell did you do, Cedar," Damien demanded, stumbling toward the weak Celestial while moving the web of crackling energy still in the cat into the fool before him, toppling the crippled man onto the ground as his body began twitching.
"Like... it... matters," Cedar responded, sounding odd through his clenched teeth.
Damien felt his anger building up as he moved toward the Celestial, only now noticing that his arms weren't cut off cleanly but ripped off. Torn off.
Damien immediately stopped moving and gathered all of his lightning back to himself, tapping into his mana veins once again to increase the voltage of what he had left to lethal levels while biting his lips in pain. Blood drooped down the front of his body while electricity circled it in a violent manner, crackling loudly every time it arc'd against his will. He screamed out as he reigned the energy in, pulling it inside himself while sending out a weak pulse of mana.
"What?" Cedar said, letting out a large breath of air while grinning. "You thought there were only three?"
Damien heard a low, menacing growl sound out from somewhere off to his left at the same time his mana returned a blurry vision, large beast twenty feet away and crouched. When he turned his shaking body toward it, all he could see was dense vegetation and a serene atmosphere.
"You should have seen it. He was playing with me, throwing my limbs around while ripping my wings apart bone by bone. You saved my life by killing his kin. Tha- *cough* nks for that," he heard Cedar say from behind him. "Maybe I'll get to watch him do that to you."
Damien could hear the monster approaching, but couldn't see it. He could only watch on as the leaves and brush were scrubbed out of its way, the monster past the point of caring about stealth as it came at him directly.
A minute went by where the creature just circled around him, Damien watching where its feet kicked up leaves and hearing each footfall and growl as it sounded out.
"Fuck! Come on then!" he screamed out at it, outstretching his arms and arcing his lightning from hand to hand. "You gonna keep me waiting?! Let's do this!"
The monster let out a screeching growl in response and stopped moving, dropping its camouflage as it bared its teeth toward him, its haunches tightening up. The huge creature bared its large fangs, covered in fresh blood along with its paws and the fur near its mouth. It's full, noble black frame rippled with muscle as it begged to be let loose, perching at every moment just a single motion away from being on top of him, ripping out his throat.
"Let's go you big bitch!" Damien shrieked at it again. "I'm gonna fry you from the fucking inside out if I have to! I'll kill myself if it means you don't get to them! DO IT!"
His eyes streaked tears in pain as his body convulsed, a knee hitting the ground but eyes maintaining contact with the monster.
Each arc wasted more an more of his energy, but each one contained a stronger and stronger intensity as Damien growled out, the pain spurring him on. One of them was going to die here if the creature willed it; Damien just hoped he'd be able to convince it otherwise or bring it down with him.
The Prowler continued to bare its teeth and snarled back, letting out a drawn-out low growl before slowly backing into the forest, disappearing a few moments later as it leapt far into the distance, leaving Damien's mana sense. Slamming a fist into the ground, he confirmed it had left his secondary sense as well before looking upward.
"God... DAMMIT. I HATE THIS!" he yelled to the sky, falling onto his calves as his second knee hit the ground.
His mind swam through a plethora of emotions before he heard the slightly muffled sound of someone moving, his eyes catching a wing in his peripheral vision.
"I'm going to kill you," he stated with finality, standing up and moving toward Cedar.
"Makes sense you would, Human scum," the Celestial said with a sneer from where he lay on the ground. "Too bad the big one didn't finish you off. At least then we'd have both died and you'd be out of the way. You'd better kill me or I-"
Cedars's words stopped mid-sentence as Damien kneeled over the Celestial's chest, one knee on each of his shoulder sockets, and delivered a fist into his lower jaw. A loud snapping sound reverberated through the immediate area as the shoulder dislocated and the Celestial let out a cry of pain. Damien coursed electricity into him and the fool's body clenched up, yelling immediately ceasing.
"You'll what? You think I was kidding? You're done. You think that hurt?" Damien yelled into his face. "You're going to feel EVERY bit of this. I'm certain killing you now would be justified," he finished, cocking back his fist as his body leaned to the right in excruciating pain from using more mana, earth slowly crawling up him to coalesce into a large spike on top of his hand, surrounded by coiling electricity as the Celestial's body convulsed beneath him.
"Stop."
Damien's eyebrows lifted slightly as he kept his fist level.
"So you're the reason it ran away then... That at least makes sense," he replied, fist still cocked as his eyebrows clenched in anger and pain.
"It was gone before I showed up. Lower your arm," Layla demanded.
Damien considered her words for a moment before glancing up to the woman, light smile tracing across his face.
"No, I don't think I can."
"Who makes you the one who gets to decide if he dies?" she asked, eyes concentrated on his every movement.
"The fact that he almost killed me and two others that I had to save. The fact that he made me reveal to anyone that was watching that I am more than I look. The fact that he knows himself what I am, what he did, and bears a ridiculous fucking grudge against me. THE FACT THAT AT ANY POINT, THOSE CATS COULD HAVE GONE AFTER ANOTHER GROUP AND MASSACRED THEM!" Damien yelled. "They ambush. If it were Alexa's group, they'd have died. Kastra's? They'd have been wiped! Name your reason, whatever it is! HE DESERVES to die here and you KNOW IT."
"They came for your group because he put a beast enticing spell on all of you except himself. He is captured. Killing him is no longer your decision. Put your fist down, boy."
"IF SOMEONE TRIES TO ATTACK OR TAKE SOMEONE'S LIFE OUTSIDE A DUEL, THEY ARE AT THE MERCY OF THE PERSON THEY ATTACKED BEFORE THE FIGHT ENDS. THAT IS IN THE RULEBOOK ALONG WITH MANY OTHER FUCKED UP, KILL OR BE KILLED, SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST SHIT. IT IS MY CHOICE!" Damien yelled, head rotating back to the face of a man who should not be grinning but was. "YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING BUT PREACH BRUTALITY AND RUTHLESSNESS, YET NOW YOU ASK ME FOR MERCY?! YOU'D SAVE HIM?"
"THE RULES OUTSIDE THIS COUNTRY ARE DIFFERENT THAN THOSE INSIDE IT! He was yours to judge when there were no moderators around and you didn't have him at your mercy. You have both right now," she fired back, yelling initially and regulating her tone after a moment's rest. "Rias and Ranger are both already being cared for as well. Put. Your fist. Down. Now, Tearen."
Damien sighed.
"Wow, you know their names, congrats. He still dies here," Damien replied softly. "Looks like you got lucky, buddy. No pain for you, only death," he muttered down to the soon-to-be corpse before him.
"That may be so, but I am a witness-"
"Then I'll just pretend you aren't here," he declared, a light smile tracing across his face.
"You are not an executioner, Damien. Stop, or I'll stop you myself," the Kreel demanded.
Damien laughed to himself and looked up at her with a smile as the last of what he could suffer through built up behind his elbow in the form of condensed air.
"Better get here in time then," he calmly stated as a blast of air and the cracking of bones reverberated through the forest.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
"Goddammit that little bastard stung like hell, and my head feels like its going to split open," Layla moaned as Kastra sat on her shoulder, healing the burn marks left behind on her skin. "And just what the hell did he have to shatter his elbow like that for!"
"He was probably trying to melt Cedar's skin off, so he made the lightning extra painful. You're the one who taught him pain is secondary to his goals too, so..." the Fae replied with a shrug. "Sorry about the headache though."
Kastra arrived as Layla finished decking Damien in the side of the head and tackling him to the ground, misunderstanding the situation. More than one disorienting and mind Fae spells had drilled into Layla's head while Kastra dove for Damien, trying to teleport him away. The beast of a Kreel had only been phased for a half second before grabbing the pixie by the chest and holding her tight, threatening to break her as she explained the situation.
"Na, it's fine. Bad timing, sorry for breaking your wing," Layla responded.
"Damn right you are. Even if I've fixed it, that still hurt," Kastra pouted, eliciting a chuckle from the hunk of muscle and rock she was perched on.
"Still. That kid caused one hell of a mess," Layla declared, pointing at the huge gouge left in the ground, a line of scorched trees, and the first Prowler. "Whatever he shot at that thing cooked it through and exited out its ass. Why is his magic that strong?"
"Don't tell anyone and I'll explain it," Kastra joked.
"I have a report to deliver. I won't speak to anyone else of it, but Lemshire will hear. I am sorry," Layla responded seriously.
"If you keep that polite shit up, I'm going to make your headache worse," Kastra declared, changing the subject before Layla actually expected an explanation. "Though Lemshire probably already knows what happened if he was paying attention."
"Kastra!" Alexa's voice called out as she finally flew into the clearing.
"Looks like she's finally here. Protect the Celestial if the boy wakes up," Layla said, standing. "I have to go hunt down that other Prowler. It has tasted blood... Keep the other students in your group from seeing all of this. It wouldn't be good if descriptions of the fight got out," she finished with a sigh. "For anyone."
The Kreel took off into the forest as Kastra lept into the air from her shoulder.
Alexa jogged up to Kastra, a confused look adorning her beautiful face.
"Protect Cedar? From who? And stop them from seeing..." she paused, looking around. "Oh. Ok, where is she keeping her group?"
"About fifty yards that way," Kastra stated, pointing back where the academy was.
"Ok, I'll be right back. Explain things to me when I return, please," Alexa said, lifting her body through the canopy with her wings and darting the way she'd come.
Kastra flew to where Damien lay unconscious and grew to full size, resting his head in her lap. A wide, serene smile bloomed across her face as she ran her fingers through his hair. She glanced a few feet away at the unconscious Celestial.
"Just what did you do to make him hell-bent on killing you?" she wondered out loud.