It was still early in the evening when Tony entered Kevin's room, he had a bandage on his forehead from when Adam whooped him over the head with his staff.

"I see you're still as unresponsive as ever... this lab always small like booze..." he said sombrely before closing the door and sitting down on the ground next to it.

'Yeah, good to see you too, kid...' Kevin thought eying him carefully.

"How would Adam know about the spirit's rules..." Tony thought out loud, "He's up to something... for sure... I still have three spirits slots for today, though it's best he doesn't know that... " He was biting his nails in what looked like frustration more than fear.

'Three more today, eh? Good to know, I was going to get Abby to attack you tonight since you made it sound like you can't get any more spirits today...' Kevin felt like he dodged a bullet there.

'Still, fighting him with three spirits could be easier than six... but I doubt Abby plans to attack him head-on...' Kevin pondered as his eyes wandered to outside his window where he saw massive clouds slowly making their way over towards them.

'Guess today is out of the question... electricity is just too overpowered...' he decided fearing being hit with a thunderbolt in the rain.

When Kevin looked back to Tony he saw him digging up something in one of the pouches he carried attached to his belt, he grabbed a fistful of salt and poured it on the ground.

"Salt, I ask of you to join the elements under my com-" he was cut off by the salt splashing directly into his eyes.

"Ah! You bastard!" he covered his eyes with one hand and used the other to spray the salt across the room.

'Hey! Stop making a mess!' Kevin wanted to shout but knew he couldn't.

Tony grabbed the water-pouch on his belt and poured it onto his eyes to rinse them clean until the pouch was empty.

He looked around the lab and saw a bucket of clear liquid which he poured back into the pouch.

'Looks like the shaman can't get along with the salt spirits...' Kevin noticed.

He turned to the pile of salt and used a spell "Elemental torment." as soon as he said that the salt began to vibrate before he collected it back into his pouch.

"You'll obey me whether you want to or not!" he hissed, his eyes still red from the salt.

'Poor salt!'

Tony reached into his pouch pulling out a small candle and two pieces of rock which he used to light the candle, he also pulled out a small seed and a pebble.

"Spirits of fire, rock and forest, heed my call and work for me until midnight." As he said that the seed sprouted and died causing Tony to frown.

"Look, I'm sorry about the forest, it was the healer's fault!" he exclaimed, despite this, the seed remained dead, the fire and rock, however, showed no sign of protest, as such Tony retrieved both and placed them in his pouch before stomping on the seed and crushing it to a powder.

"Stupid spirits..." he sighed before turning to Kevin.

"What are you looking at?!"

Kevin replied with a potato noise.

"Right..."

After a while of silence, Tony spoke up.

"Sorry about that, I just can't tame my spirits... as a shaman I'm supposed to be able to control them all... I managed to talk the forest into letting me use the water elemental today again, but the wind is still gone until midnight..." he let out a sigh.

'Oh shit, he apologised!'

"Usually a spirit can't understand human language or actions, so there's no way to communicate with them, they all have personalities, emotions you know... and the salt one is a massive asshole," he said slowly getting more annoyed as he spoke.

'Ah, there goes my chance of talking the pile of salt into attacking him...'

Suddenly, Kevin got a new idea.

'Actually... I think we should go fight him in the rain after all...'

The rest of the day went on uneventfully, later that night Kevin was making his way towards Abby's room, the sound of rain tapping on the roof of the building made for decent cover for his footsteps.

He opened her door and was greeted with a pillow to the face making him almost fall to the ground but he managed to stabilise himself beforehand.

He tossed the pillow back at Abby before closing the door.

"For fuck's sake Kevin, KNOCK!" she complained.

"Yeah, I'll totally do that," he replied sarcastically.

"What do you want? We're not fighting him in the rain are we?" she asked.

"Actually, I think we should," Kevin replied simply.

Abby looked at him for a second before speaking up "What?"

"Think about it this way, He's left with only three spirits, I happen to know which three he'll be using, rock, water and fire. And since it's raining fire is out of the question, he'll be stuck with rock and water," he explained.

"Yeah, water in the fucking rain!" she exclaimed.

"But I happen to have a solution for that!" he explained.

"Solution?" she raised an eyebrow before Kevin tossed her an item from inside of his lab coat, a small glass tub of yellow paste.

"...we'll defeat him with cheese?" she asked.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"No, it's skin cream," Kevin explained.

"...we'll bribe him to let us kill him with the promise of tender skin?"

"I noticed the salt element really doesn't like Tony, so if he uses a water attack we'll add salt to the water!" Kevin explained holding out two pouches of salt crystal, he tossed one at Abby.

"I also added some salt to the cream, so if you're hit bits of it will dissolve in the water," he added.

"Wait, you're not a shaman, how do you know the salt will do what you want it to!?"

"Good question, in fact, Tony specifically told me only a shaman can communicate with the spirits," he replied.

Abby waited for Kevin to continued speaking with a "But..."

"But... Tony also said the spirits have personalities and emotions, so I'm sure revenge is a language the salt will pick up on."

"Revenge?" Abby asked.

"Yeah, it looked like Tony was trying to torture the elements into working for him." Kevin shrugged remembering the salt tremble when he cast "Elemental torment" earlier.

"Plus I saw him fill his water pouch with vodka earlier, the dumbass thought it was water." Kevin laughed a bit.

"Hold on, so we're supposed to kill him now?!" Abby asked looking for her dagger.

"Yeah, at midnight he'll be able to pick new spirits, not only will he have six of them, but he'll also be able to pick lightning!" Kevin explained.

"True... this might be our best chance IF your salt theory will work..." Abby sighed.

"So, are you up for it? Remember, you're the one who wants to "keep this world pure" so you can back out if you want." Kevin replied.

"...no... no, I'll do it!" She looked around her room and grabbed her dagger from under her pillow.

"It has to be done!" she added.

"That's the spirit! I'll be waiting outside." He replied before heading outside and down the steps and into the rain.

Maybe five minutes later Abby appeared behind Kevin patting him on the back and giving him a serious fright as he turned towards her wide-eyes.

A smug smile appeared on her face and her mouth opened to say something but no words came out, her expression shifted to that of disappointment before holding on her index finger as if to say "Wait a second..."

"There, it was my silence spell, I can only use it on myself but it's quite useful," she replied before re-casting the spell.

"Wait, what about me?" Kevin asked looking at the muddy ground before him and knowing he'd make a lot of noise.

Abby looked at Kevin and at the mud then back at Kevin before letting out a sigh.

Slowly so as not to slip Abby was walking through the mud alone before she made it to the patch of grass, the scars of where Adam clawed at the grass were still visible.

"Thanks for the piggyback!" Kevin exclaimed as he hopped off and onto the grass.

Abby rubbed her back as if to say "Shit man, you're heavy before looking over into the distance."

She used the [Night vision] skill to see, Kevin was actually able to see well enough, Abby's eye-sight was just shit.

Abby saw Tony sitting beside the pond of water from before, he used earth to form a roof over himself as he sat in front of the water which rose up from the pond and took an almost human shape.

Kevin and Abby made their way closer to Tony.

'I can't hear him... he's saying something for sure though...' she thought as she moved even closer until she was able to see what Tony was doing.

Tony was sitting hunched over the pond under the cover of the earth roof, before him, the water took the shape of a human, specifically one of the other members of the group.

"What's he doing?!" Abby wanted to call out but was still under the silence spell, she looked to Kevin who quietly said: "God I hope he's not doing what I think he's doing..."

The water suddenly turned to resemble Abby.

"What? No, the other one was fine, what are you doing?" Tony asked.

The water changed shape once more showing Abby with a knife in her hand and a visibly murderous expression.

"What the hell are you doing, water?! You're ruining the mood!" he complained.

'I'm ruining his mood!?' Abby though clutching the dagger.

"Besides that Abby chick is flatter than a chopping board, I don't know what Adam sees in her..." he replied as the water-Abby face-palmed.

"What?" He asked.

The water-Abby pointed behind him when he was met with a towel coated in some chemical, before he could get it off he passed out.

"Right, let's drag him to the woods," Kevin advised as Abby picked Tony up and climbed over the fence leaving Kevin struggling to get over it.

'I know what part of him I'm cutting off first...' Abby grinned.

About twenty minutes later Tony awoke in the woods, his arms tied and a piece of his robe placed in his mouth like a gag.

As soon as he woke up he began to wriggle around.

"Oh look, you're awake!" Kevin said cheerfully.

Tony shifted to see Kevin sitting next to him with a scalpel.

Tony's muffled speech was hard to understand.

"Kevin?! You're not a potato?!" he asked wide-eyed.

"That's right! Though I'm sorry to say you won't be around long enough to tell anyone." he smiled an almost pitiful smile.

Tony's confused eyes drifted down to Kevin's scalpel.

"Wha-What are you going to do?!" he demanded trying to move back like a worm in the muddy dirt of the forest floor.

"You should be happy Abby agreed to let me kill you, she wanted to cut your junk off for that comment you made." he laughed.

"Consider it a favour from one man to another," he added.

"Favour!? You're going to murder me over something like that?!" He demanded.

"Actually, we're going to kill all the heroes... and then ourselves, or at least me," he replied.

As Tony moved away he was stopped when he fell into a small stream.

"Water, shield!" he called out at the water from the stream took the form of a thin bubble around him.

Kevin reached into his pocket and sprinkled some salt onto the water, after a moment the bubble began to shake before deforming, not quite popping but deforming.

Kevin held out another fistful of salt over the water before releasing it and popping the bubble.

"Water, spear at Kevin!" the water in the stream took the shape of the spear but quickly bent out of shape like a wet noodle.

"What is this?!" he cried.

"Looks like the gag isn't enough to stop your magic." he shrugged, "Let's get this over with." he sighed as he prepared to cut into his throat.

"Rock, launch rocks at Kevin's head!" as he commanded the rocks form the bottom of the flew out, two making contact with Kevin's head and knocking him back as hot blood ran down his face.

"Rock, cut my the rope holding me!" he called out and the rock did as commanded.

"Rock, restrain Kevin until I come back with the other, don't damage the forest!" he ordered as a massive cage of rock formed around Kevin.

Kevin put a hand to his forehead to stop the bleeding.

"He's all your!" Kevin called out with a sadistic grin followed by a cathartic feeling of excitement.

A chill ran down Tony's spine as he started running, he didn't know which direction their home was, but he didn't care, he needed to get away.

Suddenly he felt something under his feet as a rope tripped him up making him fall face-first down a pretty steep slope into a puddle of water where he was wet with the sound crunching leaves.

"H-Help!" he called out before tearing off his gag and calling out again.

He looked to the source of the sound, aside from the moon which peaked over the still raining clouds there was no light, though he was able to see the silhouette of what looked like a deer running away upon hearing him.

He breathed a sigh of relief before standing up.

Suddenly, from behind Abby grabbed him by the throat before jamming the dagger into his mouth, scraping it around until she felt the tongue would be unable to function, she let him go, his speech now a mix of random noises and cries for help.

She drew nearer as he tried to say his command while crawling backwards away from her, a torrent of blood poured from his mouth as he spoke "Wuhur, drahn ur!" the water spirit didn't reply.

"Looks like you do need to talk to give commands." she said as if she just made a "neat" discovery.

He tried to turn and run but she grabbed him by the hair, suddenly she was blinded by a fistful of salt he kept in his pouch.

"Oh, you fucking asshole!" she cried as she cupped some water from the puddle and washed her face off, she turned back to see the kid moving towards her with a rock he found in hand.

The assassin's agility ability made it easy for her to side-step him, but she didn't expect him to throw the rock at her, he felt a sharp pain in her ankle as the rock made contact and bouched off.

She tried to run past her and up the hill but tripped in the mud and fell face-first into it, his attempt to crawl away was stopped when Abby planted her dagger into his back.

He let out an agonised cry as she jammed the dagger further down his back.

she flipped him around planting on hand on his pam and using the rock to break one of his arms with a sickening crunch.

At this point, Tony was struggling to scream thanks to the blood gathering in his mouth.

"Sthup you bichh!" he cried out.

"I am really done listening to your talk shit!" She laughed psychotically before pressing both of her knees onto his shoulder and pummeling his face.

she brought her fist down on his mouth, after a few punches the sound of pounding flesh was replaced with wet slaps before she pulled the mangled tongue out of his mouth.

At this point, he seemed unconscious, a human can often pass-out from the pain, mother nature's only act of mercy.

Still, he grabbed the rock once more and kept battering it against Tony's skull until she could see the brain and until she could scramble the brain.

She tried to wipe the mix of splattered blood and rain from her face but only ended up getting more blood on her face, she put a mix of saliva and blood from her lips onto the ground and took a deep breath before taking a look at Tony's barely recognisable corpse.

"Too bad you died on me..." she said panting, "I was hoping to get some revenge for you blinding me with salt..." she replied.

She took a few more deep breaths before looking back to his face and the back to her dagger, "Eh, it's still not too late."

After making sure to torment the corpse a bit long by removing the eyes she looked down and said: "That's right, I forgot my promise... that one part I'm meant to remove."

She was stopped by Kevin who put an arm on her shoulder as the blood pouring down his face slowed down a bit.

"Don't... he's dead already..." he replied seeing the body and finding himself half intrigued and half disturbed.

"You're right... I guess... we need to leave." she relented.

"Let's head back, you can shadow blink us both into my lad, I'll get the blood off us."

"Alright..." he agreed as they both headed home leaving Tony to rot in the wild.

[https://i.imgur.com/fAYVf4M.png]