"Hehehe." Tanya triumphantly gloats, carrying two massive fish in each hand whilst skipping along, Jared and Newt follow a bit behind with a well insulated box full of water, similar to an Esky, full of fish.
Their demeanor noticeably more sullen, Jared more than anyone else.
"...not even one..." Jared mumbles in a faraway look, his eyes glazed as he questions the meaning of life.
Newt, whilst a bit sad, was pretty happy with the fish he managed to catch, 4 small fish, it was better than nothing, he glances at Jared as he drags his feet.
Seriously, where is all that strength coming from? Newt questions as he had watched a girl the same length of the fish she had caught easily pull them out of the water rapidly.
"Jared, does Tanya train?" Newt asks the despair ridden man.
"Hm? Oh nah she is just very naturally strong, clearly takes after her mother in that regard."
I'm pretty sure that is literally impossible on Earth, what do you mean?! Newt confusedly watches the giggling girl occasionally glancing back at them whilst barely holding the fish off the ground beginning to speed up her skipping.
Thinking calmly over about the logistics behind how her small figure was accomplishing this he falls into a deep thought.
The only way to enhance your physical strength without changing physique and without any physical training? Ki or Drana.
"Is Tanya a Drana user?"
"No. Tanya isn't, nor will she ever be a Drana user."
Jared declares resolutely.
Newt taking a small glance at Jared's tall and lean figure, his vision drifting to his dark brown hair and scar covered face.
Mostly the scars seem to be what's left after a intense 3rd degree burn, weird that its only on a portion of his face and neck, but nothing anywhere else, discarding the burns, he was a fairly handsome man.
Although that didn't discard the overwhelming pressure Newt was put under the moment their eyes met.
"Kuhm, not a fan of the church?"
Newt tries to lighten the mood, getting a grim chuckle.
"Yeah, you could say that, same goes with Jen."
"Agreed."
"Hey Sweetie, be careful!" Jared calls out to Tanya as she trips over a rock and hurries to quickly catch herself.
"Hey chuck the fish in."
Getting a big rapid nod with her shining blue eyes sparkling, she runs over, her short blonde hair bobbing up and down.
Returning back to a awkward silence, they slowly walk back, Newt's thoughts pacing around.
They live away from any town or city, alone with just their family, Jennifer had a unique reaction to Tanya calling me 'brother', and they healed me, how did they heal me? My body was just extremely worn out, with a few cuts here and there. But after waking up my body was far more relaxed, instead of having run something akin to a 100km run, it was more like I did a intense hour long workout routine.
Sore but nothing a bit of rest won't solve. How did they... MAGIC!
"Jared, can I ask you a question?"
"Shoot."
"Are you or Jennifer a Mage."
Newt decides the easiest and upfront solution was best, with clear disdain towards Drana, or in other words, the church, they at least won't turn him in.
The sudden question shocks Jared for a moment, causes him to lose his footing and falls over, Newt quickly grabbing the cooler box full of fish before it scattered on the floor.
Putting down the container shortly after catching it, he turns towards Jared and offers a hand.
Jared takes a moment of looking at Newt for a moment and looking back at his hand, eventually reaching out and grabbing his hand, pulling himself up.
And in doing so, pulled Newt down, his weak and still recovering body unable to handle the weight.
Luckily Tanya, who had stopped and came forward after noticing Newt and Jared stopped moving had come over and managed to catch Newt in time.
"Thanks Tanya." He gives a small smile to her, causing her to beam and puff out her chest again.
Gathering everything again, they begin moving, Tanya rushing ahead as they approached their home.
"Yes."
Jared out of the blue answers.
"Pardon?"
"I'm a Mage, or Ex-Mage, Jen is also an Ex-Ki warrior."
Pausing for a moment and looking at the back of Jared's moving back, he catches back up and replies.
"I may have lied about a few things."
"I figured so."
Nodding in response, Newt decides to respond to his trust.
"I'm nearly a mage. Cynthia was a mage, probably the closest person I've ever gotten to, and enemies we fought? The Church."
Newt fills in some gaps in his story, Jared quietly nods as he continues the true story, occasionally patting him on the back.
"And we...Um...Sorry... Could you give me a moment?" Newt stops himself for a brief moment, collecting himself before continuing where he left off, the church cornering them.
"Everything was going good, and they, the church bastards suddenly slam on our door, proclaiming that we give ourselves in. So we promptly ran for it. Mu-Cynthia...Creating a makeshift exit in the wall with wind blades, and we ran to the second furthest gate."
"Oh? Why the second last?"
"Because they would expect it to be either the last or closest, anything more than that would be paranoia as otherwise you would be stuck in a situation of, 'what if they did that to trick us into doing this?' and whatnot.
So second last was best in her opinion, I agreed of course."
"I see, you do see that type of paranoia occasionally, usually if there ever a important case requiring the capture of someone than its best to just equally distribute them everywhere." Jared explains, Newt however justifies the reasoning though.
"While that may be true if you have enough manpower and troops, they were cutting it a bit thin with searching the slums, and well, when they found us, they wanted to bring us in as 'suspects', they weren't certain we were the targets, not to mention that they had the city on lockdown, once they confirmed we were actually the targets when we ran, they would begin to send word around the city to focus in on us, though since we outran them and they needed time to actually send word, we got away and reached the second furthest access point."
"That would be true, I would need a actual layout of the City and where you were located to give the best strategy I could." Nodding his head with a hand on his chin.
Newt takes a deep breath, trying to find the words to continue.
"You can tell me later, or just stop now, I can somewhat piece together what occurred considering the context and the state we found you in." He gives Newt a reassuring smile, slinging around the fish container to his other hand, patting Newt on the head.
This brief moment, better yet, meeting this family, has been one of the nicest moments he had experienced.
In Newt's previous life, while he had it rough, he had multiple people to keep him going, not to mention the circumstances were less tense.
He had never truly hit rock bottom, but now that he had, the light at the end of the tunnel seemed all the brighter.
Giving Jared a kind thankful smile he shakes his head and decides to continue.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"We knocked out two guards after following them for a while, tried to mimic their mannerisms, and wore their gear. We got through the access point with the reason of M-Cynthia acting as one of the guys and saying she had to go to the toilet in the forest because the toilets were clogged."
Noticing a small smirk on Jared's face caused Newt to lightly chuckle before resuming his story.
"We thought we had tricked them, we had reached the forest and all, and then a voice echoed out, a single Drana user had found us."
Noticing Newt trembling slightly, he gives the kid a hug with his free arm and gives him time to explain.
"He was a... Devoted."
Suddenly, Newt dropped a bomb, the mere mention of the word freezing Jared in place as his breathing hitched, memories from years past suddenly flood through his mind, the experiences he had with them, causing him to spill his breakfast.
Newt was biting his life but tried to put a kind smile on and patting Jared on the back as he had once done.
Giving him some time to collect himself and seeing that he was ready Newt continued.
"Muh-Mum stayed back to distract and potentially kill the Devoted... For me... Sadly more guards had turned up, having not fallen for our trick, they had grouped up and came out to confront us. Getting ordered by the Devoted however to instead capture me whilst he killed the 'witch'."
Newt coughs out, small sobs interrupting his explanation, Jared offers to wait for him to compose himself again but Newt shakes his head and continues on.
"So while I ran away, I couldn't.... I couldn't even fucking run away correctly! They followed the clear path my trail led, barely realizing after running out of breath, I tried to fix the mistake but it was too late, I wasted too much time and stamina beforehand.
Mum was... A genius." Tears falling from his face, a small smirk showing through the tear stained face, "Or more accurately, a 'pioneer' in her field. Making Artifacts, I won't go into it in detail as her only disciple." He sadly smiles thinking back, shaking his head and continuing.
"She had a few artifacts she had made, mostly for trickery or illusion. One of them, the one she gave to me, allowed the user to falsify the perceived reality within its boundaries, that is to say, it makes an illusion that all can see and are affected by within this boundary, outside the boundary, people will still see the illusion however.
So. Sniff. Finding a small clearing of trees and noticing the guards on my tail, I rushed to put the artifact pieces into suitable corners to setup the boundary, and well. I succeeded. I could cause an illusion that could fool them, but they had me, my physical body, not an illusion. It can fool sight but it can't fool things like touch, smell or other senses.
Since they had me I desperately tried to come up with a solution, considering what Mum had told me about the church, or more accurately how anyone outside of newly joined recruits would act to 'demons'." Newt spat out the last word with spite.
"Th-th...This.... The plan was..." Giving himself a moment to stop his tears and sobbing he continues. "The only plan I could come up with was, to either assume Mum had escaped, or... She had died. Leaving me enough room to escape without having to worry about anyone else. Since the guards weren't apart of the church, merely following the orders of the church in this city, I thought I could maybe abuse their more kinder side, since they wouldn't have been fully indoctrinated by the Church.
I underestimated the reach and depth of the Church's influence, none even listen to me, and any that did, didn't respond.
However they weren't just going to kill a child in cold blood right? Their orders were to 'capture' me, not to kill me, and even if they were, would they be so cruel as to just execute me? Initially I had the thought, 'Can't be', afterwards however, definitely... Without question.
Luckily the orders from the Devoted was to Capture me, probably the main reason I survived.
So all I could do was watch, wait and pray that Mum had escaped."
He bites his lips harder, blood spilling out, "That fucking bastard killed her! In cold blood! All she did was take a few documents! Fuck!" He swore, cursing the unfairness of his new reality.
"That's... Just how it is... Sadly." Jared speaks up with a deep sigh of regret.
"So I see him approach, that fucking hero candidate! Hah, in what world do heroes execute the innocent!"
"Sadly, ours, this is our world, what we, Jen and I, fought to change."
Jared speaks up again, lamenting the past, continuing his sentence, "The price for us fighting against the status quo? Barry and Pierre."
He looks up into the sky, reminiscing.
"Barry and Pierre?"
"Tanya's brothers."
"Oh... I'm sorry."
"What do you have to be sorry for? It's not like its your fault, hell you have experienced something similar. Can't imagine little Tanya trying to survive in this world without her parents." Jared sighs.
"Seriously though, your luck was horrendous, a hero candidate was your first devoted? That is probably the third worst possible outcome possible."
"Third?"
"I figured getting attacked by an actual hero and literal Gods would be higher."
"Understandable." Sniff.
"Sorry for sidetracking your story again."
"Its fine." Clearing his throat Newt continues, his emotions more stable.
"The bastard walked over, casually cleaning his sword as if it wasn't the blood of my fucking mother on his-! No sorry, back on track, i called out, 'Where's Mum', The first time I ever called her that, and his response? 'Dead' Fuck.
It...It broke me, he was just casually cleaning his sword and speaking as if nothing of impact had occurred, like this was his usual Gods damned routine!
Then...Then that bastard." Darkly chuckling as his experiences become crystal clear in his mind, spitting out. "He started pretending like he was forced to commit a terrible act, because the 'devil-spawn' had 'corrupted' me, to the guards, worst part? Though his acting was shit as only those church fanatics within the guard truly believed him but that's not important, the bastard took what Cynthia had stolen and transferred it into his storage ring.
Lamenting the fact a small child was tainted by evil, he sent the guards back, leaving him and me, not wanting them to see the 'sad sight'.
The bastard dropped the act, back to his lackadaisical attitude, he of course, complimented her on her skill and her planning, and then turned blank face, looked me right in my eyes and said, 'She's dead Kiddo'. Can you fucking believe that?!"
"H-hee. Fuck sorry." He wipes the tears that had broken away from his eyes. "He fucking-hoof. The bastard looked me back in my fucking eyes, and said 'Would you like to hear her last words?', shocked me, like, the church? Doing something somewhat kind? Impossible. Right?"
"I mean, there are good people in the church. Just, usually people who are less connected to the church as a whole." Jared reasoned to the sobbing Newt, quickly apologizing, "Right, sorry, probably not what you want to hear right now."
Shaking his head a little to say it was fine he continued. "That fucking bastard, looked me in the eyes and said, 'her last words were 'He's only a child''. I-i... In her last moments, she cared about me more than herself." Tears falling from his face, seemingly endless.
"And he just disregarded it entirely, and stabbed me immediately after conveying her words. That sadistic fucking bastard!" Newt barely gets out as he breaks down, falling to the floor with tears flooding out, Jared setting the container aside and getting on his knee's, giving Newt a hug and a rub on the back.
"It's alright kid, let it all out. I'll be here the entire way." He calmly soothes Newt, Tanya nowhere to be seen luckily.
------
Calming down after a couple of minutes Newt wipes his eyes.
"You alright now kid?"
Jared asks with a worried look.
"I'll survive."
Newt replies.
"Anyway, I didn't talk about the best part."
Newt snaps back, wanting to continue the story, though Jared disagreed.
"Newt, I understand all that, but could we quickly drop off the fish? Its sitting out here in the open hot air and we are a 5 minute walk away from the house, I don't know about you but I don't want Dinner or lunch to be spoilt, or even worse, to get Tanya angry." Jared trembles a little.
"Yeah alright, just come to my room after drop it off, we can continue this... If you'd like?" Newt asks, feeling worried at having kept him busy for so long.
"I'd be glad to kid." Jared agrees with a kind smile.
------
Creeeeak
The bedroom door creaks open as Jared reveals himself to the room, coming face to face with Newt, who was noticeably drowsy.
"You want to go to sleep? It's fine if you do."
Yawwwn, "I want to finish first."
A short nod from Jared and a gesture to continue the story begins Newt's excited exclamation and thrilling escape at the end of his journey, admittedly Newt was telling the experience far more excitedly and enthusiastically than the other parts, although that was understandable.
"The guards had tied me up, however, they didn't tie it as tight as they planned, puffing out my chest with a lungful of air to expand my surface area, and to make them falsely believe I had been tied fully? That was where the illusion artifact comes in! Making them seem like I was helpless. Of course I had to keep this illusion up even after they had left, though I probably could have gotten away with it, just wasn't worth it in my opinion.
Once that bastard arrived and sent the guards away, I stealthily moved slightly, over whilst making an illusion that I was laying still. although the artifact could confuse visual senses, it was limited to just that, meaning one thing. I had to let him stab me. to convince him, this was literally the only option I had for a chance of escape that I could think of, I mean, I don't think I can outrun a Devoted, much less a Hero candidate, so the best option was to make him think he succeed, so don't look at me like that." Newt gestures at Jared's face which was full of confusion.
Putting his hands up to surrender, Newt continues.
"The best part? He entirely failed the entire mission, he not only didn't kill me but... He didn't even take the documents!" Newt bursts into laughter, a triumphant laughter with a hint of sadness.
"Admittedly when he put his ring forward I was confused what it was, briefly remembering Mum mention the Storage Ring, I took a shot in the dark, and hit the bullseye! Completely fooled! Now I'm miles away and he's none the wiser, at least until he checks his ring for it." Newt says with a shrug and a smile.
Jared clapped enthusiastically, admiring the youth for the trouble he went through and most importantly that he came out alive! Though a creeping suspicion was crawling up his back.
"Newt, did the Devoted ever say anything about a Quest or Mission he had to complete?"
Newt tilts his head briefly before replying, "No, admittedly i didn't talk to him long before he stabbed me."
"Okay that's good." Breathing a sigh of relief, putting his hand on his chest.
Newt confusedly looks over with a tilt of the head.
"What do you know about the Holy Guide Newt?"
"Not much, they 'level up' to get stronger, and that its some program."
"Program? Anyway that isn't important, you see, Devoted are blessed with the Holy System, they don't have to manually strengthen themselves, merely kill or on rare cases, do the job they follow, such as a healer gaining 'level ups' from healing.
On the other hand, one of the best ways to 'Level up' and gain 'skills' as some Devoted of the past have mentioned, is something they call 'Quests', which are just missions supposedly sent by the Gods, with rewards and if you fail, a penalty."
"Oh... So you think...?"
"Right, though he didn't mention anything so hopefully he doesn't have a 'Quest' concerning all this, otherwise well, Devoted are often the definition of vengeful."
Getting a slight chill run up his spine, he shakes off the possibility and yawns.
Though it was only a little past midday, Newt was emotionally and mentally exhausted, he wanted nothing but to just fall asleep.
"Drowsy i see? Before you fall asleep, to respect your privacy i would like to ask, would it be alright if i told Jennifer about your actual history? I don't plan on telling Tanya till she's older."
A small nod later and Newt is drifting into unconsciousness.
"Night Newt, may your dreams be peaceful. I'll have food ready for you when you wake up." Jared sends a relaxed smile towards Newt.
Newt was far from awareness of his surroundings, falling into a similar dream from the previous night, nonetheless, it takes a turn for the better, Cynthia and Newt escaping, lightly injuring the guards and killing the Devoted. Flying off to a Magical spire where she teaches him more magic, more about Magi-Artificing, and eventually, pioneer both the Magic field of Study and Artificing to a whole new realm.