Andrew

“Backs to me!” Sophie called. Her commanding voice snapped Andrew out of his momentary shock, and he huddled close along with the others. With a sword in hand, Andrew enveloped himself in knight’s armour. The dark energy of his power seeped over him like a second layer of skin. As Andrew eyed the barely visible slopes beyond, he drew himself closer between Flynn, Sophie, and Natalie. All four of them stood back-to-back, scanning all four sides between them as they drew out their weapons.

“They’re heading straight towards us,” Natalie said. She had to be using her angel sight to see them. Andrew could barely make out five figures descending from the foot of a massive slope. He knew there were others.

Their howls carried on the sudden gusts of wind. Andrew’s cloak tasselled in rhythm with the rustling forest. A tempest of leaves danced among them, obscuring his vision. Andrew was finding it harder to pinpoint the encroaching howls that encircled them. Andrew could not discern the amount and direction of their pursuers. He believed they stood directly in the path of civilization. Andrew could see the glimmer of the town lights just beyond them. As they approached, he heard howls on the winds.

It took Andrew a moment to concentrate fully. Although gale affinity was his weakest element, he chastised himself for not recognizing it sooner.

“It’s a Gale affinity!” he shouted over the roaring winds.

“Spirit animals,” Sophie murmured. Beasts with the power to control the elements were no simple matter. The tempest of wind curled around them, and swirling leaves taunted Andrew as the wall of wind crept closer. Its length stretched several feet into the sky. Surrounded, Andrew found it increasingly difficult to spot the figures approaching as they slinked under the shroud of darkness. Given the spectacle and sheer scale of the wind, over twenty spirit animals have created it, all instinctively coordinating their gale powers in unison to forge this one potent tempest. In the corner of his eye, Andrew observed Sophie turning and thrusting her staff outward. The crystal end emitted a pure white glow that seized his attention. An enormous wolf charged through the vortex of wind and leaves, poised to pounce toward her. But before it could reach her, the wolf collided with a nearly invisible wall of light that flickered between them.

With hind paws scraping for perches on the suspended wall of light, the wolf snapped its jaws at Sophie’s face. Its teeth shimmered with gale energy with each bite. Like passing winds through grassy plains, its fur danced in response to its own show of power. Flynn’s sword came crashing into the wolf’s flank, making it cry out as it staggered back and retreated into the cover of the vortex. Between them, Andrew knew Flynn had the most powerful strike. If Flynn could not cleave through the wolf’s elemental armour, then...

“No, that’s not what’s happened here,” he said. He looked at Flynn now, really looked at him. He could see the same grim determination on his features that he imagined he had, along with the same eagerness he had seen in him during their battle. But behind the outward front, his body was already betraying him. Flynn fought for breath, his knees shaking from the sheer ordeal of standing. As Andrew noted the sweat running down Flynn’s face, he truly understood for the first time just how royally he had messed up.

“These odds are working against us!” Sophie declared. Andrew glanced at Sophie, fatigue evident on her face. How had he not noticed this sooner? Natalie glared at him in disapproving silence. She had tried to warn him. He was a fool. He wished he could take the words back. A flicker of understanding flashed in her eyes then. Perhaps his face showed remorse.. Part of him wished she could remain angry with him. It was about as much as he deserved. As the wolves’ howls mocked them, Natalie turned her back on civilization and bolted in the opposite direction.

They came rushing in soon after—three of them! As instincts kicked in, Andrew threw himself at the wolf closest to him, shifting to one side and meeting the wolf’s flank with the pass of his blade. Instead of slicing along its side, the wolf caught his weapon in its mouth. A low, deep growl rumbled from its throat as the wolf’s golden eye fixed on him.

“Look out!” White teeth flashed near his wrist as a streak struck something just out of sight. The wolf staggered to regain its footing. This provided Andrew with enough time to channel more power into his blade and deliver a slashing strike at the first wolf. The blade dug into the wolf’s front leg, blood seeping through its fur as it struggled to maintain balance. His mind raced, contemplating what the wolves had nearly achieved.

They tried to tear off his arm. They intentionally aimed to remove Andrew from his weapon. The thought made Andrew swallow.

Spirit animals are known for their intelligence, he thought. This moment made him nervously readjust his grip on his father’s blade.

“Us two can still fight,” Natalie said, nodding toward Andrew and herself. “But I can’t fight properly without…” Natalie left the sentence hanging, and Andrew understood why. She could summon a storm cloud and use her angel sight to see the nearby wolves and strike them down with bolts of thunder, but using that power now would obscure the moon, the only light source they had left. Although Andrew was fairly sure Sophie did not know the extent of Natalie’s abilities, she nodded grimly, as if coming to a similar understanding.

“Fight our way towards Progmanfest or fly in retreat. What will it be?” Sophie asked. Being the only two fighters remaining, the choice fell upon them. Another wolf jumped into the vortex, distracting them. Four sharp beams of compressed air emanated from the wolf’s claw and crashed into the face of his blade. The barely visible, ranged, air-based attack staggered Andrew from the sheer weight of its blow. He had expected mid-range attacks from creatures capable of harnessing the elements. What shocked him was the sheer speed at which such an attack came.

Andrew recovered as another wolf charged in behind the first, leaping towards Sophie. Andrew stabbed its flank as a third wolf tackled Sophie’s strange energy wall. As soon as Andrew made the third wolf flee, Sophie wilted from her efforts. Keeping one concerned eye on Sophie and hearing Natalie fighting somewhere behind him, Andrew nodded to himself.

“I think I see a place where we can hide, this way!” Natalie made a run further away from the village. Sophie looked at her incredulously before pulling herself upright and taking on a steady stride. As Flynn ran alongside her, Andrew took one last glance at his surroundings before catching up. He fell into a pace behind Sophie and Flynn as he guarded the rear. As they passed through the vortex, they got a better view of the open field under the cool moonlit sky. Strength came to Andrew despite his own fatigue. This was in part because he was in his element. The night was mature, the moon bathed its cooling light upon the land. Andrew was in the best environment he could ask for to use his powers. Much like an aqua knight can get a boost in power when fighting by water or a flame knight becomes powerful by using live flame, Andrew’s affinity bloomed best in the chilling stillness of darkness.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

This often, however, came with the setback of not being able to see much of what he was doing. However, today he could not ask for a more perfect setting. Between this and Natalie’s help, Andrew was fairly sure that they could fend off the wolves for as long as they needed. He could hear them among their laboured breaths and swift footsteps. The frantic padding of paw prints trailed along their left and right. He could feel their glowing golden eyes scanning them for weakness. Andrew knew that outrunning them was impossible. The wolves were biding their time as they waited for fatigue to wear them down. Some wolves had suffered injuries from their attempted attacks, so they fell back on poking and prodding. They're run in search of shelter, felt more like a laboured walk to the executors’ block. Not a matter of if they get them, but when. It was soon getting harder to hear their footsteps chasing them. Andrew dared to hope that they had left their territory.

He foolishly thought this until he saw Natalie glance over her shoulder and, with a grimaced face, skid to a halt and turn back. The sound of countless howling wolves filled the night a second later. Andrew drew his sword—

“-Overhead!” a pack of wolves fell out of the sky, encircling Andrew. Before he could think, they jumped toward him. Dodging the first two and blocking the third, he threw the wolf to one side. The third wolf tumbled in the air before it broke its momentum mid-fall and launched back at him with tremendous speed—jaws snapping. Its power-infused teeth bit inches away from his neck. Andrew understood then how they got over them as he lost his footing.

He flipped back to his feet just in time to parry another gale claw, countering with a night slash mid-flip. Staggering back into a sprint, it shocked him to see the three wolves had dodged his projectile and retreated behind the vortex instead of pushing their aggression. Perhaps they used up too much energy to keep up such an offence. Natalie repelled her two attackers with a torrent of thunderous punches and kicks; a third wolf got a jumping roundhouse, sending it toppling onto the ground in a staggering mess. Flynn, Sophie, and Andrew jumped over the fallen wolf as they kept running. Six injured wolves escaped beyond the vortex, only to be replaced by seven. This time, they attacked Natalie, Flynn, and Sophie. Although Natalie dealt with her three in quick succession and Andrew flanked the two coming after Sophie, Flynn had to fend for himself against the last two.

He swatted one aside with his blade before being jumped by the other. Collapsing, Flynn struggled as he tried to shake the wolf off as it bit down on his wrist and shook it like some kind of plaything. Running as fast as he could, Andrew stabbed the wolf’s flank. The wolf, however, narrowly dodged the stab, retreating beyond the surrounding vortex with the rest of the pack. Gritting his teeth, Andrew stood guard, allowing Flynn time to recover.

“You okay?” Natalie asked Flynn over her shoulder. Andrew gave the man a hand to get back on his feet. Before he could thank him, Flynn seemed distracted. He looked at Natalie, his face a portrait of puzzlement. It did not take long for Andrew to piece together what he saw. With the dark night, Natalie’s angel sight was hard to overlook with its silent, purple glow.

“I’m… fine,” he pushed out. Andrew had to respect how fast Flynn accepted the oddity. Sophie hid her reactions much better. Had Andrew not seen her looking into Natalie’s eyes earlier, then he would have assumed that she’d missed them. Once they got out of this mess, they’d have answers to give to the pair.

Flynn’s arm was bleeding, but thanks to his knight’s armour, most of the damage was mitigated. As they got back to running, the wolves’ methods had once again changed. Instead of attacking all of them at random, they focused their efforts on Sophie and Flynn. They’d only strike at Natalie and Andrew when they intervened. Sometimes four came in, other times eight or nine; they were trying to whittle them down, targeting the apparent weakest among them. Their quick pace lulled into a shabby jog, their pace shattered as Flynn and Sophie had more close encounters. Despite their efforts to cover them, the wolves slip through thanks to their numbers. They avoided Natalie most of all, since she could strike them with thunder punches and kicks from a fair distance.

Being this closely packed together helped lessen the chances of the wolves getting to Flynn and Sophie, but it also made effectively repelling them riskier. They knew little about Sophie and Flynn as is, and it was all too easy to be struck down by an ally in such desperate situations. Andrew did his best to pull his punches. Soon, however, even that was working against him. He was in his element, and yet he could not truly use of his strengths.

I’ve already harmed everyone here by dragging them into this mess… It only took that moment of distraction for a wolf to get the slip on him.

The flash of electricity struck one wolf moments away from biting Andrew. He turned in time to see Natalie get tackled by another wolf. It came almost directly at her—it was hardly from an angle she could have overlooked, and yet…

She let it bite her to save me… There was an airy moment of silence as Natalie toppled mid-sprint and came crashing onto the ground in a heap.

“Natalie!” Andrew tried to reach Natalie, but two more wolves intercepted him from behind. Before he could stop and think, two more went after Flynn and Sophie. Gritting his teeth, he gave one last glance at Natalie before bolting back for Sophie and Flynn. In bitter anger, he cut both wolves in a blink. This time, they had little time to avoid his strike. Andrew was through, holding nothing back. Sophie dropped her staff as another of those walls of light faded into crystal-like fragments between them. Flynn, who struggled against a wolf that jumped on top of him, simply rose to his feet and drunkenly looked about. He expected more attacks after Andrew saved him, but finding none, he tried to walk off the fatigue. By then, Natalie had not only fought off the wolf that pinned her down, but she’d also struck down the others that were on track to attack Andrew and the others. She held her shoulder now. A splattering of blood ran between her fingers as she took in a long, heavy breath. For Natalie, of all people, to be showing signs of fatigue was a bad sign.

The wolf’s howls washed over them as if in mocking victory. ‘Not long before they kill themselves, some humans,’ Andrew imagined it said. He saw Natalie look at Flynn and Sophie, who could barely move right before turning to him. She searched his eyes for some kind of plan, some way out of this. ‘It was his fault’ was the only thought he could conjure. Natalie’s eyes closed in surrendering assent. No other choice, it read. She will risk harming them to save them. It was not until Natalie turned to the spinning vortex surrounding them with a face hardened, purple eyes glowing, and the surrounding atmosphere suddenly cooled to something dry and static that it hit him. He knew what to do. Just as Natalie’s storm was about to swallow them in complete darkness, Andrew latched onto her hand, breaking her focus.

“Let go Andrew, I have to—”

“—I’ve got a better idea,” Andrew cut in. He could barely make out her features in the growing darkness, but he gleaned enough to know that her face went from incredulous confusion to chilling realisation in a blink. Seeing that she understood, Andrew gave Natalie a sheepish grin just as her storm clouds faded just enough for the moonlight to return and help Andrew spot the next wave of wolves closing in. He pushed her out of the way and moved aside himself as one wolf leapt through the space they occupied. Natalie caught the wolf mid-bound by its hind leg. Shocking it with her power, she tossed it back out of the vortex just as Andrew took care of two others. Seeing Natalie handle the last three over his shoulder, Andrew grew more hopeful that this daring plan might work. The wolves were out for blood, but whose blood they got was not their chief concern. For them, the easiest target was prime prey. Though weakened, Flynn and Sophie were still safer in numbers. After them, the wolves likely saw Andrew as the next prime target. So what would happen if he, the third most targeted of the group, split himself from the others?

Picking a direction, Andrew steeled himself and ran. He hardly caught Natalie calling his name as he pushed through the encircling vortex and ran in the opposite direction from the others.