Ordwell clenched his fist around the small red feather within it. The woman lying in the young girl's arms below him had been a long time friend and ally in his fight. To see her like this, Ordwell couldn’t forgive himself. He had been too slow. If he had just entered the city faster. Even before that, if he had never asked Wendy and Kayde to move out to S-012. If he had never asked them to watch the Verilo’s.

“Ma… ma…” The young girl holding Wendy softly cried out for her mother. Aria Towsend. Wendy and Kayde’s daughter. A young girl, whose life Ordwell had sent into chaos twice now. If his son knew just what he had done to the girl who had once been his closest friend, Ordwell was sure that his son would hate him.

“Aria.”

The young girl looked up at him, tears steadily flowing down her cheeks. The pain in his chest grew.

He had no right to ask of her anything else. He had no right to ask what he wanted her to do.

But, Ordwell couldn’t let go of his fight. Ordwell would become a monster in Aria’s eyes if he had to. He would ask her to let go of her dead mother. He would ask her to forgo grieving a lost loved one, and instead save someone else.

He would not apologize. He would not make concessions. To her or to anyone else.

And in return, he would unleash unto the one that killed Wendy a hell unlike any other.

Jack Cariatal.

A man Ordwell saw himself in. They shared a similar reason for hating the same enemy. And yet he threw it away. He took the easy road. Jack went for a false end to his pain. And in doing so, killed someone who had been on their side.

Ordwell found himself behind the older male Verilo. He watched as the man fell, the life gone from his eyes by the time he hit the ground. His wife called out his name as Ordwell stepped by him. A second person that Ordwell had hoped to recruit to his side; was dead.

“Or-Ordwell!?”

Jack had seen who was now in front of him. But the Ordwell that was standing there no longer showed any emotions on his face. His mind had long since abandoned any thought except for the death of the Hunter standing in front of him.

The flames of anger swirled within him, threatening to pop him at the seams. Ordwell didn’t feel the stone spear that passed through his heart. He simply blinked and felt the flames within his fist dissipate before reappearing around the new wound he had sustained. Within a minute the flames covering his wound disappeared, showing brand new skin where there shouldn’t be any.

The flames of the phoenix keep those who wield them alive, even in the direst of circumstances.

Jack Cariatals face betrayed the shock he was feeling. He was stumbling over his words as he tried to get away from Ordwell. Ordwell found Jack so insignificant that he didn’t bother remembering the words.

Ordwell reached inside his shirt, plucking at something on the right side of his chest. When he pulled his hand out of his shirt, it held another crimson feather.

Jack turned when he saw it, trying to get as far away as he could. It was a desperate maneuver that failed in the end.

The crimson feather embedded itself in Jack’s back before quickly igniting in a blaze of fire.

The explosion sent Jack flying forward with a significantly burned and scorched back. Yet he still got up. When he saw this, Ordwell reached in and grabbed yet another feather out. This one landed in the dirt in front of Jack. Its explosion burned half of Jack’s face as he flew even further away, stopping when he crashed into one of the smaller sheds surrounding the town center.

The feathers of the phoenix don’t just heal, but also harm those that they are directed at.

Ordwell knew all too well the power in the feathers. He had used them to sustain his life for nearly three hundred years. And in that time, he had killed plenty of people with the explosion from the feathers. 99% of people wouldn’t survive a single explosion, let alone two.

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So when Jack continued to move after being hit with two of the feathers, Ordwell’s vision ran red. He reached into his shirt and plucked two more feathers out of his skin. He raised his hand, ready to throw both of them at the burned excuse for a person lying nearly five mer in front of him.

“-op! Minister Chapman, stop! Please!” A pleading voice cut through the red in Ordwell’s vision. Two hands were wrapped around his arm, desperately pulling it back to stop him from throwing the two feathers. He looked to his side, only to see a crying Casey straining herself to stop him.

“Casey! Stop holding me back! I don’t care-”

“I’m not stopping you because of my own feelings!” Casey cut him off, shouting to get him to shut up. “It’s over, Minister. This is now a new City-State. If you kill him here, you will be marking their beginning with needless bloodshed! Just take him into custody and let a tribunal decide what to do with him!”

Ordwell looked around at her words. Where there had once been a churning black maelstrom of Irradiation, Aria Towsend now sat on the ground, Nic Verilo asleep with his head on her lap. Kayde was crying over Wendy’s body, grieving the death of his wife. In the opposite situation, the two parents of Nic Verilo were on the ground closer to Ordwell. The wife was crying over her husband's lifeless body.

Around the Town Center, the residents of the former Rad-Town known as S-012 were either looking at Ordwell himself with fear, or looking at the Verilos and Towsends with hate and disgust in their eyes.

Ordwell looked between the scenes in front of him, Casey’s face and the burned body nearby. He heaved a great sigh before fully lowering his hand.

“Casey, go tie Mr. Cariatal up. And only once you have done that, use this on him,” Ordwell took one of the feathers in his hand and gave it to the still sobbing Casey in front of him. “It should heal him enough to keep him alive until he can face a tribunal in Sanum.” Casey took the feather and slightly nodded. She slowly started walking towards the burned body of the one she always claimed she loved.

Ordwell couldn’t stand to look at the one who had betrayed him any longer so he turned around and walked up to Aria and the sleeping Nic. He kneeled down on one knee by Aria before speaking up.

“How is he?”

The girl beside him gave a jump as he started speaking. She had been so engrossed in making sure Nic slept well and the people giving them dirty looks that she hadn’t noticed Ordwell come up to her.

“Asleep. I don’t know when he will wake up… or even if he will…”

The boy in her lap was sleeping peacefully. His face was so serene that it didn’t even seem like he had just gone through a trial that could have resulted in his death. But Ordwell knew that his body was most likely extremely taxed after what he did. In the hopes of helping him recover any bit faster, Ordwell held out the other feather in his hand to Aria.

“Use this on him, it should help his body recover faster.”

Aria’s face lit up with happiness and gratitude as she took the feather from Ordwell. When she reached up to grab the feather. Ordwell noticed a small gray blob sitting in her lap.

“What’s that?”

“Hmmm? This?” Aria motioned to the blob in her lap, to which Ordwell nodded. “I’m pretty sure it is the wind spirit that lent Nic its strength.”

Ordwell assumed as much. He had seen elemental spirits enough times to know what they looked like. But as far as he knew, a wind elemental spirit should have been a light green, not gray.

“I found him in Nic’s hand… I think he acted as the focal point for the vortex, drawing all of the Irradiation into itself so Nic could then absorb it from him.” The elemental spirit was dying of Irradiation Sickness. That was what she was saying. It was something unheard of. Usually, something like that would have resulted in the merging of the human soul and the elemental spirit, creating a demihuman.

“So, it’s been drained of its power. It’s as good as dead then. A shame.” Ordwell had heard of this happening but had never seen it himself. If an elemental spirit expended all of its energy, then it would die soon after. He bowed his head in respect for the sacrifice that the spirit had made for Nic.

“Does it have to die though? What if I just feed it some of my magic by pouring the wind into it?” Ordwell closed his eyes. He had to tell her it was pointless, but he didn’t want to make her feel even more powerless than she probably already felt. As far as Ordwell knew, there was only one way to “recharge” an elemental spirit, and…

“See! It’s slowly regaining its color!” Aria’s hopeful cries grabbed Ordwell’s attention immediately, stopping his thoughts where they were and forcing his eyes open. In front of him, Aria was performing the impossible. The elemental spirit in her lap was regaining its light green color as she sent wind imbued with her magic into it.

Ordwell looked at Aria incredulously. What she was doing was supposed to be impossible. The only thing that should be able to do what she was doing… were… the eight spirit progenitors…

“Aria… I have a proposition for you.”