Progress was a lot faster now with Mr. Adderson lighting the path. Light magic had a distinct advantage over the innate dark magic Tia and I were able to see in the dark with. We could not extend the benefit to others.

Mr. Adderson hovered with his wind magic just above head height, and shined an ambient light downward from the palms of his hands for mother and Eirlathion. The two of them ran at something approaching half their top speed. Meanwhile, Tia and I did our best to stay out of the light as per my suggestion. If someone found us, our best bet would be to hide.

I noticed this problem immediately. There was definite value to having Mr. Adderson with us, but he had to be handled cleverly or else his presence could blow up in our faces. The biggest problem was his relative lack of magical training. It seemed he had gotten down a few basics of shining light around and using wind to fly, but when it came to subtleties like concealing his spirit energy ejections he was like a blazing sun to anyone with any semblance of sensitivity to these things. I could detect it without even trying. The boys were masters of concealment compared to him.

One would think that having him around really caused more harm than good if we wanted to make an escape unnoticed, but so long as he would listen to my suggestions he could still prove to be exactly the help we need.

I had Tia keeping her senses sharp for anyone approaching. Meanwhile, I was the one watching the ground level for any non-fey threats that may approach. A part of me was actually sort of eager to see some wild animal think we were easy prey. I wanted to test out my fire kata in combat. It’s the one move I never dared to put to use in training. The consequences if something went wrong with it were just too great.

“Asa!” Tia suddenly yelled a warning.

[Approaching from above!] I yelled back to the others. As was planned before hand, everyone else slowed to a stop. Meanwhile, Tia and I kept running for some distance before turning around to conceal ourselves and watch from a safe distance.

Soon enough, we were treated to a very similar scene from what we saw before when Mr. Adderson landed. Only, this new guy was only shining a gentle light on the area rather than the focused light Mr. Adderson had used to shine in everyone’s eyes. Guess that’s just a difference in training. He wasn’t using the light he could cast to his advantage the same way Mr. Adderson was trained to in his past life.

I couldn’t make out this new guy’s features in detail from this distance other than the fact that this new great fairy did indeed have a square frame that made me believe he was male from this distance. He had long blond hair, and was wearing a white robe with a shining silvery breast-plate on the front part of his chest. I didn’t have a good look at what it was like in the back, but I presume it must have been kept on with straps that allowed his wings room to flutter. Having wings definitely seemed to pose some issues for wearing armor.

The robe seemed to gradually fade to red at the cuffs of the sleeves and the bottom of the robe, and both of these areas also had a trim patterned with gold thread.

He cast a rough gaze over mother and Eirlathion who were holding Levin and Rolwen, and then his eyes immediately focused on Mr. Adderson.

[You. Outworlder. So, it looks like you completed the mission. Where are the bodies of the grey elves?]

The other great fairy addressed him with a rough disdainful tone. His deep voice verified I was correct in my earlier assessment of him being male. I couldn’t help but wonder though how Eirlathion’s poor brain was interpreting all of this. Made me sort of wish I’d had the time to explain more to him sooner, the man is probably so confused right now.

I shouldn’t be distracted by such things. This is a serious matter right now, and depending on how well Mr. Adderson is able to roll with this we might or might not have a real serious situation on our hands.

I waited with baited breath for Mr. Adderson’s response, but nothing came.

‘What did you just say? You know I can’t understand that ‘mei-ohm mei-ohm’ crap. Use your thought communication stuff if you want me to actually understand you.’

What the crap! How did I just hear Mr. Adderson’s voice in my head!?

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The fairy man let out a deep sigh, and then I started hearing his voice in my head in the exact same way.

‘I was asking you if you had the bodies of the grey elves. The nymph in that village is uncooperative. Since we cannot protect use that village as a base we will need the bodies of those grey elves to protect the village from future attacks. You didn’t leave them behind, did you!?’

‘Heh, you noble fairies are crazy if you think I was about to murder a couple of kids.’ Mr. Adderson’s mental voice growled at the other fairy. ‘The two of them ran off into the forest somewhere. If you psychos really have your sights on child murder that much then you can just keep combing the entire forest for all I care.’

Wow, nice! I almost let out an involuntary cheer at Mr. Adderson’s performance. That was an almost perfect response in this situation!

I was on the figurative edge of my seat awaiting the new guy’s response. He seemed taken a little off balance by the man’s blatant declaration and glared at him for several seconds.

‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. You got the humans. Let’s get them back to lord Indirniri and then bring them to the capital.’

I sensed things were about to start moving quickly, which meant I had to move even faster. And, there was only one solution to this situation I could see.

In a single fluid motion, I thrust my hand forward as though thrusting with a small knife in hand. I aimed for his center of mass, going for what a deer hunter might consider a shoulder shot. The actual location I was aiming was just above where his elbow might cover if his arms were at his sides, the exact angle where a heart shot might be within the realm of possibility. I felt the force of the wind as an invisible ball of hyper compressed air left my hand and shot forward.

Tia was very quick to notice what I had done and even quicker to react. Almost as though she was expecting it from the beginning and just waiting for my signal, she was off like a shot before we even saw the results of my attack.

There was a very loud and clear -chung- sound from the man’s armor, and he suddenly fell to the ground no longer able to support himself with wind magic. A hand went to his mouth and he seemed to not even understand what had just happened to him.

Mr. Adderson cast a quick glance off in the direction he knew we had previously run off to, and then immediately turned back to the great fairy. He dived down from his position in the air and grabbed the man by the hair and threw him to the ground. Then, he began bashing the man in the face over and over again.

By this point, Tia had gotten there. She jumped onto the man’s shoulder and immediately sunk her teeth in.

Mr. Adderson backed off a bit when he saw her head interject itself into the fray. He didn’t seem to know how to deal with it. He tried to shove her off, but she had a stubborn grip.

“Clear off! Clear off! Is he still alive?”

I yelled as I arrived at the clearing.

“What?”

Mr. Adderson asked as he snapped his head up to look at me.

“It is better if we don’t kill him.” I said and then very directly put myself between him and the man he was still pinning to the ground.

“Back off! This man is…” He tried to shove me aside in order to resume the attack.

I planted my knee on the downed man’s breastplate for stability and then delivered a palm strike to the inside of Mr. Adderson’s bicep. This disrupted his momentum long enough for me to hit him with the temporary anti-gravity of the earth kata, at which point I gave his chest a good shove.

He did not move very far. He had one hand still clinging to the fabric of the man’s robes after all. All it really managed to do was shift his weight off of the guy and get his attention a little.

“This man is sufficiently subdued for the moment!” I said to Mr. Adderson. “Tia, stop that and prepare to heal him. Don’t heal him yet though.” I told my sister and then immediately turned back to Mr. Adderson. “I know what I’m doing. No, I don’t have time to explain, but if we can keep him alive then it’s better for us.”

[Ghaaaa!] The great fairy we had just downed let out a groan and then a wet cough as a critically large quantity of bright red blood bubbled up from his mouth.

“Turn his head to the side!” I yelled in an urgent tone. A part of me knew full well Tia’s hands were literally full as she had already spat out the blood to be used for healing. Meanwhile, Mr. Adderson was not likely to follow my orders quickly in this situation. As such, my hands were already moving as I was shouting the order and I wound up being the only one carrying it out.

The man cleared his mouth of the blood but almost instantly coughed up more. He definitely didn’t have long to live at this rate. Seconds most likely. But, I still had to test something before I could Ok Tia to heal him.

I got to a standing position over the man and then shifted into a low horse stance. I was literally standing on the man’s fragile-looking fairy wing, but I didn’t mind it. I just brought my hand up to my forehead and began placing myself in the mental state for the fire kata. The kata which paradoxically robs all heat from it’s target.

In a single sharp motion, I brought my hand down on the center of the man’s breast-plate. Rather than any kind of metal-like sound, the impact made the sound of breaking glass as spider-web cracks spread out from the point of impact. The entire area I had struck was suddenly covered in ice crystals, and a second later a white vapor was rising from the cracked piece of metal.

-Tch- I tisked as I shook my hand in pain. This wasn’t quite the result I had been hoping for, but it was close enough. This would still be able to accomplish what I was aiming for.

“Alright, heal him.” I gave Tia the go-ahead. “Mr. Adderson, I am going to need you to keep a tight hold of his arm as soon as he is out of a critical state. Make sure to keep your hands above the shoulder and below the elbow.”