“We were worried sick!” Sonja cried. She had apparently been crying since before Eik got back, but it had intensified once they found out he had survived the attack.

They were walking back toward Forest with Eik and Michael carrying Heath between them. A stretcher had been provided for the big tank who still hadn’t woken up after almost being killed by a punch from Rock Fist Bart meant for Eik.

He was alive but had been in critical condition until a C-rank healer had come to their rescue at the request of Andrew Brooks, whom they had met after the fighting was over with. Now he was somewhat stable, but would probably not wake up for the next couple of days at the earliest.

The only reason why Rock Fist Bart hadn’t finished the job and murdered the three of them after Eik had been swallowed was, according to Michael, that the cowardly D-ranker had gone pale as a sheet upon the arrival of the lake serpent and fled for his life, leaving all of the other Awakened to fend for themselves, including his two lackeys.

Almost immediately the high-rankers had caught up, led by Travis Lockwood and Boulder Fist Gary, and continued the battle with the monster, thus allowing Michael and Sonja to carry Heath to safety.

The monster surge that had hindered the procession on the way to the lake was almost completely absent now on the way back. The theory being that the death of the “king” of the forest had frightened the wild life into meekness.

As they walked they were passed by team after team without an unconscious teammate. Heath’s skin was looking much healthier after the C-rank healer had treated him, but severe redness combined with the epidermis peeling off in thin, scaly chunks made him look like he’d fallen asleep at the beach.

“’Sup, traitor?” a voice called, coming up from behind. “We heard you’re responsible for this whole mess as well now? Is that true? It wouldn’t surprise me or anyone else for that matter. It is what a traitor would do after all.”

Eik glanced back over his shoulder. A thoroughly combed, blonde bowl cut bobbed up on his shoulder. Some foulmouthed jerk, who Eik could vaguely recollect having met before, seemed to be attached to the bottom of it.

Eik stared for a moment without stopping. He wanted to ask how his bowl cut still looked so pristinely groomed after what their entire force had been through. "I'm not interested anymore, man."

“I—, What?” the guy said, momentarily taken aback by the answer. “You think that’s going to make everybody forget how you summoned the monster to attack us?”

“Where did you get that idea from anyway?” Eik asked but the realization came to him immediately after. “Has the axe guy been yapping again? I thought he had been put in his place.”

“How did you know that?” mushroom head asked with a frown.

Eik glanced at Michael who looked as annoyed as Eik felt. The healer’s request to ignore the provocations echoed in his mind. Mr. Bowl cut was glaring like an offended toddler. Eik stayed silent.

“I asked how you knew!” blondie asked again, coming a few paces closer.

Eik just sighed, doing his best to not let the invitation to argue affect him. “Just a lucky guess, I suppose. How about we stop it here?” he offered quietly. “I think you got your point through, and I really just want to get home quickly and take care of my friend.” He nodded pointedly down at Heath’s wrecked body.

“It does look pretty serious,” the guy said, stretching his thin neck to get a better look. He almost looked like he was about to call it a day and walk away but his nasty tongue just couldn’t resist. “So, how does it feel to be responsible for the murder of your fat friend there?”

Eik froze. Michael and Sonja did the same. The bowl cut saw it and swaggered back to get into Eik’s face. “Hold this for a second,” Eik said to Sonja, voice barely above a whisper, and handed her his end of Heath’s stretcher. If not for the flames of anger that consumed his mind, he would have worried about shattering his teeth with how tightly his jaw was clenched.

As he turned to face bowl cut, Profound Toxin surged unbidden down his arms to coalesce around his clenched fists, mixing into the blood flowing from puncture wounds made by his nails digging into his palms. The blue liquid leapt and danced excitedly, globules of the stuff rippling toward the blonde man as if to urge Eik to get at him quicker.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Mr. Bowl cut really didn’t seem to have foreseen the onslaught whatsoever, because he received the first fist to the nose with his hands still buried in his pockets. A rope of poison trailed him as he fell backward but Eik didn’t let him go, slamming another fist into his lips and following it up with a crisp left hook to the body.

Each of the hits infused with Profound Toxin left angry burns on blondie.

As the man fell onto his back with a breathless gasp, he managed to construct a feeble defense with arms raised in front of his head. Blue toxin rushed rapidly from his hands to his feet as if reading Eik’s thoughts, just in time for the first of a series of vicious stomps to mushroom head’s legs and midsection.

The couple that got him in the fruits and vegetables were blessed accidents and nothing else.

Eik only managed to deliver a handful more clean shots to his face and body before bowl cut’s friends seized him by the shoulders to pull him off their leader.

Instantly Profound Toxin exploded out of his entire body, billowing above his shoulders like tidal waves and threatening to consume the two henchmen. Like a pair of reversed wings, luminescent poison curled in on the two men and enveloped them in a swirling cage of opaque blue. Eik’s eyes never left the supine man.

The moment they let him go again it returned to his body without the slightest hint of defiance, as if his wrath had pushed the substance into obedience.

With resolute steps he marched the few paces back to the blonde man whose bowl cut was most certainly no longer pristine. He looked terrified and even the twin blades sheathed at his belt seemed to have been forgotten.

Eik didn’t even know his name. All he knew was the animosity he felt—animosity that was fueled, intensified, and skewed by recent events. Even as he prepared another attack, the thought that what he was doing to this man was not proportional to the grievances suffered crossed his mind, but a fist covered in poison still descended.

A hand caught his before it could make contact, the grip solid like stone. “Eik,” Andrew Brooks said. His eyes were hard and most of the warmth that could usually be seen there was absent. “What in the world do you think you’re doing right now?”

Eik didn’t try to break free and simply relaxed in a gesture of surrender. He wasn’t sure if he had been hoping for someone to stop him, because he had not been able to stop himself.

“Mister Brooks!” Michael called as he put down the stretcher carefully and came running. “I swear this is not what it looks like! That guy just came up to us and started spewing all this crap about bet—”

Andrew held up a hand to stop the young man’s flood of words. “I’m neither deaf nor blind. I am perfectly capable of figuring out exactly what brought this about,” he said with a look of disdain directed at the downed man and his cronies.

Eik reabsorbed all of his poison from bowl cut as he writhed in pain on the ground, the substance flowing out of the man’s mouth and nose obediently. It was almost as if the Profound Toxin was satisfied that it had seen Eik lose his temperament, so now it was willing to capitulate and calm down for a bit.

Michael sighed in relief and Eik would be lying if he said he didn’t share the feeling. “Exactly, Mister Brooks!” Michael said. “They just appeared out of nowhere and harassed us! And they had already done it once bef—”

“But!” Andrew continued, his raised voice booming with authority. “If you think an assault like this is an appropriate response to a verbal provocation, then you’re sorely mistaken.” His eyes were filled with lightning as he glared at Eik, the disappointment clear as muddy foot prints on a new, white carpet.

“You think their actions only amount to verbal provocations?” Sonja hissed and got into the much larger man’s face with a finger stabbing at his chest. “You say you’re neither blind nor deaf, but if you don’t know how vicious that faction is, then you’re severely overestimating your own senses.” She was absolutely fuming with righteous anger on her brother’s behalf.

“Aren’t you a leader of our community? How can you draw conclusions after witnessing only a single incident when you know there’s unrest? Some people don’t like that we were the ones to become involved with the Nidafjeld Alliance and you know that too!”

She marched back to pick up Heath’s stretcher.

“And by the way, if you think my brother’s injuries were caused by a monster, then you’d only be half right. How about you look into that properly before you condemn our right to defend ourselves?” she finished, waving Eik and Michael over with an agitated gesture.

“I—, What are you…?” Andrew mumbled uncomprehendingly, trailing off as she walked away.

Eik took a last look at the bowl cut he had crushed into the ground and let his eyes wander to the teammates standing over him as well. “We’ll keep it civil if you do, but step over the line and you’ll see exactly how willing this “traitor” is to smear your faces into the pavement.”

Bart had already stepped over the line, and Eik would do something about that. There was no going back on that. But he didn't have to escalate anymore than he already had with these people who were probably just goaded into it by Rock Fist Bart's faction.

As he passed Andrew Eik shot the confused man an apologetic look. He was sad, although not overly surprised, that it had come to this, but he would never regret standing up for a friend.

“Sorry, Mike,” he said to the healer once they had walked for a couple of minutes.

Michael looked at him askance. “What are you sorry for?”

“This morning you asked me to turn the other cheek to their jabs. I think it’s fair to say I failed miserably at that.”

Michael pulled a face. “I was actually about to ask you what the hell you thought you were doing back there,” he said with a strict tone. “Twelve punches to the face? I would personally have gone for something closer to thirty,” he said, flashing a cheeky grin.

Eik and Sonja both chortled at that. It was nice with a dose of laughter to calm down after all of that. Picking a foolish fight with a superior opponent felt slightly better with friends.

Rock Fist Bart had started this whole thing, but Eik would be the one to finish it.