I woke up the next morning feeling like I’d had an epiphany overnight.
“You do realize how dangerous the trees are, right?” Amy said. “Especially if you don’t know how to climb properly- what are you doing?”
I kicked off my shoes and grabbed onto the tree, talons out. I climbed up the trunk expertly and hung upside-down by my legs, swaying slightly.
“Do continue,” I declared, crossing my arms.
“Do you even know any landmarks to pinpoint your area? Or anything about geography to begin with?”
I shrugged. “I’m sure I can figure it out.”
There was silence for a few moments.
“Is this some sort of convoluted way of you telling us that you want one of us to come with you?” Amy muttered.
“Nope,” I responded, unconvincingly.
“Of course it is… why do you have to be so confusing?”
I frowned. “Don’t get me started on confusing things, cause this conversation is going to get reflected right back at you until-”
“I’ll go,” Merry said over him. “I’ve had just about enough of you two arguing.”
I was going to snap back, but then thought about it for a moment.
Wow. Did Jason actually stop himself from snapping back like an alligator? Systie said in mock surprise. Maybe he’s undergoing some change.
“Did Jason just consider popping you open like a balloon again? Yes he did,” I responded in like.
So scary- eek! I swiped at the eyeball, but she dodged me easily. Did you really think you could catch someone with neary ten thousand Dex-
She was cut off as Mia hopped up and chomped down on her, starting her cooldown timer.
“You’re supplying her with the Mana you just voided, Mia,” I chastised.
She gave me a horrified look.
“You’re kinda the one who did that.”
Afterwards, Mia began to sulk and hid behind Amy, who looked very confused.
“It’s like taking care of two hyperactive children, one of whom thinks she’s above all, which is true in a way, and the other who eats. A lot,” I muttered. “Anyways, if you really want to come, get on my back and hold on.”
I dropped down in front of Merry and, in no time, I was climbing the tree at a blistering pace, hopping from branch to branch whenever I could, but otherwise pulling myself up the trunk. It took all of twenty or so seconds to reach the top and we peered over the canopy while I heard Amy yell below as Mia clearly did something dumb like climb into her shoulders.
I shook the leaves out of my hair and looked back at Merry, turning my head nearly 180 degrees.
“That’s creepy,” she muttered. “You’re not an owl. There’s no way Elven or Abyssal biology allows you to do that.”
I gave her an apologetic grin and turned my head even further until she slapped me. I rolled my eyes.
“You’re ruining my fun,” I said, snapping my head back in the correct direction. “Anyways, anything familiar around.”
“Other than the giant tree? No. I have no idea where we are. Give me a second.”
It was quiet for nearly a minute before she sighed. “Andromeda?”
“Hm? Found something?”
I felt her shake her head. I tilted my head. “What is it then?”
She pressed herself closer. “I don’t actually know any landmarks. I just wanted to be alone with you for a little bit. Everything still hurts from… all of that. But, you seem to not understand, do you?”
I thought about it for a long moment.
Systie hummed in acknowledgement.
“I understand minimally,” I responded. “I’m not saying I can relate, but I can understand.”
Merry held on tighter to me. “Sometimes, I want to go back and destroy everything. They put people in such pain, and think nothing of how they feel. Humans are just-”
She grit her teeth, which I heard quite clearly. Ah. Of course there’s going to be prejudice.
“Y’know, I used to live as a Human,” I started. She froze in place on my back. “Honestly, I lived a pretty sheltered life, all things considered. I never knew what I was, but my sisters did. I made a friend, and she’s certainly doing fine, despite everything. However, there are Humans who are objectively… immoral. And there are those who strive to be their best, but they just can’t manage. There are those who don’t know right from wrong, because they were brought up by uncaring parents.
“The point I’m getting at is that not everyone's the same, but there are certainly the bad apples. When you say ‘humans’, you’re insinuating that the entire Human race is immoral. That’s just not true and I think you know that. I also think that you just want someone to hate.”
She was quiet for a little while, but she then sighed. “You probably have a point. But you? A Human? That’s… suspiciously easy to believe. What are you planning?”
I shrugged. “I forgot to mention a group of Humans. There’s also the group of Humans who do stupid things just to do them. Though, that can be applied to all races, I guess.”
I leaned back and let go of the tree as Merry screamed at me.
~~~
“What? It wasn’t that bad,” I said, jumping onto a platform made of Void, which collapsed after straining to hold my weight. “Aw. Not strong enough.”
Merry pointed at me with a shaking hand. “You could’ve warned me! I don’t like high places!”
“Then why the hell did you go? I’m sure Amy could’ve climbed the thing herself and dropped down, though I think she’d try to land on her feet and kill herself.”
“That’s not far enough to kill me, idiot.”
I rolled my eyes at Amy. “Correction, Ms. I’m-confident-I’m-immortal, you’ll break every bone in your body.”
She scowled at me before looking away. “Whatever. So we have no idea where we are?”
“All I got from her was that there’s a big tree. However, it looked more like the lair of a damned dragon to me,” I grumbled. “If mine eyes doth not deceive me-” Both Amy and Merry stared at me in confusion as I stared behind them. “-I seeth a quite large lizard behind thee.”
Mia blinked at me as she froze with the large piece of some kind of animal in her mouth, her in her Draconic form.
I sighed. “Now, in all seriousness, I saw the tree as well and it was quite large for a tree. Something has to live there.”
Amy cursed. “That’s probably the Guardian’s tree.”
I got the sudden vision of a mechanical “wonder” and a very memorable piano riff played in my head. I shook my head vigorously, knocking the thought out of my head. Merry gave me a strange look, but I acted like nothing had happened (oh, the PTSD).
“The Guardian?” I inquired. “Sounds… like a guardian?”
Amy sighed. “Your speculation about it being a Dragon is correct. Specifically, it’s a forest Dragon, one of the more… territorial Dragon types. There has been an agreement for Elves to pass through the area it’s guarding, but nothing else.”
Mia perked up.
“Do you think it’ll let us pass?”
“You’re lucky since you can pass as a Dark Elf, but he might not hear reason from me. He may not even let Mia pass.”
Mia let out an annoyed hiss and flopped her head down, swallowing her meal. I patted her snout and she flicked her tongue out in annoyance. Merry, however, was confused.
“Why wouldn’t he let you through, Amy? I mean, it’s more understandable than Jason.”
I slowly turned towards Amy, who cringed. “Why-” I tried not to slap my face. “I will break our damned contract, damn you. You didn’t tell her?!”
Amy looked away, embarrassed. “Look, I couldn’t bring it up! I was nervous!”
“I literally told her I am one of the most dangerous Races in existence, according to the System, and you can’t tell her-”
Amy tried to grab my ear but I dodged her, moving backwards. I pushed her away as she grabbed my shirt.
“If you don’t shut your mouth, I will not hesitate to-” she took a breath. “-You know what I mean.”
“I will refuse if you don’t tell her-”
Merry, in Merry fashion, kicked both of us in the shin’s using her small size to keep out of our awareness. Once she’d kicked us down, she glared down at us.
“Explanation before I start assuming things.”
***
“You’re actually kidding me!” Hylla nearly shrieked.
Jasmine looked bewildered and Hylla had to take a deep breath. “Um, I know he’s your brother, but could you not burn the Palace down?”
Hylla blinked before she smelled the smoke. She sighed and extinguished the fires that her pure annoyance had caused to spring in existence. Once the smoke had calmed down, Jasmine cleared her throat.
“Aren’t multi-elemental Abyssals supposed to be rare? I mean, Jason was one, the last I saw him, but you are as well?”
Hylla frowned. Huh. I am a multi-elemental Abyssal. Wind and fire…
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Honestly, I don’t know. It’s just like that for my family,” Hylla grumbled. “Not that my family’s any good.”
Layla looked genuinely confused as she tore her eyes away from a painting on a wall. “I don’t think that they’re bad. They’re really nice to me…”
“That’s because you’re mentally challenged, clearly.”
Layla blinked, even more confused. Hylla ignored her and turned back to Jasmine. “Do you think there’s any other way out of the Abyss?” Other than my dad, who’s probably not the happiest with me.
Jasmine shook her head. “Unless you count the unfinished experiments the Voidborn and Void Mages are working on, then no.”
“Experiments? Do explain more.”
***
“Really? That’s what you’re so secretive about? That you’re a Mana Vampire?” Merry complained. “Why do you think that I’d even remotely care? Y’know, Henry was a Werewolf, not to be confused with a Wolf-kin.”
I frowned. “Doesn’t that mean you’re the only normal one?”
“Hmph. Duh, that’s why I’m the best,” she snapped.
I stared at her for a few moments. “Okay, since you’re clearly normal, I guess I don’t have to be as nice to you.”
Merry smacked me, but I simply rolled my eyes and caught her hand as she tried to slap me again. I looked at Amy, who seemed relieved. She looked up at the sky, clearly contemplating. She then sighed.
“Jason, I don’t think I’ve ever seen what you look like without your disguise,” she said.
Mia let out a huff, still feeling down.
“I look like the person you see in front of you right now,” I responded, patting the Serpent’s horn. “Nothing worth noting… Though I’d love to actually balance properly,” I muttered under my breath.
Merry frowned at me before grabbing my ear. “Just remove the illusion, or whatever it is.”
I swapped my disguise for a Human and stuck my tongue out at her, hopping on top of Mia. “Too bad. You don’t even know what gives me my disguise-”
“It’s probably your cloak, right?” Amy said in a matter of fact tone. “It’s the only thing you don’t take off.”
“...I take it off. Sometimes. It’s always clean, no matter how much I rip it apart or roll around in dirt.”
“Then what’s the harm in taking it off? Don’t Abyssals have horns- hold on a moment,” Merry tried to follow me up on top of the very tired Mia, failing. “You just turned into a Human. There’s no way that that’s a normal illusion. You’d have to literally melt your body to switch as fluidly as you did.”
I didn’t respond to Merry and simply watched as she tried to get up to me, failing to climb up. Eventually, I hopped down next to her as she jumped up again. “Y’know, you don’t even know which part of my clothes is my cloak. I could be wearing nothing under it, as far as you know.”
She froze in place, her face slowly turning red. “Oh…” she mumbled. “I didn’t-”
I shrugged. “Welp, let's get on our way to that big tree, shall we.”
Mia immediately shifted again and jumped into my arms. I made my cloak shift out of clothing and wrapped it around Mia, ignoring the glare Merry gave me.
~~~
“Huh…” I muttered, looking up at the giant wall of trees. “So… what do we do here?”
Amy frowned at the trees herself. “This is the Wall that separates the Elven Kingdom from the Human’s Kingdom. How the hell did they get us through this?”
Merry answered instead. “They bribed the guards to let us through. They used me as proof that it was an Elven trade. I’ll be having a small talk with them once we get to the gates… provided we can find the gates.”
I frowned. “Can’t we just climb over it? It can’t be that high-”
“It’s over 300 meters tall,” Merry grumbled. “And the tops are protected by Wyrms.”
Mia, suddenly awake, hissed.
“...I get the feeling we won't have to worry about Wyrms.”
“But there’s thin air up there. We’re already elevated nearly 200 meters above sea level. If we go up that high, we’re not going to have enough air to breath,” Merry complained.
“I… don’t need oxygen. I’m an Elemental.”
“I don’t need air either. Well, I do, but I could hold my breath for a few days,” Amy added with a shrug. “Assuming I have Mana, that is. Anyways, today’s a feeding day.”
I groaned. “Whatever. You can wait until later. We can just look for the entrance.”
Amy scowled. “Come on; I’m starving!”
“No, you’re not. You went without it for how long before our contract again?”
She looked away. “My body’s used to it, so I am-”
“You think you are.”
Merry frowned. “Hold on, what do you mean by ‘contract’? What’d you do to her, Jason?”
“Other than beat her into the ground and nearly kill her because she decided she wanted a taste of Abyss Mana? Nothing,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “It was her idea for a contract anyways.”
Merry glared at me. “You what?”
“Let’s be fair though, I attacked him first. It was perfectly in his rights,” Amy added.
“That doesn’t solve the problem!”
“What’s the problem in the first place?” I inquired, tilting my head.
Merry seemed like she was about to blow a fuse. “What does she mean by feeding?”
I blinked. “My Mana?”
Merry simply stared at the two of us in succession before putting her face into her hands and clearly forcing herself not to scream at the absurdity of our statements. Eventually, she simply went silent, unwilling to continue to complain. After a few more minutes of preparation, we began our trek westward, where Merry said the entrance should be from here. An hour later, we had found what looked like the edge of some sort of walled off fort. Amy seemed to recognize it and cursed.
“We’re way further east than I thought. This is the fort on the edge of the Humans’ Kingdom, bordering the Wolf-kins’ territory,” she said. “We’ve been in their territory for a little while now.”
“Really? I thought we were in the Elven Kingdom,” I remarked.
Merry seemed to squirm slightly and I looked at her, confused. “You good?”
She punched my arm, with no visible effect. “No! I don’t like this place. It’s boring and all the men here look at me like I’m some sort of toy. It lowers my self esteem.”
“You respect yourself? That’s something new-”
She punched me again, but with a lot more force. I dodged and grabbed her hand out of the air. “Oh, stop it.”
She let out a hmph but didn’t remove her hand from mine, instead grabbing it. I was slightly confused and looked at Amy for guidance. She simply frowned and let out a huff.
“Let’s go already and hope they don’t arrest us for desertion.”
“Isn’t the punishment for that getting your head chopped off or something stupid like that?” I grumbled, pulling Merry along, who yelped. I rolled my eyes at her. “If you want to hold my hand, then you better be able to keep up.”
She glared at me, but picked up her pace.
~~~
The encampment was larger than I’d originally expected, spanning nearly a hundred meters in every direction. If anything…
“This place is huge,” I grumbled, still holding Merry’s hand, who had gripped me even tighter than before, to the point where it was actually starting to hurt.
I sighed aloud.
Mia, hearing our conversation, poked my cheek.
Terror enveloped Mia’s mind and I could feel her brain racing.
I rolled my eyes, but wasn’t able to rub her horn.
Systie somehow let out a disgusted sound in my head.
<...And to think I was just about to say the same to you.>
Immediately, Systie began to panic.
I ignored the complaints of Systie as we made our way to the entrance of the fort. I sighed and looked down at Merry, who gave me a strange look. “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what’? You were just sighing. And you looked like you were having a conversation in your head.”
“Unironically, I was.”
Amy looked at me in consideration. “With Mia?”
“And Systie.”
She mirrored Merry’s confused expression. “But isn’t she just your Familiar or something?”
“Said who? You were the only one who told yourself what she was,” I answered.
Befuddlement was evident in her expression. “You mean-”
“She’s also my Bond.”
Merry pulled herself in front of me. “Doesn’t that put strain on your Soul? Like crazy?”
I shrugged. “My Soul is so messed up, that I don’t even know what to do with it. I’ll just let it sit there for a while until it tries to implode upon itself.”
Amy and Merry halted, stopping me along with them, just before we got to the entrance. I frowned at them.
“What? Aren’t we supposed to be going to the fort?” I asked.
Amy shook her head. “I may not be an expert on Souls, but what I do know is that you need to have someone take a look at it. If you’re saying that your Soul is so volatile, it’s going to just destroy itself, there’s clearly something wrong.”
“...I think I’ll be fine for the time being. Systie said she’s working on it, with Mia’s help. I’d love to help out, but I don’t exactly have access to my own Soul. Not that I want it, since I’d probably rip out something important.”
“What do you mean ‘working on it’?”
Systie, her four hour timer finally ending, popped into existence and Mia, clearly annoyed at the prospect, began to feed her a steady stream of Mana.
WHAT HE MEANS- Systie somehow coughed. Ahem, what he means is that I’m trying to stitch his Soul back into its proper formation, since it’s all messed up and crap. Mia stabilizes it since her Soul literally fits around his like a puzzle piece, and I stitch it together with threads of-
RESTRICTED INFORMATION DETECTED
OH SHOVE OFF FOR ONCE! Systie hollered back at… herself. Anyways, I stitch it back together while he just sits around and doesn’t strain himself. I was making progress until the damned suppression collar was put on him and he lost various random memories. Like the entirety of the Harry Potter series, some weird notebooks he wrote in during middle school, and every mention of his girlfriend, which I don’t know if it’s a positive or a negative.
Merry, obviously caught off guard, let go of my hand in surprise. “You have a girlfriend?”
“Is that really important right now? I thought we were talking about my fucked up Soul- no, we were supposed to be going to the fort-”
Clearly getting annoyed, she shook her head. “You knew you had a girlfriend, but still led me on?”
I frowned at her. “Of course not. I’d probably never even like you in that way. You’re not even on the list.”
Dead silence as she stared at me. I blinked.
“What why is it so-”
Before I had a chance to finish my sentence when Amy suddenly tried to hit me. I simply activated [Void Armor] and let it hit me. I stared in confusion.
“The hell is that for? I’m just telling the truth. Plus, I have no clue why I’d ever even want a girlfriend. Dunno why past me had one, unless it was useful in some way,” I murmured.
Well, that’s one hell of a rejection, Systie said. Welp, now that that’s over with, let’s get going-
I stared at Merry who looked down at her feet for a few moments before realization struck.
“Oh. Oh,” I said, as my mistake was very much realized. “I had no clue-”
Amy glared at me. “Oh, so now you realize? Are you really that unfeeling? Do you just see people as objects, only to be disposed of?”
I frowned. “I don’t think you really understand, but I’m still going to be painted in a bad light, because that’s just how people are. So I won’t even attempt to explain.”
Amy gave me an annoyed look. “You’re a horrible person.”
At this, I finally snapped. “The hell are you on about? I did nothing but say I didn’t like her in a certain way and you’re saying I’m such a ‘horrible person’ now? I really think you don’t understand at all. You’re probably fine with what I am, if not barely, but do you really think that the dozens of Valkyries hunting me down are? Or the people who’d kill me in a heartbeat are? I refuse to put people in risk that don’t deserve to be put in risk. If I were to truly commit to a relationship, what the hell would happen if I was found out? Judging by a fair few standards, everyone who’d I’d ever even cared about would be killed. Plus, and here’s the fun part, I’d probably be able to run away, like every other time I’ve encountered people who wanted me dead. I don’t think you could possibly understand how I feel-”
“How the hell do you know that?! I’m in the same position as you-”
“Shut the hell up,” I growled. Her eyes went wide as I began to shift into an Abyssal again, finally released from some sort of prison. “You have no clue what it’s like to be constantly running, telling yourself you can make a change, that there’s people who care, that someone out there will be on your side. It’s nearly impossible to commit to anything, when you know the people you care about could be killed just for knowing you exist. At least for you, you’re able to hide away, as if nothing is different. I can’t. I have to keep moving, or else I’ll be caught. I have to kill {Corruption}, while trying not to be killed myself.” I took a breath. “I can barely keep my damn emotions in check when I need to most. Now, shut up and let’s go to the damn fort. I don’t want to get even angrier.”
Merry looked up at me, a defiant expression in her eyes. “And what if we choose not to.”
Finally fed up, I gave her a stare. “Then, if they push me in the wrong direction, I’ll kill each and every one of them. I couldn't care less about their stupid Elven lives.”
I could feel a cloud of something begin to form in my mind as I reveled in their horrified looks. Even Mia was slightly uncomfortable at this. Systie, on the other hand, seemed to have gone silent, contemplating.
I turned around, shifting back into a Dark Elf, making my way towards the Fort.