No! No! No! Not now! I’ll die! I don’t wanna die! I can't die! I won’t die!
The words played over in his head until tears were flowing down his face.
Spirit energy escapes the body when strong emotion conflicts with ones desire. Pity at himself, fear, rage, it all coalesced within him, resulting in his current predicament. There was no way in hell he could allow these to be his final moments, but his agency regarding that decision was gradually slipping away.
“Time’s ticking,” the rogue sang, “Do you have a plan to get out?”
Straining so hard had caused light-headedness and a horrible ringing in his ears. Everything felt like a blur. He didn’t know when it had happened, but his knees must have given out already. He could feel himself getting closer to the ground. There was hardly any pain in his arms anymore; or anywhere else for that matter. Everything was numb, and the world around him was getting more and more… slow?
Yeah, that was it.
Everything was blurry and moving in slow motion.
Slower, slower.
…Slower.
Out of the corner of his teary eyes, he managed to catch a quick glimpse of something moving against that slowness. Before he could even process it, he was yanked backwards, landing with a heavy thud. While he was attempting to reacclimate his brain with the situation, he heard the muffled sound of a water cannon blasting out in front of him. Shortly following it was an eerie mixture of screams and laughter, coming from the rogue spirit.
“Alex!” He called out, “Get back! I’ll handle it!”
He tried to push himself onto his feet, but his arms were in a terrible bruised and swollen state. On his left palm, there was a nasty gash, exposing small bits of squishy pink and red underneath when he stretched his fingers. He took one glance at it, then winced and turned away; a queasy feeling churning up in his stomach. Luckily, the adrenaline rush he was under still hadn’t worn off and the pain was just about bearable.
“Damn it,” he heard Alex say, in between heavy breaths, “This thing recovers way too fast.”
In front of them, the rogue was twitching and laughing to itself uncontrollably. There was a hole going right through the left side of its face, where its eye once was, repairing itself with spirit energy. Alex had clearly landed a pretty powerful hit, but Adrian wasn’t sure of how much time it was truly going to buy them. Its imposing shadow loomed over them both as it stepped closer with a childish giggle. “Can you still fight? Killing’s no fun if you don’t fight back, Y’know?”
Adrian and Alex stayed perfectly still, Stuck between the rogue and the tree behind them. They were far too injured to make any game changing moves. Every sign in the universe pointed towards this being checkmate, but their teammate had other ideas.
A huge mass of electricity sparked up behind the rogue, almost reaching the heights of the forest’s trees and at the centre of that mass was the Isabelle. Her stance was confident, with her hair standing up and wildly swaying around with the wild rhythm of her spirit energy. Unfazed, the rogue shook its head, chuckling to itself before turning to make its way towards her.
Being saved didn't mean anything. All it did was direct Adrian’s anxiety towards her and the risk she was taking. “She’s using way too much spirit energy at once,” he whispered, with an astonished look on his face.
“Her body probably won't be able to take it,” Alex said, carefully dabbing away the blood from his lips, “But with how things are going right now...I can’t blame her for risking it.”
Adrian wouldn’t allow her to do that. He tried to stand up again, but ended up with his face in the soil, his body still refusing to listen to him.
“What do you think you can even do in that state?” Alex asked, pulling him up.
“Isabelle's strong,” Adrian snapped back, “But that thing’s different. We need more than one of us to fight if we wanna stand a chance.”
Alex gave him a sharp look, but it soon mellowed out a bit as he glanced down at the injuries on his arms. “I’ll go. You wouldn't be any help anyways.” He clutched his shaky left leg and tried his hardest to heave himself up, but fell back down instantly. After cursing himself under his breath, he tried again.
Adrians eyes ran back and forth between Alex and the rogue, taking its sweet time walking up to Isabelle as she hesitantly geared herself to attack. Racking his brain for a solution was taking too long. He ended up blurting out the first thing that came to his mind.
“What if I-”
“What don’t you get?!” Alex shouted, “You’re more injured than me. Are you still stuck on trying to prove you’re better than me or something? This isn't the time for messing around!”
“I'm not!” Adrian raised his voice without even intending to. He took a pause to calm himself down then continued speaking. “I don’t care about the dumb game. If I don't try to stand up now then what was even the point of me coming to the academy in the first place?!”
Alex looked taken aback from Adrian's sudden outburst. For a moment, he opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but whatever he wanted to say would have to wait.
The rogue had inexplicably stopped walking and started flailing around on the floor, clawing and scratching at its face. When it turned towards him, Adrian got a good look at what was going on. A small beetle-looking creature had latched onto its head and was gnawing eating away at it's flesh. Its efforts were useless. No matter how much it tried, the insect wouldn't budge.
Using his sixth sense, Adrian spotted a trail of dark spirit energy leading from the insect to the forest they had emerged from upon their arrival. In the next instant, there was a loud whoosh sound as a midnight black projectile blasted out from the trees, directly towards the rogue spirit. Its speed was ridiculous. Even though the rogue attempted to jump and dodge, the attack still made contact, blasting through one of its legs in the process. A severed leg wasn’t enough to stop its next trick, however. It once again enlarged both of its hands, and extended them to grab both the cluster and Isabelle, which were behind it. Isabelle’s amplification stood no chance, and was shut down near instantly.
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Adrian watched the rogue fall to the ground, and as its severed leg began to dissolve into nothing, he heard a voice calling out to them. “Adrian. Alexander. Can either of you move?” Almost all the pressure was swept off of his shoulders in an instant. Mr. Harrows emerged from the forest, keeping his eyes on the rogue, which was now regenerating. The smile on its face had vanished. All that remained was a spine-chilling rage, as it held the struggling Isabelle and the cluster in front of it like shields.
“We can't move too well!” Alex called back. Adrian wanted to ask how Mr. Harrows had tracked them down, but that could be saved for later. The situation had become much more dire now that Isabelle’s life was in danger, but he held on to the hope that all would be fine now that a professional was there. “That beetle must be one of Mr. Harrow’s other abilities. It’s probably eating away at the rogue’s spirit energy,” Alex said, applying pressure to his wounds, “It still has to regenerate its leg too.”
Adrian looked forward in anxious anticipation. “Yeah, It’s definitely on a timer. But it’s got Isabelle too…”
On Mr. Harrow’s waist was a leather holster containing what looked to be a short sword. He held his hand on the weapon’s handle for a second and took a cautious step forwards and in response, the Rogue began to squeeze the hand that was holding Isabelle. She struggled even harder, kicking her legs around to try and escape its deadly grasp. Adrian fought back against the urge to try and stand up again, placing all his trust in their teacher to save her.
Mr. Harrows stopped walking and took his hands off of the sword. He then made a discreet movement with the same hand, while still keeping it at his waist, turning it so his palm was pointed towards the spirit. He took a slow step backwards and in the time that took, Adrian turned his attention to the rogue. For a split second, he saw the corners of its lips start to rise. It thought it had been let off, and instantly paid the price.
A chain created from, and enveloped in Mr. Harrow’s dark spirit energy burst out from his hand and shot through the rogue’s chest, causing it to panic once again. Its scream pierced Adrian’s ears, but because of his injuries he could barely even lift his hands to cover them. Even with the pain the rogue was in, its grasp on Isabelle and the cluster didn’t loosen. The skin on its legs then started to ripple in preparation for its next move.
“Crap,” Adrian said, leaning backwards in fear. In the past few moments the light-headedness from earlier was slowly creeping back up on him. He was feeling more dreary by the second fighting just to keep his eyelids open.
Alex’s reaction was much calmer. “It’s good. Any moment now that beetle should…”
The timer that had started moments prior finally reached its end. Chaos erupted as the rogue recoiled backwards out of nowhere, with a terrifying shriek. There was a disgusting hole in the side of its head dripping with purple blood where the beetle had crawled inside.
“It must…be doing some damage…in there,” Adrian said. His shoulders were dropping He knew his body wouldn't last any longer.
At long last the rogue’s grasp on Isabelle loosened enough to the point where she was able to wriggle out and stumble her way to safety. It must have sacrificed its desire to kill her in order to focus more spirit energy in its other hand which remained clutched on to the cluster as tight as it could. In a last ditch effort to escape, the rogue pushed out whatever power it had left to snap the chain that Mr Harrows had attached to it and quickly scurry away from the fight.
“No!” Adrian exclaimed, scrambling to get to his feet, “We have…to chase…” That was the moment his vision went dark. He couldn't feel or move anything. He could hear though. Isabelle, Alex and Mr. Harrows were calling out to him. Their voices were close, at first, but were getting further away from him, the more he fought to reach back out to them.
Further, further.
…Too far to reach.
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BRUCE
There was once a time when Bruce had felt he had a place to belong. It was a time when he had two people in his life that he thought were the apex of what he should have been striving to be; the pinnacle of what it meant to be a ‘good person’. Neither of those people ever changed. It was Bruce himself who, after driving himself mad chasing their after-images for so long, came to the conclusion that the best path for him to walk may not be the one of a ‘good person’ after all. Fourteen years of trying to realise the goal brought about by that conclusion had led him here. A negotiation with humanity’s greatest enemies, and simultaneously, their greatest assets.
There was a quiet breeze blowing through the cave he had found himself within. Sitting on the hard cold floor was less than desirable, but complaining wouldn’t do. It’d be bad if his tone upset the rogue spirit sitting in front of him. In this situation, any wrong move could spell the end of his plan, or even worse, his life. He had to operate with the utmost care if he wanted to see this negotiation through.
In the brief conversation he’d had with the rogue, he’d learned that it called itself Sharir. It was a humanoid one, and had the build of someone who’d dedicated their whole life to working out and getting as muscular as possible. For the past hour or so, it had been sitting completely still, with its legs crossed and eyes closed like it was asleep. Bruce found it odd, seeing as rogue spirits don’t require sleep to function like humans do.
Next to it, there was a human girl wearing a blue football kit, lying unconscious on the ground. She was the reason Bruce had found himself there in the first place. “...Is she going to wake up any time soon?” he asked.
Sharir slowly opened its eyes in response to Bruce’s words. “It’s unlikely that Tyran had any regard for that when it Struck her head. I cannot answer your question, human.” Its voice was unnaturally deep. The echo it created was powerful, despite the low volume it spoke at. Afterwards it fell silent again, not bothering to indulge in conversation with him.
Bruce nodded his head and glanced over at the cave’s entrance. The “Tyran” that Sharir spoke of left them about an hour ago to retrieve the cluster that Bruce told them about. It was taking quite a while. If it took too long, there was always the chance that Sharir could grow bored and decide that Bruce wasn’t worth his time. He’d be forced into combat. He felt a drop of sweat drip down his forehead at the thought, but decided not to raise his head to wipe it. Even given the risks, however, his curiosity urged him to ask a question.
“Do you… worry for Tyran by any chance?” Sharir’s eyes shot up, looking directly at him. He couldn’t tell whether the expression on its face was meant to be anger because it was the same expression it had worn the entire time he’d been there. “Ah, forgive me if I offend. I noticed earlier that your relationship-”
“Give and take.”
Bruce blinked a few times, surprised at Sharir’s sudden intrusion. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s merely a give and take relationship. Harbouring emotions for anything other than ourselves and our innate desires is something that rogue spirits aren’t capable of, unlike humans. Thus, if Tyran does not return, I will simply dispose of you and this girl, then leave.”
“Ah…Yes. Yes, of course.”
Bruce knew that was always where things would have led, but hearing it was a different story. He felt a hard lump form in his throat. If something didn’t happen soon...
After that a new problem quickly made itself present, and the tension was raised by the sound of a girl’s maniacal laughter from outside the cave.