There’s nowhere to go but forward, my whole body knows that for sure - even if my muscles protest after every chunk of rock is moved, every landslide is formed into a solid wall, and any other action is done to separate me from Alu’s people. It was clear as I ran that more than half of every dozen was a simple follower, blindly charging after someone that outmatched them in every kind of fight, with the few genuine successors being little more than door openers due to my efforts. Once I ran out of strength to move the mountain, they would funnel their powerless pawns in an attempt to wear me down first. Mocking their lack of giant tactics was my only comfort in this frenzy - feeling beams of boiling light pierce through the previous wall, forcing a change of paths.
I should’ve said something sooner, I knew something was wrong. The minds of the strangers standing by the successors gave me a horrid possibility but I doubted my intuition, I doubted I could understand the diversity of powers that could be among his kind. They thought of nothing of survival needs, no one thinks that and only that for long. They were alive in the most singular of senses, no ambition or thoughts on the story Garreus told, indoctrinated with tranquility somehow And I left Alu alone with him. He could be the next one through the set of rock formations I summon, knowing best that I couldn’t bear to hurt him - to kill him would make this venture hollow if I live to grow old, feeling the shame to even mention his name if I live to tell the tales to Mother.
Stop being an idiot, if that even came to be, you’d find a way to fix him. I beat myself in the side of the head for a second before making one last push, surprised to see the outside world. A strip of overgrown grass marked the divide between the mountains, tiny blankets of snow composed by the wind torn rock faces above. The green path led out to a grand field just before a drop into bedrock , the east sea in view, the beach consumed halfway by the black stone, the last bit in view frozen over.
Looking south, beyond the natural monoliths I shoved myself through - beams in the sky radiated with an intensity reserved for the call of a Spire. Beyond the spire destined for Sarengound, many more were soon to come, obscured by the great flood we already saw. Upon looking back towards the sea, a Spire’s tail made itself visible, tearing through the soil with a subtle flood - a simple overflow that wouldn’t bat an eye near a lake or ocean. This could be days, or it could come in minutes while Alu and I swam to safety days before in this world, out of sight.
The stone of my latest door burned bright before exploding instead of melting away. I deflected the rocks, feeling a twinge in my shoulder. I readied myself for the pain necessary, and then doubly so once I saw faces amongst my pursuers I didn’t recognize. One successor stood proudly in front while barking her orders to spearmen. Her mind was nothing but a violent ocean, with the occasional crackle of a campfire. The black fabric of Garreus was extended with a veil of gold and ashen rings decorating the arms and legs. The red skinned successor pulled out a crossbow with rope arrows as firepower. Behind her, two more emerged wearing reforged silver as decorative armor, wielding the same crossbow on the left and a javelin for the pale man on the right. The red woman at the front just smiled with a look only the word voracious could describe, her green eyes stayed on me even as her fingers manipulated the mechanism on the crossbow.
“I’d never killed a giant before.” The leader said with a glee the veil would disintegrate before it could ever hope to contain. “Perhaps another day if you wish to see Lord Elfren one more night before we fulfill the journey.” Reaching into a flap in the cloth, she pulled out an ordinary dagger. The smile beneath the expensive liar radiated far beyond what my delve into her mind would’ve been able to pull - it went beyond manic thought, it was a physical compulsion, a necessity to fulfill.
“If you think I won’t hurt you because you’re family to him, you’re mistaken.” After the words floated in the space between us, a bolt flew from the fighter on the left. A quick dodge prompted free bolts to fly from behind the successors trio, with even a few bolt throwers advancing with their own human shield. I summoned a series of walls around me, feeling the arrows make impact before tethering them to my fingers. When the walls fell, I heaved to the right, sending the rope bound crossbow men into the people around them - knocking over dozens. The red leader let go of her weapon, colliding with the spear holder. Jumping forward, she cast flames like the shield for a battering ram. Tethering my own shield stopped her charge but the flames found a way to poke through the intricate lines and threads - closing the holes and patching a stronger defense was a second thought as she refused to sit still, pulling herself to the sides of the receding mountains and bouncing across the opening field, readying more charges and summoning flames that instantly grew across the ground I stood upon.
Two deflections later, I was able to hit her with a pillar from beneath, shattering one of her feet. As she screamed, the men by her side recovered and attacked with the same fervor as their leader. From both sides, shields appeared and pushed back from my fingers, feeling the strain through the webbing in between before the wrists amplified the feeling of push, pull and plunge. Their ceaseless flames found holes in my defenses as I skipped across the burning ground and dodged the arrows and the ropes they dragged behind. The pale man relinquished his assault for a moment after I retaliated with pillars of stone, shoving his spear to my thigh. The man-made weapon pierced my clothing but bounced off of my skin. Deconstructing my remaining shield, I tethered the weapon and threw the spearman into his companion’s chest, curling my fingers to jerk the movement further and messier. Pulling him away, I stole the weapon and stabbed the remaining warrior - but he turned to flame and melted the weapon in an instant. I reached for the tethers that must hold his body, but the crossbows fired again.
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The collapse of a mountain was a feat only mentioned in the few legends I had heard about dragons. In the days of thieving and regular campfires, I got used to hearing the tales Gina and her entourage would regale about dragons every time our gains were given by whatever tiny flame I gave that day - to a lock, a chain, someone’s empty livelihood to draw a guard’s eye. The dragons nested there, from what I heard - and Garreus’s tale said the same so I deemed it true. The hollow eyes of the folk around me made his claims ring true as well - branding was an art he mastered and spread to the survivors of the Second World. Even as his corpse collapsed inwards - the ribs piercing the receding flesh and his skin turned to ash before blowing in the wind - their eyes remained distant, purposeless vessels until an order was given. The branding was a scar if he was the holder of their souls, but that enraged me further to think the others were just like him - their head cages drowned by a sour dragon wine.
Gritted teeth and clenched fists remained when I tried to take down every wall Morrigan had put between her and I, the cap of the rock formation caving in to make slabs of gray crash into the trees around me. A storm had gathered before the collapse, thunder booming in cooperation with the fallen stone. The familiar thread of light summoning a spire could be seen over the mountain as I backed away, the melting of a falling structure losing its appeal. Lightning struck the balding stone, ceasing and unleashing far too often to ignore - something big was coming and the successors led a big tether siphon to it.
You’re all cinders.
A terrible idea came to my mind - knowing the consequences of failure - but I refused to be defeated by inaction or taking the slow and easy route, lest Morrigan damn me. My tether wrapped around the highest branch I could reach, and with a great pull - I sent myself into the air. Rain and cold air struck my face as the mountain was far beneath my feet. A bolt came into view just over the crest. I shot out my tether and felt myself hurt at the distance, barely grabbing onto the lightning as I flew over the mass of stone in an instant. Another bolt, another grapple and I flew faster and faster until the burgeoning spire came into view, a tornado as wide as a simple cart as most but deadly all the same. Morrigan was subdued but still fighting - a circle of men with ropes pulled out braids that gave them the extra strength they needed to pull on her neck and legs. Screams and curses came from her mouth, but no tone of defeat and compliance. One more bolt to ride and I fell to the ground by her, constructing the tethers to break the fall - one hand holding the shield, the other on my blade. Crashing right behind her, dirt flew between us - the ground sinking and cracking. My middle finger and pointer cracked and pushed backwards upon hitting the ground - but a rage of my own - outside of my mother’s overwrote the need for anything else. Dia was drowned by the motions I was about to commit: my flame soaked and disfigured hand grabbed onto the ropes binding my partner, my steel bearing side rushed to the nearest captor and spilled blood from her neck. Flames beckoned in a pattern that surrounded us, a ring of fire that obscured us from them before expanding and consuming all who could never resist. The crimson of a man who might’ve disgustingly called me Garreus’s family dripped off of my face and fed the soil. A woman bearing a resemblance to Garreus pushed my ring of fire back unto Morrigan before I broke the cast entirely. An intensity bulged from her eyes before Morrigan controlled the successor’s limbs and crushed bone until the skin ran purple and black. Collapsing with their aids, she fell onto the ground and looked upon me first.
“You can’t turn your back on us, Elfren. What would your mother say of this destruction? This betrayal?”
I kneeled down to her before beckoning over Morrigan, to which she raised her foot. “Good riddance.” A bloody remnant is all that remained of this family, and the rage still told me of more to be done.
Blood would only mark the mountain for a moment as the rain continued with an intensity no spring or fall could give. Lost in the moment, Morrigan grabbed my hand and pulled us away from the spire consuming the shoreline. With no easy path back, she started to send tethers to pull us up the mountain. Grunts of pain, pulls of the muscle in her arms were impossible to ignore. Wrapping myself around her waist, she asked what I was doing, thought I was giving up and letting the spire take us. My broken hand could still shoot out tethers and a miraculous bolt was given by the sky. A popping noise rang out from my back, hips and elbow as I pulled the two of us to the sky, telling her to hold on with all her might. Screaming questions of why, what and more why at first, she caught on to my plan and pulled with me as we traversed the sky and simultaneously rode the lightning and swung around the demolished mountains.
The mainland came into view, the forest pathway far off to our left. Morrigan took her hand into my broken one, ignoring the pain as she told me to wrap my tethers with hers. The ground exploded under our shielded weight, but we hit the dirt running for what we knew as North. The time for doubt was over - no rest, no hope for lesser burdens, assume the worst and fight what we find. The words between us were few until we found the one light over the darkening horizon - a tether box over a facility of steel, a train in the station and a giant looking to us with curiosity.
“Someone coming back from a pilgrimage?” The giant said, a pale wanderer with bulging bones and burning a wrapped bundle of leaves between his lips.
“I have a warning to give.” Morrigan began. “There’s an invasion coming.”
“What?” The giant scoffed. “Who would be able to invade the North?”
“The Wardens are summoning the spires and they’re going to decimate our homes.” She lied, though perhaps in one world that may be true.
“And you expect me to trust a human on my train as well after that news?”
I produced my flame, making the man jump backwards with his hands in front of his face. “Think a Warden would want a dragon butcher like me around?” My choice of words was poor but the result was fantastic - a train to ourselves with priority express to what he called the Heart of the Narrow North.