Two pairs of rough, calloused hands wrapped around Alex’s shoulders, shoving him in the direction of the kitchen. Sylas’ friends had quickly decided to join in once Arrius had given his approval, and the group were now marching him toward the kitchen door - with Arrius following behind with unwavering stoicism. Murmurs spread throughout the common area; some disapproving of the violence to come, yet others still seemed glad for any kind of commotion that could liven up their day. A few patrons rose from their seats, intent on watching the show.
Bursting through the thick wooden door that served as a sound dampening divider between the common area and kitchen, Tyra and Ellie swung their heads at the unwelcome intrusion. Tyra’s grip tightened on the cooking knife grasped within her right hand, but when her eyes met Arrius’ and took in the resigned shaking of his head, she lowered the weapon. Alex didn’t really care about Tyra’s reaction, though.
It was Ellie’s that simultaneously saddened him and caused his temper to flare ever higher. The girl’s eyes rounded into saucers at the sight of him, hand covering her mouth in a gesture so reminiscent of their mother that Alex couldn’t help but draw the comparison. She took a hesitant step back as the men barreled through the kitchen, cruel excitement etched into their features.
“Should learn to keep your mouth shut, boy,” one of them hacked out, spitting on the ground. “We’ll show you nice and proper like.”
From the corner of his eye, he watched as Ellie’s attention switched to Sylas walking steadily behind him. As her eyes landed on the lash the man was clapping against his hand, her shock morphed in an instant. The thirteen year old’s eyes hardened and raised her hand toward the group of monster hunters, a familiar concentration overtaking her features. Alex opened his mouth to shout at her. Don’t do it, idiot, he thought, panic resurfacing from beneath his rage.
Fortunately, Tyra was one step ahead of him. A gentle, if large hand closed around Ellie’s, bringing it down to rest by the girl’s side and holding on. Her look of shock was met by Tyra’s stern gaze. Concentration lapsing, his sister turned her head to face him once more just as he was dragged through the rear door, emerging into the familiar training yard. He struggled against the grip of the two lackeys, but it was worth little. They were much too strong for him.
Roughly hauled to the centre of the sparring pit, they forcefully threw him to the ground, grabbing at the white tunic that he’d last worn during the escape from Seaport. He struggled to resist their attempts at disrobing him, flailing his arms wildly and even securing a glancing blow against a tough jaw, before he could stop them no longer. The two men tore the tunic from his body, exposing his naked torso to the open air. One of them kicked him in the back, Alex’s head impacting the ground and stunning him for a second. They stepped back into the loose half-circle of people that had gathered in the yard, rejoining their three companions and onlookers from the Waystation, while Sylas stepped forward.
“Now, boy,” Sylas said, cracking the lash. “Stay still. Ten good, clean hits was the deal, and if you make me miss - well, that’s just one more added to the tally. You get me? On your knees.”
Why are you doing this? Alex thought, the world stirring around him, thoughts sluggish as if penetrating a thick fog. How are you being allowed to do this? He instinctively attempted to rise, as if to demand answers from the jeering audience - or, more important, from Arrius - and this seemed to be the queue to begin. He reached his knees before thunder struck his ears.
And then - pain. Screaming through his back, lighting up his nerves with pure, unflinching agony. It ripped through his body, arching his spine and gashing his skin; the unmistakable sensation of liquid dripping down his back confirmed it. A scream tore from his throat, primal and uncontained, as he blinked back tears and his eyes struggled to focus. Laughter barely reached his ears over the pounding beat of his heart.
“Looks like we’ve got a screamer,” Sylas said, chuckling from his position behind Alex.
Thoughts battered at the wall of white-hot agony. Alex had never experienced such pain, and his memories coalesced to remind him that it was only the first strike. He was expected to withstand ten of these? He couldn’t do it. Rationality pushing through the sensation, his mind flickered with plans to escape. Arrius wouldn’t help him - the man would have done so by now if he had any intention of doing so at all. Fighting a Silver was a nigh-impossible task for a Bronze. Running was an option, and he’d had plenty of practice of late, but to do so would mean leaving Ellie behind. No, not an option at all. What could he do?
The lash outsped his planning, another crack of the bloodied whip refreshing the searing pain and banishing all thought. It was worse this time. The thick leather was studded, and each stud had torn through the bloodied lacerations left in the wake of the first strike. Magnified by his wounds, the torturous tribulation would grow only harder to withstand, and a hoarse scream escaped his throat. Hands finding the ground, he panted, tears flowing freely and staining the dirt beneath.
There was nothing he could do. Nobody was going to help him, and he didn’t possess the strength to help himself; the thought of running occurred once more, but he dashed it from his mind after only a second of reconsideration. He’d take a thousand lashes before he abandoned his little sister, temptation be damned. As hopelessness grew, a third strike eliminated even that.
The pain was growing familiar, though no less intense for it. He lacked the words to describe the sensation. His conscious mind could only keep track of three truths: the sound leaving his throat, the hollering amidst the crowd, and the certainty that the fourth strike would land any moment now. He tensed his back in an effort to dull the blow.
Rich laughter erupted from behind him, accompanied by a crack in the open air. Alex winced in expectation of fresh heat that didn’t arrive.
“No, boy, we wouldn’t want this to end too quickly now. You lay there and think about what you’ve done, and you’ll know when I’m ready to hurt you again.” Sylas said, audibly grinning.
Hopelessness paved the way for a new emotion. Anger. It wasn’t enough to behave like scum. No, the sadistic creature had to tear his clothing, scare his sister, and dole out punishment as if he were fit to be the arbiter of anything. Why? The simple question reverberated through his skull, feeding the flames that were slowly giving way to rage in his belly. What gave this man the right to do this, to hurt him? How dare he take pleasure in Alex’s suffering, how could he find amusement in the hoarse screaming of a young man half his age? Why did Arrius, a Gold, allow it to continue?
Alex’s muscles tensed, and not just those in his back. His clenched fists shook with fury, shoulders hunched and shivering just the same. A churning vat of deep rage bubbled within him, feeding upon the events of the prior week. It wasn’t just this man. The invaders who had stolen his life, killed his mother, and trampled on his home. A society that cast out his fellow refugees, their own people, throwing them away on the basis of worthlessness. Monsters that stalked the woodline, preying on those simply trying to catch a moment’s rest after the destruction of everything they knew. And, finally, the sadism of one man and his pack of wild dogs that dared to do this to him, all in the name of the afternoon’s amusement. It was too much. It was all, simply, too much. Alex’s tenuous grasp on reality snapped, and a chill flowered in his mind.
He didn’t know if it was a change in the man’s breathing, a whisper of the wind that hit his ears just right, or the raucous anticipation of the crowd, but he felt it. The talons of the lash descended from the sky, promising the delivery of the fourth strike, and he knew exactly where it could be found. Time slowed to a crawl as, fuelled by a blazing darkness within, Alex reached behind him and snatched the trailing limbs of the weapon from the air.
The resulting whip-crack silenced the crowd, a trepidatious aura emanating from their position, and he felt Sylas tug on the lash’s handle. Alex did not allow it to move. Tightening his grip on the lash’s appendages, he wrenched it downwards, recruiting his shoulder to the effort and, miraculously, he succeeded. The weapon flew from Sylas’ hands and landed before Alex, who picked it up by the handle. The man snarled.
“You’ll regret that, boy. I’ll have another five lashes for that, you watch. I hope it was worth it.”
It was, and it would be. Alex slowly began to stand, the inconsistent sense for energy filling him with the knowledge that Sylas had begun to channel his powers. Yet again, the man imbued his gloves with Fire-aspected energy. Curiously, however, it didn’t fill Alex with the dread it had only a short while ago. If the wild dog wanted to play with fire, he could only acquiesce.
Turning to face Sylas, he took hold of his internal reservoir and drew on his power. It came like a raging tide, turbulent and awful, gushing down his right arm in a torrent that far outstripped his capacity to control it. Only, for some reason, it was remarkably easy. In a flash, he converted the entire stream into Fire, and slammed the surging power into the lash. Flames erupted from the thick leather, blanketing the area in deathly heat and flickering between red and blue. An absent part of Alex’s mind observed that he’d never achieved such temperatures before, but it was quickly silenced.
Sylas took a step back, raising his hands to a boxer’s guard, the studs of his gloves emitting the blinding light characteristic of the imbuement. His brow furrowed as he took in Alex’s form and swallowed. Their eyes locked, and the tension of the moment was broken only by a hesitant comment from the crowd.
“What’s wrong with the boy’s eyes?”
Sylas licked his lips and stepped forward. “Ain’t our problem. I don’t know how you got that lash from me, boy, but you’re an idiot if you think you can threaten me. You’re mine. I’ll kill you for this, and ain’t a damn thing Arrius can do to protect you now.”
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He gave no warning. Sound exploded into infernal harmony, a thunderous crack accompanied by the roaring of flame, travelling the distance between the pair in the blink of an eye. The weapon’s burning appendages released a torrent of fire, deep and powerful, as the lash struck Sylas’s head dead-centre. Whipping across the sadistic hunter’s face, it seared four thick, hulking burns across its width, rocking his jaw sharply to the left.
The monster hunter released a primal, agonized scream, any attempt at speech left unintelligible as he fell to his knees. His hands hovered an inch from his face, not daring to touch the blistering skin but searching for some way to numb the searing heat. The crowd released a collective of noise; some gasping, others exclaiming, and a select few simply regarded the scene with pale-faced confusion. Arrius stood to the side, arms crossed, a look of incomprehension painted across his stern visage.
Air saturated Alex’s lungs as he gasped a deep, shuddering breath, the alien fugue state banished from his mind. As the lash disintegrated into ash and dust, Alex could only stare blankly at his right hand, at the memory of surging power he had so casually commanded in his detachment. He had never done anything remotely like it before, and even now his memory of the altered state was breaking apart, vanishing like the remnants of a dream. He looked up.
A part of him was horrified at the sight, at what had been done to Sylas. The man’s burns were disfiguring, guaranteed to scar, if he would even survive the pain. He never knew the capacity for such violence against another person lived within him. However, a greater part of him could only be described as darkly satisfied. Inflicting pain would never be something he enjoyed, but after everything that had happened, he struggled to feel sorry for the man. A touch of remorse, undoubtedly, but overshadowed.
Hurting Sylas as he did came with consequences, however, who chose to rear their heads at the sight of his confusion. Five men draped in fur stepped from the crowd. Sylas’ companions were, to a man, obviously experienced monster hunters. The rage and vengeance in their eyes spoke to what they were about to do to Alex, and he swallowed a heavy dose of fear. That little display had exhausted a decent chunk of his power, not that he would put himself against five silvers with all the power in the world.
The men approached as a group, already slinging and unsheathing weapons from belts and holsters. Alex’s eyes were glued to the wicked zweihander in the lead man’s hands, their approach and his death inevitable. Until a thick, meaty fist swung from the side, smashing into the side of the man’s skull and ploughing him to the ground. Arrius released a heavy sigh as the man went down and his companions turned to him, a measure of fear visible in their eyes, but no give to be found in their postures.
Arrius squared up to the men, and the slaughter began. Not an actual slaughter, thankfully - Arrius opted for non-lethal attacks - but to call it anything else would be a disservice to the complete disassembly of their formation in a matter of seconds. The gruff sergeant drove his elbow into the gut of the man closest to him on the right, ducking a swinging axe and driving with his legs to deliver an explosive uppercut which removed yet another man from the fight.
The remaining three hunters spared no thought for their fallen companions, rushing in with an assortment of weapons to tackle Arrius three-on-one. Their efforts were for naught. A crushing roundhouse kick, punishing headbutt, and devastating hook were all it took for the old soldier to dispatch each opponent, before turning to the remaining members of the crowd and making a dismissive motion with his hands.
“Show’s over.”
The crowd dispersed swiftly, filtering back into the tavern as if they had been watching an interesting play that was cut short. When the flow of people abated, Tyra and Ellie rushed out from within the kitchen, concern mirrored in their eyes. Sylas’ screams had devolved into mewling whimpers, now, as he lay prone on the ground. Alex hoped the man had fallen unconscious.
Tyra’s expression morphed from concerned to calculating as she took in the scene, six unconscious bodies splayed out across the ground. Oddly, it seemed to relieve her, lips curling at the corners into a satisfied smile. Conversely, Ellie’s restlessness skyrocketed, and she darted forward at a sprint. She charged into Alex, wrapping her arms around him in a hug.
“Alex! Are you okay? What happened?” she asked, firing out questions at a rapid pace.
The pain in his back spurred a wince from Alex, but he concealed as much of it as he could. It was strange, but the pain actually had lessened, just a little. Whatever the truth of the day’s baffling events, though, it had left him both mentally and physically exhausted. He made his best effort to run the girl’s hug through the mental fog, patting her back reassuringly.
“I’m okay. He hit me a few times, but I’ll be fine.”
The righteous rage that had swelled within him was gone, now, leaving only a potent mix of confusion, exhaustion and unease. It had felt good to proverbially smite Sylas, saving himself from the hunter’s sadistic glee and claiming his revenge, but the problem was it shouldn’t have been possible. Silvers possessed greater physical attributes than a Bronze on the whole, not to mention the greater power available to them; hell, Alex should never have been able to wrest the weapon away from him in the first place. What happened?
While her questioning had paused for a moment, he could Ellie swelling up to bursting with curiosity and confusion of her own, looking around at the unconscious hunters in the training yard. He was saved from further questioning by the attention of Arrius, though his feelings toward the man were quite turbulent. He’d been just fine to let Sylas beat him half to death - why did he step in at the end?
“Little miss, I need you to go with Tyra and fill your travel packs.” Arrius said, inclining his head toward his wife. Then, after a momentary pause, he seemed to arrive at a decision. “The tokens as well, Tyra.”
The girl absorbed his words for a moment, wide-eyed, before nodding. She trailed along behind Tyra as they moved into the Waystation, the older woman already issuing non-stop instructions as to the complement of supplies, documentation and the like they would need to collect. Alex watched them go for a moment, then turned his attention to Arrius.
The old soldier’s eyes were assessing, not dissimilar to how they appeared in training, but there were deeper facets to his evaluation now. His eyes caught on Alex’s right hand, where no visible mark of his earlier imbuement lingered, and finally he met Alex’s own eyes. The two stayed that way for a minute, locked in a staring contest, while thoughts whirred in both their heads. He wasn’t sure how to feel about Arrius, now.
The moment was broken when Arrius softly clipped Alex around the ear, shaking his head in what appeared to be dry amusement. A soft smile had appeared on the gruff man’s lips, and he ran his eyes up and down Alex’s form before releasing a slow chuckle. A tinge of anger stirred in Alex’s gut, struggling for purchase amidst his exhaustion, but the older man simple placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Listen, lad.” Arrius began, a mixture of emotions present on his face. “I know you’re upset that I let Sylas do that to you, but you’re going to need to understand it if you want to survive where you’re going, and we don’t have much time.”
Raising his eyebrows, Alex gestured for the man to go on. He hadn’t expected a voluntary explanation.
“You’re only a Bronze, and with no family to boot. That means you exist at the very bottom of the social order, you understand?”
Alex nodded. Where was this going?
“Right. Being at the very bottom, what makes you think you can mouth off to a Silver-rank, in public no less? Strictly speaking, lad - you had no right. That’s why I let it happen. He was perfectly within his rights to demand punishment for your disrespect.”
“What?” Alex said, mouth agape. “You mean that was legal, what he did to me?”
“Legal? Yes, lad, it was legal.” Arrius sighed. “Not just legal, but necessary. The moment you disrespected him in front of his men, he had no choice but to put you down hard. Those monster hunter’s are fair weather groups.”
“He didn’t do it for that.” Alex growled, teasing a mote of anger from within. “He enjoyed it. He liked hurting me. It was fun for him.”
“Aye, that it was.” Arrius nodded. “Would’ve had to do the same either way, though. Don’t like how much he enjoyed it, but those sorts do exist.”
With this, he paused for a moment, seeming to carefully choose his next words. With a glance toward the Waystation, he spoke.
“Thing is, now that you’ve gone and beaten him up - and I wish we had time for you to tell me exactly how you pulled that off - he and his men have every right to kill you. Without being blood-family, I can’t protect you from him, either.”
“Then why did you step in?”
Arrius grinned. “They drew weapons on my property. Right to kill or not, my Waystation, my rules. Doesn’t mean I can protect you the next time they try.”
So, in short, Alex hadn’t been allowed to call Sylas out on his behaviour, and daring to do so meant he was supposed to be beaten black-and-blue by a sadistic bastard with a travelling whip. Not only that, but for the audacious crime of fighting back, they now had free reign to kill him whenever they wanted? What type of monsters came up with that system, he thought.
“The important thing, lad, is that you understand what this means. You can’t stay here anymore, and if you try the same thing once you’re in the capital, you’re likely to take a worse beating. Understand?”
It wasn’t right. In Seaport, things didn’t work in such a barbaric way. They were taught the importance of respect, naturally, and especially to respect those of a higher rank than them; but nobody would have demanded public lashings for some disrespect. Menial tasks and unpaid labour were the punishments there, and even those were seen only rarely. Alex released an internal. If that was how things were, then until he could do something about it, he would have to go along with it. Sometimes the strong abuse that strength.
“Alright.” he said.
“Good lad. Don’t let my goodwill go to waste by gettin’ yourself killed, alright?” Arrius replied, spotting Ellie and Tyra exiting the Waystation, carrying two loaded packs and Alex’s own travel satchel. There were two strange chains in Tyra’s hand.
As Tyra and Ellie arrived, Arrius smirked at Alex, taking the two metal discs hanging on chains that the woman held in her hands. Holding them up to the light, Alex could make out the details. Hanging from identical silver chains were two circular tokens, one silver, the other gold. Twinned inscriptions were present on each token, alongside the insignia of the Kingdom of Orius. Alex recognised it on sight as the same insignia that was present on the Army detachments that had been travelling up and down the Regnal Road for the past week, and nodded in understanding. He’d thought something like this was Arrius’ idea the moment the old man had walked out in dress uniform.
“You and Ellie will have to make your own way from here on. That doesn’t mean we can’t help you though, eh?” Arrius said, waving the tokens in front of him.
“Are those what I think they are, Arrius?” Alex said, to an ensuing knowing chuckle from Tyra. Ellie smirked at the sight of the glimmering metal, victory in her eyes.
“They are. These are the tokens of recommendation you’ve been working hard for, the key to a new life. The pair of you have impressed Tyra and I enough that we’re willing to part with them, despite your training being cut short.”
Raising the tokens to eye level, Arrius smirked.
“You, my friend, are going to join the Army.”