Violet served as the axis of a torrent of destruction, the landscape around her taking quite the beating as she threw everything she had at the Unbounded.
This pack was the largest she’d ever seen — twenty or more, with approximately half already disintegrating at her feet. Nevertheless, as she strolled slowly forwards, twisting nature itself as her weapon of choice, she could tell these beasts were only the equivalent of an Enkindled each. Teetering on tapping into the abyss of power that was advancing to Foot-Soldier, Violet had little to fear. Rather, she found a fuming mound of vexation birthing deep within her. She had gone to collect kindling for a fire with innocent intentions, and now risked getting lost from their camp, damaging on-hand supplies, and she still, after all that, had firewood to worry about collecting. Fuel needed for a fire that must be made before the night’s air truly became frosty. Else, she and Remus would be shivering all night. Something told her the man would be no more charismatic with his teeth chattering non-stop.
Then there was the topic of Remus himself. Violet wasn’t sure what to make of the peculiar man; he seemed rigidly fixed in between the rakish boldness of the sort only valiant men of legends possess about them, and a bumbling imbecile. To think that someone like that was allegedly of equal power to her . . . Even amongst the bloody showdown shattering reality around Violet, that was a fact she struggled to fully accept. There was only one factor that enticed her to leave her scepticism as merely that, and not blossom into absolute doubt. Violet found it very hard to believe anyone below a certain stature in the power Rankings would be able to stay moving so long, after tumbling off the crest of a hill. Let alone flee the trail of guards.
A thought for another time. Violet put the matter to the back of her mind, concentrating a portion of her Chaotic energy onto a rabid Unbounded. They were clearly intent on tackling her to the ground. Its eyes lightened to a haze of purple, as something intangible muddied the creature’s thoughts. It loped from side to side, their sense of direction as accurate as a broken compass, and turned on its own kin, teeth bared.
Perspiration formed on her brow, as she trespassed into the domain of the beast’s mind. Looking as if she was trying to tear the earth in twain through sheer force of will, Violet concentrated. The carcasses of twelve white beasts reduced to only piles of fur — slaughtered by her own hand — rendering eight or so Unbounded very grievous. Grief. An emotion basking in the nonsensical, spawned from and ebbing in the abstract waters of Chaos.
It would be easy for her to manipulate. Soon, Violet watched as three wolves pounced on their own brethren, empty sockets blazing purple, as they bent to her whim. It was a sight to behold, and, for but a moment, Violet could catch her breath without worry of invading claws. All she had to do now was maintain a mental hold on the beasts, which was fairly simple, given the feeble nature of their mental fortitudes. The fight was coming to its climax, and just at the right time too. Another few minutes of this, and she might’ve actually grown exhausted to the point of-
From out of nowhere, Remus and an array of very ticked-off Unbounded, perhaps cousins of the pack that littered the forest floor around her, came crashing into view. Remus flailed his arms, screaming in a decibel that didn’t signal musical talent through a wall of oak trees.
. . . to the point of collapse, she finished.
Violet’s mental hold on the creatures failed in her bewilderment, and the two parties of Unbounded rushed to unite in one force of war.
“Violet,” Remus called, slipping over towards her and almost losing the ground beneath his feet. “There you are, I was looking all over for you! Look, I know this is a bad time-”
“It is.”
“-and we may be in for the dashing of our lives-”
“You mean you will be.”
“-But I’m sorry, okay, I’m sorry! I was desperate to get out of First Rite, and uhm, delicately fabricated a false, much more impressive version of myself. It was all I could think of, to convince you to take me.”
She paused. For as long as she was willing to in the middle of a battlefield. “You mean to say you lied?”
Remus swallowed. “Uhm, yeah, that about sums things up.”
“You’re not Emblazed, are you? An Emblazed would have no trouble killing the amount of Unbounded you were dealing with; Unbounded so weak. What are you, Enkindled?”
It took all Remus had to face her. “Engorged.”
A sigh escaped her lips, and Violet turned to the gathered assault of wolfish fiends ahead of them. A sickly feeling lingered on her tongue. For some reason, despite only having known this moron for several hours, she felt betrayed. As if she hadn’t had enough of that sensation to combat on a day-to-day basis.
“We’ll talk about this later.” She said, in the most stony inflection her voice could produce.
As squadrons of Unbounded came canonning into her, Violet brought down hell.
----------------------------------------
Remorseful isn't a sufficient enough word for Remus’ guilt. It was both immediate and suffocating in its ferocity. Yet again, he had hurt someone else in the haste of his actions. First his clan, now Violet, and it pricked at the mind to debate what could have become of Tal. Hadn’t he learned anything from his previous failures? Violet’s utter shift from a relaxed, though cautious girl, to giving him the cold shoulder was soul-crushing. What kind of a man was he, if he couldn’t even grow and mature from past mistakes? Cursed to fall ever again on his path; destined to repeat the same few errors indefinitely until he wheezed his last breath.
These thoughts and more weren’t uncommon, ravaging Remus’ mind in a masterful collaboration with insecurities so ingrained, it would take a lifetime of introspection to pin their source. Enhanced a hundredfold were these intruding voices by the cruel reality he could do little to assist Violet in this mess. But little, however minute, is uplifted by the fact that it will always be, beyond a shadow of a doubt, something. So that was exactly what he did, however futile a pronounced presence in his head was making it out to be.
A grave look about him, Remus marched towards the very same pack he had herded into this enclosure. The same wolves Violet was throwing all the power of an Emblazed at to slaughter. All the reaffirming excitement purged from his body, Remus was left with cold, harsh reality as he overlooked the makeshift battlefield.
And what a spectacle it was.
Entire portions of the ground were being upheaved into the air, as if by some invisible god, crushing Unbounded into a fine powder as a skin-tearing wind carried them in a lethal spiral. The little greenery not butchered by the repercussions of brutal battle sprang to life, as if a clansman of The Wild Sect was standing nearby. Weeds became whips; trees evolved into the batons of giants; and the environment as a whole shifted subtly. Almost as though pieces of an elaborate jigsaw puzzle were being rearranged. It was insanity. It was a marvel so deadly Remus had second-thoughts of straying from his place of safety. It was absolute chaos, in the oldest definition of the word.
Arms over his head, Remus sprang forwards. Violet wouldn’t be able to sustain this pantomime of destruction for any longer than a stretch of woodlands could endure a forest-fire. He would have to contribute, and hope blindly that the Unbounded didn’t have any extended family lurking nearby.
One wolf was trodding behind Violet’s exposed back, and Remus hurtled himself at it, the network of bandages mummifying his body quickly unravelling. It was a repeat of his last squabble with one of the pests. Scratch marks painted a tapestry upon his base of body, and the two of them traded blows. Then, before one of the Unbounded’s brethren could interfere, the environs altered to Violet’s whims, and Remus found himself before the wrath of a tree that just couldn’t quite keep still. It rotated as if on a moving pedestal, threatening to bash anyone to death who dared step near.
An idea occurred to Remus, and tired of wild punches and kicks no more accurate than a spasming dolphin, he slipped his arms beneath the underbelly of the wolf, placed his hands firmly on its upper fur, and with all the progressing strength he had built from doing push ups when nobody was looking, hurtled the Unbounded. It struck the log, and Remus left what occurred next to the imagination, turning and stepping a safe distance away as the dust of Infinity sprinkled his back.
His environment switched for what he hoped would be the last time. Putting his guard up instinctively — readily expecting yet another angry wolf to come for his neck, or a lethal hug from a flying chunk of earth — Remus was pleasantly surprised to find . . . nothing at all. He had appeared on a mound forming a raise in the ground. Not so much as a pebble whizzed past his head.
It was difficult to tell, considering the fur imposing as snow over the ground, and the ravaged landscape, but the glade seemed to have reverted to its original positioning. The greenery returned to the stagnant state of inertia that Remus whole-heartedly believed to suit it much better, and among the razzed ground, Violet sat catching her breath. Slowly, as if each movement might spell out his death, Remus made to sit by her. Awkwardly slow, he nestled down against a patch of crushed leaves, and the girl said nothing. Yet the distinct impression that she was only refraining from protesting struck him. Remus couldn’t find justified reason to object to this animosity. Did he apologise? Was that what he was supposed to do here? Yet, he didn’t want to act as if a simple ‘sorry’ would nullify the lies he’d spouted. He shot out a thousand-mile stare, as if conjuring a glimpse of the gods’ abode by sheer force of will, to no direction in particular.
If he was relying on the assistance of deities who had turned their backs on him decades ago, matters were grim indeed.
“How many?” He poked a hole into the draping silence, asking a question he already knew the answer to, simply for the sake of speaking. “How many Unbounded were there?”
No reply.
“Look,” Remus turned to Violet, desperation leaking into his tone. “I shouldn’t have lied. I’m sorry.”
The words sounded too sparse on his own lips. Remus wanted to explain everything. How he was born Death-Marked, how he was doing this all for the betterment of his clan, and how he truly believed he could put a dent into Damosh’s tyranny if he sacrificed enough. But that all seemed suspiciously like excuse-making.
Still, Violet said nothing.
Tentative words leaked out of him. “I meant you no harm. I had reasons for needing to get out of here, desperate reasons. I’m sure you had factors pushing you out of First Rite yourself, equally as important as mine. I’m not trying to alleviate myself of any blame, I just — what I’m trying to say is that-”
He couldn’t ramble his way out of this one.
“. . . if it appeases you, I’ll leave.”
Remus stood up, staring wistfully off to a speck of brown in the distance. The nearest settlement of potters and their cabin buildings protruded from a cluster of hills, as though his next location was materialising promptly before his eyes. He’d have to hunker down, and rethink his schemes. His original plan sounded positively outlandish now: to successfully steal a Droplet unsuspected, and use his personal funds to be escorted to Hybrid’s Flame Territory, where the first trial would be undergone. A solemn laugh left his lips. Sure, he was Engorged, but that precious money? His one-way-ticket to Hybrid? In the prison’s treasury. Unless he planned on pulling any heists in the near future, it would be lost forever. And who knew if the Flame Sect higher-ups still even remembered that the trials existed. There was no one to confirm that they weren’t just a forgotten relic of time, and that was what terrified Remus the most.
The more he thought on it, the more futile his plan appeared. The riddling flaws were as clear as creases in parchment; he’d been blind not to see them before.
So Remus walked off, each step like a shattering blow to his ideology forged out of misbeliefs. This was all stupid in the first place, he told himself, this was all . . .
A reverberating thud triggered him into swivelling on his feet. The potential possibility of more Unbounded emerging sent alarm bells off in him. But there was no apparent danger, and Remus frowned. Then, looking down, realisation clicked into place. Violet had collapsed onto the ground, dozing dreamily.
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Remus wanted to slap himself. She had been sleeping! No wonder she was exhausted, the woman had just ended the lives of dozens of malevolent Unbounded. Remus hastily got her up off the muddy ground, propping her against an oak tree.
“I’m an idiot,” he whispered comically to himself, a faint smile playing on his lips. The spark of joy quickly fizzled out however, as he realised the weight of his actions still hung down on him.
Violet grunted something unintelligible, snapping one eye open. “Remus.” She said curtly, shooting him a look with a rapid turn of the head. “The Unbounded, whe-”
“Dead. All of them.”
The dazed girl stretched with a melodramatic yawn, before promptly hammering a fist on the crest of Remus' head. “That’s for lying.”
“I’m sorry.” Remus blurted, rubbing his head. “I can explain everything. I’m Death-Marked — or well, I was, and that’s the reason I stole. It was a Droplet that I took, you see, and-”
A judgmental look embraced him with all the warmth of a piercing blade. “You really are selfish, you know that?”
“. . . What?”
“I save you from a hoard of Unbounded that you played a hand in bringing to us, and your first impulse when I wake up is to defend yourself.” She crossed her legs and donned a stern look. “Perhaps a thank you is in order?”
Remus slapped himself, which especially hurt, given it was still sore from Violet’s strike. “Damn it. I was getting ahead-”
“Don’t worry,” she cut him off again, getting up. “That was mostly in jest. Though, if you didn’t seem so sincere in your regret, I might’ve been tempted to abandon you . . . but then again, I could never do something that would weigh on my guilty conscience like that.”
Skipping a few paces forward, Violet looked up at a crescent moon, appearing relatively free from fatigue. After that savage fight, it would be obvious to any one that she was merely putting up a brave front. “So you really were Death-Marked? That sounds familiar for some reason . . . though I’ll refrain from any questions until tomorrow. It's getting, or is, awfully dark.”
Remaining absolutely still, Remus watched as she jogged up ahead.
“Well,” She turned after a second, poking over a boulder, “are you coming, or sleeping upright?”
Remus gritted through his teeth, each letter lame as they left his mouth. “Thank you.”
Violet nodded suspiciously, as if expecting a follow-up, before running ahead. She popped back over a moment later, snapping a few twigs out of a tree that dangled over. “Aha! Almost forgot about the kindling.”
----------------------------------------
Violet stared with evident perplexion at a circle Remus had inscribed into the mud with a stick.
Two smaller circles were set inside the larger, with the outer layer divided into eight equidistant portions — or, more specifically, territories. Each one represented the domain of a sect either from the Animalistic Accord or Elemental Pact, with a rough illustration from the boy indicating which sect ruled over which. The smallest and last of the circles, firmly in the middle, was Hybrid’s centre city itself. The space in between the territories and it was the Shifting. A place that, according to any self-respecting traveller, should be avoided at all costs.
“This is supposed to be Hybrid?” Violet asked the obvious, a sunny morning after the Unbounded attack, glaring quizzically at the boy.
“Yep.” Remus answered, biting his tongue and etching a circle around one particular territory.
The brown fire engraving revealed it to be the Flame Territory, or Territory One. Violet frowned at the vague illustration.
“So, to summarise, your plan to get back at Damosh is to go on a wild-goose-chase, and all just to achieve the second Rank?” She said, recalling all that Remus had revealed in the early hours of the day.
“This isn’t only to get back at Damosh.” Remus interjected, as tired as he could ever be at the comment. “This is for my sect. They need support now more than ever. Andreas, our leader, has but a Rebirth left, even with the Vitality Sect’s support. And to help myself, I need power, and to acquire power, I need to-”
“ . . . scorn in the face of insurmountable odds.” Violet sighed, her braids flickering in the wind. “Alright, I’ll suspend my disbelief a moment longer. If you do overcome these . . . what are they called again?”
“Trials of the Earnest.”
“Yeah, whatever — what’s the next plan of action?”
Much to her surprise, Remus didn’t crumble under the question.
“To advance to Emblazed as fast as possible, then Foot-Soldier. What else? In the army, I’ll send all my profits back home. That alone will be a huge help, especially for a sect not specialising in combat.”
Throughout the entire conversation, Violet had held back the worst of her tongue. She had known Remus to be bright-eyed, but gods above, he practically had supernovas in those sockets of his. All this about a trio of tasks that needed to be completed to join some sort of sacred order. An order whose members had remained elusively evasive for coming onto a century at this point. Did they even exist? Would a god really go to such lengths to ensure that their members embodied their core perfectly?
Violet examined Remus' features, his eyes staring raptly at the hastily-made diagram. There may have been stupidity there, and a lot of it, not to mention a gambling gleam distinctive to only the most bold of risk-takers, but there was also a twinkle. A twinkle of fiery, slowly amounting ambition. It was little more than a flame now, but a flame so potent that it soaked Remus head-to-toe in its intoxicating allure. If it were ever to be fanned into a raging fire . . . what would become of him?
Not entirely confident that she wanted to know, Violet continued. “So you’ll spend six years in the army? Complete your mandatory service?”
Remus looked away from his masterpiece of mud-etchings. “What? No! Of course not. I’ll just advance to a Rank where I’m no longer required to serve.”
She wanted to laugh, but the amusement perished in Violet’s throat. It took her a second to realise that he was being utterly serious.
“So God-Graced just like that huh? How exactly are you planning on vaulting past Emblazed, the Splintered Ranks, Warlord, and then God-Graced, when you haven’t even broken into the realm of Enkindled? Why not shoot for Godling while you’re at it, or better yet, ascending and leaving mortality behind entirely.”
Remus conjured a focused look as he added the last minute details to the map. “That comes after.”
Violet wanted to tear her hair out.
“Alright.” She gave in. “Tell me more about these trials.”
She still wasn’t entirely set on assisting Remus in what may turn out to be a suicide mission, but hearing him out wouldn’t hurt.
“Okay, so as you know, each territory within Hybrid has a moulded environment, as an aftereffect of the combined Mark usage of a clan. For the Flame Territory, the surroundings are a volcanic wasteland of ash and streaming rivers of lava. This is perfectly suited to the first trial, which is an endurance test.”
“Lovely.”
Remus continued, unperturbed. “All the rivers lead into a colossal lake, the territory’s primary landmark: the Infernal Bays.”
“Don’t turn this into a geography lesson, get to the point.”
“Underneath here, the obsidian caverns have a centremost chamber, right beneath the lava lake. There, the perfect amount of heat, combined with the cave’s underground environment, create the optimised conditions for Infirnite to manifest. A sort of fiery crystal that can assist in the Flame Clan’s training.”
“So the first trial is to retrieve a shard?”
“No,” Remus said gravely, “the trial is to spend a Duration down there, enduring the heat, and endless waves of rocky Unbounded, and surface alive with a shard of Infirnite.”
The gravity of that statement was enough to reduce the discussion to a few misplaced coughs.
“And that’s just the first trial?” Violet voiced her bewilderment. “There’s another two after this?”
“Yep.”
“Just as difficult?”
Remus shrugged. “Debatable. The second is rather vague, instructing you to slay a beast of notable power, and collect a part of it as proof of your endeavours. I have a few ideas as for what we can do for that, but let’s discuss it another time. The third and final trial seems the simplest: hunting out the Ambition Sect, and presenting your shard of Infirnite and whatever you took as evidence of having completed the second trial.”
Violet mused over all this. The more Remus revealed, the less eager she was to volunteer to join him on such a journey. Before she could utter another word, let alone come to a decision, Remus clapped his hands.
“Now then! That’s enough about me and my mad antics. You’ve received virtually my entire life story sprinkled through today and yesterday, and you’ve revealed close to nothing on yourself. How am I supposed to know you’re not some city guard in disguise?”
His subsequent smirk was somehow the most punchable thing Violet had ever lay witness too, and believe her, Nova could be damn irritating sometimes. Most times. “Don’t go reversing this on me. Isn’t my face plastered on wanted posters throughout all of First Rite not evidence enough? ”
His grin didn’t falter.
“Okay, fine, fine. I’ll tell you a little, you deserve that much.”
Violet didn’t know exactly where to start, tugging on her braid nervously. Even before Remus had broached the topic in the most aggravating manner possible, she’d intended on revealing some parts of her past. But there were many aspects she wasn’t completely comfortable with sharing. Not yet at least; not until she completely trusted Remus. It had only been two days, and he had already lied. She was still irked by that, and her nature to close herself off was as restricting as it had ever been.
But then again, the two of them were in the same boat. Wanted criminals from Hybrid. Even if she didn’t want to publicly disclose it, hiding behind her introverted exterior, travelling alone for so long may have some troubling repercussions on her psyche. Someone to tow along with would at least keep her in check.
“I left my family because they betrayed me, but there’s more to it than that.”
Remus cocked a ginger eyebrow. “How so?”
“They’ve acted . . . off, in recent years. Or, well a decade, nearly. Like shells of their former selves, all the personality ridden out of them. And then there's my eyes,” Violet felt foolish when she said it aloud, but there was no going back now. “They’re crimson.”
“So?” Remus prompted, appearing fully immersed to her every sentence.
“That’s not natural! Not fiery like this anyway. I practically have embers frothing away in place of eyes. Bodily alterations like that should only be possible at my current Rank, Emblazed, and only rarely then. Most people don’t bother, or get to change. I’ve been like this my entire life. Unless I’m some genetic anomaly, something is off.”
Yet again, like it had with her monster of a father Nova, it all came streaming out with the unpreventable force of a tsunami. “Everyone in my clan seemed to have their personalities stripped away . . . like, like they were being replaced by doppelgangers.”
In the corner of her vision, Remus opened his mouth, but she cannoned onwards, before her withdrawn nature forcibly shut her up. “Then there was this letter, about the missing Warlord, Akuji-”
“Akuji? The Life Sect Akuji? That Warlord?”
Violet nodded. “I thought they might have done something to him, something bad, so I confronted my father about it, and . . .”
“He lashed out?”
“Him and my sister, Verity. Things got out of hand, and somehow, ignoring the fact we were on top of Divine Ground, they went straight for my throat. But I swear, for a moment there, I could see her older self surfacing. Screaming at herself to stop. Then it was gone in a blink, and she reverted to that same old, robotic mien.”
By the look on Remus’ face, she needn’t carry on. He could fill out the blanks.
There was a silence, and when nothing occurred for Remus or her to say, Violet got up and stretched. “Anyhow, we should get moving. Now, I’d usually be entering Hybrid through the Undercrossing.”
“Not as a vigilante, you won’t be." Remus scoffed. “That place has more security than the city itself.”
“I’m getting to that.” Violet huffed, somewhat peeved. “But because of the reason you just mentioned, that option’s gone.”
It was a pity. The Undercrossing was a four-way-tunelled, interconnected passageway that met at the city proper, and led out to the same number of openings outside of Hybrid’s borders, all underground. Via a carriage journey through, one could neatly avoid all the dangers and tribulations that came with the eight territories and their constant squabblings. Not to mention circumventing the absurdities of the Shifting entirely. Perhaps when they acquired enough power to defend themselves, the option would open up. Alas, for now, it was far off limits.
“So because of that, I’ll have to travel through the mainland. I might as well be doing it with you. But,”
“But?”
“By the sounds of it, you’re not at all prepared for your trials.”
She knew the words to be harsh, but the Engorged was incredibly naive. It needed to be made clear. For his own safety, if nothing else.
“I’m going to take the liberty to assist in your training. Primarily so you don’t drop dead at the first sign of danger that approaches you. Most of the time, there isn’t going to be someone to protect you. You’re going to have to fend for yourself.”
Surprisingly, Remus suited a stony expression, and refrained from rebutting her. Violet wasn’t entirely confident in this master and pupil dynamic, but if it resulted in Remus being better prepared for Hybrid, she was happy to do it.
“I can’t teach you too efficiently out here. But there are a few things we can work on. First, your fighting form is horrifically sloppy. Though, I can’t really blame you for that, coming from a sect that doesn’t specialise in combat. Every morning, starting from tomorrow, we’ll go through some motions, and see how you do.”
Remus beamed like a little kid waking up on their birthday. “Thankyou!” The words escaped him in one frantic whole. “I don’t know how I can repay you for this.”
An axe was dropped a foot away from Remus, rather haphazardly. His joy diluted to befuddlement in one unsure glance.
“Funny, because I do; you’ll be hunting for us. Any meat’ll do, as long as it looks edible. We’re far enough away from that last Unbounded pack to only expect individual fiends, or a small group. The regular fight should help toughen you up, and we can see how fast those legs of yours are, when they’re running after prey.”
Picking up the weapon with undisguised hesitance, Remus spoke tentatively. “And on the off chance that I am overrun?”
Violet grinned sinisterly. “Scream.”