Aziel wasn’t doing anything warranting attention, when The Wild Sect clansmen found him. Honestly. Oath on his very soul and Tanish himself.
Passings had, well, passed, and he felt his sanity slowly chip away. These days he closed his eyes, focused on his Bank’s expanding Mould, and hoped the hours would transpire with no added danger. A few more days now. Aziel must have told himself those same reinforcing words a hundred times over, but this time, with only a few of the smaller bones left needing tunnels, he meant it.
By the end of the Duration, Foot-Soldier would be his. His only qualm was the slight issue of his entire clan being enslaved, but once they slapped The Wild Sect out of here, he’d be earning his keep at the front lines. But heavens forbid the prospect of having to work as a soldier enlisted as under one of Juniper’s vassals. Oh well, that fate was virtually impossible. If they found him, his body would be decaying long before Willow considered the advantages of a new Foot-Soldier. The Wild Sect wasn’t the most pragmatic of clans, in truth.
During his lunch break, Aziel, for the most part, ignored the stale bread lying in the basket before him. Eyelids darkening his world, the excess of his attention went to the arduous task of Vault-creation. Shovelling crust into an open mouth idly, he only snapped back into reality as multiple footsteps entered the main chamber. Far too many more than the usual two or three who shared this break with him.
He opened his mouth, about to ask why the tunnel expansion had been cut short, when the image of Brison striding forth sent a tremor down his spine. An entire entourage, making up the rest of the rebellion, at his tail. Their haunted, fatigued eyes stuck out like sore thumbs. Pinpoints behind grimacing masks of ashy dirt.
And, in some near intangible change, they were more gloomy than ever. Aziel immediately stood up straighter, choking down a dry piece of the loaf. “Andreas?”
“Bad news.” The burly man stated the obvious. “It's sibyl.”
He didn’t need to expand.
“Gods. How long ago?”
“A few hours.” One of the others near the front, a gangly man Aziel hardly talked to, answered. With desperation, he looked up to Brison. “Sir, do you think we could-”
“I can’t make any promises, Edmund, but time is of the essence. I’m not saying you’ll be able to find her, but a small group leaving now might have a shot.”
A second of stress seemed to age him by a decade. “I’ll go. It's only right.”
Something in the man’s tone made Aziel’s throat constrict. That wasn’t the tone of voice one suited when merely referring to an acquaintance. Memory jogged, and he recognised the pleading man as Sibyl’s younger brother.
Lost family. Endangered loved ones. That was something Aziel could relate to.
“Allow me to come, if I may,” he suddenly got up off the chair. “One would be too dangerous, and three would draw too much attention. A duo is our best shot.”
Several faces looked at him strangely, as if wondering why he out of all people would volunteer. But staying cramped up in these burrows like rabbits was insufferable — feeling powerless was the reason Aziel had almost lost it in the first place. This was his chance to make a difference.
Edmund nodded. “Thank you. I’ll lead you to her last whereabouts.”
“Be car . . .” Brison began, before cutting himself off. The two were gone within a second. Besides, they knew the dangers ahead.
“What Divine Rank are you?” Aziel asked swiftly, drawing in Infinity until his reverses were full to bursting. Being as close to Foot-Soldier as he was, he almost felt naked without a good supply on him at all times.
“Foot-Soldier.” He muttered curtly, eyes locked ahead on the twisting avenues. “You?”
“More or less the same. Give or take a few days.”
Edmund nodded approvingly, halfway between a scowl and blank expression. As if he were trying to remain stoic, but was failing miserably. “Good. The Wild Sect up there are all eligible for the front lines. Any less, and you could put yourself at risk.”
Aziel was momentarily inclined to highlight the danger of charging out in the open regardless, but decided it better to keep his mouth shut.
For a minute, the two set themselves to silence. Left, right, right, left, left. Concluding at a sharp incline upwards, that became a practically vertical line at the end. It was a short climb, but one sure to crease and dirty Aziel’s ruined clothes more than they already were. What he would do for a bath. Even for one that would only last a few minutes. As soon as they turned the tables on their captors, Aziel was going to soak for a Duration straight.
They clambered up a distance away from the sect, inches from breaking out of the earth. Gripping the last handhold before surfacing, the pair of them went rigid. Voices. Voices from above, and voices most definitely not of the Ambition Sect.
“. . . down here somewhere.” They eavesdropped onto a man. “That girl came from around here.”
Brushing through a hundred silent curses, Aziel cleared all of the Infinity out of the atmosphere. He sensed Edmund doing the same, eyes wide in an almost manic look.
“Check the area.” A different voice spoke. So there were at least two of them. “Willow keeps nagging us about ‘secret passages’.”
Two Foot-Soldiers, and them: a peak Emblazed, Foot-Soldier, and the element of surprise. A tricky fight, but maybe-
The muscles in Edmund’s forearm became pronounced, as Ambition and Infinity flooded his system.
“Wait!” Aziel whispered loudly, “we have to deal with this carefully. If an entrance to our network is discovered-”
Flames sped out of Edmund’s fist in an unstoppable stream. Flecks of dirt watered Aziel’s eyes, and he was forced to blink as a blinding blue enveloped the dark space. In a rush of neon colour, the Foot-Soldier jolted to the surface.
Idiot! He internally mused, restraining his Ambition to simply reinforcing his system. Unlike some people, Aziel wasn’t about to send a flare jeopardising their position for everyone to see.
Yelps above reverberated through the ground, oncoming vibrations ratting the mud walls of the passage. Before he could react, a web of branches whisked through the dirt, grazing his skin. And yet it was only wood: weak and flammable. Aziel focused on his Ambition, outpouring the energy as the corrosive, destroying resource it had the potential to be. Blue flames destroyed the construct in a second, and he doused his skeleton with Infinity in advance.
He felt like a raging bull, an unstoppable object drawing in power. Forgoing marvelling on the wonders of Infinity any longer, Aziel flew through the opening.
We need to keep this conflict efficient and unnoticed, he told himself, the whole rebellion will be slaughtered if we don’t go about this carefully.
Sunlight slanting across his body for the first time in what felt like decades, it took Aziel all he had not to be temporarily stunned. Head cocking to the side, the sight of Edmund being hung up — as if about to be crucified — left him clueless for a moment as a body hurtled into him.
A figure clad in wooden armour summoned out of nowhere pressed him into the ground. But Aziel had only been knocked aside because of momentum. With bones swarming with more Infinity than calcium, he rolled the man beneath him. Again and again he punched down, the conflict becoming an all out wrestle.
As he was wrested from side to side, Aziel caught sight of the Ambition Clan. A brown blur on the cusp of his vision. They were further than Aziel had originally thought. Then, why were Wild Sect clansmen on brigade this far out in the first place? And then it struck him like a pile of bricks: the graves. They must have discovered the ramshackle graveyard, he, and the rest of the bereaved rebellion had stitched up together.
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Molten fury seeped through the fibres of his every muscle. If they had so much as touched that sacred ground, Aziel would go manic. Way out of range of the Ambition Sect, Aziel didn’t have to be careful of attracting attention. With a guttural roar, he sent his entire body smouldering. A sapphire, smoking cocoon draped over every inch of his form, and extending all of his Infinity to his arms and legs, he pinned the clansmen down.
The Wild and Ambition. Aziel couldn’t think of an encounter where his clan’s arsenal would be more advantageous. The only reason Willow and her squadrons were able to keep an iron fist over them, was simply because of the power in numbers. But one-on-one . . .
The man shrieked helplessly as his oak armour melted off his exposed skin. Vines snapped at Aziel from every angle, rising out of the ground, but he ignored them: his corona of flame would take care of the plantage passively.
Their grip rapidly increasing, Aziel was pushed aside as the man must have made use of his own Infinity. No matter; Aziel simply fired a dozen flaming shots from the end of his index finger.
They hit home, and the clansman sunk over, writhing in agony. Fire consumed him, and the man abandoned any ploy to attack. He rolled around, yelping, magically demanding any nearby greenery to let go of their moisture. But it wasn’t enough
Aziel may have despised The Wild Clan, but this was simply too cruel. He leaped before them, empowering his fist with every possible resource. One punch, and a gaping hole was cleared right through their stomach.
He held his hand back, dripping with golden blood, and recalled his flames. A mangled lump was all that remained.
Catching his breath, it took Aziel an embarrassingly slow time to turn around. There, with reflexes any fighter worth his title would be ashamed of, his mouth hung open in the picture of an idiot.
A net of trees hung up Edmund like he was about to be executed. Knots of wood stabbed into his flesh, locking him in place, and the unconscious man's head drooped. But this horrific sight put aside, what really left Aziel breathless was the two figures fighting to the right.
A figure encased in the signature flame of the Ambition Clan threw itself at an opposing woman relentlessly. Seeds billowed away from the clanswoman, chafing against all in their wave’s path with frightening intensity. A few got so far as scraping across Aziel’s skin, but were reduced to burnt kindling before any real damage could be dealt.
She screamed, great trunks of wood splitting the ground into a ruin of fissures. Below, roots upon roots upon roots seemed to carry the whole world’s weight, and Aziel was left skipping from place to place to avoid the ensnaring depths. One fall down there, and no amount of flame would prevent him from being crushed.
She whacked at the man repeatedly with sloppy form. Yet nevertheless, the sight made Aziel wince. That close up, even through this stranger’s brigade of flames, that must have hurt.
And yet, they didn’t do so much as react. In fact, an audible clang was heard each time the woman struck futilely. At last, the blazing silhouette moved out of their stiff stance, and clicked a finger at the opponent's direction.
The woman blasted back, as if caught in the path of a carriage cannoning past. Aziel blinked, realised he had been doing nothing to assist the shadow, and dived forwards.
It all happened so fast, and the clanswoman was too dazed to react. Crashing into the bundle of twisted branches below, Aziel saw nothing but the coals of a furnace sitting in wake. Raising his hands in tune with the newcomer, the pair of them poured a blast of fire onto the exposed bundles in tandem. As if draped with oil, a bonfire roared before them within seconds. The woman shrieked in fear, the land around them being pierced by random spots of attacking greenery, as she lashed out with the last of her dying power.
Aziel grimaced, raised a finger, and exactly as he had with her companion, put the woman to rest. All it took was a merciful shot to the head.
For a moment, no one said a thing. Aziel caught his breath, examined the ravaged scene expanding around them, and choked down the taste of sick. Smoke stung his eyes, made it hard to inhale, but he ignored the burnt, woodland scent.
Remus turned to him, flames perishing, eyes diluted with a striking blue. Aziel felt his heart stop for a moment as he recognised a bodily alteration. Now permanent, reinforced through the tribulations of Emblazed. He faced Aziel with a disturbed expression, as if not quite sure if it was appropriate to smile. Finally, Remus broke the silence.
“Your friend.” He indicated Edmund, still hanging limply. “Let’s get him down. He’s alive; I can see him shifting. ”
Trust Aziel to miss the obvious. “Of course, of course.” He hesitated, then cracked a gawky smile. It may have been inappropriate, but the tension was threatening to break him. “Then we can catch up. I trust you’ve delivered?”
Remus nodded, obviously doing his best to remain humble. “I just hope I can train you all in time. Once The Wild Sect stumbles across all this,” he gestured vaguely to the fractured land, “we’re going to be hunted with more force than ever.”
Slowly, despite Edmund’s squeals of pain, they cut the man free. Thin strips of oak still jabbed into him, but neither of them trusted themselves to pull the protrusions free. Surely, someone back at the rebellion would have some idea of how to reduce Edmund’s suffering. For now, they rested the man’s arms over a shoulder each, hoisting him up.
“Sibyl,” Aziel kept recalling urgent matters, “she’s gone missing. We came out to find her, but ran into these two.”
Remus grimaced. “Tricky.”
“I know. But we might as well have a look now that we’re here.”
Standing still, the pair dedicated themselves to thinking on her possible whereabouts. Aziel whispered a curse, rubbing a palm to his brow. He couldn’t arrive at any obvious conclusions, and the chance of Sibyl being-
He inhaled. The chances of her being okay . . . it was crushingly improbable.
“Those clansmen,” he turned to Remus, who was just as absorbed in thought as him. “They spoke like they had already got to her.”
Remus closed his eyes, as if experiencing physical pain. “Damn it. Another one. Another person dead.”
They spent the next several minutes looking around, hopping across one dislodged mound of earth to the next. They didn’t expect to uncover anything — knew full well what Sibyl’s fate had been — but entertained the incessant need to search regardless. They were left gritting their teeth, regretting bothering to look in the first place. They had been setting themselves up for disappointment.
“Come,” Aziel directed them towards the exit, unable to look Edmund in the eye. He was too dazed in his reverie of agony to fully appreciate the gravity of what had happened, but once the bereaved brother woke up, Aziel didn’t know what he would say. He already felt like Sibyl’s death was his fault, regardless of how little that was based in truth. “We need to head back in, and immediately collapse this section of the tunnelling before The Wild Sect uncover what’s happened. The destruction might disguise the blocked up passageways, but one can only hope.”
“Agreed.” Remus muttered, setting a palm ablaze as if about to chop something, and cutting through the tangled branches. At last, they located the familiar indent into the ground. “Not exactly the homecoming I was expecting.”
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“ . . . and that’s about the extent of it.” Remus finished up, feeling self-conscious as the subject of a dozen gazes.
It was a few hours later. Despite everyone’s outward amazement at Remus’ return — some likely thought he had just ran off to save his own neck — Brison had made them all save their questions. Only after shovelling nearly a third of their dirt-halls off, did the Warlord feel secure enough to allow Remus to speak.
He had recounted everything. Sure, many eyebrows were raised at the mention of Enrique’s miraculous presence, and Remus couldn’t find it in him to blame them. He too hardly believed it, and he’d spent a Duration training with the man. But all in all, not a soul objected any more than a half-hearted murmur.
“I haven’t mastered his techniques per se, they’re difficult. But I have a good enough handle over them to teach you all the basics.”
“Forgive my forwardness Remus,” Brison butted in, “but do you truly believe with these abilities, we’ll be able to take down Willow, and her troops? We will have to dedicate all our time if we want to hone these techniques, and putting all your eggs into one basket, as they say, is risky.”
Remus inhaled. He’d been expecting some opposition. Utilising hidden powers embedded deep into their forgotten pasts, to prevail over a dominating enemy — no doubt, it sounded like a wild pipe dream. Something out of a book he might find in someone’s dusty attic. But after witnessing Enrique’s unparalleled strength, and how much stronger he himself had grown with their assistance, he couldn’t help but have faith.
If this wouldn’t obliterate Willow’s forces, nothing would.
“I have a plan.” He mustered as much confidence as he could. “But I need all of your assistance. All of your dedication. Even the basic version of these techniques, those I can transfer to you in the coming Duration, will inspire new strength into each and every one of you. Together, with a little careful preparation and luck, we will send Willow and her forces scattering.”
Enraptured faces bore into his. All of them latching on to the hope he had presented like a warm hand in the dark. And, past their stoic facades, he eyed the burning desire to succeed. He would stoke those fires into an army of infernos.
“ . . . Unless any of you have a better idea?”
Aziel wrapped an arm around him, grinning like his birthday had come early. “I’m all for gathering all the power I can get. It would be selfish to not at least entertain Remus’ plea after all he’s done for us.”
A few seconds went by without a word. Then a minute. Finally, Brison took a step forward, for once beaming with undisguised mirth. “For the next nine days, you may train us as you see fit. If there are results . . . well, there might be a future for us after all.”
Voices rose. Some excited, some plainly sceptical. He approached those frightened faces, forcing his features into those of a leader. Soaking his words until they dripped with confidence, he at last spoke.
“So, we’ll start off with Flaming Gold. How accustomed are you all with pain?”