IrateRapScallion
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Chapter 101
🕑 Added 2020-10-29 02:03:16 +0000 UTCSofie sprinted through the darkness, her lungs burning, her heart quaking, her legs on the verge of giving out. The featureless void surrounding her continued onward endlessly no matter how far she went, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. Even without looking back, she could see the glow on the very periphery of her vision, the light cast by the baleful blaze of the dragon’s anger. No matter how far she ran, no matter which way she went, it followed. And it grew closer and closer with every massive, ground-shaking step.
She was going to die. She could feel it, the inevitability of it only growing stronger with each shuddering breath she took. Still, she pushed on. Something inside her refused to just give up no matter what.
It didn’t matter.
A clawed hand, each finger larger than her entire body, reached out from the fires behind her and wrapped her entire body in its scalding embrace. The fingers constricted around her, squeezing her entire body like a boa constrictor. She screamed as her skin sizzled from the heat within its grasp.
Wreathed in its wrathful flames, the dragon was more lava made flesh than a truly living being. Its skin crackled and hissed, breaking apart as it shifted to reveal the red glow of melted stone before the surface cooled to black.
The dragon lifted her towards its snout, its maw opening to roast her with a wave of heat. She could feel its deep anger washing over her with every breath, an anger deep-rooted and seemingly implacable. But this was not some grudge against humanity. This was personal, a fury directed at her and only her. The monster’s gaze bore into her, the rage she found within it focused like a blowtorch upon her very soul.
She was burning. She was melting. She was dying.
A voice rumbled through her—nay, through reality itself—its words felt more than heard.
“RELEASE PARI-CHILD!” it demanded, its words so overflowing with violence and malice that she could not even consider ignoring or rejecting them. But she could not comply, even if she so desired.
She just didn’t understand what it wanted.
The grip on her intensified, crushing out what little air remained inside her.
“RELEASE PARI-CHILD, VILE FIEND!” it roared again, its order even louder this time.
Sofie’s lips moved and desperate sounds—perhaps words, perhaps not—came out. But whatever she said was not what the dragon wanted to hear. Its jaw opened even wider, giving Sofie an unobstructed view of the back of the creature’s throat, where she could see a new glow growing stronger and stronger with each passing moment.
“WRETCHED CRAWLER! ENOUGH!” it thundered.
Her death had arrived. She could feel it in her bones and in her soul as the stifling, oppressive heat spiked higher and higher and higher until in one final, massive blast-
Sofie shrieked as she shot upright, her body flailing about uncontrollably in her panic before she fell from her bed and landed awkwardly and painfully upon the hard metal floor.
It took her a good five minutes to calm down enough to get her mind in order. It had all been a terrible dream, yet the pain in the back of her head was all too real. Somebody had bandaged her head, wrapping the entire thing up tight like a mummy. Whoever it was, and she had a good guess, had chosen to err on the side of too much rather than too little and then kept going down that road for another dozen kilometers.
Letting herself cool down, she started unwrapping the cloth bandages as she pieced together her situation. She remembered turning her skitter around the moment that “Grandfather” had appeared, sending the car-sized vehicle scurrying south as quickly as it could go while Gabby and Blake put up a fight. That had been the plan all along, so she’d felt no guilt over her actions, only worry for their safety. But just minutes later, as her situation had spiraled uncontrollably downward, that worry had become the last thing on her mind.
Luckily, Gabby had shown up with a mostly-intact stupidly named robot to save her. She didn’t know what had taken the superwoman so long, but she’d never seen anything more beautiful in her life. And then the dragon had spread his wings and taken to the skies, and Gabby had thrown the skitter, and it had connected, and they’d plummeted back to the ground, and she’d fallen from Grandfather’s grasp, and...
And then she’d woken up, left with nothing but the echoing demands of a furious dragon.
Release Pari? From what? The poor child was dead! And it wasn’t like she had possession of her corpse, either—he did! If anybody should be saying to release Pari, it was her!
She shook her head. Spinning her thoughts in circles wouldn’t get her anywhere. There were other things to think about for the moment.
She’d woken in her tiny cabin within the Flying Toaster. This of course meant that Blake had survived the battle as well. He was the only person who could control the ship in its full capacity, and being the paranoid man he was, he liked to limit access to as much of its functionality as possible when he was present to control the ship himself.
With her head finally free of the fibrous menace that had been squeezing it so, Sofie sat down on her bed and felt around the back of her head. She carefully felt around the area with her fingers, finding swelling and a large scab. It still hurt to touch, so after a cursory examination, she stopped messing with it.
Her stomach growled, its loud insistence pushing her to, reluctantly, stand up and exit her room. Nobody else seemed to be in the sleeping quarters, so she wandered towards the front. There, in the front cabin or whatever rooms on zeppelins were called, she found Blake relaxing beside the controls, the various sticks and levers and whatnot moving on their own accord.
“Ah, you’re finally up,” Blake said as she walked in.
“Finally?”
“You’ve been out for about two days or so,” he told her.
“Oh...” She could wait for a few more minutes for a meal. Anything down on the surface would be better than the food they kept up here. Blake had yet to discover the secret to air conditioning and refrigeration, so the food available was mostly just some fruits they’d purchased before leaving Stragma and she was in the mood for something with more protein. “Where’s Gabby?”
Blake just pointed to something behind her and Sofie turned around to find the Mexican slumped against the back wall, dead asleep.
“She’s been a zombie for most of the trip. She’ll be fine for a bit, and then it’s like somebody cuts the power and she just falls asleep.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Sofie worried.
“No idea. She told me before that she has felt noticeably weaker since our battle back in the fortress. Maybe cheating death takes a toll on you that doesn’t hit until later. Maybe this is just all her chickens coming home to roost.”
“I hope she gets better,” Sofie said with concern.
“Me too,” Blake agreed.
“Since when?” she scoffed. “I thought you couldn’t stand her.”
“Well, we kind of need her now to fight the Chos, don’t we?”
“Does it matter? Without Pari’s body, none of that matters.”
She rubbed some lingering gunk from her eyes as she glanced out the window. A moment later, her half-asleep brain registered what she’d seen: out on the horizon, shaded by the light of the evening sun, stood the tower of Blake’s fortress.
“Wait, we’re back in Otharia? Why?! What about Pari!?”
“Pari can wait. Right now, Gabriela and I have decided that we need to figure out your power, and I didn’t want to be hovering around up there in the meantime if that murder-lizard ever decided to come after us. Gabriela said it sounded absolutely furious.”
Sofie blinked in incomprehension. “I don’t have a power, Blake. You know that.”
“Sure you do. We just don’t know what it is,” he countered.
“I’ve been here more than a year. If I had anything, we would have noticed it by now.”
“How often has anybody been looking out for it, though? Think about it this way. Every other Earthling we’ve found has a power. Why should you be any different?”
“Even if you’re right, this is a waste of time! We should be trying to get Pari back as soon as possible, not getting sidetracked!”
Blake shook his head. “With Gabriela out like that, and you hurt, now isn’t the time. And maybe your power could turn out to be useful! Don’t you want to do more than just sit on the sidelines forever? Grandpa seemed to think you were the greatest threat of the three of us.”
“I don’t think that’s why it went after me,” Sofie sighed. “I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here.”
“I don’t care, we’re doing it anyway,” he insisted.
“Since when do you get to tell me what to do?”
“Since you started mooching off me months ago.”
As they bickered, the tall spire of Blake’s fortress came into view. Gabby woke up with a huge yawn just before they docked with the observation tower, seemingly alright to Sofie’s relief. Not long after, the three of them set foot on the tower’s platform to find Arlette there to greet them, the soft frown of disappointment on her face lit by the setting sun.
“You’re back early. Too early,” Arlette remarked.
“Yeah, things got complicated,” Blake told her.
“I have some progress to report on the ink lead,” she told him as they all boarded the elevator.
“Later. Right now, we’re going to figure out Sofie’s power and I’d like you there. I think we could use your perspective as the person who has been around her the longest,” Blake informed his employee.
“Sounds like a waste of time to me,” Arlette replied.
“See?! That’s what I said!” Sofie chimed in.
“I’m supposed to meet Minister Izkapts in under an hour, but if you insist...” Arlette continued.
“This is dumb! We need to recover Pari. We’re just going to waste everybody’s time,” Sofie objected.
“Why are you so convinced you don’t have a power?” Gabby asked. “Don’t you want to have one?”
“I... I do, but...”
At first, when they’d discovered that she couldn’t even create a simple flame, something a Scyrian child could easily accomplish, she’d simply assumed she had no power. Then, while being taken against her will back to Kutrad after the incident with the Mother of Nightmares, she’d tried once more to discover something that could help her and her friends. After all, if the other Earth person had a crazy power, why couldn’t she? But several weeks of trying hadn’t accomplished anything more than convincing her that there was nothing to find. Eventually she’d given up.
Secretly, deep down, a tiny spark of hope remained. She wanted to be special like the rest of them. But at the same time, if it turned out that she did actually have a potent ability, then it would mean that her time here was nothing more than a string of lost opportunities. If she had a power, then she wouldn’t have been a burden. If she had a power, she could have helped people, possibly saved people. If she had a power, maybe Pari would be alive right now. She found herself dreading the possibility that she could have done so much more but hadn’t.
Sofie turned away. “Look, I don’t know,” she said stiffly as the elevator opened and they all stepped out into the fortress proper. “I’m going to go eat something.”
As she took a step towards the cafeteria, a cold, metal hand wrapped around her upper left arm, its grip firm and unrelenting.
“Nuh-uh,” Blake said. “No more avoiding this. We’re getting it over with right now.”
“But-” Another loud growl from her stomach interrupted her protests.
“I’ll go get her something to eat,” Arlette volunteered.
“Fine, meet us in sector E9,” Blake told her as she walked away.
“Sofie, please just work with us on this,” Gabby asked of her. “You know I want Pari back just as much as anybody.”
“Yeah, stop being a fucking baby,” Blake added.
“Fuck off, Blake,” Sofie shot back. She sighed in resignation and turned back to Gabby. “Alright. I’ll try. But only because you asked nicely. Now, knock it off, Blake. Don’t touch me,” she demanded, trying futilely to pry Blake’s fingers off of her with her other hand.
“With pleasure,” Blake sniffed, releasing her arm.
The three of them proceeded through the fortress, Blake leading the way, followed by Sofie and then Gabby.
“So, as I told you before, Gabriela and I were talking about this while you were asleep,” Blake explained as they went. “What we realized is that both of us came upon our powers in moments of incredible stress.”
Sofie didn’t like the sound of that.
“So what we’re going to do is... ah, here. This will work.” Blake came to a stop in the middle of a hallway beside an empty wall. Quickly, the wall flowed away to reveal a doorway that hadn’t been there before. He proceeded in, and, with the help of an insistent prod from Gabby, Sofie followed. Inside, she found a large square room completely lacking in features.
“Has this always been here?” she wondered.
“No, I just made it now,” Blake admitted.
“What is it?”
“Ever read the X-Men?” he asked.
Sofie shook her head.
“Well,” he told her, “let’s just say that this place is based on something they have called the ‘Danger Room.’”
Sofie froze, her eyes flicking over to the doorway, which Gabby was strategically blocking. “It’s called the what?”
“Oh don’t worry, the Danger Room is gonna be a grand old time, for me at least,” he assured her. “Let’s start with the buzz saws.”
* * *
“What in the world did I walk in on?”
The five buzz saws halted, their blades immediately coming to a stop with a loud ‘chunk’. Sofie on the other hand did not halt.
“Arlette, save me from these crazy people!” she cried, practically tackling the Scyrian in her desperation and nearly knocking over the tray of food the mercenary carried.
Arlette looked around the room, taking in the buzz saws wider than a human torso, the walls of spikes, the crystal-powered guns, and all the other dangerous implements that had chased Sofie around the room while she shrieked her head off for the last fifteen minutes.
“Surely there is a better way to do whatever it is that you’re doing,” she said sternly to the others. “This is beyond over the top.”
Blake shrugged. “Maybe, but it sure wouldn’t be as entertaining. It’s not like she was actually going to get hurt. When I’m in Hyper Mode, everything goes so slowly that I can react to anything she does. She could have jumped right into the spikes on her own and nothing would have happened to her.”
“Nothing would have happened?! Look what you did to my clothes!” Sofie hollered, pointing to the various parts of her outfit that had been sliced into shreds by the various deadly weapons she’d had pointed her way recently.
“Are you cut?” Blake argued back. “Are you hurt in any way whatsoever?”
Sofie could only scowl in return. She had to admit that while her clothes had taken a beating, her actual body remained unharmed.
“Exactly,” came Blake’s smug response.
“She’s right, though,” Gabby chimed in. “It was worth a try but it didn’t work.”
“No shit it didn’t work, you lunatics! What did you think was going to happen?!” Sofie hissed, grabbing a sandwich from Arlette’s tray and stuffing it into her mouth.
“I found my first power by accident when I was surrounded by a mob of murderous villagers. I found my second, major power when I was about to be hanged in front of an arena full of people,” Blake said, causing Sofie to involuntarily wince. “She found hers after being torn from her children and appearing in front of a bunch of strangers in weird clothes waiting for her. We think fear, stress, or other pressure might bring out someone’s abilities. Or at least give us a hint.”
“She’s been in plenty of life-or-death situations and nothing has happened,” Arlette reminded them.
“And that’s why I wanted you here,” Blake informed her. “Let’s take a break while Sofie quells her munchies and you tell us all about your adventures with her.”
“Alright. Let’s see...” Arlette said as she gave Sofie the tray and went to lean against a nearby wall. “The first time I ever saw Sofie, I was fleeing Zrukhora, up in the north of Kutrad. The city had come under attack by a god, you see, and the city was burning to the ground, so I had to get out as quickly as I could before I became trapped inside its walls-”
“Was it the same dragon?” Gabby interrupted.
“Oh no, much bigger,” Arlette informed her. “Twice its size, at least, with a red and black mottled coloring.”
“So there’s two of them?” Gabby gasped.
“No, this one-, I’ll get to it in a minute,” Arlette told her. “Anyway, as I was passing by an alley, Sofie was hopping out of it, her arms and legs shackled so she couldn’t walk. I didn’t see her until she practically tackled me and said to me...”
She paused to clear her throat. “‘Please help me! Please! Don’t leave me to die!’” she squeaked in a high nasally voice.
Everybody but Sofie laughed at the impression.
“Now, I knew I shouldn’t have, but she just looked so pathetic that I couldn’t help but pull her along. That was when the god reappeared. Tehlmar, who was still masquerading as Jaquet at the time-”
“You mean your boyfriend,” Sofie interjected as revenge for the impression.
“Will you stop with that?! It wasn’t funny the first time.”
Sofie rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue before taking another bite.
“As I was saying, he arrived with a cart he ‘borrowed’ just in time for me to throw Sofie inside, hop in after her, and get out. Even then, the god chased us for a moment before I caught it off guard with an illusion that took all my energy. Just before I lost consciousness, the god blew itself up and turned the entirety of Zrukhora into a crater.”
“Hold on, it blew itself up?” Blake interjected.
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
“I don’t know what happened. It started crying out like it was in pain, and then it was gone. We barely outran the blast.”
“So that’s what happened to it. Crazy.”
“Indeed. Now will you all let me continue or are we going to stop every three sentences?”
* * *
“Wow,” Gabby said after it was all over. “That’s a lot. I can’t believe that you survived all that and without even losing an arm or anything.”
“Uncalled for shots aside, I agree,” Blake said. “The odds are just astronomical.”
“Maybe that’s it? Maybe she has luck powers?” Gabby suggested.
“How would that even work? And why would the dragon care about that?” Blake pointed out.
“Maybe she steals luck from other people,” Gabby continued. She frowned, shooting a sudden glare Sofie’s way. “Maybe she stole Pari’s luck, and that’s why Grandfather was so mad at her.”
“Don’t be silly!” Blake snorted. “Luck isn’t a ‘thing’ that can be stolen! It’s just an interpretation of past events.”
“Hold on,” Arlette interrupted. “What’s this about Grandfather?”
“The dragon thinks she did something to Pari,” Blake explained.
“What? How?” Arlette looked over to Sofie in surprise and confusion.
Sofie nervously scratched her head. “He kept yelling at me about Pari. It didn’t make any sense.”
“What did he say, exactly?” Blake asked. “You heard actual words, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to ‘release’ Pari,” Sofie admitted, “whatever that is supposed to mean.”
“‘Release’?” Blake repeated in disbelief. “Release her how? From what? She’s dead!”
“Exactly!” Sofie agreed.
“She’s not, though,” Gabby pointed out. “You said so yourself. She’s not technically dead.”
“Shit, you’re right...” Blake muttered.
Slowly all three of them turned their heads to stare Sofie’s way, and all she could do was roll her eyes and scoff. “So my power is that I can keep people from being ‘technically dead’? What kind of stupid power would that be?”
“Maybe you just aren’t using it right? Maybe... maybe you can make zombies!” Blake suggested, his voice filling with sudden excitement.
“Blake, are you serious right now? Get real!” she protested.
“No, it makes sense!” he asserted, his enthusiasm growing with every word. “The dragon is a scientist for sure! He has a laboratory and everything! He has better biochem knowledge than probably anybody on the planet! If anybody could tell what you did to Pari, it would be him! That’s gotta be it! You’re a necromancer!”
“Why are you getting so excited about something so unholy?” Gabby asked.
“Are you kidding me?! Imagine what you could do with an army of zombies!”
“It’s perverse!”
“It’s awesome!”
Sofie rubbed her eyes, the conversation giving her a massive headache. She didn’t know what she would do if she were secretly a necromancer. Just the thought seemed horrifying and gross beyond description. Controlling undead bodies? Controlling an undead Pari? Unthinkable.
“Will you all just stop? You’re all making stupid assumptions based on stupid interpretations of the stupid words of a being that probably doesn’t even think the same way we do,” she sighed, her patience for this whole escapade quickly wearing thin. “This is stupid. You’re all stupid.”
“Well, there’s an easy way to rule it out,” Blake replied. “There’s a cemetery past the south gate.”
“No! Why are you like this!?” Sofie cried, her irate voice overwhelming Gabby’s protests about disturbing the dead. “I’m sick of this crap! I went along with your stupid bullshit and all you’ve done this whole time is harass me and humiliate me! I’m done! Just leave me alone!”
Stepping forward, she vented her frustrations towards the infuriating man with a classic two-handed push to the chest. Blake stepped back at the last moment, dodging her shove by millimeters. Undeterred, Sofie struck out again, this time using her knowledge of his weakness to her advantage. Given the state of his body, he was not exactly what one would call “nimble” or “fast on his feet”, so she kicked out at his legs. Surprisingly, he pulled his legs away as well, but he couldn’t step away fast enough to dodge it completely—the edge of her shoe barely grazed the side of his leg.
That was when all hell broke loose.
With an unholy screech, Blake went stiff for a split second before he crumpled to the ground, spasms wracking his body. Sofie could feel the entire fortress shudder beneath her feet. She’d felt something like this before, during his “incidents” that were thankfully rare, but this was worse. Far worse.
“Hold him down! Quick, before he hurts himself!” Arlette yelled to Gabby before Sofie could even process what was happening. The two of them rushed forward to dampen Blake’s spasms. Arlette sat down on his torso and legs, while Gabby leaned over the upper half, one hand holding down each of his flailing arms with her effortless strength. Sofie hovered fretfully nearby as the episode began to fade, and soon Blake’s spasms downgraded to twitches.
“We need to get him to his quarters,” Arlette said to the rest of them.
Gabby sniffed and her nose wrinkled. “I think he threw up in his helmet,” she said to Sofie. “Can you take it off?”
Sofie crouched down beside Blake’s head and inspected the mask and the helmet it was a part of. From this distance, she too could smell the puke, though she picked up another alarming scent as well.
Blood.
Quickly, she searched for some sort of latch or something that could unhook the mask from the rest of the armor but found nothing. Nor was she sure that the helmet could even detach from the rest of the armor.
“I don’t think it can come off. With how he just makes it melt away, I don’t think it’s even designed to come off normally,” she said.
“Try anyway!” Gabby insisted.
Without a clear method of removal, Sofie decided to just grab the helmet on both sides of Blake’s head and attempt to yank it off. She didn’t even get to the pulling part before the screaming returned with a vengeance.
A new round of tremors, even harsher than before, threatened to collapse the ceiling down on top of them as tortured screams echoed across the chamber. Blake’s entire upper body lurched upward with shocking force, throwing Sofie away and nearly dislodging Gabby from his chest.
With a growl, Gabby slammed his arms against the ground before releasing them for a moment. With both hands, she reached forward and grasped the sides of the shaking helmet. Her fingers bit into the metal and it let out a shriek of protest as she ripped the helmet into several pieces, revealing the man beneath.
Sofie released a horrified gasp as she saw Blake’s face. His entire face contorted in agony, his teeth clenched together so hard that she worried he was going to crush them to pieces. A mix of blood and vomit, now mostly blood, dripped down both sides of his lips, his mouth foaming with each labored breath. His eyes were wild and unfocused, his pupils rapidly dilating in and out. But what struck Sofie the hardest were the copious amounts of blood leaking from his trembling eyes. Two streams of scarlet tears rolled down the sides of his face, creating small but growing crimson puddles on the glossy gray floor. The sight made Sofie’s breath catch in the throat. What was going on?
Slowly but steadily, Blake’s shaking, and the shaking of the world around them, began to subside. His breath became steadier, his body settled, and eventually, peace returned. Blake laid unmoving on the metal floor, unconscious but alive.
“What’s going on?” an urgent voice asked from the doorway. The three of them looked up to find Leo standing there, his confused worry clear for all to see.
“We need to get Lord Ferros back to his room,” Arlette replied, immediately taking charge. “Go get us a cart or something.”
“Understood,” he acknowledged before vanishing down the hallway.
“What the fuck just happened?” Sofie wondered aloud.
“Hmmmm,” Gabby hummed, her eyebrows furrowing in thought.
“We’re probably going to need to take all his armor off once we get to his chambers. Let’s at least clean him off a bit before Leo gets back,” Sofie said. Grabbing a bit of the bottom of her damaged shirt, she tore off a strip and reached forward to wipe the blood and vomit from his face before it could fully dry.
In a flash, Gabby grabbed her wrist, her grip harsh and unrelenting. “Hold on,” Gabby told her. “I don’t think you should touch him.”
“Huh?”
“Both times, it happened when you touched him.”
“What are you talking about?” Sofie scoffed. “I’ve touched him hundreds of times and nothing has ever happened! Watch!”
She reached out with her other hand, only for Gabby to grab that hand too.
“Gabby!” she complained. “This is nuts!”
“What if I’m right though? I don’t think he can survive another one of... whatever that was.”
“Why am I suddenly the bad guy!? Arlette, help me out here!”
Arlette gazed at them both suspiciously but didn’t say anything, much to Sofie’s frustration.
Sofie stood up with a grumble and pulled her hands free. Gabby didn’t fight her, instead repositioning herself between her and Blake.
“Look, Gabby, I know we’re all freaked out, but you’re wildly jumping to conclusions and nothing good can come from that!” Sofie argued. “Don’t go thinking that I caused this based on no evidence other than a few coincidences!”
Gabby frowned, sorrowfully, and hung her head. “Yeah, you’re right.”
Sofie blinked. “I am?”
“Yeah, I shouldn’t accuse you of hurting somebody over nothing but a stupid feeling.”
“Oh, thanks!” Sofie replied with a wide smile. It was nice to have somebody listen to you for once.
“Wait, what just happened?” Arlette cut in. “Gabby, what are you doing?”
“She has a good point,” Gabby explained.
“No, she doesn’t!” Arlette turned back to Sofie. “What did you just do?”
“What are you talking about?” Gabby asked, her brow furrowing.
“She barely said two sentences to you and you immediately changed your mind,” Arlette told her.
“Well, she’s right,” Gabby insisted. “I was accusing her without evidence.”
“No, you were right. This all started the moment she touched him, and then it happened again the moment she put her hands on his head. We both saw it.”
Gabby shook her head emphatically. “But there’s no proof-”
“It happened right before your eyes! You don’t just completely flip on a position you feel is right in a fraction of a moment! Why are you acting completely different all of a sudden? It’s starting to creep me out!”
“Arlette-” Sofie tried to interject, but her voice died thanks to Arlette’s withering glare.
“Sofie, be quiet,” the Scyrian commanded.
Sofie let out a huff but chose to keep her objections to herself for the moment.
“Alright,” Arlette continued, “let’s think about this. She touched him and bad stuff happened. So why now? When was the last time they touched?”
“Uhhh...” Gabby muttered.
“Let’s break it down. The last time I remember that they touched was when Blake grabbed her arm coming out of the elevator. Did they come into contact after that? Did I miss anything after I left?”
“I-I don’t think so,” Gabby said with a shake of her head. “They were just how they always are. Blake tried to drag her down here and was like ‘stop being a baby’ and she was like ‘fine, let go of me’ and then we came directly here.”
“Nothing at all happened after that?”
“Yeah, what are you getting at?”
“Did you see the way he moved when she tried to shove him? Wasn’t it weird?”
“What about it?” Gabby asked, confused.
“Why would he bother to move out of the way from something like that? Between his armor and their size and weight difference, that would be like a mountain avoiding a gentle breeze. But he tried to avoid her not once, but twice.”
“What is the point of this?” Sofie asked, weary of this pointless banter.
“What if Blake didn’t move away from you because he wanted to, but rather because he had to?” Arlette speculated.
“...that’s a massive stretch, Arlette,” Gabby weighed in. “You don’t have any proof-”
“There you go with the proof crap again! First Blake acts strangely, now you! What was it again that Sofie said to you to make you change your mind so suddenly? ‘Don’t go thinking that I caused this’? What did she say to Blake? In more detail, please.”
“Uh... well I asked her to cooperate and then Blake called her a baby and then she said... uh...”
“I told him to fuck off,” a miffed Sofie told them. “I said I would try to help because Gabby asked nicely and then I said ‘knock it off, Blake. Don’t touch me’ and that was it.”
Arlette froze, her eyes going wide as if struck across the face. Sofie could see something click together in Arlette’s mind and a deep dread began to form in Sofie’s gut as Arlette began to pace back and forth.
“Don’t...” the mercenary muttered. “No... that’s... not possible...”
Sofie could feel sweat forming on her brow, her heart rate beginning to spike as she watched the Scyrian mutter to herself and clench her fists. Whatever was going on in Arlette’s head, Sofie could see how worked up she was getting and it worried her.
“What is it?” Gabby asked.
“‘Don’t’! She says ‘don’t touch me’ and he avoids contact for no justifiable reason. And when he does touch her, that happens!” she ranted while gesturing towards Blake’s prone form. “She says ‘don’t go thinking that I caused this’ to you after she clearly had something to do with it and boom, you go from suspecting her to defending her in an instant. Both times using ‘don’t’. And that... that would mean...”
“That’s... come on. Do you have any idea what you sound like right now?” Sofie objected. “You sound like a crazy person! You’re just making stuff up at this point!”
The glare returned and Sofie flinched slightly. She saw an anger there that hadn’t existed even a few minutes ago, one that scared her in how strangely personal it seemed.
“Then it should be easy for you to prove me wrong,” Arlette snapped back. She stared Sofie straight in the eyes as she pointed at Gabby. “Tell her that she can’t do something,” she commanded. “Something very minor.”
Sofie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Fine, only so you can see how stupid you’re being.” She looked towards Gabby, who stood there with a hint of trepidation. What was something small that wouldn’t be that bad, even though nothing was going to happen? Ah, she had something. “Don’t stand on two feet,” Sofie grumbled.
Gabby stared back with a hint of confusion, but that was all that happened.
“See? Happy now?”
“Mean it!” Arlette growled.
“Arlette, why are you so angry over th-”
“SHUT UP AND DO IT!” Arlette roared, causing Sofie to take an involuntary step back.
“Okay, okay!” Sofie turned back to Gabby and spoke with what little conviction she could muster. “Don’t stand on two feet.”
Gabby’s left leg immediately bent upward. “Wha?” she muttered, staring down at her traitorous limb. She lowered the foot back down, only for her leg to lock in place a few centimeters from the floor.
Sofie, for her part, just gaped at the sight as Gabby began hopping back and forth from her right foot to her left and back, unable to put both down at once. She didn’t quite understand the meaning of what she was witnessing, but the ramifications were slowly worming their way into her mind. She glanced back to Arlette to find the mercenary looking at her with pure, cold fury.
“I was right! You little bitch! You little manipulative motherfucker!” her friend snarled, taking a step towards her with bloody murder in her eyes. “You were using me the whole time, weren’t you?! All this time, I was just a puppet dancing in your palm, wasn’t I?!”
“W-w-what are you-” Sofie stammered as she backed away from the suddenly malevolent Scyrian.
“The very first thing you said to me! ‘Don't leave me to die!’ That was what you said!” Arlette ground out from clenched teeth as tears began to form in her eyes. “Everybody told me to ditch you. They said that you would drag us down, and they were right! You were a weak, naive, bumbling mess, and any competent leader in my situation would have dropped you on the side of a road without a second thought! But I couldn’t! No matter how much Jaquet and Basilli argued with me about it, I couldn’t do it no matter how much worse you made things! Something inside me wouldn’t let me abandon you! That thing was you, wasn’t it?!”
“A-Arlette, I didn’t... I had no idea...” Sofie pleaded, angling towards the doorway. This was all coming too fast, she couldn’t keep her mind above water! “If I did anything, I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“You just wanted a bodyguard,” Arlette continued, her hand reaching down and slowly pulling a knife out from a holster on her leg. “Somebody to come to your rescue whenever something went bad, somebody to take the hits so you didn’t have to. So you made one, from me, whether I wanted it or not. What happens to me if I refuse to save you, huh? Do I start bleeding out of my eyes too? And that was just from the first day! What else have you done to me since then, huh?!”
The panic inside Sofie was rising like a rocket ship heading for orbit as she continued to back away from Arlette’s steady advance. “Gabby, a little help here please?” Sofie begged, looking desperately toward the one person who could help her right now.
But Gabby just looked back with a chilling gaze of realization. “I was going to kill him,” she said, hopping around to face Sofie. “He was right there, lying there in front of me, and I was going to kill him, and nothing was going to stop me. And then you came.” She hopped forward, from one foot to the other, careful not to let both touch at the same time. “‘Don’t kill him’, you said. And then I didn’t. I never even questioned it.”
Sofie couldn’t take it anymore. The panic rose to a crescendo and she broke, turning and sprinting for the door. Arlette burst forward, quickly catching up, a terrifying vengeful glint in her eye, just as Leo returned, pushing a large flat cart into the room. Sofie swerved around both it and him, the sudden intrusion enough to give her a small lead, one that would surely vanish in a matter of seconds.
Her mind whirled a mile a minute, grasping at what few straws remained. Why had it come to this? Maybe it was just a wild misunderstanding, or perhaps it was all an elaborate prank? Surely she couldn’t have done what Arlette was accusing her of doing!
There was one way to find out, once and for all. If it didn’t work, then all was forgiven and forgotten. If it did... well, at least her life would be safer for the moment. She twisted around as she reached the doorway to see Arlette just behind her and cried out, “Don’t hurt me! Don’t chase me!”
Arlette skidded to a sudden halt as if a bottomless chasm had opened up just in front of her.
“No...” Sofie gasped in horror.
Arlette seethed with rage as she stared daggers Sofie’s way. “To think I trusted you,” she spat, her body beginning to tremble. “To think I was foolish enough to call you a friend!”
“Arlette, please stop!” Sofie pleaded, but Arlette was too far gone.
The Scyrian’s left leg twitched and spasmed even more than the rest of her, but she gritted her teeth, as if she was putting everything she had into this one action, and slid the foot slightly forward. The effect was instantaneous. Her eyes went wide as she seized up, letting out a choking, hacking cough. Blood splattered across the floor as she began to topple, only for Leo to catch her.
“No, please no!” Sofie sobbed. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.”
She needed to get out, to run away to somewhere, anywhere but here. Looking in on this dreadful, disastrous scene, she knew she couldn’t be a part of something like this ever again. But they would come after her, and this horrid occurrence would just happen again and again, unless...
“Don’t try to find me,” Sofie told them all, her voice quavering. And then she turned down the hallway and ran as fast as she could.
Tears washed down her face, great big tears of horror and shame and a touch of self-pity. They fell to the ground with a pitter-patter, leaving a trail of wetness as she ran out of the fortress and into the city under the light of the three moons. Arlette was right. She was a monster.
Mind control. Geasa. Something so atrocious that she’d never once even imagined it. It... it was like rape. Mind rape. And she’d done it how many times? To how many people? ‘Don’t’ was a horrifyingly common word, especially in her vocabulary. She said it often. How many of those times had she been unknowingly twisting somebody around her finger, leaving them warped on the inside with the possibility of suffering and death if they somehow disobeyed?
Her sorrow carried her through the largely empty city streets. What direction she headed did not matter. All that mattered was this new truth. A small group of revelers staggered out of a nearby tavern and she nearly collided with them before dodging out of the way at the last second. How many people like these had she cursed with a flippant sentence in the past year? It would have been so easy to just say “don’t get in my way” and not even think twice about it. Until now, she would have never even known what she’d just done.
All this time, Sofie had believed that she had survived on her wits and her ability to sway others with potent, correct arguments. But now, as she looked back, she realized that she’d been wrong. Conversation after conversation, jam after jam, she’d been manipulating peoples’ minds without even realizing it.
There was the time the Masked Battalion elves in Crirada should have just killed her, but instead, they had helped her escape the city and more. Or the time after Blake and Gabby’s fight, when he’d planned on killing her when she was at her weakest point. Or the time when she’d kept Arlette from killing King Morgan of Kutrad. How many more? How many other times had she performed this terrible deed without even realizing it, and now she couldn’t even remember?
She was barely looking where she was going, her tired legs carrying her out of the city and into the farmland surrounding it. She didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop.
Release Pari-child.
The dragon’s anger, his rage, it all became clear. Somehow, Grandfather knew. He knew what she’d done. Nobody in this world had been harmed by Sofie more than that poor sweet little girl. Telling her not to do things had practically been her job since the day they met!
But as she ran through the farmland towards the sparse forest further out, Sofie’s mind kept returning to one single, horrible thing, one crime that made her want to just fall down, curl up into a ball, and die. No matter how far she ran she could not escape it, her mind going through it over and over and over.
Pari catching the man by surprise, managing to jump up upon his shoulder. The knife flashing down towards his neck, ready to end him once and for all before he could hurt Samanta. That knife coming to a sudden halt for no discernible reason just a hair’s breadth from the man’s skin. The man’s sword embedding itself in Pari’s torso just a second later.
The scene kept playing on a loop, followed each time by another scene, a scene from many seasons ago. A calm and quiet scene, where she and Pari had sat upon the lush grass of the Drayhadan countryside, making an anti-bacterial paste to go on bandages for the Stragmans who were getting injured in the battle taking place a few small, rolling hills away. A scene when she’d talked to the child about good and evil, right and wrong. A scene where she’d uttered those three fateful words.
“Don’t kill people.”
Pari was dead.
And it was all her fault.
Comments
IrateRapScallion
evil cackling
K Hilliard
Zomg now I have to reread every scene she's in.
IrateRapScallion
?
AKi1red
Omg jfc my guy
Newguy Roy
Chapter 26: Nuh-uh-uh,” Sofie chided. “Don’t say another word. You don’t get to speak right now. You just get to listen, and nod. Understood?” The two stared each others in the eyes for a tense moment before the king eventually nodded. Well, that's why he can't speak
Newguy Roy
I always wondered why the masked battalion dudes would help her. Other than that, props to you, integration of her power in the story was pretty much seamless and super stealthy. Now, to go back to see what she told morgan that prevents him from removing his bandages.
Chad B. Sonnen
I liked her character even more now and explains why she often times gets the last word in when she and blake debate and argue. Hopefully everyone is mighty piss and won't let go of what has been done to them, especially Blake and Arlette. Blake pretty much did'nt care about pari's death but practically had to fight a dragon twice and risk his life for a reason he didn't believe in, not to mention embroiling himself with the rest of the world.
Erdos
Thanks
Caanbo
I have been thinking about it since you’re last post how does the dragon feel lol
Caanbo
Omg I didn’t see this coming but thanks
