《The Ties That Bind》


 The Time just before,a short and confusing backstory

    Before I get to far into explaining,just know I''m being up front and honest In saying this; you are going to hate me for making you read this terrible explaination.it''s long, and dull, and you''ll probably assume it''s a story cooked up in the mind of someone living in thier mom''s basement,diddling themself to brony pics of rainbowdash bedding some other anthro.(no shame in it) so heres your chance to stop reading.fourth wall broken,disclaimer given.


    Now,


    long Before time and space, or reality as we know it, there was the great clear.a time where Nothingness,and All that is,were of one body and mind. Kind of as is each element simultaneously existed and cancelled eachother out.an equilibrium of impossibly existing probabilty. This time was personified by movement in a single point. This was the seed, or the internalized trinity. There were three great, humanoid bodies.walking equal distance from each other in perfect sync, inside of a ring. Thier heads joined at the center of the circle, these bodies were creating the surface that they endlessly walked around, this was the formation that led to the 3rd space,or dimension, as it istoday.the three bodies each were of two halves,and each duality bound to the single body that commanded a ceaseless march.dictating and directing in joint union the simple action of a constant pace that held the concept of the first reality.walking two steps ahead of that which came after them,and two behind the one in front. But it wasnt to last, for an unkown reason, the body that housed all and none faltered a step.it strained the connection of the 3 bodies and pain, sudden confusion, and overwhelming pride washed over the beings.then came the split,no human can tell you what happened there but it shredded the endless white apart.the ring and its internal engine gone with the sound of ripping fabric.in that moment time began.darkness was the name of the void.and light a singular point within it.visable from everywhere possible within nothing,made phyical in the most intangible way. any being that could truly describe the immensity of this would accidently reduce you to particals by opening its mouth to explain.but the sudden lapse split the beings,and sent it''s composite parts adrift from the now obliterated circle it marched about.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    This created dark and light.all,and nothing. from this,light gave birth to all of creation in a resounding bang.and the space between all things was assigned to the void of nothing.bound to endlessly inhale itself,holding life together with the power of its pull to withdraw itself,drawing space and time together.and as it retracted,light expanded,creating atoms and molecules and matter,until it became so wide it was almost as absent and empty as the ever deepening void of its counterpart,nothingness.thus was the birth of the evolutionary ladder,humans,animals,spirits and inanimates.all become known as god.and well,noone thanks "Nothing" for anything.so they''re just a bit aggravated in their seclusion.Yet light and dark were only two of the three things divided.because,something,no matter how random and paradoxical, had to make up the body.


    This is where it gets tricky,dont get me wrong.light and dark are thier own thing.but to have once been the same?that requires them to have once been more,conceptual.less something you can feel,more something you know. Thats a brain, which is meat.meat is something bodies,so physical shells, are made of.to basically have two other VERY overpowered selves conected to that overall body?a shell was discarded from that particular shot of the revolver, one that could cotain althat power inside until the hammer hit it just right,and in the instance of the separation of light and darkness,as creation came to be, that shell slammed into the molten core of a dark, watery orb.and that''s where my story begins.


    Told you it was alot.at least we can get to the shit you can actually process now.

 Wake Me With Night Terrors

    I scream.


    Normally terror and agonizing pain are what drive any being to squeal like a pansy swaying in a gentle breeze. Some wretched torture.Some awful bloodcurdling sight. Some blasted, God awful jumpscare internet video. Nope, Not for me. I just shat kine thanks to a racoon jumping in surprise, a squeeky hiss escaping its throat as I wake in the middle of the desert,and its been resting naughty bits on my nose and smothering me with butt.


    Needless to say,rude awakening.


    I swipe my arm in panic and launch the probable cause of pink eye 30 yards in the direction of the other side of the large pond. I look around, Whipping my head fast enough to rustle the leaves on the surrounding foilage. I know im ok and safe from the dream.and i know im in a corporeal reality thats is very much like my own, But, As my mind contemplates WHERE I am, I start to panic just alittle. Earth, 3rd planet closest to its sun in the milky way galaxy, Bottom left quadrant of the universal grid. But this makes no sense. There weren''t any quadrants before. No universal grid or galaxies, Stars or planets. No asteroids and no push and pull. There was no reason no Difference, Just constant forward movement. It''s dissorienting how one second youre gliding through empty space and suddenly you''re on the shore of a pond being visually ambushed by an entire planet. Along with me trying to find out what''s going on, I''m assaulted by thoughts and questions, Memories and something more primal, Born of what i saw before i woke.


    Falling, Flying upward, Seeing endless white and endless black, The two backrounds flicking back and forth like a strobe as I feel myself tearing and crushing at my core. A mixture of compression and preeminent explosion. As I feel like I''m stretching being drawn and quartered. A burst of color. Heat and cold, Winds, Smells, Rolling shockwaves of power rippling through the space around me, Just before I slam in to a half formed glowing ball of magma and heavy phosphoric clouds. all that,in what felt like seconds before i woke. Surrounded by beautiful, Life filled desert. Every beat of a wing i can feel, Every scent graces my nose and every color on display. Being molested by an unfinished hat. Nothing looks as the strange glowing molten orb I collided with.


    I stand and take in my surroundings. It''s strange to think these things I''ve never seen are so easily listed and categorized in my mind. The trees stood tall in a canopy overhead, The light green of the Palo verde, The singing of cicadas raising a cacophony of natural noise, And the smell of stagnant water and dust permeates the air, Intermingled with the smells of decaying leaves and crisp branches. The strange thing is the air hummed with life, more than i can feel most other places in the immediate area. And of those that matched it, None feel like a well going straight down into the Earth. It felt like a hole to the venting core of the earth. The ground here was abundant with minerals, The stone all crystaline, Veined with semi precious stones. And in the center of the small pond, Glittering with the dawn light, A pitted, Volcanicly porous slit glitters below the surface. It looked like an old scabbed gash In the earth. I could feel the resonating echo of the planet, And I knew it thrived with life. I took in its history, And felt the origin of its creation. The way the existence around me worked. The draw and release, A push and pull that dictates existence.


    I put together the dream I had and discovered fairly quickly it was more of a memory than anything else. I remembered my role in the universe, But I could feel something different in the outskirts. Fringing elsewhere, Though colors and images filled my mind I had no concrete memory of the things before. But as if to jolt me from my thoughts, I heard a loud horn to the east. I stood and dusted my self off. My uncovered form stalking towards the edge of the small encirclement of trees, My caramel-mocha skin cathing the light, Flashing the highlights of the red and gold in my sking an highlights of the same color in my black, Dreaded hair.as I reach the edge my core makes a wierd gurgling sound.and my eyebrows raise.


    i should figure out what that means.


    I state mentally as I get close to the black strip of earth barely visible around the large mountainous hill that stood a solid 30 yards in front of me. I could see the glint of light on the surface of strange metal husks, Emitting foul fumes and creating noise with humans inside, Dressed in unnatural skins. The sight was entrancing but also confusing. And suddenly I was sitting crosslegged on the hood, Staring at the couple in a red,sleek car. A hand to my mouth pondering the activity of thier movement.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    "Holy sh-" the driver slammed his foot down and the car halted suddenly. Skidding to a stop, And veering off the road In the direction of the center of the road. My eyes widened in surprise as inertia did her best to get a full thrust of her hips in my direction as the metal shell jerked,stopping its forward movement. To stop moving forward? This concept unnerved me, The sight alone almost broke my mind. Luckily i had little time to use it before it spattered all over the street. I fell backward from the force. My head smacking into the ground with a wet crunch, And my body rolls to a stop 10 feet away.


    The guy driving immediately jumped out and ran to my body, I didnt miss the confused and luscivious glances of the worried male, Pacing back and forth around my prone nude form, He looked at the length of my neck, the fullness of my lips and the highness of my cheek bones. I layed belly down,head turned to the right and my eyes wide and expressionless , mouth agape as He stared and the slight cups of my breats but stared a bit to long with a scared glint to his eye, Staring at the Brigther than scarlet blood pooling on my chest and in a halo about my head. While he was talking excitedly on some glowing metal husk he held up to his ear,asking for some kind of aid and reporting what he thought happened to the voice inside the box, Keening sobs and panicked breathes coming from the passenger side window made me turn my attention to the girl inside the care. Her hair autumn brown and cut short, And, Her eyebrows naturally shaped in a rough manner adding an innocent look in her brown eyes. Her cute nose holding up a pair of glasses that were fogging in sight of her hysteria. And her lips quivering open mouthed, That''s when i realized i had gotten up and was staring at her with my head cocked, The blood and wound gone from my head,body and the road. The male pressed a place on the glowing box and went to turn to the brunette when he noticed she was staring empty eyed at me. He went in the car, Trying to get her attention. Shaking her shoulder and waving a hand in her face, Calling her name.


    "Jolie?!JOLIE!!" He shakes her shoulder,"hey jolie i need you to snap out of it! the cops and an ambulance are on the--" he looks down at the arm she has outstrecthed, A finger pointed out at me and he finally decides to pay attention to the strange woman rising from the ground. The short haired girl, Jolie, whispered one thing as the male stared in disbelief at the profound lack of damage. It seemed I was missing something "She has no nipples...."


    I looked down quizically at the smooth bulbs of my chest. Nothing seemed to be missing to me. Am i supposed to have more features? I look down,curious at my smooth skin,a slightly rounded chest,smooth skin, lean muscle composition,those were the only features i thought i needed.I looked back up to the male slowly getting out of the car, Never taking eyes off me except but to go into the back of the husk. Its rear rose and he closed it, Bringing a soft expanse of interwoven wool and fibers. He offered it to me and i wrapped it around my shoulders and nodded to him thankfully. He led me to the car and opened the back seat, And let me sit in the back seat, The girl merely stared and me,most of the fear gone, Giving way to wonder and curiousity. The male took a breathe before finally looking at the girl, And shaking his head. Pinching his nose at the bridge and addressing me directly.


    "so," he looks at me confused "wh--what''s your name?"


    "Tikan-Anuit Ven''eismanaan,she that binds,he that holds, the one that coincided with light and dark."i fire off with literally no pause.


    The male''s head snaps up an his eyes lock onto the Jolie''s, And it goes silent. It stays such as i look between the two of them, And i almost ask a question before the girl bursts into laughter. Almost as hysteric as her crying had been, in either case tears fall. as her laughter dies down, She wipes away the tears with the back off a hand, Chuckling. I cock my head and she says one thing directly to me.


    "Tikan, you Must really love Acid."

 Id Hate To See Her Go..

    So three things happened quickly in consecutive order quickly after I was discovered by Jolie and her friend


    <ol>


    <li> I was introduced to a tribe of scantily clad wild hearted humans, who refer to themselves as "Ravers". Their traditions include acts of ingesting many alterant substances such as LSD and highly value the substance Dimethyltryptamine, something they refer to as the "Spirit molecule". They have many strange battle cries that don''t fit my current understanding of their language, such as screaming "Buttscratcher" at the top of their lungs when , what I can only assume is some form of audiomancy utilizing shaman, messes up their current dance and mating ritual. They call such shamans Djs. Other battle cries are as follows, Yeet Yeet, Lit, Wubbalubbadubdub, and the constant exclamation of BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. </li>


    </ol>


    It has been an uplifting experience.


    <ol start="2">


    <li> To them I am a very spiritual and deep being. Though my attempts to rejoin the light and dark within them are seen as a purely erotic and sensual experience. Most don''t like the intensity of what I do so they shy away from the healing process and tend to just offer me intercourse or substances. I also found out I love dancing.</li>


    <li> Last of all, they are seen as outcasts at times. often hiding their lifestyle or somewhat acting with a front of some kind. But they always return to their child like freedom whenever they can. I admire them, and I truly believe they could be an integral part of fixing this reality. I have faith.</li>


    </ol>


    I''ve been thinking for should 5 minutes while decimating a jar of frozen applesauce when jolie,skips into the room,glowing with a smile,but wearing a read flannel that barely riches her thighs.i suspect nudity beneath it and restrain an amused chuckle. Oh yes,dear reader,suspect me.suspect me well. "Hey T! have you seen my leggings? I lost them last night," Jolie is asking my with a broad hint of a smile. I''ve come to like this one. And unlike the rest she hasn''t thrown genitals at me within seconds of meeting me. Goes to show you what I know I guess.


    Lawls


    I think and Toss the empty applesauce container in the trash from where I''m sitting look up from my can of monster, which officially is the second greatest thing this reality has produced besides applesauce, and gaze at the messy studio apartment around me. "honestly jo, love I think they might''ve burnt up somewhere. Heat of the moment and all."


    She giggles and walks up to my side, idly grazing fingers lightly across my back to my shoulders, i slide a hand absently and twine our fingers as she comes to sit in my lap, and I feel her warmth spread through my body as she nestles her head on my collarbone and closes her eyes, radiating contentment and satisfaction. I can feel her, in every sense of the word.as the very molecular build up of her existence reaches to mine, searching for the tangible. my heartbeat, my scent, the slide of flesh against flesh. And she sits in silence.


    I can tell this experience has been forever to her. I barely notice the passage of time.. Yet, in what time we shared she has taught me to cook, eat like a person. Trying to cover up i never had eaten before was one perplexing debacle of a mission. She may not believe me in the way she should about me being more than the normal meat suit, but hey at least she didn''t start flat out laughing at me. like that pudgy,musky scented human I met in Valero. For a guy wearing enough bodyspray to be fuel a flamethrower and serving me slushies, he sure had a hell of a lot to say about me being one of those "Fruity Otherkin" just cause i said my soul is not like his. By the way, what''s is up with that? I''m starting to assume there''s a conspiracy and some deception going on cause I passed like 6 reptilian humanoid things disguised as police officers and a black,shades wearing, daywalking vampire on my way to the gas station alone.


    somehow this guy was talking like he didn¡¯t even know were-creatures keep redecorating his front yard.in Browns.


    But regardless, she still doesn¡¯t fully comprehend. And if I didn¡¯t instantly comprehend "humans light things on fire when they don¡¯t understand them" i¡¯d have probably broken her brain or been chased by the Federalis by now. It was bad enough letting her talk her way into thinking she remembered I was naked and had functioning genitals and human body features the day of the accident.i hadn¡¯t touched a human so i did not know to recreate such amenities or anything like that until her friend brushed my shoulder with a hand helping me adjust that towel. Remembering back, that alone must''ve confused them, luckily humans use hallucination as an excuse r stressful times. The second I got to her home they began inhaling a pungent smoke heavily, and I had a chance to analyze them decently enough to start mirroring them, using shock from the accident to explain a lot of the more fantastical details. This led to friendship.. Which quickly led to my first..explorations.


    In this silence, however, I hear it within her, the will to recede.to shatter bonds, tear away or eradicate me and her feeling towards me. not in a fit of rage, nor spite. but merely the will to simply be as she is, all that she is, alone. singular, one that engulfs the all. her darkness challenging her light,and with that I''m reminded of what I am, and I see the separation and strife between my two other selves that I need to fix. They''re constantly struggling against each other in every aspect of this world but never touching, leaving me between them, stretching both ways to just try and grapple one or the other, never grasping either.


    since I awoke, it''s only been a mere 5 months.(Thank you everlasting stopwatch of existence ticking in my head. And no I will not tell you how old the universe is, so stop thinking about wondering about asking me). But, her kindness and understanding has been insurmountable the entire time. but I never stop feeling it. her fear of me. her uncertainty. her soul knows I''m more than I seem. and my lack of denial only continues to fuel her sense of dread. I suppose splattering all over a person''s car and then getting up, flicking off blood from self healed wounds would do that to a human. and, above all else I know what today is. I kinda got a warning ,thanks to my apartment ability to understand the very core off things ,it seems humans have a base of 2 emotions that rule their conscious and subconscious minds, and through certain acts related to a surplus of those emotions present, I become slightly attuned, not fully clairvoyant in them but, definitely able to deduce clear pathways. Her''s, being passionate promiscuity and Earth splitting paranoia and worry, I had a guess where this would go.


    Its the day she cuts me away like a disease.


    so I just handled the hard part myself, might as well stick to being mysteriously all knowing right?


    Just as she went to open her mouth to speak i kissed her quick on the lips and leaned forward to get up. a bit taken aback she rose, and I walked a few steps to the couch. I grabbed her leggings from the floor, underneath my own clothes, and gave them to her with a light, playful smile, before I went to slip into my newly gained black t shirt and form fitting blue jeans.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    "so, today I''m going to head out I suppose, I feel like I''ve been freeloading off you enough to probably raise an eyebrow or two at. besides I have some things I should start piecing together so I can find a place out here right?can''t stay a vagrant wandering the earth naked now can i?" I smile wholesomely, and I roll my shoulders back so I seem like the proud, goofy persona I''ve become use to presenting.


    she frowns at that. but only slightly, I see the gears in her head turning as she realizes I somehow anticipated this. again, the fear, a twinge of guilt, but more, slight respect, I mean I think.it''s hard to guess emotions i haven''t bonded to yet,just like it''s hard to mess with energy I haven''t found the core of . I haven''t met any honor bound samurai with a deep sense of respect that happen to be on the verge of Honorable Death to analyze yet. and more than a little bit of a sudden sadness at the prospect of me actually leaving, that one I only get because I binge watched all of some ninja anime about a loud orange loving brat in 3 months. "Are. Are you sure? will you be ok? I know we made sure you''ve had all you need on a basic level ,but, if you''ll be homeless.."


    I cut her off there with a flippant wave of the hand and a smirk. " Home is where the heart is love, and mine honestly isn''t anywhere rooted to 4 walls and a toilet," I chuckle absently,already debating my next moves." I''ll be fine, don''t worry about me. you''ll be seeing me around. I just figure some space will do us some good." I walk up and lightly hold her face in my hand and kiss her forehead lightly and Mark sure her inner workings are okay for the moment, a background program check if you will. (YES I KNOW HOW TO COMPUTER YOU PLEB, QUESTION ME NOT!)


    I lean back, goofy smirk still plastered on my face, inclining my head to her in a gentle bow, before heading leisurely to the door, she smiles lightly, walking me out.


    "oh, I almost forgot," she reaches into her breast pockets and pulls out a small black flip phone, a pack of cigarettes with matches, and a paper with her number on it. the light in her eyes dances, and I can feel I avoided catastrophe with my masterful maneuvering of action and somehow made her want to keep contact.YES!! DIGITS OBTAINED!! she wants to keep in touch! " Here, call if you need anything or. Y''know,just want to talk."


    I nod, and grin goofily as I reach out and take the items before pocketing them. "thank you, for everything. Ill text you as soon as I get to a place to settle." and with that i say my goodbyes and kiss her a final time, and instantly feel the last of her doubts wash away. with that she closes the door as I head down the streets of Tempe. within minutes I''ve walked far enough out of her field of vision to turn a corner to the nearest park, and there I began to detach.emotions fade and the masks come off . and for the first time since I awakened, I was alone again, empty.


    And without further ado I find myself sitting beneath a tree, hugging my knees as I ponder, evaluating the pain I felt within her all those weeks. The lost friends, family, her history of self harm and abhorrent drug abuse. the conflict between light and darkness, my other two selves, created this. And the whole of the world was feeling this.I didn''t know how to stop it. so far all I''ve been able to manage is unity by flesh contact and a few minor things like reading people. im pretty damn far from a transient all-being of cyclic nature that is a part of some grandiose sense of..just..being.


    Hell I wouldn''t be able to do anything in truth until I learned more about the reality that my divide created.beyond that I have to understand what made me divide AT ALL I''m the first place. so what now? do I just wander?


    In honesty, I guess that¡¯s a good a place to start as any. so I rose and looked around the park. what I was searching for came quickly enough, and I immediately headed toward it, as I got closer reality became more transparent, incorporeal. soon enough I was in a white void colored by a myriad of sky blue and sunrise pink ley-lines.


    little known fact, if you know how and where to walk, you can get anywhere, from anywhere. now I''m not talking portals or like some mystic door in a tree or some hidden gateway inside a wardrobe. no white rabbits either. Im calling them seams, or maybe waypoints..you know what nope im calling them stairs. if you ever have seen the stitch work on a sweater than you know a string in two different places, pulls two spots together, just as stair steps link different floors. two separate planes,or floors. Yes, I simplified it but you get the Gist. fact is, if you aren''t trying to travel from here to Neverland, you can jump spots in an instant in about 2 steps. and trust me, that is a fun trick to play when someone is tripping the biggest balls,its also the only other thing i can do currentlt. anyways, I merely looked, saw the passage I marked prior, and made my way to my secret base.


    Now let me be clear, in Arizona, unless you''re rich, secret base means "Please don''t let the cops find this place." mine happened to be an abandoned house in Peoria, bordering Glendale. when I got there it was run down, beat up, and honestly all I saw was potential. me being overly optimistic again. nevertheless I warded it 2 weeks prior to today and began making a spot to hang in my spare time. I appeared in, I don''t know,screw it I''m calling it the dining room. and looked around. Most of the things i made so far were wooden or reclaimed. and since i could only affect things on tiny level the best i could do was negatively charge the electrons with my life hacks and amp my own internal bioelectric output to make my body''s protons act as a battery with the air when i was present in the house the open tiny seams, the pathways in the air and surrounding area to all the lights and outlets. Effective self sufficiency for the win,no cords! After placing my clothes In a few half cool cubbies I moved to what was my Office. Periodically while Jolie had been busy, I was out trying to find a job, which apparently is a source of human fulfillment.


    I looked at the desk strewn with applications, and lazily brushed a few a side. I picked up one for a place called the New Age Store. Some hippie store with a few cool odds and ends, crystals i find pretty and lively, one or two books with some real deep philosophies and a couple of nice self proclaimed lightworkers. It seemed like the optimum choice and the one with most promise and i was completely sure i could get the job.


    I placed the paper down and turned into the dimly lit main room, and i gazed around at the house as I walked around, tweaking things here and there as I had made a habit of doing. Honestly in light of everything, the old abode was truly beginning to look like a home. The plants outside were feeding from my presence and reviving,not much I can do to turn that specific thing on or off. the soil was even beginning to reconstitute life and heal. Sure I would need paperwork soon and all that extra, but i had already begun putting in effort to make the old property my own. I could pull the rest easily enough. I hope. Maybe. Regardless I was a bit distracted.so much so that I was totally caught unaware when,well..i got knocked out. All the crazy things i can do aside,my body is still human in its function. And my strength failed me as i took what felt like a another car accident to the temple and a loud ringing tore into my ears.i don''t even remember hitting the ground, but i remember the cloying smell of a wet rag soaked in some putrid chemical being held over my mouth and nose. The grid of my mind and body immediately began to falter and i didnt even have time to dedicate energy to a movement.i lost control and fell into the cold embrace of the waking subconscious as my body stopped responding and darkness engulfed my sight. Then an echo of voices,endlessly faint and numerous,like whispers, thrilled with wispy laughter.,bounced around my skull. The voices grew loud enough that it sounded as a cool,nearly genderless,fluid mumble. the voice of the depth of shadow, i heard true darkness speak four words that came with the start my first personal conflict in this world..


    Show me your resolve¡­

 The Worst Side of A Person...

    Wake up, old Flesh of mine¡­


    Pressure, warmth, these feelings so familiar¡­ i was adrift in the sea of my own muddled mind. Never had i felt this, dissociation with my flesh. Yet there was a voice that wasn''t mine, referring to me as a whole as its..old container. I was momentarily confused.


    Awake, and see the creation set before you¡­


    Wake up...why did that seem so, familiar? That phrase? And that buzzing on my thigh is annoying...and why does my chest feel so heavy? What''s pressing against me like this? What''s that heady smell? The puffs of wet, warm air on my face.That''s when i remembered the phone i was given by Jolie. ¡®She must be calling to check on me¡¯ i thought, a giddy murmur escaping my lips. But, it sounded wrong. Like the noises i made when jolie...


    I snapped my eyes open to feelings i never felt before forcing their way into my mind,driving into my sense of self like daggers. i can only describe it as petrifying. A face, eyes closed in open mouthed ecstacy jerking back in force above my face. Moving off beat to the ring tone jolie must''ve picked for me. It was a favorite song of hers, one i had grown to love. ¡°Wake up, Grab a brush and put a little make up!¡± The irony was terrible and revulsion lanced through my stomach, nausea hitting me as the man jerked against my flesh, pressing his disgusting tounge to my ear, My favorite words blaring milliseconds before the chorus , just as the rush of two newfound emotions ripped through my core and plunged my mind in hormones i had only heard of. A desire to do whatever i wanted to this man came to mind. a craving to feel pleasure by causing pain. Sadism, and, exhilaration. Coupled with the rush of realization of my current predicament, Adrenaline overloading my flesh. My mind racing, and me finding emotions on my own for the first time. spite, fear, panic. Flickering for seconds before a sickening burning broke free within me, shoving aside my thoughts, forcing me to feel the status of the man pinning me to the floor. The befuddled, mindless euphoria of hard and foreign chemicals in his veins. I watched enough shows to know what he was on. no walter white made the poison in his veins but it was the same breed for sure.


    His hunger, heartbreaks, his whole life story painted itself before me. I knew everyone he knew, saw all he had seen, i mapped everything, and felt it all even if i only understood subjectively. ¡°~Hide the scars to fade away the shakeup!¡± even as the song played and my thoughts faded i acted,something new in me unlocked. i changed my flesh,he didn''t notice immediately, the flesh of my belly and thighs secreting more sweat than just he was producing.


    In my time with jolie i grew interested in plants, and thanks to her obsession with cannabis i heard of two i loved.datura and Hydrangea. Both plants that had what i learned were called ¡°trippy¡± properties. But datura is special. It activates fear within the mind, and forces one to face the monsters within. The chemicals that create fear within most beings are cortisol, and vasopressin. I was using very little of the latter, but the former? Oh i was pumping a double expresso of vasopressin into every drop of sweat. It was there i felt, different. I was me but, this act, what i was about to do, it was like my body was being commanded by my emotions. The same way this man felt felt about violating me i felt equally so about this, I rolled my tongue seductively and wrapped my legs around him suddenly like a vice. He squealed in surprise, but not before i wrapped my arms around his, locking him in place. And he only looked down in time to see my forehead connect with the bridge of his nose.he howled in pain as an audible crunch resounded through the cement walls of my dark abode, and he reared back just as i pressed up and forward with my chest. With me atop him i slammed my Hips down hard against his bare waist, immobilizing my Violator. The moonlight filtering through the windows and the lights long since turned out in light of my loss of consciousness,pale blue moonlight painting to ground in surreal colors. But i didn''t need light for this. I didn''t need to see. He didn''t need a view of my sultry, supple flesh. No. he needed to FEEL. isn''t that what he wanted?


    I Giggled, but there was nothing cute about it. It was an icy purr,cold. With tension building in his body as the chemicals spattered about his stomach. I was bouncing on him in glee as i clawed him over and over. I was giving him what he wanted,movement, contact. as i laughed, i watched him free his left arm,reaching for the metal bat above his head. He grunted and whimpered, panicking in fear and confusion. I could feel the terror mounting within him as i flooded his body with pure stress.


    I clucked my tongue three times and looked him in the eye, and said along to song in a child-like voice as i ground my body against his trembling flesh,¡±Why¡¯d you leave the keys up on the table? here you go, create another fable...¡± and with nigh on no effort, my smile dropped, and i stopped bouncing, and i gripped the inside of his bicep and elbowed his hand. Breaking 3 fingers, shattering his wrist, and dislocating his shoulder, before pushing the arm forward, snapping his collarbone and exposing bone the open air through torn flesh in a fraction of a second. His face went white, and the beginnings of a warbled cry of anguish went to rip from his throat,but it never made passed his throat before i deftly punched him in it with precisely 7lbs of pressure, killing all sound. He choked and i leaned forward and gripped his neck. I could feel his high had given way to sheer horror and overwhelming agony, but i couldn''t feel it as normal. I was detached from the ability. I looked into his eyes with heavy lidded finality in judgement. And i spoke calmly. ¡° I''m the third¡­ i''m the third you''ve done this too, correct?¡±


    His eyes were clamped shut. I knew he heard nothing, and my temper flared even as a new change overtook my flesh, pressure building between or stomachs, her choked as he pushed his head up to see the burgeoning grown of flesh as my chest heaved,cords of muscles sliding visibly under my skin like serpents, matching what was growing between us in matters of absolute horror. The spike in his heart rate was so severe i felt it inside me, where his own, less ¡°impressive¡± extension of self lay unwelcome within me. I squeezed his throat harder as he began to cry from sheer confusion to the nightmare before him as the girl he wished to take advantage of become a little more than your average dame in a skirt.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    I grew until i was at his ribs, and smiled as his eyes shot to mine, darting between me an the sudden transformation. I found the reaction so satisfying i was literally drooling. My emotions so jumpy and erratic and what little left there is of my mind lost to me, but his torment wasn''t over, i pulled down hard on the left arm and let him squeak barely audibly past my nearly crushing grip. His body convulsing at the lack of air. I relented a bit, letting him gasp before choking again. ¡°Aren¡¯t.I.The.Third,¡± i asked more forcibly. He nodded in his pain and began trying to spit ¡®im sorrys¡¯ past his damaged windpipe. I instantly gripped, cutting off all air as his eyes bulged and he began to struggle. ¡° i don''t want your sorrys lenny.¡± He flinched at his name and i let a faint smile play across my face as i closed my eyes and nodded, ¡° yes i know your name owen. I know the first girl was a girl name Milly, drunk at a party. And i know the second was a random girl that didn''t even survive the initial blow to the head. Of course, you noticed that After you finished.. And the death ate you up. Made you do even more drugs. I know of your family, your dear mother that died in an incident much like this one. Your abusive father. Your successful sisters you protected until they left you alone with your father for 3 years to fend for yourself. I know of the pains you faced. The path that led you here¡­and thats why ill tell you, it doesnt change your fate, but i am sorry. If you chose anyone else, you would still be alive tomorrow.¡± i felt him tense immediately and grunt in agony as he lunged his left arm again to the bat, over extending his broken and mangled right arm. I let him, shaking my head in pity as his fingers grabbed hold and he pulled it to my face.


    I simply leaned backward and watched as he bludgeoned his own already brutalized arm. He screeched at a pitch i had only heard surfing for radio channels.i opened my eyes, the blood pooling beneath his pooling newly bone pierced forearm,the bat rolling away. I rise from atop him and he rolls to his side, crying and cradling his bleeding form. I watched him, hands on my hips. Raising a hand to touch the drying blood from the earlier blow i made sure being passed out wouldn''t affect my human shell from healing properly. Luckily, except minor scarring i healed correct. I hoped my hair would hide the tiny scar absently,as i walked to him and grasped his collar.he cried out in objection, tearfully demanding mercy of me when i had none to spare. This mental state was nearing its end..but i still couldn''t stop what was coming next, even as i fought against my desire to harm him, but i could find no reason i shouldn''t put him out of his misery. Later after the events i would come to the realization that nearly killing him and tormenting him before nursing him back and showing kindness might¡¯ve worked. But this solution was nowhere when i dragged him through the seam, and as he screamed in the insanity i had driven him too by exposing so much of the metaphysical plus tormenting him, pulled him to the spot i wanted. In the middle of the sandy desert..i dug a pit in minutes,mounds of dirt 4 ft high on both sides of the 8 ft deep man lengthed hole.


    He had resigned to a choking sob...and prayed endlessly. Begging forgiveness. I wish i heard him enough to change what i was doing,but in the moment,i merely lowered him down by his collar. And looked down into the pit after i regained my position above him, and i used the first of my newfound emotions to fuel and direct the energy to the mounds of dirt just as the sobbing stopped. the sheer force of the madness in my anger fueled,sadistic act, accelerating the molecules of each granule of sand, and it began to flow, heat reacting with the oxygen nearby, Lighting everything from the air to whatever couldn''t become molten within the sand. It became white hot, impossibly active, and flowed into the hole even as looked up to me as i glowered at him in decided and almost bored resignation, as tears, blood, and snot smearing his now blank face. I turned to the seam and walked even as the smoke billowed for half a second before even it was swallowed.as his body hissed and his bones cracked in wake of the heat. There was no smell, no accompanying scream. There was no time.only the sound of his physical form being erased. There would be no bones, no trace. Only his memory.


    It was when i got back to my home and saw the blood still pooled on the floor beside his bat that i came to myself. The iron filled my nose, and i looked down at myself. My jeans torn at my crotch still where he exposed me. I notice i had removed any identifying male or female feature from my body besides my breasts. I blinked in surprise, not remembering when i did that. I mean, i remember the existence before words were used to describe anything,ever and before ever, but this...i couldn''t remember making a change to my body? I looked around confused, patting myself like the memory was a tangible object laying around somewhere that i misplaced. But then i heard a wet drip at my feet. I looked down and saw a clear liquid, i kneeled for a closer look but three more hit the ground,i paused, and that''s when i noticed the blur to my vision. The warm wetness on my cheeks. I put a hand to my face and pulled it away, looking at the tears. I stared for a long second before the blur became the whole world i saw. And suddenly i was on my knees, crying looking at the blood.my mind empty. ¡® did i really do all of that?¡¯ i didn''t know what else to ask or think. Nothing of this sort happened before. I never had not been in control. I had not ever just done something for no reason. It was horrifying, and the images, the feeling, emotions, what i said¡­ it was so unlike me! What had that been? What Happened? Why did this happen?!


    Those questions, are called Human Thought.


    I Jumped and looked around. The voice i heard..i had thought that it was just a thing brought on by the chemicals the human had knocked me out with or..


    You even are creating excuses as they do for the questions you already know answers to. Second guessing, a folly born to creation, brought by free will, it''s funny. All i wanted was to enjoy the silence of not having this. Other side desired to make..this noise. Tell me, Oh Flesh of mine, Do you understand his wishes for noise? Or even my Desire for silence?


    Darkness. I knew it immediately. Otherside must be light then..but if she had no hand in creation, how is it present within it..i could barely think beyond this Clawing sensation in my Chest! I needed Jolie.i instantly fumbled for the phone in my ruined jeans and looked at the screen. I had 3 texts and a call, it was only nine o¡¯clock. She would be up, so i moved to call her back, but before i first called, i heard the voice one more time that night.


    Before you go, speak to the one approaching first. All will be well, they bear neither ill will nor to cause confusion or pain...know there is more than even your eyes could ever see. You must learn..and remember.


    Seconds later, A knock on my door.

 Emissary

    I opened the door.


    I literally was just taken advantage of, violated, and I proceeded to immolate some random,handsy douche,whom of which after reading his entire soul and imprinting it into my endless self,I now share the mentality of. all that and I''m standing in blood spattered, torn clothes,AND I OPENED THE GODFORSAKEN DOOR. That''s right, round of applause to the esoteric equivalent of an Ed Edd and Eddy episode with that Double D looking idea. I swear.


    I shivered as the branch of thought raced through my mind, foreign and intrusive.from jolie i got a joking demeanor and ways to hide my feeling (or lack there of), seems like this guy gave me sheer negativity with a side of homicidal self destructive tendencies. Plus ALOT of douchery.As if things couldn''t get worse,on top of everything else the new flood of information from my attacker polluted and tinted the color of my psyche.peachy.im so damn nihilistic i think the oompa loompa President is the Antichrist, reptilian overlord of the flat earth. I shook my head in disappointment at the new thoughts just as i turned the knob to see something...well, not what i expected.


    I''m gonna say it. I have no shame in it. Loli. very, very, very loli.for those that remain in aware, lol basically means every human you think is got at a mall or something that you go and talk to and they start talking about how different freshman year is from 8th grade. I could tell immediately that the young teen looking thing in front of me, with her slender, graceful build, the pale skin. The long black hair and sinuous,sculpted frame...I could smell it on her, centuries of blood and cold apathy came off her in waves, and that dollish 13 year old meat suit was some pretty creepy packaging for her craggy old soul. She must''ve somehow blocked me to realizing she was near because there''s no way that if she stood within 10 miles of me i wouldn''t have noticed. That''s why when she innocently gazed at me with a sweet, beautiful smile, and heavily lidded, cerulean eyes, i stated aloud, to her face, something for the people in the back.


    ¡°MUST NOT SMASH!!¡± and i promptly slammed the door in her confused, jailbait face.


    And she took exception to that.


    The door splintered immediately in a soundless explosion that Snatched me off my feet and chucked me down the hallway. The sound didn''t even register to my ears until i hit the wall 6 meters behind me and it almost caved at my impact. The resounding concussive ¡®Boom¡¯ was literally deafening, pain lancing through my ears and disorienting my sight, sending white and black flecks and splotchy color across my wavering vision thanks to my immediately destroyed ear drums. She strode forward with quick, pissed off little steps with that angry, sass filled Loli stomp. She wore black converse with black Jean shorts that only partially covered her hopefully legal naughty bits. Atop it all, between the choker that screamed ¡°daddy¡± and the black ¡° Supernatural¡± backpack, i thought nothing could get worse. Until i saw the black, Ouija board styled ¡°My Chemical Romance¡± shirt.


    Just to be a douche i blatantly stared at the shirt in horror and dry heaved in faked revulsion, choking out between gags, ¡° She gave me the emo!!¡±


    Now let me tell you, I may not actually hate the music, her tv choices, or even her dress ware.but getting her to beat me senseless in a temper tantrum worthy of youtube? Too rich to pass up. After her immaculate scream of rage and almost destroying the surrounding room using my nose and her bare hands, she was making a show of huffing breaths, her torso leaned forward with fists clenched as i rolled on the floor laughing like a hyena, already healing with tears streaming down my face.


    It was around then I felt her oppressive aura drop on me like dead weight and the laughter sputtered in my throat as i noticed how different i was truly acting. which totally kinda killed the buzz in light of the man i murdered being forced to the forefront of my brain. a few half hearted chuckles were all I could manage as she forced me to feel guilt.it was..a very uncomfortable experience. After that display i began to stand,the smile starting to fade as i finally had risen, I dusted off and looked her in the eyes solemnly. I immediately turned my back on her as her eyes went from my mostly exposed body to the blood and the bat on the floor in the room beside us.


    ¡°So? What?...did you come for a specific reason? Do you have a name or are you just gonna keep making me feel bad and dressing worse?¡± i said over my shoulder, keeping any emotion from my voice. I was greeted with the disappearance of the aura, and turned around with an eyebrow raised to find the girl standing where the blood had pooled and began to dry. It was gone.the blood,the bat,both entirely gone.not a drop left. just a glittering, shimmering spot on the floor in place of it. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°Next time you should avoid leaving a mess like that laying around for someone to notice when you invite them in.¡±She said pointedly as she turned to lock eyes with me.her gaze lazy and uncaring and her voice dripping with superiority.


    ¡°Yeah,¡±I said, rolling my eyes dramatically,¡± i''ll take note.by the way where''d you learn to knock on a door,ISIS? Explosions grab a Little attention too.¡±


    She smiled coyly and put a hand on her hip.¡±probably the same place you learned to greet a century old vampiric bitch. You should respect your elders sweety.¡±


    At that I scoffed, chuckling darkly as i waved a hand, absently returning power to the house with a thought and walking towards my makeshift kitchen. She narrowed her eyes at the nonchalant display but followed behind me.


    ¡°touch¨¨ sweetheart. Now,what, the darkness sent you on cleanup duty or did you need help not glittering in the sunlight? Or am I supposed to babysit you? A 100 year old toddler, I better be getting paid extra. Also don''t go treating me like I''m an invalid,¡±I almost spit at her in sheer annoyance,¡±normal vampires don''t throw raw energy.i know that much.¡± I grab a couple of water bottles from my fridge for us both and hand her one absently before opening mine and taking a swig.


    She hold hers and just stares at me,as if trying to gauge something newly discovered.¡±So you aren''t just some new kid on the block with zero knowledge,¡±she put down the bottle and looked me up and down,¡± then who are you..and what''re you doing in my territory killing the man i had marked?¡±


    I shrugged,grumbling that she brought him up.¡±he kinda asked for it. Why would you want some grabby punk anyways?¡± I take another swig and look at her with narrowed eyes. She marked him, now I didn''t know any specifics but fact is that if nothing else her involvement in my assault had immediately become possible.


    She shrugged and took a few stepped my way,soon standing beside me,leaning back against the counter I was hunched over. She cracked open her water and brought it too her lips,sipping lightly before answering. ¡°in honesty he was just a pair of eyes to me,the more you mark the greater an area you can cover. I didn''t know about his interesting night life until the second girl he met.i did however see you drown him in molten sand.¡± She grins,her childish face getting several creases and her appearance reflecting a bit of cruel admiration. I feel my stomach turn a bit and look at my water bottle, anger slowly over taking my emotions and revulsion making me tighten my grip on the bottle. ¡°You still haven''t told me what you are..,¡± I Growl at her in a low voice. Her face immediately relaxed a bit,becoming less twisted, but she didn''t regain their full cute innocent look. She scooched closer to me and touches my arm with her hip.i repeat,MUST NOT SMASH. The touch was friendly however,companionship aimed..I think. ¡°To put it bluntly, I''m still technically under the whole umbrella of vampirism,but, well I was given my gifts.no one but me is like me from what I can tell.i just had to go through alot.most of it unwillingly,in fact. I never knew i would become strong from the crap I was going through.not like this.¡±


    Her gaze almost looked...sad...i realized from her little expose that if this is a form of vampirism,it not only was unlike one I had seen before, but her body would have been made immortal at the age she originally had been.she couldn''t have Been physically older than thirteen, if even that. I won''t lie I began to feel pity for her, I can''t imagine what hell you would have to go through to become something considered a monster,to OTHER monsters as,well.. a blessing. I''m starting to get why she showed up besides as a clean up crew.the darkness wanted to show me a thing or to about getting past the things in this world mentally.maybe that had something to do with the whole reason for the collapse?


    She smirked lightly and shrugged like her obvious torture was nothing more than a heavy jacket to bear. ¡°so what about you?what exactly are you?the void calls you an emissary of the original state of being but, well forgive me but your coming wasn''t heralded by quaking earth and crap.and for voidssake you wear skinny jeans.¡± She laughed a bit, and as she did I smiled lightly myself. I was glad to see her being so mirthful,regardless of her ability to seriously do some damage. So, I opened a hand. the air sang as i accelerated the moisture around my fingers, causing it to vibrate and hum,becoming small flecks of light and producing a tiny hum. Her head snapped to my palm and she flinched in surprise. Her eyes darting from my glowing palm to my smile lined face.¡±I''m the shell of what came before all of this..everything came from somewhere right?¡± I let the light die down and dropped my hand,pocketing it while reaching again for my water. ¡° I guess the easiest way to put it is, the darkness isn''t the light,obviously,just as the light isn''t the darkness,but I am both.and they''re me.all the same.¡± at that I took a swig and shrugged, absently wiping my mouth with the back of a hand.


    She stared at me with a blank expression.and, in honesty, a level of fear I wasn''t anticipating flitted across her eyes. a slight redness to her skin reflecting something i thought it was confusion.she opened her mouth to speak, before closing it a few times, she spoke, a bit reserved. ¡°so..do..what do I call you?¡±


    I laughed and took another drink from my water bottle. ¡° just call me Tikan.nothing major.¡± I try to put on an air of calm, but it was like she was getting more tense by the second.what was I doing wrong?


    ¡°Ok Tikan..im Rome.¡±She slides towards me, and her presence picks up again, although instead of guilt, I''m feeling something I tooootally wasn''t needing right then.


    ¡°so...is air the only thing you can make vibrate?¡±


    I could hear the darkness laughing,and I suddenly understood.


    ¡°OH YOU''VE GOTTA BE JOKING!¡±

 First Lessons

    I am.The absolute. worst fighter ever.


    Listen, I don''t care what movie you''ve seen. I don''t give a crap what video game, what book, what blasphemous legend you''ve heard. Be it a demigod or a hanyou, super soldier, or a damn race of Warrior bred, alien super monkeys with golden hair, training is HARD.


    First off and foremost? muscle memory. now i may be a drop of primordial existence but I don''t think anything would have prepared me for the amount of broken bones I was gifted by my new trainer, the unconquerable and mighty Lord of shattered body parts. Rome was a taskmaster worthy of the hebrew brick pits. She was fast, sure, but I could do that footwork easy. But my body even now is mortal. Forcing blood to flow and bioelectric current to pass through me with less resistance may help me out pace her,however i was shredding my muscles. but it was compared to her strength. She was unparalleled. And at her base level of training she had shattered my cheekbone, broke my neck, snapped my collarbone, and had my flimsy tin foil butt skipping all across the warehouse Jolie had picked out for our training. She was watching from across the room sitting on a short concrete wall.at first, well, she was panicking. We had just broken the news to her that I''m not exactly human. She actually started screaming some Latin at me she later said some people called the Winchesters had told her would push demons to hell. It had been confusing, since, y''know, demons don''t adhere to saying ¡°get out¡± in another language very well. Typically they try to rip your skin off before you can even say hi.


    Regardless she had a totally mood change when I told her I could manipulate atoms and things of that nature, she pulled out a small baggie of green plant matter and asked could I find a specific compound in it, then transmute the whole gram of it just to the pure compound. I handed her back the bag after the change, and she immediately grabbed a blown piece of glass, snatched Rome by the hand, and they disappeared for the better part of an hour. At some point they came back, smiling and giggling, and demanded we go somewhere to combat train me.


    Neither of them had stopped giggling even as Rome redecorated everything in the room with my face. Jolie had resigned to watching videos on her phones, occasionally looking up in time to cheer happily as I would successfully dodge or land a hit.she also would just as quickly look down and ignore the godless sounds of me splattering all over the floor when Rome would grin from ear to ear and SHATTER the concrete floor just stepping into me. She never once did more than shoulder check me, or practically walk my way with an outstretched arm and open palm. The pressure of her movement?thunderclaps.and her touches bolts of lightning, pure immolating agony.


    I had just launched myself up off the ground by gripping the floor and throwing myself forward at her, tearing my palms and shredding my muscles as I spiralled at her mid air, stealing a move from my favorite anime. As cool as I looked, It met zero success. She spun on her left foot and swing her right in an upward sweep, connecting with my ribs so hard I felt the blood in my side crystallize and my bones turn to jelly.but before I could fly into the roof i grappled her thigh,tendons in my right hand popping.it was the first time her gaze faltered as we both were lifted off the floor. I leaned my weight backwards, causing her knee to buckle and her weight to shift my way. She growled, sounding bestial as she shot a hand forward, knifing my throat with her fingers closed together. both jugulars exploded instantly out the sides of my neck,my trachea a splintered mess and me left almost decapitated, but at this point she had all but rendered my nerves a tingling sensation. It''s not that I couldn''t feel pain, it''s just, well, i had been at a 10 for the past 3 hours. The shock kinda wore off when my nose had too regrow after pushing all the way to my face from my pituitary gland.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    Needless to say I smiled, and punched that fangy bitch in the mouth. We spun backwards over her head,making 6 full rotations before we slammed into the ground.the best thing was the look on her face as her head drove into the ground, breaking my fingers and arm up to the shoulder. Oh the pain was extravagant, because I knew she felt way worse.


    ¡°payback for the eardrums, hickey queen.¡±I chuckled and layed back. Shuddering as my arm healed. I could hear the squelch of Rome¡¯s brain unscrambling.after a second or two Jolie made it over to us and sat next to me.she still seemed spacey,but she looked me over.


    ¡°so,did you get her?¡±


    I nodded in reply. Moaning in discomfort. Rome shifted a bit, and grunted as bones shifted back into place, rubbing her neck and wincing as her neck cracked and popped.after a few minutes she dropped her arm and just layed there unbreathing as I sat up to evaluate my arm and the damage around us.


    ¡°ugh,¡±Rome grumbled, aggravated.¡±you totally killed my buzz man.good shot though, I was surprised to say the least..where''d you get that move? It was kinda clunky so I could tell it was patched togeth-¡±


    Jolie started giggling, I guess a knew wave hit her cause all she exclaimed was,¡±It''s just her ninja way! Believe it!¡± before practically falling to the floor giggling about foxes and toad sages. Rome and i consecutively rolled our eyes,hers just exasperated, mine definitely trollish with my trademark smirk. ¡°You mad Rome?¡± I''m practically beaming as she glowers at me and shoved me away from her with more human strength.


    ¡°Shut up before I drink that sexy nerd next to you like a Capri-Sun, been a while since I had brunette.¡± Rome''s eyes slid over Jolie nonchalantly and locked on mine. ¡°You did ok though.for your first day i would say you''ll be ready for most opponents within the month. I''ll move some things here, I want you here,midnight, and least 5 times a week.you don''t show up, I start sending you situations you have to fight your way out of,¡± she rose and waved us off,her body slowly shifting to black. ¡°I have to chat with some peers of mine now. So you two go off and talk the rest of this out. I''m sure Jo still has questions and you want to escape another beating.she then disappeared.flatly vanished. Leaving me and the giggling Jolie alone. I turn my head and look at her,and smile.


    ¡°Hey, Let''s watch some anime at your place and see if I can learn and ghoul moves!¡±


    ¡°OH MY GOD YES¡± she was kicking her feet and laughing hysterically, but suddenly, stopped. She sat straight up and looked at me with wide eyes,like an idea occurred to her.


    ¡°holy ships,I STILL HAVE AN OUNCE AT HOME!!!¡± Man, I don''t know what that meant but she sure seemed excited

 A Conversation

    After practically dragging jolie back to her house and being forced to transmute at least half an ounce of more green leafy stuff for jolie, her countenance went from giggles to all silence and stares at the tv.Rome was to busy to text back it seemed, so i just opted to sit and focus on breathing deeply and calmly as i watched the show,almost an afterthought. At some point I''m unaware of, Jolie had started staring at me with a slightly scared but determined expression underneath the cloudy look in her eyes.


    ¡°T, I... I need to ask you a serious question...a few, actually.¡±


    I nodded in consent, silently breathing as I waited for her to formulate the words. It took her a minute before she closed her eyes,took a deep breath,and then looked at me, cloudy eyes gone,replaced by burning orbs and more than a little anger.


    ¡°After everything I''ve heard and seen..i come to the conclusion that everyone sees the light as god,or the source, and darkness as the isolation chamber that brought that source to create to further understand itself.or they believe it to be something like multiple dimensions in one space constantly gravitating towards one another,smacking into each other every few bazillion years, causing big bangs and fueling each other''s cycle of universal life,death, and rebirth, but they''re all wrong, but all on in the right track..is that good so far?¡±


    I nod in assent, and take note that she came to many of those conclusions herself considering I only told her I''m the leftovers from the mental split darkness and light had over something I can''t remember. This girl was way smarter than even I had realized, and she definitely deserved my full attention.


    Continuing with a nod and a shaky breath she wrung her fingers,nervousness slipping in, but the anger, it was unbearably focused on me.


    ¡°then..doesn''t that make you God?¡±


    The last part she practically spit out with animosity. Her fingers were going purple from the bruising of her squeezing so hard. I felt like a shrew in a viper pit.


    ¡°No,definitely not creator.but yes,In the whole, we all are a piece of it.¡± I won''t deny I was trying to get the focus of her wrath off me while also telling the truth, but the second the words ¡¯But,yes¡¯ exited my mouth, she had already shot up and took a step my way, the last few bits had come out hurried and my hands were raised defensively.


    Sure I could take her easier than snapping twigs with a rockslide, but c''mon, NO ONE likes getting suckerpunched. She was tense, to say the absolute least. ¡°Why is it, that even you are giving me such crap explanations and calling it food as you shove it down my throat?!¡± she was at this point,visibly shaking, hands clenched so hard her knuckles were white. I immediately stood up, hands still raised in surrender,and spoke slow and as calm as possible. ¡°I get you''re angry.you want answers,and I''ll tell you what I can,but past a certain scope even I don''t know everything.even I''m in the dark,¡±I grimly smiled inwardly at the pun. Jolie didn''t know about Rome being directed to me by the darkness..and only Rome really knew about the man whose existence I wiped. ¡°Jo, you''re right. I''m one third of a being so high on the food chain almost nothing else matters..but I''m not actually...god.even the light humans attribute to creation isn''t God, just a part. I''m not even sure the light understand more than just..being..¡± I dropped my hands, my eyes downcast¡± look just..sit...i¡¯ll tell you what I know, and what isn''t a gaping black hole in my memory. But I need you to calm down. Some might be confusing, and like I said before I only know so much. I don''t need you to be ready to tear into me when this is frustrating enough.¡±


    For a second,I couldn''t see past her rage..she stayed there glaring at me for a very uncomfortable few minutes,but I didn''t dare move until she sat. Slowly, she let out a breath,and slowly eased her way back into the couch. She sat for a second, leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, hands clasped and her head down as she breathed. I slowly sat next to her, trying not to touch her or distract her as she diffused her anger. She looked up at me after a while,eyes cold and trying not let slip her still bubbling upset, and nodded for me to continue speaking.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°okay,¡± I took a deep breath, thinking of the best approach. ¡°the best way to start this is, well...the difference between light, and darkness, is nothing but difference itself simply given shape.they are the same, just in the sense that they describe the same thing.darkness and light represent a set difference between two sides.the only way to truly describe that is by example.and other than light and darkness themselves, the best example is the brain.¡±I paused for a moment, allowing Jo time to fully process,after a couple of minutes she signaled me to continue,and I nodded before picking back up.¡± now, the brain has a left half, and a right half. It has loves, sections, differing pathways both unlocked and shut down depending on each person but still, everyone has those two halves. But, regardless of differences either side has,be it function or origin of a mental problem or reaction, it''s all the same squishy gray matter.this is equally so for light and darkness, just made visible.¡± I push my long, dreaded hair out of my face and try to plan how to deliver the next points of information. ¡° now the light made all that is, within time and space,ever,here and now, then and there, and back before, whenever. But those a basically coordinate points on a grid, that was made to expand ever onwards,and backwards forever.that is this existence. But if this existence presses toward, and backwards endlessly, then the existence that originally was, was a circle.a point, no grid.and The point is That which we call god,but befor before all this existed, The point was just the point, that simple.¡± Jo began to quirk and eyebrow, almost as if wondering did I miss the pun, she rolled her eyes at the slight upturned corners of my lips. Oh I never miss a beat with puns.


    ¡°Here,¡± I continued, ¡°is the real issue. If darkness and light are the brain, then I''m the leftovers.the body,the blood,hair,skin, nails, organs,and nearly everything else, of us, what originally led to the source?what composed it? That is actually the easiest to answer.¡± I tapped my skull for emphasis, ¡° the source of all is the truth of the mind.that truth is that you, In your body, are actually just driving the meat suit that is yourself.the soul is the energy,the representation of the truth our existence that drives the body too live.the body houses the mind, and the mind subsequently both makes the soul recognize itself, but also gives purpose to the soul.but when the body is killed,the soul is supposed to return to source, and the mind just shuts off, and disappears.consciousness lost. That, is truth.¡± I took a final breath, her mind was buzzing, I could see the years turning in her head as she considered the ramifications.i needed to quickly get through the last part with as few loose ends as possible, without confusing her. Ugh, whoever said telling the truth is easier than lying, LIED.


    ¡°somehow, I still have soul within me which is fueling my body to locate and rejoin my shattered mind , the ¡®Light And Darkness¡¯ .and furthermore understand what caused this action called ¡®the need for creation¡¯ that came about from the inward mitosis, of the source.him realizing the state of everything around him was the last thing I remember...i know life expanded,I know I''ve been out of commission for eons, and I have a lot of in depth knowledge on things I normally wouldn''t¡­.but I''m not God, nor am I all powerful. The source, i can sense separately somewhere else, but it''s like, far. Farther than I can touch. And I can get stronger. But beyond that..that''s all I know.im sorry.¡± I dropped there, looking into her eyes hopefully, fingers mentally crossed she could even begin to contemplate the gravity of the situation.


    She was sitting, eyes closed,her hands now clasped in front of her face and she processed..it went on for quite a while before she slowly stood up,walked over too me, and put a hand on my head with a pat, ¡°fine¡­.i believe you, at least mostly..so much of this is to high above my pay grade to even come close to understanding.but, I''ll take your word for it..¡±she let the hand fall off as she walked off..back towards the doors in the hallway, she did stop a bit however, midstep.


    ¡°T...is there a way I can get on even playing fields with you?anything that''s make me strong enough to help you?...possibly help me meet God when you finally see them?¡±


    ¡°she turned, and I was surprised by the presence of a face twisted in pain that it contended with her outrage.


    She looked defeated, but...also so vengeful. I¡¯d never seen anyone look like that before, and honestly I''m glad I never have again.


    Yeah,there''s a few ways you could go,as a human though I''d say courage,and some sacrifice.maybe a touch more willpower than anything else on the list. And most important some faith, I''m both yourself and your goal, you''ll awaken what''s latent in you instead of find some other source to use. I''ll help you, if you want.¡±


    She just nodded, after standing a few second she wiped her face and continued walking to her room, her should set back and determined.


    ¡°ok.good,¡± she said, reaching her door and stepping in as she closed it behind her.


    ¡°cause I have something I need to ask him.¡±

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    I launched across the concrete,it breaking like porcelain as i do a short 20 meter jump,fast enough to concuss into Rome¡¯s chest as i Drop my shoulder and try to throw the little loli through the wall she stood against at mach speed.Rome, long since abandoning the pretense of holding back, shot out a hand enveloped in dark,indigo waves of what looked like heat. I knew from experience her power was literally just atomically pin point accurate fields of pressure. Between her ¡°Gravity¡± ability and her ridiculous strength, you always want to dodge her hits. I twisted to the left,into and under the punch, and continuing the forward motion into her solar plexus, she went to gasp but i pushed upwards and jumped. Using my charges¡¯ motion and the jump,I dislodge my shoulder from her obliterated chest cavity, and pull up my hands, clasped together, and hit her in the throat and chin with a thunderous crack,her neck snapping on impact.


    She wasted no time as she flipped backwards and locked my head between her knees as they passed my ears. I shot a hand up again and punched the back of her right knee as i tried to grip her left thigh with a desperate grapple. The backwards and upwards pulling motion of her knees pulling me into her spin, and the force of my punch, only made her plan work flawlessly as she dragged me through the air by my head and slammed my body into rough,jagged wall that had started out behind her. A wicked smile carved against her face as the wall caved and my body ruptured, torn and broken,  against the stone and the devastating strength of the vampress.


    ¡°That¡¯s 5 to 4 T!!you owe me a decent date!!¡± she yelled in triumph, stamping her feet in a march over my bloodied, dust caked body.she giggled and jumped up and down on my temporary grave in delight, eliciting a pained groan from the fallen rubble that partially hid my form. Screw the whole concept of a ¡°date¡±,she looks like a KID. I look no less than 19 at the least, I DON''T NEED TO GO TO JAIL. Even if we went by immortal monster years i would be robbing the cradle.


    I angrily pushed the bloodied chunks of wall off my body in a huff,one accidently striking and damaging the wall further as i slowly rise, my bones feeling less like jelly and sand, ¡° where do i take a vampire dressed like a 13 year old sex worker for a date? Chuck E cheese? Au De Nut, right on the corner of 1 hour ave and For-80 bucks st?¡± i shake my head, my jokes obviously lacking due to the widening smile on her face. In 3 months i literally have made massive strides and bounds in training.as it turns out, Rome had been holding back, WAY MORE than me or Jo anticipated. This broad has not only treated our training like a literal video game, she DREW OUT A  SCALING CHART. It''s a black board with me and jo¡¯s names above blank boxes.running at the top another blank box that says,¡±Rome,the Training Room Level Death Goddess¡±. Theres a gold star put next to my name for every ¡°level¡±, i¡¯ve gained.i¡¯m at a 4 currently,every time i level up she adds 2 black stars to her own name box on my side.lets not forget that when the chart was first made, i had 1 star too her five. My 4 stars too her 13 is beyond degrading to say the least.i had tried everything.but in the end she¡¯s a ruthless trainer and just is way  stronger in experience.


    She shrugs,a cocky grin still plastered on her underage face. ¡° how about Fascinations? I can have a cute blond for dinner and i can shop for new toys,¡± she puts her palms to her face and strikes and innocent pose, completely unbefitting of the mischievous look in her eyes, ¡°you know how much kids love to play.¡±


    I swear I almost choked to death on my own bile.luckily due to the 2 people I''ve  gotten a read on, Jolie and That man Owen, I at least know that putting anything private or even remotely damp near Rome would land me a jail sentence in the eyes of nearly anyone. The rest are on watchlists or from places that aren''t good ol America. I stood and dusted myself off as i looked absently around the room for Jo. I found her sweating profusely on the far side of the room standing straight up,arms held to the sides as she stretched her leg high above her head.her body  was slowly becoming more lithe and sculpted in the past 3 months, she had just finished running almost all day,doing other exercises in between the endless stretching. She had be slaving away ever since we spoke, from endurance to speed and some VERY light sparring with Rome. What made me so angry?on the level board jolie had 7 stars.7 WHOLE STARS. I was lucky if i got mine in halves, and almost every 2 weeks jolie got a whole star.


    FAVORITISM AT IS FINEST. Ugh.


    Regardless i had to admit, she was in terrifyingly good shape for it only to have been 3 months. She still smokes and drinks and watches anime and such, but her sheer force of will has been a constant source of a font of something in her. From diet change to simply deep conversations with me and thoughts about plans and ideas, concepts and dreams, it''s like she has found what she considers to be her calling.


    I¡¯m snapped out of my thoughts when she noticed me staring.she looks back with a smile and winks at both Rome and I before finishing her stretches and breaking for a few seconds to down a bottle of water,just before sprinting back outside for more laps i assumed.as soon as she left the door she angled to a set of buildings in the courtyard of the abandoned warehouse. They all had level roofs and she had been using them to practice being a ninja turtle basically. In the end it was stupid but i was almost bitter that some powerless human, No offence to jolie, Was technically doing better than me. Hell even in the whole light sparring deal with Rome she was landing more hits more often, for what she was capable of. But i was more worried than anything else in that moment.It¡¯d be terrifying if Jo had come into any level of power.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    Rome cuffed the side of my head lightly, startling me. I turn to look at her and she has a slightly endeared expression on her face. a light smile on her lips accompanied by her slightly shaking her head.


    ¡°T, you know it''s  easy to tell when you''re lost in thought when you watch her every move and stare off into the distance even after she''s gone,is something up?¡±she steps forward a bit with her impossible grace and lays a cold hand on my shoulder.i simply shrug in response, trying to shake the thoughts off. But it wasn''t so easy. I sighed and absently scratch my ear, uncomfortably looking away to the side  where i could see jo was scaling the buildings in the yard faster than she had days before.


    ¡°She¡¯s strong...like horrifyingly strong.but she''s human. Normal. There is no way she won''t follow us in this. But her body is weak,she cant regenerate,she literally has nothing but sheer willpower and a thirst for knowledge. No strength or speed...if we fought anything just weak enough to scratch us, she would become the target and she would literally burst like a ketchup packet.¡± i sigh heavily again, shaking my head in worried thought. ¡°There''s nothing i can do..but somehow she''s getting stronger, what if she gets overconfident and gets herself killed?¡±


    Rome nodded in assent and looked out after her as well, after a few moments of silence she sighed. I turn my head to see her smiling as she shakes her head. My facial expression turns to one of confusion just as Rome playfully pushes me and chuckles to herself. ¡°you''ve sat there and spent all this time watching her and you''re telling me the primordial container of EVERYTHING EVER, is too caught up in their emotions to notice when a ¡®Normal'' person is changing?¡± she quirked an eyebrow at me and i reciprocated the action.i wasn''t following, Rome just sighed and her expression drooped as she put an hand on her hip and the other to her forehead in a theatrical show of exasperation.


    ¡°Sometimes i swear i wonder if this is all a joke in regards to you and how slow you are.she has started researching dreams, plants and herbs, minerals and legends, for any instance of human empowerment without the loss of themselves or their humanity. The cigarettes she smokes are even hand made and as natural as possible and even then she''s cutting back,¡± Rome was looking at me in disbelief, as if wondering how anyone could miss such changes. ¡°she rejected the offer to be turned by me and is bent on knowing how to fight or talk to every other being in existence if ever she runs into them. Her mind is impenetrable, her presence gets stronger every second. Even her mannerisms are more peculiar and she''s become more mentally active and meticulous. I even suspect she¡¯s getting to the point of walking her dreams consciously with mediocre control. That child...she''s making her own way. And i don''t think she will be so ¡®Normal'' much longer. All we have to do is be patient and protect her long enough that she can-¡±


    I¡¯ll never forget that moment.it was so incredibly fast,a glint of something silver flashed and a short stake of metal plunged into the center of Rome''s chest. It had moved so fast that it seemed to have just appeared, as soon as it made contact, branches of metal shot from it in all directions as Rome screamed so loud i jumped away slightly on sheer impulse. I looked outside frantically,looking for the source of the attack. Suddenly where i had been standing a person appeared. In Black leather padded armor that was reinforced with the same gleaming, unnaturally bright metal. They wore a smooth featureless mask of the same.the only detail was an engraved equal sided cross on the forehead. Before i could react the figure struck a horse stance,lowering themself,and shot forward both fists at my hips.


    I felt the bones in my hips literally stop existing as the force threw my lower body backwards,pitching my head forward as the grabbed my hair and slammed thier knee bluntly into my nose, sending me flying back for a millisecond before their fist collided with my chest and stapled me to the ground, destroying all of my organs almost instantaneously bedor my hip could even think about healing.


    The figure had already struck another horse stance,facing Rome. She had gotten up and was Snarling so evilly her smooth skinned face contorted into a mask of wrinkles and wrath.her fangs bared and hands clawed as she rose with the stake still in her chest. There was no mercy in her eyes,and holding back was forgotten as her violet hued energy pulsed off her in waves and made anything that touched it creak and groan under its pressure.she spat blood to the side as she took a ground cracking step forward,the spit piercing the concrete like a rock thrown at flour.


    They stared silently at each other as i healed,before i heard another gut wrenching scream behind me in Jolies direction.I immediately looked at Rome who Suddenly was pushing so hard against the figure she left a visible slip  streamas the rocketed towards the entrance,the attackers legs breaking concrete like glass as they were pressed by Rome''s sheer might. Her eyes locked with mine, their whites were now a deep eggplant purple, almost black, as she Roared in a voice deeper and more hoarse and gravelly than anything i heard before, ¡°GO!!!!!!¡±


    I was already jumping backwards out of the door, Rome hopefully could handle this. In seconds i was where i last saw Jo.


    And was stricken motionless and mouth agape to a sea of stakes, and a figure with a strange blade standing over another

 Marks

    The long winded moaning of the figure on the floor reached my ears with every dull thud i heard. The heavy thuds coming from the kicking that rocked the body on the floor. There was no mistaking the scene in front of me. The cracking of bone, over and over, the blade suddenly lifted over head, the sickening sound of metal piercing flesh as the domineering killer aimed expertly for the throat a the vertebrae deep behind the trachea,instantly the figure on the ground died, and slowly the murderous intent shifted and turned to me, as blank cold eyes locked onto mine.


    EYES.no mask.no armor. The mental equivalent of a battering ram slammed against my mind, i recoiled and gripped at my head, unable th fight such an attack.it was crippling. The figure slowly walked to me and slowly kneeled, pressing the blade to into the dirt and leaving it sticking out of the ground.they reached for my face and i couldn''t even move to stop them.


    The presence vanished as soon as jolie touched my face and brought it up to look into her eyes, her face flecked with spots of crimson as her lips quivered and her eyes grew wet.she buried her face in my neck and sobbed as i looked down at her incredulously, still shocked and my head throbbing.i looked at the body and back at jolie,then to the stakes still surrounding us. The sun had long since set and the moon made the whole area gleam like mercury under a strobe light. I gently stroked her hair and steeled myself.as harsh as it was we didn''t have time for this.the ground trembled lightly, Rome must have been going all out and the stakes seemed to have a profound effect against me and her.


    I began to reach to lift jolie,but she quickly pulled back and wiped her eyes with her forearm. She quickly grabbed the ominously gleaming blade, for a second i saw something flash on her wrist and the blade seemed to give off a strange jolt to her,she immediately rose,her eyes still puffy and face tear streaked but she had regained to look of blank, cold objectivity. She jerked her chin up,motioning for me to rise. Suffice to say I did, packing away my questions and worry for the time being. Rome hopefully was holding out.


    As we dashed to the now horribly damaged warehouse there was wordless roar in the same voice Rome has commanded my retreat with. The ground shook and then several flesh piercing sounds reached my ears, i winced and looked at jolie, the cold demeanor had yet to recede but a slight flash or worry and anger crossed over her eyes for less than a second.at least she was ready to fight,whatever that meant.


    We slid to a stop, quickly evaluating the scene in front of us. My face went pale but i held a ready stance. It was a complete massacre.


    In the few minutes I took to retrieve Jo, Our 2 attackers had multiplied and they all focused on Rome. She was pierced in several places , the right half of her face shorn and slowly reknitting tissues,he clothes torn and ragged, her left leg charred on the thigh and the skin cracked and bleeding. Her undead nature meant no heaving in exhaustion, bit her right arm was a mass of torn flesh and visible bone.she somehow had it clawed around the throat of an assailant weakly clawing at the arm and stabbing at her with a stake.


    Well,half an assailant, the killer was separated from his lower half, only long ropey internal organs dragging his unresponsive legs around as she moved to a less injured attacker. This on merely missing an arm. They raised a hand and a stake appeared from thin air, her threw his arm just as three other unharmed attackers jumped her way, one from the rafters, two from her rear flanks. With barely any effort she simultaneously rose the half dead attacker she held to block the stack. It pierced their back  along the spine as his gorey, tangle lower half swung and hit the left most rear attacker,she threw the impaled corpse at the one armed target and the impact folded the figure im half, the backward momentum crushing his skull as his head snapped back against the ground,and spattering the backs of the 2 attackers that had turned and took stance in front of jolie and i, a good 30 meters away in the doorway.


    The seconds it took Rome to dispatch the one armed combatant, Jolie used to arch back  her arm and throw her strange blade at impossible speed with a tiny glow of her wrist.


    I took no time to launch forward towards the other opponent, who jumped to meet me,i raised my hands to grapple them just as they raised their own in lightning fast motions and rained stakes at me .i was nicked by one narrowly passing my face and caught it from the air, i used the force to swing around and duck, holding the stake and batting away it''s on coming brethren. My opponent changed tactics immediately and pointed at the stake i was holding, i feel pin pricks of pressure seconds before instinctively chucking it at them.they dodged but to do so jumped backwards, i could almost hear the surprise when two hands sprouted from their chest and immediately was torn two ways. It was brutal and sickening to hear.like a jello filled tree trunk splitting in a marble floored room. Viscera flying from her fingertips, Rome dodged half a second after her attacker and uttering a curse as the stake branched into spikes between the legs of the attacker that was coming from behind her,who she had forgotten on her right rear flank. The reaction was horrible,the assailants legs and..such...speared by tiny needles,held stationary by the single stake.they froze, partially  because the stake went through all their lower bits, but also because the forward momentum carried them past Rome and the spike ball of a metal stake jerked as it impaled the concrete floor and held them in place next to their dead comrade..they said nothing,uttered no sound.just went limp and shivered in pain against the activate spikey stake. I turned to see jolie plunging blade into chest while narrowly dodging a stake, with a deft movement she flips the blade reverse grip with her right hand,grabbing her attackers own right with her empty left,she upward slashes the wrist to the bone and carries the path if the blade over her shoulder as she spins,dodging their left handed stake throw, and pulls the enemy to her,their chest against her back as she quickly lets go of their right hand and grips their left forearm.she flips the blade and stabs the left wrist,the blade jutting out the other side as she throws her butt back and pulls, with both her hand and the blade lodged in the combattants wrist. The attacks goes flying forward and over her head as she crouches,pulling them at an angle to the floor.a loud snap resonates through the room and she immediately hope up and turns around,surveying who''s left.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    The room was littered with corpses.8 if i counted the one jolie killed outside and the 2 Rome had decimated before we managed to get back.The second Rome was sure no one was near, she collapsed and groaned,shaking in agony as her body tried to heal and push the stakes out. I crouched and silently helped her remove the ones that wouldn''t loosen.after a minute or 2 she was on her back,bleeding profusely, but healing slowly at least. After checking on her i turn to jolie, who was next to a puddle of vomit beside her as she heaved and cried next to her attacker.after Rome nodding me off i crawled over to her. And went to touch her shoulder..she flinched at the contact but relented as she sobbed. We stayed that way awhile,soon, Rome was healed enough to get up. Carefully she moved the body from Jolie who just muttered ¡®thank yous¡¯ through her sobbing. Rome began picking up the stakes and piling the bodies. the stakes went into the duffel bags we had brought a lot of the training stuff in. In that time jolie got her bearings and hesitantly grabbed her bloodied blade from the floor. Nothing happened this time.not even a flashed. She sucked in a scared breathe and went to sit by the door.i moved to Rome, and when she looked at me the confusion must have been evident on my face because she began explaining.


    ¡°Say hello to the Holy Roman sect of the Knights Templar.one of the many organizations that want to kill me, probably capture you,¡± Rome pointed to Jolie, whos grip tightened and her knees, ¡°and maybe her too.¡± Rome shook her head and i looked down at one of the masked people.they all looked exactly the same. Flat chested,no junk bulges, it seems like they were either genderless or¡­


    The realization struck me as soon as Rome continued her explanation. ¡° These are the failed ones though.order members who either were seen as treacherous or unfocused or for some other reason silenced. Unlike nicer secret organizations with evil master plans, instead of killed the unneeded rabble are taken,tongues cut out.blinded and tortured, while being taught how to fight, remain a shidow.make no utterance.have no desire or mind except to kill as the are ordered to. The men are completely emasculated. And the wound cauterized.¡± i winced and looked down at them.they knew their organization was so evil and stayed with them,and yet would do anything that could lead to this?this order seemed so¡­.barbaric..


    Rome shuffled around in the bodies and found the one i impaled in the legs.they were still breathing.she twisted the right wrist so i could see it and what was there was a silver cross like the one on their masks. ¡°silver crosses however, are failed human experiments.they had no choice. probably were born there,use to breed and some have even more than the stakes to summon and augmented speed or strength. Like the first one we saw.¡±


    ¡°No wonder they seemed so intense...i. thought they were just trained killers¡­¡± I sighed, saddened by the loss of life.i checked another wrist. This one a black cross.i assumed this was originally a member that went wrong. ¡°what about the females?¡±


    Rome shrugged and indicated to the bodies ¡°Everything here is titless and junkless.you think girls get special treatment? It''s just two more things too cutoff.¡± i looked at her,my stomach queasy. ¡°Yup, definitely barbaric.¡± i turn to find jolie not at the door and freeze.before i realize it I''m at the door and scanning for jolie,and relax,mostly. I see a full duffel bag on her back, and a naked scarred and disfigured body being pulled in tow.jolie,panting and pale, dragged the body and stakes too Rome''s¡¯ piles, she had the armor from the body and dropped it at her feet and spoke up. ¡° what are the armor and stakes made of and can it be melted.¡± Rome''s eyebrows shot up but she nodded in reply. ¡°Iridium.a higher form of silver some say. Also the best metal around for anything against supernatural and metaphysical. Melting isn''t to much of a problem.its forging it without ruining the anti magical aspect. But¡­.why?¡±


    Jolie doesn''t miss a beat, ¡° I want this one¡¯s armor.and whatever else can be done with the stakes¡­¡± she absently gripped the small knife and her wrist seemed to shimmer slightly. Rome nodded and grabbed the armor and the bags,eying the knife carefully. ¡°ok, we will talk about this more later...we go to my place for tonight..then we figure out what these guys want.¡± I turn just as Rome whips out a lighter, and kneels to the bodies, Jolie looks away just as light flares and the fire begins to crackle. I don''t even question the intense flame starting by a seemingly normal bic. We hurriedly leave to escape the soon cimg smell as Rome makes sure the fire takes the whole warehouse,she catches up as the smoke rises,and leads us around the corner onto the main street, just as the first tint spiral of smoke coalesces around the moon.

 The Flee Order

    The Holy Roman Templar Tribunal


    A choir raised their voice in unison, a clamouring of joined voices singing praises to the light and the teachings of fallen masters and martyrs of the order. Few know how many of these masters and martyrs were actually killed by the tyrannical leaders they follow, and of those few, even less live to prove it. barely any of those left undeceived by the teachings of the tribunal get beyond sounding like babbling conspiracy theorists, those that do,they don''t have much of a shelf life.


    It was an empty, dark chamber of stone.the largest room of a cathedral. Normally it could''ve housed a congregation of a few over 900...tonight however it lay barren besides the choir of featureless ivory masks, singing in the darkness as three shadowy figures stood before a fourth who seemed to be on trial. The air was heavy but slowly pushing towards the great doors the man had entered from. An oppressive weight from the 3 heavily cloaked beings before the thin framed, reflective mask wearing grunt. The male, or at least what used to be one, was from Silus squad of the north american chapter of the order. He was also the soul survivor of the slaughter that was originally a routine scouting and retrieval mission. His report ,he thought, went rather nicely all things considered, as the sole survivor he expected wide eyes and minor concern for the order''s safety as a best outcome. The alternative being death literally taking him on sight.


    He got something in between.


    The leftmost figure wore a dark red cloak, It was the same ruddy color of coagulated blood. hood and cloak covering his hands and feet, while also obscuring most of his face. what could be seen under the heavy hood was a black, tiny horned mask. mouthless and smooth between the nose and chin like some nameless ghoul dressed in the robes of a priest. He was also the reason the Agent in front of him was Standing still as a mannequin. mind you the man before this red giant was in excruciating pain with his muscles and joints locked. The marrow of his bones was quite literally, for lack of a better term, on fire. he was very much in the hot seat. this was a capital execution, body and the holy unbridled flame were kinda the forte of the Vicar of the Body of light since that meteoric explosion that ended the cretaceous period. The crimson clad ¡°Priest¡± looked more like and iron bound muscle head than a representative of the divine. not to mention he was actually ¡°Vader-ing¡± a lackey because he found his failure disturbing.


    To the right, in gawdy violet and embroidered with an obscene amount of gold, stood a lithe man who looked like a Dionysian actor with all the white plastered on his creepy, overly expressive, mime like face. Currently he was displaying worry and fear while swaying to the music. Wailing dramatic lamentations all the while and gripping at his hair in a frenzy. The Vicar of The Heart of light was just as distasteful as the giant, scarlet golem of a man 5 feet to his left that was fervently pain raping the poor, quickly paling man before them both. The Gaudily dressed thespian man was mimicking and mocking the feelings the tortured report giver was feeling. his movements so light, to light for even the air around him as he whipped from stane to stance like some over the top contortionist''s expressive dance of sorrow.


    Shitty acting and violence,(Accompanied by the Evanescence themed background music) ,aside, the man between the gaudy and the hateful was most disturbing.


    Literally over 10 feet tall and draped in moth eaten,frayed,ancient, stark white robes, with a papal crown on his head, stood the visage of spirit.arms outstretched eternally in the ¡°creepy uncle¡± hug sent straight from beyond the grave, due mostly to the fact the giant was little more than an unnaturally pure white mummified corpse. Or at least it seemed. Surely his chest still rose an fell and his heart did beat, but the flies dead at his feet and the air growing stale at his mere presence painted one hell of a ghastly light for the apparent Representation of the soul and spirit of the Light.


    Incidentally it was watching with a skeletal grin on its face as the man started to steam and disassemble at a molecular level, slowly falling to the red mist his body was emitting as he cooked from the inside out and his spirit was rent apart .so yeah, probs more of an enemy I guess.


    REGARDLESS the weaker, Less overpowered man ceased to exist the second his mind turned into molten gravy and he kinda sploded into a steaming spatter mark made of chunks of cooked man meat and stray, now gelatinous bone fragments.the choir had reached a dramatic crescendo and the gold cloaked weirdo threw himself to the mess. The second he touched the remains they started to turn into solid gold.which, he manically started scarfing down with an unhinged jaw and horrible tenacity.


    As if the weird couldn''t get weirder, the mummified giant, striding forward with the real Mask of the red death walking in tow. they both joined into the fray, what the mummy touched becoming sand , and for the Man in red, coals. They didn''t speak. They didn''t have too.though they didn''t agree, with each other often they shared a singular thought in their shared mind, as the heads of the mighty Templars Devoured their tail of an underling. Well two thoughts. One, that the being they were reported about was some wayward freak of nature or some other monstrosity.but there was a nagging feeling¡­ that something more was too this dusky skinned and seemingly double gendered...shell. The report was clear. The agents all could see souls, after being robbed of their sight and were practically superhuman. Yet they could barely track or fight this creature unless its movements were empowered. which in it of itself was a skill only 4 kinds of people knew. the high ranking priests ,some martial artists, real essence users, and the Quasi-dead paladins of the vicar of Spirit only being on earth capable of such a feat. and no one could generate enough or concentrate it to equate not one, but many souls. Getting anywhere close should destroy everything but a diamond.and even that can only hold half a soul''s endlessly regenerating worth of raw energy.


    They thought this all as they ate As one mind.but something else bothered this trinity of a hive mind more¡­..


    How many of those fat tenners in the choir could it eat before the sound was diminished?


    ¡°....Damn¡± they said in unison, pondering the new thought as they rose, marching towards the unsuspecting choir.


    ¡°...We just got the numbers back up¡­.¡±


    *********************************************************


    Rome was pissed. I''ve never seen a temper tantrum that included mind shredding feats of demonic strength and black magic, aimlessly and effortlessly flung around, for something seemingly so minute. Her prized apartment, loaded with weapons,rations, generalized gear, and many wards and spells, lay ransacked and smoldering. However much i might understand her upset, This being the 4th safe house we visited tonight in such condition, It seems whatever those sparkle prone templars were doing included taking out the "Vampyre demi-goddess " as she calls herself. They had systematically taken out her nests and all residents ,slaves,and guards, without her even noticing they had found even one of her locations. Seemingly her being alive was solely based on her being with me and jolie and this sudden schedule change leaving 2 templar squads scrambling to find them.when they did did they were not prepared for a brunette stoner girl and a dread-headed drop of chocolate violence to ruin their day with fists and much A¡¯swearin¡¯ .


    Regardless she was piiiiiiiissed. So much so she used magic to track and torment the lingering recon agents left milling about every area¡­.each time one was found, at least an hour of gross sounds and R-rated content followed. Now, at the fourth and final House-that¡¯s-literally-a-safe-house, she was cursing the very ground and air around her and slinging spells like a 3 year old with a Tommy Gun. needless to say me and Jolie found ourselves standing about a block away and around a corner, and STILL we could hear Rome screaming and see blasts fly past our location.


    Maybe a nap and paci would¡­.you know what?nope, nevermind.


    What could be said about that situation says nothing about how royally boned we were, we even went to go by Jolie¡¯s just for her and Rome to swear under their respective breaths vehemently as a bunch of uniformed men in cars with red and blue lights searched the yard in front and around her apartment as they carried out dozens of he pretty green plants and small terrariums that held mushrooms with blue stems. As well as bags of both of these plants, dried and preserved.


    Jolie looked like she could cry.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    The only place at this point was my house,which could be used as an access and rally point for now while we got together supplies. After rome caused almost an entire mile stretch of earth to become deadland, we headed towards one of my nifty cracks in reality. Neither had been through,seen, or done anything close to this before. Well, except that one time Rome told me about. something about Oblivion Gates and some world she called, what was it? Tambourine?¡­


    Either way Jolie was looking around the endless white void with hitched breath. Rome however was as pale as the dead. well, Double dead undead. She looked like she might shit herself and the sky was crashing on her head or something. I tried to ask why but she didn''t even talk. She just walked with newfound purpose and speed, Almost barreling ahead and Getting lost in the 5 minutes it takes to traverse to literally anywhere.


    We popped into my living room, Jolie stumbling and Rome running Straight for the kitchen and ripping vodka from somewhere in my fridge, Guzzling it and Panting like it''s the grandest water and she''s Been running for 2 weeks. I stared at her quizzically for a second but decided not to ask. I went up the stairs as jolies walked around, Amazed at the beautiful inside and gliding her hands along the walls.


    I, on the other hand, Immediately took stock of the situation and started putting the place on supernatural lock down. Wards, illusions, incorporeal bindings and reinforcement. And enough alarms and booby traps to make the bat cave look like a child¡¯s tree house. I set up three areas for the Portals that were the only ways in at this point, i had read up in the past weeks using Rome''s books and libraries that were now ashes to gain a whole set list of new application of my abilities to create a pocket dimension tethered to the house. this paradox made it to where this place was separate from even the house it was in, but for the sake of laziness i had left it tied to the house it originally was. each enchantment and portal were set with a function that would quite literally unbind the atoms in anything that wasn''t seen as a friend,need, or a possession to the 3 beings now presiding over the site. I mean, Of course a literal atom destroying filter was a bit extreme, but anyone would prefer being knocked out to being literally erased. besides , i was kinda short on mercy at the moment. i had however separated the pocket dimension from the waking world. you could walk right into the house i was molded in and find nothing but an abandoned building. you could tear down the physical structure but this space would be absolutely fine unless one could travel the seams like we could. even then the harshness of the filter had not a weakness beyond one literally killing me. that''s the best i could do.


    By the time i was done Rome was significantly less shaken from her ¡°Fast Travel¡± experience. She was also plopped face first on the couch in the front room. Jo was Nearby, sitting at the foot of the same couch and looking around still, less amazed and more bemused with a strange smirk on her face.


    ¡°Do i even want to know where half this crap came from? How you¡¯re managing to make a house keep the abandoned,broken look but also make it all orderly and neat?¡± she chuckled, a hand to her forehead in exasperation, ¡° why is it that even your house has to even reflect your contradictory self?"


    ¡°Well, there''s no point in a cat sleeping in a dog house y''know?¡± i shrug it off with a smirk. laughing at the contradictory atrocity of my pun, I walk around the couch. going between it and a Deep, Dark brown padded Rocking chair i proceeded to drop my tired ass in.


    gently rocking forward and back, content for the time being. then,speaking aloud, ¡°The issue we Are facing now is finding more of those soldiers. If we could wring some info out of some of the smaller fish, maybe we could get a shot at their mysterious asshat leader. They obviously were sent to us..¡±, i bring a hand to my face, looking dead at Rome, ¡°Whoever this person is that sent them, We need to find them at all costs.they obviously have you in their sights particularly.¡± don''t get me wrong, i wasn''t saying this because we thought there was a reason so big it could swallow the earth, or something like justice.


    To be totally honest Rome just wanted to take Requisition for he destroyed stuff off their asses, individually, respectively, and collectively. And while Jolie had not been mad at first, the waves of bloodlust that came from her when the uniformed men took away the Plant life and fungi was so intense i was surprised that it didn''t just kill the men outright by permeating the air when we were watching them. I on the other hand had little to no reason to be upset. Well, they obliterated my training room but beyond that all they did was hit me very hard. But they tried killing my friends. For that i would fight anyone,so, i decided to help my friends at least.


    ¡°Always such the GentleMan-Lady thing,¡± said Rome,grinning lightly.


    Ok.maybe i should''ve let them stake her.


    I rolled my eyes before looking at jolie. She had a look of concern on her face. ¡°so..these templars are some kind of supernatural slayers?¡± the question kind of hung in the air. I of course knew nothing except the rough definitions of what everything was. So a lot of concepts had holes. I can tell you every plants name if you showed it to me but not its history. I just barely learned governments had ways to be run beyond The US and its democracy.


    ¡° They,¡± Rome spoke in an irritated tone,¡° are a group of pretentious, holy upstarts. a division of the catholic church. To keep this exposition short, they are very powerful trio of egomaniacs that experiment with binding light and dark and twisting it to push their agenda. they want Us dead or locked down obviously, and above all else, their collective dick is muuuuuuch bigger than mine. bigger than all of ours,¡± at this point Rome turns and looks at jolly, and jerks her chin at me. ¡° at least until our princess here manages to gear up and give us the biggest rager possible.¡±


    For the billionth time me and Jolie roll our eyes, but no smile is on Rome¡¯s Face this time. no laughter or joke, purely because of how stupidly accurate the idea was. I was the only trans eternal being they knew, and their only hope. but we were having trouble fighting off and hiding from the grunts. This was a baaaaaaaaaaad situation.i sat back and we all just kind of were absorbed by thought and silence. jolie seemed the most worried, a hand was over her mouth and her eyes were closed in thought. Rome had resigned to laying back down with a flop on the couch. looking at options we had from the point of view of the distant story, we didn''t have a lot of options at all. we all knew that. but the real question wasn¡¯t what we were going to do as much as it was where the hell could we go. I needed the dive deep into my self.like DMT trip deep. Rome needed a serious level up, and Jo needed to not only learn and master all of her abilities, but also needed to learn what the hell they were. All of this needed to happen before we could even have a CONVERSATION about thinking to step to a secret society, one so strong and old that its leaders considered themselves the replacement of the vessel of dark and light.


    All the bull considered i was stumped. Apparently Rome was to, due to the pissed off grunt i heard from her direction. i turned to look at her but was met to Jolie standing, looking at her creepy, insta-spawning knife.she stared for a moment,seeming to be reverently studying it. The runic carvings along the edge almost seemed to shift and twist as her face twitched. barely noticeable but there, a sudden feeling shot between her and the blade. Even with my empathetic bullshit i couldn''t tell what such a quick flicker was. But after it Jolie nodded, let the thing vanish in a single flick of her wrist, and slapped Rome¡¯s leg to get her attention before looking from her to me. ¡° So...i just got a bit of instinct. and..i think i have a...well its a course of action we can build off of as we go.¡± she took a deep breath, eyes closed, before continuing, ¡° i couldn''t have just up and vanished before but, with the situation as it is.. none of us can really stay without causing a stir, we have info we need to get here, yes. But T,¡± she pointedly looked my way , ¡° is our nuke.without time to grow and seclude she may never get her human, meat suit version brain together, which will do us no favors when her beyond god tier, mind body soul thing kicks in, right?


    Rome nods slowly, ¡° ok so..?¡±


    ¡° soooo, what if us two move here, we combine knowledge and resources we rip from the minds of those sent to us, and we expand T¡¯s powers?¡± she shrugs, ¡°hell the bitch can jump through rifts in reality to teleport, that''s one of the WEAK abilities. the damn starter pack is molecular manipulation of some fucking type according to you. What if we make an unsuspecting, run down house in a pocket dimension, into a mansion? An impenetrable fortress with illusions and totally unnoticeable?one where we can build around a rift and literally get anywhere on earth, not be tracked back to,and actually have a foothold instead of a safehouse with some traps or a trap house and a few drunken friends and literal bricks of chronic?¡±


    By this point i''ve been totally silent, and Rome seemed dumbstruck. I get the feeling she felt absolutely stupid to throw a tantrum instead of find that glaringly obvious idea.but hilariously she just opened and closed her mouth once, sat for a second, and then flopped backwards onto the couch yet again with a groan and a facepalm. I smiled and shook my head, nodding. ¡° I think that''s a good idea...as best as i tell that''s better than anything else we¡¯ve got,and expanding this little dimension seems easy compared to securing a physical spot on earth. But..portals should be just as secure as the base we build,and Arizona isn''t safe anymore, if it ever was. so constructing outward might be a bit slow..maybe we can pull it off by linking one spot to another to start? expand there while coming here?¡±


    Jo smiled and i raised an eyebrow, my own lazy smirk half disappearing. Uh oh¡­


    ¡°That sounds perfect love, i actually just got told of a good first place to build. one almost completely free of Holy Roman influence. abundant in plants i love, a place where you can learn to ¡®human¡¯ effectively. and with a cover story for someone like you that looks and acts somewhere between 16 and 20.¡±


    Her smile split her face in a toothy grin ¡° Have you ever wanted to see a salt lake?¡±


    Rome groaned even louder and i was mentally assaulted by visions of skull thumping bibles and walking 8 miles to the nearest liquor store.

 Clear Fields And Blurred Lines

    ¡°Thank you for Flying with us! Have a good visit, and welcome, to salt lake city. We hope your stay is comfortable and you enjoy your stay!


    ¡°A-aaaaahcoo!!¡±


    I sneeze as i cross the unboarding dock as i walk off the plane. Rome angrily whipped her head around, surveying the surrounding area. She scoffed and spoke with exasperation, alcohol on her breathe and a light blush to her name. ¡°Damn it all, why couldn''t they just give me booze without a whole background check? I literally predate these planes¡¯ existence!!¡±


    She had been like this since since the beginning of the flight to Utah. the stewardess had made a ridiculous deal about how she was dressed and how she had to be too young for alcohol. She wore a lace,see through pair of arm sleeves that went from her biceps to her wrists and billowed slightly like a sultry emo princess jasmine.she had on a tube top styled crop top the held he braless breasts is place. Effectively concealing her skin tone underneath but not much else.he pants the same see through material as her arms and it was all too apparent she was going commando if the shameless vampyre¡¯s camel toe was any bloody indicator, barely hidden in the double layered billowing bottoms. She wore an assortment of symbolic and needed iron charmes that made her look older but also hid her baleful vampiric presence and might. Rings on her fingers held pocket dimensions that in turn carried all her salvaged items and things from her various storage units, along with enough refrigerated and stored blood to literally turn the whole nile red a second time.the most modest thing she wore was her black converse and her snapback hat that she wore backwards that was all black on the outside but under the bill was a mosaic of fractal coloring and the symbol on its front said EDC 2014. The middle aged flight attendant had made a large fuss over her outfit and tried to outright refuse Rome in letting her drink, until Rome threw a card at the woman that had Rome''s face and Alleged date of birth on it, the woman, after sourly confirming the cards legitimacy after another 5 minute argument sourly poured her a glass of wine before stomping off, calling her a ¡°Godless Hussy¡±.


    She was twice as Vexed when Rome proceeded to call her back for more wine 8 more times, Referring to the woman in her late 30s as ¡°bar wench¡±.


    Regardless as we got off we wandered the airport a while. It had been 3 weeks since we had seen other people outside of the occasional walmart trip for food and other trips for supplies. In those last weeks we had be stocking the house.making it a literal fortress.most of the pocket dimension had been altered and beautified.rome had a whole stairless loft too herself besides a library we all used upstairs for studies. Jolie had helped expand the outward field of influence, so our pocket dimension had almost one-fourth of an acre in every direction. It was filled with plants and cacti and it was fully useable,like a normal outdoor area in accordance to earthen laws of physical and geography go. But i was incredibly fertile and well kept,and the sky was a bright aurora and a moonless night sky with Endless stars that were bright enough to feed the plants but dim enough to leave us in twilight. We could change it but we all liked the way it looked. Plus anything was better than when Rome had made it appear to be some band called BTS constantly singing and dancing. Jolie had begun gardening her plants and fungi and had created a synthesizing station, much like an alchemy station. She actively Used the set up whenever she was avoiding more working out and training. Her hair had become long and she was lithe and fit. She also leaned to suffse her body with ambient Essential energy from around her in this plane, the girl had gone from normal to able to dash at 75 miles for a short while in under a week, and her training with Rome Had gotten Way more Lethal. She said the cultivation of plants and using them in the substances that they FINALLY explained to me calms her down and helped strengthen her spirit. Said it was her form of calligraphy. and Considering she made a room that she practically lives in otherwise that speeds up time and increases its own gravity by recording her bodies strength in numbers and adding half that number, times five, and adding it to the amount of pounds of pressure she would stay in. basically, hyperbolic time chamber.


    This left me to decorate as i saw fit. And my room was, for lack of a better word.. Basically a heavily wooded area.. With  pond and a gash at it center, crystals and thick energy around, and one very aggravated racoon.


    I know it sounds weird but by taking the place i came from and making it my room, and a know expanding campsite¡­ i dunno it feels right. All the animals i actually brought from the original place. Everything is the same, mostly. The sky is the same as the one outside, and it automatically tends to itself, but everything else is a carbon copy..


    Technically that''s because it IS the actual original, but explaining how i did it and why there''s a crater in middle of the arizona desert now is just plain tedious.


    Either way we all had our own rooms with varying levels of expansion and magic, and in my case a Raccoon im totally naming Retsuko. Jolie had also unbenounced to me been planning the month before meeting me to go to some trade school. They apparently accept anyone from 16 to 24ish and help them learn a trade and become respectable adults. Her admissions counselor had called and told her to come in and if she had friends that were interested, bring them to the orientation. As it turns out this is where her Salt lake idea came into play. Me and her would veil ourselves as students, and Rome would do reconnaissance on locating resources, targets, and any other objects avenues or people of use. From there we would regularly use rifts to access areas we find our hear of and do what we must to train, and hide our presence. According to Rome since the Templars only wanted her,so She would be the only one tracked. They would, thinking she was going from salt lake to hit the midwest, send a team or 2 that way to a place to intercept her. something about a crypt of Sanguine that only the eldest bloodsuckers can access. They would wait there knowing she would come there, which we planned to do, but on foot it would take weeks, even for a beast of her caliber. And after that she would make it seem as though she was headed north, towards another Crypt.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    The Templars that were left in Phoenix looking for Jolie and I in the area were silenced pretty quickly within the first week as well. And according to Rome since they were a supernatural order they had few to no legal connections. They would have to pull major strings and step on the toes of a few other organisations and agencies just to get a clear shot at us through the police or military, and they couldn''t do that without revealing us to another order. We took great pain to kill those that were left and jolies blade had grow. More of a black,Bright glowing green runed, Slim short sword rather than a knife know.she had grown stroger and the blade changed with her. The energy now malleable to her and her eyes flaring with a opalescent green whenever she used some aspect of her power. She even learned how to use some minor magical applications for her power. She was becoming a stealthy ass healer.. She still was a glass cannon, but a cannon is a cannon. And bitches love em.


    Rome had some plan but was being mysterious that whole time, studying. Thanks to that i had nothing but time to meditate, do some learning and read an occasional encyclopedia. I learned a lot about the world and the laws of this reality as well, how it works, what''s out there. And thanks to it my power was on a whole nother level. Hence the newly dubbed ¡°Arizona Crater¡±.


    After the orientation we ended up with tickets by the second week set for the third. We packed our ¡°normal luggage¡± and i made Us all Rings with various Effects and jewelry with latent Energies that i masked with even more applications of my power. I may have gotten overzealous, but it was good practice. When the dates came, jolie left 2 days ahead of me, and i came afterward alongside Rome who just bought a ticket. This was what led to the current Predicament.


    ¡°Tikaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!¡± Rome loudly exclaimed as she draped herself over my shoulders and groping me openly as i shamefacedly walked down the walkway, a minor eye twitch slowly becoming more sporadic as she tempted my less than acceptable lust issues. She pressed herself against me as i carried our bags, many onlookers either gawking in shock at her outfit or shaking their head in shame, hurrying themselves or children away from the debacle of an exit we were making from the plane.


    ¡°So where do we gooooooo?¡±she was pouting, batting her lashes against my neck in butterfly kisse and sliding hands along the front of my thundercats T shirt and red flannel, rubbing her palms against my chest. I mentally pushed away the thought of making a sexual suggestion and proceeded to tromp forward to the nearest secluded area of the airport to put her down. She was testing my self control and if i spoke i surely would fall for the honey trap. MUST.NOT.SMASH!!!!!


    The second i got  there i practically threw her off me, letting her slump into the chair with a grumpy huff, i quickly knelt in front of her to grab he dropped bag and set it on her lap,and with a hidden hand i brushed against her wrist,i small flick of blue energy flashed from my finger, forcing her full of some of my good ol ¡°wake the fuck up¡±  energy. He drunk now rudely stripped from her she swore as she hopped in her seat slightly with a yip, looking around wildly. Her eyes landed on me pretty fast before she scowled and grit her teeth into a snarl.


    ¡°Can¡¯t even Let me just drunken fondle you for a second,¡± She growled with a harsh, very unchildlike voice. It was low and no one was near but it was accompanied with a drop in temperature that was literally physical. didn''t stop me from scoffing at her, however.


    ¡°Listen,¡± i started as i rose, grabbing my own bag ¡°we need to get moving. I have to go meet the group that''ll take me to this trade school, i need to meet with Jo and you have to find a place nearby as a viable scouting ground. Plus you have to find a leyline for the next branch of our hideout so we don''t have to get screwed with just popping up out of nowhere through the tears. You can''t do that sipping wine and singing terribly.¡± i reach into my pocket and whip out a paper that reads off the name of my soon to be caretaker and guide for the preliminaries of this school. The paper said to look for a girl and boy holding signs and that a man named,¡±Mr. Ivor, you mean?what a weird name,¡± Rome slowly got up and adjusted her skimpy outfit as i took a step back and nodded in agreeance.


    She went and grabbed her bags before going past me a ways saying over her shoulder, ¡°fine, fine i''ll go. But for the record ill be done within a hour so im sure ill be drunk at the base by the time you guys an check in..¡± she pouts, genuinely showing a hint of real upset. She looked back and opened her mouth to speak but stopped a second, before speaking with alittle strain, ¡°please just hurry and see me ok?.. I''ve gotten used to you two assholes and i''ve been alone too long for you guys to get ganked in a shitty mishap here in miller town.¡± she smiles, a light flush to her cheeks before hurriedly turning and walking off, her Black curly hair bouncing as her hips sway and she bounces away, waving me off with a hand over her head.


    I can''t help but smile and giggle to myself lightly, looks like i might actually have made a small unit somehow. I take a second to enjoy the feeling before hardening my mind to it, setting my face and grabbing my bags,as i turn i see another person with bags and a confused and slightly worried look on their face. I nod at them and walk their way with my bags in tow. They perk up and smile a bit. Once i was close enough we speak a bit. Turns out they were looking for baggage claim and had seen me at the last airport. We both were going to the same place, upon looking at our paper at the same time for times we both saw the same logo on our sheets. I smile and laugh, telling the person to walk with me. ¡° looks like we both are going to the same place. Im T, btw.¡± i put out a hand to shake the strangers hand, which he took. He was taller than my, with dark curly hair swooped to a side, a cute beaming smile adorned their face, they were neither fat nor skinny and they wore glasses, seeming totally the effeminate type. He shook my hand saying nothing except, ¡°Hi,it''s so nice to meet you! Im Even!¡±


    I chuckled at the enthusiasm and nodded as i looked into his eyes, and from the touch and the way his dark eyes absorbed the light i felt something latent but very dark. Almost like an endless roar of flames. I felt one feeling from him that, for the first time, outmatched even the pure form of emotion i felt.


    It was pure Rage.


    ¡°Cmon then,¡± i kept smiling, hiding my thoughts to that beast of hatred inside the boy. Deciding i had better keep an eye on him and walking forward toward the baggage claim and a girl waving a sign, flagging down and collecting those that came on the flight with us that were going to this school. I consciously prepared myself mentally for any more human contact as i pulled the boy along. ¡°Let''s go see what this Job Corps has to offer!!¡±