ULTRAMagic (Before) Prelude - Chapter 7
Previous | First | Next
Master Post - Patreon
Mind-Wraith and Aava were expecting a tense battle where they would have to stay on their toes to maintain an advantage against Damien, but that is not quite what had happened. In reality it was primarily a one-sided affair with Leif on the offensive and overwhelming Damien despite being at only about half of his true power (and even then he was still lacking). In the rocky valley leading to the biggest cave of the gorge, Leif hounded Damien and barely gave the decaying knight a chance to breathe. Leif’s weapon of choice was what looked like an executioner's axe with a handle length roughly around the size of one for woodcutting. It was an inelegant weapon, but the heavy and reckless slams of the head indicated that Leif had too much pent up frustration to care.
With a roar and strain to extend the weapon, Leif pulled on both ends of the weapon and expanded the axe into a halberd and became a greater threat to Damien. The knight’s mind was a haze of hollowed madness, but some of his old insight lingered, allowing him to avoid Leif’s aggression. He whistled for his horse and hastily mounted it in an attempt to charge at Leif. A lance of metalized, one of rusted blood that would hopefully give him the upper hand and he directed his horse to run as fast as it could as victory seemed in sight. Surely Leif had no other option, right? Normally a speeding charge like that would force one to fall back, but Leif stood his ground and readied the halberd. Just as Damien neared him, Leif gave a mighty swing that cleaved the skeletal horse in two, putting the sad collection of dust and bone out of its misery once and for all. Damien was sent flying and in that moment he had a true moment of lucidity. His head smacked a large, flat rock, and painful memories of his abhorrent, past actions flooded back into his mind.
Mind-Wraith had so many moments where he wanted to provide assistance by shooting a hot blast of air here and there, but always hesitated when he saw where Leif’s attack was about to land. “Aava, I know what the others said about helping Leif out, but I am beginning to question if he actually needs our help…” There was concern in his voice as the two were well aware of how destructive Leif used to get when he was exceptionally angry back in The Epoch.
Aava winced as Leif sent Damien flying back again, but also picked up on something that could cause them trouble in the near future. “I know, dear, but… Mind, have you noticed something odd about Damien?”
Damien had conjured up a slender pistol of rusted blood and shot Leif, staggering him, and allowing him to get in a good attack that made Mind-Wraith recoil a little. “Yeah, he’s fighting with clarity,” he remarked as heated winds began to flare up around him. “On three…”
“Wait, look!” Aava interrupted as she pointed towards the explosion of black and orange electricity erupting from where Leif had fallen.
With a great scream of frustration and a burst of electrified air, Leif had turned into a bestial form that was halfway between his human and dragon forms. Damien felt a surge of fear in him as Leif roared, expecting the beast to charge at him in a frenzy. Instead Leif leapt up in the air, causing Damien to lose his focus. Despite the lucidity the shock of the battle had afforded him, his mind was still rotting and prevented him from properly dodging out of the way when Leif landed on him. Damien was continuously thrown back by the frenzied swipes and slashes he had initially expected. And just when Damien thought he had gotten away, Leif closed the distance with ease. This time he chomped into Damien, but oddly it left no mark on the knight. Rather it seemed to be spiritual as Leif was trying to rip the magic out of Damien.
In a truly fortunate moment of clarity, Damien expunged a great deal of energy from his body that created a burst strong enough to send Leif flying off of him. “ARGH, Blood-Wraith… Need to… find… The Crimson God!” Damien then turned into a fire ball of rusted blood and soared away from the battle in a screaming blaze of sparks and smoke.
Leif spit out the essence he had taken and roared at the fire ball as loud as he could as it fled. “COWARD!!! GET BACK HERE!!!”
Mind-Wraith and Aava waited until Leif calmed down (or at the very least returned to normal) before going to see if he was alright. Once he was back to his regular human form, they hurried over. “By the source, Leif!” Aava exclaimed. “Are you okay!?”
“With all due respect, Leif, I’ve always been slightly terrified of you…” Mind-Wraith admitted. He then looked over to the axe, which had been carelessly tossed aside in the heat of the battle. “Hold up, is that axe what I think it is?”
“Yeah, it’s the Executioner’s old axe…” Leif answered with a cough, his voice a bit hoarse from all of the yelling he had done. First he picked up the fragment of Damien, then the halberd. “The Executioner wanted me to pass it on to Mal to keep her safe, but I guess I held onto it for a little too long,” he explained as he slammed the rod into the ground, causing the handle to retract back to its smaller size.
Mind-Wraith chuckled. “Well Mal has her void magic and you told her to stay out of harm’s way… Then again she’s always been fairly impetuous ever since the end of the Epoch…”
Leif gave a worried sigh as he teleported the axe away. “Don’t remind me…”
“Leif, is that a piece of Damien’s magic?” Aava inquired.
“Yeah, it is,” he said as he gazed into it. What he saw was the ravings of a madman, the bloodlust of his old enemy, and the frantic pleas of a bully who had finally had his comeuppance. Ghoulish faces bulged out from the flame of magic in silent screams, so Leif squeezed it in his fist. Upon opening it the fire had become a gentle, red blaze. “I was hoping to grab all of it…”
“Well, um, perhaps we can use this as a test run?” Aava proposed. “This plan is reckless and it would be in our best interest to test the waters as we don’t want to overwhelm dear-little Blood-Wraith now.”
“Not a bad idea, Aava,” Mind-Wraith complimented. “You never just shove a new meal into your face all at once…”
Leif was a little displeased at Mind-Wraith’s light-hearted analogy and groaned. “Mind, this isn’t food we’re talking about here…”
Mind-Wraith stumbled over his words. “Well yes, but I think the principle still applies. Aava has the right idea, as we need to see if Blood will be able to accept this magic in the first place.”
“Leif, I… I can see if it’s safe,” Aava offered with slight hesitation as her right arm transformed into jagged stone that leaked dust and sand.
“Aava, is that…” Leif paused, as he knew the subject was a bit sore with her. “The Lost Slate God?”
She took a quiet breath, her gaze looking downwards for a moment. “It’s fine, Leif. I’ve got it under control now. It’s who I am after all.” Aava was handed the flame and a small cloud of sand enveloped it. “Well it’s definitely Audoin’s power, gifted to him by Karnage and… hold on, did Karnage die?”
Leif felt his blood run cold. “Karnage died? How? Because he ‘reincarnated’ as Wulfric’s champion… slippery little bastard really thinks he can hoodwink us like that…”
Mind-Wraith shook his head with a sigh. “Well he certainly fooled Wulfric…”
“Wait, no, he’s not dead yet…” Aava said as her eyes glowed a ghostly, unnatural white. “No, but it’s at some point in the future… argh, it’s all fuzzy, but Audoin’s bolstered power seems to come from Karnage failing to destroy… The Iron City? Droomopolis? Shadowland? Sorry, but it’s too hard to tell with this little essence…” she lamented as she handed the fragment back to Leif.
“No, it’s alright, Aava,” Leif reassured her. “You did your best. We’ll just have to keep this in mind going forward. On the bright side, that means Blood-Wraith has a fighting chance.”
Mind-Wraith glanced around, only to get startled by the thundering of an upwards landslide that had started near them. “Let’s head back to the guild for now, before something else happens…”
The flight back was uneventful, which was good for Leif as there was a lot on his mind. Had he gone overboard or had he not done enough? He was doing the right thing by bringing help along, but it still felt like he was missing something. As the three entered the walls of the guild after touching down, they noticed a game of baseball going on in the main courtyard and went to go spectate. Scotty, Zara, Blood-Wraith, Charles, Alexander, Nosmirc, Sander, Cynfelyn, and Carol were all present at a makeshift baseball diamond. Everyone except for Carol was playing, and Blood-Wraith seemed to be up to bat. He looked a little nervous, but also eager to finally get his turn. Sander was the umpire and Scotty was pitching.
“Alright, Blood, when I throw this ball you hit it as far away as you can and round those bases as quickly as possible…” Scotty instructed.
“Right, loud and clear!” Blood-Wraith replied as he held the bat up. Scotty wound up and the first pitch came with Blood-Wraith missing it. The second followed once Sander had tossed the ball back to Scotty, and it was another miss, but Blood-Wraith seemed to have been studying the throw. Scotty had a bit of a wind up and threw as hard as he could. On the third pitch the bat hit the ball with a loud thunk and sent it flying, with Blood-Wraith pausing to marvel at it. “Whoa…”
“Go blood, go!” Charles urged as he finished rounding the bases.
“Right right!” he said in excitement as he started running. Alexander was hurrying over with the ball to tag him, but Blood-Wraith managed to slide under him to the third base and kept going. Alexander then tried to run for it, but Blood-Wraith touched homebase before he could make it, receiving a round of applause from the others.
“Well done, Blood!” Carol congratulated him.
“A splendid job indeed,” Sander added. “You were smart to let the second strike go like that. Observe your opponent before acting and it’ll make your victory easier.”
“A great run indeed,” Mind-Wraith announced as the three approached the group. “Cynfelyn, we actually got you out of your room for once, ha?”
The boy with silver hair and indigo eyes sighed, still a little uneasy. “I… I couldn’t say no to Blood. My room wasn’t actually leaking, I was just hallucinating.”
“Don’t worry, Cynfelyn, you’re doing fine,” Blood-Wraith assured him.
“Plus your death date pretty much doesn’t exist, so no need to worry about that, my dude,” Charles added with a pat on the back.
Cynfelyn groaned. “Charles, death would have been preferable to being trapped in my home universe…” This caused the others to chuckle in sympathy for him.
“Well it certainly sounds like you all had a fun time,” Leif started to say. “We weren’t able to capture Damien’s magic…”
Nosmirc patted Leif on the shoulder. “Hey, there’s always tomorrow.”
Leif gave a soft groan as that was not what he wanted to hear, but he had to admit that the comradery was appreciated. “I suppose you’re right, Nosmirc. We did manage to snag a piece of his magic, however, and I would like to see if you can handle it, Blood.”
Blood-Wraith nodded as Leif held out the flame. It was such a strange thing to witness and he was not sure what to make of it. “So, do I just take it?”
“Are you sure about this, Leif?” Carol questioned as she and the others gathered around. “I don’t think we’ve quite done something like this before.”
“It should be fine, Carol,” said Aava. “Leif did a good job of, erm, purifying it.”
“Whelp, Blood, down the hatch,” Scotty nervously encouraged, which made the boy chuckle.
After a moment to think it over, Blood-Wraith nodded again and said “Here I go…” He grasped the flame and it felt nice, like squeezing a warm pillow. The flame was quickly sucked into his empty being like a black hole devouring a star, causing him to convulse for a second. His vision went blurry, but quickly came back. Blood-Wraith did not feel much different, except there was now a strange drive in him to really start pushing ahead with his magic studies. “That was weird…”
“How do you feel, kiddo?” Zara inquired.
Blood-Wraith looked down at his left hand, which was now slightly visible with the faintest, red glow. “I think it worked…”
Leif gave a sigh of relief. “Well that’s good to hear…”
“So now what do we do?” Alexander wondered. “Because obviously we’re nowhere near ready to ship him off to The Unlight yet.”
Nosmirc looked around a little nervous, having sensed what Leif had gone through with Damien. “I guess we’ll just have to wait until Damien pops up again. It’s not ideal, but we shouldn’t waste our energy trying to find him. I imagine he’s not done yet, given what we know of Audoin and his ilk.”
Scotty laughed and patted him on the back, causing Nosmirc to lose his footing a little. “You have no idea, my friend… although I have to wonder why you don’t just go capture Damien for us… you know, given how you're 12D and what not.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than you think, Scotty. Aside from the stuff I can’t reveal, I could easily break something, especially here in a place as uncertain as the Dark Void. Trust me, I would love to just snap my fingers and be done with this, but 10D entities like Audoin can actually pose a threat to us.”
That seemed like it was not the full story, but Scotty shrugged. “Well I’m only 4D, so I guess I can’t argue with that logic. Hanging in there, Blood?”
He looked up after being distracted by the faint energy flowing through him. “Oh? Uh, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good. Leif, Mind, Aava, want to join us for another round of baseball?”
Mind-Wraith nodded as he took off his vest and set it on the table where everyone else had put their coats. “I don’t see why not. Aava, you used to play softball as a young girl, correct?”
Aava giggled as she recalled the nostalgia of her childhood. “Of course, but I am a little rusty,” she answered as she set her coat down.
“Well this is going to be fun,” Zara said enthusiastically with a clap. She then sensed something with Leif as he took off his vest, however. “Hold on a second…” She reached into the void Leif used to store his belongings, with Leif saying nothing save for the regretful look on his face towards a promise he had yet to deliver upon. “Leif! I told you to give this to Mal!” she said as she waved her old axe in front of him.
“Goodness, Zara, you’ve remembered that far back?” Sander asked.
“As fuzzy as things are, that’s one of the things I haven’t forgotten.”
Leif sighed. “I’m sorry, Zara, but it’s come in handy for me…”
Zara groaned. “You are lucky Mal can look after herself. Give this to her after we’re done with Damien, you hear?”
“I promise, Zara.” Perhaps that was not the thing Leif was missing, but it was something he still needed to fix. Whatever that specific thing truly was, it would have to wait until they were done playing baseball.
Next: Chapter 8
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
Master Post - Patreon
Mind-Wraith and Aava were expecting a tense battle where they would have to stay on their toes to maintain an advantage against Damien, but that is not quite what had happened. In reality it was primarily a one-sided affair with Leif on the offensive and overwhelming Damien despite being at only about half of his true power (and even then he was still lacking). In the rocky valley leading to the biggest cave of the gorge, Leif hounded Damien and barely gave the decaying knight a chance to breathe. Leif’s weapon of choice was what looked like an executioner's axe with a handle length roughly around the size of one for woodcutting. It was an inelegant weapon, but the heavy and reckless slams of the head indicated that Leif had too much pent up frustration to care.
With a roar and strain to extend the weapon, Leif pulled on both ends of the weapon and expanded the axe into a halberd and became a greater threat to Damien. The knight’s mind was a haze of hollowed madness, but some of his old insight lingered, allowing him to avoid Leif’s aggression. He whistled for his horse and hastily mounted it in an attempt to charge at Leif. A lance of metalized, one of rusted blood that would hopefully give him the upper hand and he directed his horse to run as fast as it could as victory seemed in sight. Surely Leif had no other option, right? Normally a speeding charge like that would force one to fall back, but Leif stood his ground and readied the halberd. Just as Damien neared him, Leif gave a mighty swing that cleaved the skeletal horse in two, putting the sad collection of dust and bone out of its misery once and for all. Damien was sent flying and in that moment he had a true moment of lucidity. His head smacked a large, flat rock, and painful memories of his abhorrent, past actions flooded back into his mind.
Mind-Wraith had so many moments where he wanted to provide assistance by shooting a hot blast of air here and there, but always hesitated when he saw where Leif’s attack was about to land. “Aava, I know what the others said about helping Leif out, but I am beginning to question if he actually needs our help…” There was concern in his voice as the two were well aware of how destructive Leif used to get when he was exceptionally angry back in The Epoch.
Aava winced as Leif sent Damien flying back again, but also picked up on something that could cause them trouble in the near future. “I know, dear, but… Mind, have you noticed something odd about Damien?”
Damien had conjured up a slender pistol of rusted blood and shot Leif, staggering him, and allowing him to get in a good attack that made Mind-Wraith recoil a little. “Yeah, he’s fighting with clarity,” he remarked as heated winds began to flare up around him. “On three…”
“Wait, look!” Aava interrupted as she pointed towards the explosion of black and orange electricity erupting from where Leif had fallen.
With a great scream of frustration and a burst of electrified air, Leif had turned into a bestial form that was halfway between his human and dragon forms. Damien felt a surge of fear in him as Leif roared, expecting the beast to charge at him in a frenzy. Instead Leif leapt up in the air, causing Damien to lose his focus. Despite the lucidity the shock of the battle had afforded him, his mind was still rotting and prevented him from properly dodging out of the way when Leif landed on him. Damien was continuously thrown back by the frenzied swipes and slashes he had initially expected. And just when Damien thought he had gotten away, Leif closed the distance with ease. This time he chomped into Damien, but oddly it left no mark on the knight. Rather it seemed to be spiritual as Leif was trying to rip the magic out of Damien.
In a truly fortunate moment of clarity, Damien expunged a great deal of energy from his body that created a burst strong enough to send Leif flying off of him. “ARGH, Blood-Wraith… Need to… find… The Crimson God!” Damien then turned into a fire ball of rusted blood and soared away from the battle in a screaming blaze of sparks and smoke.
Leif spit out the essence he had taken and roared at the fire ball as loud as he could as it fled. “COWARD!!! GET BACK HERE!!!”
Mind-Wraith and Aava waited until Leif calmed down (or at the very least returned to normal) before going to see if he was alright. Once he was back to his regular human form, they hurried over. “By the source, Leif!” Aava exclaimed. “Are you okay!?”
“With all due respect, Leif, I’ve always been slightly terrified of you…” Mind-Wraith admitted. He then looked over to the axe, which had been carelessly tossed aside in the heat of the battle. “Hold up, is that axe what I think it is?”
“Yeah, it’s the Executioner’s old axe…” Leif answered with a cough, his voice a bit hoarse from all of the yelling he had done. First he picked up the fragment of Damien, then the halberd. “The Executioner wanted me to pass it on to Mal to keep her safe, but I guess I held onto it for a little too long,” he explained as he slammed the rod into the ground, causing the handle to retract back to its smaller size.
Mind-Wraith chuckled. “Well Mal has her void magic and you told her to stay out of harm’s way… Then again she’s always been fairly impetuous ever since the end of the Epoch…”
Leif gave a worried sigh as he teleported the axe away. “Don’t remind me…”
“Leif, is that a piece of Damien’s magic?” Aava inquired.
“Yeah, it is,” he said as he gazed into it. What he saw was the ravings of a madman, the bloodlust of his old enemy, and the frantic pleas of a bully who had finally had his comeuppance. Ghoulish faces bulged out from the flame of magic in silent screams, so Leif squeezed it in his fist. Upon opening it the fire had become a gentle, red blaze. “I was hoping to grab all of it…”
“Well, um, perhaps we can use this as a test run?” Aava proposed. “This plan is reckless and it would be in our best interest to test the waters as we don’t want to overwhelm dear-little Blood-Wraith now.”
“Not a bad idea, Aava,” Mind-Wraith complimented. “You never just shove a new meal into your face all at once…”
Leif was a little displeased at Mind-Wraith’s light-hearted analogy and groaned. “Mind, this isn’t food we’re talking about here…”
Mind-Wraith stumbled over his words. “Well yes, but I think the principle still applies. Aava has the right idea, as we need to see if Blood will be able to accept this magic in the first place.”
“Leif, I… I can see if it’s safe,” Aava offered with slight hesitation as her right arm transformed into jagged stone that leaked dust and sand.
“Aava, is that…” Leif paused, as he knew the subject was a bit sore with her. “The Lost Slate God?”
She took a quiet breath, her gaze looking downwards for a moment. “It’s fine, Leif. I’ve got it under control now. It’s who I am after all.” Aava was handed the flame and a small cloud of sand enveloped it. “Well it’s definitely Audoin’s power, gifted to him by Karnage and… hold on, did Karnage die?”
Leif felt his blood run cold. “Karnage died? How? Because he ‘reincarnated’ as Wulfric’s champion… slippery little bastard really thinks he can hoodwink us like that…”
Mind-Wraith shook his head with a sigh. “Well he certainly fooled Wulfric…”
“Wait, no, he’s not dead yet…” Aava said as her eyes glowed a ghostly, unnatural white. “No, but it’s at some point in the future… argh, it’s all fuzzy, but Audoin’s bolstered power seems to come from Karnage failing to destroy… The Iron City? Droomopolis? Shadowland? Sorry, but it’s too hard to tell with this little essence…” she lamented as she handed the fragment back to Leif.
“No, it’s alright, Aava,” Leif reassured her. “You did your best. We’ll just have to keep this in mind going forward. On the bright side, that means Blood-Wraith has a fighting chance.”
Mind-Wraith glanced around, only to get startled by the thundering of an upwards landslide that had started near them. “Let’s head back to the guild for now, before something else happens…”
The flight back was uneventful, which was good for Leif as there was a lot on his mind. Had he gone overboard or had he not done enough? He was doing the right thing by bringing help along, but it still felt like he was missing something. As the three entered the walls of the guild after touching down, they noticed a game of baseball going on in the main courtyard and went to go spectate. Scotty, Zara, Blood-Wraith, Charles, Alexander, Nosmirc, Sander, Cynfelyn, and Carol were all present at a makeshift baseball diamond. Everyone except for Carol was playing, and Blood-Wraith seemed to be up to bat. He looked a little nervous, but also eager to finally get his turn. Sander was the umpire and Scotty was pitching.
“Alright, Blood, when I throw this ball you hit it as far away as you can and round those bases as quickly as possible…” Scotty instructed.
“Right, loud and clear!” Blood-Wraith replied as he held the bat up. Scotty wound up and the first pitch came with Blood-Wraith missing it. The second followed once Sander had tossed the ball back to Scotty, and it was another miss, but Blood-Wraith seemed to have been studying the throw. Scotty had a bit of a wind up and threw as hard as he could. On the third pitch the bat hit the ball with a loud thunk and sent it flying, with Blood-Wraith pausing to marvel at it. “Whoa…”
“Go blood, go!” Charles urged as he finished rounding the bases.
“Right right!” he said in excitement as he started running. Alexander was hurrying over with the ball to tag him, but Blood-Wraith managed to slide under him to the third base and kept going. Alexander then tried to run for it, but Blood-Wraith touched homebase before he could make it, receiving a round of applause from the others.
“Well done, Blood!” Carol congratulated him.
“A splendid job indeed,” Sander added. “You were smart to let the second strike go like that. Observe your opponent before acting and it’ll make your victory easier.”
“A great run indeed,” Mind-Wraith announced as the three approached the group. “Cynfelyn, we actually got you out of your room for once, ha?”
The boy with silver hair and indigo eyes sighed, still a little uneasy. “I… I couldn’t say no to Blood. My room wasn’t actually leaking, I was just hallucinating.”
“Don’t worry, Cynfelyn, you’re doing fine,” Blood-Wraith assured him.
“Plus your death date pretty much doesn’t exist, so no need to worry about that, my dude,” Charles added with a pat on the back.
Cynfelyn groaned. “Charles, death would have been preferable to being trapped in my home universe…” This caused the others to chuckle in sympathy for him.
“Well it certainly sounds like you all had a fun time,” Leif started to say. “We weren’t able to capture Damien’s magic…”
Nosmirc patted Leif on the shoulder. “Hey, there’s always tomorrow.”
Leif gave a soft groan as that was not what he wanted to hear, but he had to admit that the comradery was appreciated. “I suppose you’re right, Nosmirc. We did manage to snag a piece of his magic, however, and I would like to see if you can handle it, Blood.”
Blood-Wraith nodded as Leif held out the flame. It was such a strange thing to witness and he was not sure what to make of it. “So, do I just take it?”
“Are you sure about this, Leif?” Carol questioned as she and the others gathered around. “I don’t think we’ve quite done something like this before.”
“It should be fine, Carol,” said Aava. “Leif did a good job of, erm, purifying it.”
“Whelp, Blood, down the hatch,” Scotty nervously encouraged, which made the boy chuckle.
After a moment to think it over, Blood-Wraith nodded again and said “Here I go…” He grasped the flame and it felt nice, like squeezing a warm pillow. The flame was quickly sucked into his empty being like a black hole devouring a star, causing him to convulse for a second. His vision went blurry, but quickly came back. Blood-Wraith did not feel much different, except there was now a strange drive in him to really start pushing ahead with his magic studies. “That was weird…”
“How do you feel, kiddo?” Zara inquired.
Blood-Wraith looked down at his left hand, which was now slightly visible with the faintest, red glow. “I think it worked…”
Leif gave a sigh of relief. “Well that’s good to hear…”
“So now what do we do?” Alexander wondered. “Because obviously we’re nowhere near ready to ship him off to The Unlight yet.”
Nosmirc looked around a little nervous, having sensed what Leif had gone through with Damien. “I guess we’ll just have to wait until Damien pops up again. It’s not ideal, but we shouldn’t waste our energy trying to find him. I imagine he’s not done yet, given what we know of Audoin and his ilk.”
Scotty laughed and patted him on the back, causing Nosmirc to lose his footing a little. “You have no idea, my friend… although I have to wonder why you don’t just go capture Damien for us… you know, given how you're 12D and what not.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than you think, Scotty. Aside from the stuff I can’t reveal, I could easily break something, especially here in a place as uncertain as the Dark Void. Trust me, I would love to just snap my fingers and be done with this, but 10D entities like Audoin can actually pose a threat to us.”
That seemed like it was not the full story, but Scotty shrugged. “Well I’m only 4D, so I guess I can’t argue with that logic. Hanging in there, Blood?”
He looked up after being distracted by the faint energy flowing through him. “Oh? Uh, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good. Leif, Mind, Aava, want to join us for another round of baseball?”
Mind-Wraith nodded as he took off his vest and set it on the table where everyone else had put their coats. “I don’t see why not. Aava, you used to play softball as a young girl, correct?”
Aava giggled as she recalled the nostalgia of her childhood. “Of course, but I am a little rusty,” she answered as she set her coat down.
“Well this is going to be fun,” Zara said enthusiastically with a clap. She then sensed something with Leif as he took off his vest, however. “Hold on a second…” She reached into the void Leif used to store his belongings, with Leif saying nothing save for the regretful look on his face towards a promise he had yet to deliver upon. “Leif! I told you to give this to Mal!” she said as she waved her old axe in front of him.
“Goodness, Zara, you’ve remembered that far back?” Sander asked.
“As fuzzy as things are, that’s one of the things I haven’t forgotten.”
Leif sighed. “I’m sorry, Zara, but it’s come in handy for me…”
Zara groaned. “You are lucky Mal can look after herself. Give this to her after we’re done with Damien, you hear?”
“I promise, Zara.” Perhaps that was not the thing Leif was missing, but it was something he still needed to fix. Whatever that specific thing truly was, it would have to wait until they were done playing baseball.
Next: Chapter 8
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
Comments
Post a Comment