© 2017 SilverStream22. All Rights Reserved.    

~

  And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me"

I can't help this awful energy

God damn right, you should be scared of me

Who is in control?  

~

I pinched myself in the arm to remember that I was still breathing and alive and conscious. "Alright... but I need to have some form of communication with them. I know they'd be really worried if I just vanished without notice."

"It'll be fine." Kendra waved it off like it was no big deal. "I can hook us up with a connection as long as we have a water source near by. I'll make an offering for Poseidon and whomever you want to call can be on an aquatic facetime with you."

"As interesting as that is," Temp muttered. "I think we need to move on. That creature is a hair's breadth away from finding us and I'd rather not end up like Gemma Jaeger or Yuna Sakurai."

"Shield us?" Kendra suggested, waving her hand at Temp.

He raised his arm, then twisted his hand down in a curled movement. The fluffy clouds of the night sky grew dense and lowered to the Earth's surface until there was a thick fog rolling over the villa's property, spreading into the neighboring woods.

"Since I'm assuming you want to decrease casualties, I suggest we trek through the woods." Kendra lifted up the skirt of her long dress, tearing some of the fabric in order to create more mobility. I saw a peek of twin daggers strapped to her thighs among a circus of several small knives.

"Ready?" Temp whispered, keeping a watchful eye as the creature lurked around the perimeter of Kendra's seal.

"Not really," I answered honestly, finding myself grabbing onto his cloak.

His eyes softened as a pried my fingers from his cloak before interlacing our hands.

"Count of three?"

I nodded firmly.

"Three, two, one-"

Kendra dashed forward, piercing a thin line through the fog with her speed. Temp and I followed her trail, skidding at curves and bends.

"We're about to pass the seal. Brace yourself." he squeezed my hand tighter.

I was about to ask why when I felt it- the surge of unnatural, negative energy. It coated the outside of the seal with its choking presence. This was what the creature was producing, copious amounts of miasma. My knees threatened to buckle. Just what exactly was I facing?

We slid to a stop when Kendra froze, her left hand twitching.

"What happened?" I tried to walk away from Temp, but his grip increased.

"Stop. Don't speak."

We stopped breathing, taking in the quiet surroundings. My eyes grew wide. Quiet. It shouldn't have been. The creature should've been after us, hunting us down.

Unless...

Kendra threw up a seal, this time around us, just a force collided on the rounded magic barrier. Needle teeth and a torn open smile repeatedly slammed against it.

It already found us!?

"Tempest! A little help, please." Kendra groaned, one knee collapsing from the onslaught of punches rained down from the creature.

The storm clouds grew restless, the thick fog lifting slightly. In a flurry of gray and white, the clouds locked around the creature. Lightning streaks hit several times, the clap of thunder resounding in my ears. I could see the creature's skeleton vibrate as it was struck.

But there was something odd about it. Within the creature, it looked like there was a smaller skeleton, an almost humane skeleton. At first I thought it was a dead body. But a closer examination made me realize that it actually controlled the creature. Every punch, every kick- it was all mimicked by the thing inside.

Tempest was able to electrocute the creature back several yards. Kendra was trying to reseal her barrier that cracked under the pressure. I could already see it stand up once more, making it's way towards us.

We were never going to make it. Not unless we handled that thing inside of it.

Both of them were starting to get worn out. I could tell that Tempest's affinity was like Stark's- the kind so powerful that it connected to your life essence in order to sustain itself. Kendra was taking the brunt of the force, her magic only holding a barrier up between us and the creature for so long.

So while it was still on the move, the fog still rolling, I made a break for Kendra, sliding underneath her so I could steal her daggers.

"Lux!" Kendra hissed out, "Damn it, come back here!"

Tempest was too slow to grab at me. I ran out of the barrier just as it flickered out, Tempest catching Kendra and holding her up to maintain it.

The creature turned its head around at me and I almost faltered in my step. But instead, I brandished Kendra's daggers, facing the creature head on.

I didn't earn the title Child Assassin for nothing.

Sensing the change in the air, I lunged forward, slipping underneath the legs. I hacked at the tendons, the creature buckling down. Its large hand swatted at me but I kicked back, masking myself in the trees. It swiped at the fog cleared the air, so I pressed further into the trees, ceasing to breath at all.

It started to roam further into the woods, the creepy eyes maintaining view of everything around.

I quietly breathed in through my mouth just as it reached the branches below me.

The branch rustled with my exhale and its arm shot out, grabbing on to the branch that I blew air on, right next to me. The speed of its hand blew my hair back and peeled my lids back but I refused to break eye contact with the creature.

It looked confused as to why I saw on the side until it saw what I was planning. The tree had grown rapidly, fusing to trap us to it. The gnarled knots of the roots rose maniacally from the ground, wrapping around the creature's legs as it struggled to break its arm free.

I dug the dagger into the arm of the creature. I gripped onto it tight as I dropped down, tearing open the entire arm all the way to the shoulder.

The creature bared its teeth at me, a scary snarl, but the moment it did, I made it deep throat a flurry of pine cones.

"So," I said softly, knowing fully well that it could hear me over the thundering rain. "You and I are going to have a little chat. You see, I'm a nice person. I really am. But, you're kind of being a bother. You're after me, after my kind. You killed someone I knew. And now? You have the audacity to come into my home and fuck around my ceremony."

The creature jerked harder against the closing trunks and branches.

"Come out." I demanded, crossing my arms, one hand twirling the dagger. "I know you're in there."

Then it stopped moving all together. In an instant, the creature dissolved into purple ash. It burned through the branches and tree.

I snatched up the dagger as the creature was still disintegrating, until I was left with nothing but a pile of ashes in a tree ball.

I untangled the intricate greenery until I fell down to the ground, my hands occasionally catching on stray branches to slow my fall down.

"Lux, shit, are you okay?" Kendra rushed forward, grabbing my arm as she inspected me.

I nodded weakly, wiggling my fingers. "Just a few, ah, paper cuts."

Tempest shook his head, regarding me with seemingly begrudging respect. "What was that?"

Kendra began to walk ahead of us still, trekking deeper in the woods. I stayed back with him, falling into a comfortable pace.

"What was what?" I muttered halfheartedly, plucking at the splinters I now had.

"You. Like that. You were a completely different person." he said warily.

I stiffened at his words, but played it off. "Mom says when I fight I get like Stark. Like a falsely calm river with a raging undercurrent. I guess it makes sense since Stark trained me all my life, all because of some prophecy that Kendra knows." I spoke a little louder. "Speaking of, now would be a good time to let me know. I think it's safe to say that the prophecy is coming into effect."

Kendra just raised a middle finger at me without looking back.

"Nymph." I snorted.

"Royal," she jeered back.

We fell silent for the next few minutes until Tempest brought it up again.

"How... how are those sides of you so different- so parallel?"

I shrugged, still fidgeting with Kendra's daggers. Twirling them, tossing them. Anything to get my mind off how I acted- who I became.

"My Mom, she reads the stars." I said slowly. "It's a practice she picked up in her free time when I was little. Perfected it over the years. She says it's something to do with my sign, it's always been a suspicion of her's and my grandmother's. I'm a Gemini, born May. Those two sides of me, this one and the violent side, it's a constant struggle for control. Mom says that one day, if I don't make peace with both, one of them will consume me." 

He paused, stopping entirely. "Consume you?"

"Become me." I added as an afterthought. "It's not like I'm bipolar or anything. It's kind of like a supernatural multiple personality disorder. Another defect, I guess you could say. That side of me, it was forged under my father. Like you said, I was a child assassin. My parents' paranoia over the prophecy led to lack of fun times as a child, especially as I grew older. It seemed like I had less freedoms the older I got. I've heard from Castor that Kendra warned them that shielding me from it wouldn't work out, that the prophecy would always find a way."

"I guess it did then," Tempest murmured.

We both fell silent for a little while before I spoke. "Let's catch up to Kendra."

"So why are we still on the run?" I breathed out once we met Kendra at a ravine.

"You should know that." Kendra seemed to be looking for something, her words coming out slow. "If there's one, who's to say there aren't more? "

Tempest crossed his arms and I pretended not to notice how thickly corded with muscles his arms were.

Nope. Not going down that lane. 

"What's the plan then? Hop across Europe until we find out who's behind this?"

Kendra seriously considered it before nodded strongly. "Good plan, Lux." 

I gaped at her. "It was a joke. Kendra, what are we going to do?"

She finally gasped and reached down, pulling out a shell. "I knew I'd stashed a few here."

She then held her palm open. I reluctantly handed both the daggers. She sheathed one and used the other to cut a line across her palm, in a similar fashion to the ceremony. Some of the droplets of blood landed into the curve of the shell before she tossed it into the ravine.

The water churned before spouting up, a gravitation defying waterfall of sorts. 

"Pull him up." Kendra demanded.

I noticed that she subtly smoothed her dress even though she looked like shit. Hell, all of us looked like a shit.

A fair man with shoulder length blond hair tied in a half up ponytail man bun was dressed in a white butler outfit. I noticed the gaping hole in his stomach and I instantly recognized the man before he even looked up to notice the message.

"Kendra?" the man blinked, a slow lazy smile forming on his face that was the definition of flirtation.

Kendra cleared her throat. "Yeah. Hi Kristos. I need a favor."