ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 97 Breaking The Cycle

Chapter 97

Breaking The Cycle

Sunday

The air was flat, as it all but waited for the arrival and approach of the pack of now cured werewolves to come to their lands. The lack of airflow would normally be detrimental to the pack, as they would use the prevailing winds to tell of scents in the air, movements of individuals. However tonight the winds and seemingly the very forests themselves were devoid of all life or movement.

This of course was the case, no animals were summoned to this realm, nothing that could denote the sudden movement of predators. This was a battlefield, a medieval forest filled with smoke and thick coating scents that distorted the senses of any would be hunter desperate enough to enter the woods.

Fortunately for the pack at Alexa’s back, she didn’t need such senses to tell her of the location of would be hunters. She didn’t need scent trails to let her know that the vampyres they were now hunting first climbed trees then made their way through the thick forest by jumping light as a feather from branch to branch. She didn’t need her increased hearing to tell her the way the vampyres communicated in intricate hand signals that didn’t even disturb the wind due to how fluid the movements were.

Alexa didn’t need these senses, as her own senses had been evolved differently. She was a hunter of magic, of the very energy that the dungeons bestowed to everyone who entered them. This was the same energy that the vampyres all but glowed with in an eerily green light amongst the night. To her magic hunting senses, the vampyres glowed like they were the life sized glowsticks that flickered and drew anyone’s attention from the faintest of movements.

Seeing the ambient energy of the vampyres caused a smile to once again reappear on Alexa’s lips. Soon she would be a hunter with prey that all but willfully threw themselves at her. Her goal was simple, about as simple as any she could come up with. Rather than out flanking or out maneuvering her opponents, she would charge head first into the combat zone. Though she did plan to make a few modifications to the combat area.

Waving her hands before her, she let out strings of power.

The hand gestures were meaningless, but she knew the pack following behind her would now be able to see that what happened was by her design and something that should be expected.

Arcane Plasma Blades.

Alexa fired forth a barrage of Wind blades infused with both Arcane energy and energy in the state of plasma at the trees that the elves had been perched in, diligently waiting for the right time to strike.

Whoosh.

The wind blades all struck their targets at speeds that were incomprehensible to the pack of wolves that were following Alexa. She was like a modern tank able to fire off complex magical formulas while running ahead at full speed. Seeing her in action, it was clear to all present that she was holding back, that if she so chose the pack could be dead, should be dead. Had she truly intended to proceed like all the others who had come here before her, every member of the pack would have been dead before they even realized what had happened.

CRRAACCKKLLLEEE!

The trees all made long slow grinding sounds as they scraped against each other. Then as one they all began to fall to the ground.

Atreus and the rest of his pack watched on as Alexa continued to pull ahead, her movements that much faster than he and his pack could keep up with.

Up in the air dark flakes seemed to hover for a second, floating in the nighttime sky before gravity took their hold and began pulling the objects down.

The pack looked on in confusion for a moment, their minds not quite comprehending the sight before them. By all accounts the dark specks in the night air could be leaves that fought the immediate pull of gravity.

To Alexa, those black floating particles glowed with an energy that was unmistakably tainted. An energy that called to a primal portion of her mind, the one that dreamed of new power and how it tasted.

In Alexa’s class dominated mind the falling vampyres were glittering snowflakes of power. And just like her memories of being a five year old kid running around with Luke, trying to catch falling snowflakes on her tongue. She ran forward, her legs pressing forward at a phenomenal pace. Her feet pressing down into the soft mossy floor that this perpetually night landscape seemed to be covered in. Neither the loose mossy soil, nor the fallen trees caused any impact to Alexa’s movements.

To her mind for a moment she was a kid again, charging forward, eyes wide with excitement as she forced her body to catch the falling snow flakes and absorb them into her skin.

Slink.

A metal blade whipped through the air, just as she was charging forward. The falling elves also moved and contorted their falling bodies into position. Metal blades slashed out, their movements and trajectories so obvious, that they were almost a cliché before they were removed from their scabbards. The vampire to the left, falling at a 63% angle, head first, right hand on sword hilt held on left hip. They were holding for a last second power slash, attempting to use resistance of the scabbard that was being held in place to provide extra resistance and torque to the strike. The only problem was this lowered her attack radius to just the 30% in front of her and meant she could only strike in a arc of seven meters directly.

“Sloppy.” Alexa said, as she charged full forward, then waited for the second she was even to the closest falling vampyre. Then the moment the vampyre tensed their muscles to generate the additional torque for their swing, Alexa moved.

One second, Alexa was barreling forward, seeming to pay no attention whatsoever to the first falling vampyre, only to stop mid charge, both feet exploding into the ground as she jumped upwards and a little behind.

The vampyre who had tried to watch the whole exchange lost sight of Alexa, her eyes still traveling forward to see where Alexa would have been had she not suddenly disappeared.

Alexa used this moment to jump seven meters straight up into the air. Her movements so fluid and graceful that she was a blur to everyone.

The falling vampyre seeing her target now behind her twisted the top of her body, but this caused her normally sure grip on her sword to stick. Mentally she tried to adjust the hilt and direction of the sword was facing, but it got caught against the leather strap on her leg.

Shaking her head, Alexa struck out to the momentarily paused vampyre.

Oof.

A glowing fist struck the vampyre causing its body to compress as all the air in its lungs were forcefully removed.

Then with the flex and flip of two fingers, Alexa caused the body and trajectory of the falling vampyre to change from a near vertical decent to a completely horizontal decent. The vampyre looked up in horror as a feral grin covered the face of the demonic warrior. That or a draconic beast had somehow managed to find its way into this scenario. It was not the first time such a beast had managed to find its way here. Fortunately, there was not much she or her sisters could do in this scenario. If it was a demon, well she would die painfully. And if it was just a draconic beast, well she would still die, but her soul would at least be intact after the torture session was over.

Thud!

Her body landed with a hard crash into the ground. Her back and every bone in her body felt like it had shattered from the odd impact. Normally the supernatural energy that coursed within her body would prevent such injuries, or at least striking so hard. As it was, she felt that after the gut punch most of her energy had been pulled from her very being.

Her bones had been artificially hollowed by the vampirism disease that had long since coursed through her body. Even now she could feel the odd bird like effect the virus was supposed to instill coursing within her. That was part of how she and her kind were able to move about so easily within the trees, how she and her sisters were able to seemingly defy gravity, if only for a moment. How they were able to dictate the speed and angles that they fell.

The Vampyre was supposed to be a master of the air, more so than any mere human, but it seemed she was wrong.  Looking up, her last image she saw before going completely dark was the glowing green fist of the demon falling from the sky barreling towards her face.

At least this will be a quick death, the vampyre thought to herself as she didn’t struggle. Against a demonic beast like this, an easy death was a mercy she learned to accept. She would no doubt be one of the first to have died, even now she was making plans to immediately leave her pod and let her masters know of the monster.

A demon, that or someone who made a pact with the blasted infernals, that was the only way she could understand the impulses her mind was telling her. She had to break free and tell the others. Warn them that a human had already been corrupted, and not just any human as this one had been able to create clearly demonic blasts, if the attacks against the trees were any indication. All of these thoughts flooded through the vampyre’s mind in the brief instant before the glowing fist came down with the full wrath of the underworlds right on her temple.

Wham!

With that one strike everything went dark, and the vampyre went unconscious.

Unfortunately for her, her plans of leaving early to inform her masters never happened. The blow had only been enough to merely knock out the seasoned ambush predator. Even in her weakened state, her hollowed bones held up just enough to avoid serious injuries.

Her fellow clan mates were also similarly dealt with.

Alexa’s speed and ability to move as gracefully as the masters could was on full display to the others who watched her duck and weave around the feeble strikes of the vampyres.

For Atreus, he just directed his pack to round up the subdued vampyres where they lay. Alexa had clearly gone out of her way to only incapacitate and never completely eradicate the monsters.

Still she ducked and danced around blades, a feral smile on her lips as she ducked under swings and delivered devastating blows. The more she struck out, the more her speed continued to increase, while the speed of her opponents slowly began to wane, until the vampyres could barely hold up their impressive cold-silver blades.

Then finally the last of the mighty vampyres fell, and Atreus went to make sure the last of the fallen were bound and gagged. As he moved he was careful not to go near the downed blades of the accursed enemy.

Just seeing the blades caused an involuntary fear reflex to form within Atreus as normally just seeing them brought together many memories of his being cut, hacked, or sliced by the infernally burning blades.

Yet this time, things were different. This time, his body didn’t even warn him of the troubles from the blades. This time, his survival instincts didn’t scream at him to avoid the blades at all costs. This time he didn’t see the blades for the instruments of death that they were. At one point he noticed Elekar grabbing and touching the blade.

Atreus was about to yell at the fool, but then he noticed something odd. There was no hissing or burning of flesh, the blade didn’t glow with its bright malevolence.

“Give me that.” Atreus said, grabbing the sword from Elekar. At first the move was done as a means to protect his pack mate before he crippled himself for life. But there was something odd, the familiar burning sensation he expected wasn’t there. Normally his hand would be close to rotting off by now from such prolonged contact to the cursed metal, but nothing happened.

Seeing his bewilderment, Andronika and the rest of the pack also came over to inspect the miracle.

Atreus was about to talk to Alexa about this development, to see what had happened, but he turned to see that she was already engaged with the bound captives.

Seeing her, he watched as a wave of pure Healing energy washed out from her and coated not just the downed vampyres, but also went wide enough to cover him and the rest of the pack. Feeling the warmth, he realized this was not the first time he had felt such a sensation. This was the same sensation he had felt before he first awoke to find Alexa standing over him.

This time Atreus and the pack paused as they looked to see Alexa already in the process of calling together a ball of glowing golden light before her.

“No, no. NOOO!!!!” The Vampyre clan leader screamed her shrill piercing voice, as she had somehow managed to slip her mouth free of the gag. Hearing the scream caused a measure of pain to form in his overly sensitive ears. Banshee Howl, a power seemingly designed specifically to combat werewolves and their sensitive hearing pierced the night.

Tinnitus.

A fierce shrill ringing buzzed in his ears, as he tried to focus on the moment.

The Vampyres made more attacks, but Alexa either didn’t seem to hear or care as her mind was focused on creating the form of energy before her.

Luckily Atreus had a particularly potent version of Regeneration that allowed the worst of the shriek to subtly subside just in time for him to hear a not of music to his ears.

“Demon, monster! We will never…”

“Hope!” Alexa said.

Then with that word, the tinnitus in Atreus’ ears began to fade. He felt his breath once again come easily as he felt crisp clean breath after clean breath fill him. This was the new breath of life, one that spoke of doing greater things, of being greater. He held onto this moment, to this sensation. While he had felt it before, when his bands to the orcs were first severed, he wondered if feeling it again would somehow diminish the sensation. He had been expecting it to be lessened, especially now that he knew what to look out for. But if anything this time was even better because he had been expecting it and it was just as fulfilling. More then that, he had been able to appreciate the full crisp note from start to finish. It was like a wave of pure adrenaline that he got to experience from start to finish with no hard crash afterwards, and no intense fear being the catalyst. It was in a word, perfect.

Turning to Andronika and the others, it was clear that he was not the only one who felt this way as they all shared a look of awe and reverence. In their glance they spoke that they like him had expected the second time to be worse, but were gladly mistaken.

Then they all as one turned to the vampyres to find that they all stared at Alexa with a look of awe and reverence. All but one, who seemed to be fighting what she had seen and experience.

“Don’t listen to her sisters, she is a monster.” The vampyre, well former vampyre claimed. Atreus looked and was somewhat surprised to see that the layout of the vampyre clan was almost exactly opposite from the way his own team had been formed. While his team consisted of one female and eleven males. The vampyres had the exact opposite ratio, with eleven females to one male. Seeing the elven male, Atreus couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the looks some people were born with. Oddly, he also found himself wondering how Alexa felt about the lone male vampyre, a note of jealousy coursing through him as he wondered if Alexa would prefer the elf’s company to his. Then he quickly shook away such possessive thoughts, as they were unbecoming of not only who he was, but who he wanted to be. When he was a mere wolf, he could allow himself to have such thoughts. But now he was a named, now he was Atreus, and that should mean something.

Focusing his mind, he decided to help out Alexa as best as he could. But she already seemed to have things well in hand.

“Try this.” Alexa said, holding out the dark brown bars to the different captives.

“Is this poison?” The questioning vampyre asked.

“If it was, then you should take it so you can get out of here faster and inform your masters of what is transpiring within here.” Alexa said, her voice coldly logical.

At that the vampyre paused and trembled slightly, but before she could ask one of the other clan mates asked.

“What is this?”

“It is a delicacy from my planet. We call it soul food.”

Then Atreus watched as that explanation was seemingly good enough for the hostages, as they all consumed the bars of chocolate that Alexa was able to create out of thin air. Seeing that, it was clear that she had some divine level powers available to her. In fact, after feeling her use of the different power words, he couldn’t help but wonder if she actually was a god who finally got fed up with the way things were going and came down to intercede on everyone’s behalf.

Oddly enough, everyone partook of the offered chocolate, except the leader.

Seeing her blatant refusal, and even the way she tossed the offering in the ground caused most of Atreus’ pack to jump. Though mostly out of outrage for wasting perfectly good food. Yet, the vampyre seemed to come up with her own conclusion for why his pack acted the way it did.

“See, I told you it was poisoned.”

Seeing that act, Alexa looked at the woman and just shook her head.

“I am truly sorry.” Alexa said. Then she turned to the pack and first looked at the still bound leader, the only one who had not been released from her shackles, then she pointed off in the distance.

The message was clear. She wasn’t going to experience this next part.

The minute she was out of the way and staked down to the ground with chains that Alexa had seemingly come up with out of thin air, she nodded to Elekar and Ulrik who both came back. Seeing them, Alexa nodded and began drawing more power before her. Seeing her and the clear look of determination in her eyes, she began speaking words that still sent a shiver down Atreus’ back.

“A name is a sacred identifier of who you are deep down at your core. A name defines you both to yourself and others…”

As she spoke, a thought filled Atreus’ mind, It is beginning.