ALEXiThymiA: Chapter 117 Stalking a Predator

Chapter 117

Stalking a Predator

Whether by design, or out of lack of understanding of what they were doing did to the magical environment around them, the elves were surprisingly easy to track. Traces of illusion magic lined the underground tunnels. Upon seeing the faint blue traces of Illusion magic, Alexa realized quite a few things. First, the elves that she had come here to join were not only aware of the condition these humans were being subjected to, but second and most importantly, they were the reason why so many bad things were happening to the humans.

Alexa first noticed the traces of residual magic on the mind feeding vampire, the one that tried to attack Alexa’s mind directly. It was when inspecting her body, that residual traces of foreign magic were first found. Faint, almost as if they hadn’t had contact with the master vampire in quite some time, but they were still there, still present.

With the traces of magic present to her evolving class senses, she could almost feel the trail of energy. The master vampire of course had gone throughout the entire passageways of the underground network of tunnels, but the part that stood out to her senses the most was the way the magic lingered. Now like a magic sniffing bloodhound, Alexa found herself stalking first the trail of the master vampire, finding where she would meet up with her handlers. Then from there following the denser scent of direct magic from the meeting spot to the different locations around the city.

The first magical handler trail had been a dead end, the most recent path leading to a burnt down building, and traces of elven blood. The body was gone, well mostly, Alexa had found signs of fingers and partially chewed skin that were left behind. That was rather helpful for Alexa, as it helped her confirm the fact that the body she was stalking had died. Not just died, but been eaten by the dragon after being pinned down by falling parts of a building.

Knowing that her first trail had died, she then began following the faint trails left behind trying to see other intersecting paths. From there, she was able to identify a second trail of energy, still Illusionary magic, but different, this one had a macabre aura to it. The other had what she would consider a vanilla or standard flavor. Honestly Alexa didn’t know why she felt this way from just the magical resonance of the two energies, but she felt this was the case. The first elf had been used to meet with and instill fear into the vampires and the master vampire particularly. That level of illusion likely meant that they didn’t need to embellish or lie to the slaves, they just were in control. The second one, they were weaker, but also seemed to focus on ambush tactics, causing a moment of fear or hesitation while they delivered a killing blow. Seeing the two different types of magic, Alexa didn’t know if her interpretation of the two different uses of magic were correct, or just the strange musings of her mind as she came down from her energy infused high. Sadly, she would never be able to ask if her assumptions were correct about the two magic wielders, as the second elf was also dead. The second elf was just half a torso, the bottom half wedged under another collapsed building. Looking around at the blood splatter it was clear that there were two other victims in the attack.

Following the trails, Alexa found that one had died a few feet away, apparently able to run away from the dragon that was devouring the flesh of the second illusionist, but not far enough away to avoid the knife wound to the side of the ribcage.

Looking at it, Alexa swore she could almost feel the energy of the scene coming alive to her. In her mind she made up a mental picture of what happened. The three elves, no, more lured the dragon here, likely using Illusion magic. The dragon then proved to be too powerful for the illusions and barreled through not just the illusion, but the nearby building where the elves were hiding.

Seeing that, Alexa wondered if the dragons had some type of magic detection sense like she had, something that would help the dragon see through illusions. That was the only thing that made sense to her, but she didn’t have any proof, only her feelings about what happened.

The only proof she had was the fact that one knife wound to the lower left lung was what caused the third elf, the second from this attack scene to die. Seeing the utter commitment to living, even at the sign of sacrificing a wounded party member made Alexa respect these monsters. Especially considering the fact that her rational mind was now in charge, now directing her conscience. Seeing the details, Alexa couldn’t help but have a begrudging level of respect for the survival instincts that these elves possessed. In fact, seeing how they would rather sacrifice a wounded member on the off chance that they were chased by the dragon, rather than them both getting caught. Of course, seeing the body of the fallen elf only proved that such countermeasures were ultimately unnecessary, as the third elf was still there fully intact with obvious gushing wound from the left side of their body.

While Alexa could rationally respect the action, after all it was one less elf for her to kill, it did show Alexa just what type of people she was dealing with. Seeing that this was how they treated their allies, Alexa made no reservation that she was likely just as dispensable, if not more so to these elves. This didn’t discourage Alexa, quite the contrary actually as it only reaffirmed her resolve to strike first. That or get their duplicitous nature caught on camera first, then defend herself.

Of course, the defense nature was the worst option, as it meant purposefully leaving herself open to a well placed knife in the back, or through the ribs. Still this did make things easier, as it was clear by the blood trail and subsequent residual magic, that this fourth elf was still alive. At least, if the fresh nature of the magic was any indication, this was a lot fresher view of energy than the ones she had to trace through the underground tunnels.

Following the trail of magic, it was clear that the elves didn’t like being underground, at least that was the sense she got from their actions. There were clear paths that would go under the roadway for a  time, but rather than go low and make themselves a lower target to be seen from the air, they went high, often going on overpasses, bridges, and ramps that went over roads rather than down. Alexa didn’t know if this was a common tactic of all elves, of if it was just the way these elves moved, but it was something she noted on her hunt.

And she was hunting, that much was clear. Her class, Absorber, was letting her become a hunter, a true tracker of supernatural creatures. If there was a hierarchy of the supernatural food chain, then she imagined her class to be the top, the one that fed off of the remains of the others. Her original class description described her class as being the bacteria that could even take down the largest of enemies. While that had been put to the test, so far she had to agree that her class did allow her to be fairly versatile. Even now, she swore she was feeling something with this magical tracking ability, or sense. While she couldn’t gain energy from this trail, she did feel that it gave her an indisputable edge. Not only could she track someone with it, especially if she developed out this process, but she could begin to definitively state who cast which spell when.

For the moment she didn’t know if this went beyond just magic, or if she was only able to track living creatures with magic, but it was something she noted. That or maybe it was something to do with Illusion magic itself, as she didn’t remember this happening with the other Nature mage she went against. Granted that mage was relatively weak and had been taught purposefully wrong incantation techniques and principles. Maybe this was what a true practitioner’s magic looked like, or maybe this had something to do with the actual magical properties of living users of magic, as opposed to the properties of Summoned Aspects that she was used to facing off against.

To test this theory, she of course would need to track down and find living Orc practitioners of magic and see if there was resonance to them. Or it could be due to her recent increases in power. Regardless of how short of a span of time it had been since that duel she had increased a lot in power. Not only that, but she also felt that her insanely high Analyze skill was also helping with this new aspect of her class, so maybe there was something more. Thinking back, she might want to contact that mage, or maybe see if she could use this to track down Clara St. Brown, the nurse who now has real Healing magic available to her. Thinking of her, Alexa figured she would be the best control case to see if this was something new, as in a new evolution of her powers. Or if it was only something she could do with elves that had Illusion magic. There were so many variables that Alexa couldn’t help but feel curious about the possibilities that she was now capable of.

Of course, this train of thoughts was one of her waking mind’s greatest fears. The fear of her being able to find more ways to become an emotionless sociopath. Still, every skill she gained she knew it was part of her duty to herself to be able to use said skill to its fullest, even if the end result could be detestable. The other end of the spectrum would be that she could go to a crime scene, follow the residual traces of magic to the real killer who could then be stopped. Again, more pretext for killing, but in this case, after what she had found the elves doing, what experiments they had been conducting in the tunnels below the city of London, Alexa didn’t feel a shred of guilt. Nor would her rational mind let her feel a shred of guilt for what she was doing, what she had been forced to do now.

That was why Alexa threw herself deeply into tracking the trails of magic, tracking the fourth living elf to where they then met up with a second more powerful elf. Seeing the new magical signature, Alexa couldn’t help but feel that this new signature was somewhat familiar, pausing for a moment she hovered over the new enhanced magical trail and paused. This new trail was older, more calculating, more prone to thinking steps ahead. That was what she got from this new trail, though the face and features of this new person were hidden from Alexa’s mind, she felt she had a deeper understanding of just what this new person was capable of. Now she felt she knew who they were.

“What should we do now?” A female asked in elven.

“We need to call for the master get her to lure the dragon to our trap.” An older voice answered in elven. Hearing the new voice, Alexa couldn’t help but place the voice as belonging to Ryelifa the elven dignitary that she had met at the hospital, the one that had asked her to come here.

“What about that super you brought here?”

“Already dead. She somehow managed to travel via the dungeon and make it to the dungeon out east of here. But she was destroyed soon after emerging.”

“How do you know?”

“Her precious phone went dead shortly after she arrived. At the same time the great dragon went out that way and made an attack right by the same dungeon. The call she was on was recorded and you could hear her grunting seconds before a blast of acid destroyed the phone, ending its signal.”

Hearing that Alexa couldn’t help but nod in understanding. There was so much to unpack in that. First the elves had infiltrated Skyline Mobile if they were able to get her data. Hearing that, Alexa wondered if that was why her call was cut off halfway through and sent to that loud connection that couldn’t be ended. Of course that brought up slightly larger concerns that all mobile phones could potentially be compromised, which had far larger implications than she could afford to think about at the moment.

“How are we going to get the master vampire, Trill is dead.” The younger elf asks. While Alexa made sure not to get closer than absolutely necessary to listen in on the conversation, she still felt she had an understanding of the two that were speaking. In a way, she could almost see the two overlapping in her mind with the two different magical signatures she had been tracing. The weaker, injured elf was this speaker, while the older more powerful elf was the one who seemed to have all the connections throughout the mobile company. The one who seemed to have set up a trap to kill her almost immediately upon entering the area.

“Why you should go get them obviously.” The master elf Ryelifa said.

By this point Alexa felt she had heard enough and was about to make a move to blindside both of them. At least that was her plan, until she heard what they said next.

“Me? Why not send the cameraman, he is almost worthless.” The younger elf says, complaining in elven right before the object of their complaint.

“He still has his uses. He will be the one to record our greatest triumph and place us as the saviors of humanity.” Ryelifa said.

And with that, Alexa paused. While she could take down both elves, especially from a blindside, she felt there might be more to this, something she could do to reveal the elves for the corrupt individuals they were. No one would likely believe the translated text of their conversation, particularly with how casually they were speaking about setting people up. No, they would expect some passion in their speech, not just the words of two sociopaths talking casually about setting up an attack on a minor and then planning on using hundreds of recently converted humans to be a snack to distract the dragon with.

“Very well.” The younger elf said, a note of annoyance to their tone, but they began moving nonetheless.

Hearing the second, weaker elf move out, Alexa decided that this would be a golden opportunity to test out her new tracking capabilities, and see just how well she could be at avoiding heightened elven senses.

With a cold emotionless expression, Alexa turned and began stalking her new prey.