No weapons. Still bleeding and damaged. Would have to do this the down and dirty way.
Drawing my hands together, I remembered my Truth. I am a guardian.
I took a deep breath, concentration on both a mirage of myself and the lights surrounding me. The red symbols on my arms glowed, angry and powerful as I began to weave the spell around my Truth. The air before me shimmered, a mirror image appearing directly in front of me only to blink out a moment later, but it had been enough.
The pair charged me, mouths open and magic of their own charging like a cold wind. The lights flickered and blinked, my skin tingling as it began to shimmer with the lights. The pair charging right past as their spells discharged. Harmelesss. My lure may not have worked, but the camouflage had. I was invisible, if only for a moment.
Switching tactics, I reached down into the ground. The stone around was an element I knew more about, and I concentrated on feeling the connectivity. Focused on Layla. I was doing this for her, to help her.
Roots of magic grew from my fingertips, and I felt them take inside two of the closest stone panels. I heaved backwards as I began to move, the stone ripping from the wall and the floor with a heard snapping and tearing. Wires blinked and the lights flickered as power redirected itself, and I heard two solid hits behind as the stone panels found their marks.
I began to run down the hall, hearing the clawed clicks of the creatures coming after me. Snarling, howling, and it was suddenly cut off. A rune circle activated two feet from me as the air warped, bent to force one of the creatures into the activated circle, which immediately bent under the pressure. Probably a similar trap as the one in the rooms. The creature was frozen in place. The second appeared further down the hallway, snarling and snapping.
The first one was trapped. Couldn’t get out, it looked like.
The second one was in my way.
Fire. Truth again. The red symbols flared as I began to re-weave the same spell, one that would make a mirage directly in front of me. Make it think twice when I ran out behind, make it think there were two of me. It solidified this time, the heat and lights coalescing into a single image of me, continually moving hands to make it look as if I were operating a spell. With that solid, I spun out from behind my copy and ran back for the room, turning left and continuing down that hallway.
The creature didn’t buy it, claws clicking as it gave chase. The air warped directly in front of me, a set of teeth lining an open maw heading directly at my face.
I skidded to a halt and immediately spun backwards, waving my hands and focusing. Layla. Doing this for Layla. Doing this for myself. Magic spun through my arms and into my hands. Poison welted on my fingertips, my palm, began to appear as a gas cloud in front of me, and I began rapidly waving my hands as I backpedaled.
The creature wasn’t taken, snapping it’s mouth shut and backing away, out of range. So I switched back to Truth. Monsters don’t cry. Red flared against my skin as the magic redirected the poison gas cloud, as I pushed it into the hallway between us and expanded. A flick of the wrist and the gas cloud angled, pouring directly into the face of the creature. Into its nose, mouth, lungs.
It gave a coughing, strangled cry, gurgling as it’s body flopped to the ground. It twitched once before the magic disbanded. The body disappeared, evaporating into mist.
Layla.
I took a deep breath. Got her scent again. Charged down the hallway.
I was out of breath in too short a time. Still hadn’t found her. The scent wavered here and there. Was the sun coming up somewhere? Or maybe this was just more of the same, redirection as a defense mechanism.
I slammed my way through some doors and pressed myself against the wall. Out of breath. Yes, I had access to many of my Elewnai abilities. But this was still a human body. A skin I put over my real self, but it had it’s own…limites. And I had probably reached those sooner via pounding my way out of a stone wall designed to punch back at me with my own strength. I had basically gotten into a boxing match with myself at full power. I had won, but at the cost of my human-skin endurance.
Which wasn’t an easy place to hit, mind you. But still. I think I had hit it. The use of elemental spells didn’t help. Earth magic in particular took a toll on the body.
I slid down the wall and took a few deep breaths. Couldn’t stop. Had to stop. Layla needed me. Wasn’t going to be of use if I pressed. Alerts blared over unseen speakers. Couldn’t stay here. I’d be found. Captured again. I had to get to Layla. Had to…My stomach cramped. Oh gods, my muscles were starting to make me feel the strain. Trying to get up was a pain in the ass. I was never going to find her at this rate, even following my senses.
Strength and speed. That’s what I needed.
My hand went down to where my belt normally was. I grabbed nothing but the edge of my shirt and top of my pants. Right. My weapons had been removed…and so had my Onishiki mask. He had just taken everything.
I had one card left. One final card that I never wanted to play.
I came here to get away from it.
I came here to hide.
I glanced down at my wrists. The red symbols still crawled over my skin. Bright. Alive. Truth.
And the truth…the real truth…was that I was, by nature, a protector. A guardian, long before I took up the official mantle.
I closed my eyes. Focused. Remembered, and began chanting as I reached up towards my forehead. Felt around for the tiniest seam that only I knew about. The seam between who I was and who I was pretending to be.
I remembered my upbringing. Being among the Onishiki, the wolf-like cult that raised me in honor of my mother. But raised me crookedly. Raised me to believe I was nothing. Nothing of value, anyway. I wasn’t fully Onishiki, I couldn’t fit in the caves like the others. Because of my father. Because of my bloodline.
My mother was fully Onishiki. Wolf-like. Four-legged ground-dweller, that lived in the tunnels her whole life until she climbed the mountain above the tunnels and met my father.
I began to sing. Felt the mask pull away just a fraction.
I remembered the stories. Remembered what I was told when I followed in her footsteps. When I left the tunnels and climbed the mountain myself. I remembered the mists on the surface of the dull rock, slick with ice and snow. I remember seeing them for the first time, coming to help me. Wings, beating away the mist. Hearing the double beat of the group, watching as the massive bodies landed in front of me. Larger than any Onishiki I had ever met. Their claws grabbed the mountainside easily, long tails swaying and swishing as they landed, feathered tips fanning out as rudders to help with the landing. Long feathery wings tucked up under their chest as they landed, covering the whole front of their body in vibrant colors that reflected the light; deep blues, silvery greys, dynamic purples. Long arm-like wings stretched around their back, ice-blue skin stretched between massive finger-like bones that twitched and moved as they studied me.
My song changed. Quickened the beat. The skin peeled and my fingernails found the edge. Ran along the border.
Their bodies colored like massive feats of stonework, gradient but alive, the feathered crests starting between their eyes, round massive sets that caught the light and seemed to alter color depending on what angle they were at. A ring of feathers surrounded their neck, puffing in and out as the turned their heads this way and that, studying me.
They knew my father. They treated me as one of them; the Deve clan marked me as one of their own for the same reason the Onishiki clan barely tolerated me as one of theirs. To the Umatoe, the clan that helped to raise me once it was realized I couldn’t be raised in the sky, I was one of their own simply because I had been accepted. I had been accepted by a family, had passed their rite of passage. I was Onishiki by blood, Deve by birthright, and Umatoe by nature. I had learned what rejection looked like, what manipulative behavior did to others, and had decided to defend those who could not defend themselves. To teach. To protect. To guard.
My singing changed, became stronger and more accented. The words were clear, radiating between two languages of my birth. My forehead skin split, allowing me access to the bone-mask underneath. I took a breath, the singing paused as I wavered on the edge of doing this. On revealing myself, my true self, as damaged as I thought she was. As blood-drenched as I knew her to be.
Then I reached a final note. Grabbed the edge. Ripped the mask away.
