Arion spun on his heel, weight dropping low through his hips as he lifted Recall in a lightning-fast arc.
Metal rang out sharp and loud as Recall caught an attack arm mid-strike, the sudden impact jarring up through his wrists and into his shoulders. The dagger still slipped through the gap, its edge skimming the side of his neck—shallow, but close enough to burn.
Another blade followed immediately, already in motion, flicked from the attacker's right hand toward his abdomen in a vicious underhand thrust.
He rotated Recall without thinking—the upper end dragging the trapped arm down while the lower end snapped up to intercept the concealed dagger before it could bury itself.
Wood flexed under the force, metal chimed against metal in a bright, ringing note.
He had been given plenty of training against knife fighters. His Master had never gone easy on him—never spared him dulled edges or mercy drills.
The trick was always the same.
Get them inside your control radius…
He had a single second of control.
That was enough.
He spun Recall in a tight circle, smashing the bandit's arms before they could retreat. Arion's spin stopped dead. Recall held horizontal across his body. His fingers loosened for a split heartbeat. Then it dropped, only to meet the bottom of his left foot in a perfect stomp.
DONK!
Recall slammed into the bandit's forearm guard, then bent and rattled back from the force as the shock traveled straight into the attacker's elbow.
"Recall."
It snapped back only to be ricocheted by a high-kick straight back with even more force. The staff spun vertically this time, whistling through the air.
DUFF.
The metal fitting cracked clean across the bandit's face with a wet crunch.
"MHF!—Gah! Fuck! You broke my fuckin' nose!"
The staff fell back into his grasp. Arion took a single lunge step—then exploded forward with an instant one-handed thrust.
The opponent was stunned, but still managed to react—daggers bit into Recall as she drove through his guard, breaking her momentum before she could carry clean through.
But he had no plans of letting him off.
He let go of his grip for a single heartbeat, then his foot came through in a straight front kick. The sole of his boot slammed into Recall's metal fitting with perfect timing.
Recall's end jammed hard into the space between chest and shoulder. Pain surged through the bandit's shoulder as it barely escaped dislocation.
The bandit hit the floor hard, rolled through the impact, and came up low to the ground.
Daggers dug into the earth, low and ready like some kind of beast mid-hunt.
That's when Arion saw them—two pointed ears jutting up from the bastard's head.
…Wolf?
The sheer wrongness of it—too close to a costume, too real to dismiss—threw him off for half a beat. The bandit took the initiative, unleashing a sudden gust of air and dust straight into Arion's face.
He groaned as the grit stung his eyes and obscured everything. His arms came up to shield his face on pure instinct.
Why'd my imagination have to kick in now of all times?!
Noise surrounded him—the ambusher clearly no longer cared for being discreet.
His Resonant scans came back shredded—too much texture, too much interference, the echoes tearing apart before they formed into anything useful.
So he shut the magic down.
And went old-school.
He changed stance. A low, side-on fighting posture, Recall held loose and ready.
Leaves and undergrowth burst at high speed somewhere to his left.
High-speed with under-handed ambushes…
A classic disorienting fear tactic.
Until a sharp whistle cut through the air.
TONG!
Arion's wrists snapped to his right. Recall bent under the impact, wood whipping as it deflected the incoming weapon. But this one wasn't held in a hand.
His eyes narrowed. The rustling sounds continued for another heartbeat, then stopped right beside him.
Then another sharp whistle—this time directly in front.
Shit!
He barely dodged, sidestepping in the nick of time. The dagger sliced through several strands of his hair, spinning past and landing with a soft thud in the dirt behind him.
Then silence.
"You seemed to have dropped your weapon, mate!"
Nothing moved. Arion narrowed his eyes, scanning the surrounding growth.
He tried again—a pulse rolled out through his surroundings. Fuzzy texture returned.
His attention locked on the shape behind him.
A dagger stood bitten into the earth behind him.
Silence.
Then another pulse. Echo noise scattered again in his mind.
No dagger.
Instead, a black shape crawled low to the ground—then launched at him.
Arion stamped his foot down, twisted at the hip, and snapped Recall across the attacker's path. Frost tore through the wet ground behind his planted leg, flash-freezing the earth in a brutal upright sheet that caught his own calf at the edge of it.
Tink.
He turned just in time to see Recall's metal fitting tap against the fresh ice directly behind him.
"GRAHHH!"
"Well, what do we have here…"
"FUCK—TCH!"
The icicle tutted. "Dinner, this is cold!"
The wolf-eared bandit stood frozen solid to the neck mid-lunge, face twisted in rage.
"I'm not your dinner, asshole," Arion said, cracking the ice trapping his own leg.
Cracking his own leg loose sent a bolt of cold pain up through the knee, leaving the calf half-numb even after the ice shattered.
"Of course you are! Human. Is. Dinner!" the bandit snarled, struggling against the frozen prison, muscles straining.
This close up, Arion finally got a good look at him. A nasty scar carved across the right cheek. One eye cloudy white and blind. One ear was half missing, torn away by what looked like an old bite.
"Mate," Arion muttered, shaking his head, "how many times have you been hit in the head?"
"Stupid question! I can't count that manys', Dinner—"
DUFF!
The bandit's ears twitched once in shock.
Then his head slumped forward, unconscious.
"Well," Arion said, straightening up and rolling his shoulders, "that's one. You can start there."
He shouldn't be able to recall this whole encounter with that head injury.
"I swear there's a pun in there somewhere…"
After dealing with the assailant, Arion crouched and searched for the man's daggers. Once he had one in hand, he tried to pull up its Codex.
"How did he appear behind me without motion? A switch ability? Teleportation?"
He sent Vitalis surging into the dagger's shard, but to his disappointment nothing happened. Instead the dagger pulsed once and then retracted back into its shard form, as if it had zero interest in anyone who wasn't its true partner.
Figures. I guess that confirms Vitalis Imprints are needed to access a weapon's Codex…
He dropped it with a sigh and glanced toward the bandit camp still shrouded in unnatural darkness.
"Well. Not my problem," he muttered. "As long as they don't disturb my peace."
Shrugging, he turned to leave.
Until he heard more voices.
Screams.
Smaller. Higher pitched.
They tore straight through him, slicing his composure like a blade through string.
"Elise! Help! Elise!"
Metal creaked loudly.
A cage swung open with a rusty groan.
"Kya! No!"
BUFF.
"Shut up! You whiny sack of gold!"
CLAM!
"Buhahaha!"
Children…? The thought landed hard. Something hot and ugly climbed into his throat and stayed there.
More small voices rose through the metal bars, slowly drowned out by the loud, drunken yells from the rest of the camp.
The cages weren't for animals.
They were for children.
"Turn around and walk away," he told himself through clenched teeth.
He stood there, clutching Recall so tightly his fingers slowly went numb. His teeth ground together, rage held back by a thread.
Then another voice shattered everything.
"Where is she!"
Screams tore from an older woman this time.
The words hit him like a blow. He stopped dead. His eyes widened.
His body knew that sound before his mind could catch up.
"What did you do to her, you bastard!"
The exact same raw edge, the same terror he'd heard once before.
Arion's entire body locked.
His surroundings flashed, shifting into white walls and bright lights.
His hand clutched his forehead as the voices warped into something older, deeper—something his mind had never stopped replaying.
Something violent surged through him. His breathing turned raw and irregular. His teeth clenched and ground together. The temperature around him dropped almost instantly as panic-bled Vitalis ripped heat from the wet grass and loose earth at his feet, frosting both without any conscious cast.
His Vitalis flowed unevenly inside him, misfiring through muscle and nerves like his body had forgotten its own rhythm.
His knees went weak, and he had to brace a hand against the frozen bandit to stay upright.
His sight blurred. He brought his left hand up, shaking hard, muscles jerking as his body fought not to seize. The skin kept changing under his gaze—clean, then ragged, then filthy and slick with blood.
He tried to shake it off, his sight resting on the shadowy veil instead, yet the smothered light and looming darkness shifted and blurred.
Pressure built behind his eyes until his vision began to shudder in violent little jolts.
The present sight left him.
Badump…
But something replaced it.
Badump…
—— ❖ —— —— ❖ —— —— ❖ ——
Badump.
BEEEP!
A horn blared as a car swerved past traffic, narrowly missing a truck after overtaking the vehicle in front of it.
The rain fell hard that dark evening, hammering the windshield under a dead grey sky. The driver sped down the road, heading straight toward a large building. Headlights carved bright tunnels through the downpour, the world beyond reduced to streaks of motion.
Still overtaking. Still trying not to crash.
The road curved sharply, yet he didn't slow.
"Damn it! This woman is going to be the end of me," the man growled under his breath.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep…
The phone vibrated uselessly against the console.
"The person you have called is not available at the moment—"
"Shit!"
Beep.
"Mum, when you get this, call me back. I'm on my way now."
What the hell happened—the police calling about Mum? It's always the other way round…
Irritation boiled hot in his chest. His hands gripped the wheel like a vice until his knuckles turned white.
"This is Radio Five~" The radio crackled to life, an overly loud and cheerful voice coming from the other end.
"I hope you lovely people are having a gorgeous day—"
A fist slammed into the radio, silencing it instantly.
"Fuck you and your gorgeous day."
Static crackled once, then died.
Another horn blared somewhere behind him, echoing through the rain as he kept driving.
…
SCREEHH!
Tires screamed against the wet asphalt as the car fishtailed into the parking space.
TUCK.
CRUNK!
He jumped out before the car had even stopped moving, slammed the door—didn't even check if he'd locked it—and sprinted for the entrance.
Rain soaked him instantly, jacket heavy and clinging, shoes slipping on the painted lines.
A hospital loomed ahead like a dark omen. Ambulances stood parked with lights still flashing, workers rushing back and forth through the downpour.
Step.
Step.
He arrived at one of the patient rooms and whipped the door open.
"Mum!"
Four Enforcers stood there, dotted around the room. Armed. Wearing heavy protective gear. Their radios would sometimes crackle to life with static bursts.
Beyond them lay his mother, unconscious.
The room smelled of antiseptic, damp uniforms, and recycled air trapped too long behind sealed doors.
"What the hell!? The fuck happened?!"
He barged in, walking straight through the enforcers. His patience had already worn paper-thin.
One Enforcer got in his way, trying to calm him down.
"Son, lower your voice, this is the patient ward. Now let's go—"
"—the fuck off me! I want to see her!"
The man stepped in closer, ready to get physical. Authority had never brought out the best in him.
Another Enforcer came over to back up his buddy.
"Stop! Calm down, now! Otherwise you'll be forced to—"
"That's enough."
All three looked back toward the voice coming from behind—the Enforcer standing closest to his mother.
"Sergeant?"
A tall burly woman, Sergeant and Commander of the unit, walked over to them.
"You guys wait here." She then glanced over at the aggravated man. "And you, come with me." The Sergeant brushed past him, exiting the room.
He glanced at his mother one last time, jaw tight with irritation.
Then he spun around and followed the woman out.
The tall, imposing woman with silky black hair was waiting for him in the hallway, propped up against the wall, arms crossed.
"Arion."
"What's this all about, Treya?"
There was a pause.
"Your mother is fine… don't worry about her."
Arion slumped back into the bench next to him.
A long exhale escaped him. "God Treya, you guys gave me a heart attack! Why did I get a call saying it was an emergency? Did she faint?"
"Yeah. I went to talk to her, she went weak and then fainted. Now here we are."
But before he could reply, she continued.
"But that's not why we called you, Arion…"
His eyes narrowed as he lifted his head to meet hers.
The hallway suddenly felt claustrophobic, the fluorescent lights buzzing too loud overhead.
She sighed, unfolded her arms, and walked over to sit next to him. "This isn't going to be easy for you and your mother, but we're doing everything we can to track her down."
Arion looked at her, confused. "What? Treya, what are you talking about…"
She glanced at him, voice gentle but firm. "At 3:23pm today, we received a call from someone that works at your sister's school…" She took a deep breath. "They saw someone walk alongside Oline as she walked home. The caller did not recognise him, so she ended up contacting us."
Arion's hands gripped his trousers, the fabric ripping slightly from the tension.
"That's when we came to see your mother. We checked to see if Oline had returned home… but she hadn't."
Arion stared at her in disbelief, shaking his head as a nervous, disbelieving laugh tried to work loose in his chest.
"What—no… No, she might have just gone to a friend's house."
"Arion—"
He stood up suddenly and pulled out his phone to find Oline's number. He hesitated for a second, then dialled it and began pacing.
"Arion, it's no use, we got her number from your mother's phone—"
Beep.
Beep.
Beep…
"The person you have called is not available at the moment."