The Faithfuls

Chapter 12: Zeth

Chapter 12: Zeth

Jinx and I left a note on the table, saying to Brandon that we had gone into the woods. She keeps rubbing the area of her arm that got touched by Raiku, the veins going slightly black. But I ignore it, thinking only little of it. She can fight it off.

“It’s nice to be wandering these woods being myself and not trying to kill people.” Jinx says. “It gives a sense to meaning back to my life.” She looks over to me, and I return with a flirty smile. Jinx punches my shoulder softly in return and runs further into the woods.

“Beat you to the field!” She calls back laughing, so I take off in pursuit. Vines block her out a few times, her blood red hair swaying in the wind. I manage to catch up to her, and just before we make into the field, I tackle her from behind. She lets out a startled squeal of laughter as she rolls further into the field than what I had. She looks at me through the grass, smiling at me as I’m slightly in pain from the tackle.

“I won’t try that any time soon either. It’s like tree jumping. It hurts.” I say.

“Are you referring to me as a tree?” Jinx giggles. “I may live in one, but if you haven’t noticed I’m not an inanimate object that stays in one spot in the woods all day.” She gets up, and gets in a battle stance. She wants to have a fight? I’ll give her one. I get up off the grass and throw some shadow shards at her, which she merely deflects with a wall of water. We move around in a circle, so that Jinx is at the edge of the field and I’m further into it. She flicks her fingers a little, and earth shards come at me. I make a barrier of shadow quickly out of nowhere and sent it at Jinx. I never knew she wasn’t ready for it. She flies backwards into the woods, luckily missing trees and skidding to a stop a few hundred metres up.

When I get over there, she’s on the ground groaning.

“What the hell Zeth?” She moans. “I don’t have the best reflexes when I’m laughing.” I help her up, and she swipes a stream of water over a few cuts till they’re gone.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I thought you were ready...”

“It’s fine Zeth.” She sighs. “We all make mistakes. And I’m not dead am I?” We walk back to the tree, making a few random jokes along the way. I’m still worried about that shadow blast, so I try to look at where Raiku touched Jinx’s arm. I see black veins covering most of her right arm now. I hope it doesn’t mean anything.

She obviously saw me looking at it, and tries to comfort me. “Zeth, it’ll be fine. Shadow can be forced back by a strong soul, and I’m 80% sure I have one...”

We get back to find Brandon sitting on the couch, an empty bottle of beer in his hand.

“Sup, suckers!” Brandon calls, his words slurred together.

I see Jinx’s head go into her hands. “Oh no... Where the hell did you get that from?”

“I stole it from the Pub in the village.” He smirks. His words are extremely hard to understand, like if he was just pumped full of drugs that made his mouth numb.

Brandon gets up and throws the bottle at me. Unluckily, it hits me square in the face. On the other hand, it was plastic, so my face isn’t covered in blood or cuts. Jinx walks over to Brandon, and I hear her say something along the lines of an apology. Next thing I know, she’s punched him in the face, his stupid, confident grin still there, kissing the bark on the floor.

“I now feel like a violent person.” Jinx mumbles. I help her get Brandon up the stairs and into his hammock, slightly drooling, like how apparently I sleep at night. Ever since she got captured, Jinx has been looking slightly lost of hope. She knows something.

“Everything ok?” I ask.

“It just seems too easy.” She replies. “I mean, it took literally no fight at all to capture Raiku and Jazzmozzelle. They want something...” Her eyes flash up at me, a look of fear. And then, right on cue, Ursa and Muse burst out of her symbol, the star constellation sealing up. They’re covered in cuts and bruises, obviously caused by either shadow or a scythe.

Jinx jumps out a hole in the tree, and shakes Ursa into consciousness.

“What happened?” She asks frantically.

Ursa gives out a little moan before getting up, stronger than what I thought she would.

“Raiku and Jazzmozzelle are blowing the Solar Dimension to pieces, but the last we saw of them before coming here was Raiku using a reflex to draw Rithen’s symbol; An underwater city. Next thing you know, poof. They’re off to Rithen.” She wipes some blood off her bow, taking very good care of it.

“They’re trying to destroy the dimensions from the inside.” I say. “We need to get these 2 cleaned up and Brandon sober. Raiku can’t get to Lucenthia, or it’s game over.” Ursa wobbles inside while I help Jinx heave Muse off the ground.

We go quickly and frantically. Waking Brandon up and fixing up Muse and Ursa. We all get our weapons, but Jinx looks quizzical.

“You good Jinx? Or don’t you want to kill people?” Brandon says smugly.

“It just seems weird... if Raiku was trying to make all the dimensions into a replica of hell, wouldn’t he start with the dimension that is the sustainment of nature and life?” Jinx fiddles with the engineer goggles attached to her belt, the ones she used to hide her fox ears which now sit proudly on her head. “It just doesn’t make sense...”

“I know how a shadow bearer thinks, and Jinx is right.” I say. “He would come to Merador first.”

“We need someone to stay here. For precaution.” Jinx’s tail curls around her leg. “Muse, you have to go. You’re the only one here from Rithen. Zeth, same with you, since you’re the Shadow Lord and all.” When she mentions the Shadow Lord, I touch the necklace that has been hidden under my shirt this whole time, with Lord engraved in shadow.  

“I’ll stay.” Ursa blurts. “I have the stars. If anything goes wrong, I’ll just send a message and one of you can come and help.”

“Ok, ok, Ursa you stay. Let’s go! Before Rithen is rubble.” She says frantically. As we go downstairs, Jinx gets out her reflex and carves the symbol of Rithen into the ground. Muse goes first, leading the way in his home dimension. Brandon, Jinx and I follow after, flipping into the swirl of blue.