TBATE: A Hero's Return

My Guardian Angel

ARTHUR LEYWIN

I limped into the abandoned building, firmly closing the door behind me. I rested back against it, collapsing onto my butt as I absently surveyed the small room I was in. I was currently in a hidden complex that the resistance used to store goods like food and weapons during the war. It has been a while since it has last been used, the cobwebs and the thick layer of dust across everything a testament to this.

So many years had passed since I had last been here, but it all somehow still looks the same. Enough that a barrage of old memories from when I huddled in bunkers away from my family and friends, hoping to God they were still safe as I struggled to stay alive myself came to mind. They were only kept at bay by focusing relentlessly on the present.

Not that it was particularly more pleasant.

Gathering my strength, I crossed over to the ratty mattress in the corner, collapsing onto it, blackness nearly claiming me as I jostled my leg. Sharp pain surged through me, and it took everything I had to not retch right then and there.

"Shit," I gasped.

Lingering here was a terrible idea for a lot of reasons, chief among them being that I knew people were searching for me right now. The only real advantage of this place was its obscurity.

Normally, I would have been able to take on nearly anyone that had come for me, but after successfully sending Mom and Ellie away, my reserves were far too low for me to fight anyone.

When I had learned that they had been taken to be used against me, my heart immediately sank into my chest. As soon as Caera informed me, she recommended we get the Alacryan military involved to help support me as I go rescue them. I had refused, as I didn't want harm to befall them in case their captors learned of the situation at hand.

Luckily, I got them out of harm's way for the moment. I wasn't able to confirm I had gotten them to the right location, so I wanted to check on them before I head into the Relictombs to fill up my reserves. Right now, however, it didn't seem like I would be able to.

Maybe if I rested. Just for a little bit. Maybe I could find a way out of this mess. I closed my eyes and the image that has haunted me the last four days flooded back.

They killed both Tedry and Rolluf, both splayed out as if they were some sort of death-obsessive art piece. In actuality, they were a silent message to me: my loved ones would die if I acted out of turn.

There had been so much blood.

I felt the prickle of shame and rage pressing at the back of my eyes. Both of them were idiots. But they were also Ellie's friends, the first that saw past the divide of race and continent and were willing to extend a hand out. Even when they faced me while I was in an overprotective spout of fury, they did not so much as buckle under the pressure I exerted.

Tears fell from my eyes. They were good kids. They didn't deserve this. I had fought in the war to protect people like them, and yet it was because of me that they were dead.

I had barely managed to escape myself, using the last of my reserves I had left to Godstep away the moment I could. The problem was that I had done so very poorly, my low aether reserves making it difficult to properly assess the possible pathways. I got away, but the action took a huge chunk out of my left calf. Part of the bone too.

I had managed to staunch the bleeding with some rags made by tearing my clothing, but not before I lost more blood than I could afford. In the end, I was left with a disgusting, gaping wound.

It seemed like it would be a race to see what exactly will do me in first. Would it be the aggressors that will most definitely be on my tail? Would it be this infection that seems to be overtaking my body at the moment? Will it be my asuran body that is beginning to shut down already without access to enough aether to sustain it?