"Hey, you remember what I said last year, right? We're Zombie Boy and Ghost Boy. I'm not ever gonna leave you."
"Promise?"
"One hundred percent."
***
In which Alistair fights the monster that possessed his friend alongside his friends, while trying...
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Chapter Two: Matters Of The Heart
(pre-Suzie, Do You Copy?, Pt. 2)
***
Alistair panted as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Exhaustion rattled in his bones, weighing down his limbs as the unnatural chill in the air was leeched out, the warmth handily powered by Ash and countless generations of Graveswoods who had her gifts before her gleefully returning.
On the space around Alistair, were the corpses of animals once more dead again.
The ground rumbled, then split open under the dead animals, swallowing them whole and depositing them back to where Alistair had summoned them from. Some, like the rats and other animals, simply sunk back under the floor of the training arena. Others, like the deer and bear, returned back to the woods.
Alistair watched it happen, breathing through the exhaustion as he wiped away the blood trickling from his nose. His entire body felt drained, like he'd run a marathon for hours instead of raising animals from the dead at steadily bigger sizes for half an hour. It didn't help that he had fatigue from the other power he'd been practicing alongside it; even now, Alistair still felt like his body had been torn in half.
But Alistair knew this would be worth it, that the exhaustion was a sign of how much he could do as much as it was a sign of his limits. The him of nearly two years ago would never be able to do what he'd just done now.
And yet, Alistair knew he could improve, he could master and control the abilities he'd hated so much further (he could lose the fear of himself, of his potential, the more he gained control)
"Well done, Alistair."
Alistair turned and saw his grandmother standing there.
Vervain Yvette Graveswood was an intimidating woman. At first glance, you wouldn't think that, but the more you looked at her, you'd see it. If not for the sheer power the Graveswood matriarch radiated, then by the way she carried herself and the unflinching, steely look in her eyes.
Vervain Graveswood was a woman who commanded respect, even more so with her hair silver and lines carving her face—her age, in Alistair's opinion, made her even more intimidating. And if you weren't, she'd make you be intimidated with a few carefully curated words that were thinly veiled threats or unleash the rage of the earth upon you.
If Alistair was being honest, his grandmother scared him a little. And that was a lot, considering he saw ghosts, raised zombies and fought monsters. The lecture he'd gotten for sneaking into the town cemetery in the middle of the night a week ago didn't help with that at all.
But the intimidation leaked somewhat out when his grandmother smiled, pride gleaming in her eyes, at what he'd done.
