Classy, Controlled Chaos - The STEAM Team Adventures

🐦‍🔥 Reincarnation [1/10] 🐦‍🔥

Tia's POV:

Three days before my first battle mission.

This was going to either be the end of my beginning, or the beginning of my end.

Either way, I'd show the world what I'm capable of doing...

The endless destruction I can cause...

The heart-stopping fear I can strike...

The blinding pain I can deliver...

I was kinda forced into this whole agreement thing, so it's not really my fault if I devastate a town of innocent citizens.

Great Heaven above, that makes me sound really bad.

Maybe that's because I am.

Then again, I'm really just a tool for mass destruction in Everhallow's eyes, so why bother?

Arthur and I were resting in our room, drawing in our sketchbooks to relax after a long day of combat training.

He was sitting on his office chair, lightly stroking the tip of his pencil along the paper's smooth surface.

I was laying down on my mattress, propping my chest up on a soft pillow and supporting myself by the elbows so I could draw.

My paper was still blank.

"Polar bear in a snowstorm, nice." My mentor chuckled, leaning over to eye my charcoal pencil. "Need some inspiration, kiddo?"

I quietly shook my head, staring at the unsettling amount of white on the page. "No thanks, I'll come up with something eventually."

That was a lie.

I would never come up with anything because my thoughts were swirling like a violent whirlpool, threatening to suck me into the depths of insanity.

The inevitable battle that would occur in the near future would start with me.

Me, the guardian of a kingdom, charging in to strip lives away from another.

Fighting for my life is one thing, but to take away someone else's scares me if it's not to defend myself.

That's just straight up murder.

Was this really my job as the Riptide Ranger?

Not just to fight for Northwynd, but to massacre for it?

I know that I seem like adrenaline is the only thing I can thrive off of, but this is overkill.

Ha, overkill... Nothing's overkill in war as long as it gets the job done.

That sounds like something a corrupt tyrant would say.

Why would I even think that?

What is wrong with me?

"Tia, breathe." Arthur rumbled, his voice snapping me out of the stressful grip of my thoughts. "You're clearly brooding over something you haven't told me about; I can tell from your face alone."

I glanced across the room to glance at the gold-framed mirror on the side of his desk, staring into my reflection.

Visible tension had brewed in my hardened, icy gaze, sending a shiver of fear down my spine.