Heaven's Darkness (Book 2)

Chapter 11 - Ashura

 "Where could this gang possibly be hiding?" I asked, almost losing my patience. It had been half a day of searching and not a single clue regarding their whereabouts even appeared.

"Well, with a name like Sewer Scoundrels," Jeriah said with a smirk, "I think they would be in the sewer system under the city."

"Then why haven't we checked there yet?" Terra demanded, also losing her patience. "I want to watch somebody bleed my ink from their eyeballs again."

I stared in horror at Terra. "Yeah, Quint, can we please go to the sewer before Terra uses one of us as a practice dummy?"

"The reason why I haven't gone there is because there isn't a way into the pipes without a form of transportation magic," Quint said, continuing to tread forward with his snow-white cloak nipping at his heels.

"Doesn't your magic allow you to transport?" Jeriah asked skeptically. "I seem to remember you doing that to get the others back over the border and to the guild hall."

"That was merely quick celestial transportation, not portal transportation," Quint patiently explained. "We would need some form of magic that would allow us to pass through solid objects. I was hoping to find one of those wizards running around here and force them to transport us in, but I haven't located a single person reeking of sewer."

"What kind of a sewer system does this town even have?" Red wondered. "Who would go through all the trouble of completely sealing away a much needed sanitation method?"

"The military sometimes uses it as a hideout for weapon advancement and classified researching," Quint informed.

"Wow, the Potestatem Guard really blows," Jeriah whined, causing Red and Terra to laugh out loud at his accidentally-made joke.

While our party paraded through the desert city of Drone searching for a gang, my mind constantly wandered. Two panic attacks in two days was not a good ratio to have. Not only that, but the second one I had was in the midst of a battle, one that was with a person trying to take my life, someone from the guild I had been running from ever since I left it. If I had another attack during a battle just at the wrong time, somebody could die, and it would be all my fault.

Why was my mind reacting so harshly to certain things? Was it because I wasn't strong enough to stop them from happening in the first place? And, even if that was the case, how could I grow stronger to stop them? I felt like it was just something I would have to deal with for a while like Jeriah had to, but it still didn't make me feel any better. If there was a way to stop the attacks, I wanted to know.

Not only was my last attack during a battle, but it was a flashback to the transformation that I lost my memory about. Everything was now clear as day to me, from the feeling of transforming to the feeling of letting loose that massive magical defense move. I wished with every fiber of my being that I could forget that again, but no matter how hard I tried, it was constantly on my mind, bugging me to high heaven. Knowing that I could perform something so powerful was alarming to me, but the fact that I was blacked out during the experience made me feel out of control. I couldn't stop what I was doing. I didn't even have an idea of what was happening in this dragon form. Nothing was more terrifying than that.

"Yes!" Jeriah suddenly exclaimed, sprinting off into a nearby dark alleyway, followed closely by Quint. Terra and I looked at each other, shrugged, and chased after the two sharp-nosed boys, hoping they had found our ticket into the sewage system.

Sure enough, when Terra and I arrived on the dusty scene, Jeriah had a shadowy minion summoned forth and entrap his target, wrapping its large arms around the squirming wizard.