March from Darkness | ✓ (to be edited)

TWENTY-FOUR

PHRER

"I will not repeat myself, Forseti. Stand. Down."

I held my hands steady, ready to blast him if I needed to. This was getting out of hand, and we still had no idea who they were working for. We needed to find out more before we could kill this thing, but I could see in Demitri's eyes, now mismatched green and gold, that he didn't understand my position on this.

He thought I was defending this person, and that had made something in him extremely angry, so much so that it had exposed a new power, which did not bode well for his case: ergokinesis. His ability to control energy gave him even less of an out, and I could hear Forseti debating if he should trust Demitri or subdue him.

Unfortunately, that decision was made for him when Demitri sighed, exasperated, before he cast the energy ball at Sāma and For. For grabbed Sāma and went to pull him out of the way, but the energy quickly took the form of a chain net as it fell over Sāma. It pulled him down to the ground, and I watched in amazement as the energy was dragged back to Demitri's feet without him needing to touch it.

I almost felt bad for the moronic Decran, but only just, as Demitri's face morphed into a mask of sick satisfaction. He held one hand out, keeping the net steady while he opened his free palm sideways. The dagger flew into his open hand, glinting in the blood-red light, a resounding smack as Demitri closed his hand around the hilt. The eagerness on his face quickly faded into a snarl as the golden eye glowed brighter.

"Now," the Amalgamation hissed, "where were we?"

I contemplated, briefly, if I should just let him kill Sāma, but when I saw Forseti standing, his eyes glowing bright yellow with a rage that was extremely difficult to lure out, I felt a headache forming.

Gods, damn it all.

Just as Demitri went to bring the blade down again, I prayed to Odin that I wouldn't harm him, and blasted energy at him. The blast hit his hand, causing it to snap to the side, dropping the blade. He gripped his hand by the wrist, the energy chains around Sāma fizzling out as his hit hand clenched. Sāma, in turn, brought his legs up, kicking Demitri in the abdomen hard enough to knock him backwards, giving him enough room to get up and jump back when Demitri attempted to cut him with his now-black claws.

Sāma tensed, ready for Demitri to attack him. He bared his teeth, causing the Amalgamation to stop, frozen in place. The light emanating from his hands and Demitri's thoughts breaking through the extreme mental barrier the Amalgamation had set up were the only reasons I was able to figure out why he had paused.

What the fuck is up with his mouth?

All of Sāma's teeth were sharpened into needle-like fangs. Something that very rarely happened to regular creatures, let alone something as supposedly perfect as a First.

Unfortunately, not only did For not see the strange occurrence due to Demitri's position in front of him, but he decided to end this before it got worse.

"Sova och var lugn," he commanded, touching the Amalgamation as he did so.

Honestly, we should have figured that the Amalgamation was stronger than a normal creature, rendering him less susceptible to such a simple spell; and, therefore, we should have jointly known that he could, and would, retaliate.

Instead of the energy in his hands dissipating, it only seemed to glow brighter. He growled at Sāma, shooting a rather powerful blast into him. He then put his other hand behind him and touched it to Forseti's chest, the energy being absorbed immediately. Forseti fell to his knees almost instantly, attempting to breathe as the Amalgamation poured energy into his system, choking him. Sāma tried to get up, but his head was knocked into the bed post by another blast, knocking him to the ground, holding the sides of his head and groaning in pain.