Ibai teleported, leaving Emiliana behind but keeping Chergoa wrapped in a brown tail, and reappeared next to the man who’d been hassling Rafael. Ibai’s shadow ballooned around the man and his reaper, and Ibai jumped away again with both in tow. This time, he reappeared next to the wall.
The man, however, reappeared in the wall. In an instant, his flesh completely fused with the rock, cracking it only slightly and creating a lifeless human statue embedded in otherwise smooth stone.
He didn’t get time to admire the craftsmanship, however. The other reapers had noticed him by now, and the fight broke out anew. Ibai jumped from enemy to enemy, creating even more havoc while they were already scrambling to contain the thrashing Blackburns.
It didn’t last very long at all, and by the end, Ibai had collected two more reapers for himself. One final reaper was fleeing down the hallway, but Ibai caught up to him easily enough, bringing the number of trophies to four. He could’ve called it five, but he decided that it wasn’t fair to count Chergoa. All the same, he returned to the other Blackburns with a grin on his face and a hop in his step.
“Thank you, m’lord,” one of them said. “You saved us.”
‘Indeed,’ said Rafael’s reaper. This one’s name was Ustox. ‘But you aren’t supposed to be here, are you?’
“Aw, c’mon!” whined Ibai, waving his captured toys around. “All the action’s out here!”
‘As you say, m’lord. We could certainly use your help. But how long have you possessed this teleporting power?’
“Er. N-not long...”
‘Indeed? I suppose it doesn’t matter. Here, m’lord.’ Ustox bobbed his tiny body toward the others, and they all seemed to understand. In addition to Ibai’s captives, the others had captured five more enemy reapers, all currently rendered unconscious.
And the Blackburns offered them to him.
Ibai blinked at the apparent gifts. “W-what are you doing?”
‘Our House is outnumbered,’ said one of the other Blackburn reapers. ‘We need you strong, Lord Ibai.’
This was too sudden.
Ibai could hardly believe what he was hearing. For more than thirty years, everyone had told him the exact opposite of this. They’d told him how much trouble he’d been in, how he should try to be more thoughtful, more careful, more gentle.
That was simply the way of things.
But now...? He didn’t understand. Were they testing him? Surely not. That would be cruel.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
This cannot go well.
ReplyDeleteoh god no.... this is gonna be bad...
ReplyDeletehere is his first real judge of character, lets see how this will go down
ReplyDeleteWow, the Blackburns are strange people indeed. I get wanting assistance in the battle, and asking him to help makes sense. Feeding him servants is not a good idea though.
ReplyDeleteOkay, now I say "oh shit." Just how stupid are these guys? Even aside from the idiocy of breaking an aberration's zero-bodies policy in exchange for a minor increase in power, up to now the Blackburns can truthfully claim to have never knowingly killed anyone. They're basically reacting to imminent defeat by making sure the enemy will be vengeful when they win.
ReplyDeleteOK... deliberately breaking the consistent message for expediency's sake?
ReplyDeleteNot. Clever. Blackburns. That could damn easily come back to bite... hard. <_< But, as Ibai seems to be Mr Take a Third Option and/or Teleport, I don't think it'll come from an obvious angle. At all.
If Ibai kills those reapers, he loses whatever slim chance he had of not being hunted down :(
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I hope all of those Blackburns end up dead, and I'm only a little sad because then who will play checkers with Ibai? Maybe Emy or Hector can play well.
ReplyDeleteIbai
ReplyDeletehad collected two more reapers for himself. One final reaper was
fleeing down the hallway, but Ibai caught up to him easily enough,
bringing the number of trophies to four.
Forgive me but I don't believe math works that way.
It does say two "more" reapers for himself. You're probably forgetting the one he collected before those two. So the math goes:
ReplyDelete1 reaper from guy who was hassling Rafael
+
2 reapers from the scramble
+
1 last reaper fleeing down the hallway
=
4 reaper trophies
Ah my bad
ReplyDeleteThis is why we can't have nice things... :/
ReplyDeleteI just realized...if Ibai can teleport objects into other objects and cause them to fuse together, does that equate to a crude form of integration?
ReplyDelete