As Zycor approached the alleyway, he caught a glimpse of the last one of the suspicious men escorting Dreiford through a side door. Carefully approaching the door, Zycor cracked it open and could make out a furnished room with Dreiford on his knees surrounded by these villains. The longer Zycor looked at the scene, the more he increasingly became aware of what was going on. As his understanding increased, so too did his rage and anger.
Back at the guild, Aisha sat silently as she pondered as to why Zycor would just up and leave. It seemed out of character, similarly to the subtle change in his mannerisms when he originally woke up. As Baz and Mylon continued an argument about which one of them was more annoying, Aisha suddenly stood up. Confused and curious, Baz, still milking any reaction he could from her, asked “What’s wrong, dog ears?”
Mylon hit him on the back of his head as he corrected, “I am certain he meant Aisha, apologies for him.”
Aisha, brushing Baz’s remark aside, replied, “Thanks for the apology, but I really don’t care right now. We have to go after Zycor, now. If he gets too far away-.” Aisha paused as she debated on whether or not she should tell them about the current egg situation or not. She shook her head, deciding that now was not the time. Aisha continued, “The bottom line is, he will most likely have another episode of aggression if we leave him out there.”
Baz and Mylon looked at each other, still confused but now with growing worry. Looking back to Aisha, Mylon asked, “Are you certain he will have another episode like last time?”
Aisha confidently responded, “I am positive.”
Baz, standing up and grabbing his axe grunted, “Well then, what the hell are we still here for? Let’s go retrieve that little shit.”
Mylon and Aisha nodded, the latter running upstairs. “I just need to grab something real quick! It should calm him down!” Aisha shouted as she entered Zycors’ room. Looking around the room, she spotted the egg, glowing and pulsating. Hurriedly, but carefully, stuffing the egg into a bag, she hurried downstairs and met up with Baz and Mylon. Grouping up, they wasted no time and began the hunt for Zycor immediately.
As Zycor was being consumed by his rage, the alternate Zycor was beginning to be engulfed by a maroon colored mist. The mist was accompanied by whispers that were encouraging Zycor to slaughter everyone in the room. When alt-Zycor tried to tell Zycor to calm down, he was assaulted with an almost debilitating headache as the voices echoed around him. Although, the alt-Zycor was able to handle it better than Zycor due to the current predicament being similar to his ‘birth,’ immersed in all of their repressed emotions.
Zycor watched through gritted teeth as he watched as the men began to yell at Dreiford. They wore armor reminiscent of that of the Velathrian man who attacked Zycor and his friends with the ‘hired help.’ This time, however, there were five of them. One of the men, now out of patience, snapped at Dreiford, “Alright, this is your final chance to tell us where the boy is, along with any intel we could use to lure the demon moth Adria away from him! The sooner you cooperate, the sooner your suffering will end. We may not even have to kill you!”
Dreiford, hands tied behind his back, sat there in silence momentarily before a grin crept across his face as he chuckled, “You know, if you would have asked me the same thing a few years ago, I may have obliged you. However, I have quite a bit of an investment in the kid you are talking about. Besides, I can’t just sell out my own nephew now can I? I am sure you understand.”
Looking down on Dreiford with disdain and disgust, the man asked for confirmation, “So, you are choosing the hard way?”
Dreiford cackled, “Looks like there are at least a few working cells in that brain of yours, Captain Falar!”
Instantly enraged, Captain Falar kicked Dreiford across the face, sending him to the ground. Dreiford sat himself up as the Captain stood in anger. At his wits end, he began to yell at Dreiford, “Just tell me where the kid is, damn you!”
Dreiford grinned and looked up at Captain Falar and, with no fear and blood dripping from the side of his head, responded, “Go to hell.”
Finishing his statement, Dreiford immediately closed his mouth. His cheeks began to swell and he shot a stream of pressurized water at Captain, pushing him back, but unable to knock him over. No longer able to contain himself, Zycor charged through the door as lightning crackled over his entire body. He blitzed through the room, confusing and stunning the men. “What the hell was that?!” One of them yelled.
Captain Falar began issuing orders, “Don’t waver men, regroup and-.” As he tried to move, the Captain found his feet were frozen to the floor. Dreiford had frozen the water at his feet along with some of the water on his legs. Realizing he was about to tank whatever that ball of ferocious lightning was, the leader braced for the impact and remarked, “Oh goddess.”
When Zycor made contact, he tore the Captain from the ice and charged him into the opposing wall. As Captain Falar tried to comprehend what was going on, Zycor stood up, cloaked in the dust, as he began charging lightning around his fist. Alt-Zycor realized what was going on and managed to break through the mist's voices, shouting, “Zycor, switch with me! You aren’t thinking clearly and are going to exhaust all of our mana supply!”
Unfortunately for him, Zycor was far too steeped in rage and was not capable of willingly cooperating. Zycor roared like a beast as he slammed his fist into the man's chest, electricity crackling around them. Captain Falar was successfully incapacitated for now. The other four soldiers had managed to regroup and readied themselves for Zycor. As he stood to face the men, Zycor let out a deep breath, now in control of his rage. During the brief moment after impact, Zycor had dropped his guard and calmed just long enough for the alt-Zycor to temporarily seize control of the body. He slowly walked forward to stand in between the soldiers and Dreiford. Alt-Zycorbegan cracking his knuckles as he palmed either fist. “Alright,” He began, a sadistic grin creeping across his face, “Who’s next?”
One of the soldiers realized who Zycor was and glanced at the other soldiers who had also appeared to have figured it out. “Well I must admit,” one of them began, “you definitely caught us off guard. There is also some due recognition for that power of yours. You essentially one shot our boss over there. However, if you are indeed Zycor, then that should have been a sizable chunk of your mana pool, am I right?”
His right eye twitching at the mention of his mana pool, alt-Zycor exasperatedly responded, “Congrats, you have super basic intel on my mana reserves, want a medal?”
Despite the bravado he portrayed, alt-Zycor was fully aware that the little stunt his counterpart pulled cost them about half of their usable mana pool. Analyzing the current situation, however, the copy realized they may have to dip into the danger zone again in order to get out of this.
“Oh, a confident one, aren't you? The intel we have stated you were an emotionless ball of rage, perhaps it was far too basic after all. The quality of our information aside, what can you do against all of us in your current condition?”
Sizing up the four remaining soldiers, alt-Zycor thought to himself, “As much as I hate to admit it, the asshole’s right. We used up far too much mana in that reckless charge, not to mention that supercharged punch. Jeez, how the hell am I going to slaughter these Velathrian scumbags?”
As he thought about his next move, the soldiers began their attack as one of them shouted, “Remember lads, they just want his body! Nothing in our orders says whether he has to be warm or cold!”
Before he was able to finalize his thoughts, alt-Zycor was barraged by bolts of fire, bullets of rock, and two bolts of lightning. Unable to deal with the attacks head on, alt-Zycor condensed lightning at the bottom of his feet and propelled himself back. With the extra time he bought, he came up with a rudimentary counter. He shouted, “Converge! Chain!” as he put both his hands out and shot out two condensed bolts of lightning. Connecting with the first instance of each barrage, Zycors lightning then tore through the remaining instances, eventually reaching the casters. Unfortunately, he had not come up with anything for the incoming lightning bolts. He braced for impact and took the bolts head on, his body caught by Dreiford.
As the alt-Zycor and Dreiford caught their breath, Captain Falar loomed behind them as he raised his sword and exclaimed, “Good effort. Too bad it meant nothing in the end!”
As he brought his sword down on the duo, a wall of ice erupted from the ground, nullifying the attack and causing Captain Falar to stumble backwards. Dreiford looked at the wall of ice in shock wondering where it came from before quickly looking over at Zycor. His right hand was outstretched, a ring shining from it. As the wall of ice began to crumble due to a lack of mana, Dreiford hurriedly inquired, “Are you able to move yet my boy?”
Stumbling to his feet, alt-Zycor chuckled as he groaned, “Well enough I suppose. You got something in mind?”
Briefly stunned by Zycor’s sudden show of emotion, Dreiford responded, “Hell of a time to fix your communication issues, huh? Well, it helps to know I probably won’t have to explain things as much. I am running low on mana due to some magical item infusions I needed to do for a… job. I will take care of the Captain, but I will need you to handle the others. I will provide support when I can.”
“I hate to say this Uncle Drei,” Zycor began, “But that charge Zy-, I mean I did earlier left me drained. So-.”
Mid sentence, Zycor stopped as he began to feel the anger clouding his mind begin to lessen. Remembering the conversation Zycor had with Aisha, the alternate started, “Actually, I do have an idea, but it will require some time due to my depleted mana.”
Dreiford glanced over at the two soldiers Zycor hit earlier as they slowly got to their feet. He shot out some water to soak the soldiers and froze it, buying a small amount of time.
Turning to Zycor, Dreiford hurriedly asked, “What if you didn’t have to wait?”
Confused, alt-Zycor asked, “What do you mean?”
“Use my mana! Because our affinities are different, the conversion of mana from me to you will probably be less efficient, but it should help at the very least.”
The rage he had been feeling now having subsided considerably, alt-Zycor got to his feet and, through gritted teeth, exclaimed, “Alright, we don’t have much time! Let’s do this!”
Alt-Zycor stacked his hands on top of each other, the leading palm opened towards the soldiers. As Dreiford put his left hand on Zycors back, the copy could feel the influx of mana. It was not enough to replenish him, but was enough to carry out his plan. He began to consolidate lightning into his leading hands palm. Lightning began to crackle to life around his hands, eventually arcing over his whole body, forcing Dreiford to back off. “Sorry my boy, I can’t get close!”
Alt-Zycor excitedly replied, “That’s fine, this is plenty! Use what you have left to douse those in front again!”
After discussing their plan, Captain Falar finally broke through the wall and cackled, “You idiots! Even with that combination, if they know it’s coming they can put countermeasures in place! Even if your pitiful attack connected, there is no way it would put them out of commission! Once you’ve depleted your mana reserve, it’s over!”
As the Captain finished his rant, he tried to lunge towards Zycor, but found his left foot had been encased in ice. A sudden, incredible surge of electricity burst forth from Zycors hands, the ring glowing ever brighter. Alt-Zycor remarked, “The ring is only good for defense my ass, this is incredible!”
With a newfound ego boost, alt-Zycor began gloating, “You know something Captain, you are right, this attack doesn’t have enough bang behind it currently to completely incapacitate Lackey's One to Four. However, I don’t need to do all that, considering I have some friends who are looking for me and are in range to see a massive lightning bolt!”
Realizing his true objective, Captain Falar immediately began to bark orders, “You all have to dodge his attack and counter, right now!”
“TOO LATE!” alt-Zycor screeched as he howled, “CHAIN!”
A bolt of lightning tore through the air and successfully chained through all four soldiers, after the last of which the bolt chained to the ceiling before erupting from the building . As expected, they had used mana to strengthen themselves to prevent a fatal blow, but they were still successfully incapacitated. As the bolt ripped into the sky with a thunderous crack, Baz, Mylon, and Aisha looked towards the bolt. Baz bellowed, “Well, that’s one way to let us know where you are, haha!”
Some residual lightning continued to crackle around Zycor as he stumbled to his feet. Captain Falar, a few hits away from freeing himself, squawked, “You brat! Can’t fight your own battles huh!?”
With a weak chuckle, alt-Zycor responded, “Ironic coming from the man who needed five people to hunt one kid.”
“Shut the hell up!” the Captain hollered, finally breaking free and furiously marching over to the exhausted Zycor and Dreiford. He began angrily exclaiming, “It is going to feel so good to slowly tear each individual hair, nail, appendage, limb, and organ from your body on the way back!”
As alt-Zycor began to collapse, with a grin, he remarked, “Fuck… you.”
Dreiford moved to catch Zycor as Baz bulldozed his way through the wall as cockily howled, “What’s up fuckers!”
As Zycor approached the alleyway, he caught a glimpse of the last one of the suspicious men escorting Dreiford through a side door. Carefully approaching the door, Zycor cracked it open and could make out a furnished room with Dreiford on his knees surrounded by these villains. The longer Zycor looked at the scene, the more he increasingly became aware of what was going on. As his understanding increased, so too did his rage and anger.
Back at the guild, Aisha sat silently as she pondered as to why Zycor would just up and leave. It seemed out of character, similarly to the subtle change in his mannerisms when he originally woke up. As Baz and Mylon continued an argument about which one of them was more annoying, Aisha suddenly stood up. Confused and curious, Baz, still milking any reaction he could from her, asked “What’s wrong, dog ears?”
Mylon hit him on the back of his head as he corrected, “I am certain he meant Aisha, apologies for him.”
Aisha, brushing Baz’s remark aside, replied, “Thanks for the apology, but I really don’t care right now. We have to go after Zycor, now. If he gets too far away-.” Aisha paused as she debated on whether or not she should tell them about the current egg situation or not. She shook her head, deciding that now was not the time. Aisha continued, “The bottom line is, he will most likely have another episode of aggression if we leave him out there.”
Baz and Mylon looked at each other, still confused but now with growing worry. Looking back to Aisha, Mylon asked, “Are you certain he will have another episode like last time?”
Aisha confidently responded, “I am positive.”
Baz, standing up and grabbing his axe grunted, “Well then, what the hell are we still here for? Let’s go retrieve that little shit.”
Mylon and Aisha nodded, the latter running upstairs. “I just need to grab something real quick! It should calm him down!” Aisha shouted as she entered Zycors’ room. Looking around the room, she spotted the egg, glowing and pulsating. Hurriedly, but carefully, stuffing the egg into a bag, she hurried downstairs and met up with Baz and Mylon. Grouping up, they wasted no time and began the hunt for Zycor immediately.
As Zycor was being consumed by his rage, the alternate Zycor was beginning to be engulfed by a maroon colored mist. The mist was accompanied by whispers that were encouraging Zycor to slaughter everyone in the room. When alt-Zycor tried to tell Zycor to calm down, he was assaulted with an almost debilitating headache as the voices echoed around him. Although, the alt-Zycor was able to handle it better than Zycor due to the current predicament being similar to his ‘birth,’ immersed in all of their repressed emotions.
Zycor watched through gritted teeth as he watched as the men began to yell at Dreiford. They wore armor reminiscent of that of the Velathrian man who attacked Zycor and his friends with the ‘hired help.’ This time, however, there were five of them. One of the men, now out of patience, snapped at Dreiford, “Alright, this is your final chance to tell us where the boy is, along with any intel we could use to lure the demon moth Adria away from him! The sooner you cooperate, the sooner your suffering will end. We may not even have to kill you!”
Dreiford, hands tied behind his back, sat there in silence momentarily before a grin crept across his face as he chuckled, “You know, if you would have asked me the same thing a few years ago, I may have obliged you. However, I have quite a bit of an investment in the kid you are talking about. Besides, I can’t just sell out my own nephew now can I? I am sure you understand.”
Looking down on Dreiford with disdain and disgust, the man asked for confirmation, “So, you are choosing the hard way?”
Dreiford cackled, “Looks like there are at least a few working cells in that brain of yours, Captain Falar!”
Instantly enraged, Captain Falar kicked Dreiford across the face, sending him to the ground. Dreiford sat himself up as the Captain stood in anger. At his wits end, he began to yell at Dreiford, “Just tell me where the kid is, damn you!”
Dreiford grinned and looked up at Captain Falar and, with no fear and blood dripping from the side of his head, responded, “Go to hell.”
Finishing his statement, Dreiford immediately closed his mouth. His cheeks began to swell and he shot a stream of pressurized water at Captain, pushing him back, but unable to knock him over. No longer able to contain himself, Zycor charged through the door as lightning crackled over his entire body. He blitzed through the room, confusing and stunning the men. “What the hell was that?!” One of them yelled.
Captain Falar began issuing orders, “Don’t waver men, regroup and-.” As he tried to move, the Captain found his feet were frozen to the floor. Dreiford had frozen the water at his feet along with some of the water on his legs. Realizing he was about to tank whatever that ball of ferocious lightning was, the leader braced for the impact and remarked, “Oh goddess.”
When Zycor made contact, he tore the Captain from the ice and charged him into the opposing wall. As Captain Falar tried to comprehend what was going on, Zycor stood up, cloaked in the dust, as he began charging lightning around his fist. Alt-Zycor realized what was going on and managed to break through the mist's voices, shouting, “Zycor, switch with me! You aren’t thinking clearly and are going to exhaust all of our mana supply!”
Unfortunately for him, Zycor was far too steeped in rage and was not capable of willingly cooperating. Zycor roared like a beast as he slammed his fist into the man's chest, electricity crackling around them. Captain Falar was successfully incapacitated for now. The other four soldiers had managed to regroup and readied themselves for Zycor. As he stood to face the men, Zycor let out a deep breath, now in control of his rage. During the brief moment after impact, Zycor had dropped his guard and calmed just long enough for the alt-Zycor to temporarily seize control of the body. He slowly walked forward to stand in between the soldiers and Dreiford. Alt-Zycorbegan cracking his knuckles as he palmed either fist. “Alright,” He began, a sadistic grin creeping across his face, “Who’s next?”
One of the soldiers realized who Zycor was and glanced at the other soldiers who had also appeared to have figured it out. “Well I must admit,” one of them began, “you definitely caught us off guard. There is also some due recognition for that power of yours. You essentially one shot our boss over there. However, if you are indeed Zycor, then that should have been a sizable chunk of your mana pool, am I right?”
His right eye twitching at the mention of his mana pool, alt-Zycor exasperatedly responded, “Congrats, you have super basic intel on my mana reserves, want a medal?”
Despite the bravado he portrayed, alt-Zycor was fully aware that the little stunt his counterpart pulled cost them about half of their usable mana pool. Analyzing the current situation, however, the copy realized they may have to dip into the danger zone again in order to get out of this.
“Oh, a confident one, aren't you? The intel we have stated you were an emotionless ball of rage, perhaps it was far too basic after all. The quality of our information aside, what can you do against all of us in your current condition?”
Sizing up the four remaining soldiers, alt-Zycor thought to himself, “As much as I hate to admit it, the asshole’s right. We used up far too much mana in that reckless charge, not to mention that supercharged punch. Jeez, how the hell am I going to slaughter these Velathrian scumbags?”
As he thought about his next move, the soldiers began their attack as one of them shouted, “Remember lads, they just want his body! Nothing in our orders says whether he has to be warm or cold!”
Before he was able to finalize his thoughts, alt-Zycor was barraged by bolts of fire, bullets of rock, and two bolts of lightning. Unable to deal with the attacks head on, alt-Zycor condensed lightning at the bottom of his feet and propelled himself back. With the extra time he bought, he came up with a rudimentary counter. He shouted, “Converge! Chain!” as he put both his hands out and shot out two condensed bolts of lightning. Connecting with the first instance of each barrage, Zycors lightning then tore through the remaining instances, eventually reaching the casters. Unfortunately, he had not come up with anything for the incoming lightning bolts. He braced for impact and took the bolts head on, his body caught by Dreiford.
As the alt-Zycor and Dreiford caught their breath, Captain Falar loomed behind them as he raised his sword and exclaimed, “Good effort. Too bad it meant nothing in the end!”
As he brought his sword down on the duo, a wall of ice erupted from the ground, nullifying the attack and causing Captain Falar to stumble backwards. Dreiford looked at the wall of ice in shock wondering where it came from before quickly looking over at Zycor. His right hand was outstretched, a ring shining from it. As the wall of ice began to crumble due to a lack of mana, Dreiford hurriedly inquired, “Are you able to move yet my boy?”
Stumbling to his feet, alt-Zycor chuckled as he groaned, “Well enough I suppose. You got something in mind?”
Briefly stunned by Zycor’s sudden show of emotion, Dreiford responded, “Hell of a time to fix your communication issues, huh? Well, it helps to know I probably won’t have to explain things as much. I am running low on mana due to some magical item infusions I needed to do for a… job. I will take care of the Captain, but I will need you to handle the others. I will provide support when I can.”
“I hate to say this Uncle Drei,” Zycor began, “But that charge Zy-, I mean I did earlier left me drained. So-.”
Mid sentence, Zycor stopped as he began to feel the anger clouding his mind begin to lessen. Remembering the conversation Zycor had with Aisha, the alternate started, “Actually, I do have an idea, but it will require some time due to my depleted mana.”
Dreiford glanced over at the two soldiers Zycor hit earlier as they slowly got to their feet. He shot out some water to soak the soldiers and froze it, buying a small amount of time.
Turning to Zycor, Dreiford hurriedly asked, “What if you didn’t have to wait?”
Confused, alt-Zycor asked, “What do you mean?”
“Use my mana! Because our affinities are different, the conversion of mana from me to you will probably be less efficient, but it should help at the very least.”
The rage he had been feeling now having subsided considerably, alt-Zycor got to his feet and, through gritted teeth, exclaimed, “Alright, we don’t have much time! Let’s do this!”
Alt-Zycor stacked his hands on top of each other, the leading palm opened towards the soldiers. As Dreiford put his left hand on Zycors back, the copy could feel the influx of mana. It was not enough to replenish him, but was enough to carry out his plan. He began to consolidate lightning into his leading hands palm. Lightning began to crackle to life around his hands, eventually arcing over his whole body, forcing Dreiford to back off. “Sorry my boy, I can’t get close!”
Alt-Zycor excitedly replied, “That’s fine, this is plenty! Use what you have left to douse those in front again!”
After discussing their plan, Captain Falar finally broke through the wall and cackled, “You idiots! Even with that combination, if they know it’s coming they can put countermeasures in place! Even if your pitiful attack connected, there is no way it would put them out of commission! Once you’ve depleted your mana reserve, it’s over!”
As the Captain finished his rant, he tried to lunge towards Zycor, but found his left foot had been encased in ice. A sudden, incredible surge of electricity burst forth from Zycors hands, the ring glowing ever brighter. Alt-Zycor remarked, “The ring is only good for defense my ass, this is incredible!”
With a newfound ego boost, alt-Zycor began gloating, “You know something Captain, you are right, this attack doesn’t have enough bang behind it currently to completely incapacitate Lackey's One to Four. However, I don’t need to do all that, considering I have some friends who are looking for me and are in range to see a massive lightning bolt!”
Realizing his true objective, Captain Falar immediately began to bark orders, “You all have to dodge his attack and counter, right now!”
“TOO LATE!” alt-Zycor screeched as he howled, “CHAIN!”
A bolt of lightning tore through the air and successfully chained through all four soldiers, after the last of which the bolt chained to the ceiling before erupting from the building . As expected, they had used mana to strengthen themselves to prevent a fatal blow, but they were still successfully incapacitated. As the bolt ripped into the sky with a thunderous crack, Baz, Mylon, and Aisha looked towards the bolt. Baz bellowed, “Well, that’s one way to let us know where you are, haha!”
Some residual lightning continued to crackle around Zycor as he stumbled to his feet. Captain Falar, a few hits away from freeing himself, squawked, “You brat! Can’t fight your own battles huh!?”
With a weak chuckle, alt-Zycor responded, “Ironic coming from the man who needed five people to hunt one kid.”
“Shut the hell up!” the Captain hollered, finally breaking free and furiously marching over to the exhausted Zycor and Dreiford. He began angrily exclaiming, “It is going to feel so good to slowly tear each individual hair, nail, appendage, limb, and organ from your body on the way back!”
As alt-Zycor began to collapse, with a grin, he remarked, “Fuck… you.”
Dreiford moved to catch Zycor as Baz bulldozed his way through the wall as cockily howled, “What’s up fuckers!”
