The Cursed Magician886 words
30: Hidden Strength2,248 words
31: Absolute Justice1,653 words
32: The Empress of Crystal2,009 words
33: Red Supergiant Star2,053 words
34: Shell World2,492 words

6: Bloodlust

1152 years ago

Its hard to tell at a glance, with me missing most of my internal body mass now, but I was a weakling back then. It was quite disappointing to my parents, who came from a well respected line of guards.

I tried academics for a time. Guess I was hoping to earn their approval by trying to be a strategist. It stopped the outright glares, but they wanted brawn and brains. A warrior scholar. I couldn't win a fight against a particularly angry rabbit. After two decades of this with no improvement, I gave up trying to be legal. In the depths of my despair, I heard rumors of a group calling themselves the “Enlightened.”

They were terrorists, and boasted about it whenever they could. But for once in my life, I had the power that gave me self-worth for the first time in twenty years. Real, genuine, wall shattering power, and a family that loved me. All I had to do to gain full membership and get access to a good portion of their resources was to become a lich. I thought life couldn’t get any worse, so I gave it a shot.

For nearly a decade, I was amongst a group who ... accepted me. It made me blind to their faults. I was in full blown hero worship, and anything that made them happy made me elated. Anything that made them angry made me furious. I reveled in their self destructive path. They became the family I never had, and my real family was all but forgotten. I threw myself into their studies to become their perfect monster.

I sometimes wondered what would have become of me if I stayed one year longer in that state. But that never came to pass, because of one chance encounter one night ...

1261 years ago.

Wally Falcowolf, aged 29

City: Dirchland, hometown, and near one of the Enlightened base of operations.

Dimitri’s Food and Pub

This place was a small, quiet place I often like visiting when relaxing after my “work”. I knew Dimitri from my childhood, from when I actually enjoyed schooling for a short time, and the insults weren’t as hurtful. We were both on the small side, especially since she was from the Hummingbird family and I from the Potoo family. Her crest was a nice shade of light green with light grey feathers, making her look a bit like a duck from a distance. Despite our small statures, she didn’t have the “parents” that I had. She ended her childhood with a much better head space than I did, and though I never actually revealed to her my clandestine activities back then, I still enjoyed her company.

Today was a free weekend for me, after yet another week praising the glory of the Enlightened (as usual). I shared a few words with Dimitri when she wasn’t serving drinks or sandwiches, mostly small talk. There wasn’t much activity, being near midnight and all. I was listening in on what few customers Dimitri had, eavesdropping like no tomorrow when I noticed a small scuffle right outside the door.

I reflexively hissed, ingrained mantras of the superior peacekeeping abilities of the Enlightened flashing through my mind. My family said that we were the protectors, the revolutionaries, the heroes. My family couldn’t be wrong. Talons scraped against the tabletop as trained fury rose within me.

I paid for my drinks, and stalked over to the door. “Scum,” I whispered, peering through the cracks. An example of the current government’s incompetence.

I waited until they moved around the corner, then snuck out the door, quietly trailing them. Dimitri gave a worried look at the swinging door, but did nothing.

The trio of bastards, who I offhandedly noticed looked vaguely similar, and were all wearing some sort of facemask, forcedly shoved the middle-aged lady that was limping slightly into a dead end, one of them hovering above her with claws bared to dissuade any hope of flying away. I was a bit too far away to hear what they were saying, but the lecherous grins and the way she was trying to protect her bag told me enough. She seemed to have a bit of a fierceness in her eyes, though even she knew there wasn’t much she could do against three griffons, one of which was wielding a short sword that would be extremely difficult to fight against unarmed.

Unconsciously, I started licking my beak in bloodlust.

I sauntered in haphazardly, humming an off key tune, looking like a ditzy, situationally blind idiot.. Bastard #1 on the ground noticed me immediately, and quickly hid in the shadows, away from the lamp Bastard #2 was holding.

An attempt near useless considering I was nocturnal, even if I didn’t acquire the ability to see their life pulsing like embers. These bugged out eyes aren’t for show. Of course, I pretended to not see them.

“Hi there!” I said naively. “Is something the matter?”

Aww. They even tried to hide their weapons from me. The death glare they shot at their ... ‘guest’ wasn’t exactly subtle, though.

I gave a fake gasp, deliberately missing the point. “Oh no! Is the missus hurt?” I scrambled forwards, deliberately leaving my back wide open to the one hiding in the shadows.

“Um, yeah, she hurt her leg, and my brothers--brother and I wanted to see if it was bad enough to require a hospital trip.”

A covered my beak. “That’s terrible! Look at her tears.” There weren’t actually any. “It must be hurting horribly. I’ll go ask for help just in case. It can’t make it worse.”

The griffoness’s eyes widened, focusing on something behind me. There was a tiny glint of light reflecting off her cornea. Terror overcame her face. I made a big show of raising an eyebrow, and slowly turned around, peering over my right shoulder. A whistling pipe flew towards my face.

Ba-thump

I blinked, as shards of rock and cobblestone shredded my bleeding cheek. I appeared to have spun a full circle before twirling into the ground. I went down pretty darn quickly, considering I barely remember time passing between bouncing off his weapon and bouncing off the floor.

WHI-CRACK

He had a good swing, I’ll give him that. Broke my wing into multiple pieces in one blow. I think the bones in my left talon shattered from how hard I hit the ground. My face was smashed in even worse, and I tasted dirt through my fractured beak. Vision in my left eye went out as a shard of stone shot into its socket.

Even now, decades later, I believe that hit would still be enough to daze me. Impressed me, momentarily.

SMACK

And then he went for my spine. It would leave a limp in my gait, if the feeling of all those shards floating about in my back is to be believed. Never got around to fully repair it even now.

I stayed quiet for a few moments, letting the veins of magic that connected every cell to my actual heart, my phylactery, recollect itself, and slowly pull the broken bits that weren’t powderized back into a rough approximation of where they should be.

I started assessing my injuries after the griffon behind me wiped my blood off his borrowed pipe with my feathers, and was pleasantly surprised at the amount of damage I found. You see, many younger members were rather ... enraptured with the gruesome scars the seniors had collected over the years. Each one told a story of victory of the ‘evils’ over the world, and a constant confirmation of our superiority over those ‘squishy mortals’.

And now? I was bleeding from holes all over the place. For the cult-drunk fool I was, I thought I was ... perfect.

Griffon #1 gave a once-over of my battered body, looted my bags of coin, then rejoined his buddies in the torment of their captive.

However, this? I will never regret what I did next.

With an effort of will, I pulled most of my shattered bones back into place, not bothering to hide the glowing cords of mana covering my open wounds.

I slowly pushed myself up, uncaring of the loud grinding of bones, leering at my ... victims. With a wet plop, my ruined eye rolled out of its left socket and fell to the ground. A burning red ember replaced it, and I laughed coldly.

“That wasn’t very nice,” I hissed. I sat up and cracked/ground the bone fragments in my knuckles, and gave a cold smile. “Bad boys need to be punished.”

#1 with the pipe made a valiant effort to take another swing. I took a single step to the side and thrust my glowing talons through his chest. Fleshy bodies are so fragile. Why is everyone is so fond of them?

The other two bolted for safety. I cackled. “Oh no no. We can’t be having that.”

Bastard #3, who had a head start in the altitude department, screamed when he saw my magic boosted leap sent me right above him. I yanked my broken wing out of its socket and stabbed the griffon into his back. Then, using a somersault to build momentum, I flung the paralyzed griffon into the back of Bastard #2 as he tried to fly away from us.

I smashed into the ground hard. Due to equal and opposite forces, Bastards #2 and #3 hit the ground equally as hard. #2 hit #3 so hard that my wing pierced right through the pair.

I pulled myself out of my crater, stretching and cracking my spine as I pulled together even more fractured bones. My ever-present leer shown blood red in the flickering lamp light, my face stained crimson from the entire left side of my face being shredded to the bone. I stalked towards the struggling pair, who were slowly bleeding their lifeblood away. I stood over them and grabbed the base of my wing. “Sit tight boys. I’ll take care of you very, very soon.” I ripped the bloodied and broken wing out of their bodies and carefully slotted it back onto my stump. Bloody muscles reached out and secured them into place.

A burst of pattering footsteps behind me renewed the surge of vision-hazing bloodlust. I screeched in fury, spinning and catching the talons reaching for me, swinging my flaming talons towards--!

I stared speechlessly, the hate-charged mana slowly ebbing away as I stood in a standstill, my talons blocked by her raised arm. Her eyes stared back, straining in disbelief to pierce through the shadows across my face.

“...W...Wally?” a tiny voice squeaked out.

My heart thudded painfully against the rib puncturing it.

Her outstretched talon shuddered, then weakened as she curled up from a series of harsh coughs.

Gasping, I made to dart forwards, attempting to catch her and hold her as she rode out the tremors. I never made it past the first step, once I saw the state my talons were in: caked in so many bits of flesh and blood I couldn’t tell which jagged piece of bone-shrapnel was mine.

I stumbled back, a ragged whine escaping my throat.

The griffoness’s eyes shot towards me in alarm, shakily reaching for me. “N...o, W-wally, *cough*, wait!”

I shook my head, eyes wide with fear and guilt as I backed away. “N-no, keep away,” I croaked. “I ... I’m not w-worth ... associating.”

Before my self-control could break, I made myself turn around and sprint away. With a flap of my one good wing, I shot onto the rooftops and disappeared into the night.

I roof-hopped silently through the city’s shadows and stopped at the edge of the forest, my dislocated wing still on the mend. I selected a nearby tree and collapsed against its side. I stared at the moon for what felt like an hour or more, then raised my broken talon and stared at it. Fragments of bone poked through my coarse skin, with a muscle strands lying limp wherever they weren’t successfully reconnected the first time around. My entire talon was off-center from the ligaments in my wrist tearing and collapsing from the impact of punching clean through a chest.

On top of all that, the pool of blood below me stopped growing any larger, stopped staying warm. I tiredly removed the rib that had punctured my heart. Until I repaired my heart, I would be pulseless, lifeless.

For the first time in a long, long time, I felt as dead as the body I inhabited. No point in trying to repair that heart anymore.

I stared blankly into the sleeping town. What am I doing?

The Enlightened gave me respect, power, and control over my own destiny.

All I had to do was become the monsters my family fought.

Did I really expect to impress Mother? We attack public buildings and harass griffons we don’t like. With brute force that few could ever hope to match. Vigilante justice at best, and slaughter at its worst.

And ... I joined them without a second thought. Am I really that desperate? How long before I start seeing my family as scum?

Deep in my chest began the cold, pounding drumbeat of fury. In that instant, I knew what I wanted to dedicate the rest of my miserable life towards.

“They will pay.”

I was quite lucky. If I hadn’t saw my mother, I would be dead by now. And I would’ve deserved it.

Five minutes prior

The griffoness wiped the spittle from her beak and stared forlornly at the shadows the fallen lamp casted. She slowly swept her eyes across the unmoving silhouettes around her, her expression blank and tired.

Moments later, she heard a set of flapping wings. Two officers landed in front of her, and gave a short salute. “We got the signal, Captain Falcowolf. Are you alright?”

She sighed, shaking her head. “I’m not on duty, Eva will do. And I’m fine. A ... samaritan helped me ... well, that.”

The second guard was picking through the corpses with his own lamp, and raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Samaritan? Really?”

Eva looked stonily into the distance. “Yes.”

“You do know we have to file this, right?”

“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t able to get a good look at his face. I ... can confirm that he was likely a member of the ... the ‘Enlightened.’”

“Alright... but since you’re the only, well, living witness, we still have to bring you in for some questioning.”

“I understand,” she replied flatly. What have I done to you, little Wally?

Two days later

Dear Mother,
I’ve disappointed you for too long. I’m sorry. But I’m part of the Enlightened now. They trust me. They don’t suspect me.
I can wipe us all from the earth, so no one will find their deeds ever again. If you want to bury me, keep the rib. I doubt there’ll be more than ashes left. Goodbye. This will be the last time I will act like this. I can’t afford to blow my cover. If I have to kill again, so be it.
-- Wally ~~Falcowolf~~

With a magnifying glass and the tip of her talon, Eva carefully scratched the ink of the line crossing out her son’s name. Then she went to file a retirement form. She didn’t think she would be able to concentrate properly for a long time.

From then on, I watched and waited. I pretended to be the most loyalest and faithful of acolytes. I developed my own unique fighting style, fashioned to take full advantage of the corpses these undead paraded so proudly. Flies I collected from traps and lunch were stored in my rapidly drying out body, hiding in my circulatory system. They were marked by portions of my own magic; when needed, I could pull them out to form the backbones of razor sharp force fields.

With my new abilities and singled-minded battle-fury, I drenched myself in the blood of innocents and killed without remorse, all in order to glean the tiniest of details of the daily routines from every single other sociopathic monster just like me. Every single day, I spent my free time with meticulous record keeping of their personal habits, and personality quirks.

All of that to allow me to slip under their notice as some over-enthusiastic kid, and let me interview them. For however long it takes, I told myself.

I hoped that I would be able to last long enough to convince them to show off, and most importantly, give me a hint as to where their phylactery was stored.

I hoped that I could at least stand a decade or two.

I barely lasted a year.

Being only able to talk to myself without fear wore down on my already fragile sanity, but I didn’t dare go anywhere near my family out of guilt. Very few days passed by when I didn’t re-break my wrist, to remind myself which personality was the mask, and which was “real.”

When the the Enlightened came seeking volunteers to go attempt to seek recruits, I took it. Weeks earlier, out of boredom, I checked out the scouting records.

Out of all of them, one contact crossed out in red caught my eye. Scribbled over it was “AVOID AT ALL COSTS” in even more red ink, along with lots of underlining. I took a quick glance at the contents, and what scattered notes previous trips have recovered. Oh well, I was already borderline suicidal anyways. That’s as a good as any reason to ignore that warning. This was one of the few operations they were fairly forgiving of.

I snapped the book shut on an Agatha [???, Affiliation unknown]- The Seer.

Cycle’s notes

Wally told me that that was the event that derailed his spiraling life into the path he now walked today. He still hasn’t forgiven himself for the blood he spilled, and would spend the rest of his existence creating repairing the damage his talons wrought.

There was more to this story, however. He wasn’t alone for the downfall of the Enlightened. He found help from a powerful ally, the would-be cofounder of the Honeycomb Club.

He decided to seek out the exiled Seer, Agatha.

She was also the one who saved me. I wonder what stories she can tell?

772 views

167

Previous Chapters Next

Diary of the Dead - AppleTank

Stats

FIMFiction

Follow & Support Us