“So tell me again… why are you spending the night with me and not Olive?” I questioned as the girl set her sleeping bag out beside mine. I was excited when I had won the right to have the only single person tent, a right it seemed I was gonna be sharing with Thalia tonight. So somehow Olive got the right to be the only person without a roommate tonight. We had gotten to the site known as A-5 and the once beautiful place had been destroyed. The machines, the hole they had dug was unstable, white marple of an old statue had been destroyed and shattered. It had heart to hear Thalia cry out her pain, but it was also inspiring when she wiped her tears away and got back to work. Doing twice the work of everyone else in these digs to refind what they had been looking for.
The dark order had been here.
A fact confirmed later that night when Olive had gone looking and found a campsite in the afternoon. She had spoken to a scarred bird spirit and the order had done this to send a message. “When we tell you to do something, you do it or we break what you love.” My blood had started boiling right then and there just at that name. If they were somewhere in Sparta Greece, I would find them and ripe them limp from limb for what they took from me. Maybe then I could stop punishing myself for getting them killed in the first place.
Thalia finished getting her sleeping bag set up and turned to me. “Because my grandpa thought that maybe if your friend had the same tent as me she could get me to calm down, maybe a good talk between girls is what I need right now.” Thalia tied back her hair in a cloth before smoothing out her long nightgown and sat down on her knees. “I don’t feel like having a near adult ask me what so many have already questioned me about. Are you okay? How do you feel? I am tired of hearing it.” Thalia reached into backpack and took out a few cans of what I recognized were the beer that Dr. Drakos’s had been passing out. “Don’t tell anyone I have these,” she said with a small grin before tossing me one. “My grandpa would already murder you if he knew I was sleeping in the same tent as a boy.”
“Why am I risking my life in keeping you company?” I thought to myself but I was fine as long as I could drink. It had taken a few sips to get used to the honestly awful tasting drink, but after a bit it was okay to stomach. “As long as you have an explanation to your grandpa if we get caught then I guess I am fine with it.”
“I do, besides I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t think it was safe. That old man is gonna be asleep by now.” She laughed a bit at that. “He always goes to sleep early after drinking, and thanks to your friend Olive, he had more than enough to put him asleep.”
“It’s nice seeing you smile and laugh again,” I admitted as I took a few sips of my drink. Part of me wanted to ask how she was doing, but that would ruin the point of her coming to me. I understood what it was like to get sick of those basic questions.
“It’s nice to have someone that makes me want to laugh.” Her soft smile disappeared as she sipped on her own drink. “I never imagined that, Ms. Helena might be or has connections to the dark order.”
“I never imagined that I would be dealing with them here,” I said, my hand tightening on my cold can for a moment. “Members of their order took something from me that I can never get back. So it is time I repay them in blood-” I let out a yelp of surprise as the content of my beer came shooting out of the can and into my face.
That was enough to send Thalia into a hyperic amount of laughter, laughing so hard that she ended up falling back and clutching her sides. Even in my slight annoyance it made me smile a tiny bit at that. She was like Unique, her laughter always made me laugh. Once she had recovered from her laughter and I had my only other pajama shirt on. We tucked ourselves into our sleeping bags and mostly just stared up at the ceiling. Another part of this sleeping bag was the see through top that gave us a good view of the stars above. I spent a good hour showing her the constellations that I could see from this distance. “Can I ask you question?” Thalia said, turning on her side and propping herself up on her elbow. “Why are you really here?”
“What are you talking about, we are on a research mission for school.”
“I know that is a lie,” she gave me a curious look, one that made her eyes shine like emeralds. “You all seem too invested in this for it to just be a research mission, and no offense but you don’t seem like the type to just leave on trips for school. Plus you all have very rare animal spirits.”
I went quiet for a bit. We were under orders from the council to not tell anyone except for family about our true mission, so I came up with a different reason. “I can’t say much, but we are looking for this tower to add to the library back on Tarun's. This discovery could be huge and might lead to bigger answers.”
Thalia didn’t say anything for a moment. “I suppose that makes sense, that's what I wanted to do with my discovery.” Her face turned sorrowful as she let out a sigh before falling back on sleeping bag to stare at the stars. “All I wanted was to be a part of something important, turn an accident into a major discovery but then that stupid Helena got in the way.”
“What is she like?”
“A prideful annoying bitch of a woman, who greatly needs her teeth knocked so far down her throat that she can never use that smug smile again.” I could hear the pure hatred that Thalia had for this woman. “She showed up one day claiming she owns the rights to all sites and discoveries in Greece. So when I made my discovery and wanted to start digging, she tried to get me to sign my discovery rights over to her, when I said no and admittedly got a bit too disrespectful. She wanted to slap me but my grandpa put an end to that very quickly. I hadn’t seen her since than, and that was a week ago. If she really is a member of the dark order, I have an even better reason to hate her.”
“I have a lot of reasons to hate the dark order, even more reasons to fight and destroy them.” I said darkly.
“Can you even fight?” She asked with a teasing smile.
“Wanna go outside and find out?”
“Maybe tomorrow, we can see just what you are made of, tonight I just want to rest.” She answered with a tiny smile. “I will have more anger to use tomorrow if we fight, just looking at my poor site makes my blood boil.”
“Anger is a bad fuel to use in a fight.” I said letting my eyes shut, to hopefully drift back into dreamless nights. I would much rather have no dreams than the one nightmare that was trapped in my head for years.
“Sometimes it is the best fuel you can have.” I heard Thalia mumble under her breath.
When I woke up that next morning, I could see Xavier peaking into my tent with Olive holding a camera up. I had no idea why, until I felt something against my side and I found Thalia cuddled up against my side.
“Delete that picture!”
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“Why is it always that dark order?” I questioned myself as I sat on the edge of our very large research boat. The sun was starting to sink below the horizon turning the ocean a dark orange looking color. We had been parked in this area for most of the day and everyone had been busy since Xaiver came back up from the surface. Carrying a skeleton clad in rags of an old dress. He had called us all into a long meeting, and it turns out that Adonis daughter Rhea had the same animal spirit as Xaiver, and the spirit animal that had been causing a lot of issues in the water was the fragment of the kraken spirit. Protecting the wreckage of that ship until someone with the same animal spirit arrived to come and take over. We also learned from Dr. Drakos’s that Rhea’s daughter was most likely attacked by some woman named Kalliope Blackthorn, who also might be the one that had Adonis killed.
My hands had been clutched into tight fists for the last twenty minutes now. I needed time to sit back and calm down. “Why is it always the dark order?” I asked myself again, hoping that someone would come and answer my question. It was always that one name that could be traced back across history, that always tried to destroy what normal jepei users worked hard for. They wanted power, to rule the world, and they would kill or destroy anyone in their way. They tormented their animal spirits like they didn’t have feelings, some people say the scars they put on their animal spirits were to also kill off any weakness in their own heart. In that way I called them cowards, instead of dealing with emotions they destroyed them.
“You good, Daniel?” I turned around to find Xaiver standing on top of the small staircase that led down to the bottom area of the boat. He was still shirtless even though he had been out of the water for a good hour now. Maybe he just enjoyed showing off for Olive and the other girl’s who seemed to love looking at him. He jumped down the ten steps and landed beside me.
“Are you?” I asked, turning my attention back towards the clear waters. I could briefly see the land way out in the distance. “It’s not everyday you meet up with a past user of your own animal spirit.”
“I’ve been better,” he admitted sitting down beside me. “It’s been weird, I know that others had used the kraken spirit before, but I never imagined reuniting with one of them.” His hands came to rest on his dark blue gemstone that now showed hints of purple in the middle. “I also need to figure out what this means.” He said tracing the spots on his kraken shaped gemstone that had hints of purple.
“Do you feel any different?”
Xavier shook his head. “I feel the same, just a bit closer to Oscar than I have before.” Xavier held out hand and a moment later Oscar appeared before us, three of tentacles setting eight more old looking vases on this part of the ship.
“That is the last of them,” he spoke before slowly sinking underneath the waters again.
“Thank you brother,” Xavier stretched his arms over his head and leaned back. “You never answered my question.” He said, turning his dark blue eyes onto me. “Are you doing okay?”
“I am fine, Xavier.” My hand on instinct went to cover my wrist where I had been cutting it a few days ago. “I haven’t done that,” I said not wanting to mention it. “And I am just fine with them being in the area.”
“You mean The Dark Order.”
“No I mean the fucking Espada from Bleach.”
I nearly tumbled into the water when he gave me a playful push in the back. “You have a real smart mouth, you know that right.”
“I am very aware.” I said righting myself. “If I am being honest, it does worry me a lot that they are in the area, and I am worried about maybe running into them. But I am not scared of them, not anymore.” My hands once again clutched into tight fists. “After all, if I run into any of them, I owe them back in blood for what their people took from me. They might not be the men that cut down my father and killed my mother, but it doesn’t matter. They worked together that day, so they all have the same sin on their hands. And you know what the bible says. The punishment for sin is death.”
“Yes that is the case, but the bible also says to love your enemy.”
“Which is why I am glad I am not religious because those rules don’t apply to me.” Xavier made a slight face at that, prompting me to add. “Did I offend you?”
“No you didn’t offend me, I just don’t want my new annoying friend to go on a quest for revenge like Sasuke or some shit.”
“You watch anime?”
Xavier gave me a smile. “I have a few shows that I watch, not the biggest fan but I do enjoy them.” Xavier stood up and patted me on the shoulder. “Come on and help me carry these last few vases into the meeting room downstairs. We can start opening them once we get back to land tomorrow, we just want to take pictures of everything right now.”
“Do I have too?” Xavier gave me a look and I rolled my eyes before standing up and taking two of them, while he tucked the others underneath his six arms. As I stood up, I looked out across the water and something caught my eyes. Thanks to Flame I had amazing eyesight, but I am sure that anyone could see the two boats heading our way. They were smaller than our large rental ship, but still were pretty large. I could see a flare of pink aura spilling off one of the figures that was standing on the front of this ship. “Xavier, I think we have a problem.”
“I think we do.”
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“Daniel, relax now!” Olive ordered as she kept a firm hand on my shoulder, it was shocking just how strong she was with just one hand. My body was heaving with each breath that I took, my entire vision had turned red, as I watched four figures climb onto our boat. One was an extremely large man, built like an ox with dark hazelnut skin and a pair of dark eyes. He had a thin layer of hair on his head. Beside him were a boy and girl that looked to be around my age, the boy had long white hair and a blank expression on his face, sharp facial features that matched the long white serpent on his shoulders that was covered in scars. He was lean like a serpent as well, the girl beside him had bright pink hair, an oddly cheerful face that made me sick to my stomach. Resting on her shoulder was a pink bird spirit that matched the description that Olive had given us, an Osprey.
Standing in front of them was a woman with long braided brown and red hair. Where the others were wearing shorts and shirts, the taller man wearing jeans, she was wearing a sleeveless dress light green in color. She had tanned brown skin, a pair of confident red eyes on a flawless looking face, she was shorter than the man but still taller than me. She looked at us one by one, just looking at her was enough to piss me off to new levels. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for inviting us onto this beautiful vessel today.”
“Get the fuck out of here!” I turned to see Thalia who was branding two very dangerous looking daggers. She was barely being held back by two other researchers. As Dr. Drakos and Olive had taken positions in front of us. “How dare you, show your smug fucking face here after what you did to my site!”
“Oh little Thalia I have no idea what you are talking about.” She said with a small hurt looking appearing on her face. “I love history just as much as you do, so I have no idea why you would think I would destroy your little discovery. At least my hands didn’t touch a stone over there.”
“That might have been me,” the smaller girl said an annoyingly high pitched voice. “Sowwy about that, but Ms. Blackthorn told you to stop and you chose not to. So maybe that gives you a better idea that when my mistress says stop, you stop.”
“I will slit your fucking throat!”
“Enough!” Dr. Drakos’s voice rang out like an explosion. “Thalia calm yourself now!” At that Thalia stopped moving but her hands were shaking like she was stuck in a storm. Her chest was moving like she had just ran a mile. If she could foam at the mouth, I was sure she would be doing so. “Helena Master… or should I say Helena Blackthorn. What are you doing on my ship and what on earth do you want?” His cheerful voice was gone, replaced with a dark growl, his jepei aura pulsed for a moment filling the air with a strong and threatening undertone.
“Well since you asked so nicely.” This Helena person walked forward a few steps, her eyes locked onto a few of the vases we had laying on the deck. The ones we had forgotten to move as we prepared for these boats. “We are here for what you have. See we learned from a little bird that you were able to get past the odd aura that has been filling this part of the ocean. Keeping me and my team from doing any diving of our own, and it seems to have gathered a bit if not all of the relics down here.”
“Get to the point,” Dr. Drakos’s interrupted. “I am not in the mood for you to dance across the subject.”
“If you want to keep being rude then this is not gonna be good.” Helena stated with a long roll of her eyes. She snapped her fingers and the large red wolf that had been sitting off to the side stood up and made its way between the two of our group. It was a shame, the once beautiful dark red wolf was covered in shallow and deep scars. Including one that went all the way down across it’s face and it seemed to have cut off part of its nose. It set down a case in front of us. “That case has a total of 2.5 million dollars. I don’t care how you split it. This is my offering to you a way to show you all that we mean no harm. In exchange you give us everything you have found in the ocean, every last vase, every last box, anything of interest. Sounds like a very fair deal to me.”
“And why are you interested in what we have been able to find?” Dr. Drakos asked.
“Come now my good professor,” Helena took a few steps forward and stood in front of the older man. “We are both masters in the art of history, and both want to make new discoveries to help our wonderful people. We are jepei users as well, why hide anything you find in your little collection or lord forbid back on that foolish island to be locked away forever? This is my way of showing we are not the bad guys, I want to make peace between us, and have a few things to study on my own.”
“Help our people?” I spoke out loud. “How can you even say that…” I could feel my jepei aura starting to pulse outward like a roaring flame.
“Because it is true young man,” apparently this Helana woman had heard my words. “We are on the same side, we jepei users need to stick together. We are not your enemies, and we just want to make a discovery that can better our people. Now whether you believe that or not is your choice.”
“Why the fuck would I believe that?” I snapped, shaking my shoulder free of Olivia and pushed past Dr. Drakos to stand in front of this woman. “How dare you say we are not your enemies! How dare you claim that you want to help our people! How dare you!” I snapped, feeling my eyes starting to burn with incoming tears. “Your side attacked my home! Your side killed my father! Your side killed my mother! Your side took friends, family, aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpa. Killed children in our home two years ago! How can you say you care about us jepei users, when the first chance you got you invaded my home and tried to bring down our island!” I hadn’t even noticed that I summoned my netrix weapon, until I felt my fingers wrapping around the straight handle of my blade.
It was like staring into the gaze of a medusa. She showed no remorse, she showed no true kindness, just a stone face smile, motherly in nature but still so prideful that it made me sick. “You poor boy, we are on different sides of a very long and serious war. You do what you have to in war, you do what you must to win. Our lord saw an opening made by one of your foolish members of the council. Lady Hearthstone I believe it was.”
“You would be wise to not speak ill about my mother.” Olive said from behind me.
“I am not speaking ill, I am speaking the truth.” She looked over my shoulder for a moment but then turned her gaze back to me. “Now as for you, young man. What happened two years ago, shouldn’t stop us from reforging and making new bonds in the present. I am giving you all a wonderful chance to give me what you have, and make some money in the process. It is a win win for everyone, however if you still won’t accept it for the sins of the past. How about I say, sorry. Will that make everything go away, if I just say I am so sorry for the deaths of your mommy and daddy, who probably fought so hard to-”
On pure instinct I swung my blade towards her throat. I wanted to kill her, I wanted to destroy her, to repay her people's sin with blood. However, the woman didn’t even move the boy that had been standing in the back speed forward and blocked my blade with one of his own. It was much longer than my own blade, a thin one too that probably stretched about six feet. It was a doubled side blade that sparkled in the setting sun. It had a long round handle and a cross shaped guard. Sparks of dark red and white filled the sky as our blades clashed for a moment. “You would be wise to not strike my mother.” He said through clenched teeth. “Don’t put anyone else's sins on her cross.” He was around the same height and weight as me, maybe having a few more pounds than me. His long white hair flowed behind him like a cape, but his eyes looked bored and lost, yet held hints of anger inside of them.
“If she wasn’t such a self righteous bitch I wouldn’t have to.” His eyes widened in pure anger as a bright white jepei aura began to surround him like white flames. My own jepei aura surrounded me in the form of projection, my eyesight grew better, I could feel four of my own jepei made tails starting to emerge from my back. The boat seemed to be shaking from our two projection auras clashing together.
“Enough, Asher!” That one order got the boy to jump back and rest his long pointed blade across his shoulders. I could see a large white serpent also covered in scars started to wrap around his waist and rest his head on his shoulder. I could hear familiar growls coming from Flame as my own spirit animal stood by my side. Helena held her hands out and I hadn’t even noticed that now, the large man was holding a deadly looking ax, the younger girl had two pairs of razor sharp fans in her hands. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see Olive had summoned her staff that could be separated into three more parts. And I even saw a slight glimmer of dark blue and Xaiver was holding onto a deadly looking hooked spear. “Everyone calm down, no need to come to blows on a ship. I want everyone to get back to land safely, especially those that don’t share our gift.”
I let out a breath as the handle of my blade changed into another of the nine types I held. This one being much shorter and the blade grew smaller giving me a deadly shortsword now. That was one of the gifts that Flame seemed to give me. I had nine different fighting styles and nine different blade types to use for those styles. “Everyone calm down,” Dr. Drakos put a hand on my shoulder and put me behind him. “I understand your anger, Daniel,” he said in a low whisper. “However, don’t let your rage put others in danger.” He looked straight ahead at Helena who lowered her hands. “Helena, you have no deal. Now I am asking you politely to take your money, get off my boat and go home.”
“Or what, my dear professor.”
“Or I go to the authorities with a verbal confession that your little friend there, destroyed a site that would be very valuable to Greek history.” Dr. Drakos held a hand up and a moment later I could hear a voice call out in the same one as that young girl. “That might have been me. Sowwy about that, but Ms. Blackthorn told you to stop and you chose not to. So maybe that gives you a better idea that when my mistress says stop, you stop.”
I looked over at the smaller girl who had a small blush spreading across her face. “What I didn’t think anyone was filming!” She defended as the larger man pitched the bridge of his nose.
“Fair played, Dr. Drakos, but don’t think this is over. If you don’t mind, my team would like to do it’s own investigation of the area once you are finished.”
“You won’t find much.”
Helena only smiled before turning her back to us. “You would be amazed at what you can find from scraps. Come on, let's go back to our boats, Gabriel, Asher, and Abigail. It seems our diplomatic mission is not gonna work. Beside I am not in the mood to risk taking a dip in the waters, just remember Dr. Drakos. You are not the only one that has friends in high places.”
“You always need to get to the last word, don’t you.”
The woman stopped on the edge of our boat, the rest of her team having jumped over onto theres. “I like having the last word, it is a good reminder to those of who I am and that what I say are not threats.” She looked over shoulder at us. “Oh and Olivia Hearthstone, please tell your mother that her dear old friend says hello, and that the games have only just begun.”
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I couldn’t sleep, even if I wanted to, I could not find any rest. We were still in the waters on our boat, Xavier and Oscar had gone down to leave no stone unturned. Just in case we might have missed something very important to us, something maybe Helena Blackthorn might have wanted. I couldn’t shake the images of those scarred animal spirits from my mind, I couldn’t calm down after not being able to hit that woman with an attack. Her son got in my way. That annoying little brat of a girl’s voice stuck in my head like a rash. Everything about it was just gonna be there, and it didn’t help that their boats were only about 300 yards from us. Just drifting in the distance as they wanted for us to leave, I knew at least one of them could fly since they had the spirit of the Osprey. I had no idea if any of them could swim like Xaiver but it didn’t matter. As long as they were in the area, I would not rest, I would stand guard. I was not a helpless kid anymore.
I can fight.
And I will win.
Or I will die, either way I still win in the end.
“I told you she was an annoying bitch.” My lips lifted up slightly as Thalia’s voice filled the air. A moment later the spot beside me began to smell like the sweet scent of honey. I turned my head to see Thalia sitting beside me, she was throwing one of her daggers in the air and catching it on the way down. She had changed out of her blue dress, now wearing jeans, combat shoes and a tank top. Her hair was tied up in its usual bun, but it seemed so tight that I wondered if it was hurting her head. “No reason for you to stand guard all night by yourself.”
“I am fine with doing that.” I said looking at my phone. It was past 2 in the morning. “Besides I am used to not sleeping, I have ways around it, so you can go back to sleep.”
Thalia shook her head. “I just told you, that there is no reason for you to stand guard alone, as strong as you might be. You can’t be the first and only line of defense especially not against three members of the dark order if they decide to come and take what we have by force.”
“Aren’t there four of them?”
Thalia scuffed at that. “Do you really think that Helana is gonna get her hands dirty? No, she has people for that.”
“Have you seen the others before?” I was hoping to gain at least some kind of information of the other three that had come on the boat today.
“I have…I was friends with the girl on her side before I found out that she was a member of the dark order. Her name is Abigail Masters, she is Helena’s daughter.”
“Why did you two stop being friends?” I asked.
“She tried to recruit me into the dark order a year ago, but when I said no she lied to me about one of the teachers. Got a very important scholarship taken away from me in the process. That is why I always say that the dark order will destroy what you love, if you don’t do what they want.” Helena caught her dagger and held it out towards the ships in the distance. “Now she destroys my site. It is time for revenge and I wish she had some courage to step off that ship and come fight me!”
“So I am guessing that the boy with white hair is her brother?”
“Yeah, he is very smart and quiet. That was the first time I had seen his weapon before, so I don’t know much about it, and today was also the first time I have seen that large man.” Thalia unsummoned her dagger and sighed. “This has gotten so complicated now, and I just want this all to be over. I want to go back to exploring. That is all I want to do.”
I hesitantly reached out and patted her shoulder. “This will be over, you're not fighting this battle alone. You now have us so we can win a five on four if it comes down to it… well five on three cause like you side, that woman is never gonna get her hands dirty.”
“I don’t want to say I look forward to fighting with you when that day comes… but I am looking forward to fighting with you when this is done.” Thalia smiled at me, a true one that shined brighter than the darkness. A smile that suddenly began to leak blood from the edges of her mouth, her eyes widened in surprise, and we both looked down.
I had no idea when.
I had no idea why.
But now there was an arrow sticking out of her stomach. A dark red one at that.
And only one word echoed through the night, a desperate scream filled with confusion, anger and sadness. “Thalia!”
This is why I can never get close to anyone… my fears were right. Anyone I cared about always ended up hurt, or worse.
Dead.
I’m sorry.
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