Raime…
He had waited patiently for Sir Charles to meet him on the battlefield once again after being humiliated and insulted with the cowardice of the one who was supposed to be his opponent once before.
In fact, he was very much looking forward to testing out the old knight’s hypothesis regarding their physical strength.
Being blessed with such an outstanding physical form with nothing but his fighting spirit to empower him was fascinating to him.
Thankfully, his second time walking onto the floor of the arena was absent of the chattering from the audience. It was good that they had learned their lesson not to antagonize him further for fear of losing their eardrums.
He would not be so forgiving if they tried to insult him in such a way again.
Aside from that, he was surprised that his battle was to happen so soon. According to the order of matches that were to take place, there was to be a fight between the Orc woman Lyrra and a soldier from Forrosa. Yet the woman did not appear which struck him as odd.
Most Orcs he knew of would jump at the opportunity to fight, even the women had a lust for battle that was greater than most human men. For her to be labeled as a no-show seemed rather suspicious.
However, as the minutes started to drag on, his patience wore thin as Sir Charles had still not shown up.
Gritting his teeth in anger, he shouted, “Where is my opponent?! Where is the soldier, the hero of your lands? I was to fight a great warrior, yet I am to be denied that glory once again?!”
The people in the audience also seemed rather confused at the fact that he had not shown up and began to voice their complaints alongside him.
Hearing this, Raime found it mildly amusing that, despite how much they hated him, they could at least agree that it was disappointing to be denied the entertainment they showed up for.
Very soon, the announcer’s voice called out to Raime and the audience directly, “My apologies, but it seems that Sir Charles had to concede the battle due to unforeseen circumstances that required him to deliver the previous contestant Lyrra to be treated for injuries. Therefore, Raime wins his second match by default. Because of this, the final match of the contest will be delayed for a brief investigation. We implore you to be understanding in the face of these circumstances.”
For someone like Sir Charles, it made sense that he would prioritize someone’s safety over a battle.
As frustrating as it was he grit his teeth, kept his thoughts to himself, and left the arena.
Marcus…
When he heard that the tournament was being delayed due to someone attacking Lyrra, he had a bad feeling about it.
Since that Orc woman was at Cole’s side and knew about Marcus, he had a feeling that Julian had been involved somehow and left his waiting room to go talk to her.
With his acute ability to sense her presence, he found out where she was in mere seconds and stood in front of the door of the infirmary that she was being treated in and knocked.
A moment later, a nurse opened the door and looked at him in surprise as she asked, “Can I help you?”
He peaked through the door and noticed that Lyrra was still injured. It seemed that they were having trouble trying to figure out how to heal her.
“I came here to talk to here but…”
“Yes, we haven’t yet figured out why our magic isn’t working on her but you cannot be here. Please let us do our jobs,” she said as she tried to close the door on him but he wasn’t having it.
He put his foot in the door and said, “I may be able to help her, if you’ll let me in.”
His spiritual energy must have accidentally leaked out of him as he grew frustrated because she backed away in fear of him and let him pass.
When he entered the room, the other nurses who were cleaning up her body looked at him and backed away.
Her clothes had been removed and she now wore a medical gown as she was lying down on the bed.
As he stepped closer to the side of the bed he could sense a strange disruption between her soul and her body.
“Something is interfering with the flow of spiritual energy in her body…like a curse,” he muttered.
The nurses who were present blinked and muttered amongst themselves before one walked towards him and said, “Y-Yes…we determined that but…but we haven’t been able to fix it. None of us have the raw power to break the curse on our own, so we were waiting for someone to show up who could. We could only treat the minor injuries with first aid and allow her body to heal on its own.”
He then raised his hand and red lightning sparked from his hand as he said, “I’ll break it then.”
Looking down at Lyrra’s body, it reminded him of how Julian treated other women back on Terra.
This entire situation reeked of him to the point that he gritted his teeth in anger and that anger reflected in the energy leaking from his body.
He then slowly brought his hand down and placed two fingers on her sternum as the energy flowed from him and throughout her body.
He could feel the curse attempting to resist his influence but the nature of the red lightning allowed him to reduce it to scraps of spiritual energy that he absorbed into himself.
With the curse gone, the spiritual energy began to flow through her body normally again and her magic started to repair the damage done to her on its own.
Marcus then took a deep breath to calm himself as he stepped back and said, “I need to speak with her alone for a moment if you don’t mind. I’ll be sure to watch over her.”
The nurses stared at him with uncertainty until he turned to look at them with the expectation that they would leave and they did except for one.
“Do you need something?” he asked her.
“I must insist that I stay behind to keep an eye on you. Looking at these injuries, it looks like-”
“Someone tried to rape her. I know. I am not a fool. I’ll allow you to stay here but you must not repeat what is spoken in this room to anyone,” he said to her and she nodded reluctantly.
He then walked around to the foot of the bed and made a chair to sit on as he waited for her to wake up.
Lyrra…
Light made her squint as her eyes opened slightly when she woke up.
She felt an unfamiliar kind of cloth around her body as she woke up in an infirmary bed and wondered why she was there.
As she tried to remember how she got there, all of the memories of what Julian did to her came back to her and she started to shiver.
Then, a deep and familiar voice called out to her that sent a different kind of fear down her spine.
“So you are awake Lyrra. Good. I have some questions for you,” Marcus said to her.
She flinched at his voice and immediately sat up straight as she tried to crawl away from him.
No! He’s come to kill me for speaking to Julian! No, no no no no! She thought to herself in a panic.
There was a nurse standing next to him watching her reaction and looking at Marcus with suspicion on her face.
Marcus’s face however remained neutral as he said, “I am not going to hurt you Lyrra, I promise. Whatever anger you have towards me regarding Cole, I am willing to put that aside for now.”
Breathing rapidly in fear of him, she stared at Marcus with uncertainty and did not respond to him.
Seeing her unwillingness to talk, Marcus’s expression shifted into something unsettling.
He leaned forward in his chair slowly, his eyes focused in on her completely as if he were homing in on a target.
Unlike Julian’s eyes that were so perverse and were filled with the intent to gain power over another and inflict pain, Marcus’s eyes were uncomfortable in a different way.
His tone became deathly calm as he asked, “Julian Romano did this to you didn’t he?”
Hearing that man’s name made her breathing go still as she met his eyes which only served to confirm his suspicions.
“I see… I take it either he approached you to give you information about me or…or the reverse is true, am I right?” he asked.
“I…I met him in the hallway. I was…,” she tried to say but stopped herself.
Marcus looked at her, and with a shockingly gentle tone, he said, “I don’t care if you went to him for answers out of revenge for Cole. I don’t blame you for feeling that way, if only for his sake. Just be honest with me and I will never do you wrong.”
Her lips trembled at the sight of Marcus in front of her but she forced herself to speak as she trust him more than she did Julian, despite how much she hated herself for feeling that way.
“I…I told him that I wanted revenge against and I was…I was going to suggest we work together. He didn’t like that and he attacked me.”
Hearing that, Marcus sighed and guilt flashed on his face as he looked at the ground.
Why is he...reacting like that?
“I should have expected that this might happen, especially with him. I was fine if you or Cole were angry with me and wanted to take it out on me. However, getting involved with Julian makes things complicated. I should have warned you about him.”
Why does he even care about us enough that he regrets not warning us about Julian?
“Why would you…?”
Marcus looked back up at her and said, “Why would I warn you? Because I grew up with him and I know the kind of person he is. He is someone you should never involve yourself with.”
He then paused for a moment to think deeply about the situation before he said, “Until things are resolved with Julian, I’m-”
Before he could finish his sentence, the door to the room burst open as Cole and Rosanne rushed in and shouted, “Lyrra!”
The two of them stood perfectly still when they realized that Marcus was already in the room and Cole had a murderous glare on his face as he looked down at him.
“What did you do to her?” he asked him.
Marcus refused to answer him which caused Cole to fly at him in a rage.
As he tried to wrap his hands around Marcus’s throat but he stood up suddenly and smacked him in the face so hard he slammed into the wall behind him.
“What the hell is the matter with you?!” Marcus asked him incredulously.
Rosanne looked as if she was about to attack him too but with a quick glare, she backed away from him.
Marcus then called out, “Felkin, I know you’re out there.”
The mage’s head peaked out from within the doorway but did not enter which caused Marcus to groan in impatience as he grabbed him by the hem of his shirt and said, “Get in here!”
The nurse looked at him disapprovingly but did not interfere as she folded her arms and stood in the corner.
As Cole unsteadily got to his feet, he tried to say, “What did you do to Lyrra.”
With an offended expression on his face, Marcus glared at him and said, “I didn’t do anything to her but break the curse that someone put on her when they assaulted her. You should be thanking me that she is even awake and healed up right now.”
Confused, Cole looked at the nurse in the room and asked her silently if what he said was true.
She nodded.
Confused, he looked at Marcus, then at the nurse again, then at Lyrra as he asked, “What happened?”
After Lyrra finished explaining the situation, Cole was struggling to wrap his head around the fact that Marcus had gone out of his way to help her considering their history, of which Lyrra shared the sentiment.
“I swear to god, when I get my hands on that bastard I’m gonna-,” he tried to say but Marcus cut him off.
“You’re not gonna do a damn thing, you understand?” he said, to which Cole stood up from one of the chair that Marcus made for all of them and glared at him.
“Who the fuck gave you the right to decide that for me huh? He came after one of my own and you expect me to sit idly by while-”
“Yes. I expect you to do absolutely nothing and let me handle it. You have no idea what he can do and you don’t have the means to deal with him. Even if Lyrra were the strongest among your group, of which I doubt, she was overpowered in an instant.”
“Well we need to tell someone about this,” Felkin said.
Marcus shook his head as he said, “No. If we tell anyone about this then word will get out and he’ll run. As much as he hates me, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to stay here just to get back at me if it meant he would get caught. We need to keep this to ourselves so he feels like he got away with it and keep him here.”
Cole grit his teeth as he replied, “Even if you are right, you can’t kill, dismember, or curse him in the arena. If you managed to fight your way through the arena until you fought him, what would you be able to do to him that wouldn’t get fixed after the fight was over?”
As that question hung in the air, the room went silent as Marcus did not answer him. The silence continued until an eerie feeling swept over them.
In the corner of her eye, Lyrra noticed red sparks of static traveling across his body as anger flashed across his face. His eyes which were once icy blue turned to a violent shade of blood red.
The rage that emanated off of him was palpable to the point that it was overwhelming, crushing even. So much so that she started having trouble breathing from the sheer amount of anger coming off of him.
Everyone in the room aside from Marcus began to clutch their chest as they struggled for air until the feeling suddenly vanished and he stared Cole in the eyes.
From the tone of his voice, it felt as if a knife were being shoved into her heart as Marcus said, “There are things I can do to him that are worse than death.”
Cole stared at him in shock until Marcus stood up and said, “Until that time comes, I’m putting all of you under my protection. I wouldn’t put it past Julian to come after all of you if it meant he could savor the moment of getting his revenge on me all to himself. All four of you will stay in my home until I’ve finished taking care of everything.”
Hearing that broke Cole out of his shock as he complained, “We don’t need your protection. Why the hell would we follow along with what you say?”
Marcus chuckled and said, “That’s funny. Really, its funny how you think you have a choice in the matter. You don’t.”
Hearing his offer, Lyrra said nothing as she wasn’t sure what to think of him anymore, Rosanne said nothing as she was too afraid to say anything in his presence, and Cole was failing to come up with a response.
Instead, Felkin stood up and asked, “Why do you want to protect us from him? What do you get out of it?”
His question made Marcus pause for a moment, and judging by the looks on everyone else’s faces, they wanted to know the answer to that as well.
“I don’t want Julian to gain any leverage over me. The fact that Cole is alive in this world makes him a potential source of leverage for him to abuse if he got a hold of you. Also…if any of you were to die because you got roped into this through him, then I wouldn’t want that on my conscience,” he answered and Cole was hesitant to say anything.
Felkin answered for him as he said, “We’ll gratefully accept your help. Thank you.”
Cole and Rosanne looked at him as if he were crazy, and even looked to Lyrra as if expecting her to agree with them.
Marcus then looked at her to make the final decision.
She bowed her head to him and said, “Please help us Marcus.”
“Alright, well I have a fight I need to get to so I will see you all later. Until then…” he paused before he called out, “Azazel, can I get your help for a moment?”
In the next moment, a man in a suit with hollowed eyes and well groomed hair appeared in the room and said, “Of course. I assume you want me to escort them to your home?”
“Yes, please do.”
The man nodded and snapped his fingers.
In the very next moment, Lyrra, Cole, Felkin, and Rosanne found themselves in Marcus’s home.
“He will return here shortly to welcome you. Until then, sit patiently,” he said before he disappeared and all of them were left wondering how things could have ended up where they would need Marcus’s help for anything.