Marcus…
He was sitting with Selene as he listened to her explain the fundamentals of manipulating her power to affect the mind of another person. The way that she described it to him was fascinating.
The way that she used her magic to affect another person's mind was similar to how a fever can cause a person to suffer from delirium, causing confusion and sometimes a loss of awareness of one's own surroundings. By simulating the effect of a fever she is not only able to do all of that, she can also manipulate a person's perception of reality and make them hallucinate by implanting her own thoughts into the flow of her magic. In another manner of speaking, inducing a fever in her target's body was a way to make their minds more malleable so that she can manipulate their thoughts.
It almost sounded to him like she was applying a scientific understanding of her own magi.
If he tried to apply the same kind of scientific understanding of his own magic that could manipulate electrical energy then the possibilities were endless with what he could do.
"Selene, I want to give something a try. Would you mind if I test something on you?" he asked.
She tilted her head in confusion as she said, "That depends. What are you planning on trying to do?"
"I want to see if I can apply the same level of understanding that you have with your own magic to mine. Let's think about it like this. The brain has on average 86 billion neurons that can carry up to an average of 17 trillion electrical signals in the brain which are responsible for carrying information that you receive through all five of your senses, motor function, keeping your balance and basic thinking. So taking that into account, if I wanted to I might be able to manipulate what the electrical signals the brain is receiving to trick it into seeing something that isn't there."
Selene stared at him for a second as if she were dumbfounded by his complex explanation. She then shook her head and squinted her eyes as if she were thinking on how best to understand what he said.
"Um...okay, hold on a moment. So what you're saying is that the mind works by a really large amount of electrical signals in the brain?"
"Yes, that's right," he nodded.
"And that these signals are carried by something you called Neurons?"
"Yes," he nodded again.
"These signals carry all kinds of information through electrical energy in the brain and if you can manipulate that energy you can change what a person is seeing?"
"Yes, but not just seeing. I could manipulate what they see, what their skin feels, what they smell and all other kinds of things. Also I could even cause their brain to send electrical signals to their muscles and control their movements. If I wanted to get really complex though, I could even control a person's very thoughts and perspective on things. The only problem though is that there are so many signals in the brain that trying to affect all of them at once would demand a huge amount of brain power on my end as well."
"Okay. So...you want to try that on me to see if you can do it in the first place?"
"Yeah, I want to give it a shot. Something small though like making your arms lift up without your control or making you see something that isn't there," he said.
Selene shrugged and said, "As long as it won't kill me then give it a shot."
"It might kill you...," he said nonchalantly to mess with her.
"What?" she said in surprise.
"I'm kidding," he said with a chuckle.
Selene gave him a fake glare as if she didn't find it amusing but still didn't say no.
He then focused as he looked her straight in the eyes. As he did so he released up to five percent of his own power and focused it into his mind. As he did he squinted his eyes and tried to emit energy from his body to hers without touching her.
He saw a small flicker of electricity spark off the surface of his eye and flinched backwards in surprise.
"Ahh!" he shouted in surprise and Selene laughed at him.
"Come on, give it another shot," she said with a smile.
He grumbled as he rubbed his eyes for a moment and tried to repeat what he was doing.
As he tried to focus his energy again he smelled the faint scent of ozone and heard a slight crackling sound as another small arc of electricity was emitted from his eyes and passed over to Selene's.
In the next moment he felt connected to her, as if his senses were overlapping. Not only that but he could barely feel additional emotions that were not his own coming from her.
"I think I'm connected," he said.
"Yeah, I can tell. You feel nervous. This is such a weird sensation, having someone else's senses and feelings merging with mine," she said but she didn't seem bothered by it but rather curious.
Marcus then lifted his right arm and and Selene lifted hers at the exact same time.
"Ooh! That's interesting!"
He then touched all the tips of his fingers with his thumb and she did the same.
"Alright, I'm going to try something else," he said and she nodded.
He then focused especially hard as he tried less to manipulate her movements and more on manipulating what she could see. While connected to her he could see himself through her eyes. He tried to make sure that what she was seeing was unchanging.
He lifted up his right arm and asked, "Selene, can you tell what I'm doing right now?"
"No not really. You haven't moved at all," she said.
"Really? Because I'm lifting up my right arm right now," he said as he stopped feeding her the image of himself sitting still and her sight shifted to seeing him with his arm raised.
"Whoa...that was weird," she said as she then rubbed her eyes.
"Alright, I'm going to try what I just did one more time," he said and she nodded.
He fed her vision the sight of him sitting down in front of her and tried to maintain that as much as possible as he stood up and walked around her.
From what he could see, her vision of him didn't change but it felt static as it became more difficult to maintain his control over the illusion and stood behind her.
He then cut off his connection as it became too difficult to concentrate at the level of 5% release.
Selene then swept her head from side to side as she realized he was gone and then looked behind her.
"Well, seems you got the hang of that rather quick," she said.
"Hah, yeah I guess. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be though. It drains me pretty quick since it needs a constant flow of energy to maintain it," he stated as his legs felt weak and dizziness overcame him as he stumbled forward but Selene stood up just in time to catch him.
"Hey are you okay?" she said mildly worried.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It just took a lot out of me," he said.
Just as they were about to make their way back to the Inn he felt a chill run up his spine and Selene must have felt it too because she stopped suddenly and turned around all of a sudden.
"What the hell is that?" he asked.
"I don't know but...it feels powerful and its coming from Lunaas," she said as she disappeared in a burst of flames.
Not a few moments sooner she reappeared as she teleported to the Inn and came back with all their weapons.
"Come on, we need to go check it out," she said as she handed him his sword.
The two of them quickly made their way to the town and the guards were no longer stationed at the entrance to town like they were before. Not only that but from outside of the gate he could hear screaming.
He steeled himself as he held his sword tightly in his hand.
However, just as he was about to charge in there he looked at Selene and noticed that she hadn't moved. She heard the screams and froze in place. Although when he looked at her face, she didn't seem afraid but rather reluctant.
"Selene! What's wrong?" he asked her.
"I-I...I don't know what to do," she said.
"What do you mean? You're the Vice-captain of the Dark Moon Knights right? You need to take point on this! I need you to tell me what to do!"
"But I-what if they don't want my help? I...," she said as she looked unsure of herself.
Clearly she was in a state where she couldn't think clearly about what she thought she needed to so because of what they talked about earlier. He never should have brought it up today of all days. He should have waited until after all of this was over and done with.
"Alright Selene, you focus on trying to get everyone away from danger by teleporting them away and I'll confront whatever it is that's causing all this. Once you're done, come and join me. Alright?”
She took a deep breath and nodded.
They both rushed inside and Selene burst into flames and disappeared as she went to get everyone out of danger.
Marcus however rushed straight to where he could feel the source of energy coming from.
The moment he ran into a clearing that feeling disappeared though for a brief moment as one of the town guards, covered in blood and gore from all the mangled corpses of the other guards around him.
The guard saw Marcus standing there and started running towards him.
"Help me!" he shouted but his plea was cut short as a something fell from the sky and the guard was split in two from the top of his left shoulder all the way down to the middle of his waist.
Not a split second later, the sword that was used to split him in two released a stream of energy that surged through both halves of his body and his body exploded into a thick red mist that coated the street. It looked as if he had watched Moses part a sea of blood right in front of him.
At the source of that energy and the one who held the blade was a woman holding a half bladed sword in her right hand with a hunting dagger in her left. She had a gray open trench coat and a white T-shirt that were both stained with blood. She had flechettes strapped to both of her arms and torn cloth wrapped around her arms and legs. She also had a bow and arrow strapped to her back. As he took a look at her face, underneath all the blood she had white colored hair and silver piercing eyes.
He barely even had time to react to her falling from the sky and cleaving that man in two to get a good look at her.
"Full release-," he barely had time to say as she came hurtling towards him.
He quickly enhanced his senses as his perception of time slowed down.
Selene had written the rune formula on his body to use only fifteen percent of his power in training due to his lack of focus and control over how much power he can use at once but she also put in an emergency setting that would allow him to draw on thirty percent if the situation called for it.
Seeing as this woman was charging at him nearly faster than he could react, he thought that the situation called for it.
He decided to try and implant an image of him turning his back to her in an attempt to run away from her while simultaneously side stepped her attack.
Sure enough, her eyes stayed focused on the empty spot where he had been standing before and she swung her sword through the air.
He tried to replicate the sensation of cutting through flesh into her arm but it didn't seem to take as she paused for a moment and then held her sword arm close to her face. She stared at it for a second as she then swung her sword to the side as if to try and fix a strange feeling in her arm.
Marcus's technique wasn't perfect but it was all he had at the moment to save him from death in that moment.
He found himself breathing heavily as he looked at this woman and looked at all of her features.
Her silver eyes, white hair, bow and arrow, her hunting knife. Her sword was the only thing that felt out of place to him for some reason but he had a strange feeling that he should know this woman.
"Pah! I had sensed such a powerful energy from him the other day only for him to die so easily? How pathetic," She said in Ancient Greek.
Wait a minute...
How could this woman know how to speak that language, especially on a planet like this?
Then his mind flashed back to the moment before when she had cut that guard in two and turned him into bloody mist with that flash of pale light.
Was that moonlight?
Without even thinking about it he lost his hold on the illusion he had planted in her mind and said in the same language, "Are you...Artemis?"
The woman perked up in attention as she heard him and her head slowly turned to look at him.
For the first time in years, the feeling of fear started to overwhelm him as he stared into the eyes of the Goddess of the Moon...
…and she stared back.
He involuntarily took a step back as he said, "Oh shit!"
He could do nothing as Artemis shoved the tip of her sword through his throat and the last thing that went through his mind before she shredded the top half of his torso into tiny pieces was, stone.
Selene...
After she was satisfied with getting as many people far away from the source of danger she rushed to help Marcus out as she teleported to where he was just in time to see a woman drenched in blood stab him in the throat and make the top half of his body explode into tiny little pieces.
"Marcus!" she screamed and the woman's head turned to stare at her with a fierce and bloodthirsty look in her eyes. However, for some reason the look began to fade and was instead met with confusion.
The woman began to walk towards her as she said, "Selene-," all she could understand was her name being said as the rest was said in a language that she couldn't understand.
This woman recognized her for some reason but Selene didn't care as she was filled with anger at seeing Marcus being killed right in front of her.
Selene drew her sword and said, "Release 15%!"
The woman then tensed up but did not charge at her as Selene exploded into a burst of fire and disappeared. She then reappeared on the woman's left side and swung her sword to cut off her head.
However the woman was much faster than she was and put up her guard just in time to block her swing.
She didn't know of anyone else other than Marcus or maybe even Captain Dean who could move fast enough to block her strikes after she teleported. Even so, merely blocking her strike wouldn't be enough to stop her.
"Searing Arc!" Selene shouted as the built up energy she had collected before she swung her sword released from the edge of her blade and knocked the woman to the side, flinging her through the air.
It only managed to surprised her for a moment however as she regained her composure and twirled her sword at her side as if preparing to attack.
The woman looked at her as if she knew who she was personally but Selene had never met this woman in her life and even though the woman tried to call out to her she did not care.
All Selene had was anger filling her mind as she flung herself at the woman who had killed her friend.