B2 Ch. 48 Total Recall

Everyone turned in shock as the Knight stepped forward into the center of the conversation and reached up to remove his helm.  

“In a manner of speaking, this will be a sort of homecoming for him,” Hilbert added theatrically as Sir Micheal revealed the features he kept hidden under his ever-present armor.

The face under the helm displayed the grey, purplish skin of the Strigoi race, but not the gaunt form of a Consumer or the emaciated skeletal structure of the even weaker warriors.  Sir Micheal’s features were sleek and full as opposed to the typical Consumer's sharp and hungry angles.  His eyes smoldered steadily with a deep rage undercut by an unyielding restraint. 

“I was once known as Mikhail.” He snarled in a halting rumble, obviously having trouble forming the words.  That said, he turned to Hilbert and gestured for him to continue.

“The Horde is led by something called the Prime Dirge.  It almost never takes the field, and some say it is the peak of the Strigoi race.  Sir Micheal was once its second in command and the leader of its ground forces.  I will not go into great detail for the sake of time, but he fought our King in a duel, and something about tasting Excalabur’s blade freed him temporarily from the Dirge’s hold. Their forces retreated that day and Mikhail ran to find haven from his master’s wrath. 

“He found himself at the gates of Requiem, hoping that their hidden knowledge would be the key to his freedom, and offered all of his memories up to that point in exchange.  He does not remember what transpired after that, but some time later, he emerged with a set of armor unlike any we have seen.  While wearing it, he is in full control of his urges and can resist the once undeniable longing to obey the will of his master.  He came to our Order decades ago hoping to help end the Prime Dirge’s reign in this land. Arthur accepted him to the High Table at the advice of Merllyn and the rest is history as they say.”  Hilbert ended with a flourish, cheekily looking up to read the impact of his story. 

Tilly took it all in with a raised eyebrow.  He would never say this out loud, but to him, a vampire was still a vampire and Sir Micheal's race of origin changed very little.  Hilbert's face fell as he took in the lack of reaction from the group.  He turned back to his ward to fiddle with it as silence hung heavy in the air. Finally,  Ichiro stepped up to the stoic Knight. 

“You have treated us with honor and this is a far greater measure of your worth in our eyes than your race.  Each of us carries the burdens of duty and failure, yet those things do not define us.  Our choices do.”  The Samurai declared, before offering a bow of respect. Sir Micheal nodded in return before replacing his helm and facing out toward the Horde army somewhere in the distance, having said all he needed to say.

Kindle chose that moment to land in the midst of their formation and look around ruffling her feathers impatiently.

“No girl, we can’t risk you being spotted. You will move forward with the rest of us as soon as I get back.”  Tilly answered her unspoken request.

“Alright everyone, I’m going to scout in my Spirit form.  I will be back as soon as possible, hopefully with more information and a way past the enemy.”  He continued turning to address the group.

Ichiro nodded, pulling free his sheathed sword and settling down in a kneeling vigil.

“We will watch and prepare for your return,”  Franklin added from behind Tilly.

Gorock unhelpfully slapped him on the back as Tilly sat down and started to deepen his breathing, 

“Don’t take too long Baby-Man. I don’t know what I will do if this trip does not liven up soon.”

Turning with a grimace at the heavy-handed slap, Tilly deadpanned, “Thanks…” 

To which the Wallbreaker nodded sagely and turned to take up his watch position. Tilly managed to keep a sigh from interrupting his breathing pattern, and breath by breath he sunk deeper into his meditation.  

It was not necessary to activate his skill, but he had found the better connected he was with himself before he went into his spiritual form, the more mobility and strength he seemed to have. 

So he breathed through the pressures, the time crunch, and the overwhelming odds.  He let each one surface in his emotional landscape and accepted it.  The exercise had grown familiar over the last weeks, and he quickly found the simple calm he was working towards.  The flame in his chest began to stoke merrily at the greater internal integration, and then the Corruption wriggled distractedly, straining distractedly as it reached deeper into his physical members.  The sensation almost elicited a gag, and his eyes suddenly flew open in worry. His gaze flitted over the top of his HUD.

Heath:100%

Mana:100%

Corruption’s Influence: 26%

He hadn’t taken much damage in the fight yesterday so he hadn’t paid much attention… But he had lost another two percent to Corruption’s influence.  He quickly closed his eyes again, attempting to regain focus, but bitterness began to bubble to the surface of his calm, signifying deeper worries that he was not ready to face. 

He had missed its advancing again… And if there was anything like the red-eyed creature here in this army, he might not even make it into the city. The more he ruminated over it, the darker his thoughts became.  The flow in his internal environment was interrupted by more intrusive thoughts.  They pressed in on him,  heavy things, ponderously moving over the surface of his mind like tanker ships in the night.  He did his best to accept them, and to let the feelings they carried move through him, but their weight began to crush him, throwing off his rhythm and robbing him of momentum.

He had not sat down and taken the time to process the events of the last couple of days, the implications of the Weasle’s scheme, and his ominous mention of the “They” that he had alluded to.  Greater forces were working on a scale that he could not imagine to advance Corruption across the Plane.  The more that these realities sank in the heavier he became, until it felt like he was trying to breathe underwater. 

Sure, there might be some crazy confluence of events to get them access to the Flower and then back to the Alliance… But what about after that? It was more and more clear that this stuff was everywhere.  Who was supposed to stop it?  

It seemed like most were still ignorant of its existence… let alone had the power to do anything about it. 

There was no hint of Origin opposing its spread anywhere else on the Plane… Did that mean it was all up to-

“-Jonathan Tillman,” Ichiro’s voice floated quietly over to him from his kneeling position.   The calm utterance broke through Tilly’s downward spiral and he realized he had lost his breathing cadence at some point, his breaths having transformed into a rapid staccato.  The tightness in his chest loosened at the sound of his name and Ichiro’s calm voice continued, shining a soft light in the dark corners of Tilly’s revere. 

“There is far more at work here than we can see.  Do not drown in the waters of your ignorance.  You have a path forward that only you can walk… it is up to you to choose it.”  He chided gently, his words cutting through to the heart of Tilly’s fears.  

Tilly took a deep breath, feeling like he had come up for air, and thought about responding, before closing his mount and choosing to take another breath instead.  There was nothing to say, no excuses, no apologies… He just needed to do.

So he took another deep breath, and then another, returning to his rhythm with a force of will that he had not experienced since that first day outside the temple.  He could almost feel Ichiro's approval spurring him on, as he crashed back into the waters of his despair, diving deeper than he had in weeks, searching out whatever was hidden in its depths. 

For some reason, as he breathed and sank past the anxiety, the fear, and even the self-loathing, he found a memory floating up from his subconscious.  It vibrated with a deep bass thrumming that shook his soul, and Tilly shied away from it at first, feeling the weight of its depths, and fearing it.  Then before the cowardly part of himself could choose to surface, he dived into the memory surrendering to its overwhelming force. 

He winced as he tried to shut the hospital door quietly, only for the stupid door latch to click shut thunderously.  He turned quickly and found his daughter's eyes still shut, her breath coming in shallow watery gasps under her oxygen mask…

The news was worse than they thought.

This wasn’t a virus at all…

He felt his own chest constrict.  Suddenly, not able to take a full breath, as all of his desperate hopes came crashing down around him like the block tower that still lay all over the living room floor.   They had knocked it over a few days ago when her coughing had gotten really bad….

Then as if she could feel his entry back into the room, her eyes began to crack open, and he rushed to her side, stepping as quietly as possible around his wife's sleeping form. 

Her eyes found him, and he reached forward and clutched her hand, holding it as tightly as he dared.  She met his gaze with a small smile.  Pain showed on her face with every effort to breathe, but that didn't stop her from being happy to see him.

…his little girl. 

He couldn’t do anything to help. They had said there was nothing left to do.

But he could be here… 

He could hold her little hand. 

The memory faded, and he exploded forth from the depths, activating Spirit Walk, and rising up from his physical body.  He looked down at his spiritual form and found himself wreathed in white flames, almost as if he had somehow activated an incorporeal version of Flames Wrath.

He looked around at the group, and once again, no one acknowledged the change.  Kindle, however, looked up from her chosen roosting spot, and met his gaze, sending a fierce mental image of a bird of prey in a shrieking dive. 

‘I get it done girl… No matter what.’ he sent back, turning and taking off into the air.  

His spirit responded to the command with shocking speed, and he found himself fifty feet in the air before he had even registered his extreme increase in speed.   He looked back down towards his body, which was connected to him by a vibrant thread of woven flames. 

Then he looked forward, having cleared the sight line of the hills, and saw the small mountain chain in the distance, with an ocean of dark energy crashing against its bulwarks. 

The scale of this enemy force dwarfed the one outside their own wall by an order of magnitude, and the density of its energy was significantly thicker.   Even as he tried to take in the breadth of what he was seeing, a faint sound reached him through the manic screaming of the spiritual energy arrayed against the mountain range.  The Flower’s song, undaunted, and undiminished rang through the air, trickling through the noise defiantly. 

The site of the conflict reinforced their need to reach the Facet and Tilly shot forward, moving faster than he could of even at a full gallop on his Mount.  The flames covering his spiritual form lent him incredible speed as he streaked past pickets of subtly hidden scouts, and noted their positioning.

Then he began to approach the main army, and even in his current empowered form the malevolent energy they exuded buffeted his flight, and he decided to stop short of the edge of their howling ranks.  Even from the rear, he could see that the front third of the Horde was crashing endlessly against a wall that made the one the Alliance had constructed look like a joke.  

A pale ghostly energy crackled and snapped in the air, as projectiles and spells hurled against the defenders at its top and they responded in kind, mowing down the endless ranks of enraged enemies.   The city rose beyond the wall, climbing the steep mountains that were its home, and Tilly looked in vane for any way he could approach the wall without moving directly through the storm of Mana that was the conflict.  He may be incorporeal, but somehow he doubted he would survive the flight undamaged and unnoticed. 

Hovering, far above the back edge of the enemy's force, he scanned the sheer mountain faces looking for some other way through.  The closer he looked, the more he noticed the intricate weave of spellwork draped over the entire natural formation, with the central root of the spell reaching deep into the heart of the fortress city. 

Off to the east, Tilly's eyes were drawn to a break in the flat lands that stretched out from the mountains in all directions.  A river poured down from a great waterfall halfway up one of the mountains and wound its way through the flat lands, off into the distance. 

He recalled his night flight from his first few days on Nephesh and felt drawn to the waterfall.  He began to move in that direction, picking up speed, and pulling away from the Horde when the malevolent cloud of energy hanging over the whole force shifted.

Tilly felt panic rise, as he realized that it wasn’t just a mindless overflow of the creatures below it.  The whole cloud shifted focus as Tilly streaked away, and felt a palpable weight withdraw front of the wall and shift to the rear of the Horde. Tilly poured energy into his flight, egging more speed from his form, and burning off some of the flames that accompanied its empowered state.    

The weight of the cloud’s attention rolled across the rear of the army, causing all of the creatures below it to flinch and howl in pain as the master swept his senses over them.   Tilly raced just ahead of its rolling advance, turning back in panic as it drew near and zeroing in on the source of the terrifying chaotic swirl of dominance and hate. 

There floating amid the dark cloud was a winged figure Tilly could barely make out in the chaos.  As soon as he spotted it, the rolling wave of its attention found his fleeing form, and their eyes met.