"How long were you watching" I asked, it was obvious she knew I was fighting, showing up just as I had finished was too much of a coincidence.
"I saw the whole thing," She said without hesitation, no hint of guilt could be found
"Why didn't you help" I asked critically, my tone turning sharper than before, my eyes narrowing
"I was too far away, plus if you had died you wouldn't have been any help anyway" She seemed confident borderline arrogant with her words. Although she may be arrogant she didn't seem conceited to the point where she believed she was better than others so I didn't hate her attitude, it was much better than cryptic messages or backstabbing.
"Alright and why should I help you"
"Don't think about it like you helping me, it's more of a mutual partnership, we are both in an unfavorable situation and we both want to survive. So let's help each other out"
"And I should trust you why?"
"You don't have to but, that monkey usually travels in packs of 4 or 5 and I don't think you would survive that. Sooo it's either work with me or die, up to you"
After pondering it over for a couple of seconds I realized she was right, I wouldn't survive alone, and 'It's not like I had much of a choice as to who I could work with' I thought while looking around nobody in sight. Although it's not like I could see far anyway, a fog had descended not allowing me to see more than 10 meters in front of me.
"Very well, I won't complain about having a pretty lady accompany me, just don't die" Finally deciding to work with her I adopted a friendlier tone.
"Why having some indecent thoughts already" She said with a mischievous smirk
As soon as I heard those words I turned and began to walk toward the mountain once again
"Hey where are you going, I'm sorry, it won't happen again I swear" she yelled running to catch up
"Mountain, try to keep up," I said while pointing with a slight smirk when I noticed the shade of red covering her face.
***
We had been walking for a solid hour and other than some introductions no words were spoken between us, I really couldn't care, over the past hour, I had been trying to discover something about my powers.
I had felt it, inside me where the darkness I absorb goes, it was different from vitality, a separate power.
I started by sensing it and trying to grab it. My hand passed right through it and at the same time I gained an odd look from Clarissa.
After an entire hour of practicing I managed to summon one tiny thread of darkness through constant failure.
Finally, after summoning it I quietly yelled out in excitement, which granted me another odd look from Clarissa. A couple seconds after my exclamation Clarissa took it upon herself to start up a conversation
"Alright, we should probably get familiar witheach other's powers right?" Clarissa asked annoyed by my lack of interest in her.
"Ummm sure why not, I'll start can hide in darkness, and at the moment I'm attempting to summon darkness, good at sword as well, you," I said without much enthusiasm, I was much more interested in the little thread within my hands.
I had turned the thread into a silk-like substance allowing me to bend it according to my will. It was only 6 inches in length and although I could bend it in any way due to it's malleability I couldn't completely break it no matter what I did.
Even though I couldn't destroy it I could instantly send the thread back into my sea of darkness, refilling the darkness I had taken away.
Measuring the amount of darkness that left my sea of darkness compared to my thread, even though I had a 10x10 meter space of pure darkness It was reduced to a great degree when trying to extract it into the real world.
The darkness within me would only equal a basketball-sized circle.
"I'm sorry summon darkness?" A questioning voice snapped me back into reality, forcing me to return to the sight of the leafless forest
"Yeah, look" Showing her the thread in my hand I forced it to turn into a solid line as sharp as a sword, I was able to determine the qualities my darkness took. The more complex the qualities the more darkness that was required.
For example, I could probably create a basketball with a bit more practice, but that was only because the basketball would be weak and simple.
But although a dagger for example may be smaller, I would have to enlarge my sea of Darkness in order to create a usable dagger due to the complexity and strength of the darkness required to create it.
"Wouldn't this take vitality?" Clarissa suddenly asked, attempting to grab the thread
"Ouch" she yelled as a cut appeared on her hand, the noise she created being far to loud for our current situation.
I quickly looked around, instantly dismissing my thread while grabbing Clarissa's hand and spinning her towards me.
"God damnit" I silently cursed while looking directly into her eyes "Hurry up, tell me what your abilites are, quickly"
"Oh my god fine, my emotion is anger, I can use fire, when I get injured fire naturally heals my body and good at spear, done happy?" she responded ticked off by my lack of etiquette
"Perfect, now here's the plan you distract them, I am going to go and kill them all, Bye" And with that I disappeared into the fog
***
"Wait, what" I yelled but it was too late, Ezekiel seemed to have just disappeared into thin air. While walking I noticed that I always had to keep checking to make sure he hadn't left me due to the fact he seemed to make absolutely no freaking sound when he walked.
And now that he was purposely trying to hide, I couldn't find him, and the fog wasn't helping.
As I was about to yell out to Ezekiel the sight of two red eyes within the fog made me go silent.
Slowly three more pairs of eyes began to appear, sweat began to trickle down my forehead rolling down my face
I wasn't confident in taking down one of these stupid Monkeys not to mention four of them.
And although I found Ezekiel interesting, I didn't know how much he could be trusted. He hadn't shown much emotion other then when he had killed that Blood Monkey.
The entire walk he was absorbed in whatever he was doing, and barely talked to me. Most guys would sell their house for one-on-one time with me. I mean my dad's a Post-Mortal and one of the richest men in all of Longing and not trying to brag but I'm rather beautiful.
I've already had countless proposals at the age of 17 and yet Ezekiel abandons me to a pack of Blood Monkeys.
Noticing the Monkeys getting more aggressive I quickly discard my useless thoughts and summon my spear
Suddenly one of the pairs of eyes disappeared with a loud thud, I didn't put too much importance on it and just refocused on the next three.
Finally, the first of the three stepped into my range of vision, as it was about to take another step, its foot was gone.
It stumbled allowing me to cleanly finish it off.
<You Have Defeated The Revulsed Rebirth Blood Monkey>
<Turning Hate into Vitality>
<Absorbing leftover Sadness before Blood Monkey's transformation>
Chalking up the disappearing foot to luck, I once again focused on the last two Blood Monkeys.
The last two monkeys suddenly appeared both diving towards me, nails as sharp as knives outstretched.
My abilities with a spear may be good but they were limited, especially with the Blood Monkeys, being stronger and faster than me. Blood Monkeys were naturally many times stronger than humans. It was a miracle I could keep up at all as a Rebirth.
Small cuts began to appear on my hands and arms as my defense began to slowly crumble. Strikes came from all angles leaving no room for counterattacks. Noticing the dreadful situation I decided to jump back to create distance.
Miscalculating I ended up stuck in mid-air unable to escape. I could easily block one of the Blood Monkey, but the other would be able to injure me gravely if not just outright kill me.
Looking up at the sun I silently cursed Ezekiel for abandoning me, as I was about to accept my fate a silhouette appeared shielding my eyes from the sun. I began to laugh out loud, causing both the Blood Monkeys to narrow their eyes.
I was going to live, and I don't know if it was the fear of death or the way the sun was shining but Ezekiel looked like an angel, his bright blue eyes seemed to shine through the fog as he floated above the two Blood Monkeys.
He had a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, and before either Monkey could react they were both dead.
Red blood sprayed across his face, he didn't blink once his blue eyes seemed to see everything, his hair seemed to shine in the sun. He looked beautiful, it was the only way to describe the way he looked to me at the moment.
And the way he killed those two monkeys so easily, they were both Revulsion-level creatures and we had killed a pact of them just us two.
Most people would deem that impossible, especially not for two rookies, Entities are separated into five classes of Hate. Hateful, Loathing, Revulsed, Abhorrent, and Venomous, each level causing the created to contain much more hate, and gain much more intelligence.
Revulsed Blood Monkeys were middle of the pact but due to their extreme strength, and ability to work together, they are considered very dangerous when compared to other Revulsed creatures.
"You okay?" Ezekiel's ruff voice snapped me out of my thoughts and brought me back to reality, I hadn't noticed but I had fallen to one knee. I had sustained more damage than I had believed. Even though I wanted to thank him, my pride wouldn't let me
"Yeah, no thanks to you" I replied instead of a thanks
"Sorry about that, but there wasn't much time before those Monkeys descended on us" He apologized while wiping the blood off his face, and a light grin took over his face. I could tell he had opened up a bit more.
Fighting with my life on the line must've allowed me to gain more trust from him and I felt the same way, if he wanted to betray me there wasn't going to be a better chance than that.
After thinking about the way Ezekiel looked after killing those two blood monkey a foreign warmth invaded my face. After taking a couple seconds to calm down and inspect my wound my body began to engulf in flames and my injuries slowly healed, it took a full minute until my body looked brand new.
Once I was finished a calm voice resounded from in front of me.
"Hey, what's an Object of Emotion?"
