Cannon Fodder To Villainess

🏮27. A girl named Fortis

The orange haired man clasped his hands together in front of himself and bowed at the waist. A strained smile became plastered on his face. He suddenly became a man full of great hospitality and an excellent tour guild. He had just needed the right motivation. A trickle of sweat dripped down the side of his face while he stood waiting for her to follow him.

She shook her clothing out and adjusted herself while she looked around the room for something to cover up with. Hanging up in a corner, was a plush fluffy white full length robe. As he noticed the direction her eyes went, he bowed down further and respectfully averted his eyes from her appearance. After glancing at him for a moment, she looked back over to the robe and walked to it. She picked up the robe and wrapped it around herself, securing it. It was like heaven to feel the soft fluffy robe close around her. She had been feeling cold, exposed, and vulnerable. With the robe wrapped around her, she just felt a bit awkward instead.

She turned around with as much dignity as she could muster and walked around him. She cleared her throat and he rushed ahead to open the door for her while respectfully bowing at the waist again, making sure that he didn't look her in the eyes. A smirk appeared on her lips, but only she knew that her heart was beating frantically like a drum. Didn't the saying go, fake it till you make it? This whole situation has been a serious roller coaster. One minute she was a college student and the next she was attacking people while using freaky magical powers! She wasn't even going to attempt to come to terms with her frightening feelings right now. That was something she needed to unbox at a later time.

She walked out the door with her nose slightly upturned and a little proud smirk on her face. Anyone who saw them pass, assumed that she was some grand entity and stopped to bow their heads. They had no idea who she was, but the sight of that normally difficult to deal with and scary man acting like a whipped beast made people frightened. She must be a great and fearsome entity. No one wanted to admit that they had no idea who she was.

Some rumors spread quickly and wildly about who she was, while people pretended to know. Soon people heard more and more rumors flying about Amber's identity and the people who overheard those rumors started to feel proud of themselves, like they were in the know.

In the end, the story that most people agreed on was that Amber was the new leader of a fearsome guild called 'Mortem' who would kill you as easily as look at you. This was an interesting rumor that would continue to build until this guild that originally did not exist, became infamous. No one really knew how it all got started, but everyone was inexplicably fearful. That was something for the future though.

He ran ahead of Amber and led her to the opposite side of the grand room, past patrons, and other people. No matter where they walked, many people stopped to give her a little bow. Some of the men wearing masks don't bow, but a great deal of them nodded slightly, to show her a bit of respect just in case. Other's just look terribly confused. The orange haired man never raised his head and kept his back bowed like a humbled beast who was serving a great entity.

"Right this way Madam. This way please," he said.

Soon they were standing in front of a room that had a wall of bars from ceiling to floor like a giant cage. Behind the wall of bars there are tons of cots all over the floor with women bunched together wearing plain white tattered robes.

In the back of the barred room, Nova was laying on a cot covered in dirt with greasy hair. Her cheeks were even more sunken than Amber remembered. She looked like she was at death's door. Nova was covered in bruises and had thick whip marks on her back where she'd been struck repeatedly. The back of her robe was in taters and covered in thick dried blood. She looked towards Amber, but made no sign of recognition. Her eyes were glazed over to the point that she no longer saw anything or registered anything in her mind. She was hopeless and had given up interest in anything around her. Amber's heart beat wildly in her chest as she watched another girl try to fruitlessly feed water to Nova without any response. The water just trickled down the side of Nova's face.

The orange haired man fumbled to get his keys and unlock the door in the corner. His hands shook clumsily and scraped along the outside of the lock. Amber pointed her finger at the bars with rage in her eyes. The bars trickled away in a stream of shiny liquid steel. Soon the metal that used to be the bars was liquid. It looked like mercury glistening in blobs floating around her.

The women in the room stopped what they were doing and the other people nearby stared at Amber in shock. All of the talking and general sounds of movement stopped. The girl who had been trying to give water to Nova stilled. She was a teen girl with really short black hair and one dark brown eye. Her light brown face had a long scar down the right side, across her right eye which was dark blue. Her cheeks were sunken in from starvation. She looked older than Nova, but was still a teenager. She was also wearing a short dirty white dress like the other women who had been put behind bars.

The other women screeched and backed away from Amber, but that girl shakily stood up, while meeting Amber's eyes. Her whole body was shaking in fear, but she slowly walked towards Amber anyway.

"Please help my friend. I can't get her to drink anything and I'm scared she'll die."

The girl pointed back towards Nova while tears poured down her cheeks and her finger shook.

"Are you not afraid of me?" Amber said.

"I am, but Nova is my best friend. She has to be alright. Please save her. I'll do anything. I'll even be your servant, anything."

Amber walked forward into the room and knelt down next to Nova. She checked her vitals to make sure that Nova was alright. She pulled a little bottle out of her pocket. She set Nova's head onto her lap and tilted her mouth so that she could tip the liquid in the bottle into Nova's mouth. Nova reflexively swallowed the medicine.

"So this is your best friend?"

"Yes. Will she be alright?" The girl wiped some of Nova's hair out of her face and smiled sadly down at her.

"She's the only person in the world who means anything to me. She was the only person who stood up for me when no one else would." The girl looked down at Nova sadly.

"It should have been me who was whipped, it was supposed to be, but Nova got in the way and they hit her instead. It was all my fault," the teen said.

"None of this was your fault. Both you and Nova should have never been in a horrible place like this from the beginning," said Amber.

Amber pulled another bottle out of her pocket and handed it to the girl. "Drink this and become healthy. Nova will be alright now, I'm going to take her home with me. You can come too if you want. I shouldn't have let Nova get into this situation in the first place. I'm going to work at becoming stronger to make sure that I'm able to keep everyone I care about safe from now on. At least I don't have many people that I care about. I won't have a lot to keep track of," Amber said and then smiled sadly.

Amber held out her hand towards the girl. "So will you come with me? I can't promise that it will always be easy with me and I'm certainly rough around the edges, but I'm a work in progress." Amber shrugged her shoulders with an awkward look on her face.

The little girl grinned and put her hand firmly into Amber's hand. She looked into Amber's eyes with a gleam in her eyes that spoke of much more hardship and life experiences than she should have had at such a young age.

"My life has never been easy, but at least it's an adventure. I'll follow you!"

"Very well then. I named Nova and so I'll also name you, if you'll have it."

"I will."

"Very well then, you shall be named Fortis from now on."