Abyssal (ManxMan)

Save Them

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Save Them

Kai stared down at the beaten up merman lying on the ground. He looked like he was about to depart the world of the living. A crimson trail of blood dribbled down his chin, indicative of his messed up insides. Beside him lay Ryodan, who looked no better than the stranger.

No, not a stranger, Kai realized with a shocked jolt.

Brows furrowed and eyes narrowed in disbelief, Kai guessed out loud, "Erasmus...?"

Indeed, my Prince. The Spirit confirmed in his head.

Erasmus stared back at him with the eyes and body of a full-grown man rather than a child. Right now, they lacked their usual sharpness on account of him slowly succumbing to death, but there was no mistaking those purple eyes.

"Kaerus..." Erasmus breathed and then coughed blood. Kaerus? The mage had to be hallucinating from all the blood loss.

Kai spat on the ground right next to Erasmus.

"Good riddance," he growled with an upturned nose and an unkind grimace, looking down on Erasmus with nothing but contempt.

He would not waste any sympathy on the liar who was willing to let Hakan die just so he wouldn't earn his king's ire. As far as Kai was concerned, he was a traitor who had abandoned him in his hour of need despite all the promises of loyalty he'd made.

Kai glanced at Ryodan momentarily and decided that he was no different. He hadn't rushed in to save Hakan either. They'd shown him their true colors, and that when it truly mattered, neither of them could be counted on.

"Why did you bring me back here?" he asked the Spirit. To witness their deaths? There was no need; Kai wouldn't let himself care about them, and Kai was not the relish-your-enemies'-slow-demise kind of guy.

Save them.

Kai's eyes widened in incredulity. "You want me to save them?" Did he hear him right or were those glowing mushrooms growing on the cave's walls getting to him?

We still need them, the Spirit professed.

"They abandoned me to Zolban's mercy when I needed them the most. They were going to let my friend die just so they wouldn't expose themselves to Zolban," the half-blood prince growled.

As he voiced their misdeeds out loud, he became convinced of his decision to abandon them to their fate, just as they abandoned him. Kai had saved his mother and his best friend by himself -well, the Spirit and him had finally agreed on something for once.

The mage meant to draw out your true power by putting you in a difficult situation; making you believe you had to save your mother and best friend by yourself.

Kai blinked. "You can't possibly know that. His intentions."

I can, the Spirit declared with finality and the confidence of a god.

Kai looked down at Erasmus and considered the Spirit's words.

"So that was a ... test?"

Erasmus, given his condition, naturally didn't answer. Kai doubted he even heard him.

Still, Kai felt the need to vocalize his incredulousness. "Are you kidding me right now? Who does that?!" What a stupid, stupid thing to do, even if he had 'good' intentions behind them.

I must confess that the mage's reasoning was sound; there may not have been another opportunity such as your mother and friend's endangerment for us to assimilate and begin acting as one.

Sighing in exasperation, Kai said, "That's not a chance I'll ever let either of you take again."

There needn't be. We are now one. I will let no harm come to those you care about.

A hacking cough ripped through Erasmus and he sputtered crimson blood, staining the ground.

He's drowning in his own blood, the Spirit casually informed him, as if he was discussing the weather.

If you wish to save him, you must do so now. For all my power, I cannot bring back the dead. And then he added, The choice is yours.

He sighed whole-heartedly. What choice? The choice had already been made for him; it seemed that Erasmus and Ryodan hadn't exactly 'abandoned' him.

He knelt in front of Erasmus.

Hover your open palm in front of his chest.

He followed the Spirit's instruction, and then watched with awe as his palm began to glow golden -the Spirit's golden glow. Liquid heat spread across his body and concentrated in his hand.

Visibly, Erasmus's flesh wounds began to heal. Kai gasped, completely awed by the sight of such powerful magic. He imagined such healing magic like this could accomplish if he walked through a hospital and waved his hand around; he'd empty the place in an hour.

Privy to his thoughts, the Spirit said, sounding amused, I'm afraid we're not at that level just yet.

Oh? Too bad.

"Are his internal wounds healing?"

Close your eyes. Feel it for yourself.

Again, Kai followed the Spirit's commands, closing his eyes and reaching out with his senses to feel what he needed to know.

Sure enough, he saw a mental image of Erasmus's insides healing. His lung, once collapsed, was in the process of patching up. As a result, Erasmus coughed out the rest of the blood trapped in his lungs. Some of it got on Kai's clothes.

He is healed, the Spirit declared.

Erasmus's eyes drifted closed; the exhaustion had claimed him.

Next, Kai healed Ryodan. As he worked, he wondered what happened to the two of them. Did Zolban do this; suspecting they had something to do with his disappearance?

Or was it Marius?

As Kai watched the gaping wound in Ryodan's stomach mend, flesh reattaching, he concluded it was most likely Marius. Only he could be so ruthless.

He shuddered to think what Marius would do to him if they ever crossed paths again.

Kai just had to make sure that that never happened. 

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

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