Post 9: The Storyteller

It had actually been a while since any of them had a serious talk about what was really happening on Earth. They all knew what their role was and had been completing them separately and silently. It was like having a normal nine to five job that lasted all hours, could sometimes be adventurous and was usually dangerous but for the most part acted as something to do. It was only a few times that they needed each other for their own personal missions. Technik was maybe the only one that would deal with each of the other active warriors on a regular basis as he was needed to run intelligence on companies or give site plans for buildings. The rest would only come together if backup was needed in some way.


It was rare that they were all called into Tristan’s office for anything and now they’d been grouped more than once in one day. The mix up in their routine seemed to affect each of them differently. Vectio was the most affected. He rarely spoke to any of them and so a meeting was mostly useless to him. He never shared his projects with the rest of the team unless he absolutely had to. He stood next to the window watching out as the sun set. The soft rays turned the sky pink and orange, colors he’d been drawn to as they were the all-day sky cast colors of his home planet, a planet he was yet to share the name of with the rest of the team.


Mendax stood just to the left of Hunter, who sat comfortably in the chair facing Tristan’s desk. He used a small amount of life source and played some music for them, softly. Julius looked towards him and smiled, shaking his head. Despite his reserved manner, Julius was the only warrior that seemed to give in or play into Mendax’s games. Vectio watched from afar, observant, he grunted in response; as usual. He rolled his eyes as Mendax glanced at him, lowering the sounds to the choral voices of Buddhist monks he’d dubbed “Soundtrack of the Monks”. Mendax had been enamored by the music ever since he heard them sing when Vectio had taken them to visit the monasteries of Tibet.


“Aright, enough fooling around,” Tristan, who’d been pretending to ignore Mendax for the last five minutes, knowing the music relaxed him also, stood up and rapped the knuckles of one hand against the desk. “I know we all love her, and feel like she’s our Earth mother, but we honestly need to find out who Arinth is.” He looked around at them before clearing his throat again. “Honestly, I can say I never saw it coming. Technik, I thought you did recon on her and everyone else that lives in this area.”


“I did. I couldn’t find anything on her. I honestly thought she was just a homeless person that was squatting and thought nothing else to it. You saw how she was when we first arrived. It was like she had given up on life. I researched her and it was like she never existed.” He stood, pulling himself to a full height of 6’3. “I really don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry? Tristan, she’s harmless, to us at least.” Vectio watched silently as Technik lifted one hand, running shaky fingers through his curly hair. It was his one contribution, his one job, and he hadn’t even fulfilled that position correctly. I know what you’re thinking and you need to stop. Vectio made no movements as to acknowledge he’d also heard the voice meant for Technik’s mind only. Hunter often spoke to him using their connection. He seemed to always be the only one that knew there was something wrong going on with him. Besides Vectio and Hunter, everyone else seemed to move on. Technik hid it easily.


“I’d say, if Arinth was going to hurt us or if she were a danger to us it would’ve happened already. It’s not your blame to take, Technik. If anything, Mendax is the one that I would count on to give us a judge of character. After all, that is his Gift.” Hunter didn’t look towards Technik but he felt a nudge in his mind, acknowledged. Vectio mused. The team might be more ‘well put together’ than he’d thought when he’d been forced to join them.


“That’s true. I didn’t feel any deception in her. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. It could be that I didn’t feel any deception from her because she’s not deceiving us. It could also be that she has the same ability as I do, that or her mind isn’t susceptible to my pull.” It was Mendax’s turn to second guess. Julius walked over to him and placed a hand on his head. “What are you doing?”


“I’m sensing a yellowing in your aura. Are you feeling alright?” Julius pulled back as if he’d been burned and looked at Mendax, incredulously. “How long have you been hiding from us?” Mendax shook his head as he dropped the disguise. He seemed to change instantly before their eyes. He had dark circles just under his eyes, his irises glowed silver and his skin was pale. His cheeks hollowed out, gaunt, skin pulling tight over his jawline. Hunter gasped, standing and backing away from him.


“You have dark power in you. Were you attacked on your last mission?” He stepped further back and examined the traces of Mendax’s steps. If he could see where his aura was the darkest he could find the point of entry for the dark power. They might be able to help him before the power consumed him.


“I was, it isn’t life or death or anything, guys.” Mendax held a joyful tone but winced when his voice came out cracked, dry. Vectio stood motionless, he was usually a great judge of character and action. Usually, he could see through any Storyteller’s guise if he tried. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to try and therefore hadn’t invested himself into the team because he knew he didn’t really belong. That realization still didn’t change the fact that Mendax is his brother in arms. His duty to look out for him firmly outweighed his comfort level. Mendax coughed roughly and turned away from them. He stepped towards the window and looked out.


“Why didn’t you say anything? Keeping up the health of all my warriors is my responsibility. We could have dealt with this.” Tristan tried to keep the anger out of his voice. He was concerned, yes, but he couldn’t do anything unless his team informed him. Things had somehow gotten out of hand. On Arinth, his team had been straight forward, never too close; all business. He barely spoke to them but knew they’d have his back in battle. Here it seemed like he was stuck in what humans called a fraternity house and he barely had any true control. They will respect him. He’d withdraw himself. Maybe establishing a new form of leadership was a bad idea. His Maman, his mother, had told him he was too cold, that he’d spend his life alone. But she’d never been in battle. She didn’t know how imperative it was to have connection, communication and trust amongst warriors. He tilted his head up, looking down his nose at Mendax. “Things are getting ready to change around here. Now get out, I need to consult with the Council.” Tristan sat down at his desk, shuffling the papers that covered its surface, formally dismissing his team. He liked them, all of them, even Vectio, but he wouldn’t let that come between him and his duty to the Council, Arinth or his honor to protect the humans of Earth.


Vectio watched as Tristan shut down on them. He knew what to do. He knew how to do it but he would close himself from his team. He knew they’d become too comfortable with their leader and that sooner or later Tristan would notice that he’d let them take rein of their own lives and had become more of a brother to them. He guessed the time for that recognition was now. They filed out, each taking a glance at their leader.


Julius noticed the dark color that filled their leader’s aura. He was pissed and he had every right to be but that didn’t take away the fact that Mendax was filled with dark power that would most likely consume him by the end of the week. Julius couldn’t let that happen but so far he only knew of one woman, Egeria Shen, who could take the dark power from Mendax. How successful she would be, he was unsure, as the last time they’d encountered this same situation she’d failed. The host had died. Julius couldn’t let that happen to Mendax. A soul was a soul; worth saving, no matter how shadowed, bloody or filled with hate.


Some like to think of dark power as dark magic. It’s a poisonous form of life source that flowed from the vilest of spirits and filled the soul with evil and envy. It was dark black power that filled the souls and ground of Malvroy. Once dark power was introduced to the blood, it warps the soul, the mind and the body. Depending on the level of induction it can take from just a few days to years for it to out weight the gentle life source every being is born with and consume the body. It was even more dangerous to inhabit as a Dark Warrior as they’d be assured to go rogue and force their fellow warriors to hunt down and kill one of their own.


Mendax coughed again and tried to throw up his guise. The paleness of his skin disappeared and his eyes returned to their soft brown color. A small cough escaped from his throat and he fisted his fingers.


“I haven’t been taking this seriously, I admit. We haven’t run into any Malus for almost two years. I didn’t think we would ever again. The Council made it seem like Earth was going to be crawling with them. They made it seem like it would be constant battle with no downtime. It isn’t like that here. They lied to us all or just maybe…we haven’t been looking in the right places.” He straightened and walked over to the stair case. He sat on the second stair, exhausted suddenly, stretching his legs out before him.


“I didn’t notice at first that the dark power had entered my blood. It seemed like just a paper cut, I didn’t think that even the slightest of cuts could introduce the power. He’d laughed right before I slit his throat. Gave me the biggest grin, I felt no deception from him. Now I know that he was genuinely happy. He’d told me, before things went south, he’d gladly take down any other warrior. I knew I had to end it even though I wanted so badly for him to realize his mistake and repent his ways.” Mendax had been the only warrior out of all of them that had hunted and actually executed rogue warriors. It’d been one of his jobs on Arinth.

While Hunter had hunted them, he’d never killed them. Vectio had never killed another warrior, either. Technik had never killed anyone except for the occasional soldier back on Arinth before he’d came to Earth. It’d been centuries though, since he had, when battle took place on the field and not through computers and powered missiles. It had always been someone else’s’ dirty work. One never wanted to hunt down a brother and bleed out his life source. They took it personally, Mendax could be, one could say, the strongest of them all. “He wanted others to feel the joy and freedom in being rogue and not having to follow any rules; to take a life whenever you wanted and to not bend knee to any higher power. The Light Warriors would snatch him up if they heard him talking that way. I guess they did and they sent me. If I become rogue before some stranger the Light Warriors send down kills me, will you…”


“Don’t say it. It won’t happen.” Vectio walked towards them, his voice rough, slightly surprising them. His face was void of all emotion and his tone was steady. The only evidence that the happening affected him was the small tick in his jaw. “We will fix it. Julius, can’t you draw the dark power from him the way you heal bones and cuts?” It was a good idea but half way through the question Vectio knew the answer. Julius stood shaking his head slowly. His eyes were glowing with life source, Vectio watched as he stepped forward and placed a hand on Mendax’s forehead. He felt the burn against his skin as the dark power rebelled against his healing ability. The group waited for a moment before Julius dropped his hand.


“I tried. There’s…nothing I can do.” Julius sat on the step beside Mendax and touched him soft on the shoulder. “It’s like it knows what I’m trying to do and recoils. It’s running from me.” This time he didn’t jerk back from the pain but gripped Mendax’s shoulder and called the dark power to him once again. Hunter came back into the front lobby, none of them had noticed he’d disappeared into the library. He stood leaning against the white pillar that stretched high above them into the arched ceiling, holding an open book in his hand, shaking his head.


“If you’d let someone else kill that rogue we wouldn’t be in this predicament, Andana. The dark power can be drained from the victim by killing the source of the power but only if the source hadn’t been previously executed by the victim or anyone else in its blood stream. Basically, if someone else had killed him, and someone that hadn’t shared blood with him, you would just have a slight wound where the dark power entered.” He turned the book around and showed the page that he read from. The book was nameless, basically a book of rules and remedies. They didn’t know where it came from and actually believed that it belonged to the warriors that had lived there before them. It wouldn’t help them now. Hunter had a different thought. Could it truly belong to Arinth? Maybe she knew more about it, or maybe she just knew what was in the book. Besides, other than giving them a small back ground on avoiding dark power it was useless in this moment. Mendax already had it, it had already enveloped his soul and he would die. That was the end.


“Well…aw…hell.” Mendax coughed, a deep rattling sounded in the back of his throat. He’d lived for just under a century and would now be taken down by a paper cut. This can’t be real.



"The only way to be a writer is to write, write and write. The only way...is to write." -Jade Elyzabeth