Michael Blackwood

“What the fuck is that thing?!” I heard Levi scream.

I felt the urge to vomit when the torn remains of the bandit’s body hit the ground with a wet squelching noise. Whatever this creature was, it looked down at Skylar and I could see drool leaking from its mouth. It took a step towards her, then another. Before it got any closer however, shards of ice hit the creature, causing it to stumble back.

“Gods damnit! It’s an aberration!” The princess yelled. “I don’t know where it came from, but we need to either slow it down or kill it!”

Rebecca appeared next to me, and reached out to help me stabilize myself. My body was groaning in protest from the earlier hit the bandit landed on me, but I had to do whatever I could to help fight off the aberration. When I took a quick glance around, I realized that all the other bandits had either been killed or they had fled when the aberration showed up

Where the hell did it come from though?

As I wondered how it seemingly came out of nowhere, I noticed the rest of my friends all arrived next to the princess, ready to fight.

“Princess, what the hell is this thing?” Calvin asked.

“It’s an aberration. A ‘Faceless’ to be exact. Extremely strong creatures. This might prove to be more difficult than I initially thought,” she replied. “Calvin, go back and try to get the caravan as far away as possible. The rest of us will try to kill this thing.”

Calvin said nothing, instead giving the princess a quick bow and immediately running to lead the caravan away from the area. I could see the energy building up in Levi’s fists, and Dylan forming a ball of lava just above his open hand, as if he was about to throw it.

“Skylar, get over to Michael, and start healing him as quickly as possible. Rebecca, we’re going to need you over here,” the princess commanded.

Rebecca gave my arm a small squeeze and slowly helped me to sit on the ground. When Skylar stood up to make her way to me, the aberration roared again, and swung its clawed hand at her, but more shards of ice pummeled the creature, making it stumble back once more. Skylar quickly ran over to me, and started healing my injuries.

“Are you ok?” She asked me with a worried look on her face.

“I’ll be fine when I’m fully healed. That bandit hit me pretty hard.”

Skylar raised her hands and began to pour healing energy into my body. I watched as the cuts all over my body vanish, as well as my leg, which I was sure was broken, mend back into its proper shape. Meanwhile, the princess and my friends were fighting the aberration. It seemed to have a teleporting ability similar to Rebecca’s, and was teleporting all around them, swinging its sharp claws. Dylan formed a spear of lava and threw it, but the aberration teleported behind him. As it prepared to impale him with its claws, Levi appeared next to it, and unleashed a powerful punch into its face, sending it flying.

It dug its claws into the ground, grinding to a halt, and hissed. Rebecca teleported on top of its shoulders, and drove her daggers into the back of its neck, causing it to squeal in pain. It twisted and turned violently, causing Rebecca to lose her grip on her daggers and fall to the ground.

The aberration twisted around with unnatural speed, and thrust its clawed hand downwards towards Rebecca’s face, but ice formed on the ground next to her, sprung upwards, and formed around the aberrations appendage, stopping it entirely. Then more patches of ice appeared, and flew up from the ground, piercing the aberration throughout its body.

It started using its free hand to rip through the multiple spikes, freeing itself in the process. While it was distracted, Rebecca got away from it as quickly as possible.

“Fuck, my daggers are still stuck in the back of its neck,” she said in frustration.

She ran over to me and Skylar, and asked to borrow the dagger on Skylar’s hip. Wordlessly, Skylar handed over the dagger, and kept focusing on healing me. I could tell from the strained look on her face, she was starting to run out of energy. I held out my hand, and gently shook her out of her focus.

“W-what are you doing? I need to finish healing you!” She protested.

“I feel much better now, I promise. Save your energy. I’m gonna try and help them fight this thing.”

I stood, and picked my sword back up. Skylar gave me a pleading look.

“Please be careful,” she said. “I don’t want you to die.”

I gave her as confident a smile as I could manage.

“I promise you that that won’t happen.”

Before she could say anything more, I ran over to the others, and leveled my sword at the aberration, which had just finished freeing itself from the ice spikes the princess had managed to injure the creature with.

“Michael, are you sure you’re feeling well enough to fight?” The princess asked me.

“Yes princess. I’ll do my best to keep up.”

She nodded, and pointed her rapier at the aberration.

“We need to kill this thing and get back to the caravan as quickly as possible.”

I settled back into a fighting position, and prepared to attack with everything I had. Rebecca started teleporting in a zig-zag, while Levi full on charged the creature. Dylan had lava circling around his body, ready for his command. The princess manifested several sharp shards of ice around her body, and I decided I would try and strike whenever I saw an opening.

Rebecca and Levi both arrived at the aberration at the same time, unleashing a set of moves perfectly aligned with each other. Levi striking in one place, while Rebecca slashed with Skylar’s dagger in another. The aberration was slowly being overwhelmed, unable to keep track of their synchronized movements. I realized in amazement that they must’ve trained together in order to fight like this.

Rebecca must’ve slashed in a spot that the aberration was weak to, because it staggered and dropped to a knee. As soon as it did, Levi once again punched it in the face, which caused it to fall to the ground, like a puppet with its strings cut. The princess walked up to it, and started slinging her shards of ice down into the creature, pinning it to the ground. Before she could finish it however, it roared in desperation, and teleported.

I realized too late that it had appeared in front of me. Instead of attacking however, it stared down at me. Almost like it was hesitating. As I lifted my sword to swing, I felt its claws pierce my armor, and the flesh beneath. I coughed up blood as I stared at its faceless head. My vision was darkening, and I could feel my heart beating rapidly. In a moment of desperation, I thrust my sword forwards as hard as I could manage. My eyes closed, and my ears were ringing, but I heard what sounded like a scream of pain, before my body fell to the ground.

A bunch of indiscernible sounds violated my ears. It sounded like voices but I couldn’t tell. I felt my body being picked up and carried. When I managed to open my eyes, I realized that I was on Levi’s shoulder. Behind us, the aberration lay on the ground.

“You managed to kill it Michael,” Levi said. “It was weakened enough from what we did, the strike you landed, killed it.”

Before he could say anything else however, a loud roar sounded off from behind us. When I managed to look, the aberration was slowly getting to its feet.

Oh fuck.

“That isn’t good,” Dylan said.

“It’s not,” the princess replied. “This one is more resilient than others I’ve encountered.”

When Levi put me down on the ground, I reached for my sword, only to realize that it was still stuck inside the aberrations chest. As Levi and the others prepared to fight this thing again, an arrow came out of nowhere and struck the aberration in its shoulder. It hissed in pain, and turned to see who had shot it. I too was looking for the person who intervened, but couldn’t spot them.

Suddenly, what seemed to be a really short woman started to teleport really fast across the open area, slowly closing in on the aberration. She struck fast and hard, swinging dual daggers, similar to how Rebecca fought. But this person was far faster and more agile, and made Rebecca’s teleportation look like a poorly performed rabbit in the hat trick on a stage for a middle school play.

The aberration swung wildly, trying hard to hit the woman, but she was practically untouchable. Anytime the aberration got close to slashing her with its sharp claws, she was suddenly in a different spot, slashing and cutting. It was quite amazing, and terrifying to watch.

Twenty seconds seemed to pass in the blink of an eye before the creature finally collapsed to the ground. Actually dead this time. The woman approached us cautiously, keeping an eye on the aberration in order to make sure it was really dead. She stopped about five feet away from us, and looked at all of us carefully. She was wearing a full face mask, as well as a hood, so none of us could see her face. It was only when she spoke, that I realized that she was actually a ‘he’.

“Oi, are you fellas doing alright?” The strange man asked.

“Yes, we are quite fine,” the princess answered. “Who exactly are you?”

The masked man spun his daggers similar to how cowboys would spin their revolvers in western films before sheathing them.

“Ah, I am nobody of consequence, your majesty. I was just passing by, and figured that you lot would need assistance.”

Before the princess could say another word, the man was gone. She sighed, then looked at me and my friends.

“No matter. We need to catch up to Calvin and the caravan. Let’s move everybody. And Michael, good work. You managed to wound the aberration just long enough for that man to appear.”

“Thank you, your majesty,” I said, although it hurt to talk, and slowly got to my feet.