On shaky legs, Loch stood up and approached the woman, his mother, who was now dressed far differently than he had seen her earlier. The woman had her auburn curls wrapped up in a tight ponytail. Instead of a light covering of makeup on her rosy cheeks, she had bits of still-wet blood splattered across her face. The simple but well-made blue dress was still there but was now covered in a thin metal breastplate, complete with separate forearm guards. Dainty hands gripped a pair of short swords; their blades wreathed in a soft, white light resembling pale flames.
Including the weapons and armour, Loch's mother was clearly dressed for battle, but her eyes and aura still radiated a gentle concern. That was a balm to a weary heart. In a flicker of motion, she went from over twenty feet from Loch's position to right in front of him. He attempted to look into her face, but found she had only eyes for the child clinging to his chest. A small piece of Loch soured at the sight before he pushed it down. "Loch? Everything will be fine. Mummy's here." The woman said to the boy, while she caressed the back of his head. After several seconds and not seeing the boy remove his face buried in the older Loch's chest, her eyes began to water, and she finally looked up to him. Her eyes conveyed a heart-breaking fear that he quickly tried to assuage. "Don't worry, he's safe. It's just that Loch has promised me that until I tell him, he isn't to open his eyes."
The woman's countenance changed after hearing what he said, and although she still had a face scrunched in worry, she put on a bright smile that almost made it hurt to look at. "Thank you so much, Uncle Wayne." His own smile started to widen in conjunction with hers before it dropped off the moment he heard the way she addressed him. Even though the woman could see the frown on Loch's face, she attributed it to the general situation and not what she had said. "I don't know how a full horde managed to get so deep inside Empyrium without arousing the Nest. But it doesn't really matter now, the guards below are sacrificing their everything to buy us time. We can't let their sacrifice be in vain. I also haven't seen any Arch-Fiends yet, but there has to be one leading them. The low-tier Fiends are acting with far too much purpose and haven't resorted to their base instincts. There must be someone giving them directions." Loch's mother said while gazing around at the mess of the hall with calm. Her steely eyes held the wisdom and determination of a veteran.
"An Arch Fiend..." After several seconds of trying to digest the information just conveyed to him, Loch had only locked onto those two words with abject horror, with the rest of her words becoming background noise. With even a cloudy mind and unreachable past. The words Arch-Fiend caused sheer terror to rise within him. A loud screech, as if someone was dragging a nail across a chalkboard, rang out through the entire mansion, shattering windows and drowning out the sounds of blood and battle. The sudden pain overrode Loch's fear, and his head began ringing. A small trail of blood started to leak out of Loch's ears, and when he looked at his mother, he could see she had blood falling down the sides of her face as well. The worried but confident and determined look on his mother's face appeared to be washed off as she went as pale as a ghost and looked to be hyperventilating.
After the piercing screech, there were a few seconds of silence before a cacophony of roar rang out through the mansion, accompanied by what felt to Loch as a stampede bursting through the front door. Loch couldn't help himself and walked a few feet to the banister overlooking the bottom floor and the stairs that led up to his current position. A mass of moving flesh became visible to him. In the attempt to fit through the small opening of the doorway, creatures of all different sizes found themselves half stuck, pushing, scratching, and biting each other for the privilege of being the first one to enter. All manner of creatures were below Loch, some he recognized like the Minotaur, the half man half bull he had previously faced, and the green-skinned tusked Orcans, but others he had never seen before, appearing more like cross-bred abominations. From the force of their tussle over the door, both sides of the walls began to crack and chip off before breaking entirely and hitting the atrium floor tiles with a bang.
The stampede roared once more and flooded the house with several of the muscular Orcans, wielding their large two-handed swords, taking the stairs two at a time and heading right for him. Their jutting jaws, sky-high tusks, and enraged bellows forced Loch to retreat quickly. Now using two hands to cradle the child in his grasp closer, Loch wasn't sure if he was doing it to comfort the child or himself. In only a moment, a trio of black armored Orcans arrived at the second floor, and seeing Loch, they each issued out excited, saliva-flinging yells. Greatswords raised high, ready to chop him in two. The trio charged at him with nothing but bloodlust in their eyes.
Loch attempted to summon the storm within him but found nothing but a light smattering of gathering clouds, taking continued step backs. He tried again and again but found nothing but a light spark in his limbs, nothing like the train-filled energy spike he had felt before. When the trio was only ten feet away from Loch and he was about to turn tail to run. A woman's courageous cry came out from behind him. With hair thrown into a flutter all of a sudden, Loch's mother, now entirely wreathed in a pale glow, looking like some saintess of war, charged towards the attacking beasts. Like she was performing a ballroom dance, and the beastly, boorish Orcans were also trying to stay in step with her, Loch's mother spun around in a dizzy. Her thin, short swords flicked out at high velocity, not in mighty chops but quick cuts and slices. Within only moments, the trio of beasts swinging their thick weapons in full force, wind-scattering attacks, hit nothing but air and appeared as if they had suffered death by a thousand cuts.
After a flourish of her blades, Loch's mother flicked the dark green blood accumulated in the blood groves onto the already painted floor. With her heels clicking across the wooden floorboards, she made her way back to the stunned Loch, leaving three Orcans, all in different attacking positions in her wake. It appeared as if their bodies hadn't come to terms that they were dead and needed a moment to catch up, as one they all fell to the floor, spraying fountains of dark green blood. "We must go, Wayne. I don't know how that bastard found us, but without Loch's father, we have no chance to fend him off. I'll not be giving him the chance to devour my precious chick." Loch's mother said. She spared one moment to rub the child's back in his embrace before marching past him down the hallway. Loch's eyes were still stuck on the three corpses before him. Even with their thick armour, it appeared as if every inch of exposed skin had suffered a wound. "Amazing." Loch breathed out, before a commanding voice rang out behind him, "Wayne! Hurry!" His feet instinctively followed the voice while it took a couple more seconds for his mind to catch up.
The sound of several more feet climbing the stairs behind him caused Loch to break into a quick job. His mother had already arrived at the end of the hallway. Standing before a plain wall, she had turned to face Loch and looked him square in the eyes. The gaze brought him up short, as he said, "What now?" In front of them was a dead end, without even a window to jump out of. Looking towards the woman, he couldn't help but give her a confused gaze. The woman, with her face in a blank state, calmly replied, "Wayne, could you kindly remove the wall? This will be the quickest way to enter the forest and I'm sure King Sepharim has been notified of that bastard's presence by now. He might not lower his lazy ass from his perch over a little horde, but that screech will surely have caught his vain covered eyes. He's always wanted to see whose wing was stronger. So we'll just need to hide ourselves in the forest for a little while, and then we should be safe."
Just as Loch's mother finished speaking, a series of stomps followed by cackles and roars came out from behind them. Loch's mother charged past his frozen form and yelled, "Hurry, Wayne! I'll hold them off!" With the sounds of booms and screeching of metal on metal, Loch knew the battle behind him had started. But at the moment, he didn't have the spare brain cells to focus on it. His mind already struggled with his mother's nonchalant request to blow a hole in the wall, but more than anything, he was shocked by her disrespectful and casual way of talking about King Sepharim. 'Did my mum actually know the King?' The supreme existence of King Sepharim, ruler and overlord of the city of Empyrium was an almost God-like figure in Loch's tiny eyes. He didn't know anyone in his life who didn't hold the King of Empyrium in the highest regard. A lot of residents of the Shambles even felt calling him by his Monarch title of Sepharim would be a dishonor to his noble position and just referred to him as King. Even though his current memories appeared just out of his grasp every time he tried to dredge them up, he felt a sense of holiness hearing the man's name. Now, to hear his mother call that same person a 'lazy ass' caused his brain to malfunction.
Another sharp screech tore through the building while Loch was having his kanipshin, this one sounded like it came from just outside the house, making the entire place rock and even sending Loch stumbling forward, where he found his forehead bouncing off the wall with a sharp crack. "Soil it!" Loch cried out in pain, rubbing his forehead. "What are you doing Wayne!! He's coming!!" Loch's mother cried out from behind him, swiftly followed by the sound of clashing weapons and a beast's pained roar. 'Right, focus for the Earth loving sake!' Loch chastised himself as he did his best to ignore all outside noise and searched within himself again. Attempting to conjure up that elusive power from within.
With closed eyes, Loch calmed his frolicking heart, performing a set of breathing exercises from that had surfaced in his memory. For some reason, this memory came back to him effortlessly and was crystal clear. Along with the memory was also the whip cracking voice of an elderly woman saying, "Focus you little heathen. How are you supposed to mix dangerous chemicals when you are so full of yourself, like a rampaging dragon? Sit down! And copy me if you don't remember it perfectly after I finish my demonstration. I'll turn your hair pink. Now, watch."
Repeating the exercises, Loch concentrated on his breath, imagining himself as a weightless leaf following his breath through his mouth and into his lungs and back again. As if he was a silent passenger on a journey throughout his body, before he knew it Loch found his vision shift. He was now outside of his body, as if he was a floating specter, looking down on himself. Gazing around him, Loch found the world had frozen, even his self was stuck in a breathing in pose. The perspective wasn't the only thing that changed. His new sight didn't reflect the normal spectrum of colors he was used to seeing. Instead, everything took on an almost smoky violet hue, a little like the dreams he had of the Hunter. Loch could still make out the general outlines of himself and the surrounding building, but it was as if the world around him was covered in an ever-moving fog of violet. It churned all around him, outlining his body as more of a black mass than a person, like an empty spot in space. Besides a thin, similar fist-sized cluster of purple-colored clouds found where he knew to be his stomach, it appeared so thin, though, as if a gentle breeze could send it scattering.
He wasn't sure if it was from his own volition, or under some unseen hand, but almost like it was a natural thing to do, Loch used this new vision to zoom in on the small cloud in his stomach. Now that he was closer, Loch could see that cloud of purple smoke wasn't just sitting there motionless but looked to be revolving around an object hidden within. Focusing all his attention on this new object, Loch found himself coming eye to eye with a figure that felt so foreign but also horrifyingly familiar. The object wasn't an object. It was a person but also not a person.
Standing as still as a statue was a figure with vaguely human proportions. A pair of tattooed arms crossed in front of a lean but muscular chest. The skin looked in pristine condition, without a blemish or scar in sight. Flashing in and out of existence over the left arm was what appeared to be an archaic-looking armguard that encompassed all the figure's left arm and hand, right to its fingertips. When it did flash into existence, one could see the armour held complicated swirls of dim blue lines running throughout. Loch attempted his best to focus on the armour but couldn't make out many features in its blurry form. There was only one thing he was certain of. The blue lines weren't just random lines and patterns but appeared to be some form of language, one that he had never seen or heard about. Loch made a guess, though, that it appeared to be a sentence of some sort, written out multiple times around the armour.
Even though Loch wouldn't describe himself as a very knowledgeable person, he knew, from his lessons at the orphanage and the brief history lessons from the priest of the church on Earth days, that the current spoken and written language all humans on Aegis used had been the same one for thousands of years. He had heard the priest mention that many Arch-Fiends shared a language as well, but oddly enough, it was fairly similar to their own. From the scant few books and some drawings he's seen, Loch could tell the script on the armour was not the widely used Fiend language either. Switching his focus from the blurry armour, as he knew he couldn't conjure an answer out of thin air, Loch inspected the rest of the totem.
The only piece of clothing the totem was currently wearing was on its lower half, instead of a pair of pants or even nothing at all, as Loch was expecting. The Totem was instead wearing what appeared to be a long battle skirt. The skirt was made of a collection of long blood-red, and black feathers entwined with molted golden metal strips. Underneath the skirt was a pair of thick chicken drumstick thighs and muscular human calves. However, both legs didn't end in a classic human foot but instead ended in a bird-like taloned foot, with three long and slender black-skinned toes with curved metallic, gleaming talons in the front in a triangular formation, with the middle one being the longest. There was also an independent talon that was both thicker and shorter, replacing a standard heel and appearing to bring stability to the foot.
Another thing Loch noticed, after investigating the totem overtime, was another detail that flickered in and out of existence. This flickering appeared even less regular than the arm guard, and if he hadn't spent a hundred and ten percent of his focus on this mysterious object at all times, he might have missed it. Every inch of bare skin, within a short split of a second, would be suddenly filled with thick black lines, which appeared more like tattoos than something grown naturally, looking similar to interlocking geometric patterns. The more he attempted to gauge these new tattoo patterns, the more his head began to throb. Loch did notice, however, that a couple of the patterns weren't actually locked together and seemed to have several small gaps in places, making the pattern or picture they were trying to outline incomplete.
After an exceptionally severe pulse of pain that even made the world around him flicker back to normal before returning to the purple cloud infused world, made Loch gave up attempting to piece the puzzle of the tattoos anymore. 'Secrets upon secrets. Mysteries upon mysteries. Why do I always get the feeling that whenever I lift one veil, I don't receive an answer to the questions in my heart, but I'm instead left with two more questions to add to the pile.' Loch couldn't help mutter, if he wasn't in his current weird floating observer form, without a tangible body. He had the urge to throw a bit of a fit and shake his fist to some unknown, all-knowing entity.
Moving past the mysterious tattoos, Loch checked out the next thing that dominated the Totem's odd features. A seemingly massive pair of ebony-colored feathered wings that curled around from its back. They had a flexibility to them, shown with their curved structure, but also had a thickness to them that bespoke of uses other than flight. As Loch stared at the beautiful and glossy looking feathers, he could swear the tips of some of them, that were at the bottom or the tip of the wing, looked to be swaying in an unseen breeze. The noise of the apparent soft feathers rubbing together gently made a slight scraping sound, similar to what one would hear if they were running a blade along a whetstone.
The wings were currently covering the side of the totem's face, making it hard for Loch to make out any details. 'Blasted wings. Get out of the way, would you?' To Loch's surprise, the unmoving totem appeared to obey the command he just issued in his mind and slowly moved to either side. Like a pair of curtains separating. The sudden, surprising action caught Loch's focus for only a brief moment, for when the face on the totem was revealed in full force, he had no spare brain capacity for anything else. The face was not of the middle-aged man, Wayne, whose body he was currently in possession of, as Loch was expecting. There was even a part of him that thought the face would be just another odd combination of some random humans and what was clearly something from the bird family. Like a normal human's eyes and nose, but instead of lips, it was a pointed bird beak. What he got instead was a face that bore a striking resemblance to his own. Granted, it was a more mature face than his own, and one could even say it held demonic charm to it, with a set of thin lips risen in a smirking expression. But Loch knew in his heart of hearts that he was looking at himself, or at least a version of himself.
A pair of narrowed, vacant eyes, pale green with no white sclera and a jet-black pupil, stared back at him as he perused the ever-so-familiar facial features. As if it was one of those odd paintings, no matter where Loch looked, he felt as if those beastly eyes were staring at him. His already fuzzy mind was in a complete daze at the sight of the Totem's face, especially once he made eye contact with those familiar but foreign eyes.
They were like a pair of vibrant emerald pools. They swirled and swayed in his vision, whispering to him, enchanting him, asking him to swim into their depths and open himself up. He just needed to let go and he would finally be able to relax, all the pain and sadness that he kept buried. All the hurt and decay that he hid would just float away, as long as he just opened himself up and took a swim. Loch felt his mind getting sluggish, and even his incorporeal self drifted toward the totem. With it becoming larger and larger, swallowing the surroundings and becoming the sole item in all of existence.
A throaty but masculine voice began to intrude into Loch's mind, seeping into the deepest parts of his consciousness. It wormed and squirmed throughout his brain, breaking up any coherent thoughts he had just began to muster. To Loch, the voice sounded as if it was coming from right over his shoulder, whispering in his ear and also coming from the abyss that was the emerald eyes taking up his vision in front of him, 'It'll be fine, my little Scion of oblivion. Just open it up and release it. Haven't you always wanted to fly free? Free from these pesky memories. It's so easy. I'll take them all; I'll take the tears, the pain, the heartache. You don't need them. Just give them to me. These trials are unnecessary, one such as you doesn't need to prove to anyone that you're worthy. You were born worthy. Your very existence is worthy. It's so ssssimple. Can't you feel them, constantly tugging at you, holding you back? My little Scion of Oblivion. Reject them. Seize them. EMBRACE... ME!!'
The slithering, defiling voice sounded off charming, but flecks of something monstrous began to grow the longer it talked. With the last of its words, sounding more like two rocks grinding together. No seduction in them, only force. Even in his muddle-headed state, Loch could feel the menace radiating in the voice, but it also held a flicker of something far more familiar to him. It was less like a feeling and more of a state of mind. But to Loch, it somehow also brought a certain amount of solace to his wavering soul. Like having a warm blanket thrown over you when you've fallen asleep on the couch. It was oh-so comforting. Memories of a dirty, tattered child hunkered in the hollow of a thick tree came unbidden to Loch's mind. The words whispering in his ear faded into the background as he focused on the picture before him. A storm raged around the curled child, sending the surrounding trees creaking and swaying, while the earth filled with water, washing away all the defilement on the ground.
Unnoticed to the Earth sucking up the life-giving water, a trickle of salty water was added to the mix, streaming from the boy's wide-open eyes as he stared at a pair of blood-soaked, tiny hands. Even the torrential rain couldn't wash away all that red. A crack of lightning banished the darkness for a brief moment, illuminating several figures lying around the tree in various states. They appeared human on first balance and dressed in plain cotton clothes; the only thing they had in common with the boy was their current red stained state. The lightning also lit up the child in the hollow's face, giving Loch a clear picture of those familiar green eyes and the current twisted visage dominating them. Loch could only think of one word when looking at the child's current wild eyed state, madness. The sight brought an involuntary cry from Loch's mouth, almost as if a snarl from a rabid beast he roar, "Nooooooo!!!" Along with his roar, the forest around the child looked to bend under a hidden pressure before being blasted into oblivion. Bringing Loch back to the vision of the swirling emerald waters and the whispering voice.
Although he currently still felt like nothing more than a floating pair of eyes, Loch managed to flex an invisible fist, cock it back and with a bellow of defiance he launched it at the glistening green lake before him. The lake appeared like a piece of glass and was shattered into innumerable pieces when met with Loch's unrelenting fist, flying out into the abyss. Once the emerald lake cracked, a masculine, unhinged voice was also dragged by some unseen force from the depths of Loch's consciousness, letting out several multi-voiced screams of anger, as if there was more than one voice talking on top of each other but all appeared to share the same state of the boy in the hollow. Just before the raging voices were dragged back into the abyss from once, they came, the roared in conjunction, "We will meet again, our little Scion of Oblivion, we'll see if you can get pass the next trial without the help of We! True power comes with Oblivion!"
Only a tiny bit of willpower was holding Loch's currently crumbling mind, with even his consciousness flickering like a candle in the wind, but with the expulsion of whatever entity was invading his soul being banished, along with the thick taint of insanity that leaked out of it. Loch found his dim vision regaining clarity and his muddled mind getting a much-needed dose of energy. Gazing at the Totem again, Loch found the emerald eyes reverting back to the previous placid state, as a sense of haste began to brew in his mind. In a flash, he saw a woman standing against a dark, malevolent figure, a vision that sent his still heart racing. Sounded out in large, repetitive, deafening booms to his ears. Loch re-focused on who he was and what he was doing, returning his inspection of the totem and the cyclone that surrounded it, pushing emotion away and attempting to use an analytical mind that an old woman's sharp voice always told him to use when facing a problem larger than oneself.
Somehow, Loch knew that this beastly totem of himself was the key to using the power he had expended earlier when he was battling the Minotaur. Even though he currently felt like a disembodied entity without any other workable appendage, Loch knew he could still control his body somewhat in this state. Gazing into those green eyes, Loch began to hear a set of mumbling words, but they sounded as if they were coming from underwater, garbled and indecipherable. With all the willpower he could muster, Loch tried his best to hear what was being said. Something in his blood was screaming at him to listen. The mumbling began to get louder, as if the one talking was running towards him. Throwing all other thoughts out of his mind, Loch stretched his perception towards the coming noise and finally managed to grasp something.
The voice was odd. It sounded as if it was one voice but also thousands of voices speaking at the same time. They sounded so far, but now they came crashing into him like a tempest of noise, roaring a mantra into his very soul. The words came in crashing waves and besides hurting his mind; it felt as if they were burning themselves into his very bones, causing him to cry out within in pain. While Loch was going through this Nightmare of pain. Back in Mother Leanne's office. Tobias was currently looking over a set of documents with a critical eye, while the boss of the orphanage herself was gazing out the window. The raven Jack was even perched on her shoulder, but he was facing Loch's sleeping form on the desk.
Almost as one, Tobias and Mother Leanne snapped their attention towards Loch. A smell of ozone began to fill the office, as if someone was burning rubber. Small sparks of electricity began to leap from Loch's pale skin. His threadbare clothes that were touched by the arcs disappeared into dust. The sound of thunder began to rumble out from with Loch's stomach. The noise came in waves of booms, getting louder and louder. The desk Loch was lying on started to shake and was soon followed by the floor and then the walls. Before the whole orphanage started to rumble, Mother Leanne's eyes flashed golden and her flame covered aura materialized around her and then encompassed Loch and the desk in a dome of flames. Cutting off all the noises but also hiding the contents within. Tobias, who was gazing at Loch's form with shining eyes and unintentionally leaning his body towards him, leaned back in his chair once the dome blocked his sight. Taking up the documents he was reading before, he flashed a side-eyed look at Mother Leanne and said, "Quite a powerful awakening for a first Tier. Which also means it is going to be equally as dangerous."
Mother Leanne didn't respond to the Hunter's statement and instead kept her golden gaze on the dome. In her head, however, she spoke out her hidden thoughts, 'You can do it, Loch. Accept the pain. Accept the loss, and the little chick can finally... spread his wings.'