Now that John rested, he tested the new ability he’d found by accident. He wasn’t sure what he had to do, but when he closed his mind off to the world around him, he couldn’t tell what happened, but he felt it. The pure energy that he could control, but his control only lasted for a moment before it all ended. It gave him a brief feeling of absolute control within the darkness.
After he tested it a few more times, he rested, ignoring the man as much as he could. He never got over his fear of John, but that was his issue and not John’s.
His rest went unbothered. He slept only enough to allow himself to function but not enough to feel rested. Time was ticking and he needed to move. The longer he waited, the further they got and the harder it would be to find them.
His tails lashed out to grab the man. He wailed in fear, sobbing as John placed him on his back. He hoped the man held on tightly as he got a running start, jumped, and flared out his wings. He felt pride in himself as he quickly got better at controlling the strangeness of his new limbs.
John didn’t know how far their enemy traveled, but he did know their destination. There was no way to know how fast they could cover the distance, but he couldn’t idly wait for someone to accidentally kill his Contractor and leave him crippled.
From what he'd seen of this world, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing to happen.
Without his Contractor around, he felt deeply anxious and a sense of incredible loss - more than he himself felt for Amelia - and realized just how screwed he was.
The Oath, and their connection from it, was growing.
He hated it.
But he couldn’t change the past now and had to live with the cards he’d been dealt.
So, he flew onward in search of Amelia and the hooded figures.
He enjoyed the feeling of the wind flowing through his wings. Flying through the air really cemented the fact that he was in a new world. The sprawling roads of cobblestone or gravel leading every which way, the endless forests spreading far and wide, and the small towns that he could see in every which way. The lack of any modern civilization really drove home that this wasn’t just a bad dream he’d eventually wake up from.
The setting sun was surreal, looking no different from Earth. Despite the melancholy that yanked at his chest, this was the first time he felt free since he’d arrived in this world. Soaring high into the sky with no threat in sight.
He finally caught sight of the hooded freaks. He watched as one of the elephant-bulls pulled a wagon through the gates of Ghulda. ‘Too late.’
He lost sight of the wagon when the guards slammed the gates closed. He didn’t want to get too close to the domed city before night descended. He didn’t feel comfortable being anywhere nearby, but the rescue mission would happen.
It had to, whether he liked it or not.
Amadeus’s binding meant he couldn’t waste time. He couldn’t be someone else’s pawn, nor did he want to be. His Contractor definitely couldn’t stay with them. He would kill himself long before dealing with the anxiety of knowing he could be left defenseless at any second. The parasite was still inside of him doing whatever it did.
Light faded to dark and night finally came, camouflaging his large frame. There were only two gated entrances with two guards posted on the outside at all times, but he looked up towards the dome and located the gryphon sized hole. Granted, he’d grown since then, but he didn’t think it would be too hard to adjust it so that he could get through.
He looked back at the man who’d been mumbling to himself the entire way. John gained a lot of experience in the ways of ignoring a nuisance. John dismounted the man with little precursor, his tails dropping the brute into a bush where he sputtered and thrashed in protest.
John returned to the sky and flew around the whole city. He didn’t get any sense of where his Contractor was through their connection. If he couldn’t find her, he really didn’t know what else to do at this point.
With a steeled determination, he dove through the hole in the dome and flew towards the center of the city. He couldn’t imagine how fast he would’ve been apprehended if it were daytime when all the inhabitants of the city were awake and functional.
But it was nighttime, his camouflage was working against whoever was still awake, and he made sure to be as quiet as possible. Things were going well, but he felt uneasiness creep its way through his body.
He flew around the entire city, but there was no hint of his Contractor through their bond anywhere. He landed as near to the center as he could, and felt only the briefest hint of their connection.
‘Below ground?’ He stared down at the ground below him and hoped he’d be able to get a better feel for where she was, but the small feeling she had only began to fade. ‘Well, that’s just not fair.’
He returned to the sky and looked at all the buildings around them, returning to the entrance that they’d taken. The large elephant-bull could easily make its way through the city, but the options were far more limited in the routes that it could take due to its enormous size. That meant he just had to find which route they took, and maybe then he could get a lead.
As he flew around, he started noticing shadows that flickered strangely on the top of buildings and at the entrances to alleyways. It took him a while to notice, but, once he had, he saw them everywhere.
‘Someone’s watching. I’d bet money that it’s the people that took her.’ He acted as though he was still oblivious to their existence. If he even looked near them, they disappeared. They watched and didn’t confront him in any way. ‘This doesn’t seem like them.’
John looked directly at one that was fairly close and lashed out with his tails. They stabbed through the shadows and they dissipated with a shriek. ‘What the-?’
He felt energy coalesce inside of him from the attack, ‘I killed it? I don’t even know what it is.’
A loud shriek broke the silence of the night and the shadows moved in unison. John heard screams as the shadows materialized and attacked anything they could find. They went out of their way to attack the people of the city, breaking into any home or business.
‘The enemy of my enemy…?’ he asked as he watched the assault on the city. He continued flying about, following the routes the elephant-bull could’ve taken until he found a group of the hooded freaks attacking the strange shadow beings.
They were overrun in mere moments by the horde of shadow beings. John watched as the shadows tore into them, killing them with sheer numbers. Their semi-corporeal body’s fascinated John, but his heart sank when he saw two silvery, humanoid outlines rise up through the bodies of the hooded figures and get sucked into the swarm of shadows.
‘Shadow-like soul suckers? That’s terrifying.’ He looked around for whatever had emitted the scream but didn’t see a shadow unlike any of the others. He descended, careful to avoid the shadows, and looked around for any sign of where the hooded enemy had come from.
With a little searching, he found stairs in an alleyway nearby that led further down than any basement he’d ever seen. He could hear screams from further inside.
‘I hope she’s okay,’ he thought as he rushed down the stairs.
The feeling of pain and disgust bled through their bond, growing in strength with every step he took.
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