Fandom Soul Eater: F.A.T.E

The battlefield was, in a word, chaotic. It was not without expectation given the four--no, Five, as this applied to Rand--had effectively no experience fighting together as a team. Rand has started the fundamentals to build up to that, but Magic required study, and study required time. Time was a valuable resource they seemed to have little of. The greatest issue with using anything in conjunction was the vastly different backgrounds each Mage had. Spellcasting was not taught in some universal language. The theories and concepts could be applied in different ways, and traditions taught different perception. The disjointed nature of introductory magic was rearing its ugly head on the battlefield now.

Few other facts became evident from the first wave of assaults. The most important being that these creatures were incredibly durable. At their base level with weapons, it seemed Maria wasn't able to cut into the shells of these creatures more than making a few superficial scratches. Even the eyestalk of the creature, an obvious weak spot, was durable enough that it would need hacked at like a young tree with dull machete. Only further proving this was the fact the spores that ate through the spiders effortlessly was merely softening where it landed. Ark was still restraining himself, and what he did manage to accomplish seemed half-negated by some intrinsic magical nature of these creatures. The only saving grace in this situation is that the crabs seemed to slow down slightly, not accustomed to this type of interaction with prey.

A plan would be needed, and Rand started piecing one together. The last part necessary was simple: more information. He needed to know the upper limit of the durability of these creatures. To test this, he channeled mana through his blade, then quickly launched three quick air slashes at the creatures. These were not sonic in nature, as such would be dampened by the mute spell, but compressed air alone would give him an idea of how much force was needed to deal significant damage; and, each of his slashes were of differing potency. The first landed quickly onto the third crab in the back, placed far enough away to avoid any crossfire, and one he had a straight shot at. It did little more than knock the crab around. The second, however, hit it and carved at least an inch into its front leg, breaking off bits of spike and fling it around as shrapnel. If they could hear, it was shrieking in pain. The last would only make this wound that much more grievous as he cleaved straight through the leg of the crab, causing the appendage to fall down to the ground with a viscous tan ooze following it.

This was workable. It gave Rand a point of reference. He didn't want to have to personally cleave through all of these crabs himself--a waste of mana that might be necessary for a later rescue or target.

"New plan," Rand sent out in a similar sub-lingual message as before. "Maria and Chant, you take the current target. Chant, use your decomp to weaken its shell so that Maria can get through to it, then tear it apart," he instructed them. "Ark, Raph, follow me into the fray," he told them before leaping down onto the beach and running through the crabs like an absolute mad lad. Passing through the first two was simple enough, but the ones in the back were their targets. Once positioned precisely where he wanted, he darted around the back line using his Belldash, causing giant streams of sand to be kicked up as he darted from place to place before even explaining the rest of his plan. It resembled the beach itself being carpet bombed for a moment, but otherwise had no notable effect.

Once the two arrived, he finally explained his plan. "We're going to cook them alive. Raph, I've made copies of your chain anchor rune. I placed eight of them around the targets. I want you to create a chain net to the best of your ability using them, or basically just do whatever you can to keep them in place. Ark, you're going to unleash some raw power here. I will channel a magic circle, what you need to do is cast your lava magic directly on it. I cannot stress that part enough; you need to target the metaphysical circle, and cast on it. I know neither of these skills," Rand said, but then stopped solely to slash through an incoming pincer aimed at their location, yet again cleaving through it.

"Fuck it, you're gonna learn on the fly," he said with more hurry in his otherwise monotonous voice. With that, he firmly planted his hands down onto the ground and out from them sprang trails of light blue mana that quickly created a large glowing circle surrounding the crab in the back and encompassing about half of the largest one. He simply couldn't reach far enough for that, and keep this contained for Ark. Not with such little prep time. "Everyone, for the love of Maba, just cast your damn spells," he shot out. The assertive, nearly aggressive, nature of his words couldn't be carried over through his spell, but if it could, he would have given any DWMA drill sergeant a run for their money.

​

​

“Ladies, do you really want to trust the word of a man that was just tossed back at you like a ragdoll?” Starwulf posed to them, quite sincerely. The scalpel felt the concept of her teeth grinding; while she had prepared to move as a team - and to deceive, perhaps, to aid in some element of surprise - their elongated motion through hard material made it impossible for her to forcefully twist the blade even with the contact before the throw. Despite the ramblings that Artem made, their mentor thought it was at least valiant to try and study an opponent. Starwulf was still unimpressed with the singular fact that it didn’t seem his student had realized the gap between them was vast enough to allow such rigid movements. “I would suggest you both arm yourselves and come at me at once, perhaps teach the dancer something,” Starwulf suggested, urging both of the others to engage themselves in the fight.

Arm herself, right. That was entirely up to Miroku at this point, because Temperance didn't mind fighting barehanded. "He has a point," Temperance spoke to Gia quietly. "Attacking head on isn't going to do us any good." Starwulf knew exactly what he was doing and severely outclassed them. Hell, he just threw a student at Temperance! If not for Artem's midair ballet, she probably would have been hit. "Attacking one on one won't help either," The woman added, her stance shifting slightly. "You better be fast."

As soon as she finished the woman charged, an apparent attempt to rush and close the distance between her and their instructor. It looked like a very head on attack, like Temperance was gearing up for a center mass blow. Just before Starwulf though, Temperance would slip slightly on the dirt. Instead of regaining her footing though, Temperance continued to fall backwards, landing on her palms to send both feet flying at his head; with the unmistakable added attack of Soul Force focused in the soles of her feet.

Miroku scoffed. She watched quietly as the Temperance girl started off at a sprint. Low form, she was aiming to rush him down. Not a bad idea. She cracked her knuckles and followed her so-called ‘Meister’, ducking to one side to flank their target. She didn’t even expect Miroku to back her up. That independence was…respectable, at the very least. As her ‘partner’ sent a strangely executed attack at the instructor’s head, Miroku approached his side, her right arm rearranging itself into the scarred metal barrel of her Weapon form. Aiming straight at the side of his center mass, she fired off a blast.

“I suppose if you’re going to handicap yourselves, so will I,” Starwulf told them, in a purely and intentionally mocking tone. He then proceeded to lift up one of his right foot and place his left arm behind his back, displaying he meant a literal handicap before either of the girls approached him. He did have to admit that these two were far more direct. Much less wasted energy than the dancer preceding them. This was more of what he preferred to see, more so something he could more adequately work with in terms of training. Bellamira snapped to attention, something cold and hard and bitter pooling in her palms as she watched them exchange blows through her sharp pinpoint of fish-eyed vision.

Not as if that greater appreciation meant he would go easy on either of them. If anything, it only fired him up to fight to engage them in a more involved manner. Miroku with her blasts did make this dangerous, though. He would have to take care of that. Dodging Temperance, on foot or not, wasn’t terribly difficult. She tried a deceptive feint, not unlike Artem, but the speed just wasn’t there and the flaring of her wavelength gave it away. Starwulf dodged by diving off the stake, following up with a quick kick from his left foot to the stake half Artem had cut off to launch it at Miroku, more specifically to absorb her blast.

From there, his reactions were a little more showy. A flare of his wavelength, just enough to let him catch his fall on the bottom half of the stake and its new ledge, then flip up and springboard back with his single hand several dozen feet to the center of the sea of stakes, away from both of his previous attackers.

“If you lot intend on being my students, then you need to learn this next part real quick. Weakness is forgivable. Breaking my rules is even forgivable. But, neglecting your teammates is something I shall not forgive,” Starwulf told them, telling them loud enough that even the four on the other side of the stakes could hear plain as day. The focus and ferocity radiating off of Starwulf as he made this declaration was intense. It was not just an edict, but a veiled threat.

Artem watched as Temperance, and Miroku tagged in for the second wave. Not planning on just standing there he started to make up the distance as Temperance missed, and Miroku showed a bit of her weapon form with an undeniable shotgun barrel arm. Starwulf made quick work of handling the attacks, but launched more effort to handle Miroku's attack with extra flare.

"He seems weary of ranged combat," Artem mumbled as he got next to Temperance more so talking to Bellamira, but left it open for Temperance. Artem blankly gave Miroku a quick glance and the half of the wood stalk her attack had annihilated. Mira was a wall of silent fury.

"Makes sense," Artem being a close quarters type understood that problem however he wasn't fooled by the fact had their mentor not had an environment to negate it he would have simply gone up another notch in overpowering them. Artem looked between the two girls before venturing an idea.

"We can try tempo'ing in a counter in follow up to Gia, and Jun play. Or try to coordinate with them while they do so," Artem flatly suggested to Temperance, Miroku, and Bellamira. It was in his opinion fair to allow them a solo drive in so that they could see what they were able to do rather than grasp at phantom ideas. Noncomprehension clouded imagined bile in Mira’s mind, but she responded tersely - Go.

Meanwhile, Gia remained where she initially stood, watching everything play out with a playful smirk painted on her face. It was like watching a cartoon. This old man really was no joke. Cooperation seemed to be the best course of action for an opponent like this, sure, but where was the fun in that? She wouldn’t bend to the rules so quickly– not yet, at least. The others would simply have to follow her lead if they wanted her cooperation within these crucial first minutes.

Calm eyes slowly drifted to the side to glance at her partner. It was finally time to test this partnership thing out. Holding onto her lazy grin, she delivered her first official order to Jun– disguising it as a simple and polite request instead of the test of authority it truly was.

“Juno, amore, can you transform for me?” She asked, her hand nonchalantly extending outwards towards the taller woman. “Looks like our party needs another set ‘a dancers.”

A feral scream escaped from Miroku's lips. Deaf to the words that had come from the instructor's own mouth, she leapt across from one stake to another with as much ease as if she were sprinting across flat ground itself, firing off blast after blast of flechettes at Starwulf.

Starwulf would only sigh as he noted that Miroku was yet again going off on her own in his blasts aimed at him. He wasn’t sure if he was more disappointed in the fact she hadn’t learned her lesson, or at in general how weak they were–emphatically more so given she was without a Meister.

“This is clearly getting nowhere,” Starwulf announced. Wavelength surged through him, although far less than was even needed for Erikk earlier. With his soul perception still active, he was perfectly capable of keeping his eyes on the group while sensing the incoming projectiles, and only further proved this by deflecting each one with his right hand as they neared him, using that wavelength he surged as a slight protective barrier from their sting.

“Miroku, calm your shit… before I introduce your face to the dirt,” Starwulf shouted, pouring out raw aggression that matched her feral scream with his own genuine frustration with this group. He didn’t need to face her or even offer any attention while she decided to leap around, his words echoed through the air with every ounce of honesty and intent that could be achieved. The feeling of being disrespected, of being cut off before they’d even started, raged through the tense connection between Artem and Bellamira.

“I’m going to level with you. All of you,” he said, explaining the situation to them. “I wanted to see some level of teamwork. You see, the other half of this group went off to the Deadly Trails to complete some combat scenario on day one, but I’ve taught plenty of students, and I’ve found that approach to be less than effective,” giving them some insight as to what the other team was doing. His point was clear to Mira - perhaps irrationally. They, as a group, were assumed to be incapable. Desynchronized. Maybe even stunted, if she and her partner sat as an example: for him, at least, it seemed more physical.

“If anything, you’re all proving why. You should be well aware this task, if it was life or death, is nigh-impossible, yet you all just come at me blindly,” he continued on. “The single individual here that even suggested teamwork decided to do so with jargon from his specialty as if any of you would by default have a Death damn idea what he was talking about,” he said, criticizing the one effort by Artem.

“I mean kudos to him for trying, but the communication just wasn’t there,” he expounded.

Then he became quite starkly serious again, his wavelength still surging through him and this time pouring out an almost sinister vibe to it–the type of raw emotion that nearly any of them with Soul Perception or merely the ability to pick up social vibes could find. The half-snarl on his face and narrowed eyes only added to this. “A team should be greater than the sum of their parts,” he informed them all, allowing that to sink in.

“The rules are changing. Sure, if you can grab one of these bandanas, you’re off the hook, but I’m creating another way to earn one. All I want you to do is tell me an element of proper team work, then demonstrate it. Even if you fail, I will award a bandana,” he explained to them, deciding this was the best way to salvage the spirit of this exercise.

And sink in it did. The scalpel’s response to their mentor’s aggression, not more than twenty paces out and snarling wrath and, worse, derision - there was no greater fury - the spooling control of her weapon form was pulled at the hands. Not unwrapping, gently, but yanking to tear away from his control. While the retreating threads of Artem’s soul writhed from her rejection, her own kept her wrapped and in form, but a scalpel at the tip of her finger twisted to cut them-
Before the weapon knew it, she was on her feet, stood with a flat line of lip and a storming facade that covered up the swimming in her head from such a moment of impulse.

Her eyes dispassionately flicked across the scene, from the partner beside her waiting for combat and maybe even surprised or pained by her decision, to the madwoman running at their mentor and the pair only beginning to transform. Her lip twisted with its own derision - but it settled, as she took one calm and even step after another toward the man, pointedly and quickly and yet not aggressively with that complete nothing expression - to stand maybe five paces in front of him. In Miroku’s way, in her own haste.

“The first tenant of teamwork,” she spat, like something dirty needed to be removed expediently from her mouth, “is commitment to a common goal. Letting us answer alone because we failed at that is a complete fucking cop-out..” She forced the muscles in her face, the sneer from the words, to relax. Tried to assume a smile. Failed, returned to neutrality again. Her eyes glimmered with wave after wave of dark resentment.

Starwulf saw that spark within this one. Bellamira, he believed. Younger, troubled sister of that soft, feely fuck Salem. He already liked her more than him, honestly; leaving her partner just to mouth off to him. That showed backbone he never saw in her brother. “Correction, Miss Ossana. I said name it, then demonstrate it. So far, all you’ve demonstrated is your command over the English language, which in your defense seems much greater than that of your partner,” he shot back at her, pointing out the slight flaw in her claim. The weapon moved closer, another two steps, a distance that would have put the pair nose-to-nose if he wasn’t almost half a foot taller than her. Something in her had paused. It mulled over his response, and it hated that he was right, that she felt stupid in the wake of something said like that in the heat of the moment. Her eyes pulled up to closely examine his face for signs of smugness. It was the smallest things she noticed, and the smallest things she hid. There was something in her mind that hoped she’d pull attention away, create some real sort of opening.

With the most flippant tone the man could feasibly muster, Starwulf simply told the now-close weapon, “You realize I’m a married man, yes, Miss Ossana? Neither my wife nor Salem would approve.” The woman’s teeth bared, indignant, and her hand rose as if she had the intention to shove him back in anger. The implication alone was enough to flush her cheeks and ignite the vitriol festering behind her self-aggrandizing actions.

Before such an alteration could be followed Artem casually wedged himself somewhat between the two turning more so to Stawulf, but respectively not giving Bella his backside. The shark toothed boy stared at their supposed mentor as if entering a staring contest where a protective shark in a daze stared down an prideful wolf. When Bella had rejected him without a word Artem had not resisted even letting her peacefully leave his fingers as she charged right on over clearly pissed at their mentor. Once she had gotten her worse he had countered placing her into a stand off which he then used to purposely derail her… and that part had been what caused Artem to react.

"Never leave your partner to sink. Stand by them even if the odds are zero to your favor," Artem mulled not to allow Starwulf to trigger his partner again, even seeming ready to strike the man if he tried. It was hard to say if this was driven by a subconscious form of emotion trying to exist. even if he had not even minutes ago been ragdolled by the behemoth of a warrior. Artem was clearly not about to allow Bella to be harmed physically or mentally without taking the majority of the hit for her. Her shoulders raised, like hackles, defensive to the intrusion as the gears in her mind visibly ground together in consideration of their mentor.

"However, I agree with my partner. Your exercise is ill formed. Expecting to force a good result from problems right out the gate was never going to give a victory," Artem shot back at the flaw in Starwulfs whole setup.

"All you have done today is laid bare what we already know. We're problematic, we get it. Only a controlling brute–”

Words hardly allowed to be finished. Starwulf had enough of this. Enough of Artem speaking. That flare in his wavelength was still active, his speed was sufficient to entirely end this rambling. Even Bella at point blank range was left with little more than a blur once Starwulf sidestepped her to make a mad dash at Artem. Her hand snapped closed in the air as he moved, a grab for one of the bandanas in Artem’s distraction to demonstrate their common goal, but the movement was too fast for her to track with the naked eye. “Then I’m a controlling brute, and your whining is a disservice to the rest of your team,” he told Artem, face-to-face, followed by a severe and brutal head smash to the man, with enough speed and force alongside the raw surprise to send the man to the ground.

“Now how about you keep quiet while the rest of the team gets a word in edgewise?” Starwulf suggested quite forcibly before eyeing back to Bella and adding, “Nice try, props for keeping your eye on the prize. But I’m not rewarding you for having a mouthy partner.”

​

Mana. Glorious mana. The lifeblood of magic itself. It swirled throughout the air in so many flavors that the confection it created was of pure delight. The complex combination of fungal and necrotic formations from Chanterelle, the finesse and precision in the control of raw mana through threads with Maria, the conjuration and metallic animations of Rapheal, and of course... the raw, unbridled power of flame and stone together in the fury of lava being channeled into that magic circle. This is what it meant to be a mage. This was the beauty that only a group of magic users could achieve. This is something that no group of Meisters or weapons would ever understand. This is what it meant to dance within the arcane flames of generations of power passed down through the lineage of the first Witches.

And, this was only the beginning.

The chains controlled by Raphael did a more than effective job at holding their target crab in place. The combination of hasty setup from Rand followed by Raph being allowed to focus on their control allowed for a more precise amount of control in their restraint. Perhaps not used to its fullest utility, but if limits were not pushed, then one could never expect to grow. And, Rand set high expectations for everyone in the group. Unfortunately, these chains were not fated for a lengthy life once Ark began his spell. The heat from the lava and compounding mana within the area would have broken most of the control Raph might have had, but that didn't matter. He did his job. He did his job, and Raph would be the one to get to watch closest as the combined efforts of himself, Rand, and Ark showed what multiple Mages working in tandem were capable of.

It was unfortunate that the air was still muted; the painful shrieks of the crab in question would have satisfyingly switched from that of a predatory sonic wail to that of dismay and primal terror.

Ark commanded a dangerous element in the form of lava. An element that required control over two entirely separate ones, both of which were natural forces capable of intense destruction on their own. Together, that was only compounded. The intense heat of his mana through his spell being channeled into the magical circle was unlike most other forms of magic, but that perhaps was due to the difficulty in controlling it. The magic circle shifted in color as Ark channeled into it, turning a bright, burning orange until it was completed. This debuted one of the more impressive skills of Rand: precise and staunch control. Once the mana poured into the magical circle, it would have been like Atlas dropping the Heaven's themselves as a relief. It also debuted the core of his plan coming to fruition.

With the circle completed, the sand itself turned into a boiling pot of molten silica that even these crabs had absolute no control over. Beyond that, once occurring, several smaller crabs much like the ones Chanterelle had dealt with earlier emerged only to be fried by the raw heat. This circle allowed for the spell to be casted precisely and more efficiently, but also with a significant bolster to its power. Some of the particulates of sand were heating hot enough to later form bits of glassy shards, a feat normally outside the range of Ark's temperature control. The spell was short-lived, less than ten seconds in duration, but that was genuinely all that was needed. Halfway through it, the crab that was targeted was already half sub-merged in this hot molten concoction and the one one outside its range had at least one of its legs slipped into the hot pool, unable to withdraw it. The crabs were being quite literally cooked alive, and quickly. The durability of their shells, their size, their strength--none of it mattered to a spell like this.

Meanwhile, Maria was easily skilled enough to dance around through the crabs, deflecting and dodging their incoming attacks. Her own skill coupled with the upgrades performed to her dolls made what might have been a daunting task into a gentle reminder of just how talented she was at her niche of puppeteering. These crabs were strong, but hardly nimble, and the only thing preventing Maria from tearing through them was that hard outer shell. Chanterelle would soon provided her the opportunity that this was the truth as the spores from her spell were capable of both thinning the shell and making it far more brittle, creating dusky spots on its chitinous exterior that even the smallest of her dolls could bash through. From there, destroying the soft innards of these large crustaceans would prove absolutely no challenge for her.

And, more importantly, the expenditure of mana for them was far less than what it was for Rand, Raph, and Ark. While the combination spell might have been a delight to witness, it was hardly as efficient or truly effective as the combination of Maria and Chant. In fact, the two could likely bring this large crab and another to the ground faster than the other three could the next larger one.

"Maria and Chant can finish the last two," Rand announced to the group. "If that large one flees, I say we let it. Best to conserve mana," Rand explained, hoping the creature would see the deaths of what was likely its family and realize staying would only result in more of the same. There was no sense in blind slaughter.

​

He chuckled from his seat like a buffoon would. And whether that was a testament to both his partner, and their guardian basically reading the immature part of his brain to a T, was up in the air.

The notion that she could be upset with him still, did not go ignored though, Zosar merely decided to wait and see if it would be something they'd need to talk about later. He owed her that at least. There was no way he could tell her everything- it wasn't his way, but he certainly could tell her some of what happened...if she was interested.

It was hard not to snicker at her complaints though. Abbadon would be a pain. He'd never had a pet before, not like other Enlighteners had, so knowing at least Adra had been having her own form of 'fun' with the aquatic animal, was something he could not help but smile in amusement at.

Vrooming their ride forward, Zosar did heed the subtle caution of advice Adra had given, together, they sped off after Midori. His eyes flicking to the light as the speakers hummed to life and Midori's voice crackled over the wind and whirr of the engine. He listened, that sense of amused, care-free glee that he'd had earlier, fading as a more serious expression crossed Zosar's face with a subtle nod at Midori's mention of desiring to switch into the topic at large.

It'd be a lie to say Zosar listened without a degree of irritation. The Enlighteners to him, were not petty thieves- they were much more and in his eyes had done much more. It was hard to sit there and essentially hear the organization his parents had died working for, many of his friends, people he'd known growing up- being equated to nothing but small fry-- but the logistical side of him understood and knew, Midori wasn't wrong. Critically speaking, they weren't big fish in the ocean.

Even he knew that if they were, DWMA would have sent a group after them to take them out a long time ago-- and that was probably the benefit of staying out of the radar. The reason their motto was: No trace, no race, always solve every case. It was something his dad had once said when he had begun his start as a rookie under Hiroshi and other agents that had been deemed field acceptable. It was easy to avoid being caught when no one really knew you were there to begin with. After the stunt Eustice had pulled, he wondered what the Enlighteners had done or what agreements had been made before Eustice had been given the go ahead.

He knew his friend well enough to know that he wouldn't endanger the whole organization. Knew for a fact no one would allow him if he were capable of doing something so foolish in the first place. They had to have moved again- to where, he had no clue.

Even as these thoughts popped in and out of his head, Zosar still listened and followed what Midori relayed. What made his grip tense on the wheel was what Midori said next.

"The last two weeks of holding you have actually been to keep you safe; eleven assassination attempts were made on you and Eustace in that time, and a handful of kidnappings occurred to try and infiltrate rounds on your security.​

He wasn't sure what to say to that- wasn't sure what to think even. So he chuckled, because it was really the only thing he could respond to do.

Life sure can be funny, when you least expect it.

As they crossed into the rocky terrains, spotting the domed building, Zosar eyed it with curiosity. His eyes however did pick up the signs of runework.

Stopping when told and then waiting, once Midori was back- Zosar listened silently to what more he had to say. Once he was done though, he was silent.

He looked at Adra...and thought: I can go back...but even if I did, it'd take years to rebuild what I was born with. The trust they had in me isn't going to just come back just because I was one of the founder's kids. And it certainly isn't going to be any better if Eustice is joining with me, not after how we ended things.

To him, it really sounded like they were just dumping him on the Enlighteners to become their problem if that's what he wanted.

"I don't think I'll be going back." He said, all while looking at her. And even as he said it, he could feel the perspiration starting to build.

Part of him felt like that was the wrong thing to say. That if Becky or Alan or any of his buddies ended up being there to meet them at the end when they did meet with whoever would be receiving Eustice, part of him felt he'd cave in- just like how he'd caved in to the DWMA agents he'd been supposed to leave behind, fend for themselves- like they did before DWMA, going out on missions with varying chances of coming back alive at all, or even whole of body or mind.

"Y'know, I ran a lot of different scenarios in my mind while I watched Lars and the others get cut down. Some, pretty dark." He explained. First time too. If his therapist was a testament to anything, Zosar, never talked about his personal feelings- rarely ever did even with the person that was supposed to be sitting there to help him. That was another reason why the link had been so fragile between him and Adra- it wasn't just because she had so little faith at the start, it was also because there had been a strong part of him that was expecting the worst to happen soon.

"One of them was, the next time I saw you, Midori," he clarified, "was that you wouldn't really want to see me again. Were basically done vouching for me. Even when you came back, those thoughts didn't entirely go away. And, Adra" he slowly looked her way, "I think we both know after my reaction earlier, I was expecting you to slap the snap off me. I" he chuckled, "would have to be pretty brain dead, to risk losing you two after the compassion you've shown me."

And he really meant that. But he also knew that if he did leave DWMA officially to go back to the Enlighteners, he'd just be setting himself up for trouble. Without the spite to back the fury as things were currently- they wouldn't fully accept him the way he was now. He knew that. And it made the realization almost a sad one. Ditching his family, for his friends.

Had things turned out differently with Midori after the incident, with Adra when they'd met, with Sara when she visited, perhaps that would have been the push he needed to just cut his losses here once and for all- but since they hadn't, he saw no reason to turn around and leave. When Eustice had shown up it had only been because he didn't want to pull his friend into his own trouble, but Eustice had done that to himself. Now, Zosar didn't feel the shackles as heavy- even if he still felt it there, it did not weigh as heavily on his mind as it had before.

Daniella Ethalyn - Paris, France (Rail Line)
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