Chapter 14: To turn against

Once the group reached the Eastern part of the city they were greeted by an entire group of plague children. They cheered upon realizing that they had all returned together. As they got closer, however, others began to realize that there was an immense amount of injuries amongst them.
Rel dropped off Ora to his household and evacuated to his own. They had promised to tell everyone the outcome of their quest afterward. Of course, they persisted, but once Rel got enraged and threatened to knock the next person who speaks out, the entire crowd dispersed and remained silent.
Ora fell into a deep and terrible sleep. Within it, he was visited by the same mysterious being, Alucarde.
There, in the realm of shadows, Alucarde sat down, crisscrossed.
“I had been waiting for you.” It said in its shadowy deep voice.
“You’ve been waiting…for me?”
“Come sit.”
Ora nodded and sat down beside Alucarde. “What do you think of your marvelous new abilities? Well..my marvelous new abilities.”
Ora stared nervously at the shadow being. It was impossible to predict what kind of response it was looking for.
“I was able to hold my own against the Silver Knight…and I managed to take out at least 40 troops. I’m very strong.”
“I’ll be honest, Ora.” The shadow stood up.
“I was ready to abandon you within the first moment you rested your hands on me. However, I think, out of all the hosts so far, you are by far my favorite.”
The shadow began to pace around him. “You see….you have an attitude about you, and a burning passion that only my host 800 years ago held.
“Your host… 800 years ago..what do you mean?”
“You’re not the first to wield me. Whereas my old master died of sickness, all the other ones died of rejection. I do not tolerate weakness and hesitation.”
Ora nodded. He understood exactly what the relic meant. Out of all the plague children, he and Lynx had the ability to immediately resort to killing others. They’ve never done it before, but they’ve often talked about it a lot.
There were many other’s that were apathetic to the pleas of others. But, he liked to think that they were being honorable. They would easily be willing to kill hundreds in order to right a wrong. Aside from that, they were also two of the nicest people within the Eastern district.
“I see…” Ora drew circles in the darkness as if it were sand.
“Why did you help me back then?”
“Because your character amuses me. I wish to see what you want to accomplish…and how you intend to accomplish that mission.”
There was an awkward pause before he added “The last host I had like you… he managed to entertain me quite a lot. Surely you’ll add light to my boring existence.”
Ora smirked “But you don’t strike me as one that likes light”
The shadow laughed. “Of course not. But nonetheless, I’d wish to relive days like those again.”
“Umu..what- what happened to your previous owner 800 years ago.”
“He died.”
Ora tilted his head curiously. “Was there others stronger than him out there? Or…how did he die?”
The shadow looked down and melted into the ground. The next scenes that unfolded were a display of a young man, a magician who found a shining gem. The gem he found had granted him the power to reshape the world. In the darkened era of darkness, he reshaped continents and destroyed everything that dared oppose his path.
Ora’s eyes scanned intently, wanting to learn what else this ancient being had done, but, Alucard cut the presentation short.
In the end, the man who ruled the world succumbed to sickness and died. The thin silhouette of the being completely died out. “…he died of illness?”
“That’s not all to the story, but for the sake of not overfilling your head with questions, yes. That is how he met his demise.”
“I’d love to show you the rest, but you see…time runs a little differently in this void world of mine. There are those outside calling you right now.”
Ora looked upwards towards what was presumed to be a sun appearing in the void world. There he could see the very several people stirring his body back and forth. “O….r…a !..! O-ra!”
“ORA!” His eyes shot open and he found Sela stirring him awake. “Huh?” Immediately slapped him as hard as he could once he woke up. Tears filled her eyes and Ora in his daze and confusion rubbed his cheek. “Oi. Sela. What’s this all about”
“Ora! You idiot!”
“huh?”
“You have to get out of here! The Garrison is here for you. There’s at least 20 of them. And 10 of them are advanced military knights.” Much different than guards, knights were seasoned war veterans as well as combat specialists. The fact that they’d send 10 after a child marked the moment historical.
“Ora-san pls. We have to get you out of here. I heard your ribs were broken. I can carry you.”
She attempted to pick Ora off the ground, placing his arms over her small head and lifting him up.
Ora couldn’t help but chuckle.
“H-how could you laugh at a time like this…I’m really worried for you.” She hugged Ora with tear-filled eyes. “I’ve already lost Anniki…I can’t lose you too.”
Ora patted her head. “It's alright…really. I’m actually quite fine.”
He picked her up. “Where’s Rel and the others?”
He had banked on appearing cool as he picked her up, but it seemed his wounds were entirely recovered. Just like the day prior when Rel had knocked him out, all his wounds and broken bones had returned to full health.
“R-Rel…and Alel. They’re-“
 
Ora burst out of his room and immediately ran to the center of the crowd that was before him. He had to shove people out of his way to even try to get close.
Rel and Alel stood knelt before the guards with their arms bound behind their back. “You have 10 minutes to bring me the white-haired plague child.”
“Else, we proceed our execution here and now without trial. Harming a Knight of Baerim is a crime that is punishable by execution. You lot should be lucky we treat you as human beings. If you don’t bring me ‘Ora’ both of them shall die on the spot.”
Without thinking Ora instantly pushed himself through the crowd that had built up. Many of them wanted to fight, but Rel had commanded they step down. From the semi-circle the children had formed Ora stepped forward.
At the center of this half-circle, one of the guards lowered his blade. “White hair…4 feet tall. You must be Ora.”
Ora nodded. And took several steps closer to the commander until they were face to face. “I, Seirinx Valen order you to be put to death. You, and all your comrades.”
Ora tilted his head. “Seirinx? The head of the garrison is Olren Valen. Who does that make you?”
“You mean to tell me you haven’t heard of me? He withdrew his blade and threw it into the sky several times, catching it with just the tip of his fingers each time.
The blade danced around his body, never once touching him, before landing nicely onto the palms of his hand each time.
“Cute trick. You’d be a much better fighter if you practiced fighting instead of juggling all this time” Ora responded. This caused a stirred reaction from most of the children around. Was he trying to goad him into killing them all?
Seirinx snorted out of his nose, as he tossed his sword into the sky one more time. He was going to punch Ora and knock him out before Ora could even react, and catch his blade once again.
Atleast…that’s how things were supposed to turn out.
The blade flew into the sky, spun several times and Seirinx jumped forward with a punch meant to incapacitate Ora. The moment he lunged forward with his fists ready for violence, he froze.
As if he was in a stance win first place in a race, his leg bent far behind him, while his other was held up mid-run. The still image was one that everyone could witness play out in slow motion. Ora turned away from the scene so as to avoid blood from spurting all over his face.
Seirinx found himself unable to move mid lounge and the sword he tossed up slowly came back down. With a sharp slicing noise, it found itself nestled deep within his skull.
His eyes rolled to the back of his head and he promptly fell over and began to convulse before he bled all over the ground. The other guards looked nervously. Never had they witnessed something like this happening before.
They didn’t know what to do in that situation. He had completely failed in his show off tactics for the first time in 20 years. One of the guards nervously shivered and stepped forward to Ora.
“O-Oya- Come clean and we’ll be sure to report this situation accurately.” Why were they trying to pretend that he would get a fair trial? They were all to be executed before they entered the courtroom.
Ora looked down and muttered
“Hold still…I want to try something..” His own shadow picked up off the ground and began to formulate around his left arm. It took the shape of a drill and the man that was before him immediately jumped back.
He activated his relic and withdrew a giant circular disk from his back. A chakram. The chakram lit up and spun around his hand as he launched it at Aura.
“Oh…Marvelous.” He lifted up his drill hand and immediately blocked the oncoming spinning disk. The disk shredded and shredded but failed to get past the giant drill. Just as Ora was about to repeal the disk away, it separated.
6 individual disks formulated from the one and 3 came at Ora, while the other 3 headed for random plague children.
Alarmed, he barely had enough time to gather his shadows and counter it. The blades dug into bare flesh for just a split second, before a tendril looped its way through the middle section of the chakram.
As the kids all screamed, Several more shadows sprouted from them and looped in between the chakrams.
“Tch. Annoying trick”
The guard seemed shocked and swallowed hard upon realizing what he was dealing with.
With one thrust forward, the drill rammed into the guard and pierced his torso. The shadows then unbound from their formation and ripped the guy into pieces.
The other guards looked horrified and tried to react in time, but were too flustered. “1, 2” The shadows erupted forth and killed 5 more of them. “3, 4, 5, 6, 7,”
Rel and Alel got out of their chains easily. Rel’s extreme strength was too much to be held by iron chains, and Alel’s hands had heated significantly.
They had allowed themselves to get captured. Inviting battle into a space with all these children would be too troublesome. Now that Ora had adequately blocked off the space between the battle and bystanders, they could act accordingly.
One swift uppercut came from Rel, breaking the guard's neck before him. The moment the other guard realized, he too received a swift kick that left him screaming onto the ground. His arm had been entirely crushed.
Alel’s heated hands had already taken out 6 different guards. All she had to do was grab their faces and sear their eyes shut. Most of them were incapacitated from the pain. Rel took out the other 6 guards with rapid succession.
With that, all of them were dead on the spot. The battle lasted maybe 2 minutes total. It was much more of a massacre than a battle.
Rel panted heavily. “Tch. This is going to take an interesting spin on things for sure…what should we do with the bodies.”
Ora promptly left the scenery to catch up on some more of his sleep. “Leave them.”