Pluto had been tense. His current heart rate was probably unhealthy now. Every extra second that passed without any sign of Mira just made his idea seem more stupid. In truth, they weren't looking for her anymore, but the fact that they had been was enough for Saul to blame any unproductivity– which actually meant not murdering people– as to being his fault. Saul wasn't the kind of person to do that, but the thought of it was disturbing.
Apart from that, Saul's words about planning accordingly were still too troubling to overlook. He probably wouldn't harm him as a first victim, but in the long run, there was no telling.
Worst of all, if they encountered beasts, with his current state, he wouldn't be able to swiftly steal cores.
Neither of them spoke. Not because of lack of things to say– although that was also a decisive factor –but because the forest told them not to. Tension had built to a point so palable that both just expected something to lunge out of the thick greyish greenery.
Then suddenly –
Pluto's arm jerked. He almost yelped in fear until he remembered that his skin was not tenant-free as it had been a few weeks ago. He had forgotten about it, so the uneasy pull on his arm felt even stronger. It was too violent, compared to the gentle reminder he had grown accustomed to.
"What the–"
Pluto pulled back on his arm, trying to shrug it off. The call to concentration was more distracting with such fervent insistence.
Pluto's face paled. The snake had barely reacted to the house-sized predator that spilt the fight between him and Saul, and had reacted slightly more against the rhino that came barreling through the trees.
But now it felt like it was tired of leaving on his skin and was protesting eviction.
Saul halted before Pluto even stopped. He hadn't noticed anything, that is, apart from the scowl on Pluto's face that said all too well that something was wrong. Pluto stopped a millisecond after, watching the intent wriggles of his companion with concern.
Then he closed his eyes and focused. The forest became like a vivid drawing, that was ruthless erased from perspective soon after. Then it reformed in a new light, literally.
And he finally saw what the eel was worried about, and frankly, he was unimpressed. Four entrants hid in the bushes several steps ahead, waiting with impatience that bled out into the unamused bush.
Although he felt a lot safer, he had to admit that his heart did throb anxiously in prospect of being ambushed. After all, the eel would never react with such violence if the threat had not been worth of it. So did that mean that these four people were stronger than the rhino?
He didn't know how to counter measure. Running was a good option, but he had no idea if they could actually escape by merely pumping their legs. Teleportation was viable too, but from relaying the information to Saul's reaction time and action implementation, the attackers might have already closed the distance. Besides, Saul's bridge in space could not take them too far, that was if it could even take more than one person. And with Saul's situation, it could not be used in rapid succession. But he could try and see what would happen, couldn't he?
He could, but instead, he just opened his eyes and kept walking like nothing had happened. He looked calm, but not too calm, because in a place like this, carefree attitude was more suspicious than a tense one.
He turned his head to Saul, giving him a sharp gaze before turning back as if he had just glanced to verify whether his partner, or lenient kidnapper, had still existed.
The situation was tense, and more so for Saul. He didn't know how Pluto knew, neither did he know what Pluto knew, all he knew was that Pluto knew something he didn't. And that thing, required alertness.
The air around Saul seemed to share in his discomfort too, seemingly pulling taut like strings.
'A bad omen I suppose.'
***
"Not bad," Khalifa said as she counted the seeds one more time.
Six in number. A small number, but almost incomprehensible when the significance was considered. One was precious, more than diamonds to most, if not all entrants. Six was millions of dollars compressed into balls no bigger than an orange.
To summarize their entire trip, luck had reared its ugly head. They had just kept stumbling into lone entrants one after the other, and never failing to dispose of them. And that opened a new truth to them. Most people weren't skilled enough to handle two attackers at once.
Ronan smiled back at her. She may have thought he was happy about the seeds, but in reality, he had not enough been paying attention when she counted them.
His smile was as a result of something else, something far more important. To elaborate the entirety of it was impossible, but he knew one thing. It was a game changer.
He had recently discovered that he could imbue his ink spears with a standout talent from whatever he had recently killed, although temporarily.
It was as if the soul fragmented and a piece of it was trapped inside the spear, lingering for a bit before dissipating into wisps of nothingness.
He had first noticed it when he had killed a creature that had the ability to ignite its skin. Later, while fighting another one, he had unintentionally used it to destroy the beast.
As much as it was amazing, it did have three downsides. The first was the fact that whenever he imbued the talent of the beast into his ink, the beast's core lost its pulse and therefore became useless. Secondly, his new mixes were so powerful that they destroyed the enemy pretty much to the base, obviously incinerating the core as well.
Last and definitely most dire, was the energy expenditure. Each use drained his spirit almost completely, and with the last two downsides, he would almost certainly not have any cores to replenish it.
It was the kind of ability that was only to be thought about as a last resort. As a life or death input.
Still, it was an addition. And it was his addition.
***
He swore he had heard movement. With some effort... okay, a lot of effort, he climbed onto a tree and looked. Just slightly ahead was a pack of low level predators. Not dangerous in the usual scale of the forest, but concerning nonetheless.
He could leave them alone and continue his rounds, but that would mean he wasn't good at his job. Or in the words of the Chamber perfectionists, he wasn't clinical.
With a sigh, he let his grip on the bark of the tree loosen and he activated his ability mid-fall.
The world bent round him, rejecting him for detection. He wasn't a good fighter, but his trump card– which was actually his only card– was enough to catch them off guard.
" They won't know what hit them," he muttered as he dashed forward.
***
In the end, the only way they got the predators to stop chasing them, was to get Thea to stop running.
Thea wasn't the kind of person who would try that experiment in the first place, and infact, no rational person would. But what could she do about it when she was unconscious for stress?
Mira dragged her across the forest floor, happy that the swirling mass of black on her arm had finally quieted. Her eyes darted left and right, looking for a decent place to wait out to coming night with her guest.
Thea's eyes were open, but too unfocused to actually see. If she could see, she would have been a lot more worried than before.
On an interval of about fifteen seconds, a shadow would flashed by. Always from the right, always circling back. It didn't attack, but its movements was too strange to wait for it to do so.
Mira was concerned, but not cripplingly so. She knew it was human, but not whether it was inhumane. She had to bruise Thea more than once to keep up with the pace that the shadowy blur was currently on.
It was tasking both mentally and physically. Eventually she spotted a cave, shallow and empty. At least supposedly.
She looked in it. It was too small to house anything that could threaten her, and just hidden well enough to potentially throw the trailer off her trail.
She pulled Thea in without a second thought, hiding in the shadows that governed most of the space in it.
Soon after, the figure passed by with much more speed, looking for the people it had lost sight off.
Mira smiled weakly as it passed, happy that her quick thinking had paid off. She turned to Thea and checked her pulse.
It was steady, just like it had been two minutes ago when she checked it. Her actions had gone beyond apprehension and was now too strange to be hers.
"What insidious ability does she possess to make me feel like this?"
A few seconds later proved to her that the answer to that question was no longer important at the moment. Suddenly several figure filed into the cave, blocking her with hostile looks.
Mira reached for her stick, but someone else had already snatched it from the floor. He had reacted before she had. And apart from Pluto, only skilled or coordinated individuals could do that.
And these were no ordinary individuals. The ones standing in front of her...
Were Ushers.
***
Step, step , step.
The ambush grew closer, but neither knew what to expect. Neither knew how they would react. Pluto suddenly regretted not trying to run.
Then the bushes rustled and the four armed figures emerged, already attacking the supposedly unsuspecting entrants.
Pluto's arm constricted with pain enough to rupture blood vessels.
His arm shot up...