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Chapter 6: Old Friends, New Minds

Kieth had survived and escaped. He wasn’t sure how he had done it, but Lady Luck, that bitch, had finally decided to take Kieth’s side this time.

When Janice had straight up punched the porker, Kieth had fled opposite of where Jason and Andrew had gone. Then, he had found a new bush to hide under. There, he buried himself under whatever he could find, dirt, leaves, anything. It was filthy, but Kieth wanted nothing to do with what was going on and there he stayed for at least an hour. They never found him. They never got close to finding him.

When the part of him that thought it was safe enough was more prominent than the part of him that believed death was imminent, Kieth shook the dirt and debris off of him and crawled out of the bush as if being born. He stood up and looked around, eyes searching for the slightest indication of danger. There was nothing. It was just him. Everyone else could be dead. Everyone else could be completely fine. He wouldn’t know any better and that scared him because for the first time, he was truly alone. Janice had been his anchor. He didn’t love her romantically, she was more like family. A sister or even a very muscular favorite aunt that always had his back. Now, he had just himself.

First order of business was not to shit himself. As an eighteen year old young adult, that should have been easy, but his gut clenched, waves of exhausting pain rippling through him. It was Kieth could do to not lose it then as the panic set in. It was too quiet now. No laughter or causal conversations from anyone. It was just silence.

After a few moments that felt like hours, the cramps passed, bowel movement fell back into complete control and Kieth felt brave enough to start walking.

He didn’t pick a direction. He just started walking with no clue where he was going. How could he? It had already been decided that this wasn’t Earth after all and even if it was, he’d still be uselessly lost, so it didn’t matter where he walked.

Kieth wanted to find his friends. He wanted nothing more than to see their familiar faces, smiling with no pig to attack them. Jason had fucked it up. If it weren’t for his mouth, things probably would have gotten better. Probably. It was impossible to tell, but Kieth knew that Jason should have kept his mouth shut.

Anger flared in his heart, but it was quickly silences. He had, after all been the one to sneeze and alert the pig that they were there. He couldn’t just have held it in like Jason had. He had seen the now canine’s nose wiggle, his eyes squeeze as he fought off the sneeze. Kieth hadn’t done anything. The moment some dirt got up a nostril, it was over.

Kieth’s self pity festival would have gone on for longer if he hasn’t heard the sounds of fighting coming from behind him. First instinct was to run again. What if the pig was coming back to look for him? Then again, what if it wasn’t. It was the sound of fighting. Who was fighting?

It was like something out of Diablo. What could only be described as an angel, with a halo of what looked like knives and a pair of metallic wings, was fighting a small group of demons.

One by one, the demons fell in a bloody mess that made Kieth feel queasy. He had only ever seen one thing die. It had been when he was seven, riding home from band practice with his dad. It was late, or it felt late and the sun was low making it hard to see. The car in front of them was going just above the speed limit and Kieth’s dad was a safe four seconds behind.

He remembered it so clearly. One moment they were just driving along and the next, a deer had jumped in front of the car they were following.

It had come apart like a piece of bread that had been sitting in water. Just fell into bits in a mess of red and fur. There was cursing, some swerving and then silence. Kieth’s heart was going fast enough that he felt it in his ears, his small fingers, gripped around his clarinet were shaking and he looked to his dad who wiped his forehead. His dad looked to him and gave a smile.

“You okay?” He asked and Kieth nodded. “Good,” Kieth’s dad patted his knee and then got out of the car to check on the other car.

The occupants of the other car had been alright, which was good. Still, the image of the deer so simply going from alive to dead stuck with Kieth his whole life and now he had just watched these mythical creatures slaughter each other, or rather, watched the angel slaughter the demons. From alive to dead... just like that.

Without even realizing it, Kieth had stepped out from where he had been watching and out into the open once the demons had all been killed. The angel turned to him quickly as if about to attack and Kieth flinched, bringing his arms up to protect himself as if that could stop that ice sword and those wings.

No attack came. No swift death that would have him strewn across the ground it several bits. Just silence.

Kieth looked again and the angel was a bit closer as if ready to commence in casual talk about his day. Close, but not casual talk.

“Don’t fear me, Kieth,” the angel said. His voice seemed to echo without echoing and there was something familiar about it, but Kieth couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“Y-you’re not going to kill me?” Kieth asked what he felt was the dumbest question of the century.

The angel chuckled, his wings folding up behind him. “No. I wouldn’t harm a friend of Jason. He’ll be quite thrilled to know that you are well when he wakes.”

At the mention of his friend’s name, all fear left Kieth. “Where’s Jason?” He demanded to know. He was already tired of being alone. “Where’s Janice? Anthony?” How he missed them so much already.

It was hard to remember a time when one of his friends weren’t there. Every step do his life, there had been someone to rely on to back him up and support him. It was a major relief to know that he wasn’t going to be alone any more.

The angel sighed, “Anthony and Janice were taken by Belus of the Boars.” He spoke as if Keith had any clue who that was, but he didn’t expect him to understand. There was a lot to take in already and frankly, there was little time to explain it all. “He’ll take them to Vimora and sadly, I’m in no condition to give pursuit, especially with you in tow.”

“And Jason?” Kieth asked, jumping over the parts he didn’t understand and right to the part that hadn’t been covered yet. “Where is he?”

Instead of explaining the strangeness surrounding their situation, Antes chose to show. He put his paw up to his shrouded face. The hood faded away into a mist until it was completely gone, revealing Jason’s canine face.

That was not what Kieth expected to see. He took several steps back, nearly tripping over an exposed root behind him. He pointed. “What’s going on? Why do you look like Jason?”

Antes didn’t immediately respond. He was running short on time. The demons would be missing their scouts and I doubt that other bandits would also be roaming. They needed to move now. “I’ll explain it all later, but for now, I’m gonna have to ask you to trust me.” Antes knew that simply asking for trust wouldn’t be enough, so he threw in an an ultimatum as well. “Because if you don’t, you going to run into more of them,” Antes glanced at the minced remains of the demons.

Kieth took one hard look at the demons. He made note of their very deadly looking weapons, their grotesque form, everything screamed danger, more so than this angel.

“Fine,” Kieth said. “But only because I’m concerned about Jason and everyone else. You seem to know how to get them back.”

“I have a few ideas,” Antes said. “However, like I said before, we need to find safety first.”

Antes finally got around to introducing himself and then began to lead them out of the woods. He recognized it as the Autumn Woods, a realm where the trees were always the colors of autumn. There were several theories as to why. The most widely believed was that a powerful wizard had once fallen in love with a woman who loved the colors of autumn and so, to win her heart, he put a spell on the land to forever color the trees. Antes knew better. The story was close, but in reality, the wizard’s lover had been taken by slavers and killed and so, the wizard put the place in autumn for eternity so that the trees would never bear fruit. It was all he could do before he succumb to grief. Antes has personally known him, though not very well.

Kieth was filled with questions as he was led, almost by the hand, to safety. Most questions were based around his friends, but that slowly switched to the world. This was a whole new world with its own histories, cultures, everything. So much to know and learn and Kieth was interested in all of it because even though Kieth had struggled in many fields, he had always loved history and social studies.

This new world was called Athelin, named after the ancient kingdom where civilization was believed to have begun. The kingdom no longer existed, having collapsed due to size, corruption, the usual stuff. In its place was now Methelhiem, a smaller kingdom that was the stronghold of the Templars, an order devoted to serving Heaven.

To the north was Sacra, land of men. It boasts an extremely militant government and tightly controls its borders. People of Sacra are very wary of nonhumans. Due to this, it is very rare for humans to ever leave their nation, though a sizable amount have joined the Templars. They are ruled by Vessius, the forsaken angel. Antes didn’t talk much about him.

There were dozens of nations. Some serves Heaven. Some served Hell. Others served themselves. It was a truly new world, fully fleshed out with its own quirks with magic thrown into the mix which just seemed the coolest to Kieth. He had many questions about magic and learned that every living thing was capable of some sort of magic, but was limited by their mana pool. Without a sizable reserve of mana, one couldn’t utilize their potential. This was Antes primary concern at the moment. Jason didn’t have a lot of mana, but he hoped that there was an untapped reserve that just needed to be gotten to. One of the other angels would be able to help him with that.

Of course, Kieth was very interested in knowing if he had the ability to use magic, but without proper training, which Antes didn’t have the time to give, it was impossible to tell. Antes did promise to set Kieth up with a proper instructor when they got to safety.

Safety ended up coming to them eventually. Near the border of the Autumn woods, they ran into an advanced Templar scouting party.

“By the nine councilmen,” Molus, a tall and robust Templar Lion in gleaming white armor, exclaimed at the sight of the angel. “An angel. Just what we need.” He was there with a small ferret, who was in robes. The ferret introduced himself as Yuri, a mercenary for hire.

“It’s good to see friendly faces,” Antes smiles genuinely, half expecting to run into more demons before running into friends. He felt some of his strength had returned, but not enough for another full fight and he wouldn’t be able to protect Keith as well. Now that was less of an issue.

“Same,” Molus sighed. “We’ve come across multiple demon scouting parties. Things are easy to take out, but they’re everywhere, looking for the same thing as us.”

“Oh?” Antes said, raising an eyebrow that they couldn’t see due to his raised hood. He had an idea. He had been planted into Jason’s body. His soul would have traveled many leagues to get to the body and that would have left a trail of energy.

“You know of what happened?”

“I do,” Antes recalled his fight with Malus. The amount of energy that must have been released to destroy the body of an angel. It would have been spectacular and devastating. He could only imagine how many had perished. It brought a heavy sadness to his heart. “I imagine you two are tracking the energy source that fled the scene?”

Yuri and Molus nodded. Antes went ahead and saved them the trouble of looking anymore.