NOTE: I've been alerted to the fact that ELDAR is under copyright to a video game so I'm changing it to SIDHE. Anyone familiar with Irish folklore will know what that stands for, and I chose it because this race most resembles my version of ____. :)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Fiend

Jenkins never stood a chance. The fiend had clamped its jaws on his jugular before he could even raise his rifle to defend himself. He let out a shriek of pain that was cut short by the sound of teeth crunching on bone. Then came that horrible ripping noise that heralded the end of Private Jenkins’ life.

Cha-ching!

Corporal Allers and Sergeant Jager unloaded their bullets in the fiend’s direction but all they hit were the white tiles of the wall behind it. The monster had moved out of our line of sight just as Corporal Jenkins’ body fell to the ground.

“Jenkins!” I yelled.

I tried to get to him, but Corporal Allers grabbed me by the collar and pulled me back into the other room while Sergeant Jager covered our escape with a spray of bullets aimed at the thing crawling up the wall like some monstrous lizard.

“Wait!” I protested.

Jenkins was barely hanging on. He lay on his back with his hands clamped to his throat. Although that didn’t do anything to stop the blood from leaking out of the tear in his jugular, staining the white-tiled floor in red.

I saw the plea and desperation in his eyes — which was so like Number Fifteen’s final moments — and I struggled against Corporal Allers’ grip on my back. “He’s still alive!”

“I know, but we can’t help him if we’re dead, too!” Allers snapped.

“But—”

Corporal Allers shoved me aside so he could aim his rifle at the dark blur that streaked toward us.

“Mother,” Allers pulled the trigger, “fucker!”

He emptied his clip at the blur — and that last bullet just managed to graze the fiend’s shoulder, slowing it down long enough for me to step into range with my blade swinging forward.

Two years of training under Major Wolf had ingrained his style into my eight-year-old body so that I performed Wolf-CQC’s blade techniques on reflex as soon as I saw an opening.

Hold on, Jenkins... I'll finish this quickly.

While holding my sword in a reverse grip, I ducked under the fiend’s outstretched arm and slashed at its side, cutting into its flesh with surprisingly little resistance. Then, keeping my forward momentum, I moved past my target before swinging my arm backward so I could stab the monster in the lower back. Unfortunately, the second part of Form One’s one-two combination missed because the fiend twirled around with inhuman speed, not only dodging my vital strike but also managing to shift its attack from Corporal Allers to me.

A long-fingered hand with extremely pointy nails streaked toward my face — and I would have been skewered in the eyeballs if Sergeant Jager hadn’t fired his rifle at the right moment. Two bullets hit the fiend in the gut, causing the monster to let out a horrific scream that sounded almost child-like to my ears.

I was so surprised by its cry that I almost missed my chance to duck out of its reach. What in seven hells…

“Triangle!” Sergeant Jager yelled.

Instinct took over and I retreated toward the table with the lab equipment and completed the triangle formation that kept our target in the middle of our three-man fireteam while also keeping us out of each other’s line of fire. And thanks to Corporal Allers’ dorky helmet light, we finally got a good look at what we were fighting against.

“By the all-father,” Allers gasped.

I expected it but guessing the truth didn’t prepare me for what I saw. How could it, when I was staring at someone I probably knew, although they’d been transformed into something that barely resembled the person they’d been.

The child — yeah, it was a kid like me — wore a patient’s gown stained in blood and dirt. It was taller than I was, but that was due to how its limbs extended out of proportion to its emaciated body. Its wafer-thin arms and legs were scaled like a lizard’s. And its face — all-father, its face — well, it was the stuff of nightmares.

Wild, wiry, hair framed a gaunt face that still held a single trace of the child beneath the beast. It was the eyes, they were as blue as mine and still looked very human. The nose had been replaced by snake-like slits, and the mouth was inhumanly wide and filled to the brim with sharp teeth. Also, the numerous stitches across its flesh gave the fiend a very Frankenstein's Monster vibe that caused a chill to rise up my spine.

Geez, it’s like I’m starring in a horror movie…

However, the thought that this monster might have been one of my old crib mates awoke the anger I’d been trying to suppress. And this rage stifled the fear that threatened to turn my legs into jelly, allowing me to react quickly to the fiend’s approach.

Yeah, it chose to launch its attack on me as if telling me I was the weak link in our fire team. Well, it was about to discover that trying to spill my blood would cost it dearly.

As I jumped backward to avoid its outstretched hands, I plucked one of the vials from the holster attached to my belt and threw it at the fiend. The vial struck it in the face and the glass broke, splashing its contents all over the monster’s face.

Now to wipe that sick grin off your face!

I joined my hands together, fingers intertwining over each other as if in prayer, and triggered the enchantment hidden in the bits of my blood that had spilled into the fiend’s mouth. Like a deadly poison, my blood raced across its veins and found its way quickly into its heart — and just in the nick of time too because the fiend’s sharp fingers were mere inches from grasping my throat.

That’s why you keep your mouth closed while running, bastard!

I raised my hand palm-forward, and yelled, “Stop!”

And the fiend obeyed just like Lieutenant Weber had three years ago.

No, I didn’t stop the fiend’s heart. That was a spell I couldn’t do yet. Besides, the 'Marionette' had been hard enough on my conscience to perfect. It was an enchantment that used my blood to enhance my connection to the iron in the fiend’s blood. This strengthened my control over its body in a way I couldn’t manage with Lieutenant Weber. Yet, despite this improved version of ‘Marionette’, I could barely keep the fiend in place. Its body twitched and jerked as it struggled against my control — and it was winning.

Sweat dripped down my brow as I yelled, “Now!”

Bam!

The sound of gunfire reached my ears, and I would have ducked for cover if ‘Marionette’ didn’t require me to stay absolutely still.

One, two, three, four — the number of bullet holes that appeared on the fiend’s body continued to grow, and as the blood began to drip out of its many wounds, my control over it also began to weaken.

Shit, I forgot about this trade-off…

I made a split-second decision to drop ‘Marionette’, and in that brief moment of uncertainty where the fiend's movements were still dulled, I rushed forward and plunged my sword into its heart.

A second later, and I realized my mistake. It’s part-lizard…

There was a footnote in that insidious notebook. It was right underneath one of the drawings of what I now knew was a lizard-man variant of a fiend. Only now did I recall what was written there; A lizard’s ability to rapidly regenerate damaged or destroyed tissue would be useful on a battlefield.

Oh, fuck!

A second later, the fiend’s claws raked against my shoulder — and I screamed.

Its second blow was a right-handed haymaker to my cheek that sent me spiraling into the table behind me.

“All-father, that’s going… to leave a mark,” I groaned.

I was on the floor, lying on my stomach. Broken glass and their colorful contents were scattered around me. I was just lucky none of these liquids spreading out on the wooden floor gave off that toxic odor that a dangerous substance should have.

More gunfire reached my ears, reminding me that the fight wasn’t over.

“Get up, One,” I whispered. “Get up…”

I rose to my knees with a groan. The pain in my shoulder spiked. “Ugh~~h…”

“Where is it?!” Sergeant Jager yelled.

“It’s on your left, sarge!” Allers answered. “Look up!”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw the moment the fiend barreled into Sergeant Jager. They fell in a heap, and then Sergeant Jager screamed just like Corporal Jenkins had.

“No,” I croaked.

I wanted to help, but the pain in my shoulder kept me in place. Meanwhile, Corporal Allers ran to help Sergeant Jager. He’d attached a bayonet to his rifle’s muzzle and used it to force the fiend away from the sergeant’s body.

The fiend jumped to the wall and crawled away to a safe distance, allowing Corporal Allers a brief moment to check on Sergeant Jager’s condition.

“Come on, Sarge, don’t die on me!” Corporal Allers yelled. “I need—”

Corporal Allers couldn’t provide first-aid to Sergeant Jager because the fiend inched toward them like a cat stalking a pair of trapped mice.

“Mother fucker!” Allers yelled as he let loose another barrage of bullets at the fiend, although none of them hit their target.

“Don’t… forget… to aim… idiot,” Sergeant Jager croaked.

The fact that Sergeant Jager managed to speak lifted my spirits considerably. I guessed that Corporal Allers felt the same with the way he waved his hand at me.

“Wunderkind, I need you!” he yelled.

“Alright—”

My hand brushed against something rough, and I glanced down, my eyes widening at what was lying on the floor next to me. It was a tiny blue stone no bigger than a marble. But it glowed with an inner light, the tell-tale sign of magic.

A conversation I had with Major Wolf a while back flashed across my mind, taking me back to that time I’d asked him about the mysterious ore that Dr. Bauer had discussed in Sorcery 101 that same afternoon.

“Doc says that arcanite’s used for everything from medicine to weapons of war, and I honestly think he meant us when he said weapon, although he didn’t elaborate… What do you think, master?” I had asked.

Major Wolf had frowned at empty space as if he were recalling a bad memory. “Back in the War of Continents, I saw what arcanite could do in the hands of an arcanist…”

He’d paused for so long, I thought he’d dozed off. But I knew as soon as he'd spoken again that it had taken him great effort to continue his story. There had been a quiver in his voice, one I’d never expected to ever hear from him.

“Our military uses arcanite in a variety of ways. Although very unstable, its liquid form is used as a fuel source for heavy types of machinery like panzers and factory engines,” Major Wolf had explained. “While its solid forms are dense enough to be used as material for armor, and vice-versa.”

“We use it as a penetrating element in armor-piercing ammunition,” I had guessed.

“Yeah,” Major Wolf had ruffled my hair, “those kinds of bullets are crazy expensive though.”

“And… what about for arcanists?”

His face morphed into that look he'd give me every time a lesson was coming.

“What’s the second rule of magic, Number One?”

“Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change form. That holds for matter as well. We call this the Rule of Conservation of Mass.”

“Which means?”

“If I want to make a foot-long knife, I would need an equivalent mass of iron for it.”

Major Wolf had touched the scar across the bridge of his nose. “

“What if I told you that I could make a foot-long knife with only a grain of iron in my hand.”

It had been my turn to frown. “H-how?”

“Arcanite,” Major Wolf had sighed. “The Sidhe used arcanite to amplify their magic so that they could invoke the wrath of nature on us invaders… Lightning storms and hurricanes devouring whole battlefields. Monsters that regenerate even after you punch a hole in their chests… it’s the stuff of nightmares, Number One.”

A strange light had awakened in my master’s eyes. As if an unbidden desire to wield that kind of power was present even in one as noble as he was.

“That’s what arcanite is. The power to override even the rules of magic.”

The sound of gunfire caused my mind to drift back into the here and now, and it was only then that I noticed the glowing blue stone was already in my hand.

I felt the energy it emitted, felt the crackling on the tips of my fingers, and suddenly, I imagined I could do anything. This feeling of overwhelming power terrified me, but I didn’t drop the stone. Instead, my fingers closed over it. And for the first time since that day in Evergreen Forest, I let go of control and unleashed my magic onto the world.