The four of them walk into town with Aeric in the lead. They walk up to the front door of the hideout. Aeric turns to them and says, “This is our place. If you find Jackson, come back here. Lynnette will be waiting here in case he comes back. If you find out anything, let Lynnette know. Just knock on the door, and she’ll let you in.”

Edwin looks over the place before turning to Aeric. “Do you have any suggestions on where to look?”

Aeric shakes his head. “No. We’ve looked everywhere we thought he would be.”

Disappointment shows on Edwin’s face. “What areas still need searching?”

“We’ve searched the entire market, but not all the surrounding areas. Geoffrey is searching areas around the market now. I plan to head there as well. Just search whatever comes to mind.”

“We’ll make it work. We’ll start with the north side and work our way down.”

“Sounds good. Thanks again for your help.” Aeric turns away and heads to the market, leaving Darian and his parents to themselves.”

Edwin looks at Helen and Darian. “Well, let’s get going. The boy won’t find himself.”

The three of them walk down the street northward. As they get further from the rundown area Aeric’s hideout is at, the streets become more alive with people walking around and going about their day. The three of them are still close to the hideout, but their eyes are already watching for any sight of Jackson.

As they approach the north side of town, the houses and small shops become affluent. Darian looks around at the well-maintained streets and buildings, keeping a watchful eye at the alleys for any sign of Jackson. He doubts he will see anything. He can’t think of any reason that Jackson would be in this part of the town. Darian looks to his father. “Why are we searching here? Do you think this is where we will find Jackson.”

Edwin’s eyes don’t stop scanning his surroundings. “There are a few reasons we might find him here, but I don’t want to go over all of them with you, boy. I don’t think you’re ready to hear them. I will say this; if you want to find the weak first check beneath the boots of the strong.

Darian thinks to himself as they continue to search for Jackson. While deep in thought, he notices the glint of armor through an alleyway. He sees a tall, hulking man, with white hair and steel armor covering portions of his torso and arms. Behind him, he sees a shorter, hooded man, in light, but expensive looking clothing, with a sword attached to his hip. The two men hastily walk behind a building and out of sight. Darian wonders about them for a moment before putting them out of his mind.

After a few hours of searching, they notice it getting dark. The three of them decide to head back to the hideout. At the hideout, Edwin knocks on the door and a young woman with long hair answers the door. Darian recognizes her as the girl he saw in the hideout before. Edwin attempts to make eye contact through the hair in front of her face. “We didn’t find anything today, and it’s getting dark. Have Aeric or Geoffrey found anything?”

She shakes her head.

“Okay. We’ll start again early tomorrow. Let us know if anyone finds anything that could be a sign of his presence. Aeric knows where we live. Goodnight.”

The three of them turn and begin walking away. After a few steps they hear a whispered “Thank you.” The family walks in silence as they follow the setting sun to their house. Eventually, Darian breaks the silence. “Do you think we will find him?”

Helen places her hand on Darian’s shoulder. “It’s been a few days since he was last seen. If he was fine and wanted to come back, he would have done so. He either left town or… He’s not likely to come back.”

Darian looks to his feet as they continue walking. “He was the one who tried to stab me. I was angry at the time, but now I think he was just panicking. I don’t know if I feel bad for him though. I think I only want to find him to make Aeric feel better. Is that bad?”

Edwin stops and kneels in front of Darian. “Boy, you can’t decide what feelings you have. You decide what feelings you let control you. If the actions you take are good, that’s all that matters.”

Darian nods and the three of them head to the front door. As they get closer, Darian sees something strange with his energy vision. He sees a large man sitting at their kitchen table. Darian stops and whispers, “Wait, there’s someone in there.”

His parents stop and turn to face him. As they turn, he notices an aura in the shape of a man suddenly form behind him. Faster than he can react, a blade is pressed against his throat as the aura takes the shape of the hooded man from before. He immediately notices the blade is coated in energy. “A warrior!?! Just a moment ago, there was nobody behind us. Where did he come from?”

His parents’ eyes betray their shock, and their auras immediately flare. Darian is quickly overwhelmed by their presence, but the hooded man doesn’t even flinch. They stare at each other for the longest moment of Darian’s life before the front door swings open. The large man with white hair calmly walks through the front door with a wide smile on his face. His eyes pass over everyone before settling on the hooded man behind Darian. “See, Nicholas, I told you they would come back.”

As the man walks through the door, the first thing Darian notices is a small red gem implanted in the man’s forehead. A small amount of energy leaks from it. However, Darian is pulled from his thoughts as the man’s aura explodes outward. The pressure from his aura easily dwarfs his parents’ auras.

The man looks over at Edwin and Helen and his smile grows wider. “It’s good to see the both of you again. Norman, Celestia, how have you two been? You know, other than now.”

A look of concern washes over Edwin’s face. “Rowan, what are you doing here?”

Rowan gestures to Darian. “Lord Kaiser got word of a boy in Elwood with abilities resembling yours, Norman. He agreed to let me check it out on the condition that Nicholas be my babysitter. I didn’t have high hopes to actually find anything, but fortune favors the strong. I am truly glad to find the two of you here. Surely, I am blessed by the sources.”

Nicholas speaks up from behind Darian. “Lord Kaiser would want them alive, Rowan.”

“Nicholas, my little gnat. I want you to get a good taste of their auras. Really open yourself up and feel it. Do you honestly think we have the strength to take them alive?”

Nicholas goes silent for a moment as he feels their strength. “No, I do not.”

“Then it’s settled.” Rowan looks at Edwin. “Unless you would agree to come peacefully. Though I really hope you don’t agree to that. Please let me kill you both in front of your son. Let me give him a taste of everything you put me through.”

Helen steps toward Rowan. “We’re sorry, Rowan. We didn’t know what they were using our research for. However, you can still live a full life! Surely, the conrupt gem in your head is far enough from its source, that it won’t trigger if you remove it. I can tell Nicholas doesn’t have it. Just remove it and run.”

Rowan’s smile only grows wider. “That’s true. I could remove it and easily escape little Nicholas, but I can’t live a normal life anymore, as normal a life as running from Lord Kaiser would be. No, a normal life would just be too dull for me. After all those experiments, I can no longer experience emotions myself. I can only feel them through the auras of others. There’s nothing quite like the terror and despair of a mother as she watches you burn her daughter alive or the hopelessness a man feels after you’ve beaten everyone he loves to a fleshy pulp in front of his eyes.” Rowan’s arms wrap around himself as he shivers. Tears well up in his eyes and a pleasured moan escapes his lips. “I can’t hold back any longer. Make your decision. Will you fight or will you give up?”

Darian watches as Edwin looks back at him. Darian sees a sadness in his eyes. Edwin faces Rowan again, before launching forward, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake. Darian sees a blur as Edwin crashes into Rowan and sends them both through the front door. Immediately after the two of them crashed through the front door, the blade that was pressed against Darian’s neck, darts down to his right leg and cuts through his calf. He screams out and begins to fall, but is instead punched in his left rib cage and sent tumbling to the ground, fifteen feet away.

Darian grasps his calf as blood pours out of it. The pain is intense, and he has trouble thinking of anything else. He puts his hands against the wound in an attempt to stop the blood loss. A loud crack draws his attention. He looks up to see a nearby tree falling to the ground and grass being carried by a gust of wind around it. He looks over to his mother, who destroyed the tree with an evocation, but doesn’t see what she was aiming at. Suddenly, the hooded man appears behind her, ready to lop her head off. She ducks under the swing, twists to face him, and leaps away to gain some distance as she readies another evocation.

Darian watches as the hooded man stands in place and prepares to swing his sword again as Helen’s evocation takes form. While mid-air, she forms her path, quickly amasses the required energy for her evocation, and releases it directly at the hooded man. It soars through the air at an insane speed, and seems like it will hit him square in the chest, but right as it’s about to land, he disappears, and the evocation strikes the ground, leaving an explosion of wind in its wake. The hooded man then reappears behind Helen mid-swing. She notices as he appears behind her and raises her arm to block the swing. Darian expects to see her arm cut in two, but to his surprise, she stops the blow with only her arm. The two of them are sent apart due to the force of the strike, and they both land on the ground twenty feet away from each other.

Helen grabs her arm as blood drips from where she blocked the sword. “I’m not sure how you’re doing it, but you’re making a path with your left hand alone, are you not?” A crash is heard from the house, but they ignore it.

Nicholas chuckles. “Well done for noticing it so quickly. Yes, I can form my path with just one hand. It allows me to fight while teleporting.”

“Does it only work for teleporting?”

“Why tell you everything. Let’s see if you can figure it out.” He appears in front of her as he finishes his sentence and thrusts his blade at her stomach. She quickly knocks the blade to the side with her right palm and follows up with a straight left aimed at his head. However, he uses his momentum to roll out of the way and disappears before she can attempt another strike. She looks around in all directions, trying to figure out where he will appear next.

Suddenly, a fireball erupts from the back of the house, sending flaming pieces of wood in all directions. Darian and Helen watch with shock as their home catches fire. That momentary distraction was all Nicholas needed. Darian is the first to notice as the hooded man appears above his mother, his blade pointed directly downward. “Above!” Darian yells. Her head whips upward just in time to see the blade. She dodges to the side slightly too late, causing the blade to thrust into her shoulder. She screams out in pain as the sword rips through her flesh. Helen slides on the ground until coming to a halt twenty feet away from Nicholas. She grasps where the sword cut into her.

Nicholas turns to face her from his new position and pumps a small burst of energy into the sword, causing blood to leap from the surface of the blade until it’s clean. “Well dodged, but how long can you keep that up. Can you even make your path anymore?”

Helen grimaces. “I’m not sure. Let’s test it.” She quickly places her hands together and vanishes. Perhaps only visible to Darian, a heavily condensed wave of energy wraps around his mother before thrusting her forward at a speed rivaling Nicholas’ teleportation. An explosion of air erupts from where she was just standing and in less than the blink of an eye, she slams into Nicholas’ arm with a side kick, sending him careening into the house. He crashes through the wall and tumbles into their living room as his sword lands next to Helen. Her grimace grows wide. “How about yourself? Can you still form your path?” She taunts the hooded man, uncaring of whether he can still hear her.

Helen collapses to her knees and begins panting hoarsely. Darian observes her with his energy vision. “Her aura is dim. Just how much energy did that evocation use?” Darian attempts to crawl over to her but is interrupted by a loud crash as his father is thrown through the roof of their house and slams into the ground thirty feet away. He slowly stands up, unharmed, but drained of energy. He looks over at Helen and his face drops. “Helen? Are you-”

Rowan steps through a hole in the wall. Steam rises from his body as he smiles at Edwin. “Don’t worry about her yet. Wait until you can’t move. Then I will give you a good show, Norman.”

Darian must be seeing things. Rowan’s wounds seem to heal right in front of him. Cuts seal themselves as steam escapes from the wound. Bruises disappear before his eyes. “He’s a monster.” Darian hears the words escape from his lips despite himself.

Rowan’s eyes glance over at him. Darian feels the weight of the man’s presence as Rowan’s eyes bear down on him. Rowan’s smile widens. “Or perhaps I could start the show now.” Rowan clasps his hands together and Darian sees a terrifying amount of energy gather around Rowan’s hands. Rowan quickly moves his arms apart and holds them extended outward as if inviting a challenge. He then drags his fingers through the air as he moves his hands closer together again, collecting white fire in his hands as his hands move towards his center. As his fingers touch, a furious burst of air explodes away from him, instantly scorching the grass around him and setting the nearby wood on fire. In his hands, a white ball of pure heat threatens to disintegrate anything it touches. He faces Darian with murderous intent.

Darian tries to stand, but immediately determines it to be impossible with his calf in the shape it’s in. Helen forms her path, but Darian doubts she’ll make it in time to save him. Rowan’s arms flash as he releases the fireball directly at Darian. Darian closes his eyes. The next moment, Darian sees a flash of light through his eyelids, hears a deafening burst of sound, and feels a wave of heat wash over him, but he feels no pain.

Darian slowly opens his eyes, but quickly wishes he hadn’t. An icy feeling in his gut builds as he sees his father standing in front of him with his arms extended outward. Flames coat his father as he stands with his back to Darian, without making a sound. Edwin then collapses to the ground. “Father!” Darian cries out as he crawls to Edwin, blood trailing from the gash on his leg.

“No, Darian! Don’t look!” Helen screams as she staggers to her feet, but Darian can’t hear her. Darian grabs hold of his father and rolls him onto his back. He gets one look at his father’s face, and his mind goes blank. He doesn’t see his father. He can’t even recognize him. The man he spent his entire life looking up to with pride, he now looked down at without even recognizing his face. Darian watches his father’s aura fade to nothing as his world does the same. He vaguely hears someone calling his name, but something else sounds so much clearer.

“Hate”

Darian feels a dark presence within himself. Something familiar, yet foreign. It swirls around inside him, merging with his body, with his aura, with his mind.

“Kill”

Darian can no longer feel the pain in his leg as he stands up. He feels nothing but rage for one man. A powerful energy swirls around Darian as he walks toward Rowan. Rowan can’t help but laugh. “Yes! Oh, I feel it! Your rage! Show me your hatred! Kill me!” Rowan’s arms shoot out and away from himself, as if waiting to embrace Darian.

Darian’s pupils turn black and enlarge. Cracks form on his hands as his energy eats away at him. Energy flows to his legs and he leaps forward. Within two steps, he’s in front of Rowan. He pushes as much energy into his right arm as he can muster, before throwing his fist directly at Rowan’s face. A loud snap is heard as Darian’s fist strikes Rowans face. A small trickle of blood drips from his mouth, but Rowan does not move. He looks down at Darian. “That’s a pretty good punch, considering your size. That said, let me show you a real punch.”

Rowan swiftly grabs Darian by the neck and lifts him with his left hand. Darian tries to pry Rowan's fingers away from his neck to no avail. Rowan’s arm cocks back. Without warning, a burst of wind dives between them and Rowan’s left arm is cut off from the elbow. Between them, Helen prepares for a second slash with Nicholas’ sword, but is punched in the stomach and knocked into Darian. The two of them bounce off the ground three times before skidding to a halt thirty feet away from Rowan.

Darian slowly comes back to his senses. The first thing he notices is his mother gasping for air, with cuts all over her body. The second thing he notices is Rowan smiling at his dismembered arm as flames erupt from the stump. His mother grabs him and hoarsely says, “Listen, Darian, I can only do this once more. Then you have to run.” She wraps her arms around him and forms her path behind his back. A rush of wind hastily envelops them before launching them into the air.

They soar through the air like an arrow, their destination already decided the moment they left the ground. Darian can tell they will crash in the field behind their house, and it won’t be pleasant. As the ground rapidly approaches them, he notices his mother’s aura once again surround her as more cuts suddenly form on her body. “Is that rebound? Has she used up all the energy she can spare?”

Right before they strike the ground, a burst of air interposes itself between them and the ground, but it won’t be enough. Helen turns and shields Darian from the blow. The two of them slam into the ground and Helen releases Darian, who rolls on the ground a few more feet before stopping. Darian hastily stands and runs to his mother. “Mom! Are you okay?”

She lies on the ground, unmoving, her breathing shallow and unsteady. She smiles at Darian as he approaches. “Darian, you need to run. They won’t stop... until they get you. Lord Kaiser will- You need to run and hide.”

“Okay, get up. We’ll run… and we’ll hide. Just get up.” Darian tries to lift her as tears well in his eyes.

“I can’t, Darian. I’m tired. And broken. I’ll slow you down. I can’t do that. I need you to live, Darian. Live for me. Live for… Live for your father. I want you to grow up to be tall and strong. I want you to be free. Please, Darian.”

Tears fall on her face. “I will, mom. I- I will. I love you, mom.”

Despite her efforts, tears stream down her cheeks. “I know, Darian. I love you too. And so did your Father. Now go. Run into the woods… and don’t look back. Goodbye, Son.”

Darian wipes his eyes. “Bye, mom.” He turns away and runs. His running turns to sprinting. He stares at the forest ahead through his tears. He does everything he can to not look back. He continues to sprint until he reaches the border of the Ell Woods. He stops at the border. He looks back. He sees his mother in the distance, weakly, yet defiantly standing in front of Rowan and Nicholas.

Rowan sweeps her legs out from under her, and she collapses to the ground in a heap. He then raises his fist and brings it down on her. Again, again, again, again, and again, until she stops moving. Tears stream down Darian’s face as he watches the life brutally beaten out of his mother. He turns away and sprints off into the woods.