Mia stood in awe at the pair of combatants working to fend off the assault. Yes, the witch was the more effective of the two. By far, her ability to shroud herself in mist, disappearing behind the curtain of white and reappearing to carve vorpal hand into backs unaware, allowed the blond to witness a spectacle of the likes of which few before had ever seen. The horned spirit was calm, composed, and without flaw as she reaped the souls of the misguided. Yet Mia’s eyes had fallen to the more immediate exterior of the cabin. Button nose speckled lightly with freckles, the small upturned tip stuck close enough to the cracked window to fog the glass beneath, warmed by excited exhalations.

Luke reached down to his pant pocket and grasped clumsily at the string tied around the small bell. The wraps and rags around his hands were of little help, but long fingers that poked out from the soaking cloth allowed him to take hold of the string, ringing the bell as soon as he pulled it out into the cool, damp air. The reaction was delayed, burdensome to his mind while the dark-haired man wondered if the witch had given him a tool with defunct enchantment. Relieved, however, a heavy line snapped into the mistwalker’s rigid torso. One, and then another, splintering cracks webbed their way across its stone form. Its body cracked into thousands, millions of tiny pieces, broken down into a fine powder as the dim light within it coalesced into a ball and hovered gently above the center of the pile. As if not to be outdone by the man’s victorious display, however nervously he had resolved it, the shorter mistwalker wretched at the ringing bell, scowling a maddened rage along its gritty howl.

“… What… The fuck… Was that?!” Mia spewed, incredulous. She had never seen a style of fighting so reckless before. Well-trained as he looked, he was still a normal man, or so she assumed. Mia couldn’t ever see when magic - or some other supernatural ability - was being used, that level of skill required years of training atop natural born affinity. Instead, Mia had a knack for feeling these things, or hearing them to be more precise, with her acute and trained listening ability. From what she could tell, Luke neither manipulated mana around him, nor did he let it flow out from within. He had no blade, no tool, to aid in channeling mana either. The spirit water, which she assumed would be on par in effect to any holy water she had seen before, was meant to slowly weaken and erode the hard outer shell of the monster and act more as protection for Luke than it would be a weapon - the same way holy waters of various types eat away at demonic and accursed energies, a slow methodical process. Never could it, alone, react so violently when in contact with a mistwalker. She recalled the difference in binding mist needed to hold him back, compared to the few that had held the smaller girl down. Still, the obvious gap in their physical prowess aside, just how strong was he? And even if he had abilities and power to face them head on, letting these things attack him in order to find an opening was near enough the dumbest way he could have gone about his objective - which she wished greatly to remind him was to protect the cabin, not to defeat the mistwalkers.

She doubted, of course, that he would listen if she went about reminding him of it. Though she may not agree in his decision to go on the offensive, seeing him do so successfully had eased a portion of the anxiety she felt in having had a hand in Luke being out there in the first place. It would have been a heavy burden to bare if Mia had been responsible for getting him injured… or killed, she hated to imagine. But heavier still would have been his burden if Luke had done nothing in response to the witch risking her life, if you could call it that, to protect them. Then, should the witch be stricken down, Luke may have fallen to a madness of guilt. It was the way of his spirit to enter action when action was the right thing to do. To a man like that - little she knew of him - inaction was akin to bad action. Those were the notes she interpreted coming out from within his being. Though she knew not to blindly trust her own assumptions, she was also aware that her interpretations from the ability granted to her at birth were infrequently off the mark. The Chords of Souls was an ability inherited to those children born with the gift to listen. None, aside from her mother, knew of Mia’s blessing. She was her father’s daughter, however, so Elena had come to the realization before even Mia knew about it - a mother’s intuition. Though her ability to wield this blessing was self taught and sorely untrained, Mia had come to grasp a basic understanding of how to use it in her day to day life.

From within the dirty cabin, she attuned herself to the muffled sounds seeping in through the cracks and holes along its cob-webbed windows and well-worn walls. The static hiss of boiling anger echoed within the hard chamber of the remaining mistwalker’s cracked maw. Layered beneath, the dim light hummed a peaceful warmth as it hovered above the pile of gray sand that was once a threat to them. As for Luke, his was completely changed from the quiet monotone beat that had encompassed him, and evolved passed the quick paced tune he had expressed moments prior to his fight commencing. Deep, dynamic, and complex… Now, his heart sung a fierce, almost crazed tune. Wave forms danced as treble and bass collided in spectacular fashion. It was the rhythmic beat of a warrior entrenched in serious combat. She had heard songs such as these. Mia recalled the various tunes of spirited hunters returning in the late afternoon with their haul from the forests. Theirs had chimed pridefully, the glory of their hunt swelling their hearts with satisfaction. With Luke, however, there was so much more than mere pride behind his song. Anger, ego, glee, fear. A hurricane of emotions that nearly swept the younger teen off her feet. His was no meager jingle, but a symphony that played with the passion of a freshly minted orchestra. Youth sprung out to her thematically. A composition paying tribute to the turmoil of the still short life Luke had led, and an operatic drama chronicling his effort through the ongoing battle. Mia wondered what the dark-haired man had lived to create such complexity within his self, but there was little time for thought as danger closed in on them.

Out from within the white walls of condensed vapor, stone skin ground against itself. The mist parted to reveal a small group hardened stone figures akin to the ones Luke was still battling. It had been difficult enough to fend off two of them on his own, now he was further outnumbered and hopelessly outmatched. Luke darted back, the rear of his heels pressing against the base of the porch in front of the cabin - reminding him that his fight wasn’t for him alone, but for the young girl whose life depended on his next actions. Luke stepped away from the cabin. Their attention was on him and there was no reason to allow them to turn towards the cabin instead.

“Welcome to the party. Table’s over here.” He waved to them, drawing their focus to him and moving to find the best angle to fight them at. The clearing had felt large enough to fight comfortably in before, but with the new additions to his enemies forces, it felt cramped seeing them approach and take up the ever valuable space. Having faced them head on, he knew what speed and power they carried in their arms, slow as they appeared in general movement. Centering himself between them, his guard remained the same, using the tactics of a shoulder roll to allow himself ease of vision and movement in an attempt to ensure he didn’t back himself into a corner. Three of them were closely huddled together, like a hard wall of cracked stone — only this wall had arms that ripped and tore at any living thing it could find. The final one, the shorter creature that had watched Luke pulverize its companion’s jaw, stood to the raven-haired man’s left — positioned just far enough behind him that Luke couldn’t keep an eye on all four of them even using his periphery. His neck twitched from side to side, eyes flickering back and forth as the space around him narrowed and the mistwalkers approached.

Mia’s breath caught in her throat, the hope her newfound comrades had instilled in her crumbled in a matter of seconds. Four statuesque figures loomed before Luke, closing in on him. Her green eyes shifted focus further down to where the witch continued her own savage battle. Perhaps if she could part for just a moment to aid Luke, they could together clear the cabin area. But the thought was a foolish one. Near a dozen mistwalkers had clamored over to the spirit witch.

There, she battled tooth and nail to hold them back. As fast as she appeared, she vanished emerging from the opposite side of the mist-free path and stabbing into one if its crazed residents. However, unlike before, now she rushed to finish them off in time before more could come and overwhelm her. The witch popped into existence, striking down into the back of a mistwalker as several around her clawed with stone fists towards the pale, blue-skinned woman. She faded into a puff of white vapor, continuing her assault from all sides, but with little time to work with in her physical form, she continued to fade and reposition leaving many mistwalkers wounded, yet not incapacitated.

Mia’s eyes darted back to Luke. The rabid creatures had closed in and were taking turns striking at him. To his fortune, Luke’s footwork and sense of danger aided him greatly in his desperate attempt to keep away from them. Still, his form was gone. No longer were his hands and arms protecting him in a defensive stance. Instead, he twisted in every which way — ducking low, back, and side to side — his body contorting to fit in the space just out of reach of whatever attacks he could see coming his way. But Luke was trained to fight one opponent. A sport designed to find the greater of two warriors — no more, no less. A pain struck him along his left thigh, a frigid and stinging ache that chilled him to the bone, a shimmer catching his eye for a split second. He jabbed his uninjured foot into the uneven ground below, his upper half swinging to the left as he changed direction on a tight angle and flew into a gap between two of his attackers. Luke felt the muscles in his right thigh seize up as if the area around his outer quad was paralyzed.

He fell onto his back, free from the immediate reach of the mistwalkers. The four stood in front of him, the shorter one edging closer with a smear of red on it’s heavy fist - wooden cabin to their backs.

“At least I kept their attention…” He groaned, sight angling down to where his leg felt a throbbing chill. The gray fabric of his pants was torn of few inches above his knee. Beneath, the dark crimson of his blood slowly oozed out. The cut wasn’t deep, but surprisingly wide, as if the skin had been peeled off, leaving the exposed muscle along a half foot gash diagonally up Luke’s outer thigh to sting in the bitter, stagnant air — perhaps an inch at it’s widest near the center. The outer edge of skin around the cut was a dark red, almost black like a burnt piece of paper.

“Fuck…! That… OK, that’s not good.” Heavy footsteps paced towards Luke, the young man scampering back and bringing himself to his feet awkwardly, left leg still stiff, but not completely useless. Luke snatched a hand into his pocket, his fingers passing through the cloth and coming out the other end where a hole no rendered it pointless. His eyes snapped up in time with the sound of a harsh crack and a faint glimmer falling from the hands of a mistwalker to the dirt below. There, his bell — lent to him by the Spirit Witch — fell crumpled and broken, his dark eyes widening to the reality of his predicament.

An ear-clasping howl rung out from further down the cleared path, vapor materializing near Luke’s right as the witch appeared, clothes tattered and skin marked with cuts and welts. She knelt beside him, breath heaving, before standing and addressing him.

“Your bell is shattered.”

Luke hesitated for a second, the sharp ping of fear in his heart like a child who had misbehaved facing the repercussions. “I’m sorry… I wasn’t expecting—”

“So has mine.” She revealed. It was a blow to his moral he couldn’t quite wrap his head around. He hadn’t noticed when her bell stopped ringing, but now the silence of the futility was deafening.

“What do we do?!” He asked, loud, the desperation evident in his voice. He was no stranger to fighting on the back foot, but this wasn’t a ring, nor were his opponents human. Fighting instinct could only take him so far. Now there was a moment to take it all in, it was beginning to overwhelm him.

Luke felt a hand on his shoulder, oddly thin and dainty. “We are not without hope. I can offer you a power, but it will come at a price. Pain beyond belief if you push your limits. You must not accept if you intend to push those limits.”

Luke looked her in the eye, or where the eyes of her mask where drawn. Her hand slid down his muscle-bound arm, the sweat of his efforts beading on his skin despite the cold weather. She stopped past his forearms at the wrist. Even through the wet, chilled rags, he could feel a warmth penetrating to his skin.

“I can’t promise that, but… I accept. Do what you need to do.” Almost immediately, he felt a heat emanate into his rags. A fiery, scalding heat. “Aaagh!” He cried out, shutting his eyes and throwing his head back. His eyes shot open as his scream turned into silence, mouth agape as the pain reached a peak. Then it faded, gone completely and the cold rags soothed him. He gazed at his hands in awe, flames of reds, yellows, and oranges flickering around his fists.

“What is this?” Luke looked up at the witch.

“Strength manifested. You are more wild than you appear.”

“Heh!” He scoffed. “I didn’t pretend to be tame.”

“You did not. They are merely two sides of your same coin.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“It will exhaust you. Remember, do not over do it. If you are tired, rest.”

“I’m fine for now, but I’ll let you know if it get to be too much.”

With that, the howl of the approaching mistwalkers bellowed directly in front and behind them, the Spirit Witch turned and pressed her back to him, facing the much larger group rushing toward them.

“I’ll guard yours if you guard mine,” Luke smirked. Her back felt firm, if much smaller than his.

“That was the intention, child.”

“Yep, just thought it’d be cool to say…” He whispered to himself.

Within the cabin, Mia watched them ready themselves for another round, the pair now surrounded by the undead creatures. The whites of her knuckles visible as she balled her smooth hands into fists, frustration boiling over.