0031 Those Who Are Sinister

"Three less motherfuckers...

... They shouldn't be dead, but they won't cause any more trouble again...".

Putting a few more bullets into the cylinder of the revolver, Jamie didn't stop looking at the new enemies he'd just made, of the common five, three were on the ground groaning, two had stopped running and were too scared to continue chasing the girl.

In a way, it was a victory, but his biggest problem now was this supernatural knight who returned to running at inhuman speed, now that Otis was closer, Jamie noticed the multiple bullet holes and bloodstains on the man's white armor and quickly knew it was the same knight from the previous confusion.

"Very good, you are leader of the motherfuckers, but at least I know that a few shots in your face should stop you...".

Talking to himself, he started shooting at the Envoy who kept chasing the girl, but as he approached the house, Jamie saw the knight's sword begin to glow with bluish green light, and soon he remembered what happened when the knight did that.

Without thinking twice, he jumped from the roof of the house, just in time for a blade of light to pass and destroy the entire roof with a great noise and throwing pieces of wood in all sides.

Jamie couldn't prepare for the fall very well, when he hit the ground he tried to roll forward to cushion the impact, but he still twisted his foot and limped to his feet.

"Damn, getting away with a screwed up leg is going to be bad!".

In the brief seconds of distraction between falling, rolling on the ground and getting up looking at his injured leg, he didn't notice that the knight had stopped running after the girl and was already approaching him.

He quickly raised the gun and aimed it at Otis' face and started shooting, so the Envoy shielded his face using his arm, but while shielding his face, Otis didn't notice the man throwing himself to the ground as he slashed the air with his sword.

Fallen beside the knight, Jamie picked up a piece of wood that was likely part of the now-destroyed house, and slammed it into the side of the Envoy's left knee.

The blow wasn't strong enough to injure Otis, but it was strong enough to make him flinch and lean his body down to rebalance, and at that moment, Jamie's other hand brought the revolver up, bringing the barrel of the gun to the knight's face.

Pah! Aargh!

Otis managed to hit Jamie by swinging his left arm, flinging Jamie away, but that brief second cost the Envoy another major wound, the shot catching him in his mouth, shattering his chin and jaw so that his mouth was open as he spat blood over and over.

Some pieces of bones and teeth fell to the ground along with the dripping blood, the anger, humiliation and pain no longer let him think straight, and with that, he could no longer concentrate on the prayers to heal himself or to prevent pain.

Jamie was thrown into what looked like be a stable, he broke some wooden walls and startled some horses that were already restless with all the noise and confusion.

He stayed on the floor feeling a broken rib or two, maybe it's not too serious, but the pain and bad leg made it very difficult for him to get up quickly, and then he just watched the supernatural knight approach him lighting the whole place with bluish green light.

**************************************************

Alicia ran for a few more meters when she heard the destruction of the house, she looked back scared and worried for the safety of that strange man, then she realized that the Envoy stopped chasing her.

^"I can't let more innocent people get hurt because of me!"^.

With that thought and determination, she rounded the already destroyed house, and saw the moment when the strange man almost knocked Otis down and was thrown, she realized she could still do something and ran towards them.

Otis was about to get close to the fallen man, but Alicia caught up with him first and placed both hands on the back of the Envoy who for some reason didn't notice her coming, or didn't care about her.

*"Miracle! Diving into Dreams!"*.

Jamie noticed the girl approaching from behind the knight, he was going to try something to make the girl run away again, but seeing her eyes glowing with pink light, he preferred to stay quiet and see what would happen.

And to his surprise, a small wave of pink energy floated in the air from the knight's back, his eyes glowed in pink too, then he dropped to his knees and then fell to his side.

Looking at the success in taking down the knight, the girl who still had her eyes drenched in tears started to walk away calling for him.

*"Come on, he's sleeping, I don't know how long it will last, we need to get out of here!"*.

He didn't know how to speak her language, but he could understand some words that made him close his eyes remembering the past for a brief moment and then he slowly got up.

*"Sleeping?"*.

Alicia was happy with the possibility of the person understanding her and continued to walk away from the place, but with a few steps she realized that the man was not following her, and when she looked back, she saw him finding his gun among a few grasses.

Jamie found the gun that had fallen from his hand with the blow he had taken from the Envoy, he blew on the barrel removing some dirt, and saw that the cylinder was empty, reaching into his pocket, he found five bullets, the last ones he had.

One by one, he placed the bullets in the revolver and approached the Envoy, Alicia despaired thinking the man would wake Otis, but she froze at the sight of his smile as he turned the Envoy's body and pressed the barrel of the revolver to his blind eye.

Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah!

Jamie unloaded his revolver, and inside the Envoy's damaged helmet, the shattered head of blood pulp and brains oozed through the openings, looking at the result, Jamie blew the bloodstained barrel of the gun next to his mouth, and looked at the two would-be soldiers approaching.

"One less motherfucker leader...".

Horrified by the scene and not understanding the man's language, the would-be soldiers fled for their lives, Alicia next door was frozen, maybe she shouldn't have come back, maybe the situation could be worse than it was before, this guy looked sinister.

But the relief of knowing that the Envoy was dead and the would-be soldiers fleeing, perhaps, relaxed her body a little, and then, all the tiredness and weakness hit her at once, making her feel dizzy, and then she sat on the floor and passed out.

"And now? What do I do with you girl?".

Jamie dropped his gun and approached Alicia, he examined the wounds on his arm and shoulder through his torn robe, he quickly ripped off the sleeve of the robe and wrapped it around his injured arm.

Looking a little more closely, he noticed the bullet hole in her robe next to the sword cut, he looked again and saw that there was no bullet wound, but saw a scarred white patch showing that she had actually been shot, and behind, another scarred mark showing that the bullet had gone through her shoulder.

"But what is this? Some kind of cure?

Is it the same as that son of a bitch knight or is it something else?".

He left her lying there and ran back to the destroyed house, looking for the rooms still standing, he made his way through the wreckage and trying to open some closet drawers he had rummaged through earlier.

^"I think there's some needle and thread around here..."^.

With difficulty due to pain and bruises, in the next closet he found what he was looking for, but when analyzing the needle and thread, Jamie realized they were too thick, it was impossible for him to use it to sew her wounds, and so he stopped to think of something else he could use to help her.

Returning to Alicia's side, Jamie saw the half-destroyed stable where two horses had escaped in fear of the previous fight, in a quick thought, he ran with a limp and went to search the other warehouses of the farmhouse.

"This might help...".

Within minutes Jamie found a wooden wagon in one of the warehouses, he found reins, and everything else he needed, putting them inside the wagon, in pain he pulled the wagon close to Alicia, picked her up on his lap and then laid her on the wagon.

"Time to make some friends...".

Jamie looked at the two horses not far away, he was having trouble breathing, held his chest at the level of the broken ribs, and walked slowly towards the two.

**************************************************

In the cave, several paths were found, and little by little the two groups commanded by the Envoys, began to divide more and more, they had barely been inside it for an hour and everyone understood how complex these caves were.

The Angel of light stayed outside the caves, only the torches were used by the would-be soldiers, the Angel's light was too intense to be used inside the caves, and as he was only one, it was useless to use him in exploring the caves.

*"Sir Father! This path also leads to the center of the mountains..."*.

*"Sir Father! This path goes down endlessly, I don't think it goes up again..."*.

*"Sir Father! It's that path! It leads to the left, near the cliff wall!"*.

*"Very good! Let's follow!"*.

Tired of waiting, they finally heard some good news, and so Alberto and Lucius entered side by side, behind them the Watcher watched the way for possible dangers or collapse.

Behind them, Alcione led the other young men along with the last Watcher who was on the lookout for any danger coming from behind, and so they all walked along following the exploration of the Envoys and the would-be soldiers.

Inside the caves, the rocks of the walls are dark, the floor had earth as if someone had purposely leveled the passage to make walking easier, and in the midst of the paths, everyone observed remains of bones scattered on the ground, some entrances had many bones, but apparently no danger was found.

From time to time, everyone stopped to wait for the would-be soldiers to explore, and in the meantime, each occupied himself in a different way.

Lucius began to analyze the bones in the ground, bones of humans and of various other types of animals apparently known and unknown, some walls looked like they had been scraped in places, they were creases more than three centimeters thick with a very evident depth and a width of meters, the thought that such damage to the walls could have been done by fingernails or claws raised a warning in Lucius' mind.

It was impossible to recognize tracks on the ground, Lucius wasn't a tracker, he didn't know any techniques to distinguish footprints and tracks, and most importantly, the Envoys and would-be soldiers have already messed up all the way where there could be some more revealing footprint.

Jenany was having fun with Jaffrey, even Sara joined in their conversation, Maycon was sulking and couldn't stop noticing Lucius' oddities.

*"Drop those skulls, boy!"*.

*"But why? See how cool it is!

We can learn a few things by analyzing them..."*.

*"You really have to be a heretic to think that way and want to learn from mortal remains!"*.

Alberto was annoyed by Lucius picking up the skulls from the ground and using the open skulls as a mask to look at him, and to ward off the inner fear of bones and skeletons, he cursed Lucius as a heretic in an angry manner.

*"But what does one thing have to do with another?

Learning is always good and helps to remove prejudices...

... Take this human skull for example, some say that the human skeleton is the greatest symbol of peace, humility and equally..."*.

*"But what is this heresy you are saying?"*.

Their conversation attracted everyone's attention, Alberto and the two Watchers were the only ones who didn't know that Thomas was not the real Thomas.

Alcione, Maycon, Sara and Jenany were the most interested in Lucius' words, while Jeffrey was just curious.

*"It's not heresy, mind you... A skull represents everything and everyone, tell me...

... This skull in my hands, does it belong to a man? A woman? A white person? A black person? What religion is this person from? Is the person heterosexual? Homosexual? Bisexual? Pansexual? ..."*.

Lucius began to ramble on with the questions as he held the skull in his hand and looked at it seriously, in a way, when he started the questions, the people listening to him started to understand a little bit what he meant.

But when he started to mention the diversities, no one understood anything, it was as if such words and meanings did not exist in their realities, and with that Jeffrey asked.

*"What is hetero...

... Heterosexual? And all those words with 'sexual'?"*.

Lucius stopped and looked at everyone, he quickly understood that in such a world there really were no such distinctions, yet.

And then he began to explain each and every one of the types of diversity, making everyone widen their eyes, because despite knowing one or another person who fit some of the characteristics, they never imagined that there were real names for each one of them.

The church just names them 'deviants' or 'heretics', but in addition to the names they have discovered that there are many different types and characteristics.

*"Heresy! How can there be so much naturalness in saying all this?

People who choose to like people of the same gender and those other kinds of things are nothing but depraved and deviant!"*.

Alberto was nervous, he didn't understand why he was nervous, but it was as if everything they had taught him had been turned inside out listening to Lucius speak in such a natural, didactic and simple way.

The Watchers were shocked too, they didn't even dare enter the conversation.

Jeffrey, Alcione and Jenany believed even more in the possibility that the person controlling Thomas' body was not the real thing, after all, everything said by him seemed from another world, and for Alcione, the Chaos Gate was one of the pieces of the puzzle about the mysterious person.

Maycon and Sara looked at each other, it was very unbelievable for both of them, but Sara at least got used to Lucius' differences, and now that the others already knew, there was no point in hiding it anymore, so the thought that maybe it would be better for Thomas if the others knew what happened, started to pop into his mind.

*"Sir Father, tell me, do you like women or men?"*.

*"You damned heretic! Of course I like women!"*.

Alberto began to glow with the white light of so much anger, and everyone was even more shocked by Lucius' boldness in asking the Father such a question, but as soon as Alberto finished answering in fury, Lucius smiled at him, and they all stopped walking to be absolutely silent and listen to the young man's next words.

*"So tell me...

... At what point in your life did you choose that it was better to remain a man? And at what point in your life did you choose to like women?"*.

^"Ooh Father... Sorry for the trap, but a little questioning doesn't hurt, right?"^.

The silence continued and with that, Father Alberto was frozen, even the white light of his body disappeared, Lucius' questioning was not profound, its purpose was not to make the Father accept the diversities, but to make him question, questioning can be contagious, and he wanted to pass that on.

*"When? I... I... When was it?"*.

*"Sir Father, we have found the exit from the cave that leads to the big house!"*.

With the sound of running footsteps, everyone looked across the corridor, a would-be soldier arrived announcing the news with joy, but the still mood and everyone looking at the Father wide-eyed, made the would-be soldier think he had arrived at a bad time, so he was afraid of being reprimanded.

Father Alberto, who heard the news, felt saved from this moment, but it took him a while to feel expectation again with the rewards of the Inheritance.

He had begun to question himself and the teachings of the church he had spent years following, he looked deeply into Lucius' eyes and felt strange, indeed, there was something sinister about this young man, something that merely justifying as heresy could not respond to such a sinister feeling that began to grow within him.