Oh fuck, what have I done!? She disappeared behind the tree line almost as swiftly as she emerged from it.

In that split second, she ran and avoided my bullets. I found myself unable to let go as my hands itched from the vibrations. Suddenly I let go, my weapon dropped to the ground with a solid thump.

I turned to face Thomas and Clarke who stared at me with expressions of shock and surprise. Our heads turned toward the forest when we heard branches snap, they scanned the area for our guest while I knelt down to pick up my weapon then flicked a switch on the computer module on the side of the body and gently whispered to it “Incendiary” and it responded with a small beep and the colour on the module changed to orange. Through my optics, the gun’s information was displayed next to its ammo count on the top right of my field of vision. Three rows of ten blocks were located beneath a number that read ‘twenty seven’. I shook my head in frustration as I scanned the forest for that elf.

I didn’t even intend to fire it! My hands just got so clammy that I must have pressed the trigger by mistake

“Guys, I’m so sor-“

Thomas shushed me. His lip curled upward as he snarled at me. I should have pressed back against him for doing that to me but given the circumstance I could understand why. Nothing but the sound of water trickling past us via the small river was all that could be heard, suddenly the noise of leaf litter crunching underfoot rapidly approaching us. I couldn’t see where she was but the muffled thuds continued to come toward us. I saw her shaded form for a brief second before she jumped towards the nearest tree trunk then jumped off it to climb up on the adjacent tree before disappearing among the canopy.

Thomas shouted “Fire!” then rapidly sprayed bullets into where she disappeared. The gunfire was joined by my own and Clarke’s revolver. The bullet storm tore through the branches, my bullets erupted into sparks and left a small lingering flame wherever they impacted. Then I heard my gun click with each pull of the trigger and it was then that I noticed the ammo count had reached zero. I looked back up at where we were shooting to see the hole in the canopy after our bullets removed the branches. I zoomed in to get a closer look, trying to catch a glimpse of any sign that we hit her. Not even a piece of her clothing got caught on any of the splinters was to be found.

I reached into my pocket to grab a new magazine to reload the submachine gun; then I heard a thud from behind me when suddenly I felt her arm slide around my chest and pulled me back. I yelped in surprise which drew the attention of my brother and the senator. They both raised their guns towards me at the same time I felt cold metal pressing firmly on my throat.

Shit, not again! I cursed at myself. How could I have let myself be taken hostage by another elf!

“Drop your weapons, humans or you’ll be watching his floating body drift down the river!” She shouted from behind and into my ear. She tensed up and was prepared to press the blade into the side of my neck when Thomas hesitantly complied and began to kneel down to set his gun aside.

“What is with you elves and taking me hostage!?” I shouted. Even though this was the second time it had happened weeks after the first incident meeting Xareith, I couldn’t believe the odds that I would be in the same position twice

“Just let him go, we don’t want any trouble, missy.” Thomas said sternly.

“Nobody talks to me like that and I can’t let you humans continue any further.” I could tell by the way her posture shifted that she was about to follow up on her threat and plunge her knife into my neck.

All of a sudden, I felt a strange calming presence encroach at the edges of my mind, a kind of presence that softly spoke to me saying that everything was going to be okay while a warm, tingling feeling permeated my body. Thomas and Clarke looked at me with jaws slack and eyes wide. The elf that had me hostage gasped in surprise. Then I felt as though I didn’t fear death anymore and my eyelids grew heavy until I closed them. In the darkness I found myself hearing a strange wind surround me, the trees nearby rustled restlessly from the wind which grew in magnitude. Yet, I felt strangely at peace when without warning a deafening shockwave blasted through the air around me with such force that it threw the Elf who, up until mere seconds ago, held me hostage was now thrown off me.

Strange, what was it, why didn’t I feel it?

Shortly after, I was able to force my eyes open to see my brother and Clarke flat on their backs, curled in a foetal position groaning. Clarke coughed, but the sounds he made sound as though he had no air in his lungs, Thomas grabbed his stomach as he rolled onto his side to try and stand up. I stood there in shock when I suddenly remembered the elf that should be behind me, so I looked around trying to find my gun when I saw the Elf flat on her back only a few feet from me; her knife was thrown even further away from her while my gun was within grasp of her hands and a massive bloodied bruise on her forehead.

After tenderly approaching the creature and swiftly taking my gun away from her I then started to loom over her, studying her; she looked quite young, I could have sworn she was in her late twenties with her tanned skin tone and lightly muscled figure. But I doubted she had enough strength to beat me in an arm wrestling contest. On her forehead, a patch of dark red blood stained her white hair, the skin at the centre had some geometric indentations pressed into it and I then looked over my gun and saw a small speck of blood at the bottom of the stock of my gun; it was there I began to realise what happened.

“Oof, that’s gonna sting in the morning” I said wincing.

Curiously, I nudged her side several times to no response, declaring then and there she must be fully unconscious. I turned around to see Thomas and Clarke struggling to get up as both men continued groaning loudly in pain. I went to help them up and I noticed the patterns that glowed on my skin from the warehouse incident was present and slowly dimming until they were gone.

Does this shit only show whenever I am threatened? What a useless power. I thought to myself.

I extended my hands out to both men who eagerly grabbed them and I took a step back to help them on their feet as they groaned.

“What happened, are you okay?” I asked them both, helping brush the grass off their clothes.

“What the fuck was that, how did you do that!?” Clarke asked.

“Huh?”

“Do you seriously not know what happened?” Thomas said with a raised eyebrow.

“No, I remember feeling at peace with myself and I closed my eyes ready to die when all of a sudden I heard a boom and then… well, this” I said, gesturing to the surrounding area. “What happened, did something attack us?”

Thomas finally stood upright and he looked past me, I knew he was looking at the elf behind me when he spoke “I don’t think we were attacked. I think she was meant to be attacked and we got caught in the crossfire.”

I raised an eyebrow at him “What?” I felt even more confused now than I did before.

“You had that glowing artwork on you and then it looked like you somehow created a shockwave or something!” Clarke exclaimed.

“Is… Is she dead?” Thomas asked.

I turned around to see the elf creature lying still on her back, her chest occasionally rising and falling rhythmically.

“Nope,” I said “But when she wakes up, she will wish she was. That head splitting headache is not gonna be enviable.” I said chuckling.

“So what do we do with her?” Thomas asked openly.

“Obviously we kill her.” Clarke pulled out his revolver and spun the chamber before jerking his hand to the side to throw the still spinning chamber in position with the muzzle. “I’ll do it, one round to the head.”

He had taken a couple steps towards her when suddenly I had an idea and stopped him from getting closer. “Wait, I got a better idea. Listen to me, I got some rope in my bag, we tie her up to a tree and when she wakes up we can ask her for information.”

“What makes you think that’s gonna work?” Thomas scoffed.

“Have you seen the size of the bruise on her forehead?” I loudly said, pointing a finger at the creature behind me. “She is knocked up, alright.”

Both my brother and Clarke looked at each other with disgust. Then they turned to face me before Clarke spoke “I think you mean ‘knocked out’. Knocked up means you got her pregnant.”

“Ew!” I recoiled in disgust. “Look, regardless of the phrase she is still unconscious and we got an opportunity to take advantage of.”

“You mean as in getting her knocked up?” Clarke said, barely stifling a laugh. Thomas immediately broke down in laughter as well and all I could do was stare at them unamused before flipping both my middle fingers at them.

“Ha-ha you guys are hilarious.” I said sarcastically.

“Hey, hey Michael. I didn’t realise that was what the rope was for!” Clarke added. They both broke down even further into laughter, leaving me unamused.

“Oh, get your heads out of the gutter.” I said with a sneer.

How am I the youngest member of this group and somehow I am the more mature one?

All I could do was shake my head disapprovingly and then set my backpack on the ground to pull out the bunched up rope before proceeding to the unconscious female elf. Clarke and Thomas shortly gathered their wits and kept a keen eye out for any more surprise visitors as I dragged the elf to the nearest suitable tree. I grabbed her by one of her ankles and began to drag her back into the forest when even my own enhanced limbs started to strain. She was deceivingly heavier than she looked and as a result I cursed under my breath the entire time I pulled her toward a small carabeen tree and delicately positioned her upright for when I tightened the rope around her. She shifted slightly and moaned a little which had me jump and reach for my gun thinking she was about to wake up. But she never did.

After successfully tying the rope around the tree’s trunk to secure the elf, making sure she wouldn’t be able to easily escape from it, I then searched her pockets for any other weapons she had. Aside from her scimitars, whose sheathes were cleverly positioned on her lower back, she was defenceless.

I was giving the rope a few tugs to test the knots’ ability to hold when I heard soft moaning coming from the other side of the tree, with nerves on edge I peeked around the corner to see what was going on and I saw the elf starting to squirm in place with the ropes. I couldn’t tell if I ran out of sheer panic or excitement but I found myself taking large leaps over the forest floor to inform Thomas and Clarke who both sat at the river’s edge watching the sun go down in the distance.

“Guys, guys.” I said excitedly. “She’s starting to wake up, come!” I spun around and ran back to where I had left the creature, behind me I could hear Clarke and Thomas picking up their weapons and backpacks and then running across the forest floor. I stopped short of the tree to see the elf still tied to it as she squirmed more actively. Both men stopped short just behind me in time to see her open her eyes. At first they fluttered open, seemingly in a daze still before she gave her head a shake to snap herself out of it and her eyes opened wide and fully cognisant.

She let out a soft gasp when she saw. “You!” Was all she said angrily. She then began to squirm a bunch in random and unorganised movements in a seemingly futile effort to free herself. It was almost entertaining to watch her try and wrestle herself out of this before she then attempted to reach her decorated blades behind her when suddenly a look of shock was plastered all over her face and she looked up at us realising they were gone.

“What have you done to me, where are my weapons?” She angrily demanded.

Thomas was the first to step into view with his arms crossed and his Magnetar resting on his side.

“That shockwave must have clubbed you in the head harder than we initially thought if you think we would have let you keep your weapons on you after that stunt you pulled.” He said sternly, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice. He knelt down where he stood, still keeping eye contact with her.

“Look, miss, we have a lot of questions and we need you to cooperate with us, first things first: Why did you attack us?”

“Why did I attack you?” she echoed. “You humans are invading my clan's home. If I don’t stop you then who knows how many more will start coming here. You are like a plague. Spread nothing but death and destruction wherever you go!”

“Yeah yeah, we humans are the absolute worst, invading other areas and slaughtering countless thousands for some vague reason. We know this” Clarke cut her off with his sarcastic retort. He stepped into view on the other side of my field of vision, he kept his arms at his sides as he stood still.

“What is your name?” Clarke continued. “I am Senator Lucas Clarke.” He touched his chest when he spoke to add emphasis as though he was speaking to someone who spoke another language.

Lucas!? Your first name is Lucas? How is this the first I am hearing of it?

She looked up at him, narrowing his eyes and carefully choosing her words. “I am Blade Master Ghilya, daughter of-“

“I’m gonna stop you right there, Ghilya. We don’t need your whole genealogy background, only your name.” Thomas interrupted her.

The elf now known to us as Ghilya took a quick look at our faces, quickly shifting her gaze to the next person. I wondered what was going through her mind when she looked at us; was she considering escape, was she stalling until she could find a way out or convince us to let her go. Did she have people searching for her and it was a matter of time before they found her?

I knelt down in front of her and made direct eye contact. She looked right at me and her eyes narrowed again as though she was deep in thought. I had forgotten what I was going to ask her before I saw her lips open up and begin to speak. “Wait a second… Now I remember you.”

“Me?”

“Now it's coming back to me. You had the Daa’quardo, that’s how you were able to subdue me.”

There’s that word again, the word Xareith said to us before we burnt half his face off. I still had no clue what it means and I have been searching through my own knowledge to try and figure out if I heard it somewhere. I couldn’t hold back the curiosity any longer so I began to speak.

“That word: Daa’quardo. What does that mean? We have heard it before but not sure what it means.”

Ghilya snorted out a laugh before stopping herself realising we were being serious. Thomas and I looked at each other curiously as she spoke. “You seriously, don’t know? Didn’t your caster explain it to you?”

“Caster?” we both said, echoing off each other.

“Yeah, the one who casted that protection spell on you?” Thomas and I looked at each other again with even more confusion.

“Nobody casted anything on us.” Thomas shook his head.

“Well, it's not as though you got it naturally, somebody casted that on you and… wait… Us? You have it too?” Ghilya said, shocked.

“Only the two of us,” Thomas gestured to the two of us. ”We don't know how we got it and we only discovered it by chance. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have known we had it”

“What is Daa’quardo anyway? We have heard it from Xareith but we got no clue what it means.”

Suddenly Ghilya’s eyes exploded wide open at the mention of his name. “You met First Commanderl Xareith!? Tell me everything! What was he like in person, did he seem relaxed about everything? Did he show off his skills with his Threatpoint spear?”

“We learnt he is a colossal asshole with ambitions larger than he can fulfil them.” Thomas said blankly. “He threatened us to install a neural processor in his head. Turns out that was a fatal mistake”

I was about to open my mouth to correct Thomas on the circumstances surrounding Xareith’s head exploding but I decided not to say anything in case this was some kind of plan he would use.

“What’s a neural processor?” Ghilya asked.

“It’s a small device that goes into our brains and helps us process information much faster.” Thomas has begun to explain. “Xareith said he wanted one and despite my objections, which were well founded, it exploded in his head.”

“He… wanted one? No, that cannot be right… It couldn’t have been him.” Ghilya’s gaze started drooping towards the ground, darting from one corner of her eyes to the other.

“There really isn’t that much to explain.” Thomas added.

“Are you sure his name was Xareith, it had to have been some impostor claiming to be him! It had to have been. Xareith hates you humans and he hates everything about you… Including your tools, there’s no way he would have wanted one of your butchers to install your false limbs into his body!”

Upon hearing this, Thomas stood up and looked down at Ghilya. “Well you better believe it, missy. Because he stormed into our place of hiding and demanded we do it. Even had those golden armoured guards watch us in case we decided to try something like kill him while he was unconscious.”

Clarke had holstered his revolver between his pants and his waist, Thomas then moved to the side to sit down on one of the exposed roots of the tree.

“Actually, in hindsight I should thank him for making us perform that surgery on him. If he hadn’t we wouldn’t have installed a failsafe in his head or learnt some interesting things about this invasion.”

Ghilya looked up at Thomas with a curious expression. Inside my head I gained a sudden sense of clarity of where my brother was going with his argument. I decided to help him out and gently approached Ghilya before kneeling down next to her but not so close that she could still hit me with her bruised forehead.

“What do you know of the invasion of our homeland? As in, who planned it and who took charge of such an operation?” I asked her, and she whipped her head around to face me. The look on her seemed more neutral than before.

“Same thing as everyone!” Ghilya shouted. Her voice wavered with defensive tones that showed how hard she was trying to convince us. “All the leaders of each tribe convened at the Cauldron at the instructions of my tribe's leader who wanted to subjugate the human tribes.”

“And who was your tribe's leader?” Clarke asked from behind.

“Xareith. He is the leader of the kingdom of the Wood Elves, my supreme commander. Why?”

“Ghilya, this invasion would have needed the support of the Dragon Lord, right?” I asked her.

“Of course, otherwise the other species wouldn’t have agreed to it.”

“Ghilya,” Clarke began to speak. “Xareith never got the Dragon Lords approval.”

Ghilya shook her head aggressively. “Yes he did, he convinced the Dragon Lord!” she shouted. Ghilya took turns looking at the three of us expecting us to say ‘just kidding’ or something close to it. She started shaking her head with enough force that her body started jerking side to side. The rope around her body had her pressed firmly against the tree’s base.

Clarke glanced over at us before looking back at Ghilya with a raised eyebrow. “What do you mean he ‘convinced’ the Dragon Lord? Was he not on board with the idea initially?”

“Can you tell us what happened at The Cauldron?” Thomas said compassionately.

“Of course, uhm, Xareith was proposing an alliance at the Cauldron to invade and conquer your kingdoms. But the Dragon Lord simply told Xareith that it was a terrible idea, that he was playing with fire that could cost a lot of lives. And then the Dragon Lord left. But not before telling Xareith his ambitions outweighed his stomach.” Ghilya recounted.

“Now that I think about it,” She continued. “That day, Xareith was pretty angry. But the very next day he was overly jubilant. He said that he convinced the Dragon Lord to reconsider and that he got the blessing of him.”

Ghilya’s voice became lower, almost to the point of mumbling. I could hear the uncertainty in her voice and her own eyes looked as though something wasn’t adding up. Like now she was sensing something was off.

“Ghilya, just as a hypothetical,” Clarke responded. “Is it possible Xareith lied and said that to convince everyone else?”

She shook her head. “I don’t see why he would do that.”

“Did anybody else go with Xareith when he claimed to have convinced the Dragon Lord otherwise?” Clarke asked.

Ghilya shook her head again.

Thomas drew closer to her and spoke. “Ghilya, we tell you this not because we have ulterior motives or because we don’t like you. We tell you this because he has caused harm and destruction for his own needs at yours and our expense.”

Thomas then went on to explain the events that took place when we first met Xareith in our clinic, demanding we install it in him. This turned out to be the hardest thing out of everything for Ghilya to believe as it was apparently something that the real Xareith wouldn’t do. But in the end, she had no other choice but to believe us. Thomas then continued to tell her about what we learnt while he was unconscious regarding the Dragon Lord not knowing about the invasion. Eventually we told her of what become of Xareith and how we remotely triggered a bomb in his head. Clarke then lowered his arms from his chest as he looked down at the she-elf tied to the base of the tree, he then got on his knees and began to open his mouth to speak.

“And this is where I come in” Clarke gestured to himself. “If we can get to the Dragon Lord and inform him of what’s going on then I, as a diplomat, can arrange for peace and hopefully an end to hostilities.”

Ghilya stayed silent, she looked towards the ground hoping that something we had told her would eventually make sense. None of us chose to say anything, fearful it could be the push that would send her over the edge of denial that would make her lash out against us and make our jobs harder. Personally I didn’t think we could stand a chance against Ghilya in a fight considering she got the jump on me, much less a whole bunch of her cohorts joining in to fight. And just in that instance, did an idea come to mind.

“Guys, mind if I talk to you privately?” I said to them while gesturing to a spot near some bushes. Thomas looked at me with a curious expression as he followed me to the bush. I took one peek to check in on Ghilya to make sure she wasn’t going to make any attempt to leave and then I returned my attention to my brother and senator.

“What is it, Michael?” Thomas said.

“Guys, I have a crazy idea… It might be silly but hear me out.”

Both men shifted their stances and both had crossed their arms against their chests waiting to hear what I had to say. I took a deep breath in and calmly explained my idea.

“Okay, what if we get Ghilya to join us on our journey?”

“WHAT!?” they both shouted.

“Are you retarded, Mikey!?” Thomas asked loudly.

“Does having that magic shit on you make you dumber!?” Clarke asked in an equally loud manner.

I tried to calm them down and lower their voices as I spoke softly in comparison to their manner.

“Listen to me, she knows this place because it's her home, right? And I think that if we explain our goals and what we are trying to do she might come around and join us and help lend some credibility to our story when we meet the Dragon Lord. Plus…” I looked back to Ghilya to make sure she was still where I thought she was and proceeded to speak in a even more hushed tone “She can help us fight anybody if we come across somebody who is a bit more steadfast in their views of us.”

They looked at me like I was crazy and perhaps I was, but they instead turned to face each other and spoke so softly that I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Then they both turned to face me and Thomas was the first to speak up. “Okay, fine. But you are the one that has to ask her and she will be your responsibility.”

“My responsibility?” I echoed. “What am I meant to water and feed her too?”

Thomas then responded. “No it means if she escapes and warns her buddies after you free her then its your ass that’s gonna be on the line.”

I sighed frustratingly then nodded in understanding. I left the hiding bush then Thomas and Clarke left shortly after I did. I crouched next to Ghilya so I could look at her at eye level and she turned her head so she was facing me. Admittedly I felt nervous about what I was about to do and this was the first time I had properly studied her face which was surprisingly narrow, came closer the lower it was which then resulted in giving her a pointed chin making her entire face look like an arrowhead. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her forehead and down her cheek, the bruise on her forehead and the blood stain that rolled down her forehead had dried itself on her otherwise soft looking skin.

“Ghilya, uhh, hi..” I began nervously. “So, uhm… look I know we just met and told you some stuff but, well you see we are on a quest if you’d like. A quest to find the Dragon Lord and bring peace, proper peace to our world because what Xareith is doing is bad… really bad and we don’t know what his allies are telling the Dragon Lord or even if they are telling him anything.”

I took a small breath in, while I was doing that, I studied Ghilya’s expression to see if I could gauge her reactions. Instead, all I could draw was a blank. Her expression told me nothing useful aside from that she was listening to me. I let my breath out, taking away my anxiety about asking the question.

“Look, what I am trying to say is; if we let you loose, would you help us to The Cauldron so we can end the needless suffering that’s being inflicted on our people?” I said with uncertainty.

Then, Ghilya burst into a fit of laughter taking all three of us by surprise.

“What’s so funny?”

“Hah-ha! Why in the world would I ever help a bunch of humans to such a special place, that would be breaking our highest ideals, heh.”

My brows dropped, giving me a deadpan expression which I stared at Ghilya with. “Well for starters I would say it's either you help us or we leave you here until your buddies find you or you dry up like apricots in the sweltering heat. Secondly if you don’t help us and we are unable to tell the Dragon Lord what is happening then I imagine he would be pretty pissed off and visit his wrath on your village or whatever.”

And just as I had finished it was like a switch in her head was flipped and all her laughter had suddenly ceased and her wide-open smile was turned into a frown. As she contemplated my words, she remained silent for a short period before looking towards me and saying. “He wouldn’t do that… would he? I mean, if Xareith really did go behind his back and attack… you… without his knowing… Oh.”

“Yeah.” I nodded knowingly.

“But my family, my brothers and my baby sister! He might punish them for something that our leader did… I just cannot believe Xareith would do this!”

“I can.” Clarke added, Thomas nudged him and shot him a dirty look.

“So how about it?” I asked. “If I untie you, will you help us get to the Dragon Lord and from there we can go our separate ways?”

“Deal, but just to be clear: This doesn’t make us friends.” She shot a look at me before giving the same expression to Clarke and Thomas.

After standing up and walking to the back of the tree where the knot was and fiddling around with the elastic rope to loosen it. I eventually managed to work the fibres until a sudden ease of tension was felt, the knot was undone and the rope slid down the tree trunk. As I pulled on the rope to collect it I heard the sound of guns cocking and when I peeked around the tree to see what was happening I saw Clarke and Thomas aiming their weapons at Ghilya standing up and shaking the rope off her feet.

With their weapons trained on our guest I started to wonder if perhaps I did make the right choice in asking her to join us. At least her weapons aren’t anywhere near her. I hope she isn’t as proficient in hand to hand as she is with blades… The very least she could do is not hold me hostage again, I think Thomas should have his turn next.

I placed the neatly tied up bunch of rope back into my backpack before slinging it over my shoulders, I walked up to Ghilya and extended my hand to shake hers. Instead, she looked at my hand with a raised eyebrow unaware of what I was doing until it hit her so suddenly. She grabbed my hand so fast that Clarke and Thomas tensed up and were about to raise their guns again before seeing her shake my hand. Ghilya looked around the clearing we were in and asked no one in particular

“So, where are my weapons?” Placing her hands on her hips.

The two men gave me dirty looks as all I could do was chuckle nervously. I returned my gaze to Ghilya who then focused on me. “Yeah, so it's not that we don’t trust you but you did have a knife pressed against my throat earlier.”

“Oh for… Never mind. I promise I am not going to kill you. If I were, I would have done it already.” She shot a glance at us with eyes narrowed so finely they could cut through steel. “That was a joke, I can’t take out all of you.”

Thomas approached me from the side, grabbed me by the arm and asked. “Well? Now what? Where do we go from here?”

I thought hard about it for a moment and then I had an idea. “Ghilya, do you know how to get to the Cauldron from here?”

She nodded “Of course. We will need to make some stops along the way to the Pythia waterfall.”

“This isn’t a luxury tour, missy. We don’t have time to make stops along the way.” Thomas interjected.

“I get that you want to get this over and done with but we need to stock up on water and food. And the Pythia waterfall has plenty we can take. But before we go there, there is one place we need to stop by first.”

“Fine,” Clarke said, annoyed slightly. “Where is this place?”

“Well… You aren’t going to like it” She winced.

Thomas rolled his eyes and stomped his foot into the leaf litter. “Just tell us!”

“I am going to need to grab some supplies from my village.” Was all she said.

Silence immediately followed after her words, leaving three of us stunned and her seemingly unenthused at the prospect of going to the wood elves village.