Roger Stone : A Chance Encounter
The sounds of the forest filled his ears as he stood, waiting on whomever was out there to show themselves. He could feel their presence and knew they were supernatural, but couldn’t figure exactly where they stood. However, he could tell that they had little to no magic and energy and he cared not for their mental abilities because of his own. As such the only way they could attack would be physically and that would be something of a mistake. He stood, listening to the sounds of the forest, trying to hear their movements when a sound rang out that told him of his folly.
“You are a fool.” A voice announced as the air became thick and a fog began to imminate from about two hundred yards into the forest. The fog was so dense that regular mortal sight would not be able to penetrate its near solid exterior. Its foul touch would burn the skin of any mortal caught in its icy embrace. An ability higher Lycan’s gain when they defeat a Master Vampire and consume its flesh. “You should not have come to my forest. I own this place and you are nothing more than a trespasser. Or have you come here to kill me or take me in for some bounty?”
“I can assure you, I have no need of any bounty and my “trespassing” is nothing of the sort. This old cabin is mine. I have been away for a very long time, but I have returned. Leave me in peace and I will not bother “your” forest. My name is Roger Stone. I own this forest.” Roger explained as he used the name he had donned during his time of owning the actual forest.
“Liar. I have lived here for nearly one hundred years and never seen you before. Also, no one can “own” a forest. You are some bounty hunter trying to get the Brik on my head. I will not be tricked by you! Prepare yourself.” The voice chided as the fog thickened even further.
“Look, you are a Lycan and I don’t want to fight with you, but I will not leave and I will not give ground. Leave me this small plot of land in “your” forest and I will stay here for a few months and leave you alone. Attack me now, and I will behead you.” Roger explained, as he readied himself for the coming fight. He could feel his natural defenses extending and he brought his hands up to shield his body, ready for the first hit. It was going to hurt.
The trees made up all of his vision save the rolling fog that blurred all else, including the trail he had taken to get here. He could smell the moss that grew on the trees below and could feel the energy pulsating from the grove he was in, but he could not feel the Lycan directly to know his direct direction. He could not smell him either as the smells of moss, grass, pine-like aromas and some decaying leaves on the ground covered his scent, but he could hear him as it was nearly perfectly quite at this time of night, with no moons up and the voided sky overhead, most of the animals were either asleep or hiding. Though a select few, like this Lycan, were up and hunting, most hid during these hours. Most couldn’t even see in this pitch darkness that Probe One called night. These two, however, could see as if it were daylight and this fog made it so that only one had true vision at their disposal. Roger closed his eyes for a moment and listened hard.
“Fine, if you won’t leave, then I will have no choice but to kill you!” The voice raged as its owner hurled himself at Roger. Roger stood his ground and could hear the claws cutting the air as they shot toward him. He felt the slow down of the first defense, was infused with the energy from the second defense, felt the consumption from the third defense and then the absorption from the fourth as the clank of claws raking against solid matter cut through his thoughts and told him of the pain he should be feeling, but left him with only the pain that he would feel. “What the…?”
“That hurt!” Roger announced as he dropped his hands and clasped his left side where the strike should have landed. There was no blood, no tear in his shirt, no true damage of any kind, but the pain was still there and he could tell that the claws had poison within them. Not because he could feel it or smell it, but because he could see trails of it running down the invisible barrier that coated his skin. Though the barrier blocked most attacks, it did not block the pain of the strike and Roger had no choice but to endure the attacks when dealt. “I seriously don’t want to fight with you. However, this is my land and I do own it. I am here to stay for a short while and then I will be gone for another hundred or so years. Just leave me be and I will be out of your hair in no time. Please, don’t escalate this.”
Roger could hear only the muffled padding of near perfectly silenced feet. He listened closer and could tell which way he would attack by the padding and turned himself right to take the next hit. It came faster than he anticipated but with similar force to the first one. The claws tried hard to dig deeper within the field, but could not penetrate its density. The attack mixed with the absorption of the acid in the air were fueling Roger to have enough force to harm this being, but Roger did not want to fight and did not want to hurt anyone at the moment. If he defeated this Lycan here, then he would have to care for the forest for a time of which he did not have and of which he wasn’t willing to lose.
“One more time, I am hoping to get through to you. I don’t have time for this and I don’t want this. Leave me be for now and go about your way. I will…” Roger started as another attack launched in his direction. This time it was surrounded by a great amount of energy pinpointed to the tips of the claws which swung in his direction. Roger could feel the power pulsate before it even came close and could have easily avoided the attack, but it would have simply led to even more attacks and Roger needed this to be over quickly. He had somewhere to be and the item in that cabin was needed for that encounter. “An ability of pure energy into your nails. Sneaky as it can’t be sensed until it is used. I will have to investigate that further when I have time.”
The pulsating energy came closer and closer until its imminent connection with Roger’s outer field. He watched as the attack slowed from the first field and then felt the energy flow into him with the strike on the second. Next the consumption by his third field infused Roger with the energy which was enough to have easily killed a mortal being, not even including the damage that would be taken by the claws. He felt the absorption of the bulk of the energy that was left, into him from the fourth which would have also been enough to kill a regular mortal. Lastly the strike finally hit his shield and the last of the damage was averted, but the actual pain of that damage was felt as if none were dodged or diminished at all. Roger, however, had done this for so long that he could take virtually any pain without so much as a flinch.
“That was quite painful, little Lycan. Now pack it up and leave or I will be forced to fight back. I don’t want to and I hate the idea of harming such a rare beast as yourself, but I will do what I must. You don’t have to keep fighting. Walk away.” Roger pleaded as he took a fighter’s stance. He was posturing, but the last attack had actually hurt enough to make him slow and another like that might actually cause him to falter for a moment. Neither idea was pleasing to such a being as Roger. “Now leave!”
“I am no mere Lycan. I am a king among kings of Lycan. I have enough power to fell even a Cardomon, given the time and location. You are nothing more than a mortal with tricks. Tricks that I think I have figured out. I am going to rip your head off with this next attack and I believe we both know it. You took the other hits without taking any actual damage, but the poison that I put into the air should be taking its toll on you by now.” The voice came, still disembodied as the Lycan moved so quickly that Roger couldn’t see him through the thick fog. “Now you are slower and probably sleepy. I am going to mount your head in my kitchen to remind me of the mortal that thought he could take on a god.”
The Lycan flexed his muscles and pulled forth the ability, expending the stamina to force the energy into his nails once more. He figured that this mortal was using deflective magic and thus would be able to defend some, if not all of the attacks for a short time. If this be the case, the last two attacks would have forced mass amounts of magic into the defense of the shield around the mortal. Thus this next hit would land solid on its skin and leave him without a depleted mana pool. So, he poured every ounce of poison into the finger nails that he could muster, forced the fog to become thicker and used the ability of Power Transfer once again to absorb energy from around his body and pinpoint it into a single attack. This ability would tear through entire trees and cut through most metals. The fact that this magic user defend the first two attacks is phenomenal, but no mortal could withstand such an attack a third time and that with the poison he’d been pumping in the air would surely help reduce this man to nothing. Once he felt his energy pool completely, he pumped his muscles for all they were worth and blurred across the forest floor with such speed that it seemed as if time stopped. With this speed, that energy, the poison and his own supernatural strength, there was virtually nothing that could stop this attack shy of a Supre Mald.
“I have fought gods before. They hit much harder than you.” Roger stated flatly as he reached up and caught the Lycan by the throat in the middle of the attack as if the Lycan were moving in slow motion. The Lycan was so surprised his eyes widened greatly as his wolf-like face grimaced at the strain of Roger’s hold. The great body was lifted off the ground and was struggling to free itself as Roger stood, near wooden, with the nine foot tall Lycan held slightly in the air above Roger’s six foot six frame and extended right arm. “Your no god.”
Roger’s arm lit with the energy that he had absorbed and he infused that energy with the gravity he had been absorbing all week along with the energy and poison that he had absorbed from the fog around him and he forced it up into his hand. The Lycan struggled to no avail as Roger’s strength was now twice that of the huge beast.
“I can’t be poisoned by anything rather airborne or on my skin. I can’t be slowed or harmed in any way directly without massive amounts of force. I can feel the pain of all that force and you had some rather strong blows, but none would have matched even the lowest of Malds that I have faced in my time. Now, because you would not listen to reason and because I am merciful, I will be kind enough to mount your head in my kitchen and take over your job of defending this forest for the next few years. However, I have a meeting to get to and you have made me late. Now pay for your transgressions.” Roger explained as though talking about the weather.
“Wai…wait. I…” The Lycan started, but Roger forced the energy through his fingertips and across through the lycan’s neck, severing his head. The body dropped to the ground, twitching and writhing for a few seconds as Roger looked deep into the lycan’s shocked eyes.
“My name is Repeller and I am one of the Reachers. Remember that the next time I come through here. If you make me, I will truly kill you. As it stands, it should take you about three months to heal these wounds and regenerate your body. During that time, think of the fact that I simply wanted to grab one thing and then I would have left. Coming back tomorrow and staying only a couple months before moving on. Had you let me do that, none of this had to happen. As it stands now, you have left the forest without a protector and now I have to fill that role.” Repeller stated as he turned and walked into the cabin.
The cabin was old and run down, but the wood was apple tree and as such did not age as other woods do. As such the cabin would probably stand for another fifty to a hundred centuries before starting to truly crumble, but the interior design work was made of other woods and metals, most of which were aged and falling apart. The cabin was three rooms as far as the Lycan could tell and everything was covered in white cloth. All of which was covered in years of dust. No one had come to the cabin in a very long time as nothing had been disturbed. It wasn’t out of the question as the forest was thousands of miles in diameter and so thick that none would enter it accidently. No humanoids would dare enter such a place as it was protected by many devils, ghosts and the likes of himself.
Roger laid the head on the dust riddled counter top and then turned to the chair in the back corner of the room. The entire room was dark, but Repeller’s eyes were keen enough to see in most light and he made his way across the room to the chair. As he stepped in front of the old rocker, he pressed on its side and watched it move across the floor. The strength needed to move the thing was such that most mortal races wouldn’t be able to budge it. Maybe a Dalim or a Baldwin could move it, but even they would have issue, but with all the stored up energy he currently had, the move was simple.
The room smelled of dust and ash and the movement of the chair stirred up a small cloud that had been laying there for nearly a century. Roger had lived here nearly three centuries ago when he bought the forest from the locals that lived within such a place. He had liberated them from slavery and as a reward they gave him the land within the forest. He returned from time to time to see what he had left behind and to be away from people. This time he had wanted nothing more than to grab the item and make the meeting. Then return for a few months and unwind, but the protector of the forest wouldn’t let him in. It was the story of his life. “Such a long story. Such a short life.”
Roger came back to the here and now and looked down. Below the chair was a small spot in the floor that was slightly off color from the rest of the wood. He reached down, and knocked on the discolored wood with a special knock he had used centuries before. The wood began to creak and then the springs could be heard as the trap door flipped open. He leaned down and reached through the five different boxes that lay in the open chest. He moved two of them to the sides and revealed another trap door below. He promptly repeated his knock and the second door flipped open. He reached in the new case and pulled out the prize he had been looking for.
The Lycan starred, not able to speak, but easily able to comprehend, hear, and smell everything. He wasn’t sure about taste, but feeling was out the window as he was no longer connected to the nerves that made up his body. Having never been beheaded before, he thought he would be dead, but there was no oblivion, he was not fading into the night. He simply was and that was terrifying. He watched as the young man took out a doll from under the floorboards and then lifted it to his level to show him what he had retrieved. It was at that moment that he realized his eyes would not move but rather were stuck in place. He tried to panic but even that wasn’t within his ability. Instead he tried to steady himself and keep calm.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, but I did not have time to take you down properly and defeat you without harming you. I needed this item for a girl that is having a rough time and you were in my way. I am leaving now, but I promise I will be back in a couple of days to help you with your healing process. You can’t die, unless someone were to stab your heart with a silver… anything. Though, if I buried your head in sacred ground that would stop your healing process and as such would leave you like this for as long as you were buried. That would be akin to death, I suppose.” Repeller explained as he lifted the Lycan’s head and turned him toward the window. “This should give you a good view while I am gone. Don’t go anywhere, I wouldn’t want to have to hunt you down…Kidding, you’re a head. Where would you go?”
With a quick snap in front of the Lycan’s face, Repeller bounded out the door and into the night. The fog had all but lifted since the Lycan’s abilities were shut off and he could see Repeller grab his body and fling it into a small pit off to the right of the trail. He then covered it with some branches, whipped his hands on a tree and took off into the night. “Talk to you soon, Hope to get your name then.”
The Lycan sat there, wondering what would come next. Wondering if he would actually ever get his true form back. But most of all, he sat there wondering what in the world this being was. Repeller had beaten him without so much as breaking a sweat. He knew he had hurt Repeller by his reactions, but then nothing. It was as if none of his attacks actually touched the large fellow and as if nothing he did even mattered against such a foe. He had fought Gods before and wasn’t just boasting about the Cardamon as he had actually defeated two of them over the years that had come into his forest with ill intentions. They both took days to defeat and he was nearly killed both times, but he prevailed. He thought this fight would have been similar, but it turned out that nothing he did mattered. Nothing he threw at this being did anything. If this kind of being existed, there was nothing anyone could do to stop them from doing anything. He had heard of Melaney, but thought them a myth as nothing could be as powerful as the myths he’d heard, but this man was as strong as the myth with ease. He started to reevaluate his standing in the probe and he didn’t like the common outcome. He wasn’t the apex predator, but something so far down the list that a true apex would laugh. He felt alone and afraid for the first time in nearly a century. He felt …. Humble.