AnnouncementSo because Namorita is bilingual (and to save on word count) I didn't write the dialog out like a usually do, so any speech that has '( )' is being said in English, and any without is in Attean for this chapter. Especially since I am unsure what I would use as a base for Attean, maybe Latin.Chapter 43- Through the Fire

  Savage Lands, Somewhere in the Fall People’s territory- Late Autumn, Namor 1 (Afternoon)

  Princess Namorita

  “Why?!” the princess shouted at the smiling man.

  Tallis’ smile widened, before he answered. “When you get such an opportunity, you would have to be an idiot not to take it.” Then he snapped his free hand.

  A dozen men in stolen armor, and twice that poured out of the fort. The seven sorcerers among them stayed near the back and gestured and mutter so that they could cast their spells, while his soldiers rushed to meet the remaining members of her security detail.

  “Princess!” She heard her captain shout.

  Instead of seeking their safety, Namorita triggered her bracelet and conjured a water shield around her, before drawing her trench knife and charging the still-smiling king. Stone spears and bullets were conjured and flew past her, and the rare few aimed at her bounced off of her shield.

  Only when she leaped an impossible height to nd atop the king did his smile waver, but only so that he could open his mouth to roar at her. A bubble of force seemed to fly out of his mouth and impact her shield, shattering it.

  This bst also arrested much of her charge, so she nded short, but to her luck, Namorita nded beside the still-prone handmaiden. “How?” The princess gasps out.

  Tallis took a couple of steps as he answered. “I hold many titles, King… Sorcerer… Awakened.” Then he makes a wild gesture with his free hand, causing magic circles to appear at her feet, just before stone tendrils reached up and wrapped around her ankles and feet, pinning her to the ground.

  Hearing that it made her realize and mutter. “You’re a mutant.”

  The king just ughed at her before snapping his fingers again, his sorcerers moved on and focused their attention on her surviving men. Then the king swung his sword at her.

  Namorita parried with her knife, but cutting her wasn’t his goal, as he reached out with his free hand and muttered. “Perta Vallus." A magic circle appeared around the bracelet on the wrist of his free hand, just ahead of a volley of stone buckshot fired at her.

  While her skin was bruised, still her ocean-toughened flesh held firm. Her top, however, not so much. Namorita took her free hand and quickly held the rag-like piece of cloth to her chest.

  “Good reflexes… you are making this attempt of mine, more profitable the more I see you react.” Tallis told her while bringing his smile back.

  “What profit?” Namorita asked him in a growl.

  The golden-skinned man winked at her before answering. “Our future children of course.”

  The princess saw out of the corner of her eye, Lythese hiss, just as she finished casting her own spell. The spell materialized a massive shard of ice, which hurled itself up at the foul king. Yet the man just used his roar again, causing the shard to split into smaller pieces that he then deflected away with his sword. Still, some of the ice bruised and cut his flesh here and there.

  "Damn gorgon whore, I have no need for your scaly ass," Tallis shouted before raising his sword high, and swinging it at the still-prone handmaiden. A long ssh along her back was left in Lythese, spttered blood on Namorita’s legs and groin. The king raised his sword again, and as it dropped again to finish the poor woman off, something unexpected occurred.

  A gust of wind preceded a human-sized bullet of silver and white, which collided with the king. Sending him a great distance, he would have flown further, but Tallis smmed into one of the earthen spikes that his sorcerers had conjured to protect themselves from her guard's hydro guns.

  The princess blinked twice, but couldn't refute that instead of a golden-skinned asshole, a teenage boy with spiky white hair was rising to his feet before her, muttering in surfacer speak. “{Who made it in time?}” Then the boy pointed both of his thumbs at himself before answering his own question. “{This guy, made it in time.}”

  Namorita took the time to punch one of the tendrils holding her feet in pce. As she did, she heard the soldiers cry out at what had happened. “Your majesty?”

  Tallis was still strong enough to rise to his feet. Then he aimed out his offhand and cast the same attack spell that he used before. "Perta Vallus.". Yet instead of harming or even touching the boy, he just vanished, and the stone buckshot sailed in the air just shy of hitting her.

  The boy reappeared several paces from where he had been standing.

  “{Who are you?}” Namorita asked the boy in English.

  Not answering right away, he cleared his throat before speaking again. "{On a cold winter morning…}" Then the boy was gone again. He became a wind blowing across the battlefield, passing first by the foul king, then by the closest sorcerer.

  The other sorcerers stepped back in surprise when they saw their ally suddenly falling prone, their king' sword buried in the back of the fallen man. "What, what just happened?" one of them asked surprised.

  The boy was now on the other side of them, when he continued his speech. “{in the time before the light. In fmes of death’s eternal reign, we ride towards the light.}” Then he vanished again.

  The princess punched twice more, breaking the first of the tendrils. With that, she could look back and check on her men. Only two still stood, her captain, and the details sword-master. The captain had at least four of Tallis' men trying to pin and disarm him. Meanwhile, the other guard's primary arm hung limply like it was broken.

  Then the wind passed through the battlefield, there standing beside the prone Fall People prince, stood the boy, one of their hydro guns in hand. He spoke much louder as he fired the weapon, still, she heard him as he said. "{When the darkness has fallen down, and the times are tough all right.}"

  Many of the golden soldiers were knocked off bance, as waves of water knocked them away from the two struggling Atnteans. Her men used the opening to cut down more of the dishonest curs.

  Then she saw the boy vanish again. The gun hung in the air for a short time before gravity grappled it, and it fell back to the ground. Stone spears and other conjured projectiles blew through where the boy had just been.

  Where he and the wind went then Namorita didn’t know, as she was now stomping the other tendril with her now free foot. It took half as many blows as punching it had.

  “Perta Vallus!” She heard with just enough time to drop to the ground. The buckshot was more of a storm this time, and the princess doubted even her tempered body would come out unscathed from that barrage.

  Then she got up, only to be bsted back by the king's roar. She lost her knife and what remained of her top, as she fell backward, but then the attacks stopped. As she opened her eyes Namorita heard Tallis grunting in pain.

  “{Fighting hard, fighting on for the steel, through the wastends evermore.}” The boy sang. For she now clearly understood it wasn't a speech but a song that he was reciting. He wielded a pair of knives, one silver, and polished the other something he had probably picked up off of one of the dead soldiers. Cutting into the king's arms, and exposed back as he just moved around the man like he was standing still. "{The scattered souls will feel the hell, bodies wasted on the shores.}"

  “Enough! Terra Fluctus!” The foul king shouted and stomped. The earth around him pulsed, dragging the still-swinging boy away from him. When the king aimed his bracelet at the surfacer and cast again the boy simply vanished again, stone buckshot catching only air again. Then the king fell over in pain, as mystic energy fed into his arm, turning it to stone.

  The singing then continued beside her, the boy saying. “{On the bckest pin in hell’s domain, we watch them as they go. In fire and pain, once again, we know!}” As he did, he also appeared to be checking out the princess’ exposed chest, as he winked and smiled before vanishing again.

  “Find this boy and kill him!” Talis ordered his men.

  Several of them were still occupied with her two remaining guards, but they moved to comply. However, everyone stopped moving when a weight, almost like a rock, fell and nded atop and fttened one of the sorcerers.

  Another sorcerer inched closer to check, but he was intercepted by singing and metal. "{So now we fly free, ever free. We're free before the thunderstorm.}" Yet as the boy carved up the golden-skinned man, his voice was drowned out by another roar, the roar of a surfacer engine.

  Although it wasn’t the danger of their vessels that worried Namorita, rather it was the falling weight suddenly fshing a bluish and white light, before said weight stood up in the form of a man. This man growled at the Golden People around him before it too drew two knives.

  Then a second ter a sudden appearance of a plume of smoke appeared near the man. Once the gas cleared there was another pair standing in the middle of the bst area, a blue boy with a tail and a surfacer girl in a skimpy outfit, with puffy brown hair with an odd white streak in it.

  All these sights made the young princess realize who these people were. ‘The Brotherhood has come to rescue me? But why? Didn’t they align themselves with our ancient enemy?’

  When a squad of soldiers charged both the new pair and the now standing healed man, all three of the mutants reacted like veterans. The outnumbered man defended himself with his daggers, but to the shock of Namorita and the fear of the soldiers, their weapons began to melt with each parry, and even if they got past his defense, a moment ter his body would fsh that same eerie blue light and he would be healed.

  As for the pair, the boy vanished in another puff of smoke while the girl charged her enemies. Yet before they could close with her another human bullet was fired, this time a yellow one that she recognized. And unlike the vanishing boys, this bullet just tore and cut past the armor of the golden people.

  “{Far beyond the sundown, far beyond the moonlight. Deep inside our hearts and all our souls.}” The wind sang as it ran about the battlefield. As it did, instead of pain or screams, the princess saw the soldier's confused looks as their readied weapons would suddenly disappear.

  Then the yellow-suited man growled in pain as Tallis fired his roar at him. Yet somehow this instead gave joy to the girl, as she muttered. "{Oh, that dear one has powers, gimme.}" Then she gnced at Namorita and jogged over to her, pulling off her only paractical item of clothing, a leather jacket as she did. As the brown-haired girl got closer she tossed the item at her and said. "{Darling, stop distracting the boys and put this on.}"

  The princess caught the coat, and watched in horror, as the foul king aimed both of his arms at the girl. Yet the fear was unneeded as the wind blew by singing and stealing the king's bracelets. "{So far away, we wait for the day. For the lives all so wasted and gone. We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days, yet through the fire and the fmes we carry on.}"

  “Quickly capture the princess and retreat.” One of the sorcerers shouted at his men.

  A second ter Namorita smelled sulfur, as another plume of smoke appeared from nowhere beside her. They got two steps before the barking of guns took the lives of a pair of them. “{Woo hoo! Now that is how guns should normally work. Damn, furries. Bang, bang bang, bang.}" A man in a red suit shouted, before he ran out of the cloud and continued to shoot the guns in both of his hands, toward the now growing pile of dead soldiers.

  “{Are you ok?}” The tailed boy asked her a moment ter, his eyes looking anywhere but at her.

  “I am fine.” When he frowned at her, she switched from Atntean to English. “{I’m fine, but my handmaiden is severely hurt, as are many of my men.}” Once she did the boy’s confusion disappeared, and when she pointed at Lythese, so did he. Smoke left behind his wake and more appeared beside the maid. The smoke hadn’t cleared before she heard him do it again, so when it did clear her bleeding handmaiden was also gone along with the boy.

  The sound of something heavy made her look away, yet still, she took the time to put on the item of clothing. Still, she slowed her movements when the princess saw standing between her and her only remaining guard, was a man seemingly made from metal. On his shoulder was perched a much smaller girl, who leaped off of him to stand beside her. As she moved to join the earth, a purple but also mostly see-through suit of armor appeared wrapped around her. Then she and the metal man began punching and striking the Golden People soldiers as they charged towards her.

  The two of them hitting as hard, if not harder than a blow she could have nded, but still not like the blows her father could nd. It didn’t take long till Namorita could see that many of the soldiers were becoming disorganized and confused, some even already retreating, as the sorcerers fell far quicker than they should have.

  The first boy that had come to her rescue was then standing next to her, he seemed disappointed that she wasn't topless anymore, but he shrugged and asked. "{You're a princess right?}"

  She nodded, before introducing herself. “{Yes, I am Namorita, daughter of Namor. The king of Atntis, and you are?}”

  Still, he didn't introduce himself, instead striking the air for no reason and muttering. "{Got it off my bucket list, boo ya!}” Then he disappeared again, with a burst of wind. While he didn’t sing, the boy did continue to hum the rhythm of whatever song it was that he had been.

  A brilliant glowing hand gathered most people's attention, and watched as it lowered their aircraft into a nearby clearing. Most of the 'Brotherhood' ignored it, and continued to fight and route the golden skinned soldiers.

  However, the sight of her fallen unmoving guards brought forth a deep anger in her, so Namorita looked for where her target the foul king was. The princess saw him ying off near the broken remains of some stone garden his sorcerer's had conjured. She oddly could see his veins, bck lines pulsating and throbbing to his heart's beating.

  Namorita looked for her knife, wanting to be sure that she could kill the man who ruined her people's lives. Once she did she moved for it, and after picking it up she moved towards the gasping Tallis. Then she stopped when she saw a line of purple light appear in the air between her and her target.

  The line widened to make a hole in the air, rge enough to allow two people to step through it, and once it stopped, her Uncle Erik stepped out through the hole. He was dressed in his full armor, and he was staring daggers at her. Yet for a moment she didn’t see him, the princess saw the brilliantly glowing red and green eyes behind him. “What did I tell you?” Uncle Erik’s question brought all of her attention back to him.