Under a moonlit sky, a battle had ensued in the depths of the Dark Forest. A battle of mortals against metaphysical entities, one that initially had Pisces, Zak and me sidelined, after one of Neldor's men had swung his sword at Karkinos and to everybody's shock, a large chunk of the Zodiac's crusty skin fell off, chipping away at one of his many legs. Neldor shouted out a war cry and his men ganged up on Karkinos and Capricus.

  "Is it Amarok metal?" I asked Zak whom I could tell had been assessing Neldor's weapons from where he stood.

  "I-I'm not sure. . ." was his response.

  "It's Pollux," came Pisces and I noticed her eyes were to the ground, as if deep and far away. "They took her power."

  I swallowed at this. "Is she. . .?"

  "Yes. She's dead."

  "How's that even possible?"

  "I. . ." Pisces paused, her eyes searching, "I don't know."

  "Look out!" Zak yelled and something flew past me, narrowly brushing against my cheek as I fell back. I hastily made my way back up and felt my face after realizing my head had almost been shish-kebabbed by an arrow.

  Still feeling my cheek, I looked down at the arrow. It was lodged into the earth, its rear end sticking out and quivering above the surface. Something strange happened, or at least I think it did. The way the arrow quivered, I could feel its rhythm resonating in my arm and Sage's arrow insignia seemed to match the rhythm by glowing.

  "Desmond," Pisces called, handing over Despyon's shield to me. I snapped out of whatever that had been.

  The battle was spiraling and spreading through the forest, with the sounds of metal clanging against metal and people shouting, rented the air. I caught Neldor engaging in a glorified fighting spree as he went up against Karkinos, swinging and lashing out with his sword while a number of soldiers flanked the Zodiac, making it hard for him to put up a substantiated fight.

  Across to my left, Zak brought his axes together, cutting off an incoming arrow. He snapped it in half with his blades before charging at the soldier responsible who tried nocking another arrow and there it was again, that surreal feeling as I watched an arrow get fished out of its quiver and was making its way to the bow. Zak knocked the bow out of the soldier's hands then struck him in the chest with his foot.

  "Desmond, watch out!" Pisces hoisted a soldier in the air who was charging at me and almost had me with his sword. My mind snapped again and I looked up to catch the soldier get hurled into three other soldiers. He collided into them like a bowling ball as they all went to the ground.

  "What is wrong with me?" I said to myself, shaking my head and regathering my attention. I flexed my right arm, triggering Sage's power. Despyon's shield was fueled with green lightning and I advanced towards Neldor's men.

  One soldier spotted me and engaged, charging in the opposite direction with his sword held high. I charged back, lowering my head and readying Despyon's shield. We were at an arm's length away when I decided to bring around the shield and the soldier his sword, but got instantly cut off after the ground beneath us erupted, sending dirt flying all over. I barely managed to come to a halt and used the shield to protect me from falling roots and rocks.

  The soldier had not been so lucky. I looked up to find his lifeless body suspended in the air, apparently having been impaled by buttress roots, their vines shooting up his—I'm gonna say his behind—through his body and coming out of his mouth.

  I fell back in shock and the ground underneath me was moving. I tried rolling out of the way but vines grabbed at my ankles and was going for my arms. I used the shield to knock away incoming vines as Capricus materialized from the earth.

  She hissed at me, revealing her fangs and was coming for my neck but something hit her from the back which only made her hiss even more. She turned to pluck out a sword sticking out on her lower back. I took this chance to whack away the rest of the vines from my feet and slid away just as Capricus hurled the sword at the soldier who'd stabbed her, driving the blade right between his eyes.

  Two more soldiers came after the Zodiac, attacking her from either side. Capricus blocked their attacks, deflecting their blade strikes and I noticed how different those weapons appeared. Zak's Amarok armor was strong, but there was something very different with whatever these soldiers were using.

  Capricus was down on her knees and had stopped fighting. She scraped at the dirt with her claws and was balling them into fists with a twisted smile on her face when Pisces called: "She's controlling time!"

  No. I was not going through that again. I tightened my grip on Despyon's shield, gathered momentum before planting my right foot forward, then, with a spin, I tossed the shield and it soared through the air. It left behind a streak of lightning that lit up in contrast to the moonlight and struck Capricus sharply, unleashing a shockwave of electricity that sent her falling entirely, her back to the ground, alongside the two soldiers.

  Pisces was levitating, taking out one soldier at a time from the air by knocking them out with energy blasts. She pulled one that had been trying to pin Zak to the ground, making it look like she was using an invisible rope of some kind and once the soldier was in close range, Pisces knocked him out of the air, sending him sinking into the ground.

  A loud snapping followed and I turned to catch Karkinos get into an enraged fit after seeing his fallen counterpart. The Zodiac lashed out with his pincers, attacking Neldor who was hit on the side but ducked at the second strike and another soldier ended up having his torso torn in half. Karkinos had either parts of the soldier in his pincers and used them to whack at the rest of the soldiers in a gory frenzy.

  "This was suicide, Neldor!" I heard Zak say as he made his way towards him. "You should never have done this."

  "You're not the boss of me, you traitorous oaf!" spat an infuriated Neldor, his blood splattered face coming in and out of view in the dim night light. "My men and I will. . ." he looked around and I caught a slight widening in his eyes upon seeing the fraction of soldiers still standing. ". . .we will kill all of you!"

  Neldor charged at Zak, picking up a dead soldier's sword and bringing it around. Zak blocked with one axe and countered with the other. Neldor withdrew, letting Zak's first axe slice through his shoulder so he could advance and catch the second axe. He snapped it out of Zak's grip before ramming into him and falling him.

  Zak sprawled, quickly finding his feet as Neldor came after him, now wielding one of his axes and a sword. "We've been at this for a while now, Belzak," Neldor said, brandishing the blades. "I always knew you were weak. That piece of metal on your arm proved nothing. You're just a pathetic fool who always thought too much of himself and in the end, chose to run away from his post and now, here we are."

  "I have to say," Zak winced, spitting blood and steadying himself against the ground, "that is the longest I've ever heard you speak."

  Neldor growled and brought the sword and axe down on Zak. The blades ended up hitting nothing but metal as I intervened, cutting off Neldor with Despyon's shield. I helped Zak up and together, we held back the new General.

  "You know you'll not get away with this," Neldor snarled, backing away, "the Chieftain will have your head. You will not—"

  There was a sickeningly squelching sound, followed by Neldor widening his bloodshot eyes as a gasp escaped his mouth alongside blood. I found myself looking down at his torso where a huge claw had ruptured through, squeezing out his guts.

  Zak and I fell back as we watched Karkinos toss Neldor's body aside like a ragdoll. The remaining soldiers gathered around his lifeless body. There were only seven of them left, nearly half of the initial group already dead.

  "They won't fight anymore," Pisces said, coming to our side. "I can feel it. They're afraid."

  "That makes a lot of us," I muttered, trying to get over the fact there were human body parts strewn all over but on the bright side, you couldn't see the blood that well in the dark.

  Karkinos had gone to Capricus's side, who was getting up after taking that hit from Despyon's shield. They both looked as menacing as ever.

  "No way they stand a chance now," Zak muttered, "wounded creatures always tend to be the most violent."

  I swallowed at that, holding tightly onto the shield. "We can't let them kill again."

  "No," Pisces readied her hands.

  The remaining soldiers huddled together as the two Zodiac came at them, having entirely lost the will to fight anymore. Whatever power they had siphoned out of Pollux, it still had not been enough.

  "Stop!" Pisces ordered and the other Zodiac turned around. "Your fight is with me. Not them."

  "And me," I added, standing firmly and Pisces's eyes briefly met with mine and there was a look of willful comfort and strength in them.

  "Ah blast," Zak sighed, wielding one of his axes, "not like I'm going anywhere."

  "Go!" he said to the soldiers, "get out of here!"

  Karkinos snapped his pincers but Capricus held him back. "There's no need," she said, "Aries will take them all in the end anyway."

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The soldiers began to clear, two of them carrying Neldor's body with them and I was acting up again. It was unlike anything I had experienced before. At first, I had assumed it was my arm. Yes, Sage's insignia was glowing but my head was going crazy. I could feel my neurons snapping and firing. My vision became twisted and I found myself in the cosmic plane again, with my body high up over the island of Abinor. Thick dark clouds of red covered the sky, just as before but there was something else, something different, something accompanied by a slew of different voices.

  "You need to run!" a voice said. I thought it was Pisces but no, it almost sounded like. . .Despyon?

  ". . .By the descent of a hunter's enemy from high. . ." another voice, different from the first.

  I listened but this voice also vanished and a new one instantly took its place, one I had also heard several times before. It was deep and guttural, reverberating inside my chest.

  "I told you to crawl back into the hole from whence you came!"

  I was hit with a wave of smoldering hot air before large mountains of flames came at me, burning me out of the cosmic plane.

  "Desmond!" Pisces had a hand on my shoulder, helping me up after I had apparently fallen. "What is it? What did you see?"

  "I-I. . .ugh!" I groaned. My head was on fire, almost in the literal sense. I could feel the heat eating me up inside my mind.

  "You're burning up!" Pisces gasped, feeling my forehead.

  "Ha-ha," Capricus chuckled, "the mortal is finally breaking from wielding the power of a Zodiac. Who did not see that coming?"

  "Now, you're making this easy for us!" Karkinos added alongside a terrible guffaw, his rattling mandibles echoing throughout the forest.

  "What's wrong with him?" Zak asked while maintaining his eye on our rivals.

  "I don't know," I caught Pisces trying to hide the uncertainty in her voice.

  My head continued to fire up, my mind snapping in and out as my vision shifted between the cosmic and mortal realms. This went on for a while, and Capricus and Karkinos were growing impatient. They advanced and I heard Pisces tell Zak to watch me while she stepped forward and that was when it happened.

  The burning sensation was suddenly cut off and my mind was plunged into instant relaxation. My vision had stopped shifting. I was then in an incredible state of awareness. My whole body was rigid and I caught the mysterious voice echoing in my ears. I followed the sound into the trees and a new feeling had taken over me. One I was expertly familiar with—fear.

  I found myself pointing into the woods and I wasn't expecting myself to say, "Something's coming."

  "What?" came Zak, perplexed.

  Pisces, on the other hand, almost seemed to get what was going on from that point and so would we all.

  It had started with the howling of a wolf when the moon stood directly overhead in the sky. The forest's once gritty atmosphere had shifted into intense ominousness. I looked past Capricus and Karkinos where the soldiers were retreating. Something suddenly cut them off, whooshing right through them in a streak of bright red fire.

  By the time anyone could register what had happened, all seven soldiers had fallen to the ground in a horrifying heap of nothing but bones. Bones that were stacked up together, the flesh appearing to have been literally burned out of them as wisps of smoke could be seen rising into the air.

  The once cold night air was then unsettlingly warm, growing warmer by the second.

  "W-what the hell was that?" I was first to react, dropping Despyon's shield but deep down I already knew the answer. I just hadn't expected it to be this worse.

  Zak turned his head either way, raising his axe.

  "He's here. . ." Pisces muttered and both Capricus and Karkinos laughed, confirming both her fears and mine.

  I watched as the two Zodiac laughed while raising their arms and pincers in praise, welcoming the new visitor. "We found them, master!" they both said.

  "Master. . .?" Capricus called, ending her hysterics, after her ovation had gone unanswered.

  My eyes quickly shifted to her side, instinctively following the appearance of a bright red streak that had shot out of nowhere and Karkinos was no longer there. All I heard after that was a disturbing snapping sound, as if Karkinos's body was being broken apart.

  The sound vanished and was immediately replaced with silent thumps and I followed this, only to end up looking down at what appeared to be the remains of Karkinos, his legs no longer attached to the rest of his glazed body. I watched his black eyes roll up towards Capricus before his whole body went up in flames. The fire burned with a violent ferocity, rapidly eating up at the Zodiac's body until all that was left was his head which disintegrated into white sparkling powder.

  Unable to believe what I was seeing, I followed the star dust as it shimmered in the air. I watched it dissolve and vanish, and in its place, he finally stepped out. His tall, built and lithe body materializing out of a flaming vortex.

  "W-why. . .?" was all Capricus could utter and she'd had the most menacing face I had encountered, and that was saying a lot, given there'd been Tauros and his bovine head. But now, Capricus's eyes were wide as she tried to get more words from her mouth. Her ethereal scaly and purple-blue skin turned pale in his fiery essence.

  The one who'd come out of the vortex spoke, his voice firm and just as dangerous as the flames blazing furiously all over his body. "When I tell you to do something, you do it."

  I could not help but feel as if I were the one experiencing the whole ordeal as I watched him thrust out his arm and grab Capricus by the neck. He regarded her with his eyes—the eyes I had seen when Freya's hut was in flames—the eyes I had seen in all of my visions.

  They were two fiery orbs that burned right under a thick set of massive horns. Horns that curved downwards like those of a ram and settled over his broad shoulders. I was sure he could see right through Capricus's soul, or whatever it is the Zodiac had for a soul, before a wave of fire slithered out of his arm and ate its way into Capricus's body.

  I watched as she was burned alive. Her wails were cut off as the flames spread all over her body, enveloping her in a fiery blanket until she had turned to star dust, all the way up to her insignia.

  I knew I should've ran but even if I wanted to, my body was unmoving. I was paralyzed. Never before had I seen such power being used to such a harrowing extent. Well. . .Pisces, Zak and I had had a good run. I finally understood why all the Zodiac feared him so much. Why they all feared Aries.

  He turned to face us, dusting off his hands and a casual smile formed on his face, which only accentuated his unsettling aura. He had dark red skin and was highlighted by the flames that would occasionally burn on his arms, incredibly high-hooved legs and shoulders. I instinctively looked up at his head but apart from his curved horns, there was no distinctive symbol there. Aries's insignia stood out on his chest, spanning on either shoulder and above his torso in the shape of a large "V", with the two endings curving sharply downwards, similar to his horns, at the shoulders. It glowed in ethereal crystalline fashion, like Pisces's insignia, but in a bright scarlet hue.

  "So," Aries looked down directly at me, "we finally meet."

  I swallowed but there was nothing to swallow. My mouth was dry.

  Aries regarded me and I tried as hard as I could to look away from those fiery penetrating eyes. "The mortal who stole a Zodiac's power."

  "He didn't steal it!" Pisces snapped, not letting Aries's superior presence belittle her. "It was given to him!"

  "Oh," Aries chuckled and flames danced on his shoulders, "is that what you've been telling him?"

  "Back off, mate!" Zak found his voice, threatening Aries with his axe.

  "I'm sorry," the Zodiac narrowed his eyes at him, "who are you?"

  "Stop this madness, Aries!" Pisces ordered, tightening her fists but did not conjure up any energy.

  "I heard you'd been on a little quest to try and do that," Aries levelled, thankfully shifting his eyes from me. "Well, here I am. Have at it. Stop me."

  I turned and for the first time, I saw Pisces falter while in front of another Zodiac when no kind of physical pressure was being exerted on her. She even unclenched her fists.

  "That's what I thought," Aries taunted, "you and Sage. Always filling your heads with ideas and dreams but can't act when it comes to it. . .unlike me—who knows what's right!"

  Pisces remained unresponsive. I decided to act, which was a foolish idea but I didn't like what Aries was doing to Pisces. No wonder she hated him so much. I raised Despyon's shield. . .and threw it at the Zodiac as hard as I could, channeling Sage's power as best as I could.

  The three-foot distance between us and Aries was small, but it had been enough for the toss. The shield struck Aries in the chest and the Zodiac went down on his knee, using his hands to feel himself as the shield stuck to his core.

  There was a brief moment of anticipation as we all waited. Aries coughed, struggling to breathe and I couldn't believe that had worked. . .until the coughing morphed into laughter. Aries stood, taking the shield out of his chest which I realized hadn't even touched his skin.

  "That's it. . .?" Aries spoke, instantly cutting off his comical moment. "That is all you have to offer? But then what do you expect when you cavort with mortals?"

  He said that last part with a lot of resentment. I would never get to the wondering part, not after Aries went on to burn Despyon's shield into a crisp. My jaw dropped as I watched the shield turn to ash and vanished into the night, taking Despyon along with it.

  "Wha. . ." I was at a loss for words. He had done it. He had killed Despyon. I went on my knees, hopelessly looking for any trace of the shield.

  This act of ruthlessness finally got to Pisces who regained her composure, her hands and eyes lighting up in a powerful wave of sapphire.

  "There she is," Aries grinned with delight, "but unlike my foolish predecessors, I won't waste time destroying you!"

  Aries conjured up huge waves of flames and was about to barbeque all of us when a new wave materialized, one the absolute opposite of the flames. It was pitch black, darker than the night itself, appearing as a thick swirling cloud and before I had time to fathom the turn of events, I found myself engulfed by the cloud, leaving Aries behind whose infuriated cries could be heard getting fainter and fainter.

  I was swirling in the cloud, spinning and bumping into the black mass, alongside Pisces and Zak. It didn't last long however, and we were all back in the normal world, and, judging by the lit households with thatched roofs, I guessed we were back at the village. But how did we get there?

  I looked around. We appeared to be in a sheep enclosure as I spotted a flock of them huddled together in a corner and bleating. They were scared.

  "What happened?" I asked.

  "How did we get here?" Zak added.

  The sheep's bleating was sure to raise alarms.

  "Someone's coming," Pisces said and a little too late as a man in a straw hat and thick boots walked into the enclosure while carrying a flaming torch.

  "Oy, was goin' on in here?" the man asked, casting the light onto his sheep. "What're you. . ."

  The expression on his face was enough to reveal he'd seen us and I couldn't blame him. We were a really weird group.

  He shone the light on us, particularly focusing on Pisces. "Is you. . .y-you're one of them! Y-you're. . ." He turned to Zak, obviously recognizing him. "General, well you're no longer—what're you doing with them. What—"

  "Just calm down," Zak said, trying to muster his coolest voice yet.

  "Let me," Pisces offered, raising a hand towards the man. "Hey, it's going to be okay."

  "You trying to corrupt me, is you?" the man was growing hysterical and I was afraid this would create even more attention.

  Pisces approached the man carefully, trying her best not to spook him, though that boat appeared to have long sailed.

  "Get back!" the man swung his torch. "Get back! Get—"

  Another black mass formed right behind the man. The mass swirled like a vortex and out of it emerged a shadowy figure. What followed happened so fast, my heart thumped, thinking Aries had found us.

  I watched the man collapse to the ground, his hat rolling out of his head. The figure from the vortex stopped it with its foot and picked it up.

  "Why do I always have to be the one descent enough to get you out of trouble?" the figure spoke, directing the question to Pisces, who, from her face, I could tell was relieved. Not happy, but relieved.

  "It's not like I didn't need your help from the very start. . .Skorpius," Pisces responded with sarcasm and I turned to the figure whose form finally came into the light cast by the fallen torch.