How many Zodiac had I come across so far? Six? Ten? I had lost count. Well, let's see, there was Pollux the shapeshifter, Tauros the bull-headed brute, Zygos and her invisibility, Capricus the time manipulator and Karkinos and his snapping claws, and. . . Aries. I still don't know what to say about him but I'm sure I'll come up with something once I get over how freaked out I was the first time I saw him.

  Did I forget anybody? Oh, that's right—Pisces—the only other Zodiac who wasn't so intent on killing me. . .but apparently somebody else seemed to have hopped on board that train with her.

  Skorpius, just as his name, was a very. . .unusual and badass-looking Zodiac and that is saying a lot after you know, well, everything. For starters, he bore an uncanny resemblance to a certain popular video game character and I could not help but wonder if this was where the game had drawn inspiration from. I mean, I was stuck in the past, so, who knows. . .?

  Anyway, video games aside, Skorpius was of course real as I caught his features in the torch's light. He was as tall as Zak. He even had a more human/down-to-earth look, especially with his attire that was a cold blend of faded yellow and black, from his feet where flowing robes were held in place by a thick golden belt, up his torso and core where a strange symbol was emblazoned.

  The symbol, designed in bright golden fashion, took the shape of the letter "M". Its three lower endings were curved and the far right ending had a sharp cut to it, like a hook. This had to be his insignia, though I was not sure as his face was hooded, revealing only his eyes. They glowed with a mystifying golden yellow hue, nearly matching the thick muzzle-like cast covering the lower half of his face.

  His hood disappeared over his shoulders where thick crystalline structures projected, taking the form of sharpened hook-like claws and had the same golden highlight. The structures on his right shoulder appeared to extend and run down his entire arm, contrasting with his left, which, apart from three spikes projecting out below the elbow, did not have any additional hooked elements to it.

  "You know he'll kill you all," Skorpius spoke, his voice low and eerily soft, not at all muffled by the cast. "He was about to, actually."

  "Looks like you finally tried to do something about it," Pisces levelled and I caught annoyance in her tone. "What, you finally grew tired of being a minion?"

  I noticed Skorpius's eyes flash but only for a second. "I serve no one. Or have you forgotten what he did to me?"

  There was a shift in Pisces's composure as the glow in her sapphire gown dimmed but then she added, gauging him, "Right, and yet you followed him here to come feed on human souls—"

  "I haven't laid a finger on a single mortal!" Skorpius's voice was firm and slightly elevated.

  "You expect me to believe that?"

  "You can read my mind. You tell me."

  I waited for Pisces to use her power but as I'd expected, she did not, or at least she did not appear to have done so. Something already told me she and Skorpius had not been exactly rivals as compared to all the others.

  "You know why I am here," Skorpius tossed aside the straw hat which landed softly on the fallen man's head.

  "Don't worry," he added, noticing my expression, "he's only asleep."

  "Nice arm you got there, mate," Zak said, apparently having been studying the Zodiac the entire time.

  Skorpius paused for a moment, regarding Zak for the first time, as if wondering what to say before turning back to Pisces. "Aries has gone too far this time. It used to be a few hundred at a time."

  I swallowed at this, hoping he didn't mean human souls.

  "What do you mean?" asked Pisces.

  "He wants them all."

  "But he can't do that, can he?"

  Skorpius turned and the sheep huddled further together, trying to move as far away from him as possible. The Zodiac paced, deep in thought. "The moment we set foot on this world, I sensed something was different and I know you did too, even if it's only your second time coming here."

  I turned to face Pisces. "Second?"

  "Well. . ." Pisces had trouble getting the words. "I was—"

  "She was still training as Sage's protégé until she snuck out of Astra in an attempt to try and stop the Harvest," Skorpius filled in for her, turning to face me.

  "Astra?" I asked.

  "Where we come from," Skorpius shook his head, "I thought you'd be aware of all this by now." His eyes lowered, apparently looking for something on me. "You don't even have his bow."

  "His what?" I was getting even more confused.

  "What did you find out about Aries?" Pisces firmly asked, reacquiring Skorpius's attention.

  There was a questioning pause coming from Skorpius before he finally answered. "Aries was growing tired of this Harvest thing. I heard him, Tauros and Zygos discuss a way they could take them all out without ever having to wait another twenty years."

  "You didn't find out how exactly he was planning to do that, did you?" Pisces said it less as a question but more as an affirmation.

  "The seven days are almost over," Skorpius paced some more, "tomorrow will mark the fifth. Whatever Aries is planning, he'll want to achieve it before then and it's only gotten worse after he caught up to what you're doing, having killed off his most entrusted ally. He'll stop at nothing to get what he wants."

  "He killed Capricus and Karkinos," Pisces muttered, to which Skorpius responded, "Exactly. He's only becoming more powerful as time runs out."

  "Time? I asked, "what is this seven days?"

  "It's how long it takes the Zodiac to consume enough. . .souls," Pisces answered, carefully omitting the word "human".

  "What happens if the seven days are over before, you know. . .?" Zak made a throat slit gesture.

  "Our aura fades and we cease to exist in the mortal realm," Skorpius said.

  "We return to Astra and await another twenty years," Pisces added.

  An idea came to mind. "What if we waited—" Skorpius cut me off, "Waited it out until we all faded out? Sure, that would work but what about the next twenty years and that's not taking into account the level of damage Aries will have done by then."

  "Right, well," I sighed, feeling like an idiot, "that was a stupid idea."

  "So, this is the only chance we have at stopping this lunatic then," Zak said matter-of-factly.

  "Once and for all," Skorpius grimly added. "The question being, how exactly do we do that?"

  "Is there anyone else left?" I asked, regarding both Pisces and Skorpius. "I mean, you found us. Maybe there's someone else out there who's not too happy with Aries."

  "There are two more," Skorpius said, however, the distaste in his tone was a little more than usual. Yeah, he always spoke like he had a grudge with somebody. "Like me, they went off on their own after coming here but that's as far as it goes. Aries may not have used them to come after you yet but you can bet they'll do anything to stay alive."

  "Sounds like they can help," I added with a twinge of hope.

  "Hmm," Skorpius grunted, barely raising his voice. I swear I even had to struggle to catch some of the things he would say. "If you thought Capricus and Karkinos were a lovely pair, wait till you meet these two."

  "You know where they are?" Pisces asked.

  "No. Last I saw them, they'd distanced themselves from Aries and disappeared in the mortal village. They're probably filling up on souls right now as we speak."

  "Who are they?" I asked, getting curious.

  "Parthenos and Leo," Pisces responded this time.

  "Masters of stealth, weaponry and combat," Skorpius added, his tone bitter.

  "You sure they can't help?" I insisted.

  "We'll only waste precious time trying to find them. Aries is still after us and it won't take him long before he catches up to my shadow trail."

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  "Your what?"

  "Shadow travel," Skorpius elaborated, growing impatient and equally agitated.

  "He can manipulate shadows by drawing energy from them," Pisces offered, "and uses it to travel through space."

  "It's similar to your teleportation," Skorpius had his eyes on me. "Or can't you even do that?"

  "Well, I was able to get out of Capricus's time freeze."

  "Hmm. . ." another grunt from Skorpius, "at least you're not entirely useless."

  I decided to take that as a compliment.

  "We need to keep moving. The only thing we have going for us right now is that Aries has his attention on us," Skorpius said.

  "Meaning he'll be distracted and his plan will be delayed," Zak added.

  "That's right. But that won't last. Either he finds us or uses Leo and Parthenos to do so."

  "That puts us in the same position," Pisces said, "we have to get to them first."

  The plan was thus set. I was about to approach Pisces and ask her about her home world, Astra, but Skorpius beat me to it. He brushed past me and sidelined Pisces. I watched them move towards a shed, past the sheep where they engaged in conversation, their figures enveloped in darkness.

  "How have you not told him?" I heard Skorpius say, to which Pisces responded with something like, "Not yet. . ."

  That was all I heard after Skorpius threw me a glance before he and Pisces moved further down the shed and out of earshot. Zak approached me.

  "It's strange, isn't it?" he started.

  "I think you'll have to be more specific," I said, facing him.

  "One day you're living out your normal life, only for it to take a turn the next day."

  "Yeah. . ." I responded, feeling a little distracted and out of it.

  "A crazy turn," Zak went on, "especially for you. I mean, I have been an army general, fought Amaroks, dragons, helworms, trol—"

  "What?" I snapped, "did you just say dragons?"

  Zak nodded, a mild expression on his face. "Well, they're not around until the winter season when they come to sleep in the mountains."

  "I'm guessing you don't have dragons where you come from?" he asked, reading my face.

  "No," I responded, "of course not. Not a lot of things I've seen here." I sighed, "and I still fail to see how I'm the one having it crazier."

  "Where do I begin?" Zak mused, "I am used to this life, having been a soldier for half my life and you. . .you're from a different time, you're in someone else's body, you have the powers of a cosmic entity residing within you and you're trying to court a woman who is completely out of your league and out of this world, literally. Did I miss anything?"

  "Well, I guess my life is pretty much way messed up than I'd care to admit and—hey. . ." I paused, catching on Zak's last statement. "What do you mean "court"?"

  "It's when you fall for someone and try to—"

  I shook my head. "I know what it means. I mean, I wasn't falling for anyone."

  "Is that right?" Zak teased, flexing his axe. He only had the one.

  "Umm. . .yes. That-that is right!" I shot back, a little sharper than I had intended.

  "You think I don't see how you look at her?" Zak continued to tease, "how you trace your eyes down her long curly blue hair, all the way down to her—"

  "That's enough!"

  Zak chuckled, looking at his reflection in the axe blade. "You might stand a chance, who knows?"

  I narrowed my eyes at this, then, throwing a very subtle glance over at the two Zodiac conversing by the shed, added, "Did she. . . say something?"

  "What the hell are you asking me for?" Zak blurted, "you're not expecting kisses from me, are you?"

  "Oh, that's how you're gonna play it." I cast a furtive glance, shaking my head. "Not cool, man."

  "Ah, come now," Zak grinned, "you know I'm only messing with you." He patted me heavily on the shoulder with his metal arm and at that point, I was no longer suspicious whether or not he'd been doing that on purpose.

  I was feeling my left shoulder when Sage's insignia glitched, sparking off with green electric streaks. This was instantly accompanied by my head burning up a storm, as it had happened right before. . .

  The quiet night air was suddenly disrupted by a sharp booming sound. An explosion. One you could only hear when something was moving fast—incredibly fast. There was no time to register what was happening and just as before, a fiery trail of bright orange flames cut through the air, rupturing through the enclosure and he had materialized once again.

  His whole frame was ablaze, from his hooved feet to his curved horns, matching the fiery glow in his eyes.

  "There you are," Aries spoke, standing right between me paired with Zak and Pisces with Skorpius on the other end. "Who wants to die first?"

  He turned to me. "Fine. I'll pick." He thrust out his arm and a wave of flames flew towards me. I had only a split second to react by bringing my arms together in front of me. The flames were deflected after clashing with Sage's power. This resulted in a miniature outburst and the shockwave threw both Zak and me to the ground.

  I could hear Aries laughing as the air around heated up. "I'm grateful for this, Sage. You giving me something to laugh at before my grand ascension."

  I heard something else beyond Aries's voice. It sounded like a blade being withdrawn and I looked up to catch Skorpius retrieve a weapon—no the weapon was literally coming out of him, projecting out of his right arm. It was a long sharp blade—almost spear-like but with a hook set right under it.

  "Just shut up!" Skorpius brandished the hooked blade and I was a little disappointed, expecting for him to wield a chained grappling hook like a certain video game character. What? He'd done an amazing job resembling him. I'm sure you thought that too.

  "How's the scar?" Aries taunted, turning towards the shed. The sheep had practically climbed out of the enclosure and bolted into the night by then. "Does it still hurt?"

  Skorpius's eyes narrowed and he charged, his robes flowing wildly after him. He came at Aries, dashing at a low angle and swung his weapon but Aries was too fast. One second he'd been standing, only to erupt in flames and was several inches away when Skorpius's hook caught nothing but air. But that had been the plan. Pisces had immediately charged after, getting Aries in his second position and flung him across the shed with her powers.

  Aries landed on his feet and I realized how fast he was moving. He was not disappearing or anything. He was actually running. Running very fast and would leave a trail of fire as he did so. He had been distracted enough for Skorpius to channel the shadows as a thick swirling mass of black formed all around him. His body drifted in and out of view in the mass.

  "Everyone. Grab on to me!" he yelled and we all hurried after him.

  What followed was nothing short of a chaotic mess. I'd never ridden on a rollercoaster before but it sure felt like it. I would get tossed and turned around in the black mass, occasionally colliding into Zak's shoulder or Pisces's head.

  "He's still after us!" I heard Skorpius say, though I couldn't see him. His voice came from all directions within the mass.

  I tried to focus my eyes through all the swirling and Sage's "vision" was making a return. I looked through the mass and there he was, hurtling behind us in fiery glory.

  The vision was disrupted after I crashed to the ground, landing with my ass into a crop field. Pisces and Zak were getting up, alongside Skorpius. He appeared to be out of breath. Sage's insignia lit up again and a streak of fire had cut through the field. Skorpius quickly tapped all of us, and, once again, we were spiraling through the shadows.

  We fell out of the shadow realm into a different section of the village this time. The market. It was deserted, except for a few stragglers here and then who ran off, terrified, after the fiery Zodiac caught up to us.

  I was sure my brain had turned to Jell-O at that point with all the countless times we'd drift out of the shadows and crash into a random location. However, the more shadows we traversed, the more Aries's trail of fire became distant.

  The dark environment morphed into a dim-lit one as I came falling out of the shadow realm and rolled across a table, knocking down mugs and plates. I fell over to the floor. Zak and Pisces followed and I was a little mad they didn't crash into stuff as much as I had. Skorpius materialized last in a billowing black fog which dissolved into the lamp-lit room.

  "I think we lost him," Skorpius suggested, high on alert.

  "Well, that was quite the ride," Zak said, looking a little hazy.

  "Yeah, no shit," I groaned, getting up, "where are we?" I scanned the place. It was a spacious room with small wooden round tables set all over the place and had adjacent stools. I looked back at the table I had crash-landed on. It had a low hanging banner over it inscribed with words I couldn't make out. They were faded. 'The Drken Buel'. . .? I looked past that and there was a platform filled with piles of large barrels stacked up on each other.

  "The Drunken Barrel," Zak said, walking towards the platform. "That's where we are."

  Pisces circled the room, performing complex movements with her hands. "A protective hex," she said to me, "it will delay Aries for a while. Keep him off our scent."

  "Cool," was all I could bring myself to say, trying for some bizarre reason to sound as casual as possible and in a fleeting moment, our eyes met and Pisces half smiled.

  "Anyone fancy a drink?" Zak's voice cut through the moment and Pisces had resumed her hexing, almost a little too fast but not as fast as I'd looked away, my face flushing. I watched Zak pick up a fallen mug, spit in it and wipe it with his sleeve.

  He got to one of the barrels. It had a tap and he turned it open, letting a dark brown liquid flow into his mug. He chugged the entire thing while we all stood there watching him. He refilled the mug and, turning to Skorpius, handed it to him. "Here you go, mate."

  Skorpius scrutinized the contents of the mug and I was honestly curious to find out if he'd take off his cast so he could drink or maybe he had something like a straw hidden somewhere?

  Well, I never got to find out after a sound caught our attention.

  "It's coming from the store," Zak said, his hand going instinctively for his axe strapped to his back.

  The sound became louder until the store's door flew open and out emerged a young man. He had on overalls and thin scruffy hair. His brown shirt was tattered. He fell to the ground when he saw us, crashing into mugs and furniture before huddling into s corner and pressing his back against the wall.

  "Please, don't hurt me!" he pleaded in a raspy voice like he'd been screaming all night.

  "Tipper?" Zak approached the man. "I know him," he said to us, "he's the bartender."

  "My Lord, please! They're after me!" the bartender cried, tears actually welling in his eyes.

  Zak knelt in front of him. "Who's after you, Tipper?"

  With a shaking hand, the bartender pointed towards the store.

  "Please. . ." Tipper whispered as we all turned towards the store. Another sound followed. Laughter?

  Yes. Someone was laughing. The store door swung open and. . . something came out. It continued laughing, apparently oblivious of our presence.

  "Will you stop this nonsense!" a voice followed and yet something else stepped out of the store. "You've had enough souls, Leo. . ."

  Its words trailed off the moment it saw us and I had to take several steps back, ignoring my glowing arm.

  The first figure regained its composure, coming out of its stupor and the two beings had their eyes on all of us.

  "What are you doing here?" the second being spoke and I could not help but gasp at the massive wings that settled along its back.

  "Well, isn't this our lucky day," Skorpius said humorlessly. "I can't believe I'm saying this—"

  "We need your help, Parthenos!" Pisces finished.

  There was an awkwardly long pause after that, the only sound coming from Tipper and his loud shaky breathing. The two beings exchanged glances and as much as I'd expected a quick simple "Yeah, sure! Why not? We're all friends here. Of course we'll help you!" that was not the case, especially not after they attacked us.