Chapter 51: Bad Premonition
""Alright then, let's try this again." Arora said as she took in a slow, steady breath, as she felt the warmth of the twin suns on her now crimson skin. She could feel the calming winds sweeping gently through the forest, and even the strange critters moving about around her.
This was the calming method Mr. Raymond had taught her back at the orphanage. She'd been using it more recently as a way to increase her focus during training.
She extended her palm, her brows furrowing with concentration.
"Here goes nothing."
Her eyes suddenly shifted as Pure Destruction slowly poured from her palm, just like before. She continued the ritual, breathing in and out steadily as she focused entirely on the power pooling in her hand.
Slowly but surely, it began to spread outward, coating her body little by little until she was entirely enveloped by the destructive energy.
Inwardly, she was elated that she'd managed to get this far. But she knew she couldn't celebrate just yet.
She didn't even let herself think of anything else, as she focused entirely on the energy field currently around her.
The Interitus.
She took a single step forward, as she felt it.
She felt the air around her turn into nothingness, as more wind immediately rushed to fill the space that had been erased. She felt the patch of earth just beneath her feet disappear, forcing her to float above the newly formed crater.
Her eyes widened a few moments later as she realized she wasn't breathing. She panicked slightly but then remembered Arbus's casual mention that humans were capable of surviving in space. She immediately understood why she felt fine.
'So we don't really need air' she thought.
Her Interitus had isolated her from almost everything. Not even sound seemed capable of getting in or out. The exceptions seemed to be light and Gravity. She could still see perfectly fine in the field, and gravity as well was unaffected before she floated off the ground herself. She dreaded the thought of what would have happened if she didn't have the ability to fly.
She wondered if those concepts were just too much for her ability to affect, or if she simply hadn't grown strong enough to affect them yet.
The thought of finding out excited her.
Finally, she exhaled slowly as she deactivated the ability. She'd made her first real breakthrough with her impenetrable defense.
"Yes!, now I just have to work on the duration and mobility." She mused excitedly.
Eventually, she yawned tiredly as her attention drifted to the position of the twin suns.
'He's been gone for quite a while now,' she thought worriedly.
Arbus was a very time oriented person. After the first few weeks living with him, she'd noticed he had developed a rigid schedule for everything he did. It was one of his habits that he believed made him a better warrior. She had found it quite amusing at first, but eventually, she had developed something similar for her own training.
She frowned as she realized it was already past the time he usually returned from his hunts, whether he'd managed to catch something or not..
She wasn't sure why, but a bad premonition was starting to settle in her stomach.
She shot up into the sky just above the treeline, as she tried gazing into the distance, scanning for him 5 kilometres around the treehouse.
Her frown deepened as her sense of impending doom increased.
Her eyes suddenly widened as she thought of a possibility. She remembered the boys that had visited Arbus a few months back, and how they had told him that they would return to double his 'punishment'.
She had been scared of them initially, but eventually she forgot about them as time went on, mostly because she no longer saw them as a possible threat. At least not to her. And not to Arbus when she was around.
'What if...', she thought dreadfully.
She gritted her teeth as she shot into the forest, flying low to avoid attracting attention.
She searched the forest desperately, both Arbus's known hunting areas and those he often rested at.
After about an hour of searching, she had found nothing. The forest was extremely vast after all.
Finally, she decided to check the last place she could think of — one of his favorite hunting spots by the stream. The same area she'd consciously avoided ever since her last traumatic experience there.
At first glance, nothing seemed out of place.
That was when she suddenly caught sight of something from afar. She flew closer as her expression fell.
It was Arbus's bow and quiver laying on the ground, as if discarded in haste.
She looked to the side as she noticed a huge indentation scarred the trunk of a massive tree nearby, as if something — or in this case someone, had crashed into it.
Panic flared across her features.
She glanced around in a frenzy, hoping to find him nearby.
Taking a desperate risk, she flew above the treeline for several moments, scanning the forest canopy before diving back down when she found nothing.
She gritted her teeth, rage building in her chest.
Her instincts had been right.
Those boys had probably ambushed Arbus when he'd arrived here hours ago, and now they had him.
"Damn it!!" She screamed in frustration at the thought of Arbus being tortured right now, while she stood here, unable to do anything about it.
That's when a terrifying thought suddenly struck her.
'What if... They took him to the village.' she thought as her gaze drifted southward, to the place Arbus had always told her to stay away from. She didn't want to do it. After all, she was scared of the possibility of getting captured, or worse.
But... she also couldn't simply let Arbus get hurt. She knew without question that he would do the same for her.
She glanced at the bracelet he had given her, knowing it would help her hide her identity for the most part.
After several tense moments, she hardened her resolve as her expression darkened. The thought of those three boys hurting Arbus while she did nothing made her stomach churn with rage.
She clenched her fist, remembering each of the boys faces, and the names Arbus had told her once.
'Dorian. Grug. Beck.'
'If anything happens to Arbus... I'll kill all of you' she thought, not noticing the sudden change in her eyes as they reacted to her emotions.
vowing to make them pay tenfold for every single hit.
She rose into the air, floating just above the forest floor before shooting southward toward the village