(16. A) Shadows V. Whisps

Prath stared at the maids and sighed at their smiles. The maid with the shorter haircut chained up the door and locked it with a dozen padlocks.

"I'm so exhausted", Prath sat down and coughed up blood.

"I bet the old man put up such a violent struggle...", the maid with the longer hair hugged Prath from behind and stroked his hair in a motherly fashion. Prath sighed once more and unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt. With a theatrical wave of his arms, a dozen nearly naked men and women swirled out of shadows cast by Prath and the maid. The spiritual world trembled as Verdant swirled into fake flaming souls around tiny blue dots that floated away from Prath's heart area.

"You sure you two want to blow your cover?", Prath raised an eyebrow toward the maids as he passed small knives and oversized needles to the newborn adult.

"Aaradhya got suspicious the first moment we met. Somehow, he could see we were faking something", the maid with sleepy eyes looked away and shyly drew circles in Prath's hair. The other rolled her eyes and ripped the hem of her skirt to climb into a tree.

"No shit Sherlock. Even If he was only a fraction of Wilfred's Aaradhya, he would have been able to see through that shite performance", the second maid pulled a pistol from her inner thigh.

"You are so, mean, are all of you first shadows like this", Prath wiped his face with a shake of his head and looked up to the mouth of the open ceiling. His features changed in an almost dramatic way. Raven black hair rushed out of Prath's scalp as his skin darkened to a glowing bronze. His eyes and pupils vibrated until they settled on a gorgeous swirl of gray, amber, green, and blue.

"We are not all violent like her. We have just extended too far from Vincent. We miss him", the first maid stood up with tears in her eyes.

"Kill yourself then. Or let these guys do you in…", the short haired maid rolled her eyes as she dismantled and reassembled the pistol to ensure its durability. The man who looked like Prath seconds before, unknotted his tie and looped one end to the hilt of a needle like knife. With a wave of his hand, the naked men and women scattered and hid themselves.

"Also. I'm guessing you are here to clean up. We are going to help where we can, but we have a mission to do already. We have to find the spirit that should be on this island and that's hard though since we can only see it when it moves", the maid in the trees reminded fake Prath of their goal.

"We were also told to take some good relics and contact information", the long-haired maid chimed in with tears pooling at the corners of her eyes.

"If you two don't die here I'll look for your spirit", fake Prath spoke softly, no louder than a whisper.

"I heard that you idiot. Where do you think the rest of you learned that technique from dumbass", the maid in the tree whispered as well. Moments later, more than a handful of people zipped down from different ropes and pointed guns all around the room. That is, those who could make it past the mouth of the open roof.

"Get them", Prath and the naked people threw small knives at the assassins and the ropes they used. In a silent spray of blades and needles, the assassins fell like the petals of the trees around them.

Blood flowers bloomed as an odd orchestral music played and drowned their screams. Gunfire immediately retaliated but no more than a few shots from each automatic weapon. Each gunner was filled with needles and blades like a porcupine with its quills.

Those who got down from the ropes without or with minimal injuries did not have it great either. They were constantly bombarded by nearly naked men and women that stabbed, cut, clawed, or bit at them. Like feral rats, the people swarmed without end. Unlike rats their bodies did not stay when they died.

One leaf covered man found a bullet between the eyes but after an overly gory spray of the blood, the man popped into a scatter of emerald light for those who could see the spirit world. The blood spray instantly evaporated into curls of steam wherever it landed as if the person was an optical illusion of moisture and light.

The initial bullet hailstorm quieted to an eerie rustling of trees and a gentle churning of water. Footsteps occasionally beat against the stone or kicked up some sand every now and then, calling a bullet to the location like a siren's song. The mist from the fake bodies clung to the atmosphere and coated everything in thick fog. In summary, it was near impossible to see further than a meter in any direction.

Green lines trailed along in every direction around the assassins. They couldn't see but these green lines, they closed in like a ravenous wolf pack. A spray of gunfire would take out a few but all it took was one of these fog monsters to get close. In a matter of a few minutes, the steps grew louder and more uncaring, similarly, gunfire and the flashes of the muzzles slowed to halt.

"Are these really Ghosts", fake Prath, retrieved his bloody weaponry and wrapped them in a handkerchief. The fog condensed into droplets above the pond and waterfall in a magical fashion. The naked men and women who survived combed through the room and stripped the assassins of their gear. A few pulled shovels out of midair and buried the bodies with a whistle. Others walked around the room and repaired the damage done to the environment with a magical wave of their hands.

"Is that...", fake Prath walked over to an assassin who was caught on the zipline and frowned. The man hung upside down and suffocated on his own blood, a needle impaled his throat and cut through his flesh in just the perfect way to not nick an artery but close his throat.

"Hm. My luck is draining so it's a good thing he didn't instantly die. Why though?", fake Prath stepped closer and nearly jumped back.

*Tick*, *Tick*, *tick tick tick*

Without another moment of hesitation, he gently cut the assassin down and laid him on the floor. He pulled scissors out of midair and opened up the assassin's stomach.

"This is very spiteful", much of the assassins' intestines were removed and replaced with an intricate bomb. If the assassin hit the ground too hard or felt a sharp impact anywhere on the torso, the bomb would have gone off. The same was said for if the man died.

"...this team must have been sent to be a decoy. Ah, these must be the trainees, the Whisps. The real hunters are likely circling the mountain waiting for a chance. *Sign*. I have to defuse this bomb quickly before I can fix anything. Hopefully Vasuman listened to the real Prath and is on his way back", fake Prath opened his breast pocket and selected the tools he would need to defuse the bomb. The naked men and women stood around him like sentinels, ready to jump on the bomb at a moment's notice.

The maids, closed in while the Prath focused on the bomb.

"This was sloppy work. The real Prath would have killed all of the intruders in half the time and with much less bloodshed. How do you think Vince is going to feel after experiencing several dozen deaths huh?", the short, skirted maid frowned.

"He will manage. Go focus on your own business for right now. Take him with you. If he sees the spirit... well, figure out a way to capture it", fake Prath tilted his head and half his shadow tore apart. Another fake Prath ripped out of the floor

.

A living, breathing body double fixed his hair and wiped his face. The shadow's features warped as his hair elongated into a wildly long, thick, and curly red-black mane.

"Oi man, I wus relaxin. I don wannæ do your work for ye", the man rolled his eyes then glanced over the sleep eyed maid.

"O shite. I dinnæ know my ghrá was ear. Less be on our way", he immediately held his arms out and carried the maid who jumped onto his body like an octopus around a pole.

"Shit. You couldn't send anyone else?", the shirt skirted maid frowned but followed along anyway since fake Prath focused on defusing the bomb.

As the trio sneaked through Glass Peak, a butler opened a storage closet in the upper kitchen and stumbled upon something that sent the help into a spiral of fear and concern.

The real Prath laid in a puddle of sweat and blood on the stone floor completely naked. The old man curled backward in a weirdly sexual rope tie with a giant welt on the back of his head. Truly, he looked like an oversize raisin. More frighteningly, green light swirled around his body, more accurately, it swirled around a broken silver disc someone left on the old man's stomach.

While the maids and servants spread the news amongst themselves, the island's temporary military and in house police forces were occupied with new developments.

"... I am simply overjoyed to see that we can set aside our differences and make the preparations needed to keep our lord's and lady's safe", a man in a black and blue suit with swooped brown hair bowed as he expressed his intention to leave the company of foreign generals and captains.

"Vasuman was it? I never said my people would help. I said we would share anything worth reporting", one lady said.

"Aye. My men will also call in whatever they see but expect a silent alarm. We will move as we see fit to extract our lady from this place", another military general said.

"We will fortify the extraction routes your people already have in the worst-case scenario, but we won't be moving units from our current stations", unlike the true military personnel, the mercenary leader with the biggest reputation spoken on behalf of the different organizations.

"Regardless. I thank you all for the help. Even the respect you have given my lord for gathering and listening to my speech is enough to be praised. I hope we all have an uneventful afternoon but if we don't, it's good to hear you will support us in any ways that you can", Vasuman bowed even deeper and walked away. With a deadpan expression he left the temporary HQ tent and started on his path back toward the peak. He sat on a motorcycle and shot off not even an hour after he called the meeting.

Just as he turned on the path to go towards the main street, the wind roared out his name over his bike's engine. He slowed down and stopped in the middle of the road and looked around for whoever called his name. A few seconds later, he spotted a few characters rush out of the forest.

"Vasuman!?", a woman in mercenary equipment and half a shaved head raised an eyebrow as she huffed for breath at the side of the road. Half a dozen other people in nondescript blackout mercenary gear rushed out of the woods.

"Yes?", Vasuman, born and raised in the cult, had only ever been on speaking terms with people in the cult, those he was directed to converse with, and a handful of outsiders when he ran away in his youth. This impromptu talk completely caught him by surprise. Especially since this mercenary knew his name.

"Hi!", the lady dropped her gun with wide eyes and a dropped jaw. Her hand flew up but got stuck mid wave.

"Madam?", Vasuman observed the other mercs but all of them panted through their balaclavas. From their posture, however, he could tell that they were completely at ease... almost as if they were not out of breath from chasing a motorcycle.

"Hi!", the lady waved her hand but didn't pause this time, so it looked sort of natural.

"Hello to you as well, miss. If I recall, you called out to me by name. May I inquire as to where you learned of it", Vasuman felt something was wrong with this situation. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that there was an unordinary number of mercenaries in the area.

"Sorry. I just. It's... I missed you man. It's been almost twelve years now, right?", the lady ran up to Vasuman and grabbed his hand with a smile.

"Uh. Ma'am. I feel very uncomfortable with how close you are to me", Vasuman tried to pull his hand away but couldn't. The mercenaries in the background collectively sighed. Some held the bridges of their noses, others looked at the sky or dirt. Two crouched down and one sat on the pavement and used a knife to draw in the dirt on the side of the road.

"You didn't feel that way when you pushed me down and did this and that to me...", the woman looked into his eyes with an embarrassed smile. His attention snapped onto the woman's lipid and darting eyes.

"Miss. I don't know what you are trying to imply but I can assure you, you must have confused me with some other miscreant who shares my name and visage. There is only one person I have ever laid with, and she is...", his face slowly warped with recognition.

"How are the kids? I know it wasn't right of me to just leave them with you like that, but I thought it was better than living with me in that dump...", the lady's face fell but she quickly perked up.

"Dead. You. What?", Vasuman's body tingled with what felt like electricity. His head buzzed as green sparks consumed the sides of his vision. An invisible pressure gripped his skin and threatened to break his heart. He didn't notice that the woman's other hand touched his chest.

"Did you name them Kanjan, and Anila like I wrote? I wanted them to have something of me before I left, speaking of. How are you?", the woman chuckled. Vasuman's eyes shot open, and his entire body trembled. He got off the bike and used his free hand to touch the woman's face. In that exact same instant, the woman dropped a silver disc into Vasuman's shirt.

"How? I looked for you everywhere. I saw your grave. You died. How are you here? Now?", Vasuman leaned in to give the woman a hug but all of a sudden, something sharp and warm cut into his midsection and sent his vision into a spiral.

"What?", he fell onto the floor and looked down at the foot that pressed into his side.

"What? What!", the lady pushed Vasuman to the floor and right before his eyes, changed. Her hair grew into a full head of hair and changed from a dark magenta to a light and almost blonde, brown shade. Her features and skin color also changed. This was a completely different person in front of him now.

"Who are you?", Vasuman stared at the horrifying change with a rising sense of panic and fear. He could barely speak as something set fire to his heart and internal organs. The green sparks ignited into a swirling inferno that aimed right where the woman's foot was.

"I'm a mysterious stranger sent here to fix all the hidden machinations of the God's. Enjoy the present I gave you. It's only a piece but it should be enough to wire up your spirit. Good luck, try not to die", this new lady simply vanished out of sight along with the rest of the mercs. The one who drew in the dirt looked up and groaned when he realized the cleanup was left up to him.

This merc cracked his knuckles and neck then grew almost a dozen centimeters in height. The merc's clothes strained against the increased muscle but miraculously stayed intact. The merc picked up the motorcycle like it was a paperclip and placed it in some bushes on the side of the road.

"It's going to be really painful. Trust me. Stay awake for as long as you can and don't fight it. You can try but your path will be more difficult further ahead as far as I know right now...", the mercenary gently picked up Vasuman and placed him at the center of some bushes right next to the motorcycle.

"Also. I'm sorry I used that trick against you. Since I didn't want to shoot you, it was the only thing I could do to lower your guard. I'm still practicing but with how I imagined you... I know I would've gotten my ass kicked if I tried to strongarm you into submission", the merc smiled with his eyes and patted Vasuman's chest a few times.

"Oh yeah. I don't want to be the one to tell you this, but the mother of your children got her life together some odd 10 years ago and set out to look for you and the kids not too long after. A few months before you set out to find her, she came looking for you. You may not have noticed her since she shaved one side of her head and dyed her hair. You two did meet up, neither of you recognized the other so she kept on searching...", the mercenary waved his arms around as he narrated. He paused at the sparkle of hope in Vasuman's eyes.

"*Sigh*, just find the lady who looks just like the one I showed you earlier. The one who looks like this", the man took off his balaclava and showed the exact same woman from earlier. Vasuman fainted.