85 BROKEN

VWOOMP! 

Samuel stepped out of the Tangent, slipping on the ice road they built to enter it hours ago.

Or whatever the Tangent-Reality time conversion rate was. 

He was forgetting. His mind was making jumps and words he wasn't accustomed to. The more he tried to remember what happened inside the Tangent, the less he remembered. 

Forcibly, he memorized and recited his BUSHIDO teachings passed down from his father. The calm came in stride.

All the while, he stepped across the ice, gliding on each foot as turbulent ocean waters rose up onto the path. 

Behind him, students screamed and cried. Like children. Like this all wasn't part of the job they beat and killed to have. 

"Pathetic…" Samuel growled. 

His ears twitched in his helm as the sounds of others close by followed. They smelled of sweat, metal, poison and some sickly sweetness that made his gums itch.

He spared a glance to his left and right and found Xander, Emma, Tai and Burp walking with him. 

"We need to alert the Professors immediately and get Healers out here." Samuel said. 

They all looked between eachother.

Samuel stopped and turned, so suddenly that they all slipped and stumbled to avoid him. 

"Xander….." Samuel said, "Use the flare gun Prof. Brennan gave you." 

Xander blinked twice in surprise, "How'd you know…. He gave me that?" 

"You can't smell the gun powder?" Samuel asked. 

"We're on top of an ocean covered in wolf-monster blood…" Emma said, "Even a bloodhound wouldn't be able to focus a scent right now."

Samuel wavered as he stood on the ice. Suddenly feeling lightheaded. And horribly hungry. 

Xander caught him by the arm, "Samuel…. Are you alright?"

"Get his helmet off, he needs fresh air." Emma said. 

Xander moved towards Samuel's helmet. 

"Don't." The urge echoed throughout Samuel's entire being.

He snarled and slapped Xander's hand away, "Don't touch me."

"Sorry." Xander rubbed his hand, "You just….. took a lot of damage."

"Yea so did they, fire the flare." Samuel said as the students stumbled across the ice behind them. 

Xander raised the flare gun and fired the emergency flare. 

The sound of the shot was deafening. Samuel and Tai hit the deck with ringing skulls and tingling spines.

Quickly, the two recovered at the same commanding internal urge to act accordingly. 

Samuel got up just in time to see the runewritten flare of fiery red smoke unfurl into the shape of a dying Phoenix lit ablaze.

He could almost hear the faculty inside snapping into action.

By the time they reached land, a pack of Professors was out and on the move with a number of healers in the form of licensed professionals and talented third years. 

Samuel found himself sinking into the shadows formed by the island biomes converging. Tai stood beside him. As always. 

For once since boyhood, he didn't tire of it. He turned to him as the Professors and Healers rushed to the students and began assessing the area. 

"Tai…. what happened in there?" 

Tai turned to Samuel, "We survived." 

"But how?" Samuel thought, "Why can't I remember?"

"Trauma. Maybe you're blocking it out, brother. Give it a few days." Tai replied with noble arrogance poorly hidden behind forced sympathy. 

Samuel rolled his eyes as students screamed word of werewolves and titanous monsters, "You and me both know, I don't run from trauma. Physical or mental."

Tai rolled his eyes then. Always the copycat, "Yes, I know our father gave you special warrior training. This may be different. Look around."

"That's just it." Samuel thought. "This is different." He tried to look down at himself and realized he couldn't see his own body. Not any true detail. He was a shadow. A dark hazy figure. 

"You took a beating, Samuel. But us Leon's don't go down easy. Especially not to a few dogs…." Tai explained, thinking Samuel was surveying his injuries for the first time. 

At his words, Samuel looked up at Tai, at his cleric's armor. It embodies the hybrid concepts of knights and healing mages with a thick steel chest plate over pressed white and gold robes. Only now the white was red and torn. But that wasn't the focus. 

Samuel's eyes stayed on the armor. Where he should've been able to see his reflection. But again, all he saw was shadow. 

"What the hell is this…?" Samuel sighed and shut his eyes. The sounds of the students intensified. Their cries. Their heartbeats. Even the sounds of the oceans. The spinning pulse waves of mana erupting from the Tangents. 

It all became a dulling buzz like flies on a corpse. 

The sound birthed memories. 

The first mob of death flies he ever heard. 

Age four. His father had a Lizardman in the basement of their estate. The beast was so venomous that its fangs disintegrated and the venom dripping from the glands in its gums began to melt its skull. He remembered seeing the headless thing. The smell made his eyes water and his saliva thicken into a acrid paste in his mouth. 

His father said, "This is what you should strive to see. This is the only acceptable state for them to exist in. Among the flies, Samuel. Among the flies." 

Truer words were never spoken. 

The next time was his eighth birthday. He had to fight and kill a goblin with his bare hands. It took him a long time. They had tough skin…. and rotten nails that cut his skin and made him sick for days after. 

He remembered it was nothing like sparring the kids or even the Onslaught Guild members. The goblin truly wanted him dead. It fought hard. It died all the same. 

And Samuel watched the flies. It was then that he understood his father's message. 

But now he didn't understand much. 

He heard the flies. 

Like they all were dead. 

Like everyone around him was going to die. Like he'd be standing over their rotted corpses again as the victorious species. 

"Samuel?"

Samuel opened his eyes again. 

He was sitting in the emergency room within the University of The Phoenix. The place was full of students. 

To his left, Enforcers and Detection Corps members were surrounding Tai as he spun a tale. As he performed. He could never overcome Samuel's physical gifts, so he compensated in other ways. 

To his right, V sat at his bed. 

"Are you alright? You spaced out." 

"Spaced… out?" Samuel felt like he just teleported through time. "What happened?" 

"We're getting everyone processed and patched up. You guys barely survived a Deviant. H.M Alaric is going batshit crazy! Apparently that Prof. Whitechapel guy was a traitor. Everyone's saying he's some sort of werewolf. Is that true? Don't think I won't beat answers out of you because you've got a couple scratches…." 

Samuel looked away from her. His mouth went dry. 

 He found himself face to face with a detective. She had platinum blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun. Her eyes were a plane shade of brown made wild by the expression on her face. One of pure hunger. 

"Is it true?" The detective asked as she stood at his bedside. Her silver nails clicked in anxious anticipation. 

"I…." He hesitated. Calling Prof. Whitechapel a traitor felt wrong. "He killed them." 

The wrongness remained. But the panic faded. 

"Why didn't he kill you, Samuel? What made you a chew toy and the other students dinner?" She asked. For a moment her eyes looked red. 

"Because I'm strong." It felt right to say. It felt true. It was true. 

She smiled. Then, she looked around the room. Her leather short-coat and cargo pants weren't standard detective issue. She looked more militarized with her sword and runewritten gun. 

"Yea…. I'm shutting this place down." 

"The University?!" V asked. 

The Detective nodded sweetly, "This place requires a top down thorough investigation all the way from faculty to donors. Everybodies getting a silver test and interrogation. Something's not adding up. Samuel wasn't stronger than…. What was his name?" 

"Salazar Grimm." One of the Detectives listening to Tai's story beside Samuel said behind her. 

She nodded, "Yea that…. thing. There's no way he died. He was the next Ronin. You're just a spoiled little rich boy and you only have…. a bite. And you're not alone. Until further notice, the University of the Phoenix is no more."

Samuel could care less. 

"Anything else you'd like to tell me? About the dead. About what happened?" She asked. 

Samuel groaned as a memory came in the form of a blasting headache. Images of Claude surrounded by monsters tearing into him as he screamed for his inhuman family being killed in front of him. 

"He's one of them….?" Samuel mumbled, sounding not entirely sure of himself. 

"Who?" 

"Claude….. but he's dead." 

The Detective smiled. "Claude you say?"

"What?" 

The Detective turned to the others speaking with Samuel, "Add that Bonehelm Kennel to the list of suspicious locations. We have probable cause for a raid this time." 

"Understood."

Suddenly Samuel got up. His skin burned. The lights in the emergency room were too bright. He felt anxious. He needed—

"Going somewhere, Prince?" The detective asked. 

Samuel turned, "If this place is getting shut down for the time being, I have no reason to stay here." 

"Not even for your friends?" 

"I don't have friends." 

Samuel left the emergency room. It felt like every cell in his body was screaming for him to go home. 

And he had no idea.

Because even as he made his way, he knew one thing. 

He hated home. Always had. But he didn't want to be anywhere else.