Once again, I stood face to face with the man.
The fear I had felt before was dulled now, buried beneath the pain.
I tried to look back at Mara, but my neck tightened, refusing to move. My body resisted every command, locking my eyes forward on the man.
In that moment, I understood the nature of my newfound power.The reason I came back.The reason I can't die.The reason I have no agency over my body.
It was her.
"Mara, please," I said, desperate for the pain to stop. As I spoke, the man slid his blade out of my chest. The wound it left was deep, but it closed almost instantly.
He let out a laugh.
" Why are you begging her for your freedom? I'm the one in control right now....."
"You know what? Nothing's gone to plan. There's only a handful of you students left, and these nobody teachers turned out to be stronger than expected. Especially the little one. If I were anybody else, I'd probably be dead by now. Thank God I'm not anybody else."
He tilted his head, voice suddenly curious.
"Speaking of anybody else... why are you protecting this girl?"
"I mean, it's not like you have anything to lose, you seem to keep coming back even when i split you in half" he continued stifling a laugh as he spoke.
"Do you enjoy me cutting you up into tiny pieces?"
He chuckled
Mara spoke up behind me. I could hear the strain in her voice, the tears she cried while trying to plead with the man.
"God, you talk too much," she said.
A sniffle followed. It was soft, vulnerable, completely stripping her words of any confidence they might've carried.
"I talk too much?" he retorted
"You seem to have regained your composure quickly," the man said, his tone mocking. "You were literally just moments ago begging me not to kill you."
His voice shifted no longer playful. It was sharp now, angry.
"Yet now you feel confident enough to speak to me like that because this boy is standing between us? Will you go back to begging if he runs away? Abandons you?"
A silence settled over us. Nobody moved.
All of the teachers were down, unable to keep fighting. The remaining students cowered in the bleachers, too afraid to speak, too afraid to breathe. Not a word. Not a sound.
The world itself seemed to fall silent.
Mara's voice broke that silence. "He can't abandon me," she said, barely above a whisper.
Another sniffle followed, this one more vulnerable than the last.
"He can't abandon you?" the man repeated, more to himself than anyone else.
"What a weird thing to say. Why is that? Why can't he abandon you?"
Not letting him get another word in, Mara spoke in a low tone.
"Kill him."
Her words were barely audible, yet my body understood the intent. It didn't hesitate. I lurched forward, moving before I could even think.
"No, Mara, stop!" I screamed, but it didn't matter.
My arm moved to strike him, but all that came out was a poor imitation of a punch. It was off balance, clumsy, and easy to read.
The man didn't bother to move. He didn't need to.
His only reaction was a few morbidly curious words.
"...What the hell did you do to him?"
An attack slower than anything he'd thrown at me before, a spike rising from the ground beneath him, aiming straight for me.
I didn't want to get hit. I didn't want to feel that pain again.
I forced my body to move, to dodge.
For a brief moment, the chains Mara had bound me with seemed to weaken just enough for me to shift my body weight backward, barely slipping out of the spike's path by inches.
Thinking I was free, I pushed harder, trying to take control.
But the leash Mara had on me snapped tight again the second I resisted. The harder I fought, the stronger it pulled. I was forced to engage the man again, lunging at him in an instant, throwing out as many strikes as I could. They all landed flat.
He didn't flinch. Didn't even blink.
"Is this your power?" he said, voice calm.
It wasn't a question anymore. There was no curiosity behind it, he knew.
"Is he your slave? A puppet?"
Mara didn't speak.
She just sat there on the ground behind me, silent, watching as I failed to do the one thing I was brought back for. Watching as I failed to save her.
"This is clearly pointless, you know that, right?" he said, his eyes no longer on me but fixed on Mara behind me. "I'm not so unreasonable as to deny you the chance to make things right."
He opened his arms wide, gesturing toward the bleachers, still unphased by my attacks.
"If you tell , no, command your dog here to kill just one of these students," he said, eyes locked on Mara, "I'll let you go."
Before Mara could fully process what he said, I spoke. My voice cracked, but loud.
"Mara, don't. Please."
"You don't have to do this."
"Quiet," Mara commanded.
My lips shut immediately.
I couldn't speak. No matter how hard I tried, no sound came out. The command to kill the man had been overwritten by one of silence.
My throat itched as I strained to produce even a whisper. I panicked, grasping at my neck, my stomach twisting as bile rose. I couldn't breathe anymore. I tried once more to inhale, only to choke as the bile went down the wrong path, burning as it filled my lungs.
I was drowning.
Tears rolled down my face as I fell to the ground, knees hitting the floor hard. I knelt there, shaking, reeling from the pain. The man and Mara spoke, but I couldn't hear them anymore only the wet sounds of my body retching, trying to empty my lungs with no success.
Finally, another command echoed in my head.
"Kill one of the students."
My mouth opened at last, and I gasped, air rushing in with the burn of bile.
I rose to my feet, coughing violently, purging as much of it as I could. My body moved on its own again. My mind screamed in protest, but my legs had already started walking.
I shouted at the students in front of me to run, begging them to move, to get away from me.
But before they had the chance, the man lashed out. A goo covered tendril shot forward and wrapped around the leg of the closest student, suspending him into the air.
He hung there upside down, suspended like a pig on a meat hook. He screamed and begged, voice rife with panic.
But it was useless.
I was the only one listening to his pleas. And I couldn't do anything to stop what was coming.
My screams of warning, telling them to leave, to get away, shaped into something different. I was begging now.
Begging for his forgiveness.
I recognized this boy from my English class.
His personality was a stark contrast to what it was now, he had been confident, charismatic. His power, just a simple strength enhancement, wasn't anything special, Hardly stronger than a normal human. Yet he was still out going despite that.
And now, as I'm about to take his life, I can't even remember his name. I didn't know how I'd even do it. I had no weapon. And even with his weak enhancement, he might still be stronger than me. Would this just end with me trying over and over, failing, while the man stood there laughing?
As I took my final steps toward the boy, the door behind me burst open. The man's head snapped toward the noise.
Another man stood there, muscular, clad in a white business suit with a black tie. Wavy golden hair sat atop his head. It was Solstice, the Rank 5 hero. Solstice looked at the man and, without hesitation, light enveloped his hands. He launched forward in a blur leaving behind a trail of golden light.
The man dropped the boy, retracting his tendrils and pulling the goo tight around himself in defense. As Solstice struck, the shell hardened but it wasn't enough. It shattered on impact, revealing a sickly pale man beneath.
Despite his gaunt frame, he was still undeniably attractive a stark contrast to his grotesque form.
He was sent flying, faster than any time before. His goo reached for him, frantically trying to reintegrate as he tumbled through the air.
Solstice paused only for a moment, then shouted, "Everyone evacuate, now!"
The two remaining students, including the boy, took off running.
My body moved to chase them, acting on the command still engraved into my being.
Then Mara shouted,
"Stop."
And I froze in place once again, against my will.
"Shit I didn't mean stop. You're free. Do whatever you want, just.. go." she said quickly, realizing I wasn't moving at all. Before she could see if it worked, Mara turned and sprinted out of the building, leaving me behind. With no command holding me anymore, my body gave out.
I collapsed to the floor, lying there, finally able to breathe. I let myself rest.