Starkov From Space

4. Mother Bear

I knew I was gaining too much attention. I knew it was only counting the years, months, days before the Darkling...oh excuse me Aleksander (the Black Heretic, the Black General, General Kirigan, ect) would try to set a trap for me.

However, I couldn't stop. Not when there were so many children who needed my help. Not when I could use my growing powers for something good before I would have to wage wars and conquer kingdoms with them. One could wager that I could do 'good' doing those other things however so many innocent lives are lost as supposed collateral damage.

I wanted to do something with my youth rather than wasting it in the Little Palace because that's what I would be doing if I had been tested early. Navigating the court of intrigue, navigating the General's manipulations. I will have to do all that in the future, I'd rather do that when I can kick butt in a full grown womanly body than a little short stack thank you very much.

It was two years after the first time I had successfully gotten some Shu Han children to the Little Palace that I got a small group of three again there. I was now fifteen but it never got easier seeing those pain stricken faces as their families betrayed them or were killed when they tried to protect them.

Sometimes I could save the families, sometimes I came too late. I started my own little network of informants within Shu Han of the children who couldn't be taken to the Little Palace. I gave them regular reports of their families when I could and dropped by to make sure they had enough money to keep going. My little band of merry men (and women).

The capital city gave them the cover they needed and since they weren't Grisha they were in no danger of the experiments. Instead they would do errands occasionally for some of the officials, sometimes for lower ranking nobles. Eventually I would get word but I wasn't always quick enough, despite my powers I knew I couldn't reveal what I was.

If the Shu Han somehow got a hold of me and tried to utilize my power, the results would be cataclysmic.

It was through my 'merry band' that we found out about Shu Han's own brand of monsters. It was macabre, basically they were trying their hands at Victor Frackenstein's work (without even knowing such a book existed once upon a time) but with mix-matched Grisha parts. It was horrifying.

I drew the band from the court not wishing them to be too close. Not wishing them to perish by one of the 'monsters' that were more machine than living material; but without all the metal on the outside parts. I wish I never had to see one up close, however I had gotten too close to Shu Han's secrets.

After my eighteenth birthday, I had delivered some more of my 'children' as I fondly called them to the Little Palace. I felt an excruciating pain in my chest.

"No." I whispered it. It was the first time my gift was being used, a tear slipped from my eye as I teleported to the location of one of my 'children's' side who was near death.

Fjerdans in battle and my 'babies' in the midst of it. Two of them, their first battle. One already shot and as I arrived, the other looked at me and was shot in the head. A tether broke inside of me and I was beside her in an instant catching her before she fell.

"You came." The other spoke. He was the tough one. He had been stubborn, a bit of a bully to the other kids pushing them around as they journeyed to the Little Palace. But by the time she was about to leave he hung tightly around her and begged her not to leave. I took the mask off my face and raised my hand so an invisible shield could wrap around us. "You are...pipsqueak."

I came to him and laid his head in my lap and caressed his eyebrows, "Healers?"

He shook and winced, "All dead. We are last."

I looked around trying to think if I could teleport him, if he'd still bleed out on the way.

As I looked at the wound, "Crap." It was too close to his heart, I was surprised he was still talking.

"No grave."

My eyes widened and looked at the girl beside me and back at him. They were both children from the slavers.

"All decided. We are same."

I see. All my 'children' wanted me to be there when they died. They wanted me to make sure there was nothing left. Nothing left for the Shu to make into something monstrous.

I bent down, a tear falling.

"I promise."

"Stup..."

I was kissing his forehead as he took his last breath, just as he was saying his last insult. I looked down at his open gaze and let out a choked sob and closed his lids.

"Goodbye, Kir."

I placed two palms above him and summoned the strongest light possible. Light that wouldn't just burn or incinerate, no these were like the lasers from a future of a world in a life lived long ago. His body disappeared, not even ashes left behind, just as he wished.

Turning I did the same to my other sweet 'child', who at least died quickly.

"Goodbye, Lesya."

Once she was gone, I took deep breaths and closed the shield until it was only surrounding my body before summoning my beautiful light sword I'd worked years on perfecting. I would have smiled at it in any other situation, but not today; today I had some avenging to do.

I didn't even seek them out, they came to me. When their bullets melted when they hit my shield and I continued forward they came at me with their own knives and swords.

The ache and rage might have made anyone else sloppy but I had had a career in my 'past life' that had allowed me to quickly compartmentalize. I allowed it instead to fuel me, the adrenaline filled me with more precision in my movements.

"Who shot them?"

They just grinned and charged in response.

"You are as unnatural as them."

They had surrounded me at one point. I had taken down several men who had run at me initially, I had taken them down easily.

"I have a nature story for you that even Fjerdan scum like you should know. What happens when a hunter kills a mother bear's cubs?"

"You will die now, witch."

I let out a laugh and looked around me and saw the Fjerdans that hid in the trees and the others on the hill. The Grisha that were in this battle had no chance it was an absolute ambush.

"Such a sunny day we are having, don't you think. So sad about the trees though. The forest was such a lovely place." I dropped the sword and the Fjerdans eyes widened as it disappeared into thin air and instead spread my arms wide out. I let out a semi-crazed laugh. "Never ever hurt a mother bear's cubs."

Closing my eyes I summoned a globe shining like the sun fit just right for each Fjerdan in the forest. They were spinning around me until I opened my eyes and I knew I was glowing when I saw the fear in the eyes of the men.

"Boo!"