Chapter 33: Purpose
THIS WAS THE AMBER HE KNEW. He was sure of it, because she sat on the shoulder of the massive humanoid, ankles locked and legs swinging, and hadn't gotten eaten yet. Also because she had her arms crossed, face adorned with a heavy scowl, glowering down at them like she’d make the Demon step on their faces just so she could watch.
When all of their forces were frozen, either in shock or in fear, she patted the berserker's shoulder. "Hey, put me down." As silent as a shadow, the giant Demon eased her off its shoulder and knelt to let her step from its palm to the floor. She turned first to him and Calida, paused, looked at the slight flash of trepidation on Calida’s face and said, "If I was myself, I would've left my idiot self for dead too."
Calida started forward. "You're--"
"Alive." She snorted. "Surprised? You don't have to state the obvious." Before any more questions could be asked, Amber turned away. As she passed by him, they made eye contact and he saw his own intent mirrored in her gaze. When she started walking towards the Delegates, he was at her side. When she stopped in front of Leone, he stopped as well. "What the hell did you do to me?" Her voice was a low growl.
"I'm sorry? What are you referring to?" Leone asked, her eyebrows furrowed. A hint of a gentle but confused smile played about her lips.
"You damn well know what I'm referring to," she snarled, hands twitching. "What did you and your bastard Mind Adepts do to my magic? You got into my head and did something to screw over my Metal powers, didn't you?"
Leone raised a finger. "Language, Amber."
"Like we give a shit about language right now." It was his turn. "Let me modify the question: What the hell did you make me do to Amber?" The gaze of the girl in question flicked towards him, before sliding smoothly back to Leone like nothing had happened. He'd expected to slap him, or something along those lines, but his words had only seemed to make her focus even more on Leone.
“This is a private matter for the both of you,” Leone said. She gestured at the armed Adepts around them, as well as the Demons that waited for Amber at the doorway to the training grounds. Both parties looked wary of the other, shifting uncomfortably. “I think it would be better if we could discuss this in, perhaps, the Daron twins’ office?”
“No,” he said and had to quell the urge to congratulate himself when the word sounded like a gavel striking the table in court.
Amber nodded. “We do this here and we do this now. Answer the question, or I’ll make someone else ask.” She nodded towards the Demons at the door. The berserker that had carried her lifted its mace as if in agreement.
The Human Delegate sighed finally, resigned. He blinked, a little surprised. No villain would give out the truth so easily. Does she want us to know? “Have it your way, but I simply hope that you will understand our reasons for the actions that we have taken.”
She looked to Amber and continued, “When we started working with you on your Metal powers, it soon became clear that the problem resided in our mind, as there was another entity sharing the space. We knew that removing it had the chance of killing you, and we can’t let that happen till you have your full potential.” He almost frowned. What’s up with that phrasing? “In the end we decided that we didn’t want to violate your mind any further, so we got Daniel, whom we know has already accessed your mind once, to seal the Demon away at the edge of your consciousness.”
“Yeah,” he said. “By tricking me into doing it.”
Leone looked at him, her eyes sad, almost regretful. “We apologise for that, my dear. By then we knew that you would never agree to going into someone else’s mind, though you were the only person capable of helping. We couldn’t tell you, but we needed your power.” It almost sounded like it was his fault for valuing others’ privacy. If he hadn’t been so stubborn about it, would all this have happened? No, but then I’d be standing next to Leone right now, facing Amber down when she’s this pissed. I’d pass on that.
“Did you know that it would seal away my Metal powers too?” Amber asked.
“Yes,” Leone replied, meeting her gaze steadily.
Her fists clenched, as if she wanted to smack the Delegate for her cool tone. He would’ve stopped her on a normal day, but on this matter… Be my guest. “And why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. “I can’t be an Emblem if I don’t have all of my magic.”
“The power stream has survived perfectly well without Metal magic, ever since the original elementals disappeared,” Leone pointed out. “If this brand of magic is given back to the power stream, it will be as corrupted as the original Metal elemental. We don’t want that being spread to Adepts all around the world. It’s dangerous. Besides,” she continued, “the power of Metal is directly linked to the magic that allows Demons to exist. If we do not allow this element to mature in you, then the Demons can be destroyed once and for all.”
Amber glanced at him, then looked to the doorway. The Demons gathered there looked back at her, their black and silver eyes hollow and soulless. The berserker lifted its mace again, as if in a salute. A cerberus lifted its three heads and sniffed the air, yapping in her direction. Behind it, a pontianak chittered and raised its silver tipped claws. The Adepts in the room backed away a little, though most of them still glanced over at Amber and him, eyes wide. They’d heard every single word, and were probably still struggling to process everything.
She faced away from him, so he couldn’t see the look in her eyes. To destroy all the Demons on earth by cutting their magic out of the power stream completely – would that be right?
“Ms. White,” said a disembodied voice. An Ethereal with white robes drifted forward, a goblin at his side. All the Beast and Ethereal Delegates followed behind them, strides purposeful. “Mr. Dax and I disagree with your conjectures.”
“What Sol is trying to say politely,” Dax clarified, “is why in the world weren’t we briefed on this?” His question came out more like an exclamation. “We never discussed this in any of our meetings, but you suddenly want to cut the Demons off from their source of magic? The original elementals had reasons for everything they did, including making the things that threaten us. Demons were created by the Metal elemental, and thus they must have a place in this world.”
“Furthermore,” Sol followed up on his fellow Delegate’s points. “Did we not agree when the Delegates were formed that we do not act without reaching a consensus? This is inherently contradictory to the peace between races that the Delegates stand for. The Ethereals will not accept this violation of our rules.”
Leone’s gaze moved from one Delegate to the other, surveying all the Beasts and Ethereals that had gathered to back up their leaders. She rubbed at her temple, a crease between her eyebrows. “This really isn’t the time for politics,” she murmured. “And unfortunately, democracy also has no place here.” She made a vague, almost half-hearted gesture at the amassed non-Human Delegates, like how one would wearily flick a fly away. “I apologise for ruining our hard work, but this is necessary, as you will never understand Human ideals. I regret that I have only come to realise this after all these years of working alongside all of you. Thank you all for your diligence.”
Her tone, though sounding sincere and heartfelt, had a finality in it that unnerved him. At the wave of her hand, more than half of the Human Delegates had started moving, and he realised that they had never sheathed their weapons, unlike the Beasts and the Ethereals. Something is wrong here. That was the only thing he had time to think before they crashed into their fellow Delegates, faces twisted in determination.
“Stop! What are you doing?” Calida yelled. The three of them ran forward to help, but the unprepared non-Human Delegates were already falling under the sudden assault.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the Demons had remained by the doorway – they probably wouldn’t act till Amber gave them orders. But the Camp’s Adepts were running in to join the fray, their blades already drawn. By the looks of confusion on their faces though, they didn’t know which side to choose. Don’t join! This isn’t your fight. We’ll sort it out. He sent out a pulse that made them hesistate, then sheathe their weapons and retreat. Sighing, he returned his thoughts to the skirmishes ahead. This is politics, isn’t it? There won’t be any straightforward conflicts here.
Amber sped up, trying to reach her tutors, Dax and Sol, through the throngs of individual battles taking place. He tried to keep up with her, dodging limbs and blades along the way. Sol fended off two attackers at once, blowing them away with sharp gusts of unseen wind. But someone shoved Dax into the Ethereal and both went down, Dax’s weapons cutting into the robes of his ally. He saw the flash of metal – a sword coming down for a final blow, but its arc was halted as Felix caught Janna’s blade with his hands. Blood trickled down his fingers. “What are you doing?” He was near enough to hear what was being said.
Janna shook her head. “Saving the world,” she said, and pulled back, only to drive ahead again with her sword, gutting the man like a fish. Then she was knocked away by a gust of wind from Amber’s outstretched hand, as he caught up to her. They stood on either side of her tutors protectively. Dax managed to struggle to one knee, though Sol’s cloths were still a flopping pile on the ground. “Do you know what’s happening, girl?” came the goblin’s gruff voice.
Both of them shook their heads, even as he took down a Human Delegate with a hard rap to the head using the hilt of his katana. “Then that would make four of us,” Sol said, looking slightly deflated, like there wasn’t enough air to animate him anymore. “This is—” A grunt of pain interrupted him.
“You’re in the way, Emblem,” growled a voice. Amber, knocked to her knees by a crippling slap, tried to lash out with her whip as the hulking Human Delegate barged past her. She missed, and Daniel blocked the oncoming strike with his own blade. They strained against each other, and Daniel, dodging a kick, broke away to land beside Amber. The unfamiliar man charged again, and Amber flowed under his guard like water. When he glanced down, she spat in his face. The last sight he was met with was of Amber with her fist cocked back. He went down with one punch. Daniel snorted and the grey-eyed girl looked at him. “Still not over it,” he said, allowing himself a smirk. She scoffed at him.
“Remember,” Janna’s voice interrupted their exchange from a little ways away, her tone as stern as a lecturer’s, “we do not take pleasure in this. It’s simply necessary.” With that said, Janna, having a firm hold on Dax’s white frizzy hair, dug her knife in and slit the goblin’s throat. Sol’s white cloths turned crimson, and when the corpse landed on it, what was left of the Ethereal disappeared, dissolving into a gust of wind that blew away, bringing with it the coppery tang of blood.
In the next moment, Amber was standing over her tutor's dead body and he heard the hiss of her whip through the air as it wrapped around Janna's throat. She was yanked closer, hands pulling at the strands constricting her airway. He looked away. Amber would do as she wished – he couldn't find it in himself to care anymore. Distantly, he registered that only some of the Camp Adepts had stayed, the rest had probably edged out the door to join the younger ones. Shaking that off, he focused his attention on Leone. "Why?" he demanded, flinging an arm out to gesture at the dead bodies that littered the training grounds – Ethereals who had disappeared by then, and Beasts and Humans who had all been oblivious to what was going on right under their noses, people like Felix who had never agreed with the general belief but were ignorant of how deep those biases ran. Dead, and for what? For what purpose?