Going Feet First Ch. 04

Before a single sound had escaped him, a hazy cloud came over his mind, his whole body giving a violent spasm as he broke eye-contact with Felyn. He fell to his knees, body jerking uncontrollably as his head swam in a sea of confusion. One of the Drow guards behind him began shouting something he couldn't understand, her voice hostile before another, more commanding one snapped back at her.

Beside Galen, Felyn had stumbled about before dropping down to all fours in front of him, her mind stuck in a trance. When her eyes met with Galen's again, the fog over his mind cleared, his body coming under control while she let out a pained scream. Just as he went to reach out to her, heart pounding with worry as her wail went higher, a sudden force grabbed hold of his collar and ripped him rearward onto his back.

Before he even properly grasped the situation, he saw the crimson eyes of a guard standing over him with a face twisted by rage. The curses slipping from her mouth didn't need translation as he understood their severity from her tone. Without hesitation, she then drew her sword and took it in both hands. A vicious smile crossed her lips as she brought it down and drove it into his belly.

No... Not again!

The steel blade cut clean through Galen's midsection and struck the stone floor he laid upon, its edge narrowly missing his back bone. He could hear her hissing more curse words, hissing something to him before she wrenched her blade around in his stomach. Broad crimson spray flew from Galen's mouth as he screamed out, his innards being shredded like paper.

With the whole of his body trembling, he lifted his head up and looked down at the sword planted inside him. At once his frowned and bit down on his lower lip with flaring nostrils. Partially blinded by the hot tears streaming from his eyes, he brought his hand into a glow only to have the Drow guard stomp down on his wrist.

Then the shouts of another Drow voice caught his ear, the guard looking up across the room.

A concussive blast burst through the air, sliding Galen back along the floor a few inches and blowing away the Drow guard, sending her crashing straight into the wall. Wasting no time, Galen's glowing hand came right to his belly, the chant already passing his lips as he ripped the blade out with his free hand.

The flesh of his back and midsection shifted around and stitched together seamlessly under his magic. Organs recovered, lost blood became vapour or returned to his veins, his skin mended itself and causing the damage to fade without so much as a scar. Just as the spell finished, the sharp side-effect ripped through where he had been wounded. A pain, powerful enough to feel as though his guts were being shredded a second time, sent him into a scream while nearly taking him from consciousness.

When his eyes reopened a few seconds later, Dreek was kneeling down beside him looking over the blade sized hole in the gut of his T-shirt. There was powerful air about her as she pursed her lips and scowled, a Hell's worth of fury in her eyes. The other guards around the room had drawn their weapons, but stayed back as the Commandant waved them off and focused on her pet.

"What the Hell happened?" Galen asked while forcing himself to sit up, one hand still pressed against the spot where he had been stabbed.

"That was to be my question," Dreek growled.

"I happened... Commandant," Felyn stated as she tried to pick herself up off the floor.

The aid clutched at her head as her skull was still pounding. Upon her attempt to stand she found herself stumbling again and collapsing back onto her knees. Her cranium felt as though someone had squashed her brain down and rammed something in much too large for her head to fit. Her chest too felt overly stuffed as though some steel ball pressed her lungs flat and pinned down her heart to keep it from properly pumping life through her veins.

Felyn had an idea of what to expect should she have met eyes with Galen, the possible damage that could be done. Though for something of this scale to have happened was beyond her imagination and preparation. It was by good fortune that she escaped harm, and the Demon's mind was still his own.

"Keetle, check on the guard. Felyn, how did you, 'happen?'"

Hearing the command, Keetle headed over to the guard she'd sent flying, passively using her magic to assist Felyn in her attempt to stand. The other aid managed to return shakily to her feet with the invisible assistance, gaining her balance enough to face the Commandant on her own. She expelled the air from her lungs only to find trouble taking in another breath.

"I triggered emotions within Galen's mind..." she began, coming to an attentive posture while still forcing away the feelings that constricted her lungs. "And when I looked him in the eye... something happened with my ability that... proved too much for me to handle... it got out of control."

Dreek's eye narrowed on Felyn, going over her face and making direct eye contact. Beside the Commandant, Galen sat up straight and began rubbing his forehead with both hands, trying to clear out the remnants of whatever magic Felyn used on him.

After Dreek held her aid's gaze for several moments she looked down at Galen as he tried to clear his head. Her lips pursed and her eye narrowed, but then she sighed and shook her head. Returning her knife to her coat, she stood up and crossed her arms. "Galen, you will need to speak with Jrastra again upon your return to the compound. Felyn... tell her that I give consent for her request, reluctantly. From now on, keep your eyes away from his unless I give the go ahead."

"Yes, ma'am," Galen answered.

"Yes, Commandant."

"The guard is fine," Keetle announced, stepping away from the Drow lying in a heap on the floor. "Her head will hurt when she wakes in a few hours, but next time she should not get overzealous."

"She reacted to the situation!" one of the other guards snapped.

"In a very stupid manner," Dreek retorted as she turned to the guard. "She is lucky my pet still lives or she would not."

"You bitch! How could you value surface scum over our own?!"

Keetle immediately turned to the woman, lifting her hand with an open palm. Galen was only just coming back to his feet when the air pulsed and knocked him over again. The guard that had raised her voice to Dreek yelped as she was thrown back into the wall, unable to move as a force pinned her body against the stone.

"That worthless waste overstepped her bounds," Dreek stated, bringing her hands behind her back and her chin up. "The human was attempting to come to my aid's assistance after he heard her scream. Surfacers like him do not hesitate in helping those in pain, she should have known this, and she should have listened when I told her to back away."

"She only did-"

Keetle's eyes narrowed and the guard was silenced as something pressed into her throat. Her comrades stayed back and remained silent as the anger became ever clearer in Dreek's expression.

"Talk back again and my aid will crush your skull. As it is, my patience runs thin and I find myself in need of some form of entertainment. Shall the splattering of the contents of your skull over these walls be it?"

The guard couldn't respond as her throat was sealed, but the agony in her eyes showed as Keetle's magic began closing in around her head. A portion of her helmet caved in around her pointed ears, her legs began to kick, and her hands started clawing at her neck. When her eyelids began to flutter, Dreek passed a glance at Keetle, who immediately dropped her arm and slammed the guard into the ground before relenting with her magic.

The woman lay sprawled out on the floor, one arm twitching as blood ran out from her ear. When her comrades went to go to her aid, Dreek casted a hostile stare to them, and they immediately stopped and backed off. In a calm, composed voice, the Commandant addressed, "Galen?"

"Yeah?" the Private answered as he finally staggered back into a standing position.

There was a bit of a tremble to his left hand after witnessing the extent Dreek allowed Keetle to thrash the guards, and it left him quite thankful to be on her side. Telling from the heated exchange, he could only guess the guard had said something she shouldn't have and that was why she now lay face down on the floor with blood running out of her orifices.

"Dust yourself off and heal her," the Commandant ordered.

"Yes, ma'am," Galen responded.

The Drow who had been on the receiving end of Keetle's magic was hardly breathing when the Surfacer walked over and knelt beside her. After a quick observation of her body, both of his hands lit up as he pressed them to the back of her head and lower back. He went through the healing chant, the guard whimpering and shifting about as the pain of the process showed on her face.

When the last of her bones mended and the blood vaporised from her skin, Galen stood up and returned to Dreek's side. The Commandant, however, acknowledged neither him nor the healed guard as she faced the wizard standing by the iron, double doors. She gave the Drow male a subtle indicative motion with her head, and he bowed, uttering a command word.

The air in the room shifted as the doors' cyan inlay lit up. Arcane forces flowed through the room and were drawn to the doors, swinging them open and permitting a rush of warm air to flow out into the tunnel along with several appeasing scents. The well-lit room beyond the threshold was not to Galen's expectations, but he quickly found himself elated in its presence.

The lobby to the Wizard's overlook was a grand, circular room with elegant lanterns lighting the whitewashed walls all the way around. Three doors lined the room on each side, with a larger set of doors at the far end that were flanked by two stairwells and a set of matching statues of some Drow woman. Paintings were hung here and there; a candle chandelier hung in the middle of the room above a wooden desk and the luxurious, red rug between it and the door.

Six guards were present, one in each corner and two beside the large desk in the middle. Sitting at the desk was a Drow who, to Galen's total shock, actually had wrinkles in her cheeks and forehead. Her silver hair had a streak of iron-grey, her dark dress, while still elegant, seemed much like her red eyes: faded by time.

Dreek motioned her group forward, and when the doors began closing behind him, Galen peeked back to spot the Drow guards collecting their unconscious sisters. The wizard, unfazed by what had just occurred, returned to his workstation and picked up his quill just as the gateway slammed shut.

Galen turned his attention forward and continued to follow his Sun-Kissed escorts as they walked past the desk with the aged Drow. The woman did little more than lift her eyes from her book to make eye contact with Dreek before write something down in an open ledger in front of her. The Commandant gave the woman a nod and pressed on with her group to the last door on the right.

They stepped into a hallway with bland, grey granite walls that lacked any form of décor other than the warm glowing stones that hung from the ceiling every ten feet. The whole passageway had a gradual leftward curve to it, with doors along the left wall approximately every thirty feet. For what seemed to be forever, the group marched on down the maddeningly changeless path, Galen's eyes starting to loll off as it dragged on and on.

At the end of the hall, much to the Private's disappointment, was a simple red door bearing a metal plate inscribed with Drow writing. Keetle waved her hand at the door, and it opened without so much as a creek in the hinges.

Past the bland entrance Galen was surprised to find a very spacious laboratory; walls lined with shelves were loaded with samples of everything from plants and bottled fluids, to mixtures of dust and glowing stones.

As Galen looked at all the tubes and glassware on the long tables throughout the room his imagination began to run wilder. In his mind, all that was missing from this particular scene was a Drow woman in dark robes and a tall, pointy, black hat mixing things in a cauldron while cackling as her frothy concoction came to be.

At the far end of the room around a large, rectangular table stood three male Drows in light grey robes, all of whom were intensely focused upon some item or task. What two of the males held Galen could not tell as they had their back to him, but the third stood back from the table staring at something that snarled viciously back at him.

It took Galen a second to recognize the growls of his M14 battle rifle, more specifically, the moss upon the weapon's wooden furniture. Each approach was only met with a snarl, each casted spell shrugged off by the moss as it held the Drow experimenter at bay. By how the male had his hand bandaged, the Private guessed he had tried to handle the weapon once and discovered its defenses the hard way.

"Wizards, remove yourselves from the human's weapons this instant. Your jobs are done," Dreek ordered.

Two of the Dark-Elf males jumped as they turned to the group by the door, at first confused over their being addressed in human tongue, but then upon seeing Dreek, their eyes widened and their faces looked as though they'd stared death in the face. Upon spotting Galen standing in the Commandant's shadow, however, hostile sneers immediately came down over their expressions.

One wizard bounced his eyes back and forth between the human and Sun-kissed before he spoke out in Drow. There was suspicion mixed within his vindictive glare, and as he spoke, he pointed at Galen, hissing several harsh words before motioning toward Dreek's head and making a grabbing gesture. The annoyed Commandant responded both instantly and in a harsh tone, the sharp words from a tense Felyn following after.

Does he think I'm controlling her mind or somethin'? Galen thought.

The Elves continued to have their exchange, the wizards barking something hostile only to be snapped back at by the females in the room. It had gone on for a minute before being ended by Dreek's command, "Galen, take your items back, if they try to stop you, do what you must to claim them."

"Yes, ma'am," the Private replied as he started toward the table.

The two wizards who had been handling his equipment looked over at the violet-eyed Sun-Kissed officer, and she hissed several menacing sounding words at them. Both wizards, with much reluctance, stepped back from the table, while the third remained focused on a piece of his equipment and seemed to ignore the Commandant entirely.

Galen glanced at Dreek to see how she would respond to blatant insubordination, but his head snapped back to that third wizard as he suddenly exclaimed something in his own tongue. From his hands fell an olive-drab colored pile of gear; what Galen then realized to be his webbing, minus one grenade from the shoulder straps.

Shit.

Galen found the missing sixteen ounces of metal and explosives in the wizard's hand and undergoing a thorough examination.

"No!" the Private cried out, but the Drow ignored him as well.

Behind the soldier, Dreek's aids' hands moved in sign but the wizard's eyes were too focused to catch them as he looped his finger through the grenade's pin.

"DROP THAT!!" Galen snapped as he charged toward the wizard.

As the male Drow pulled on the pin, Galen's hand lit up in a white light that finally got the wizard's attention. But before the Private could see the wizard turning to acknowledge him, he put his entire will behind his glowing hand and focused his thoughts on the explosive. Within his mind he saw the grenade coming into his grasp, being wrapped within his fingers and pulled away from the wizard who had no clue as to what the thing was.

Right then the wizard let out a short, split-second scream. In his hand the grenade became shrouded in a white light that proved painful to Galen's eyes. But in a second the light died out, leaving the wizard frozen in place, still staring at his palm where the grenade had been.

After another second, the explosive appeared safely in Galen's grasp, causing him to stop in his tracks. A breath of relief escaped his chest when he checked the pin, finding it still secure in its housing. It was only when he went to pocket it did a single, grey wisp roll off of the metal surface and glide down to his feet. When he wondered as to what it was, it had sunk into the stone floor and vanished from sight.

Feeling several intense looks upon him, Galen turned to look about at the Drows in the room. The two other wizards were dumbstruck to what they had witnessed, their focus locked upon the Private's glowing hand.

Dreek, who now bore a highly interested look upon her face, arched her brows down slightly as her sly grin returned. There was something about that expression made Galen tighten his grip around what he held in his hand.

The white light his palm faded to a dim glow as he went to speak up. When his mouth opened, something collapsed on the floor. Or rather someone.

The wizard that had the grenade had hit the stone floor with an audible smack, though he made no effort to vocalize any pain. Acting on impulse Galen dashed to the Drow's side, kneeling beside him and pressing an ear to his chest and two fingers to his neck. There he paused a few seconds, listening and feeling for any sign of life.

Slowly his eye began to widen, his heart rate hastening in the slightest. He worriedly glanced over at Dreek, who started approaching him as her aids got between him and the remaining wizards.

"He's dead," Galen muttered, sitting up.

Dreek stopped beside him, and the Private looked up into her neutral face and shuddered as he heard the cold knives in her voice. "How was it that you killed him?"

"I dunno. I just willed the grenade out of his hand and-" A sudden memory flash ran through the Private's mind, making him smack his forehead. "Oh, God fucking dammit!"

"What?" Dreek responded, a hint of confusion to her tone.

Galen left hand began to quiver; his voice became shaky as though he were on the verge of tears. "Celia warned me... It's something about this trick... If I ever try to pull an object from someone's hands, I could rip the spirit from their body... and forgetting that I killed him."

"Really?" Dreek responded, her eye brows rising. "Well, it seems you may become more than a Lince'sa after all."

Something about that designation still rubbed Galen the wrong way, but at the moment he didn't care. There was the corpse in front of him, a man he had just killed by accident who meant no harm.

Suddenly one of the wizards cussed out a string of Drow curses, drawing both Galen and Dreek's attention. The Soldier was confused, obviously not understanding the elf's words, but the Commandant began to show a level of aggravation.

"Galen, collect your items while I deal with discipline," she directed.

The tone of her voice made the Soldier's gut swirl as though it were hit with a bucket of ice. "Yes, ma'am."

Taking one last glance at the wizard's body, he cautiously backed away from it and the Commandant, moving to gather his equipment off the table.

When her pet was occupied and out of the way, Dreek turned and faced the two wizards. Her temper, already riled form the episode with the guards, began to reach dangerous levels as she scowled at the two males who had sworn to kill her human. Bearing a glowering look of contempt, she drew her hands behind her back and tilted her head slightly forward. Her words carried razors' edges as she spoke with a dark, deliberate tone in her authoritative voice.