John Philo could feel the tremor of fear through Alicia's body, though she tried her best to keep her composure. Unbeknownst to him, she still had an ace up her sleeve—or rather, inside her backpack—and all she had to do was just wait for the opportune moment. However, the traumas due to her being the victim of pranks and even several attempted murders made it difficult for her to quiet the clamour of dread in her mind.
With her right arm firmly clutched from behind and John's large palm almost suffocating her, her helplessness was stark. One careless move, the man could turn her into a plastic lump in the blink of an eye.
While waiting to arrive at the exhibition hall, the Art Teacher initiated a conversation. “If I heard correctly, you have a way of removing the Protos influence from my body. This Protos effect you’re referring to is the power I possess, isn’t it?”
“In t-theory, y-yes,” her answer was straightforward. “The influence of Protos left unchecked if it doesn’t corrupt the body, will corrupt the mind and soul.”
“Fascinating. Would you mind sharing a little more?”
“I think the power inside the grenade earlier can remove the Protos influence from you.”
“Both of us and them will die, eventually. Why should I care to remove this Protos magic from my body?”
The shaking of Alicia’s body became more pronounced as she struggled from his grip. John then pulled her right hand from behind to tame her.
“Mi-Mister Philo! You dinnae have to do this! The Protos particle is playing with your mind. Y-yer better than this!”
“Oh, fear not, my dear. You’re maybe the last person to die. So in exchange for such a gift, seal your mouth. I don’t need any more cliché advice from a snotty teenager like you!”
The elevator juddered to a halt, signalling their arrival at the designated floor. As the doors slid open, John guided Alicia through a dimly lit corridor that led to a formidable metal vault door, where the perpetrators were held captive. This level served not only as a refuge from any riotous danger but also as a repository for magic knowledge, housing forbidden relics and confiscated artefacts of magical origin.
On either side of the vault door stood two sentinels, vigilant wizards charged with safeguarding the bunker against any potential threats. Yet their resolve faltered when they caught sight of a young girl in the clutches of John Philo.
“Gentlemen! If you please, drop your magic wands, then open the vault and move to the wall on your side,” John Philo warned.
Complying with his command, the wizards reluctantly surrendered their magical implements. With the door creaking open, a dozen pairs of eyes peered out, capturing a scene of dread. The three murderers and their surviving kin, along with the law enforcement officers responsible for the case, stood there in terrified disbelief. Their pleas for the wizards to intervene changed into a chorus of ghastly screeches as John Philo froze the mages in time as statues of unyielding polyethene. A malevolent display of power.
"No! What are you doing?" Alicia also screamed, squirming behind John's restraints, but he cast his newest addition into the midst of the imprisoned gathering.
Alicia's mind went numb with shock as the petrified wizards before her. Their organs had failed them to withstand the touch of Philo's enchanted hands. She scrambled backwards, joining the others in their retreat as John sealed off the bunker, trapping them all within its walls.
Nervous glances were exchanged as Alicia joined their ranks. One of the doers, Calum Little, murmured to the girl, “You… Alicia? How can you be here? Did your father also—”
“W-what? Nae danger, silly!" she whispered back. “I’ve j-just made him a wee bit carnaptious, I guess.”
“Alrighty, alrighty!” said John Philo with spirit. “Everyone is here. By the way, I brought you a new friend, Alicia. Sure, you all know her. She’s here because of her… foolish—I mean noble—act of volunteering herself in the sacrifice.” John guffawed after that.
“Sacrifice? What do you mean, sacrifice?” replied a guilty law officer.
That man in his midlife started a brief storytelling session. “I was inspired. I wanted to exact my revenge on you all, but I had nothing against you. That..., until a Deer Head from another world offered me magical powers, in return I must offer myself and all of you an offering sacrifice with it. All of this… is an apology to the spirit of my daughter, Esmer, who wanders, trapped in Hades’ lap! Your lives will be the ransom for her Eternal Peace.”
“You’re mad! Twisted!” John's unhinged proposition earned him the fear-laced condemnation from the rest. Meanwhile, Alicia was still processing the meaning of every word from Philo’s mouth. A hint, perhaps, that damned drug trafficking might have something to do with the Deer Head he mentioned. It was also possible that the same Deer Head plunged the late Caleb Dune into the same hole.
“Brethren, settle down. Consider this your redemption,” he added again. “You have two choices: I make you all swoon, arrange you in such a way and then turn us all into sculptures as a magnificent offering that will amaze Hades. Or, become the ungrateful rebels and I’ll turn you into effigies right away! Experience the torment in the mortal realm and in Tartarus. You cannot fight me."
Fear coursed through the captives. The three murderers rebelled by cursing while shedding tears. They did not know this man’s weakness, they did not know how to defeat him. Perhaps it was time for them to yield and suffer the consequences of their vile actions.
John fixed his gaze on Alicia. “You’re the smartest person who might know how to beat me. I’ll put you down first.”
His footsteps threatened Alicia who remained seated on the floor. But the Crimsonmane lady just shot her art teacher a sharp glare. “Not just might. I do!” She summoned Orb with her hand, then fired a plasma of pure Arcane, throwing John Philo to the vault door, then falling onto the solid cement ground!
John Philo’s polyethylene-coated eyes scowled at Alicia and her shining Orb. His chest constricted; the skin around his chest and neck strangely squirmed again.
“No! Not enough!” murmured Alicia. She improved her focus again. The enraged John Philo bolted to the frozen girl, thinking it was a perfect opening. But instead, an abrupt, more powerful blast thrust The Art Master once more, and he fell straight headfirst!
His skin almost reverted to its original state. John inflicted himself by altering his skin to be as hard as the cement floor. But the scrimmage between Khaos and Arcane still perched on his body, making the Cement-Lad shriek in torment. He mobilised the remaining Protos energy to counter the influence of the outstanding Arcane. His eyes turned mauve, followed by his neural system, just like Caleb Dune back then. The dark energy prevailed this time, and he succeeded in transmuting his skin into complete concrete. His luminous eyeballs remained true.
Time for Alicia to put the results of her short training into practice! She assumed a defensive stance as John Philo rushed in charge. The moderately heavy concrete hindered his agility, benefiting Alicia’s position in terms of speed. Even though Alicia was an amateur, she still could dodge every blow from John Philo. An Arcane shield sometimes was summoned to repel the Cement-Lad's concrete fists. However, John had his own fighting perks; Orb’s swing attacks could be easily dispelled by his mighty mitts—although repelling an Arcane sphere always came with a heavy toll.
The rest of the prisoners instead became spectators of the brawl. They were still finding an understanding of how the two underestimated buffoons presented an action-flicker class performance in front of their eyes. John Philo, with his uncontrollable rage, continued to launch a barrage of cemented pummels at Alicia. Alicia was just a little girl; of course, such feral assaults made her overwhelmed and her focus distracted. The girl was cornered against the wall. The tide had turned.
“You are an absolute scunner, Alicia! I should have killed you back there!”
Just as John Philo wanted to do his finishing touch at the Crimsonmane girl, a judge threw away a clay mug to his head.
“Real jessie you are! Fucking bampot, only dare to clipe a wee lass, don’t ye?” the judge cried.
At first, John just ignored it. Then James Bain—one of the culprits—joined in, “Aye, yer just as awfy as us coorsing yer dear wench!”
A very poor choice of words—or a proper one, considering the situation. The man halted. The man turned his rocky head to those degenerates.
Alicia took advantage of this momentum to slip away from John Philo. John was aware, immediately throwing a jab at Alicia’s face, but she proved agile enough to create a force field that enveloped her being! Arcane scalded his fist in an instant, along with Alicia’s turn to crash her back against the bunker wall. Even the dissipation of Orb’s shield was not enough to prevent Alicia from creating the crack in the wall. The strength of her art teacher was uncanny; it nearly put her in a blackout. One could not imagine her fate if she was a fraction of a second late; not only would her head turn into solid concrete, but it would have shattered her concrete skull to pieces upon impact.
“What… did you say… about my daughter?” John Philo asked slowly and coldly as he approached the perpetrators with his body riddled with holes and cracks.
Alicia’s vision blurred. Her alignment with Orb wavered. However, in a moment of dire need, Orb emitted a piercing sound that jolted her soul back to the realm of the living. With renewed clarity, she witnessed John about to crush their bones with his amorphous grip. The girl grabbed her magical companion again and summoned a colossal force field that protected them from the Cement-Lad’s clenched fists! John’s body turned volatile once more from continuous exposure to Arcane. He turned to Alicia, who was gasping as she tried to keep the aegis alive, and charged at her!
Alicia dispelled the bluish bulwark behind him and formed an Arcane safeguard for her own. The collision was so intense that Alicia almost lost the power of her shield.
Fortunately, the impact took its toll on John Philo. His steps faltered. The strength to direct black energy from his being waned. Alicia slowly rose, and fired a handful of all-powerful Arcane energies that John could no longer elude until he finally knelt before the Orb Mage!
A fleeting silence amongst them. “Is it done?” asked one of the culprit’s parents.
“Almost...”
Alicia took a moment to steady herself, her breath catching in her throat. John began to speak with a bitter tone. "Why won't you let me seek vengeance for my daughter? Can you truly bear to let her remain lost in the afterlife?"
"I may not know your daughter," replied Alicia. “But Esmer would be disappointed if you took someone’s life.”
“But, Esmer…!”
“If anything… if anything, you are the only reason she’s a restless, wandering soul. Sir Philo, please… let her go. These people will get the punishment they deserve...”
The last step. Alicia closed her eyes. Orb emanated a brilliant radiance, releasing a multitude of delicate plasma streams that enveloped John Philo's form. Though he could no longer vocalise his pain, the Arcane forces seared his body and cleansed his soul, purging the corruption of Khaos. As he underwent purification, his soul seemed to transcend the mortal realm, traversing the horizon into the untouched domain... []
John Philo could feel the tremor of fear through Alicia's body, though she tried her best to keep her composure. Unbeknownst to him, she still had an ace up her sleeve—or rather, inside her backpack—and all she had to do was just wait for the opportune moment. However, the traumas due to her being the victim of pranks and even several attempted murders made it difficult for her to quiet the clamour of dread in her mind.
With her right arm firmly clutched from behind and John's large palm almost suffocating her, her helplessness was stark. One careless move, the man could turn her into a plastic lump in the blink of an eye.
While waiting to arrive at the exhibition hall, the Art Teacher initiated a conversation. “If I heard correctly, you have a way of removing the Protos influence from my body. This Protos effect you’re referring to is the power I possess, isn’t it?”
“In t-theory, y-yes,” her answer was straightforward. “The influence of Protos left unchecked if it doesn’t corrupt the body, will corrupt the mind and soul.”
“Fascinating. Would you mind sharing a little more?”
“I think the power inside the grenade earlier can remove the Protos influence from you.”
“Both of us and them will die, eventually. Why should I care to remove this Protos magic from my body?”
The shaking of Alicia’s body became more pronounced as she struggled from his grip. John then pulled her right hand from behind to tame her.
“Mi-Mister Philo! You dinnae have to do this! The Protos particle is playing with your mind. Y-yer better than this!”
“Oh, fear not, my dear. You’re maybe the last person to die. So in exchange for such a gift, seal your mouth. I don’t need any more cliché advice from a snotty teenager like you!”
The elevator juddered to a halt, signalling their arrival at the designated floor. As the doors slid open, John guided Alicia through a dimly lit corridor that led to a formidable metal vault door, where the perpetrators were held captive. This level served not only as a refuge from any riotous danger but also as a repository for magic knowledge, housing forbidden relics and confiscated artefacts of magical origin.
On either side of the vault door stood two sentinels, vigilant wizards charged with safeguarding the bunker against any potential threats. Yet their resolve faltered when they caught sight of a young girl in the clutches of John Philo.
“Gentlemen! If you please, drop your magic wands, then open the vault and move to the wall on your side,” John Philo warned.
Complying with his command, the wizards reluctantly surrendered their magical implements. With the door creaking open, a dozen pairs of eyes peered out, capturing a scene of dread. The three murderers and their surviving kin, along with the law enforcement officers responsible for the case, stood there in terrified disbelief. Their pleas for the wizards to intervene changed into a chorus of ghastly screeches as John Philo froze the mages in time as statues of unyielding polyethene. A malevolent display of power.
"No! What are you doing?" Alicia also screamed, squirming behind John's restraints, but he cast his newest addition into the midst of the imprisoned gathering.
Alicia's mind went numb with shock as the petrified wizards before her. Their organs had failed them to withstand the touch of Philo's enchanted hands. She scrambled backwards, joining the others in their retreat as John sealed off the bunker, trapping them all within its walls.
Nervous glances were exchanged as Alicia joined their ranks. One of the doers, Calum Little, murmured to the girl, “You… Alicia? How can you be here? Did your father also—”
“W-what? Nae danger, silly!" she whispered back. “I’ve j-just made him a wee bit carnaptious, I guess.”
“Alrighty, alrighty!” said John Philo with spirit. “Everyone is here. By the way, I brought you a new friend, Alicia. Sure, you all know her. She’s here because of her… foolish—I mean noble—act of volunteering herself in the sacrifice.” John guffawed after that.
“Sacrifice? What do you mean, sacrifice?” replied a guilty law officer.
That man in his midlife started a brief storytelling session. “I was inspired. I wanted to exact my revenge on you all, but I had nothing against you. That..., until a Deer Head from another world offered me magical powers, in return I must offer myself and all of you an offering sacrifice with it. All of this… is an apology to the spirit of my daughter, Esmer, who wanders, trapped in Hades’ lap! Your lives will be the ransom for her Eternal Peace.”
“You’re mad! Twisted!” John's unhinged proposition earned him the fear-laced condemnation from the rest. Meanwhile, Alicia was still processing the meaning of every word from Philo’s mouth. A hint, perhaps, that damned drug trafficking might have something to do with the Deer Head he mentioned. It was also possible that the same Deer Head plunged the late Caleb Dune into the same hole.
“Brethren, settle down. Consider this your redemption,” he added again. “You have two choices: I make you all swoon, arrange you in such a way and then turn us all into sculptures as a magnificent offering that will amaze Hades. Or, become the ungrateful rebels and I’ll turn you into effigies right away! Experience the torment in the mortal realm and in Tartarus. You cannot fight me."
Fear coursed through the captives. The three murderers rebelled by cursing while shedding tears. They did not know this man’s weakness, they did not know how to defeat him. Perhaps it was time for them to yield and suffer the consequences of their vile actions.
John fixed his gaze on Alicia. “You’re the smartest person who might know how to beat me. I’ll put you down first.”
His footsteps threatened Alicia who remained seated on the floor. But the Crimsonmane lady just shot her art teacher a sharp glare. “Not just might. I do!” She summoned Orb with her hand, then fired a plasma of pure Arcane, throwing John Philo to the vault door, then falling onto the solid cement ground!
John Philo’s polyethylene-coated eyes scowled at Alicia and her shining Orb. His chest constricted; the skin around his chest and neck strangely squirmed again.
“No! Not enough!” murmured Alicia. She improved her focus again. The enraged John Philo bolted to the frozen girl, thinking it was a perfect opening. But instead, an abrupt, more powerful blast thrust The Art Master once more, and he fell straight headfirst!
His skin almost reverted to its original state. John inflicted himself by altering his skin to be as hard as the cement floor. But the scrimmage between Khaos and Arcane still perched on his body, making the Cement-Lad shriek in torment. He mobilised the remaining Protos energy to counter the influence of the outstanding Arcane. His eyes turned mauve, followed by his neural system, just like Caleb Dune back then. The dark energy prevailed this time, and he succeeded in transmuting his skin into complete concrete. His luminous eyeballs remained true.
Time for Alicia to put the results of her short training into practice! She assumed a defensive stance as John Philo rushed in charge. The moderately heavy concrete hindered his agility, benefiting Alicia’s position in terms of speed. Even though Alicia was an amateur, she still could dodge every blow from John Philo. An Arcane shield sometimes was summoned to repel the Cement-Lad's concrete fists. However, John had his own fighting perks; Orb’s swing attacks could be easily dispelled by his mighty mitts—although repelling an Arcane sphere always came with a heavy toll.
The rest of the prisoners instead became spectators of the brawl. They were still finding an understanding of how the two underestimated buffoons presented an action-flicker class performance in front of their eyes. John Philo, with his uncontrollable rage, continued to launch a barrage of cemented pummels at Alicia. Alicia was just a little girl; of course, such feral assaults made her overwhelmed and her focus distracted. The girl was cornered against the wall. The tide had turned.
“You are an absolute scunner, Alicia! I should have killed you back there!”
Just as John Philo wanted to do his finishing touch at the Crimsonmane girl, a judge threw away a clay mug to his head.
“Real jessie you are! Fucking bampot, only dare to clipe a wee lass, don’t ye?” the judge cried.
At first, John just ignored it. Then James Bain—one of the culprits—joined in, “Aye, yer just as awfy as us coorsing yer dear wench!”
A very poor choice of words—or a proper one, considering the situation. The man halted. The man turned his rocky head to those degenerates.
Alicia took advantage of this momentum to slip away from John Philo. John was aware, immediately throwing a jab at Alicia’s face, but she proved agile enough to create a force field that enveloped her being! Arcane scalded his fist in an instant, along with Alicia’s turn to crash her back against the bunker wall. Even the dissipation of Orb’s shield was not enough to prevent Alicia from creating the crack in the wall. The strength of her art teacher was uncanny; it nearly put her in a blackout. One could not imagine her fate if she was a fraction of a second late; not only would her head turn into solid concrete, but it would have shattered her concrete skull to pieces upon impact.
“What… did you say… about my daughter?” John Philo asked slowly and coldly as he approached the perpetrators with his body riddled with holes and cracks.
Alicia’s vision blurred. Her alignment with Orb wavered. However, in a moment of dire need, Orb emitted a piercing sound that jolted her soul back to the realm of the living. With renewed clarity, she witnessed John about to crush their bones with his amorphous grip. The girl grabbed her magical companion again and summoned a colossal force field that protected them from the Cement-Lad’s clenched fists! John’s body turned volatile once more from continuous exposure to Arcane. He turned to Alicia, who was gasping as she tried to keep the aegis alive, and charged at her!
Alicia dispelled the bluish bulwark behind him and formed an Arcane safeguard for her own. The collision was so intense that Alicia almost lost the power of her shield.
Fortunately, the impact took its toll on John Philo. His steps faltered. The strength to direct black energy from his being waned. Alicia slowly rose, and fired a handful of all-powerful Arcane energies that John could no longer elude until he finally knelt before the Orb Mage!
A fleeting silence amongst them. “Is it done?” asked one of the culprit’s parents.
“Almost...”
Alicia took a moment to steady herself, her breath catching in her throat. John began to speak with a bitter tone. "Why won't you let me seek vengeance for my daughter? Can you truly bear to let her remain lost in the afterlife?"
"I may not know your daughter," replied Alicia. “But Esmer would be disappointed if you took someone’s life.”
“But, Esmer…!”
“If anything… if anything, you are the only reason she’s a restless, wandering soul. Sir Philo, please… let her go. These people will get the punishment they deserve...”
The last step. Alicia closed her eyes. Orb emanated a brilliant radiance, releasing a multitude of delicate plasma streams that enveloped John Philo's form. Though he could no longer vocalise his pain, the Arcane forces seared his body and cleansed his soul, purging the corruption of Khaos. As he underwent purification, his soul seemed to transcend the mortal realm, traversing the horizon into the untouched domain... []
