The Soul Engine Ch. 12 (Original Fantasy) (Patreon)

A/N: Mikael and the City Guards have their first showdown~

-x-X-x-

Standing there outside the warehouse, frozen in place, Mikael suddenly wonders why he even leapt down from the second floor balcony in the first place. Hadn’t he just been thinking about how with his enhanced strength, he should be able to clear the gap between the balcony and the nearby roof? Certainly, if he could make a twenty foot leap from a still position, he should have been able to run and leap across a thirty foot gap with room to spare.

“Turn around! Hands where I can see them! What are you doing around here, wearing a cloak like that?”

“Must be a little lost!”

“Is that it? Are you lost, friend?”

No, more than that… not making the leap to the next rooftop was one thing. But why had he stopped when the guard told him to in the first place? By all rights, he should have just kept going and slipped away before the guards could catch up. Now though… now they’ve approached. They’re just behind him and he can hear their hands coming down to rest on the pommels of their swords.

… He can feel the pommel of his stolen sword as well, and belatedly Mikael realizes something. The decisions he’s made that have led up to this point, from leaping down from the balcony to the ground level, to stopping when the guard called out to him… they weren’t unconscious decisions as he’d originally thought. They were quite conscious… they just weren’t HIS conscious decisions.

He should have wondered why the dead men occupying so much of his mind had fallen quiet. They hadn’t. They’d just gotten a bit more subtle. Now? Now he felt it in his bones. The urge to kill. The urge to destroy. He’s a warrior, a soldier, a criminal, and a monster all wrapped up in one man. And all of them want this fight. They’re YEARNING for it.

Mikael doesn’t want it though. He doesn’t want to kill anyone that he doesn’t have to. Hell, he doesn’t even want to HURT anyone he doesn’t have to. But they’re too close for him to try and run away now. The likelihood of being followed, or of running into more of the City Guard and not being able to slip back into the sewers as easily as he wanted… it was too damn high.

Slowly, making sure to keep the hood of his cloak down low to obscure his features, Mikael turns around. There’s only two of the five guards currently on him. The other three are back near the warehouse. A warehouse that’s currently on fire, though it’s not quite showing it. The blaze is still contained for the moment, but not for much longer Mikael suspects. No, not much longer now.

Trying to juggle pushing back on the foreign entities in his head who want to kill, while also drawing on their experience to make his voice as menacing as possible, Mikael shows off his sword and tries for intimidation.

“You don’t want any of this, friend. I promise you that.”

There had been nothing friendly about the guard’s use of the word ‘friend’, so Mikael honestly saw no issue with turning the tactic back around on him. When the guard had called Mikael ‘friend’ it was in a derisive, mocking tone. When Mikael calls the guard ‘friend’, it’s with a sharpened edge, to let him know that this isn’t a fight he can handle.

… Unfortunately, neither of the men stood in front of Mikael are battle-hardened warriors. Neither are soldiers who have seen even a single battlefield. They might know how to use those swords at their waists, and they might be used to walking around in the armor they’re wearing, but that doesn’t make them fighters. It just makes them cocky.

They exchange a look with one another… and then burst out laughing in unison. Mikael grits his teeth, doing his best to constrain his violent impulses, to strangle the urge to murder both men in its crib. Alas, he’s not quite successful… Tak’s sword comes out of the sheath at his side a full inch, making a distinctive noise that causes both guards to immediately stop laughing and draw their own weapons fully.

Mikael still doesn’t draw his entirely out of its sheath. He knows once he does that, this will truly be past the point of no return. Although… it might already be there.

“Really? Baring steel to a City Guard? Do you have a death wish? Surrender and come quietly and maybe you’ll finish your interrogation with all your teeth intact.”

… Mikael is sure that there are some good guards in this city. Men who are just trying to make ends meet, or even trying to make a difference. Not every member of the City Guard is a hopelessly corrupt thug with delusions of grandeur and overwhelming arrogance. But these two? Mikael can see the ugliness in every line of their beings but most of all in their eyes. These two might have nicer armor, and they might be a little prettier as well, but they’re thugs just like Tak and his goons.

He still doesn’t want to kill them though. He really, really doesn’t want to kill them. Call it what you will. Pride, maybe. A certain level of squeamishness, perhaps. Or maybe just pettiness. The same memories that got him into this mess, all but prodding him into getting caught by the guards, are now urging him to finish it in a decisive manner. And Mikael simply doesn’t want to give those dead men swimming around in his head what they want.

However, before he can say or do anything else… the situation escalates.

“FIRE! FIRE IN THE WAREHOUSE!”

Both guards spin around at that and admittedly, Mikael SHOULD have ran then and there. But this one he can’t fully blame on his foreign memories. No, in this case the curiosity he suddenly feels is all too native. Tilting his head back to look up, he gets a good view of the warehouse he’d just set ablaze finally going up in flames. The whole place is starting to burn, and the smoke is heavy and black above the building.

He brings his head back down just as the two guards spin back around to him, their swords still out and pointed in his general direction. The one who’s done the most talking clenches his jaw and snarls.

“Alright, you’re coming with us, even if I have to take off a couple of your limbs to make you more compliant. Lord Zadicus is going to want to question you personally.”

The guard starts to stomp forward, and his partner follows him. For a moment, Mikael considers it. Surrendering. It would solve everything oh so neatly if they really did take him straight to his quarry. Getting nice and close to Zadicus Quinn was all that Mikael wanted. He needed to force the bastard to give him his memories back and tell him how he was supposed to get home.

… But no. He knows he’s screwed if he winds up in chains again. He remembers the chains in the arena. Enchanted and with an enchantment strong enough that they took a full strength blow from Thayla’s sword without breaking. There was just no telling whether Mikael would be able to leverage his own enhanced strength from the Soul Engine to overpower such a handicap. And there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Zadicus would make sure he was in chains before any ‘questioning’ took place.

He can’t let himself be captured. His confrontation with the Lord of Alether has to happen on his own terms. As Mikael decides this, the guards finish closing the gap and the first steps forward to swing his sword. One would think that Mikael would be out of time, since he hasn’t even drawn his blade fully yet. But… no.

In a flash, Mikael has his own sword out and blocks the first guard’s blade with ease. He sends the man stumbling backwards from the force of the deflection, the guard’s eyes going wide from Mikael’s display of strength. Meanwhile, the second guard curses and lunges forward as well, attempting to stab Mikael in the chest… in his nonexistent heart.

While it might have been amusing to let the guard’s blade deflect off of the Soul Engine’s outer casing, Mikael wasn’t about to test it in an environment like this one. Instead, he reaches up with a gloved hand and… almost easily bats the flat of the guard’s blade, turning it aside and making the man overextend and go stumbling past him.

It would almost be funny… if the first guard hadn’t already recovered enough to shout at the top of his lungs.

“ARSONIST! ARSONIST HERE! GET THE FUCK OVER HERE AND BACK US UP!”

With a guard now on either side of him, Mikael lets out a low sigh as the other three guards staring at the burning warehouse in horror all spin around at the call, immediately rushing over. He supposed it was too much to expect them to occupy themselves with trying to put out the fire. To be fair, they probably weren’t actually trained for how to deal with warehouse fires. He doubted that they were all volunteer firefighters in their off time, if a city like Alether even had a vocation like that.

With the other three hurrying to back them up, the first two both come in at him again, each trying to strike him from a different side to make it impossible for him to defend against them both. Mikael just shakes his head as he easily dodges their swings, his jaw clenching.

In the end, it made sense that the guards would all go for what they knew over trying to fight something that would literally cook them alive inside of their armor. After all, better to have a culprit to present to Lord Zadicus then to come before him with empty hands and soot-covered faces, as well as an entire burnt down warehouse they would have to explain.

Unfortunately, where they were concerned… they were out of their league. With all five surrounding him now, Mikael couldn’t afford to just be defensive anymore. But that wasn’t a bad thing for him… it was a bad thing for his opponents. As the guards all attack, Mikael finally counterattacks, his sword cutting through the air… and slamming against the helmeted side of one of their heads.

The flat of Tak’s blade smashes into the helmet and sends the guard careening to the side into one of his fellows. Both men fall to the ground in a tangle of armored limbs. Meanwhile, Mikael puts on a burst of speed powered by his Soul Engine, the teal glow so bright it almost begins to show through the leather jerkin he has on. He dances among the other three guards and blocking one of them with his sword, he lashes out with a closed fist at the other and punches him right in the face.

The knock to the head sends the guard collapsing to the ground. Of course, it’s not quite so simple as Mikael suddenly being down to two opponents. His… reluctance to go for killing blows means that the first two he disabled are already getting up again. And while there’s now blood seeping from the third’s nose… he doesn’t stay down for long either.

It doesn’t matter. None of the guards are fast enough or strong enough to keep up with him. But more than that, they aren’t coordinated enough to truly use their greater numbers against them. Mikael finds himself noting all of the mistakes they make. The ways they fail to work like a proper team. The City Guard of Alether is not some well-oiled machine. In the end… he doesn’t have to kill them.

The fighting feels like it lasts an eternity, but truthfully is probably more like five minutes. Just long enough that Mikael hears shouting from off in the distance even as he looks around himself to find he’s surrounded by five groaning bodies. Some of the guards are cradling broken limbs. Some are sporting bleeding stab wounds. But none of them are dead or dying. And none of them are likely to wind up that way so long as they get medical attention in a relatively reasonable time frame.

The temptation to kill them and absorb their souls is there though. Mikael finds himself a little out of breath as he stands over them, the power reserve in his Soul Engine definitely lower than it was before due to how much energy he just expended in sparing their lives.

… But he can’t absorb their souls. It wouldn’t be tactically sound. If he absorbed their souls, he’d leave behind their husks just like he left behind the husks of Tak and his men in Avina’s basement. And since Zadicus already knew about those, it would automatically connect this attack on the warehouse to Avina and whatever she was up to. And it might start to make Zadicus suspicious about just what Avina had managed to achieve.

For now, the state of those three thugs’ bodies could be attributed to some sort of one and done accomplishment on Avina’s end. But if Mikael were to start going around absorbing the souls of every guard who crossed his path… the cat would be out of the bag quite quickly. It’s a good argument, and one that actually manages to sway the more tactically minded of those soldiers in his head that Mikael is able to successfully push aside the urge to kill his defeated opponents and MOVE.

Turning away from the groaning, writhing guards, Mikael leaves the scene of the crime, hurrying out of sight and back into the sewers before any more reinforcements can arrive.

The adrenaline crash hits him once he’s down there though, and he has to lean against a filthy wall to get his bearings for a moment.

“Fuck…”

After a brief pause however, a smile spreads across his face.

“I did it…”

And did it he had. The first warehouse had burned. He’d stuck around an inadvisably long amount of time, but at least he could say that with certainty. The warehouse and all of its contents had burnt to ash. Whether Zadicus was going to be willing to pay to reimburse his clients or choose to have a bunch of angry merchants on his hands, this was sure to hurt his bottom line. And it was only the beginning too.

Pushing off the wall, Mikael stumbles for a moment down the length of the sewer… and then he hears them. The chittering rats. They’re actually getting closer than they usually do. Perhaps because they sense weakness?

“Heh. You lot must think I’m some sort of drunk or something. Think I’m going to pass out down here so you can chew off my face? Well… think again.”

Sheathing his sword at his waist, Mikael reaches out with both hands… and pulls.

“Mm… come to papa…”

The shrieking of the rats all around him is like music to his ears as he yanks their souls right out of their bodies and into his engine. Sucking up their energy and fueling his flagging reserves, Mikael lets out shuddering breath. When he next steps forward, he does so with much more surety in his steps.

A day well spent. A job well done. A mission accomplished. Mikael grins as he makes his way back to the safehouse. Hopefully Avina and Thayla had both been just as successful in their own endeavors.

-x-X-x-

A/N: Mikael staves off his bloodlust... for now. He's too strong for some simple guards to hinder him, so he can't hide behind self-defense if he kills them.

But how long will that really last? Hmm...

As always, hope people enjoyed and be sure to let me know what you think!