The Dream Shifter

Chapter 209

She drew him with her words. He felt himself becoming as desperate as her. The secret she learned, he had to know it. He needed to understand. "What is it? What about him?"

The vision vanished quickly on her. Only pieces remained as it cleaned itself up. She could not see almost anything of what she discovered. It all fell from her grasp faster than she could pick up. Athene coughed and wheezed as her body started to feel distant. "H-he-he…knows…every…thing… …no… …long…er… …hu…" All strength remaining her body disappeared. What remained of her collapsed in Simonides' arms as she went unconscious.

"Athene! Athene!" Simonides felt his heart pounding in his chest. The pain she was in confused him and spun him around. He never saw her have difficulty with any interrogation. Questions popped up in his mind. He looked down at her feeling that her body retained the warmth of life. She breathed still. 'Damn! What's going on? Nothing makes sense!'

He stood up picking up Athene in his arms. While she was older than him, he still worried about her like all of the men under him. It did not matter being the senior or not. She was his responsibility as the Captain. He looked over at the chair with the boy. "Check him! Find out what happened!"

"Captain…" Abeiron jumped a little not expecting the volume and intensity in his voice. He ran over to the kid that leaned over in the chair. While he did not move, Abeiron could see that he was unconscious as well. His body slumped in the chair with only the bindings holding him down. "He's alive, but out cold."

Simonides turned his head looking away from the scene. He cursed the situation and misfortune. Nothing went according to plan. "Have the guards stand watch inside the tent. I want to know the minute that this kid wakes up! I have a lot of questions that he's going to answer!"

"Yes, sir!" Abeiron went stiff as he watched the Captain march out of the tent. It had been a while seen he saw Simonides acting so strongly on emotions. During his earlier years in command, he saw him lose control and slip out of his strict regime. However, the years gave him experience and better control. 'This whole incident is affecting him…I wish I had answers for him…'

The Commander stepped out of the tent long after the Captain left. Outside, the guards stared at each other a little perplexed by the way the Captain walked out. Abeiron cleared his throat to bring the two to attention. "You're to stand guard on the prisoner inside the tent. Watch him closely and the moment he wakes up send a messenger to me, immediately. I want to speak with him. Understood?"

"Yes, Commander!" The guards turned and stiffly marched into the tent setting themselves up inside.

Once they disappeared, he let out a small sigh. His heart had not stopped pounding since he saw Athene in pain. He needed answers as well. 'l'll get you the answers you want, Captain. I won't let you bare this alone.'

Fumiko rushed to her feet trying to slow down Yumi, sensing that she might run off. She grabbed on to Yumi's shoulders to ground her. "What're you talking about, Yumi? Who did you see?"

"I know, Fumiko! It's clear to me! I was with my brother!" Yumi nodded reaffirming her certainty to herself. The confusion on Fumiko's face did not even process through her head. Her mind completely narrowed to a pinpoint on the connection her made. "He's tied to a chair in a tent. I felt it. I saw it! The soldiers had him. They're trying to get him to talk and he's struggling to hang on! I have to get to him now!"

"Yumi! Get a hold of yourself! You're not making any sense!" Fumiko found that she needed to use her strength to keep Yumi from moving. She struggled in an absent sense with her, as though not really seeing Fumiko. "Yumi?"

"He's waiting for me! I have to go now!"

A solid wind pounded into Fumiko knocking her off her feet. Fumiko did not know what happened in the next moments with her head reeling. She looked through blurry eyes from the grass to see the feet of Yumi march off from the camp. It took her even longer to pull herself back up to her feet, the pain in her stomach still lingered. 'What was that? What got in to her?' Fumiko turned over to Yumi in the distance. "Yumi! Come back!"

The further away Yumi got the more Fumiko knew she had to move, but her eyes stared down at the camp. She could not leave the two of them behind even with Yumi getting out of her sight. Fumiko had to be quick. Her hand reached down for Chiharu to wake her up, but before it came within reach Chiharu's hand snapped out grabbing her wrist. Chiharu's head flipped up to glare at her quickly with dark intent before it switched to neutral. "We need to move! Yumi's awake and I can't stop her!"

Chiharu stood up quickly, but rather than exchanging glances with Fumiko she stared at the ground. "Why is a fire lit?" Her eyes slid up to Fumiko, but did not find her. She turned herself to look at her flank. Already waking up Seiji, Chiharu kicked the fire and stamped it out. "Why did you make a fire?"

"Hey, Seiji! We've got to go!" Fumiko slapped him a couple of times after she found that shaking him did nothing. It seemed to get him to stir a little, but nothing that made progress. She let out an exasperated sigh. Her hand closed up loosely before glowing threads of energy wrapped around her wrist. The threads ran around her fingers into her palm building into a small flame that enveloped her hand. Fumiko then redirected her hand opening her fingers back and pointing her index finger at Seiji. The flames all gathered in her index finger and shot out like a beam as it hit his butt.

It took a few moments of burning, smoking and searing to reach the pain centers of Seiji. Once he became alert to the fire on him, he jumped up quickly and ran panicked circles around the camp. The smoke trailed around him a little before he snuffed out the flame by sitting down. While his hand rubbed the burn, he glared over at Fumiko knowing who attacked him. "What the hell was that for?"

"Yumi's awake and leaving! We need to move!"

"But why did you burn me?"

"I don't have time for this…" Fumiko picked up her bag and staff. She started to run after Yumi in the distant direction she remembered her leaving. Seiji and Chiharu quickly caught up taking up her flanks on each side.

"Why was a fire made?" demanded Chiharu, still insistent on an answer.

"No, why did you set me on fire!"

"Don't you know that the enemy could see the fire and could have attacked us?"

"I think you burned all the way through my clothes!"

"You need to think more about the situation. Remember that you're in enemy territory."

"This is going to leave a mark!"

Fumiko's body shook listening to their complaints. They did not have the time to whine about small details with Yumi ahead of them, again. She tried to shut out their voices, but they continued. Even in her silence, they did not understand. After a minute of their bickering, she reached her limit. Both of her hands suddenly lit up with flames that towered over her head. She stopped and looked at the two of them with the deepest glare of a demon that she could muster. "I can make a bonfire that everyone in the country can see if you don't shut up! And I can turn you into barbeque if you're so worried about your skin! There's more important matters right! So shut up and run! Got anything else to say?"

The two turned dark blue before Fumiko's image and shied away from her presence. She glared at them waiting on a response. When they found themselves unable to answer, they simply shook their heads. They did not want to increase her wrath further. Fumiko nodded pleasantly to them and ran faster after Yumi. Seiji and Chiharu sprinted to catch up.

Despite their efforts, catching up to Yumi turned out to be not as simple as running after her. It did not seem possible, but she maintained a surprisingly fast pace that had the others confused. They kept her in their sights, but nothing more seemed to be achievable.

Seiji's frustration in the situation came out in his heavy breathing. He paced it poorly staggering him, but refused to let it slow him down. "Damn…girl… I thought we were a team!"

"I don't think it's that," remarked Fumiko, with a light shake of her head. She thought back to their conversation when she woke up. Much of what she heard did not make a lot of sense to her, even after having more time to consider it. However, the confusing words made her reach one conclusion about Yumi. "I don't believe her actions now are conscious ones. She sounded consumed, almost possessed by her own words. I think something different is at work."

"The hell you saying? That doesn't make any damn sense either! You saying they got something to do with this?"

Fumiko let out a sigh after hearing him. She wanted to pause and slap him for his stupidity, but did not have the time to afford him. "No, I think it's her own powers. She never really explained much about them to us, but the little I've seen makes me believe it's more of a mental type."

"How the hell does that help us?" he complained. A short burst of speed pushed him back into a tie with the rest of them. His emotions slowed down his legs pulling him away from them, but he needed to keep with them. The explanation tried his brain.

The lack of understanding forced Fumiko's hand. She slid to a stop, her feet grinding into the grass. Her hand came out and grabbed Seiji by his tunic. "How simple minded do you have to be to understand this? She's still new to her powers! So she doesn't have full control over them and so she balances between losing that control and being controlled by her powers!"

"What makes you think you know so much?"

"This is the basics! Don't you read at all? All protagonists with power go through a period of exploration where they walk a line between rising with strength or being consumed by the darkness of power!"

Seiji narrowed his eyes suddenly after hearing her response. The answer sounded too familiar to him. His face turned flat and he pointed his index finger at her. "What's with you? You're sounding like Yuki right now."

Fumiko turned a little red with embarrassment, but dispelled it quickly with a redirect of emotions. "I'm part of the Literature Club!" Her hand gripped on to the fabric of his cloths tighter. "We look at this stuff routinely!"

"You sure it's not the Manga Club?"

"I read fantasy! Got a problem with that?" The eyes in Fumiko underlined a desperation in her defense that went beyond simply Seiji questioning her reading habits. Thick as Seiji was, he saw the look in her eyes and backed away from pressing the issue.

"I do," replied Chiharu, tone deaf to the situation. The answer did pull the two in her direction though, as she wanted. "The girl's getting out of sight."

"Crap!" Fumiko casted away Seiji and turned to confront their continuing problem.

Chiharu raised her hand up to the two to stop them. "I'll go ahead and stop her. I believe your analysis of the girl is accurate." She tapped the tops of her shoes against the ground, in a testing manner. "While my speed is not that of the Furukawa girl, I'm confident I can reach her."