Tales Of A Shifter (B6) - The Child Of Sun & Moon

Chapter 16 - Her First Game

Chapter 16

Brandon frowned, sensing Ann’s growing sorrow as the woman’s fists balled into her ruined dress and her brown eyes just got darker and stared further away then the flames into the cold unchanging past.

“You said she was murdered...playing the Game?” Brandon quietly asked.

“Yeah...” Ann stiffly said, looking at him then back down.

Then Brandon prompted her. “But from what I understand about the Game its like a formal challenge that can be resolved by dominating or killing another Alchemist. But mostly its all about power and status. The Game is used to establish hierarchy in the Brotherhood but why on earth would kids need to be playing the Game...not to mention...”

Ann chuckled cutting him off. “Brandon...” she softly called. “There isn’t a child alive in this world who doesn’t crave power and recognition. There isn’t an orphan that doesn’t desire intensely to be seen as special or exceptional in some way and in the society of our people, an Alchemist that can out maneuver, out think and manifest more Mana then their peers is seen as a superior Child of the Sun...” Ann’s lips twisted in distaste as she finished. “A powerful Mana User was a child specifically touched by God Bane....our dark Scion. Extraordinary. Special....”

Brandon squinted at Ann, then he looked at the flames and he said with a dark smirk. “So...what happened to Melda? How did she die, was she not special enough?” the question came out snarky but he hated to hear anything having to do with the Bane and the Brotherhoods blind faith in the disgusting creatures masquerading as the God of Mana.

Ann didn’t take offense to his question, probably because she was too busy casting him a dark smirk of her own before she scoffed. “Melda was a stubborn little idiot...as I said before she was more like a scared little puppy to me....” Ann rolled her eyes. “She was only a few months younger then me, but I always had to care for her. I had to help her reach things, or carry things. She was always begging to climb into my cot at night and she would constantly cry about leaving the Base because she didn’t like it when we got hit or lashed by a foul tempered Brother or Sister in our classes. She became especially hysterical when...”

Anns voice faltered and the woman’s eyes closed tight. Brandon saw her work her throat as if fighting vomit, but after a second or two she continued. “...when we started receiving our blessings from the Bane himself after out 11th birthdays.”

To say that Brandon was disgusted and horrified at this revelation....would have been a complete understatement. Far in the back of his mind the Druid remembered the utter violation he had experienced at the hands of the Bane when the creatures had taken hold of the Mana in him and twisted the vibrations to release an avalanche of vile pleasure that had left him feeling utterly defiled in the end. The way it had felt when Aron had taken him against his will as a boy...ravaged and spoiled by the beasts trapped in the body of the Ghoul.

Oh god...

Brandon shuddered and reeled back in his mind.

Oh god did those EVIL bastards do that to children...to Ann and Eric when they were only kids...?

Honestly it made total sense that the Bane had done it to all the Mana Users even the Children because how better to engender such manic and indoctrinated followers then to r**e them all of their lives and tell them its love.

And it not like the Druid needed more reasons to but he definitely felt his hatred for the sick beings grow just a little more intense.

Suddenly Ann laughed again, but it was hard and sardonic. “She used to get so upset and cry like a baby, but we were told that it was a good thing when the Bane came to us. I wanted to be loved on and given Gods pleasure. It felt good and I liked when God moved in me so I couldn’t understand her and her insipid tears just made me so angry...and confused!” her voice rose as she expressed frustrated anger, but Brandon sensed that she was just hiding her own grief so he cut in.

“Ann sstop...its okay...” Brandon called over her. His teeth clenched hard on fury but he tried not to show it. “Just stop...we don’t have to talk about this please....”

“Fine...” Ann stared at him, her brown gaze just as unflinching and cold as always but the tightness in her shoulders did flee as she stiffly nodded once, gathered a breath and she started up again. “Suffice to say Melda was a weakling and she wasn’t exactly adjusting to our new lives a Children of the Sun...”

Yeah...I mean who doesn’t want to live under the ground and be fed a steady stream of genocidal hate speech about Shifters and also get r***d by an invisible God they cant see. Sounds like heaven on earth!

Brandon held in the snarky thoughts, mostly because he knew they were grossly inappropriate and also because he knew that Ann was just a victim in all of this and his anger was not at her for drinking the cool-aid as a child, but at the Brotherhood that had hurt her...and hurt him.

“But you know what...Melda always stayed by my side.” Ann suddenly smirked. “As much as she frustrated me and her weakness disgusted me...she had a strange loyalty to me and wherever I went she was determined to follow...even thought she was weaker, and slower and stupid...”

Ann’s voice cracked and she shook her head as if to clear her mind. The Mana User brushed at her arm as if dashing off a bug, sniffed and refolded her arms over her legs so she could look back to the fire. Brandon shifted up onto his elbow and rested his chin in his right palm, watching her around the side of the fires glow.

“Melda used to tell me “We’re Sisters so I have to take care of you...” Ann scoffed. “We weren’t related by blood. I honestly wonder if she just stayed around me because she knew I was stronger and I kept the other girls from eating her alive...”

Brandon went to intercede at this point. “Ann..” he started to argue, knowing the woman was just speaking cruel and hiding her feelings.

“Regardless...” Ann quickly called over him casting him a steely look. “Soon enough two years had passed and it became clear that I was exceptionally gifted in the Manipulation of Mana and when it came to the my future in the Brotherhood I was slated to be one of the strongest Sisters in the Base, and just above me in power and status there was Eric Aron...the Grand Masters chosen protégé and adopted ward....”

Ann’s face clouded and her eyes danced with sadness. “I don’t know what came over me when I met this one boy, but I swear it was like all my priorities shifted...” Ann sighed hard and flexed her hands in a half shrug. “I am not so foolish to say it was love at first sight or anything like that...but when I saw Eric and witnessed his power and station even at so young an age I felt great....greed overcome me. I wanted to stand equal with him, I wanted to be just as popular and respected as Eric, and because I was so strong we both because fast friendly rivals....But behind me trailed insipid little Melda, and Melda was anything but exceptional. In fact as if she wasn’t already a waste of Mana Melda had decided that she refused to use her Mana at all!”

Uh-oh...

Brandon thought privately not liking where this story was going at all and even though it was clear that Ann’s childhood friend had died long ago, he still felt great tension growing as Ann told the tale of her demise.

“Eventually there came the time when in order for us to determine the physical power of Novices as well as determine who would be taken by which teachers to trained in more advanced level of Mana, which meant that we had to establish power among us thus....the First Game of our lives was launched...”

“The Games were celebrated by the blood of children spilled...” Ann wiped at her mouth as if to wipe away a nasty taste. "For three weeks, there was so much fighting...and more than a dozen of the weaker Novices died in the Game. Some of them were overwhelmed and beaten by mobs 10 to 1. Others were manipulated and maliciously grinded down into powerless meek puppets by their own friends...and then there were the ones who openly tried to challenge the strongest ones right out in the open without any subterfuge. Only for the challengers to then be so publicly shamed or even crippled that they killed themselves out of embarrassment or never dared to fight in another Game again....”

Brandon listened to the horrible darkness of it all and he was almost to afraid to ask his next question, but he did anyway. “So which one were you? I mean you obviously survived this first Game and many others just like it....so how'd you survive for so long? Manipulation or just power?”

“Oh I liked to mangle the faces of the girls that thought to challenge me to Games. I ruined their bodies broke spines and ribs. I found that after I cut off the last girls nose and she killed herself when the healer put it back on crooked...Well none of the other Novices tried to fight me that year or the next....” Ann smiled at him a gleaming glint of violence in her expression that Brandon couldn’t help but feel a sickening kindred understanding to mirrored in his own black soul.

Survival was never pretty and when survival was a game Brandon could only imagine ow twisted it could make a person. So he just shook his head and told her. “So Im guessing Melda wasn’t as badass as you?”

Anns slightly dark smirk fell away and she went cold again.

“No....Melda was beaten bloody twice and both times by a group of boy Novices. But she refused to fight them or use her Mana to defend herself and I couldn’t always protect her when I had a target on my own back because I was top of the classes when it came to be known that both me and Eric Aron were being considered as Novices to the Grand Master Hovel.”

Ann rolled her eyes. “God I remember Melda was still a big cry baby at this point. I told her that she was going to die if she didn’t get stronger and use Mana to fight and prover herself as a Child of the Sun. She...she just told me that she didn’t care if she died...”

Brandon listened with a heavy heart as he saw the other Mana User bite her lip then force herself to go on.

“Well...Melda got her wish in the end.” She breathed out slightly shaky as if she were trying to hold her tone steady. “You see the Grand Master and the High Council got wind about Melda and her refusal to use Mana...and they also found out that she was close to me....”

Ann struggled seemingly to catch her breath because her mouth worked twice up and down before she said. “They paired me with her and set us up in a tag team battle against two other boy Novices...” Ann scoffed.

“You know looking back on it I guess they were trying to kill me and Melda...”

The Druid made a sound of disgust and he asked. “What? Why?”

Ann just shrugged weakly. “Melda was the weakest Sister and so she was a disgrace to the Brotherhood and her death wouldn’t have been a tragedy....”

Brandon rose and eyebrow. “But you were one of the strongest kids there at the time...” he argued.

Ann nodded. “Exactly...and I rivaled the power of Eric Aron, the Saviors adopted son. This was a problem because I am a woman and Sisters are not seen as equal as Brothers. Hovel and many others did not agree with my power and most of all they did not want me to be a future Hand to the Grand Master.”

“Hand?” Brandon interjected in confusion at the new term.

“There are Seconds Hands to the Grand Master. I was a Third Hand, the first in a century. You see the Hand to the Grand Master is in many ways what being a Guardian is like. We cater to, protect, and follow the direct orders of our Grand Master the way Ezekiel and his siblings follow the command of their Clan Head...do you understand?” Ann explained quickly.

Brandon nodded. “Yeah, makes sense but in the Shifter Clans the tittle of Guardian is an honor as much as it is a choice. Mantilo never forced his sons to fight to be Guardians or excluded any one because of their s*x or power...”

Ann tossed her chin in a blasé fashion. “I can only tell you how it was in the Brotherhood and why I think I was sentenced to this Game with Melda even though I was guaranteed to lose with her on my team.”

Brandon twisted his lip, waved a hand and said. “Right right...so what happened in the tag team fight?”

Ann smiled slightly as she began to recount in a dry voice. “The first one to attack was me. I knew that Melda wouldn’t fight and I didn’t want her or me to die so I went in hard against the smallest of the boys on the other team who had black hair and cruel black eyes. He had a very strong Aura and for every two attack I hit him with one would miss or be struck aside. He hit me in the mouth and the back of the head with his fists wrapped in Mana so hard I lost teeth and my temple split open...” Ann touched her mouth and head as if she could feel a ghost of pain from the past, then she continued. Her voice even and quick, the pace of her words pulling Brandon along images played in his mind, and his heart hurt at the sense of finality and cool sadness around it all.

“Eventually I managed to serpentine my Mana into the air and slap it around his neck like a vice from behind. The black hair’d Novice fought the noose of black light as my power gripped his windpipe, but there was no escape. I concentrated on knocking him out, and I was so intent on my victory that I didn’t realizes that the other Novice had stopped trying to go after Melda and had turned his eyes on me. The boy had reddish brown hair, and he was larger than me by more then half... ”

Ann shook her head and tightened her grip on herself as if fighting a tremble.

“And yet despite that fact he launched a giant swath of pure deadly Mana at me so sharp and strong....that when it hit Melda as she jumped in the way it completely severed thigh bone and her...her right leg and...it...her stomach just....I....”

Ann’s voice eked to a whispering choke as she closed her gaze and put the heels of her fists to her eyes. “I was so angry. I was so confused. I screamed at her in disbelief and she laughed and told me that she was glad. ‘Im glad Im dying and your not’... thats what she said to me. Of course I don’t really remember what happened after that but I do remember screaming and holding her...and the blood and urine soaking into my clothes as I tried to push parts of her back into herself...”

Brandon shuddered at the ragged desolation and the terrible picture in his mind of Ann standing over her dismembered bloody friend...a sister in everything except blood.

“Ann...Im so...so sorry that they killed your friend...” he called out thickly and mournfully. Wishing there was more he could say.

"Im not sorry because she died, she killed herself!" Ann laughed broken and her voice laced with unshed tears. “Your just a much of a stupid fool as Melda was!” she shouted at him. “A waste of Mana is all that you’ll be! Running around asking to die and acting like that’s supposed to make other people happy!”

Brandon had no warning, no way of verbalizing what was about to happen. One moment he was standing up so he could walk to Ann, He wanted and he could sense how much she needed comfort and to feel another person beside her in her dark moment, but the next second his entire mind and senses were scattered and he felt all of his soul scream out and a snarling roar echoed back to him as he hit the ground...Ezekiel’s voice calling his name.

“Wait! Brandon! Brandon! No! Not again! We’re too vulnerable here!” Ann cried but her voice was swept into the darkness.