Reaching Salvation: Post-Acer Part 5

"What do you want?" Tom replied gruffly to Eithne.

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Luke found the small brown paper bag he has been keeping in his bag, and reached inside, finding a small loaded pistol. He knew he couldn't fight Nathan hand-to-hand. Where had Kira gone?

"Heidi, would you please stop for a second, Sage needs my help right now." Joey called to the giil in the hole

"We need'ta talk." Eithne said imploringly.

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Nathan arrived within seconds and stopped in front of Luke. Seeing the gun, he raised an eyebrow slightly. "Long time no see..."

"No, you bastard," Heidi spat stubbornly, wiping the dried blood off her face.

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Kira finally reached the edge of the forest, trying to spread her Flow out over it. It wouldn't make Nathan's go away, but it could suppress the feeling of demise.

"Heidi, you're being unreasonable." Joey replied. "...If I win this fight, will you let me go?"

"Yeah, shame I've been busy these last few years," Tom retorted.

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Luke raised the gun at Nate.

"I swear to God Nathan, you back the fuck off or I'll shoot you," he snapped.

Heidi frowned. "You know, all I have to do is freeze the blood in your head, or heart, and then you're dead, right?" she asked, giggling slightly out of bloodlust.

"And all I'd have to do is collapse the hole you're in, and you'd die as well.

Heidi sighed, not moving from where she was sitting. Joey felt his blood quickly change from being solid-ish, to pumping faster and faster.

"Thank you...." Joey said, before raising Heidi out of the hole, and filling it, before running off to help Sage.

Unfortunately for Joey, his heart rate continued speeding up, until it was far past the normal point. "Did I say I was done?"

Joey paused, before sighing. "..You insist on doing this?"

"I'm sorry... I had to follow Shima's orders." Eithne said with a sigh.

---

Nathan looked at Luke and concentrated all of his flow to bring it crashing down on the Irish adult. His gaze was a dark one. "You know, I could kill you right here. End this pathetic weak life that you've been given."

"Right now all you are is a bitter, broken shell of your former self. As for your flow, what can you do? Start a camp fire? Maybe keep yourself warm? Even my son is probably stronger than you and he's barely even two months old from the feel of things." Slowly he advanced.

"The thing is, I'm not here to kill you. Despite what you think, I truly am sorry for what happened and for the mistakes I made. Power corrupted me and because of that you're this sorry excuse for a man and Kira is even more scared of things than she was to begin with." Nathan stopped advancing and placed his hands in his pockets. "All I ever wanted to do was protect people. You've all people know that after you saw into my head all those years ago when I absorbed Fire..."

He felt the power radiate as he touched the gem with his fingertips. "I've come to make up for what I did back then."

"Unless you want to get the hell out of the village?" Heidi asked, keeping her Flow focused as she remained sitting on the ground, her eyes closed.

"Prove it," Luke replied, giving Nathan a chance but not lowering the gun.

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Tom chuckled bitterly.

"Yeah, that's a really big consolation. I mean, I lost five years of my life and you broke the promise you made to me, and I had to go through excruciating mental agony for five years, but at least you followed orders, right?"

"I'm not leaving Heidi." Joey replied, his hands beginning to glow. "I am not going to abandon her."

"D'you even remember why I joined Shima!?" Eithne spat irritably. "Ta protect my friends in the tower. If I didn't get ya' to join us then he woulda' killed you."

---

Nathan moved with inhuman speed and flicked the gem at Luke. "Catch!" A grin formed on his face.

"You say that now," Heidi scoffed, pushing herself to her feet, continuing to speed up Joey's pulse. "Y'know, if your pulse gets too fast or slow, you'll die. Blood is a tricky thing to work with when you don't want to kill someone."

"I just told you, I am not abandoning her." Joey said. "Stop now, or I won't be able to bring myself to hold back, any longer.'

Luke caught it with impressive reflexes. The burning hadn't affected things like that and he was naturally quite quick and agile, even if his Flow made him a bit more brute-forcey. All of a sudden he began to glow red, his broken red glow beginning to come together. He lit up on fire, roaring at first but gradually feeling much better, he wrapped himself in his fire blanket, since unchecked he would set Kira's forest alight.

Eventually he emerged, breathing heavily, and panting, his charred flesh still smoking.

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"Well a fat lot of good y'did there," Tom replied, his Irish accent becoming more pronounced as he got more irritated.

"Go for it," Heidi snarled bitterly.

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Kira ran into the clearing, a panicked look on her face as she tried to regain her breath. "Out!" she screamed at Nathan, hoping that he hadn't scared Luke too much.

"Can you feel that?" Nathan asked confidently. "Feel the ebb and flow of power around you? Can you feel your internal heat budding?"

He himself could see Luke's power returning with IA. "Come with me out of the forest. You're going to be experiencing full adult level power bursts every couple of minutes some of them are ones you won't be able to stop."

"I'm returning to you what I took from you, have your flow back, Luke."

Seeing Kira caused Nathan to raised an eyebrow. "Not now, Kira."

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Eithne growled to himself. "What the hell else was I sposed ta'do!?"

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OOC: Brb, shower.

That's when he turned, firing a fast blast of Flow, right at her.

Unknowing of the fight going on between her husband and her friend, Erika leaned back against a tree as she rubbed her stomach. "How about a song? I don't know if you have ears yet to hear but I hope you like it."

The brunette began to sing. "Day to night, dark to light. Fall the sands of time. Let the years like the gears of the clock unwind..."

Al and Josh were playing nearby and heard the song. It sounded... familiar...

Kira's eyes flickered back and forth between Luke and Nathan, not sure what was going on. Either way, her breathing started becoming irregular, and she started pulling at her jacket.

"I-I d-didn't s-say y-y-you c-could come h-here," she stuttered, shaking. "Th-This is my h-home, N-Nathan, m-my h-home..."

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OOC: Since when can Joey solidify Flow?