“Get away from her!” Annabelle shouted, panic in every word as she rose to stand her ground despite the barrier of the bars between them. 

The others quickly looked to Annabelle, and then back to the nameless girl, their faces masks of confusion and quickly building anxiety. 

“She helped us escape, Casper sent her to get us” Alex started with growing unease.

“She was in the auction house with me and Casper. She isn’t human, she is a monster…the girl is marked.” Annabelle barely managed to let the words out. Speaking them felt too real to her, felt too taboo, but it was the truth and the others needed to know. 

Alex stumbled backwards, pressing her back against the wall to try and get distance between herself and the nameless girl. 

Elisayra began to shiver, her legs failing and causing her to collapse as she shook her head. 

Nephinae gasped audibly, bringing a hand to her face, while Laihal moved to position herself between Alex and the nameless girl.

“Please…don’t hurt us…” Alex begged with as much courage as she could muster. 

“I will do no such thing! Casper told me to retrieve you and keep you safe...” The nameless girl insisted, looking around to the girls

“You do not have a slave collar, there is no proof Casper sent you” Annabelle quickly retorted.

“She said that she could remove them…” Nephinae spoke softly, quickly moving to protect Alex as well.

“She removed her own collar? Then she must have been in on the attack at the auction house. If she could remove her own collar at any time she would have never been brought to the auction house unless she wanted to be there.” Annabelle tried. Her own mind a mess

There was no way Casper would be foolish enough to bring a marked person to rescue them, they were monsters. She must have some other reason, some ulterior motive. Annabelle just couldn’t discern what it was yet. 

In the face of the uncertainty, the best policy was caution. So she continued to stare down the girl, waiting for any sign of an opening to punish. 

“If she wanted to be there, then she…” Elisayra muttered from behind the girl. It looked to Annabelle that she was halfway between fighting and running, and respected the small elf for even being able to be so close to the  monster.

“Where is Casper?” Annabelle gritted. She knew she couldn’t win in a fight against a marked person but she could try and buy the other time… if only she had kept her damn mouth shut until the fucking door was unlocked. 

“Casper is here, I assure you, he told me to come and aid you. You know I am marked, yes? You know I am strong? If I wanted any of you dead I would have killed you already. Me freeing you would be illogical! Impractical!” the nameless girl protested. 

Annabelle considered that, but still couldn’t shake that primal, animalistic fear working through her body, screaming at her to fight or flee. 

“The marked are not monsters, they are chosen” Laihal tried, not moving from her protective stance in front of Alex, but trying her best to show submission to the marked girl with her own body language.

“You conniving devil.” Annabelle gritted, watching the half-fiend so willingly show this creature reverence. 

Laihal shot Annabelle a sideways glance, but only for a moment before returning her attention to the marked girl. 

“She speaks true does she not?” Laihal offered. “If she is as strong as you claim, Annabelle, as much of a monster as you think she is, why go through the effort of saving us hm? Surely she could kill everyone here with a thought should it cross her. Furthermore, you believe Casper is a man worth respecting, someone who would save you? That is a rare trait among men, one that this girl would not ever know unless she had spoken to him. Do not make a fool of yourself again, bandit” Laihal snapped the words off in quick succinct sentences, leaving little room for protest. 

“I swear it to you, I am only here to help, Casper needs to know you are all safe quickly, now please. Follow me…” The nameless girl insisted.

The nameless girl unlocked Annabelle's door, bringing her hands up to show she held no weapons. 

Perfect. 

Annabelle kicked the door, sending it colliding with the nameless girl with a deafening ping. 

The thin woman’s head rocked backwards, forcing her to take a staggering step to try and regain her footing, but Annabelle wouldn’t allow her the chance to recover.

She had made a promise to herself. That if she saw another marked person again they would die, or she would die trying to rid them from this earth. 

Annabelle launched herself at the girl with the rope in both of her hands. She tangled the length of rope around the marked girl's wrist, locking it in place and tugging hard to further throw the woman off balance.

She tried to step in on the girl's leg to trip her and send her over, but instead Annabelle was shocked as she felt her own feet lift off the ground. 

This girl was so incredibly thin, yet so much stronger than she could have ever predicted. 

Annabelle is lifted from her feat and sent stumbling towards the already recovered nameless girl, who grabbed at the rope with her unbound hand and ducked in low, bringing Annabelle's arms down with her as she is forced into a front roll against her will. 

Annabelle's back collides with the stone, only to be lifted once more and moved like a rag doll by this marked woman, hauled like a sack of flour up, with the rope tangled around her neck somehow, digging into her skin.

Annabelle tried to grab at the girl's face as she held her in place, pulling the rope taught against her neck.

Her eyes flickered to Laihal, who stood still and watched. She looked to Nephinae who had dragged Alex further away from the fray 

She couldn’t see Elisayra, but hoped she was doing something to stop this beast.

“Please just cooperate! We can fight one another later if we must, but the only way to get out of here alive is to follow me.” The nameless girl begged. 

Laihal stared into Annabelle's eyes, bringing her hands up and speaking. 

“The marked are not monsters, bandit! They are not evil nor are they animals, stop this at once so we may escape this place." The half-fiend's voice was as calm and sultry as ever, and frankly the woman's insurance on inherent trust in the marked girl made Annabelle even more suspicious. 

She already did not trust the half-fiend, and she wanted to kill this marked girl. Casper might have been raised far away from the knowledge of the mark but she would make sure he understood the danger. She would kill this girl and explain to Casper what a foolish mistake he had made in asking for her aid. 

In order to do that, she needed to be at her full strength, and that meant biding her time to strike, and not being killed here via a rope around her neck that refused to loosen.

Annabelle let her hands fall from their desperate attempts to gouge the marked girl's eyes from  her skull, and instead she settled them around her neck to relieve tension from the rope digging at her flesh. 

“Fine-” Annabelle grunted out, pulling on the rope until eventually it fell slack. 

Annabelle ripped herself from the woman's grasp, desperate to put distance between the two of them. She rubbed at her throat and sucked down much needed breaths between fits of ragged coughs. 

Despite the bid to recover herself, she turned to face the marked girl, she wouldn't give this woman her back, and she would make it painfully clear she still didn’t trust her. 

The nameless girl sighed, though it was painfully obvious she knew what Annabelle was thinking, and that was fine. Let her know, Annabelle didn’t want this woman having a single restful sleep while she was around. 

“Now that that’s done, we need to move and move quickly please, or we will all be dead.” 

Annabelle exchanged looks with the other girls. Alex was far too dumbfounded to make a cognitive thought, Elisayra had in fact positioned herself behind the marked girl, and to Annabelle's personal satisfaction saw she had managed to grab a knife from somewhere and place it in her jaws. 

Laihal frustratingly trusted this monster, and Nephinae let the words of the incantation die on her lips, instead she approached Annabelle with her hands outstretched. 

Annabelle allowed the tall full elf to touch her, she had healed her a number of times already and despite not liking how quiet and obedient the woman was, she was grateful for the delicate touch. 

Nephinae took a second to examine the damage to Annabelle's throat. Her expression raised into a faint hint of a smile before she spoke. 

“No serious damage, once my collar is removed I can heal you easily.” she reassured Annabelle. 

“Thank you” Annabelle couldn’t manage a smile of her own, and hoped that the nod of respect she offered instead would suffice. 

“Please, we must make haste.” The nameless girl insisted once more, having moved back to the door they came from. 

Exchanging one more set of looks, and realizing that they were all waiting for her, Annabelle gave a nod which prompted the others to move. 

The woman rushed from the basement level dungeons up a set of stairs to the much granter central chamber, which to everyone's surprise was empty. 

Making a break from the wide open doors, they exited the cold cobblestone interior to enter out into the warm forest air, tinged with the scent of blood. 

Annabelle grimaced at the sight around them as they ran to the gatehouse. Corpses littered the ground in every direction. Shreds of fragmented men and armor scattered like dirt in the wind. 

Annabelle stared daggers into the back of the marked girl's head as they ran, knowing this must have been her doing. She disgusted Annabelle, and the scene around her was all the more reason to remove her from this earth. Marked people are too powerful to be allowed to live…

For a moment Annabelle did wonder if the marked girl could sense her bloodlust, as she stopped just at the threshold of the doorway and turned. 

“Go! Run outside quickly!” the marked girl called, her eyes wide as she shifted her weight rapidly, and rushed past the girls back into the heart of the fortress. 

Confused, but unwilling to stop her own forward moment, Annabelle ushered the others through the door and into the bright light of the courtyard beyond the fortress. 

Their legs pounded across blood soaked mud and grass as all of them took in breaths of fresh air. 

“To the forest line!” Annabelle shouted, turning to continue leading the charge.

Something akin to an explosion tore their collective attention away from escaping, and into observing, as huge chunks of stone began to rain down from one of the tower sections of the fortress. 

Dust rises up to cloud the space, obscuring the line of sight to what might have caused such a disaster.

“Duck!” Annabelle grabs Elisayra in her arms as chunks of rock fall hard into the courtyard. She pulled the small half-elf into her, bringing her hands up to shield her own neck as rubble collided with her back. 

The noise was almost as bad as the Auction house explosion. It sent her ears ringing and her vision slightly blurry from the sheer force of the wind moving away from the point of impact. 

Annabelle had no idea what was happening any more, but she did know one thing, the little half-elf she was protecting needed her, so for now she would stay here and make sure Elisayra was damn well protected

***

On instinct alone Casper shifted his head to the left moments before the faintest blur of a black gloved fist tore through the space he was moments ago. 

Casper’s adrenaline dumped, and with it the power of the mark sears through his bloodstream like a raging forest fire. 

The concussive force of the strike aimed at his head was already sending a rippling shockwave over his skin, tearing the flesh of his ear and cheek and shredding the fabric of his shirt around his shoulder. 

Time appeared to crawl to a half for a moment as more power than ever flowered through Casper’s body. Every single nerve was alight, every muscle fiber exploding with strength. 

He willed his body to become more durable as the shockwave danced across his face, threatening to reach his eye. 

With one quick motion he slammed his palm into the elbow of the man attacking him, snapping it and sending the arc of the punch downward at an odd angle. 

He sidestepped once, placing distance between him and the man he could now confirm as the one from the auction house. 

With his palm still firmly crushing through the man in black's elbow, Casper adjusted his grip as time began to return to its normal speed faster than he expected. 

He gripped the man's arms, sliding his hold down to the man in black's wrist as the force of the punch began to carry Casper along with it. 

Casper gritted his teeth, time moving faster and faster, and he pulled the man by the wrist into himself. 

The man in black is lifted from the ground, thrown off balance as Casper anchors his right leg to the floor and arcs his left leg up into a massive kick. 

Casper's kick crushes the man in black ribs as it sends him into the floor of the throne room. Still pulling at his wrist. The man in black’s arm separates at the elbow as his body bounces off the floor just as the force of his punch alone sends the pillars around them crashing to the ground, and the window on the far wall shatters. 

Time resumes its normal pace, and with it the rumbling of the fortress buckling from the lack of support from the now destroyed pillars. 

The  man in black smashes into the floor, flying back up into the air only to slide to a halt at the remains of the throne room's door.

The force of his own blow sent fragments of stone tumbling through the open air from where part of the wall used to be opposite the window.

The entire fortress rumbled and filled with dust, obscuring the room in a thick gray haze.

Casper's ear rings, as he was unable to make himself durable enough soon enough to prevent the shockwave from damaging his hearing. Blood trickles from his ear, and he stumbles slightly as the fluid of his eardrum leaks. 

“Fuck.” 

The man was fast. And though Casper got the upper hand for a fraction of a second, the damage to himself was done. 

Discarding the man in black's arm, and focusing on repairing his hearing, he watched as the man in black stood shakily. 

He must be healing the damage to his ribs and internal organs, as well as that arm, Casper figured, as neither himself nor the man rushed to make a follow up attack. 

Casper tried, he took a single step forward but the world quickly threatened to turn on its side as his balance failed him and instead he stumbled a few feet, staggering to the left. 

Taking a knee, he focused as much of the mark as he could into healing himself, trying to regain his balance before the man could repair the internal bleeding.

“Any chance you’ll tell me why you’re doing this?” Casper asked panting, realizing quickly he wouldn’t be able to heal himself without trying to buy more time. 

“I may, if you tell me why you wanted the marked girl.” the man spoke in ragged breaths. Casper could hear the blood rising in the man's throat, he was more injured than he was trying to let on. It would be perfect if Casper could press the attack, but trying another step that sent him stumbling once more proved futile at the moment. 

“Wanted her? I just wanted to save her. She’s the only other marked person I've seen and she has answers.” 

“Quite the extreme measure to go to for answers.” The man mocked, standing up more straight. 

Shit, he was already recovering quickly. The man's mark was clearly more finely tuned than his own, Casper noted. 

“You’re one to talk.” Casper snapped back. “Capturing my friends to draw me all the way out here.” 

“I suppose you would see it that way. This is nothing more than a drop in the barrel for me. I’ll be rid of you soon enough” The man exhales with enough force to part the still lingering haze in the air as he approaches. 

Casper struggled to his feet, wiping the still trailing blood from his ear. 

The words of the nameless girl echoed through him then, if he used the mark, he would win but the others would be made aware of exactly what he was…the only other option being a loss. 

The nameless girl could only predict what she believed to be the most likely outcome from an ocean of possible futures, so the solution then would be to do something so extreme it could have been predicted. 

Casper let out a silent prayer to his father, or the fates, or really anyone who would listen. 

The man in black moves faster than Casper can perceive. Having anticipated a rapid follow up Casper had already enhanced the durability around the area he knew the man would strike. 

The man in black’s fists connects hard with Casper’s stomach, lifting him up into the air and crashing into the chandelier. 

Casper's back crushes through the metal as he slams into the ceiling above, where the man in black had already launched himself up to meet Casper for a follow up. 

The man in black's knee drives the air from Casper’s lungs, breaking through the ceiling and sending him into the open air alongside a geyser of rubble and stone. 

Casper clenches his teeth, sucking in a desperate breath as the man accelerates past Casper, positioning himself above the airborne Casper, before driving his leg down in a ax kick that rockets Casper back down through the hole in the ceiling, crashing through the stone floor, and into the lower levels of the fortress.  

The man in black lands hard on Casper’s stomach, cratering the earth around him. 

Casper focuses on maintaining the durability of his bones to avoid his ribs breaking while simultaneously working to repair the rupturing orange from the sheer force of the strikes. 

A gloved fist lands hard across Casper's jaw, sending his head sideways. 

Casper grunts, reinforcing the strength around each point of impact as another drive drives hard into his nose. Then his temple, over and over. 

Blurring strikes send huge chunks of stones flying as the concussive blasts shatter the ground around them. Each strike stronger than the last, each strike breaking through the rapidly dropping durability 

Blood fills his mouth, his eyes, his ears as the non stop assault persists. 

Casper waits, and waits, and waits, until the man sucks down a breath and speaks between strikes. 

“You thought you stood a chance against the likes of me? Me? I’ll crush you like I did your half elf, worm.” 

Time slowed once more for Casper, as the man finishes speaking. 

Casper brings his hand up and grips the man in the back's fist on his own. 

His eyes open to narrow slits as he stares at the man in black, observing the features of his gaunt face. 

Casper had initially intended on allowing the assault to continue long enough for the man to tire himself out, where he could then use his own mark just enough to get the edge. Allowing oneself to be beaten to a bloody pulp wouldn’t have been in the nameless girl's view of “reasonable” futures, so he figured it was safe. 

However, the words the man spoke broke something in him then. 

Casper had to admit not that these women did mean something to him. There was no way to hide it, because he was fucking furious. 

He crushed the man in black's hand until the muscle and bone exploded through the gaps in his own closing fist. 

Casper pulled himself front he crater in the ground, watching with cold, pitiful eyes at the man in black, whose own incredible speed finally had his own perception catching up to the point where Casper had stopped the fist. 

“Crushed her, you said?” Casper spoke the words, though no sound escaped quite yet. 

Casper lifted the man in black into the air, watching the blood suspended in space trail from where the ruin of his hand was positioned. 

With one clean motion, he tore the man in black's arm from the shoulder and cast it aside. 

Time began to resume as the mark threatened to leave his, but Casper willed the torrent of power to remain. 

For only a brief second, Casper heard his own words like an echo behind him, the blood in space began to fall, the scream barely leaving the man's mouth, before it all returned to stasis. 

Casper crushed the man in black's shoulder, grabbing his leg with his other hand and tearing until something gave. 

This time, the meat of his shoulder ripped, taking the collar bone with it.

Time stuttered again, blood rapidly falling, a fragmented echo of a scream suspended in time, blood and gore and meat and debris settling down to the ground, a door somewhere in the distance opened,  before freezing for Casper again. 

His fist punched through the man's stomach, until he felt his fingers graze against the man in black's spine. Once he held firm on the column of bone, he drove the man into the earth, and spit curses into his face. He couldn’t hear what he was saying, he didn’t even notice the blood burning and boiling, or his clothes shredding apart around him as he moved the man so quickly through space.

He slammed the man into the earth, time stuttering again, and with it an eruption of debris and stone and dirt, accelerating nearly a hundred feet into the air, cutting through the remains of the ceiling above them, sending out even more stone. A fraction of a sound, of the very earth itself groaning in protest from the cratering force of Casper’s blow. 

Casper felt time slipping, or rather his perception of time slipping. 

In fragmented stuttering broken fractions of time and sound, he hears his own voice again, the earth erupts higher and higher, the man breaks more and more as blood boils and burns and clothing shreds apart until everything returns far far too quickly. 

The fortress shudders and rocks as the real time shockwaves tear through the stone around them. The man gasps, or rather tries to, as his body rapidly attempts to heal from the fatal damage Casper inflicted with little more than a passing desire. 

In fact, Casper almost tears through the man's spine, but stops himself as he feels the heat radiating from his body, as he feels the mark call for him to rip that piece of prey apart. Stopped only by the faintest familiar voice calling his name like it did in the woods. 

“Casper!” the nameless girl, somewhere behind him in the rubble.

Damnit, he wanted to kill him, but the girl's voice pulled him from the brink.

“Casper don’t!” 

Gods he wanted to, he tried, he tried to clench his hand to spite the woman's voice, but he couldn’t do it. Something within fought against the pull of his muscles. 

What a pain…

“Yield.” Casper grinds the words out through clenched teeth, raising his tone over the deafening rumble of falling stone. 

The man gapes, his body healing but not healing quickly enough. His eyes are wide, unbelieving, his lips moving and mouthing words Casper can’t quite hear. 

“I demand - you - Yield” Casper growls once more, increasing the pressure on the man's spinal column, desperately longing to snap him like the twig he was, but unable to for the battle within himself.

The man in black doesn’t speak. Instead he nods as he commits every ounce of remaining strength to preventing his own death.

He could kill him, kill him now and be done with it, remove him from the board, feel the warm satisfaction of riding the world of a man who would dare hurt his companions.

Casper tried to will his hand closed again, he tried to fight the pull of his mind away from the act of violence, but couldn’t find the last bit of strength he needed to be rid of this scab. 

“Casper please! We can use him! We need answers!” 

The nameless girl's voice was closer now, he didn’t notice her get closer after hearing her call his name the first time. 

He must be fully consumed by the mark then. The mark didn’t tell him she was a threat so he ignored her. His mind was going, slipping from him, this was dangerous, he needed to calm down.

He needed to, but he didn’t want to.

“Casper, you need to listen to me, you need to leave this man alive, he will be useful to us. Please.” 

A touch, on his back. 

When did he lose his shirt? Her hand was like fire on his spine, sending pins and needles through his body faster than the heat of the mark could better the sensation away. 

“Casper, hear my voice, calm the mark, close the gates.” 

Her voice was so soft, so close to him, it was like honey, a song, a spell just for him. 

“You saved me for answers, yes? He has more than I can ever give you. He is both of your tickets to understanding what we are.” 

How could a voice be so perfect? How could a single woman's words so thoroughly damn the flood gates even he himself could stop on his own. 

Another touch, as she brought her hand to caress his arm like she did the other day. The scent of her, the closeness of her, it was intoxicating to him.

“You can hear me, I know you can. You’ve done so well to stop this man, you are strong, so much stronger than he is, you don’t need to prove your strength by killing him, prove your strength by using him.” 

She was right… The pins and needles moving through him, like the humming of a tune through his very bones, ebbed the flow of the marks hold over him even more. Pulling his mind free from the primal urge to kill

Casper pulls his hand from the spine, and watches with contempt as the man in black heals himself in the rubble of the fortress that continues to rain chunks of wall and ceiling around them all. 

“Good…good….” The nameless girl whispered softly, her hand tracing the length of his spine with a gentle touch, calming him far more than he expected. 

Casper felt the most potent effects of the mark dissipate, as his body forced down the desires, quelled them to a simmer enough to think clearly, to speak calmly.

“Silas Hargrave.” Casper commands the man’s name with raw power and authority, despite the still lingering urge to rip and tear this creature apart. 

Silas stares back, barely conscious for his injuries.

“You owe me your life,” Casper spat.