The Dark Guardian

Chapter 7: Death is the Gift I Bring

[Riverwood][45,000 B.C.]

[Jackson's P.O.V]

I tossed the griffon into the air like a pigeon after it's been healed by doctors. Except this pigeon is half of my height, more than likely scared out of it's fucking mind and it's part lion. May the griffon's psyche rest in piece. I thought that the griffon's mind would be stronger then that. Huh.

I had just finished telling the griffon's commanding officer to screw off and never return. I fell great. Powerful, feared and... wait, why do I feel like half of me is just... gone? I shouldn't feel like that, not at all. I looked by my feet and noticed that there was thick black and red smoke. But the more I looked at it, the more it reseeded.

'Wait, is it absorbing itself into my legs? My abilities are super weird.' I thought. Then I noticed something that was in front of me the whole time and I don't know why I didn't notice it.

'Why aren't I panicking? I just got teleported to another world, got some awesome powers and just killed a mythical creature.' I thought. Whatever was keeping me from panicking in this situation was doing a damn good job at it. I looked up from my feet to notice a lot of very colorful small horses around me. Well, they were way to small to be horses, so I guess they could be called ponies at their height. Some were unicorns, some were normal and some were pegasi.

Then out of nowhere, a familiar pegasus flew at him and hugged him exceedingly tight. It was Cloud Rush. He could do nothing but pat her back as she metaphorically crushed him with her hug.

"Thank you." She whispered. After a few seconds she finally let go of me and glided to the ground. I looked around me at the other ponies, their faces filled with wonder and fear and it was getting kind of weird. But before anyone could say anything, a whole fucking contingent of guards came running out of nowhere, aiming their spears at me. Well, maybe not that many, but it was a lot.

"Halt, Beast!" one of them shouted at me. Apparently the villagers didn't like this at all.

"Hey! He did nothing wrong!"

"Yeah! He just saved us!"

"Your the one who should halt!"

I found that last comment kind of funny. The guards looked at each other, probably thinking about what to do next. I just stood there wondering what to do too. My instinct began giving suggestions. It was like a separate entity or something.

'Might as well introduce myself and help them out.' I thought.

"They're just doing their jobs. It's not like they're psychic." I said in my new voice. It was still pretty weird having it, but I was getting used to it. This seemed to calm the villagers down and the guards seemed overly confused on what to do.

"Well, what do we do now?" one of the guards asked. I had an idea that my instinct gave me, but that was cut short by an arrow being lodged in my left side, in a spot where there was a break in my armor so it wouldn't hinder my mobility. This surprised me and I waited for the pain, but nothing came. I looked down at the arrow, saw the point where the arrow hit and saw that the arrow had a small ring of black smoke close to my body around the shaft of the arrow that hit me.

I reached to the arrow and gave it a yank. It came out of me but there was no blood, just black smoke. The black smoke soon started to cover the hole that the arrow made. Even the trench coat repaired itself with the black smoke. I looked up from my self repairing clothes and looked at the arrow I just pulled out of me. The tip was intricate steel with a purple crystal in the middle and the bow's shaft was make of normal oak wood.

I quickly evaluated the vague trajectory of the arrow to trace it back to its source. I looked in the direction of a large spruce tree on the other side of the river that was next to the village. But when I looked at it I got hit with another arrow, this time in my right eye.

My right eye was blinded, but I unconsciously remained silent for some reason beyond my comprehension. After a second of thinking, I reached up and yanked the arrow out of my eye. It was just like the arrow I pulled out of my side. A second later the right side of my vision returned and I saw a white blur duck behind the large spruce tree.

'I saw you motherfucker.' I said in my head as I sprinted through a burning house, towards the river bank. I didn't even stop to think about how to cross because I didn't get a chance.

As soon I was about to step foot in the water, everything became nothing but a blur. All I could properly see was the black smoke that surrounded me as I was flying across the river at lighting speed. Before I knew it, I was at the other side of the river. Right next to the spruce tree I was going to.

My slight confusion subsided fairly quickly as I saw the arm of a misty white entity.

'I don't think it knows i'm here.' I thought. I could see it grab another arrow with the arm and place it into what I could only assume to be a bow because I couldn't see past the edge of the tree. I could see that it was preparing to turn around the opposite side of the tree to fire off another shot at, but it couldn't see me there.

My instinct was telling me I needed to scare it to make it more vulnerable to my techniques of attack and/or speech. It was like my instinct was sentient. If I was going to scare it, I need to appear as knowledgeable and creepy as possible; and what better way to do that than seemingly come out of nowhere?

With high amounts speed, it turned the corner and I took that chance to step behind it, so when it turned around it would see me just standing there. Unmoving and completely silent in my approach. The strange being that was composed completely of white mist was humanoid, but it was bone thin. It looked like a mummy without the wrappings.

As it looked around the side of the tree, I could clearly see it's confusion at my sudden disappearing act because of it's sudden head jolts and it's panicked behavior. It quickly turned around to take cover behind it's tree. But when it did, it saw me.

It's face were two glowing blue eyes and they were wide from both panic and surprise, but mostly surprise. The misty entity was almost high enough for the top of it's head to reach my chin. It dropped it's bow and slowly took two steps back. My instinct was telling me to kill it, but that was a suggestion I wasn't following. I just kept standing there menacingly. I decided that I was going to try and communicate with it.

"Hello there." I said while smiling. That was not my new voice. It was a distorted, deep and layered voice that shook the air around me and my teeth felt much sharper than normal. I decided to call the white misty being an 'arescet' because 'arescet' was latin for 'wither', and it was pretty withered judging by it's bony structure.

I could tell this greatly disturbed the arescet because it turned bolted away after I said those words. I didn't want it to get away, so I ran after it. It ducked and weaved between the trees, so I did too. I was slowly gaining ground on it.

After a minute of running around trees and over rocks the arescet was almost within my grasp. When I was close enough to it, I reached out my hand to grab it by the right shoulder. But when I grabbed the arescet, I felt pain.

Excruciating pain.

It was like my hand was on fire. I immediately let go of the arescet, grabbed my hand in pain and almost cried out in pain. The pain subsided quickly and I looked at my smoking hand to see charred flesh rebuilding itself. I looked up at the arescet and saw it on the ground, writhing in agony. It was holding the shoulder I grabbed while wispy screeches escaped it's... mouth?

Under the spot it was grabbing, I could see that the white mist was turning black. The black mist was spreading quickly and was no long confined to it's shoulder. It has consumed it's whole right arm and was moving across it's head and body. I stood there watching in fascination as the arescet was completely turned into black smoke and it's blue eyes were converted from blue to red.

As the last part of the arescet was turned into black smoke, it stopped just... stopped. No more screeches of pain and no more movement. I just stood there and looked at it's body. I knew it was dead. I don't know how I knew this, I just did. It wasn't my instinct, but almost like a sixth sense. I somehow also knew that it was in great agony. Not from pain, but from existing; and I just put it out of it's misery.

I approached the unmoving body slowly. The black mist slowly started to break away and dissipate into nothingness. The converted arescet continued to dissipate until there were only two floating glowing red eyes left. It was like it was begging me to get closer to it, so I did. I stood in front of the glowing red circles that were its eyes. The eyes slowly floated up to my eyes level while I just stood still. Then they spoke.

"Thank you. I am now free." The eyes said in a wispy voice that was barely audible. They then dissipated like the rest of the body had. I felt... satisfied with myself. Happy, even. I had just helped a trapped soul move on to the next life.

Even though I didn't know it, instinct was smiling.