A Living Nightmare (2)

She shook her head violently to dispel that awful image from her head. She then glared daggers at him and shouted, as if trying to convince those around him of her words, "You filthy sack of organs! How dare you twist their minds against their will?!"

He smiled gloatingly at her in return to her gaze, "Do you like it?"

Altair grinded her teeth in frustration at his words. 'This pervert has no shame! How could his parents have allowed such a freak to even grow up?!'

He wrapped his arms around a pair of woman that were standing next to him, "You will join them soon enough. There is nowhere you can run now, you know." The other women around him practically kneeled at his feet and started kissing him through his bloody clothes. They soon became smeared with the blood but they didn't seem to care.

Altair wanted to gag at the sight of it. She then saw a predatory flash pass through his eyes and a shiver of fear ran through her body. 'I need to run.'

She turned on her heel and dashed off back towards the center of the camp. She ran between tents as she legs struggled to obey her commands. She dashed through rows of tents and jumped over more corpses but she never got closer.

When she stopped to catch her breath, she heard his voice behind her again as he spoke mockingly, "Where do you think you can run to?"

Altair's heart froze as she glanced over her shoulder and saw him in the same position she left him in. It was like she didn't even move in the first place.

"No," she muttered as she turned to start running again.

But he was there, in front of her face when she turned around. Her heart sank as he grabbed hold of her wrists that she brought up instinctively to attack him.

At the same moment he grabbed her arms the surroundings changed again. They were in an overly gaudy room that was lit by candlelight. Her clothes had changed from the comfortable leathers she was used to wearing to an obscene dress that showed off all of her private parts and seemed to even be designed to draw attention to them. She was completely unarmed and even had a thick, leather collar around her neck like she was an animal.

His gaze was filled with lust as he looked at her with another gloating smile.

Altair tried to move and resist but found that she couldn't control herself again. A wave of dread pressed down on her and she wished she could die as she knew what was about to happen.

He hugged her into his chest and whispered into her ear, "You are mine now. Forever. Until you die…"

"Altair," a familiar voice rang out from a short distance away, "Watch it!"

Her surroundings had once again changed without notice. She was back in the fortress and Maxwell was a few meters away as his arm was extended in mid-throw. Before Altair herself was a Human whose sword was inches from Altair's neck. His own neck had a short sword sticking out of it.

Altair's hands were clasped around a staff made from her Shadow Magic and her body trembled slightly as she fell back onto her rear.

'What's happening? I don't understand!'

Altair had once again lost control over her body. However, she remembered what would happen next with where she was. So she decided to think about what she just saw that she knew had never happened to her before.

'What was that just now?' She immediately went to analyze everything that she saw and went through. Her mind raced across it and found everything to be absurd. How could she not reach the center of her camp after running towards it? How could there be no Human bodies laying around among the dead when she knew that the Demi-Human's were a lot more skilled than that. And how could the Human's have dared to launch a night raid against them?

It was all preposterous now that she thought about it. She couldn't' believe that those thoughts didn't occur to her before.

'That all happened after I reached a point where I couldn't remember what happened next on this mission. Does that mean it will happen again if I don't remember something?'

She quickly ran through her memories of the mission she was on and found that there was only one point where she couldn't remember what happened. She then gave out a long, mental, sigh of relief.

Since that seemed to be the case, she turned her attention back to the memory playing out before her.

They were now in a hallway. It was just her and Maxwell as they started to get closer to the dukes study. It was there that they were supposed to steal some vital document that they had gotten wind of. Supposedly it detailed the Kingdom's army movements for the next month. However, Altair knew that was all a lie.

Maxwell stood on one side of the door and nodded confidently to Altair. Altair's body nodded back with the same confidence.

Altair's heart clenched as she knew what was about to happen.

Maxwell pushed open the door and went in, with her body following along right behind him. The room that they went into had bookshelves lining the walls and a desk in center, outlined by a massive window behind it. There was a table a meter away from the desk that had two couches flanking it.

Maxwell quickly dashed to the desk while Altair's body followed closely behind.

Altair shook her head in her mind as she remembered this. She should have been watching at the doorway for people coming near. That was the last chance she had to prevent the disaster of that night. She even remembered clearly what would happen next.

As Maxwell was rummaging through the papers on the desk, his expression slowly became grave. Not finding what he was after on the top, he started pull out the drawers of the desk to look through them. Altair's body stared at him like she was a statue that was watching everything.

Altair herself heard the multiple sets of feet trying to stealthily creep up on them. With every step that those outside took closer, she felt her heart sink even more in both disappointment towards her past self and sorrow towards Maxwell's fate.

Soon, the trap was sprung and half a dozen men came charging into the room while shouting with their weapons drawn. They were all dressed in pristine, white plated armor that covered their entire bodies. They had the emblem of a roaring lion upon their chestplates and held gleaming weapons that glowed blue with the Magic they channeled into them.

They were members of the Royal Army of the Rebanon Kingdom. They were the personal unit of the King and the Prince.

Altair didn't know it at the time of the mission but she now knew why they were there. Maxwell had become rather infamous among the Kingdom as the Coalition's shadowy hand. The work that he had done for the Coalition allowed them to strike hard at several of the core trade routes that the Kingdom used to ship their food and supplies around their army. That resulted in their army fighting while half starved against the Coalition which then caused the Coalition to deal a large amount of damage to the Kingdom. It also hurt the merchants and nobles wallets harshly as their goods were pilfered for the Coalition themselves.

Maxwell had become a thorn in the side of the Kingdom and they wanted to put an end to him permanently. So, they plotted this ambush. They used the bait of army movement plans to pull him in, which worked like a charm.

The Council of Four couldn't risk the possibility of missing this opportunity. So, they sent their best spy team that was led by Maxwell to investigate and secure the intel if it existed. The problem was that it didn't exist and, because of Altair's inability to focus and dismissal of all the signs at the time due to her inexperience, they walked right into the trap with open arms and a blindfold over their eyes.

Maxwell drew his weapons immediately as he muttered a curse.

Altair's body shifted as she summoned forth a spear in her arms.

There was only a single moment of peace between the two before they all started fighting within the confines of the room.

Altair kept her focus on Maxwell as much as she could from the corner of her body's eye. She already knew how she survived this battle and wanted to carve Maxwell's performance into her soul. She didn't know if she would get another chance to see him in all his glory and skill.

She watched as Maxwell danced between four of the soldiers all by himself. He swung both of his swords as if they were extensions of his own body. He blocked and parried the heavy blows coming at him with ease while moving quickly to execute those around him.

The sight of him dancing amongst the four aggressors would have caused any Human to look upon his performance with a ghastly expression.

But, to Altair, it filled her heart with warmth and comfort to see that he was just as good as she remembered him being. He treated his opponents like they were trainees, even though they were members of the Royal Army. They were the most skilled Human's among all the armies in terms of fighting skill. Yet this still couldn't touch even a hair on his body.

Altair wasn't sure she could even perform that well without any combat Magic. Just relying on pure skill to cut down his opponents, Maxwell quickly dispatched the four that were assaulting him and came running towards Altair's body, which was now cornered by the two that were attacking her.

Altair felt another pang of guilt as she realized how big of a loss Maxwell's death was to the Coalition.