A super-duper bad one

Having taken shelter by the side of the barn, Arlo held his arm.

'I'm so close, just a little longer.'

About to make a move, he heard raised voices.

'A fight?'.

The brief conflict passed, and after a minute, Arlo heard the door open.

"I'm going out! Be back soon!"

Freezing, Arlo watched as a man left the barn.

Watching the man's back, Arlo couldn't help but wonder.

'Who would willingly go out into this storm…'

The irony was lost on him.

Waiting until the lone man had disappeared into the storm, Arlo crept over to the door.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled the door open slightly.

An unoccupied space, hay bales were sat next to the walls, a campfire in the middle of the room and sheets of thin rusted metal had been set up in the barn to separate the open space into different rooms.

And there it was, next to the one upright chair by the fire. The small bottle. The handful of dull yellow crystals.

'My medicine.'

Pushing the door further open, Arlo quickly moved across the room when he heard a voice.

"Boss, that you?"

With no time to reach the bottle, Arlo ducked behind the hay bales.

"Boss?" Walking out from behind one of the metal sheets. The man looked at the open door. "Jack ass." He grunted, slamming the door shut.

Sitting down by the fire, the man scowled as a droplet of water from the roof dripped onto his forehead. He immediately stood up, knocking the bottle over in his frustration, causing it to roll away.

"This damn barn! Why is the roof always dripping!"

"Well, what do you expect." Another man walked out from behind the sheet. "This place is old, probably been here longer than that dumbass." He remarked, sticking a thumb in the direction he had just come.

'Shit.' Arlo thought to himself, watching the second man pick up the seat that had been knocked earlier.

Sitting down, the two men started talking, Arlo wasn't sure what he could do.

That's when it started again. Of course, it happened now of all times.

His vision blurred as he dropped to his knees, the pain in his arm was the worst it had been in a long time. Having gone the entire day without taking any medication, Arlo did his best to not make any sound.

Putting his left hand near his mouth, Arlo bit into his palm just below his thumb. Blood trickled out from the bite.

Arlo winced at the pain. It dawned on him that with no other options, Arlo had to try.

Sitting back, Arlo held out his right arm. Far enough to fully stretch his arm, but close enough that he was still mostly hidden behind the hay bale.

'Focus, push through the pain. Focus on the bottle, touch it.'

The bottle rocked slightly on the ground.

'Not too soft, not too hard.'

Turning his palm upward, Arlo flexed his fingers. It looked like he was beckoning the bottle to come to him.

And it did.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the bottle began rolling across the floor.

The men sitting around the fire were too deep in conversation, talking about how much they hated a man called Baion.

What only took a minute felt like ten from Arlo's perspective.

Pulling the bottle to him was the last thing he could do, but with no other options, it was all he could do.

And it had paid off.

Picking the bottle up, Arlo attempted to pull the stopper off with his right hand, but the pain in his arm was too much. Tearing the stopper out with his teeth, Arlo poured the remaining crystals into his mouth. All seven of them.

Crunching them down into smaller swallowable pieces, Arlo swallowed.

It wasn't instantaneous, and it didn't even fully work, but the pain in Arlo's arm lessened. Enough that he could breathe without feeling like a dozen bees were stinging his lungs.

But it was still there.

Exhaling, Arlo took a second to steady himself.

'Now to get out.' Peeking out from behind the hay bale, Arlo rolled his eyes. 'How long were they just going to talk.'

Sitting still, Arlo waited. It's not like there was anywhere he could go at the moment.

Ten minutes passed.

Thirty minutes passed.

At the forty-fifth minute, a thought crossed Arlo's mind.

'How long was that other guy going to be gone for?'

Finally, after having been talking for an hour, one of the guys got up.

"Come on, let's check on his foot."

"Shut up." The one still sitting disregarded the man's words. "I cleaned and bandaged his foot fine, sit down."

Arlo, bored out of his mind couldn't help but groan under his breath. "Goo."

"Don't 'shut up' me, idiot. So you're telling me you are one hundred percent sure of your capabilities as a doctor."

"Yeah totally."

Folding his arms, the man rolled his eyes. "Even if your life was on the line?"

At this, the other man got up. "Alright, alright, I give."

Watching the men leave the room, Arlo's eyes lit up.

This was it, this was it.

As the last man left the room, Arlo bee-lined for the door.

'I can finally get out of here, out of this town, go somewhere where no one knows me, where I can't be hurt-'

Arlo's thoughts stopped in their tracks. Glancing behind him as he was about to open the door, he noticed a few sacks on the opposite end of the room.

Three sacks, these were familiar. These sacks were what the thugs put the money in, the collection money. The money they stole.

If the townspeople got that money back, they could afford to pay someone, someone stronger than the gang. Someone who could give them freedom.

Arlo's body moved before his mind did. Reaching the three bags, Arlo picked them up.

"That Baion's all hot air, sure his powers are strong, but there's a bunch of us. If worse comes to worst, we could easily take him on."

Arlo's head turned. 'He's coming back!'

Arlo's world felt like it was slowing down.

He saw the man's foot first.

'Why would he need to come back so soon.'

Then the man's body.

'They were supposed to be checking on someone, surely it takes longer to check on someone than that.'

The man fully stepped out from behind the metal. He was still looking behind him.

"Yeah, yeah, you can spare thirty seconds without me. Lemme just grab my drink-"

The man turned his head, Arlo turned his body, a hand still wrapped around the bags of money.

Their eyes locked from across the room.

Arlo flexed the fingers in his right hand, about to bring his arm up. He was too slow.

"Thief!" The man yelled. "Guys! Someone's stealing our moneyy!"

Arlo's blood ran cold.

Within moments, a second man ran into the room, then another and another.

By the end, there were seven of them and one of him.

There was more, of course, there was more. Arlo scowled. This was their base, the place they slept in. Of course, there was going to be more than just the two guys, especially with the storm outside.

"Well, what do we have here." One of the new men reached into his pocket. "A little thief." He pulled out a knife.

Arlo flexed his arm, flexed his fingers. He was ready.

"You know what we do to thieves around these parts."

Both sides were about to make a move when one of the thugs stopped.

"Hey wait." The manpointed at Arlo. "You're the farmer's kid, what, you trying to steal from us to pay us back." The thug laughed.

The thug with the knife turned to his friend. "Are you dumb, you seriously haven't thought that plan through, it would never work. How could he pay us back with the money he stole from us. If he were to get away unnoticed, which he didn't, we'd realise sooner or later that the money would be missing and with him having recently paid off his late payments, we'd easily-"

After having been put through an hour of having to listen to these guys talk, Arlo couldn't take it any more. Taking the moment the man was distracted with his incessant talking, Arlo sucker punched him in the side of the head. Knocking him off balance, the man dropped his knife as he tumbled backwards.

Quickly picking up the knife with his left hand, Arlo looked at the rest of his attackers.

Later than the rest, the bald thug hobbled his way past the group. Evidentially, getting stabbed in the foot hurts.

"What's all the commotion, who's stealin' from us- You!"

Seeing that Arlo was now armed, he turned to his associates. "Don't just stand there, arm yourselves. The rest of the thugs drew their weapons.

One guy pulled two knives.

One guy drew a sword.

The one thug who had just lost his knife asked the thug with two knives if he could borrow one of his.

And the rest drew their sharp weapons.

Arlo felt panic set in.

What was he doing, fighting, he had never held a weapon in his life. Sure, he had held knives before, whilst helping his mother cook dinner and whilst cooking it himself, but this was different.

Looking at his right fist, Arlo tried to breathe. He had used his power to kill mice in the farm's store rooms and put down animals, but this.

Weren't there supposed to be moral implications in times like these, could he really take a life to save himself?

Arlo squinted slightly, forgetting the moral implications. These men knew what they were doing, they had been using those knives, those swords for years. Against all manner of monsters and man.

But what was he, Arlo, the farmers' boy?

'Farmers boy…'

A memory crossed Arlo's mind.

'Why now, of all times?'

His mother's smiling face, he had read stories before, is this what it meant, when they said about your life flashing before your eyes?

Her lips moved.

"Remember Arlo, if you ever get caught out in a storm, a super-duper bad one, and you have to take refuge in the barn. Make sure it's near to the walls."

"Why? Because if the barn were to collapse, and you were stood in the centre, the entire thing would come crashing down on your head. Now nobody wants that, do they?"

Her smile hung in his mind a moment longer before Arlo was snapped back to reality as a droplet of water plopped onto his forehead, rolling down the side of his nose.

Looking up, Arlo could tell this barn had very little maintenance done to it.

These thugs, what do they know of barn maintenance? It was incredible a storm hadn't knocked this thing down years ago.

Reaching up with his right arm, Arlo searched for what he needed.

There, one of the rafters, it was in a horrible condition. Rot evident on its surface.

Wrapping his fingers tightly around it, the men watched in confusion.

"Haha, what, you praying to some god of yours?"

Arlo pulled with all his might, from the thugs' perspective, it looks as if he was pulling against an invisible force.

The bald thug snickered to himself. "Don't worry, kid, we're only going to beat you half to death. Then we'll give your mother a visit."

The pain flared in his arm, lessened by the effects of the medicine but very much there.

Arlo screamed, letting his anger motivate him. "Aghhhhhh!"

The wood splintered and cracked as if struck by a mighty force. With the rafter no longer providing any support, the resulting domino effect was just what Arlo had intended.

The old rotten roof of the barn quickly caved inwards.

Holding his right arm up. Arlo attempted to protect himself from the small debris which bounced off an invisible shield in the air above him.

As the last of the barn collapsed, Arlo stood atop the wreckage.

His plan had worked, the men inside the barn were buried under the bits of broken wood. Some groaned, some lay motionless under the pieces of wood.

Bags of money in hand, Arlo jumped across the most stable of the pieces. Quickly he landed on the dirt path outside the warehouse.

Panting he was about to turn into the town when he saw someone standing in his way.

A man in a cloak, a sword at his hip. He held a bag close to his chest in a feeble attempt to protect it from the elements. This man was the man who had left just as Arlo had arrived.

'He's with them-!' Arlo realized bringing his right arm up ready for a fight.

Looking at the boy, Baion frowned.

He might not be a child, but this boy shouldn't be here. Stuck out in the rain. One hand balled into a fist, the other around a knife.

Baion looked down at the bag, then at Arlo with sympathy.

"Go."

Arlo rubbed his eyes with the back of his right hand.

"What?" He spat.

Glancing at his associates half buried under the collapsed barn, Baion couldn't help but smile.

"Take a horse, go. I'll take care of her I promise. Just leave this place, you know it's no longer safe for you."

'Who is her?' Arlo wondered.

This man didn't seem like he was going to attack Arlo once he turned his back, so Arlo did just as the man told him to.

Chucking two of the three bags towards the town, Arlo ran.

Near the barn, a small stable held the horses used by these thugs. Using the knife he cut one free, quickly mounting it, Arlo rode off into the rapidly darkening land beyond.

Watching him go, Baion turned to see his men start to collect themselves.

The first thug to exit the ruins slipped on a piece of wet wood splatting into the muddied path. Looking up at Baion, he mumbled his words.

"B-Boss?"

Looking down at the man, Baion heard other voices. Some townspeople had left their homes to investigate the collapsed barn.

Baion grit his teeth. "What are you doing lying on the floor!" He barked over the sound of distant thunder. "Get after him!"

Looking after Arlo, the thug grimaced. "But boss… He's heading for the Boundary."