Frozen Arc : Burning

"Found something." Calls out Derrek slashing through the forest shrub with his axe.

"Definitely on the right road." Retorts Alex beholding a forest devastated by pillars of Ice and frost. "I can use perception, to track it." Alex reaches for the ground and takes a handful of snow closing his eyes. In the world of darkness Alex feels a particular horrific cold spot. "This way," Alex says as he leads away.

"Its getting really cold." Says Derrek, each breath he takes becoming a white cloud.

"Did anyone tell you have great observations?" answers sarcastically Alex scouring the wintery environment.

"I don't envy you, I can't imagine a life like this." says Derrek.

"A life hunting monsters? Someone has to do it." Alex responds.

"I suppose" says Derrek as he twirls his axe. "I'm grateful, because of knights like you I can live a simple life chopping wood and eating rabbit my mother makes with my sister." Says Derrek with a smile.

"Yeah," said Alex

"Could you promise me something Alex?" Derrek's smile fades leaving sombre serious expression as he halts, "If anything happens to me, and we don't save my mother will you take Freya to nana?" Alex halts and turns to face Derrek with concern on his face. The air becomes thicker as the two stare at each other. Derrek grips his axe tighter, an emerald fire swallows Alex's sword. A soft cold wind blows over them growing with intensity as a monstrous wail fills the forest.

Ice crystals rapidly expands towards the duo forcing them to evasively jump out of the way just in the nick of time, as a silhouette of a giant forms in the centre of the blizzard. The shadow in the storm grows larger with each earth shaking step it towers over them four times taller then a full grown man.

"Looks like it found us, first." Derrek whispers. The yeti grins revealing its sharp fangs dripping with misty saliva. A mystic blue steam engulfs the yeti like a coat as it slowly lifts its white furred arm and points at Derrek, the aura takes the form of Ice daggers, and without a moments notice the projectile thunders towards the lad in a super sonic blur. Alex immediately stomps the ground sending a surge of life essence that manifests as an emerald wall of fire shattering the projectiles. Without a moment to waste the duo sprint across the icy terrain to meet the monster head on. An icy spike erupts from the ground below Alex forcing him to roll out of harm's way, but before he can balance himself a white icy hand reaches for his leg, Alex quickly draws his blade and stabs the arm but upon his iron making contact it rapidly freezes in place, Alex begins to panic as he tugs against the blade to no avail. The icy wind begins to blow violently as Alex continues to struggle; failing to pull out his sword. Before he knows it the Yeti is towering over him

"Alex!" roars Derrek as he strides across the ice towards the monster. The monster grins then kicks Alex sending him skidding across the terrain, the yeti matches Derrek's stride colliding with the human pushing back against Derrek's axe in a contest of strength. Alex rises to his feet with visible shock.

"Unbelievable." he mutters as he watches Derrek shove the Yeti back and roar in its face. The Yeti stumbles back from the push. Its face reflecting shock and little fear, the shock quickly turns to anger as the yeti roars back and smashes its forearms into the snow creating a tremor of ice spikes forcing Derrek to leap back, but a few spikes manage to impale his legs.

As Derrek falls to the ground in agony Alex springs to action charging at the beast, the monster in turn lunges at him, swinging it's massive claws at the adolescent's head but Alex narrowly avoids it's blue claws by ducking under its swing, leaving the Yeti's side vulnerable to attack. The lad swings his blade at its side with the intention of ending the fight with one clean strike, however instead of slicing flesh his blade is stopped by a hard barrier of ice. The Yeti immediately swings again this time ripping through his armour and sending him hurtling towards a tree. The monster lets out a gleeful snort as it methodically walks towards him. But suddenly it lets out a blood curling scream and goes onto one knee, it reaches for its back and pulls out Derrek's axe. It rises to its feet and turns to face the young man who had adopted a bare handed fighting stance. The creature grins and with a wave of ice its slides across the terrain grabbing his throat, Derrek gasps for air as it lifts him into the air with one arm, and to Alex's horror the Yeti's head lunges forward digging its fangs into Derrek's chest.

"No," wheezes Alex as he tries to stand only to tumble and fall, it abruptly jerks its head away from his chest, it's blue mouth stained in blood and its fangs twisted in sadistic mocking grin before casually throwing Alex's partner aside like garbage. It turns and continues its march towards Alex who is struggling to stand.

"How are we going to survive this?" Alex thinks. Suddenly he feels a tingling warm sensation on the back of his head, the warm sensation grows hotter and before Alex can react a burning red comet narrowly rockets past him melting all the ice and snow in its way before erupting into a fiery explosion between Alex and Yeti. The Yeti lets out a hesitant snarl. As the sound of metallic footsteps become audible from even above the roaring wails of the blizzard. He slowly lifts himself up and leans onto the tree for support. A woman with long plaited red hair, dressed in blue and gold armour arrives on the scene.

Alex feels his frozen body rapidly heat up with the sound of each step his saviour takes, the crystals in his side melts revealing a gashing cut that squirts blood uncontrollably. The beast snarls before backing away into the white cover of the blizzard. The snow storm then calms and vanishes along with the monster. Alex tries to stand but he feels woozy, he looks down and sees blood oozing out of the cut staining his armour red. When he raises his head he sees the red haired knight looking down at him with contempt in her emerald eyes,

"What's your rank?"

"I…m sorry, I didn't hear that…" The lad looks up at the night sky that all seems to fuse into one giant mess of dark and light as his vision blurs. The feeling in his legs gives in as he sinks on to his side.

"I don't have the time to keep saving the same misguided brat; you should have stayed in the hut and let the real knights deal with the monsters"

"Save Derrek." he mutters as he sheepishly leans against the tree "And save Gavin." The Knight suddenly grabs him by the neck and hoists him into the air in a firm grip. The lad feels her grip tighten but he feels too weak to attempt to fight back.

"Which Gavin?" she asks violently

"Blackthorn" the lad responds weakly.

"Who are you?" The lad tries to answer her question but no sound escapes his throat. His blurred vision gr0ws worse and he feels a dreadful cold creep on him as the world slowly descends into darkness.

Within the darkness Alex hears a humming sound and feels a gentle warmth overtake his cold. He opens his eyes to an orange light illuminating a dump cavern. The female knight is seated by the flames dressed in a black sleeveless tunic and golden leg armour with a silver flask in her hand. The lad tries to sit up but a searing pain in his abdomen prevents him from doing so. He looks down and sees a burnt scar running down his abdomen where the cut is. He looks to his side and to his horror Derrek is laying next to him, his skin as white as snow with glowing blue symbols all around his body.

"He's going to die." Mutters the female knight "And its all your fault, let me be honest with you, no Order has any use for weak baby knights. You're a liability," Alex didn't say a word instead he sits up and kneels by Derrek's unconscious body giving his back to the knight, he presses his hand against Derrek's scarred chest channelling his magic into the body.

"Why won't it go away," whispers Alex as tears run down his face. She pulls out a long brown pistol from her waist holster and presses the gun at the back of the boy's head "First, I don't take kindly to being ignored you piece of shit, I have no qualms with blowing your head of your shoulders. Secondly your magic won't work, his essence pathways are too corrupted."

"Not again," Alex trembles under his breath. "Davion the grey, Lady Grace and now Derrek Ashwood." Trembles Alex.

"Huh?" grunts the knight.

"All the people, my wretched incompetence has killed because I'm too weak." The knight pulls back her pistol and scratches her head with it.

"Maybe I'm being too hard on you, the yeti hunt is my contract, not yours or Gavin's the fact that so many people have been kidnapped and killed means I simply fucked up." She walks across the cavern and pulls out a parchment from a pouch "So the bad news is even if I kill the Yeti it won't reverse the curse, the good news is I know how to reverse it but I need to know...are you a liability to my hunt?" Alex remains silent, the fire in the cave erupts into a blue blazing pillar lighting the cavern in its hue. She grabs Alex by the throat and slams him against the wall. "Its time you grow a pair of balls and do what needs to be done, knights can't save everyone but while you sit there in self doubt crying, people are dying." she explodes her eyes reflecting a volatile rage.

"I know…"

"You think you're the only one who has cost lives in this line of work. We do what we can you piece of shit and when we fall short, we move forward, knight's move forward. If you can't move on take your sword and cut your wrists rather then going around giving people false hope." Alex looks into her fire lit eyes and nods. She drops him and picks up the parchment from the ground. "For the last few days, I was looking for this." She says as she crouches and places the paper in his hand. Alex opens it

"It's a map." He says,

"When hunting a monster that uses curses, a knight should first find counters to its curse."

"And this map leads to the cure"

"So says my source, let's go Broinson" She says as she walks and stands by the cave exit. "Today you're the squire of Fiona Birch the burning Knight of the Order of Manticore."