Chapter 49: Shadows Unveiled
Chapter 49: Shadows Unveiled
The tranquillity of the night, where the only sounds in the area, being the crackling of the burning fire and occasional scream from the prison room, was broken by heavy footsteps quickly approaching. Looking over Lesh saw it was Rebecca and a group of four all making there way over.
"This is the guy I told you about, I owe him and his also the reason why I felt I could come rescue all of you…" Rebecca excitedly said before slowly stopping, her voice growing lower at the sight of the two large figures sitting by Lesh and tightly gripping and drawing her blade. "Don't worry Braedon, I won't let them hurt you, I don't think they can see well so slowly come over here." She advises, her tone low as she kept her focus on the pair, the people with her cowering in fear holding one another.
"Bonzie!" The excited voice of Alice broke the returning silence as she landed in a pose, arms holding her scythe high above her head in a impressive manner right between Lesh and Rebecca. "What? No applause? I do my best to clear the place out, get some blood on my dress and do a super awesome landing but not even a clap or cheer or anything for all of that?" She complained well pouting, only for a loud slow clap to be heard.
"Thank yo-" She began excitedly before widening her eyes and gripping her scythe tightly, a serious look on her face at seeing the two large monsters where the ones slowly clapping before there focus returned to what was once the pair of swords in front of them, the blood they spilt having turned into bubbling and sizzling puddles slowly swirling and pulsing gently, one having a shadowy image of a large cleaver and the other of a pair of knuckle dusters with odd looking bulges.
"Wha-wha-what are those things!" Alice couldn't help but stammer out, a instinctive fear all humans have towards the things that hide in the dark and shadows rearing its head at the sight of them.
"Well now, that's rather rude don't you think? Butcher and Carnage even clapped for you, and you call them things? Tsk, but then again you humans tend to be like that." Lesh says with disdain and a sigh.
"So you're the meat sack that's been with him since the change and the tin of meat over there is the new one Braedon had us come out here for? not really impressive if I'm being honest, but what can you expect from humans, at least your proving some use for the long run, so tin can, tell me who those three with you are, we have some time well we wait for them to finish." Lesh tell them laying down to stare at the stary sky.
"Who are you? What did you do to Braedon!" Rebecca demands, her tone filled with frustration as she glares at him.
"Your another of those personality things from his head, aren't you?" Alice says bouncing over and crouching down to look at him.
"Personality things? What are you talking about? And what are those two things!" Rebecca demands, not understanding what was going on fighting through her fear using her frustration.
"Really? Personality things? We may reside in his head but only two maybe three of us are actually fundamental parts of Johns psyche, the rest of us including myself are residents or refugees, John is a kind pure soul, add in his strong spiritual ties and bloodline involving the supernatural from both sides of his family lineage along with his open embrace of all things supernatural and spiritual and you have something that can somehow withstand the strain it puts on his mind, before everything happened all we could do was converse through dreams or thoughts, occasionally he would end up in his mindscape, a place he has created and allows us to reside thus those like me call ourselves residents, but we could never influence him though or take over like this." He tells them lifting his arm and pointing to himself before lowering it and looking back at the sky, measuring his next words. "well the small part consisting of his personality could nudge him slightly but not the residence such as myself." He explained, shedding some light on there nature to those present.
"Who are you though? And you said refugees? From where? And is Braedon a personality or resident?" Alice asks trying to feed her curiously with a flood of questions well, trying to probe further.
"You can refer to me as Lesh, as for where we all came from, that would be various places on the plains and various realms, some of us in efforts to escape wound up within his mind, his susceptibility to spiritual realms and his souls origin and core along with how his mind is makes it so his mind is almost like a miniature realm all itself, albeit a false or half realm due to its lack of stability and a few essential components but the mindscape is good enough and maluable to his will that he gave homes to us. Honestly, he lets almost everyone and everything that stumbles into it leave when they want, often forcefully in most cases but a few such as myself
where lucky to be allowed to reside there as long as we help to ensure others are made to leave, or deal with the unpleasant folks that end up there from time to time. Sometimes a select few can stay for a short period of time before leaving, often just a month or two if they show they mean no harm and bring no harm. As for where those who we send away go, its either to where his set up a refuge like camp and city in his own little part of the plains where he fought each night for almost three months to establish his foothold or they go wherever it is they can go to on their own." Lesh explains calmly but with hints of boredom and tiredness but also vast pride as he spoke of what John has accomplished.
"Wait, I don't think I understand any of this, what city? And what do you mean in his head? Is this something related to what he chose when things changed?" Rebecca asks, trying to make sense of any of what she's just heard but struggling as she really can't understand any of it.
"Just pretend John has multiple personalities and Braedon, the guy you met before was one of them and this is another, that should keep things easy for that simple little head of yours." Alice says as she goes over and pats her helmet getting a glare through said helmet in response from the girl.
"Uhm sorry, but Rebecca said you came here with her to help us and rescue us, also that you could, well maybe have uhm, something almost like-" One of the young girls Rebecca came back with stammered out uncertainly tripping over her words before the only guy in the group harshly interrupted her.
"She told us you don't have the Elysium's Vitalis herb but possible equivalent, so your going to take us to that green house, give us all the food you have there along with all the healing herbs you have, we will judge weather you really do or don't have the Elysium's Vitalis." He said, pulling a gun and pointing it at Lesh to everyone's shock.
"Vick! What the hell are you doing!" Rebecca yelled in shock and disbelief at her friend's actions.
"Stay out of this Rebecca! I'm doing this for us, his clearly tired from fighting or doing whatever he did, mentally unstable and I'm not going to chance it, I will get us all we can, and we will try to find a better survival camp." He snapped at her in a hard tone causing her to look down, his grip tightening on the gun as he pointed it at Lesh.
"Hmm, so the reason you are strong when fighting but subservient when it came to Braedon earlier? Clear signs of conditioning and abuse and a ingrained dependency upon him, when the know it all encountered you his tone, mannerisms and personality no doubt triggered the conditioning. Little miss blue, when you had her get cleaned and changed earlier before we had come here tell me, was there marks on her? Any noticeable cuts or bruises or even weird looking tattoo marks or anything?" Lesh says, his horse voice holding traces of interest as he looks from Rebecca to Alice, his eyes almost sparkling with excitement now, completely ignoring Vick and the gun as if they held little to no importance or impact towards him.
"Yes, she had a mix of old cuts and bruises along her arms, I think on her back as well and thighs, some seemed fresh, but I thought it was from her fight with Elena and just having had a rough time surviving but no weird tattoos or anything that I could see only some scars that have healed over. Wait, are you saying that they weren't caused by fights but this guy!" Alice began, tapping her chin in thought before her tone going higher and angrier as she glared at Vick who turned the gun to aim at her.