Chapter 17

I stood up slowly, I didn't feel so weak any longer. The magic the woman had returned to me seemed to have replenished whatever I had given her. In fact I felt even more energized than I had earlier.

Once I was on my feet Megan immediately hugged me tightly. Before I could reciprocate Karen had joined us hugging both of us. I smiled to myself as I wrapped my arms around the two women and squeezed them tight.

I continued to hold them as the other pair of women climbed to their feet. Then Megan and Karen let go of me and helped escort the pair of women away leaving me alone with the man and my elementals.

I looked over at Enya. She had been oddly silent. She was floating close to Delilah watching me closely. In fact both of them were.

"Thank you." the guy said breaking the silence.

I nodded. "It's fine." I told him. "I heard that thing from my apartment and knew something had to be done before it hurt too many people."

He nodded, he was the man who actually lived here. While I had never actually met him before, I had passed by them on occasions going in and out of the building. He looked to be a few inches taller than me, skinny but his arms were covered with wiry muscles. His hair was short, dirty blonde, while his eyes were hazel. He stared down at the corpse for several moments before turning away.

"It's a pity about Jonathan." I told him.

He simply nodded and didn't look back. Instead his shoulders started to shake from suppressed sobs.

I was curious to know what had happened, but I didn't want to press him. He didn't seem to be taking his friend's death very well. I was even more curious how he was able to stand in the same room as Enya and Delilah without asking about them, but that could have just been shock.

Rather than focusing on him, I turned my attention back to my elementals. Both of whom were still staring at me with a strange look on their faces.

"What?" I asked them.

"Master, did you create a link between fire and shadow?" Delilah asked.

I frowned, I thought the answer to that was obvious but closed my eyes to peer into my mana core anyways. My mana heart immediatly drew my attention as it seemed fuller than it had been. A count put the number of wisps inside of it at eleven, I had gained one more wisp. I could only guess that they came from the magic I had received from the older woman. While I was surprised by the unexpected windfall, I turned my attention to the elemental abilities, and as Delilah had suggested, there was a new link between the two abilities.

I frowned at that, if I had created a link, then I had to have used a wisp. Did that mean I gain two wisps from the older woman? That had to be the case. A quick look around didn't reveal any other changes. I was about to shift my mind back out, but decided to try something first. Delilah didn't seem happy about the idea of me awakening that woman, I didn't know why, but if I could heal then I wouldn't have had too.

I quickly gathered five wisps from my mana heart then tried to combine them together while thinking of gaining the healing ability.

The five wisps spun around in an ever tightening circle, then as I thought they would fuse together the five flew away from each other. It was clearly a failure. The five wisps returned to my mana heart while I wondered what that meant. Delilah had clearly said there was a healing ability. Did that mean I wasn't compatible? I pulled my attention from my mana core.

"Yes." I told the elementals to answer the initial question but kept silent about my failed attempt to gain healing, at least for the moment.

Delilah breathed out a tired sigh. "You have no idea what that means, do you master?" she asked me.

I just shook my head.

"While it isn't uncommon for people to form links between abilities, links between elemental abilities are very rare, and as you might have noticed, powerful." she told me.

I stared at her unsure what to think about that.

Delilah must have taken my silence for confusion so she continued her explanation. "Most initial abilities are low tiered like physical and mental, links made with them are easier to form and don't cause large improvements. Bond is also easy to link abilities too despite being an advanced ability. That ease of linking is balanced by the price of using bond. Elemental abilities are also advanced abilities and don't come with the same kind of price for using them. Linking them gives you a large increase in power, but doing so isn't supposed to be easy.

I nodded slowly, despite only understanding maybe half of what she said.

Delilah sighed realizing I wasn't getting what she said.

"Is it because he is a gold?" Enya asked.

Delilah turned to look at the fire elemental then back to me. "Gold?" she asked, looking between the two of us.

We both nodded. "Did you miss that?" Enya asked.

Delilah looked a bit sheepish. "I guess." she muttered then closed her own eyes for a moment. "Wow, that explains a lot." Delilah said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Before Delilah could reply the girls returned. I turned to look at the four of them, only to be surprised by the appearance of the woman I saved.

While I had assumed she was old from her hair color and appearance, I was wrong, very wrong. Once she had changed her clothes and had all the blood rinsed off her face and out of her hair, I could see that she wasn't any older than I was. Instead she was very attractive, at least on the level of Karen and Megan. She was slim, and full figured, curvier than Megan, at least proportionally as she was several inches shorter than Megan. The blue shirt she had changed into, weren't hers, and were clearly meant for a thinner woman. Her large breasts stretched the material enough that it almost seemed transparent drawing my eyes, and making it hard to look away as I tried to get a clearer look. With a force of will I shifted my eyes up from her breasts.

When my gaze met those purple eyes she smiled at me gratefully, even shyly. It was an adorable look on such an attractive woman.

"She cleans up pretty well right?" Karen asked, obviously amused.

I nodded. "Yeah." I admitted then pulled my eyes away from the stunning white blonde haired woman and gave Karen a glare.

Megan huffed unhappily then moved over to my side and claimed my arm possessively, which caused Karen to chuckle.

I just shook my head then looked around at the trashed apartment. "Has anyone been able to get through to the authorities?" I asked.

Everyone looked around at each other then started to shake their heads.

I glanced at the corpse that had been Jonathan. "We can't leave him here, but I don't want to stay here with him either." I told them all honestly.

The girlfriend whose name I still hadn't heard nodded. "I…" she said but stopped when we heard a familiar roar. Then there was a second, and a third.

All our faces paled. Two sounded like they were outside, but the first sounded like it was up on the third floor.

I wondered if we should try to fight them, I knew they couldn't be left alone or more people would be hurt. At the same time I was scared. I knew I had been lucky in my first fight. Sure I had that black fire I could use again, but that didn't stop me from being scared of facing another twisted.

"We need to leave." Karen said with her voice firm and reassuring.

"Shouldn't we help?" I asked, I didn't want to, but I knew I would regret it if I didn't at least try, especially if I could have saved someone. There was also a part of me that was hoping that she could convince me that we didn't need to help.

The first roar sounded again but it moved from above us to outside. I could only guess the twisted had jumped out of the building. Which didn't make sense to me as it had been on the third floor. Until I remembered what it felt like to punch one. Their bodies were a lot harder than ours. Jumping from the third floor might not be a problem for them. That meant there were now three of them outside. Which is exactly where we needed to go if we wanted to flee.

I looked at Karen. She didn't seem to know how to answer my question. Looking at the others, I found them looking at me. Whether I liked it or not, it was clear that they wanted me to make a decision. Which shouldn't have been a surprise, I was the only one among us who had been able to face a twisted and win. I didn't want to be the leader, I never had, but it didn't seem like I was going to get a choice. Given my abilities, I was sure they were going to follow me wherever I went, if only to feel safer.