The Haunt (Abel)(Ended)

[#PI077A "Adia"]

And They Shall Reign.

- ✝ - Adia looked up at Abel and sighed. She looked back to the bodies, and continued the same process. “Abel,” she said, “We can’t save them. We can’t bring them all back to Arcis, and Arcis isn’t going to send a rescue squad here. The Banshee clearly cannot save them, or has already made up her mind about them.”

- ✝ - One by one, she closed the eyes of the frozen bodies, and slid the blade into their chests. “If you want to go to Arcis and try and talk them into coming here and saving them, be my guest,” she said, “But I already know that it’s not going to work. Now put your clothes on.” After she was finished with the whole crowd of people, she moved throughout the ghost town, looking for the bodies of the dead, and killing them. Finally she got to one body, the Banshee following her all the while. Just as she was about to drive the blade into the girl’s body, the Banshee held her hand, and stopped her.

- ✝ - “I think I found our friend’s body,” Adia shouted from inside of the building. The Banshee pointed to the letters on the nightstand next to the bed where the corpse lay. On it were letters and notes. Adia looked up to the Banshee and said “I’m sorry, but I can’t read, at least… not very well.”

- ✝ - “Then let me show you,” Adia heard a voice that seemed to come from the Banshee. She jumped when she heard it, and then drifted off into a trance, and fell to the floor with a thud. The next thing she knew, she was in some sort of a dream, but not her own. She saw the Banshee’s body when it was alive, and saw the living body of the rider with her. It was more of a feeling than anything else, but it was enough for Adia to understand.

Forever and Ever.

[PS113C "ABEL"]

Abel breathed heavily, his breath showing clearly in the cold. He was freezing, but how could he complain over the bodies frozen soldiers. He wanted to argue with Adia more, but it was clear that she wasn't going to listen to him.

Instead he just put his clothes back on, as she continued her work. After he was dressed, he followed Adia and the Banshee as Adia led them around doing her dirty work. It wasn't clear at all that the Banshee couldn't save them. If she had the power to do this, maybe she could undo it. As for having made up her mind... they could have at least tried to convince her... but he couldn't even convince Adia to try... how could he convince the Banshee to do anything?

He fell silent, defeated. He watched Adia as she continued the work, committing to memory all the faces of the frozen people he couldn't save. He never wanted to feel like this again. Not being able to save anyone. He had no choice, but to face the fact that he was weak. He could not accomplish anything here.

"One day... I'll become so strong... I'll be able to save everyone who needs me..." He said under his breath, but even though he spoke quietly, his voice was filled with determination.

It seemed that Adia had found the body of the Banshee. Something strange seemed to happen to her afterward. It was like she was there, but wasn't... her eyes stared off into space like she was seeing something different from what was in front of her. He rushed over to her, and held his hands out to catch her, but it didn't look like she was going to fall.

Just a short while after, she seemed to snap out of it.

"Are you okay?" He asked as she did. For a moment there, he thought the Banshee had gotten her.

[#PI077A "Adia"]

And They Shall Reign.

- ✝ - As she came back to reality, she looked at Abel, and to all of the letters on the desk. “She showed me what she wants us to do,” Adia said, “She was in love… with the rider we saw earlier. I think she wants us to kill him first; so she can be sure that his soul will be allowed to move on.”

- ✝ - At this point, even she was confused at how quickly it all seemed to be piecing together. Why was she able to figure things out so quickly all of the sudden; why didn’t Abel seem on par to understanding what was happening? It didn’t matter, she figured; she left the room and the building, and started heading to away back to where they found the rider. Still, something was missing, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

- ✝ - She morphed back into her half-wolf form, and darted back through the forest and the snow covered pathways. “Hurry,” she thought as she ran, “The sooner we can fix this… the better…”

Forever and Ever.

[PS113C "ABEL"]

"She wanted what?" Abel asked in response to what she said, but it was too late. She was off. He tried to reprocess what she had said. How did she know all that? He didn't quite follow, but then again he couldn't really ask her to stay and explain it.

But he didn't follow her.

He walked towards the frozen corpse of the Banshee. All these people had died, because of this woman.

"Why? What was it for? What did all of this accomplish?" He called out to the Banshee, not knowing if it would even hear him.

"Why did you do all of this?" He cried out desperately, trying to understand. If he could just understand her reasons why, he might be able to forgive her, but then again, somethings you just can't forgive.

"All these people and their lives... why did they have to die like this?" He asked again, under his breath.

[#PI077A "Adia"]

And They Shall Reign.

- ✝ - As Adia raced towards the rider’s icy grave, Abel went to try and coax the Banshee into explaining herself. As he did, the Banshee appeared floating behind him, weary of what exactly he was planning to do. She thrust her arm into his back, and grabbed a hold of what could only be his immortal soul, and took him on a trance like she had done Adia, except much more grim and painful than what she had seen.

- ✝ - Again, what she was transferring into him was more of a feeling and an idea than an actual visual being. His mind could have perceived it many different ways, but it probably would have gone something like this: Himself falling into a freezing cold lake, and slowly encasing his body in ice. The lights going dimmer and dimmer and thought processes fainter and fainter until suddenly there was nothing. For a second, all memories, all hopes, all life fades away; and then it goes on, and lasts for years, waking up again and again, to experience the same thing over and over without being able to change it, and barely even remembering it. The vision would have seemed never ending, but it was only about a few minutes before the banshee let him go. When it let him go, it was standing in front of him, staring into his eyes with her own, ethereal eyes.

- ✝ - Meanwhile, Adia finally reached the spot where they had already begun digging, and blasted away at the snow with breath of fire. The snow quickly melted, and beneath it, the ice melted away faster and faster. At last, she uncovered the frozen corpse of the ride, and sank the obsidian dagger into its heart. She then turned to race back to the town.

Forever and Ever.

[PS113C "ABEL"]

Abel felt a cold chill up his spine, and suddenly the world around him had changed. He felt like he was falling, and struggled to catch hold of something, but there was nothing there. In fact, he could barely tell if he was actually moving his arms or legs either. It was like a dream, or rather, a nightmare where you ran and ran, but could never escape. It was as if he couldn't move at all, or that he wasn't in control anymore.

He fell into the ground, and was encased it what he perceived as ice. He felt his mind slipping away, his memories and thoughts... however, the one thing that the Banshee simply could not rob from him, was hope. No matter how much she tried, that was simply something that she couldn't take, not fully anyway. The reason why was that it was something that came from with in continuously, that he created for himself. If she took hope from him, then he would simply make more. Hope for this world, hope for humanity and all life, and hope for himself. If nothing else, he was bursting with hope.

It was alive and well with in him, as it had always been, even through out the worst of the vision that was forced onto him.

Despite this unforgiving world, he still had the courage to have hope, even in this desolate situation.

True courage was not something as simple as being unafraid. True courage was being afraid, and yet still having the strength to move forward.

Abel had the strength to move forward. He took a step forward, away from the banshee's hand that was embedded in his back, but not enough to escape entirely.

He was still trapped in her vision, but even that one step was amazing in itself. Was he able to do it because his naturally superior and well developed proprioceptive abilities, or was it because of his incredible willpower? Who could really say?

It didn't matter, when the Banshee was finished with the vision it showed Abel, he fully believed he had been frozen and killed slowly over a hundred years of solitude.

It was painful yes... but anger is more useful than sorrow.

When he was picking his name, he choose Abel over the name Jesus from the stories he was told. Both of those figures where martyrs, but in Jesus' martyrdom, he called for forgiveness for the ones who wronged him. Abel, on the other hand, his martyrdom called for revenge.

When he found himself staring at the Banshee, he simply smiled at her. It was not a pleasant smile, however. It was a cruel, hate filled smile.

"Whatever you're reasons were... no matter how angry or sad you were... For all the people you've wronged..." He said shivering from the cold and fear that welled up in his heart, as he gripped his right hand into a fist. Instead of being paralyzed or ashamed of his fear, he gathered it up. He gathered it up and focused it into his fist, making it heavy with that pain and sorrow called fear.

"...and for what you've done to me... I can not forgive you!" Abel called out, as he summoned the strength to move forward once more.

His punch started at the toes. He dug his right foot into the ground, with his powerful leg pushing himself towards the Banshee. His left knee rose up, placing his left foot forward to catch his weight. He twisted at the waist with his toned abs, turning his upper torso towards her as well. His chest, back, and shoulder muscles threw his right arm forward, while his left arm swung backwards and his neck and head leaned forward to add even more momentum. At the same time, the muscles in his right arm extended and trusted out his fist forward.

All of this was one fluid motion, called a punch. Truly a real punch was a full bodied movement that called out all of the strength a person had in once instant.

If the Banshee tried to dodge, or if he phased straight through her like a ghost, then it would have just made things easier.

Because he was really aiming for the frozen body that Adia had found to be the Banshee's, instead of the ghost in front of him. It wouldn't have mattered if the Banshee tried to block him, because he believed in his strength, and would simply drive her back against her frozen corpse with the aim of destroying them both at the same time.

It didn't matter if she tried to force him to see another vision... because this was not a matter of thought. This was a movement that he had trained his body to perform in order to survive. He had scarred these simple motions into his muscle memory. Even if his mind was ripped from his body, his body would press forward and follow through with this punch at full power.

[#PI077A "Adia"]

And They Shall Reign.

- ✝ - “Abel,” the Banshee said in a calm tone as he went for the punch. As his fist pushed through her ethereal form, she reached for the back of his jacket to pull him back up. “You misunderstood the pain I made you feel,” it said, “That is the pain that every frozen soul on this mountain suffered.”

- ✝ - In the mean time, Adia was making her way back to the town. The blizzard was calming down and the sun was getting ready to rise. She groaned and looked in the distance and said to herself, “The sun is rising… Something awful is going to happen, why does it feel like I’ve seen this before?” She began to limp on, her knee beginning to hurt now. She walked and ended up passing out on the path, just before reaching the town that had been uncovered. Her body automatically shifted back to her more human form as she lay face down in the snow, the blizzard burying her slowly.

Forever and Ever.

[PS113C "ABEL"]

"Che..." Abel held his punch back, inches from the frozen corpse. He could have easily torn through his coat, but he didn't wish to. What had stopped him was the fact that she called out his name.

"So now you can talk, huh?" He said, not turning back to the Banshee's ghost form.

He pulled back his fist and stood up straight.

"If that was all of your pain... then what caused it? If not you then what?" He said staring at the corpse in front of him.

"Wouldn't shattering this corpse put an end to all of it?" He had no mercy left to spend on her, but if killing her didn't solve anything, he didn't want to go through with it. Of course, he had to keep in mind that she could have just been lying to keep herself alive.

He had no idea of Aida's peril, him being at the center of town. He didn't even know for how long he had been out. It had felt like years, but like a dream, not any time at all.

"Those other corpses were killed, just for the slightest chance that it would end this... why should you be the only exception?" He added in the end, still convinced that she was the cause of all of this.

[#PI077A "Adia"]

And They Shall Reign.

- ✝ - “Your a good person, don't let vengeance ruin that,” the Banshe told him, “It's almost finished, but one soul remains, trapped in a frozen grave. Your companion that you traveled with this night is the last of them. Will you save her?” Without waiting to hear an answer, she vanished into thin air.


- ✝ - Outside, Adia’s voice could be heard, shouting across the mountains, “You’re mine, remnant scum!” Her ghost had re-appeared at the top of the cliff where she had originally met Abel. Though he was not outside to see it, she was engaging what she thought was a remnant, and leapt into the air over her target. She came crashing down into an ice shelf on the tip of the ridge, and a loud cracking pop sounded off right before the avalanche began to fall.

Forever and Ever.

(OOC...

Abel... you said that you thought that the Banshee had no reason to explain everything. I could see that, so I changed it some.

Adia is buried in the snow; if Abel follows her ghost, she'll end up right where she was buried. Her Soul of Fire ability will allow her to revive herself once she's out of the cold, just a heads up.

Please say something if you still find something wrong or can't understand something, I don't wanna leave you in the wind. I'm a writer, I can take constructive criticism... otherwise I'm not going to improve much...)

[PS113C "ABEL"]

Abel still didn't understand what was happening fully. He couldn't forgive some things, but it would seem that the Banshee was not guilty. He turned when he heard Adia's scream. He ran to where he saw her buried by the snow, but when he dug at it, it wasn't fresh snow. It was as if it had been in place for some time. He dug at it anyway, with his powerful arms.

Eventually he found Adia's frozen body.

"Adia!" he called out. "Adia... are you alright?" He wondered if he had dug her out in time. If he had understood that she had been buried for days, or longer, then he would have assumed she were dead like all the others. He might have killed her right there, before she could 'suffer', like she had done to the soldiers, but from his perspective it seemed as if she was just recently buried.

If he had taken the time to understand everything that had happened to him, he could probably piece things together, but he was lost in the heat of the moment. He took off his coat and wrapped Adia in it. He hugged her close and pressed his hand against her ice cold skin. He rubbed her body, trying to warm her.

"Adia... wake up!" He called out to her again.


ooc: I hope that was okay...

[#PI077A "Adia"]

And They Shall Reign.

- ✝ - Adia woke up again in that field. All around her were vast and distant meadows, as she got up to look around from the breezy field of grain and various other crops. It was this dream again... but what was it? Was it a past that she never knew? Was it a future that she hoped to see? Perhaps it was something else, an afterlife; Jonathan had said something about it once, he called it... Heaven.

- ✝ - She had very little knowledge of the topic, just a few inspiring things that her former master had told her. She looked in the distant, out into the all present light, and heard a voice say that name she was unfamiliar with, "Ashley," it said. She felt that the voice was calling her, but Adia was unfamiliar with such a name. Just as she went to take a step forward in the beautiful landscape, the dream ended.

- ✝ - Her eyes slowly opened as her body gradually warmed up. She began shivering wildly and looked up at Abel, staring blankly. “Who is that?” she thought, not having remembered a thing. She decided that since he seemed to be helping her, he was probably a friend and wrapped her arms around his back and held him tightly as she shivered, “Thank you,” she said to him, and then let go.

- ✝ - She looked around, the blizzard subsiding and the sun rising overhead. Smoke and heat began to billow from her mouth for about a half a second, and then she spit out a tiny flame into the snow, melting it away into hot water. She then did the same with her hands; she held her palms about 5 inches apart, and a flame formed quickly, and built over about a half a second before she shot it into the snow near herself. Soon, the area around the two of them had no snow, and was covered in a thin layer of steamy water.

- ✝ - After having warmed up enough to stop shivering, she looked over to Abel and asked, “How do you know my name? What happened to me?”

Forever and Ever.

[PS113C "ABEL"]

Abel was taken aback for a moment, and it should have been plainly written all over his face. Her sudden burst of fire and her questions had stopped his already confused line of thought, but after a few seconds, he came to terms with the idea that Adia had no memory of what had happened or meeting him. It was kind of sad to have been forgotten, but at the same time... She had forgotten all the horrible things she had to do to survive, liking finishing off those helpless soldiers. She had forgotten their desperate struggling, along with the the fear of not knowing if they would survive the ordeal.

So he simply forced a smile to her and responded, "Well, if you forgot about it, ultimately it wasn't all that important was it? The only thing that matters is you're alive... and I guess you should know that, you saved a lot of people in the process."

That was all he would explain to her.

The warm waters soaked into his cloths, but he welcomed its warmth.

"Though... come to think of it... if you had done that sooner, we would have had an easier time!" He said with a more genuine smile, the bad thoughts fading away. Of course he was referring to her fire abilities. It seems that this frigid ordeal had somehow awakened some kind of inner potential in her. Or perhaps her unstable New Child DNA had mutated, or evolved, to deal with the trials she was put through. Or perhaps, it was something else... whatever it was... It was good to feel his body again and stop shivering.

[#PI077A "Adia"]

And They Shall Reign.

- ✝ - Adia shrugged at him and stretched out. “If I had done what sooner?” Adia asked him, looking at him with an innocent, curious, blank stare, “I mean… if I’ve lost my memory, I really wouldn’t know what you were talking about, would I? Oh by the way, what’s your name? You know mine already, but since I have no memory of us meeting, I don’t know your name.”

- ✝ - While she waited for an answer, she leaned back against the short wall of snow in the pit she had just melted away, and looked around. “Last night,” she thought to herself, “I must have been a huge blizzard… and really cold to freeze me despite my firepower… I remember walking up the mountain, and I saw a remnant, but when I attacked it, I went right through it… weird.” She put a hand on her head and rubbed it a bit, the cold burial having caused a huge headache.

Forever and Ever.

[PS113C "ABEL"]

The warm water felt nice, and things seemed to be winding close. Abel wasn't quite sure if the story he had gotten was something that would help him in his quest, but he would take it and carry it with him anyway. If there was a situation where he would need to drawn strength from this story, then he'd have it.

Even if Adia did not remember, surely her spirit was stronger for it somehow.

He shook his head from left to right gently.

"Eh heh... Its not important," He answered to her first question.

"Oh... Well, my name is Abel. Try to remember it this time," He said half jokingly again, while looking into Adia's eyes.

"How much do you remember?" He said after a slight pause. He realized that he should be a bit more worried about her, after all she had just been frozen for who knows how long.

"You remember your name... Do you remember your home, or why you're out here?" He asked to help her along.

[#PI077A "Adia"]

And They Shall Reign.

- ✝ - “What do I remember?” Adia began to ask herself, and then spoke, “I… I remember… an avalanche, that’s it… I was buried by right before a huge blizzard hit, trying to attack a remnant with the ability to become intangible. I needed to kill it… I don’t remember why.”

Adia began to lose track of things; she was pretty sure she knew what was going on, but when she tried to remember specific details, nothing was clear. She probably only remembered her name because he had said it. “I don’t remember where I came from… A city… and I was told to bring back something… I had to kill that remnant, but I don’t remember being with anyone,” Adia looked at Abel, “Do you know anything about what I’m supposed to be doing? Where I’m from or why I needed to kill that remnant? You must know something since you saved me!”

Forever and Ever.