Soon, he saw a strange light in the distance. He thought it to be a bonfire for a moment, but it was too uniform in its luminescence. It shimmered but it did not flicker like a flame. As he came closer, he began to slow his approach. What was that strange light?

His head began to buzz. The world seemed to fade in and out as a different set of voices reached his thoughts.

“Dear heart, let him rest. He needs to see his past uninterrupted,” said a cold masculine voice.

“He looks so uncomfortable, though,” said a different and much softer feminine voice. “At least let me take his clothes off.”

“No,” replied the man.

“Aww,” said the woman. “They look so constricting, though.”

Scott clutched at his head then stood in place while wobbling drunkenly. The world had seemingly stopped while that happened, but he remained disoriented for a time. In many ways, it was as though he were caught between a dream and the waking world.

Eventually, that disorientation passed. He began to lose the sound of those voices and returned to what was happening before they had begun speaking.

“Someone help me! Please,” cried the voice of terrified woman from the same direction as the strange light.

Scott stopped briefly. But then yet another voice cut through the night air, equally feminine but cruel. “Just stop. No one gives a damn about a slut like you.”

His eyes widened briefly and then narrowed. He started forward again, anger rising within him. He did not know what was going on, but if someone was being attacked in the woods near his house, he wanted to know about it.

“I said it was fine, Charlene.” Spoke a smug masculine voice. “Let her cry. The sound is soothing to my injured manhood.”

Scott blinked. His body moved forward at an accelerated pace even before he had finished processing the words that he had just heard.

Scott ran through the forest, somehow avoiding the roots and brambles in the process. The voices both desperate and cruel continued to speak. He came upon a clearing and he saw a strange scene. There was a shimmering wall of light separating him from three people. One was lying on the ground crying. She was the most surprising, as she seemed to have wings growing from her back. Another woman, one without wings, stood over her. The third person was at a distance, a cruel smile on his lips.

Despite the darkness of night, he saw everything clearly. He started to ask what was happening, but then he saw the smiling man throw something to the other woman. The woman said something that Scott did not quite make out, but then she started to force the collar in her hand around the neck of the woman on the ground.

“No! Not Like this, not this!” cried the winged woman.

His hands curled into fists. With a shout he ran forward, weird light or not, this could not be allowed. With a guttural roar he ran into the clearing. He did not notice the shimmering effect that overtook him. Did not feel the way the very air around him seemed to shift. All he knew was that he needed to stop what he saw happening.

Things seemed to move in slow motion for a moment as he cleared the space between himself and the closest person, the man who even now walked toward the downed girl. He had moved into a charging tackle before the man noticed his presence.

“Wha-?” asked Henry in surprise as Scott appeared out of nowhere and slammed into him heavily. They went to the ground hard.

Henry cried out in panic as Scott crawled over top of him and got into a position that allowed him to beat the smug man mercilessly. He repeatedly struck at the man’s neck and face with every bit of strength that he could muster.

“Master!” shrieked Charlene before she released the angel.

“Burn the bastard!” snarled Henry as he got his bearings and began to struggle with Scott.

Charlene chanted her spell as quickly as she could. Just as she was about to fire off her [Burst Sphere] Cerene launched her feet outward and solidly connected with the back of the witch’s legs. Charlene fell to the ground and her magical attack was sent flying far off the mark in the process.

The angel began to spasm wildly as pain lanced through her body. However, she did not care. Someone had heard her and had come to help! What was pain compared to a chance to survive and be free?

Scott was oblivious to the interaction nearby as he was totally focused on the guy beneath him. He got a grip on the man’s head and slammed it down on the ground a few times. The bastard was strangely resilient. Who managed to stay coherent after so many furious blows to the head?

Henry began to gasp out a series of nonsense words. They sounded like English, but who made up a rhyme about the wind when they were getting their ass kicked?

It was Scott’s turn to be surprised when the body of the guy he had been beating the snot out of flared brightly while releasing a brilliant yellow light. He was sent flying back by some unseen force and went hurtling through the air to slam into a tree several feet away.

“You stupid fuck. Who told you to get involved?” asked Henry as he rose to his feet. Despite the beating he had taken, he seemed relatively uninjured.

“Master! You’re alright,” called out Charlene from the ground.

“No thanks to you. Put that bitch in her place while I finish with our new friend here.” said Henry.

Scott panted heavily and slowly rose to his feet. Whatever had happened had been brutal. It was hard to catch his breath.

“So, what did you think would happen here?” asked Henry before he made a gesture with his hand.

Scott felt a sudden lashing wave of force whip against his body. A large gash was torn across his chest not long after.

“What the hell is this?” asked Scott through clenched teeth. How was this asshole doing this to him?

“Just business. But somehow you think my business is something to get into,” said Henry. Scott tried to move forward, but the man made another gesture and he was sent flying back once more. Another deep gash appeared on his chest just a little above the first one.

Cerene shouted, “Stop it!”

Henry glanced at her then snorted. “Stop it? This was your doing, you silly bitch. You cried out for a hero, and look.” He made another gesture that pressed Scott back against the tree again. “He came for you.”

Scott slid to his knees and shook his head. It was hard to breathe, hard to do anything. Still, he managed to croak out, “Let her go.”

Cerene looked to him in surprise. Despite the attacks he had received, he was still concerned for her? He did not even know her. Did he? It was hard to tell from this angle.

“Pardon me. Did you just tell me to do something like you were somehow worth a fuck?” asked Henry, before he made several hard-sweeping hand gestures in a row.

Scott felt like he was being beaten to death by an invisible baseball bat. He could not even scream as the air in his lungs had been driven out. He fell to the earth gasping desperately when Henry finally relented.

“Damn, not dead?” He made a tsking noise then sighed dramatically. “I’m out of mana, too? Pity.”

Henry waved his hand in the air before him, and then gripped something unseen. He pulled his hand to the side and drew a gleaming broadsword from out of the air. “I know I called you a hero but come on. We both know you’re just some pathetic loser with a hard-on for playing savior to crying girls.”

He cut the air experimentally with his blade then offered Scott a faux salute, “Hey. I get it man. I love the sound of a sad girl crying just as much as the next guy.”

The man paused for a moment, seemed to consider something then spoke in a magnanimous manner. “Never let it be said that I am not cordial to the weak and pathetic. “You’re what? Level one? Level two at best? I’ll give you a chance to walk away. Killing humans always ends with lots of paperwork and I really can’t be bothered.”

Scott wheezed out. “Who’s pa-pathetic?” before he struggled to reach his feet once more. He stumbled twice before he managed to perform that heroic feat.

Henry released a languid sigh then pointed the tip of his blade toward Scott. “Do I really need to say it? You should have stayed out of my business.”

The swordsman lunged forward at surprising speed. Scott tried to dodge the strike, but he was too tired, too beaten, to do so completely. The blade pierced between his bottom ribs on the right side, and the force of the strike continued as Henry pressed him back against the tree.

Scott screamed in agony as bright red blood began to seep around the blade. Henry laughed coldly then whispered into his ear. “I lied. I love killing pretty boy idiots like you. If you spent more time training and less time doing your hair, you might have lived.”

Briefly, Scott was taken aback. What was this magical forest rapist even talking about? Never in his life had he been called something like, “Pretty boy.”

Objectively speaking, he was not bad looking. He knew that. When the whole world seemed to treat him worse than a leper, it was hard to think of himself as attractive, however. At best, he had considered himself fairly average in appearance.

The pain of the blade between his ribs seared those thoughts from his mind. It was more instinct than informed decision that determined what happened next. Scott unleashed another, far more primal, scream and bit down on the man’s ear. Henry shrieked loudly as he too began to bleed.

Scott fell forward heavily and took his killer with him. He continued to bite and savage the man’s ear even after the sword was ripped out of his side. Unconcerned with survival, his body had entered a mode of existence that no longer gave a damn about personal safety.

Henry beat at him with the pommel of his blade but could not manage to get in a good strike, or at least one that his enraged opponent might feel. Scott’s fingers found the man’s eyes and he dug at them like a feral animal. They were surprisingly resilient to damage, but they gave in quickly all the same.

Henry shrieked then roared out a word that caused his body to begin shining with yellow light once more. His pain was fueling his power. It quickly restored some of his mana for a last desperate move, though Scott did not know it.

“Master!” screamed Charlene. The entire fight had turned at a moment’s notice.

However, during the animalistic attack Scott’s roving hands happened upon the large rock that had been unearthed during Henry’s earlier magical tirade. Instinctively, his hands wrapped around it. Just before Henry finished recharging his power, Scott reared back and slammed the rock down with all the energy that his battered body could muster.

Henry screamed when the first blow struck his face. He gurgled loudly when the second strike seemed to break through whatever unholy thing was keeping him from being severely injured by normal attacks and shattered his nose. He whimpered like a whipped dog when the third blow fell, and then was silent after the fourth strike.