Indigo Scout was soaked in blood, wielding death as her weapon. She charged the army that faced them, taking the brunt of injury. The Hawks surged and attacked but she easily avoided them, meeting Knights blade for blade. Many of the soldiers did not want to meet her head-on knowing full well what might happen if they were to kill her or be in her vicinity if she were to die.

Nyle with his massive frame and Zo with her impeccable skill with a blade kept many enemies at bay. Indigo stood before them, directing her attention outward. Though the Hawks cut at her and their weapons got through her defense, Task’s army was on the defensive, facing their imminent deaths if they were to attack a bit too well.

However, for as good as the final trio felt, it only lasted so long. Indigo didn’t know much about her own Gift, but one thing had always been clear to her -- despite her deathlessness, she could be injured. After plenty of cuts, gashes and bruises, Indigo was approaching her limit. If she were to die, perhaps Zo or Warren would absorb her death if the army were to back away.

It was three against three-hundred it seemed. Zo slayed Knight after Knight and Nyle still held the strength to knock away a couple soldiers at once.

But soon they were surrounded. Soon, Indigo was having a hard time moving. Panic struck her deep inside her heart as the silver armor became a wall on all sides preventing escape. Hawks circled above and waited for the command of Task to strike them while they were distracted.

Indigo’s back hit Zo’s, and theirs hit Nyle’s and they watched as their fate approached. Silence. The sounds of shifting feet and heavy breaths being the only thing echoing through the trees. Task stepped forward with a smug expression, his feet dragging across dirt, getting Indigo’s attention. His single eye watched her with ease, telling her, Yes, I can easily kill your friends. You have lost.

“Usamea,” Zo said. Indigo looked back at her. “Hey. Looks like it’s over.” But she said it with a smile.

Nyle chuckled and spat out blood. “It’s been an honor, Zo. Indigo… I’m glad to have fought alongside you both.”

Indigo trembled. Over? This couldn’t be the end. Not to their love. Not to the remaining friends in her life. Not in the hope of fulfilling their goal. With resolution she tensed, took a deep breath, and shook her head. “It’s over for me,” she said. She turned and kissed Zo on the lips. “Not for you.” She sheathed her sword and walked forward, raising her hands. Task was among the men who held their blades forward and he cocked his head to the side, eyeing her curiously. The only way… was to appeal to the heart. Perhaps this man only hated the Gifted… the Cursed… She had to believe that he would let them go while they did whatever they planned to do with her. Even if it was arresting Zo and Nyle… Maybe someday she could find a way to free them or they could escape. Or serve their time… she didn’t know. But there was no fighting their way out of this. And she would do anything it took to keep them alive, until the very end of her options. Because if she fought her way through this army, Zo and Nyle would die.

And she would be alone all over again.

“Please,” Indigo said, stepping out to meet him. “Let them go. I surrender to you.” Reluctantly, she dropped to one knee. Her face became red-hot with shame.

“Indigo!” Zo cried, but she did her best to ignore her. “Do not bow to the likes of them! Not to this man! What are you...”

It was awful, but she would do anything for the safety of her friends. For the safety of Zo. She dropped to both knees, giving in completely, looking up to the judgemental face of Task, their hunter, her demon.

He chuckled which frustrated Indigo deep within her soul. But she remained low to the ground. He stepped forward and smiled, rubbing his chin. His one eye judged her while the other was a mangled mess of closed flesh. Someone must have gotten the better of him recently. The last time Indigo had seen her pursuer he still held both of his eyes. Within, she reveled in the fact he was just a man. And she could kill him if she so chose. But it wasn’t the wise decision. It was just important to know for the future.

“You’re surrendering?” Task looked to his men, who all laughed slowly. “Well. The demonic, terrifying En-Maer has not lived up to her name it seems. And she even has a heart.” He gestured to her companions. “You care for these people, then?”

Indigo eyed him intensely and nodded. It took every ounce of her to not lash out. Her only choice was to appeal to his humanity. Appeal to his sense of righteousness if the man had any of it left. “I do. Please. I’m the one you want. They are no threat to you… you have completely beaten us. Take me and leave them.” Tears formed in her eyes at the thought of more people in her life dying because of her. “Please… Task… Please have mercy. It is not a merciful death to kill the weak while they are outnumbered, is it?”

At this, something unexpected happened. Task reeled back a moment and eyed her curiously. He looked down and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. Indigo watched him… seemingly battling with something deep within his mind? She couldn’t tell. He looked to be in pain. His face grimaced and he shook his head, giving her a spike of cold fear.

Silence surrounded the mass of people in the forest. Task was deathly still. Indigo could barely breathe, feeling a tightness in her chest. Her next steps were a mystery and that was horrifying. The weight of the possibility of this being the end of it all was almost too much to bear. The thought of taking her own blade to her neck came to her -- but not even she had the choice of that escape.

Then, Task nodded and met her eyes. Indigo stared.

He whistled and held out his hands, making the Hawks soar back down to him. Two landed on his shoulders while the others curled up into their orbed forms and they dropped around his feet. Indigo was shocked. And relieved. There was chance for Zo and Nyle to live, then.

“Okay, En-Maer,” he said, his voice still full of disgust at the name. He looked at the others and nodded. “Restrain her,” he commanded. Then he looked up and pointed to Zo and Nyle. “Disarm her companions. Take them into custody. We have what we came for.”

Indigo breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

The breeze sent a song of rustling leaves through the air. All was still. Indigo waited an eternity for something to happen.

Nobody was moving. She could hear the breaths of everyone present.

She slowly turned around to meet Zo’s eyes whose was full of fear. Her chest heaving in anticipation. Indigo’s body became freezing cold as the silence continued. The sensation of being watched and judged overtook her again. She whirled back around to look at Task.

The man grinned down at her. A nasty grin that had crawled across his face, his eyes darkened by the shadows of his brow beneath the sunlight.

“Just kidding,” he said.

Indigo’s eyes widened. Her heart weighed her down but she forced herself up regardless, spinning to Zo and Nyle.

“RUN!” She screamed, her voice cracking, exploding out of her. She grabbed her sword and turned back around as she heard all of the Knights around her laughing and cheering for death.

She saw Task fling his arm out, sending two Hawks her way. Their wings were extended, sharp as blades, ready to attack. Already on top of her.

Indigo, before they struck, thought back on a conversation she had with Zo on a day that felt so long ago now…

“Have you ever been diced up into pieces?” Zo had asked. “Crushed into nothing but blood and guts? What would happen if you were?”

Indigo thought for a moment…

“I’ve never thought about it until now, I suppose,” Indigo had said, looking down at the table in thought. “It’s instant recovery if there’s someone within my Aura for my death to pass on to.” She imagined Zo’s scenarios playing out and shivered. “If I really were to be diced up into pieces or crushed into mush… would I really be put back together in an instant? Would it take more time? I’m not sure…”

Indigo closed her eyes, knowing what was about to happen. She was about to discover the true limits of her Gift.

She felt the bladed wings in her neck. So deep.

A second of hot pain signalled the death of Indigo Scout.

Task couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Something painful had struck him as he watched En-Maer’s head tumble from her shoulders. It was her Curse — must have been — soaring forward, a wave of death emanating from En-Maer to strike him so she would regenerate. It shook the ground and surrounded him, shaking him entirely to his core. The taste of it… the scent of it… for a moment he truly thought he died.

But he held something that protected him from such things. It was what he carried when he fought that Cursed woman who took his eye, counteracting whatever abilities she may have carried. It was what he carried now. And as he stood his ground, tense and terrified, watching En-Maer’s corpse collapse, blood waterfalling from her now open neck, he realized they had won.

This necklace he wore… an invention of Alchemists. Specifically an invention of Cade’s, the most notorious Speaker and Alchemist to ever live. The product of years of study on Cursed individuals. These amulets were rare, but it was his own gift, to become a hunter of the Cursed. A powerful artifact of Alchemy that could create an artificial Aura, countering any of the evil powers that might surge toward him.

The forest was silent for a while. Task let out a deep sigh as the woman in En-Maer’s company, Zo, screamed in horror. She ran to En-Maer’s corpse and dropped to hold her. Task looked away from the scene, not wishing to see such pathetic desperation for a demon in disguise. He was still shaking, and he held his hands firm. His men cheered, overtaking the horrible cries of En-Maer’s companions. He smiled out among his Company and nodded. They had finally done it… since the beginning of Task’s recruitment and given duty they had at long last defeated one of the more powerful Cursed that wandered the lands.

However, there was faint darkness within him that clung to his thrill. His eyes slowly went back to Zo, holding the corpse of En-Maer, looking away from his smiling, cheering Knights. The twisted, desperate face of a warrior, a woman who was human like them was nothing to be too excited for. This woman didn’t understand -- she didn’t understand the evils of the Cursed. He hoped they could make them learn soon enough.

With a sigh he calmed his warriors and directed some of them to continue their job. “Arrest them,” he said. Zo fought the men who grabbed her, lunging and twisting out of their grasp to be with her fallen demon. But, eventually, they were both restrained and held at bay.

He would report back to Shieldhome, to the High Priest, and if the Alchemists could create more of this technology, they could eradicate the Cursed for good. This knowledge brought him back into his power, into his success.

The mysteries still surrounded the Cursed, however. He was surprised that her power simply didn’t choose someone else when he failed to die from the ricochet. But… with no one to pass the death on to that meant her Curse failed in what it was meant to do. Which must have meant the regeneration couldn’t happen.

The scum was defeated. He sat down in the grass, exhaling, watching his Knights move to secure the corpse. Zo screamed for them to stay away but, of course, none listened to her cries. The poor woman.

“Well done, Captain,” spoke Cure, coming up next to him. The man, his closest friend, was a wonderful sight.

“It was all of us that eradicated the Liberators,” he replied. “I can’t believe it’s over. At least with this one.” He smiled up at Cure, who held out a hand and helped him up. “This was my main duty. I can return to the Kingdom.”

“We all can,” Cure smiled. Then, when they both stood, Cure raised his fist and cheered. “We begin preparations to return to Shieldhome! Our Captain, Task, has completed to core mission!”

“Task did it… he killed En-Maer!” cheered another.

“I can’t believe it!”

The Knights of his Company slowly came to a loud cheer once more, drowning out the miserable sounds of their prisoners. He smiled, looking down at En-Maer’s pale, motionless body.

It was almost hard to believe. Relief and victory washed across his soul and he ordered his men to retrieve her remains. It was finally time to go home and—

An explosion of heat and color. From En-Maer’s body. His Knights who were lifting her remains were blasted away, tumbling away, others flung through the air to collide with other Knights. There was a sudden stench in the air — something rancid and… and… So much light. A rumbling. Task couldn’t breathe. A storm of light and sound had appeared in the center of him and his Knights where they surrounded the remaining Liberators.

For a moment, he thought it was the sun that had traveled down to Nadi, right before his very body. The Knights, blurred bodies at this point, backed away, retreating, creating distance. Task stayed put, clenching his eye, knowing it was not the sun at all. The colors. Swirling.

Then, it all became one color — a powerful, bright indigo. Surrounding a figure.

“No…” he whispered. It couldn’t… It couldn’t be.

The very air itself shook and the trees bent away from the force of energy. When the light dimmed for a moment, when he could see properly again, he saw a body coming to stand, blackened within the intensity of the storm. It all dimmed some more and he saw her. En-Maer. A head on her shoulders. Within the brightness he could see hateful eyes turned toward him.

Impossible… impossible…!

Task trembled. The very bones within his body shook. So cold, so frozen still, wielding a blade that he knew would be useless against the force he stood against. How? He saw it. He saw it with his own eyes. En-Maer had died -- and her Curse had failed to come to fruition. That should have left her dead for good! En-Maer was glowing, standing tall, staring directly at him. He couldn’t look away from her eyes. The color and intensity hypnotized him with a mixture of awe and existential terror.

So… En-Maer was unkillable. Truly, she was unkillable… unstoppable.

She… she could not be… Gods, what chance did anything in this world stand against such a...

“R-Retrea…” Task began to say, his thoughts and words unclear and turned to mush in the presence of his fear. But even he couldn’t heed his own words.

Indigo Scout was burning. Her breath seemed to emanate steam and heat and everything was so clear, despite her rage. The screams of Zo. She could hear them. And she had resisted death itself, rising from the most impossible odds. Her Aura was a storming sea, surging outward, and she could feel every single body in her vicinity. She could differentiate between enemy and ally.

Her anger terrified her for a moment, becoming a stench both physical and emotional, like that of death itself. Then, she transformed it into directed determination and aggression. She looked back and saw Zo and Nyle staring at her with large, awe-filled eyes.

She smiled and nodded. “It’s going to be okay,” she said.

Her eyes scanned the Knights that she was once afraid of. She could now feel their fear instead. Where there was once hope among her enemies that there was a way around her Gift, there was now the existential threat of her existence. There was now the realization that En-Maer had vanished… and Indigo Scout was their new enemy, who would never go away.

The sensation of flame was upon her but it wasn’t a pain that she wanted rid of. No, pain was her shield. Pain was her path. Nothing would ever stop her because pain was eternal… this world was pain… and she would take on that pain. Because above it all was the hope for such powerful love and strength. Through pain and struggle she would find it, again and again.

She focused and felt her Gift course through her veins. She felt it ripple through the air and bones of her surroundings.

She felt powerful. Insuppressible.

Truly unkillable.

The injuries on her body… no longer was she simply unkillable but injury would no longer remain on her body. Something about this new sensation of Aura… It had expanded and become stronger. She felt the injuries that remained on her body from the previous battle and she sent them outward. Much like how her Aura carried her death, it now carried her pain. She could feel how to do it now. How to use it as a weapon.

The Knights who fled collapsed in pain, wounds and gashes opening up on their bodies as they took on her burdens. With each one, Indigo felt lighter. She fired them like arrows, taking down Knight after Knight until she felt her body become completely healed and renewed. She could fight. And if they hurt her it would be sent back toward them tenfold.

As she walked forward her foot kicked something. She stared into her own, cold, lifeless eyes, the ones within the head that was removed from her body. From the Hawks that had killed her. The scars upon that face... The face of acceptance, yet sadness. Scars of suffering that she realized she no longer wore. They had been discarded as she had been reborn from this death.

Not even mutilation would erase Indigo Scout from the world. Her Curse… and her Gift… was to remain. To do whatever she had to in this world. Knowing her body, this Aura, whatever this power was, would gift her a renewed mind for her to keep going… It was both terrifying and wonderful.

Indigo held out her hands, looking out at all the Knights before her who trembled and writhed in pain. Heat rose within her and she drew upon that energy she felt earlier -- the one that made that Aura within her spread out. Where she could focus on all but the ones she protected.

She was one woman against an entire army. Her body itself a weapon. Her focus and desire an unstoppable force.

Indigo’s voice emerged from her stomach -- something loud, intense, angry and direct.

“Do not come any closer,” she declared. “Or else every single one of you will die.” She stepped closer and closer. “You are no match for what rests inside of me. What you demonize is the true power of this world.” She grinned at them. “Flee. And if you continue to terrorize this world and terrorize the Gifted of this land… I will find you eventually… even stronger than I am now.”

The army before her was silent.

And then, one by one, they retreated. Many in panic. Screaming. Scrambling for life. Becoming the weak ones that many of them had brutalized through their years of proclaimed justice.

Then, her eyes turned to Task, who remained, staring at her. His eye was wide and bright with panic. Indigo smiled down and looked right through him.

There was something about Task that she noticed now. Something about him that pushed against her Aura, despite how powerful it had become. But he was still a pathetic agent of misery that trembled before her now. Indigo drew her blade and approached him.

“Except you,” she grinned. “Fight me you pathetic coward.” She tilted her head. “I don’t know what it is that protects you from my power.” She squinted her eyes. “But I can feel it faltering. Something artificial. No match for what I’ve awakened.”

He flinched. Held himself firm for a moment.

Indigo tensed, gripped the hilt of her blade and charged. Task yelped like a dog and defended. The strength of her strike shattered his blade, and the man fell back, tumbling over himself again and again into the body of another Knight who helped him up.

And the cowards sprinted away. Task abandoned his sword, rushing away into the forest. Indigo remained bright, her Aura still kissing and pushing against the forest itself as she turned to Zo and Nyle. She could have chased them down… but her friends were injured. In need of her help. The dead of the Liberators needed her respect and attention for proper burial. They needed to grieve. Her eyes met Zo’s whose were filled with tears, looking up at her with relief and awe.

The surging power of her Gift dissipated then as Indigo moved to remove the restraints from Zo and Nyle. She felt exhausted and dropped to her knees as did her companions.

Zo’s palm reached up and caressed her face.

“Indigo…” she said quietly. “Your scars… the scars you once held upon your face…” Her thumb was rubbing her cheek. “They’ve vanished. How… how is this…” She let out a sob and hugged her tightly. “You’re alive. You’re…”

Indigo held them both. Tightly. The three of them nothing but tears and exhaustion. The three of them the only ones left.

Indigo smiled and squeezed them as hard as she could. Before she collapsed, sleeping into their arms she turned her gaze to the side, her eyes falling upon the head that was removed from her shoulders. The face that still held the scars of the past. The head, face and mind of En-Maer.

The Indigo that fell into the arms of her lover, into the arms of her only remaining friend, was a woman who had discovered a new power, the woman who was Usamea, the Indigo Scout that had always been there, waiting to emerge in an explosion of the strength of renewal and potential.