I found myself alone and surrounded by what I had to assume were trained warriors, though that was exactly what I wanted. All of them were angry looking men, but fortunately they were disarmed. It turned out that whereas before I thought I was just fast, I was actually faster than fast.
I possessed the sort of speed that comic-book "speedsters" had. The sort where when I focused I was capable of moving so fast that time itself seemed to slow down around me. And fortunately for me, and unfortunately for my foes, I was very focused right now.
I hurled myself at the one enemy who had reacted to my presence, a smile on my face as I threw myself at him. I was about to have fun with this. I closed my fist and closed the distance that separated us, my fist sailing into the man's chest.
I felt the man begin to crumple, and I retracted my fist. I dropped to the floor and swept the man off of his feet with my own leg, before leaping back to my feet. As I moved I wondered how this man would perceive me, probably as a sort of super-sonic blur of motion and violence. Good.
I turned and hurled myself at another of the warriors, leaping at him and attacking him with a knee strike to the face. At the speed that I launched myself at I basically moved through him, effortlessly disabling the man. And now my robes were covered in blood.
As my feet returned to the ground I pivoted and faced the warriors closest to my allies. I was beginning to enjoy this. I could see that the warriors were in the middle of turning around, but they were moving so slowly that they were basically frozen. I leaped at one of them, and upon landing near the warrior I launched a simple, straight kick.
My foot tore through the air and hit the warrior closest to my men squarely in the back. My kick was a quick one, I lifted my leg, brought my knee to my chest, and then rocketed it towards my enemy. The ball of my foot crashed into the man's lower back and he was sent crashing forward, moving so fast that even in my high speed perception he hit the ground fast and hard.
I had eliminated three of the enemies, rendering them unable to fight effectively and in one case very probably killing them. The man who had taken my knee was still falling, but his head was a mess. If I were a betting man I'd probably put money on that specific person being dead.
The other two men would probably survive. I hadn't hit them especially hard, but my speed was the real issue. With speed like mine I didn't need to be especially forceful to deal devastating blows. So there was a chance they'd die, but not a particularly big one. Especially not if I had anything to say about it.
There were eight enemies. So five were still standing. I moved towards the next closest one and I grabbed his arm. I was quickly forced to remember that one of the powers I had been told I possessed was super strength, which I learned for myself when I unintentionally ripped the arm clean off of him. It had hardly felt like I utilized any of my strength, and I dropped the limb to the ground as soon as I realized what I had done.
"Gah..." I said, even as blood began to slowly bubble and ooze out of the newly created wound on the man's body. Four out of eight.
I dashed and finished the confrontation with two punches and two more kicks. The punches were to the chests of the warriors, and one of the kicks was to a man's face, and the other was to another man's legs. I only relaxed when I saw that all of the men were either dead, or were in various states of disarray and incapable of harming me. As I relaxed I felt the world begin to slowly speed up over the course of what felt like a few moments.
It took, in my perception, what felt like a minute or two before time returned to normal. When it did the men I had defeated all slumped to the ground in various states of disarray. And behind me, I heard my men shout my name and dash towards me. As they began to move towards me one of them shouted again, noticing that the defeated forms of my enemies around me.
"Master Marcos! Are you okay?" He asked, his voice echoing across the path to where I was idly standing still. I chuckled and smiled at him, to indicate that I was indeed fine.
It took the men a few moments to reach me. When they did they proceeded to inspect me, or at least Arturo and one of Juniper's guards did, while Juniper and his other guard began to inspect the fallen and defeated forms of the men I had defeated. They walked past me to get a closer look at the bodies and unconscious forms of the defeated men. As they did I heard Juniper speak gently.
"What happened to these men...?" He wondered aloud as he and his guard inspected the fallen forms of the defeated warriors. I chuckled and waved away the two men inspecting me. I turned to face Juniper and spoke.
"I defeated them. I am not that skilled of a fighter, but I am fast. Incredibly fast." I explained, speaking casually of my victory over the fallen warriors.
"I'm also very strong. At least a few of them might well be dead. Some of the others are on their way to death's door." I explained speaking of my victory in simplistic terms.
"I... I see that." Juniper exclaimed, surprised at the simplicity and brutality of the ways I had defeated several warriors.
"Are you okay? I couldn't even see the men, and not only did you see them, you also defeated them... What a terrifying victory." He asked, tilting his time to look at me quizzically. I nodded.
"I mean... This is admittedly a bit of a surprise to me, but it's nothing I can't handle. I'm fine." I told him. Off in the distance I heard something new. A faint horn. One that quickly began to grow louder. And a plethora of voices coming closer to where Juniper and I stood. My eyebrows arched upwards as I began to make out the voices more cleanly in my head.
Some of them sounded human. Others... did not. The ones that did not sound human were rough, making noises like that of someone who was doing exhausting physical labor, and they were louder than the voices belonging to those I suspected were humans. I was seized by curiosity, even though I had a suspicion of what sort of answers I would find if I investigated the noise. That said this was the time for me to be naive and to aggressively seek all sorts of answers.
I fell silent and I looked off in the distance of the noises. I saw a big cloud of dust coming towards me, but I couldn't see what was inside of it. I sighed and I focused my sight. It was only when I focused that my view began to change.
The dust gradually began to fade out of view, and I began to see a number of forms within the dust cloud. The forms within the dust cloud belonged to humans, and horses. One of the men held a spear that was abnormally glowing, and the longer I looked at the cloud, the more things began to happen.
The first thing was the forms within the cloud of dust began to glow. I swiftly began to see their bodies be illuminated by something a bit like orange energy, and I immediately recognized what new thing I was utilizing to see the people within the cloud. I had thermal vision. And apparently I could understand animals. Today was a big day for me.
The horses were grunting, but they were also muttering to each other. They told each other that they were thirsty and hungry. I could hear them clearly, and their voices were also to separate from that of the humans.
The humans held spears, but against my thermal vision their spears were simple weapons that didn't radiate any heat aside from where the men held them. The number of warriors approaching us numbered around twelve. Only one of them held a glowing spear, and I immediately suspected that the weapon was responsible for the dust cloud.
I turned towards Juniper and almost jumped when I saw the orange glow surrounding the man. He immediately approached me, with a hand and I stopped him right before he would have touched me.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I am adjusting to this new body and my senses are... Still a bit sensitive." I said to the man, attempting to come up with a plausible excuse for my abrupt and odd behavior. He backed away and nodded gently, accepting my words without much confusion. That said, I now looked at Juniper and tried to shut off my heat vision.
When I focused on turning it off it seemed to work and when I blinked my vision was back to normal. And now was the perfect chance for me to ask something. So I was bold.
"Juniper... I thought that we couldn't understand the natives." I asked, revealing one of the many tidbits that the paperwork I had read through revealed to me. The wizard looked at me and there was a look of confusion on his face.
"Marcos... We can't. Can... Can you understand them?" He asked me, looking at me in awe, his facial expression having slowly shifted as he spoke. I stood up straight, towering over the man, and began to softly chuckle.
"I... I can actually." I revealed, shocked at the bevy of powers I possessed. I knew that my knowledge was lacking, but I also knew that I had a number of means to acquire new knowledge, including evidently, knowledge that was not accessible to my companions.
"You can understand their words? That is... Honestly, most excellent. If you can understand them then maybe you can give us an edge over these fellows. Especially since it seems that your eyes are not fooled by their magic." Juniper exclaimed, a look of sudden delight on his face. I grinned and decided to test it.
Not all of the enemies were unconscious, and a constant source of distraction had been the groaning of those of them that were still conscious and in terrible pain. I quietly walked over to one of them, and kicked him. He moaned in pain, the sound unpleasant but honestly understandable. I had punched him in the gut earlier. He was now kneeling on the floor, dry-heaving.
"Hey... Can you understand me?" I asked him, opting to dispense with the pleasantries since he was someone who had wanted to hurt me. I heard his heartbeat quicken when he heard my voice and actually understood my words. He stopped heaving for a moment, or at least slowed down for a bit, and tried to look up at me. I didn't let him.
I put my foot on his head and kept it from rising up. I pushed back just enough to not hurt him and to keep him basically on his hands and knees in front of me.
"I didn't ask you to look at me. I asked if you understood me." I said, deepening my voice for a moment. I felt a bit of fear, and a bit of humiliation begin to emanate from the man. A second later he uttered a single word.
"Yes..." He said, clear as day, but I knew, intuitively, that the words were not so clear to my companions. That said it was enough for me.
"Wonderful. Well I suppose I shouldn't just let you die." I said, chuckling. I looked over at Juniper and saw that he was watching me intently. I felt a tinge of fear from him too. It was understandable really.
I lifted my foot from the back of the warrior's head and I proceeded to gently kick him onto his back. I used only a small bit of my strength to do so and he rolled over painfully onto his back. He came to a stop with a groan. I approached him and then knelt down next to him.
"Alright I'll just give you a quick inspection." I told the man, as I began to study him. A small part of me wanted to try and heal him, but somehow I doubted that for a power as esoteric as healing all it'd take was a mere desire to do so.
Until now all of my powers had been purely physical, with the exceptions of my language abilities. Those and this one were my first truly supernatural powers, though one could argue that my speed was so high that it was supernatural.
I inspected the man and noticed that thankfully none of his injuries were life-threatening. I even ran my hands over his crumpled form to as fully inspect him as possible. He seemed like he was just thoroughly humiliated and cowed, not actually a danger to anyone or in danger of death.
"Good. I'm glad that I don't have to have to perform emergency first aid." I muttered, satisfied that the man's life wasn't in danger. I wanted him uncomfortable. Having one of these men alive was enough for me. I got up as the dust cloud continued to approach my men and I, and I began to inspect the other fallen forms. I wanted to see who all would live and who would die.
Of the eight men who had come to attack, the man who had endured my knee strike had already died, and only one other person would die before the men on their horses arrived. As they closed in on me and my men the dust cloud began to disperse, and I heard the men audibly gasp when they saw me and my allies standing over the six defeated, but living warriors, and the two corpses. I greeted them with a simple and respectful nod.