"Put the bow down then."
The tip of the dark arrow was shining bright in its razor-sharp point.
It felt like it was staring him down, threatening to instantly take his life if he made one wrong move..
"But you still want to kill me." Vega responded.
"I want to kill something. You have an arrow pointed at my face and you just spent the past few minutes taunting me in the trees. You caused this murderous intent, you stop it."
"Okay fair enough, I can stop it. But I'm warning you now, I can only stop it if I get closer." Vega's arrow slowly faded off into smoke as she set down her silver bow into the grass.
"Just try and calm yourself down." Vega took off her hood showing off her chocolate colored ponytail again, as she started to creep towards him.
"Just… breath..."
Vega started to take off her mask as well, unraveling the tie behind her neck.
Martyr followed her instructions and started to take deep breaths. Although he didn't take his eyes off her, even though he knew she wasn't trying to kill him anymore.
Her dark element was still there, triggering his own. Holding it back was taking all of his energy.
"I guess if you're gonna help me with Flugel we should trust each other more. I'll let you see my face."
Despite being the ruthless huntress that she was, Vega was surprisingly hot. Her light brown skin was actually smooth and looked well kept after despite the amount of time she probably spent in the forest.
She had sharp angry brown eyebrows and an extremely defined jawline. She even had a very small amount of freckles around her sharp nose with a little tip at the end. Her silver earrings were shining bright in the dark forest, one of an arrow and the other a moon crescent.
"Just calm down…"
As she got within arms reach, her looks were very distracting to his dark element, pulling and tugging at him to kill her.
She then gently put her hand on his chest. It actually did calm him down a lot. He could feel his dark element calming down through her touch.
"I'm just gonna absorb some of your element. You haven't trained your dark element much, haven't you?" Vega asked as smoke coming off him started to curl around her arm and dissolve into her skin.
"No, I never even considered using it during a battle."
Maybe it was because he had finally found somebody he could talk to about his second element or because of her looks but Martyr was really attracted to her right now.
Not to mention she looked really close to his age. The champion might actually be an option for him.
He could tell he had a dumb smile on his face as he looked down at Vega who had her resting serious face. He couldn't help it.
But her face was getting harder and harder to focus on. Black splotches started clouding his vision. He felt himself falling forward, held up by Vega's hand.
Vega said something, but Martyr couldn't understand it at all.
He was…
He…
…
"Don't fall asleep." Vega's voice said.
"Hey don't fall asleep!"
A sharp pain slammed across his stomach.
"Ow! What the hell!" Martyr rightfully said after being hit by her bow.
"You were like leaning on my hand. I was practically lifting you up." Vega said sternly, clearly a little annoyed.
"Sorry." Martyr tried to regain his balance but it was getting harder and harder. He didn't want to annoy this forest champion.
After all, she was probably his one chance at getting Flugel.
"Wait… is that why you were having arguments with Vulcan this whole time? Because of Flugel?"
"The idea of trying to fight Flugel is something that splits the whole counsel of Pleiades. Vulcan, Kryphia and Nova want to leave him alone so he can wreak havoc without them being at risk of triggering him. Me and Styrmir are on the complete opposite side. Although he still follows their rules they set up. For example, The lightning girl's doctor, Flugel, killed him, it wasn't suicide like they said it was." Vega's eyes had completely been cleared of smoke and were now stained black by the element.
"Wait what? This happened?"
"Dr. Dread died?" A small voice came from behind Vega.
Vanagloria had come out from behind the tree for some time now but he hadn't even noticed her because his dark element was focusing so much on Vega.
She didn't seem to feel endangered, but she couldn't seem to look anywhere except Vega's face and her hand on his chest.
"Exactly, they hide the people he kills to not scare the public. He is less active than he was in prime obviously, but he's still out there." Vega told Martyr as he followed her.
"I tried to pick out a team that looked strong enough to fight him, but they turned out to be completely against saving the islands from him. They just wanted to hide and let him die of old age." Vega was making herself frustrated.
"I don't think he can die of old age." Martyr pointed out. "Thanatos is a living example of an extreme amount of dark element prolonging life."
"Exactly. But people don't want to admit that because they are scared." Vega said, taking her hand off his chest.
"Feeling better now?"
"Yeah actually. I still feel the fire element and I'm tired as shit but I don't want to kill you anymore." Martyr looked down at his hands, lit up with a healthy, natural orange fire.
"So you have a dark element?" Vanagloria said, slowly walking up to him.
"Yes I do."
It felt incredible to get that off his chest. It's a weight he had been carrying around for ages.
The only people he could talk to about it was his mom, the eldest of all his younger siblings and his doctor.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, people don't usually… well, I'm sure you know how people feel about fire and dark elemental powers."
"It's okay, I'll keep your secret. It doesn't bother me. I think it's honestly pretty cool." Vanagloria said. She sounded very genuine about it, which meant a lot to him. She didn't sound mad at him anymore either.
"Ugh, Vanagloria is great." Martyr thought. He totally believed her too, she really was just that type of person.
"Okay, now let's get going." Vega spat out, interrupting his thoughts. "The Draconic Rainforest is right around the corner."
"Oh good, we thought a few times that we had gone in the wrong direction." Martyr said, starting to follow Vega as she made her way deeper into the forest.
"Nope you guys were totally on track the whole time."
"Yes, I knew it… Wait, you were watching us?" Vanagloria sounded annoyed at Vega.
"Yeah. Of course I was. This is the way I go for hunting so they are completely barren with any monsters so you guys can just focus on grabbing food and sleeping for the first part of your trail. Which reminds me…" Vega reached into one of her many leg pockets and pulled out a satchel which she threw at Vanagloria, hitting her chest.
"Thanks." Vanagloria looked like she was trying to hold back how happy seeing it finally made her as she opened up the bag to look at the insides.
"Wow, we've been looking for that all day." Martyr watched as she pulled out a plastic water bottle and instantly took a desperate gulp.
"All day? No you guys have been out here for two days. It'll be Wednesday in a few hours." Vega told him.
Vanagloria finally stopped her massive gulp to take a deep breath. "What… Really? I've been… walking around… with no rest… for 48 hours?"
"Yeah, basically. Now come on, lets at least make it to the Draconic Rainforest before we rest." Vega motioned to Martyr as she started walking away.
Martyr started to feel the effect of drowsiness as the adrenaline faded away. Walking felt much harder than it did a half an hour ago.
"Are you sure we shouldn't rest first?"
"Well, you might as well see the view first, it's right here." Vega said, hopping up on a hill covering up the next area of the forest.
"Okay?" Martyr started following her up the hill, a slight light at the top off it started to reveal itself the closer he got to the top.
The rainforest seemed to stop up the incline. The giant trees that once crowded the roof completely halted and showed off the peaceful night sky above.
'BOOM'
"Holy crap." Vanagloria had bolted up onto the top and was now looking off into the distance.
As Martyr reached the 20 foot summit he saw something he had been looking for the past two days.
Vega spread out her gloved hand towards the new fresh part of the forest.
"I present to you…"
"The Draconic Rainforest."