Chapter 24 : Morning

Fiona’s brow was heavily creased as she stared at her sister with an unabashed look of unsettled concern. Both of the dark elves were sitting in their apparently now designated seats at the kitchen table and were in the process of having breakfast, which consisted of simple bowls of milk and cereal.

Kianna groaned softly as she lightly teetered back and forth in her seat. Though her eyes were technically open, she clearly wasn’t fully coherent, or if she was she was only just barely so. Her ears hung limp from the sides of her head and were partially hidden by the ruffled mess that was her hair. The bathrobe she currently wore was merely draped over her shoulders and had just been folded closed across her front, rather than actually tied shut as it was still missing it’s cloth belt.

Anton in contrast appeared to be fully rested and in good spirits as he sat humming to himself in his own seemingly designated seat across from the dark elves. His eyes had completely returned to normal, with the blue glow having been burnt away throughout the night.

He was currently pouring a stream of milk into a bowl of sugar coated cereal with tiny marshmallows in it. Once finished, he slid the bowl across the table and set it in front of a still unresponsive Kianna.

The haggard looking dark elf made no move or acknowledgment to the offered food and simply remained completely still as both Anton and Fiona continued to stare at her.

“ ... Okay? Uh, Kianna!?” questioned Fiona as she reached out and went to poke her sister’s shoulder “Are you, awake yet?”

The very moment Fiona’s fingertip touched her, Kianna jumped in her seat and frantically covered her breasts with both arms.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!” she cried as she cringed away from her sister and flattened her ears back submissively behind her head “Not yet, not yet! Th-they’re s-still r-r-really s-s-sensitive!”

Fiona pulled back as her eyes went wide and her ears pointed themselves straight upwards in surprise.

“Ah, ah, ah! M-my Mas-ter! I h-helped him!” mumbled Kianna as she hunched in on herself and began to shift her arms back and forth across her guarded breasts “H-he! S-says, I’m! I’m a, good girl! I’m a good girl! ... I’m a good girl!”

Fiona slowly turned her head to the side until she was staring straight at Anton.

Taking a deep breath, Anton took on an air of mock seriousness as he closed his eyes and lightly bowed his head.

“Its true...” he admitted softly as he slowly nodded his head “I did say that...”

“ ... What, the fuck!” exclaimed Fiona as she turned back to her sister “Did you do to her!?”

“Mm, well! I don’t think it was so much “what” I did!” declared Anton as he looked up at Kianna and smiled broadly “As much as it was how many times I did it...”

Still slightly hyperventilating, Kianna blinked as she seemed to register the bowl of cereal sitting in front of her.

“Ah, ah! I’m! I’m really hungry!” she cried as she reached out and took hold of the bowl and spoon sitting in it before pulling it right beneath her chin.

“ ... Yeah! ... You know what!” muttered Fiona as she watched her sister begin to frantically devour her cereal “I’m kinda glad I decided not to sleep with you after all...”

Anton blinked before turning to her and narrowing his eyes.

“You decided?” he questioned as he cocked an eyebrow “That’s not how I remember that going?”

“So how exactly are we gonna get started!?” asked Fiona as she blatantly ignored his statement and looked down into her own bowl of cereal “What are you gonna teach us first!? How to make chains and whips!? Or make people do what we want!? Or what comes first!?”

Anton stared at her for a moment as he shook his head in annoyance.

“No. You won’t be able to do any of that until after you learn how to manipulate your auras.” he said as he took a bite out of his own bowl of cereal “ ... You can’t even really access your mana pools without your aura. So that’s where we’ll start.”

“Okay!” nodded Fiona as she watched him take one spoonful after another out of his bowl “So ... What do we do first then!?”

“Well. First!” smiled Anton as he swallowed a mouthful of cereal “We get the prep work out of the way.”

“Prep work?” questioned Fiona as she pointed her ears straight upwards.

“Mm hm...” mumbled Anton around another mouthful “ ... We need to get a training space set up and I’d like to evaluate you both. That way I can see what I’m working with.”

“ ... Okay.” nodded Fiona as she glanced at her sister “So, what do we, do first then?”

Chuckling, Anton rose from his seat and picked up his bowl before making his way to the sink.

“First, finish breakfast!” he stated as he downed the leftover milk from his bowl before placing it in the sink “Then I need you to help your sister take a shower while I get a few things together.”

“Uh, okay...” said Fiona as she turned back to her sister “I guess I can do that.”

Having finished off her cereal, Kianna was now sitting listlessly with her head hanging over her bowl.

“Good. Go ahead and use the rejuvenation formulas again. Hopefully they’ll be enough to bring Kianna back to life ... Oh, and no discovering each other while you’re in there!” exclaimed Anton as he gave Fiona a pointed look “Seriously, we don’t have time for that today ... And I very much doubt that Kianna has enough life force left in her to even survive something like that right now. So keep your fingers to yourself!”

“Are you serious! Like I’m going to do anything when she’s like this!” growled Fiona as she pointed her ears straight back “I’m not the crazy sex maniac here buddy! You are!”

“That’s right!” exclaimed Anton with a smile as he went to leave the room “And don’t you forget that!”

“ ... You! Argh!” growled Fiona as she shook her fist at the empty archway “Oh, I hate that guy!”

Kianna made a small sound in protest and attempted to glare at Fiona, but barely managed to even turn her head before falling over to the side and landing laid out on the table.

An annoyed expression spread across Fiona’s face as she stared at her sister and listened to her soft snoring. Sighing in frustration, she turned back to her bowl of cereal and grudgingly finished her meal.

A little over an hour later the two dark elves found themselves standing outside in the backyard and watching Anton as he appeared to be preparing for what seemed like some kind of odd ritual.

Dressed in comfortable tank tops and low-cut jean shorts, both of the dark elves stood together and off to the side as they watched Anton pour what looked like ground up glass out of a cereal box sized carton and lay it out in straight, thin lines across a large open space in the yard.

Raising her arms over her head, Kianna bent her right arm at the elbow and grabbed hold of her left arm as she stretched her limbs upwards. Once again, the rejuvenating shampoos and body wash had done wonders, as the just recently exhausted dark elf was now fully restored and was actually even humming about in high spirits.

“So, what is this for?” asked Fiona as she looked over the large, thirty foot wide octagon shape that Anton was slowly and methodically laying out in the grass.

“This is a charging circle, it’s going to help focus a large amount of mana into a single point...” explained Anton in an absent minded tone “But not so quickly that it causes an explosion...”

“An explosion!” exclaimed Kianna as her ears pointed themselves straight upwards “This is gonna explode!?”

“ ... No.” chuckled Anton as he tossed the now empty carton to the side and picked up a new one “I just said that this is going keep the mana from exploding. These lines will act as channels for the mana to flow through on it’s way to the center. This way the mana will flow at an even pace instead of all of it just crashing together at the single point in one go. Which if I let it do that, then it would explode.”

“Oh, so, what do you need a lot of mana for?” asked Kianna as she glanced over at a wheelbarrow that Anton had sitting off to the side and covered with a dark sheet “What are you charging?”

“My homu- ... Actually! You’ll see in a second.” smiled Anton as he made the line he was working on meet with another to form a corner of the octagon “This will be more fun if you two don’t know what to expect.”

The two dark elves gave each other tired looks before shrugging in unison and turning back to watch Anton continue to form his octagon.

When he was finally finished, Anton’s octagon had evolved into four separate octagons that had been formed within each other whilst getting progressively smaller and smaller towards the center. He then made more lines that crossed over each of the octagons corners. These lines connected the octagons together before all meeting as one in the very center and giving the entire structure a spiderweb-like design.

“ ... Okay, that outta do it.” mumbled Anton as he looked over the design he had created “Now for the fun part!”

Making his way to the wheelbarrow, Anton lifted the sheet away and let it drape haphazardly over the wheelbarrows handles.

Twisting to the side at their waists, the dark elves both craned their necks in an effort to see what had been hidden beneath the sheet. They both creased their brows in confusion as they found themselves gawking at what appeared to be a large, ugly black crystal, whose sharpened spire-like point rose out of a corroded looking base that was reminiscent of a boiling mass of tar and oil that had been instantly frozen in place.

As the dark elves stared at the strange crystal, Anton reached further into the wheelbarrow to a point that they couldn’t see and began to pick up a series of glowing jars.

These glass jars were the size of standard canning jars and were each sealed shut with a thick cap made of melted off-white colored wax. Floating within each of the jars was a tiny, dark colored marble sized sphere that was surrounded by swirling flames. The little infernos contained within the jars were each a different color and ran a wide spectrum of intensity that ranged from a dull dark to a bright neon and included among them the colors red, silver, turquoise, orange, gold, purple, green and white. Though the flaming jars were each producing a bright light, they didn’t seem to be generating any heat as Anton showed no signs of discomfort as he picked them up.

Having gathered all of the jars together in his arms, Anton made his way around the large outer octagon and placed a jar down at each of it’s eight corners.

“What are those things?” asked Kianna as Anton came back around to where he started.

“Batteries.” answered Anton in an absent tone as he looked over what he had done and nodded in satisfaction.

“ ... Batteries?” questioned Fiona as she furrowed her brow and looked from one jar to another “What kind of batteries are those!?”

“Guilty ones.” said Anton in the same absent tone as he turned away and went back to the wheelbarrow.

The dark elves both gave each other perplexed looks before turning back to the now ominous little jars. Their attention immediately snapped back to Anton as he used two hands to lift the large and apparently very heavy crystal out of the wheelbarrow. As they watched, he carried the crystal to the octagon and, being careful not to step on any of the lines, took it to the very center where he placed it down on the point where all of the lines met.

“Okay. I think we’re about ready to get this show going!” exclaimed Anton as he made his way back to the dark elves “You two might want to step back a bit ... No, no, this way. Stay behind me ... Okay, right there’s fine.”

The dark elves both stood shoulder to shoulder about ten feet back from where Anton now stood facing the crystal at the center of the octagon.

“Okay, stay right there!” commanded Anton as he looked back over his shoulder and smiled in excitement “Do not move from that spot! I mean it! No matter what happens! Okay!?”

With expressions of nervous apprehension plastered across their faces, the dark elves glanced at each other before nodding in unison.

“Okay!” they both exclaimed as they pointed their ears straight upwards and braced themselves in anticipation.

Chuckling at their expressions, Anton turned back to the crystal and raised his right hand.

The dark elves both blinked in surprise as a glowing ball of orange flames suddenly erupted into existence in the center of Anton’s open palm.

“Time to wake up, Earlivi!” shouted Anton as he rolled his torso back into a pitchers throw and hurled the ball of flames directly at the crystal.

The fireball was completely silent as it quickly sailed through the air and struck the black crystal dead on. The very moment it made contact with it’s target it splattered apart and covered the crystal in what looked like dozens of little flaming blobs.

Everything seemed to go quiet as the little flames danced about on the crystal, and as the stillness began to drag on, the dark elves looked at each other before turning back to Anton. Finding him staring intently at the crystal they both went to speak but stopped short as a loud, thunderous snap echoed through the air as a large, jagged crack suddenly split open across the side of the crystal’s main spire.

As their attention was immediately brought back to the crystal, the dark elves were both struck by an ominous sense of dread that suddenly seemed to hang thick in the air around them. They lowered their ears and involuntarily eased themselves back a step as a long, deep, irritated groan began to emanate from within the crystal itself. Mesmerized, they watched the tiny flames that covered the crystal begin to shrink down in size and finally disappear as they were apparently absorbed into it’s smooth and now shining surface.

“Do not move again...” whispered Anton in a slow hushed tone as he folded his arms over his chest “No matter what happens, stay completely still...”

Swallowing back their unease the dark elves both went wide eyed as everything again seemed to go quiet around them. Without warning, the crystal they were both so focused on, came to life.

More jagged splits began to crack open across random sections of the crystal and from these splits erupted angry, tentacle-like globs of blackness that reached out from within the cracked crystal’s body and clawed at the ground around it until finding the lines that lead out to the edges of the octagon. Once their targets were found the tentacles drove themselves into the lines and seemed to start drawing power from them and the jars that sat at their edges.

As another deep and unsettling groan reverberated out of the crystal, the flaming jars began to glow brighter and brighter as if in response, and from them power flowed into the lines of the octagons which caused the entire design to instantly ignite with an eerie, otherworldly green light that grew in it’s intensity until the world itself seemed to be bathed in it’s glow.

As the tentacles worked to drain the power from the lines that they had anchored themselves to, they began to swell in size, first doubling and then tripling in their mass until they had each become larger than the crystal they had spawned from, and were still connected to. As the crystal began to be pulled by it’s own tentacles, first in one direction and then another, it began to crack apart and as it’s destruction became inevitable a bloodcurdling moan erupted out of it as it finally broke completely.

As the crystal shattered, it’s splintered pieces were instantly absorbed into a swirling black mass of living tar that poured out of it and began to grow in size before rising straight upwards into the air.

The dark elves mouths hung open as they followed the rapidly growing mass upwards with their eyes and watched as it began to take on a thin, limbless, humanoid shape that was complete with a bulbous, round head.

Awestruck, and failing to quell the growing panic that was quickly swelling within them, they both subconsciously pressed into each other as their eyes went completely wide in both terror and wonder at the sight before them.

Reaching a height of nearly 40 feet, the now great mass continued to grow until the last of the green light in the octagon below it flickered and finally went out. The fires in the jars along the edges of the now darkened octagon had each dimmed down to nearly nothing, though all of them still had tiny flames glowing within them.

Their eyes still glued to the giant blank mass that towered before them, the dark elves each gasped softly as it began to sway back and forth. As they watched, still mesmerized, thin sections along it’s sides began to split away from the whole and these lengthened into two long arms that quickly formed massive hands at each of their ends. As this was happening above, a second split appeared at it’s base, and this spread upwards until two column-like legs took shape. As one more deep, ominous groan emanated out of the massive being, two tiny points of white appeared on it’s black, faceless head and these grew larger and larger until becoming two perfectly round circles of glowing white light.

“Do. Not. Move.” whispered Anton as the towering being leaned forward and gazed down at the diminutive figures that were standing before it “No matter what...”

As it stared downwards, the giant remained still and silent for a moment until it’s spotlight-like eyes suddenly seemed to brighten as they became focused on Anton. Without any other sign of warning, it swung it’s long, left leg into a half step and began to topple forward and over the group standing beneath it. As it fell, it threw it’s right arm out ahead of itself and opening it’s massive hand as wide as it could it made as if to slam it’s palm down right on top of Anton. The dark elves both shut their eyes in panic just as the great hand was about to make landfall. They kept their eyes closed as the ground itself shook to the thundering sound of the hand landing just feet in front of them. Slowly they opened their eyes and were struck still by the sight that lay before them.

The great hand had come to rest against the ground just to Anton’s left and as the dark elves watched in awe the giant being continued to move over them as it bent down into a kneeling position. Resting it’s right knee against the ground it laid it’s folded left arm over it’s bent left knee and bowed it’s head to what was apparently it’s Master.

“ ... Good morning Earlivi!” shouted Anton as he smiled broadly up at the kneeling giant.

With a voice that sounded as though it were born out of the deepest shadows of the world itself, the giant began to speak.

“Greetings ... my, Master...” it rumbled, it’s voice emanating right out of it’s faceless being “It is good ... to see you again...”

“Same to you!” called Anton as he continued to smile while giving the massive being a look over “Your looking good! I take it your feeling better now!?”

“Indeed...” exclaimed the giant as it eased itself back and lifted it’s right arm up into the air “I have been fully restored...”

“Good, good!” nodded Anton as he watched the giant flex it’s fingers before balling it’s hand into a huge fist “Glad to hear that!”

“It is thanks to you...” rumbled the giant as it bowed it’s head again “My, Master...”

“ ... Whoa! Holy shit!” breathed Fiona as she and her sister both blinked up at the seemingly docile giant “What the Hell is tha-!”

The dark elf was cut short as the giant slammed it’s fist into the ground just to the side of her and her sister. Before either of the dark elves could react beyond pointing their ears straight upwards, the giant opened it’s fist and as it did so it’s fingers molded together and became a single elongated wall-like form. The giants “hand” then shot forward and, stretching out from it’s wrist. It’s wall-like single digit then sailed behind the dark elves before turning at a sharp left angle behind them and then doing so again once it past completely around them. Within a single breath, the two dark elves were now trapped in a box canyon made of smooth black walls that towered over their heads.

“I see that you have acquired new charges...” groaned the giant as it leaned forward and focused it’s huge eyes on the sisters as it doused the dark elves in it’s shadow.

The dark elves both pressed themselves into each other as the air around them instantly became thick with a heavy sense of dread and malice. Looking straight upwards at the now looming giant, they both lowered their ears in fear as the white lights that made up it’s eyes dimmed and began to shift to an angry looking shade of red along their edges.

“Would you like me to place these two in containment, Master...” rumbled the giant as it menacingly lowered it’s head and preceded to glare threateningly down at the trapped dark elves “So that I may tame them for you...”

Kianna made a panicked sound and fearfully wrapped her arms around her sister, who immediately returned the gesture by hugging her back as tightly as she could. As the giant continued to lower it’s faceless head towards them the dark elves both dropped down to their knees together and made tiny fearful sounds as they cowered beneath it.

“Hm ... Well ... No, probably shouldn’t do that ... I appreciate the offer Earlivi!” grinned Anton as he casually watched the giant terrorize the cornered dark elves “But these two have been tamed down enough already, so there’s no reason to place them in your, “containment”. At least not at the moment.”

“Are you sure...” growled the giant as it began to tighten it’s box-like hand “They don’t look very tame to me...”

The dark elves both began to whimper pleadingly as the walls that surrounded them began to move inwards and close in around them.

“Yes, I’m sure these two have become very tame at this point.” chuckled Anton as a bright playful smile stayed fixed to his face “Isn’t that right girls? You’ve both become very tame now, haven’t you?”

All four of the bright rubies that were the eyes of the dark elves darted to Anton.

“Yes!” they cried out together as they flattened their ears back submissively and nodded frantically in agreement.

“We’re tame! Very tame!” exclaimed Kianna as Fiona continued to nod her head nonstop “We’re good girls! We promise!”

Anton went to speak but stopped short as the dark elves both looked upwards and raised their ears back up to a merely lowered state.

“Uh- ... Huh? ... Girls!?” questioned Anton.

The moment they brought their eyes back to him the dark elves once again immediately flattened their ears back submissively.

“ ... Girls, can you look back up at Earlivi, please?” said Anton as he pointed up at the giant.

The dark elves blinked in question but did as instructed, and once again raised their ears as they did so.

“ ... Hm. Well that’s interesting.” mumbled Anton as he arched an eyebrow “ ... Anyways. You see, Earlivi! I told you they were tame! They’ve even become pretty obedient little things!”

“Yes ... It seems they have...” mumbled the giant as it’s eyes seemed to tighten and become a deeper shade of red “How very fortunate for them...”

The dark elves both whimpered as they cringed down even lower and tightened the grips they had on each other.

“Yes, it is...” smiled Anton “Anyways! Would you mind condensing yourself down Earlivi? It’s a little hard to have a conversation with you when you’re like this!”

“Of course, my Master...” rumbled the giant as it lifted itself back upright and began to ease itself backwards “Give me just a moment...”

The dark elves both clamped their eyes shut and hunched down in panic as the walls that surrounded them were suddenly whisked up and away into the air above them. After a second of cowering they tentatively blinked open their eyes and were just in time to see the giant curl itself backwards and then start to fall towards the ground as it’s body broke down into a wave of living black tar which came crashing in on itself as it began to swirl into a miniature typhoon.

“So do either of you need a change of underwear yet?” teased Anton as he watched the whirling mass that was once the giant grow smaller and smaller.