Silence.

  A brutal, oppressive silence broken by only two things. The panicked hooting of a small white owl as it circled the marshy battlefield. And the creaking of wood and bone as they shifted in the slurry of putrid, rotting material beneath their roots and feet.

  A silence created by a presence so powerful that it overwhelmed Temate's [Towering Presence] with sheer terror. The certainty of death and the cold of the grave. Created by the resonating voice which still thrummed through the minds of the few living beings here.

  This was bad. This was really, really bad.

  Temate fought with silent determination just to move his eyes and look. To find the threat, to find a focus as his blood froze over and his body went against every instinct in his being. He needed a target, an enemy to focus the slowly boiling anger inside him. No one forced him to obey. No one.

  Never again.

  A twitch of motion in the silence, a crack of bone as one of the more humanoid marchers stood up tall. Their spine cracked as their back sprung into a straight pilr of bone. Their hands slowly shifted behind their back, csping together in a familiar posture. Too familiar. Temate's eyes narrowed at the strange figure in equal parts terror and hatred.

  Then the marcher sighed, as Rot surged towards it, covering its form. In moments the skeletal form was buried in a sludgy mockery of a grinning, humanoid figure. A man of some description. The Rot flowed off of his shoulders, forming into a long, almost elegant robe of dark bck, bones decorating it like gilding.

  "Much better." The Thing hummed, it's voice chilling Temate's blood once more, freezing him over again. He had to break free. Had to-

  "HOOOOOO"

  A burst of air smmed into their group, knocking each of them into the muck and snapping them out of their fear. Immediately Temate forced himself to his feet, getting his legs beneath him.

  "Oh, that won't do Voel, can't have you interfering now." The voice rolled over Temate's senses, trying to pin him again. It cked power, being directed elsewhere. As Temate stood he pushed every ounce of energy he could to his [Towering Presence] to shelter his allies.

  "NO!" Toni screamed out as a jagged, bone white cw which erupted from the Rot before them to grab Snowball. The owl hooted in surprise before the cw dragged it into the Rot, the only thing still visible a single pristine white feather resting atop the muck. Toni was in shock.

  "There, now he's out of the wa-"

  BOOM

  Thunder. An eruption of noise as Toni fired at the false-man, right at it's stupid, grinning face. Right between it's stupid, closed eyes. The shock faded after her body reacted, and what repced it was fury. And pain. Snowball may have just been an owl but she loved the little guy!

  She focused her [Hunter's Instinct] on the figure as the people around her began to move as well.

  "YOU FUCKING MONSTER!" She screamed at the false-man, firing round after round. [Hammer Down] carrying each new round with extra weight and impact. Each melting into the pool of Rot forming it's flesh. It tilted it's head at her.

  Unbothered.

  She felt it's gaze fixate on her, mocking her with a cold emotionless grin that chilled her. She hesitated as fear grasped at her again. Until a warm, orange light filled the air around her, as Temate's broad back stepped into view. Comfort flushed the anger from her mind, and dampened the fear so she could think.

  She felt the warmth on her body, from the light, from her allies. She took a deep breath.

  Fire.

  The Rot was weak to fire, not bullets. Stupid Toni losing her cool. Toni lifted her gun once more to aim, and to set that stupid, smug bastards face afme.

  Pipuck pushed their [Last Light] one more time. They were burning through power fast. This thing was a monster and it took all their focus just to fight against it, even with Temate's [Towering Presence] weakening the immediate impact.

  "La', I can't keep this up much longer. We 'ave to ge' ou' I don't think-"

  A fsh of light as Toni's shoulders settled and she began shooting fme once more. Pipuck was gd for that, the girl felt strongly for others and that was good sometimes. Losing your head in the middle of possibly the most dangerous situation they'd found themselves in since entering this world was decidedly not good. Especially over a bloody owl.

  "Toni! Temate! We 'ave to ge' outta ere!" They raised their voice to be heard, a fuzzy hand grasped their shoulder. They turned and saw Laurel, eyes fixed on the figure practically dancing out of the way of Toni's fme bsts.

  "Your Spiras friend is correct! This is beyond us, you lot especially, fall back we must tell Commandant Th-" Laurel stopped in the midst of their shout to parry a tree branch, moving so fast it might as well be a scythe come to reap their very lives.

  "Fuck! The other's are startin' to move! TONI! TEMATE!" Pipuck shouted again, desperate to get their attention. It's not as if it was loud here, only fire and creaking wood filled the air. Pipuck saw Temate turn, determination on his face, yet uncertainty as well. He knows! But Toni...

  Surrender darted passed Pipuck, they were right they needed to leave now. She dashed over and tackled Toni out of the way just in time.

  "[Dance Macabre]" The cold voice ushered out, and the unmoving marchers lunged. In a flurry of motion a dozen skeletal cws and bdes pushed at them.

  "[Spiral of Bone]!"

  Temate moved just as quickly, putting himself in the way of as many as he could. Bursts of bone erupting from his body as he tried to shield himself. He couldn't block them all, but those who got passed missed Toni and Surrender as they y prone in the muck. Temate's bde swung, shattering two of the marchers in a single strike.

  "[Vicious Strike]!" Five more of the things scattered on the ground.

  "[Seize Control]" a cold whisper issued out along an extended talon of bone and Temate froze in pce.

  Surrender scrambled to her feet, she couldn't go after the Rot-man, not so deep into the rot as he was. She grabbed Toni as she got up.

  "Quick! We go! Must go!" She urged the other woman.

  Toni tried shaking her off as she replied, "Not without Temate!"

  Toni took aim and fired another gout of fme. In a single smooth pirouette the Rot-man dodged and moved closer. Then dodged a second bst from Toni as he stepped right before them. Surrender hated it, but Toni wouldn't leave without Temate, and now the Rot-man was close...

  Laurel smmed another tree to prevent it from getting closer. It was harder now, they were drawing more Power from this new kind of marcher than they had from the Rot itself! How! He wished, not for the first time, he had access to his abode so he could grab a new weapon.

  He dipped beneath a scything branch. Deflecting a second straight into a third causing them to crash together and got some distance. He smmed right into something which grunted and the warm orange light flickered.

  "Fuck. Nee' to go." Laurel heard Pipuck grunting behind him. The spiras clearly exerting vast power to keep the [Power] in use. They had to run, and Laurel didn't know how to get them to go. He muttered back.

  "Spiras. I will make a path, grab your companions and run." Laurel looked quickly to find the shallowest path through the scything trees as they crept closer. He stepped passed Pipuck so the Spiras could see where he pointed. "Over there, one Rotten thing in the way, Toni and Temate can burn it and-"

  "PUT HIM DOWN!" The shout and roar of fire from behind Laurel preceded the tree's all freezing in pce as their controllers focus wavered. He turned and couldn't contain his gasp as he saw Temate being held aloft.

  "And why would I do that? He has so much... Potential." The cruel, soft voice pounded against Laurel, filling him with the terror of the living. Oh how he wanted to run, but these were his charges! He couldn't run now.

  Toni gathered fmes again, but before she could fire them the Rot-man lifted his other hand. The one not csped around Temate's throat as he held the nearly half a foot taller man aloft. And flicked it.

  Bone erupted from the ground and tossed Toni across the marsh and into the tree's which immediately thrust down to impale her. Laurel shouted wordlessly as he dove in, parrying one away and taking the other in his breastpte. It punched all the way through but stopped before mortally injuring him.

  Laurel grabbed the human and leapt beyond the bounds of the closing trees and their reach. He looked back up to see Surrender cwing the Rot-man's arm, he just ignored the gremlin.

  "I did not expect to see one of the Benediction here so soon." The Rot-man examined Temate as if he was a curious object. "No. Not Benediction? Hmm, nor Hunter I see no token. Strange, who are you people?" He looked over towards Laurel and Toni and one eye rose.

  "Oh no, can't have you all getting away, it would be a... problem." He reached a hand towards them. "[Dance Macabre], [Smooth Motion]." With the [Powers] uttered the marchers surged forward again. Surrender pushed Pipuck into the mud and the two vanished as the marchers passed over them.

  "Hm. Way of Night." The Rot-man let out a sound of mild irritation. "I'll have to handle you myself."

  Laurel ignored that as he caught Temate's pleading eyes. The desperate need of a protector who can't help now wanting his charge to get away. To be safe. Laurel knew that look and he steeled his mind. Beside him, Toni had risen and began to gather fme again.

  BOOM

  He needed to die, but the fire was too slow, it couldn't catch the fake-man, she needed to shoot. So she did. She shot, and shot, again and again as she gathered fme in front of her muzzle. Willing the fire to carry with the bullets. Willing them to carry her anger to that thing as it held her love.

  Burn.

  Burn.

  Burn.

  BURN.

  On the fifth shot she felt a familiar sensation, just the same as she'd felt back with the Grand Ceil. When her fire and desire to protect herself had boiled over and out of her. This time her desire to burn something away carried the fme and she felt her power become a [Firebrand].

  Glowing orange bullets began firing from her gun, sure the heat was less than raw fme and fire, but it was so much faster. It caught that thing in the side and she saw it's head flick unnaturally fast towards her as it's grip loosened on Temate. Both eye's rose in surprise.

  "Catalysis? My, aren't you fascinating as well. Perhaps I should keep you both for testing." The voice froze her action, her fury instantly frozen over by the chill terror it created. Her knee's shook as she watched the advancing marchers, slowed in their commanders moment of distraction.

  She looked to Temate, and saw a look in his eye. The desperation for her to get out, to leave him. But she couldn't! She couldn't let him do this! Not alone! Not again! FUCK! She opened her mouth to say something, but Temate beat her to it. Croaking out words around the loosened grasp of the things hand.

  "Toni. This is an [Iron Order]-"

  "Temate NO DON'T YOU-"

  "Run."

  And she did. She ran, she tried to stop herself but that [Power] was too much for her. She ran filled with fury and despair. Idiot. Asshole. Fuck him, fucking idiot what was he gonna do without her there?

  What could he do against that alone. Nothing. She couldn't believe him, the asshole! He'd made her run! He'd forced her to leave him and save herself! Tears ran down her face as she fought against the [Iron Order], desperate to go back!

  She kept running, she couldn't even look back. She couldn't see anything but the ground as she plodded through mud and muck. Her foot hit a patch of Rot and it tore her clog to pieces forcing her to kick it off.

  She couldn't see Laurel who ran alongside her, destroying marchers who gave chase. Who came from every direction. She didn't see when Surrender and Pipuck joined them. At some point she felt the [Power] fade but was too afraid to go back by then. To see what happened.

  What was left.

  She ran, and she cried, long passed the edge of the Rot. It wasn't that far when you weren't trying to sneak, less then a minute even in the difficult terrain. She kept running until she ran directly into something fluffy and big. She nearly fell onto her back when a soft arm caught her.

  "A-I wouldn't want to be the reason you got hurt, beautiful girl." A soft, strangely accented voice thrummed above her. Toni looked up and blinked through teary eyes to utter a confused question.

  "Snowball?"

  The following section contains graphic depictions of torture, mutition and dismemberment. Please skip this if you feel that may be too much, a brief review will be detailed in a ter chapter as a character interaction so the important bits will be made known to you.

  The Marcher turned to Temate as it's hand tightened firmly around his throat again. Temate choked as the Rot seeped in, feeling his flesh begin to fizzle away once more. It felt much like he'd poured peroxide onto several fresh scratches. Constantly biting at the flesh where the Marcher grabbed him.

  It hurt. Worse than peroxide would if he was honest. Yet Temate had suffered through worse. He forced his eyes to focus, gring into the closed slits of the Marcher as it examined him. Temate brought his hands to wrap around the things wrist as it looked over him.

  "Impressive. A command [Power]?" Temate felt the voice wash over him, fear invoked by the Power in it. He held it's gaze and felt [Magic Eye] begin to naturally fill with power at his intense focus.

  "Hmmm, and a [Power] simir to my [Essence Assess] but more... thorough. Very curious, tell me pest. What do you see?" The Marcher's lips tilted upward in a mocking smile as Temate dug further in.

  His vision swam, filling with the ripple of Rot forming the Marcher's face. Further into the Rot, swimming deeper, digging into the essence of this thing which slowly consumed his throat. He choked, both on his own blood as it began to spill out around the creature's grasp, and on what he saw.

  A roiling storm filled the Marcher. Bright light and Power bleeding across it's deepest depths blinding Temate. It filled him with greater terror than the Marcher had done with any of it's actions. The Power was hungry, desperate, omnipresent and yet empty as it bled out of the creature's [Powers].

  So hungry, Temate could feel it pulling on his own [Power], his [Magic Eye] as it touched on the core of the being. It tore at him, trying to wrench his own [Powers] open to bleed into him. Temate screamed, feeling something inside snapping, bending, breaking. His mind bnking out in white searing pain.

  As he fled out of his [Magic Eye], Temate realized it was not just wrenching pain which filled his mind. It filled his senses as well. The Marcher grinned with cruel delight as Temate's vision swam to his dominant arm. If he could, he would vomit at the sight, but his throat had been thoroughly crushed and bled beneath the marchers hands.

  His arm was gone. No. The flesh was gone, something... Something had skinned him. Leaving muscle and bone visible to the world. Rot pooled across him, eating at his muscle as he screamed in pain. This... This his torture training had not prepared him for.

  "I'm going to enjoy pulling you apart and feasting on your Power. It is a shame the others seem to have escaped, but you are a delicious meal yourself. Though small still." The Marcher spoke softly, but Temate felt it's voice screaming in his mind.

  "And when I've had my fill, well I will turn you into my first lieutenant. Your natural lean towards Command and Bone makes you perfect for the role." That nasty grin grew genuinely excited for a moment, though Temate was too lost to pain to notice. "I really lucked out here today."

  Temate screamed as the Marcher dug a cwed hand into his exposed muscle. It grabbed at part of it, tearing it away with ease, like a person tearing freshly cooked meat off a normal bone. Blood sprayed through the air from severed vessels, separated long ago from the flesh to hang along his arms.

  Temate wished he would die, desperately begging for help. For not the first time in his life he begged the world to send him someone. To free him from this torture, from this pain. Not since his youth had he experienced this, since his Ali'i forced him through his training. To forge him into a weapon.

  He'd left that behind, swore he'd never return there, and here he was. Again and again he screamed as muscle and sinew were torn from bone until his arm was picked clean. White bone gleamed in the low-light filling the Fallow.

  Temate cast within himself, he couldn't surrender, he couldn't give up. There didn't have to be a way out but he'd learned that you only lost once you surrendered. Once you stopped trying. So he couldn't accept what felt like certainty, as that made it certainty.

  [Powers] were magic. Magic was fluid, idea. Command it had said. Bone. That he knew. No, it wasn't command, Temate knew what it was. Dominance. Pure, visceral overbearing dominance. He felt that, had always hated that part of him in some way.

  Temate screamed again as the Marcher dug into his shoulder next, slowly ripping flesh and muscle away. Why wasn't he dead? Why? Cause he refused to be? Maybe. Temate focused what little conscious thought he could muster.

  Dominance.

  Bone.

  Something clicked in his desperation. Temate opened his eyes and stared into the Marchers eyes. Bone, controlled by a conscious entity, but it wasn't that entities body. Temate felt the power filling him and saw the creatures eyes widen.

  "You as well? Humans don't catalyze. Ho-"

  "Release." An order exited his lips. Not just an [Iron Order] but something else. An order which spoke the fundamental structure of the thing, not its mind. A [Bone Order]. He felt the creature stutter, stumbling but not letting go.

  "YOU try to command ME!?" It roared in his face, losing it's composure as wrath filled it. Yet the order had worked, not in the way Temate had hoped. Bones cttered to the ground as the Marcher's control was released from the other marchers standing nearby.

  Dominance. Take control. Temate moved as quick as he could to act, if they existed, he could do it. Necromancy had always been a fascination for him, and if he could command anything.

  He felt the words well up. "[March]!"

  Power fled him, [Powers] torn open by peering into the abyss spread along new routes. He could feel the fire inside growing out of control. Capture it. Contain it. Control it.

  Dominate it.

  "TWICE?! SO QUICKLY!?" The Marcher seemed truly shocked, but Temate wasn't paying attention. He felt the [Power] push into the fallen bones and they cttered back together. Marcher's forming from the cttered forms.

  This time under his command.

  The marcher's lurched towards their once master who looked around, amused. Temate doubted this would stop it, but if he could just-

  "Cute." The Marcher waved a hand. "[Dead Arrest]." The marchers stopped. Ripped from Temate's control back to the mind of The Marcher. It looked down at Temate and grinned.

  "Yes. You will make quite the Lich." It's hand raised to Temate's face power visibly flowering from it's palm. White light filled Temate's vision as his body twitched in pain, overwhelmed with sensation. Filled with emptiness.

  With Hunger.

  He tried to resist, to pull away, to close his eyes as he felt flesh and form melting. Sloughing from his body. He couldn't give up. He couldn't surrender. He- he was going to-

  WHOOOO

  A loud, deep noise resonated through the space. The cold, boiling of Temate's flesh was repced suddenly with soft warmth. The hand around his throat repced with a soothing tickling sensation. Temate's eyes went to the face of the thing which now held him. He croaked, barely able to utter the first word to come to mind.

  "S-snow-snowball?" He asked the round, feathered face which hovered above him. It looked down toward him and smiled softly. There was such kindness and warmth in it's expression that Temate couldn't help but smile back.

  "A-miss Toni called me that as well, but no. A-Snowball is me, but I am Voel. A-Rest now, I will bring you to safety." With that said a soft wing came down from above Voel's shoulder to press on Temate's lids. The feel of soft feathery down surrounded him and the st thing he heard before falling asleep was a cold exchange of names.

  "Voel."

  "A-Ashton."

  And Temate slept.