There are two vessels of the self in the body. The first is the Soul. The Soul is the template of the self, your true self, and where all that the self is and will be is stored. The second is the Voice. The Voice is the will of the soul, and is ever-changing, as opposed to the soul being static. The Voice represents the change that one wants to impose on the world, and the will of the self that lives in it. However, the Voice is dormant, sleeping since birth. That is, until the self shows a will to survive, a will to live, and a will to thrive. In that time of strife and self-determination, the seeds of power begin to grow, and the Voice will begin to speak. In that moment, when someone's will is at its peak, the voice will manifest that will into reality.

  Ted's vision doubled. It felt like he had two pairs of eyes, or rather, he had two pairs of everything. But, they did not match, the new set was different. In that vision, he saw an arrow behind him, inches from his neck. While in what he recognized as his real vision, there was no arrow to be seen. While he had no time to question this, he did understand vaguely what it meant, almost as if the information had been in his head the entire time. He swayed to the left swiftly, and as his senses indicated, an arrow flew by him, thudding into the shoulder of one of the surrounding thieves rather than lodging itself in Ted's neck. If he hadn't just moved, that would have surely killed him.

  What the hell was this power?

  However, as he questioned what was going on, another thug ran at him, weapon raised.. Or, that's how it seemed in his other set of eyes. In his original pair, however, no such thug was there. Frantically, Ted thrusted the end of his glaive blindly into what should have been thin air, but after only a second, he felt the pole jerk back as something hit it. It would have been better described as him hitting something, as when he looked, he saw a thug standing there, having dropped his weapon to the ground. The man had swayed into that spot ready to raise his weapon just as Ted had seen before. Now though, instead of raising his weapon to strike, the thug had his chest ripped through by the end of his glaive, blood oozing out of the sudden wound. After that, it was quite clear what he had gained after that awakening. He had awakened his Voice. Ted had a grin on his face, as he went back into the fray. That was, until he felt a piercing headache begin to come on. His two visions began to mix and coalesce, the strain of having his brain processing two instances of time was debilitating. He fell to his knees, his fingers tangling into his hair and digging into his scalp desperately.

  As he grappled with the pain, the thugs surrounding him closed in quickly, one arriving first with a short sword. He looked up, and saw a sword slam down, dividing his face in two horribly. He screamed in agony as he reached up to his face, only to open his eyes and see the same man now raising his sword. He felt that pain, even if it hadn't happened yet, though it was sure to happen if he didn't act fast. As the thug raised his sword, he spun his glaive up, and blocked the strike. The two metal objects clattered against each other, and as the thug recovered from the parry, Ted swept his leg under the thug's. The thug fell to the ground, while Ted spun his glaive, and slammed it down on the thug's neck. Blood sputtered out like a geyser, as he wrenched the blade from the struggling man's neck. Another thug ran at Ted, his eyes filled with rage, but Ted did not pay attention to him. Instead, he redirected his attention to another arrow that was going his way as that posed more of a threat than the walking corpse next to him.

  As a mere second later, the man looked down, his arms falling to the ground. He looked to the left and saw the large light skinned woman with green hair from earlier who had cleaved off his arms in a devastating strike from her two-handed axe. She then shifted her weight back, and flipped the axe the opposite direction. She grunted with effort as she brought the axe back up with all her might, and cleaved the man's head off in a jagged line from just below his jaw to the base of his skull. She then turns her face stony and focused as she backs up and goes back to back with Ted.

  She said, "Are you ok? You seemed to be in rather intense pain there."

  Ted replied, rubbing his head, "Yeah, just a bad headache, nothing more."

  She chuckled, "Pretty bad time for a headache."

  As Ted looked around, the battle appeared to be turning in their favor. While they had sustained several casualties, the powerhouses that they had on his side made up for the lack of people, and his Voice was quite helpful as well. Most of the forces left were bowmen, and they didn't seem like they wanted to stay for long. Though, as long as the bowmen could hide in the tree line, they had no way to-

  Ted's thought was interrupted, as the cloaked person's shoulder was grazed by an arrow. The cloaked person turned to the bowmen, and threw his needle like a throwing knife, hitting the tree next to the bowman that shot them. Ted could see it now, though. There was some kind of string between the eye of the needle and the person's finger. It was hard to see, but it was there. However, as soon as Ted noticed it, it began to violently pull on the man, and he seemed to be jerked towards the tree. It was like the needle and the string was used as some kind of grappling hook, but how? Ted didn't have enough time to think about this, as the needle flew back into the cloaked person's hand before he even landed, rendering the cloaked person airborne. The cloaked person then curled up, bringing their legs to their chest as they quickly flew towards the bowman. Then, when the cloaked person was close enough, their legs shot out, dropkicking the bowman and sending them hurdling into a log.

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  A nearby bowman pulled out a shortsword, and approached the cloaked person. Ted didn't even have to watch, or use his weird sight ability, to see what was going to happen. The bowman tried to slash down on the cloaked person, but they were way faster than the bowman. The cloaked person spun as they got up, and deflected the untrained strike with their needle. They followed that up by winding back, grunting and sending a left hook at the bowman's face, sending the man hurdling to the ground. The man tries to get back to his feet but the cloaked person is already on him. They jumped on the bowman's back and wrapped their legs around him, then, before the man could react, their needle snaked around the man's torso and punctured up under his ribs. First into the heart, then two more deadly strikes each into the lungs. The man clutched at his chest his frantic horrified screams quickly devolved into gurgling groans. They immediately let go of the dying man before they whirled around to face the bowman who they had kicked into the log moments ago.

  The man's nose had clearly been broken and gushed blood down his face, but that didn't stop him from advancing on the cloaked person. However, the man was stumbling, clearly in no condition to fight. So instead they approached the man, who clumsily swung at them with his short sword. They simply stepped back far enough to let the blade swipe in front of them, before they returned and simply kicked him in the side of his head, causing the injured man to keel over and fall into a nice sleep for a few hours.

  When they turned to look for the other three archers in the treeline, all they saw were bushes rustling and yelling as they ran off quickly into the forest, arguing amongst themselves angrily as they abandoned their 'comrades'. The word almost seemed silly to use when referring to a group of amateur bandits with obviously little to no loyalty amongst each other. The cloaked person just sighed, and their body relaxing slightly as tension they didn't know they were harboring leaves their muscles. They then slowly started to make their way back to the rest of the group.

  Once the thugs on the ground realized their predicament, they followed the lead of the bowmen, and fled as well, running into the woods haphazardly. When the remaining survivors realized they were all running, they didn't bother to give chase. Everyone instead just lowered their weapons in instinctive relief. A long silence falling among the remaining survivors on the suddenly quiet battlefield. Those remaining survivors being Ted, the cloaked person, the green-haired woman, the grizzled veteran, the man with the glasses, and three formerly bright-eyed Adventurers. They all slowly made their way back to the wagon, the horses having survived his predicament. Out of all the survivors, it was the man with the glasses that spoke up first.

  "I think that those who want to return to the South should take the wagon. After all, the frontier camp is closer, and I think that some of us here need to recover… after that." The man with the glasses said, his voice shaking slightly. Taking off his glasses with shaking hands and rubbing his eyes slowly.

  A couple of the young men who were new and looking forward to becoming proper adventurers seemed to come out of a trance when the man spoke. They dropped the damaged shields and viscera-covered blades as a mix of shock, relief, and horror dawned on their features. One of the men even fell to their knees and sobbed into his hands, only to further horrify himself when he smeared blood across his face. Another man and someone who he seems to know, maybe his brother, they looked similar enough, came to help the man to his feet.

  One looks over to the man in the glasses, a shaken up but more stable look in his eyes, "Yes, I'll go. Me and my brother will take this man…" he looked up from the terrified man and his eyes scanned across those remaining for anyone else who may want to go back, "...and anyone else who wants to go." He says, his voice losing his shakiness. Though when he looked around there's no one else who seems horribly traumatized by the brutal event.

  The grizzled veteran almost seemed disappointed by having to go back to the South. He sat at the side of the wagon, and was wiping the blood off of his sword with a rag. The veteran's armor was a bit more scratched than it was previously, but overall, it seemed like he suffered little injury. Ted himself swung his glaive harshly to throw off most of the blood on the weapon before he eyed the group forming for a moment. He then walked over to the group, quiet for the moment as he leaned tiredly on his polearm. He brought up his free hand absently rubbed his temple and listened to the conversation.

  The first to speak up after the others was the cloaked person, who said, "I have no intention to go back to the South. My ambitions lie in the frontier."

  The person took off the cloak, hanging it on the wagon with great care. Under the cloak, it was clear that the cloaked person was a cloaked man. Standing at a bit under Ted's height, he had fairly long black hair, clearly ruffled from the fighting, but still in a wolf-cut. He wore a white cloth shirt, embroidered in a pattern consisting of ultramarine-colored oriental lilies blooming across the front. For his pants, he wore a loose-fitting hakama, with long, light brown slacks being barely visible at the ankle, being worn under them, He wore a pair of light brown boots that seemed to be well kept. He seemed rather well built, having a lot of lean muscle that was previously hidden by the cloak. On his back, he wore a rather large backpack. The most interesting part of him was his larger, pointed ears and pale complexion, indicating that he was an elf.

  As the man with the glasses, the three Adventurers, and the grizzled veteran got on the wagon, the veteran said, "Alright, you all stay safe out here. Don't want to hear about any more young Adventurers dyin', you hear?"

  Ted and the others acknowledged him, with a range from just staring at him, or nodding their head kindly. Ted was in the middle, just giving a subtle nod. The veteran took the reins of the horses, and began to ride back. The newly formed party stood there, surrounded by death and a concluded battle. The green-haired woman seemed to stand and pray, presumably for the fallen.

  After waiting a bit, Ted shifted uncomfortably in the silence before he asked, "If it's not too rude of me to ask, who are you praying for, exactly?"

  The green-haired woman went out of prayer, and replied, "For all of the fallen here. It's an unfortunate fact of life, especially in this occupation, for there to be death. The least we can do for the dead is to hope that the next hand that they draw be more kind than the one they died with."

  Ted nodded, accepting that response as a fairly realistic one.

  "So, I assume we will be walking to the frontier camp together? Does anyone know how far it is?" The now clearly elven man turned to the party, his deep ocean blue eyes swept across the remaining group with an intense but not entirely unfriendly gaze.

  The green-haired woman shook her head, "No, I don't know. We could follow the road, but then if it diverges, we'd be out of luck. You?" She'd turn to Ted.

  Ted replied, with a bit of confidence, "I did bring a map of where the camps are approximately at! I checked it while we were on the wagon. It should be right he-"

  As Ted reached for his bag, his hand only gripped helplessly at the air. He just now remembered that he never did bother to get his bag out of the wagon. After realizing this, he whirled around, sprinting frantically for the wagon which was now a ways away. His arms waving frantically in the air.

  "WAIT…!"