No Such Thing as Good and Evil

Faylen panicked as she thought of what to do or say. She was so engrossed in the fight; she didn’t even think about Lilah yelling out loud. “Can’t we talk about this after we’re done here? People outside may have noticed all the noise from the fight and called for help. We might not have much time!”

“Then I guess you better answer quickly, or the bow could always answer for you.” Shade replied calmly.

What should we do? Faylen asked internally in a panic, but no response came.

“Well?” Shade asked.

Faylen prepared to make up some story, when the bow floated out of her hands and began to glow once more, before Lilah spoke. “I could tell you who I am, but I doubt you would believe me.”

“Try me.” Shade said staring at the bow.

“I am Lilah Venwynn, former queen of Merellien. Your grandfather put my soul into this bow after he killed me.”

Shade paused for a moment. “I don’t believe you.” Lilah sighed, but he continued. “You mean to tell me, that between Faylen and the former queen of Merellien, neither of you could figure out that Faylen, a fairy, could and should fly? Or that she should use the dagger and all of its abilities?”

“She didn’t want any help. She wanted to win the fight on her own. I only abided by her wishes.” Lilah countered.

“But you helped her when you set up that golden shield.” He countered back

“I was trying to keep her alive, unlike you!” Lilah snarled.

Shade laughed as he got up from the fountain. “I changed my mind; I believe you’re Lilah.”

“And why is that?” Lilah snarled.

“My grandfather used to talk about you a lot. He told me you would always make excuses for your failures.”

“Excuse me?” Lilah said offended.

“Anyway, guess we should get going before any knights show up here, lord knows how long it would take you to defeat them. We would be here till next week.” He said as turned and began to walk toward the basement door at the back of the lobby.

Faylen stood there shocked. “That’s it, that’s all you have to say about the soul of the former queen of Merellien being in this bow?”

Shade turned back around to her. “I’m not your owner anymore. I’m not your dad and I’m barely even your teacher. My grandpa really liked Lilah, but I think he was thinking with his heart and his dick more than his brain. Everything I’ve ever heard of her made her sound like a complete failure. Think about it, her souls in that bow because she died. The reason you have that bow is because her previous carrier died. She has led her people, herself, and all of her carriers to their death. I prefer living, but if you want to take advice from a professional loser and dig yourself an early grave, I’m not going to stop you.” He shrugged.

Lilah scoffed, huffed and looked about as annoyed as a floating bow with no face could look. “I’m not even sure what to say to something so outlandish!” She snarled.

“Probably because deep down, you know that its true.” He said as he turned and began to walk toward the door again. But then Faylen ran up behind him, grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

“Then if you have nothing more to say too or about the bow, it’s my turn to ask questions.” She motioned toward the carnage and wreckage of what was once a beautiful hotel lobby. “What the fuck was the point of this? We could have just paid him off and none of that would have happened. Now we have to rush because you wanted to test some theory you had about the bow? I almost died!” She yelled.

“Let’s not get carried away here. That blow from Greg wouldn’t have killed you. The reason it didn’t blast through miss failures golden orb of protection was because he didn’t bring it down with full force. He also wasn’t aiming for any of your vitals. After he punted you across the room, he seemed to figure out something was up. From then on, he was just trying to incapacitate you as well, so I guess it turned into a fight between two people trying to not kill each other.”

Lilah huffed and puffed again at his miss failures comment.

“What do you mean? what did he figure out?” Faylen asked confused.

“Don’t tell me you also forgot about your armors ability” She didn’t answer, and he sighed. “When he headbutted you, he hit you in the arm you had out protecting yourself. He then looked down at his own arm and was clearly in pain. From that point on his attacks seemed like they were trying to kill you, but really, he was trying to get in close and incapacitate you without really harming you, as he was confused about what had happened with his arm.” He then smiled and looked at the bow. “And don’t worry, even if he did kill you, it seems we could just put your soul into a bow.”

Faylen ignored the bow comment. “That still doesn’t explain why you made me fight him. We could have bought our way in. You could have taken him out easily if the plan was to take him out, why did I have to fight him?” Faylen asked still annoyed.

Shade smiled back. “Well, you might not like this answer, but I had a feeling when it came to a real fight you would be, how do I say, lacking. It really was two birds with one stone. I wanted to find out more about the bow, well Greg, though more his family as I thought you would kill him, needed a fight like this to happen.”

“You had me fight Greg in hopes of me killing him for the sake of his family? What the hell does that even mean?” Faylen asked.

Lilah scoffed. “Regretfully, I do have to agree with the dragons plan, though he should have told you of the plan before hand rather than toss you in blind.”

“Plan? What plan? How would me killing Greg be good for his family? How could you agree with him? It doesn’t make any sense?” Faylen yelled as anger mixed with confusion.

“I said it before and I’ll say it again.” Shade replied throwing his arms out wide. “Welcome to the real-world Faylen! You think this one location in this rather small town, in this rather small hotel is their only slave auction these people have. I imagine this is their smallest slave auction, I mean it was being guarded by only one guy. I imagine this is where they sell their least desirable slaves, like you.”

“Thanks.” Faylen whispered crossing her arms.

“If we had bought our way in and you went and killed everyone in there, the people who really run these would have done some unpleasant things to Greg, but more importantly, his family. They would have almost certainly captured Greg, taken him back to his family, then raped his wife and any of his daughters in front of him, before killing him and any of his sons. Then they would have taken his wife and daughters as slaves to make up for the lost slaves you plan to rescue.”

“That’s…terrible.” Faylen replied shocked.

“It is, but, if Greg fought all out and left everything he had on the battlefield in a desperate attempt to keep the attackers at bay and considering how little these slaves probably actually matter to the overall scheme, they most likely would have let his family be and moved on. Same thing with him living, but being knocked out. I would say chances are they let him and his family live, though you never know.”

“But he would have to know this. He let you in last time with a bribe, he put his whole family at risk over a few coins?” Faylen asked.

“He did. He took a risk, and it worked out for him. He probably figured I was a weak human who wanted to buy slaves to feel strong, as that’s how I look. He probably doesn’t know about people like me who can use echos to create disguises while still hiding their echos. He took a gamble and won, but he wouldn’t have won this gamble had we bought our way in.”

“Couldn’t he run away with his family and hide though? Change his name, start over?” Faylen asked still trying to process what she was being told.

Shade shook his head. “Faylen, you may be somewhere around 20, but you’re still such a naïve child at heart it seems. These things are run by nobles and merchants with huge webs of connections around the continent. You think they can’t find a single minotaur and his family, especially since minotaur’s are a rather rare race.”

Faylen paused for a moment. “So, you had me fight Greg to try and draw out answers about the bow, while also attempting to protect Greg's family from being kidnapped and killed, all while knowing my armor would do more damage to him, then he would do to me.” She said, surprised by how relatively good natured this plan was.

“Correct, now if you have no more questions, would you like to go kill your former masters, or are we done for the day?” he said motioning toward the basement door.

She shook her head and snapped back to her mission. “No, we continue.”

He nodded and the two of them, along with Lilah the floating bow, went to the door leading to the basement. They all went through the door and down the stairs, arriving at the wooden doors at the bottom. Faylen lifted up her leg and kicked the doors in. “A little over the top.” Shade quipped.

Shade walked in first, followed by Faylen and Lilah. The whole auditorium had turned and was looking back at them. There were quite a few more people present than the previous time Shade had been here. Shade began to laugh as he stared out at the sea of people. All of them were dressed like stereotypical clowns, with colored wigs, white face paint and red noses.

One of them, the same man who had on the absurdly large powdered wig from the last time, stood up. “Oh, it’s the guy who bought the devil girl. I see you forgot to wear the proper attire again. Did you come back to get a refund for your one coin?” He joked as the whole auditorium began to laugh and honk their red noses.

“Yea, I guess I sort of was a clown you could say!” Shade said as he turned and winked at Faylen, elbowing her.

She completely ignored him, as her eyes were focused on the stage where a small elven girl, no more than 10 or 11, was standing on the stage next to the auctioneer. She wore next to nothing but a small piece of cloth covering her top and bottom, as well as the metal slave collar around her neck. The girl had cuts, bruises, burn marks and other signs of torture all over her body. Faylen began to growl with anger as light began to slowly radiate from her eyes.

“Who’s the girl in the archer lingerie? How'd you of all people get a hot noble fairy girl, and how’d you get her to wear such an outfit?” The man said after he stopped laughing.

“Who, her?” Shade said motioning at Faylen. “She’s the same girl.”

The man scoffed. “Don’t jest. The girl you bought was a black winged spawn of the devil, not some sexy noble woman. If you don’t want to tell your secrets, we wont pry, but no need to lie.” He laughed again.

“I’m not lying though.” Shade shrugged. “She was cursed, but I found someone who could break it. Now she looks like this. And believe it or not, she chooses to dress like this, don’t ask me, women you know?”

“Cursed? You’re telling me that all she had was a simple curse? That fine piece of meat there is really the same girl you bought?” The man said more seriously this time.

“Yes sir. I guess not buying her makes you all look like a bunch of…clowns!” he said pointing and laughing, he then looked over at Faylen who had ignored him again. “Yea, I guess that one was a bit forced wasn’t it, I’m still pretty drunk you know.” He mumbled.

Faylens wings then began to radiate as rainbow light began to shine out of them. She then slowly floated into the air and held her arms out in front of her. At the very first sight of water, Shade figured out what she planned to do. The Elmyra and Aerith classic. Shade, while he stayed in his human form, released his wings and he also jumped into the air. Water then blasted from her hands, a tsunami worth, and in mere moments the entire auditorium was under a few feet of water. Everyone in the auditorium got up out of their seats, but before any of them could react or any of them who had wings could fly into the air, she shot multiple balls of electricity into the water, and everyone throughout the auditorium began to shake and then fall limp, floating in the water, paralyzed.

As the stage was a few feet above the seats, the water didn’t reach it. The auctioneer turned and ran to the back where the slaves were kept. Shade took a quick look at the sea of paralyzed nobles and merchants and decided none of them seemed that strong and Faylen would be ok on her own. He then bolted through the air after the auctioneer and disappeared into the back of the auditorium. Faylen ignored the auctioneer and decided to let Shade deal with him. She floated to the top of the ceiling in the center of the auditorium, every couple seconds sending more balls of electricity into the water.

“Lilah, come here.” She said, and Lilah slowly floated up to her. Faylen grabbed the bow, and a light arrow formed in it. “What’s say we get some target practice in.” She said with a maniacal smile. She slowly and methodically began to shoot the people below. Making sure at first to not hit any vital points. First hitting knees, or hands and feet. Making sure each person got a few arrows in them before she finished them off. In between every few shots, she would shoot more electricity down at the ground.

Moans, cries, pleas for mercy, offers of money, power, land or anything else she would want came from below. Faylen smiled as she listened to their cries for help, for mercy. “If you wish to kill them, then just kill them, all of this is a bit much.” Lilah said.

Faylen frowned. “Look at that little girl on the stage. These people were all staring at her thinking of how much getting to fuck her would be worth. She’s just a child, and you want me to grant these people mercy? They deserve worse than what I’m giving them, they deserve to be tortured for eternity. These few moments of fear before death are mercy for them.”

“They deserve to die; I’m not denying that. What I’m saying is that over the last few days, you told me of your experiences with Shade. Things he had did, things he had said. Wouldn’t this be the exact same thing you were so mad at him for doing to that bandit?” Lilah countered.

“He raped her!” Faylen yelled back while continuing her target practice.

“Yes, what he did was wrong. But how different is any of this? You may feel strong anger because of actually seeing the girl standing there, but bandits are just as bad. That bandit he raped, while she may have looked weak and innocent in the moment, she most likely was a terrible person in her own right.”

“What are you saying?” Faylen snarled.

“What I’m saying is you can’t have it both ways. Either you be angry at him and think he’s bad for what he did, or you agree with him that bad people are fair game to do bad things back to. You can’t walk around calling him a murderous rapist, while you yourself slowly tortured and killed dozens of paralyzed helpless people like fish in a barrel. The smile you have on your face is the same smile you told me you saw on his face. You’re not just killing these people; you’re taking joy in killing them. I think what you’re doing right now is horrific, maybe not quite as bad as what he did, but certainly not anything to be proud of. If this is what you wish to do, I’m not going to try and stop you. I would simply ask for you to revise your thoughts on who Shade is, but first and foremost, on who you think you are.” Lilah lectured.

Faylen growled a primal growl. “FINE!” She yelled, then thousands of light arrows formed around her. They all shot down at the ground, before thousands more formed around her and shot down again. Barrage after barrage shot down at the ground. It looked like an entire platoon of archers had launched volleys at the ground, but it was all from one person. After a few minutes of this, she relented and looked down at the carnage. All the chairs, but more importantly to her, the people, were torn to shreds. Motionless and silent, the bodies floated through the water now stained with a deep red hue.

She put Lilah back over her shoulder, then slowly floated down to the stage. She landed next to the elven girl, who looked back at her with the same emotionless face she once had. Faylen closed her eyes and calmed herself, then went down to one knee and put a hand on the shoulder of the girl. “It’s going to be ok now, I’m here to save you.”

The girl continued to look at Faylen with no real emotions, but Faylen thought she could see a small spark of hope in the girls’ eyes. She got up from her knee and made her way to the back where she found the dead body of the auctioneer, with his head ripped clean off, and Shade all the way in the back of the room next to the cashier. Faylen looked around the room and the anger began to come back to her as she looked at all the girls who were chained to the ceiling, wall and floor, some with their selling price written on their chests.

She looked over at Shade with anger all over her face again. “I want you to go out there and eat all of their souls, these bastards don’t deserve any sort of after life, not even hell.”

Shade shrugged. “None of them seemed that strong, I wont really gain anything from it, but if that’s what you want, I guess I’ll oblige.” He then started walking back toward her and the stage. Faylen looked around at all the chained-up girls again, then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them back up. She removed the bow from her shoulder once more and a light arrow appeared in it. “And thank you for leaving the last one for me.”

“What?” Shade said as he was about halfway back to Faylen from the cashier. Faylen released the arrow and it soared at the cashier. “NO!” Shade yelled and he tried to launch himself in front of the arrow, but between his slower reactions from being drunk and being in his human form, he didn’t make it in time. The arrow whizzed past him and plunged into the head of the cashier, killing him instantly. Then at the same moment, all of the chained-up slaves began to scream and writhe in pain. Faylen turned and looked at them all, with wide eyed shock.

Shade instantly turned into a dragon and looked about the room trying to think of what to do. There was no time to go one by one and remove the collars manually. Finally, he closed his eyes, held out his hands and a dark black oil-like substance poured from them. It covered the entire wall of girls in it, before he fell to one knee. The substance sizzled and burned the skin of the girls, but their collars glowed, smoked, and fell off.

He caught his breath, got up from his knee and went over to first girl on the wall closest to him. She was completely motionless. He felt for a pulse, but there was none. He looked over at Faylen and shook his head. He then looked up at the ceiling and down at the ground at all the girls he couldn’t cover with the substance, and they were all motionless as well.

“What…happened.” Faylen whispered.

“I thought as a slave you would have known, figured it would be in slave 101, but I guess not. When you kill the ‘owner’ or really whoever is linked as the owner of a slave, in this case the cashier, the slaves linked to them are all killed.”

“I….I….forgot.” She said, then her head jolted back toward the doorway to the stage. She ran over to it, and turned the corner to see the lifeless corpse of the elven girl lying in the middle of the stage. “No…No…” She whimpered as she fell to her knees, dropping the bow.

“Its ok dear, its not your fault.” Lilah said as she floated into the air.

“I mean, it kind of is her fault though.” Shade said as he rounded the corner as well. Lilah turned to him and looked as mad as a bow could look. “What, it is?” He shrugged.

Faylen sniffled a few times. “I want to bury them.” She whispered.

“What?” He asked.

“I want to bury them.” She said louder and jolted her head up toward him.

“Bury them where, we’re in the middle of a town?” he replied.

“We can carry them…”

“There's like a hundred of them.” He said cutting her off.

“I don’t care, I want to bury them!” she yelled.

“Watch of for the water, I can sense strong echos in it.” A voice came from the stairway they had come down.

“Hey, I heard someone in there.” Another voice said.

“Whoever is in there, stay where you are! We breach in 5!” the first voice said.

“We need to go!” Shade yelled.

“No, we have to bury, we have to!” Faylen cried as she began to crawl her way over to the corpse of the elven girl.

Shade ran up to her and scooped her up, hugging her tight to his body. “Lilah, lets go!” He yelled, and the bow did a weird nod like gesture. He flew back through the doorway and rounded the corner, heading for the elevator.

Faylen though kicked and screamed. “NO! NO! We have to bury them, we have to!” she yelled and let out a large discharge of electricity. It caused Shade to crash to the ground, but he managed to maintain his hold on her. “NO! Please, we have to! We have to bury them!” She continued to yell while kicking, clawing and doing anything she could to free herself.

“Where did they go?” A voice said from the auditorium.

“I can hear them, they’re in the back!” the other voice yelled back.

“Whoever is in the back, we are holy knights of the kingdom of Alessandria. By the power of the king, we order you to stay where you are!” The first voice yelled.

Shade debated what to do, with her huge amount of pure echos, she could slow even him down. He looked at her waist, then with one arm he unsheathed her dagger while holding her tight still with the other. He looked at the blade and noticed it still had some of Aeriths sleep poison on it.

“This is going to fucking suck, isn’t it.” He said, then plunged the dagger into her thigh. “God fucking damnit!” he yelled as pain he hadn’t felt in decades soared through his body. He looked down at his own leg, which had no stab hole in the pants, yet his leg was gushing blood. “I really need this ability.” He muttered to himself.

Faylen continued to fight, and kick, but slowed down more and more. Shade got back to his feet and flew over to the elevator. He opened the door to it and got inside, with Lilah following suit.

“Stop!” A voice yelled. Shade though opened his mouth wide, and a torrent of hellfire came from it, engulfing the back room.

“HELL FIRE!” The voice yelled. “WE NEED HOLY USERS, NOW!”

“No…please…we have to…please…” Faylen continued to whimper as she slowly began to lose consciousness. The last thing she saw before the elevator doors along with her eyes closed, was the bodies of the slaves she so desperately wanted to save, burn to ashes.