Biter

Echo, escorted by two guards of the naval fleet, put off revealing the base of the Captain’s operation. Her eyes were puffy and itchy from crying, while her body was sluggish and sore from being dragged around and hit. Her grandfather and friend were taken hostage, she was most likely to be the next to be held for a price, assuming they didn’t kill her outright the moment she would sell out her friends.

A griffin held her by the arms while they flew back to Dragontail, she had little time to be amazed by the scenic sights of forests and mountains that painted the land of Ayeth, a spiraling valley branched outward from the south of the circular continent, beautiful red flora dotted the landscape of her blurred vision only to be interrupted by the occasional purple splotch of blight, while the red clay landscape of the town of Dragontail branched off of the mainland, surrounded by water and forked like a tail of a mythological beast.

When she was dropped onto a dirt patch from the air, she screamed and flailed until hitting the soft soil with a horrible snapping sound from her right leg, pain flooded through her body as she looked down on a now fractured leg that threatened to fall off her body with the abnormal angle it sat at.

“Aw, poor beast, was she too heavy for you?” The sassy grunt asked the griffin, “She is rather big for an urchin… you don’t need to strain yourself anymore…”

The griffin threatened to bite the man’s head off with a snap of its beak. He moved his head away and quit falsifying pity towards the prideful creature, not wishing to incur the wrath of such a creature. He turned his attention back towards Echo.

“Aw, did he drop you, lass?”

Echo was preoccupied, trying to move her body so that rending pain would not resonate throughout her body. Thoughts that she couldn’t cry anymore were put to rest as she blubbered from the pain that threatened her very life.

“I’m sorry about that, he’s such a fickle creature.”

The sadistic grunt pulled out a potion from a bag on his thigh, he poured it slowly over Echo’s head while crouching in front of her.

“I always find this to be the neatest part, watching things come together after being separated.”

Her leg made horrific noises as her body mended itself, snapping and grinding followed by intense pain that ruined her, soft sobs were all that she could make after the potion finally leveled out a warm comfort.

“There we are! All better!”

Another grunt walked up to the sadistic bastard.

“Cayman, we need to get moving, we’re on a schedule.”

“You ruin my fun, all this work talk…”

“You know your job. I don’t approve of your sadistic crap, just do it.”

Cayman, the freaky guy who likes watching people heal from intense injury, lifted Echo and nudged her with a foot.

“Go on runt, take us to your daddy or mommy.”

Echo looked back with confusion at the freakish human, he was thin like a toothpick but hairy like a wolf, it looked off. A foot came down on her face before Cayman began shouting through gritted teeth.

“Oy, twerp, take us to your little motley crew before I kick your ass.”

Echo looked back at the man and flinched when he reared his fist back. She began ambling, taking her time looking around while getting her bearings.

A foot slammed into her back, launching her across the shipyard. A small crowd gathered around when she had finally gotten up, the man who wasn’t Cayman had dispersed the commotion with a blast from a gun, fired straight up in the air.

“EVERYONE CLEAR OUT.”

The people fled when the loud object was pointed at the crowd. The second grunt pulled Echo to her feet, off of a pile of broken crates she had landed on.

“That’s too much Cayman.”

“Come onnn, she deserved it, she was thinking about running! Orryn… my guy… come onnn.”

“You fucking sicken me.”

“You know you adore me.”

Echo tried to flee during their squabbling, and Orryn managed to grab her by the back of the neck. She tried biting his hand, but the man didn’t flinch.

“Come on Orryn, I was right!”

“Fuck off, just stay here.”

“Nope. I think you’re going to defect, you’re too caring.”

“What are you-“

Cayman stood next to the man, whispering something in his ear. Whatever it was made the man grimace, and storm off while dragging Echo by the wrist.

After what felt like an hour, Echo successfully managed to delay their plans to find her guild. She ran, fought, and led them to false safe houses. Cayman was making threats her way when she pivoted her body and kicked him between the legs. Rage began to flow from the man as he writhed in pain, Orryn seemed to smile and grabbed Echo as the girl began to flee.

Echo focused her mind.

[Access. 35 Stat Points are available for Distribution.]

[Strength 2 -> 20]

[Access. 35 Stat Points are available for Distribution.]

[Dexterity 3 -> 20]

Echo's body flexed and changed, muscles threatened to rip and explode, and she stumbled and crawled forward. Her legs launched forward as muscle fibers burst and she began to run away from the pair of humans.

The pair of subordinates had been lost to the home turf advantage Echo had used in her flight, dashing through the building's back alleys and rooftops and windows, succeeding in evading her captors. She brought herself right outside of an Inn, “The Intrepid,” where a small wooden panel across the street blocked an entrance that led to a child labor sweatshop that she called home.

She collapsed once she got into the doorway. A kid called Dewey walked her over to Captain. Holding her up, Captain slaps her awake gently.

“Echo! What happened!”

As if forced through every image of today's past events, her mind buckles, and her stress will itself forward, she hugs her friend, and trembles as her body rolls around in its discomfort.

“Echo! You need to breathe!”

Echo fails to control the stress that collapses when the supporting mental adrenaline fissures and breaks, causing a cascading avalanche of rapidly intensifying rubble of-

“Echo,” The talking voice interrupts me.

“Mister Monster! I told you not to interrupt my story.”

“Your story is getting too focused on your feelings. I get that you had a lot going on at the time but come on kid.”

”But you said that you would listennn!” Echo whined to the Beast.

The pair sat within a rusted iron cage inside of the lower deck of a brig while raindrops leaked through the wooden ceiling. Echo was originally thrown inside of the cage to “appease the beast” that the pirate crew had captured. To Echo, however, the beast wasn’t even a predatory creature, omnivorous at best, and the thing only had one arm; if needed, she could kill it, probably.

Her first interaction was with it asking her, “Who are you supposed to be.”

“Well,” the Beast began “nobody ever told you a proper story before, you whine a lot about things like your dog or your grandfather or your friends, instead of stuff like what happened.”

Echo pouted and turned away from the Beast, making the vile creature grab at its temples with a taloned hand, lowering the bridge of its “nose” into its palm, followed by a groan.

”Fine, I will be quiet.”

Echo looked backward with squinting eyes.

“Not going to interrupt?”

“… no.”

“Well good. Now I have to remember where I was…”

“The “orphanage” your friend, Captain, made.”

Echo grimaced and continued to recant her storytelling endeavors.

When Echo had finally re-attained her breath and composure, she and her Captain spoke.

“My Grandfather and my Bear are there now, the men we stole from at the docks, I think it’s them.”

Captain held a hand over her mouth, her right knee bouncing up and down in contemplation, instead of her focus honed in on her wounded comrade.

“I managed to run away from these two guys, they work for the man who burnt my grandpa's house to the ground.”

“I’m aware of that, but worried about if they will come here for you- for us, there is a risk that our operation will become… compromised.”

“I did my best Captain! I’m certain nobody followed me!”

Captain placed her fingers around her face and looked up towards the ceiling, stress evident in her demeanor. It only got worse when she began to pace back and forth in the dilapidated warehouse.

“I’m sorry Captain… I”

Captain interrupted her with a finger and Echo simply fell silent. Tapping her thumbs together, Captain continued to stare at the hanging light that sat above the pair of them, lost in thoughts that eluded Echo.

“Echo,” Captain said while looking at her friend, “I need you to help us out once you’re healed.”

Echo looked at her Captain with skepticism that was contested with passive indifference that held an underlying rage when she spoke.

“But… what about my grandfather…?” Echo asked.

“What about your grandfather Echo?”

“I need you to save him.”

A grimace twirled across Captain’s face. She looked down at Echo from the small booth she stood across from, “Echo, I’m not certain I can save everyone here, including you, and you want me to what, save your old man because you want me to, to make everything better? Grow up Echo.”

“But he and Bear-” She was cut off.

A loud sigh came from Captain, and she placed a hand on Echo’s shoulder, “I’m sorry Echo, I can’t, you need to do it yourself.”

“Harsh”

Echo shushed her cagemate.

A single hand was put up in defense.

The girl began to speak, but a choked noise was all that came from her retort.

Captain sighed once again and left Echo to her devices. She began ordering her crew of child soldiers to begin wrapping up their operation.

That’s when an explosion blew down the east wall, rubble launched inward and slammed into urchins, orphans, and runaways without prejudice, ringing filled her ears as disorientation and nausea filled her stomach. The naval officers followed the explosion and infiltrated the small room. Screams were heard as kids were rounded up by military-dressed officers of a sort of clique. Panic claimed the children, some would scream, others would cry, while a certain few would brandish weapons. Children were tied up and moved out in droves, while the ones that fought back were put down.

“They killed kids?”

Echo looked at the beast with a sigh but shook her head.

“The kids were all rounded up, the only people who fought were teenagers I think.”

“That’s horrible.”

The Beast no longer lay on its side, its single hand placed in its cross-legged lap rather than holding up its head with a propped-up elbow.

“Try living it.”

“I think I have a few instances that are worse off, but that is pretty bad. I’m glad these pirates slaughtered those guys.” The Beast shined a bloody maw of sharp fangs that formed a sadistic smile.

Echo thought for a bit, and nodded, “I think I am too. NOW QUIT INTERUPTING!” Echo yelled with a pointed finger.

The smile left the Beast’s face, and its dark, large pupils rolled.

Captain was a force to be reckoned with, two soldiers of the naval officers were beheaded when Captain launched herself off of a table with a saber, the silver blade became drenched with blood very quickly as it took more and more grunts to pressure the swift dark elf. When the number of soldiers that encircled her numbered four, Echo leaped onto one of them with her newly enhanced . She choked the man with her twig-like forearm until she was thrown off of the man. This small distraction allowed her captain to escape, taking down two more soldiers with a bloodied saber to the neck.

What Echo didn’t expect was for her captain to escape the chaos, fleeing through a broken trapdoor that led out of the ceiling was the last that Echo saw before the pommel of a naval officer’s Cutlass slammed into her temple, knocking her out.

When she woke up, she was in a line of chains connected to her feet and fellow Urchins in a line underneath a barque, an unusually empty cargo ship.

“Wonder who stole all their cargo”

Using her , Echo rattled her chains, a metal bar that held each of them to spokes and asked her friends to help her.

A kid named “Rat”, with dark brown hair and sharp eyes, looked at her with hatred, which confused her.

“It’s your fault we're in here.”

“How?”

“One of those guys, a member of the “Second Fleet of the Abyss,” said that some guy put a tracker on you, and you brought them to our home.”

“Not to mention, Echo,” A kid named “Muffin”, with a round bumpy afro in the shape of a muffin with a husky build, added to the discussion, “You aren’t an urchin, it doesn’t make sense for you to be part of the Free Urchin Union.”

“Don’t you guys want to get out?” Echo asked.

Muffin and Rat looked at each other, along with the fourth person on their restraint, a kid who was named “Rock”, don’t know why he was called that, he looked normal, besides a blue-haired bowl cut.

Rock shrugged, and said, “I wouldn’t mind getting out of here.”

The squad of children began to slam the metal rod back and forth, and the small lock that sat on the end of the restraint began to clatter, making a dent when the chain latch began to buckle. Slamming it over and over, the metal creaked as the small object finally fell onto the floor. The group slid the rod out of the restraining line and each stood up. The rest of the four dozen children looked towards the four, and not a single word was said.

“Raise your hand if you think it’s my fault that the base got raided.”

Only Rat raised his hand, to which Rock stomped on his foot in response.

“And who wants to get out and escape?”

The rest of the room raised their hands.

Echo looked smugly at the group of children around her and looked around for a tool to break her group out.

Spreading out, Echo found an axe that was unwieldy in her small hands, while Rock found a prybar, Rat found nothing, and all Muffin found were a pair of pliers. Metal clanking sounded from the group’s effort, packs of kids were working on freeing their entrapped brethren and sistren.

A voice yelled down as a door to the group of children was found by a man in a naval outfit, he rushed down the stairs and forty-eight pairs of eyes stared at the man.

“You all I’ll!” the man was very flustered by the children who lined the empty cargo room, “I’ll get you all, just wait here!” He said as he turned around, meeting the sledgehammer Rat found after a second thorough look around the wooden vessel.

“You’ll never guess what I found,” Rat said with a smile as the short boy stood atop the unconscious body.

Echo rolled her eyes. An explosion sounded as a cannonball launched through the side of the ship, water splashing in as the tides slammed against the boat. Loud shouts began to fill both the deck and the basement of the ship as kids and naval officers alike panicked.

“EVERYONE CALM DOWN!” Echo yelled!

“Then the Pirates boarded the navy cargo vessel and now you are all here, on “The Sudden Fortune?”

Echo sighed and slammed her fist into the Beast.

“Did you just try to punch me?

“Yes.”

“You’re really bad at punching”

Echo sighed again and continued, “Yes, you’re horrible at listening mister monster.”

The beast made a cheeky expression at the girl who sat across from him.

“You’re lucky you’re soft mister monster.”

“Please quit calling me mister, I am only Seventeen.”