Reborn 9

Kyle was in the dark space again. He could not feel his body, and he believed it truly did not exist any more.

'That's what I get for trying to save someone again. This time, fuck'em. I'm not helping anyone.' Kyle said to himself. He was killed helping humanity by fighting the demon king, and now he was killed saving some baby with horns and a tail. 'Fuck this gay earth.' Kyle cursed as he tried to slam fist down that were not there.

A few days past, and it was strange to not come back. A few weeks went by, and Kyle was starting to get very board. 'At least I can remember my name.' Kyle thought to himself. The weeks became months and he gave up.

"What do you do with a poisoned slayer, what do you do with a poisoned slayer, what do you do with a poisoned slayer early in the dungeon?" Kyle spent his time singing the few songs he knew. He was able to sing all he wanted in the blackness, and even got the chance to think of some songs from two lives ago, because this was going to be his third life once he woke up.

POV: Lukas the Elder

"So he has been like this the whole time?" Lukas asked Lorenz and Eva as they brought a human into the elven capital.

"Yes Elder Lukas. I used the disruption beads on him when I learned that he was a mage, but he just lost consciousness after that and didn't wake up." Lorenz said, who was worried he did something wrong.

"Due to the treaty it would be bad if news of this got out... I think I know what is happening though." Lukas said as he stroked his beard.

"Really, what is it?" Eva asked Elder Lukas.

"When I was young, I once saw a beast that could stair into the eyes of men and cause their souls to be ripped from the body. In that state, the man would lose consciousness for a while after that, but it would return eventually. I think something from the disruption beads caused a pre-existing condition to act up and make his body reject the soul." Lukas said.

"So how do we fix it?" Eva asked him.

"We just need to reverse the effects of the disruption beads. Take him to the pool of mana and let him sit in it. I do not know how long it will take for his consciousness to return, so you two will have to stay with him until it happens.

"Yes, Elder Lukas." Lorenz said as he took Kyle from the room and started to walk to the pool of mana.

"Should we really be doing that Elder Lukas? What if he absorbs too much of the mana?" Eva asked.

"We can always make more. Now so and follow Lorenz child." Elder Lukas waved to the door and Eva left.

"Mama, I wuv you!" Was the first thing Kyle said when he woke up, because he was prepared to be in an infants body and unable to move.

"Who's your mom?" A man said and then Kyle could feel himself being submerged in water.

'These bastards! Trying to drown me already!' Kyle thought to himself as he checked his mana pathways. He still had his whole body opened up, so he could cast spells without needed to aim with his hands. Kyle used a strong wind spell and the water around him was flung into the air.

"Hey I was only joking!" The man said as he backed off from Kyle.

"Calm down!" A woman said behind Kyle.

"Are you telling me it's just a prank bro?!" Kyle got up from the fountain he was in and looked around. There were two people close to him, a man and a woman, and both of them had long and light hair, and long ears. They were elves.

"---" The elves spoke between themselves in the Elven language which Kyle could not understand, and he got more upset.

"Why am I in the elven kingdom?" Kyle asked as he looked around some more. The trees were huge and people were looking at him in the background. There was a fence between the other people and the himself and the two elves, and the ones in the background did not try to come forward. There was water on the ground from where Kyle had blown it out of the fountain, and he stepped out of the fountain.

"You had adverse effects to the disruption beads, so we took you hear to be healed." The woman said. Kyle racked his brain, all he could think of was the 13 greatest songs he had ever heard and all the different ways he could sing them.

"Get the child." The man said to the woman.

"Get something for you to see, and I'll be right back." The woman said, running away.

"How are you?" Kyle asked the man who stayed.

"My name is Lorenz, we met once before, not too long ago." The man said.

"Lorenz... I know that name..." Kyle thought as he remembered what was happening before things went black. He was in a room, and two other people were there... and a baby!

"Where is the baby?" Kyle demanded to know.

"Are are bringing him right now." Lorenz said as he looked over his shoulder.

A few minutes past an the woman came back with a small child holding her hand. Kyle recognized the woman as Eva, but she had lighter hair and skin now. Kyle did not know who the child was, and it looked like it was between 2 and three years old.

"This is the child you saved in Thornberry." Eva said, crouching down and pushing the child forward. The child had two horns on his head, and a tale that split into three seconds on the end.

"Hi." The child said and moved behind Eva.

"I saved a baby, not some kid." Kyle said, but he was not able to put aside the resemblance.

"You..." Eva started to say. Lorenz just looked at her and did not say anything. "You have been asleep for about 2 and a half years." Eva said, looking at the ground.

"Come again?" Kyle asked her. He did not believe it.

"You were unconscious for two and a half years. We had to put you in the fountain to wake you up." Eva said, not looking at Kyle.

'...' Kyle's thoughts were blank. He might not have died, but he lost 2 and a half years of his life to save this one person. 'I'm never saving someone again.' Kyle said to himself and shook off his clothing. He then cast Gust and Heat on himself to dry his clothes, and saw his cloak and mask was gone.

"Where is my cloak and mask?" Kyle asked the two elves in front of him.

"We got rid of them a while ago." Lorenz said. "But we got you some new elven robes that should feel much better than those human clothes."

'Florianne's cloak and mask are gone...' Kyle thought to himself, but then a more important thought came to his mind. 'Two and a half years! What if she has a boyfriend and all my flags have gone to waste!' Kyle was furious, not only was his life shorter by 2.5 years, the relationships he had been building, fortifying brick by brick, may have all crashed while he was gone.

"I need to return." Kyle said to the elves.

"You can't go, we are in the elven capital and our elder needs to speak with you." Lorenz said to Kyle.

"Just watch me, see-ya later Bitch." Kyle said as he took off into the sky.

"----" Something was yelled in Elven language on the ground and people started to converge on Kyle's location. Kyle was in the air though, and even though he was not able to go very fast because of the trees, he was able to get away from anyone who wanted to follow him.

"You can't get me with that!" Kyle yelled from the air as the elven mages tried to cast spells to knock him down. Some even tried to make barriers with earth magic to stop him. Kyle had gone several hundred feet through the air and now there were hundreds of elves trying to knock him down.

"Kyle, you need to come down!" One of the elves yelled.

"How do you know my name?" Kyle asked as he looked down at the Elven man. The elf was short and had long hair, and a beard that went all the way to his feet.

"Just come down so we can explain things. I am elder Nicholas Flora of the Elvish kingdom." The man spoke, still yelling to Kyle who was hovering in the tops of the trees.

Kyle thought about his options and went down to the elder. Elders of the Elvish empire were over 1,000 years old and had white eyes and hair. Nicholas certainly looked the part. Kyle had met three elders while a hero, two of them might still be around, but one of them was close to 4,000 years old.

"Is elder Nora here?" Kyle asked elder Nicholas. Elder Nora was only 1,300 years old, give or take a few dozen, and she was on a promising path to being a great elder in the Elvish kingdom.

"Elder Nora? No, she is dead." Nicholas said, looking at Kyle with a confused look.

'Dead... damn, she was a great person' Kyle thought to himself. "What about elder Timo?" Kyle asked. Elder Timo was 1,700 years old, give or take a few dozen, and was training elder Nora in diplomatic relations with the even older elder when they came to the palace of the human king.

"No, elder Timo is dead too, but they both died over a thousand years ago, how do you know them?" The elder asked Kyle, and was suspicious of how an outside, a human no less, knew about their elders.

'They all died... but there wasn't even a war with the elves...' Kyle was deep in thought and looked around. He had never been to the elvish kingdom, and everything here was new for him. "It does not matter. Who is the oldest elf you have here?" Kyle asked the elder.

"I am currently the oldest living elf, at an age of 2380 years, about." The elvish elder said proudly, and intimidatingly.

"Don't elves live towards 5,000 years?" Kyle asked the elf.

"They do, but your human empire killed most of our elders in the war." Elder Nicholas said.

"Wait, what war?"

"I think we should come to my office to talk about this." The elder said, and Kyle followed him.

Kyle had a talk with the elders Nicholas, Nadine, and Lukas. Nicholas was the only one over 2,000 years old, and Nadine was about 1800 years and Lukas about 1400. They all had white eyes and hair, proof of them being over 1,000 years old.

According to elder Nicholas, the human empire conducted a series of raids in the elvish kingdom shortly after the war with the dwarves in the north. There was mostly assassinations and destruction of transcontinental jungle, but with the invention of the disruption beads, 1,300 years of fighting was put to a stop.

This might be generations of humans, but 1,300 years to an elf is like 20 human years. The war was able to go on for so long because Elves were not good at fighting with physical weapons, and preferred to use magic. Humans could use magic and physical weapons, and even though the elven mages were more powerful, they could still only fire one spell at a time. Most spells were not suited for multiple targets, and thus numbers became a big factor in the war. With most of their leaders being assassinated by the humans, and their attacks being much slower than the humans when in melee range, the elves were fighting a losing battle.

But then disruption beads were discovered. They blocked off mana inside someone when they got too close, such as over top of clothing, and if they touched the skin the effects could last for days or even weeks. With the disruption beads and wind magic, the humans were forced to rely on solely melee weapons, which the elves were able to adapt to. A few elven warriors could hold off many more human melee fighters as the elven mages killed the human soldiers.

Disruption beads did not help with the assassinations though, so in exchange for not proceeding into human empire territory, the humans stopped the assassinations. It was a terrible loss for the elves and so they wanted to take revenge. The elves could not attack directly into human territory, but there was a race who was not afraid to, the dwarves.

The elves secretly went into the human empire and made contact with the dwarves who were trying to smuggle beast-kin out of the country. The elves assisted with the operation, thinking that in a few hundred years they would be able to attack with the beast-kin who had certain physical anomalies which boosted their physical and magical strength. Unfortunately for this plan, a few hundred years after cooperating with the dwarves, the beast-kin who were smuggled into dwarven territory attacked before the elves were ready, so the elvish kingdom did not assist.

The beast-kin were able to fight for over 100 years with the humans, but were defeated. Since then, the elves have taken over smuggling beast-kin out of the human empire while the few remaining dwarves stay in this own kingdom.

"We were told the empire was peaceful for 1800 years before the beast-kin attacked inside the empire. Was that time all war with the elves?" Kyle asked the elders as the 4 of them were in a large house.

"A few dozen years on the far side and a few hundred years on the close side need to be taken off, but that is about right. I think there was about 300 years of assassinations before they actually started to invade. We never captured the assassins, but we suspect they were from the human empire." Elder Nicholas said. He was almost 2400 years old, so he lived through most of the war.

"You all seem to trust me a lot." Kyle said to the elders.

"That is because we know we can kill you with just this." Elder Lukas said while tapping a pouch on his waist. It was filled with disruption beads, and almost every elf had such a pouch.

"But a human ally would be of great help to our plans in the human empire. Will you help us?" Elder Nadine asked Kyle. Kyle did not like the human empire at first because of them stiking his name from the list of heroes, but to have a war for over 1,000 years and cover it up. The elves didn't even invade the human empire like the demon race did. Kyle was certain if the elves had invaded, it would have been said in the required education that elves are evil. Instead they were just called an introverted race that is highly adept at using magic.

"I... I don't know. I need to find out what has happened with my family." Kyle said to the elves.

"..." The elves looked at each other and suddenly avoided eye contact with Kyle.

"What is it?" Kyle asked the elves.

"It's about your family." Elder Nicholas said.

'Oh man, please don't say anything bad happened to them... fuck me man... Dave.... Fred... Elena... oh shit what about Claire?' Kyle thought to himself as they elders did not speak. The elders could see the worsening expression on Kyle's face and Nadine spoke up.

"They didn't die, but they are being held captive by the lord in Vegivile." Nadine said while the others remained silent. "We were able to confirm their location, but we could not retrieve them."

"How many?" Kyle asked.

"We had 4 agents sent to try and get them-" Nadine said, but that was not what Kyle wanted to hear.

"How many of my family members!?" Kyle said, slamming his hands onto the table that separated him and the elders.

"There were 3 of them." Lukas said.

"What about the Droughts? The Valhearts?" Kyle asked the elders. He wanted to make sure Beth and the Droughts were fine. He did not care much for Beth's family though, but it was better if they were fine.

"Drought and Valhearts? We did not come across those families while in the dungeon." Elder Lukas said.

'That's good.' Kyle thought to himself. It was fortunate that nothing happened to them.

"I would like to help you, but I first need to make sure my family and friends are safe, and that means going back to Thornberry and checking on my friends, then going to Vegivile and breaking my family out of the dungeon." Kyle said, looking at each elder. "If you can help my family and anyone else put in danger by the human empire, then I will help you too."

"You have a deal." Elder Nicholas said as he reached his hand out to Kyle. Kyle shook his hand and then performed the binding ritual, something he learned from the elders who visited the palace of the human king, over 3,000 years ago.

"The binding ritual? Quite strange for a human to know it, even one who does not know about the war." Elder Nicholas said, surprised Kyle could perform it.

"Well, you can't go back on your word now that the ritual has been done." Kyle said.

"In the name of the great jungle, that is true." Elder Nicholas said and they all got up to leave.

Kyle was going to travel with a group of 20 elves into the human empire. Elder Lukas would be coming, along with the two elves that Kyle first met, Lorenz and Eva. Kyle talked to some of the group members who knew human language and the average age of the group was only 200, if not considering elder Lukas. Lorenz was 140 years old despite looking in his 20's, and Eva was already 80 years old, even though she looked like a teenager.

One of the most shocking age was Kyle's though. He about to turn 9 years old before the incident with the baby in the 1st district, and now he was 11 years old. He was in the blackness for a long time, and there was not very much of and adjustment period to getting used to his new body that had grown quite a bit. If he was to put on Florianne's cloak, it would not fit very well.

Kyle could have used Fly to get to Vegivile very quickly after he looked at some maps the elven elders had, but they were probably not very accurate so some where along the line he might get lost. The elves had been traveling through the human empire using a series of guides to take them from one safe spot to another.

Assuming Kyle could get to Vegivile, he would be able to free his family from the dungeon, but he would not be able to get them out of the city. It was just too big of a space and they were too heavy to move with Fly. It would be possible to use Gravity on them of make them float, but it was better for certain reasons to make people float with gravity magic, or any living creature really, unless killing them was the desired effect.

And so, Kyle was going to spend the next 3 years getting back to to Vegivile, but once he was able to recognize where they were at, he was going to fly to Thornberry to check on Beth and the Droughts.

POV: Fred Mercer

Every month, Fred Mercer is whipped a countless amount of times, and his youngest son is whipped for something about half of that. Fred has been a city guard for years, and his body can handle it, but his son his only 8 years old. Fred is put through endless pain not from the whipping, but from knowing he can do nothing to prevent his son being hurt by the people he once fought to protect.

At least he knows his youngest son is still alive. Fred does not know about his wife, who was taken away from him over two years ago, and he had not seen since. Fred can only wonder where she is, and hope nothing bad has happened to her.

Starting about 2 years ago there were some strange rumors in Thornberry about a young man in a brown cloak and mask, going from home to home in the 1st district using healing magic on people. Thornberry had a few healing mages, but none that would perform their services in the 1st district.

Shorty after those rumors, a team of knights from the Holy Alliance of Swords came knocking on his door and demanded to speak with his older son. Fred told them that he had been missing for a while, and then the knights arrested him. The knights arrested his son and wife too, and his wife was taken to another location.

Nobody will help him. All the guards know what he did. He was the father of someone who acted against God. Any follower of Ajoras would shut him out from their life.

POV: Elena Mercer

Every day, Elena is raped by the guards in her section of the dungeon, but such is the life of a women in the dungeon of Vegivile. There are other women in the dungeon, but they are criminals who have ugly bodies. Elena was the mother to someone who acted against God. Elena had a fine body, and it was used by the guards more frequently than the other females in the dungeon.

Elena had to do many things in the dungeon, both over time and at once, and even tried to bargain with the guards, but it got her nowhere. The guards of the dungeon in Vegivile were cruel and disgusting. A sliver of humanity is thrust from Elena's heart every day, and it will not stop until nothing is left.

POV: Dave Mercer

'Stupid brother.' Dave thinks to himself. He does not dare to say anything in fear of being whipped. Dave knows he did nothing wrong, and it was all his older brother that did it.

'You were never a good brother.' Dave thought. His older brother was always going between girl's houses and never had time to play with him.

'I hate you brother!' Dave yelled in his heart.

POV: Beth Valheart

"Are you sure you are fine?" Asked Sarah Valheart who has been asking Beth the same question every few days for the longest time.

"I'm fine, I just don't feel like going." Said Beth. This was the time that Beth should have been in the Vegivile Mage School, but she did not go when her best friend was not found after two months of searching.

Beth walks from the living room and into the courtyard in front of the house. She looks into the sky and thinks about the boy she misses. She lets the anger gather from what people say about him, and she thinks about all the things he said to her. Beth raises her hands and releases a huge surge of energy into the air.

Beth has used up all of her mana and collapses on the ground. Her mother comes out of the house and carries her back inside, something she has been doing for almost a year now.

POV: Kathy Drought

"...Claire..."

POV: Micky Jill

Micky has been at the Vegivile mage school with Jocelyn and Florianne for about 4 months now. He spends most of his time with Jocelyn and they have become very active. Nothing dirty, but they are constantly trying to cheer up Florianne.

"I want to make a dojo!" Said Micky as he tried to get everyone to think about the future.

"I want to make a female dojo right next door!" Said Jocelyn.

"I don't know..." Said Florianne who was besides them.

"Florianne, you have to think about the future. Being a healer is a great profession." Said Micky.

"That's right, just the other week I heard someone was paid 1,000 coins to deliver a baby." Said Jocelyn.

"...A baby..." Florianne spoke and her eyes filled with anger.

POV: Florianne; 2 years prior

Florianne had been home from magic school for a little over a month. She spent most of her time with her family, and did not think about someone very often. She knew she would see him in another month, so there was nothing to be hurried about.

"Florianne, have you heard the rumor about the young man in the brown cloak and mask?" Her father asked her.

"Brown cloak and mask? What did he do this time?" Florianne asked her father.

"You know about the man with the brown cloak and mask?" Her father asked.

"Well, I bought my friend Kyle a brown cloak and mask while we were in the mage school and he was known for going around the city and using healing magic on people." Florianne told him, but quickly added, "But don't worry, he paid me back a few days later."

"Your friend Kyle is the man in the brown cloak and mask? Does Kyle have a last name?" He asked.

"Um, yeah its.... It's Mercer. He's Kyle Mercer." Florianne said while smiling.