Hollows

Night.... Dark, silent night.

The inhabitants of the tent slumbered peacefully aided by their physical and mental exhaustion. The hearthstone glowed and hummed softly as it slowly siphoned energy from both the ambient magic and from Nathan Frye.

Outside the magically protected tent, four figures stood and watched the magic weaved around the area attempting to befuddle their senses. Their stony yellow gaze attempted to pierce through the enchantments,

"Delicious….." One figure muttered.

"The magic is... invigorating." Another said.

"It hides them from our senses." The third continued.

"But, if we can't go in..... they will have to come out." The fourth finished.

The four figures, as if one sent a powerful psionic blast into the tent toward the occupants. The telepathic attack bombarded the mental defenses of all the sleeping people and commanded them to leave the safety of the tent.

Everyone in the tent reacted to the command immediately, Nathan could feel the attack outside his mental defense and he was immediately on high alert, he turned around and looked at the others in the tent, and he noticed everyone except his mum was on their way out of the tent. His mum was convulsing on the ground, clutching her head as she fought against the mental attack. Blood was pouring from her nose. Nathan was only capable of withstanding the attack because of his impenetrable mind. He rubbed his eyes, to see better in the night and noticed the four tall shadowy figures that were standing right outside the tent, and he panicked.

Nathan immediately started weaving a spell to bind each of his friends. Red thick rope emerged from his palms, as they weaved around the drone-like bodies of his friends. He immediately pulled them back toward him, as they struggled to break free from the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. He sent an incarcerous toward his mum as well, binding her on the floor, which ceased the convulsion that she had begun to go throw as she fought against the massive mental attack.

Knowing that his friends and mum were safe, Nathan grabbed his sling ring from the table and opened a portal directly to Kamar Taj, and pushed them through the portal. Them being away at Kamar Taj meant that help would arrive soon enough, as soon as their mind returned to their normal state. Despite knowing how to defend their minds, most of them were just beginners in the mind arts.

He needed to get them away and to the safety of Kamar Taj, he couldn't leave alongside them as in his adrenaline-fueled mind, as well as his half-asleep state he prioritized the charging of the hearthstone, and facing the threat instead of retreating to safety.

Once the figures realized that four of the five occupants of the tent had somehow been sent away, they focused their attacks on Nathan, futile as though they were.

Nathan responded to the mental attacks by grasping the mind probe and pulling them into the astral dimension, gleaning complete hostility from their emotions, and the horrors they seemed to enjoy inflicting, but nothing else of significance.

He wanted to make the whole thing a battle of the mind, as he relied on his impenetrable mind to protect him from their attacks. He did not realize that his entering the astral dimension would collapse the protective enchantments that surrounded the tent.

The first thing he noticed as he floated in the astral dimension, was that the four figures had one giant disfigured soul, interconnected crudely as if it was a last-ditch attempt to regain a semblance of life.

The singular soul screamed in agony, the disconnect from their bodies and the unnatural condition in which its soul was in making the astral projection extremely painful and excruciating. Nathan attempted to make use of his opening, by its distraction and projected an illusionary light high up in the sky, so that he could get a clearer image of what it was that he was facing.

Disregarding the unnatural soul, Nathan observed the bodies that he had ejected the soul from and realized that their faces were pale, their flesh rotten and their eyes were all hinted yellow. Refocusing on the soul that was whimpering in pain, Nathan produced a giant Tao Mandala that he sent forth to cleave the soul in half. But his attack was held at bay, using powerful psionic energy. The giant spinning construct clashed and ripped through the psionic energy but fizzled out eventually.

The monstrous soul had by then made its way back into the individual bodies, but Nathan could see that there was still a connection of some kind between the four bodies. One of the four sent giant tree roots towards Nathan's astral form which he avoided using a bluish-white telekinetic force field, even though he knew it would have passed through harmlessly. He did not want to take any chances.

Two of the figures combined together as they controlled the very trees around them that sprouted faces of their own which bellowed a soul-piercing scream and made their way to the tent.

'So that's what those people were fighting!' He realized as he prepared his next spell.

Nathan ignored those trees, believing that the protective enchantment around the tent to have still held, and focused on the two figures that had sent the trees forth in the first place. He transfigured the ground underneath their feet to open up and swallow their feet, and as the figures clutched at their feet he locked their hands in place incapacitating them for the moment.

Turning his attention to the last two figures, he wondered why they had neglected to make any further moves, and as he prepared his final spell with the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, he felt a searing pain go through his astral form as he was forcefully sucked back into his body.

His nerves felt as if they were on fire, as tiny needles made of wood pierced all over his body and started draining a lot of his magic out of him. He tried in vain to send for the telekinetic push around himself, but he had lost control of his magic.

Idly he noticed that the Hearth Stone had finished charging up, and one of the four figures was standing right by his, his yellow gaze making Nathan flinch just before he lost consciousness.

oOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo

"I don't like this," Wong said as he addressed the ancient one.

"He needed to know," She replied as she stared stonily at the unconscious forms of the four disciples of Kamar Taj, as some of the masters of the mind arts were working overtime in helping them regain their consciousness.

"What happened to the Antillian Mutants would not happen again, if you had just let things be." Wong pointed out. "You are playing a big gamble,"

"A gamble in which we don't lose anything," She replied succinctly "If he realizes the scope of the danger, that the magical society is in and acts accordingly then the best of all the outcomes may come to pass. If he doesn't magical society dies anyway, just as they would have had it been left alone, only this time it's more painful and sudden, than the slow obscurity that they were dragging themselves into."

Wong sighed as he commented, "He won't trust you should he find out."

"I don't need his trust; I need him to do the right thing. A walking nexus is the only hope magical society may have to be able to survive their fate." She said as she turned to head back to her chamber "Prepare the rescue team, make sure you take the children with you."

Wong sighed as he stared at the back of the Ancient One. He headed down into the infirmary and the master presiding there "Master Wolfe, how long till they are awakened?"

"Jolene will be up in a minute, the children in another four." She replied

"Once they are up, inform them that they will be part of the rescue for Nathan Frye, I will be in the courtyard awaiting them with Master Kaecillius and trainee Mordo." He said and took his leave from the infirmary.

Wong sighed as he knew that the entire situation was out of his hands. He had faith in the Ancient One, but he also knew that she could be manipulative to her very core. He desperately wanted to just be upfront and tell the child but the curse of the Dark Huntress still held strong. Without meeting her again, or lifting the curse, speaking of her was impossible.

oOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo

Nathan slowly regained consciousness, he tried to move but the searing pain throughout his arms caused him to wince, and grit his teeth. He looked around as he blinked to adjust to the darkness around him. He realized wooden vines with razor-sharp needles had been magically injected into his body and were draining his magic. He tried to will his magic to transfigure the vines and get out of his bonds, but neither his magic nor any other sorcery he could think of was working, as any energy that he tried to manipulate just got redirected through the wooden vines.

Then he realized that he was not alone. As his eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, he realized that he was in the middle of a stony cave, which was overrun by trees. In front of him was an old man in a similar situation as he was. The man was unconscious as evident from his heaving breath.

Beside the man, was a tree-like figure which was staring right at him. At first, Nathan thought that it was Groot, but then he realized that wasn't the case. Their features had been morphed into a more humanoid shape. They were even dressed in red robes.

Nathan tried speaking to the figure but he didn't reply and kept staring impassively at Nathan. He was soon joined by more tree-like figures, each with a face carved on their bark, arms, and feet made of branches and roots.

Nathan was seriously getting impatient, as well as a little frightened. As his magic was being drained he realized that they were keeping him with just enough magic to keep him alive, he had become essentially a living magical battery for whatever it was that was using it.

He tried to talk to the tree-like men again, as their gaze was slowly beginning to creep him out more than the constant drain in magic that he was feeling.

"I am not a big fan of this creepy little game that you've got going on over here. You've been staring at me for... I don't know, however long I've been here. If you don't say something I am going to –" He was cut off as tried to rile the creature into saying something.

"Do what?" A voice sounded, as the men that he had fought earlier walked into the cave. "Throw another childish tantrum?"

"Oh great, you again!" Nathan said exasperatedly as he kept a brave front "Who the hell are you assholes?!" He shouted.

"Who we are, is not important. You should be proud that your oh-so-delicious magic and life force will provide sustenance to the Goddess of the Moon! You will become one with the Dark Huntress, just like the Mutants of Antillia once did." He said as he walked closer to where Nathan was tied up.

"Okay no, you can take your evil monologue and shove it up your arse! You and your little garden cult can take your moon goddess and wank off to her for all I care." He replied as he tried struggling against the vines yet again, withstanding the pain that shot through his body.

The man just scoffed as he lit a fire in the cave, which gave Nathan a good view of the old Roman insignia that was visible on his back, along with making him realize that there was not one, but at least a dozen more tree-like monsters in the cave with me.

"Hollows! Keep a close eye on this one, he sent away more of his buddies. They may just show up inside this cave. I do not know how their magics work. We need all those that arrive captured, or killed." The man said as he walked out of the cave, leaving Nathan and the other unconscious old man behind in the company of the hollows.

********************

My first fight scene!

Please tell me what you think, Nathan was able to go head to head with four monstrously powerful beings, whose actual origin I will reveal in the next chapter.

I would appreciate constructive criticism.

And for those of you who want to get in touch with me, please join the discord server.

https : // discord . gg / qRgGsUXyNc