Corruption Tree

Chapter 5

         Stepping Stones





“Why are you so angry?” Blade asked as the trio entered Hides’ old home.

Frost whipped around, her dirty hair whipping with her fury. “Those potions are worth more than three hundred gold each! And she gave them to you for thirty coins! I saved that money for years, expecting some great object to spend it all on! And then here you come getting free this and discount that, completely undermining my ambitions!”

“But then you’ll get a ton of great objects with me, won’t you?”

“Don’t try to corner me, Blade! Have you ever cornered a rat in the sewers?”

“Not yet, to my memory.” Blade replied.

“It’s not so pretty.” Frost put in ominously.

Hides had sidled up Blade to whisper in his ear. “I really think you should quit while you’re ahead. She really doesn’t play fair.”

Blade nodded, resolving to change the subject on volatile Frost. “Would you like to see some action?”

Frost perked up. “We’re to go hunting rats?”

“Not quite. A little more dangerous.”

Frost paled yet more than usual. “You were serious when you said you wanted to leave the city.” Blade nodded. “Why?”

“I woke up a short way from the gate where Hides found me. If I want to search for clues as to who I am, I’d best start there. Are you with me?” Frost looked to Hides for support. Hides shrugged. “I’ve made it clear that I don’t truly need your help even without any weapons. You really don’t have to.”

Frost’s color, what little there was, returned to her cheeks. Her head dipped, not in resignation but in thought. “Hides and I haven’t really socialized like this in a long time. And I haven’t had this much fun since the war.” Frost chuckled a little. “I’m with you. And I’m sure Hides is too. You’re like the new glue between us. I know the old one crumbled long ago.”

Blade nodded, relieved that he had attained such a close friendship in so short a time. He couldn't help but be curious, however, about Frost's last remark. “What glue was that?” He asked.

Frost glanced at Hides, and the young boy returned it with one of the few serious looks he had given thus far. She looked back to Blade. “Common ground. Not the greatest basis for a relationship, but it got us down the road a ways. Eventually, though, it wasn't enough. We fell away.

“Then you come waltzing into town, and we randomly meet back up. I see little coincidence.” Blade smiled, but quickly changed his thoughts to more immediate concerns.

“When would be best for us to leave?” the man asked, anxious to get to learning what he can.

“Tomorrow morning.” Hides interjected. “The monsters get aggressive at night. And during the dark hours, fiends of an even nastier sort than the rest start coming out. We'll wait for the first lights when most of the creatures are exhausted and the little imps go back to the rocks from which they crawled.”

Blade nodded in understanding. He walked over to a portion of the floor that seemed softer than the rest, and began unstrapping his scythe and armor. He placed the bag of holding in the corner and sat down. He looked back to Hides and Frost as they began doing similar things.

The man watched the two take opposite corners and fall asleep, their rhythmic breathing eventually becoming a lullaby for poor Blade.

His dreams were fitful at best.





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“I ask your patience, my master.” Edge pleaded to the darkness.

“You know how he is a thorn!”

“But a valuable one! If I cannot defeat him, than neither can our little rogue!”

“How are you so certain?” The master boomed from within his concealing darkness. “This vagabond, this man that calls himself Blade has proven too great a challenge for even you, mighty Edge.”

“But you do not know of one key factor in all of this.” Edge coyly suggested, a gamble he knew. If he did not play his next cards right, his fun would end very suddenly, trickling down his master's gullet like his lifeblood would be.

“And what would that be?” The master growled, irritation edging every syllable.

“A spell I cast. It might be why he remembers nothing.” Edge smiled at his own ingenuity. “It was intended to kill him, and while he received only a glancing blow, it appears to have sealed his abilities! He shows no evidence of any of the gifts we have imposed upon him.”

The master growled low, irritated further for he had no counter for Edge's quick thinking. Indeed, it had been a moment of lucky brilliance. “But for how long? Will his skills return? The magic within him must be working to counteract your spell. You know it can only be temporary!”

Edge nodded. “Agreed, but Steve will have killed him long before he comes back fully into his power. You know it is true.”

“And if he does not?” The master suggested, turning the coy comebacks upon impudent Edge. “Will I be forced to attend the matter personally?”

“It will not come to that, my lord.” Edge immediately responded, determination, and not his master's irritation lining his voice. “I swear it by my life.”

“I shall hold you to that, Edge.” A great, scaled leg came from the master's darkness. It's clawed foot showed only four toes as it crashed back to the ground. “For if you fail me in this...”





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When Blade came to his senses, he had Hides locked in a rather painful choke hold, and he could feel the poor boy going limp as the realization hit him. He released the orphan, a sick feeling surging up to him from somewhere in his stomach.

What were those images he had just seen? A dream? And why was Hides gasping for breath that Blade had just taken from him? Who was this Edge? And what was his elusive master? What game were they playing, and why had they mentioned Blade?

And who was Steve?

Blade knew that the dream was likely nothing, but he couldn't be certain. Could it have been some memory resurfacing? Or perhaps something else? In the dream, the two speaking had mentioned Blade having magic within him. What could that mean? Perhaps it was merely a fantasy? A reality that he had fallen into? He could not be certain as he helped Hides to his still shaky feet.

“What the hell was that?” Hides near screeched as he regained his breath. Frost was standing nearby, her hands covering her mouth in shock and uncertainty.

“I...” Blade began, just as confused and scared as the other two were. “I really don't know. Did you try to wake me?”

Hides nodded. “It was getting light out, and Frost and I woke up. You were tossing and turning and yelling in your sleep, so I moved to wake you up. Then you put me in a sleeper hold. Some thanks. You're damn well welcome.”

“Sorry. Bad dream.” Blade apologized.

“I'll say!” Frost exclaimed, regaining a measure of sensibility. “What was the dream about, anyway?”

Blade looked away, now nervous. Should he tell them of a danger that might not exist? Should he worry them further than necessary, or keep them focused? He decided it was nothing more than a dream, and thought nothing more of it.

“Just a nightmare. Nothing to get worked up about, it's just the stress getting to me a little. That's all. Now, let's get some of that tension out of our systems, shall we?”





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Getting out of the city – again through the sewers – was even simpler than getting in. The trick was for Blade to get his bearings. He searched his earliest memories of the day before, hoping that they were as fresh as he thought they were. If not, than he could end up leading the trio on a never ending vacation that could claim all their lives.

Blade, of course, did not want that.

“So,” Hides started. “Where to?”

Blade looked back at him and Frost, toward the gate and the throng before it. Blade still had not figured out why so many were simply wandering before the gates. Were they waiting for something?

Blade shook the thought from his mind, convinced that his conscious was trying to distract him, mislead him and dissuade him from his chosen course. He looked up to the sky, and the sun still low in the morning.

He looked to the wasteland before him, already showing distortions in the air born of the heat of the day. “East,” He said, and immediately began walking in that direction. He heard the other two following him, and didn't need to turn to verify that.

Within ten minutes, Hides began to complain. After that, Frost began to complain of Hides' complaints. Blade ignored them both, intent on finding his goal. He wanted to find where he had woken up, his earliest memory to date. He hoped that the heat and the wind had not destroyed evidence he might need.

It wasn't long before Blade finally began to see things that he recognized, and followed the trail of mental landmarks. Still shoving out the sounds of the two orphans quarreling with each other, Blade at last entered the sort of bowl he had woken up in. Steep rock walls surrounded it on all sides with a number of paths branching off. He had even emerged from the path that he had chosen to explore the day before.

Excitedly, he immediately began frantically searching for any hints as to how he had gotten there. Hides and Frost had fallen silent, leaving Blade to his search.

Blade sifted through the sand where he thought he had awoken. Luckily, given the shape of the bowl, most of the wind blew right over the small depression, leaving still a rough imprint of where Blade had been laying. Curiously, Blade found shards of glass, rough pieces. It was as though somebody had melted the glass and haphazardly dripped the stuff around where Blade had fallen.

The man rose from his kneel and examined the nearest wall. There, he found scorch marks of powerful sort. The light tan stone was blackened and soot-covered, with deep gouges and scratches marring its surfaces further. Looking around at the walls around him, he saw other such areas, blackened and burned, but none quite so large as this one.

One such area caught Blade's curious eye. As he approached it, a sense of trepidation about him, he saw that this burn mark was not entirely rough as the others were, not merely a blotch of black. This one outlined the rough shape of a man near perfectly.

Blade examined the shape of this humanoid mark, splayed upon the wall as if the man was thrown upon it. The outline was untouched by the charring, but the area around it was devastated. From the shape, Blade guessed that the man was indeed a man, and not a woman, was wearing a trench coat, and was heavily armed.

The image of the man from his dream, Edge, entered his mind yet again. Indeed, from what Blade had seen of him, this outline fit this Edge's profile perfectly.

It was too surreal to be circumstance, but still Blade knew nothing for certain, and decided to remain quiet.

Blade returned his attention to the rest of the bowl, to the rest of the puzzle. Blade knew that the pieces were there, and that he needed only assemble them. But how? What piece fit with what others? And how was he the fulcrum of it all?

Blade thought of that question a moment. The way he had thought it, it seemed selfish to him. He had assumed that this all revolved around him. But what evidence suggested otherwise? It appeared there was a grand scheme all about him, but he hadn't that faintest idea why, or what it could be.

Seeing nothing more, Blade walked back to Hides and Frost, watching him intently. “Did you find anything?” Hides asked.

Blade nodded. “But nothing that I can yet make sense of. We should leave. Maybe I'll be able to think more on it when we're clear of this heat.”

“I think not!” The declaration from some unseen speaker pierced the dessert heat as surely as a cold front. Blade looked around, his hand on his scythe's handle. He heard Hides and Frost both draw weapons, their weapons sliding from their scabbards with a distinctive shink!

Blade immediately wondered if perhaps he might learn more of his origins soon. “Turn and face me!” The voice came again, and Blade had to look up, at the top of one of the walls where another man stood.

This person was not like Edge, Blade quickly noticed. Indeed, there was a very great difference. Where Edge's trench coat was white, this man's was a deep and surreal black. Made of leather, the trench coat flapped in the wind above the bowl, allowing Blade a full view of the man's black cloth pants and dark leather boots. Upon the man's hands were gloves, also of the same black leather. In one hand the man held a peculiar sword. The whole of it, as seemed a staple with this individual, was black, the edge of the blade turning a deep crimson. The blade, oddly, was shaped into the likeness of a draconic wing, the curvature of the wing forming the edge. It was easily as long as the man's arm, and exuded a dark air, seeming to suck the light from around it, and darken the atmosphere it touched.

The man's face, too, was far removed from the cool visage of Edge. Where Edge's hair was just long enough to cover his ears, this man's hair cascaded down his shoulders and upper back. It nearly cleared the man's bare chest. His features were slim, but muscular, delicate, yet powerful all at the same time.

“Oh, God.” Hides muttered, smacking his palm against his forehead.

Blade turned to him. “You know him.”

Frost answered for him. “This is-”

“I... Am... Steve!” The man screeched. He leaped to the soft sand at the base of the wall, coming up from his kneel slowly, menacingly. By the time the man called Steve faced Blade fully, Hides and Frost had come to stand on either side of Blade, weapons to the ready. Blade followed their example and pulled his scythe from the device upon his back.

“What I have to say is for you alone, rogue!” Steve called.

Blade's grip on his weapon tightened. This stranger did not sit well with him. He was cool, and confident. He seemed powerful, Blade could feel it from where he stood. The man seemed... incomplete somehow, and his shadow was... wrong. It seemed distorted somehow, depicting a far more demonic version of the man casting it.

“What you can say to me you will say to them as well.” Blade declared boldly, hoping to put this stranger somewhat off guard.

“Afraid not.” The man extended his free hand, palm out, toward the trio, and immediately Hides and Frost fell to the ground, dropping their weapons and clutching their heads in agony. Almost immediately, they had fallen unconscious. Blade looked up to the man, and Steve seemed to be confused. “That should have affected you!” He snapped indignantly.

Blade narrowed his eyes. His suspicions of this man's power had been confirmed, but clearly something about Blade had foiled this Steve's attempt to incapacitate him. “Why are you here?” Blade asked.

“To kill you, of course.” Steve replied, as though the answer had been obvious.

“But why?”

“It will free me.” He replied.

“From who?”

“From,” Steve began, but hesitated. He seemed almost pained about something for a moment, his face scrunching in frustration. “Fishies?” Now Blade's face screwed up in confusion. Was Steve unstable? Steve waved his hand in the air, as if waving off an annoying fly. “It doesn’t matter. You won’t live long enough for me to remember.”

“If it must come to that.” Blade declared and brought his scythe defensively before him. “I may not want to, but I will fight you if I must.”

Steve smiled. “Indeed you must if you want any hope of living through this. A small hope, but I suggest you cling to it while you can.” Blade felt shivers crawl up his spine as Steve finished the only phrase he had uttered in a sinister fashion.

That last statement was truly frightening, even to brave Blade.

Steve leaped forward, bringing his sword before him and sweeping it forward in a backhand. It was a powerful blow, but Blade’s defending scythe was backed by equal power. More, in fact, and as Blade pushed back, Steve was forced back as well. To avoid being placed off guard, a deadly position indeed when facing fearsome Blade, Steve back flipped to land at the ready, leaping forward before Blade had even recovered from his push.

Steve brought his blade up and across, backhanded toward Blade’s head. Blade barely moved the top of his scythe in the way to block. Steve, before the resounding clang had died away, reversed his momentum and had already moved to strike at Blade’s thigh. Blade moved his scythe’s shaft to deflect the blade, but found himself hard pressed.

Steve proved to be a swift adversary, and while Blade was equally fast, the unpredictable thrusts kept him on the defensive, slowly caused him to back up a step.

Blade knew that the back wall was a fair distance away, but if Steve noticed enough of a gain in ground, the scythe wielder knew that the insane man would press his offensive even further. He was in a bad position, and had to reverse it.

Attempting to think as unpredictably as his adversary, Blade kicked up a cloud of sand. While not overly damaging or disorienting, Steve still shouted in surprise and leaped back. Sensing his short window of opportunity, Blade immediately came in a rush toward Steve.

Twirling his scythe in a dizzying display of skill, Blade slowly backed Steve until he was on the verge of becoming unbalanced. As a finishing touch, Blade hooked his scythe’s dark blade around Steve’s, pulled it low, and released his grip on the shaft with one hand to punch Steve hard in the face.

The blow sent Steve flying backwards into the sand, prone and defenseless. While he still held his sword, Steve was clearly disoriented. Blade came in, meaning to finish this menace to his friends, regardless of what information he might hold.

He raised his scythe in both hands, leaped toward Steve, swung down…

Something stopped the blade dead. A jolt was sent up the shaft of the scythe, numbing Blade’s closest hand to the blade. Blade looked curiously at where the blade had stopped.

It appeared as though the shadow of Steve itself had risen from the ground around them, and now had its dark phantom of a hand in the way of the scythe’s blade. It easily stopped the blade, and now held it in place. As Blade watched, the hand, appearing as it had on the ground, attained another dimension, gaining depth and body. Following the hand came a forearm, then an elbow. Soon, the shoulder was emerging from the sand, and then a dark head. The legs merged as one after the torso slithered from the ground. As with the dark hand, the shadow, as it pulled free of the ground, gained depth and volume, becoming a larger, bulkier version of Steve, stretched as a true shadow would be upon the ground as the sun rode low in the sky.

From Steve, however, this shadow possessed differences. In many places it sported spikes and projections that looked deadly. It was larger than Steve, but hovered over Steve’s shoulder like a loyal ally. Blade even went as far as to relate the interaction as one between lovers.

Steve turned to the shadow briefly. “Thanks for that.” In response, the shadow merely nodded toward him. Indeed, the shadow made not a sound. No whisper, nor did it kick up the wind or the dust. Nothing.

To Blade, it seemed all the more frightening.

Blade slowly backed away, truly intimidated now. Did he have to face two enemies now? Did he truly have a chance? Was he doomed from the start? Would he never uncover his past?

Blade grimaced, resolving that if these were his last thoughts, he’d give this Steve something to think about as well!

Blade surged forward, but before he could register it, Steve and his shadow split up, moving to opposite directions of Blade. He stopped, attempting to watch the shadow and Steve at the same time, but ultimately failing. The shadow came first, its entire forearm suddenly morphed into a blade similar to the one Steve now carried.

Blade was able to deflect the blow and push the shadow away a moment. Had he been facing a single enemy, Blade would have been able to finish that shadow. However, Steve was right there, first throwing his blade end over end. As Blade deflected it high and twirling in the air of its own momentum, Steve closed, his hand somehow ensconced in a deep black gauntlet, spiked and wickedly ridged, the fingers ending in hooked claws.

Before Blade could strike out, Steve struck out with that gauntlet. Blade was able to block, but it was such a close margin, those claws scratched him across the cheek, one nearly cutting a very neat half of a smile up to Blade’s ear.

Falling away, Blade grasped his now bleeding wound. He, however, regained enough sense to block a flurry of blows from the shadow, rapidly giving ground. Blade truly began to fear as he lost ground and balance. In his attempts to keep up with the shadow, almost faster than Steve, his arms began to grow tired.

The shadow moved forward, clinching its sword-arm with Blade's scythe. After a brief moment, Blade already caught off-balance, the shadow shoved, hard, throwing Blade to a sitting position. As he rose, the shadow stayed back. Steve, though, threw his hands toward Blade, palms out as he had when he had incapacitated Hides and Frost. The two orphans even still remained prone on the ground.

This time, rather than a direct attack on the mind as Steve attempted to do initially, Blade could see the raw force hurtling toward him, rippling the air and shoving aside sand on its way to the poor man. Caught again off guard, he was hit full on. The blast disoriented Blade, and caused him to stumble. He felt his extremities go numb. He hunched over, ready to fall to his knees, defeated. He dropped his scythe, though he hardly registered it.

Steve sent another mental blast that, after another stumble, sent Blade to his knees. Blade continued to lose senses, but that didn't stop him from trying to maintain his grip on reality. Steve sent another blast.

Just as this one rolled over Blade, something happened. Something broke, something that had no mind to effect with those blasts. Something changed, and that something came out then, as Blade's own awareness was weakened.

So complete was the change, Blade even began to take on the form of something more feral. As he recovered – quickly – from that last blast, he snarled at Steve, barring his teeth, showing suddenly elongated canines. He rose from his kneel, but remained hunched, as an animal that tried to stand, but lacked the proper limbs. His fingernails lengthened and attained a pointed end, sharpening to deadly tips. The only sounds he now made were guttural snarls.

Steve attained a surprised expression. “That's not supposed to happen.” He lamented.





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Weakened as he was, Blade's conscious thought ceased. He now was forced to face what had been released in his weakened state. When Steve's mental barrage assailed Blade, a barrier had been broken.

Something came out.

However, that something was not alone. With it came new memories. Memories of how this thing got inside Blade to begin with.

Blade was forced to relive this moment. Chained by his wrists and a cumbersome entrapment for his torso to the nearby walls and floor, Blade was almost entirely immobilized.

Then a man entered, and Blade was horrified to find that it was the Edge from his dream. The memory had Blade weak. He felt hungry and broken. He had not the strength to shy away when Edge pulled out a long syringe. He barely had the strength to grimace in pain as Edge mercilessly jammed the needle into Blade's spine, puncturing the vertebral column, and injected whatever vile liquids that were within the syringe directly into Blade's spinal fluids.

Edge stepped away, and crouched to look Blade directly in the eye. Blade, kneeling, met that gaze for a long while as a rage built up within him. It sublimated his fatigue and hunger, but replaced was a piercing sting in his hands and teeth. His heart, racing far faster than it should ever have gone, pounded painfully in his chest, and he began to thrash in agony.

The chains rattled and his heavy bindings didn't seem so heavy to him anymore. Perhaps it was the pain. Perhaps it was what Edge had done to him. Either way, the chains began to break. One. By. One.

Edge back swiftly out of the room, leaving Blade with his caretakers.

The last chain broke.

Blade tasted blood.





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Blade grabbed the sword arm below the blade and elbowed the shadow. Knowing that Steve's manipulation of the thing would blunt the effect of the blow, the feral man sprinted – on all fours, much to Steve's horror – to bowl over the insane man. Lying on the ground, his concentration broken momentarily, his shadow's three dimensional form wavered like the mirages of the heat rising off of the stone.

The feral beast that was now blade recognized this. It was not entirely without a mind, and moved quickly to pin the rising Steve by the neck to the ground. His focus once again disrupted, the shadow that had begun reforming behind Blade wavered yet again, disappearing altogether for a moment.

Blade lifted Steve's frightened visage to his own. Steve was able, in desperation, to again reform the shadow behind Blade, ready to strike him down. Blade slammed Steve's head back to the ground, dazing and dashing Steve's hopes of winning.

On sheer instinct, Steve kicked into Blade's side. Blade flinched, and his grip on Steve's throat lessened momentarily. Steve punched Blade, and he fell off, allowing Steve to regain his feet. Blade, being much swifter in recovery, tackled Steve to the ground.

Steve's shadow grabbed Blade by the shoulders and threw him across the bowl.

Right next to the scythe.

Blade, even in this state, being not entirely without reasoning, grabbed the weapon and rose, swinging with abandon. All semblance of skill had been erased, and that was exactly what threw Steve off his guard. So surprised was the unpredictable Steve that he was sent back on his heels as he blocked a swing from above, below and then toward his midsection all from the same angle and in rapid succession.

Blade pulled back and bunched for a powerful swing. Steve was able to roll away, under the arc of the blade, and the scythe bit out a sizable chunk of the wall beyond where Steve had been.

Blade turned on Steve. Steve's shadow flew in, swooping from below, but that did little to delay Blade. In a deftly animalistic twist, he had the shadow forced back against the ground. Before the powerful ally of Steve could recover, Blade turned back to his adversary and charged.

He once again pinned Steve against the ground by the throat, cutting off his windpipe, destroying his focus. This time, Blade was prudent enough to pin Steve helplessly against the ground with his legs, preventing a counter like before.

Blade lifted his scythe above his head, his grip near the base of the blade to allow ease of swing. He snarled in satisfaction at having defeated his enemy.

“Blade!” The name snapped on Blade's senses, and the feral thing that he had become looked up at Hides and Frost, recovering from Steve's attack. Hides was the one that had called to him, wearing a worried, almost panic-stricken expression.

Blade now saw his friends, but was caught somewhere between control and chaos. He looked down to Steve, struggling for breath. He felt a tug on his arm, an incessant pull to finish the job. He wanted to feel Steve's blood on his hands, but knew that to kill him, so helpless now, was wrong. Perhaps the man could indeed offer insight into Blade's past.

He looked up to the two orphans, worried looks on their faces. Panting heavily, he suppressed the urge to charge for them as well. He was disgusted that such control was necessary. Whatever had happened was dangerous, he thought.

Confused as his friends, and deathly afraid he would hurt them, Blade was conflicted. He wanted to stay, but whatever this other ego was, it fed on the possibility of bloodshed. If he remained near his allies, he knew he would kill them.

He looked to Steve, losing what little color he possessed. He snarled and slammed his scythe down home. Hides and Frost looked away as the blow landed. When they looked back, Steve was rising, rubbing his neck, freed apparently, the scythe's blade embedded deeply into the stone beneath the sand.

Blade could be seen just turning a corner in the pathways nearby, passing beyond their sight. Hides sincerely hoped that he would see his friend again.

Hopefully alive.





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Steve watched the man, this Blade go. Blade had defeated him, he realized, the thought sinking poignantly into his shattered mind. It was one of the few moments in which something pierced the smog of his thoughts and truly resounded in Steve's isolated soul.

Edge alone could never defeat Steve. Each time he had broken free, it had taken Edge many men to bring Steve down, just to place him back in a cell. Every time this happened, of course, they upgraded his prison until not even Steve could get free without truly trying.

And Steve did not like doing that.

But this man, this Blade, had defeated him. Granted, it happened slowly, and the trick Blade played had taken Steve by surprise...

But just before that strike landed, right as Steve believed his life had come to a crashing end, he saw Blade's expression. In that face was fear, and Steve was certain it had taken the man by surprise just as it had taken Steve.

Steve believed that a true freedom would come with this one. He thought that perhaps, just maybe, Blade could be the key. If Steve could use that fear – underhanded, he knew – against Blade, he could use Blade himself. Then again, perhaps Blade would merely comply. Steve had only had experience with deception, and never knew what morals were.

Blade could unlock his torment. Blade might bring Steve to that which he coveted above all, that one desire that Steve had always dreamed of, but only had for a short while.

Sanity.

Before the experiments, Steve had it. Before he was old enough to survive the tests, he possessed it. But then, Edge had done horrible things to him.

Steve began to grip his head and whimper, drawing worried gazes from Hides and Frost.

Sanity.

His tears stopped and he looked calmly, even hopefully in the direction Blade had taken.

Sanity.

With this man, he just might at last get away from the pain and the maddening misery, the loneliness and suffering.

Sanity.

With this man, he just might have it.





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He couldn't tell the beast what to kill, or when to stop, but Blade could poke and prod in a certain direction, and he did just that. He was determined to lead this creature, polluting his body with its putrid irrationality, away from his friends. He would not let it take them from him. He wouldn't take away his first home he had remembered having.

Slowly, as landscapes meshed together and long plains began to morph into hills, forests, even mountains, the beast began to tire at last. Blade could feel it, for it was his body that was being affected. It felt like an eternity, but at last, Blade felt that soon, he would be able to relax.

Wracked with exhaustion, the beast relinquished its hold. Blade drew up to his full height, but his now spent muscles forced him back down into a resigned slump.

His breath misted on the air in front of his face. His feet sunk deeply into the thick snow. He could barely see those feet through the snow that fell in heavy clumps. Not flakes, but clumps. He looked up, but saw that it did little good, for that was the only thing he saw.

He shuffled forward, but almost immediately slipped on a slick stone. Blade quickly learned that he was on a mountain, high and cold. He had no idea how he would survive.

If the fall didn't kill him.

The trip had landed him dangerously close the edge of a cliff. So close in fact that only his fingers remained on the cliff's edge, stubbornly keeping Blade from falling to an untimely demise. Blade knew it could not hold. Already, the numbness of cold was setting in, and coupled with his muscles' fatigue, he could not hold.

His hand slipped.

After the first collision came, Blade felt little, but suspected that he had hit several more outcrops of rock on his way down. To his credit, he landed in still deeper snow, somehow still conscious, but badly hurt. He felt one of his arms going limp, and knew it been either broken or entirely dislocated, judging from the very great pain he felt from it. He tried to breath deep, but three ribs had been broken. He could not consciously know exactly how many had broken, but he knew it had happened. He felt a liquid cold on his forehead, and knew that blood had spewed from a wound on his head. Frozen now, it bled little, but he knew it could be fatal.

Blade tried to stand. He later congratulated himself on walking – limping – for several yards, ending up on more of a flat plain, but he collapsed there, snow falling around him. He rolled onto his back, afraid he would never see his friends again.

How quickly had his role been reversed. He had Steve at his mercy. Indeed, he had nearly killed that man. But now, Blade was the one on the threshold of death, at the reaper's door. He looked into the sky, but could see little.

Until something silhouetted against the white of the snow. A hand reached down to lift Blade's head.

Blade's vision was engulfed by darkness.