Breakfast was finished, the last of the canned corned beef hash disappearing before they even made it to the table. They technically didn't need to eat anymore, but it felt so good to have sothing warm in their stomachs that none of them could resist. They had a few dozen cans of vegetables left that they were saving in case they ran across soone who still needed the nourishnt. Paper plates were thrown into a rarely-used trash can, the bag cinched up soon after and carried by Cass to the unsightly pile that leaned against the side of their garage.
Cass's scream could be heard from inside and Tess was out the door fast enough for the hinges to creak and bend. She saw him in front of the house in a combat pose, a bedraggled man hunched over in front of him. She was to them in an instant, shoulder checking the man into a flopping roll into the street. She moved again, silvery light shimring over her hands.
"Wait!" The man and Cass called out simultaneously. Tess turned her running charge into a neat flip over the figure, skidding to a stop on the other side. He held up a pleading hand her direction, his voice coming out in a crack.
"Tess, wait."
"Ed? Is that you?" She ran to him, helping him stand upright. He looked cadaverous and wan, blood covering his body. He winced when she grabbed his hands to help him and she noticed the missing digits.
"What happened to you?"
"I'll tell you, but I need food." His weak voice ca out in stuttered whispers.
She took him by the elbow. "Co on, we'll get you inside and get you so healing pills."
"And food, please. I don't care what."
"That's good, because that's the only thing we're serving right now."
They walked at a halting pace.
"Sorry, Mom," Cass said as they walked past him. "He just appeared out of nowhere and it scared the crap out of ."
"No worries, son. He looks like a zombie."
"I heard that." Ed said with a phlegmy chuckle.
An hour later they were all at the table, listening with wide eyes as Ed finished relating the story of everything that had happened since he'd left them that night. He'd eaten through five cans of green beans and corn without bothering to heat them up, using the spoon to scrape every morsel into his mouth.
"That bastard. That evil bastard." Everyone nodded in agreent with Tess. Everyone except Cass, his silent dissent going unnoticed.
"You have that right." Fire laced Ed's words. "I don't have a lot of torture experience to compare it to, but it was definitely up there."
There was a pregnant pause, then a soft voice.
"He sounded really scared."
Three heads turned to regard Cass with shock.
"What?" Iron filled Tess's question.
Cass cowered, but continued. "I'm not saying what he did was right at all - I know it wasn't. It's just that it sounds like he was really scared of you or us hunting him down, and fear makes people do all kinds of crazy things they normally wouldn't."
"Crazy things?" Ed's voice broke with the vitriol contained within. "Crazy things he wouldn't normally do?? That asshole was doing EXACTLY what he would normally do! What he always does! He leaves destruction, pain, and death in his wake everywhere his scarecrow legs take him. I had to cut off my own fucking thumb with the shears he jamd into my leg! The ones he was going to use to cut off my…"
Tess held up a hand. "Okay, that's enough." Her tone brooked no disagreent and the table fell silent again. Ed seethed, Cass cowered, and Luna looked like she wanted to crawl under the table.
"I'm done talking about that man," she fixed Ed with a look. Then she turned and fixed Cass with another. "Evil is as evil does. It doesn't matter why he did it, only that he did it."
"But"
"No buts. None. What would your dad say if he was here?"
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"He'd say that we don't judge people by their words, only their actions."
"That's right."
"But you can't always do that! You have to understand why soone is doing what they're doing! A wolf in a trap will bite at the people trying to rescue it! The wolf isn't evil, it's just being motivated by fear and pain!"
Tess's hand ca down on the table hard enough to send small cracks through the surface, her breathing heavy. "We're not going to talk about this anymore. Motives or not, I want that man out of our lives in every way - which includes us talking about him."
If anyone had anything else to say they wisely kept it to themselves.
Ed looked around the table, then the room. "Hey, where IS Zavier? Is he out hunting? Whipping his chain around at small animals or sothing?" His jovial tone died at the expressions around the table.
"We have a story to tell as well," and Tess related everything they'd been through since Ed had seen them last.
Ed released a low whistle as she finished, then stared into Tess's eyes with curiosity. "So she's in there? This Fara thing?"
"Tell him I'm not a thing, I'm a daughter!"
Tess ignored her. "Yes, she's in here - IT'S in here."
"That was rude, mother."
"What can she do? Does she enhance your skills?"
"She can, although I haven't fully taken her out for a test drive. Right now it seems she can process all of my inputs and basically sharpen my senses to a ridiculous degree. Her being in here," Tess tapped her head, "enhances so of my perception skills. For instance, I can get an imdiate read on soone's danger level."
"Oh, is that so? What does it say about ?"
Tess squinted, then smiled. "Gentle as a lamb. I could slap you into next week."
Ed raised his hands to his chest in mock offense. "Oh yeah, well what about now?" He pulled sothing out of his dinsional storage and Tess realized it was a severed thumb. He used the edge of one of the cans to nick his forearm, dipped the thumb in the welling blood, and started to draw on the air in front of her.
"Make him stop that!"
Tess's danger sense flared inside of her, the new experience taking a mont to register for what it was. She felt Fara trying to move her limbs to slap the thumb out of his hand, but she held her back with a strong push of will.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm trying sothing new. Don't worry, I think I can control it…" his voice drifted off as he concentrated. "But I think everyone should step back just in case."
Chairs squeaked across the floor in unison as everyone leapt away from the bloody rune being carved into reality in front of them. Ed's face took on a look of extre concentration and Tess's danger sense rose again. She studied it and realized that, although it warned her there was an increasing threat here, she also felt that it wasn't truly a threat to her.
With a sigh of release Ed finished and the shape in front of him flattened, split, and flew out in less than a second. There was a loud pinging sound as the cans on the table were hurled in different directions. Ed slumped and Tess's danger sense went quiet.
She reached down to pick up a can that had been neatly severed in two, the cuts so clean they didn't even ripple the tal.
"What was that?" She asked with admiration.
"Okay, so sothing I didn't ntion was that it looks like I've picked up a new path of skills - blood magic. What you saw was my seeking spell, the one I use to track people or things. Rember how I could draw shapes that would seek out people or life or whatever? This is a modification of that, but instead of just finding them and returning to it beca a weapon that I could send out. Kind of like throwing knives."
"Throwing knives made of your blood." Luna's response was hushed and a little queasy.
"Throwing knives made of my blood," he confird.
Cass stepped closer and studied Ed. "What's the cost? You look like you just ran a sprint."
"It costs HP - health, to those of you who aren't gaming nerds like Cass and . I have a strong feeling that I can use this skill as flexibly as I do my others, but it requires to pay a price for it."
"A price in blood," Tess said. "Well, I guess that balances it out so you're not…" she tried to think of the word.
"OP," Cass and Ed replied in unison, laughing when they did.
Ed continued. "This skill would be wildly overpowered if I could use it wantonly. I can create whatever I imagine, which is pretty OP as it is, but that was balanced by the fact that I couldn't actually do any real damage to anyone. Doing damage would let beco so sort of Blood God if it didn't have limits."
"So other than your health, what are the limits? It seems useful in small scenarios but not very effective for stronger opponents or crowds."
"His health pool," Cass said. Ed raised his eyebrows but let the boy continue. "For my speed I have to continue to increase Agility. For your fighting, it's Strength and Agility. For Luna it's Luck. It makes sense that he would need to have as big of an Endurance pool as possible, or as much health as possible. The more health he has, the bigger the spells he can cast - and the higher his Endurance, the more he can withstand the effects. With a big enough Endurance pool he could probably create so pretty big, nasty attacks that will only be limited by how much health he has in his tank to pay for it."
Ed fixed him with an appreciative stare. "That is… that's better than what I was going to say! It all sounds right. Good job, man, good job."
Cass glowed with pride and embarrassnt at the praise.
"The problem is that I don't know how to increase my health. I know it goes up with levels, but there has to be a way to buff that up. Or, at the very least, help recover health quickly."
Tess grinned. "That is sothing I believe we can help with."
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