A Kindred Doubt

“I’m glad you’ve come, Princess, Emissary. Ike? Why don’t you introduce yourself.”

Heavy thuds follow as a boy steps from behind the old man’s shadow. He stands no taller than the man’s chin, decorated in their tribe’s knightly robes and armor of blue and black. A golden crest over his chest and an ambiguously black mask.

After a single scanning glance, he bows his head absentmindedly toward the girl covered in blue silks. An alluring dress woven together so strangely to the boy that he decides not to pay anymore mind to it.

“My name is Ike.”

His words come from behind his Village Leader’s shoulder.

The Princess and her Emissary observe the timid boy with quizzical speculation, their expressions matching their thoughts. Clearing his throat, the Emissary speaks first.

“For this mission you requested aid in… this is the boy you wish to send with Miss Pandora?”

The Village Leader nods with an elderly grin, eyes half closed and slightly hunched over. The boy being a year younger than the Princess puts him at the age of fourteen. Which did not convince either of their visitors that this mission was bound for success.

Regardless, the Princess remains unfazed. Even through the first level of awkward silence.

“Village Leader,“ the Emissary breaks the air, “I read in the reports sent to our kingdom that there is a seriously threatening animal lurking in the forest that your people would typically gather supplies from.“

“That is correct.” He responds with a joyful tone as if he’s just glad in itself the matter was attended to and not ignored as other requests may have been.

Pandora’s companion leans in close to her ear and whispers, “We’re here for good standing with the citizens. As the second choice family to be elected as the new rulers of the kingdom of Zenia, every effort counts.”

Her smile does not fade, her eyes do not waiver while she gives him a reassuring, “Mhm.”

Turning the attention back to the village’s complication, he speaks again to the Leader.

“This… animal you speak of, would you be able to describe it for me? The report says there were three casualties resulting in death but the details of their deaths vary. Also, all of the bodies were discovered but none of them could be recovered.”

The Village Leader’s eyes widen as he imagines the beast.

“A bear!” He says, carrying a dumbfounded expression.

Ike looks at the elder with unknown thoughts piling behind the black mask he wears.

Reading his sudden gesture, Pandora’s eyes flick from character to character. Was there more to this situation that we don’t know? She thinks to herself.

“That is our threat? Pandora will have no problem with such a beast. Being the only Princess to wield wind and light magic in the kingdom, there’s no need to fret anymore!”

The Emissary holds his hands up in a pre-celebratory manner, chuckling, looking over at his Princess for more reassurance.

Though her expression is solemn as all eyes are on her now. Even Ike’s.

“The mission will go without fail, rest assured.”

Her words fall short of simplicity and that was an obvious note, even if none knew of the cause. There’s a silence afterwards that shrouds those present. Of mixed intentions. Mixed ideas. Mixed information. But after continuing the rest of their talk, the Leader and Emissary shake hands to finalize matters. Then once the morning sun rose high enough to fully illuminate the village, the two elected warriors depart into the forest to set off on the first mission they’ve both ever been assigned to.

-

-

And it’s not long after they enter the forest that the energy between them changes.

The questions begin to arise. Tension fills the air. And just as Pandora inhales to begin her expected interrogation, Ike sighs from what is to come.

“What are we really dealing with here? I’ve never heard of your village before so this area is unknown to me, but the casualties, what sort of bear kills just to kill like that?”

“A black bear.”

The leaves crunch loudly under their feet as they make their way to the last victim’s known position.

“But there’s something else to it, right? Three of your people have died and no one is panicking? Are there no warriors capable of handling this?”

“The bear must be big.”

They duck under some branches. Climb over a dramatically large log that may not even be from this forest, and slowly close the distance between them and their first objective point.

“Ike if it’s just a bear-“

“A big bear,” he interrupts, causing her increasing aggravation.

“… I think you can sit tight and wait for me to finish the job.”

Her pace quickens past Ike but before she moves too far ahead he suddenly grabs her hand.

She stops in place but scuffs at his unexpected burst of energy. There was more than a few feet between them but she didn’t hear any leaves rustle on the ground as he closed in. Trying to break free seems to prove useless as well, every tug of her arm not even budging an inch from the position they’re fixed in. Caution begins to well up inside her as she glares at her mysterious partner.

“Let go.” She growls.

His grip loosens but he doesn’t allow her to move freely just yet.

“The big bear is our problem. We deal with it, together.”

She clicks her tongue barely letting him finish his lecturing and looks away.

“Get off me, weirdo. I can handle myself.”

“Are we in this, together, Pandora?”

His sentences always felt choppy to her, like it took everything he had to speak them properly. This theory conjures some mischievous thoughts from her as she looks him over.

“You’re not used to people at all, are you? This must be your first mission or something. Partners don’t stop other partners from doing what they have to do, you know? I’m only trying to help us.”

Her voice holds innocent signs of mislead-meant but the words she spoke is all that the boy knew to pay attention to from his honest lack of experience.

Yet letting go of her hand turns out to be a regrettable decision he finds out. Since as soon as he releases her from his grip, green magic circles play under her palms and after whispering some sort of enchanting words, a gust of wind blows her out of sight. It knocks Ike back a few feet, staggering him only a moment as he waves away the knocked up dust and plants.

There is nothing more he regretted this day than letting his first mission slip like this. But there’s a noticeably strange pulse of satisfaction in the absence of the girl.

Staring down the path she blew away to, he gives another sigh. But the mission must go on. Only moments passing before he restarts his venture to the first objective point.

Moving as one instead of two people helps him get there faster than anticipated. Only half an hour passing since they entered the forest and there they were. Three bodies piled on top of one another, but no sign of the bear, or whatever it was.

Taking a few incautious steps ahead, he kneels down in front of his fallen people and gives a small prayer.

“Rest peacefully now, I’ll kill the bear.”

While getting up, he catches eye of a few dragging marks which may be a sign towards more bodies and decides that’s the next direction to go. Although before he departs, he snatches the amulet off one of his fallen comrades.

Then stepping onto his new path, the thought resurfaces.

“A really big bear,” he mumbles.

-

-

It’s been an hour and a half now since they entered the forest.

The pace of things have certainly changed. Starting with the strange whirring sound in the air as Ike enters a large, circular, open area. The trees surround him as if they were watching. Caving in. And the bushes sway as if they were on strings following an unknown melody along the winds. The ground has barely any grass, mainly dirt with visibility at his height seeming to slowly diminishing as fog sets in.

The vibe is too eerie to call it anything but what it is. Yet as fast as he realizes this, it isn’t fast enough.

“A deathtra-“

ROOOOOOᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒʷᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃᵃAAAAAHHHH

The bone-chilling wail of what feels like anger mixed with sadness echoes from all directions, causing Ike to dart his head from one tree to another, to another, until…

“WHY, IKE?”

The voice comes from behind him, the center of the field.

Slowly turning around, he faces something that resembles a bear, but the massive disaster he senses is nothing of an animal.

“A… a demon-“

“IKKKKKEE, WHY??!”

The monstrosity before him begins to cry. Eyes glazed over with no certainty of where it’s looking. Ike only reaches its knees in height. The trees around them appearing to stretch high enough over them to shade the sun above.

An overwhelming fear the boy has never experienced before causes him to stumble back over his feet. Every fiber of his being screams at him to flee while his mind demands he finishes the mission he’s responsible for.

“I-IKE?”

Why does it know my name? He finds a moment to ask himself. But then, pointing its head toward the sun, the beast starts to wail loudly once more. Enough to make Ike cover his now bleeding ears and fall to his knees from the stunning pain.

“Gaah!” He yells, the pain feeling almost intolerable.

Finding only a moment to look back at the demon, the wailing seems to only be an illusionary misconstruction. Its hideous face only inches away from his own. Its body pressed against the ground as if to get as close a look at him as possible. And its eyes… the moment Ike looks into them is the moment he loses himself for eternity. Pain, torture, the breaking and remolding of his mind, endless possibilities, all in a moment stretched out as far as time exists.

Then, as if to answer prayers unspoken, a beam of light, half the size of the demon, shoots passed them at astonishing speed. This snaps Ike out of his daze. Sends the demon cowering backwards, covering its eyes. But it doesn’t reverse the amount of trauma he experienced. Trembling on the ground, he can barely think, feel, see, hear… nothing seems to be reality anymore.

As it recovers from the momentary stagger, it slowly makes its way toward Ike. He starts to panic, foam from the mouth under the mask, belch uncontrollably, stomach rumbling, bubbling. His skin gets clammy and he hyperventilates from sudden waves of anxiety. His anxiety running through him like tectonic plates splitting in half and collapsing in on themselves toward the Earth’s core in a repeated cycle. Building and building in pressure.

With every step the monster takes towards him, he loses himself more and more. Retching and gagging. When it bends down to grab Ike, suddenly he erupts from deep within him, a magmatic surge of fire and molten waste that expels through his mask. The lava-like substance shoots onto its face, shoulder and chest, causing the beast to yell and draw back in pain, holding its slowly melting face.

There’s no time to Ike to understand the situation he put himself in, but noticing his senses came back to him is convincing enough that he needs to leave before…

“IKKKKKE!”

The beast holding its face with one hand swipes at Ike, sending him off the ground and crashing through a multitude of trees.

“Fu…” he coughs up blood, his vision fading away.

Will I… die here…?

-

-

Twenty minutes before Ike first reaches the battlefield.

“This mission couldn’t possibly get dumber than this. Where is this grizzly bear I have to find, anyways?”

Pandora’s grumbling persists for the majority of her search, nothing significant to take notice of. Just plant life and the strangely large trees.

Until she stumbles upon two trees in particular that look more like landmarks than naturally grown.

“What’s this?”

A crater large enough to span the Royal Courtroom from her kingdom is ahead of them. Cautiously, she steps in and slides down the slant of it, passing half buried animal remains and skeletons of unfortunate souls she’d title as her predecessors.

The closer she arrives to the center, the more something odd comes into view.

“Is that…?” Shading from the sun with one hand, she squints her eyes.

“ ʰᵉˡᵖ “ She barely can make out the words from the pile of three bodies stacked on top of each other. They wore similar attire as Ike’s villagers.

“Strange.”

Only strange until she hears the muffled voice once again from under the corpses.

“Help…”

Her eyes widen at the familiar tone and immediately she throws the bodies out of the way of a half-submerged man whose scars across his face and upper half look irredeemable.

The site of this man starts bringing Pandora to tears. She motions to touch him but hesitate repeatedly.

“God… Lionel? What has happened to you?”

His mind feels almost too broken to hear her fully. But because of her voice and hers alone, the light flickers in his eyes as he moves his head slowly toward her direction.

“Panda?”

She drops to her knees and grabs his hands.

“Yes! Uncle, where have you been? What happened to you? How do I get you out of here?”

He starts making this moaning, sizzling sound through his teeth. His head slowly falling forward before she shakes him gently back into somewhat consciousness.

“Stay with me! Please, Lionel.” She whimpers through teary eyes.

“Ah… be careful, Panda Dear. The kingdom…”

His hands are colder to the touch. His voice weakening drastically.

She lowers her head to his mouth so that he wouldn’t have to use so much of his strength.

“What of the kingdom, Uncle? Danger?”

He suddenly struggles to produce more words, his lips trembling with every syllable.

“Tr-trust… n-none… c-c-corr-corrupt.”

The next word she hears freezes her tears in horror.

“Demons…”

What? She thought as she looks around. Time feels suspended as she begins to realize that this isn’t a forest she’s in. The forest has to hold a portal to the Demon’s Realm.

Everything slowly connects in her head. The bear, the Emissary, the look Ike gave his Village Leader. All of it makes sense now.

“Uncle I… I don’t think I…”

Looking back at her uncle, he had been mouthing out words inaudibly.

“Please, you have to keep it together Uncle! I think they’re going to be here soon. I don’t know what to do!”

The tears uncontrollably rain down her cheeks, then her hands are lifted slightly by Lionel and clasped together.

Pandora watches while sniffling consistently as he sways her hands in a circular motion and absentmindedly points them to the side. Staring off in the distance even though all he can see from where they are is the steep slant of the crater but he seems to be aiming for something. Or someone.

Then, their hair flutters. Light engulfs their hands as well as Lionel’s eyes. A blue magic circle with unfamiliar lettering forms in the direction that they point.

“Uncle?” She chimes.

“Let this light… guide you.” Lionel’s words come almost as clear as they would in good health. Like receiving a direct manifestation of what he desires as well as an omen for the future.

“I will!” She vows in this moment, nose running and tears soaking her clothes.

It was something she has never seen her uncle do before. A pillar of light casts straight ahead, burning through everything in its path, farther than the eyes can see.

As the pillar intensifies, Lionel’s body degrades until there’s nothing left but ashes.

After all the particles dissipate, her hands linger in that pointed position. As if he was still there. The aftermath resulting in a large hole that erodes away the forest with burning red, steaming marks in its path.

“Uncle… what is happening…?” She prays to his now vanished soul.

Time passes for her mourning, a few minutes before wiping her face as clean as she can and making her way in the direction of the light.

I have to find him.

-

-

Ike lays in thought as the broken rib he feels sharply causes him to wince with every move he tries to make.

I’ll just close my eyes…

….

“Ike? Oh no no no… Ike, hold on. My light magic can heal a little. It’ll at least soothe the pain and stop the bleeding.”

It was the last thing he hears for a while.

…

The ten minutes later, he finds himself propped upright against a different tree than he passed out on.

Looking around, Pandora is sleeping across from him against another tree, covered in blood, maybe his, dirt and tears.

Feeling his chest, the pain remarkably is almost nonexistent now. Getting up though however, unveils pain that had been waiting for any abrupt movements and he groans in surprise.

“You’re awake?” Pandora’s voice comes in groggily.

She stands up as quickly as her half-awoken self can move and rushes to his side to help him stand.

“I healed some of your wounds but nothing is permanent, you’ll need to go back to the village and get proper care soon.”

“Not yet. The big bear lives.”

“That isn’t a bear, Ike we can’t just-“

“It hit me. Killed my people.” He looks at her through the broken mask, emerald eyes that resemble a lizard flicker from behind it with anger she had not thought he understood how to produce. “We have a mission”

She shakes her head, mystified.

“It hit you? That’s impossible, a demon that created a realm this large could’ve crippled an ogre with one hit. A human would be…”

Her words trail off as she understands why he had been selected for this mission. Still, there’s a lot that she feels is hard to piece together as of now.

“Did you hurt it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think we have a chance to kill it?”

“Yes.”

Taking a moment to think, so many anomalies in one day almost is overwhelming in itself for her.

“Ike, I’m sorry about before. I’m ready to work together now. We have to finish this, there’s a lot of questions I have and not enough answers yet.”

Reading her intentions truly aligning with her words and actions, Ike understands the seriousness in her commitment.

“Let’s finish the mission.”

After being in full agreement, they journey back to the battlefield that Ike narrowly escaped from. But to their surprise, the demon, with a half-melted face, lay cold and stiff in the center with all the fog dispersed. A pool of blood under it and an abnormal marking on its back.

“Ike, did you…?”

“No, just the face, and it was still alive after to hit me.”

“I see…”

Standing on the outer edge for a minute, Ike presses forward and touches the cold fur of the dead beast.

“What happened, Pandora?”

She comes up to his side, looking over his shoulder at the markings.

“Those are… rune marks.”

“Runes?”

“Ancient magic that has been lost for a long time.”

Running her fingers over its back, the runes begin to glow orange.

Instinctively, Ike grabs Pandora’s hand and pulls them away an instant before the beast is enveloped in a golden bubble that rises off the ground, high into the sky. As they watch, it keeps rising until suddenly, the bubble compresses and the demon is crushed into a waterfall of green blood.

“Pandora?” Ike asks again, more confused than on edge now. Still holding her hand.

“I don’t think the mission was to kill the big bear, Ike…”

A barely visible eye in the sky watches them from behind the raining flesh and blood, blinks, and disappears as it closes.

“I think that we were the big bear.”