Elder Cultivator

The peacekeepers were probably fine. The Alliance had done their best to make sure they only accepted people who swore true oaths of protection, but people could change their minds. Then there was the issue that Abder couldn’t hear and he looked like he’d just been in a battle to the death. Which was true, but still rather suspicious. At least he had pants.

From what Abder knew, Nthanda could focus her healing on specific parts of her body. She could do a lot of things, actually. But he didn’t know how to do any of that, so he was going to need to work without hearing for a while. Paper would be good. He might need to go home and get some, because… would The Gathering let him in looking like he was? He didn’t really look like him right now. Normally he had hair. And non-charcoal skin. His voice might not even sound the same.

Cultivators might still be able to tell. It wasn’t like there were a ton of advanced body temperers. However, home was his best bet as long as nobody was watching it. And why would they be? He was dead. Or at least stuck outside, if they thought he would survive. He hadn’t really believed in himself there, so he would be kind of pleased if the Twisting Spike thought he’d live.

He got a lot of weird looks on the streets, but that was probably good. Nobody was running or panicking. There wasn’t violence everywhere. Presumably if there were sounds of battle, people would be paying attention to that. Abder also didn’t feel any of the huge bursts of energy that he would expect.

He still moved quickly, his feet aching on the bare stone. The good news was that pain meant there was enough of him left that his nerves were in decent condition. The bad news was that Abder didn’t like pain.

Running seemed like it would be the correct choice at first, but he avoided it. With no way to clear up any misunderstandings, he didn’t want to look like some kind of weirdo running away from a crime. So his feet kept a strong rhythm with long, quick steps. In only a dozen minutes he’d found his neighborhood, and then he was home shortly afterwards.

Without his key, because that had probably melted. The door was locked, which was good. He crushed the handle in his grip, then tore out the bits. It wasn’t meant to be that secure. There would just be a pulse to wake him up if things were disturbed.

The first thing he grabbed were some pills to accelerate healing and replenish what blood he’d lost early on. Then he ate everything in his pantry that didn’t need to be cooked. It tasted like nothing but pain, hurt to swallow, and then he felt bloated at the end. But he’d quickly digest what was left, and he could already feel it infusing into his body. Hopefully he’d be more functional in a few hours.

He grabbed paper, wrote a few things he thought he’d have to say, threw on some new clothes that at least looked like his, and took quick steps towards The Gathering. Someone came to greet him, based on their expression- though they didn’t recognize him. He pointed towards some things on his paper, then remembered he could still sort of talk. The papers were mostly for other people to write responses.

“I’m Abder, I got attacked, thrown outside, and now I can’t hear,” he said. “Please write your responses,” he held out his paper and writing implement.

It was not a great setup, but the other fellow- Colo- managed a response. “You look and feel awful. But I recognize your general shape. Wait here while I get others.”

A few minutes later, Abder was being swarmed by friends. He couldn’t understand anything they said, so he had to stop them- including the people trying to cover him in salves. He could do that himself, they were being far too gentle and slow. He slathered goop over his arms as he explained as best he could, placing Colo in front of him as the official writing representative.

“Everyone alright here?” Colo nodded. “It was Twisting Spike remnants. I could point them out if I encountered them. Send someone to Draza. Actually, warn all our allies. They’re likely going to act soon.”

Colo held up his paper with new words. “Unov? New Ibbore?”

“I suppose we should,” Abder said. Could he hear things? Maybe just his own blood pumping in his ears. Not terribly useful. “We need them to know, at least.”

Abder had just about organized things, preparing to go with some allies to find the peacekeepers, when he sensed someone coming. Someone he’d seen earlier in the day… presuming it was the same day, otherwise they were quite slow to get to the next stage of their plans.

Marching with weapons against The Gathering was completely foolish. All they did was help people grow. They even shared their knowledge with anyone reasonable.

Abder quickly made his way to the commotion, feeling the tense emotions but little else. A few of the people who’d tried to kill him earlier were there, with others mixed in. Just as Abder got in sight, the leading woman stabbed towards one of the younger members of The Gathering with a spear. Abder sprang forward, trying to reach out. He wouldn’t reach in time… but his hand flicked.

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A quill pen stabbed through the wooden haft of the spear, splitting it and nearly negating the energy flowing through and around it. It was enough for the young man- Karl, probably- to raise stony defenses on his torso. His ribs snapped under the distributed force, but he wasn’t impaled.

Everyone turned towards him, and Abder realized he was roaring in anger. His lungs were pretty messed up, but still far more powerful than a normal person’s. He reached out for the woman, grabbing her arms as she tried to block him. His aching fingers crushed her wrists as he kicked one leg up into her belly, the other sweeping behind her legs. He folded her in half, and he felt her spine snap.

Obviously her defensive energy tried to stop him, but she had to focus it on a single point. She wasn’t strong enough on her own, so that was her fate. Obviously her allies had something to say about that, and a half dozen needles and one rapier stabbed into Abder.

The former couldn’t penetrate even his damaged skin, while the latter slid cleanly through his belly. That wasn’t his intention at all- he’d simply been careless0 but he clenched his abdominal muscles and shattered the weapon before the man could redirect their energy to tear him apart from the inside.

Then people from The Gathering began to charge down the road and throw attacks out of windows, joining the battle. Even if they were individually weak- which wasn’t always the case- they were sufficient to overwhelm the attackers with Abder present. And when he wasn’t fighting alone against dozens, he was able to focus on one enemy at a time.

He didn’t let another weapon touch him, unless he grabbed it first or was swatting it out of the way. Focusing on the strongest enemies first meant it wasn’t long before the remaining middle strength enemies were running for their lives screaming, as the weakest ones had been taken out in the first waves of attacks and with their leaders dying they didn’t have any confidence in their victory- regardless of the actual odds.

Abder was not in a good mood, so he began to chase them down. He could have snapped necks and shattered skulls, but he didn’t want to kill unnecessarily. Letting people get away to try to harm people later wasn’t his plan either. He grabbed the first two around the neck, and while they tried to flail and stab him they couldn’t get an angle on him, focus energy on their weapons, and stop him from cutting off the flow of blood to their brains.

He wasn’t able to catch all of them, but the neighborhood as a whole quickly became aware of what was going on- some of them joined the pursuit, and they caught most of those running. Then without having to seek them out, peacekeepers quickly showed up.

Abder was glad that Colo and the others weren’t far away so they could help explain. Because his ears were still ninety-nine percent busted. He was pretty sure he could hear words now, but without being able to hear which words it was kind of meaningless.

“They want to know the names of those who attacked you,” Colo wrote.

“I only know a few. She was one, though,” Abder pointed to the woman with the broken spine. She wasn’t dead, but she couldn’t move without energy and with a broken weapon she couldn’t threaten anyone either. Though there were a dozen people prepared to attack her in case she did anything. Abder gave up the few other names he knew.

Then Colo asked about where he was first attacked. Abder added some useful info- even if they cleaned up the scene there should be some metal shards from broken weapons.

Abder did his best to sense the intentions of the peacekeepers as they were placing shackles on the surviving attackers. It would be better if he could hear their heartbeats or tone of voice, but their postures indicated sincerity. They were planning to go investigate the location he mentioned when flickers of energy activated the communication devices they had among them.

Anton said they were ‘simple’, as they only relayed sound, but they did so anywhere in the city. Around the same time, Abder felt fluctuations from a nearby neighborhood. He took off running. He was not a pacifist, he just hadn’t made his main thing fighting. His strong body was meant to make him feel safe- which it did- and to perform useful tasks. But sometimes that had to be turning people into pretzels.

It wasn’t his job to fend off trouble, and the peacekeepers would probably be saying that if he could hear them. But he couldn’t, and nobody was going to stop him and his battered body from helping people.

-----

Abder blocked a fireball going for an innocent civilian with his body. It was… really not that hot compared to what he’d been dealing with. If he’d been healed, he probably wouldn’t have felt much of anything. Instead, his fist twinged in pain. He hadn’t just let it hit his torso, obviously. Better to sacrifice an arm if it could cause that much damage, so he’d punched out with his left. Fortunately, his body was durable enough even as it was. He was absolutely going to collapse later, but first there were some people to deal with.

It was difficult to tell whether the flaming woman was a former Twisting Spike or just someone aligned with their interests, but Abder didn’t much care. He charged forward, tackling her to the ground. The streets were just smoothed stone from Moturn, so they were incredibly durable. The heat would do literally nothing to them.

“Cease your flames or I’ll snap your neck,” Abder threatened. Her attacks were widespread, so he really might do it. The woman was stubborn enough to make Abder demonstrate he could actually hurt her, even though the fact that she couldn’t stand should have been suspicious. So after he bashed her head into the ground and created a few cracks, she decided she didn’t have enough natural energy to keep that up when Abder could probably continue forever.

Fighting continued around Abder, and he focused on those most dangerous to civilians. The peacekeepers either didn’t mind or had given up on yelling at him. Once everyone was down, Abder strained his senses for any other battles. If he could hear, he could probably pick up the sound of a clash all the way across the city, but with just energy senses they had to be close. There was nothing, for the moment. That was a relief. He’d fear some sort of city-wide uprising. If it was less than that, Moturn could definitely handle it. Which was good, because they really needed to be able to handle themselves without the Alliance. Either that, or give in and officially join them which was honestly fine with Abder- but proving they could be independent was attractive as well.