Years Earlier…

Deep in a moonlit forest, a flash of light announced Staff’s arrival. By his side, Axe stood patiently in the fresh mud. His armour slowly drying from the rain clouds that had only just moved on.

“How bad are we talking?” Staff simply asked.

“She’s one of them. An anomaly.” Axe revealed. He watched Staff’s face contort with confliction.

“Well shit.” He muttered as his eyes began to scan their surroundings.

“She’s good too. Managed to lose her in the forest. Normally I wouldn’t ask you to deal with such a matter given your history, but I’m shit at tracking and she’s a smart bitch.”

“Alright I’ll take it from here then. Any collateral damage I need to know about?” He asked as he looked down at some rather well-hidden tracks off to their side.

“Nearest town is a few hours from here. I wouldn’t go all out, but you’ve got a rather big playing ground.” Staff quietly nodded as his eyes turned to the full moon high in the sky.

“I’ll get right to it then.”

In the blink of an eye, he was gone. Administrative Haste wasn’t as instantaneous as the flash but tracking while teleporting was like shooting yourself in the foot at the starting line for a marathon. It wasn’t long before he came to a stop. Something was off about the tracks now. They weren’t as perfect as before, as if someone had hastily backtracked. No wonder Axe needed his help. Before he had time to analyse the surrounding forest floor a small sword smacked into the back of his head. Staff felt the now bent blade fall to the floor. He turned to find a small boy now staring at him in fear. Covered in mud and wearing nothing but peasant rags. He had short black hair, but sharp, grey eyes that remained locked with his. Despite his fear, the boy refused to cower.

Someone openly attacking an admin was almost completely unheard of. No one would be foolish enough to oppose a God. No one but a foolish child perhaps. Yet the clear conviction in the boy’s eyes, despite his fear, told Staff a valuable nugget of information. He was trying to stop him finding the anomaly. Staff’s thin and bony fingers wrapped around the child’s throat, “You aren’t who I’m looking for boy.” He spat at him, “Tell me where she is.”

“You’ll never get your hands on my sister.” The boy spat back. Staff’s eyes narrowed as his grip intensified. His eyes glowed bright red for a few seconds. This kid wasn’t anything special. No anomaly, no wielder of an illegal item. Technically, as he’d made an attempt to hinder his progress, Staff was within his right to kill the boy without a second through.

“Consider yourself lucky you didn’t inherit the same abnormality as your sister, otherwise I’d kill you here and now.” He threatened as a small spell lashed at the child’s shoulder, “And since you so willingly gave me the information that I need to find her, I’ll forgive the attempt on my life.” The boy’s blood collected itself into Staff’s palm, before reshaping into an arrow. He let go of the boy, who fell into the still damp mud at Staff’s feet, arse first.

Like a compass needle, the blood in Staff’s hand quickly turned to point in a seemingly random direction. Staff vanished in a blur of speed into the woods. He watched the arrow quickly shift. He came to a stop and scanned his surroundings. The force of him coming to a stop so suddenly shook the trees and the ground. Staff’s eyes shone red once more.

There. To his left.

A large fireball shot from his hand towards the bush that someone was hiding behind. He watched a blur speed off into the distance to avoid the attack.

A speed error? Interesting. Tracking her would indeed be troublesome. He uncontrollably smiled at the challenge. He watched the figure vanish into the shadows in short bursts of speed. So, it wasn’t like his Admin Haste ability, short bursts of insane speed instead of constant acceleration. She probably had a limit, but someone this experienced at hiding wouldn’t be tricked so easily. He watched as the flames from his spell began to set the nearby tree on fire. With a click of his fingers the flames vanished, leaving only a slightly charred patch. Once more he was off. The arrow was tracking her still, but it was by no means accurate enough to find her in such a place, only her general area.

Once more he came to a stop as the arrow quickly shifted. This time as he did so a tree toppled right towards him. In a flash he was standing on top of the collapsed tree. His eyes immediately turned to the stub, which had been hacked at.

The arrow was twirling around; she was still somewhere nearby. Once more his eyes turned red and began to sweep his surroundings. A useful tool the Creator himself had developed for hunting anomalies. Any such person would appear bright red to the user, through objects or other people as well.

The red flash he quickly spotted took him by surprise. Before he knew it, a sword blade had smacked into the blood arrow in his hand. She’d charged him right as he’d spotted her. There was a powerful gust of wind that nearly blew Staff off his feet as the figure sped off into the forest once more, just as the blood splashed to the floor. Axe was right. This one was sharp. He could do nothing but grin as he quickly sped off right after her. He couldn’t lose her now. Tracking someone with that power would be nearly impossible. He’d have to keep up with her.

Now that he was hot on her heels, he could get a better look at her between her bursts of speed, although there wasn’t much to see. She was wearing a mud-covered hood and cloak. There was also the faint outline of a blade either side of her legs poking through the cloak during her stride. A dual wielder, a rare fighting style. He was catching up to her. Her bursts of speed were fast, faster than Staff’s speed by far, but it only seemed to last for a fraction of a second, and every three bursts she seemed to have to wait a second or so. An odd cooldown pattern, but now that he knew it, she was done for.

With a flash he was in front of her. He clapped his hands together before twisting his left palm to point down, opposite to his right palm. He watched the girl speed to the side just as a powerful spell rippled past her. Staff winced a second smile. Few mortals were smart enough to evade hand signs that gave off no signs of magical power build up. She’d dodged the unknown threat on pure instinct. Perhaps the first of Staff’s prey to not fall victim to Time Lock magic.

The two were now standing eye to hood with one another. She’d figured out that running wasn’t going to get her anywhere now as a large dome barrier surrounded the two of them. He was waiting for her next move. She hadn’t reacted to his barrier cast either, which meant she probably couldn’t sense magical power. Not many people were able to present a challenge to him. The hunt, the chase, it had gotten Staff’s cold and unmoving heart to beat with excitement for at least a few seconds, but that was more than he’d truly felt in centuries at least.

“Please.” Her soft and quivering voice pleaded, “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not a threat… Please let me live.” She begged.

“Is that it? All you’ve got left?” Disappointment filled his voice, with a hint of annoyance. Like an alcoholic realising that they were out of booze.

“This would normally be where I fight.” The girl muttered, “But we both know that is certain death for me.”

Staff did his best to try and see under her hood, but she made an easy job of hiding anything about her. His height certainly didn’t help him, and she seemed rather small even for a human. He watched two blades fall to the floor from under her cloak. Did she really think she could get out of this without them?

“I see this truly is over then.” He sighed, “Anomalies such as yourself must be corrected. You aren’t talking your way out of death.”

Iirth suddenly decloaked a few metres behind her. It shot a giant fireball her way the second it did. As she prepared to dodge, magical barriers either side of her appeared to block her path. With nowhere left, she sped forwards, towards Staff himself with the ball of fire close behind her. He watched the two blades swing towards him.

Interesting, she’d managed to grab them during a burst of speed. The blades simply bounced off his chest however as his bony hand reached under her hood and grabbed her neck. Illuminated only by moonlight, Staff stared down at two fear-stricken red eyes looking back at his own. Her neck was thin and small, her eyes showed a cunning, fierce spirit, but also a young one. He pushed her hood off to reveal her mud-covered hair and face. She was four, perhaps five at a push. Far too young to be wielding a sword for sure. Those eyes. Bright red that cut through the brown filth covering the rest of her. The fireball vanished, but his grip on her neck intensified so that she was struggling for each and every breath. He watched her desperately fight for each gasp of air, kicking and punching to no avail.

His eyes shone red. With it active she’d appear as nothing to him but a bright red blob until her end. Yet the details of her eyes somehow managed to paint themselves into his view.

Damn it. She’d made him feel alive for the first time in centuries, now those feelings were fighting back against his own driven mind. He let go of her. She fell to the floor, into the mud at his feet. She continued to struggle breathing for a few seconds more as Staff simply stood there, struggling with his own emotions. As she finally regained her lost breath, Staff’s eyes shifted down to find hers once more.

“That power will lead you nowhere but back to me. Use it in front of others again, I guarantee you won’t be lucky enough for me to grant you mercy a second time. Do you understand?” He angrily snapped at her. Stunned in utter silence, as if she couldn’t quite believe she was still alive, the girl gave a small, nervous nod.

She slowly got herself back on her feet, “There is a tower in the centre of the map, you know it?” She nodded once more, “It’s the only place in this world safe for people like you. Get there without getting caught and you’ll live.”

As his words finished sinking into her head, she quickly turned and sped off into the forest beyond.

Staff grabbed Iirth in anger as the magical object obediently returned to its master. He was angry at something, himself perhaps, or perhaps the decision he had just made. Either way, anger was anger. It raged inside of him until it funnelled out into a massive buildup of magical power instead. The swelling power hissed and fizzed as it interacted with the damp air surrounding him. Normally the air would win such a battle between the two mediums, but it was no match for Staff’s power. The wind begrudgingly yielded control of the airflow to its new master. The magical power surged into tangible energy that sparked and zapped like an out-of-control lightning storm. The sparks turned to heat, the cold, damp air began to warm. The energy turned to fire. The air itself ignited in a vicious fury. The surrounding air rushed in to replace it, only to add more fuel to the intense inferno. Once again, the power swelled as Staff finally unleashed his rage onto the world.

The air around him violently exploded, spreading the inferno as if a volcano had just erupted. Trees were blown from their roots. Flames swept away anything the shockwave had spared as a loud sonic boom echoed throughout the sky of the Gameworld.

It had been years. Centuries. Millennia even, but he still couldn’t shake the past. Still couldn’t shake her words.