Light Vs Darkness: The Minds Beginning

Most of the creatures by this point had been dealt with, and the few that were still around, Azra made quick work of. Now the only one that remained was the one which had been captured for study. He looked down on the squirming creature, glaring at it with contempt. "India. If you are to be permitted to study this creature, i expect results. I want to know what they are, where they come from, and if there will be more. We need to be prepared to combat these creatures." Azra spoke to his brother like he was giving orders to a soldier under his command. He took the defense of the world incredibly seriously, and would act as such to ensure the public's safety. It was his sworn duty.

India approached his new test subject like a child approaching a new toy on Christmas. He was barely listening to Azra at this point, and picked up the squirming shadow, pulling out some rope to restrain it with. As to why he carried rope with him...Well, we'll just leave that to the imagination. In any case, the heartless had been restrained and was ready to be taken back and studied. He called out to his friend over some distance away. "Dain! You can torment incestuous punk street fighters later! We've got work to do." The boy called out, simultaneously getting his friend's attention and doing his part in the mental ass kicking of Dmitri. He looked over at Renna. It was either invite her, or have her follow him home and watch through his window. At least with the prior option, he could have her do something if he needed.

Waving his hand, he motioned for the girl to follow them, and made his way home. He had his work cut out for him, but the prize was well worth the effort. ​

 

Matthews waited patiently for a prime opportunity to strike. The fact that another girl had arrived had mattered little to him. He could easily kill two birds with one stone in this situation. His time magic also made this a lot easily to accomplish. It was a simple matter of freezing time around himself and his target, swiftly killing them and vanishing before the time bubble could end. Not many people had any way of countering this method, in fact there was only one person that Matthews could think of that could not only counter it, but also beat it with little effort. However that person wasn't here so there was no need to worry about him.

The next thing that Matthews did was to freeze time around the area he was in. The radius was short and wouldn't last long, but it would last long enough for the kills to be made. His initial target was within striking range and he was about to make the first kill, but he failed to notice the portal that had opened up beside him nor the foot that came out and kicked him into the wall. The impact had not only surprised Matthews, but apparently ended the time bubble that he'd made.

​

"For all that talk your brother does about protecting you, he sure does a crap job at it." It would be something for Dawn and Anta to not notice the sound of someone crashing into a wall, let alone someone else's voice. It was on a whim that Xross had decided to see where Dawn had gone off to so he wasn't expecting some guy trying to kill her. Normally he could care less about a murder attempt, but he'd rather not see a grown ass man break down and cry all because he wasn't able to keep his sister alive. In fact he really didn't want to see him cry for any reason what so ever. Xross saw that Matthews was starting to get up and remained his usual calm and smug self.

 

​

"If you say so." While Xross still had plenty of reasons to doubt and not like Dimitri, there were other matters that he needed to attend to right now. He could mess with Dimitri more next time he ran into him. That gave him more time to thank and quite possibly dig up more dirt to use against him. The whole 'Cruddy Brother' thing wouldn't last forever and he would need a plan b for when it did end. Of course that wouldn't be the sole thing that he thought about, in fact that would likely be a side thing. Xross may have been an ass, but he wasn't so much of an ass that his sole purpose was to torment one person. You'd have to get on his shit list for that and those who ended up there were verbally abused. Speaking of his shit list, there was something else that he needed to do now.

Matthews was not particularly happy with the events that had just happened. Not only had he lost one of his targets, sure one was still there but odds were against him in trying to attack her, but now he had to deal with the one person that he didn't want to see at all. Yep, Xross had that reputation with some people, namely ones who he could easily beat. So yeah, things weren't looking all that good for Matthews.

​

With the weird shadow things now gone Valken didn't really have much idea on what to do next. He'd pretty much just joined in on the fight without knowing what was going on, though he could probably assume that that was the case for most of the other people there. Well except the guy who'd just sat around watching everything unfold, but he wasn't here right now. He was actually considering walking off when he over heard something about studying one of those things. The studying part wasn't what caught his attention, but the injury part did. "One of those things did that?" Valken asked, moving a bit closer to the now forming group.

 

India had been about ready to leave and study the creature which had been captured, but a man approached him before he was able to do so. An injury? Had someone gotten hurt in the fight? It seemed the woman who had gotten the injury ran off, but was soon fetched. A fairly pretty brown haired girl approached with an innocent smile. However, no one was looking at the smile. There was a deep claw mark on her arm, solid black. That didn't look good at all. The one Azra had gotten was relatively minor, and this was in fact not. "I may already know the solution, but it will require treatment. Accompany me home, and I'll help you." India then turned to his brother, Azra. "Why don't you accompany us? You're going to be needed." Receiving a questioning look, India remained silent as to his motives for bringing him, unwilling to share the theories of his work with Azra. After a silent standoff between the two, Azra conceded and chose to do as he was told and follow them.

~~Time skip to house~~

India turned a metal key, unlocking the door to his study. The white haired boy sat in his chair before momentarily straightening a few papers strewn around to tidy his desk. "Now then..." He began, turning around to those present. "If my hypothesis is correct, the wound should have a burning sensation, as though someone is applying a hot iron to it as well as the normal pain one would expect from such a wound. There's still a lot of studying to go into the theory but...Azra, try healing it with light magic."

Azra wondered how India had known about the burning. He hadn't been wounded, and it was unusual for a wound to have such an effect. India had been adopted into their family at a young age, and had always been far too clever for his own good. Nevertheless, there was a woman who needed help. Extending his arm, a golden light bathed over the girl as a strong healing magic went to work on the wound. It washed away the black infection light a river of pure water cleaning out a muddy pit. As the light died down, the wound now looked much like a regular wound. The infection had been completely purged from the girl's body, yet had stopped the spell from actually healing the wound. "India...How did you know that would work?" Azra asked suspiciously.

"Well you see Azra, if i told you that, you'd know too. Can't have that." Said India coyly. He received a glare in response, but not much more. "Now then, the wound, while the infection was cured, is still rather serious. If you would allow me to treat it, then you should be fine from here." India pulled some medical supplies from a first aid kit he kept under his desk. The boy was one who liked to be prepared for nearly any situation that might arise, and injury included. Not to mention Dain had a habit of strolling in, bloodied and bruised from a fight, and crashing on his couch with a casual "you should see the other guy.", so a first aid kit was something handy to have around. ​

 

Renna took India's offer in following him back home. Then a girl suddenly showed up injured and now India was tending to her wounds. She couldn't help but feel the slightest bit of jealousy as she saw the two while standing in a corner, away from the group and next to the captured shadow. She knelt down and looked at the creature in curiosity, "What are you exactly...?" She said, tilting her head a bit. She tried touching the creature but it suddenly tried to bite her. Quickly she pulled her hand back and frowned at the shadow, "Stupid thing..." She then pointed her finger upward and the creature was suddenly floating and seemed to be freaking out about it. Renna smiled and then crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. She found amusement watching the shadow struggling to get back on the ground.​

 

Walking in through the door, Dain was a little annoyed. He knew that it was for good reason that Dmitri had pulled out, but Dain was really, really itching for a fight, and now he wasn't going to get one. Grumbling quietly, he wandered over to India and peered over his shoulder. "Haaaave you figured out a way to kill these things yet? My bloodthirsty urges haven't calmed at all, and you took away the only other source of entertainment. I mean, I'm fine with taking away the little black thing, but screwing with my fight? Can I at least, I don't know, brutally maim him or something? He doesn't have to die, maybe just lose a limb or two" Dain suggested, genuinely not caring that Dmitri was standing right there.​

 

​

Elsewhere Xross had taken the less than willing Matthews back to his home. Despite it being pretty clear that he didn't what accompany him, but he wasn't in any position to decline cause portal magic among other things. The duo had entered the home and found nothing to be out of place, save for a few books that were scattered out on the floor.

"So what was it that you had to show me?" Matthews asked in a annoyed tone of voice. Xross paid it no mind and just snapped his fingers which lead to a portal opening up in front of them, revealing the shadow creature from earlier. The first thing that it tried to do was to escape, but it was thwarted by Xross stepping on it with enough force to keep it from moving, but not causing it to dissipate.

"This. What I need you to do is to is to observe these things. There's probably a bunch of them lurking around." Xross explained, sending the creature back under his foot into a portal. "If you refuse, then I'll start breaking limbs. After all, you'll only need your legs and eyes for this." Xross was certain to make sure to leave him with little options but to agree, with Matthews reluctantly did. Matthews didn't want to be near Xross any longer did he have to be, so he wasted no time leaving the home.

 

India continued tending to the young girl's wound with a thinking expression, as though he weren't entirely focused on what he was doing and his mind was elsewhere. However, he still made no mistakes in the procedure. He stitched the wound closed, and began wrapping it in bandages. About halfway through, the girl felt the need to justify herself getting wounded to him. He sighed and looked up at her. "Well I'd say that's fairly obvious. I would've honestly found it strange had you been sitting in your room, weapon in hand, ready for some kind of invader to attack you. It's not at all unexpected that you were caught off guard. Even Azra was taken by surprise. There's no shame in your situation." India said. Surprisingly enough, he was being almost encouraging toward the girl. However, with India, his motives were never what they appeared at face value.

Those who bore witness to it soon found this out very much so. He finished tying her bandages. The wound was now treated. He patted her on the shoulder, indicating she was all done. Turning his revolving chair, he now faced Dmitri with a wicked smile. Dain likely knew what was coming. They'd be having quite the meal tonight. "Now then, shall we discuss payment? I have specific charges for medical fees. That will be 600 for the treatment itself, 450 for the supplies, 500 for use of facilities, 750 for the consoling session, 300 for the escort by guard..." India said, alluding to Azra.

"Why am i the cheapest fee?"

"You're not that great of a guard." India ruthlessly listed off about four more fees, each of which growing in price. By the end of it, Dmitri's wallet would be screaming in agony. "If you'd like i can set up an installment plan, however that would of course include interest." One thing was for sure. India knew how to extort the blood from your veins. He looked over to see the shadow take a snap at Renna. She'd been touching a known violent creature and was surprised to find it tried to bite her? She certainly wasn't the brightest...Well, that just meant he could get more munny out of her for his services. All he needed to do was convince her she needed them. That wouldn't be hard.

"Now then, given you helped capture it, i suppose you could stay for the first part of the examination of the creature. However, once i get into my work, I'm afraid i'll have to ask you to leave. What is a scientist allowed if not his secrets? You understand." India said, walking over to the small heartless floating in the air. This would be interesting.

 

Dain was enjoying the conversation far, far too much. He found every moment entertaining, from Dawn's reaction to Dmitri's explanation of how they couldn't pay it back. Stretching out and casually leaning against a wall as he waited, Dain just couldn't resist the urge to stay out of the discussion. "Y'know, your sister's pretty cute. I bet we could have a lot of fun with her. If you give her to us, I bet we could call it even" the axe-wielder said, a sly smirk appearing at the corner of his mouth. He knew it'd piss Dmitri off, and that was the main reason he said it. Either he got pissed off with Dain and snapped back at him, or Dawn was given to them to do with as they wished. Win win situation either way, he thought to himself.​