Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

"Lucius, can we talk about this?"

Mia was absolutely exasperated. They had been behind enemy lines for almost two weeks now and had taken on a handful of caravans. Most of them had deliveries of weapons and armor, but this current one seemed to be food and water.

Instead of being manned by groups of soldiers, the escorts of this one were clearly civilians. The head of the group was currently on his knees in front of their scout with a machete pressed against the man's neck.

"Lucius, they are civilians. We just burn the carts and leave." Renton agreed. He tried to step up, but was cautious. He was worried that one sudden move might set the boy off.

"No one is a civilian in war." Lucius growled.

"Come on, they have no weapons, no guards, no will to fight, step back Lucius." Mia said quietly.

She watched the boy's body language and it showed no sign of him relenting. However, she noticed his eyes flick off to the distance.

"Be ready." He said with in a low tone.

The caravan leader sighed in relief as Lucius pulled his weapon away from his neck. A second later he leaped backwards and brought his machete into a defensive position in front of his chest. At that same instant, a golden blur collided with him and they rocketed backwards into the sand.

Quickly following suit, three more blurs suddenly appeared from across the horizon as the bared down on their location. From what Mia could tell, they were also beastmen, and they all seemed to share similar qualities, having wolf-like ears and tails.

Renton and Mia intercepted the attacks of the other two, while Marie and Lynn moved to secure the wagons and make sure the civilians did not try to escape with the supplies while they were distracted.

"Who are you?" one of the beastmen shouted.

"I could ask the same of you!" Mia roared as she pushed the warrior away. Close quarters comb was not her specialty and they were basically surrounded by desert sand with no cover, so her usual tactic of disengage and disappear would not work.

Thankfully, her decision to disengage gave her a moment of clarity to process the situation. In that extra moment, she looked at the breastplate of the enemy's armor. On it was the symbol of a roaring bear.

"Wait! You are Eroans? Look! We are humans!" Mia shouted out.

Both of the warriors facing off against them stopped in their tracks immediately. They scanned the faces of the people present carefully and were able to discern that they were telling the truth. Granted it was not hard to tell, since they lacked ears, tails, or scales.

"But the boy with you… he smelled… Shit!" one of the Eroans shouted. "We have to stop Kalliope! Stay here!"

Just as he was about to run off, a massive shower of sand rained over them, temporarily blocking out the sun. It filled Mia's mouth and eyes and she shielded her face as best she could, using her cloak. When she finally felt the sand stop raining on her, she glanced up and saw a large divot in the sand dune near them.

Laying inside it on their back was a beastman girl with blonde hair, wolf ears, and a bushy tail. On top of her with his hand around her throat was Mia's black sheep.

"Lucius! Stop they are Eroans! Our allies!"

"Lucius?" one of the warriors blurted out. "So that's him?"

"You know of him?" Renton asked. Mia was not paying attention to the conversation because she was worried that the boy was going to kill that girl.

However, just as she thought hope was lost, he let go of the beastman's throat and began to walk over to them.

Mia had no idea what happened over the sand dune, but Lucius clearly won, though not without cost. He seemed to have several scratches on his face and armor and there were definitely more than a few red marks that would probably turn into bruises.

The wolf-girl, Kalliope, stood up and was coughing while gently rubbing her neck. She also was covered in a few scrapes and cuts, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

"Thank you for listening this time…" Mia said.

******

Kalliope and her two team members had been scouring the desert territories of Alorek for about a week after she was given the order by her Kalivas to do so. In that time they had only run into a few supply groups.

Of the ones they ran into, most had recovered from attacks by other people. It had seemed that the human forces had been doing their best to participate in the joint mission to disrupt the enemy's stocks of goods and necessities.

They ran into a few of the human groups, though they did not appear to be faring all that well. From what Kalliope could tell, they were very poorly trained, if at all. Their armor was basically slapped together.

Their movements were sloppy, cohesion was basically zero, and it made her wonder how they managed to survive as long as they did. The only thing they all had in common was the fact that they appeared to be Marked Ones.

That was when it hit her. In every country, Marked Ones are looked down upon due to the demon blood in their veins that cursed them with the marks. However, things were worse in human territories than beastman ones.

While both groups forced Marked Ones into service, beastmen at least provided proper support and training to them as soldiers. A few special Marked Ones were granted additional leave, like Kalivas, who was basically treated like a hero thanks to his prowess.

Beastmen respected the strong, no matter their origin. And while being a Marked One made things a lot harder, it did not make them impossible. This was different for humans, where being marked was a life sentence to a sub-par existence.

However, none of these things mattered at the moment as Kalliope was flying forward with every ounce of her strength towards this new supply group. It was manned by simple civilians, yet the attackers currently confronting them were about to murder innocents.

Her target was a black-haired boy who looked prepared to take the head of a man groveling on his knees. Unfortunately, the boy saw her coming somehow and managed to block her strike.

He had jumped into the air and allowed himself to be forced back by the impact of her attack. They continued to fly backwards through the air before skidding to a stop on the other side of a sand dune.

Her men were following behind her but they stopped to confront the others that appeared too be on the boy's side. The facial expression on this person before her shocked her.

It was devoid of emotion. There was no sign of anger, frustration, confidence, anxiety… simply nothing. She could not help but produce a low growling sound from her throat as she felt her body strengthen itself as she initiated a shift into her more bestial form.

Fur grew along her legs and arms, her teeth became sharper, her senses improved, and her muscles rippled. She could not maintain a shifted form for a very long time, but she assumed it would be enough to fight the boy off.

"[Lux: Enhance Strength], [Lux: Enhance Speed]" Kalliope had no talent for healing spells, but she could use enhancements spells from the Light Magic she was compatible with.

"[Tempestas: Lightning Charge], [Celestia's Grace: Heavenly Blade]"

A strange aura burst from the boy. Magical lightning danced formed at his feet, wrapping itself around his body like a thousand snakes wrapping around their prey. His weapon began to glow with a pale light as it became coated with some sort of unknown energy.

The heavy feeling pouring off of him felt similar to when she saw Kalivas use his mark, which was something he did not do very often. She also recognized the feeling of mana weaving throughout the boy's body.

"Mana Manipulation… but it's slightly different…" She mumbled.

Kalliope blinked and her opponent was gone. When she blinked a second time, he reappeared right in front of her, with a glowing weapon narrowly missing a slash at her neck. If she had not used her enhancement spells and shifting to speed up her movement and reaction time, then her head would be rolling in the dust.