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The crash came abruptly after free-falling for a couple moments, he had braced himself by folding himself and making sure to hide his upper torso and head.
That did not do much though as he felt his clothes getting torn by random sharp pointed branches.
But since his bag was in his chest, safe for the most part then he wasn't too worried.
Even when he felt the impending floor right infront of him.
*Baaammm*
...
*Baaam*
....
*Rustling*
..
*Rustle*
.
" *Groan* f-fhuck m-me.." Markus cursed even while spitting out remnants of a broken teeth, dirt and blood to the floor.
He staggered up, already expecting something else to go wrong or more stupidly for the hunters to jump down after him.
" Arg-hh..." He moaned, shaking his head of which he immediately regretted as he felt the pounding in his head.
Taking a step also felt like pure misery, his bones straining at the very idea.
" S-shit..." He mumbled, feeling his body shaking but not having the time look it over for damage inspection.
He felt that Aura Enhancement was cut off just moments after the impact, something that he cursed out for as he took more damage from bouncing off the ground into a tree and back down.
Luckily though nothing seemed fatal, for now.
So he quickly activated the enhancement, feeling his muscles and bones settling into place of the mental blueprint of his body that he had the skill working on.
Then looking at the sun he quickly started shuffling through the forest, keeping his gaze on the sky for directions back to beacons but not making any obvious bouts of walking that way.
Hunters would come to find whether he was dead or not, that much was obvious, so he'd lead them far away or hide somewhere for long enough that they might think he died or ran.
Only then would he return.
And only then would everything truly begin. Even if he was thrown out of the 'safe zone' ahead of schedule, nothing had truly changed from his initial plans.
Only that new enemies were added to the board.
Plus, as much as he didn't show it, he was really pissed at Allison and that waste of sperm he called a brother.
~|—|~
—[Allison's Pov]—
Allison looked at the ground, clear signs if disruption on the entire area and trees.
What she stared at most though was the blood, a small trail of it that ended not far away.
She bit her lip nervously, feeling pangs of guilt in her heart.
This was her fault, that was what she was telling herself and that's what she knew.
She was the one responsible for all of this. For telling her father about what Markus was.
She didn't know yet of whether this was the right call to make. But in her defence this was what she was trained to do so she had no choice.
Markus was a Warlock.
A surprising and dreadful discovery, one which she hadn't handled properly leading to this wild dog chase for her friend? Crush?
She didn't know what he was to her and that just made it all that much worse.
At first she had thought him to be a werewolf, an assumption grown from listening in on a jealous boys deranged spouts.
But those assumptions proved wrong, as Markus was much worse, or that's what her father said anyway.
" Fuck! That fucker got away!" Malcom shouted, coming back with two others who had tried following Markus' tail.
Allison frowned hearing those words but didn't voice out any complaints, she couldn't, this was her doing afterall.
" Allison." Kevin, one of the older hunters with them called out to her. She looked up to his frowning face. " Do you know where he might have gone maybe?"
Allison paused, wrecking up her mind trying to find whether Markus had ever spoke of any other place he went to.
" No, I don't." She said, not knowing whether she might have even told them even if she did.
" Well, then I guess we do this the old way and track him then." Sylvia, the only other woman hunter in their impromptu said, their best tracker.
" Wait." Allison muttered, uncertainty in her voice. " Should we really be doing this?"
" Huh?" Malcom exclaimed, raising his brow in confusion." What are you talking about, are you getting cold feet on us or something?"
" Yeah, Allison. You're the one that found the Warlock after all." Sylvia asked, a knowing glint in her eyes. Sylvia of course knew that she was close to the boy, even if that had occured through a mission.
" Yeah, I know. It's just that there are a lot of other supernaturals out there and the first thing we do to them is not hunt them, there has got to be a better way to this." She voiced out, guilt pouring out words for her.
" That's primarily for shifters and night children, warlocks are a different issue." Kevin said, a frown on his face. " And even now we're only shooting to incapacitate, until we know what he is contracted and whether anyone else is in danger."
" Okay but what if he is a victim in this?" Allison said, trying to find a strand of hope that will not lead to the death of someone she knew.
" A victim? *Scoff* Oh please, all Warlocks want is power and nothing else." Another hunter said, one she didn't know.
" I don't- Markus didn't seem like that guy okay." She told them weakly. In truth, she didn't know how Markus was like, he had always seemed guarded around her and mysterious with all the things people didn't know of him even though he was so popular around school.
" Are you defending the Warlock now Allison?" Malcom asked with a glint in his eyes, one that she knew all too well from the troublemaker." Don't tell me you've been compromised on your first mission."
" Relationships between hunters and supernaturals is prohibited you know that right? Even without the whole Warlock thing, or are you maybe trying to save your boyfriend's big brother?" Malcom continued, hitting right where it made her uncomfortable.
" That's not what I meant! And Scott is just a mission, just like Markus! I'm just trying to do the right thing!" She shouted defensively, probably not having been the smartest thing to say.
" Even so, Markus is a Warlock and we are allowed to kill him if things call for it due to how dangerous they may be." Kevin said sternly.
" We have orders to capture him." Allison quickly said, her heart thumping a little bit faster and even her magic reacting, calling up a gust of wind around her. Her gift triggering with her emotions.
" Woah! Easy there Alli." Malcom said between snickering holding up his hands, a proud look plastered on his face, one she wished she could punch right then and there.
But before she could act on her urge, a hand grabbed her shoulder. " Allison, you have to understand that we might not have a choice." Sylvia said.
That quickly brought her out of her frustration." What do you mean?"
Sylvia looked up to Kevin, prompting him to continue.
" Listen Allison, you weren't at his house so you might not have seen it." Kevin started." When we went there trying to find him, the house was warded like a fortress, none of our rune specialists could decipher or even break through the damn thing."
Immediately she felt her stomach drop, she knew what that meant.
" To get that much knowledge on magic and even runes is unprecedented and having the magic to pull it off means that the boy must have paid a huge price to obtain." Kevin continued looking nervous for the first time since Allison met him.
" You don't mean..." She muttered.
" We both know what Warlocks pay in order to obtain something like that, especially knowledge on runes that even our best can't even understand." Kevin said.
" Souls, Allison." Malcom said almost nonchalantly." Your little 'mission' must have collected hundreds of souls in order to get such power."
" He's not like that! He's not a killer!" She shouted, her defence as weak as her heart at that moment.
" Oh please, you're the one that reported that he killed a night child and a transitioning one." Malcolm hammered on, seemingly enjoying every moment of her frustration.
" It..it might have been in self defence! Markus is not a heartless killer!" She rebuked, the winds picking up again and her magic stirring.
" Enough!" Kevin shouted, breaking her out of her collapsing mind." We have a Warlock to find."
" Let's just do our job's, an unknown warlock running free is a recipe for disaster and I will not have my team bickering at each other." He continued.
Allison couldn't do anything but simply nod.
Her team, the ones that weren't already trying to track Markus got in formation and started following Sylvia.
But even as she walked, her hand tightened around her bow, she couldn't help but wonder if this could've been handled better.
Maybe if she had talked to Markus first instead of running out on him in fear before probably signing his death sentence, maybe this could have gone differently.
And maybe, just maybe she could have been someone that he could call a friend without all lies.
But for now she could only wonder, and maybe hope that everything she had heard about him right then wasn't true and that there was another explanation.