The Fallen Ascending 01 -- Rebirth
The First Sacrifice

Since I had two guinea pigs in Mongo and Skeet, I decided not to wait for anyone to change their minds before I could try my “spirit transfusion”. Honestly, I thought it was probably something which I needed to help me with the idiot taint that I’d been affected with from where I’d wounded my spirit creating Heartblade, but I was hesitant to just rush in blindly and risk myself or Crystal any more than was necessary. I was shocked when Mongo and then Skeet volunteered for the process, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If they were willing to volunteer for the procedure, I was more than willing to try it out on them first.

Everyone got up and went into the other room where the two girls lay still unconscious; Jess unable to heal them even with all her trying. “So which of you want to go first? Mongo? You or Skeet?”

“Why not you?” Dino asked, snorting with his dissatisfaction.

“I will if that’s what everyone wishes,” I offered. “The only thing is, manipulating a soul is painful and difficult. It may take too much out of me after I do myself and Crystal, so the others would probably have to wait a few days for me to recover before I could do the same from them and the girls.” If I had to, I’d go first – but only if I had to. A few tries to learn more about the process doesn’t seem like a bad thing at all to me, before I put my and Crystal’s souls on the line.

“I’ll go.” Mongo volunteered. “Tiffany’s been ill for quite some time and we don’t know how much longer she can hang on. She needs some type of help now, not days from now.”

Dino snorted again, showing his displeasure, but said nothing. Jess once again offered her objection though. “I really don’t think this is such a good idea,” she warned. “As a healer, I can’t endorse this type of treatment.”

“But…” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, a deep worried expression on her face. “I don’t think either will survive much longer unless something is done, and it’s not something I can do. I can endorse it, I won’t approve it, but I won’t stop you either. Decide carefully for yourself Mongo, and don’t let guilt weigh too strongly on your choices. Death comes for us all sometime,” Jess whispered, comfortingly.

“Maybe so,” Mongo agreed, “but darkness and corruption isn’t the same as death. We don’t know what’ll happen to a soul lost down in this place, but if whatever happens is anything like what occurs with the corpses, it’s not pretty. I got Tiff into this. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try anything – everything – possible to save her.”

“I’m ready,” he nodded, resolutely.

“Then let’s give this a shot, why don’t we.” I was actually quite nervous and anxious to try, but I had to at least sound calm and composed. If my voice started squeaking now, or my knees shaking, there’s no way anyone would let me go through with this – and it needed to be done. I just hoped I was talented and strong enough to be the one to do it.

“Mongo, sit over here and pull her up where you can hold her. Lean her head up against yours. When she breathes out, you breathe in. Try and make your breaths match as much as you possibly can,” I instructed, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing. “I’m going to connect my magic through the flows of air, since they don’t seem corrupted at all, and then I’ll use that connection to try and reach and touch both your souls. From there, we’ll just have to wait and see how the transfusion goes. I’d be prepared for a pain like you’ve never experienced.”

“And the rest of you,” I warned, “be prepared to grab the two of them and hold onto them. Jess might have to use her magic to help Tiffany keep breathing, or her heart beating – I don’t have a clue how great a strain such a procedure is going to put on her life – so it’ll be up to the rest of you to keep Massive Mongo over here from thrashing around and hurting himself, Tiffany, or me.”

“Sounds like ta be ’ell,” Skeet spat. “We be ah ready, if’n we be needed.”

“Did I say I really didn’t like this idea?” Jess asked, so quietly she could hardly be heard.

Looking around, everyone had worried and nervous expressions, but the air of determination was intermingled into the mood as well. Nodding at Mongo, he simply nodded back – and with that I took it for granted that we were ready to go.

Focusing on my magic, I slowly reached out to embrace the flows of air around us and then waited for Mongo to hold Tiffany and try and match her breathing. Following the breath as it left her and entered him, I slowly felt the life and breath in Mongo’s lungs. As he exhaled and she inhaled, I followed that connection and felt the same with Tiffany. Once I had firmly connected to the breathing of them both, I followed the air as it spread throughout their body. Slowly, I transitioned over from feeling the flows of air between the two, to bridging over and feeling the life energy of the two.

No longer needing to focus on their breath with the connection made, I slowly began to probe the essence that was their lives. For this to work, I’d need to take from one and give to the other, just as I’d taken a part of my own life and infused it into the sword Crystal now used; Hearthblade. Tiffany’s life was much weaker than Mongo’s – I’m glad we’ve spent the last several days resting and letting the boys recover their strength – so I started with a gentle tug on his life force.

The moment I pulled a sliver of his life energy directly out of him, his eyes opened wide and he gasped in pain. Tears leaked down his cheek and Jess rushed to sense his condition with her own magics. Life or die, suffer or enjoy it – all such concerns about Mongo were now out of my mind. Life magic has always been one of the most difficult for me to weave and control, and what I was attempting here made beads of sweat pop on my forehead. The strain was intense and it took all my focus to maintain my control over the weaves of magic.

Slowly, I peeled back the layers of his life, like stripping layers from an onion. Mongo screamed in agony and I wove just enough magic to harden the air in my ears to the point that I could no longer hear him. I closed my eyes and ignored his thrashing and suffering. I was now at the stage of simply succeed or fail; with failure probably meaning Mongo would die at this point, his life shredded by my magic mangling it beyond recognition. All I could do is concentrate in reaching the end of the process, and it seemed oh so far away!

Slowly, tediously, I stripped away small layer after layer from Mongo’s life. Seconds faded from his lifespan, then minutes, days, and finally years. I had no way to gauge how much life force he had, or how long he’d probably live before he died naturally from old age. I simply gathered what I assumed to be about a third of his total life force, and I peeled it away from him.

Once I’d gathered what I felt was enough of Mongo’s life to be sufficient for my needs, I slowly began to spread it throughout Tiffany’s body. In through the lungs, circulate through the respiratory system, and into the bloodstream. I pumped his life into her, but I have no clue how her body was accepting it. Was it painful? Blissful? Was it a relief from her suffering? Or just adding to it. I have no clue; I’d shut off my awareness of such things so I could work on simply maintaining control over the flows of energy.

Slowly and relentlessly I forced Mongo’s life energy to merge and join with Tiffany’s. Her essence seemed to glow and shine from the energy that I was pumping into her, lighting up her life force like a white hot sun blazing bright in the sky. And then, finally, I was done. Mongo’s stole life depleted, I trembled with exhaustion. Never before had I tried anything so complex, so difficult for me to maintain with my magic – and unfortunately, I was just beginning!

Laboriously, I began to strip away layers of life from Tiffany, as she threatened to brim over with the force flowing through her. There was no hard and fast way to judge amount – no pound of life, or gallon of it – all I had to go on was a simple, “She has lots of it, I’m going to take a hunk out of it”. How do you measure a room full of electricity with your hands? A powerline falls, lands in a puddle and arcs all around. How much power is in the air? In the puddle? If you were to stick a lightning rod in the ground to siphon off that energy in the air, how much do you get? A pound of it? That’s what it felt like trying to gauge how much life to take.

All I could do is guess. Perhaps others with more experience in manipulating life had some means to judge the energy. They might even have some term for it like volts, watts, or ohms. I just didn’t know it; what they might know did me no good at the moment; so I was stuck using my best judgement and peeling Tiffany layer by layer, until it seemed like I had about the same amount of life that I’d stolen from Mongo before and that her levels looked to be about where they were previously.

And then I slowly wrapped the energy that I’d stolen from her, back around Mongo. Forcing it to merge with his own life, I was hoping that his health and energy would stabilize her condition and restore her strength – just in time for what I felt was going to be the truly horrific part of my experiment; repeating the process with their very souls.

When I finally finished using up all the excess life energy that I’d pulled back out of Tiffany after infusing her with Mongo’s, I finally opened my eyes. Mongo and Tiffany was now separated and both were pale and unconscious. Everyone was staring with wide-eyed horror visible on their faces. Tears streamed wildly down Jess’s face, and it appeared that she was begging and pleading for me to stop. I couldn’t hear her, but unfortunately I could tell how desperate she was just from her look and actions alone. Everyone had a look which simply screamed that I’d went too far…

…And yet, I was just beginning.

Closing my eyes and trying to forget about the anguished looks that I’d witnessed, I forced myself to breathe deeply and pushed all distractions from my mind. I’d come this far; put forth this much effort already. I couldn’t stop now!

Quelling any doubts I might have, I turned my attention back to Mongo and slowly pushed the energy of death into the flows of magic that I was weaving. Little by little, I reduced my reliance on the energy of life, and once I was certain that I had the proper channel between host and patient, I completely released it. What I was doing now might end his life, but that wasn’t a concern of mine. It was up to Jess to keep life in his body. I needed to focus exclusively on the flows of death so I could manipulate his soul.

Working with the spirit isn’t like working with the flesh, I learned almost instantly. Souls don’t like to be separated. They don’t peel apart in layers – at least they don’t for me. If a flesh is solid, a soul is liquid. Cut it and it simply tries to go back to where it belongs. Peel it and the layer you peel tries to reattach itself to its proper place. A soul doesn’t want to separate. You can cut off a man’s finger and toss it in the trash; it’ll stay there. A soul on the other hand tries to reassemble itself back into the whole.

For many moments, I tried to surgically remove small pieces of Mongo’s soul, and each and every time I failed. With frustration building and exhaustion approaching, I finally simply forcibly ripped a chunk out of him with my magic. Trying to attach it to Tiffany was an exercise in futility as well. Every time I released the spirit, trying to wrap it around her, it unraveled and attempted to return to its rightful owner.

In desperation, I finally ripped out what I hoped was a similar sized piece of Tiffany’s soul, and then I forced the chunk that was Mongo’s to take its place. With much coaxing and an unbelievable drain on my power, I forced the two pieces to connect and join each other. Ignoring the ripples that were swirling in Tiffany’s spirit, I turned my attention to Mongo’s soul and repeated the process with it, using the chunk of spirit which I’d ripped from Tiffany.

With a final shove of effort, I force those two spirits to attach to each other, and then I released my magics. Whatever was going to happen, would just have to happen on its own now.

For several long moments, I slowly rested and tried to recover the barest minimum of my energy. With much effort, I finally forced my eyes opened and undid the magic which had blocked my hearing. Absolute silence was all around; if it wasn’t for the scratching of the dead upon the walls and doors, I wouldn’t have even known my hearing had returned. Jess was collapsed on top of Mongo and Tiffany, and both of them were deathly pale and waxen looking.

I don’t know what horrors the others had witnessed, but no one was making a sound. Skeet looked pale and trembled slightly. Dino was passed out on the ground, crumbled at Jess’s feet. Crystal had her arms around me and slowly stroked my hair, but even she had a strained expression on her face and a wide-eyed look of horror in her eyes.

To be honest, I wasn’t one hundred percent certain of what I’d just did. All I knew is that I now had to do it two more times, once I got my strength back.

I wonder if anyone will ever be able to forgive me for what I’ve done? I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for what I’m going to do?