Legacy: B1 — 16. Snake in the Grass (Patreon)

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The rain thinned to a typical thunderstorm by the time the last kobold stopped twitching, and Jason’s legs were already trembling, his shoulders screaming. He breathed, feeling the heat leave him cold and empty. 

His vision slipped between a haze and clarity. He swayed with the falling wind, yet did his best to maintain a steady foundation. The wind pulled at his damp hair as he watched Zhi and his sister run toward him.

A chaos of movement flowed around him.

The thunder, the flashes of lightning, the movement of battle he couldn’t fully follow.

His channels, scorch-cracked and tender, informed him about everything else. Tired bones aching, he stood very still in the flooded street, the sound muted.

The teens in painted suns worked around him as if he were a statue.

Lilly was now sitting on a nearby slab of concrete that had been flipped up, the ghostly girl watching him with a troubled expression. He wasn’t sure what she said in that broken dance of moments. People cut in and out, time skipping, every breath feeling as if his last.

Inside, it was as if a million fire ants were gnawing at him, feeling water rising to wrap around his neck to isolate his quivering lungs.

“Just breathe,” Lilly whispered to him again. “We dealt with fifty-three. More than enough for these people to clean up. Now, all we can do is wait to see what she does. You won’t be doing any fighting for a while, unless this group has some form of healing.”

She?

The flash of red painted his memory, a twelve-year-old girl’s curious smirk illuminated in streaks of lightning.

Oh… Yeah. We’re screwed.

“Not necessarily…”

Lilly’s words lagged.

He fell back, only for a minotaur boy a bit older than him to catch him, fur sprouting out of his skin, eight feet tall, and horns gleaming. He held an axe, muscles glistening in the wet as he easily supported him.

“Woah!” He laughed. “We saw some of that swordplay, man. Crazy! You good?”

Jason hissed out a painful chuckle, looking up at the dark clouds.

“Could be better… You got orc powers, huh? From San Diego?”

“Evolution Core! Yup—”

“Hold up. Peter!” a boy without a weapon called out, his hood down, two fingers going to his temple. His other hand pointed at the building the girl was in. “One more.”

“Hostile?” a girl’s voice called out from the back. “Hey, you two okay? We’re with the San Diego rescue operation. We’ve helped a bunch of you cultivator people…”

“We’re fine,” Eli replied, rushing toward him. “No, we’re from Earth!”

“Oh?” the girl sounded genuinely surprised as a boy with a rune-carved spear took up a position beside her, acting as her guard. “It’s fine either way. Just—”

The minotaur supporting Jason shifted his posture to look in the direction the weaponless boy pointed.

“Hostile, Keith?”

“Not sure… Small. Forty meters, coming up the flood line. It’s hard to interpret the brain waves. What do you see, Kathi?”

A voice came from wooden plaques they all had strapped to their bodies.

“A girl. Probably between ten and eleven? Earth attire underneath a cultivator cloak.”

She came out of the drizzle, small and soaked, sneakers first.

Jason couldn’t stand on his own yet, but with the boy’s help, he managed to focus on her. Nyx’s power fed into him, peeling back the rain, slowing time momentarily, and giving him a view of the Crimson Moon Temple child.

Her snake-like eyes were gone, now light amber instead of serpent-yellow. She was hugging herself, looking vulnerable, scared, and trembling in jeans and a hoodie with a cartoon rabbit on the chest.

“A-Are you the rescue people?” Her voice wobbled, stumbling, and everything in Jason’s body told him to run; as if a mirage behind her, a giant serpent waited to strike. “I saw the lights. I’ve been hiding since the drums started. Please—”

Lilly’s amused tone cut through the downpour.

“As I thought… She isn’t here to fight.”

What’s this feeling then? Jason challenged. It’s like fangs pressed against my heart.

“That would be my Divine Sense’s influence on you. It isn’t murderous intent. It’s threat assessment. If she wanted to, every one of you would be dead before you blinked.”

With that gap, the frozen world melted, defenses lowered, and the ESP boy ran forward to meet her.

“I’ve got thermal wraps—”

Everyone blinked as he tripped, falling flat on his face and sending water flying.

Peter groaned, doing a quick glance around the area, adjusting his grip on Jason.

“C’mon, Keith. Way to blunder the save. Anything else, Kathi?”

“Nope. The kobolds are retreating.”

Jason watched Keith closely, but not closely enough to see what happened. He shook his head, coughed, looking dazed, and then stumbled up to meet the trembling girl. The mage girl and spear boy were helping and talking with Eli, Zhi being far more reserved and shy.

Lilly’s low tone dispelled the mystery for Eli and him as his little sister tried to warn the confused human mage about the girl.

“Don’t blow her cover, Eli.” 

His sister choked on her tongue as the ghost continued in the ensuing chaos. 

“She’s not here to fight. A small snake in the water just bit the boy. Likely mental submission venom. If you expose her, she’ll have no reason to pretend. Play her game. You all might live.”

Eli finally managed to break away from the mage woman’s prompts—around twenty years old—to reach not him, but the snake girl she knew was trouble!

“You’re okay! You’re okay. We’ve got food. Are you alone? Hi! I’m Eli! What’s your name?”

Jason only felt his anxiety skyrocket. Lilly was beaming like a proud sister.

“You’re perfect! Way to protect the group.”

The other twelve-year-old didn’t so much as hesitate as the ESP user finally recovered enough to meet up with them. 

“Umm. I’m Mò Wēi. You?”

“Eli. So you’re Wēi? I think we’re safe now.”

Lilly hummed at the name.

“Using my surname, I chose for myself? Cheeky kid. Hmm. But is it deliberate? Who can say? Together, it means subtle ink or hidden shadow. Appropriate.”

“Mmm. It’s cold.”

The rain kept falling. The mage, Melissa, moved in to mother the girls into the building Jason had picked out to check on them. The ESP boy was acting half-dazed as they helped him up the ramp. Nyx was clamoring within him, though, agitated.

“It’s okay. She’s just sensitive to spirit serpents…”

He caught the girl’s eyes flicking yellow when everyone else turned away, her smile widening more than a human face should allow. Wēi held his gaze for a moment before the innocent child’s features returned, and the mage pulled out thermal blankets for Eli and her.

“Thank you…”

“You’re very welcome. Hold still… Aquavarious-aluen.”

The woman’s held staff glowed slightly, its multi-gemmed crown lighting up.

The water clinging to them gathered, leaving them dry as she cast the globe into a hole.

“There! Better?”

“Much better,” Wēi whispered.

Eli was far more enchanted, though.

“Magic! I thought elves killed all mana core humans? Oh, but we saw an elf earlier! Humans with mana cores are allowed in San Diego?”

The group looked at one another, chuckling softly, but there was a tension behind it.

“The building on the 6th floor across from us,” Lilly warned. “The girl they were talking to using those talismans.”

Jason saw Wēi’s gaze flick that way once before returning to the group; they were taking account of wounds and recovering.

Runic short-range radios.

“Whatever.”

Peter leaned up against a pillar, following the movement below for danger.

“Yeah. The elves are assholes in general. You probably saw Princess Phinara, second in line to the Angeles Mystical Woodlands. Elven territory to our east… She may not agree with the human murdering, but that doesn’t mean she sees us as equals. You only have worth if you meet her arbitrary definition for worth, whatever that is.”

Water-based insects were already skittering around to feast on the corpses they’d left. 

“She’s not that bad,” the mage huffed, taking a breath and smiling at the girls. “Don’t scare them. High Lady Phinara is a critical reason why war didn’t break out between our settlements. She hates the old elven culture because of how they view her little brother. She’s prickly. Not a murderer. She can be very kind to us with mana in the academy.”

The spear-user grunted in return.

“Forgive my skepticism, Melissa, but that’s because mana is valuable to her. The rest of us are just tolerated… Oh, sorry,” he mumbled, cheeks darkening at her tight mouth. “I know you admire her.”

Jason filed it away as Peter studied him, breathing and resting beside his sister.

“I don’t think I’ve seen anyone dispatch monsters that fast and effortlessly, even amongst the shadow dancer elf competitions in the academy. Did you awaken powers from this new world of cultivators?”

“Something like that,” he said, keeping his voice controlled. “It’s taxing. I can move in about five minutes—”

“Ten, if you control yourself and don’t channel any offensive or defensive qi.” 

“Scratch that. Ten,” he accepted, glancing her way; she was glaring at him. “You wouldn’t happen to have any healing stuff? I don’t know much about the powers.”

Peter’s mouth drew into a line, and he shook his head, looking at his team.

Melissa tucked her brown braid into her jacket back, a frown coming on.

“Have you three lived in LA for the past two years?”

Eli nodded quietly, pointing at him.

“This is my big brother. He’s really tired right now. Do you have anything for him? Please!”

Peter’s expression showed respect as he looked at him again.

“Damn. Two years in LA without powers? Crazy. Good thing you awakened those cultivator powers. Everything’s gone to hell recently. Oh—”

Jason doubled over, coughing. His eyes widened upon seeing blood on his palm.

Lilly sniffed nearby.

“What do you think would happen when ripping your veins apart across your body?”

Peter went on.

“Uh. As for healing… 

“Healing magic is rare. Mages use alchemy to make potions most of the time. They mix in mana as the activator of the herbal mix, as far as I’m aware. 

“Evolution users, like me, have strong self-healing, but we heal by consuming things. 

“ESP healing is crazy powerful, but even rarer than mages.”

“Will this help?” Wēi reached into her hoodie, a flash of light showing within, and produced a flat jade case the size of a deck of cards. “I found it on some bodies of people dressed in robes…”

Lilly hissed.

“This brat has a qiankun bag hidden in there?! This temple is more resourceful than I thought. How many items and weapons is she storing?”

“Here!”

The others watched her thumb the case open. Two pellets sat inside on silk, pearl-colored, faintly luminous. Immediately, the smell of rain through cold mountain passes.

“Is this a healing thing?”

The others shook their heads, shrugging, but Zhi’s eyes widened.

“Marrow-Cleansing pellets? These are secret healing items from the Jiang Family.”

“Oh,” Wēi’s grin grew brighter as she offered them. “So they will help him?”

Lilly looked flabbergasted.

“I’ve never seen pellets like these. Healing pellets in general are coveted beyond measure in the world I’m from, and she’s just… Is that a recipe guide tucked at the top?!”

Peter’s body stiffened, looking to Zhi.

“So, you are a cultivator? What family, or, uh, clan—sect?”

“Hello?” Wēi whispered as everyone ignored her for Zhi. “Will these work?” 

The woman relaxed, doing her best to look small, which wasn’t hard considering she was about the same size as Eli. Her voice was congested.

“We were not officially a part of a sect. Ours crumbled. We are the Lou Fu Clan…”

Peter took out a notebook, flipping through it as the others watched her like a hawk; the ESP boy was hovering behind Wēi, as if awaiting instructions. Jason suspected he was actually mentally feeding her information by the way her eyes moved between them.

“Lou Fu Clan… Lou Fu Clan? Yeah. We found roughly two hundred from the clan and relocated them three days ago from Marina Del Rey to the temporary processing fort in Laguna Beach. None confrontational. Mostly women and children.”

At that, Zhi’s face blanked.

“You…relocated our core clan? So they weren’t destroyed?”

Tears started welling up in her eyes, hiccups starting.

Lilly’s focus was still on the items and curious temple girl.

“Take them, bumpkin. She offered. I can tell if they have demonic or negative qi once held. If they’re legit. Take them! I’ll help work it through your system to restore you.”

Jason did as instructed, plucking one out with a thankful smile. 

Wēi merely beamed back. 

“I want to be helpful! You saved me…”

Oddly, it felt as if that was genuine, which was the most frightening part.

“…They’re legit. That is even more terrifying.”

He looked into her amber eyes and popped it in his mouth.

Immediately, he felt strength returning as Lilly cycled it through his system. The light dully shining beneath his skin turned blue, the veins mending, the stress easing, and power rising. It also came with benefits, Lilly noted.

“These aren’t merely healing pellets; they have minor reconstruction attributes to your bones, reinforcing them… It would only work on someone with Mortal Core, Foundation Five, or lower. It’s best we get moving so you two can talk in private.”

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