Blessed by Night

Chapter 180: Weariness

Once he saw that he was falling headfirst into the sea, Malachi immediately sprouted his black and white wings to stop himself from going for a swim.

Out of the corner of his eye, he found more bodies plummeting from the sky and he felt his heart drop to his feet.

Throwing out his hand, he caught his sister and three sleeping girlfriends using telekinesis and held them above the water.

Aubrey was not quite asleep like the rest of the girls, and she showed her brother a helpless smile when she saw that he had finally woken up.

"Sorry you had to save us again... I think I spent too much energy so I kind of just conked out..."

"Aubrey... Just get some rest kid, I'll get us home."

"Okay... But can I tell you something before you take us back to base...?"

"Sure."

"Put some fucking clothes on..."

Just as Aubrey fainted, Malachi looked down and realized that he was indeed floating around naked since his clothes had been shredded by Kendrick's attack.

But on the bright side, he was currently in his true appearance so he hadn't exactly been flashing anyone while he was unconscious.

With all of the girls in tow, Malachi concentrated on the shadows situated within the nightfall base, and he pulled all five of them through.

-

At an undisclosed location in a remote corner of the world, Arias was staring down at his most powerful lieutenant as he writhed around in bed.

He was still clutching one of his stumped arms no matter how often they tried to sedate him, and it didn't look like he was going to start healing anytime soon.

'What exactly is Saint now...?'

Arias pulled out his recording device and rewatched the footage he had captured of Malachi's frightening new form.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not recall seeing any kind of creature like this in any sort of mythology that he had studied before.

As far as he could tell, it was completely alien in origin.

"Where did you see this?!"

Nearly jumping out of his fake skin, Arias whirled around to find the goddess who had blessed him, Hemera, standing over his shoulder and staring into his device with an expression of shock.

"Mother, when did you-"

"Arias... Where did you see that creature...?"

Confused, Arias tilted his head as he handed the device to his mother. "On a small island off the coast... That is Malachi Saint, Mother. Nyx's chosen."

Hemera's blue eyes trembled as she stared at the black creature holding a familiar young girl hostage and biting into her.

She watched as the creature transformed from a large alien monster to a handsome young man with dark skin and long black dreadlocks.

"It is truly... that boy..." Hemera muttered.

"I was planning to upload this footage to the internet if I could not get his sister to cooperate and join our forces. I can still fish her out at a later date so-"

"No."

Hemera suddenly handed the device back to Arias and pressed it into his chest.

"Do not dally. If we are to properly capitalize on neutralizing this threat then you mustn't worry about the Saint sister."

Arias couldn't say that he had ever seen his mother this serious about something before, so he didn't bother to press the matter further and nodded without a second thought.

"I understand, Mother. Give me a few minutes."

-

After Malachi finished dropping off Aubrey into the care of Aisha, he immediately brought Sei, Bianca, and Anna back to their place.

As soon as he arrived within the living room, he was greeted with a much warmer sight than he was expecting.

"You... look incredible."

Luna smiled and pushed her hair out of her face.

Just as Malachi had described, Luna was indeed significantly more charming than before.

Her features were sharper, her body more alluring, and her skin much softer looking.

Her pink eyes were much more vibrant and sometimes cold looking, causing her to seem even more like an icy beauty than Anna.

"You... look tired." She said sadly.

"How can you know that when I don't have a face right now?"

"We're connected aren't we? I don't always have to see your face to know how you're feeling."

"Ha. I guess you're right."

Malachi placed the three sleeping girls down onto the couch and finally embraced Luna.

Only once she got her arms wrapped around him fully did she understand how he was truly feeling.

She knew he was tired, but... upon touching him she could feel the weariness etched into his very being.

"Want to talk about it...?"

"...In a moment, love, I promise. Right now I'm kind of... burned out."

As if biting his sister and receiving an impromptu visit from the devil himself wasn't enough, Mal currently had a real nasty headache as a result of his new power that he had stolen from Kendrick.

No one had ever spoken of just how troublesome the power of absolute force manipulation actually was .

There were so many different kinds of forces in the world, like mental, astral, seismic, sonic telepathic, gravitational, and so on and so forth.

Each of the world's different forces emitted something like a frequency that practically cried out to be manipulated by him, but it was to no avail.

He didn't understand what he was hearing.

Didn't understand what the frequencies were for either.

And as of right now, he had no way to quiet the noise.

Were he not an immortal being, he likely would have already tried to eat a few bullets by now.

But even though he was undergoing an enormous burden, Luna's warm embrace was helping to ease his mind if only a bit.

"This ain't exactly how I wanted us to reunite after you were unconscious for a week..." He said with a dry laugh.

"Do you think I care about that right now? Just let yourself rest, darling. We'll catch up later."

"Yea...I'm real lucky to have you girls..."

Luna would have responded, but for some reason Malachi ended up falling asleep within her arms before she could say anything.

"Almost like a child... how cute."

After giving him a small kiss on the cheek, Luna placed his arm around her shoulder and started to carry him to the bedroom.

As she was doing so, she found two other occupants in the room staring at her with disappointed faces.

Nadine: "He's such a jerk... He didn't even acknowledge my presence."

Shiro : "Arf!" (Mine either... Everyone knows I'm the best looking bitch in this house.)

Luna rolled her eyes and walked right past the two of them to carry Malachi to bed.

He wouldn't wake up until three days later, and the world he knew would be very different than how he last experienced it.