Peodin finally saw his quarry. He had spent several weeks tracking them down to find them. He did a quick scan of his belongings. He had his spheres, freshly infused in the highstorm the day before, it should be enough to make it through this fight. He had his flint knife, still strapped around his belt. After a quick areal scan of the surrounding area, and finding that the people coming to meet his quarry were still on their way, and that his quarry hadn’t moved, he dove in.
Lashing himself towards the ground, he streaked through the sky. He had barely enough time to take in a sharp intake of breath, making the spheres around him go dun, before he crashed into a heavily armored man in the center of the group.
Grabbing him by the arms, he fell slightly off center, pulling the man around to put all of Peodin’s momentum into the man, sending him flying towards the other members of the gang. Peodin accentuated this lateral movement by lashing the big man to them. Just before he let go, he did a quick transformation, replacing the steel breastplate of the armor with oil.
Coming out of a crouch, he drew out one of the flint knives on his belt. In one fluid motion, he stabbed the next man right in between the gap between the helmet and the breastplate of another of the kidnappers and threw it at the man he had thrown, lashing the tip towards his armpit.when it hit, it sparked, lighting the oil and releasing a brilliant flash of pure white light.
Peodin didn’t pause to stare like the other thugs, instead taking stock, one killed by the knife, three in the explosion, ten to go. While the goons slowly priced together what was going on, he picked up the battle-ax of one of the casualties. Swinging hard at the neck of the fifth, unarmored man, he sliced clean through. “Don’t give up the momentum” he heard in his head. Lashing himself towards the biggest guy still standing, he lunged. The muscular man brought his huge sword up to block a swing from his battle-ax, so he dropped it mid leap, surprising the man enough that Peodin got past his sword. Flying shoulder first into the muscular man’s head, the night radiant dropped the man like a sack of potatoes.
He looked up, finally remembering the reason he was attacking these men in the first place. Much to his chagrin, the gang had recovered quickly, abandoning the child and scattering.
“Stormfather” Peodin cursed to himself. He chased after the one that looked the most important, with several of the strongest men surrounding him as they ran.
“Stay clear” he yelled to the child over his shoulder as he flew towards them. He landed with his fist to the ground right behind them
“AIR!” he yelled. The stone obliged, changing into a puff of smoke. Two of the bodyguards fell in the hole, trapped for now. Peodin lashed the boss up into the sky. He spared a glance at his gemstones as the man fell, he had used up almost two thirds of his stormlight, but killed eight of the kidnappers. Checking on the two men in the hole, he saw that they had broken their legs, and were unable to get out of the hole.
streaking towards the last two men, he breathed in sharply. As he yelled “I will DESTROY EVIL!!!” A long, thin sword appeared at his side, black, and double edged. He barreled into the two last men feet first, making them collapse. He brought up the sword, both mist covered edges trailing inky black smoke, he raised it up to strike, then paused.
Did these men DESERVE to die? They were thieves, murderers, and kidnappers, but if he killed them now would that make him a murderer? Would that make HIM evil? “NO” he said out loud “I WILL destroy evil” but what did that mean? Should he really kill everyone who did anything wrong? Is anyone perfect? “There has to be another way” suddenly some words came into his mind “there are many ways to destroy evil” he said, tossing the black sword off to the side, making it disappear, “I will help others destroy the evil in themselves by helping them be a better person”
“these words… are accepted” he heard in his head “now let’s destroy some evil, in a better way this time”
Peodin held out his hand to the two men he had been about to kill. They were stunned, after an excruciating few seconds, one of the two finally got over his shock “Why? Why did you not kill us?”
“Because there is a better way” he called over his shoulder, returning to the kid, who he had totally forgotten about until that very moment.