Truth of Spirit

The light of the pale moon could barely be seen from beyond the heavy clouds that slowly marched across the ominous sky that hung above the ancient city. Rooftops were blanketed in sheets of white as a flurry of snow descended upon the town square. At such a late hour, there were few who would still be awake...

BOOM! The deformed body of a screaming man came exploding through the stone walls that surrounded the city. As the man dropped onto the cobble-stoned streets at the city entrance, the last hint of moonlight fell over him to reveal his ghastly form. Out of his back there extended six spider-like limbs, each one writhing around angrily as he pulled himself off of the ground in a rage.

But before he could think to move, he once again saw the face of his attacker, as her shadow whipped across the battlefield with blinding speed, rushing through the hole in the wall and driving a fist into his chest.

The creature cried out in horror as he was tossed back like a rag doll. Whoever this woman was, it was as though she had bottled up the force of a hurricane into her fists.

Lady Guin's boots cracked into the stone street beneath her as she landed in a formidable attack stance. She kicked the long, raven hair from her face to reveal a small tattoo beneath her left eye.

The eyes of the creature widened as he regained his footing, staring with spider-like pupils at the symbol on his attacker's face. He recognized the broken leaf insignia immediately, but could not believe that the rumors were true.

That symbol belonged only to the Hunters. Those who were charged with the mission of destroying half-breeds such as himself. Born from the union between a Human and a pure Beast.

"End of the line," Guin spoke. Her voice cut through the snow-littered air with deadly authority. But the creature that stood barefoot in the snow refused to bow before her. His last mistake.

Without warning, a stream of spider-like webbing shot forth from the half-breed's mouth, directly toward the Hunter. The man blinked for only an instant, but suddenly, Lady Guin was gone before the stream could touch her.

The man let out a terrible shriek as Guin came dropping out of the air behind him, sending a curled sickle across his back with lethal accuracy.

Sparks burst from the man's body as he was forced to his knees. He quickly sent his spider-limbs to reach out to the Hunter from behind, but her weapon was too fast. Before the half-breed could take another breath, her sickle had been swept back and forth, cutting his monstrous limbs away one by one.

The spider's limbs rained down all around them as they were both showered with snow, and the edge of Guin's sickle slipped itself around her target's throat.

Finally, Guin thought, she would have it again. Another piece of the life their kind took from her when she was a child. Vengence for the death of her mother, caused by these despicable muts.

"Stop," the man breathed. "You don't have to do this. I've done nothing wrong. I just want the chance to live!"

Guin's icy eyes did not waver as she tightened her grip around the sickle's handle.

"You don't deserve to live."

The man's final cry was silenced with the jerk of Guin's hand. She turned and walked away as his body fell lifelessly behind her and erupted into a cloud of flame.

Guin walked quietly through the streets alone, having achieved her 99th kill. But a female voice suddenly echoed out of the darkness.

"Feel better now?"

Guin's head spun around in shock. It had been years before anyone could approach her without her detecting their presence. Baffled, Guin wondered: Who could have moved so stealthily to evade even her?

From the shadows, a dark figure emerged, her face covered by a blue hood, cloaked behind a screen of falling snow.

"Who are you?" she asked, straightforwardly.

"I was a friend of your mother's," the figure spoke.

Guin's eyes narrowed. She had disappeared from the public eye when she was nine years old, shortly after learning of her mother's death. Outside of the Hunter's Society, there was no one left alive that could possibly recognize her now, at the age of twenty-one.

"I'm not in the mood for lies," Guin replied venomously.

The figure ignored her words and continued.

"How long do you intend to walk this path of killing without provocation?"

"He was a Beast."

"No, he was half-Beast. The son of a human mother. But none of this matters. What does matter is that you did not witness him commit any crime. You sensed the Beast power that coursed through his blood and you attacked."

Guin twirled the sickle between her fingers in irritation. It was clear to her now that this woman had been following her for over an hour, watching her every move. She tried to reach out with her special senses to see if this woman was a Beast herself, but she had exhausted her gifts fighting the half-breed.

"I will ask only once more," Guin said. "Who are you? And why shouldn't I destroy you here and now?"

Flakes of snow fell around the hooded figure as she fearlessly stepped directly into Guin's personal space. The edges of her blue hood were inches from Guin's face.

"Because you know in your heart that it would be wrong to kill one who has committed no crime. Even if she might be a pure Beast."

Guin could tolerate no more. The strength of her convictions would be delivered with the swift thrust of her blade.

But a sudden gust of air swept past her just as she swung her sickle at the woman. In an instant, the hooded woman had dodged her attack and vanished from in front of her.

Guin spun wildly around, uncertain of where her enemy had moved to so quickly. Several moments passed before she finally saw her. The shadow of the woman standing on a nearby rooftop, curtains of white fluttering between the two warriors.

"Perhaps it was a mistake to visit you tonight," said the cloaked woman.

Guin was not interested in what she had to say any longer. She hurled herself off of the ground, sending a path of snow exploding up along with her as she shot up toward her target.

"But I will not promise never to visit again."

Guin's sickle struck nothing but snow as she landed on the rooftop alone. The woman was gone.




Guin ran her fingers through her long hair and tied it back behind her head as she stepped through the lavish halls of the royal palace. The footsteps of the king's soldiers marched in perfect formation as they escorted him to the balcony where he planned to address the stirring crowd.

Walking alongside her was the man that recruited her into the Hunter's Society. Someone she knew for most of her life as Master Elec. But long ago, she knew him only as Father.

Static electricity flowed between the tall man's fingers as he impatiently walked behind the king and his men. Even with the mighty spirit of the eel within him, Guin's father still grew nervous when the Hunter's Society was called in for royal gatherings.

"Master," Guin whispered. "Everything will be fine."

"There was a time," Elec replied, "when I was the one who would have to remind you of such things."

Elec cracked a smile. Though he did his best to hide such feelings in the company of others, he was immensely proud of the strong woman his daughter had grown up to be. Especially in the wake of such a tragic past.

"Please allow us," Elec said, quickly stepping before the king with a bow as they approached the balcony.

With a gesture, the king waved off the two Hunters, who stepped onto the balcony ahead of the rest, their eyes scanning the crowd that stretched out across the entire city square.

"Anything?" Elec asked.

The king's men watched in bewilderment as Lady Guin reached out with her thoughts in an attempt to sense any half-breeds that might be hiding among the humans at the gathering. It was a gift that only she possessed. To know where the enemy was hiding.

Elec stood with a curious look as he noticed Guin's eyes shift down toward the third row of civilians standing in the street below.

"What is it?" Elec asked. "What do you sense?"

"... Nothing."

It was a lie.

Guin could barely believe what she had just done. Never before had she lied to her master. But what she sensed down below had stirred her soul. It was not an ordinary human. But it was not like the many dozens of half-breeds she hunted down over the years either.

The one that Guin had sensed was a young boy, no more than nine years of age. The same age she had been when Master Elec told her of her mother's death. She could not bare to bring this information to her father. He would most certainly attack the child, without any provocation at all. Because that was the code that the Hunter's Society lived by:

"Seek out the abominations. Those who are born from the seeds of both Humanity and Beastkind. Drive them out of Human society. And cut them down without mercy."

Elec could see in Guin's eyes that something troubled her, but he could not confront her in the king's presence. He was forced to step aside and allow the king to walk forth and appear before the crowd. No matter what dangers his student had failed to report to him.

As the king spoke, the crowd fell into a hush. His words carried through the town square. Words of the first signs of war on the horizon. War between his kind, and the vicious Beast creatures that marched from the distant east. But he vowed that he would not allow the coming conflict to destroy the purity of their way of life.

But as the king continued, Master Elec's attention was pulled toward a young boy standing near the front of the audience. The child's skin had begun to change color and texture. Soon, it was apparent that his skin had been replaced by lizard-like scales. He was a half-breed. And he opened a fanged mouth to reveal a venomous fluid inside.

"Get down!" Elec shouted, sending a swift kick into the king's side.

By the time the king hit the ground, Master Elec had already launched off of the balcony, his body hurtling down from above, surging with blue lightning.

Bullets of saliva came blasting out of the lizard's mouth, but Elec dropped too quickly for them to touch him. The fluid instantly dissolved into the walls they struck behind him, burning holes into the rough stone.

In a blur, Master Elec came rushing into the crowd, hurling a fist into the creature, charged with electricity. The lizard hissed in pain as lightning burned through his veins, and he was tossed through the audience, sending men and women diving away in waves.

The Hunter's arms whirled around him, gathering up all the electrical power in the surrounding air, channeling it all through his animal spirit. At last, he threw his hands forward, releasing the spectral form of an electric eel into the air.

In a cloud of menacing lightning, the animal spirit shot toward the young creature with a power strong enough to completely destroy it.

The king's men stood in awe as the eel slammed into the ground where the boy stood and burst into a devastating explosion.

Elec grit his teeth in anger, though he quickly hid it from the others. With his focused abilities, his eyes were fast enough to see what the others did not. And an instant before his animal spirit had created that explosion, Lady Guin had come rushing onto the battlefield, snatching the lizard child off of the ground, and dragging him out of the city square.

The old master shielded his true feelings from the others as the sound of applause could be heard from all around him. They all believed he had just destroyed the half-breed. But the truth was that his only daughter had just run off with him, ignoring her oath to the Hunter's Society, and her loyalty to her father.

"You stupid girl," Elec whispered to himself as he looked up into the empty sky. "What have you done...?"

The last remnants of sunlight peaked between the falling leaves as Lady Guin walked through the forest alone. It had been a long journey for her, to take the child far enough away from the city that no one would come searching for them. And to finally release him back to wherever he had come from.

As Guin knelt down to refill her pouch with water from a small lake, her thoughts dwelled on the events of recent days. Meeting that strange warrior in the night. Standing proudly alongside her father. And rescuing a creature who belonged to a sub-species that she had sworn to wipe out.

Guin twisted the cap back onto her pouch and let out a sigh. Perhaps that mysterious woman was right about her. She had grown weary of fighting without just cause. But how could she dissapoint her father, or disrespect the memory of her mother, by quitting before the job was finished? These were questions to which Guin had no answer.

But suddenly, Guin's eyes narrowed as she heard a faint sound from afar.

Piercing the air like lightning, Guin's sickle was blasted up into the sky, stabbing into the bark of a tree. Kneeling on a long branch of that tree was the hooded figure, who had just barely stepped out of the path of the sickle before it could tear into her.

"Your aim is improving."

Guin lifted her fists in a fighting stance.

"Is that your response to everything?" asked the hooded one.

"I don't answer to you," Guin responded. "Nor any other Beast who wishes to manipulate me."

"I have no such wish. My only goal is to open your eyes."

"My eyes see all that they need to see. Like my weapon."

An explosion of leaves jumped into the air as Guin launched herself from the ground below, rushing up toward the woman in the tree.

The hooded figure's hands moved with inhuman speed, deflecting Guin's fists as they shot at her one after the other. Without stopping, Guin's fingers snatched up her sickle from the tree's trunk and sent it whistling forward with all her strength.

Like a spinning top, Guin's target was thrown through the trees, snapping branches as she flew. The sickle had caught the cloth of her hood and ripped it away.

The figure slammed against a nearby tree, gripping tightly to a set of branches at her side, holding herself up over the ground. She pulled herself up to a defensive position, realizing too late that her face had been exposed.

Guin had already leapt from her spot on the other tree, delaying her attack no longer than she had to, ready to conclude this battle once and for all. Without even looking at her enemy, she thrusted her weapon forward.

But suddenly, the long tail of a fox came whipping out, swiping across her face, sending the Hunter flipping out of the sky.

Guin's sickle shook from her hand as she felt her body crash into the ground with a loud thud. Whatever it was that had struck her was charged with an incredible amount of animal spirit power. So much so that she had begun to drift in and out of coherent thought.

The Hunter struggled to keep her eyes open as fear engulfed her heart. She would not be able to stand quickly enough. Through a curtain of blurred vision, she watched the leaves fall around her as the woman dropped out of the trees.

The last thing Guin saw before falling into a unwanted slumber was the face of the woman she had been attacking. Those ageless, green eyes. The flowing black hair that seemed almost alive. There was no mistaking her identity. She was not a Beast. She was Master Fang. Better known to Guin as...


"Mother..."






A thick mist crept over the mountainous grassy planes as Guin slowly made her way toward the stone gates that surrounded the compound. A dark night had fallen over her since her journey out of the forest. Several hours had passed since she last saw her master, when the king addressed his people. But all she cared about now was returning to her bed inside the Hunter's Society, and disappearing into a dream. She would need a good rest before facing her father, and digesting all that she had seen and heard that day...

A pair of guards always waited outside the gates. They never saw Guin's body, as it swooped over their heads behind the cover of night, landing silently on the other side of the gate.

Guin could easily step through the compound undetected, even with a number of men and women still awake at such a late hour. She walked up the outside stairs of the main building and onto the second floor where her room was located.

But as Guin began to slide the door open, she suddenly realized that there was someone behind her, leaning quietly against the railing next to the stairs.

"Good evening," said Master Elec. His tone suggested that he was not happy.

"G-Good evening," Guin replied, her back still turned.

"So where is he?"

Guin paused. She did not know how to respond.

"The mut you ran off with," Elec insisted.

"Oh... I took him to interrogate him."

"Oh really..." Elec spoke with disbelief.

"He must have been sent by the Beast army to the east. To assassinate the king. They were hoping that a young boy might not be viewed as a serious threat."

"And what else did you learn from this interrogation?"

"... Nothing more. He was, after all, only a boy."

"And after you learned all you could. You killed him?"

"Of course. He was a half-breed."

Guin could almost feel her father's eyes burning into the back of her head as he stared at her in silence. The more time they spent standing without words, the more she could feel his anger. He was utterly furious with her. And there was not one moment where he believed a word she said to him.

"Very well," he said suddenly. "I suppose what's done is done. Have a good night."

A confused look came over Guin's face. She could not remember a time when Elec was faced with such bitter dissapointment. Was he really going to just walk away without scolding her any further?

Guin decided to count her blessings and walk into her room to go to sleep. But before she could step through the doorway, she felt a sudden shift in the air around her.

Guin's legs split apart as she dropped herself down to the ground, narrowly dodging the sword that came swinging out of the shadows, cutting into the doorway an instant later.

The swordsman was a Hunter, whose face was covered with a black cloth. He raised his blade again to strike the girl, but before he could attack, he felt Guin's fist rush up and crack into his ribs.

The attack forced the man off of his feet, slamming him through the railing by the stairs, his body dropping lifelessly to the lower level.

Guin stood up again to make certain her attacker had been defeated, but soon realized that she was now surrounded by eight faceless warriors. They were all fellow Hunters, sent to eliminate her.

Guin looked down to the lower level, where she watched as Master Elec casually walked away, completely uninterested. It was he who had arranged this. She had broken the code of the Hunter's Society. And now she was a target.

A single tear fell from Guin's eye, covering the tattoo just below it. But as her enemies closed in from either side of her, whatever pain she felt was transformed into rage.

With furious strength, Guin hurled her arms to her right and the phantom spirit of a penguin exploded from her body. In a surge of unspeakable power, the spirit slid across the floor on its belly, blasting its way right through four men.

The men cried out in utter terror as the spirit shot through them, shredding their bodies and tossing them aside like trash. A venomous warcry escaped Guin's lips as she yanked the sickle from her side and hacked another enemy away with a single swing.

Guin's body came whirling down from the upper level as the three remaining swordsmen rushed all around her. The air suddenly grew so cold that Guin's angry breath became visible as it left her lips, and she deflected the throwing darts that flew at her, stabbing them into the ground at her feet.

The three men began to circle their former friend, preparing to attack her from all sides at once. Even Guin, with her outrageous powers, would not be able to stop such an attack.

"Tell me," Guin hissed. "How do you feel about serving under a man who was wedded to a Beast?"

Confused glances were exchanged between the three men.

"You mean he didn't tell you either? About how he married my mother, and swore to stand by her side forever... until he learned that she was a half-breed, just like those he had hunted all his life."

The one part of their faces Guin could see was their eyes. And at that moment, they were trembling in a mix of uncertain emotions. They mirrored the emotions Guin had felt when the mysterious woman- her mother- had explained it to her only an hour earlier.

Guin clinched tightly to her sickle, seething with anger over the unforgivable betrayal that her father had committed. A betrayal that she had not been able to believe. Not until that moment when she realized her father was going to kill her. Just as he had tried to kill his wife when she was a child.

"Accept it," Guin barked. "We are all students of a hypocrite! And a liar!"

"N-Nonsense," said one of the swordsmen. His eyes said something else. But in his uncertain anger, he brandished his sword and rushed at Guin, the other two hurrying to join him.

Guin readied herself for the final blow when suddenly, the booming sound of a thunderclap rang out and the three men were halted an instant before they could strike.

The bodies of the men parted before Guin's eyes, to reveal that Master Elec had begun marching back toward them with a deadening gaze. The pupils of his eyes were crackling with lightning as the spirit of the eel snaked restlessly around his body.

"Enough games," Elec said. "I will destroy this creature myself."

It was only then that Guin realized why she was able to sense the half-breeds when no one else around her could. It was the gift her mother had passed down to her. From her non-human side. But now that gift was about to be swept away, as Elec prepared to fire off his eel spirit.

Guin's avenues of escape were cut off by the three men, as Elec released the electric eel. Elec closed his eyes in dissapointment as the spirit flew across the battlefield toward his former daughter.

But just before the eel could touch her, a second spirit came rushing in from the side. A ghostly howl echoed through the night as the spirit of a fox leapt up and punched its fangs into the eel's body, tackling it to the ground in an explosion of lightning and spiritual energy.

Elec turned in astonishment as his former wife emerged from a wall of mist, her hand still raised from when she had released her fox spirit.

"Lady Fang," Elec whispered in anger.

"It's Master now," Fang replied.

Guin breathed heavily, having just been saved by her mother. The woman that she had treated so harshly. Whom she had told to leave her alone, even after learning the truth of her identity. Fang did not listen. She followed her to the camp without regard. She was there to protect her no matter what. All along, Guin thought, Fang was the only true parent she had ever had. And Elec was not going to keep them apart any longer.

Elec snarled. "I will destroy you, just as I should have done years ago."

"You tried... You failed..."

"I've had years to grow stronger. Extinguishing your life will take no effort at--"

Elec's words were cut off by the back of Fang's boot cracking across his jaw, sending him twirling uncontrollably through the air. He was not the only one that had grown stronger.

But Elec spun himself into a landing and hurled a bolt of lightning, sending sparks jumping up all around Master Fang as he ran back to attack her.

Guin tried to help her mother, but was barely able to block the sword that came at her face with her own weapon. The three swordsmen would not allow her to escape so easily.

Before the second and third warrior could come too close, Guin parried the first man's sword. The blade was thrown back, driving its tip into the gut of the second man just as he approached. And with a swift spin, Guin's sickle cut past the first and third man all in a fraction of a second.

Guin froze in place as her enemies dropped to the ground around her. She quickly stepped over them to aid in her mother's fight. But as she stepped through the fog-covered battlefield, she could hardly believe her eyes.

Clouds of dust and debris kicked up all around the two warriors, once husband and wife, as they moved with such incredible speed and strength that Guin's eyes could barely keep up with them. The ground shook beneath their feet as the swinging of each of their arms and legs generated such a force that the very battlefield they fought across was ripping apart.

Never in Guin's life had she felt such power flowing off of Master Elec, nor had he ever exerted himself so much in her presence. They were fighting on a level that was completely alien to Guin.

A terrible crater was blasted into the earth as Master Fang was thrown across the battlefield, landing in an explosion of debris. A trail of dust followed Master Elec as he stomped over to deliver the finishing blow.

But Fang rose up and suddenly, a fox tail extended from her lower back. It was the same tail that had struck Guin down with such tremendous strength earlier that day.

Elec rushed forth, his fists charged with electrical power. He conjured a ball of spiritual energy and hurled it at his former wife. But Fang's tail suddenly whipped around and deflected the ball right back from wince it had come.

Elec realized too late that the attack had been thrown back at him. His cries were drowned out by the explosion.

Moments passed like hours as Master Elec dragged his fingers out of the scorching hot rocks they were tangled between. His broken body was sprawled out across a pit surrounded by crackling flames. He tried to stand, but a terrible pain shot though his legs, forcing him onto his back.

Through the flicker of building flames, he could see the shadows of two women that merged into one above the pit. Mother and daughter reunited, after all his treachery.

"Come," said Master Fang to her daughter. "There is nothing left for you here."

"Where are we going?"

"A place called Pai Zhua... We could use someone such as you. With a fiery spirit."

"What about... him?"

"You and I both have spent enough time worrying about things that no longer matter..."

Master Fang turned and gestured to escort her daughter out of that place. The shadows of countless other Hunters watched silently from all around, unwilling to react. Guin glanced back at the man lying in the pit next to her, broken and alone.

"I'm ready to go," she said at last.

The two walked away without a moment's hesitation.

"Once we get to Pai Zhua," Fang began, "perhaps we should remove that tattoo."

"Perhaps," Guin said with a nod.

"Besides... There are other tattoos you may wish to have in the future..."

THE END​