Soul was repairing a beam when guards began escorting small groups of children to the orphanage. The arraki turns red eyes to the guard in charge who walks over in the white and gold armor still tainted with spots of blood.
"Are you the care taker of these children?" The guard asks eyeing the seven foot arraki with doubt.
"This is Mr. Soul he knows magic!" A little girl yells running by with a ball and a couple others chasing her.
"Yes, I am the care taker for the moment. I don't know where the last one went but with the city in its current state I figured I could fill the place." Soul answers hammering a nail into place with the palm of his hand.
"Well good, I have twenty children with me, parents are either dead or missing. This being the only orphanage in the city they are now under your care." The guard finished turning to wave in a line of teens and children who all look sad and down.
Soul studies them and nods, "We'll make room." The guard nods and turns and leaves leaving the kids he pulled from the cellar on one side looking curiously at the new children. Soul walks to the center of the room.
"Romana, Matilda go up stairs and make the extra beds for me okay?" He turns his head to the two oldest girls from the old children who nod their heads and head to the stairs. He turns his gaze to Zafiro, "See what food we have left some of them look hungry." Zafiro nods jogging to the kitchen.
Soul turns back to the ten new orphans smiling, trying to make his huge frame less intimidating. "I'm Soul and I will be taking care of you until they can find someone more suitable." He crouches as Zafiro comes back with a basket of apples offering it to the new comers. Some take it, the others looking around confused, the orphanage had on going repairs but it still looked damaged.
"You know what!" Soul says suddenly startling new and old who both look at him. "Lets go on a trip, lets get out of this dreary city and see something?" He says with a smile, the old kids smiling and nodding, some of the new kids even perking up. "We'll go south to one of the cities down there and see what we can see huh? Maybe when we come back this place won't be so crappy." The swear word made a couple children giggle.
The next day the group of children and Soul were out of the city and walking the road between the cities. Zafiro walked next to Soul shouldering a sack full of fruits. Soul kept an eye on all the children as the new and old seemed to be mixing and the new were breaking out of their shells the further away from Grand City and bad memories they got. The rain couldn't even seem to dampen their spirits anymore.
"So what are you?" Firo asked suddenly from his side, green eyes pointed to the ground.
Soul raised an eyebrow and looked down at the young boy, "An arraki."
"Arra- what?" Firo looked up with a confused look, "Whats an arrikey?"
"Arraki. It is hard to explain what we are exactly, a mix of different creatures all blended by a demonic ritual. In the realm I am from we were gods." Soul said looking forward at the group. Romana and Matilda were talking with a new girl Francesca giggling about something.
"Were? Doesn't that mean in the past?" Firo asked.
Soul had to smile, "Yes, in the past we were gods until we started killing ourselves. Then some vanished, others completely left the realm."
"Realm whats a realm?"
"This is a realm, this world you live in is one of many. Some of us can jump between these places, sometimes with control, other times at random. I am a random jumper, I can't always control where I will end up." Soul said with a shrug, "I left a place called Mystra-Amor and ended up here, which is funny because many from there have also ended up here."
"Are they your friends?"
"I guess some you could call them that, others rivals in a sense." Soul shrugged again.
"Rival? You seem really big to have a rival." Firo said with young understanding.
Soul laughed the other children looking back at him. "In my home realm no one could stand against me once I was old enough. Even when I was sent to the underworld I was still powerful. But you find that different realms have different levels of power and some creatures actually rise above what was strongest in your realm. I am a very adaptive species though, but I have no need for grandeur."
"Is that why you are taking care of us?" Zafiro said almost sadly.
"Not at all, you group of kids is the highest position I've ever held." Soul said with a smile patting the boy on the head and getting a smile for his trouble. Innocent lives were the highest thing on Souls book of important things.
"Why don't you want to be the strongest here? You could do good things. There have been so many bad guys recently and it seems so many people died. If you could be like you were where you are from maybe.."
"Listen Firo, being powerful seems great and like you can do anything but everything comes with a price. If you are the strongest being in the realm eventually someone is going to come along and try and take you down. It isn't a happy life." Soul answers with a smile just as a scream from ahead.
Romana and Francesca are crying as Soul runs ahead, Firo at his heels the small boy trying to keep up with the long strides of the arraki. Matilda stands shaking with a rusted steel knife held at her throat, the three bandits, unwashed and in pilfered pieces of armor stare at the arraki, seeming to second guess there choice of target.
"Give us all you got man who we kill the little girl here."
Soul steps forward, "You kill her and you die, you let her go you walk away, simple as that." The arraki shrugs the stolen leather jacket off himself, his gauntlet covered right arm almost as big as the middle bandit. The man seems to gulp, but then finds some inner resolve.
"No big guy, now that piece of armor looks pricey so give it to me." The other two bandits step forward. "I'll kill the girl, or maybe I'll take her with me and we'll have some fun, you may be big but Sporkie here will run you through."
The fattest of the bandits pulls a sword, a two foot piece of dull metal. The arraki takes a deep breath feeling the children all behind him watching, and their fear. He closes his eyes feeling Sporkie step toward him, "You know this week I fought a demon and killed my strongest copy, you should have taken my first offer."
The seven foot form moves so suddenly Sporkie never has time to react, the blades of his gauntlet punch through the chest of the man as though his leather armor didn't exist. His left arm swings out wide and hits the smallest unnamed bandit in the side of the head cracking skull and sending him flying ten feet to the side. His momentum carries forward as the blade the leader holds begins to slid. With a roar he punches his right fist, up to his elbow through the mans skull the metal dripping blood.
Matilda fell, blood pouring from her throat. Soul drops to his knee the other kids beginning to cry. His left hand wraps around her throat stopping the bleeding. Firo steps forward yelling, "Your choking her!"
Soul pushes him back and turns his body so his own throat points away from the other and closes his eyes. Underneath his hand the flesh begins to heal and his own throat begins to tear, acidic blood pouring onto the ground where it smoke and corrodes the dirt. The other kids yell and Firo stares at him wide eyed. His own skin begins to stitch itself as he lets go of Matilda the little girl backing away and feeling at her own neck.
Soul pants on his knees the ground in front smoldering into a pit. He pushes himself up slowly the effort of healing such a wound that had been amplified on his own body taking it out of him. He turns to Matilda, "Are you alright?"
"Ye.. Yes Mr. Soul." She says trembling as Romana and Francesca both go to her sides to comfort her.
"Good. Firo take the others down the road two hundred feet I'll get rid of the bodies and be along ok?" Soul says dragging Sporkie and the small one to the leader.
"Yes Mr. Soul." Firo says rounding up the other children and walking away from them, a lot of their young eyes staring curiously at him, some even with a touch of fear. Soul smiles softly at them and looks at the bodies, stomach gurgling, in taking care of the children and the recent battles he had yet to eat. He glances to see the kids gone and then lifts Sporkies arm, "Probably going to taste like shit.."