“This city is huge.”
“It is.”
Letalis sighed as he and Litvir sat on the steps of the entrance to the Temple of the Eternal Healing Flame, gazing out at the City of Telia.
“It is insanely huge. An entire planet that is a city.”
“Apart from the poles. They are too cold and windy. Instead, it is just scattered mega-mansions with their own weather systems, for the super-powerful who can afford that sort of thing.”
“Ah…”
Letalis turned to Litvir and inspected him somewhat. “Where do you live? You run a sect, I assume you live on a large ship.”
“Actually, I live on a floating island that we fixed up and turned into a hospital and Life Oasis, basically…”
“Oh. So… you do not actually have a home, you have a little room you sleep in, and everything else is work?”
“It is not that bad. We have space, gardens, places which are not work-related. We have a gym I do not use, but I sometimes spy on Retvik while he uses it.”
“Huh…”
Letalis trailed off, but suddenly staggered to his feet. Litvir picked himself up as well, but had also summoned a weapon of some sort, a long, psionic blade. The reason was obvious. Five beings were approaching. And it took Letalis a moment to realise that the five beings were not staff members at the temple, they were a threat.
However, while Letalis was busy hesitating, Litvir had already identified the threat and was taking action. Shadowy black tendrils had erupted from Litvir’s body, and they wrapped themselves around all five of the intruders, immobilising them and stunning them. While four of them also found themselves silenced, the obvious leader was lifted up into the air. They started screaming as a hideous cracking sound could be heard. Litvir started telekinetically breaking their limbs.
“Litvir, wait!”
Litvir snarled, then turned to Letalis.
“You are killing them!”
“Yes, so?” was Litvir’s blunt reply. “They came here to kill you. They are members of a cult of stupid idiots who want those they do not consider perfect beneath them and nothing more than slaves and slaughter beasts! Had I not incapacitated them, they would have hurt you and tortured you!”
“You… you do not know that…” Letalis stuttered.
Litvir turned to the leader cultist, who was whimpering. “I bloody well do know that. I can see this monster’s thoughts. I can see ALL their thoughts! They want death to the imperfect!”
“You are just…” Letalis tried to protest.
“How about you let THEM tell you why they are here!” Litvir brought the leader closer. “Tell Letalis, to his face, why you are here!”
“N-no…” the cultist whispered.
“Tell him, or I will break your arm.”
“No.”
Litvir snarled, then snapped several bones in the cultist’s finger. The cultist screeched, then swiftly started talking.
“The Cult of the Purifying Flame believes that all imperfect beings must be burned to death. We wished to start with the burning of the Fallen Angel whose presence at this holy temple is blasphemy…”
Litvir turned back to Letalis. “See? These bastards came here to burn you alive. Because of that, I am going to kill four of them, then send one of them back home with a mental command to burn down and murder all his fellow cultists.”
Letalis sighed, then drew a psionic blade of their own. “I… I know… but… I am a medic. I took an oath to protect life, to avoid needless death. I cannot let you kill them, no matter how evil they are.”
“I want to point out that these cultists planned to murder many more after their plan to kill you! And you may have issues with killing, I have no such qualms. I have murdered plenty. I have murdered plenty who, if I had not killed them, would have gone on to kill many, many more!” Litvir hissed.
“I know. And I get it. Killing them though is the easy way out. I… I cannot let you kill them. I will not let you kill them. Yes, they are fools, trapped within a cult, but they do not deserve a painful death. They deserve to go on trial and go to prison and maybe be rehabilitated.”
Litvir paused, then frowned. That frown turned into a sigh. All of a sudden, he dismissed the shadowy tendrils and let the cultists all drop to the floor. They remained unmoving though, telepathically paralysed.
“I… I am sorry, Letalis. I lost sight of things in a bid to protect you. You are absolutely right, these miscreants should have a chance at a fair trial. Killing them would deny them their rights, and would go against your oaths. However, I also know that, well, your society will not deal with the problem.”
Letalis sniffed. “You are admittedly right there. These five would be punished but their cult would remain above justice. Do you… have an alternative?”
Litvir’s frown flickered into a smile. “I do. May I… give them a mental command?”
Letalis shrugged. “As long as you let them go and do not hurt them further.”
That smile grew. “I shall do that.”
Litvir faced the cultists, and made them all stand up. He then raised his arms and summoned a halo of psionic blades around himself. Several psionic blades broke off and circled the cultists in a disorientating manner.
“You are to change yourselves. You no longer fear the imperfect. You love the imperfect. You wish to use the Purifying Flame to remove genuine malice, to protect those who need help, to purify those who seek to help others. Go now. Go home, inform your kin and do only good from now on. Lest I return and destroy you and everyone you have ever cared about.”
With a snap of his fingers, Litvir let the cultists go. They immediately backed off, turned around, opened their fiery wings and flew off, without saying a word.
As soon as they did so, there was commotion behind the two Psions. Ralian stampeded out of his temple and wrapped his arms around Letalis. Veeyel, Arkay and Retvik had followed.
“Are you hurt? I am sorry, I should have not dismissed the temple staff for our little get-together!”
Letalis hugged Ralian back. “I am fine. We sorted out the problem. Thanks to Litvir, they will never bother us again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I would like to go back inside and have nice food now. Maybe some junk food.”
Ralian hugged Letalis some more. “Then that is what we shall do. Come on, now, my dear. We are safe now.”
Ralian led Letalis back inside. Veeyel floated around them, checking them both over briefly, then returned to the Missing.
“You guys are basically us but slightly evil…” Veeyel muttered.
“I mean, of course!” Litvir tutted. “Retvik is the only lawful good person here. I am a former Saturday morning cartoon villain and Arkay was the god of death in two and a half different universes! You should be thankful you do not have five corpses here right now because I did not want to upset Letalis.”
“I mean, I would have cleaned up the corpses no problem!” Arkay frowned. “But we’re not evil. We’re just also not medics. We have different codes of conduct.”
“I guess…” Veeyel sighed. “Anyway, let’s get pizza. I think we need pizza.”
“Agreed!” Litvir smiled a little. “Pizza fixes everything.”