The Foolhardies 79 Eagle Eye

As my eyes closed and darkness enveloped me, the vision of The Fool's card appeared in my mind's eye, and not for the first time did I wonder if the other Tarot cards appeared to those who possess the fairy gifts of other clans. Twenty-two major Tarots. Twenty-two major fairy clans. It kind of made sense.

"Oh, great fool, let me see the unseen that I might know the unknowable," Immediately after I whispered the magic words, I felt my fairy gift stir.

Heat concentrated on the surface of my shut eyes like I'd placed my face too close to the fire. And what began as a stinging pain transformed to a familiar warm soothing sensation that told me Fool's Insight was now active.

Varda interrupted my concentration with, "Um, Commander, shouldn't we get to the fallback site now?" 

"I need to find Luca first… the trail is right here," I insisted.

I opened my eyes and found myself viewing the ground from high up in the clouds. With this birds-eye-view, I surveyed the campsite below me like an eagle searching for its dinner while it soared in the sky.

A few things caught my notice beneath the foliage of spa.r.s.e trees. Small fires still dotted the camp of broken tents and dead bodies. Here and there, a group of blue armored soldiers worked tirelessly to pack our stuff and prepare our fallen comrades for our journey out of this deathtrap. But no sign of my brother or the pixie who whisked him away to safety.

I searched past the grove of trees to the hill above it and back down to circle the surrounding area. I got nothing. My eyes returned to camp hoping to find some small clue as to where they might have gone.

"Luca!" I hissed between clenched teeth. "Where the h.e.l.l are you?!"

As soon as Luca's name escaped my lips, something interesting happened. The world around me dimmed to a dull gray as if I was viewing it all through slightly dark tinted sungla.s.ses. At least the surroundings did. But the people moving down there, both fairy and human, began to glow in shades of white and blue. 

"W-whoa… what kind of trippy show am I seeing right now?" I asked in surprise.

I wasn't expecting the light show. Nor did I understand how it happened. One minute the world was full of color and the next it was like looking at human-shaped stars across a sky of different shades of gray.

For a quick moment, I'd forgotten my search for my brother and the only thing that mattered was figuring out what new power I'd awakened and how could I use it.

"Why can't Fool's Insight come with a manual," I complained to no one in particular.

"What?" Ashley asked. "Are you going crazy on us, Dapper?" Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.

"Jury's out on that one," I admitted while my mind exploded with questions. Had I gone crazy? Or was this new phenomenon just a new skill I'd awakened in Fool's Insight? But if so, then how did I awaken it? Did my fight with Jimmy Jonas actually help push me past my current limits? But I didn't feel any different and it wasn't like a pop-up window appeared to tell me I leveled up or something! There were just too many questions that didn't I didn't have answers. "I might be going slightly crazy…"

"Are you alright, Commander?" Varda asked in a worried tone.

"I'm about to be," I said confidently.

What was there to be confident about? Well, I had just noticed a third glowing color in the scene below, and it seemed to be an answer to my unspoken question. It happened the moment I thought of Luca again. A ghostly golden glow, dimmer than the surrounding lights, appeared in the spot where I'd found Shaqs' body. At first, I thought I was seeing the heroic troll's actual ghost. But then I watched as the fading glow began to move in a southernly direction, gaining in speed as if it were flying to escape something. The further it got, the brighter the glow seemed to get.

"That's no ghost…" I said, understanding almost instinctively.

"Dean, are you going to keep talking to yourself or would you like to fill us in?" Ashley asked in a sharp tone.

"Sorry… it's just… I think I found Luca's trail," I admitted warily even though I was nearly a hundred percent certain I was right. I'd played enough open-world video games to know I was looking at a kind of projection. Maybe even the aura of someone in flight. If so, the surrounding white and blue glow must have been the auras of my fellow Foolhardies.

"You found a trail?" Ashley's tone was skeptical and I could just imagine her with her arms crossed while she gave me a raised eyebrow.

"I think so," I answered. I squinted. "Hold on. I'm going to try something..."

To prove my point, I zoomed down to where I stood and found my silhouette wrapped in a brilliant white aura that was brighter than everyone around me. To my right, the Ashley-sized avatar was also clad in a white glow. But on my left, Varda's form was a s.h.i.+ny blue. The fairy members of Ashley's s.h.i.+eld squad were also wrapped in a similar blue glow while all the viseres had auras like mine.

If I was right and I really was seeing a kind of essence spreading out of our bodies, then the golden glow I'd seen trailing away might have been a faint remnant for someone's aura. Why it was golden and not white or blue might have been just because I'd placed more importance on that particular aura more than any other. Of course, I might have been wrong. This was mostly guesswork on my part and I didn't have time to test the theory out. But, somehow, I felt like I was right. Or at least somewhere close to the truth.

"Commander, we have to move," Varda's voice sounded urgent.

There wasn't any need to wonder why she seemed worried. After all, I could see far more glowing lights now in the far distance. Past the hill our camp had hidden behind and back to last night's battlefield, tens of thousands of lights were swarming around each other. And where these lights met in the middle, glaring forks of red lightning erupted like thunderclouds during a heavy storm.

"Red's the symbol for aggression… the war's back on…" I whispered.

I turned my gaze away from the bright lights of the battlefield and returned my focus back to the golden trail. The battle didn't matter to me right now. Only finding Luca did.

My eyes followed the golden trail as it led past the trees and moved southward, toward the Darah army's rear line. However, before getting there, it veered right, like whoever the aura belonged to had suddenly changed direction to avoid colliding with something or someone in its path. It continued eastward and up to another hilltop, almost tracing a similar path to the one we'd taken when we'd challenged the Magesong clan's rear units.

"It's like a recording… like the ghost of the past coming to life so I can see it happen," I guessed.

"The Commander's saying some really weird things, Ashley," Varda's voice was half-exasperated and half-impressed, like she wasn't sure how to feel about me possibly losing my marbles.

"We might have to drag him out of here… Maybe even knock him out to do it," Ashley said in a slightly amused tone that wasn't comforting to hear.

"Shut up, you two," I scolded. "I'm nearly there…"

The longer I followed the golden glow the more it solidified, eventually taking the form of a winged fairy with a bulky distorted form. After following it for a few more seconds, the fairy's aura split into two. No. It had been more than just one being this whole time. I'd just been confused by the golden glow. Only now I could see a fairy carrying a long limp form in its arms.

"Luca…" My voice was almost a whisper.

I watched the golden auras, one dimmer than the other, drop in speed until both had crashed into what must have been a body of water—and I recalled that we'd past a stream on our way to the enemy's rear.

Then the golden glow faded like dust carried into the wind only to be replaced by a scene of two dwindling auras, one blue and the other white, their lights fading with each breath. Almost instinctively, I knew it meant Luca and Pike were in deep trouble.

I disengaged Fool's Insight , and as soon as my vision returned to normal, I stumbled from an onrush of sudden fatigue. Luckily, Ashley caught my shoulder before I toppled over.

Still feeling faint, I gripped tightly onto her arm, sending her a squeeze of grat.i.tude for the save. After I received a similar squeeze from Ashley, I turned my attention to Varda. "Get all our people here back to the fallback point. Wait for further orders once you get there."

"B-but the battle—"

I shook my head and cut her off mid sentence.

"We're staying on the bench tonight..." I turned my gaze on Ashley next. "Are you and your squad up for a rescue mission?"

She grinned almost impishly before saying, "Are you?"

II felt really faint. In my head, a dozen unanswered questions continued to add pressure to the strain on my mind. Chief among them was this new skill I'd just unlocked. Especially since I knew it must have been one of Fool's Insight 's many hidden powers.

A sudden flashback, a memory of that gray world I'd glimpsed the previous night after I'd stabbed Jimmy.

If last night's battles allowed me to unlock this new skill then there was one more thing to thank Jimmy Jonas for. I never would have pushed myself past my limits if I hadn't fought him to the death. Then again, this newfound skill might have nothing to do with my efforts. Perhaps it was always there waiting to be called. I would need to figure it out. Later. Not now. There was something more important to do.

"Let's go save Luca and Pike," I said.