Chapter 195: The Year in Review

It took forever for Malachi to get the girls to stop crying.

Even from such a large distance, he could very clearly feel all of the misery they carried that came from his unexpected absence.

He truly felt guilty even though his disappearance wasn't his fault.

He could only imagine how he would have reacted if any one of them had gone missing for a single day, let alone a year.

He was just grateful that the girls had each other to rely on and support each other so that they never had to deal with it alone.

It took an entire thirty minutes before the girls could stop crying and then their questions started flying one after the other.

Nadine: 'Are you okay, darling?'

Bianca: 'Where have you been?'

Luna: 'Do you have any idea how worried we were?'

Malachi tried to sate the girls' curiosities as best he could but he didn't know anything either.

All that he could say for sure was that he woke up without the bulk of his powers and in a new body while floating in the middle of a lake.

He sat on a nearby rock and stared at the lake with the dead bat nightmare inside as he gave the girls his very brief run down.

'I've only been up for a few minutes and I've already gotten jumped by a nightmare... I guess things started while I was gone, huh?'

'Yes... It has been difficult, but since we had the base from the beginning things aren't nearly as bad as they could have been.' Sei explained.

Malachi looked up into the dark sky and felt like his mind was swimming with questions, but for right now only two really mattered to him.

'My mom and Anna... Where are they? How are they?'

For some reason that he didn't understand, the girls fell silent afterwards and he could feel their anxiety spiking.

'Your mother... we aren't exactly certain.' Luna said with difficulty.

'Aubrey is the only one who she comes to speak to on a rare occasion, and judging by what she tells us she has never stopped grieving.'

'At one point she was fighting with the gods constantly... they went from pleading with her to bring the sun back to trying to force her and... you can imagine how that went.'

Malachi pictured his mother enraged and beautiful, holding off an army of gods with one hand and holding the skulls of their fallen in another.

While that wasn't much different from the truth, it was still something of an over dramatization.

'As for Anna...' Nadine began.

Even from here, Malachi could feel the heartbeats of all of the girls quicken when his fiancé was mentioned.

They are all incredibly close friends that border on a tightly knit sisterhood, so the loss of the man who they all loved and one of their own right after had surely done a severe amount of damage on their hearts and minds.

'Honey... We are so so sorry..!' Sei sobbed.

'We knew that you wanted us to protect each other but we couldn't...' added Luna.

'It's all our fault that they got captured..! We should have stayed together..!' Cried Nadine.

Malachi had no doubt that the girls were incredibly emotional at this moment and were likely weeping all over each other.

His own emotions were in utter chaos but for right now he had to prioritize them over everything else.

'It's alright, you girls tried everything that you could to get her back. That is all that matters to me, and I can't thank you enough for never giving up on her. All three of us will be home soon so get al of your crying out before then, okay?'

Just like that, the tears of all four girls dried up as their despair changed into disbelief.

Bianca: 'Babe... You can't mean..'

Luna: 'You can't do that by yourself! We just got you back, we can't have you risking your life again!'

Sei: 'A-Atleast come back to base first, we can assemble a team and-'

'Girls... I need you to listen to me. I don't care what the circumstances are, I will never come home and relax quietly if all five of you aren't by my side.

I would do anything for any of you, but don't ask me to change that. I'm not leaving Anna or Joanne in some prison facility for even a second longer than I have to.' He said seriously.

Against the knowledge of the girls, Malachi stood up from the rock he'd been sitting on and started to float up into the sky.

His eyes became locked on the direction he could feel Anna waiting in, and he unconsciously clenched his fists hard enough to crack his own bone.

'Like I said, all three of us are coming home soon, okay? Just wait for us.' He tried to put on the calmest tone he could muster but was unsure if it actually worked.

'Alright...'

'We'll trust you.'

'We love you... so much.'

One by one, the girls all voiced their acceptance meekly before they wished him luck and sent him their love.

The connection was cut a moment later, and a densely concentrated aura started to leave Mal's body.

He did not consider himself to be a particularly bloodthirsty man or even one who enjoyed fighting and violence.

But for the first time in his entire life he felt himself turning into something largely unrecognizable as he made a vow to kill every single person who got in his path to rescue the girls.

With a sound like a sonic bomb, Mal shot through the air faster than most planes as he raced to get to Anna and Joanne as fast as he could.