Threads of the Soul

'Damn Vultures... These people are absolutely shameless.'

Benny shook his head and clicked his tongue in annoyance as he looked over the blood soaked battlefield that was filled with more living bodies than corpses at the moment. Benny was nothing more than a lowly corpse collector, he was okay with that. In fact, he had been a janitor in his previous life, before everything went to hell, so going back to a life of cleaning and picking up crap was like second nature to Benny. When this position had become available, Benny was the first to volunteer even before they mentioned benefits.

He had come to terms with the fact that, even in a world full of super powers and monsters, he was destined to be nothing more than a cleaner. Was that a little sad? Sure, but if there was no one to clean up these sorts of things or maintain hygiene, then he could only imagine the horrible diseases that would spread throughout their little community.

Even if being torn apart by some horrific monster was a dreadful way to die, he bet that 99 out of 100 times, people would take it over dying from dysentery. There was no fate worse than crapping yourself to death, no one deserved such humiliation.

Thus, Benny toiled away without complaint, at least no complaint about his job. He still had plenty of other things to complain about, and he absolutely planned to do so.

Dunking his bare hand into a bucket of water, he scrubbed his hand against the blood soaked ground, which was a surprisingly effective method as the palm of his hand was slowly dyed red. His bare hand absorbed the blood better than any sponge, as foam bubbles sprouted from his sweat glands and curled over his hand. Once he was finished with that patch of blood, he held his hand over a separate bucket before his hand began to twist.

His fingers twisted in on themselves, his palm crunching up until his entire hand was thinner than his finger used to be. His bones didn't seem to have an issue with this movement either, acting as if they were made of rubber. Benny wrung his hand out like a washcloth, bloody water dripping from it into the bucket until his hand was back to its usual colour.

Yes, Benny had become a living sponge, and everything about the once janitor was a mark of cleanliness. His teeth were pearly white, his hair seemed freshly shampooed and there wasn't a spot of dirt on his skin. It was as if he was a model that had leapt right out of the page, and went straight to work.

Even the dirty looks that Benny was giving the others were, somehow, squeaky clean and harmless. No matter how much he tried, he couldn't get anything but a friendly and clean look in his eyes no matter how much he scowled or glowered.

Why was he trying, and failing, to give dirty looks? Well, it was all about the scavengers.

While he, and many others, toiled away and earned their keep since the very beginning, there were now other folks who were milling about in their work area. It would be one thing if they were helping, if that was the case Benny would have welcomed them with open arms. In fact one or two did help, but it was the majority he was annoyed at.

These ones, the people who turned up their nose at the thought of earning their keep, had only come out to the battlefield to scavenge. As soon as they heard that the important and powerful warriors the... Commanders? Generals? Alpha's? Bah, whatever it was they were called, as soon as they heard that the powerful ones in charge were trading for monster parts, these vultures had been infesting his battlefield looking for loot.

They weren't doing it to help, they didn't care about why the powerful one's were doing it. They only cared that they were offering something for it. They were scavengers out for a new score, with no clue what they were looking for, and making a mess in the process.

That, in Benny's humble opinion, deserved a few dirty looks from the actual workers and warriors. Even if some of them weren't capable of doing so.

He watched with dead eyes as one of them tear apart a perfectly intact body, one that would have been good eating, and root around blindly for trade-able organs only for them to give up when they realised they had no idea what they were looking for.

As they stropped away, having not only sliced apart perfectly good meat but no doubt also tore open the stomach and dosed the salvageable meat in stomach acid, Benny let out a frustrated groan. Not only at the food they had lost, but to the bloody mess the inconsiderate scavenger had left in the area from their stropping tantrum.

'I just finished cleaning that bit... God, It's almost making me miss cleaning the school. Almost...'

Turning around, Benny found one of the statues that had been left by their wonderful feathered saviour, before quickly approaching it.

"Umm... Excuse me Mister uh... Mr. Neptune sir, I don't suppose we could get some people out here to control these vultures. They are just making an absolute mess of things."

He wrung his hands in front of him nervously, causing a few droplets of water to be squeezed from his pores, as he waited for an answer. Yet even after a minute, no answer came. The question was simply left hanging in the air, as if the statue had never heard it in the first place.

Benny frowned softly, standing up on his toes to wave his hand in front of the statues eyes, trying to get its attention. But nothing happened. It simply stayed perfectly still, stuck in position as if it was just a regular statue once again.

'How odd... Well, He's a busy man. I'm sure he's up to something important. That reminds me, I really need to watch that video again.'

Giddily reminding himself of the wonderful spectacle someone had recorded of their saviour in action, Benny hummed softly to himself as he hurried off to find another guard to solve his problem.

***

Benny was not the only one obsessed with this video, in fact it had spread like wild fire within their little community, almost everyone had seen it at least once and there were many who had watched it multiple times.

Even those without the communication gift had found friends to show them the wonderful video. It had been shot by an up and coming influencer, at least they were before the apocalypse, and who had been trying to boost their following once again. This video had been the perfect thing, and was setting them on the path to be the communities very own journalist.

It was a surprisingly well shot, although slightly amateurish, production. The influencer in question had even crawled their way up the wall for the perfect shot, taking advantage of some kind of ability that leaned towards stealth, at least that's what the comments assumed. Yes, there were comments. It was assumed either they had a stealth ability, or that they did everything for the views and didn't care if they died in the process.

It began with a powerful shot of their saviours back, his silhouette cast in the flickering fire light as he stood alone against an entire army, with just his minions to back him up. A powerful, and mostly plagiarised, speech about power, responsibility and the heart of a hero was played over the top of the bloody action and carnage.

As the other warriors arrived, blasting lightning and stopping charging beasts with a single powerful punch, the camera angle changed. At some point, the camerawoman had snuck further outside the wall for a perfect shot. Dangerous as it might have been, the shot was definitely effective.

Finally, it came to an action movie-like conclusion with the death of the Hobgoblin, ending with personal shots of their heroes. The comments gushed over the bravery, the blood and the action. Not just from their community, but from others far around the world.

Many others began to post videos of their own warriors, or simply themselves showing off their own abilities. Others lamented over the fact that their own fighters simply weren't as cool or cried about their own luck when it came to abilities.

As more and more videos began to be posted, people once again devolved to their internet habits. Creating fan clubs, writing fan-fiction, even discussing ships between the various community heroes.

Those they especially loved were given titles, as if they were comic book characters. Since many didn't even know Corvus' name, they had simply started to call him Lord Crow, or simply their Lord. An overly gratuitous name that Seth would find utterly cringe worthy, if he even knew about it.

Yes, unfortunately Seth had yet to see the documentary of his actions, or witness the rapidly growing fandom his alter ego had within not just his own community but many throughout the world. He was currently busy with other things, plus he didn't have a communication gift nor did he speak to anyone that did.

Elsewhere, in another part of their wet and wonderful land of Scotland, a woman was watching another video the influencer had uploaded. This video was dedicated to introducing the world to their 'Lord Crow', showing a variety of other clips the influencer had recorded, such as his grand arrival on the back of the Shelled Drake or the beating he gave to Sirius. She made sure that such a clip also had an explanation for his actions alongside it, it would be awful if anyone got the wrong idea and tried to besmirch her Lord.

The woman watching, however, was not focused on the Lord Crow the video was gushing over, almost to a fanatical degree. In fact she wasn't even looking at him at all. Instead, she was focused on a person in the background of the videos, always just over the shoulder of this revered 'Lord Crow'.

Narrowing her eyes at the image of Seth projected on the screen before her, she gazed at his missing arm with a complicated look in her eyes. Yet despite the anger she felt boiling inside her and the guilt eating at her stomach, the woman couldn't help but smile softly.

"Looks like I finally found you~."