Back in the Everheart kingdom, a day had passed without anyone knowing of Zeke's whereabouts.Darius had spent the entire night scanning the entire lake for Zeke without success.
This proved Zeke wasn't in the kingdom and almost forced Darius to leave his throne unprotected in a search if not for Anastasia.
"We'll find him, just have faith that he'll make it through this."
She was, if not more worried about Zeke than Darius, but she knew all they could do was put their hopes in how the boy was raised.
"The bigger problem is his mutation, you know?"
Darius went to sit on his throne with his palm covering his eyes as he thought about that aspect.
"A child who can cause a person or beast to go mad if they stare at them for too long, is now out of the kingdom with no supervision. Dear, how can I forget?"
He really wondered why his kid couldn't have been normal at times, but Zeke was his son regardless.
He would have long left to get him if it was in the past ,but he was this kingdom's greatest defence whether he liked it or not.
"The responsibilities of a king.. I just hate them."
"Well then..." Your highness" how about sending people to find him?"
Anastasia wasn't always a fan of Darius's complaining attitude, even though she found it adorable at times and was much better than what he's like when he uses his abilities.
"Because then they took will know where his is. If we can't keep this knowledge between ourselves, who are we to trust others to do the same?"
She desperately wanted to argue, but he was right. There are no absolutes and even between the two of them, one would eventually slip up.
It was just a matter of time. Not to mention their 8 year old daughter would return from the heir's conference tomorrow.
They needed to keep her safe currently, before trying to find Zeke.
"I just hope he can suppress the mutation effects wherever he is."
Unknown to the two, Zeke was not suppressing anything.
***
Back in the valley, somewhere far from the cave was a boy riding what looked like an enormous wildebeast. It was had orange fur but silver feet and horns with blue eyes.
Zeke was holding onto its horns for dear Life. With an entire herd of hundreds behind it, letting go was just death waiting to take shape.
"Mhmmmm!!"
The beast made a large noise before going onto it's two front legs and chucking him off.
Landing on his back, Zeke watched as the beast steadied itself and charged at him with fury in its eyes.
It had not enjoyed how he jumped out of a tree onto it's back.
Pushing essence into his hands, he caught it's horns pushing them further away from him, leaving its shoulder to hit his chest.
He was pushed a good amount of distance rolling on the floor, and when he regained his vision he saw the herd just a minute away from him.
"Hector!!, get me out of here!!!, Hector!!"
Having been completely ignored, he locked eyes with the same beast as before.
It had a mad look in it's eyes and started running towards him with no care for it's own safety.
With his back against the wall, Zeke just decided to run at it. He really couldn't think of a way out.
"Bang!!!" The two collided and Zeke was sent flying a long distance.
Hector was watching this all sitting on the corpse of a large salamander by the side of a mountain. The corpse however was slowly turning to ash. It was originally all black but was now leaking black liquid from Its eyes, and seemed to have been hit by a very heavy force.
Seeing Zeke body fly for a good minute before hitting the ground, he was disappointed.
' Perhaps I did this too early... Oh well there'll always be another specimen.'
His grin however suddenly appeared. He had noticed the boy's body twitch and watched as he stood up with a puncture wound covering his entire left shoulder.
"Pzzt!!"
Zeke started lighting up with purple sparks on his entire right arm. The next moment he rushed the Footstomper that hurt him.
It saw the boy and reacted with it's own unmeasured violence. The herd which were once all fast approaching were now pinned to the ground by an unknown force.
The two however eventually clashed once more with him throwing a punch.
"Pzzt! bang!!"
The lightning instantly burnt the Footstomper's face as it shocked it whole body while Zeke was thrown by the force once more.
This time his other arm was broke and burnt from his own lightning. It was also facing the wrong direction.
Hector approached only to see Zeke s condition, but found him asleep peacefully despite his body's condition. It was just bloody and broken yet it's owner was asleep.
'You are very interesting!' Hector picked him up and started walking to the cave
The herd which had been pinned on the floor for the later half of that fight, was now capable to move only after Hector gained enough distance away from them.
After a while Hector arrived in his lab and went through the small door in his test area.
It revealed a room simple living room with a couch and TV. It had a one way mirror allowing him to see directly into the test area.
He placed him down on the couch and soaked Zeke's entire arm in a strange liquid.
The process was fixing his broken bones and and even patched up the torn of skin. The process was painful and even though Zeke didn't wake up, he should have at least been in tears. What came out of his eyes instead however surprised him. He did the same for all the less grievous injuries before leaving.
He walked into the elevator and pressed a button before it began moving . He couldn't help but think about what he saw towards the fight's end while on his way.
'He is without a doubt a soul mutation. Everything fits for him to be one. He has violent wild essence that will flare up when in danger. His strength is unreasonable even with essence boosting it. One thing just didn't fit though?'
Walking out into his office, he took out a journal from his desk and looked at it.
"Those eyes aren't there cause he's a mutation. If that's the case.. what are they?"
He began to write in his log book. After getting past the date and everything else he wrote to track data, he wrote.
"Met a strange mutant child, he has horrific looking eyes that can cause madness but it seems the first version of the purple butterfly eyes can filter it out temporarily."
"He has purple lightning for his knight's sword that comes with cost of scorching his own flesh. He can also use above average strength for his age, proving his noble lineage."
"Lastly, his mutant essence will only take effect if it is stimulated with pain in a battle. There is a chance I can help edit this trait to suit my needs but for now I'm not certain. His eyes seem to emit acid tears that burn him when in contact."
"This is going to be an interesting set of years, how I love when things that are different."