A new day with those familiar aspects to keep equilibrium. The sea water’s slush keeping the mind at ease, the moon soon to be drowned by a greater light, the silence… silence? Why is the air so— serene? Why is it so… quiet?
He rose from his mattress set on the floor and stretched before stepping out the hut to scan his property, feeling that something had been lost; something taken from his rocks. “Hmm…” the Renegade user’s throat sounded.
He went back into his straw-roofed hut and opened up the leg locks bolted into some metal and wood contraption installed into some crossing planks just beneath the roof. Next, Yazzalo jumped, rotating one hundred and eighty degrees, catching his feet between the planks. He then brought one foot down, placed it into the foot-shaped wooden construct, secured it, and concluded the maneuver by mimicking the action with his other. As his long, thin beard dropped in front of his eyes, he curled up and slowly unfurled his chest, repeating the motion numerously as he thought. “It is very quiet… I can hear the sea’s sloshing a lot easier than normal. Why is that…”
After lowering his head from a curl up, he stared at two bedding areas at opposing ends of his glorified hut. His chest tightened again as his head rose up to his legs, and relaxed as he brought it back down. “Oh, right. Zolton. Why remember him over Pyrei? Hmm… Perhaps that is a foolish question – Pyrei isn’t a tumultuous girl. Ambitious, collected, masterful. If only she’d be more outgoing… just a little bit. I even question myself seeking just a bit more vibrance from her – from anyone, really. Getting too much energy from anyone else would likely irritate me, but it's difficult to tell how she's feeling when her mannerisms are so reclusive. Yes — this truly is ironic, I suppose. Hmm… It has been a few days since she and Zolton set sail. I’ll check on her progress in due time.
But now for my aversions: That disobedient giant. His more pompous and tenacious attitude makes my hair gray faster. His impatience brings him to overachieving attempts; seeking to reach further than his arms are able; causing me headaches; bringing random stenches! …I could go on, but I digress. I suppose I shouldn’t be too critical of him – these things are simply the building blocks of a young man’s blood. It would be hypocritical of me to be disgustingly intolerant of that nature considering I, too, was a young lad at some point. The only difference being, I’m not dealing with some curse spelled upon me by some unostentatious, iniquitous group— dare I conjecture even possibly a society. Who knows what tolls could be stunting the growth of his mind, body and spirit — and Pyrei’s, too. Hmm… maybe after another three or four hundred curl ups, I’ll check on Pyrei to evaluate her meditative progress sooner than planned. I should be done by sunrise. Hopefully she's not too annoyed with me intruding on her solitude.”
The mentor’s abdomen tensed one more time as his spine curved in, and relaxed as it straightened. He did so once more, but instead of relaxing the core muscles immediately, he moved around some locks on the locking contraption before freeing himself from it. He left the hut and stretched, observing the slightly blueing sky. "I finished a bit early it seems," his thoughts slipped off the tongue.
Yazzalo looked to the lowest rocky pillar sitting just above sea level and the rowboat tethered by a rope and wooden stake hammered into the stone. "I could take that or I could swim to the island. I've only done a core workout, it won't hurt to exercise my full body with a swim would it? Unless some sharks feel especially uppity today… then that'll just be another opportunity to work the muscles."
The physical manifestation of eagerness took himself into the hut and took up a sleeveless blue shirt from a neatly folded and stacked pile. Then, he changed from some ankle-reaching gray pants to a pair of airy black shorts. He rose to full posture and faced the increasingly brightening hut opening with pause. "What am I forgetting, hmm… oh, yes – breakfast. I’ve fasted since the day prior so I shouldn’t continue putting it off, but I don't want to wait until the Sun fully rises. While that would be about the time those fish with sufficient oils would begin to emerge — I’m not in a cast-and-reel mood. It seems I’ll have to settle for some citrus… or even a crisp onion! I believe I’ve found the chosen one!” he joyed.
Through some sack, Yazzalo shuffled his hands in it until pulling out a pearly white onion. He bit into the white, round vegetable, careless of the papery skin encasing its bitter contents. As if a child receiving a great hunk of candy, he grinned as the flavors of the vegetable took refuge on his tongue. “Delightful,” he smiled.
With the final swallow, he left his hut and stretched his arms skyward. He brought his left leg up behind him and pulled it back, then repeated on the right. He twisted his torso, creating audible cracks as the air between the bones of his spine were freed with the stretches. He moved to the edge of the pillar he stood upon and fell into a standing sprint start position. The willful man observed the ocean harshly for some seconds with a frightening glare. He began breathing at a rate of quick repetition and then slowing down to a rate below normal. After an inhale, he paused. “From the lungs, by heart, with the brain, for the body…” he uttered in a low mantra.
With a launching kick, he chipped stone as his body launched off the pillar. He glided some hundred or so feet before diving into the sea and continuing at striking speeds, unhindered by the water’s resistance. His intent did not sway away from its straightforward path despite the many fish suffering as a result. At last, his scornful gaze widened and a great ejection of water waved over some feet of the shore. He straightened himself, bringing back his front-placed leg used in reducing his velocity. The fastly imposing man shook some sand off of his leg picked up from the deep sandy gutter it created when stopping him. Yazzalo felt his clothing, growing a disappointed face when feeling some dampness. “If only I were still in my youth… I’d be in completely dry wares,” he sighed. “I should tread lightly – don’t want to interrupt the young lady if she’s in a state of serenity for once.”
Yazzalo followed a path familiar to himself, seeming to predict each and every log, stone and bush — until he was stopped abruptly by something that puzzled him. He could not resist looking at a single beam of light out of a thousand that made it through all the canopies. “You are not supposed to be there…” he said with growing sadness in his tone. He continued down his trek, now with a slim bit of upset. A crashing of water soon hooked onto the sorrowed man’s ears, bringing some light to his heart and warming it as a smooth stone encircling of water was revealed to him. But his pleasure was ripped away once more as his eyes discovered a tent demolished.
He looked through the destroyed shelter, finding some red stains on it. “What happened here?”
He rose from his examining crouch and scanned through the distant brigade of flora. “Pyrei!” he called with a boisterous shout, startling some birds off into trees more distant. His attention then turned to the waterfall and started to move quickly over to the beautiful falls, but Yazzalo himself nearly mimicked the motion of the collapsing water when his foot was caught within a deep pothole in the stone.
“The demolished tent and now this damage in the stone… I know this was not here when I last came to meditate. Did — did Pyrei do this? Why would she? Could something have upset her? Enough to send her in a rage like this? No — it couldn’t be… Pyrei never has feelings this strong… Right? In solitude, a person tends to be at their most comfortable, no? Is this built up anger she finally released because she felt open for once? It appears that she may have struck the ground in a fit and then her hand began to bleed, then she turned on the tent. That would explain the red stains on it. It seems like a plausible rationalization, but for some reason, I just can’t believe that Pyrei would behave this way – even if by her lonesome. Maybe more light will be shed after a visit to the cave.”
He trailed the stone around the center pooling of water, eventually arriving behind the waterfall where the opening to a shallow cave sat. With its short depth, it did not take long for him to identify the abnormal. “These animal bones… was she eating— no. Now I know for certain something is afoot here,” his glance fell upon a skeletal hand. “Is that… no…”
Upon exiting the cave he shouted once more, “Pyrei! Pyrei, where are you!” only earning silence in return. “Where was that misplaced beam of light?” he thought aloud. His eyes turned back to the engulf of the forest. “Ah, there! That must mean either a tree has lost its leaves… or its life,” his scouting eyes turned to the forest on his right. “...in that area.”
As if a nimble creature native to the land, Yazzalo leapt and danced between the natural obstacles set by the humid forest. As he breezed by its components, he picked up on many bizarre aspects of it all. “The bark on some of these trees have deep gashes into them as if struck by some large bladed thing, like an axe or… what’s that?”
He slowed to a normal walk when a bright opening straight to the skies revealed itself. “The fallen tree; the cause of my aroused suspicion…” he voiced, analyzing the felled log. Near the stump of the log he found a deep cut into the wood that nearly severed it fully. “What is this thing shining within it?” He wondered, pulling on the object.
He ripped free a rusty, long and barbed metal chain beneath the bark of the tree. “What on Earth… How could this end up within a tree?”
After extended engrossment, he turned to another tree and felt around it. After feeling around long enough, a second spiked chain was revealed. He moved to a third tree and committed a third in-depth investigation, this time finding nothing. With his mind formulating, he probed a fourth tree for the final time, discovering a third of the chains. “This is no coincidence; these are planted. Someone uninvited has been here, and from the looks of it they had – or have – gruesome intent. I need to stay on my toes.”
He returned to the cutdown tree and looked to his left side where a path of many crushed branches and grass, along with a far extended, deep groove in the dirt that trailed in an almost perfectly straight path. Following it, his eyes could not help but notice drops of dried blood upon much of the ground-stricken flora. His heart raced as he began to presume the worst. “Pyrei— Pyrei!” he called out with a quavering throat but alas, only the ever growing drown out of chirps waved over.
Before him, the brightness of a relative clearing revealed itself. Debris of obliterated trees and stones thrown aloft. All of the wreckage had been charred black from some immense blast of heat, and a great pit of a seared perimeter sat at the center of it all. “My goodness… Did— did Pyrei do this? I knew she was gifted but — where did she get this type of strength?” Yazzalo tributed, yet growing with worry on his face. “...I not only worry what it is that could push her this far, but the consequences that will fall upon her body now that she has expended so much energy when she came here specifically to avoid that… unless this was not done by her? Damn it — Pyrei!” he called loudly, “Where are you!”
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The master of the Renegade style trotted through the mess of the open field before arriving at an area much less catastrophic. While the destruction dwindled away at this distance, Yazzalo discovered a great spilling of blood far more abundant than the drops in the previous section of forest. It was trailing off into some distant, seemingly schism-by-destruction, forest. “Oh no, no, no,” Yazzalo keened with a grieving moan. “Pyrei! Pyrei!” he cried out to the woods of trailed blood.
His legs moved with fervent blood coursing through their bulging veins. The forests’ dense canopies devoured the sun’s light like a roaming celestial void, barely allowing any light to trespass. Yazzalo followed the blood trail closely until the harrowing lead faded off due to a suspicious, great dispersal. He sniffed the air once and slight revulsion fell upon his face. Then he took in a much deeper nasally inhale, becoming utterly disgusted. “What is that putrid odor? It’s familiar… I’ve picked up this scent before but not to this degree of pungence. The scent which has lingered ever since Pyrei paired with Zolton after freeing him from Penumbra’s catacomb in Fayeign, except this one is– this one is mighty…”
He kneeled to the concluding path of blood and touched it with his middle and index fingers, searching for any spots not yet dried. Alas, it was to no avail for it had all been hardened by the tropical island’s heat. Instead he peeled off a piece and sniffed it. He then attempted to crush the chipped off sample of blood, finding he needed to apply a decent amount of pressure – definitely far more than expected. “What is this? Is this really blood? It’s so tough and durable. It reeks of that same scent I’ve noticed before, but also of something else — like a strong metallic smell. One far greater than the normal amount of iron in one’s blood.”
The aged mentor remained crouched in rumination over this bizarre spill, but his squinting eyes widened when he felt a breeze ever so weakly changed. With a gentle ripple in the wind so lightly flowing over his neck, he of the Renegade leapt into an airborne reversal flip, and he locked eyes with the bedraggled beast of a man’s own optics as he glided over the revolting thing. The creature of the forest’s arm had yet to finish swinging forward before the ascended Yazzalo’s feet began to glow a dripping vibrant red and strike the back of the thing’s neck with forest-shaking force. “I’d ask who you are, but I'd be lying if I said I was curious about your identity at this very moment. What did you do to Pyrei?” Yazzalo scorned the wild man with a misty red aura generating around his hands.
The beastly man was felled front-facing upon the dirt with sharp pains running all throughout him. He dug his hands into the soil as he recoiled with a burning ache running through him, ripping several thick chunks of wood out of his body. “Al–always, always touching… me! Always touching Venator, get off of Venator’s bones– skin? I— move! Always touching me! Stop touching me! I’ll—I’ll chew on your eyes until they pop! Sweet berries! Orbs full of juice! Y—you! I hate you! I hate all of you! Why all of you– always here on… me?! Go away! N–no… stay! Give them to me! Your eyes, now!”
Yazzalo’s pacing to the feverish man went unhindered, careless of his incoherent babblings. He spat, poorly concealing the rage boiling within him, “I asked you: what have you done with Pyrei? Where is she? I’ve already repeated myself once – do not make the mistake of having me do so again.”
The laceration-ridden man of the wild screeched gutturally and lunged at the long white-bearded fighter. He swung his blade forward, striking only air particles as Yazzalo evaded it with a flip where he ended up supporting his body with a single hand. His fiery glare low at the ground and burned into the beast’s own eyes, a sudden jab from the knee, he struck the beast’s skull above him - slamming it face first into the ground. Venator quivered on the ground like a rabid creature, lightly weeping but aggressively growling. “Why– why here? Why are — blood sacks — things – your fleshy kinda always… Words – they slow — take breath from… me!” the animalistic man had a widening of eyes and shrinking of pupils.
Instead of moving around the ground like a mad canine, he stood to his legs with a straightened back. Venator continued with his tone shifting, “Hara-harassing me — providing th– this— this mouthwatering repast of flesh, bones and blood in such easy reach. Become my feed, foolish one.”
With his battered and bruised hands, Venator gripped his aged cleaver and threw his blade blunt side over his shoulder. With eyes reddened from insomnia, he crouched and sprung into the leaves of the many dozens of trees. With his body vanished within the green, sporadic verdural roof, Yazzalo closed his eyes and guided focus to his ears. Branches and leaves dancing with one another, chirping, buzzing insects, and the breeze. He listened for any cracks, snaps, or breaths. Steadily and slowly, he inhaled, paused, and then exhaled. Then his ears perked up; A break in a branch at my three; left diagonal, positive axis! He concluded.
With a foot glowing red with the Renegade, his leg kicked up to it, reducing a large falling stone to dust. Then the cleaver came from behind the master, just barely striking the long bearded man and taking some of his skin with it as its wielder was carried along with the momentum. “He’s wise – was that madness he presented just a facade?” his thoughts slipped to vocalization.
As he traveled airborne, Venator quickly plunged his cleaver into the ground and used it in a volte-face pivot, hurling himself back to his prey. Yazzalo dropped onto his back as the beast blasted over him and spurred the sound of cracking bone as his feet struck Venator in his guts, just where a large scar was briefly caught by Yazzalo’s sight. The radical blow ejected the tricking warrior skyward and left a few nearby trees leafless. The Renegade Master came back to his feet and kneeled, bringing his left hand close to his heart. He focused on it until the fist began to glow a celestial red and pour a bright crimson liquid. The vermillion water spilled and dripped down his clothes, yet left no stains as it immediately evaporated upon touching himself. As the erupting force began to weaken and gravity inevitably won the battle upon Venator’s body, veins in Yazzalo’s legs began to bulge viciously as if ready to burst. “Two hundred meters… one hundred and fifty-one meters… one hundred and two meters…”
His eyes locked onto the falling body. “Now!” he roared, making a leap so great the surrounding blades of grass had their edges seared. His body rose just above the plummeting Venator and he reeled back his Renegade invigorated arm. His eyes were swollen and wide with vicious bloodlust running through them, nearly popping out of his skull as they stared down the man succumbed to the woods. With sky echoing fury he bellowed, “Desecrate and burn!”
His calamitous fist curved down with a vibrant cerise trail, plummeting into the lost man’s scarred gut. Red sparks generated around them before exploding in a mighty engulfing flame that devoured the two as their descent approached that of sound shattering velocity. Venator, torn from his enforced blackout, shrieked a mighty cry of despair as his body was cooked. He cried aloud, tears bringing themselves out from their optical sockets, “Father! Father, help me! Help me, Father, please!”
The master chewed on his words and spat them aside. Yazzalo grabbed Venator’s chin with his free hand, forcing them to stare eye to eye. “Look at me, boy. I want you to remember this face when you perish, you loathsome animal. I will destroy all of my commiseration; furiously disavow any repentance; eviscerate all reconsideration – just as you did when you slew Pyrei. I will even ignite my values for this moment. I do all of this just to see you suffer; just to hear you cry; just so you know there is no future left for you. Vanquish, demon.”
The enraged Renegade artist’s hand expelled greater and greater amounts of its red juice, accelerating their descent rapidly and burning away the lower reaches of his chest-long beard. Soon, flame engulfing them had advanced so greatly it shifted azure for a split second just before the calamitous crash. As if the aftermath of a meteorite brought about by the god of chaos and destruction, the trees and even some stones were completely incinerated. A monstrous flame engulfed half the island, consuming and growing like a ravenous titan. The landscape was blackened, the sky quickly darkening from the smog of burning fibers. Yazzalo remained unmoved, his fist still planted down on the skin-fried Venator’s chest. The flowing heat and winds blew his beard and his eyes went dark with blind rage. His fist calmed and the crimson glow around it shot off into the sky, growing into a huge gaseous red plume. The scarlet cloud began to rain red drops across the island, absorbing the ravenous flames. The bizarre liquid, glowing with the fire within its liquid body, sunk into the earth and evaporated as it destroyed the flame in its descent.
The old master ascended his devastating arm from the burnt man’s body. He observed Venator’s scorched-black skin. The untamed bush of hair that once engulfed his head had been completely burned away, his once tattered and shredded pants were now intangible and ashened, and his being dried of all its moisture – dehydrating his whole body into a grim husk with a face heat-etched into a gaping jaw. Yazzalo sat on his knees in mournful silence as the fires around him were devoured by the pouring red. His sorrowfully shut eyes could not contain the optical waters of grief, and they dripped down his lightly tanned face. “My ignorance… I am responsible for this. If only— if only I had gone with her.”
Some coughing caught his ears and he immediately stared at the smoked body before him, still stiffened by the impact and heat. His rising anger soon quelled but suspicion instead took its place. The coughing came closer and words stressfully pushed through the hicking and hocking. “Yazza– Yazzalo! Th– the air!””
Stumbling through the dense smoke and blood-steam, was the bloodied and bruised mage of Light herselfThe red luminosity of the flames reflected off of her terribly tattered dark leather clothing as she hobbled through the raging inferno. Before her falling step, the remaining distance had been cut short by her mentor’s unquenchable, fervent guardianship. He caught her as she began to fall, “You’re alive!? You’re alive! Forgive me, Pyrei…” He pulled her in, embracing her tightly. “I wasn’t there when you needed me… Please, forgive me…”
Before she could utter another word, the light caster fell into stasis with a slowly beating heart. Yazzalo tore off a section of fabric from his shirt and placed the piece of ripped clothing over her nose to filter out the smoke – at least a little. He then lifted the battered Pyrei and moved carefully with each step as he carried her away. He looked over her body and stopped dead upon examining her arms. “Pyrei — your hand… Oh my goodness, why…”
With the crackling flames extinguished, a solemn silence fell over Yazzalo’s island. The wildlife had deserted and the winds were slowly calming, leaving only the barely audible distant crashes of the ocean. A brief scratch of dirt and grass ever so indistinct stopped Yazzalo in his grieving plods. Prattling from the gigantic crater brought about by his fiery blood echoed within it. “Father— w— where are you, Father? You said — you said… the Dream is salvation. You said the nectar would bring me to the doorstep of omnipotence — but you– you are alive, Venator! You have yet to die so his words remain true — no, they don’t! They don’t, they don’t, they don’t hold true they– they… What if they do? I still breathe… tragically, I am still amongst this Earth. How the sweet embrace of death beckons me like honey to a bear, yet whenever I grow near it — it is moved further and further back into the dark wood labyrinth. The Nectar is too true… Just let Venator go on to the inferno, please…”
His skin, blackened and hardened as coal, glowed a radiant white as it… melted. In a shockingly grotesque shift, the flesh around his legs began to turn viscous. It crept up his body, but he seemed adamant on not acknowledging the nightmarish shift. Despite this, he pulled himself across the ground like a snail to the nearest dense woods — more than a couple hundred feet away. Fixation paralyzed the aged fighter – mystifying even one with so many years of experience! Simply, Yazzalo’s eyes followed the slowly crawling man until his barely lifted head fell face first into the dirt and, seemingly, succumbing to his injuries.
“He did not incinerate into nothingness on impact. I used great amounts of my blood in that hit — only for him to not only remain living, but still in one piece?! Have I really strayed that far from the strength of my younger days – or is this entity something beyond this league? Something far beyond our comprehension? What is this strange glow he exhibits?” he mused.
He checked on Venator’s neck, squatting to place two fingers on it. “He… he still has a pulse?! And besides that— his skin feels like it’s… something else. It’s so tough and blistering, not as if incinerated, but like it’s conducting the heat — as though some sort of metal… What are you?”
Yazzalo stood tall, positioning Pyrei back to rest on both his arms. He scowled at the burnt thing and raised his foot glowing red and beginning to drip. With fiery eyes locked right onto his head, he sought only to make him dead – but alas, the mentor instead stomped his foot into the dirt, blowing up some sediment, bringing him no further hurt. “Am I any better than this… thing if I crush his skull into red mush? He did not kill her like I thought, but…” the boiled blood Yazzalo pontificated, “he does not carry that devastating weapon simply to puff up his image – it’s likely he has murdered before. So what am I to do — slay him solely on assumption?”
With an acquiescent breath, he turned away from the utterly annihilated crisp of a man. He left him with a final warning before departing with Pyrei in his arms, “I’ll leave you to suffer longer for the time being. As much as I want to see you dead, the love tap I gave will suffice — for now. If I find you breathing when I return, you better be prepared for an interrogation that can go either smoothly or a bit bumpy depending on how much you wish to cooperate. For now, you may continue to dampen the dirt with your tears.”
Venator mumbled choppily, inaudible as his dominator left him in the dirt, “It rings… it rings so jarringly… Father — Father please… It hurts, Father. It – it — quit your puling, you querulous dog — No, no! Leave me be. Even the dirt pains me like a thousand incendiary needles… Free me from this misery; give me the last rest. The slumber of permanence… Just let it fall upon me and at last be immovable… the Nectar’s Solution is too good for me. I do not want it anymore… take it out. Just — take it… out,” he wept, left to the desecrated land battered, burned, and broken.