The sun finally began to spread a sleepy orange over the quiet Auxuth. Their home was finally refurbished and stood out as having a ‘slightly above average appearance’ than the rest of the homes. Zolton laid on his giant bed, which looked quite average with him on it, crafted from wool and other beast hides of the redwood, thinking to himself.

Seems my ma’s probably gone… Dad definitely is off the deep end. I wish he’d get over her, his screws are loose sometimes because of it… She must’ve meant a lot to him.

He eventually drifted off into a slumber with only a black dream. Eventually, he woke up to fragments of the sun’s bright rays dancing on his face. Zolton sat up and scanned the land with his tired eyes, realizing he was in the middle of the redwood forest near his home. “What the he-”

“You finally up!” Balton shouted, standing from a nearby rock he had previously been sitting upon, “Since you find more enjoyment away from dem other people, I figured I’d take the opportunity for some improvement! We ain’t got no clue when things will go down, so I decided it’s best you learn early! So now, I’m giving you ‘til the count of ten to prepare! I always say that I won’t go as easy when we do our usual fights, but take it seriously now, cause I am! One!”

Sweat drenched Zolton’s old shirt as he hopped up to his feet.

“Four!”

Zolton readies himself.

“Eight!”

With a jab of his fist, a giant breeze sent the boy dozens of feet into a tree and caused a storm of leaves. The foliage danced around hundreds of feet in the air, spurring an ominous, yet beautiful, whirlwind of red, brown, and orange. Zolton got up quickly, but was slowed by a purple aura anchoring him and another stinging blast of Wind. The violet force dissipated and he struggled to stand, swaying from dizziness and the pain on his body.

“Fight back, boy!” Balton yelled,

He looked forward to his father again who motioned another shot, and reacted swiftly with a return of Water, only for it to be easily overpowered.

“Fight back!”

He was ejected back into a tree and began to bleed from the back of his head before falling unconscious. Zolton awoke, once again displaced from where he last remembered being. His head was bandaged with a cloth drenched red.

“My apologies,” Balton chuckled, “I ain’t mean to bash ya ‘round like a doll. I ‘pose I restrain a bit…”

Zolton laid back as the room spun to an unseen end.

“We’ll go again on the ‘morrow.”

Zolton’s heart began racing. He panted hard, sweated heavily, and shook barely. Balton shook his head, “Hell’s up with you? Stop with all that over-drama!”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Zolton’s panic did not end.

“Ah, fine, fine. We’ll go again in a week. Rest till ya feel better.”

As Balton promised, they began their training again the following week. Training became more frequent as Zolton became more accustomed to his father’s galeful wrath and airy movements. Breaks between each combat session shortened. Their fighting aged from weeks old, to months old. From months old, to years old.

A gargantuan tidal fist spun violently from the sky into Balton’s repelling gravitational shield and exploded into a ground-shattering catastrophe on impact. Zolton crashed fist-first onto the dirt of the former deep-redwoods, rolled forward, and rocketed himself with a turbulent blast of water from his feet and an aquatic hammer formed in hand. Balton kicked to the side violently, just barely avoiding Zolton’s water hammer, and blew himself skyward before slamming downward to his son with a small pressurized sphere of air around his fist. Zolton instinctively encased his arm with Water and struck the fist directly. The deep redwood trees shattered and reduced to dust and a massive crater that could be eyed from the atmosphere was birthed. Dust coated the skies and land, as if a dust storm had blown through. Balton encased himself in a Gravitational aura and slowly brought himself to ground as Zolton was tossed hundreds of feet back.

“You sure started actin’ tough as nails and shit as you got older, boy!” Balton mocked gleefully, “know yo’ limits!”

Balton tensed himself and flung his arms asprawl out, ejecting a large breeze to clear all the dust. He glanced to the side and the titanic man surfing on a crescent of water struck him dead in the face with a huge hammer of Water, sending him brutally through dirt, stone, only stopping as he was slowed as he was implanted into several dozen feet of a behemoth boulder. Zolton came down on the hammer in hands, slamming it directly onto the boulder and reducing it to mere pebbles. Zolton charged himself with Water, clearing some blood and panted heavily, “You should take… your own advice… that was pretty ironic of you to say…” he chortled.

From the pile of demolished stone erupted a raging squall of vengeance, ejecting all of the debris into the air and raining it down. “You trying me, bitch?! I’ll tear ya damn head off!” Balton roared, blasting himself forward with an infusion of Wind and Gravity, like a powerful wizard’s overlapping casting circles except with two different magic symbols. The force from his ejection ripped dirt and stone from the ground like a meteorite driving itself across the Earth and tearing through its surface. Zolton slammed his fists of two magic circles into the ground and pulled up a large wall of water. Balton conjured a blunderbuss of Wind and fired the shield at point-blank range, launching both men in opposing directions. Zolton rolled backwards before finally finding stability on the ground and shaking away his dizziness. “Pa, you’re taking this too seriously! Calm it!”

Balton spun backward from the blast, landed low on his feet and hands, and propelled himself forward again with his violently vibrating fist guiding his blind rage. The Bullet shot by Zolton’s head, just barely missing him thanks to a swift dodge, and was struck dead into the gut with a devastating Water fist. The Blitz Bullet coughed up blood and turned his stressed-red eyes down to his anxious giant and pushed himself to the side with a Wind circle, headlocked Zolton, and quickly spin-dropped him into ground with tenfold of Earth’s gravity. Balton jumped up high and swiped his arm across to create an arc of wind aiming down onto the dirt-planted man. “Pull it up, bitch!” The Bullet bellowed, firing off an unrelenting barrage of vicious air strikes.

Zolton shielded himself to the best of what arms could do.

Man’s gone damn wild… Startin’ to think this whole leg injury thing is a pile of shit...

With a flung of his arm upward, Zolton endured serious injuries from the quick second of exposing his face, but ejected an excruciating pillar of water directly into his father, blasting him further upwards, giving himself time to stand. Quickly, he motioned a Water casting circle above the father and dropped his immense Water Hammer down from the magic circle in the sky, slamming Balton down to Earth with shattering force. Zolton summoned a second circle on the ground, draining his water into it for a clear path to his father.

“Shit…” he muttered as he slowly moved his exhausted body to his felled father. As he moved closer, he moved even slower as he considered the rage his father could potentially unleash again. He drug himself slowly, fighting against many voices screaming,

Leave him be… He’ll be fine, you can’t risk putting you and him in another more danger for now. He’s a strong man, he’ll wake up soon. But… what if this was the last he could take? What if he couldn’t take that hit? I’d have murdered my father…

“Damn it…” he uttered, forcing himself to break through his worry. As he went to lift Balton, the Bullet kicked him away with the added force of Wind, jetting him back and into the ground.

“I know I ‘ready done taught yo’ ass not to trust no body,” Balton scolded, spitting some blood to the side, “If I was anybody else really fixin’ to murder ya, you’da be gone. But despite that, you did good. You rolled my ass over a few times.”