The streets quaked as tens of feet stomped, attempting to move faster.
Azure blurs passed by in an instant, followed by a shriek then a heavy thud.
Blood soils the fractured road, razor teeth scattering severed limbs like leaves in autumn.
Tens now became ten then nine then eight…
The thuds now synched with the heart beats of the remaining.
In a moment silence fell upon the lane, only broken by distant shrills.
Standing knee-deep in the scene were several azure foxes, their coats shimmering with a prideful crimson.
From the ruins of nearby buildings, 4 cloaked infiltrators arose, their lower halves replaced with a distorting air as they propelled themselves.
Grouping together, a man in a white cloak with a golden rectangular badge on his arm raised his hand.
Azur blurs darted through the lane, entering a new sector.
Looking to the others attired in black cloaks he contorted his hands into a triangular shape.
The black cloaked troops transitioned from flesh to distorting air as they ascended into the sky and followed behind the foxes.
“Squad 1, intercept the moving invaders, squad 2 follow me to combat the lieutenant.”
Alone, the white cloaked interloper clasped his hands.
An Azure light shone from the center, illuminating the area as his palms separated.
A volley of arrows levitated before him, shinning forth blue light from the passionate flames of their being.
Steering to the sky, a volley of harsh bolts dove towards Ken and his hidden squad.
“Disperse!” Ken shouted; the group quickly leapt from one dark spot to another until all members were surrounding the lieutenant from the shadows.
A red and yellow dart hurdle toward the lone lieutenant, easily being evaded with a swift step.
As they stuck the ground members 3 & 5 of the squad approach from opposing sides.
3 launches two pillars of compact ice as 5 leaps into the sky surrounded by a heavy veil of droplets.
The lieutenant moves his hands out towards the two as a beam of azure flames incinerates their areas of approach.
Heavy steam engulfs the scene with the lieutenant quickly propelling himself into the sky to regain his sight.
‘Got you!’ An insurmountable pressure clamps upon the lieutenant’s legs as the steam grips onto him and crashes his skull into the ground.
Instantly an explosion of heat forces 3 & 5 back as the steam retreats.
Tsk! In the midst of the chaos was the lieutenant, wounds instantly cauterized leaving a grotesque scar on his skull.
Two more darts fly, blue and green, piercing the lieutenant’s cloak.
The lieutenant rushes to raise a defensive field, but a bow clad knight swiftly plants into his waste a metal arrow wrapped in green threads.
“Nick now!” The on-field knight calls as they launch another arrow with multiple gleaming blue replicas flying parallel towards the enemy.
A metal javelin surrounded by a bullet shaped blue energy, beams towards the lieutenant from the tree tops.
In the split second the projectiles take; the adversary shifts their lower half to bizarrely stretching air which rockets their body away.
The javelin strikes the earth, leaving a miniature crater and becoming stuck.
With the failure of the onslaught, a dart with a small scarf falls into battle. The sight calls upon the frightening memory of Ken explaining that if it falls, the tactic has failed.
The lieutenant’s finger extends to the fielded knight as he attempts to return to the dark. An explosion of heat engulfs him, melding his armor to his now charred flesh.
Ken’s brows furrow. ‘Tiko! Right after being drained by the arrows, I need to move in.’
A blank dart descends, hurdling to the ground with dubious velocity.
Physically weakened, the lieutenant’s hope of evading the speedy dart abandons him as he raises his arm upward. The dart’s side melts, exposing a black powder to the immense external heat.
An explosion triggers just above them, throwing them whilst suffocating their lungs with black residue.
They hold the remains of their cloak to their nose, attempting to filter out the residue. Quickly regaining their composure, they attempt to make out the environment through the black.
Snap! The lieutenant’s bones cry as the pressure of a sledge hammer comes down upon his back.
They fall, only able to twitch and roll their eyes as their vision fades. The last thing to meet their gaze is the petrifying stare of the man who killed them.
The smog dissipates, Ken standing over the lifeless body of the lieutenant. ‘I hope we didn’t destroy the whistle, even though it wasn’t a priority.’
Ken rummaged about the body, finding a dented red whistle. ‘1 nick and these things are worthless.’ Ken rested it atop the floored body.
He placed his hand atop the corpse’s temple. Ice spread throughout like an illness, in a moment rendering the body a museum worthy sculpture.
He gritted his teeth as he brought down his hammer like hands, shattering the ice. “We need to check on squad 1, and after we’ll come to bury our fallen friend.”
As Ken and his squad readied to move, his mind returned to the encounter. ‘They weren’t simply using energy to propel themselves, instead it’s a partial transformation, I wonder if I can replicate it- what’s that smell?’
A pungent cabbage-like aroma greeted all the squad’s noses.
Member 1 who’d been responsible for observation, panicked as they realized what’d happened. “THERE’S GAS COMING FROM THE BODY!”
The remaining squadron panic, wanting to flee but being unable to as a volley of fiery bolts impact the lifeless lieutenant’s body, triggering a gargantuan explosion.
As the blinding flash wound down, the disfigured and blackened bodies of the squadron laid unresponsive.
Ken, marred and charred, alone rose after the disaster. ‘Where!?’ Ken’s eyes spiraled, quickly falling onto a collapsed interloper.
An angelic wing of fire extended from his back, slowly flapping as it faded. “Lieutenant Jizhu…I avenged you…I avenged everyone…rest easy now.” The little life he so desperately clutched onto drifted away with the wind, as did the lives of the remaining squadron.
Ken fell to his knees from intense bleeding and loss of moral.
“I wanted to be slain by a blade in the midst of a 100-man fight, not like this…”
A red crept from Ken, reaching ever-further by the second. ‘Favos, Simon, I hope for those kids you’ve been mentoring a long life, let’s meet again on the other side, I’ll host the banquet this time with the squads.’
___
Arriving before the grandiose silver gate guarding the estate, the party finds its bars pried open, scratch marks sullying the once pristine metal. Harrowing screeches bellow from deep within the grounds, only being matched in their chilling atmosphere by the unrelenting cries of collapsing structures.
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‘Dad’s stationed here.’ Alex gritted his teeth.
‘Uncles…” Sol shuddered.
‘Simon must be taking them down to make all that noise.’ Kisu tried to smile, but her doubts turned it crooked.
Moving in through the pried parting, they find a bloody, semi-frozen stone pathway through a ravaged miniature forest, bodies of enemy and ally strewn about.
Alex’s wide eyes darted about the site, his suppressed panic surfacing the longer he searched. ‘Please not like this…’ His tensed body calms as his investigation concludes.
Sol’s face darkened. ‘Uncles, this isn’t how you were to fall.’ Tears welled in his eyes, quickly he wiped them away and held his head high.
“Ground’s slippery, let’s move through the trees instead.” Solaris stepped in-between the greenery with the others following behind him.
As the group shuffled through the foliage they were whipped with shifts in temperature.
Alex’s pace picked up. ‘People are fighting, might be dad!’
Noticing Alex’s hurry, his companions’ worry unfurled.
“Alex don’t rush things, that’ll only leave everyone in more danger.” Solaris’s hand planted Alex’s advance in place.
Kisu held his other shoulder. “I- We learned that lesson earlier.”
With a deep breath, Alex calms. “You’re right, but if he’s right there on the brink and I failed to save him, I could never forgi-”
Snap!
The group pushed their backs together instinctively.
“Kids?” A crimson armor-clad man stepped into view.
Their faces brimmed with overjoyed luster as they dove into the man’s chest, embracing him.
“I knew no one could put you down.” Kisu tightly clung to her secondary father.
‘You’re safe.’ Alex silently held on.
“Uncle.” Solaris let his tears roll down the crimson breastplate.
The knight embraced his children. “You three need to get to safety, I can’t risk your futures nor the future of guardian.” He gingerly grasped Kisu’s wrist and began leading the group to the underground.
‘At least one thing remains sweet.’ With a meek smile Kisu observed the gauntlet griping her wrist.
In the silence of the stroll one thought had come to a boil inside Sol’s mind.
“Uncle, are the rest of them…” Sol’s voice fell silent before he could finish.
The crimson knight’s head lowered. “They’re heroes.”
The party fell silent till they emerged from the greenery.
Before them was the Fos family’s most cherished relic, the estate garden that’d been started by the first generation. It now laid defiled by ice and fire.
In the midst of the burning leaves and the frozen grass was a towering figure surrounded by frosty crystal shells and hovering icy javelins.
“Let’s attack toge-” Alex is cut off as his father signs him to hush.
Simon steps forward, brandishing his grey blade he unholstered in a flash. “I’ll handle this, as Guardian’s strongest knight.” Orange flames engulf his blade as he charges.
The titanic figure remains stoic as three javelins rocket towards the blazing knight.
‘Don’t test me.’ He raises his sword, shattering and melting the javelins with the sword’s flat side.
The enemy tilts their head, the remaining ten javelins meld together, forming a tree sized projectile. What’s expected to be slow is instead a zooming projectile that immediately impacts the closing in knight.
‘Not strong enough!’ The blade’s flowing flames gain a blue hue as they expand and split the goliath javelin.
The dislodged chunks slam through the vegetation behind, forming two deforested pathways.
Alex - “Remember we’re back here!”
The flaming knight and their adversary now face one another, the extreme heat emanating from the swordsman’s blade slowly liquifying the barrier separating the two.
For a moment the world comes to a still as they stare each other down.
Sol - “Are they ok?”
Kisu - “Exhausted maybe.”
The combatants nod and Simon backs away.
The shell surrounding the enemy begins to frost over whilst Simon strips himself of his armor.
“Everyone, watch closely.” His helmet disappears with a blue light, revealing his crimson eyes and lengthy brown hair. “For this may be the final time.” His breast plate and leggings vanish. “You ever see me.” Then his gauntlets and boots. “At my peak.” With a flash, a sheathed bejeweled Ōdachi appears within Simon’s grip. “As the white swordsman of Guardian.” White flames race across his body, forming a perfect replica of his knightly attire from concentrated flames.
The enemy so too underwent a transformation as their crystal shell cleared up. They adorned a cape of ice fragments with hulking rock-solid shoulder guards and around them hovered hundreds of pebble sized shards of ice sharp enough to pierce metal.
Alex – “War stance.”
Kisu – “How does the saying go again?”
Sol – “Those who embrace war gain the strength to surpass death, but are cursed to feed it.”
Simon flicked off the hefty sheath of his human sized blade, his pure gentle flames instantly cradling the exposed white metal.
Kisu – “The fire looks even more cushiony than last time, they’re like clouds.”
Alex – “Pure flames are really something.”
A flurry of ice shards swarm as Simon kicks off towards his adversary.
The frigid onslaught’s emptiness unveils as the cloud-like flames banish any shards that near.
The enemy grins, the shards guarding them begin to spiral together, constructing a pole as lengthy as the swordsman’s blade.
Simon unimpeded, leaps forward swinging his gargantuan radiant edge. Upon impact with the shell a blinding miniature dawn birthed.
Sol – “As bright as a Fos.”
As the light faded a new scene arose. A hammer transcending the stature of the Ōdachi clashes against it.
The swordsman presses on but is thrown by the hammer’s force.
As the swordsman skids against the grass, he observes his adversary’s new tool. The pole that’d been formed now connected to one of the 160Kg shoulder guards acting as a head. Surrounding it is the crystal shell that now acts as another layer of blunt trauma and resistance to the searing flames.
‘To be able to blow me back like this, you’re one of a kind.’ Simon points to the now exposed enemy and smiles. ‘Tiko’ The titan blurred, appearing to bend and stretch like dough being kneaded.
Alex – ‘Using a third of his energy, that’s a gamble.’
As the scene returns to normalcy the adversaries body appears in order, all except for his remaining shoulder guard being half melted and his cape disappearing.
‘So that cape wasn’t some frivolous accessory after all.’ Simon dives towards the adversary as the cape slowly reforms.
With a flash he throws several glowing metal shards towards the adversary.
The enemy’s standby smirk turns wry as the crystal shell surrounding their hammer shifts to guarding their body.
‘Seems as I though, that cape trick exhausts a lot of energy.’ Simon plunges his blade into the center of the frigid hammer head.
Before the enemy could react an eruption of radiant flames bore a gargantuan hole, rendering the weapon no more useful than a drink cooler.
As Simon withdraws his extinguished blade, the hammer unexpectedly tilts up, locking it briefly in place. The remnants of the enemy’s remaining shoulder guard morphs into a solid glove atop their free hand which collides with the crimson knight’s fist.
The clash of fists pressures the pair, both having their strength drain away by the second. They come to a standstill, the flames of the knight extinguish and the ice of the enemy vaporizes.
For a while they appear to be petrified before inching in one direction then the other, but the two felt they couldn’t keep up, their energy has now almost completely left them, drawing the bout to its conclusion.
Simon using up his fleeting might pushes back the titan’s fist, and delivers a decisive blow to their stomach.
The adversary falls onto their back, completely drained of strength. “You, the first man to best me in 2 years, what’s your name?” A startlingly sweet voice escaped the floored man.
Simon, collapsed onto his knee, smiles. “It’s Simon Diávolos, now how about you?”
“Domier Rongyu, it was truly a pleasure to go against you.” He chuckled.
“Uncle!” Solaris ran to Simon’s side, immediately dropping to his knees and touching Simon’s back. His hands gained a soft green luminescence as Simon’s energy drained face filled with life. “Thanks, I really needed some strength back.”
Solaris silently rejuvenated Simon whilst throwing glances to the collapsed adversary only a meter away.
“Hey, I didn’t see you anywhere until just now, can you tell me what you were up to?” Simon called to the downed man.
“It’s quite the tale, so let me give you an abbreviation. I came to prevent as many deaths as possible as I knew that with the siege captain being Shi Fos, he planned to level the place. He didn’t want me tagging along because of my more honorable disposition, but because of my status as a recruitment siege captain and because he needed the man power, he let me tag along. I aligned myself with the ‘capital’ squadron and when we got here I ushered as many of my men away from civilian paths, that’s why there is so few civilian bodies around here.”
Simon, energized after the lengthy speech, stood up and approached the man. “I’ll take your word; you sound trust-worthy and it explains the strangely few casualties here.” He offered a hand. “You’re coming with us, I’d like some more information, and you’d make a good deterrent for soldiers when they see we have a captain.”
“Shi Fos?” Solaris eyes widen with curiosity and anxiety.
Simon turned back to Solaris, seeing now the remaining children beside him with equally spooked stances.
“That discussion has to wait, we have to get moving to the underground before anymore danger comes.” Simon walked up to Kisu and charily grasped her wrist before leading the group.
As they walked the air was thick with discomfort, from both the silence after hours of madness and the looming questions in their heads.
“They’re the heir to this branch?” Domier cast his gaze upon Solaris’ absent-minded figure.
Simon looked to his godson. “Yes, and this has been quite the day for him, another taste in what to expect to have to do as a leader.”
‘Him? I could’ve sworn they were...” Domier eyed Solaris as they made their journey.