Arc 5: The Heart Within
Road to a Hero:
Three chances in another world
Chapter 1. Not off to a good start
The covered wagon carrying Gray, Rosemary, Soku, Edward, Peter, and Julius drives down the dirt path toward Greenvale village. Julius drives the carriage, sitting in the front quietly. On the inside lays two benches where the others sit. Gray laying down on Rosemary's lap, Edwards staring off into space, and Peters chatting with Soku.
Soku: “Gray, did you have to put those weird clothes on?”
Gray: “Do not insult my fit, this jacket, these pants, and these shows are top-of-the-line branded clothes! Good thing I kept them in Dema’s saddle or it would have burned in all that fire. Don’t make fun of me for being comfy.”
Soku: “Whatever.”
Gray: “How come we don’t run into any monsters!? Fantasy world my ass.”
Rosemary: “Most spirit monsters stay near the the Ever-forsest, Ever-bog, Ever-Lagoon, and the Ever-desert if they’re walking about, they usually don’t try to attack humans unless provoked.”
Peter leans out of the wagon and points to the mountain on which Greenvale is built.
Peter: “LOOK! Wooh, it is on the biggest mountain range in Walgonia. And we’re like two or three days away, to think we can see it!”
Gray turns his head towards Peter to respond.
Gray: “I was lucky enough to be able to ride Dema to Athens, it only took like a day.”
Soku: “And why can’t we ride on Dema?”
Rosemary: “Dema's is tired, so we left her with Leo back at the Athens bridge.”
Peter: “Do you think Leo and his dad are catching up?”
Gray: “Lincoln seems like he didn’t wanna talk to ‘em, so probably not.”
Rosemary: “How did you come in contact with the knights by the way?”
Gray: “I got attacked by some members of the Sect and had to land near a village. I got lucky that an ex-knight gave me a place to rest, and he told me what had been going on. He told me where to find Jong and I traveled there. I drank with him, fought with him, and got him to collect the rest of the fired knights.”
Rosemary: “You fought with him?”
Gray: “Yeah, some random Sect dudes showed up and we dealt with them. Some guy named…Zhao cut me with this sickle chain blade thing too, it’s how I got this scar on my lip.”
Peter: “ZHAU!? LIKE CRIMSON ZHAO!?”
Gray: “Yeah I think, why?”
Soku: “Crimson Zhau is one of the most notorious bounty hunters in the WORLD! How the hell did he let you live?”
Gray: “I dunno, I was merciful to one of the Sect guys and he let me go.”
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Rosemary: “Crimson Zhao is with the Sect!?”
Gray: “Ehh, it seemed like more of a temporary thing.”
Soku: “Let’s hope so, if we meet him we’re dead.”
Gray turns back over, but something falls out of Gray's jacket pocket, getting everyone's attention.
Peter: “What’s that? It looks like the Sects symbol.”
Gray: “Oh, I forgot about that. I rummaged through Caesar's pockets after I killed him and found one of their communicators.”
Peter: “Woah, how does it work?”
Gray: “I don’t know, I used it once but it was already connected or whatever…wait how come we don’t use communicators!?”
Rosemary: “We don’t have any to what I know of.”
Gray: “Have the Sects have never been stolen then?”
Rosemary: “They have but our mana doesn't work for them. If we try to use it, it will just disintegrate.”
Gray: “Then how did I use it?”
Soku: “Your mana is similar to the Sects. You may be able to use this one then.”
Gray: “This symbol is one of all of their clothes, does this weird-looking M thing mean anything?”
Rosemary: “Julius do you know what it means!?”
Julius: “Oh that, it is what people believe dark magic runes looked like.”
Gray: “Dark magic?”
Soku: “That’s not real, it’s just superstition.”
Edward: “It may be superstition, but we live in a world full of impossibilities. What’s one more?”
Soku: “Don’t tell me you think it’s real.”
Edward: “I don’t know if it’s real, but I know that Musashi talked about it. So there must be something similar.”
Peter: “Either way, it seems like it just connects mana. Sound crystals can transfer sound, and the way the mana is webbed inside this thing links them together. So if we use the same mana web with some good crystals and link the sounds, we could transfer voices between each other.”
Gray: “You could tell all that just by looking at the thing?”
Peter: “I like tinkering with stuff all the time. I learned a lot by messing around with Leo's spear, whose mana signature is linked with his, so I’m familiar with stuff like this. But to replicate it you need great control of mana and the spirits.”
Gray: “I know a guy who would be great with that type of thing.”
Peter: “GREAT! I think I just cracked communication!”
Peter shouts with great excitement, unable to control himself.
Julius: “We seem to have an issue.”
Soku: “What?”
Soku gets out of her seat and looks out the wagon to see the other carriages ahead of them destroyed and a blaze. Smoke comes off the carriages, obscuring their vision of the area. Soku blasts some wind through the smoke, revealing pools of blood coming from the mountain of burning bodies.
Soku throws up, and the others get out of the wagon to see what happened. Gray rummages through his things while everyone else goes to check on the situation.
Gray {This is the part in the horror movie where everyone dies, or I die because I’m still in the car. We should just leave, but noooo, we gotta check who killed all these trained knights with ease.}
They walk around and see a feeble old man walking up the road. Everyone backs off and waits for something to happen.
The old man: “My soul…aches…”
Rosemary: “What did you say, sir!? What happened here!?”
The old man: “MY SOUL ACHES!”
The old man holds his arms forward and they launch at the group. They all dodge, letting their arms hit the ground, creating a great cloud of dust.
Soku: “PETER RUN!”
Peter begins to run towards the carriage, but the wagon is cut down in the middle by a great blast of wind, sending it flying into the air. Another blast of wind is sent toward Peter but Gray sends the cloak of darkness to Peter and pulls him out of the way.
Peter: “WHAT THE HELL!?”
Gray: “I KNOW RIGHT! I ALMOST DIED!”
They see another person walking from the direction the wind slashes came from. A ghastly woman with pure white skin, black spiraled eyebrows, black lipstick, and pointed ears slowly walked towards them. With each step she takes it's like a bell is rung through hell, a devilish force coming straight to them, dressed in an all-black Kimono. Gray looks at her with pure fear in his eyes, which she feels deep within her. She glares at him with her shut eyes and permanent smile as she slowly tucks her white Shirasaya blade into its pure black sheath.
Everyone groups up, standing in a circle with Peter in the middle.
Gray: “SHIT! WHAT DO WE DO!?”
Soku: “Can WE FIGHT THIS”
Edward: “That woman…she’s Shioreta… the Black flash…we can’t beat her…we’re gonna die.”
Rosemary: “And that man's voice…it’s the same as Severus, and his skin has scales!”
Severus: “YOU HAVE SOMETHING WE WANT BACK! GIVE IT TO ME AND I WON’T HURT YOU! NOW GIVE, GIVE, GIVE!”
Gray: “HELL NO, YOUR FRIEND HERE IS JUST GONNA KILL US!”
Shioreta: “You’re far too loud, boy.”
Gray {WHAT DO WE DO! WE’RE DEAD, THIS IS IT THIS IS THE END!}
Gray's eyes light up, and he grabs the communicator out of Peter's hand and rases into the air.
Gray: “DO SOMETHING!”
Gray embeds loads of mana into the magical device and begins to glow a bright red.
Severus: “TAKE THEM!”
Gray: “DO SOMETHING, I JUST WANNA GO HOME DAMMIT!”
Severus and Shioreta strike the group, but the ground beneath the group glows in the shape of the Sects crest. It ignites and envelops them in a flash of light, and in a flash, they’re gone.
End of Chapter One