The boy stood in the middle of the arena, taking a deep breath as he looked around him, the ground was charred black and five men and women lay sprawled out unconscious all around him.
He felt a firm hand clasp down on his shoulder and turned around to see the familiar cheery red-haired man smile down at him.
"Five minutes and thirty-six seconds... You're getting pretty damn scary you know Jake" said Oliver with a smile.
He'd trained like a demon-possessed over the last three years, spending every minute of everyday learning and improving his ability as a flame elemental. In the beginning, it was hard, he got tossed around and beaten down, but he got up every time and he stood there today, victorious once again and in record time to boot.
"It wouldn't have been possible without your help," replied Jake, smiling up at Oliver.
"Haha! Give yourself some credit lad, I only gave a little guidance here and there, you can only praise yourself for coming this far, but don't get cocky, you've still got a long way to go if you want to reach her," chuckled Oliver.
Iris Volcan, the poster child of not only the Volcan family but the entire kingdom of Lutia. Jake cast his mind back and remembered when he first saw Iris in the arena, dispatching everything that was thrown at her with moves that could only be described as a dance. It was the first time Jake had ever seen what true power could be like, and he set it as his goal.
'I'll reach her one day, and on that day I'll confess..." thought Jake, his cheeks turning a little bit red at the thought.
"You best get going lad, if I remember correctly you've got lessons with Madame Webber, and she even scares me, so don't be late," said Oliver.
A shiver went up Jake's spine at the mention of the name, the steely-faced mistress that had scolded him since day one for his shabby 'peasant' etiquette. It was the one thing Jake truly still found impossible despite being taught every day for the past three years, just the sheer thought of all the little nuances and proper decorum that nobility should have a grasp on gave him a headache.
With that, Jake gave a respectful bow to Oliver before making his way out of the arena. Up in a private viewing chamber above the arena, a young girl with fiery red hair and an intimidatingly large bronze-skinned man watched the events unfold as promising hopefuls of the family were put through their paces.
"What did you think of him?" asked Ian Volcan.
"He's alright... I guess," replied Iris, seemingly pretty uninterested.
The man simply laughed at his daughter's nonchalant attitude.
"Not everyone is a little monster like you dear, in my opinion, he's promising."
Iris just shrugged and continued to gaze down at the arena as the next person, a young man, stood in the center of the arena as a small group tried their best to take him down.
A messenger suddenly entered the viewing chamber, gaining him quizzical looks from the two Volcans, he quickly apologized for his disturbance before quietly relaying a message to Ian.
Iris watched as her father's expression turned to one of surprise before morphing into a dark snarl. The pressure he began radiating upped the temperature in the room a few degrees and she could see the messenger start to sweat and fidget in discomfort.
"Father, you're doing it again..." Iris whispered to her father.
Ian, realizing his blunder, promptly apologized to the messenger who quickly left the room, his legs trembling as he struggled to make his way to the door.
"What's wrong?" she asked, slightly concerned, her father didn't lose his composure easily so something must have really bothered him.
Ian averted his gaze back down onto the arena below, but his dark expression still remained on his face.
"Don't worry darling, an annoying bug finally got crushed."
---
Aria's eyes slowly opened, she felt her whole body aching as she tried to move anything at all. However, she spotted two figures sitting by her bedside, a man and a woman with familiar ashen blonde hair and piercing green eyes tearing up as they looked down at her.
"M-mom?... Dad?" she asked, trembling as she felt her hands being grasped by the both of them.
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"W-We're so sorry angel... sorry it took us so long to find you..." the two muttered between teary sobs.
Aria simply smiled, she had sorely missed her parents, Lance and Sylphia Blade, the couple that reigned supreme at the top of the Blade family, despite being born with the ability to control nature like her mother, she wasn't born with her monstrous A-Tier talent falling short at being confirmed as a B-Tier shortly after her awakening, however, they never treated her any lesser and loved her with all they could. She truly believed she couldn't have asked for better parents.
The reunited family simply sat there for a while, letting out all the emotions that had been pent up over the years before her father gathered himself to ask an important question.
"A-Aria, they said they found you on the verge of death, along with a few other children... What happened to you?" asked Lance with a serious expression.
Aria looked up at her parent's worried expression, whatever they were thinking, it was a hundred, no... indescribably worse than whatever they could imagine. She took a deep breath before she began to relay the events of the past three years to her parents, describing how the carriage she had been in whilst traveling back to the family estate had been attacked and when she had woken up she'd found herself in some strange prison-like facility.
She watched her parent's expressions go through a roller coaster of emotions from shock and surprise, to anger and disgust when she told them about Herman Dest's perverse dreams of creating something he called 'Altered' through inhumane means. When she finally finished her story, telling her parents about the two boys Ajax and Leon who had been her rock throughout the years, only then did both parents manage a smile, knowing that throughout those dark times, she had people there for her.
To be honest, Aria didn't know what had happened to Ajax and Leon, but in her mind, she completely refused the possibility that either of them hadn't made it out.
Sylphia, her mother, was beginning to tear up again after hearing the atrocities that her daughter had gone through over the years whilst her father comforted her.
"D-Do you think I could see them?" asked Aria.
"I'm sure we can find them in the other medical tent, after all, I want to personally thank them for everything they've done for our family," said Lance.
"Also, they don't know I'm a Blade... I never told anyone as the thought of what would happen if Herman had found out stopped me from ever mentioning it," said Aria.
Lance nodded in approval, praising his daughter's decision-making. He too didn't want to think what would happen if that animal had found out he had a blade in his grasp.
"Let me see if I can go find these boys," said Lance, before squeezing Aria's hand and walking out of the private medical tent.
Aria chatted away with her mother, just happy to have a light-hearted conversation about trivial things after such a long time, and honestly, it helped her get her mind off the dark thoughts she had been suppressing.
It wasn't too long before Lance returned and by his side a dark-skinned frail-looking boy holding his weight up with a pair of crutches.
However, both Lance and Ajax had a pained expression on their faces and Ajax struggled to look Aria in the eye.
Aria began to feel something uncomfortable bubble up from her stomach.
"W-Where's Leon?" she asked, her eyes darting in between her father and Ajax, both looking down at the ground unable to meet her gaze.
Lance looked down at Ajax, who took a deep breath before looking up at the panicked expression of Aria.
"I-I'm so sorry Ari... Leo... Leo died," Ajax said, struggling with every word.
For Aria, time seemed to stop right there in that tent, her mind went completely numb, and unbeknownst to her, tears began to fall from her gentle green eyes.
"W-What?... That's a lie, right? Tell me your joking AJ!" Aria begged.
Hearing and seeing Aria's reaction was too much for Ajax as he too began breaking down in tears again and Lance and Sylphia could only look on with a sad expression.
Lance decided to leave Aria and Ajax to grieve and Sylphia to try her best to comfort the two broken children.
As he left the tent, he gathered himself and walked with a visibly worried gaze directly to the command tent.
Upon entry, everyone in the tent stopped what they were doing and stood at attention in the presence of the leader of the Blade family.
Lance looked at everyone in the tent, making sure he had their undivided attention before opening his mouth.
"For reasons that you don't need to know, everything that has happened and will happen here will be strictly confidential, no one will say a word about what has occurred here to anyone. Do I make myself clear?"
Everyone there didn't need a valid reason, Lance's authority itself was more than good enough, and everyone affirmed their co-operation with a salute.
Lance nodded in approval, satisfied with the response before turning around and exiting the tent. His expression still one of extreme worry, something Aria had told him brought a deep-buried memory bubbling up to the surface that he didn't want to think about for a second. He didn't even believe it when he had first heard it, but after confirming her story with the one Ajax had told him, he unconsciously began trembling with a feeling that he hadn't experienced since that day.
'The Altered... Why would anyone try to bring those... things back' thought Lance, cold sweats running down his back.
Lance looked up at the sky and thanked God that Herman's mad experiments hadn't bore fruit.
But the fact someone like Herman could find out the kingdom's deepest and darkest secret was a matter he couldn't ignore and he immediately began setting plans in motion to visit the capital city of Lutia, Hearthstone, to inform the Lockheart's about the events.
At that moment, Lance had a precognition that the fragile peace Lutia had been in for the past fifty years might be coming to an end sooner than he'd thought.
---
In an undisclosed location, deep beneath the earth's surface buried under several layers of some unknown metal, a man knelt in a dark room, chains restraining his every limb and a large metallic collar weighing his head down as more chains held it in place.
The chains suddenly could be heard rattling as the man forced his head up under the weight of the tons of metal weighing it down, his sunken eyes seemed to peer into the very darkness itself before an inhuman grin snaked its way from cheek to cheek.
The man's lips parted and out of it came a completely ethereal sounding voice.
"We have returned..."