I opened my door to see a man in a cloak standing over two dead bodies holding blades coated in blood with wind silencing their footsteps. Assassin.
As I opened the door he jumped at me, slashing his blade at me as he did. He soared over my head as I ducked and punched him in the stomach. He slammed into the ceiling and fell behind me, blood dripping from his mouth.
Oops.
“Were you expecting me?” he asked. He just seemed curious, not angry or sad. He just wanted to know.
“No. I heard the men outside die.” he raised his eyebrows.
“How? I have been trained to kill silently for years. It's all I’m good for anymore.” he said quietly as he coughed up more blood.
I will show myself to him. Came the sudden voice of Aurinko.
Really? Does this thug deserve that?
He deserves to know what killed him.
Okay. . .
And so I pulled out Aurinko. And stabbed the assassin in the chest.
As he burned, he smiled.
“So I see. Good luck. I wish I could have lived to see the woman you will become. You will be glorious.” he said as he burned to nothingness.
“What did you do?” I said aloud with no need.
I showed him every life I have ever bonded with. He said in reply. Just like I do every time you stab someone with me. With a fatal blow, of course. They need to know what killed them. Came the surprising bout of morality.
I nodded. He was right. A gift to those who die by my hand. I knew that I needed to kill people up close and personal if I could from now on. It was the nicest thing I could do when I killed someone. I also realized that I couldn’t always use my raw strength to win any fight. Aurinko is an ally, not a weapon. I wish I had learned this sooner. It nearly costs me my life later on.
Anyway, to keep things light I went down to have breakfast. It was mediocre as always, but to brighten my day, Cori came to visit me.
“Alright mopy. No more feeling sorry for yourself. Come on. We are watching some classic movies tonight. I’m talking back to the future, men in tights, princess bride, and monty python and the holy grail.” said Cori matter of factly.
“Men in tights isn’t a classic. It was made in, like, 1983.” I responded.
“Close, 1993, but it's funny and you'll watch it and you'll enjoy it.” still matter of factly. Why was she pushing me on this?
Oh no.
“Don’t tell me that your gay.” I said, twisting my face in a hurt frown.
“What?” she asked, surprised.
“In every good story the author has to make a character gay. Don’t tell me that's you.” now she was just confused.
“I’m not gay. I just think that you're all depressed for no reason. Ever since the battle of the steel sun I have barely seen you.”
“What?” steel sun? What the hell was that?
“Oh. The steel sun is what they’re calling the castle. Don’t ask who I don’t know, it's just in the history books now so it's official.” I couldn’t argue with that.
Then I realized that I haven't had alcohol in years. “I need some whiskey.” I said as I turned around and asked for a shot of the stuff. A guy standing in the background rushed off to get me some.
“No no no no no. You aren't going to do the depressed alcoholic thing. Not on my watch.” she said as she walked over to me and shook her finger at me.
“Relax, I just haven't had alcohol in a long time.” She took that as a good answer and let me take the shot. It was fantastic. “Ah that was good,” I said as I thanked the man for the shot and handed him the glass back. “Now we can go watch your stupid movies.” just to be clear, I still love those movies to this day, I just didn’t want to watch them right then.
She made a pouty face and said “come on, it’ll be fun.” I didn’t really- okay so I had every choice, I was basically god, but she was being pushy and I didn’t want a bigger headache later.
The movies were just as bad and just as good as I remembered. After about six hours I left her room. I was all cramped from watching all of those movies on a pc. Stupid apocolypse.
I need a hobby. I realized that while everyone else was training, I had already learned everything I would need to about fighting and my style: knives.
You could learn bokator.
Um. . . what? I walked down the hall and turned into my room.
A fighting style that includes weapons and is famously one of the most deadly.
Okay. After that?
You know, I always enjoyed the sound of the violin. . .
No. at this I plopped down on my bed.
And it’s portable. . .
No.
Fine. Flute isn’t bad. . .
No.
I’m hurt. Truly.
What if I learned guitar?
NO.
Fine. What then?
I made my suggestions. You just keep trying to choose wrong, and as your only friend I have to stop you from being stupid.
Ass hat.
I love you too.
Fine how would one go about learning violin. I had no intention of learning violin, but I humered him.
Oh, this is wonderful! I have so many songs for you to play with the sheet music memorized.
I’m gonna regret this.
No you won't. This will be fun.
Yep. I’m not doing that.
Ugh.
I left it at that. I got up and walked away, going to my spot. I could feel a lul in life and I thought this would be a great time for another ambush or raid. Nope. I stood there for five minutes, in the middle of the hallway, staring at the ceiling waiting for something to happen. I shrugged and left.
I went away and learned bokator. Let me rephrase that. I tried to learn bokator. It was difficult. All of the kicks and punches and all that crazy crap that Aurinko made me do. It didn’t go over well. It was blocky and rough and it was brutal. It was the polar opposite to my flowing and smooth fighting style that I was used to. It was exactly what I needed to balance out my fighting style.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I practiced for so long. It didn’t seem like that long to me but in a month I could kind of do some of it, not fluently of course, but I could do it.
I went back to the castle and the metal frames of thirty glass towers were being set up. I nodded and continued on. I found the training grounds of the army that the rebels had made. It was piss poor at best. They had set up in a dirt patch with a trail of packed dirt leading to a massive ring of fire coming from holes in the ground around a big mass of mosaic tiles. I had learned early on that they cared more about aesthetics than most anything else.
I walked over to the center of the place where men and women were trying to do something resembling a karate kick. I activated my angel form for a moment. All heads turned. Perfect.
“What the hell is this? What are you doing? Why the hell would you practice here? Follow me. I will be your instructor from now on.” I said as I fell to the ground. I then proceeded to walk to my training spot. Then realized it was a glass bowl in the sand so we walked another mile west. “Here. We will now learn bokator. You will learn to use this with knives, swords, and guns.” I showed what I could do well to them and had them copy. It was horrible. Half of the group collapsed under their own weight and the other half was only kind of able to do anything resembling the moves.
I ran around fixing stances and giving demonstrations of how to do the moves up close. It took soooo long. With seven thousand people it took all week to get all of them doing it correctly let alone well. The breaks didn’t help. They actually needed to sleep and eat. It was horrible.
Eventually I made a new rule. I teach one person, then they teach the person on their left and the person behind them how to do the move, and everyone got it right. All of the teaching made me fantastic at bokator though. In one month time another raid came.
They stormed the castle and I could only barely hear the cries so I was the only one aware. There was no one there to stop them.
I activated my burning cloak and then I pushed it into the speed cloak and jumped after the sounds.
I arrived to an army going over the moat with boards. The moat did it’s job and slowed them down enough that only one or two people had gotten over. I burned the boards and set up a wall of fire between the moat and the rest of the army, sending several people to die in the moat and killing several in my white hot wall of flame. I delivered blow after blow with bokator, improving a lot in the short battle, and when they tried to strike back I switched to my flames dance stance and dogged under or over their blows and stabbed them. They fell one by one.
When I had killed all of them, I absorbed the desert heat from the air to try and combat the loss of power but it didn’t do much. I was running almost on empty.
I hear screams. I had assumed that they had been from Pahaӓӓni’s army but they were rebels in the steel sun. I jumped the wall and saw a blood bath. Four people were indiscriminately murdering the rebels.
One turned after killing someone and saw me. “Hey guys! Looks like she’s done with the uh, ‘army’. She doesn’t look too good though. This’ll be easy.”
The others turned and saw me and started advancing on me. Except for one. He kept his back turned. He reached down and grabbed a handful of golden curls.
Link’s golden curls.
“Amaterasu! Help!” came Links terrified scream with a hint of hope in his voice that shouldn’t be there.
“Link! I-”
“Oh, so you know this one. . .” came the slow meandering voice of the man holding Links hair. “I guess you should come save him then, huh? My how the tables have turned. The hero being saved by the princess.” Then he held up a sword of shadow to Links throat.
The others did likewise and pulled out their own swords, each one a different style.
“This will be fun, take his life! It will feel so good!” came the voice of the third man in a psychotic hopeful-for-death tone. His eyes were bugging out and he smiled like a kid in a candy shop.
“Let us not be too hasty now. . . we have to take her out too. I can’t imagine that will be easy. . . no matter how beat up she looks. . . she did take out Cormiasalu. . .” the man holding Link’s hair said.
“I want to go home. Let's finish this quick.” came the impatient voice of the third man as he lunged for me with his rapier, springing the others into action, except of course, the man with Link.
Being attacked from all sides wasn’t ideal but I had gained a good bit of strength back from the air while they were chatting so I activated my burning cloak.
Their weapons melted off of my burning cloak but the blackness continued on for a few inches and created small nicks on my arms but they were healed nearly instantly.
I cut off someone's hand as they swung down and stabbed him in the gut. As he fell I was given no time to rest as the others swung again with what was left of their blades and I deactivated my burning cloak. I was running out of energy again.
I dogged underneath a half of a greatsword with my flames dance technique and struck back with a bokator slash to the face with Aurinko. As he fell part of a one handed longsword came at my back. I blocked it with a localized burning cloak, stopping the absorbing of power for a moment. More of his sword melted off and I heard a scream from Link.
A scream that could mean he died or that he is going to die in just a second.
I turned to him and saw the blade at his neck press down as if in slow motion, the curved scythe like blade cutting deep into his neck, not fatally but enough to leave a big scar on his neck for life.
As he started to drag the blade across slowly, as his personality allowed, I was struck in the side by a blow I was too distracted to block or counter. It cut deeply. He pulled the blade out and struck again on the other side, leaving deep, almost fatal slash marks in my sides, my back, my chest, legs, arms. I activated my speed cloak and killed the man killing Link instantly with a punch to the face.
My wounds were visibly healing with fire licking the edges of them, but it was energy intensive so I only absorbed for the rest of the battle. I was barley on my feet and pain blocked my vision.
The choking sounds on the ground stole my attention, however.
Link writhed on the ground, trying hopelessly to hold the blood in his body as he drowned in his own blood.
“Oh! This is rich! Will she save herself, the kid, or sacrifice it all to kill me? Ha ha ha ha!” came the voice of the deranged man reveling in the death.
I knelt to cauterize the wound in Link’s neck and the black bladed man advanced on me. I managed to stop the bleeding on the outside, but there was no stopping the fact that he was drowning in his own blood. The black bladed man swung down. I kicked the half blade away and slammed a bokator punch in his nose. As it broke blood gushed from it and he stepped back.
“Fuck!” was all he said before Aurinko was sticking out of his neck and his body was burning to nothing.
I knelt down again and held Link’s head as he died. “Come on Link, you need to live! You need to live, for Cori! Who’ll keep her safe if you're dead? You need to live, Link, please. . . focus on what you have left to live for. . . please.” I bowed my head in sorrow as he died in my arms. The life behind the eyes, often compared to light, but it was so much more, it was. . . him.
His eyes widened in apparent rage and light sprung forth from his neck, bathing his ruined throat in white brilliance before it finally died out. He rolled over and coughed up blood. A lot of blood. He coughed and finally rolled back over to look at me, and smiled, his neck perfectly healed.
“Thank. . . you. . . “ he said as he closed his eyes and made a laugh/cough noise. His throat was raw but otherwise good as new.
I sat and took in the heat. I was still deathly injured and needed Aurinko’s power to heal. I then remembered the dagger and went to get him.
I pulled him out of the hole in the ground and layed down right then and there. The ground was slick with blood, but someone would clean that up later. My armor wasn’t even out of the norm here. . . so strange. . .
I closed my eyes, and went to sleep for a while.
I woke up. As is the appropriate sentence to follow one saying that you fell asleep.
I was in my massive bed in the steel sun. I felt like nothing happened. Maybe it didn’t. . . I took a look at my side.
Scar tissue. It all happened. Oh shit. I had forgotten about the army. I had to go train them. They look like a big, steaming pile of shit still. I put on my armor and walked out.
Hm. m.
Aurinko was trying to clean his throat. I was a mess when I woke up. I had forgotten him. I picked him up and went down the stairs to eat.
I had some well made eggs. Fried. In a sandwich with ham and cheese. So good. Then I asked for a shot of whiskey. I got it and slammed it down. The burning down my throat felt great.
Then I left and found the army in the training spot I had left them in. They had gotten better. Much better. They had practiced, likely for weeks while I rested in bed. In that one battle I had improved too, though. They were catching up.
We practiced for several months after that moment and learned until we were in the advanced stuff and I added weapons in and learned from scratch with different types of weapons.
A year later they were ready to learn how to actually use the guns at a range rather than spray and pray as they normally do.
I set up a shooting range and separated them by skill. The talented were sharpshooters, the less talented were put in the middle, protecting the sharpshooters from Phaӓӓni's soldiers. The ones without talent were in the front, basically cannon fodder, and trying to whittle down the soldiers. The only reason they were cannon fodder was because without magic it would be so easy to kill them with magic that they would really only be a distraction to Pahaӓӓni and his men. I took the ten best and well rounded soldiers from the army and made them my assassins.
Then I remembered Link. He used magic to heal his wound. I knew that that wasn’t normal here. I’d been here, I’d lived here. Maybe Pahaӓӓni coming here made enough of a disturbance that the fabric of the entire dimension changed to allow for blood magic. Not something I liked the thought of.
We did what we could to train in the three years after the attack that gave me the reminders that someone will always be better and that not everyone fights fair. My scarred body.
We did what we could but just in case I told them we have a month until we fight Pahaӓӓni once in for all. I didn’t tell them that it may not be the last. I had to keep morale up though, so I told them that this would be the end.
One month later, we had our supplies ready and were ready to storm Pahaӓӓni’s castle. “Tonight we storm Pahaӓӓni’s castle! He is done taking our world and he is done taking our people, and our land, and our life! He can do nothing to stop us! We will destroy what’s left of his humanity and banish him to the deepest pits of hell! End his reign of terror!”
“End his reign of terror! End his reign of terror!” came the chant from the army.
We then went to sleep in tents. Castles were for the rich and famous, not an army ready to fight the most powerful man in the world.
“End his reign of terror.” I said as I lay down in the sleeping sack in one of the tents and fell asleep.