Vahlen stands behind Aaron while the two stand in front of a group consisting of 7 other boys. Aaron has that same confident smile plastered on his face as before, and Vahlen simply stands to the side, his face wrapped in black cloth.
“Like I said, I want you to ask how your mother’s knees are from last night, they are sure to be bruised.” Aaron says with complete confidence and is barely able to hold back a laugh.
The biggest boy of the group standing across from the two takes a second to react to the previous statement. The reaction was worth the wait however as his face twists and turns, contorting into a face only a demon could make surely.
“I’ll kill you!” the boy yells with pure fury emitting from each word.
“Wouldn’t be the first time someone tried. Definitely won’t be the last time either.” Vahlen says this time. Usually Vahlen likes to keep his mouth shut, but this time he couldn’t hold back as teasing the boy across from them was their goal.
The boy who is a head taller than everyone else rushes at Aaron with his first pulled back, ready to deliver a haymaker. Vahlen rushes forward to the boy’s surprise and intends to block the boy’s path and impede him.
The tall boy doesn’t mind and places all of his fury unto Vahlen as he throws his fist forward. Vahlen easily predicts the punch and side steps. Afterwards Vahlen kicks his leg forward and uses it to trip the tall boy.
The tall boy, having missed a punch causes him to be caught off balance, and stumbles face first into the ground. Vahlen doesn’t stop after tripping the boy though.
He jumps into the air and lands with both feet onto the back of his fallen attacker, using his body weight to slam down with decent force.
The boy below his jumping stomp yelps in pain when Vahlen’s attack lands. Vahlen notices something is amiss however and abandons his old plan of putting the boy into a choke hold and jumps off of the boy's back.
The boy’s body bursts in flames right after Vahlen jumps off, showing the tall boy’s true powers.
Vahlen has grown a keen sense for all types of mana and could feel it building up below him when he stood on the boy.
A wave of heat blasts Vahlen backwards and he lands not so gracefully on the ground, but barely manages to stop himself from tumbling over. By the time Vahlen is able to recover, the tall boy has also recovered and is rushing towards Vahlen like a bull.
The boy having magic abilities, especially one that is strong like this, was not in the plan. Vahlen tries to scramble away from the boy who is simply a big ball of fire at the moment.
Unluckily for Vahlen, three of six remaining boys tackle Vahlen from behind, pinning him to the ground.
They get a few good punches into Vahlen’s body as they hold him down, but Vahlen is more worried about getting burnt to ashes from their leader who is steadily approaching.
The leader is soon standing above Vahlen as he continuously struggles with the other three boys, a dangerous grin spread across the boy’s face.
“I’m gonna enjoy this.” he says as the boy brings a foot covered in flames up and above Vahlen’s head.
Vahlen sighs in defeat, and as the boy brings down a flaming stomp of revenge, Vahlen disappears into thin air. One of the boys pinning Vahlen down and accidentally takes Vahlen’s spot.
His leader has too much bloodlust clouding his mind and he brings the flaming stomp onto his subordinates head.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” the boy screams in agony as a footprint is burned into his face like he was cattle.
The leader isn’t quick to notice and makes sure to rub his foot back and forth for a while to cause maximum pain. The fire actually recedes before the boy stops rubbing his foot on his subordinates face.
With the flames fading away, the boy tries to get a good look at Vahlen’s ruined face, but is mortified to find his one lackey stuck under his foot.
“Huh?” is all he can get out before a sharp pain followed by a ringing fills his mind. The boy with the flame powers falls onto the ground, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. He isn’t dead, but seems to be knocked out for the time being.
Vahlen stands behind where the boy was standing, a blunt shortsword within his hands. The shortsword seems like the regular length of a sword since Vahlen is somewhat smaller, considering he is only just turned 11.
Vahlen looks at the 5 other boys who are still conscious and they shrink back from his gaze. The fact he simply disappeared and reappeared behind their leader with a weapon is enough to give the boys nightmares.
“Tell your boss when he wakes up to get out of our territory, and if we see him again…” Vahlen looks at his sword and looks at them menacingly.
“My blade won’t be blunt next time.”
The others just nod their head in affirmation, not wanting to speak directly to Vahlen in fear of being struck down like their leader.
Vahlen leaves the unconscious body of the leader they were sent to deal with, and looks down at his lackey with pity. That footprint burnt on his face looks horrendous, and is very likely to leave a permanent scar.
It’s not his job to worry about the other kids however, and Vahlen heads back to Aaron and hands him the shortsword.
“Almost got caught up in a bad situation there.” Aaron says with a laugh as he leads Vahlen away from the battle scene. Vahlen shakes his head at this remark and thinks about the short battle.
“I was never in any danger. Sure I didn’t predict his power, but he also didn’t predict mine. Usually the first person to reveal their full hand is the one to lose.”
Aaron smiles at Vahlen as he has grown into his position very quickly and has become adept in the past six months.
The two make their way to a small hovel in the corner of the slums. As Aaron strides up to the door, a woman who looks to be in her early thirties peaks from behind the door to meet the two kids. Aaron bows to the woman, with Vahlen following in example.
“Your problem has been taken care of ma’am, and if your son ever sees Andrew again, just tell us and we will take care of it free of charge.”
The woman thanks Aaron and hands him a small pouch. The sound of metal clicking with each movement tells Vahlen what is inside of the pouch.
As the two go to leave, Vahlen catches a glimpse at a young boy looking at him from the hovel’s only window. His face is extremely disfigured and beaten, but his eyes look at Vahlen and Aaron with pure admiration.
Vahlen smiles and waves at the boy, but instead of waving back the boy hides back within his house.
“Come on, we got to meet the others soon.” Vahlen hears as Aaron is starting to get further away. Vahlen sighs and heads over to where Aaron is and they make their way into the nearby forest.
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After walking for a while, the two tense up and get into their duo battle position. While standing back to back, Aaron and Vahlen search the woods for attackers.
The woods are dead silent, only the sounds of the gentle breathing of the duo can be heard, but that doesn’t mean something isn’t nearby.
All of the sudden, a wire flies out from behind the nearby tree at Aaron. The thin wire is nearly invisible to the naked eye, however Vahlen doesn’t need to use his eyes to see it.
Sensing the magic within the wire, Vahlen pulls Aaron away and runs towards the nearby tree. They run away from the wire and deftly climb the tree.
The wire tries to follow, but stops halfway up the tree, seemingly reaching its max length.
However, that isn’t the end of the attack as the sound of Aaron pulling his short sword from his scabbard echoes throughout the forest.
A silhouette falls from the branches above the two, swinging a sword down unto Aaron.
Bringing his sword up to match the attack, Aaron can feel himself being slightly pushed back from the strength of his attacker when their blades meet.
The power of magic starts revolving inside of Aaron’s body and he sends an electrical shock through his metal shortsword. Unfortunately the crude sword isn’t the best conductor and only a small amount reaches his assailant.
The assailant’s muscles tighten for a second and he retracts the attack. Having a split second to breath, Aaron tries to see what is taking Vahlen so long for backup.
Looking back for a quick second, Aaron sees that Vahlen has disappeared and reappeared below a tree about 20 feet away. He is currently engaged with a person in hand to hand combat. Unfortunately for Vahlen, Aaron can see another person approaching from behind him.
Aaron lets out a snort and turns back to the person he is engaged in combat with. Aaron strikes out with his sword horizontally and instead of meeting the attack and getting shocked again, the other person takes a leap backwards.
Lightning gathers at Aaron’s feet, which seems to put the other person on guard. However, unluckily for his attacker, this new skill of Aaron’s is not an attack skill but a movement skill.
Aaron dashes forward at a speed faster than most humans could accomplish and shoulder bashes his opponent.
The opponent is frozen stiff as the unexpected bashing attack sends him tumbling off of the branch the two were fighting on. Being twenty feet in the air, the fall is nothing to scoff at and will most likely incapacitate his attacker. At least this is what Aaron expected.
As his opponent falls from the tree, Aaron watches as water is pulled from the ground and makes a landing cushion for Aaron’s attacker.
With a loud splash, the assailant lands in the water cushion, but other than getting wet the attacker is perfectly fine. Aaron clicks his tongue at this and realizes that him and Vahlen are in a very precarious position.
Aaron has no time to think of an in depth plan however as he sees Vahlen is now fighting 2 people and an overgrown lizard. He is very obviously losing and is barely holding on.
On top of that, Aaron is able to see that the water once used as a cushion is pooling together into the shape of a spear below him.
Aaron makes his way to the other side of the tree and rapidly makes his descent towards the ground. Luckily he has been climbing trees for most of his life and easily makes it to the ground.
He doesn’t even take a second to think and sprints over to Vahlen.
At this point, Vahlen’s clothes are covered in small scorch marks as the lizard is capable of breathing mild fire. Sure the fire is not enough to boil Vahlen’s skin, but it still hurts nonetheless.
On top of that, the first person he came into hand to hand combat with has a lot more strength than Vahlen has, putting him at a disadvantage.
A fist flies forward towards Vahlen and lands directing onto his stomach, or at least the attacker thought.
The sight of someone lurching forward from the punch shows that someone got hit, but Vahlen currently stands near the fire breathing lizard. The attacker is surprised to see his fist implanted in the stomach of his comrade, the one who controls the fire lizard.
The attacker who switched places with Vahlen falls down to one knee, and Aaron shows up to back Vahlen up.
“How many more teles do you have?”
“None.” Vahlen says with a somber tone.
“I got a decent bit of lightning left, but it seems that it is at least a 5 versus 2. I think this is it.” Aaron says with a serious and sad look on his face. Vahlen nods in agreement and soon five people and one lizard surround the two. One of them is breathing heavily from the unexpected punch and another is soaking wet, but other than that their attackers are fine.
“We give up.” Aaron says as he throws his hands into the air. Vahlen lets out a loud sigh of defeat and shakes his head.
“I can’t believe 5 of you came together to beat us.” Vahlen says with a salty tone. The five laugh at this and remove their masks. The five assailants are five other members of The Squad being Cam, Ken, Darrien, Alex, and Devan. Cam is the first to speak up after laughing.
“I can’t believe you managed to change places with me and get Devan to nearly knock me flat on my ass.” Cam says in between laughing and coughing from the still throbbing injury.
“I just figured out how to do it a few days ago and haven’t tried it much, I’m just glad it worked.” Vahlen says with a smile that shows he is proud of himself.
“I almost had you too. That was supposed to be payback for when you took The King title from Alex and I.” Devan says while thinking about how he put a little extra behind that punch.
“Well now that we have been defeated, which two takes the title of The King?” Aaron asks, curious as to how the five managed to strike a deal.
“We will figure that out later, you two are just so annoying to beat that we had to team up to make it easy.” Alex says as he remembers being knocked off of the tree unexpectedly.
“Well, we still have to meet Tanner so let’s go ahead to Secret Base Alpha.” Aaron says as the other six follow him deeper in the woods.
As the group walks towards their secret base, Vahlen thinks about the ridiculous game that The Squad came up with about 5 months ago. Essentially The Squad is separated into 4 teams of two people. One team was randomly selected as The King Team, and to get the title of The King, you had to beat The King Team.
The only time you were allowed to fight The King Team is in the peaceful woods next to the town. This is so no outsiders interfere or take advantage of The Squad after the fight.
Aaron and Vahlen have been The King Team for about a month, and this seems to have pushed the others to team up and take them down.
The reason they lasted so long too isn’t because they can beat the other, but their ability to escape and run away is second to none.
**********************
The group finally makes it to Secret Base Alpha, and Tanner is there to greet them.
“Welcome back.” Tanner says as he collects a pouch from each team, except for Ken since Tanner and Ken are on the same team.
Looking at all the pouches the teams had gathered, Tanner smiles.
“I see everyone did their task well. We are getting richer by the day.” Tanner says as he takes all of the pouches inside to count the money.
Looking upwards, Aaron sees that the sky stones that emit light from the ceiling still are full of energy.
“It seems we have some energy left in the crystals before dark, so let’s get a little bit more training in.”
The Squad agrees with Aaron and they head over to behind the building that is Secret Base Alpha. Behind the building, there are several different hunks of metal that vary in weight.
After a long weight lifting session, the boys lay around the backyard gym and stare up at the ceiling. All of their bodies ache in pain as their muscles scream in agony. The boys just lay around while breathing raggedly, and Devan is the first to speak.
“How does the ceiling work?” Devan asks. Most of the boys do not have an answer as none of them have ever learned anything about how the world works around them. Vahlen however does have an answer to Devan.
“According to a book I read at the library, the crystals in the ceiling absorb latent mana from the ceiling. They absorb too much mana however and so they let some of that mana go. This causes the crystals to light up, and shoot the not needed mana into the air.”
Everyone is quiet as Vahlen finishes his explanation, most of them barely understanding what he is talking about.
“That is mainly theory however, and I also simplified it. I’m sure it's much more complex than that.” Vahlen says quickly, assuming the silence is because they don’t believe him and think he is stupid.
“That’s crazy. Are you actually really smart Vahlen?” Alex asks with wide eyes. None of The Squad ever read books except for Tanner and he is not one for sharing a lot of knowledge. This small snippet of knowledge is enough to make the boys full of wonder about the world around them.
“I guess I kinda am?” Vahlen says, not really sure if he really is or not.
“I just read a lot from the library. If you guys are curious about anything I would be glad to tell you or look it up sometime.”
Everyone is excited about this and starts bombarding Vahlen with questions. Vahlen is overwhelmed and comes up with an idea to make this easier.
“How about we have a set time during the day where I can teach you guys some stuff I have learned? I can even go get some books from the library and read them out loud for everyone.”
Everyone likes the idea, and the creation of Vahlen’s Class Times is created. Once a day before night, Vahlen will have a class for everyone who wants to show up. This will help the group become more knowledgeable and could be considered training. The Squad starts taking mental notes of questions they want to ask as the first class is tomorrow and everyone plans on attending.