A/N: Hello there, this is a fan fiction, read it ya? The plot is unknown till know. Chapter 1: Tightening the mask
The sky was dark that day. Standing below the heavens of Bootes was an orange haired boy. He was leaving home for a journey that he won't return from. He was excited yet quite uneasy on that day. The boy stepped on the waving grass in front of his home.
"It is time to say goodbye to my family" he muttered.
He let a squeak of sorrow as he departed from his house, his family and his life. His new home is where he stands on now. The ground. The home of a traveler. The only final frontier of a traveler. The only thing that can keep a traveler comfy when there is nowhere else to go. So he took a step forward, step by step, towards the hunting grounds. The start of his journey, the journey that promises him a life time of hope and misery.
It started to rain quite heavily. Feeling the first drop on his teenage cheeks. He sighed as he walked towards the training ground. It was not what he has hoped for as he glared across the field full of monsters. Just some snails and a few big mushrooms. Nothing he can do now. So he then took out the sword from his medium-sized pouch and started stabbing snails to death. He trained for at least 15 minutes and has started to feel his own soul and stamina getting stronger and stronger. It was strange.
"I guess I just gained a level! Now I'm level 2!" said the hyped boy happily.
"I guess for now it is for me to keep training and training" he said as he started to ready his sword for another strike of death.
The cold rain was getting to the boy. He started shriveling and he felt his movement became limited. Half an hour later he started to sneeze, but yet, he continued training with determination. He felt as if nothing can stand in his way.
"Nothing" he said to himself in the cold rain.
Suddenly he felt a sharp pain all over his abdomen, the boy felt like crippling into a ball. The pain was incredible.
"Somebody has given me a godly blow to the back" he said slightly joking as he moaned in pain.
He turned around quickly as his knees knelt on the floor. It was a kid with blond hair, staring at him with a wide, fake smile.
"Oops" the kid said sarcastically.
Giving the wounded boy a laugh of cruelty, the angry boy staggered across the field to an abandoned shack. What he saw in the eye of the crazy kid was rage wide as the heavens and a fury that was fairly disturbing. Something that he really never seen before, ever. His body felt uneasy as he went across the cold, wet field. He felt very angry.
"What kind of maniac would stab people in the back?!" he said angrily in his mind.
"I felt like dying as this is not going to be the last bad encounter I am going to have" he said as he popped himself inside the shack.
As he rested inside the shack, a mushroom big as him was inside who popped out from a dark corner. He can't stand it anymore. It was a fairly bad day enough and this thing just popped out of nowhere. He forcefully pulled out the sword from his pouch creating a slight tear and stabbed the mushroom right in between its eyes. It died instantly. He felt he was leveling again, or in other words he have reached level 3. He felt he can rest easy now. The pain was gone from his back. The lump that he felt before when the maniac boy gave him a blow was gone. It was an incredible moment; it was rare for someone to get fully healed after leveling.
Some people leveled and never get healed, some people gained very high levels and never ever once felt the very astonishing powers of the 'Leveling heal'. I was a lucky one, he thought to himself. Whether he will or will not get this moment again of getting healed all of his injuries is for now unknown to him.
"Now all I need is a good rest from what just have happened" as he lay down on the cold wooden floor. Curling up in a ball as he started to get into a deep sleep.
An hour later, he woke up. The rain just stopped and the field began to dry. He felt ready to start his training again. But something didn't felt right.
"My face feels itchy" he muttered.
"My vision… It seems to have narrowed…" he muttered again.
He thought it was because of sleeping in this very old shack, has some weird effects, but he was dead wrong. As soon as he grabbed hold of his pouch, he went out of the forsaken shack. Wiping away the dust that stained his clothes, he heard someone shouting in excitement.
"Cool!" said a little boy, looks smaller than him and looks a bit too much hyped.
The boy went near him and said "Where did you get that awesome mask!?"
"Mask? What mask? I don't know what you are talking about" said the confused boy
Suddenly he realized something.
"My vision, why is it still narrowed..? By now I should have seen clearly" he muttered to himself in a low voice.
Then he touched my face. He didn't feel his hand touching his face, instead he felt something different, completely different. On the external part of his face, it was something cold and it was clinging onto his face. It was a mask. The mask had the shape of the face of an owl, the mask had big owl eyes which were mildly decorated with big black round spots on the perimeter of the eye and the pupil was painted darkish orange, inside the pupil was painted black with a fat white dot.
"What kind of cheap trickery is this?! Someone must have put this mask on my face when I was sleeping!" he thought to himself.
The boy then asked him again, but this time in a mild voice.
"I don't know" he said.
And as quick as he can go, he ran away from the spot. The boy was standing there, looking at him as he ran down the training ground. The little boy then continued training wishing to own that very cool owl mask, while our orange haired boy ran towards the village Amherst. Faces all looking at him, questioning in their heads "Why is he wearing that mask?" Looking as if he was an escaped half-man half-owl from a freak show. He didn't care much. He just wanted to get to the chief's house as quickly as possible, hoping the wise chief has the answer to this mystery. He opened the door as he arrived at the door step. The chief wasn't there, so he went behind the chief's house. Behind the house was a wide field of very ripe tomatoes.
"In between the field, there must be the chief!" he said to himself in his thrashed mind.
He started searching after he scanned the area from top of the hill for the god-knows-where chief of Amherst. He ran row by row as the tomatoes became a blur line of brick red, his scrawny little legs were at their maximum speed. He gained enough momentum fast enough to run past 9 rows of tomatoes in a minute. Suddenly he saw a man with a very old bamboo hat. The man was working on a tomato bush.
He was plucking out the tomatoes one by one. He thought to himself, this must be the chief. The owl boy ran towards the chief, the speed was incredible but it didn't last long. He stumbled onto the ground painfully as he did a forced-somersault in the air. His foot accidentally kicked a rock and there he was, lying on the ground.
"Didn't know stumbling because of a rock was this painful" he said jokingly.
His vision became blurry, barely seeing the figure of the old man as the old man approached him. After that all he saw was total darkness. Darkness was something he was really afraid about. He rather date a Malady than sit in a dark room. While thinking in his sleep, he dreamt something. Something awful. Something he will never forget, something that will haunt his life, forever.
I was standing on a very dead field of land. No grass or even a tree. And there was this very thick fog moving furiously to the left. I felt as if I was watching something fast forward. And so a distorted figure suddenly formed very far from where I stand. "Hello boy" the figure said as it neared me. I can't tell what I saw. The image of the figure was really blurry but I can tell it was black. Its voice sent a chill down my body. I felt my body numbing. It felt very cold in this dream, as if it was real. Strangely when the figure approached, I felt even colder.
"I am something you know, you think I'm something bad" it said. Its voice was very calm.
The cold became warmth for a few seconds as a very darkish red wind washed over me.
"I am something that will give you fear, despair, coldness, hatred, loneliness, sorrow and only once, hope" it said as it image fades away.
"I am the thing that will ruin your life, but I am also thing that will rebuild it" it said again.
"I am the mask, dear boy" it said, this time its image completely fading away.
I didn't know what to do, I just stood there.
Suddenly, all of a sudden, screams of terror and the ground turned red and the wind, dark as the night. I put my hands over my ears very tightly, but still I heard the screams. It dug into my ears, getting louder and louder as if trying to get into my very own soul and rip it apart and stomp it to the ground. My eyes bulged as my body shook like a man on fire. I thought I was going to die deaf and my body stiff. I can't take it anymore! I said.
Suddenly the horrified boy woke up. He was in a very old bed, creaking away as he raised his body. He was surprised he was alive. He was taking deep, long breaths. I thought the dream I just had was a glimpse of Hell, he said. He felt very relieved. His body was drowned with sweat. Suddenly, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. When he turned to his right, who he saw was the old man who was at the field. It was no doubt the chief of Amherst. He was a very old man with blond hair with a beard connecting to his mustache. His face has a very-wise-old-man kind of look. But beneath his very humble face his eyes had shown owl boy a very surprised look.
"How do you feel?" said the chief. Owl boy didn't respond. He just dug his head into the pillow, facing upwards toward the ceiling. Staring blankly into space. Thinking about that very horrible dream.
"I see" said the old man.
I guess he knew that the orange haired, owl mask boy just had a really bad day. The old guy then walked towards the exit, taking step by step as his age didn't allow him to walk properly.
Before he was out he said "You showed a great amount of dexterity when you were running in my tomato field".
What he said just snapped the boy from his blank stare towards the ceiling. He then listened to what he has to say.
"You run very fast for a boy your age. I think you would succeed in glory in your journey" said the blond chief as he departed from the room.
The boy thought to himself. "I run very fast?" he said silently in my mind.
Even though the chief has given him a slight praise, he didn't feel any better because of that horrible dream. He then continued lay down in the old bed, just staring again, as if his whole life just ended there. A few minutes later the chief called him to come down. I slowly got out of the bed, taking my pouch which was left on the table near a badly kept wardrobe. It felt slightly heavy. I then took a look into the pouch, and I saw fruit knife. My mood became slightly better; at least I was smiling for a moment.
I then came down from the stairway. I saw the chief reading a book. The title of the book was fairly scratched; all I can were the letters 'G' and 'N'. I started to sit down near the chief. There was a few minutes of silence.
"So, where did you get that owl mask, boy?" the old chief said.
"I don't know!" the boy shouted.
The chief was startled. He immediately patted the boy's shoulder to calm him down.
"Please child, don't get angry, I'm just asking where did you get this unusual mask?" He said in a very calming voice.
The boy behind the mask was lost in words, he didn't know what to say. He was feeling really uncomfortable. How did this forsaken mask grabbed hold of this boy's face? He just didn't know. Suddenly he realized something, that dream. That nightmarish dream. "I am the owl mask, boy". That sentence, the distorted image said that. The sentence keep spinning in the boy's mind. His face was in horror but it got completely filtered by that very expressionless mask. Will this mask cling to me forever? he asked himself. Thinking to himself, his expressions, completely cut-off. Whatever he is in, the world will never know, because of this forsaken mask. It was actually pretty scary to think for it for a moment. Just this mask. Nothing more, nothing less.
And so, he left the house in an instant. His feet gaining momentum again, dashing at full speed. Not a word of goodbye to the chief. He didn't look back. He just went head on, towards the crowd of people. When he came near them, they said "Freak!", "Owl face!", "Clown!" and a lot more. It sucked being the odd one. Everyone kept their distance as he went towards the hunting ground. More and more insults came in his way, certainly the most horrible day ever. 4 hours later he came out of the hunting ground, having reaching the sixth level of his training, or in slang 'level 6'. He decided to pull out his 'Relaxer' chair from his 2nd pouch that he just bought. Sitting on a chair during a warm weather like this really made his mood better. His soul was a distant place for a moment, calm and peaceful, blocking everything from the physical plane, he was like in a coma.
Until some bully came and smashed his head with a wooden club. The meditating boy woke up from his OBE and started to curse furiously. The boy with the club just laughed cruelly as he strike the boy another blow of his blood stained club. A 3-hit combo. Lightning fast and effective in pissing someone off. And so the angry owl started to stab the other boy. Blood leaking from his wounds, he would be stupid if he didn't know he has lost the battle of random violence.
" I see…w-we meet ag-again…" said the finely stabbed boy. It was that maniac kid from which the owl boy he has encountered in past.
"You" said the owl boy coldly.
"I'm taking you to the medic." he said again, and still very coldly.
So owl boy knocks off the psycho kid's feet and grabbed his two legs. Dragging him like a dead corpse. Half-way, the psycho passed out as he muttered some barely understandable words. It seemed like a crazy day and it was his first day on the field. He felt oddly disheartened because of his very random encounters. Random violence, a life time of doom and the strange smell of dust on the mask. He felt crazy already when he reached the local doctor and saw the wall-clock. It showed a very sharp 4pm. So he left the bleeding boy there and politely knocked on the door. He ran away, this time with a great timing as he almost accidentally hit a big rock.
He started developing a very cold and depressing attitude, he didn't suit well with the diabolical owl mask. He felt very down for a period of time. He kept wandering around Amherst, but not for the attention of course. He kept giving a stare at a group of people and they would flee or back away slowly, they see him as if he was a frightening monster. He didn't like that kind of reputation. Soon it was 7.30 o' clock. Everyone who had been training since the start of dawn was exhausted and could faint any second now. Everyone was finding a place to sleep. They usually sleep in large numbers to prevent anyone from getting hurt from anyone or anything. Owl boy here was a different story. While more than half of the community was asleep. He kept lingering in the darkness.
"This mask is pretty handy." he said.
He was seeing his surroundings. He saw a grasshopper jumped, a snail hiding between some rocks and a tree twig fallen off from a branch. The mask gave him the powers to see in the dark, quite useless but at least it wasn't any regular demonic mask. He stared in awe as if he saw the world in a new vision. Suddenly he noticed something, he heard some footsteps behind him. When he turned to his back, he saw nothing. Quite not impressed by this silly trick, he made a wild guess.
"Psycho boy, is that you?" he questioned.
"Thaaaaaaaat's me!" said a voice in a very disturbing tone.
It was confirmed, chopped and signed. It was that psycho and demented maniac boy. The boy staggered to get in-line of the owl boy's vision. Owl boy got provoked as he took out his fruit knife, doing some tricks to make his hand rise in momentum. Eventually, he got the hang of his fruit knife and started to hum to some action-themed music from a movie he watched some time ago. The demented boy was coming in his way. How could he even fight in this condition?! Unarmed and injured. He must be a professional at being crazy!
"Show yourself." said the owl boy, ready for any possible scenario.
" Don't be stupid. I know you can see me with that mask." said the demented boy.
He staggered in front of our hero and bam! He was lying on the ground again. But this time not bleeding, just a big bruise in the head. It looked all unreal. The owl boy then hid his knife in his pouch, and this time, leaving the boy there. It was a second of non-existent glory for the owl boy as he walked lazily to a nearby bush and sleep on its so-to-believed "comfy" perimeter. He was ready to hit the sack, ready to get a good day's rest, ready to well, basically sleep. It was a long day of randomness.
The next morning, he woke up. Drowsy and very fragile to any physical disturbance. He stretched his body and was ready to start the day. This time, he didn't woke up out of a very comfy bed with the smell of baked beans, eggs and pancakes, instead out of a thorny bush, and the smell of urine was in the air. He didn't care about the smell and started hunting for some food. It was man VS beast. He was eyeing on a small Shroom for a long time now. He carefully took out his fruit knife and a swift uppercut was seen. The Shroom fell with a barely noticeable thud. Soon he collected a dozen of those little critters and started to burn them on an open fire that he just created using sticks and stones.
They tasted horrible! It was a combination of burnt toast and sour milk. Yuck was the word ringing in his ears now. He felt he wasted some very valuable time. The time collecting those Shrooms could have been used wisely on eating some berries on a bush! Yet he didn't care and ate half of it. He might have puked, but he has a strong stomach. Soon, he started to search for his pouch in the bush he slept on. His arm was full of thorns, yet when he slept, he didn't even felt the slightest hint of a sharp object. He got ahold of his pouch and was ready to go to start the day.
A moment later, before he left the site, he heard a growling noise behind a tree. He felt suspicious. He approached the tree with caution. He then jumped behind the tree and saw a starving traveler at his knees. The traveler's head was covered with a hood, must be some cold-sensitive person, he thought. He then tapped lightly on the shoulder of the barely moving traveler. Then, owl boy saw it, it was a she. It was a she, when she lifted her head up, the hood flipped back.
She looked oddly familiar yet he can't ring a bell who the hoot could she be. Her response was almost unreal when she saw owl boy. She quickly hit his nuts. A divine smack to the nuts keeps the blood pumping.
"Ouch…" moaned owl boy. He was in the worst kind of pain.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!" she said, in a very oh-god-what-have-I-done voice.
She quickly raised to her feet and raised the 'severely" injured boy. And then, he then walked away from her and to the almost lit-out fire. He grabbed a pointy stick and stabbed a dead Shroom.
"Want some breakfast?" he said
"Uh…sure, I'm Seiruu." she said.
" What's yours?"
"Just call me Owl." he said, as he quickly restored the open fire.
A/N: I know it is kind of bland, the plot is still in working though. So yeah...count this as a pilot episode.
Edit: I decided to change the name of the female that Owl met and use it later in the story.