Chapter 1- Damien Cross
A lone boy sat quietly along the beach, watching the waves crash upon the shore. His spiky auburn hair swayed slightly in the gentle breeze. The Hindu style robes he wore were giving off a steady and constant ripple. Hazel eyes stared blankly over the ocean, taking in the beauty of the scene. His moment of tranquility was interrupted when a hand roughly smacked his back, almost knocking him over. He looked up to see muscular six foot two boy adorned in a black beater, tan cargo shorts, and black sandals smiling down at him, dreadlocks flowing in the breeze.
"And what are ya doin' Damien?" he greeted.
"What you blind? I'm trying to enjoy the scenery before tomorrow starts up Eddy. Why are you here?" Damien replied.
"Meh, de same reason I guess. But I could already see dat. I was referrin' to ya threads. What's with de getup?" he inquired as he arched his eyebrow.
Damien sighed exasperatedly.
"These are Hindu style meditation robes, they're comfortable" he explained. "What's with the face?" he inquired after noticing Eddy's expression.
"It's nothin', they jus' seem kinda….traditional" he said as he trailed off.
Damien glared daggers at him.
"Whatever" he replied "With those dreads you look like you could be in one of those human music videos." He shot back.
"Says you, de gals love de long dreads" Eddy boasted.
"Yeah, because they can relate…" Damien scoffed.
"Shut it…" Eddy muttered horror stricken.
"Then don't insult my outfit" he said half laughing. "Besides, Syd said I would look nice in it…" he trailed off, slightly blushing. Eddy noticed and perked up.
"Ah, so dats it." His eyes narrowed. "Ma' got you de threads" he smiled. "No wonder ya took offense." Damien waved him off.
"Yeah, no wonder. And stop calling her your mother" he said possessively. "Technically we're not related to her…" a hint of disdain evident in his tone. Eddy instantly picked up on that.
"Well hell, after all she did for us, she might as well be" he stated firmly.
"That's true…" he agreed as he looked out over the ocean.
They both quietly just took in the scenery and enjoyed the silence. It seemed like an hour until Eddy spoke up again.
"So, ya ready for tomorrow?" he asked, not tearing his gaze from the water.
Damien thought about it for a minute. Tomorrow was their first day at the Libra Academy, the place where they would study in order to become official Libras, keepers of the balance. They would be living inside the colossal tower for a full year for the sole purpose of honing their abilities to defend that balance. They would receive free food, housing, appliances, and clothes for the duration of their stay there. To him it sounded like a pretty sweet deal.
"I guess so…" he muttered nonchalantly.
"Oh, did I mention dat de dorms are co-ed!?" he yelled with sparkles in his eyes.
At those words, all of the color drained from Damien's face.
"S-say that again?" he stammered.
"Yeah, bruh, da dorms are co-ed. We bunkin' wit de ladies now!" he declared, eyes full of anticipation. "Aren't ya excited....bruh? Eddy tore his gaze away form the sea to examine his best friend.
Damien's entire body was frozen solid. Not a twitch, not a muscle spasm, no movement what so ever. A passerby may have thought he had died where he was sitting. Eddy squatted down and waved a hand in front of Damien's face. He received no response whatsoever. Eddy lightly shook Damien out of his trance-like state; he immediately came back to his senses.
"Y-yeah, I'm sorry….what did you say?" he managed to get out. But Eddy had already put the pieces together and confronted the source of the problem.
"Dude, ya can't go 'round freezin' up like dat every time de possibility of interaction with de opposite sex comes up." He paused momentarily to see if Damien was even paying attention. Damien was looking at him like a child that had been forced to confront the monster in the closet, so he continued. "It's not healthy for ones mind, soul, and ya body." He smirked. "If ya know what I mean." He stated, making sure to place emphasis on the "if".
Damien allowed Eddy's words to sink in for a minute, until finally, he formulated his response.
"You'll excuse me if I don't have dozens of hoes waiting in the wings for me at every moment." He said sarcastically. "Not all of us are womanizers and lady-killers like you." He added, a bit of envy evident in his tone.
Eddy just smiled at his words.
"Easy, easy." He said as he backed off. "I'm just sayin' dat soona' or lata' you'll have to spend time wit' a female other den Ma'". He paused. "Which reminds me, she wanted to see you about somethin' back at her place." He finished.
Damien perked up at those words.
"I wonder what she wants?" He asked simply.
"Meh, she wouldn't say. She jus' told me to tell you to drop by her place before tomorrow if you get a chance." He answered, looking a tad bit confused.
Both of them sat there for a minute pondering what exactly their mentor could have wanted. Usually if Syd needed them for something, she would just go out and track them down herself. If she was asking them to come to her for once, it was probably important, they both realized.
"Hmph" Damien grunted. "I find her in about an hour or so, right now I just wanna enjoy the peacefulness of this place." He said quietly.
Eddy sighed tiredly.
"Alright, I'm headin' back to the village, I need some sleep. He said, half yawning. "Tomorrow's a big day." He concluded, walking back in the direction of the village.
"Yeah, I know." He muttered.
Damien sat alone for quite some time, just admiring all of the sights and sounds the beach brought him. Even though he was sprawled out along the beach enjoying this peace and tranquility, his mind was quite the opposite. His head raced with thoughts of what tomorrow would bring. He would be in a new place, he would be forced to interact with new people, and he would learn many new things centered on Karma, the omniscient force that flows through the universe, and its workings.
His heart gave a jump at that thought.
Syd had taught him more then a few things about Karma, so he had sort of an edge on the other incoming Libras in-training. But he had never received any other formal education on the matter. Even so, his skills with channeling Karma through his Chakra gates were nothing to dismiss. It would have taken any other trainee at least ten years to even slightly start to feel Karma around him, but Damien had started see it in only a mere two months, something unheard of for most trainees. By the time he had reached the five year mark, he was starting to get the hang of materialization. Materialization techniques were mostly limited to higher level Libras. Who, even then, had been in service for at least a few decades. But Damien had taken to it quite easily, and yielded surprising results. On his first try, Damien managed to materialize a very sharp Japanese katana out of some rocks and a tree branch. When Syd had asked him to try and sever a nearby palm tree with it he happily obliged. He swung down hard, neatly severing the palm tree straight down its trunk. But, to her surprise, not only did he slice the palm tree in half, he also severed the palm tree a few yards behind it, and put a noticeable gash in the boulder immediately behind that. Syd was very proud of that little stunt. And she continued to work with him to strengthen his abilities even further.
By the time he reached his fifty year training mark, he was in the process of learning energy manipulation training. Now, unlike materialization, energy manipulation was a little tricky. Materialization allowed one to construct anything imaginable by channeling a little Karma through a few basic mediums, but energy manipulation took it to a whole new level of possibilities. Energy Manipulation allowed one to create and manipulate tangible and intangible forces by focusing a fair amount of Karma and re-directing it to manage, amplify, or enhance specific "aspects" of nature. These aspects may include elements such as fire, water, earth, wind, light, and shadows; or forces such as kinetic, thermal, and atomic-level energies.
Energy manipulation gave Damien more than his fair share of problems. The skill he had with materialization seemed to disappear during this type of training. Due to his frequent protest and doubt he constantly raised concerning his abilities, Syd decided to start out slow by instructing him to create and maintain a baseball sized fireball. This was a disaster. Damien had no control whatsoever with the fireball. Syd would always provide sarcastic but constructive criticism at each and every of Damien's attempts. It was always either too small, not hot enough, lacked enough Karma, had no shape, or some horrible combination of all of the before mentioned flaws. In one particular incident his aggravation and rage managed to reach a boiling point, and in response he produced large basketball sized white colored fireball. Syd, immensely impressed at this feat, was reduced to silence. However, this did not last long as Damien's own surprise caused him to lose his concentration, and his glowing mass of white-hot energy detonated in his hand as a response. Syd was already fifty feet away by the time the explosion happened. The explosion left a crater big enough to put two or three village huts in. Damien, left smoldering and scorched at the bottom of said crater, vowed never again to engage in energy manipulation training.
Damien's face twisted in agony at that particular memory. Even though he never did finish E.M training, he was confident in his materialization abilities to get him out of a pinch. Syd constantly told him that depending on only one particular aspect of Karma will throw his balance off, but he decided to take his chances.
Lost in the nostalgia of it all, Damien couldn't help but think he was forgetting something. His eyes instantly popped open as he remembered his mentor had requested his presence. He sprung up, landed on his feet, turned on his heels and made a dash for the village.
AN: So? What did you think? Any comments or reviews are welcome. Being my first official story, constructive criticism is highly encouraged. But please, no flaming. If you don't like my story, kindly discontinue reading it.