Approximately 2000 years ago…
In the skies above the northern arctic lands of the planet Earth, there is a city invisible to the naked human eye. It's Sancturia, the capital city of the mystical Aurians. The Aurians had come to the Earth with the guidance of the last descendant of the Ten Sages, Auris Aurora, and from here they planned to live their lives in peace. Within the grounds of this grand city lied a palace that housed the most powerful Aurian drive, the Neo Drive, which is capable of incredible feats and power to whoever is able to wield it.
The day such an event occurred would not happen for a couple thousand years, but such a thing is unknown and of no concern on the mind of the Neo Drive's current guardian, a towering man by the name of Damascus. Damascus wears a mythical vest with a white shirt underneath it that has green dragon-like marks and red cuffs on the sleeves. He also has blue and silver pants with an ancient design that one could say came from Feudal Japan…A curious thing considering such an era hasn't occurred yet on Earth. His face was sculpted like a middle-aged man, having few wrinkles and an imposing appearance, his hair black and tied up at the ends like dreadlocks.
Damascus walks across the city of Sancturia, being allowed a little time to take a break from his duties as the guardian of the Neo Drive, and the people of the city look at him and wave happily at his presence despite his imposing size and face. Even the children had no fear while looking towards the man, and he gave them smiles in return. After a few minutes of walking around town, Damascus paused and let out a sigh, the emotion behind it not easy to discern by anyone but himself.
"It's odd to be at a time of peace, isn't it?" A serene, feminine voice calls out to Damascus, his face flinching visibly for a moment before he turned to face the woman in question. She was the present Sage of the Aurians, Auris Aurora, and with her glistening shoulder length aquamarine hair with a large pink bang hanging close to her forehead and baggy aquamarine robe decorated with ancient pink clouds along with her baggy blue sweat jeans and wooden sandals she looked positively gorgeous on this fine day. Her crystalline blue eyes and youthful face only added to her splendor.
Auris stopped before Damascus and only had to look a little bit up due to being just a few inches shorter than him, and Damascus happily held his right hand in front of his chest and smiled before remarking "Lady Auris…You are looking well today…All things considered, that is." Auris brushed the side of her hair with a graceful raise of her right hand and remarked "You need not comfort me with kind words, Damascus."
"Fair enough…Then onto other affairs. It seems the people are adjusting well to the change in planets." Damascus remarked while looking around at his home, the people walking around happily. "It took about a month of interstellar travel, but reaching this planet Earth was a good endeavor. In time, our people can hopefully spread out across the world and adapt to life here…Far away from our brand of politic struggles and the wars we faced."
Damascus laid a hand to his chin and remarked "Are you sure it was a good idea to leave the other nine tribes behind like this? …Or was that something you already took into consideration with your ability to see the future?" Auris closed her eyelids and whispered to Damascus "The tribes will disappear in due time…At least without the Aurians around, we can ensure a lack of another grand scale war. The tribes' inability to co-exist with one another without the pull of the Elemental Overlord and the Dark King will lead to a lack of the creation of future generations."
"…Should we not still take into consideration the possibility of them uniting and trying to come after us for revenge?" Damascus pointed out, and Auris said while glancing at the ground and sighing "Damascus…I hope you are not insinuating that you should take the Neo Drive for yourself. You know only those of the Sages' bloodline can accept it, if the Neo Drive allows it, anyways…They made sure to put that restriction on it."
"I am only thinking of the safety of our people. Who is to say that the tribes cannot produce another Elemental Overlord? Another Dark King?" Damascus pointed out with some genuine concern in his voice, but Auris just smiled and pulled her head back to let out a rather cute laugh while laying her right knuckles underneath her chin, leading to her then remarking "As though the tribes could put aside their differences enough to create someone even close to my husband! I must admit, I see your reason for concern, but you accidentally made me feel humored instead, Damascus."
"…And yet what of other threats? To say that the Sages' bloodline is an absolute defense mechanism would be folly. There could be many other enemies of the Aurians out there ready to take the Neo Drive for themselves, and what better way to defend it than to give it to me so no ill person can use it?" Damascus remarked, and Auris took a moment to pause and let out a tired sigh before she looked the man in the eyes, raising a hand up to his right cheek and telling him with a relaxing tone "Damascus…I know you want the Neo Drive for yourself after all the Ten Sages did to keep you from it, but it's fine. You, the Planetary Aurians, and I are all that's needed to protect our people from threats…The Neo Drive need not get involved."
Damascus lowered his eyelids slightly and lifted a hand up to Auris' own, gently pulling it away while remarking "I was only thinking of our people, Lady Auris…You did quite a lot this last year, especially in light of the Elemental Overlord's passing…And I wish nothing more than to take this pressure off of your shoulders." Auris puts her hands into the folds of her sleeves and said while tilting her head slightly "Did I not tell you that you need not comfort me with kind words? I said that because that's what I foresaw you doing beyond that point in time…"
Damascus folded an arm before his chest and bowed slightly before asking "Then what must I do to ease your pain?" Auris closed her eyelids so Damascus could not read the deep emotions she was experiencing before she replied with as he looked on in puzzlement "Just keep being yourself as you are now…A protector of the people."
Damascus was surprised by such a remark, and Auris quickly turned around and remarked while brushing the side of her hair again "Now if you excuse me…I must make sure that my meeting with the Planetary Aurians goes well. It shall be the first time we'll be meeting, after all, and I want to make a good first impression." Auris then walked off, and Damascus simply stood in place and let out a bit of a sigh before he suddenly felt something strange in the air. A twinge of distortion grabbed his attention from behind, and as he turned around the atmosphere suddenly became covered in a warped color scheme, with everything but Damascus pausing in place as it happened.
The colors in the area remained inverted even as the distortion came to an end, and Damascus turned around while remarking "What's going on here?" He was clearly perturbed by the change in scenery, and it only took a moment for a swirling vortex to open up in front of Damascus as someone inside remarked in an adolescent but slightly raspy voice "Such a cutesy load of bullshit…I expected no other words from that wench."
Through the vortex emerged a boy wearing a mythical charred dark brown and red cloak, one that keeps his face covered in shadows. From the confines of his right sleeve his hand sticks out slightly with a black and gold stone clenched within it. The boy moved his head forward slightly so he could reveal his grin, followed up by him remarking as he stood a good distance away from Damascus "But that's what I am here for…Damascus."
Damascus paused for a moment and looked around, noticing that no one was moving besides him. Combined with the odd colors in the atmosphere and the stone in the boy's hand, Damascus quickly glared at them and remarked "Time is stopped…That strange stone…You're using the Gaia Temporis, aren't you?" The boy nodded his head in a few short bobs and said in an impressed tone "You are quite perceptive…"
"Then you are…The Elemental Overlord? …No, that's impossible, your voice and body do not match up…And your aura feels…" Damascus could only shiver as he looked at the boy's fierce dark red aura, and with a slight grit of his teeth he finished remarking with a single word "Agonizing…" "That observation does not matter. But yes…I am the Elemental Overlord…Or rather, his successor. I have traveled back in time to visit you, Damascus." The boy stated with little pause.
"His…Successor? I was told the Elemental Overlord's spirit passed on, and yet you inherited his powers? …Why would Lady Auris deceive me about such a thing?" Damascus remarked, his face wrought in confusion. The boy in the cloak slowly began to walk around Damascus while glancing his way, telling him bluntly as he did so "Is it really so surprising that you've been deceived by that wench…When this hasn't been the first time she's done so?"
As the boy walks behind Damascus, he tells him bluntly some more "Those words about want you to remain yourself? She doesn't say that out of respect, or camaderie…She fears you, Damascus. After all…Without her best Aurian drive, you are the strongest Aurian, especially with that Space Drive you swiped from the remains of the Ten Sages' chambers." Damascus laid a hand onto his Aurian bracelet and remarked with a suspicious look in his eyes "How…How do you know these things? Why would Lady Auris fear me?"
"Is it not clear? You think she just moved the city to get away from it all? The Ten Sages are all the same…And that goes for their descendants. Auris desires control…And she will use her own people to accomplish that task. Once they have relaxed enough, she will train the next generation, manipulate them into being conquerors…And she knows you will be more than opposed to these efforts. And it won't just be one generation…Because of her immortality, generation after generation will be manipulated…But you can do the complete opposite, in time, that is…"
After the boy finished speaking for a few seconds, Damascus remarked "The complete opposite…Whatever do you mean by that?" The boy swung his arms out as he turned to face Damascus, telling him fiercely "You can change this universe, Damascus! Use your great power to bring peace to all worlds! Use the Neo Drive to give your people a chance to become peaceful liberators as well! Defy the will of the Ten Sages…and become grander than them all! All you have to do is be patient…"
Damascus glared at the boy and told him while raising a hand to his chin "How far from the future are you, boy?" "Two-thousand years…Give or take. And in my time, you are still alive…Though as of yet, you are not capable of living that long. I can change that, however…" The boy stated while raising his right hand up and turning it around to reveal the Gaia Temporis, and Damascus asked in a suspecting tone "What do you gain from this, boy?"
With a grin through the shadows of his hood, the boy remarked "You suspect me of manipulating you for my own ends…And your right, in a sense. There is something I want in exchange for granting you immortality with the Gaia Temporis." Damascus raised his right hand and aimed it at the boy while his grey aura surrounded it, remarking bluntly as he did so "You're seriously expecting me to be your puppet, boy?"
"Oh put your hand down, your useless gravity aura can't affect me, especially since I could easily manipulate the calcium in your bones, dehydrate your muscles or blow up your heart with a thought before you get a chance to harm me. Have I not been honest with you so far, Damascus?" The boy was very calm in his threats and inquiry, and Damascus could only raise an eyebrow at the words spoken and grumble slightly before lowering his hand and remarking "You have a few more seconds."
"Hehehe…It does my burning heart good to see you suspecting me though. Your desire to rebel against authority is one of your most prominent personality traits, Damascus…And the key to saving this damned universe. In the end, all I want is for the Aurians, Auris in particular, to suffer for all they have done. In time, you will learn how to wield the Neo Drive despite your lack of connection to the Ten Sages' bloodline…I'm quite positive you'll have figured out how to do it by the time I return to the present, at any rate. However, there's one other thing you need to do before you can truly get started on saving this universe…"
The boy then raised his gloved left hand to the sky and remarked "Travel deep into the depths of space…And meet a man by the name of Justek Ar-" "J-Justek? That madman that was sealed away in the Celestial Cage?! You are out of your mind…" The boy suddenly broke into a chilling laugh and remarked "Of course I am! You think I would deny such a fact?! But you have to trust me on this one…The man will listen if you approach him, I swear my life on that."
Damascus flinched from the boy's break into insanity, regardless of how brief it was, but then he paused for a few seconds and considered everything that was said to him so far. His ideals were slowly swayed to the boy's words as he began to crack a slight grin and remarked "I suppose…It would not hurt to ensure that the legacy of the Ten Sages not be allowed to repeat itself again. My people deserve a better ruler, one that will not manipulate and deceive them!"
Damascus clenches his fist, and with a grin as large as he could manage the boy cracked up in laughter before exclaiming "Wonderful! Accept your destiny, Damascus…No, GRAVITUS!" Damascus rubbed his chin and grinned a little wider before stating "Gravitus…Yes, that sounds like a great name to adopt as my own. A ruler needs a powerful name, one that will curb the rebellion of those villainous folk out there, after all."
"Then accept my gift of immortality, Gravitus, and fix this broken universe of ours!" The boy raised the Gaia Temporis into the air and made it glow, causing Gravitus' body to warp for a moment before the effect faded away and the man felt an odd clenching in his heart. The boy quickly had to tell him "You may feel odd for a moment or two…But that's just your body adjusting to the fact that your time has been frozen. You will not age a day from this point onward, Gravitus, so you will have all the time in the world to do what you need to."
Gravitus moved the hand away from his chest and laughed a little, glancing at the boy before asking him "Hehehe…You must be credited for this, boy. What is your name, so I can thank you properly…?" The boy folded his arms close to his chest and remarked "No…It's imperative that no one knows that I was here. I cannot be credited as the origin of this…But as for my name…You can just remember me as 'The Phoenix of Destruction'…For that is my identity."
"And yet that comes across more as a title than anything else. Hmph…I suppose I am in no position to press you for your true name then. So shall we meet again someday…Phoenix of Destruction?" Gravitus inquired, and the boy turned around and pulled his hand slightly out of the comfort of his sleeves to create another vortex with the Gaia Temporis, remarking as he did so "Perhaps we will in the present. It all depends on your survival in the future…You will have some interesting opponents ahead of you."
"Then this is farewell, for now…" Gravitus said, and the boy grinned and made his way through the vortex without saying another word. He knew everything would line up in the future now that he set events in motion, and after a warp through the twisted dimensions of time and space the boy ends up emerging in the black and starry depths of space itself covered in a shield of air. The cloak on his body waves in the presence of the air around his body, and he lifts a hand up to pull his hood back while he stared straight at the planet Earth that lied thousands of miles away.
"Good…Gravitus has been born in the past, affecting the future as it should. Auris, you foolish wench…You could never figure out that it was I who made him the monster he is, because how can one see that in the future if that moment existed in a frozen period of time?" The boy remarked before ripping the cloak right off of his body and removing it from existence by setting it aflame, followed by him tucking the Gaia Temporis away into his right pocket and stating "Now lets see here…"
Glaring at the Earth, the boy said "The Planetary Aurians were defeated…Gravitus' mark should have been broken…All that's left now is to deal with the final seal. Hehehe…Once I have finished manipulating that foolish replica of mine once more, then that will be the moment you and your powers will fit my ends…" With a face expressing the utmost madness and glee, the boy exclaimed to only himself as flames roared around the frame of his body "JUSTEK ARCAVIRA!"
Clash of the Elements Part 6: The Scars of Sins Past
Chapter 1: Prologue of Past and Present Events
In the present day, it has been a couple of weeks since the Aurian tyrant Gravitus has been thoroughly defeated. It is a time of peace for the planet Earth and the city of Sancturia that floats above it's arctic circle, though the humans are still wondering what happened when the battle against Gravitus was brought to the surface for just a few brief moments. Obviously, the person he was fighting, the young Elemental Overlord Mew, was not going to just come out and explain everything that happened.
Instead, the boy was more content just spending his time at his house, playing video games despite being in the middle of a hot summer day. Even with his house positioned on a flat plateau within some mountains, the heat still got to him, as the winds were silent and therefore not bringing a flow of coolness down the mountain sides towards the house. Wearing his black flame insignia t-shirt and blue shorts did help him deal with the heat slightly, but he was still sweating slightly as he sat on his couch and leaned forward to look at the TV, tapping away at his controller while facing what seems to be a tough boss.
As he licked his lips and concentrated as hard as he possibly could, he only had a second to take his right hand up and swipe the front of his spiky brown hair free of sweat before he glanced slightly to the right while tilting his head and remarking "Hey, how you holding up down there?" The person he was talking to was a girl his age who had long silky brown hair that reached halfway down her back. She wore a loose green t-shirt that was drooping on both sides of her body as she laid on the carpet floor, her large breasts pushing the top of her shirt slightly and revealing a bit of her midriff, and she also had some nice blue jean shorts and didn't wear any socks or shoes due to being indoors. In her right hand was a study book that she had grasped by the back of the spine with most of her fingers while her thumb pressed against the inside of it.
This girl was named Kairi Aurora, the daughter of the sage Auris and the current wielder of the Neo Drive, which she got after a long fought battle against not just Gravitus, but her own emotions. And as she laid against the floor her body sweated slightly, though the air conditioning vents did give her just a bit of a breeze to work with, and with a slightly irritated but focused look on her face Kairi remarked in response to Mew's question "I REALLY don't get why you don't just conjure a breeze already Mew…"
"I'm not here to be a human cooling unit, Kairi. I'm not going to abuse my powers just to keep ourselves cool…" Mew remarked with a bit of a chuckle afterwards, and for a moment Kairi lowered her arm and laid her book against the top of her breasts before glaring at Mew and telling him "It's not abusing your powers…Do you want us to die from dehydration?"
Mew grinned a little and said "You know, after surviving Gravitus…Dying from dehydration would be a bit embarrassing." Kairi smiled for a moment and looked pretty optimistic that Mew was going to give in and summon some wind to keep them cool, but then he quickly remarked "So you are more than welcome to get up and grab a cold water from the fridge. Hell, there's probably some ice cubes you could lay on your skin in the freezer."
Kairi's expression quickly returned to one of annoyance as she bit the bottom of her upper lip and growled a little before letting out an echoing "Ugh" and saying "Are you kidding me…? The ice in your freezer has probably all melted, that's how hot it is." Mew grinned and decided to pause the game he was playing for a moment in order to give Kairi his full attention, and as he laid his arms down on his knees he glanced at her and said "Come on Kairi, you'll never get used to the surface temperature if I give you an easy way out every time."
Kairi slammed the back of her head against the floor and groaned some more, telling Mew bluntly "I don't get how humanity has survived this long on this planet when the temperature can't even make up it's mind on what it wants to be…" Mew laughed a little at that remark "It's just a matter of adapting…You're too used to living in a cold environment, Kairi."
"You call it adapting, I call it having a stubborn degree of tolerance…" Kairi remarked before lifting her book back up and trying to read it, though her eyelids were drooping a bit now that she got back to it. "Speaking of stubbornness, it seems you are doing everything you can to avoid falling asleep while reading. You should take a break from reading for a moment and do something else, Kairi." Mew remarked while raising a finger up and smiling.
"I have to keep up with my studies, I don't want to slack off TOO much over the summer." Kairi remarked in a more relaxed tone of voice, but Mew then laid his hands atop his kneecaps again and told her "Oh come on, summer is made for nothing more than slacking off. I mean granted, if you want to spend that time studying that's your decision, but if you combine that with this heat you'll just keep tiring your brain out."
Kairi glared at Mew while puffing her cheeks out slightly and asked him "Ok genius, what do you think I should do to take a break then?" Mew quickly swung his right hand out and used his powers to pull a second controller over to the grasp of his hand, wiggling it in front of his face while slyly smirking, letting his efforts sink in for a few seconds before he remarked "You could always play with me for a bit. This game does have co-op…"
Mew tried to throw in a wink for good measure, but Kairi just gave him a blank stare for a few seconds before dully remarking "So you want me to replace studies with games, huh?" Mew nodded his head, and after a momentary sigh Kairi slaps her right arm flat against the floor and lets go of her book before using her power of flight to slowly push herself onto her feet while remarking "Fine, I guess we can play a game."
"Excellent! Let me just take a moment to plug in a controller and…" As Mew looked towards the TV, Kairi cracked a mischievous smile and lifted her hands up close to her chest in order to quietly crack her knuckles. Mew heard the sound anyways and turned to look at her, seeing the playful look in her eyes before he blinked a few times and inquired "Umm…Kairi…What are you doing?"
Kairi smiled a bit and remarked "Just playing a game like you wanted to…You call it wrestling." As Mew widened his eyes and prepared to wave his hands it, it was already too late. With a brief imitation of a cat's meow Kairi leaped off the ground and tackled Mew right off the couch, taking him right to the floor as his back hit the arm of his couch, which thankfully didn't cause it to tip over. Once on the ground Mew put up some resistance against Kairi's playful wrestling as the two of them tumbled around the floor, hitting walls and the table without really flinching.
The two of them giggled as they played around like that, though they eventually got so out of hand that they began kicking up the dust that Mew was too lazy to vacuum up, filling the room in a cloud of it for a few good seconds while the two continued at it. Eventually the dust settled, and we find Kairi having Mew pinned with his arms outstretched while she panted and sweated even more than before, though she grinning from ear to ear as she said "L-Looks like I win…"
Mew smiled and closed his eyelids while remarking "You might want to flip your perspective on this one, Kairi." Mew then playfully waved as Kairi blinked a couple times and looked past Mew, noticing that he was laying against a bed of rock that looked like it had the texture of his ceiling. Kairi then glanced behind her and saw that she was being held against the ceiling with a ring of rock around her waist, at which point she looked back at Mew and remarked while laughing a bit at how petty this was "Oh, so you'll use your powers for this but not to cool us both down?!"
"What can I say, you know I'm not a fan of losing." Mew said while shrugging his shoulder as best as he could before flicking a couple of his fingers on both hands up to send a slight gust of wind into Kairi's sleeves, tickling her armpits and causing her to lose concentration giggling, and as she crunches her arms against her armpits to stop the tickling she lets go of Mew and remarks "Y-You're playing dirty here!"
As Mew puts the parts of the ceiling he took out back into place perfectly he floats down to the ground and remarks while focusing on Kairi "Hey now, you're the one who jumped me. All's fair in love and war, Kairi." Mew then snapped his fingers and made the ring of stone retract back into the ceiling so Kairi could float down to the ground as well while finishing her laughter up. Afterwards she took a couple steps forward and pressed her breasts against Mew's chest so she'd be close enough to lift her right hand up and flick her finger against Mew's forehead while playfully glaring at him and remarking "Next time I'll just use the Neo Drive against you then."
Mew widened his eyes and nervously grinned, saying as Kairi pulled herself back slightly "H-Heh…Now that's not fair though, that's overkill." Kairi stretched her arms and held them behind her head while remarking nonchalantly "Then just take a loss next time Mew…I had you pinned easily." Mew shrugs his shoulders and remarks "I had ten seconds before I truly lost, that's how wrestling usually works."
Kairi just rolled her eyes at that before leaning back a little and floating until she laid the back of her head against the wall and let her arms droop down on her sides, and she glanced at Mew and said "…You know, that probably wasn't a good idea…I feel even sweatier than I was before." Mew folded his arms together and remarked "Yeah no kidding, I could feel a lot of sweat near your boobs."
Kairi glared at him as though he was being overly perverted and let out a slight grumble, but Mew just told her honestly "It's just an observation, no need to get all mad at me." Kairi relaxed a little and glanced upward while taking her hands and grabbing the bottom of her shirt to wring it out slightly while she remarked "Yeah, I guess you do have a point there…That's what I get for not wearing a bra today…" The last part she mumbled to herself, and surprisingly Mew did not hear this.
Mew then hung his arms out beside his body and remarked "Ok ok…I'll give in. At the very least, you and I should go to another part of the world to try and cool down. It's not like everywhere is experiencing heavy sunlight. You can even bring your book along to continue studying if you want." Kairi grinned at that as she let go of her shirt and told him while lifting a finger up and wagging it before her face "Good enough for me…Go ahead and check the weather channel to see what's going on around the world."
Mew nodded his head in agreement of that and began to walk for the table while using his powers to flip the remote control into his right hand, casually glancing over to Kairi and saying to her "All I ask in return is that you clean up the little bit of damage we did to the house. A couple chairs fell over, and there might be a little more…I wasn't really paying attention." Kairi turned to the right and raised a hand up to use her ability to control aura in order to pick said chairs up while Mew switched to the main setting for the TV, after which he began flipping through the channels to reach the weather one.
But the moment he reached the channel, Mew's eyes widened in a curious manner as he sees an emergency news report going on at that very moment. There's a reporter standing at the edge of a familiar city with a certain towering needle in the background, but currently some burning fireballs were colliding with the city and creating cataclysmic bursts of flame that took the city apart. The report was trying to keep her cool as she reported this news, but her body was clearly quivering even as she stood there trying to describe the scene "W-We come to you today in what appears to be a brazen apocalyptic attack on our fair city! There have already been causalities reported in the thousands, and there's no sign of just who is attacking or what they want."
Kairi heard the news and ran over beside Mew to look at the TV, and upon looking at the fireballs for a bit she remarked "Mew…Doesn't those look a lot like the type of fireballs you use?" Kairi's observation did not go past Mew's eyes, and he looked rather perturbed as the fire continued to tear through the city without end. The reporter remarked "Evacuations are underway as best as they can, but is there anyone out there that can stop this mad-" before he finished his sentence, a sudden fireball 'strayed' over to her location and incinerated her and the camera person with ease.
The TV became filled with static, and Mew immediately shut the TV off and threw the remote onto the couch while his eyes were widened in shock. He finally remarked in response to Kairi's earlier comment "Yeah…This doesn't feel right at all. That city was being attacked by someone with my type of powers…I could just barely feel that through the TV. We need to hurry up and get to the city and stop this person, whoever they are!"
Mew began to ran for the door while Kairi, who was really confused by the presence of what appeared to be a second Elemental Overlord, took a moment to register what was happening before she remarked "Wait a second! Just let me get my staff!" Mew was already opening the door before he turned back and remarked "No time! You'll have to just catch up with me!" He then ran outside and leaped off the ground to take flight, and Kairi could only grit her teeth and hurry to catch up with him as she ran to the back of Mew's house and found her staff, picking it up and turning to make a run for the door to take flight and hurry after Mew before he could fly straight into trouble…
Next Time: Remember me…Replica
