Well hello, anyone that actually decided to click on this story. I've read plenty of stories on this site, including revolt of the archers. Of course, I'm not looking to outdo any real gems here, but I'm hoping to provide you with a decent story. It's not going to be short, so be warned about that. This is my first story, so please, review. If I get enough reviews, I'll let the next chapters out a bit faster. I am holding them ransom, only you can save them, dear reader.

Just kidding, but I will let them out faster if you review more. So please, reviews for the noob? :D Time to start the story


"I have to go to a meeting, more business stuff. Don't burn down the town while I'm gone." The Dark Lord said, and he slipped out the secret entrance of our society under Kerning City. I watched him leave the building below.

I looked around the room, it was a brick-made room, with metal supports built into the wall. There was a large window over Kerning city, about 6 floors up from ground level. On the wall just to its left, was a mass of computers screens. The right had wooden boards with targets painted on them, with a few knives stuck into a few of them. Almost every single one knife or star had hit the bulls eye. The center of the room had a few couches, one which I was laying upon, with a few other direct students of the Dark Lord. Behind was just another wall, with two doors. One led down, the other led to the roof. The floor and ceiling were a shiny metal. It was a tough looking room, I guess.

It was built for us, the gifted students that attained the rank of shadower right from the beginning. Usually in our society, you started small. You became an assassin or a bandit, then continued to a hermit or a chief bandit. Finally you reach the rank of night lord or shadower. The only difference was in weapons, claws and stars versus daggers and sometimes shields. However, our group was different. We were so gifted we could learn multiple ways of fighting with ease. You couldn't really put a name on our fighting style, we just learned what we thought was best. Sure, the normal way everyone took was carefully tested to be easy and powerful, and convenient as well. Not us, we had our own style.

I looked out the window for a while, a small breeze came through the door, pushing my blue hair to the side. Yeah, I have hair that can't really be described as light or dark, it was right in the middle of blue. It reflected light really well, for some reason. Shut up, I don't color it, it grows like this. Not my fault.

Mike threw a shuriken lazily at a target, cutting one of the ropes it was hanging by. One side dropped, it and it swung back and forth. Without another thought, he threw another, catching the bulls eye easily. I picked up a knife, and threw it from a slightly higher angle. It caught the shuriken directly in the hole placed in the center, and stuck it to the board, while dislodging the throwing star's sharp side from the wood.

"I'm so bored…" Mike said, laying his head back on the black leather couch and closing his eyes. His dark hair blended right in with the leather couch.

"You're always bored Mike." Said Jess, a girl who was also under the Dark Lord. She was drawing something again. She had a blue pen in her hand, I reasoned she could be drawing me.

"He isn't bored when he's eating." I said, chuckling. I sighed, looking outside again. The dusty skies greeted me with a single ray of sunshine, one that I was glad for. It moved, and faded fast. I almost frowned.

"I wish something would happen already…" Mike said, who hadn't moved at all. He stared at the ceiling, as if he could make it explode if he concentrated hard enough. He probably could have, with his magical abilities.

"I'm not going to wait for something to happen," I said. I got up, and walked over to the door, attaching my shuriken holder to my jeans, and straightening my blue shirt a bit.

"Where are you going, Ice?" Jess said, looking at me. Her brown hair turned, and shined in the sun coming in from the window.

"To get some fresh air." I said, turning and walking up the stairs.

On the roof, it was fairly warm. I walked out, and looked over the city I called home. Maybe one day I would find out who had abandoned me. They might still be in the city, but I had no way to tell for sure. I walked over to the edge of the roof, looking down 7 floors to the ground. People bustled back and forth, business suits, dresses, all a hopeless mess of dots moving in all directions. I looked up, and saw the building that was being built across the street from mine. It looked to be another office building. How boring. I was hoping it would be something interesting, something that would change from day to day. A court house would have worked, with a big window. I could see the different people sitting there, at least. My mind wandered.

I thought about my name, Ice, for a while. It was a very strange name to have, but it explained how my personality used to be. Never knowing my true name, my friends had given me a list of names they thought of. Leave it to Mike to put Ice at the very bottom. He said it was because of my hair, and I must admit, it was a unique name, so I took it.

I looked down on the building I lived in. It was the thief society, a building created by the Dark Lord to be a secret headquarters for all thieves. Though it was a new idea, he was sure we could someday use it for everyone. A place to train, to trade, to get a few drinks, share tips, it sounded really nice. I could go down there and help advise a few of the newer people, it seemed like life was going to get much better soon.

I jumped up towards a tower crane, walking along it before settling down right above the crane's cabin, watching the people move back and forth, assembling and building different parts of the steel structure that would hold the office building of horrible boredem up. I got up and jumped again, fading in and out of sight between buildings. I landed near a gap between to buildings close together, hearing a wail. I looked down and saw a women getting attacked by some mugger. He had a knife. I was about to jump down, when I looked around. I jumped across the small gap, and kicked a concrete block off the edge. It fell about 3 or 4 floors before it hit the man's head, and it fell to the side. He fell on his knees, and he clutched his head, in pain, before collapsing on the ground. The women looked up at me, then quickly ran from the mugger. I wondered if the mugger was dead, but then I thought that it didn't really matter. If he was dead, too bad for him. If he wasn't, he might learn his lesson. I continued my running without another thought about him.

I jumped up and up as the buildings that grew taller and taller, as I reached the financial district. I looked down, realizing I was more then 20 stories up. I looked over the city that I knew as home. The red, dusty skies, were trying to show me something wonderful, but couldn't because of the all the stuff the was pumped through the factories. I decided to go back and eat something, maybe take a nap, or play a board game. Yeah, a board game, I was that desperate for something to do. Monopoly was fun enough, trying to steal the fake money while no one else was looking. Who said we couldn't add our own little touch to a game?

I jumped a 30 foot gap between 2 buildings put right next to each other. I was at the coast again, and the dust and smog was clearing for a second. The flaring red sky was wonderful, while it lasted, but I knew this was my home. No other place could replace it. I was about to head back, when a noise came from behind me. I turned around to find Jack, the fourth guy from our group sitting on the guard rail of the building.

Jack was hot-headed, and sometimes let his emotions take over him. This wasn't always good for our way of fighting, which could be very unforgiving to his type. He managed though, and I had a small respect for that. It was nothing compared to Jess though, with her condition. Jack and I were sort of rivals, but we were somewhat friends as well. There weren't many other people I had time to be friends with. He drank from a bottle of water, and let out a large breath.

"There's been nothing to do all day." He complained.

"Yeah. I'm bored as well." I said. "Dark Lord is out again, he shouldn't be gone for more then 2 days. It's almost dinner time, we should head back." I said.

"He's always leaving these days, how bad can the relationship between the classes be? Anyway, I'm not that hungry right now. How about a quick spar before we head back? It'll give us something to do." He said. I took out my dagger, which was enough of an answer for him.

He jumped forward, grinning already. I readied some throwing stars in my other hand, and he took out his dagger. I forced mana into my foot, and launched forward, and used dark sight to cloak myself at the same time. This resulted in a step that was impossible to detect before and after the jump, even the best mana trackers would lose sight of me until they saw me with their own eyes. It could even fool the feeling you get when someone is behind you, the only way to see me after the jump was with the naked eye. I had somehow managed to reverse the effect of darksight, in a good way, as long as I was out of plain sight.

I called this shadow step, and it was one of my favorite skills, an original design.

I stepped behind him, and swung quickly. He was trained, and jumped away, knowing that if he didn't see me, I was behind him. Lots of fights with this technique had at least taught him that. I took a star out of a pocket and threw it quickly. He landed and raised his dagger, deflecting the shuriken. I took out a few more, and threw them as well. He side stepped, and dashed towards me, jumping over me quickly. I took a tool out of my pocket, and turned around and deflected a stab with a sweep of my right arm. His other hand was coming at me with his dagger, and I focused mana into my left fist, turning it to electricity, and grabbed his arm, shocking him. He jumped back before he took any real damage, and I focused my mana again.

3 thin shards of ice, two inches in diameter and one foot long, formed behind me and launched. Jack barely had time to dodge them, and I shadow stepped behind him. I kicked him in the side quickly. Most of the strength in my body was in my legs, they caused real damage. He grunted in pain as it hit, and quickly stuck his feet against the ground, while grabbed my dagger arm to keep it away, and also to keep me in range. He rammed his back into me with all his might. I fell back a few steps.

A cell phone went off. I picked up mine. Jess's voice flooded my ears, and I turned it to speaker phone for Jack.

"Ice! Come back here. We got some packages, and we are waiting for you to come open them!"

I replied I would be there in a minute, and closed the phone. Jack looked up.

"That was fun. I guess you got to go, huh?" He said, taking another drink for his water bottle.

"You're coming too, aren't you? Oh, and, yeah. I hope this package isn't a bomb. Remember April's fools day last year?" I said

"Don't…remind me…" He said, his head down. We both started running home on the roof tops. It only took a few minutes to get back.

"Come on!" Jess shouted when we came into the room. On the table were a few packages, addressed to each of us. They looked white and plain.

"The package delivery guy says he was a few minutes earlier then he was supposed to be, that set off some alarms. Stay alert." Mike said.

I plopped down, and looked around for anything that didn't look right. When I was satisfied, I checked the date on the calendar to make sure it was not April's fools. I opened the package. Inside, was a classic present box, silver with a blue ribbon on top. Then I remembered.

"I totally forgot dude!" Mike said.

"So did I! How did I forget?" Jess said, holding her hands to her hand.

"What? What is it?" Jack asked. Three pairs of eyes flashed to him, giving that dull look that could only say, 'seriously?'

"Dude, don't you remember? Last year, the Dark Lord was listening as we talked, we said because we didn't know our birthdays, we wouldn't ever celebrate one among our group. He went out and bought as all presents, and said that at least today, we could celebrate for whenever our birthdays would have been. Today is our birthday, as far as we know." Jess said.

"Oh. Oh! I forgot about that, yeah, whatever. Let's open them already." Jack said, apparently not listening anymore. I got back to opening mine, carefully taking it apart. There was a smaller box inside, really small, maybe a necklace? I opened it up.

Inside were a pair of blue glasses, with a black frame. I put them on, and realized it was actually a computer screen. It quickly explained itself as the smart-sight, a wearable super computer with tons of features, directed by mana alone.

"This… is awesome… I'm getting maps on my glasses." Jack said. I looked over onto the couches, and using my mana to tell the glasses what to do, I found I could additionally scan objects and find wikipedia-like entries over everything I looked. I looked past the computer screen, and it automatically faded away, not getting in my way at all. Everything was slightly bluer, but it was quite clear. The others got the same glasses in different colors. Jack got a red one, Mike got a black one, and Jess got a green one. We looked around the room in wonder. I noticed one more package.

"It says it's for you," Jess said. I picked it up. Inside was a amazing necklace. It was a cross shaped design, with a silver base. The silver held sparkling sapphires, covering up most of the silver from the front. Everyone was impressed. I looked at it with my glasses, and a entry came up. I sat down to read it, and told everyone else to scan it was well.

Scanning… Object identified. Subject: Sapphire moon cross. Function: weapon.

Displaying information….

Sapphire moon cross:

This is a very strange, yet extremely powerful weapon. Found all over the world, starting as a moon cross. This moon cross is the sealed form of itself, it is able to change shape. It can turn into many different types of weapons, although it will always be easier to form faster weapons. A spirit inside the blade can allow it to change to whatever the owner needs.

As the owner of the blade gets stronger, the blade will grow with it. It will reach a colored weapon, such as a red moon cross. With enough work, a gem weapon is also possible, such as a sapphire moon cross. As it grows, it will get sharper and sharper, until the final gem weapon turns it into the sharpest blade in the entire world.

The different colors and gems that a moon cross will grow into are dependant on what elemental affinity the owner has. Blue/sapphire represents ice or lightning, or both. Red/ruby will represent fire, green/emerald (rarest type) will represent earth. Multi-color/Opal will represents all elements equally, black/onyx represents darkness. White/diamond will represent holy.

Solar crosses are the brothers and sisters of moon crosses, and are slower then moon crosses. They aren't sharper then moon crosses, rather they usually have a special power, depending on what color/gem the weapon is. Some elements will cancel any sort of magical barriers, making them impossible to block, some will be extremely slow and easy to block, but will automatically kill anything they cut.

I looked past the glasses at the cross again. The others were looking at it as well. This little piece of jewelry was supposed to turn into the sharpest blade in the world?

"Why does he get one and not us?" Jack said in a moaning voice. There was a letter on the box it came with.

"A gift from the Ellinia university, we hope you would come study magic, the school could use a prodigy like yourself." It read. A little note was made on the side, explained how the dark lord had personally gone up to the university to recommend me.

"You're gonna study magic!" Mike said. "Though you know plenty already, don't you?"

"No, the dark lord said I've only got potential. I'm not skilled with it, I haven't found a way to make it fit my style. I'll be learning it soon, anyway." I said.

"Yeah, no one really cares about that. So you can throw a few ice spikes. Big deal!" Jack said. He tried to use the same technique I did, only to cause a small explosion of mana. A small dent formed in the wall where jack had been thrown against. I looked back at the paper. Why did I feel like I would be in Ellinia in a few hours, and I wouldn't like it at all?


Well then, hope you liked this chapter. Please, as I said earlier, review. I want to become a better writer. See any mistakes? Review. Think it's interesting? Review. Want to see more chapters? You can probably guess what you need to do. Hope you come back for more! 3325 words.