My body glided between the distance of me and the tree in front of me at dangerous speeds in the dark of night with many other people around me flying through that same sky launched from the same cliff towards the same forest.
Twisting my body around I threw my arm which held my right razor in whip form around the trunk of the tree the other end of the blade came wrapping around my hand leaving a small cut where it was.
The razor when it was in its whip form was just as if not more dangerous than the other forms it could be molded into. The blade was smaller making it harder to dodge or block and the blades were fined tuned and cut more deeply than they looked like or should making the smallest of cuts being fatal.
The only downside was that the razor in its whip form or simply the whip as I called this form was flimsy and unlike solid swords or blades it can't be controlled to the certain degree you want but rather the general direction.
This is the reason why most groups of people and cultures razors are seen as taboo, not illegal but frowned upon due to their careless nature. Most teachers that you would pay for don't even mention razors whether due to not wanting to get their pupil's hopes up only to be shot down. Or they don't know how to wield the weapon.
Gritting my teeth ignoring the pain as my aura worked its magic on the small cut I adjusted to better fit the blade comfortably around my wrist leaving the room so the blade won't hug my skin.
Comfortable with my position with my back arched backward in a free fall-like state yet not moving with the gravity pushing me down. Looking over my shoulder and towards the ground, I grew slightly nauseated at the distance to the ground.
'Shit that's too high jump down with my aura,' my gaze went back to the whips blade that was slipping out of my hand putting me on a timetable that I wasn't comfortable with. 'I don't have enough time to shimmy down with the razor either,' I silently cursed at the gods for the predicament I was in.
My gaze shifted from the ground to the razor in my right hand before sighing and grabbing my left razor that was also wrapped around my left arm.
Solidifying the right blade back into the curved sword leaving a cut in the middle of the tree with my curved blade, which I call the slingblade barely hanging on to the bark.
Pushing my legs against the bark my body fell into a freefall. Bringing my left razor, Hati I placed it in an underhand grip, and with a flick of my wrist, the blade solidified into a normal sword and cut into the bark not only slowing my speed but giving me more traction with my feet on the bark.
The blade splintered the tree's bark into two, sap flowed through the cut getting the blade and my hands sticky with the unwanted liquid as it hardened at a speed that just straight up annoyed me.
Not even ten seconds after I fell my feet touched the ground hurling dirt around where my feet landed in a brown dance with it being dragged off with the wind into the darkness.
The world around me was only illuminated so far, maybe a foot or two in either direction making our senses of sight practically useless. The only sounds you could hear were the wind moving leaves and the occasional bug.
So two senses down, touch is only good for up close. So three down, great.
I groaned while turning around and hitting my foot on the bark leaving small bursts of pain where the especially sharp part is.
"Come on, you just have to find a shrine and not die. It's not that hard right, anyone could do it so just think Holden." I spoke to myself now realizing how stupid I must've looked.
I looked around me trying to find anything that could help, but the only things I could see were the ground, the torn-up bark, and the sky which held the moon.
Wait the moon goes east to west, and since it's been some time since the moon went into the sky it wouldn't be that far-fetched to say it was high in the sky, high enough to tell.
The Atlas academy's side door, the one we went through was positioned at the south and led to a hill that looked over to the west, the hill we were on.
Looking up towards the trees and the leaves that the trees held in a desperate hope that I could somehow see the moon and its position in the sky with the limited view I had.
My thoughts were realized when even though I could see in between the leaves with the little amount of light showing small particles flow through the air.
'I need to get rid of these trees I thought as I looked around looking for the smallest trunk, making it so I had to exert the least amount of energy or aura, aura I could use later if needed.
Looking around for the Lord knows how many times this time with my eyes adjusted to the dark to a certain degree with the lack of moonlight only holding one purpose. Now I could see five to seven feet in front of me far from what I want but probably the best I could get.
My eyes found a rather thin piece of bark on the outside of a thin tree trunk. Putting my right razor into its whip form I glided the thin blade towards the bark, the blade cut through the bark in less than a second, the blade going through the other side as well, and then back towards the ground limply.
The trees let out a groan as they began to shift back and forth in a weird dance of not quite falling, but not having the strength to stand up either. A little later after looking at the tree for some more the shifting had mostly stopped with the tree opting to the right for its final time.
The tree fell with inelegance as the ground seemed to jump upwards at the force of the bark falling against the ground, shoving pinecones and dirt towards me forcing me to close my eyes as I glided my hands over my face getting it off.
The moonlight raced towards the clearing now, showing the moon in its position showing what direction was west, and therefore the shrine and hopefully my partner.
Putting my razors around my arm I was about to run when a growl was heard behind me. Throwing my body to the ground the shadow of a beowolf gliding above me with one more on each side following behind him.
The combination of their three bodies eclipsed the little light the moon gave me making my surroundings back to being dark before the light hit me again as the beowolfs claws marked the dirt.
I jumped up to my feet both of my hands unleashing my weapons as my left one took the form of the whip and my right one the slingblade. At the same time, I was doing this the beowolfs and reared back towards me with their red eyes having a side effect, the red eyes dragging across the sky in a crimson line adding to the scariness of the beowolf.
The beowolfs didn't immediately try to jump out at me again, instead, they began to walk around growling at me, the circle wasn't that big only 10 feet or so giving me little to no breathing room or room to make do within a fight.
I squared my shoulders around and letting my weapons go out in a further direction than what was normal to anticipate an attack. My left razor, the one in whip form was pointing forwards but the blade was pointing behind me begging for one of the beowolfs to actually attack me from behind, my right razor was pointing to my right with its curve giving me a back window to my back right looking straight at the beowolf using the shine with the limited light.
Rustling from my right and left with growls from both sides brought me back to reality just in time to duck as the two bodies hit each other with the right one taking the left one all the way past me and into the darkness.
The other Beowolf came out of the darkness lunging for my face, ducking once again I brought my slingblade out in whip form with it wrapping around his neck, a light tug here and a flick of the wrist there and the blade tightened around its neck as it did with the trunk before a stream of black oozed out of the stump and disappearing into the darkness.
Twirling around my eyes leveled with crimson ones that came was coming at me quickly, kneeling to the ground with my sword aiming at the sky with the beowolfs body doing the work for me and splitting itself in half.
The darkness from the inside of the Grimm sat on my shoulders and hair clouding my eyesight. Wiping my eyes with one hand and waving the air with another I tried to get my sight back. Knowing that there was a Grimm still left at least and with an obstructed view,
well, I would be fucked.
Slowly the smoke began to leave my eyesight, I sighed with relief before a sudden pressure came at my chest.
The last beowolf headbutted me into the ground he then continued the assault towards my neck, with the only thing keeping it at bay was my hands in its throat. My weapons were knocked out of my hands when he hit me sending both of them to my right landed one on top of the other.
The beowolf pushed towards my bodybuilding pressure at a rapid rate, the head of the beowolf was so close I could feel its breath touch my neck, breath that desperately needed mints to mind you.
My arms started to droop down dragging the beowolf with me closer to my neck.
Despite my large aura reserves and the fact I was pushing as much as I could into keeping my hands up, my arms are in a really awkward position with too much force being put into leading to the inevitable breaking of my bones.
With this thought in mind, we resume to me placing my hands in front of like an idiot trying to stop someone from munching on my neck.
My arms got to 6 inches above my neck and were increasing by the second, five inches now, then four inches now three.
Right before the beowolf was about to give one more push went suddenly a spear came into view piercing its flesh.
The beowolf flew to the side, darkness leaking out of the wound before it was overtaken by ice. The body reflected light for a short while before hitting a tree and breaking into pieces. Darkness seeped out of the mess clouding light once again, in a Stephen King Mist kind of way.
"Of course I would save you," a voice said from the darkness "Though to be fair I don't anyone else who would other than me," the voice continued before Enzo stepped out of the shadows.
"You're never going let me live this down are?" I had to ask as wiping my hands off with my shirt.
"Nope," He said with a smile while popping the 'p'. Walking over to the mess of ice he grabbed 'legionnaire' before snapping it into his two pistols and placing them on his belt, which he somehow managed to grab when we woke up earlier.
"Am I the first person you made eye contact with," I asked
"Yup, I bet you feel honored don't you," He teased with a grin as he looked around to which place would lead us to the clearing.
"This way," I said pointing to my right "Long story short the moon gave away its position," I said already walking away.
"See that's why we are a good team, you are the brains, I am everything else," he said while jogging to catch up with me as I laughed.
"To be fair while I am thankful for you helping me, I had it under control," I said trying to control his ego.
"Sure," he said while rolling his eyes, "While I am sure you're strong the way you're arms were positioned you most likely would have broken them before any progress was made making it easy to kill you." He said while kicking a stone into the dark for the fifth time oblivious to the intellect he just showed.
"So you saw?" I asked
"Yeah I did see, the only light inside that damn forest stuck out like a sore thumb,"
I nodded my head at this, "But still thanks," I said with a smile
He just waved me off with a smile and told me not to worry about it.
We walked around for what could've been an hour. Our conversation was cut halfway through to avoid suspicion or attention from unwanted monsters. The night seemed to lighten up slightly, making the stars a little less visible but the ground to be more walkable.
Our footsteps shifted the dirt at a greater pace thanks to the visible ground. Our walk had turned into jogging as his breaths became more shallow and frequent with the one-and-a-half-hour jog doing a number on his apparently untrained lungs.
We occasionally thought while we were jogging that we heard what could've been people talking. The voices that we heard while curious were also much older than those of kids ages 17. Each time we heard the voices we would stop and look around the area taking in the chilling yet beautiful forest, and each time they would leave confused not seeing the slightly shifting branch that had a metallic look to it.
We were back to running in no time the light now on the horizon leaving a citrus and velvet look in the sky, elongating the shadows to extreme lengths. Due to this, the ground below was more visible, the cracks and crevices, the holes and roots we were worried about before could be easily avoided that didn't stop Enzo from falling in multiple times.
"Come on man this isn't funny," He said while blowing a strand of hair dangling from his hair while attempting to get back up.
"You're right, the fourth time it gets hilarious," I said laughing while dragging him out of his hole.
"When this is over I swear I-"
A scream interrupted the air pulling both Enzo's and my attention.
Looking to my right and his left we were about to leave again thinking it was one of those anomalies before out of the corner of my eye I saw leaves began to fall.
Looking up Enzo followed my gaze as we saw a domino effect of trees shifting, going into the distance.
Picking my feet into the air I started running in that direction ignoring the yells from behind me. Jumping over the tree trunk in my way I slid down the hill know my right knee and left foot till I got to the bottom in which I just kept running.
Breaking through the brush of leaves in front of me I saw a huge crater in the middle of a small clearing.
Outside of the crater, a tusk was poking out with dark dust seeping out like normal, what wasn't normal was Amas standing there with her weapons in her hand heaving, to her right was a giant tree with the top portion having footprints with what could be seen as a forceful push-off, almost as if a person with a huge upper and lower body mass jumped towards it.
Not that Amas couldn't do it I just doubt that her body type would allow her to gain the force needed to kill the Grimm, least of all leave a crater in its wake.
"Dude calm down, couldn't you have waited for me or..." Enzo started before looking over at what I was looking at "Holy fuck," he said before he broke out into a grin. "Nice Job Amas didn't know you had it in you," He yelled while walking over.
Still breathing heavy Amas closed her eyes and sighed didn't know if it was due to part of the epic fight she must've had or Enzo coming to talk to her, either is understandable.
"Oh hi didn't see you there, and all this," She said turning to face us fully with a smile while waving around her, "This wasn't me," the happiness she had seemed to dim at that statement.
"Well if you didn't do this then who did?" I asked walking towards the two.
"Hello there," A voice said from the crater.
We both turned to look at the voice in confusion while Amas just sighed, stepping out of the crater we could see a familiar ax come out and rest itself on the ground.
"Oh, it's you," Vester spoke up while getting the dirt out of his ax paying us no mind.
Sorry for the time it took to write this chapter but no excuses here.
Fun fact: Yoda was partly modeled after a photo of Albert Einstein.