Lore & Legends
By Moonraker one
Chapter Two
The warrior's presence could be felt even though he was invisible. Calmly yet cautiously examining his elusive foe, Butz moved in a circle counter to the warrior's. "I know you're there," Butz flatly stated. "Why don't you come out to attack me?"
The warrior knew exactly how, based on his years of experience as a knight, to handle the situation. He silently flung himself in his opponent's general direction, hoping that his incredible sense of timing would gain him a quick victory. Just mere moments before his blade would have cleaved the mighty son of Dorgan in two, the hero ducked easily beneath the sword, in order to respond with a well-timed slash. The dark warrior's eyes bugged out; the BraveBlade possessed such speed that he knew of no possible way to dodge with sufficient time. To make it worse, he didn't even have time to think, so, wanting to meet the darkness calmly, he shut his eyes. A few seconds' worth of silence got the better of his curiosity. A calm gust of wind and a bit of courage brought his eyes open. If his initial analysis of the situation happened to be correct, not only was he still amongst the living, but his opponent's sword stood firm immediately against his throat.
"Who sent you?!" demanded Butz with calm authority. The warrior gulped; one false move or even the wrong outward appearance would mean his neck would be opened from flesh to flesh. Unfortunately for him, he knew that if he said anything, what awaited him would mean a far worse fate. As it stood, he had no choice.
"Lord Muzef sent me to kill Lornac," he stated. "You guys got here before I could." A disturbance in the wind told Butz's instincts that his current position meant danger. Reaching for his dagger while still maintaining his sword's position at the warrior's throat, he turned to the source of the trouble. The figure coming towards him moved far too quickly, and drew his blade for the death strike.
"DIE!" he shouted. Two separate shuriken, hurled at each of the invisible warriors, connected with their necks and brought them to the ground. All of Butz's friends looked to see who saved him just in the nick of time.
"Hello friends!" a pleasing voice called.
Five pairs of eyes bugged out. "Gi…GILGAMESH?!"
"Back from the Cleft of Dimension thanks to you!" the multi-armed warrior cheerfully shouted. "I'm here to help. I can't bear to think of the horror that Exdeath's former disciples will cause if they are victorious." Butz could not believe what he just heard.
"His…disciples?!" Gilgamesh nodded in response to the question.
"Exdeath's brother had a private gathering of the most powerful warrior mages in reality. The Order of Darkness always had the conquest of reality in mind. If they get their grip and control over the Staff, they can strike down the galaxy's mightiest heroes in a heartbeat." Sheathing their weapons, the team of now six proceeded into the forest. At the midsection of the woods, there were two pathways. Butz used his skills from years of being a wayfaring drifter/adventurer to his advantage; he knew automatically that the pathway they needed happened to be the one that was the more difficult to see. Trudging on, Faris thought of Lornac; it had been ages since she last saw him. King Tycoon, she remembered, always talked about how the nine-thousand year old immortal taught him everything he knew about life. She herself saw him only a few times, but each time he gave her a gift of knowledge. Obviously, the man understood more of the universe in his nine millennia than any member of this gathering would ever learn. One major question resonated through her mind every time she came across the skilled fighter; no mortal had ever discovered the mythical shard of the Heaven Crystal that shattered in the beginning of the Earth. Predictably, how he could have found it seemed a bit confusing. Regardless of what lie ahead danger-wise, the log hut of Lornac soon came into view.
"Ah, journeyers," said Lornac, opening his door. "I can tell you've come seeking knowledge about the holy Staff of Omnipotent Wrath. Let the enemy have it; the could never use it anyway. What I'm worried about is if they get that far, they won't need it. They'll have enough power just in the temple that they could destroy the galaxy. To use the staff, though, you have to be a certain class."
"What class?" inquired a confused Lenna. "I thought that four crystals only possessed so many spirits." Lornac smiled a playful grin.
"When I was in my forties," he explained, "I was in search of treasure so I'd never have to work again. Instead, I fulfilled part of a legend; I found a shard of the Heaven Crystal."
Faris gasped. "I heard about the Heaven crystal," she remarked.
"Of course," he finished her sentence with, "it is widely known. God created Earth. Fearing the Humans would attempt to enhance or use the power of the Heaven crystal to attain greater consciousness, or worse, to win wars, he shattered the crystal himself. By doing so he forever made it so no one could ascend into the Eternal Kingdom short of death. As such, the shards of the crystal differentiated. Some became blissful job classes, some curses. I found the only piece that gave the Immortal job class."
"And," entered Butz, speaking from legend. "when you mastered the Immortal class, you were to live forever and await the arrival of the next Saviour?" Lornac nodded. He held, deep down, a horrible secret. When he found the crystal, and with it the promise of eternal life and the ability to spread infinity's teachings, he tried to share his power with his wife, but the shard refused to accept her. To make matters worse, once he mastered the class he could not rid himself of it. All he could hope was that someday, a saviour could come and free him from immortality. Lornac was about to stand up to get some water, when by fate his gaze swung around to Koga. None of the others could understand why, but the warrior's calm state became incredibly nervous in a short period of time. Koga himself did not understand why his presence could frighten a skilled warrior that couldn't die.
"Die evil!" shouted Lornac as he hurled a shuriken at the kid. Before Butz could draw his sword and turn aside the shuriken, the kid gave a shout and motioned his hand at the spinning blade. His aura gave the green flash distinct of a black magic spell, and a negative field of energy surrounded the shuriken mid-flight and forced it to dissolve. All eyes turned to a quivering Gilgamesh.
"TH…th…that…THAT'S AN EXDEATH SPELL!" he waveringly stammered. The warriors present turned to Koga, then to the immortal. With silent contempt, Lornac shook his head.
"Indeed."
*
Muzef practically jumped from his seat as the surge passed through them. Almost every one of the other members of his order felt the same thing. Startled, the leader cried, "What the HELL?!" He knew what that feeling was; it was the typical energy surge of when Exdeath utilized a powerful spell quickly. Just about none of them could rightly believe what they felt.
"Master!" shouted Gliv. "Did you feel that?!" Muzef's mouth hung open.
"Oh…my…god…" he uttered. "Without a doubt, that's Exdeath's life force all right."
"OUR MASTER IS ALIVE!?"
Muzef thought a moment. "No," he carefully said, "worse. At least if he died it'd be fine. He's been reincarnated." Being a master warrior mage, he knew full well the true consequences of what he told his fellow evils. Most likely, the child would have the full power of Exdeath's dark spirit, but not his evil. He cringed to think of it, but there was an even more terrible possibility. He did not want the horrible irony of the dark mage's evil used to protect the planet they needed to destroy. Of course, if the kid hadn't fully developed his power, the odds of success improved.
"This drastically alters our plan," noticed Uodi. Muzef closed his eyes solemnly.
"Unfortunately."
*
"What just happened?" asked Koga, as startled as anyone present. "Did I just make that shuriken vanish?" Lornac very delicately examined the child's thought process and psyche; it was excellent that no wicked intentions permeated the young mind. Even if there were purpose behind it, Lornac thought it extremely ironic that Butz of all people would wind up mentoring Koga.
"It stands as I thought," stated the well-traveled warrior. "Koga in spirit and power is Exdeath Reincarnate." No other happened to be more startled and shocked than Butz. He, with the help of the other four, stood fast in the face of the evil dark mage's fury, and struck him down. Looking down at the child he journeyed with for the past year or so, he could scarcely imagine that the same being that threatened to consume everything he held dear would wind up beside him in such a different form. God must have a daft sense of humor, thought Butz. Lornac quickly reached in his cabinet and handed to Butz two separate crystals.
"These two crystals I'm giving you," he explained, "are to help you on your journey. The red colored crystal will shatter illusions, and the blue one, when combined with a crystal shard, will instantly give you the experience points required to master a job class." Preparing for the journey ahead, all the six warriors present understood the circumstances. Despite the fact that the adventure ahead seemed dire and unbelievably difficult, they never experienced such a degree of hope. "I wish you all great luck in this troubling time."
Approaching the Ancient Library, Butz had many questions. For one, he couldn't understand exactly how much of the past would act against them. Looking at the multi-armed warrior traveling with them, however, pushed one question in front of the rest. "You were the dark mage's main servant, Gilgamesh," stated Butz. "Tell me exactly how much power he truly possessed." Gilgamesh looked nervously at the cheerful child strolling next to Lenna and gulped. He then stared directly into Butz's eyes.
"Exdeath possessed many a horrifying spell," he admonished. "One especially nasty spell I'd seen him implement is so evil that with it, a being can be made invincible at the cost of the lives of ten of their servants. You were extremely lucky the spell could not be used in Cleft." The main warrior of the bunch could easily tell that his well-experienced ally with many arms had seen his share of darkness. One question that Gilgamesh had for Butz was one all his own. "How much faith do you have in the boy?"
Butz looked confused. "So what if he's Exdeath reincarnated," stated the warrior. "I have more faith in him than most other people I come across. If anything dangerous threatens us, we buckle down and defeat it. Besides, he can wield a sword better than most royal guards."
The familiarity of the ancient library seemed to be the only positive aspect of the entire situation. Outside of that, knowing next to nothing about their enemies severely limited their choice of actions. The air became noticeably cooler once they got near the library. Twelve scholars stood at the door with looks on their faces that indicated they were eager to help. Up front, the scholar next to Cid carried in his grasp the book that contained in it the main mythology regarding the staff. Half the situation got explained in a series of glances between the six adventurers and the scholars.
"We heard the vision as well," exclaimed a scholar. "I'm impressed that the old myths about the Staff of Omnipotent Wrath were true."
Butz raised an eyebrow. "Lornac told us the enemy couldn't use it," he replied.
"Of course," another scholar added. "The Staff legend states that only a being who has mastered the 'Saviour' job class can wield the staff. It is only the second of three remaining pieces of the Heaven Crystal; the first belongs to Lornac."
"Even still," concluded another, "the Saviour class cannot be accessed. Many have died trying to locate it."
Before Lenna could open the book, a hand struck her, throwing her against a bookshelf. Faris narrowly dodged a similar fist in time to use a life spell on her sister. The enemies nearby were several Demon Hounds summoned by a rather ugly looking cloaked figure. Lenna, restored, lifted her Hiryuu spear from its holster and scoped around for her target. One of the Demon Hounds looked at her and pounced. She drew a ragged breath with the tension in the air trickling off her skin; she drew back her arm and hurled the spear with all her might at the hound. His eyes widened the instant he realized he could not dodge it. Several turned to avoid the sight of a shaft of metal slicing through flesh and bone as it blasted clear through the hound's head, effectively nailing it to the wall. "Return!" she shouted, and her spear flew back to her grasp.
Butz saw a hound fly in his direction, so he moved to his left and stomped on its back. Unable to move, the hound screeched right before a sword motion sliced its head clean off. Faris herself ducked below a pounce and drove her katana into the chest of the demon creature. The odds seemed to have changed until, with a surge of power, the hounds returned to an undamaged state. "No…No way!" cried Cara. "Those were death blows! Are they invincible?!" Koga's eyebrows lowered as he began to think.
Nothing can be invincible or immortal by science, thought the child. Therefore, it must be magic. Acting quickly, Koga aimed a flat hand at the cloaked figure, and cast a bolt 3 spell. The figure put up both arms in defense, but still got launched up against the wall. When the sorcerer's defenses were down, Koga revealed another surprise; he also knew dimensional/time magic. Merely with a thought and a hand signal, he banished the cloaked sorcerer to the Cleft of Dimension with an XZone spell. Not a second later, the warriors doing battle with the hounds noticed a distinct change; they no longer were invulnerable.
"NOW!" shouted Butz, drawing back his sword. Their moving backwards triggered the hounds to leap across the room again, but Butz furiously slashed his hound into a dozen pieces in less than a second. Lenna aimed her spear carefully then let it fly, plowing straight through the creature's head. With a single, hasty motion, Faris cleaved her enemy clean in two, and eliminated the remaining with a well-timed level five doom.
"Who was that guy?" asked a nervous Cara.
"One of Lord Muzef's weak underlings," replied Gilgamesh. "Not one of the upper Order, just a servant."
"Hmph," exclaimed Butz. "That would explain why the demon hounds weren't much to speak of." A much deeper thought plagued him. "Koga, how much magic are you capable of?"
"That kid is Exdeath reincarnated," reminded a scholar. "Therefore he is capable of all types of magic. Exdeath was a master of Black, White, Blue, Dimensional, Summoning, and could even summon non-existent things which is referred to as Silver magic."
Another scholar stood up from his seat at a nearby table and explained, "Just as your skill goes up with successful combat, the kid's will too. So, with a few more battles, he'll be almost up to his past life's power." It wasn't the fact that Koga would be able to wield Exdeath's power that made Butz nervous, that title belonged to wondering how much control the child had over such power.
"Butz," yet another scholar entered, "you have to get the Palace of the Heaven Crystal as soon as possible. I fear that since the shard of the crystal that possesses the Saviour class isn't on Earth, the enemy may already have found it."
"Yes, but WHERE is the palace?" Lenna handed him the book she had, immediately turned to the page that described the Palace of the Heaven Crystal. According to the legend, the palace kept itself suspended high in the sky above the Earth. From a lower level of the library came two familiar figures; Cid and Mid. By the looks on their faces, the party of six could see they were pleased with themselves.
"Oh you'll like this," cheered Cid. "We seriously upgraded the Airship! Now, you can go even higher into the sky." Butz drew a smile on his face; it seemed that everyone they needed the help of kept coming through in the clutch. Mid plopped a paper down on the table immediately in front of the main hero. Eagerly, he picked it up and examined it, and even with his vastly limited knowledge of science, he could see that the Adamantium used to strengthen the airship's motors were a vast improvement over what they previously had.
"Wow," Faris uttered, sneaking up behind the Earthen hero and reading the blueprint herself. "This all looks so…advanced." In her childhood, which slowly had come back to her since the defeat of Exdeath, she got taught science by all of the most widely acclaimed scientists in the kingdom of Tycoon. Although she seriously blew it off, she remembered most of the lessons she had been taught. According to what she knew already, the lift that opposed the pull of gravity drastically had gotten better, meaning fewer moments of drag.
"This is excellent!" cried Butz. "So, you had the vision too?"
Cid shook his head. "Nope," he admonished, "but they did and they told me all about it and I got to work right away."
"Ahem?" reminded Mid.
"Oh yes, and Mid helped too."
"That's great," Butz continued. "So everyone, we go now to the Palace of the Heaven Crystal?"
Once the heroes exited the library, Mid and his grandfather waved to them all. The six were prepared to save the universe yet again, and this time the chances seemed even less. Even still, none of them were willing to surrender in any way.
*
"Damn," thought Muzef. "Already one of our servants has died trying to stop the progress of our mission." Although it was a bit of bad news, he still had much good news on his side. An awful secret he held that no other could comprehend. "No doubt," he continued, "those fools will go straight to the Palace of the Heaven crystal to stop us. Too bad they don't know about you, right Gliv?" Turning his chair around, he gazed at his main subordinate, noting that this member of his team was the only one that could wield the staff.
"That's right lord Muzef," agreed the warrior mage. Gliv himself found the second of the three remaining Heaven crystal shards, and for the last hundred fifty or so years, had been working through battles to raise his ability points. Even if he didn't master the job class, he being of the saviour class would still allow him to use the ultimate weapon. "I am of the Saviour class, and that allows me to wield the supreme power of the existence."
Muzef's evil grin reappeared as he turned to Pecez. "I know we'll be more than strong enough to kill all these earthen heroes," he stated. "But I think you should go and kill them for me, Pecez of the Titan Glove." Lifting his hands over his head, Gliv summoned a void-like portal to the Earth.
"I won't fail you," Pecez said to his master before entering into the hole in space-time.
"You better not."
*
Their trek to the airship got cut short by the sudden appearance of a rip in the space-time continuum. This looked mysteriously like the void that they sealed back up after defeating Exdeath, so none of them understood why the darkness would return. When it vanished, however, they saw in front of them a powerful Uukarn warrior. Pecez happened to be the last of an extinct race of powerful warriors, each standing at least six foot eight.
"I give you my greetings from Lord Muzef, the soon-to-be ruler of all dimensions!" he shouted, drawing back his arm.
Butz quickly drew his Brave Blade, and leaped into the air. Never learn, do they? thought Pecez as he lowered his arm. When the hero of Earth brought his sword crashing down on the forehead of the warrior, the blade got turned aside as though the flesh were solid adamantium. Not one to quit, he drove another slash into the warrior's side, only for the same result to happen. A third assault Pecez rudely interrupted by driving his large fist straight into Butz's face, hurling him several feet to the ground. Faris hastily summoned a healing spell for Butz's wounds, namely a broken neck from the punch. The violet-haired queen of pirates still had as her main weapon Sasuke's Kitana, one of the twelve sealed weapons. Charging the evil warrior with a shout, she slashed her blade directly at his throat, only for it to be useless. A knee to her gut threatened to break her in two, yet Koga healed her with a cure 3 spell. Gilgamesh instantly knew the secret.
"That evil scum is using the power of the Titan Glove!" shouted the multi-armed warrior. "With it, his power and defense are enhanced a thousand times!" The mighty warrior drew back his fist, and knocked them all on their backs with a single swipe of his hand. Then, driving his fist into the ground, a torrent of ripped ground blasted against the heroes, delivering serious blows as well as minor flesh wounds. From behind the rubble, a lone figure stumbled out in front of the heroes as they struggled to their feet.
"Koga, get back!" screeched Butz as the kid stood unafraid in front of him. The kid had on his face a look of silent contempt towards the evil warrior.
Pecez gulped slightly, and then drew back his fist again. On this time, he charged the kid. As he yelled and approached, Koga's childish frame did not flinch. He stood firm in the face of the mighty evil. When the warrior got within ten feet of the child, the young warrior threw up his arms and let out, "EXDEATH SPECIAL! I SUMMON THE DARK ESPER OF ENUO!" Not even in the space of a second, the air around everyone seemed to dim, and the rustling of the wind came together in the shape of a vortex, creating a destructive being unlike any other. When the wind slowed and stopped, in everyone's presence was the controller of the void himself. The dark wizard, who came in esper form to aid Koga, pointed his cane at the charging Pecez.
"VOID DARKNESS FLASH!" screamed the wizard. An evil pulse of energy burst forth from the wizard's cane and surrounded the evil Pecez mid-stride. Once the Uukarn began to convulse wickedly, the void around him possessed him, effectively turning him inside-out and outside-in, right before eradicating his outer shell of magical defense. It did not kill him, it only rendered his impenetrable defense useless. As soon as the task was complete, the wizard and the darkness in the air vanished, leaving Koga lying on the ground, panting.
"YOU FOOLS!" Pecez moaned. "YOU CAN'T HURT ME! I'VE GOT THE TITAN GLOVE!" Taking initiative, Gilgamesh clenched his weapons in his hands, and at once pounced upon the Uukarn warrior, slashing him to ribbons with one burst from each of his weapons. Not one to leave anything lying behind, he removed the glove from the warrior, and slashed it in two with his blade.
"Koga? KOGA!" cried Butz, kneeling beside the boy he grew to love as his son, even though he wasn't. "Speak to me!" The boy kept breathing heavily, but wasn't dead.
"That…was…" he said hesitatingly, "my…second strongest spell. Just casting it cost me all my MP and a third of my HP." Lifting the boy into his arms, Butz and his fellow adventurers headed towards the shoreline where the airship floated in the water. Aboard, he removed the sheet of cloth from his pack and laid it on the deck of the ship. While they headed towards the Palace, the kid would get a chance to rest. Gilgamesh took further initiative by placing his hand on the kid's forehead. Startled by what he saw, he approached Butz.
"Butz," Gilgamesh explained, "when the kid did that to save us, he gained a huge amount of ability points." The hero of Earth looked at the multi-armed Gilgamesh.
"Exactly how much?" he nervously asked.
"I think he's already mastered Exdeath's magic."