After barely escaping from Morag, me and Pyra decided to lay low for a bit, despite both of us wanting to go to Elysium, it would have to wait.
"I'm not strong enough." I said, dejected from our multitude of loses. I couldn't keep doing this, coming so close to losing only to escape at the last second.
"We keep running, we ran from Malos, we ran from Morag, we barely managed to defeat Rex."
Pyra laid a comforting hand on my shoulder "Then I will train you. You may not be strong enough now, but you learned how to fight well enough to hold of Malos in seconds. We can take a few days to learn."
"Thank you. Tomorrow?" She nodded.
*Line Break*
The next day, we wasted no time in beginning to learn, despite trying for hours I just could not learn it.
"It's hopeless. I'm no good at this, my swordfighting is ok but nothing else works."
Pyra seemed to have a literal lightbulb light up in her head as she almost shouted "I've got it" I looked at her, puzzled "You can learn the original style!" I was still confused, "Doesn't ring any bells." "It's the original style that drivers and blades used, constantly switching who's on the front line or the back. It was a lot harder to learn, but it seems like your defaulting towards it."
I thought about the possibilities, no one used it anymore so no one would know how to counter it. It seemed very fluid, capable of catching people off guard very easily with sudden shifts in fighting style. "I like that idea. Let's do it!" I said with enthusiasm. "Ok then, in order to get started, I am going to need to teach you how to use ether, so first we need to find out your element."
"I'm liking where this is going, how do we find that out?" I said eagerly. "Well normally you would have to undergo deep meditation for many years and come to terms with your inner self. But, since you currently have a part of my core crystal imbedded in your body, you just need to come in contact with a large concentration of your element."
"Well thats good to know. But what is my element?"
"We don't know yet, but we can rule out a few, it's not Fire, I would have awakened it. I highly doubt that your Earth, Dark, Water, or Ice. And that leaves Wind, Electric, or Light.
"Ok, how do we awaken those? Don't tell me I need to stand in the middle of a tornado or something." I didn't like the idea of it not being my element and me dying because of it, I don't want Ryse, cause of death, struck by lightning, on my tombstone.
"For wind, that mountain way up there should do." She pointed to a scarily tall peak overlooking the forest. "Electric, well, you would actually need to get struck by lightning." She laughed hesitantly, I stared at her.
"Fine, lets go to the mountain."
*Line Break*
We had almost reached the peak of the mountain, wind swirling around, obscuring our vision with snow, the only thing keeping me going was Pyra's fire, preventing us from freezing to death. As I stood on the peak of the mountain, I shouted "Should something have happened now." My voice muffled by the howling winds, Pyra shouted back "It seems like your not wind element, I'm sorry." She added.
I had just made the trip all the way up this mountain for nothing, but before I could turn back, a bolt of lightning struck my body. I screamed, feeling as the electricity ran through my body, wrecking havoc on my nervous system. I blacked out.
*Line Break*
I awoke on a floor made out of clouds, I poked one, and it was solid, I got up, seeing a throne made out of flashing storm clouds. Sitting on it was... Myself.
"I see you have woken up Ryse." said my doppelganger
"Where the heck am I, who are you, and why am I here." I asked, confused
"You wished to awaken your element, are you still planning on doing so?" He questioned, although I knew he already knew the answer.
"Yes. Let me guess, I have to fight you?" I asked
He simply nods
"Alright, lets go then!" I said
"Wait, let me explain what exactly we are doing, in order to awaken your ether potential, you must face what you would have been had you been a blade, as that is what you will be tapping into. Are you ready to begin the Trial?"
It's my turn to nod
"So be it then." He shimmers before lightning strikes him, transforming him. He looked like me, of course, but wearing golden armor, shining with energy, his hair turned golden as wings of light sprouted from his back, lightning crackled in his hands as they became gauntlets with cyan crystals. His eyes opened and he smirked.
"Damn I look awesome as a blade." I whispered to myself. He clenched his hands as 10 glowing swords appeared in the air.
"Wait a second, do I not get a weapon?" My question went unanswered as one of the swords rocketed towards me. I jumped out of the way, but was met with a flurry of slashes, in seconds I was on the ground with a blade at my throut. I groaned
"Do you give up?" He said monotonously
"No." I groaned out
"Then again."
I got up, and was immediately on the ground again as slashes covered my body at incredible speeds.
"Do you give up?" He asked, in the same tone as before
"No."
"Then again."
Over and over, this continued, for what felt like entire days. Each and every time I wouldn't even have time to move before being forced to surrender. I could feel myself growing angrier and angrier. Until I snapped
"This isn't a fair fight, I don't even have a weapon, and even if I did, there is no way I could possibly beat you."
"Do you give up?"
"No" I gritted my teeth
"Then again."
I had a realization
"Stop." I said, forcefully, he froze.
"This is my mind, I win this fight because I control ME!" I shouted.
He smiled "You passed the test, it was supposed to be an impossible situation. Good job Ryse, I really didn't like doing that, but it's part of the trial. You have passed the test of Control. All you must do now, is pass the test of Willpower."
"For this trial, the goal is simple, no trickery like last time, now your really fighting me, no more mental tricks either, pick a weapon." I invisioned Pyra's sword and it appeared in my hand.
"Last thing, no holding back."
"Let's go." I shouted
His floating swords appeared again, but unlike last time they were slow enough to see and dodge. I closed the distance between us as the trial begun.
All my focus went into my attacks, but, he blocked every last one, before conjuring a ball of lightning in his hand and electricuting me.
"Disorder Ignition!" I yelled, stabbing my blade into the not-ground to blind him slashing him across the neck and taking his head clean off, it disintegrated into dust as he regenerated.
"Chaos Reaper" All of his sword turned into a giant saw of death which launched at me, hitting me directly in the chest. I lost conciousness
I woke up immediately, back in the storm cloud room with my doppelganger
"Your not ready for your full power yet Ryse." He said, sadly
"What do you mean, are you saying all of this was for nothing?" I said, mad
"You passed the first trial, and unlocked your ether, but I'm afraid you don't have the necessary strength yet to obtain your full power."
"But hey, theres always next time right?" He said lightly
"Ok, if you say so..." I said, still not sure what was going on
"When your ready, come back here and I will face you once again. Until then, your full potential remains locked. Goodbye Ryse"
He vanished, and so did my consiousness.
Well that was certainly something, so my canon for this, is that humans have the ability to manipulate ether locked behind the trial of control and the trial of willpower. They are met with pretty much blade version of them, the first trial unlocks their ether, and the second unlocks their blade form, similar to Nia's transformation. That's how flesh and blade eaters work, it's pretty much an accelerated version of the process, blades become free from drivers, and humans gain the powers of blades, completing the actual ritual gives you a perfect and natural version. Anyways, please read and review.