To understand this story, we have to go back to the beginning. Not of Terrence's story, but of Aron's.
He was left alone in the world. His parents died when he was young. It wasn't such an uncommon occurrence, but this didn't change his feelings.
Still, this life was fine. There was nothing wrong with it. Yet at the same time, there didn't feel as though there was anything right about it. He was purely neutral towards it.
To attempt to find something to care about, he left that village and began to travel the world.
He finally found something in the form of one woman.
Her warmth was everything to him.
A few years later, they had a son.
A little while later and everything fell apart.
The village they lived in was caught up in the battle between two Seregios, destroying everything in sight.
Aron found himself caught up fighting off one of them, while another battle occurred on the other side of the village.
The monster roared and launched scales towards him, which were blocked. Aron began sprinting towards it, leaping off a building as he swung down.
It connected with the Seregios' wing, but was unable to fully cut through it. Still, the monster's maneuverability was now limited. Taking advantage of this, Aron advanced, slashing recklessly.
The monster fought back with some claw swipes, which were barely dodged.
Aron then took one step back, charging up a power swing. This created an opening for the Seregios to bite at him. Both charged at once. The Seregios dug its fangs into the hunter's shoulder, thinking that would interrupt him. Less than a second later, its neck was cleaved in two.
Aron didn't have time to waste, sprinting to where the other was.
The worst possible scenario was before him.
The woman was being viciously attacked by the Seregios, while shielding their son.
The boy could barely move, it wasn't as though he could've protected himself. But it was impossible for her to fight back and protect him at the same time, leading to this.
Aron roared before crashing into the Seregios, knocking it back. He tried to help, but it was already too late. The world froze over.
A few more seconds later, the Seregios got back up, now focused on Aron. It attempted to charge forwards, but found itself unable to move.
"The warmth is gone. It's not here anymore. It's nowhere. I'm nothing. But that doesn't matter. All I have to do now… is take you out."
Before it could even react, the Seregios had its horn broken with one powerful swing. It was able to move again for a few more seconds, digging its claws into Aron's stomach. Once again, it was frozen. It was only then that it understood its mistake. The eyes of the demon staring it down felt like they were crushing its soul.
A few more seconds and it was in pieces. Aron felt like crashing into the ground.
"There… now you've been avenged. That beast is burning in hell."
He now finally heard the sound of his son crying.
"Ah… if you just hadn't been there… this would've turned out differently, wouldn't it?"
He began to raise his sword again.
"This is all your fault. You took her away from me. It was you, Terrence."
Back in the present, the same thing was happening.
Aron was suddenly body slammed by a shadow.
"Nice one, Nargy!" Joseph came sprinting in, before gently rubbing his partner's head.
"Anyways, as if I'd just forget about ya bein' an aura user. I was keepin' an eye on ya the entire time. Now how about ya back off already."
Aron got back up, looked briefly over to Joseph and began to move towards Terrence again, uncaring.
"Not even listenin', huh? Well I didn't wanna have ta but… there's only one way to deal with aura users like yerself."
Joseph drew his sword and swung straight for Aron. He responded by drawing his weapon and blocking. The swing was deflected, causing Joseph to shake slightly from the impact.
"Don't think I've ever fought anyone who can block before, somehow." Joseph thought, worriedly grinning. He followed this up by turning around to Terrence "Oi! He's aiming for ya, so hurry up and get outta here!"
Terrence had been standing there in shock the entire time, but now finally snapped back into reality, moving to escape.
Aron noticed this and did the same as before. Terrence was completely frozen. He then turned to face his opponents.
It was clear to both of them that Terrence wasn't being affected by something supernatural.
Nargy charged forwards and slammed into him, but had no effect. He was completely stuck in place.
"That's gotta be his ability." Joseph thought "Not much we can do except force him to cancel it by making him need to dodge. So… we just gotta break through his guard."
"Nargy, let's go on the attack."
As he finished this sentence he jumped to the side of his opponent and swung, but this was quickly reacted to with a block.
Nargy followed up by leaping around Aron and swinging his tail, requiring more attention than Joseph's attacks.
Joseph took advantage of this advantage to swing, but was stopped by Aron throwing a punch at him. His aura kicked in and he dodged, but as it grazed him it was pretty clear that if he took it head-on he'd go down.
"Oh yeah, I guess swinging around a greatsword for years would make you pretty strong." He thought before attempting to catch him with an upwards swing, missing slightly.
Nargy used some claw swipe then kicked off the ground before flipping around and crashing his tail into the ground, pushing Aron back slightly. Even when Joseph used this to attack, it was avoided or blocked.
Joseph attempted to knock him onto the ground with a sweep, but this kick was stopped by legs that felt like they were made of iron.
"Can muscles even get that dense?" Joseph thought before he jumped back.
"This ain't workin'. Guess I've gotta use what I did before. Somehow."
He backed off some more, trying to focus.
Nargy continued to distract Aron, he didn't even pay attention to Joseph. Without a sign of getting tired, Aron continued to slash away, gradually getting the advantage.
"This is it… that feeling. The same as before. Didn't those guys before name theirs? That seems kinda cool… I got nothing now though, so later. Anyways, before all of that-"
He kicked off the ground, leaping towards Aron, his blade raised in the air, almost shining. Aron heard the noise and turned to block, but didn't have time to notice the severity of the attack.
It was blocked, but this proved ineffective. The greatsword was cut in half, the cut narrowly missing Aron's body. His eyes widened as part of the weapon hit the ground. He backed off slightly as Nargy attacked with multiple tail swipes in quick succession.
The effect holding Terrence in place ended.
"Now's your chance!" Joseph yelled, while Aron was still forced onto the defensive.
Terrence managed to run away before Nargy started to slow down out of tiredness.
Both sides backed off. Joseph and Nargy were more tired than Aron was, but Aron had no weapon left. It was clear that this wasn't over.
A few minutes later, Joseph caught up to Terrence. Demi had been waiting around the entire time, unaware of what was going on. He also encountered Vert, who seemed pretty mad, so he tried to not look her in the eye.
"When were you planning to tell anyone else that there might be a crazy dude planning to kill Terrence in the city?"
"Uhhh… when it came to it."
"That's really not good enough at all."
"Look, there was no way of being sure. By the time he started showing signs it was kinda too late to get ya."
Vert looked like really wanted to bash his head in, but had something more important to focus on first.
"So, what are we gonna do about this?"
"Well right now we've got a little while to plan things out, he's gotta get a new sword before he comes after us."
"Why's that?"
"Cause I cut it in half."
Vert took a few seconds to process this "And you didn't take him out?"
"It's not like I wanna kill him."
"He's after Terrence and he's an aura user. We don't have a reason to keep him alive."
"Havin' a parent get killed doesn't feel great, surprisingly enough, I don't want him to go through it."
"He's not gonna feel anything if we don't stop Aron."
"We can figure something out. More importantly, we probably shouldn't be the ones who have a say in this." He turned to Terrence "Whaddya think, how should we deal with him?"
"I don't know." Terrence muttered "I have no idea."
Neither had any response to that, but Vert suddenly had the idea of "Hey, I know someone we could get to help with this."
They found Josh nearby a few minutes later, moving around while guarding Terrence from any potential attacks.
"Guessing the thing with Aron went badly?"
"Worse than you can imagine." Joseph sighed.
"Oh, I was expecting him to have a blessing and he's planning to kill Terrence. So what is it?"
Joseph took a long pause, before murmuring "Actually it's aura."
"They're the same and you know it." Vert told him, before turning back to Josh "So, any ideas on how to deal with him? You're the one who was in the big group of em."
"Hmm… well first, we should probably stop discussing this out in the open, right?"
They moved to an empty building.
"Yep, this seems good. But yeah, to start what can he do?"
"He froze Terrence in place to stop him from escaping. Or maybe holding's more accurate. Hey, how did it feel from yer end?"
Terrence took a second to realise he was the one being asked "I couldn't move at all. And Nargy couldn't make me budge either."
"Also should mention that he's a pretty good fighter even without his aura backing him up, we could barely land a scratch on him."
"Well on the bright side, he's probably only to hold one thing at a time." Vert noted "I mean, he doesn't seem like the type who'd fight for fun, so if he was able to stop Joseph and Nargy quickly he'd probably have done it, right?."
"So when he stops one of us," Josh thought aloud "The rest can just swarm him."
"Yeah, seems like it. Though I doubt it'll be that easy."
"We've just gotta pick somewhere to ambush him."
"Wait a sec, guys. What are ya plannin?"
"To take him out." Vert replied "I know what you said about not wanting him to die but… is there really any other way to stop him?"
"Hey, Terrence. Is that really what ya want here?"
"I dunno… I dunno what I want. I dunno about any of this."
A slight pause was followed by Joseph continuing to argue "Hey, Josh. Ya calmed down after ya lost yer aura, right? If we can just do the same to him then it's fine, right?"
"I guess but… how would we make that happen?"
"How did ya do it?"
"It's not like it was a conscious decision or anything."
"But what caused it?"
"From what I can tell, everyone who has this power has some reason to use it. It was like that for me and Isaac, what about you?"
"Yeah."
"When I lost it, I didn't want to keep fighting anymore. I just gave up, I had no reason to continue. That's when I lost it. So if you wanna go with that, you've gotta start by working out why he's fighting."
"It's because he wants to kill me." Terrence answered without much hesitation. "I don't know why, but that's it."
"How can ya be so sure?"
"I remembered when I thought I was gonna die. He left me up there in Pokke because he didn't want to see me again. I completely forgot about that and spent all that time wanting to see him again. All for this. I don't know why he's doing this, but I'm definitely the target."
"That'd make getting rid of his aura more difficult." Vert sighed.
"Maybe if I just leave it'll be fine?"
The room was somewhat silent to this.
"He didn't try to kill me when I was in Pokke. I don't wanna hurt him so… that seems like the only option. It'll keep both of us alive."
"If that's what you want, then sure." Josh responded "Any problems from you two?"
"...We'll go with that." "...Yeah, it should be good."
"Anyways, we need to work out a plan now. There are some villages nearby, right?"
"We should work out where he's going when we get out of Dundorma." Vert replied.
"Seems good. We should probably get the others to help with escorting him out first."
"Nah, if we've gotta fight Aron then this number's good." Joseph was the one who replied this time.
"Are you tryna deal with everything by yourself again?" Vert asked.
"Nah, cause yer included too, obviously. What I'm saying is that even though he can only stop one person at a time, bringing everyone would probably just lead to more of us getting injured. The three we've got here and probably the best in the group for fighting other people, right?"
"Sure thing…" Vert muttered back, surprised he'd actually put thought into it.
"Ah, looks like it's getting dark." Josh said, looking outside "This is probably good. He won't be able to notice us. If we're gonna go, it'll be soon."
As someone was about to respond, they heard footsteps approach. A silver haired man stepped into view.
"Like, really soon." Josh muttered, raising his scythe.
Aron rushed forwards upon recognising them.
He swung straight for Terrence, who was pushed out of the way by Demi. Aron was about to go for another swing but was interrupted by one of Joseph's slashes.
Aron backed off slightly before swinging his blade around, pushing Joseph back in turn. Vert jumped to the left of Aron before leaping forwards at him, but these punches were blocked.
Demi was able to land some slashes which also ended up blocked. The limited room created a problem for the monsters.
Josh thought about the situation for the second. "You guys go ahead. Me and Frost'll hold him up."
"You sure about this?"
"We can't all fight in here. Besides, winning against him ain't the priority here. It'll be fine, just get going."
The other six departed, leaving only three in the building.
Aron tried to follow, but had to jump back to avoid a slash. When he tried to exit the other way, Frost blocked his path.
"Sorry…" Josh swung his scythe around, then pointed it towards Aron. "Can't let you past here."
Aron started by charging for Frost, hitting with an overhead strike to his wing. The sub-zero knight retaliated by swiping his tail, barely being dodged. Josh then took this opportunity to follow up with some more attacks but was frozen as soon as Aron noticed him.
Aron turned back to Frost and continued to press forwards, the monster unable to do much other than throw in an occasionally hipcheck, bite or swipe.
After taking more than enough damage Frost became frustrated, roaring at him and charging forwards. He struck with his tail, hitting Aron's weapon slightly into the ground and briefly lowering his guard and using this opening began preparing to create a tornado. Josh suddenly felt he was able to move again. Frost was stopped at the last possible second before the tornado would've been created. Aron took a second to breathe before turning to Josh.
"Looks like it's just down to me, then."
He rushed forwards, swinging his scythe around. Aron blocked to the side, so he followed up with a swing from the other direction, also blocked. Aron retaliated with a kick, connecting with Josh's leg followed by a horizontal swing that was barely ducked under.
"This ain't good, I can barely get a hit on him. Is this the end? More importantly, would I be okay with it ending here?"
Aron advanced with some more swings, forcing Josh to back off. He saw an opening and attacked, managing to stab into Aron's side. The greatsword user retaliated with another attack. Josh pulled back somewhat but it still made a shallow cut going upwards across his chest.
"I've done some pretty terrible things, haven't I? We were just like this demon I'm fighting now, probably worse. I dunno how many I killed, didn't bother keeping count, so it's not like I can do a certain amount of good to make up for it. Well even if I did keep count, I can't ever make up for all those lives I took. Even though I told myself they were worthless and all that about killing them making the world better, life itself isn't something so replaceable I can make everything fine with a good deed or two."
Josh feinted a swing to the left before swinging all the way around, managing to cut open his opponent's stomach slightly. Aron hit him with the side of his blade, knocking him back.
"Being the powerless one sure is terrifying, this must've been how all my victims felt. Still, this is fine. I dunno how much good I'll have to do, maybe I'll never stop. But that's fine. As long as I'm working for something good, I don't care. No matter how this battle turns out, as long as Terrence can get out of here I don't care about the result. Now... let's go!"
He rushed forwards, swinging wildly. Aron was hit a few times but managed to block one of the strikes. Josh was stuck in place for the second. Aron then readied himself before shoving forwards, knocking Josh back.
At that second, he felt himself get frozen in place. He finally noticed that he was lined up with Frost's head.
"Is this some kinda shitty sense of irony?"
He was only able to move again less than a second before the tornado hit him.
Josh lost consciousness as he was flung across the room.
As the group reached the gate, Joseph suddenly felt that something was wrong.
"I'm gonna go back to help Josh out, if he didn't already escape himself. See ya."
Not staying to listen to the others he jumped on Nargy's back and they took off. As expected, it was bad.
Aron stood atop the roof, with Josh and Frost nearby.
"Bring Terrence here before morning breaks. Or else I'll decapitate them both."
Without even looking, Aron knew the Nargacuga was there. They flew off without giving a response.
They landed near to Vert.
"So, what's happening?"
"He's taken them hostage."
"That's… really bad. I'm guessing he wants Terrence in exchange?"
"Yeah."
"We should try to rescue them."
"Yeah. We just gotta work out how."
"Then take me." Terrence interrupted them.
"H-how long were ya there?"
"Doesn't matter. Josh is in danger, right? I'm what's needed to save him, so of course I have to go."
"Hey," Vert replied "He stayed back to get you this far. You're almost safe, going back now is pointless. If we trade you then you'll just be killed."
"I can't deal with someone dying for me. It doesn't matter if it puts me at risk, I can't live like that anyways. So let me come with you."
The two were silent for a few seconds.
"Sure." "It's not like we can refuse ya after something so dramatic."
A few minutes later, Aron saw the group approach him.
They landed on the rooftop.
Aron stared Terrence down, he responded by trying to look elsewhere.
A general feeling was understood by everyone will present.
"This will be what decides everything."
TO BE CONTINUED