Ch. 2 – Kill the Memories (Part 1)

"Well that was easy," I said as I sheath my sword.

The soldiers weren't tough at all, they each had the basic knowledge of how to use their weapons, but none had any outstanding abilities. I doubted that any of them would ever go from private rank. Maybe some will go, but only with connections or money. That was one way the capital allowed weak, pathetic soldiers their ranks.

"Shame, some of these girls were kind of cute. I hate doing this kind of work."

Turning around, I sprinted off, not wanting to have to deal with anymore unwanted attention. What those soldiers said about fighting for the glory of the empire nearly made me laugh hysterically. The empire that they served was anything but glorious. I learned that the hard way when my village was unjustly destroyed. That day, I learned that the empire was corrupt and immoral. I can still remember the day it happened as clearly as though it was just yesterday.

10 years ago

The day began like any other. I got out of bed, got dressed, and went to go train with my best friend, Tous. We've been training to become sword masters since we were 5 years old. We went to our training ground right behind the village shrine, at which my grandfather was the head of. While training, I heard a noise off in the distance. I looked to see what it was, but nothing was in sight.

"What is it, Rein?" Tous asked me.

"I'm not sure, but I think I heard something," I responded.

We waited for a few minutes to hear the sound as it got progressively closer. After another minute passed by, I realized what the noise was. It was horse gallops, and lots of them. It sounded like an entire army was closing in on our village, but we thought nothing of it because our village I so small. There's less than 200 people living here. Then I heard the sound of one horse ride up to the shrine entrance.

"Will the leader of this village please come out? I would like to ask him a few questions," the man on the horse announced. He had long, gray hair despite the fact that he looked like he was in his early 30's

My grandfather walked out of the shrine to confront him.

"What is it that you want?" My grandfather asked.

"We are looking for members of the Revolutionary Army and a reliable source told us that they were hiding in this town. Show us where they are or we will destroy the entire village," the horseman threatened.

"We don't have any members of the Revolutionary Army here," my grandfather replied calmly.

"I will ask again. Where are the members of the Revolutionary Army?" The gray-haired man asked, a little more irritated than last time.

"As I said, there are no members of the Revolutionary Army here," Grandfather responded, with as much irritation as the horseman.

With an angry expression on his face, the horseman rode back out of the village to what I'm guessing is the army he brought with him. After he was out of sight, my grandfather motioned for me and Tous to come over.

"Come with me. We need to find a place for you two to hide," he said to us.

"We can help fight, though!" Tous complained.

"No. You two are not yet ready. Now, come with me. I will show you where to hide. Don't come out until it's safe," Grandfather ordered as he showed us to a hidden room in the shrine building.

"How will we know when it's safe?" I asked.

"When you hear the battle stop, that's when it's safe," my grandfather reassured us.

After that, Tous and I were stuck in a room, lit by only one lantern. The only other things in the room were two cases, each containing a necklace with crystals as their decorations. The one on the right had a crystal that was blue in color and rectangular in shape. The one on the left had a crystal that was red in color and in the shape of a diamond.

I felt a presence that wasn't there before. The thing is, that presence felt like it came from the red crystal. When I got closer, the presence kept getting stronger. I reached out for it and right when I grabbed it, I heard a vicious roar. My body felt a great weight all of a sudden, like I was being crushed by a boulder. I stood my ground and eventually the weight lifted. I put the necklace on and felt a surge of power flow through my body. I looked over at Tous and saw that she had put the necklace with the blue crystal on.

"You never seemed like he type for jewelry," I teased her.

"Shut up. At least when I put mine on, I didn't look like I was fighting an invisible monster," She retorted.

After she said that, we both realized something. The fighting had stopped. I went upstairs to go check. I didn't see Grandfather or anyone I knew. I only saw corpses. Standing over those corpses was a soldier.

When he saw me, he yelled, "General River! I found some survivors!"

He came at me with a blade in hand and slashed. I thought I was dead, but the lade went through me like I wasn't even there. I looked down to see the crystal I put on was now glowing. Was it doing this? I punched the soldier, ran back to Tous in the hidden room, grabbed her hand and tried to run. There were more soldiers outside the room now. The only way we were getting out was to either somehow fight all of them or die trying.

I remembered what the crystal did. I came up with a plan. While still holding Tous's hand, I sprinted towards the wall, closed my eyes, and prayed for the power to activate again. When I opened them, Tous and I were on the other side of the wall and still running. We ran as far as we could, as fast as we could. It was night time when we finally stopped to rest.

"How did you do that?" Tous asked while gasping for air.

"I don't know," I replied, just as winded.

I felt like crap at that point. I felt like collapsing, but we needed to keep moving. The soldiers are probably still looking for us. We kept moving until we found a cave to rest for the night. I woke up, hoping that it was all a bad dream, but it wasn't. Our village was destroyed. Tous and I traveled day and night, resting in caves and abandoned forts.

We finally reached a town and went straight to the inn. We asked if we could spend a couple of nights there, but they turned us down because we didn't have any money. We tried to see if we could stay there in exchange for working there during the day. They hesitated, but they accepted our proposal in the end.

After a few days of experimenting, we found out the powers of our necklaces. Mine is the more powerful one due to it's ability to allow me to make my entire body go through inanimate objects. It can also let me summon a weapon if I think about it hard enough.

Tous's necklace can only let her make one of her body parts phase through objects. When she does, it leaves her weakened for a little bit. She can also only summon a sword with her crystal. After all we've been through, I'm just happy we can finally relax.

Unfortunately, it didn't last.

Ch. 2 – End

Mac: Most of this chapter was written by moi! :) Lol Dom was being lazy but still kind of helpful.

Now we get to see a bit of Rien's past which is kind of dark and will only get darker in further chapters.

Dom: Yeah but the funniest part about this chapter is that we finally wrote his name. Like we didn't even say it at all, he was just this creepy stalker watching Mine's and Scheel's fight. Lol

Next update will most likely be later in the week. Like, Thursday or Friday. We will try for two chapters per weekend, but no promises.