Welcome back! It's been a while right?
(At the entrance to the big city)
Ash and may were taking in the awesome size of the surrounding buildings, several different races were swarming through the packed streets, the constant rabble of merchants and adventurers sharing tales of their journeys was deafening. A large marketplace had been set up in the middle of a clearing between the busy buildings, the sounds of a range of different instruments produce a jolly melody. Warriors, archers and mages all let loose hearty laughs as the bumped all mugs and agreed to go dragon hunting together sometime. Jack smiled as he watched a group of young girls dance around on the big square of wood that must have been the dancing area, much to Cynthia's dissatisfaction, who was watching him with crossed arms and puffed out cheeks. "Whoa...It's more packed than the jungle kingdom!" Exclaimed a clearly impressed aura user, May simply nodded as she was observing the speed at which one of the performers was playing a banjo in awe.
(With Jack)
The bright orange sun of the approaching evening was streaming down on the tops of the market stalls as a certain brunette was studying a range of books that were being sold by an ancient looking man, he was very short and was watching Jack through his narrow slits of eyes. "Anything is particular your looking for my boy?" He asked curiously, Jack placed the book about about talismans he had been reading back on the desk and smiled at the man, "Information about races my friend, I'm always interested in learning more" The chuckled in a wispy voice, "Of course! You do look like a smart lad" Jack nodded in thanks when he heard the compliment, "As one researcher to another, I recommend this marvellous masterpiece!"Said the wrinkly faced man, becoming more enthusiastic by the second, he had finally found a person who had the same interests as him!
the book seller handed the much younger man a a small brown journal that had brass lining the edges of the cover as well as the spine. "Written by Lucas Zass himself! Known for discovering the homelands of seven different races!" Jack grinned as he scanned the pages, "Interesting, how much?" The old book fanatic sighed "My boy, do you know how many sales I have made today?" Jack tilted his head in curiosity, "How many?" The old man chuckled "None! And now a young lad like you pops up with the same interests, a strong presence and a thirst for knowledge! The books your my lad, free of charge! You've put some fresh happiness into this old soul" Jack chuckled, "Thanks, I'll take care of it" Said the brunette as he placed the worn journal carefully into his knapsack, he then stood up and bid the older man farewell, "If your ever thirsty for more knowledge my lad, don't hesitate to drop by my stall, I'm always here! The name's Virgil" Jack nodded and shook the man's frail hand, "Jack nightblood, I'm sure I'll visit again sometime Virgil." They both nodded at each other, jack then set off to find his friends.
(With Cynthia)
Cynthia giggled as she watched a small group of children stumble out onto the dance floor and try to keep up with the more faster and complex moves of their parents, they weren't doing so well... Something caught her attention, she noticed a blonde haired girl with blue eyes sitting at the edge of the dance floor crying hysterically, she looked to be about thirteen, Cynthia's heart ached, she was about to get up and go and see what was wrong when she froze. A boy the same age as her ran up to her and crouched down, putting a hand on her back and gently rubbing her, her crying stopped immediately and as soon as she recognised the boy she pulled him into a tight hug. The appearance of the boy was what was making Cynthia tremble, he had short spikey brown hair... Just like Jack, the only difference being that his eyes were a deep green colour. Cynthia had an extreme sense of deja vu. She watched the two of them, the girl had the brightest smile on her face as the boy put a pink flower in her hair, from the clothes they were wearing they looked to have average amounts of money in their family. The girl was wearing a brown dress with a cream blouse and a simple pair of brown shoes. The boy was wearing black boots that went up to his knees, black trousers and a blue shirt. Cynthia couldn't believe how similar the two children looked to her and Jack when they were younger, apart from the clothes
Jack's voice brought the woman out of her trance, "Cynthy? You okay?" The blonde beauty was caught off guard by quickly smiled as she heard the sound of her crush using his pet name for her, She giggled slightly as the brunette sat down next to her, their eyes meeting and not breaking contact, she could see a hint of worry with her silver ones in his deep scarlet ones. "I'm fine...Jacky" She blushed a bit at the mention of her pet name for her childhood friend, although she would gladly be more, "I was just...Reminiscing about the past." Jack chuckled and leaned back against the wooden table, watching the enormous amounts of people enjoying the festivities, "Don't get too hung up on the past, you'll miss the good things in the present." Cynthia smiled as she watched Jack drink from a mug of ale that a waitress had brought over to the table not long ago, "I wouldn't want to miss anything you do..." She said quietly to herself, a small blush forming on her face.
(With Ash and May)
"So this massive spider comes flying towards my buddy right? He ducks under that bastard and my sword impales itself into that beasts head!" All of the surrounding people that were listening to Ash's story gasped in awe, they were totally captivated by the details of this kids adventures, May simply sighed, "We should probably get back to Jack and Cynthia..." The brunette was becoming slightly tired of how much information all of these people wanted, they wouldn't let up at all... Ash chuckled, "Yeah, I suppose... Sorry guys, we gotta go." A chorus of moans and let down sighs came from the group of adventures that had been listening in on Ash's tales, Before the two left the table one chubby looking boy about Ash's age stood up, he had slightly long ginger hair and didn't look very convinced. "Yeah right! For all we know your just making this stuff up!" Ash stopped in his tracks and looked over his shoulder at the teen, "What did you say?" The raven haired teen said in a cold tone that made the boy flinch slightly, "I-I'm saying that you've got no proof!" Ash grinned, he had an opportunity to teach this kid a lesson.
The raven haired teen spun around, his cloak spreading out behind him, "Then how about I prove it? I challenge you to a duel!" May stepped in front of Ash with a worried look in her eyes, "Ash, we really should be going, Jack and Cynthia might be getting worried by now..." Ash immediately stood down, he couldn't go against May after all, he smiled at her causing a small blush to appear on her face. "Okay, lets go." May nodded happily, still with a small amount of pink visible on her face, the two began to walk away. The chubby boy didn't like this at all, "Too scared to fight huh? That's what I thought! Can't even go against your bitch of a girlfriend!" Ash's eyes snapped onto the boy's and caused him to freeze, the raven haired teen's eyes were full of hatred but what scared the boy the most was the fact that they had changed colour from chocolate brown to...Glowing blue.
"Ash we really shouldn't do this... We need to get going." Pleaded May as she tried to pull on Ash's arm, he didn't move, he was firmly planted on his spot across an opening from his opponent. A huge group of people had gathered to watch, a fight between adventurers was always a sight to behold, after all, it took a lot of skill to be an adventure and actually be successful. Ash was giving his opponent a stone cold death glare from the darkness of his hood, he broke eye contact to look at may who now looked more like a small child who desperately wanted her father to get her a new toy. "I'm not going to let him talk about you like that and get away with it, I'll make him pay!" May was at a loss for words, her face turned bright red, after a while she finally gave up. "O-Okay...But be careful." Ash smiled, "I will" May left his side and moved to the edge of the big circle of people. Ash returned his penetrating gaze back to the chubby challenger who was becoming restless, "Enough screwing around! I'll make you remember the name Morrison!" Shouted said person as he drew his Mace and shield, taking up a battle stance. Ash grinned, it had been a while since his list fight, "I'll use that name to wipe the floor!" He shouted as he ripped his sword from its sheath and sprinted towards the newly named Morrison.
Ash jumped and spun 360 degrees, launching a downward diagonal slash that cut through the air and clanged against Morrison's shield, the impact forcing his entire body down and injuring his ankles from the energy of the hit, the attack from the raven haired teen caused a huge shock wave to burst outwards and make the audience cheer, gasp and jump from the sound. Morrison groaned from the mount of power that was behind one single attack, his arm was aching like hell as ell as his legs, "After an attack like that he's gotta be tired out...That's it! He tried to finish me by putting all of his power into one attack! Now's my chance!" The ginger teen began charging forward with his shield out in front of him, "TAKE THIS YOU BASTARD!" He bellowed as he got to the spot where Ash was, or at least he thought he was, and swung his mace as hard as he could. He waited for another impact on his shield since his opponent must have stepped back to avoid his first attack, all he got was a chorus of laughter coming from the audience. "Huh?" The teen peaked up over the edge of his massive shield to discover the extremely embarrassing fact that Ash wasn't even there!
Morrison desperately scanned the battlefield for his opponent, "He must have run away!" He thought to himself with a regaining pride, his pride was shattered when he noticed the raven haired teen standing to his left, continuing his story with the listeners from earlier! The audience burst out laughing as Morrison's face went bright red with anger and embarrassment, Ash noticed the ginger teen and grinned, "Oh? you're done flailing your mace and screaming like a banshee? Shall we continue then?" Morrison could feel his immense embarrassment being replace with an infinite amount of rage, he gripped his mace and shield tightly, the teen took off into a charge towards Ash. The rave haired teen laughed and surprised Morrison by charging towards him! "I'LL GET YOU THIS TIME YOU COCKY BASTARD!" Morrison yelled as he brought down his mace when Ash was within range, the raven haired teen moved in a blur, he side stepped to avoid the mace which impacted with the ground, dived over the slumped figure of Morrison, landed by rolling on his side and stopping in a crouching position, sprinting up behind his opponent, barging him to the ground, and then placing the tip of his sword against the back of his neck. The crowd went wild, May could feel her face heating up, Ash had done all of this just because this guy had called her a bitch! She dreaded what would happen to a person that ever hurt her and then Ash had gotten his hands on them.
Ash chuckled as he sat on top of Morrison still with the tip of his sword against the defeated opponent's neck, "I would say this is my win Morrison" Said person growled angrily, "You bastard, you don't even fight with honour, you just screw around and act like a child!" Ash was pissed off, he added a little extra weight to his sword so that it just opened a pin sized hole in Morrison's neck, "Ouch!" He shouted in pain, "Careful, say anything more and your head might role off..." The raven haired teen whispered coldly, his words pierced Morrison like a freezing blade, the ginger teen began to tremble. "O-Okay...J-Just let me go!" Ash felt weird, he was enjoying this... A certain brunette's voice broke him from his trance, "Ash?" The teen tore his eyes away from his toy to face May, all of his hostility faded instantly, her face wasn't what he was expecting. Instead of being happy and smiling, she looked worried...Scared...
"A-Ash...Your adding too much weight..." Ash raised a brow and looked down to see Morrison desperately flailing around, "ARGH, STOP IT!" He began to cry for help, Ash snapped his eyes onto his hand to see it emanating a dark blue mist and glowing light blue, he looked back at May's worried face with a growing fear on his. "I-I can't stop it!" May reared back slightly, "W-What?!" May suddenly clasped her hands over her mouth, "Ash, y-your eyes are changing!" The raven haired teen cursed as he felt his hand tightening on its own, then he heard it, a distant voice deep within his soul...
"A human. A weak and mediocre excuse of an existence. Humans are useless, humans are pointless, humans are not needed...This enemy will die by your hand..."
The words seem to resonate throughout Ash's entire body, he could feel his urges taking over, the memories of the things that human soldiers did to his village and people. Everyone that was watching had already seen the blue glow that had already surrounded Ash, whispers were spreading throughout the crowd, "Is he glowing?", "Yeah, but doesn't that mean-" "He's an aura user! I thought that there were none left!" A certain brunette and blondette heard al of these discussions as the made their way through the sea of bobbing heads and shifting bodies.
May noticed two familiar figures break through and out onto the clearing, It was Jack and Cynthia! May noticed that something was off, Cynthia looked very worried and Jack had an extremely serious look about him. "Jack!" Called Ash, "I don't know what's going on!" The brunette didn't say anything, only walked up to the glowing mass that was Ash and crouched down. Despite being in his human form, Jack used his telepathy, "I will be your challenger you majesty..." Jack put his palm against the blade of Ash's sword and dragged it downwards, creating a huge slash on his hand and coating the sword in was at a complete loss for words, he was caught off guard when his body began moving on its own, the colour of his aura suddenly shifted to and extremely dark blue and black, taking on the appearance of a huge flame instead of a misty glow. Ash was drawn backwards into his own mind, he was now watching what was happening through his eyes but had no control over his body, he couldn't even feel anything.
His body stood up, releasing Morrison who quickly crawled away in fear, not once looking back. "Filthy pest! How dare you challenge a prince!" Ash's out burst caught everyone off guard but Jack, who remained calm. Ash had no idea what was happening, he would never say something like that to Jack! And what was this about a prince? The brunette spoke up, "Ash, I know you can hear me! I'm going to hurt you, your aura is overflowing, you haven't been using it for ages so you need to be drained and the only way to do that is a battle!" Ash was confused to say the least, it was true what Jack was saying though, the elders of his village used to constantly be pumping their aura into the surrounding water springs and forests but he only thought that it was to keep them plentiful and pure...Now he understood.
"How dare you even speak you filthy scum, I'll slit your throat and have your family burned alive!" Jack growled slightly, the mention of family mad e him want to find something and tear it to pieces... May was terrified, this wasn't like Ash at all, Cynthia ran over to her and tapped her shoulder. May looked at her with a desperate face, "Cynthia, Why is Ash acting like this? What's wrong with him?" Cynthia looked just as worried as May, "Well, Ash's race use aura as their main combat weapon, this aura is powered by emotion but can also build up over time by an aura user participating in battle and not using his or her aura. Since has been fighting for months without using aura, he's built up so much power that it is beginning to overflow, this is causing his emotions to flip as well. He's become very dangerous, Jack is planning to give him something to use all of his saved up power on...Himself." May was shocked to say the least, Jack could't die but could still experience pain, this endeavour was going to be the equivalent of torture for him!
'Ash' stood up and held out his sword, "Now's the time..." Jack thought to himself, "What's the matter aura user! To scared to use your race's trump card, relying on a petty sword to defend yourself!" Ash's surrounding torrent of aura exploded into a violent beam of rushing madness, "You filthy piece of shit! I'll slice you to pieces!" The raven haired teen bellowed as he threw aside the sword that was given to him by his dear friend like it was simply a useless rock, he then formed two pulsing swords out of dark blue aura and took a battle stance. Jack closed his eyes and spread out his arms, 'Ash' grinned menacingly and launched forward, each of his footsteps leaving flaming pools of dark blue aura. Jack stayed still, still open, still vulnerable. 'Ash' reached him in a flash and launched 5 meters into the air with both of his swords over his head and a pitch black trail behind him. "YARGH!" He screamed as he brought both the blades down in a huge 'X' pattern. Jack's eyes snapped open at the last moment...
Jack erupted into his werewolf form with a mighty roar that made the rocks on the ground tremble and jump around. The speed at which the beast swung his arm up in an upper cut was almost too fast to be seen, but was way more than loud enough to be heard, Ash's swords slashed a huge 'X' into Jack's head before the explosion of Jack's punch sent him flying a whole 50 meters with a shattered ribcage and destroyed stomach. 'Ash' landed with a sickening thud at the other end of the clearing, he was desperately gasping for air, waiting for his regeneration to kick in and take his unbearable pain away. May and Cynthia could't bear to watch but at the same time they couldn't tear their eyes away. This was the worst thing that they could ever see...Ash and Jack fighting. A regular human would be more than dead by now, they would be little more than a puddle of jelly... Many people in the crowd screamed, others were frozen in fear and some had even fainted! A tiny bead of water landed on Jack's snout, bringing him out of his daze of grief, he had just seriously injured one of his most trusted companions...
(The ran begins to fall)
A heavy curtain of rain came tumbling down from the skies above, a distant quake of thunder could be heard, nothing compared to Jack's battle roar but still enough to destroy and positive emotions that were still circulating around in the minds of the witnesses that were watching a legendary battle take place before their eyes. 'Ash' slowly rose to his feet, "Your power is praise worthy... It must be destroyed." The teen began to sprint forward again, slower this time, his swords ready to slice any attacks that came his way. Jack slumped down onto all fours and went charging towards the raven haired teen, as soon as he was within range, the beast launched himself far into the air. He came plummeting back down with his claws extended and fangs bared, 'Ash' on the other hand stopped in his tracks and began readying a dark blue aura sphere that had a black centre and purple electricity circulating around the outside of it. Jack let loose another resonating roar as he came speeding towards his target, "YARRRRGGGHHHH!" 'Ash' bellowed as he fired a dark blue, black and purple beam that was as wide as a road straight into Jack's face. The werewolf quickly thrust his arms and legs up in front of him to avoid taking as much damage as possible. The aura beam fried his skin and shattered all of the bones in his limbs that he had use to try and block the devastating attack, he was brutally thrown back and buried deep into the side of the nearest building, the beam didn't stop there it continued to crush Jack against the wall and cook him alive. The beast was howling in pain, Cynthia was on her knees crying and May was screaming at Ash to stop, her cries went unanswered as 'Ash' increased the input of aura to the energy beam and made the ground beneath him crack from the amount of power he was releasing.
(1 hour of hell on earth later)
Tender beams of sunlight cut their way through the dark clouds, Ash had finally used all of his power trying to destroy Jack, who was nowhere to be seen in the giant pile of burned and destroyed rubble that was once a building, now a meagre skeleton. The raven haired teen was lying unconscious, May was sitting by his bed side, watching his every move, he would violently twitch in his sleep every now and then. The brunette looked over at the whimpering mess that was once Cynthia, she was curled up in a ball at the other side of the inn room they had rented, being forced to leave the place of Ash's and Jack's battle before the guards got there, leaving Jack behind. Even though he had been over everything that could have happened with Cynthia, him being left behind being one of them, she was still rocking back and forth with her arms wrapped tightly around her body. She kept whispering one thing to herself that May was desperately trying not to listen to and also believe..."He's dead..."
Thanks for reading guys! This was tonnes of fun to write, sorry I haven't updated in ages, I just really haven't had the push to do it but now I do! Gave this chapter a lot of power for a good come back! Hope you enjoyed!