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From the moment he walked until the moon hung high over his head, Blake walked until his sense of reason told him it would be beneficial to rest. When the sun rose the next morning, Blake walked again, wanting to move as often as possible. It took him until noon the next day to escape the desert surrounding his hometown, and as he stepped onto the solid soil, he took in a deep breath. The scenery around him wasn't much more than when he was walking in the desert, a few trees scattered here and there as well as some grass on the ground were essentially the only differences from what he had been walking on for hours previously. But it was a start.
As Blake walked along the spongy soil, his feet having substance to press against to move, rather than sliding around on unstable sand, he wondered about when he would find the next town. Or meet another traveller. Maybe one setting off to be strong like him. When his first fight in the real world would be. As all these thoughts circled around in Blake's mind, he began to get excited. And when Blake got excited, he ran.
Running through the grass, Blake spun around trees that seemed to come out of nowhere from his blinding speed as he raced up and down hills, straight towards who knows where! As he ran, he could no longer contain his excitement; it was the first time he had ever seen natural growing grass and trees, as he was cooped up in a rocky village surrounded by sand. He couldn't hold in his excitement, and so he ran straight vertical up a tree and stood on the highest branch, yelling out to the world to express his excitement. Blake then outstretched his arms and fell backwards, down towards the cushiony ground and grass. As he landed, Blake caught himself with his palms and bent his elbows to cushion his fall further, preforming a backwards summersault before landing on his back, staring up into the blue sky.
There was something else he had not seen very often; blue sky. Every now and then there was a puffy white cloud, but the bright blue sky was something so brilliant to his eyes, so contrasting to the dull haze which often hung over the skies of Mysaro, that Blake could have stared off into the sky until it turned black and the stars came out. Releasing a sigh of relief, Blake began to laugh; now that he was free, he was happy. This happiness he felt in that moment was unsurpassed by any emotion he had ever felt within Mysaro; to think that all it took was this small amount of freedom...
And then his right hand instinctively shot upwards and grabbed the handle. There, out of the corner of his eye, Blake could see light glinting off of the blade of a knife, his right hand tight in a death-grip around the weapon's handle. Someone must have thrown it at him, and Blake knew that this must be what master Kong was speaking of when he said that "everyone outside was strong".
Standing up, Blake threw the knife to the ground, looking about the area for his attacker. The space around him was fairly open, only three trees in the immediate vicinity and only seven within sight, but with a hill to his right a lot could be concealed without him knowing.
"Who's there?" Blake called out into the open air.
"Is that how you face an attacker?" Lunging forwards and spinning around, Blake witnessed a man lunge towards where he was, a second knife in hand. Because the tree was so close to where he was standing, Blake had no clue where that man could have come from. But in the midst of battle, there was no time to think.
The man bent over to grab the first knife, imbedded in the ground, and that's when Blake made his counterattack. Running forwards, Blake was sure he had kicked the man clean on the head, but as the force of his kick threw him off balance, the man must have dodged.
"You're not very subtle, are you?" The man opposing Blake turned towards him and lunged with a hugging motion, holding one knife in each hand so as to stab Blake twice. But Blake was obviously faster than his opponent, leaping up into the air, underneath a large tree branch as the man lunged. Almost sitting on the underside of the tree branch, Blake whistled to let the confused man know where he was. As his opponent looked up, Blake pushed off the underside of the branch and flew towards the ground, and the man, a fist pulled back ready to punch, and hard!
The man, looking up at Blake for the fraction of a second that Blake was moving, only grinned. As his "hug" came full circle, as if he were hugging himself, Blake punched, causing the ground beneath his opponent to shatter. But when he looked around as the dust cleared, Blake saw no one around.
"Looking for me?" The man stood not two feet away behind Blake's back, and he jumped through the air, turning around to face his oppressor.
"He's fast!" Blake thought. "But then why doesn't he use his speed when he attacks?"
"Who the hell are you?" Blake asked out loud.
"A wandering assassin... Never mind my name, you won't need it."
"Assassin? Why would someone want to kill me?"
"No one wants you dead, at least none that I'm aware of... To keep my blade sharp, I kill unsuspecting younglings between missions."
"Well then..." Blake smirked as he looked at the ground. Then he rose his arms outwards as if he were gesturing to the area around him. "I'm still alive, so you must be a shitty assassin."
Just within Blake's field of vision was the assassin's face, and Blake could tell that his comment had more than enraged the man. Twirling his knives, the man ran towards the tree and disappeared behind it. A moment later, there was a soft, strange sound behind Blake.
Spinning quickly, Blake punched the man's right wrist with his right fist, hoping to break it and half his cutting power. However, something happened which Blake clearly saw this time. The man did not dodge Blake's strike, but instead Blake's fist seemed to phase through the man's wrist. As both of their movement's continued, time seeming to slow down, the assassin's knife entered Blake's body without cutting him, seeming to phase like the rest of his arm. Legitimately scared as to what was happening, Blake leapt backwards, performing backwards flips in mid-air as he did so, and landed in a cat stance in a tree branch.
"Wh- What are you!?"
"Oh? You've never met a man like me? What rock have you been hiding under, boy; the world's crawling with superhumans! If you don't know us, you will be defeated by us!"
It was Blake's turn to disappear. From the branch he was standing on, Blake leapt with such speed the naked eye could not follow, and seemed to reappear behind the self-proclaimed "superhuman", with a punch almost fully extended. And this time, Blake made contact. The punch sent the assassin flying through a tree and out of sight. Panting, Blake wondered at what kind of world he had been unknowingly living in, at what kind of power the strong in this world possessed, and what Rodren had been holding back in their fight. But before he could think too much, there was another noise, like the one earlier, but this time much faster.
The assassin managed to cut into Blake's back before he reacted, leaping forwards to get away from the cut. Spinning around, Blake looked at the man for only a second before there was a searing pain shooting through his back. Falling to the soft ground, screaming in pain, Blake did his best to look up at the slowly-approaching man.
"Poison-edged blades. Did you expect any less from an assassin?"
As the man approached, Blake noticed a figure in the background, though it could have been a hallucination. But what happened next was all too real.
From seemingly nowhere, a man fell from the sky, two full-fledged swords in hand, and phased through the assassin "superhuman". Before he was half-way through the man, he called back to where obviously a second person was hiding.
"Dammit! He's a Super; Doravin, you're up!"
From the same direction came a second man diving through the air as the swordsman rolled along the ground, stopping next to Blake, his swords both already sheathed.
"Are you alright, kid?" he asked, but Blake was too concentrated on keeping in the pain and watching the one called Doravin to answer.
The second man, obviously known the assassin, slipped through the man like everything else. But instead of simply slipping all the way through, the man called Doravin squinted his eyes shut, and a large explosion radiated outwards from his body. The swordsman had stepped in front of the flat-on-the-ground Blake to protect him from the blast, and by the time he had moved all Blake could see was Doravin standing to his full height, brushing dust off his shoulders, with a burnt piece of a man laying at his feet; obviously the assassin. The Blake closed his eyes as he screamed in pain, and the rest was dark.
When he woke up, the afternoon sun was nearing the horizon to set for the evening. There was a nearby fire, and five flickering shadows. Blinking a few times, and trying to sit up, Blake attempted to gather his surroundings.
"So you're awake, are you boy?" a man beside him asked. He had a kind face, and looked much more inviting than the other four sitting around the fire, eating meat. "Keith-!"
"If he's awake and not screaming his head off, he should be fine!" one of the two men with their backs towards Blake and the kind-looking man said, gesturing with a bone that was still half-covered in meat over his shoulder. As he took another bite, Blake recognized the swordsman and the one called Doravin as the two men sitting facing him and the fifth man.
"What are you doing out here, kid?" the man asked. "You're obviously not strong enough to fight for yourself."
"I am so strong eno-ah!" Blake cringed over, grabbing at his back as pain erupted over his spine. He didn't notice until that point that he was missing his shirt, and that there were bandages covering his chest, though he assumed they were for his back instead. The man with the kind face just laughed.
" 'Course you're strong enough, kid. That's why you were taken to the ground by a single strike from a Phaser."
"Poisoned blades... Phaser?" Blake was panting and speaking through gritted teeth. He tried explaining his situation, that he wasn't a weakling.
"I know they were poisoned, and it doesn't matter. We were watching you for a while, wondering if you had potential. You're a fast kid, I'll give you that... But once you're struck, looks like it's game over."
"Then I'll just never be hit."
"Now that's being unreasonable." The man stood up and walked a few steps closer to the fire, remaining standing. "And yes, a Phaser. He told you about superhumans, correct? A common superhuman ability is phasing; seems to be really popular now-a-days. Everyone thinks they're invincible if they can't be physically touched-"
"But superhumans who think they're invincible don't have long lives," Doravin piped up from the other side of the fire.
"That they don't..." The man bent down and pulled out a set of ribs from an animal Blake could not see, but was obviously resting close to the fire. Walking back towards him, the man sat down and offered Blake the animal's ribs.
"Thank you..." Taking the meat, Blake bit a chunk straight off of the nearest bone, chewing without paying any heed to politeness. "What's your name?" he asked, pieces of food flying over the ground between the two of them.
"I'm the leader of this group, and that's all you need to know. If you want to call me anything, call me 'Leader', alright?"
Swallowing a chunk of meat, Blake responded. "Leader... Does that mean you want me to join you guys?"
There was a resounding chorus of "No!" from the men around the fire, to which Leader simply laughed.
"Doesn't sound like it would go over well with my men if I did. Tell you what; you can come with us to the next town and from there you're on your own. We saved your life once; don't expect it again."
"Wait," the swordsman said, standing up so the light from the fire didn't quite reach his face. "Are you saying that the next time we reach a town, we can ditch the kid?"
"That's what I'm saying."
Kicking at the fire, the swordsman picked up a thick stick and began to beat at the glowing embers and patches of grass which caught fire as the other three men packed up their meat in bundles and handed them to the man with his back to Blake who was not Keith. Standing at attention, fire put out and everything packed, Leader fell onto his back as he laughed as hard as he had for the whole time Blake had known him.
"For all the years I've known them, my men have never been more driven to do anything than they are to travel to a new town right now."
"Well, nice to know I'm wanted," Blake began.
"Shut up, kid; if we leave right now, we can get to the next town by the time the sun disappears over the horizon."
"See you there!" Doravin yelled as he took off running. The swordsman and Keith were fast to follow, with the one carrying the food closing up the rear. Pushing on his knees to stand up, Leader offered his hand to Blake to help him up. Blake simply pushed off of the ground and stood up himself, biting his own tongue to avoid yelling in pain.
"If you insist." Without another word, Leader ran off after his men, and Blake took off at a jog after attempting to run caused more pain than he had been in all day.
"Superhumans... Poisoned weaponry... People who travel together in groups, and powerful people at that! Rodren rose above all of this, probably using it all as he did so... I must rise as well. When my wound is healed, that is when I'll fight again, and be more careful about these.... Superhumans." As Blake reflected on all that had happened on this day, he continued to jog, making sure he could see Leader at all times, not aware that Leader would stop every now and then so that he never lost the injured Blake. Jogging to his destiny, Blake slowly but surely made his way East of Mysaro.
As Blake walked along the spongy soil, his feet having substance to press against to move, rather than sliding around on unstable sand, he wondered about when he would find the next town. Or meet another traveller. Maybe one setting off to be strong like him. When his first fight in the real world would be. As all these thoughts circled around in Blake's mind, he began to get excited. And when Blake got excited, he ran.
Running through the grass, Blake spun around trees that seemed to come out of nowhere from his blinding speed as he raced up and down hills, straight towards who knows where! As he ran, he could no longer contain his excitement; it was the first time he had ever seen natural growing grass and trees, as he was cooped up in a rocky village surrounded by sand. He couldn't hold in his excitement, and so he ran straight vertical up a tree and stood on the highest branch, yelling out to the world to express his excitement. Blake then outstretched his arms and fell backwards, down towards the cushiony ground and grass. As he landed, Blake caught himself with his palms and bent his elbows to cushion his fall further, preforming a backwards summersault before landing on his back, staring up into the blue sky.
There was something else he had not seen very often; blue sky. Every now and then there was a puffy white cloud, but the bright blue sky was something so brilliant to his eyes, so contrasting to the dull haze which often hung over the skies of Mysaro, that Blake could have stared off into the sky until it turned black and the stars came out. Releasing a sigh of relief, Blake began to laugh; now that he was free, he was happy. This happiness he felt in that moment was unsurpassed by any emotion he had ever felt within Mysaro; to think that all it took was this small amount of freedom...
And then his right hand instinctively shot upwards and grabbed the handle. There, out of the corner of his eye, Blake could see light glinting off of the blade of a knife, his right hand tight in a death-grip around the weapon's handle. Someone must have thrown it at him, and Blake knew that this must be what master Kong was speaking of when he said that "everyone outside was strong".
Standing up, Blake threw the knife to the ground, looking about the area for his attacker. The space around him was fairly open, only three trees in the immediate vicinity and only seven within sight, but with a hill to his right a lot could be concealed without him knowing.
"Who's there?" Blake called out into the open air.
"Is that how you face an attacker?" Lunging forwards and spinning around, Blake witnessed a man lunge towards where he was, a second knife in hand. Because the tree was so close to where he was standing, Blake had no clue where that man could have come from. But in the midst of battle, there was no time to think.
The man bent over to grab the first knife, imbedded in the ground, and that's when Blake made his counterattack. Running forwards, Blake was sure he had kicked the man clean on the head, but as the force of his kick threw him off balance, the man must have dodged.
"You're not very subtle, are you?" The man opposing Blake turned towards him and lunged with a hugging motion, holding one knife in each hand so as to stab Blake twice. But Blake was obviously faster than his opponent, leaping up into the air, underneath a large tree branch as the man lunged. Almost sitting on the underside of the tree branch, Blake whistled to let the confused man know where he was. As his opponent looked up, Blake pushed off the underside of the branch and flew towards the ground, and the man, a fist pulled back ready to punch, and hard!
The man, looking up at Blake for the fraction of a second that Blake was moving, only grinned. As his "hug" came full circle, as if he were hugging himself, Blake punched, causing the ground beneath his opponent to shatter. But when he looked around as the dust cleared, Blake saw no one around.
"Looking for me?" The man stood not two feet away behind Blake's back, and he jumped through the air, turning around to face his oppressor.
"He's fast!" Blake thought. "But then why doesn't he use his speed when he attacks?"
"Who the hell are you?" Blake asked out loud.
"A wandering assassin... Never mind my name, you won't need it."
"Assassin? Why would someone want to kill me?"
"No one wants you dead, at least none that I'm aware of... To keep my blade sharp, I kill unsuspecting younglings between missions."
"Well then..." Blake smirked as he looked at the ground. Then he rose his arms outwards as if he were gesturing to the area around him. "I'm still alive, so you must be a shitty assassin."
Just within Blake's field of vision was the assassin's face, and Blake could tell that his comment had more than enraged the man. Twirling his knives, the man ran towards the tree and disappeared behind it. A moment later, there was a soft, strange sound behind Blake.
Spinning quickly, Blake punched the man's right wrist with his right fist, hoping to break it and half his cutting power. However, something happened which Blake clearly saw this time. The man did not dodge Blake's strike, but instead Blake's fist seemed to phase through the man's wrist. As both of their movement's continued, time seeming to slow down, the assassin's knife entered Blake's body without cutting him, seeming to phase like the rest of his arm. Legitimately scared as to what was happening, Blake leapt backwards, performing backwards flips in mid-air as he did so, and landed in a cat stance in a tree branch.
"Wh- What are you!?"
"Oh? You've never met a man like me? What rock have you been hiding under, boy; the world's crawling with superhumans! If you don't know us, you will be defeated by us!"
It was Blake's turn to disappear. From the branch he was standing on, Blake leapt with such speed the naked eye could not follow, and seemed to reappear behind the self-proclaimed "superhuman", with a punch almost fully extended. And this time, Blake made contact. The punch sent the assassin flying through a tree and out of sight. Panting, Blake wondered at what kind of world he had been unknowingly living in, at what kind of power the strong in this world possessed, and what Rodren had been holding back in their fight. But before he could think too much, there was another noise, like the one earlier, but this time much faster.
The assassin managed to cut into Blake's back before he reacted, leaping forwards to get away from the cut. Spinning around, Blake looked at the man for only a second before there was a searing pain shooting through his back. Falling to the soft ground, screaming in pain, Blake did his best to look up at the slowly-approaching man.
"Poison-edged blades. Did you expect any less from an assassin?"
As the man approached, Blake noticed a figure in the background, though it could have been a hallucination. But what happened next was all too real.
From seemingly nowhere, a man fell from the sky, two full-fledged swords in hand, and phased through the assassin "superhuman". Before he was half-way through the man, he called back to where obviously a second person was hiding.
"Dammit! He's a Super; Doravin, you're up!"
From the same direction came a second man diving through the air as the swordsman rolled along the ground, stopping next to Blake, his swords both already sheathed.
"Are you alright, kid?" he asked, but Blake was too concentrated on keeping in the pain and watching the one called Doravin to answer.
The second man, obviously known the assassin, slipped through the man like everything else. But instead of simply slipping all the way through, the man called Doravin squinted his eyes shut, and a large explosion radiated outwards from his body. The swordsman had stepped in front of the flat-on-the-ground Blake to protect him from the blast, and by the time he had moved all Blake could see was Doravin standing to his full height, brushing dust off his shoulders, with a burnt piece of a man laying at his feet; obviously the assassin. The Blake closed his eyes as he screamed in pain, and the rest was dark.
When he woke up, the afternoon sun was nearing the horizon to set for the evening. There was a nearby fire, and five flickering shadows. Blinking a few times, and trying to sit up, Blake attempted to gather his surroundings.
"So you're awake, are you boy?" a man beside him asked. He had a kind face, and looked much more inviting than the other four sitting around the fire, eating meat. "Keith-!"
"If he's awake and not screaming his head off, he should be fine!" one of the two men with their backs towards Blake and the kind-looking man said, gesturing with a bone that was still half-covered in meat over his shoulder. As he took another bite, Blake recognized the swordsman and the one called Doravin as the two men sitting facing him and the fifth man.
"What are you doing out here, kid?" the man asked. "You're obviously not strong enough to fight for yourself."
"I am so strong eno-ah!" Blake cringed over, grabbing at his back as pain erupted over his spine. He didn't notice until that point that he was missing his shirt, and that there were bandages covering his chest, though he assumed they were for his back instead. The man with the kind face just laughed.
" 'Course you're strong enough, kid. That's why you were taken to the ground by a single strike from a Phaser."
"Poisoned blades... Phaser?" Blake was panting and speaking through gritted teeth. He tried explaining his situation, that he wasn't a weakling.
"I know they were poisoned, and it doesn't matter. We were watching you for a while, wondering if you had potential. You're a fast kid, I'll give you that... But once you're struck, looks like it's game over."
"Then I'll just never be hit."
"Now that's being unreasonable." The man stood up and walked a few steps closer to the fire, remaining standing. "And yes, a Phaser. He told you about superhumans, correct? A common superhuman ability is phasing; seems to be really popular now-a-days. Everyone thinks they're invincible if they can't be physically touched-"
"But superhumans who think they're invincible don't have long lives," Doravin piped up from the other side of the fire.
"That they don't..." The man bent down and pulled out a set of ribs from an animal Blake could not see, but was obviously resting close to the fire. Walking back towards him, the man sat down and offered Blake the animal's ribs.
"Thank you..." Taking the meat, Blake bit a chunk straight off of the nearest bone, chewing without paying any heed to politeness. "What's your name?" he asked, pieces of food flying over the ground between the two of them.
"I'm the leader of this group, and that's all you need to know. If you want to call me anything, call me 'Leader', alright?"
Swallowing a chunk of meat, Blake responded. "Leader... Does that mean you want me to join you guys?"
There was a resounding chorus of "No!" from the men around the fire, to which Leader simply laughed.
"Doesn't sound like it would go over well with my men if I did. Tell you what; you can come with us to the next town and from there you're on your own. We saved your life once; don't expect it again."
"Wait," the swordsman said, standing up so the light from the fire didn't quite reach his face. "Are you saying that the next time we reach a town, we can ditch the kid?"
"That's what I'm saying."
Kicking at the fire, the swordsman picked up a thick stick and began to beat at the glowing embers and patches of grass which caught fire as the other three men packed up their meat in bundles and handed them to the man with his back to Blake who was not Keith. Standing at attention, fire put out and everything packed, Leader fell onto his back as he laughed as hard as he had for the whole time Blake had known him.
"For all the years I've known them, my men have never been more driven to do anything than they are to travel to a new town right now."
"Well, nice to know I'm wanted," Blake began.
"Shut up, kid; if we leave right now, we can get to the next town by the time the sun disappears over the horizon."
"See you there!" Doravin yelled as he took off running. The swordsman and Keith were fast to follow, with the one carrying the food closing up the rear. Pushing on his knees to stand up, Leader offered his hand to Blake to help him up. Blake simply pushed off of the ground and stood up himself, biting his own tongue to avoid yelling in pain.
"If you insist." Without another word, Leader ran off after his men, and Blake took off at a jog after attempting to run caused more pain than he had been in all day.
"Superhumans... Poisoned weaponry... People who travel together in groups, and powerful people at that! Rodren rose above all of this, probably using it all as he did so... I must rise as well. When my wound is healed, that is when I'll fight again, and be more careful about these.... Superhumans." As Blake reflected on all that had happened on this day, he continued to jog, making sure he could see Leader at all times, not aware that Leader would stop every now and then so that he never lost the injured Blake. Jogging to his destiny, Blake slowly but surely made his way East of Mysaro.
