• The Eve of Eternity: Chapter 16 – Eyes of All

    Deckard continued to keep his arms around Rydia for a while longer until Firomis walked over slowly. “I see that the two of you are enjoying your evening quite well. This is a wonderful night for the entire town, and it is said to be quite a night for couples. I think somehow it would be best if you didn’t stay in the city for too long, since there are supporters of Toren that even we nobles don’t know about.” Firomis looked at Deckard and then Rydia with a smile. “Leaving so soon, Deckard Lightfall?” A shadowy figure suddenly spoke from above them on the roof. “If you leave now I won’t be able to capture you two and obtain my reward from Toren, and that would make me very angry.” He began laughing like a maniac shortly after speaking again. “I’ll take care of this so take Rydia and go!” Firomis jumped up into the air towards the shadowed man as Deckard picked up Rydia and leapt off the balcony.

    Immediately after landing, he continued running swiftly back to the hotel where he assumed Hark was at. Deckard wasn’t even running for five minutes before Hark suddenly was in front of him. “Let’s get out of here; it is starting to get dangerous! I’ve already retrieved your stuff from the room, so don’t worry about that. Rydia, can you teleport us somewhere?” Rydia, who was clinging to Deckard because of how fast he was running, suddenly looked at Hark. “I... I can’t. I can only teleport every few days because of my inept ability with that spell.” Hark nodded slowly. “That’s fine; we’ll just make our way out on our own then!” Hark jumped into the air and landed on a rooftop, proceeding to jump from roof to roof and making his way out of the town. Deckard quickly followed behind, not wanting to lose sight of Hark.

    “You’re always getting in our way Firomis! You should just die already!” the shadowed man began throwing large fireballs at Firomis. “I won’t allow your filth to bring this world to its end.” Firomis dodged the fireballs, causing them to explode once hitting the nearby buildings. The explosions began to cause a ruckus, but the rooftops were somehow unscratched by the damage at all. “It never is any fun fighting in this district. All the damn houses are made of magic deflective materials. Ah well, that just means I can go all out!” he laughed again as vanished quickly. Firomis stopped his attack midway and looked around, surprised. “Multiple element user? Just who exactly are you?” Firomis asked in a loud voice. “That’s right, I can use multiple elements. My name is Mahara Darke, but I am sorry to say that I’ll have to end this so quickly, I’m in a bit of a hurry.” He reappeared behind Firomis and Firomis quickly turned around. As he finished turning, two sets of earthen spears suddenly pierced each of his shoulders. “Guh!” Firomis fell down onto the rooftop quickly. “I can’t kill you, but this should hinder your movement for a short time, allowing me to catch up with my prey. Next time we meet, I’ll fight you more seriously, and I expect you to do the same, so you should do well to remember my name!”

    Mahara disappeared suddenly again, leaving the injured Firomis all by himself on the roof. “Damn... I didn’t think he was anything more than a fire user.” Firomis struggled as he pulled out the earth spears from his shoulders, cringing in pain all the while. After they were out, he placed his hands over the wounds and they began to glow blue. The holes in his shoulders slowly closed up and Firomis collapsed unconscious once they were fully closed. “Tch... they move pretty quickly it seems. No matter, I am still faster than they are.” Mahara continued moving very quickly along the rooftops, following the trail of Deckard. “Damn, this guy is fast, it looks like he was able to do something to Firomis in order to get away too...” Hark stopped running and turned around. “We’re going to have to fight if we want to escape.”

    Deckard stopped next to Hark and set Rydia on her feet, then turned to look at Mahara who was now standing before them. “I must once again extend my greetings to you, Deckard Lightfall. My name is Mahara Darke, and I shall take your life and capture that girl.” Mahara slowly removed the hood of his cloak, revealing his face finally. From the look of it he seemed no older than his early twenties. His hair was purple and the back was tied up in a single ponytail that went down to his lower back, while the front of his hair was arranged into a single set of bangs hanging over the left side of his face. His clothing was difficult to see, since the runed cloak he was wearing covered it all up. “So Hark, you’ve decided to protect these two? I never expected I’d ever have to fight you, but it doesn’t matter and I care not. I’ll remove all obstacles in my path in order to complete my mission!” Mahara pulled out a red and a blue glove and put one on each hand. “s**t! That’s not good... Deckard this guy is using ancient artifacts, specifically he is using Hurricane and Inferno, a pair of gloves designed to empower fire and water magic.”

    Deckard stepped forward slowly. “I don’t care who you are or what you have. I will not let anyone with bad intentions to lay a finger on Rydia.” Rydia blinked for a moment and stared at him, then looked at Mahara. “Oh? Those are pretty courageous words there, are you sure you can handle fulfilling them? It would be pretty sad if she were to be taken from you, after that nice little scene happened between you two not too long ago.” Mahara grinned and disappeared quickly. In the next instant, Deckard quickly vanished also, reappearing behind Rydia and landing a high kick dead on into Mahara’s face. Mahara is sent backwards a few feet, but was still standing as a trail of blood appeared from his mouth. “I told you already, you won’t lay even a finger on her.” Deckard glared at Mahara with an intention as if he was about to finally kill. Mahara slowly wiped the blood from his mouth and licked it off his finger. “Interesting, you were actually able to follow my movement at that speed, and land an attack. Does this mean you might actually be faster-“Deckard vanished before he could finish and jabbed his fist into Mahara’s chest several times before Mahara spit up more blood and vanished again.

    After reappearing on a rooftop not too far away, he once again wiped the blood from his mouth and licked it off. “Fine then, we’ll play the hard way!” he yelled and his gloves began to glow red and blue. A thin swirl of fire began to fly out from his palm and into the sky high above. After a short moment, the fire in the sky ignited and expanded much further, creating a sphere of fire the size of an entire city block in diameter. Deckard looked up at the small ‘sun’ in the night sky and his eyes widened. “How could he create so much energy in such a short time?” Hark looked at Deckard, “He’s been casting this entire time and that glove is also part of the solution. That glove definitely can put almost anyone at the same magic level as a middle rank Magistrate. But if his power is already at that level, then it would put him way beyond a high ranked Magistrate.” Mahara grinned. “That’s right, but I’m not at the level of a lowly middle rank, I’d say that even the highest ranked Magistrates would have trouble with me, even if I didn’t have this glove. These gloves are perfect for someone like me, someone who can use all four elements... as a human.”

    Hark’s eyes widened. “A human... with four elements?! That’s... that’s not possible! You’d have to have been a survivor of those experiments sixteen years ago! All the test subjects except for one died though!” Mahara nodded slowly. “Bingo! But we didn’t all die. Artemis was lucky, he was saved early on, while some of us had to learn how to control our magic before it overcame our bodies and destroyed us. That’s when he showed up, and saved our lives. That entire facility, and all the research that went on there was completely destroyed, which is why everyone believed only Artemis made it out alive.” The light from the flaming sphere lit up the area brightly as it began to glow faintly. At that moment, Mahara’s eyes finally became visible. They looked almost like a pair of cat eyes, with each eye split diagonally into two colors. In the left eye, the upper part was blue while the bottom was red, and in his right eye the upper part was gold while the bottom was brown.

    “Your eyes, they are a side effect from the experimentation, am I right?” Deckard looked at Mahara. Mahara closed his eyes briefly and nodded. “Yes, any human with different colored eyes is likely to be a user of multiple elements. But enough conversation, let’s end this now.” Mahara looked up as the flaming sphere began to descend down to the ground. Deckard quickly looked up at it and held his palm forward, muttering something quietly and suddenly releasing several thin streams of white light. The light quickly grew and expanded once it was high up in the air below the sphere, creating a shield like object. Mahara dashed forward quickly after, using a spin kick to knock Deckard off his feet and onto the ground. The shield of light, suddenly losing its source of magic from Mahara’s interruption, slowly began to crack but was still stopping the sphere. “My flaming sphere will descend regardless of my interference. But for you to stop it, you’ll need to focus your magic, and that’s something I won’t allow.”

    Deckard laughed as he stood on his feet slowly. “You think I didn’t already finish my spell?” he grinned for a moment as an orb of light appeared in his hand. Mahara stared at Deckard for a moment as he threw the orb into the shield of light above. The shield began to glow even brighter than before, repairing all the cracks and slowly dissolving the flames of the sphere. Mahara clenched his teeth, but quickly switched back to a grin. “All right then.” He said as he disappeared. Following his movements, Deckard looked up in the sky where Mahara was now floating. Mahara began making hand motions and several large cyclones began to drop down from the sky surrounding the flaming sphere. The flames began to become fueled violently, causing their power to rise once more, and forcing the shield to crack again. “Let us see which of us has a greater amount of power to pull energy from. How long will your shield last, Deckard? If this flaming sphere touches the ground, this entire district will be lit up in flames!” Mahara continued his hand motions, but they changed appearance suddenly, as the moisture in the air began to build up in one spot.

    A short moment later, a figure of a phoenix was formed out of the water, which had now been turned into ice. The phoenix quickly dove down in the air, flinging ice shards at Deckard, Hark and Rydia. Deckard waved the back of his hand towards the shards, sending a gust at them and shooting them away. “Hark, take Rydia-“ Deckard’s sentence was quickly interrupted as a large hollow cylinder of ice cut off all exits. The cylinder was much large than the flaming sphere, and it went up into the air for miles preventing immediate escape not only from the ground, but from the air. “This is my Ice Chamber. This ice is so cold, not even the warmest flame can melt it, and it is so dense that it is harder to break than steel. If you want to get out of here alive, you’ll have to defeat me first.” Immediately after finishing his sentence, the shield of light finally began to break and shatter, causing the flaming sphere to once again descend to the ground.