(Co-Written with Alle9009. Hope you guys enjoy!)
The training facility wasn't a place Sillo had ever gone to before. It didn't matter how many times his superiors asked him to. He just didn't do it. It didn't catch his particular interest given he practiced his abilities every day given he never had to drive anywhere.
But he'd never fought anyone as strong as Rose had been. And this meant if he was going to succeed, he'd have to get stronger.
So he went with Aldred, who seemed extremely excited to be here. There was a spring in his step, an extra color in his cheeks, an atmosphere of pure warmth as he showed Sillo around the place. This was home to him, it was clear and plain to read. Sillo enjoyed watching the blonde teen bumble from place to place, a stark difference from the stoicism and thin smiles Aldred normally had. A change of pace...
The end of the tour was in one of the training rooms...the room the two would be sparring in. Sillo didn't have the ability to sense Mana, but he could practically feel the mystical aura emanate off the walls and structural support beams around them. This room was covered with it, presumably for protection of the building as a whole. No sense in having a Training facility if it's going to come down every time someone uses it.
Sillo set himself up on one side of the room, conjuring the weapon he had used the last time against Rose: a Naginata. While he'd typically used the bow staff, Sillo knew a stick wouldn't suffice against Rose. He'd need something more useful...something more sharp. So he wielded the ninja weapon like a bow staff, placing himself in a fighting stance. Feet shoulder width apart. Eyes surprisingly focused. He was ready.
SIllo couldn't tell how much time had passed since they had started. He only knew it was tied between them.
Aldred had struck quickly and powerfully on the opening spar, landing hits left and right and winning round one before Sillo ould even set up a rebuttle. Round Two fared a lot better for the Naginata-carrying teen with Sillo winning it on a well executed cheap shot. Aldred responded next round with a magnificent groin shot that had Sillo down on the ground instantly, mostly from pain, but some from lighthearted laughter. Sillo got his revenge for it next round, using his conjuring skills to his advantage as he weaved a web of metal around him and played Whack the Pinata until the blondie cried Uncle. Suddenly, it was two to two.
Sillo was physically tired. He'd never worked out before this fight. Hell, he'd never worked out ever before this moment. Aldred was a physical boy and despite breaking a couple of sweats, he was still bouncing and jiving as if he was still on Round One. Sillo was leaning on his Naginata, catching his breath.
However, he was more than ready mana-wise. He had more than enough stored up in that department and he was ready to unleash it all over Aldred. Smiling in confidence, he set himself up again and hit the Random button on the Scenery Changer. He watched the room melt around them as it changed to...whatever it would end up being.
"There's no way I'm ending this on a tie," he gave a thumbs up to Aldred, "One more round. For all the marbles!"
"Yeah, yeah," Aldred snorted, but the smile he sent Sillo's way was soft, filled with both fondness and assessment of his abilities. The other teen might look tired, but he seemed ready to go another round. "All the marbles in your head, mabye. Still..."
Sillo had improved marvelously. He was inventive and quick, and with the amount of mana at his disposal he could do a lot more than Aldred's usual 'beat-em-up' routine. His physical stances had needed work, but he'd picked up Aldred's tips pretty quickly, and now the other teen knew how to throw a punch without the risk of dislocating his thumb, and how to swing his whole weight into a punch instead of just his arm.
Aldred kind of regreted teaching him that when he used the punch to land that cheapshot, but at the same time he was proud.
He'll know how to defend himself physically now anyway. Takes a load off my mind.Alright, enough rest time. Aldred nodded to himself as the scenery changed, trees and plants galore swirling into view slowly as if fading in reverse. A sudden tropical smell, a mixture of both greens and moist, fresh air, filled their noses. and the air suddenly felt humid and damp. Judging from the vines and jungle trees a few yards away, they were in a clearing inside a rainforest.
Sweet. It would have been better if the plants could come up alive and try to kill them the way Rose probably would, but eh. Beggars couldn't be choosers.
"Alright, we got a rainforest this time." Aldred settled into a low stance, steadying his center of gravity and taking a deep breath. As he let it out, he raised a hand up in front of him like a brawler in the streets, fist cocked and sure and ready for anything. "I'd say let the best man win, but well, I want to win." Aldred said dryly. His mouth quirked, sending out a lopsided grin Sillo's way. "Best three out of five?"
Sillo nodded, his own confident and carefree grin appearing on his face as he examined his surroundings. The air was mostly stagnant minus a slight breeze escaping through the thick canopy every once in a while. The trees were numerous, blocking the view any further than fifty feet. Which was good for Sillo, who liked to use deception to his advantage whenever he could.
The amount of green in this landscape is just TOO DAMN HIGH!So he'd play to that. He twirled the Naginata menacingly (or was it enticingly? He could never tell with Aldred given the blondie's love for combat.) and set himself up, breathing deeply and calmly. "You strike first."
It was the pacificst nature in Sillo coming out. He almost never took the first swing and he wasn't going to start now.
"Eh, sure." Aldred's eyes narroweda slightly at the suggestion as if he were skeptical about it, but he kept his mouth shut and shrugged it away, a sharp roll of the shoulders as a pair of thick leather gauntlets started to form on his hands. They formed into reality from the tip of his fingers and around his hands and arms, and by the time Aldrd had competed the roll the guantlets were complete, the brown leather and plated metal that decorated and added more sturdiness to the gauntlets ending near his elbows. Aldred knew that even if he was strong enough to survive a train crashing into him at full speed without much damage (don't ask), that did nothing against sharp objects. Human flesh could be cut apart really easily, and it helped to have protection at hand.
The blonde teen tightened his fingers into fists, breifly enjoying the feel of leather on his hands as he bent his knees and raised his arms in front of him, digging his feet into the ground. "Here I come then." He yelled to Sillo, getting ready to move. A warning to be on guard and that the battle had begin, and all bets were off. It wouldn't do to attack a friend without warning in this situation.
Almost immediately after Aldred had yelled he moved. Nothing but a pair of footprints dugged into the ground left any indication that a person had been standing there seconds ago. The blondie's body moved with comfortable grace as he leaped forwards, sprinting towards Sillo so fast that he was almost a blur. Within seconds Aldred had made it to Sillo's side with a fist cocked like a gun ready to fire, and without hesitation Aldred launched a series of punches at Sillo's head and chest, warily testing the waters.
But Pavlov taught Sillo well. He did what he knew how to do in similar situations and teleported out of the way. The barrage of fists struck nothing but air and now Sillo was behind him, a sly grin on his face.
"Boop!" he cried as he rapped Aldred's head with the shaft of the Naginata. It was more like a cute love tap than it was to doing actual damage, but it was spontaneous, it was a hit, and most of all it was hilarious. Before the blondie could turn around Sillo was already gone again, teleporting high into the trees.
Now the game of cat and mouse had begin. Aldred played Tom while Sillo would do his best at being Jerry. He'd already used this tactic in spar and found that the result could go either way. If Aldred ended up being hyper sensitive to his surroundings when Sillo launched a sudden attack, Sillo would likely be on the ground. If not, then Jerry would once again doop the kitty and land a couple more blows. The time would come, but for now Sillo stood in the branches, high above Aldred, using the lack of far sight the rainforest provided to his advantage.
Aldred whirled around once before coming to a stop, reaching a hand up to rub his head. He rubbed his head as if it had hurt and faked a wince as he looked up, but it was merely a disguise for what Aldred was really doing - getting a good look at his surroundings to see if he could find Sillo hiding somewhere.
"You didn't let me prepare my fight music!" Sillo whined, his voice hard to locate with all the foliage around them.
"Because the last time I did you ended up playing some weird chipmunk voice spanish song on high speed while you hit me with a stick." Aldred said exasperatedly, although there was an amused tint to his words. Getting hit felt more like flies hadn't really affected him, but having that song blasted in his ears at full volume until he surrendered did the trick. In his hands, a machette appeared, and he swung it silently to his side. "Dale Dale Dale', seriously." Aldred closed his eyes as he hummed the tune with a faint smile, tilting his head upwards.
Dale, dale, dale, No pierdas el tino...As his head tilted up Aldred's eyes opened slightly, the slit so small that it was almost like his eyes were still shut.
The voice came from up... but where? The treebranches? Still humming, his eyes flickered around the treetops, his expression giving nothing away of his true intentions. The humming was nothing but a disguise for what Aldred was trying to do - find Sillo.
That, and it really was catchy.
"It's still stuck in my head, you know," he said breezily, listening carefully. He looked forward again, his body tensing just enough to be on his toes as he waited for an attack he wasn't quite sure would come. "If you promise not to play that damn song again, I'll give you enough time to choose an epic battle song before we start."
Sillo laughed as he remembered the song he'd used to throw his opponents off guard from time to time, "Alright, then. I'll pick a different song," he conjured the familiar boombox he knew how to make and set it down on a particularly wide tree branch. Thinking about what song he should pick, he figured he'd at least give Aldred some PTSD in the process. So...
Dale, dale, dale Canción para romper la piñataAldred winced theatrically and resisted a groan. "Oh Gods, not this tune again. Really, Sillo? Really?!" He waved the machette threateningly at a random direction.
Sound definitely from the top. A bit to my left... I think. "Are you seriously trying to get me to kill that poor boombox? Because I really will slice it into little bitty pieces just to make it stop singing that song."
A much harder laugh erupted across the rainforest, "Just kidding! " He turned the song off just as epiphany struck him and he realized what the perfect song would be. Smiling in satisfaction, heput the real song on and listened as the rainforest filled with noise.
Tobu - HigherNodding his head to the beat of it, Sillo teleported away from the boombox so his baby could stay safe from Aldred's potential wrath. Although this was a much better song than Dale Dale Dale. He'd likely find that Aldred agreed.
For a moment, everything was silent. The air was still. No leaves rustled. Even fake simulated wildlife remained silent. It was just the music that filled the air. Sillo remembered the spot where he'd left Aldred, knowing he didn't even need to look to figure out he was likely still there. He felt the beat slowing down...the part right before the beat would explode and the full intensity would be relinquished.
Now.Sillo teleported back to Aldred, appearing right behind him. He lunged forward, bladed end high in the air, threatening an arcing downward strike on Aldred's head. But the forward strike would never come. Aldred had already been turning the moment Sillo had begun to lung forward, having already readied himself for an attack from any direction. His arm blurred as he twisted his body, bringing the machette in his hands up in a swing to block the naginata's blade.
Sillo had anticiplated the block, figuring beforehand that Aldred learned how to deal with that move from a couple spars ago. Switching tactics quickly, rather than swing the blade down, he stuck the shafted end of the Naginata into the soft earth, feeling it dig deep in. He then propelled himself up, his body sailing over Aldred in a magnificent pole vault. He landed on the other side, but not before aiming for the back of Aldred's head with the blunt end, slightly harder than the first strike.
"Seriously, dude...need a helmet," Sillo quipped.
"No thanks, I'd rather not have something that easily breakable on my head," Aldred replied breezily, deflecting the blow to the back of his head. Sillo pivoted, bringing the bladed end in front of him in anticipation of a counter strike, and Aldred did not dissapoint. Steel clashed against steel as their blades met, and for a moment they were locked together, struggling to gain the advantage over one another. Then Aldred gave a sharp experimental push to get Sillo off balance. Sillo was pushed back a peg, but kept his feet planed. The earth slightly gave way under him from the pure strength Aldred had used in that thrust. Sillo finally used enough force to push the machette outward, leaving him open for a rapid counter with the familiar blunted end of the naginata as he sent it crashing into the vicinity of Aldred's ribs.
The best thing about carrying a two-sided weapon was that Sillo could go back and forth with strokes much quicker than one could with a single blade or axe or hammer or rocket lance. And while the Naginata typically functioned as a one-sided weapon, Sillo's familiarity with the bow staff gave him that extra
mph! he needed to have the upper hand in dexterity.
The best thing about carrying a one-handed weapon, however, was that you had one hand free to defend with. Aldred's mind rapidly cycled through options.
Grab it and break it? Tank it and then break Sillo's ribs with a punch before he realises that it didn't work? No, that wasn't what people normally did. This was training in combat for Sillo, so Aldred did what he thought was the most commonly chosen option - his free hand blurred as he brought his hand up in an open palmed slap against the blunt end of the Naginata blade Sillo tried to crash into his ribs.
Okay, new tactic! Sillo brought the bladed end up, catching Aldred's machette as he did so, and swung it around. The key was body placement. Because Aldred chose to slap the Naginata away rather than take the full force, Sillo would stay where he was. He contorted his body to the right as the blades came down, hitting the O Horizon below them. And just as quickly, Sillo spun around, going from directly in front of Aldred to directly behind him. The Naginata swung around, the blunt end aiming for the knee. A slight peripheral glance upwards told Sillo that a low hanging branch was nearby. He caught the sharp end in it, letting the blunt end sink into the earth. Now that it was stabilized, he would use his whole body weight as he grabbed the middle of the Naginata and went airborne as he swung around it, full force exerted while his feet beelined for Aldred's stomach.
The blow to Aldred's knee felt a little like someone slamming a small branch to the back of his knee - it felt like a normal blow, but easy to handle. Ignoring the impact as if it were nothing, Aldred felt a grin cross his face as he heard the sound of steel biting into wood, having his unspoken question confirmed as he whirled around in a half-circle to see Sillo grab the Naginata in the middle. Without pausing, Aldred dropped his machette to the ground as he completed the circle. The soft thud of metal hitting earth had barely resounded before Sillo came into view feet first Aldred took a breath and raised his arms out in front of him, grabbing Sillo's feet inches before it landed on his stomach. Sillo jerked to a sudden stop as Aldred jerked back slightly from the impact, but Sillo would suddenly feel his feet encased in a tight vice-like grip as Aldred shot him a smile, completely unaffected by the blow Sillo had tried to land.
"I think you're the one who's going to need that helmet," Aldred said lightly. Sillo might have improved, but there was no way he could beat Aldred in a physical fight at his current level.
He pulled Sillo away from the tree. Whirling Sillo around like a baseball bat and slamming Sillo's upper body against multiple trees in the process, Aldred swung him three times in quick succession before slamming him headfirst into the ground as if he were trying to drive a Sillo-shaped nail back into the wood it came from.
"Nope!" cried Sillo as he phased...his word for entering the Observer realm. Before Aldred could do anything more, he was out of his grip and nowhere to be seen. He took a second to breathe, recover slighty from the fast-paced fighting that had been the previous few seconds. His head would be a swollen lump right now had he not done it. All this fighting they'd done and Sillo had only
just now learned that the physical strikes wouldn't work against Aldred. Concentrating hard, he thought about what to do. Aldred was going to unleash Satan's Fury if he tried anything direct again. Or at least Mike Tyson's...
And then he remembered. To be fair, it had been so long since he'd used this ability...about a couple months to be exact. He was now kicking himself for forgetting about this. He could've used this against Rose! Well, the least he could do is beat Aldred with it.
Now overwhelmingly pleased and pissed at the same time, he rolled back to his feet, phasing back in to the arena right next to his Naginata. Sillo made no motion towards the bladed staff. He merely stood by it. But his eyes seemed to radiated an electric blue as he stared at Aldred, a gleam of satisfaction crossing his eye. The Naginata was suddenly launching itself from it's perch on it's own accord, heading straight for Aldred, blade first. Sillo just stood there, hands in his pockets, but all intensity on his face.
Aldred bent to pick up the machette he had dropped. He spun it in his hand like a cheerleader's baton, rotating in quick circles as he brought it up to shoulder height. As it twirled in his fingers the blade grew longer, thinner, and the handle changed into something with a shorter grip - a sword with a long blade that gleamed in the light. Aldred gave a sideway's swipe, and the Naginata was flung back. It had barely touched the ground before it came back for more.
"Nice," Aldred said appreciatively. He was parrying on automatic now, blocking and exchanging blows with the Naginata, but no matter how many times he sent it to the floor it came back like a dog trying to get a bone.
"Forgot I could do that," he muttered, referring to his long forgotten telekinesis. He didn't slow the onslaught, conjuring a variety of sharp things. Knives, shurikens, fingernail clippings, and other pointy objects swirled around Sillo before propelling themselves at Aldred. The sword in Aldred's hand morphed into a long dagger as he placed both hands on the now-simple leather hilt, and when the blonde brought his hands apart the dagger split into two. Taking a step forward, Aldred began to run, but not away from the, horde of incoming objects determined to take his head off - instead, he sprinted
towards them.
For the first time, Aldred's lips curved up into a small, pleased grin. Things were finally getting serious - in a fun way, of course. He couldn't send them back to their owner or they'd just turn and try to gut him like magical homing missiles, so he'd have to destroy them instead.
"Whoa," Sillo muttered. Aldred was surrounded so much that it was almost as if he were in a very solid hurricane, but no matter how fast the objects moved Aldred always managed to deflect or swipe them away with his weapons, destroying each object approaching him within instants, blocking anything from coming close to his back with a round shield that hovered close behind him. He duelweilded the daggers like a pro, weaving his way through a path between the objects lunging at him and destroying them with inhuman grace and speed, as if he had experienced this many times before.
It was a breathtaking sight to behold. Aldred moved like a sword dancer at high speed, effeciently slaying anything in his path as he headed for his opponents, but even his strength and skill couldn't do anything against the sheer numbers Sillo had sent against him.
For every one object he knocked away, there were three more to take its place, and soon Aldred's clothes were seeped in both blood and holes from where he had been unable to avoid the knives. Still, despite having half of the Storm of Pointy Objects left to deal with, Aldred still found time to kick some nailcutters towards Sillo while parrying a kunai and trying not to get fingernail clippings in his mouth. They flew like lightning fast mini missiles out from between the gaps left between the knives, heading straight for Sillo's torso and face.
The knives whizzed by Sillo, but never managed to cut skin. Well, there was one exception as a finger nail dug into his right arm. "Ah," Sillo muttered as he pulled it out and tossed it to the ground. The rest of the projectiles Aldred managed to throw in his general direction Sillo managed to air push just enough to change the direction of flight to where it wasn't hitting him. But he needed something heavier...something that wouldn't be blocked so easily. He decided to take it a step further, lifting his hands to the sky as he concentrated really hard. Before Aldred knew it, a massive Boeing 737 was being hurtled at him, the paint job on it flashy enough to be potentially distracting as Aldred might wonder "Why is the plane neon green?"
He did wonder why it was, but only for a moment.
Neon green plane? Only Sillo. Bad attempt at cameoflage though - green's too bright to not attract attention. What to do? Rapidly, Aldred cycled through his options, kicking a kunai straight into a horde of nail clippings. Situation - a hurricane of pointy objects and fingernails he was currently in the middle of, and a neon green plane. Everwhere he turned the sharp knives surrounded him, and when his eyes flickered up he could see the neon green plane's girth growing wider every second. It wouldn't be much long before it landed on him in a blazing fireball. Problem - Neon green Boeing was about to crash into him if he didn't suffer from death by stabbing or choking by nailclippings.
Solution - Destroy Hurricane Sharp and Neon Boeing 737, then attack Sillo before he could do anything else.
How?
Aldred's grin widened as he settled on a plan.
This is going to be fun.What happened next took only seconds.
Shifting to the left to avoid a sword thrust to his foot, Aldred ducked to the ground to avoid a pair of scissors who had decided to try and give him a new haircut and threw his dagger up high into the air as if he were trying to win a javelin-throwing contest. The objects swarmed away from the thrown object as if it were a beam of light piercing a hole through the cloud, and Aldred instantly leapt up into the cleared path before it dissappeared. A pair of footprints were left dug into the ground from the sheer force of his jump, and as he leapt Aldred's remaining dagger morphed into something small that fitted into the palm of his fist. Raising his arms to deflect any objects heading his way, Aldred's leap left him a good two feet above the enchanted weapons. As he began to fall, Aldred took aim and hurled the object in his hand to the center of the weapon storm before summoning a pair of earmuffs and a kite shield strapped to his feet.
If the weapons had eyes, they would have seen that it was a bomb set to go off in three, two, one -
KABOOM!
The explosion was small but intense. The weapons and any greenery in the vincinty disintergrated from the force of the bomb, leaving nothing but charred earth and a heatwave hot enough to belong to a volcano behind. The light from the explosion was blinding, as if someone had lit up the sun in a pitchblack room, and the sound was enough to deafen anyone within hearing vincinity. The force of the explosion was enough to send the jungle trees bending backwards almost in half - and more than enough to fling a well-prepared Aldred upwards like a rocket-propelled surfer.
"WHOOO!"Blood singing praises in his veins to the andrenaline rush he was getting, Aldred's grin widened into a fullfledged beaming smile of excitment as he shot upwards. The force had been absorbed by the shield which both acted as a cushion and surfboard to boost the physically enhanced teen up, and the silencing earmuffs he was wearing negated any hearing damage he could have gotten from being so close to the bomb. Using the force as a boost, Aldred flew upwards high enough to see the top of the trees before using the shield as a platform to leap even higher. The shield crashed back into the jungle like a shooting star as he shot upwards like superman.
The Boeing 737 was directly in front of him, still continuing its trajectory downwards. Perfect.
The shrill screech of metal tearing apart rang in Aldred's ears as he grabbed hold of the plane's nose hard enough to dent metal. Gritting his teeth, Aldred's muscles bulged as he tightened his grip on the plane, and with both the force from his bomb-enhanced flight and magic enhancing his normally over-the-top strength Aldred began to move his arms, grunting as he tried to pull the plane off course.
For a moment it seemed that the plane wasn't affected. Then the tail began to slide to the left, and soon the plane was swooping around in an arc mid-air as Aldred began to spin in mid-air with a yell. As it continued to spin like an out of control top the plane began to blur, gaining more force with each gyration until:
"HERE'S YOUR FLIGHT, SILLO!" Aldred yelled, grinning fit to burst, and with that he threw the plane down towards Sillo with all the force he could muster - which for a close-combat mage with enhanced strength was a lot.
With a whistling sound that felt like the horn of doom the plane crashed down towards where Sillo was standing faster than a kamikaze pilot could blow himself up. Landing with a earth-shaking crash, the neon green Boeing mowed through the flora shortly tumbling to a stop - whereupon it exploded and showered the now-wrecked jungle with flaming machine parts. With a
sproioioioiing, a flaming pilot seat ejected into the sky before a parachute appeared, fluttering gently down into the wreckage.
But Sillo wasn't a part of that wreckage. In fact, he was standing a couple feet in front of where the plane first made contact with the ground, a massive line of wreckage and debris behind him where the rest of the plane slid and was effectively blown to smithereens. How he had done it was simple. He couldn't quite stop the plane's momentum in mid air with the telekinesis he used to launch it at Aldred, but he certaintly could redirect it. And slightly above Sillo was better than on top of Sillo.
Sillo would only have a moment to breath before he noticed a sound similar to a mini-rocket. Still in the air, Aldred had summoned a MK4 Folding Finn Aerial Rocket while the plane was still crashing and fired it in quick succession. The nineteen rockets tseered as they splitted up. Flying around dizzily like drunk men trying to find the way home, the rockets arced around like runaway fireworks. Unlike runaway fireworks, the explosion was a lot more larger when they landed, designed to decimated the clearing.
Explosions. Lots and lots of explosions. The world around the white haired electric blue eyed Sillo was nothing but expanding fire and an insane amount of noise. None of which caused any real damage to Sillo as he managed to enter the Spectator Realm at the time he needed to. The first explosion was the indicator. When he phased back in, the remnants of the simulated rain forest was left in his wake. Everything was flat, charred, and violent, the bountiful and beautiful flora that had once surrounded them replaced by ash and smoldering embers. Smoke drifted up in plumes, making the whole arena a bit foggier than it had been. Behind Sillo rested the remnants of the Boeing, the bright and shiny paint barely shining through the twisted metal and jagged pieces of silver and charred black.
But what made Sillo truly mad was that the boombox that was playing his fight music was destroyed in the fray as boomboxes tended to do when sharp pointy things, a crashing cargo plane, and a rocket that split into smaller rockets existed within the same confines. Despite everything Sillo had done, it was miraculous he hadn't been hit by anything other than the finger nail.
I swear to God if the finger nail infects me with some fungal disease...Ignoring the potential irony, Sillo looked out to Aldred's body, bloodied and full of cuts. But he was still standing with a lot of stamina left within him. The nerve pain would likely be taxing, but nothing critical had happened because of the Razor Whirlwind Sillo threw his way. He was in one piece. And he didn't looked too tired.
Sillo was already physically tired, but he'd reached a new kind of tired...a kind of tired he rarely came across. Mana-tired. Telekinesis, the wind based mana moves, and soooo much conjuring had done a number on him. He was conditioned and had a high storage of mana, but even he had a limit. Typically an attack like that would leave a Gatewatcher out of mana and down on the ground from exhaustion...like Goku's Spirit Bomb. A slight headache throbbed dully in the back of his mind while he pushed his exhaustion aside and activated the Airbender side of himself as he walked towards the blondie. He wasn't overdoing it...not yet.
"Not bad, all things considered," Sillo said, conjuring a bow staff as he set himself up once more, "But now, we get real."
He twirled the bow staff in front of him as he got used to the old familiarity of the weapon. The Naginata was nice and all, but Sillo felt it was time to return to his roots and what he knew best. This meant a lot of air-based techniques with the bow staff for support, defensive in this case. Still, he'd throw in some of the things he'd used...the things he'd learned as he'd been fighting Aldred. This was for all the marbles, after all.
And Sillo was going to get every single one of those marbles.
Before Aldred could even think about setting himself up in response, a big tree branch rose up on it's own from the pile of ashes. It tried to wham itself against Aldred's head like a baseball bat going for a home run, but before it could Aldred's fist blurred backwards and the branch shattered into pieces, the blonde still keeping his gaze on his opponent the whole time. Sillo smiled, his eyes twinkling with the laughter he wanted to emit as he stared at Aldred, motioning for him to make the first move.
"Sorry, had to.
Now we can get real."
"Finally." Aldred grinned, the curve of his lips sharp and feral and just as amused. Contrary to Sillo, Aldred had yet to extend most of his mana in this fight, at the cost of cuts on his body and the lack of injuries on Sillo - although that was about to change. Aldred slammed his fists together, and a eerie light spread faintly around the gauntlets, the same etheral glow that the Dimension Swords had. Aldred raised his fists in front of him like a brawler, bouncing lightly from foot to foot to a tune that only he could hear. A little mana drifted into his veins slowly like water trickling through a dam, prickling his blood and lighting a spark inside of him, as if a small flame had just been lit.
No more being on the defensive. Now was the time to attack.
For a moment, everything was still. The tension in the air rose, crackling like electricity gathering in a storm -
Aldred dashed forwards fast, landing a few quick punches against Sillo's face and torso to test the waters. Sillo dodged or deflected the blows with his staff, wincing from the strength of the blows, and Aldred's speed increased as his blows grew more and more furious until he was almost a blur of movement. As Aldred sped up, so did Sillo, meeting each strike with the shaft of his bow. Full concentration was in effect for Sillo as he played the defensive role this time...a standard in his way of life. He spun the stick around, catching a right hook, and shoved it out of the way. A careful sweep in front of him sent a kick off the designated target. But deflection was one thing...Aldred's power was another.
The next time Sillo raised his staff to block Aldred's kick shattered it into two, and Sillo reeled back from the force of the blow, nearly toppling over. He changed tactics as he wielded the two sticks in front of him like Kataars, twirling them between his fingers as he parepared for the next attack. Sure enough, Aldred's fist came flying towards his midsection. It wouldn't matter what dimension Sillo had phased to - it would land with an oomph in Sillo's chest with enough force to break a couple of ribs.
Unless he teleported. A quick jump through space put Sillo about twenty feet from Aldred as his punch would likely come up with air. In response, Sillo threw the two sticks at the blondie like miniature javelins. Before Aldred could turn and deflect them, Sillo had teleported again, tossing another stick from another direction. Then repeated the process again...and again. The effect was a series of projectiles coming from a variety of angles, similar to the razor whirlwind he'd created earlier, except the projectiles would be faster and more direct to Aldred's current position.
Aldred shifted back to defense. He kept dodging, moving like he was in a particularly dangerous game of dodgeball. The sticks upgraded to hardened steel, then sharp hardened steel, but it didn't matter - Aldred merely grinned as one stick flew past his eyes by mere centimeters, twisting his body fluidly to dodge the strike to his leg at the same time in a move that was almost like a gold-star Olympist twirling in mid air, senses stretched out close to the limit to sense where the next move would be coming from.
As a steel stake flew towards his hip Aldred's hand reached out to grasp it's shaft. The steel went from full speed to stock still as Aldred's hand gripped it tightly. Without pause, Aldred threw the stake up to meet the Kunai that came from above. The tip of the stake met the tip of the knife with enough force that both of the weapons rebounded in different directions, sparks glittering down onto the two combatants like stars.
Sillo immediately changed tactics, teleporting straight in front of Aldred immediately after the blonde let the knife go. His arms crossed in front of him in a block as Sillo sent a quick and sudden Air Blast thrusted straight at the blondie's meat-gringing abs. The gauntlets he was wearing absorbing some of the impact, but thanks to unstable footing Aldred flew backwards to what remained of the trees. Sillo grabbed a piece of contorted metal from the wreckage of the plane and sent it towards him with Telekinesis as Aldred righted his center of gravity with a quick twist, facing the twisted piece head on.
It was too large to dodge at the speed he was at, and it wasn't like It was made from Steel, aluminum, but mostly steel. And steel was made from carbon and iron, connected together with bonds that were hard to destroy... Normally.
Right. Aldred clapped his hands together in front of him with a sharp grin as he sped towards the twisted come of metal Sillo sent his way. A faint gleam glowed around his gauntlets as Aldred slammed one fist into his hand, refining his focus. His fist was a blur of movement as Aldred swung out with a punch towards the metal.
"
Shatter."
Aldred's whisper was lost under the sound of cracking metal. A crackly energy that looked similar to white electricity wreathed outwards from where Aldred had touched the twisted piece of metal as atoms rearranged themselves faster than thought - and the metal crumbled away like pencil lead under Aldred's punch, leaving a clear path for Aldred to go through without harm.
But one more strike to sweeten the deal. Aldred's momentum would carry him right to the tree line where Sillo teleported to, having conjured a reinforced bow staff. He spun the steel-tipped weapon around him, gaining momentum for the grand slam home run. Aldred was the ball and Sillo was carrying the bat. As Aldred got within striking distance, Sillo extended his arm as well as the staff it carried, aiming for the head. To add some extra power, he used his air magic to put force behind his swing. If SIllo were hitting a normal teenager, the stroke would be lethal, smashing the skull into mush as well as likely breaking their neck. But this was Aldred, someone who could take such a critical strike.
Aldred saw the blow to his head coming, having destroyed the diversion Sillo had been hoping to use. Reacting on pure instinct, Aldred hunched his head and punched at the bottom of the staff to send it upwards and away from his face, magic aiding his blow. As the staff flew up close enough to pass through his hair, probably causing Sillo to get off balance, Aldred became a blur of movement, hands snatching out to grab at the wrist of the hand holding the staff and Sillo's shirt in a grip tight enough to break bone. Sillo grabbed at Aldred's wrist instinctively, but Aldred wasn't affected. Momentarily forgetting himself, Aldred's face formed a terrifying snarl as he pulled Sillo roughly forward into a devastating head butt. The grip on Sillo's wrist was tight, and mana roared through Aldred's veins; sparking up and down his body and igniting a fire inside him as he used a large chunk of it to make him real in all dimensions.
Another large chunk of mana he used to enhance his physical body. He still had enough mana left, but unless he wanted to dip into the mana reserve he kept for healing in case of deadly injuries he'd have to end the fight quickly. As they tumbled off the treebranch Aldred's grip tightened to the point of grounding Sillo's wrist bones together. Gritting his teeth and tanking any blows Sillo rained at him, Aldred kneed Sillo in the solar plexus as he gave the wrist he was holding a hard yank, dislocating Sillo's shoulder with a Nasty sounding pop as he used his free hand to slam Sillo's jaw shut to prevent any air bending yelling moves. Tumbling together, they landed on the ground, Aldred sitting on Sillo's chest with his hand still on the other boy's jaw.
And suddenly Sillo was back. Back to the museum. Back to the battleground. Sillo was staring Rose in the face once more. He was reliving the fight over and over again. The many attempts he'd taken to landing a single blow. The effortless parries Rose came back with. The pain...so much of the pain. It was the pain that had brought him back to that moment...that brought him back to the brink of death.
I'm not letting that happen again...When Sillo's eyes shot open, they were fiery red. His white hair changed color, fading to a pitch and powerful black. With his uninjured hand, he grabbed Aldred's arm and squeezed. The force of the squeeze would no doubt surprise him as he squeezed harder and harder...right on the pressure point...until...
SNAP! The bone broke right at the elbow. Sillo could already feel the power behind the hand that clasped over his mouth weaken as all energy faded from it. He didn't even have to hear the surprise in Aldred's gasp or his face deliberately turning blank like plain white canvas. The moment it did, Sillo teleported to the clouds, taking the blonde boy with him.
And for a moment, all was silent. All was calm. Sillo and Aldred were painted on a landscape of blue and white, the jungle below them. They were staring each other in the face. Aldred's expression showed worry, his eyes wrinkled with confusion and concern at the sudden change in personality and tactics. Sillo's showed no mercy.
"Sillo..?" Aldred's voice was not exactly uneasy, but there was no denying the tension in the questioning lilt of his voice; the worried furrow in his brow.
Sillo's response was physical. The teen ripped Aldred's grip off of him, the grip itself being so strong that he took a piece of Sillo's shirt with him. With a rough shove, almost like a toss, Sillo threw Aldred below him as they freefalled, heading back down to the ground below them. Sillo used his good hand to add more force through the throw by Air Pushing Aldred beneath him as the two gained speed. They were beyond terminal velocity at this point.
Sillo gave one more mighty Air Push, nearly doubling Aldred's speed while halfing Sillo's as the two hit the ash covered arena below them, Sillo on top of Aldred in an echo of what had happened moments ago. There was an ominous cracking sound from Aldred's ribs as he hit the ground, and his face twisted with pain as the force of the impact made itself felt. A sonic boom appeared an instant later, covering Aldred's shout and letting the blonde know that he had broke the sound barrier when he hit the ground.
It hurt. Just because Aldred was strong enough to withstand crashing like a meteorite didn't mean he couldn't feel pain - it just meant that his pain threshold was much, much higher than others. Pain throbbed through his body like a blazing fire and centered towards his ribs, and distantly Aldred registered that most of his ribs were broken, the rest cracked in varying degrees depending on how far they'd been from Sillo's air push. His broken arm continued to throb, sharp flickering pain resembling electricity from a flickering lamp that originated from his elbow, adding a twinge to the rest of his body.
Breathing. Fuck, every movement his lungs made felt like they were being set on fire while being eaten by army ants, but Aldred pushed away the pain with practiced ease and did so anyway. In and out, in and out, Aldred kept his breaths carefully even so that he wouldn't accidentally puncture a lung as he kept himself still under Sillo's hold.
At least it isn't as bad as back then...
Nothing can be as bad as that day.Agony throbbed inside his chest as Aldred's broken rib began to knit itself back together, but it was welcome. Aldred tilted his head up and shot Sillo an annoyed look, irritation spiking through him. "Dude, if this is how you respond to a dislocated arm I'd hate to see what you'd do if I'd broke it," Aldred said grumpily, his voice breathless and wheezy. His tone sounded irritated and not at all frightened, almost as if Sillo had just played a prank on him instead of slamming him down at the speed of sound in an effort to kill him. Eyes narrowing in puzzlement, Aldred studied his friend. "What happened to you anyway? Was it the knock on the head I gave you?"
If it was due to a concussion, it didn't explain the sudden change. Sillo had turned into an almost opposite version of himself. The boy kneeling above him had black hair and red eyes, in contrast to the normal white hair and blue eyes. The normally merry twinkle in his eye had faded, replaced with a blank, merciless look. His strategy had changed too - while Sillo normally hesitated to land any killing blows this version of him had immediately tried to send Aldred to the afterlife without hesitation - A fact he demonstrated as Sillo brought his fist down towards Aldred's face like an answer.
Aldred tilted his head to the side as Sillo brought his fist down with a loud smack into the earth where his face used to be, so close that the velocity from the force brushed wind against his cheek.
Yup. Definitely not the friend he knew.
Sillo continued to pound the ground as if he were playing whack-a-mole with Aldred's head as the mole. His dislocated hand hung uselessly by his side as his other hand moved with a blur of speed, but Aldred kept up easily. After a few seconds Black Sillo (Aldred's prototype nickname for him) decided that the game was apparently taking too long and grabbed Aldred's neck, pinning him to the ground.
Sillo's hand began to squeeze.
"Ok," Aldred said, sounding a little choked as Black Sillo's hand began to tighten like a vice. He glared up at his friend's emotionless face, fist tightening into a fist against the ground as irritation flickered through him. "You know what? Fuck this." Aldred wriggled his hand out from under Sillo's knees. His elbow wasn't entirely healed, but it was enough for what he had planned. With his good hand, Aldred gripped the wrist of the hand Sillo was using to strangle him with enough force to leave a handprint on Sillo's skin.
"I don't know what the hell is going on in your head right now, but I don't like you killing me." Aldred continued, but despite the calmness in his tone there was an undercurrent of rage in it, a carefully held back beast that was threatening to break its collar. Sillo's grip loosened as Aldred tightened his grip to the point where Sillo had to let go or risk breaking the metacarpal's inside his wrist. Tightening his grip even more, Aldred opened his mouth to say a few final words:
"You're pissing me off. Sleep."
CRACK.
Sillo's broken wrist hung limply in Aldred's hold. He tried to rear back as Aldred brought his other hand up in what seemed like a punch, but Aldred still had his wrist hostage and Sillo roared in a mix of agony and rage as dirt entered his eyes. Aldred didn't give him any time to recover, reaching up to grab his shirt and pulling the teen into a good old fashion headbutt. There was a loud crack as their heads met like bulls locking horns, and as they both reared back Aldred used both his hands to both bring Sillo back down into another devestating headbutt and to bring himself up into a sitting position.
Blinking pain away from his head, Aldred lashed out with an elbow jab as Sillo tried to fling one of his wrecked arms at him. There was another crack as the radial and ulna bones snapped. Another cry of pain emmitted from Sillo as Aldred used the time to get to his feet, flying towards Sillo immediately for a punch to the ribs.
Sillo's arms were a mess. The dislocated left one and the broken right one hung limply by his sides. He was on his knees, staring at the ground, breathing hard. Not out of relaxation...but with a hard anger and an even harder determination...to kill. He looked up at Sillo, a cruel sneer on his face, spitting on the ground in front of him. His eye twitched.
When he spoke, his voice had changed. Aldred could hear an undertone quality to it...something sinister lurked there. And when he said these five words, there couldn't be any more death subtexted within.
"I don't need my arms."Aldred suddenly found himself floating in the air as a surge of power contorted around his body and sat there. Aldred growled and tried to get back to punching , but he couldn't move. Sillo's head was shaking, his eyes deep in concentration as he focused on the blonde. Aldred was flung back, hitting the tree behind him with an insane amount of force. The tree snapped in half under the sudden weight being thrown. He then was flung forward...into another tree. And another. Sillo was ragdolling Aldred with Telekinesis and there was nothing he could do about it.
Clang! Against the plane wreckage.
Smash! Into the ground.
Aldred growled as he flew around like a living hammer, a pissed off look forming on his face with each slam as if Sillo were knocking him into plasticine instead of wood; steel; the ground. The anger from before came back with a vengeance, but this time Aldred allowed it to course through his mind instead of holding it back. He fed it instead, forcing every negative emotion he had felt that day into it.
Irritation from the fight having turned serious, the rage he'd kept locked away from Rose's arrival, the pissed off feeling from the humiliation of losing that battle. Annoyance at having to go through the pain of healing breaking ribs, of
having broken ribs, of the fact that Sillo had turned apparently insane and also just because he was pissed off and being flung around like a ragdoll. They all blended together into pure distilled fury, and power began to pump through Aldred's body as if the rage was trigger to a powerup.
Rage, annoyance, irritation, fury. People normally expected red mana users to be the angry ones thanks to the personality trait identified with them, but black and purple mana were a close second. It made sense - black mana users tend to feel angry when they hate the world, and while people tend to feel sorrow during grief there were also people who channeled that grief into anger.
Aldred was one of those people. And Sillo had just unleashed the beast.
"If you think that's going to work,
think again." Aldred snarled under his breath. The faint purple ring at the edge of his eyes began to grow and bleed into the green until there was more purple than green. The next time Sillo flung him into a tree, Aldred reached out blindly and gripped at bark with both hands. He gritted his teeth and clung on awkwardly until Sillo gave an extra hard yank and uprooted both Aldred and the tree he was holding on to.
Gritting his teeth and ignoring the weary feeling of his arm ligaments getting out of whack from the effort, Aldred twisted his torso and swung the tree towards Sillo like a baseball bat gone out of control. As he swung a bright electrical glow fluttered through the tree as its molecular structure rearranged itself, and suddenly the tree was a polished spiky bat that was dense enough to, while not exactly sink, made it very hard to float.
Sillo deflected it with a snarl using telekinesis and ripped it from Aldred's hands. Stopping from using Aldred like a sledgehammer for the moment, the bat steadied itself in midair before dropping to the ground. Sillo didn't have a use for it.
And then Aldred was floating in the air once more, directly in front of SIllo. A small knife was conjured behind Sillo's fiery gaze, slowly advancing. It stopped right on Aldred's neck, digging into the skin far enough to draw blood, which trickled down onto his shirt, but stopped at the point where it would cut his neck wide open. Sillo glared mercilessly as he held the blondie on the brink of death.
Aldred glared back just as fiercely, the purple in his eyes glowing bright. "That's not how you kill people," he said, reaching up to grip the knife. Sillo tried to move it through his neck, but Aldred held it still easily, the handle nearly crushed in his grip. Slowly, the knife began to move backwards away from Aldred's neck, and soon enough Aldred had it pointed at Sillo with both hands. Enraged, Sillo's gaze grew brighter as he focused his telekinesis further, the blade of the knife slowly pushing back towards Aldred. The knife crackled as an electrical energy passed through it, and the blade morphed into a useless metal trumpet. Fighting for control, Aldred slowly brought it up towards his lips as he took a deep breath, focusing what remained of the mana he could spare on a spell as he locked eyes with Sillo, message clear in his eyes.
This is how you kill someone.Aldred blew with all his might through the trumpet. Instead of music coming out, energy crackled as the molecular bonds within the trumpet changed, causing something to shoot out with a small boom and hit Sillo in the face at the speed of sound like a spitball.
A metal spitball that began to change shape, connected by ever thickening strands to the trumpet Aldred was still holding - only it wasn't a trumpet anymore but a big mass of fluidly changing metal that slid down the strings to gather on Sillo's face with dizzying speeds and wrapping around it like a spider wrapping its prey in sticky silk. They shifted and moved the way a tsunami did - once you saw it it was too late to avoid. The metal strands shifted and flowed like a living thing, never stopping and deceptively fast as it rolled towards Sillo's face like a hungry monster. Sillo couldn't do anything to it - it weaved through and around his clawing fingers like water and hardened on his face. Before Sillo could blink the web of metal had covered his mouth and was working its way upwards, covering his mouth and eyes and nose until he looked as if his head were in a cocoon made of metal, trapped and completely unable to breath.
No sight, no sound, not being able to hear anything but his own rapidly increasing heartbeat as his lungs ran out of oxygen. Sillo staggered back, clawing at the metal on his face - and Aldred dropped to the ground as Sillo lost control of his telekinesis.
Aldred didn't waste the opportunity. He was a blur of movement - one second he was a few feet away from Sillo, next he slammed into Sillo with enough force to break ribs and grabbing his arms, bringing up a knee to slam into his pelvis with enough force to shatter bone. Blinded and cut off, Sillo couldn't react in any way. Mercilessly, Aldred grabbed Sillo's broken elbow hard enough to grind the shattered bones together and ducked in close, bringing his hand up, nails gleaming wickedly in the light as it flew to spear through Sillo's chest and stab the heart apart -
Friend, not foe.Aldred's fingers flew apart as he shifted the angle just in time, cutting a deep gouge in Sillo's side instead of through his heart. Reaching up with his good hand, Aldred grabbed Sillo by the shoulders and glared with eyes so bright it hurt to look at them. Sillo stared back anyway through the metallic mask with his own bright glare. The two colors of purple and red radiated in between them. The mask exploded, sending shards of metal outward and exposing Sillo's face wrought with rage. The shards came within inches of hitting Aldred square in the face, but the teen barely flinched. Instead, his grip tightened hard enough for Sillo's clavicles to creak.
"SLEEP!" Aldred roared, and with that he slammed his head into Sillo's face. There was a crunch of bone, and when Aldred moved back blood was dripping down his forehead. Sillo's nose was off center, bleeding as if he was an anime character who had just seen porn.
And then Sillo slumped forward. He exhaled slowly as his knees hit the ground first, then his body. As he fell, his hair was changing...back to their originally white color. If his eyes weren't closed, Aldred would've been able to see the red clearing from them, replaced with their electric blue iris. He lay still.
The scene began to change around them, back into the training room-like setting it had before.
Panting for breath, Aldred raised his fists warily, watching Sillo with a hard look on his face. When Sillo didn't move, Aldred lowered his fists and walked over to the unconscious boy, carefully limping his way across the room. Tentatively, he nudged Sillo with his boot. When Sillo didn't budge, Aldred carefully, slowly leaned down and checked his pulse, carefully placing fingers against his neck. Dude wasn't dead, was he?
The pulse beating against Aldred's fingers was steady and strong, as if Sillo were just asleep. The fight must have had sapped all of Sillo's energy, along with the shock from all the sudden broken bones. Relieved, Aldred slumped to the floor in a sprawl, sitting loosely in a cross-legged position as the tension seeped out of his body. His eyes were already losing their purple glow, the wisteria seeping back from the green.
Thank God he's not dead.
Eyes back to their normal central heterochromial state - a faint wisteria ring close to the outer edges of the iris which turned into a deep green the more it approached the pupil, Aldred sighed and suddenly felt very tired. He felt as if he could sleep a week, but he knew the pain was only moments away from appearing, like the lightning flash after the huge crack of thunder. Well, he could leave it to the others to deal with. Wearily, he took stock of his own injuries, eyes coolly taking in the extent of the damage.
It wasn't really much compared to Sillo's shattered bones, but it was still pretty bad.
Aldred's ribs were no longer broken, but that was small comfort. They were still cracked beyond belief like his fractured elbow, which made it hard to breath. His elbow was fractured, and he had cuts on him all over from the eariler fight. They were still bleeding, dripping blood onto the ground. Aldred hissed as he raised a hand to his neck where sweat dripped onto an open wound. When he pulled away, the red on his fingers was unmistakable. He had a headache and likely a bump somewhere on his head. So much for a mere training match.
Minori is going to kill us.But that was later. Right now, Aldred had to wait and make sure that Sillo was alright...that he didn't push himself so far that he'd be damaged for life. They both had taken it too far. And while Aldred was sure they'd be stronger because of it, he wasn't looking forward to reliving those moments again. He glanced at the sleeping Sillo, many a question still hung in the air.