Duel of fates
The one whom craves the past,
and the one which desire the future.It was with determined steps that the young man strode down the streets of Rhea, his intended goal being one of the local tailors. His hair blowing slightly in the wind, his hands in the pockets of his green jacket. He had parted from his maiden at the nearby church, thinking that it was time to do some work on his own. There was also faith in that his other half would be capable of handling herself well, like she had done prior to their relationship.
Andreim allowed a small upturn form at the corner of his mouth as he gazed ahead to the rising sun, despite not having gotten many hours of sleep he felt it had been sufficient. He breathed out through his nose softly, as he passed by a graveyard. It caused him to stop after awhile, glancing in on the silent walled area filled with stones and names of those no longer alive. He decided to take a small detour, thus reached for the gate handle, turning it and going inside of the place.
His black boots didn't make his steps on the gravel soft, some small stones flew here and there until he reached a grassy area, wandering further ahead, passing by many gravestones as he did. Until he finally stopped at a somewhat large gravestone, a family grave by the looks of it, for a man and woman.
"Father. Mother. You forged me into a tool of destruction, while you may have had your own plans for me, it was your own destruction you should have worked to prevent. I guess I should thank you for aiding me to harness this power, for it is with this power that I will change this world. I'll make certain it will never, ever fall into the hands of people like you. Because you are wrong. The world doesn't desire a tyrant, it desires a god. I will become that god and make Rhea into what it needs to be... what it should be... what it must be."He stretched his back abit, looking at the gravestone and the names written on them.
"Hmph. There will always be those who would try to stop you, those who cannot and will not understand or appreciate what the world could be. Utopia. You too were unable to find it, you were too busy looking for ways to bring the world to ruin. I desire to change it. Today I will gather the first of the chosen. Those who will do what the current protectors have failed to do."Andreim allowed a satisfied smirk to decorate his face as he arrogantly stared down at the gravestone.
"Watch if you can, from wherever you are. Father. Mother. Watch and despair as I will bring ruin to all that you desired. Hnn..hnn.. hahahaha!" The young man began to laugh out loud, his head leaning backwards slightly as his face looked up to the sky above.
A cracking sound in the background however caught his attention, someone or something was approaching. Andreim narrowed his eyes and adjusted his stance, making sure his footing was good and he tightened his hands into fists.
"Who goes there?" He asked as he activated his thermal vision, and it picked up a humanoid form behind a tree a distance away from him, abit out of proper hearing distance.A figure began to slide out from behind the tree, and Andreim deactivated his thermal vision to see who it was. The person in question wore a dirtied sun bleached white hoodie and had long hair, it was a young man like himself, abit taller though. He also were more pale and thin looking. Wait... this young man seemed familiar.He thought back to the apartment incident and the tournament fights, this young man was that ghostlike boy. But he seemed different, not only that he wasn't translucent looking, he looked as if older.
The young man, Vittorio approached slowly, almost dragging his feet behind him. As if every step was a deep task for him.
"...you must be quite grim to laugh in a place of peace like this..." Vittorio said as he came closer, his voice slightly raspy but also strangely soft in a sense. His eyes inspecting the slightly shorter boy before him.
'This is... Katherine's friend...' He thought to himself, recognizing him.
"You are... that spiritual pretender.. Vittorio, am I right? I saw what you did on the tournament grounds... what the hell is Clara up to?! And where is Katherine?! Answer me!" Andreim yelled out, angered as he remembered the day before and how things had literally gone to hell. How everyone had gotten separated and how he had lost contact with everyone. Had he and Lise been the only survivors? Impossible.
"Clara...? I don't know where she nor Katherine is... Clara is an abomination. Evil. Despicable. She uses people to harm the innocent and is the source of this conflict. A trait she shared with Alto. Before I killed him... with these hands..." Vittorio replied in a calm tone yet cold mannerism, his hands shaking slightly as he turned to look down on them.
"What? You've done what?!" Andreim raised his voice again, blinking and gritting his teeth.
'It had to be a lie. He couldn't have killed Alto... this guy? There's no way.. without Alto the school would be in disorder, someone will have to- I will have to...'"...theres no way he could have survived, for the crimes he's committed. They gave me the strength to see it to the end..." Vittorio said his teeth slightly gritting together, as he began to manifest spectral images of his dead friends and parents at their graves, which was all around the duo. Having been buried during the same year as Andreim's own parents.Andreim's eyes quickly darted to the sides as spectral images of people began to appear, three boys, a girl and two adults.
'These people... what is he on about? Who are these people?' Andreim narrowed his eyes, knowing fully well that just any moment their meeting could turn into a fight to the death. Vittorio soon allowed the imagery of his fallen friends and parents to fade away.
"You don't believe me? The light can be blinding... much like the darkness... Alto and Clara..." Vittorio added, raising his right hand to the sides. Creating spectral images of Clara and Alto both. The one with Alto bearing something stabbed into it and with a shocked expression on his face.
"Where is your proof? You are just judging people right and left, what gives you that right? You who supported Clara in her goals, you should just be silent..." Andreim said in a displeased tone of voice, showing his obvious dislike of the boy ahead of him and Clara.
"I have lost everything. My past. Present and future. I have all the right in the world to judge the unfair world which allowed the guilty to slip away and my dear ones paid the ultimate price..." The pale boy explained, a look of hatred glowing in his eyes.
"Justice.. then? So that's what you want? In that case.. I will give you justice. This is for Alto and everyone else who ended up hurt because of you and Clara..." Andreim began to manifest a vortex of water under his feet, and two smaller ones in his both hands, as the one under his feet began to lift him up abit.Vittorio narrowed his eyes, troubled by the response of Katherine's friend, whom Vittorio had no intention to fight.
"Don't do this.. not in this place. Respect the dead unless you wish to join them. Please don't make me fight you.." The pale boy implored the other as he began to gradually walk closer towards a tree.
"The dead are just dead. From what you be telling me, both Katherine and Alto may be dead. You are too much of a threat in itself... It's time you left." Andreim then flung pressurized water projectiles towards Vittorio, like spinning sawblades midair, they turned into ice mid-air and sliced into the tree which Vittorio flung himself behind. The pale boy landed on his chest against the ground, he had to live.Vittorio narrowed his eyes as he had landed in some thorny rosebush and cut himself. He closed his eyes and knew what he had to do. He thought of Bak who had risked harm by saving him, the least thing he could do to pay that back would be to defeat Clara. So he had to live.
'I will... LIVE!' He allowed his astral form to take shape, his spectral shape pouring out of his body and his tentacle-like wings spreading wide, lifting up his physical body and shielding it from the incoming ice projectiles.
"Fight as much as you wish! It will not matter I'll be taking you down right here and now! How ironic that this will be the place. Where your life ended, and mine began!" Andreim spun forwards with his vortex of water, to get around the tree. He held out his both hands, shooting jets of water towards Vittorio's astral form, as it used it's wings to shield him, causing the water to spray against it.His astral form began to rise and then threw his physical form to the side, out of harms way, landing on the nearby grass as the astral form became incorporeal to slide through the jets of water. Vittorio's astral tentacles assumed an attack pattern before coming back out from it once he had gotten close enough to be within striking distance to Andreim.
The mercury blooded boy sped backwards on his watery vortex, Vittorio's tentacle wings lashed through the jets of water and a small section of the vortex Andreim stood in. This angered the young man, who instantly began to hurl sawblade like projectiles towards the astral form of Vittorio, two of the tentacles were severed as a resykt. Two others reached out to attempt to grab Andreim by the legs, but the young man began to freeze the water around his feet, trapping the appendages in it, then pressing a superheated hand against the ice, creating a jagged icy shotgun effect, demolishing the tentacles and creating holes in the astral form.
At this rate Vittorio would end up dying, he knew this. He had to fight on, not only to defeat Clara but also to free Bak. He must win. Thus he gathered his focus and the holes in his form began to close, and his tentacle like wings began to reform, one of them reached out and took hold of the other boy's wrist and flung him through the air.Andreim was surprised by the ghostly boys persistance, he however didn't let this get the better of him, he dampened his fall by shooting powered jets of water against the ground, as he was flung across the pebble ridden road.
"Why you!" Andreim grit his teeth together forming two orbs of water in both his hands, then attuning to cold, turning them into a blade of ice and a shield to go with it. He then dashed forwards towards the astral form of Vittorio.
Vittorio gathered his tentacles into attack formation, four of them shooting beams of energy towards the incoming boy, two others reaching out to lash at him, the remaining two were kept back as
defense.As the beams of energy came forth, Andreim under two of them, another he defected by throwing his shield, causing it to cut into a nearby tree instead. The third cut past his face, scorching away the tip of his hair. Vittorio lashed out with the two other tentacles, one was cut off by Andreim's icy blade, the other made a sweeping slash at the boy's legs, causing him to slip and fall prone.
Andreim grit his teeth yet again, this time reaching both his hands in front of himself, forming an inversed cone of water putting a focus point at the astral forms mid-point before shooting it forwards and turning it into ice. Two of Vittorio's tentacles which were on the defensive placed themselves before him, but they too were cut through. Vittorio's physical eyes snapped open, his astral form had fallen into pieces. He felt his head ache, but this was a fight he had to win or get away from. He began to crawl along the grass, then leaned up with his back against a tree and closed his eyes.
The other boy had watched the astral form fall in on itself, he then looked around for the physical body, switching on his thermal vision and it didn't take him long to find it. It was close. Andreim switched out of the thermal vision and that's when he saw a new astral form come at him, he had not been able to detect it as it did not give off any heat. Vittorio had already sent forth a new one.
Andreim knew he had to sever the head of the snake by attacking Vittorio's physical body, thus he gathered two new vortexes of water in his hands then attuned to cold, flinging a dozen jagged shards towards the astral body, but also towards the tree behind it. Vittorio became quickly aware of the other boy's intentions and moved his astral form to pick his physical body up. Then he focused.
His astral form began to lift from the ground, the colours which were spectral silver in colour began to fluctuate and then turn into golden colour. Andreim's eyes widened. He hadn't seen him do this at the tournament, something had changed with him. But even so, Katherine and Alto may have been slain by him. Killing his comerades was a sin. Andreim then formed a large watery vortex around himself, sending forth a swarm of sawblade like watery projectiles towards the now levitating form of Vittorio.The golden spectral form lashed with six of it's now golden appendages and sliced the icy projectiles to pieces like as if it was meat going into the grinder.
"I cannot afford to die just yet! Not in this place! Not like this!" Vittorio's ghostly echoing voice uttered as he flew higher up into the air away from the boy on the ground.
"Coward!" Andreim yelled out in an angry tone, as he shot himself up into the air using his jets of water, and then forming a spear of ice in his hand, tossing it towards the flying Vittorio as he was leaving the area. The spear was on route, but was grabbed by one of the many tentacles.Andreim shot out some jets of water to lessen his fall as he landed on the grass below, his hair and clothing wet. His eyes narrowed as he looked up to the sky and the glowing golden figure slowly disappearing in the distance.
'Tch. Could he really have killed them? This pathetic guy?' The hydromancer thought to himself, as he looked at his surroundings.
"A monster who claims to be rightious and killing monsters. Such hypocracy... don't think for a moment that you will find a haven in this world. If you killed my comerades, you will be destroyed until theres not a trace left. For certain." He furrowed his eyebrows, then put his hands into his jacket pockets as he began to leave the graveyard.Meanwhile Vittorio's astral form watched from the sky. He had to find King.