Falling Sky Aven 684

Sky falling: aven

Time to Fight

He stood before the Proving Grounds in Paragon, famous for its skilled swordsmen. His soul predicted that his journey to find his wife, Stray Oak, would likely be a difficult one. Therefore, he travelled to Paragon in order to polish his fighting skills, and in return do some good, before setting off into his journey.

After passing through the gate, he found a Huge-Man before him, the tattoos on the Huge-Man’s bare arms suggested he had had Tsoo training, a gang of organized evil assassins trained in martial arts and magic. The man blocking his path grunt at him with an annoyed tone,

“Halt ye who seek the path o’ the.. Aw! Forget it! Ye gotta fight if ye wanna join the Provin’ Grounds!”

It seemed he had to fight the Huge-Man to prove his strength and determination. Seeing him taking hold of his weapon, Kotetsu, without a moment’s hesitation, the Huge-Man grinned and said,

“Looks like we got ourselves some balls! G’d! Think ye’s got promise!

He rushed towards the Huge-Man, sword at his side glistening at the night sky, his cloak brushing the paved ground in a swift motion, tied black hair waving in the wind, a patch of it hiding the man’s face, a wicked grin hidden between an un-shaved beard.

“Good, haven’t had a worthy fight in weeks.”

He jumped, swift as the wind and unseen as the cat, upon reaching the ground he swung his left leg, the padded boot hitting the Huge-Man hard in the lower-back. The Huge-Man gasped as he walked a few steps staggered. The Huge-Man turned against him and rained down on him a flurry of frenzied punches and kicks, he possessed an extraordinary amount of strength, and were it not for his swords magical nature and craftsmanship it would have broken into shard upon the first punch. He pushed back the Huge-Man, steadying his feet for more balance, when the time was right he let go of the pressure and elbowed the Huge-Man in the kidneys, following the strike with a swipe to the man’s arm, blood gushed but the quickly regenerated. He jumped over the Huge-man this time swiping his back in a flip, anger followed pain as the Huge-man stroke him down once more with even more strength.

Time passed and after a few bouts both men lay on the floor exhausted and smiling, satisfied with their duel.

“Yer good! Congratulations bud, yer now a member of the Provin’ Grounds! Whatcha’ name? Mine’s Edgar but people usually just call me Huge-Man.”

Edgar said as he smiled and patted the man’s shoulder lightly, though lightly with him would almost brake his shoulder.

“I am Jason Mitsu. Though people usually call me, Spirit Ronin.”

Spirit Ronin grabbed his cloak and pulled it off, suddenly an unnatural gust of wind blew the cloak in the night, leaving Spirit Ronin’s samurai armor glowing faintly in green, it was an enchanted armor much like the sword, it was white with green Japanese runes inscripted in it. Though both the sword and the armor glowed alike, what flared the most were his eyes. They seemed to shine in an unnatural green even though they were as dark as night, as dark as sadness itself. Huge-Man could sense the sadness in Spirit Ronin and so, decided to break the awkward silence,

“Hey, I got a kegger stashed somewhere, whad’ya say we go get ourselves drunk celebratin’ the newest addition to the school?”

Edgar smiled a fake friendly smile, Jason knew he meant well so he accepted the offer. Throughout the rest of the evening loud drunken voices could be heard from the west corner of the school’s toolshed, singing pirate songs and laughing at dirty jokes.

Two Years later:

Having completed his training at the Proving Grounds and signed in as one of Paragon City’s heroes both Spirit Ronin, Huge-Man, and their newest friend and partner the French defender Mr. Miracle, were sent to investigate some old ruin deep In Perez Park. It was then that strange red dots started to appear in the setting sky and the darkened streets.

“What the fu..?! What the hell’s tha’?!!”

Huge-Man yelled in desperation.

“I do not know my friend, but there is one thing that I do know for certain..”

Mr. Miracle spoke in a serious tone with his faint accent. His grey hair was being softly brushed by the wind, hi eyes heavy with concern and expectation. Paul Duvain had seen a lot of bad things during his life, at the age of six his parents were killed by a drunk driver, at 21 he was kidnapped and tortured by demon worshippers using dark magic, the same dark magic the now flowed through his scarred body, the magic that he used to defend his new home, Paragon City.

“I know that, those dots are hostile, I sense anger, hate, feelings of murder and chaos emanating from them, we must be careful.”

Huge-Man gasped, fear of what those dots could mean striking his face, Spirit Ronin only closed his eyes pondering as the Mr. Miracle opened his. Mr. Miracle’s eyes were now even heavier, he was in a trance, and what he saw made him choose a path he could never regret. He turned back to look back at his friend’s just one last time. Then, he hovered a few feet away and summoned dark tendrils to lock them in place, blasting off into the direction of the nearest dot, ignoring his friends’ cries for help, and his own sense of friendship abandoned him on that day.

“I’m sorry my friends, but… This is for your own good.”

It had begun.

A couple of weeks later:

“Darkness again, why does it always have to be darkness? Why must I always fall into it when I lose strength? Am I destined for it? Is it my fate? Why?..”

Kai woke up in a spur, his abdomen aching with pain wrapped around in bandages. When he opened his eyes it seemed he was in a small bedroom of sorts, it was an old room with spider webs hanging from the ceiling. He got out of bed to see more of where he was but when he touched the ground he crashed, his legs were numb, probably from all the meds he had been injected with. After a few moments of rest he got up again and limply headed for the door, upon opening it with expectation he realized that the building had been abandoned for some time, and that there was no one else around.

Judging from the state he was in, it had been days since fought and destroyed the Rikti Warship. Then he heard a loud explosion like sound, the commotion that followed the sound piqued his interest so he headed towards the window, upon gazing through it his very fear became a reality, three massive Rikti Flagships were razing down the very few remnants of skyscrapers from Paragon’s surface, heroes were fighting Rikti troops 1-to-5, innocent bystanders and fleeing citizens were shot dead on sight. Kai wanted it to stop wanted to help, wanted all of the god forsaken Rikti to die a miserable death! In the midst of his anger he almost didn’t spot a tiny problem. A massive flaming fireball of death was coming in his direction fast,

“Oh..SHIIIT!”

Expecting to be torn apart by the fireball Kai turned and ran, praying that his powers were strong enough to keep him in relative safety.

The massive flaming fireball of death came crashing through the wall like it was paper, creating an explosion that razed the room completely. After awhile Kai arose from under the charred rubble, even more sore that before, a new cut here and a nasty burn there, nothing different like a normal day in his life. He then came face-to-face with the fireball, its flames were subsiding progressively, after awhile he could see a shape through them, it wasn’t what he had expected, it wasn’t a chunk of melted metal, it was a human form! A man!

When only a few fires remained Kai approached the body cautiously, it was human alright, though with unnatural features. Its skin was red, red as the fire which had surrounded it before. A pair of fiery eyes than still shone faintly even though they were shut. It had spiked hair though a bit messed up from the crash. And for an immortal being, it looked very mortal at the moment. Kai noticed a few cuts, burns and bruises on the body, it was a hero. He recognized the wounds as being inflicted by Rikti blasts and blades.

“Hey, buddy? You alive? ‘Cause you look like crap!”

He joked while poking the fallen hero. The hero grunted in response, and Kai sighed in relief. After a few moments when Kai had cleared the area of any dangerous rubble, and found his power bracelets. Suddenly another explosion like sound was heard. This time different, more dangerous, he recognized it. It was from a plasma beam. Looking out the window confirmed it, one of the Flagships was approaching the building, its plasma beam raining down destruction.

Kai would have only a few moments before the plasma beam reached the building where he and the “fire-man” were. He activated the cores in his bracelets and in a blink of an eye his normal clothes turned into his suit. He rushed to pickup the fallen fire-man, who moaned from pain. Kai then with his new friend over his shoulder headed to the eastern wall, the furthest from the ship, he punched the wall, which either crumbled or went flying in chunks into the sky. Holding the fallen hero tight warned him even though he couldn’t hear him.

“Hold on tight bub! This one’s gonna be a close call!”

He was right, a few seconds after he got enough swing to make a super-jump the Flagships’ plasma beam hit the building making it explode out into every possible direction, pushing both heroes out of course.

They both came crashing down into a supposedly abandoned warehouse, the fallen fire-man ended up with a better fall, crashing onto a mountain of cardboard boxes, while Kai hit the cement pavement hard.

“I know I’m supposed to be indestructible but man! That.. HURT?!..”

He grunted as he got up, slowly opening his eyes, and slowly realizing in how much a mess he was in. The warehouse was a Rikti post, dozens of soldiers and monkeys were just staring at him. Most of them had their helmets on but the ones who didn’t looked like they had a stunned look, even one of the monkey who had been picking his nose was still with a finger in his mouth.

“Hey..Guys? I’m Aven, who are you?

His reply was in the form of plasma weapons charging and monkeys jumping to claw his guts out. The first monkey met his fate in the form of an energy punch which blew his brains off. The second, third and fourth one were immobilized in the air by the use of his telekinesis and later used to pummel a few soldiers. Aven deflected some of the gunfire with his hands redirecting them or firing some blasts of his own, making a few dozen Rikti scream in searing pain.

One of the Rikti lieutenants launched what looked like a grenade which caused a part of the warehouse to come tumbling down on Aven. The remaining Rikti gloated at their presumed victory, but only for a VERY short period. A blue glow came from the rubble, and from the glow came a single beam that hit only a single target: the Lieutenant. Its helmet, head, entire body was cut in half by the beam. Then a blast sent most of the remaining Rikti flying into the walls, some of them were crushed, others smushed and smashed. Others just shit their armor.

Then he came out of the small crater, all light seemed to be sucked out of the warehouse. Only one thing was the focus of all light, Aven. His hands engulfed in flames, face darkened in an uncharacteristic evil grin, his eyes were emanating large quantities of blue energy which formed spirals when joined with the flames.

“Did you think…That it was gonna be that easy?”

Then fire lit the warehouse.