I remember very little. The black night, the large debris, her limp body. All of it came so fast I didn’t even know how to react. The cold water of the Atlantic washing against my body and making my cuts sting. The darkness overcoming my vision as I felt my body being moved to shore. The sand against my back as the fire of the wreck blazed even as it was in the water. The feeling of being dragged across leaves and through a thick forest. Large amounts of sand moving around my body, or at least it looked like sand. Then the full darkness came, I never really dream but in this dream I saw the bald man, standing over me smiling widely with his sword at his side shining brightly with luminescent light coming from the sword making the entire dream feel this comforting warmth. The room behind him was black until my father, my real father, stepped into the scene. I can see his face shining down on me, he was beaming with pride, he looked younger than I had ever remembered him. He turned towards the bald man and spoke.
“You know what you have to do Curtis,” he said, “It is to dangerous for him to be alone and I am afraid, I won’t be around much longer.” The man, Curtis, looked bothered by this.
“He needs you Chicho,” Curtis said looking at him with a firm gaze, his voice straight and strong like a leader, “he will be an outcast, a stranger, a danger to himself, he needs your guidance.”
“He doesn’t need me,” Chicho says reaching down and touching my face, “I have to stay and try and fight Knave, and he isn’t ready for that task yet, maybe one day. You have to get him out when he is ready.” He looks at Curtis seriously, “You know that right.” Curtis nods. “Curtis I need you to promise me.”
“I promise Chicho,” Curtis says, “When the lightning comes, I’ll get him out.” The dream fades and I awake.
-
The horse I am laying on smells awful, that's the first thing that hits me when I wake up. The second is the immense pain I feel all over my body, like an insane pressure pressed against every part of my body, I look down and see many bandages and a rope tied around my entire body restricting my movement. The world looks hazy and blotches of light seem to barely peer through the canopy of trees above. I finally get a clear enough view to look around and find myself in the middle of a dense forest, following a man on a horse with 5 other horses all around me. The men on the horses are possibly the weirdest occurrence at the moment. 5 men with perfect combat armor and very big calvary meant to make them look like the knights of old in the days of King Arthur just with high tech knight's mask and a pistol on their side, the escort me forward staying silent as the forest unfolds before us.
“Uh hi?” I say to the man who is pulling my horse. He doesn’t respond, he continues on with his perfect composure without even acknowledging i'm here. “Hello?” I say trying to see if I can gain a response, he still acts as if I am not here treating me as if I am a nuisance, or a prisoner. I feel my heart start to race, but keep my composure as best I can. Of course I have had training in the event of being captured and how to stay calm and collected but with my new found emotions it is a lot harder than it was back then. The first thing I do is breath steadily keeping my breath even and calming my heartrate. I analyze my surroundings, if I was able to get off this horse and into the jungle I could escape on foot, that is if I wasn’t injured. If I had better control over my powers I could electrocute everything around us and get out of here but as of right now that doesn’t seem to be an option as I don’t know how to exactly activate it or turn it off. I look to the side of the horse I am on and see my backpack seems to be hanging from it, this forms an idea in my head. I start moving my leg back and forth loosening the restraints little by little. I get to where I am able to wiggle my entire body very subtly so the man on the horse behind me won’t be suspicious. Every few hundred meters there is a small opening where I am not in the vision of the man behind me as branches are too high. For a clear view, this gives me just enough of a chance to try and open my backpack. With the next approaching group of branches I move my leg down and catch the edge of the bag but don’t fully open it. Then with the next branches coming in, I try once more and get the bag open this time, and see my prize below, my armbands. The armbands are synched to my brain waves so I should be able to create some weapon if I can find a way to turn them on. I move my feet down and catch the edge of the armband with my foot but am unable to get it where I need it. I look at the man behind my horse and he hasn’t changed in anyway, he must have not seen me yet. I give it the best I can at the next group of branches and manage to hook the armband on my foot as I slam the armband against the side of the horse gently trying to press the button, it doesn’t hit hard enough to activate the armbands. I get one or two more hits and at the third, with my frustration riding high I accidently hit to hard and cause the horse to to raise his two front legs high in the air which causes my armband to fall to the ground below. Feeling helpless as we continue on and I see my armband get farther away, I feel a sense of helplessness. I feel my horse halt and the five horses around me do the same. The two knights from the side of me and the knight on the horse behind walk over and pick up the armband examining it slightly as if they had never seen it before, then one of the knights presses the tiny button on the side and the vial of citadel illuminates. I feel a rush of connection to my brain and smile a little. I simply thing and a golden knife shoots from the armband, grazing the shoulder of one of the guards and lands in my hand pressed against my side. I quickly cut the rope before the knights have time to recover from what has happened and roll onto the floor. The knights say nothing, they just stare at me through their mask with illuminated red light coming from the visor. They, in perfect synch, draw their swords and advance towards me. I throw my knife full force at one of the knights who gracefully hits it away at lightning fast speed with his sword. I don’t hesitate, I rush in ducking under the first swing twisting my hands in perfect sequence and spin my body as if it is on an axis and connect with the knights feet sweep them out from underneath him. Before I can land another blow I feel the rush of a sword above me and roll back as to dodge the arc the second knight has created. As soon as his sword connects with the ground I push my hands behind my head and launch myself forward kicking the knight in the head. He falls back dazed and I take the chance to straddle him and land a few more punches but am suddenly stopped when the butt of the third knight's sword connects with the side of my face causing an immense rush of pain. My head hits the horse I was on and the horse doesn’t do so much as move with the force of my head. The two knights recover as the third heads towards me ready to strike, I try to find what to do next and see my bag hanging above my head. As the new sword strike comes towards me I push myself aside as the sword grazes the side of the horse and blood spills from the wound. I stand punching the knight in the face feeling the pain in my hand from the metal mask I just punched. The knight kinda stumbles but charges back with a swipe for my head quickly. I barely duck under it as it gives me a very choppy hair cut, before coming up grabbing the hilt of the sword and kicking the knight trying to get him to release it. He holds a tight grip to the sword but stumbles back with the sword allowing me access to my bag. I barely grab my bag before I hear the rush of the next sword coming towards my ear. I quickly roll across the floor once more as the horse collapses dead in the dirty ground. I hold my blood backpack and watch as the tree knights start forward again, quickly sticking my hand into the pocket and finding my silver wristlet. “Well,” I say, they stop for a minute, “this is the end of our little battle gentlemen sorry.” I clasp the wristlet to my hand and hit it hard and watch as my backpack disappears and becomes a suit of armor encasing my body. As soon as my pistol holsters to my side and the uplink activates I unlatch my firearm and lay down a rain of bullets on the men before me. The men stumble back as the bullets dent their armor, even with the fire they still charge forward towards me. I load in another magazine before using my opposite hand to clasp my second arm band to my arm and connect it to my brain. The first knight charges forward and hits the gun out of my hand and goes in for the kill attacking my head but I can think quicker than he can move. I call out in my mind and two golden axes parry the sword above me. I push upward getting the knight off of me before slashing across his stomach. As he is distracted from the pain I quickly step to the left swiping up and sending his arm flying into the air before spinning with axes in hand separating his head from his body. The second two knights step back a little, obviously terrified by the death they just saw of their friend. I should feel a lot of pain from the crash and the battle before me but the adrenaline keeps me going. In fact, the adrenaline is pumping me up enough that I feel the tingling of the lightning through my body. I concentrate as much of it as I can into my hands and watch as the axes in my hand start to spark with blue energy, and the blue aura erupts around me. I smile behind my helmet and rush forward at incredible speed sending my axes into the men’s chests too fast for a reaction and watch as their body has an uncontrollable spazz from the high voltage running through them. My axes look bloody, my body sweats profusely, and my body shakes from the lightning striking the ground around me and I realize I thought I was concentrating it into my hands but really I just chilled all five horses and am currently burning the trees in about a ten foot radius of me. I quickly try to calm myself and find that the lightning recedes a little easier than before but causes a great amount of exhaustion and pain. I fall on the ground letting the world around me blur out with little black dots.
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“Damn,” I hear a voice say behind me, “that was hardcore.” I turn my head as best I can and can barely make out the image of a ripped, bald man standing behind me in a cut off t shirt and a large sword strapped to his back.
“Wh.o..o” I try to form words but it hurts to much. The man walks towards me drawing his sword and I try to crawl away but find myself just being sunk farther into the ground. I see his eyes glow gold and the aura around him start to glow gold as well. He holds his sword over me about to thrust it into my chest. I close my eyes accepting my fate and trying not to struggle any longer but the sword thrust into the ground next to me. As I open my eyes a bit I see golden energy flow from the sword encompassing my body and making me feel as if I am standing in a furnace. The heat hurts making me scream but as soon it begins it ends suddenly and the golden energy flows back into the sword. My vision unblurs and everything appears clear once again.
“Thats better,” he says taking the sword from the ground and putting back on his back. He walks past me as I sit up and breath deeply after the encounter I had. “Here,” he yells and I barely catch the other half of my armband. “You might need that later on,” he says. I clasp it on and watch as he examines the dead men. I watch him carefully and think watching as the axes flow into my armbands. “You did a good job of dispatching my men,” he says while looking at the bodies.
“These were your men?” I say wearily.
“Yeah I guess you could say that, it's no big deal though I have plenty more where these came from,” he says very unremorsefully, As I try and understand what he has just told me he pulls the head off of one of the knights and throws it to me.
“WOAH WHAT THE,” I yell, the head lands in my head leaving blood all over my hands, “WHY WOULD YOU HAND THIS TO ME!?” He chuckles a little.
“Look at his severed neck,” he says while examining the next body.
“I have killed people before but I don’t really...” I say trying to protest.
“Just do it dumbass,” He says. Reluctantly I turn the head and look at the severed neck, where I expect to see flesh I instead see wires and circuitry.
“Their...androids?” I ask.
“Bingo,” he says, “ the only real animals here are you and I not even the horses.” He draws his sword quickly and cuts the head off of one of the burning horses to reveal some blood and circuitry. He sheaths his sword again.
“Wait then what is this blood?” I say holding up my bloody hands.
“Goats blood,” he says “I had to make it look real.” I shake my hands off a bit and wipe them off on one of the only trees that isn’t burning. “Nice job passing the test by the way.”
“Test?” I ask questionably
“Yeah, what did you think this was?” He asks putting his hands up. “Did you think you were my prisoner?” He laughs a little at that.
“Well um...yeah honestly yes.” I say.
“Right...” he trails off a bit, “ anyway I’m Curtis.” He holds a hand out to me and I cautiously take it. “I’m the leader of the KNRT, it's a secret organization one of the big 4 actually, I'll explain that later.” He lets go of my hand and puts them on his side like All Might. “That test there was to make sure you were the real deal and not some guy who we had accidently shot down.”
“You’re the one who shot me down?” I ask. He nods his head.
“The truth is Chanel Aguilas, Garroter of the Wuxing order, I have been watching you for a while. That's the only reason I was in Mozambique, those rebels really were terrible at organization of attacks, anyway thanks for shooting me in the head by the way that didn’t feel great.” He rubs the stops on his forehead where I shot him but there isn’t even a wound to be rubbed there.
“Why are you so interested in me?” I ask still cautious of this guy's motives.
“Well you see...” he stops, “we have to go.”
“Why?” I ask suddenly, checking my surroundings for threats.
“Because your friend just beat the test as well,” he smiles widely, “come one.” He grabs my arm tightly and I feel a tingly run through my body, everything erupts in white light then We are back in the jungle but instead of everything being on fire it is all frozen now. Becca stands holding a knight in her hand and freezing it before crushing it into tiny pieces. She looks up and looks at Curtis and I. “Well done Becca!” he says clapping with a major sense of pride.
“Shut up Cornell,” she says walking past Curtis and rubbing against his shoulder and coming to me. She gives me a big hug which surprises since the last discussion we had didn’t go well. “Are you alright?” she asks examining my body.
“I’m fine just a little tired, actually Curtis healed me up pretty well,” I say.
“Yeah he does that.” She looks annoyed and turns to look at Curtis or Cornell or whatever his name is. Curtis looks at us with an anguished look on his face. Becca folds her arms before him, “Don’t give me that look.”
“What look is that exactly?” He asks a little angrily.
“The ‘Becca is talking to a guy’ look I haven’t seen you in years and you barely know anything about me so don’t act that way now.” She says in the same angered way. They both cross their arms and look at each other intensely. Making me feel overcome with a feeling I believe to be awkwardness.
“So is this a thing between the two of you?” He ask still pursuing the details of our relationship. He moves his finger back and forth between the two of us, Becca and I look at each other.
“If you're asking if we are together then no but we have made out so.” At her saying this the man's eyes get wide and he glares at me, almost as if he is regretting his decision to heal me. Who is this guy and why does he care so much? She turns to me, and sighs. “Chanel,” she says reluctantly, “this is the man you were asking about on the plane. This is the man known as the Templar.” He smiles widely as Becca seems to get gloomier as a metaphorical dark aura appears around her. “He’s...my father.”
