Jaden

As the sun rose the next day, Jaden hung over, Amara slumped over the couch, I wake up and go to make my breakfast and I see a hooded figure stand in the living room, “Well, seems to me you took my words to heart, Malik the Monster-Slayer huh, guess you do have the actions to convince others too, I wasn’t intending on coming back but after you left that bar, I trailed you three and snuck in the middle of the night. Speaking of which, you guys gotta hide your hidden key better.” Seeing this woman from yesterday here definitely made me confused but I saw it as an opportunity to try and convince her to hire me for bounty hunting jobs again. “Well since you're here, wanna kindly reconsider my possible position with your bounty hunting gang again.” “Why do you think I’m even here for a coffee, no, I was here to not just offer you a job, but your two friends as well, the drunk mess Jaden the Juggernaut and Amara the Arid Champion.” My eyes glittered with hope as I finally realized that my dream can actually become true, “Are you for real! We're in! What do you want us to do and we’ll do it right away!” “Calm down first of all, and just because you work for me now, doesn't mean I have a job anymore for you, you killed it already yesterday along with his friend, you’ve proved yourself more than enough to be ready for this” Jaden starts waking up very loudly complaining about his headache. “What about the other two friends with the other two?” “There weren't any other two, I’ll contact you when it's time for your first mission, so for now just be patient” She says as she jumps out the window and disappears. “O-Okay? Good Morning Jaden.”

“Ugh, Malik you good, you look both excited and confused, what happened? Did you have a good dream about that girl from last night?” I was shook from hearing his question and a little flustered from it. “N-No that's not it, but all I’ll say is that we are now bounty hunters, we got a job and our first mission will come soon, so we just have to wait.” Amara rose her head after hearing it “Yeah right, and I’m a god, how do we know you weren't dreaming” She was right that it could’ve all been a dream but I know for a fact that it was real.

“Well it's whatever now I guess, I need some water” Jaden walks away and Amara gets up to go to the bathroom. I continue my breakfast. “Some waffles don't sound too bad right now” I offer the idea of going to a local diner, Waffle Home, to get some food.

We headed to the diner and were met with a crowd of people applauding us and amused by our presence as we were still super popular over yesterday's fight. “Our heroes are here!” One exclaimed with a mouthful of waffles, I chuckled and sat down with Jaden and Amara and we enjoyed our waffles, although we were being stared at by every person in the establishment, the meal was still wonderful.

We left the Waffle Home, “It's crazy how fast word goes around such a large country, we’re idolized by everyone here, it's unreal.” Although today has just been unreal over all the fanfare, something lingers in the back of my mind still, that lady said that the other 2 people on top of that building weren't there, but I know for a fact that they were real, what if they were even stronger enemies, what if they attack and I’m not strong enough to beat them, I’ll die trying to protect the citizens that I once saved and they’ll see their hero die in front of them, no, I can’t let them experience that demise. I will figure out who those hooded figures were.

“Mailk, you good man, you look lost in thought, are you sure you aren’t thinking of that girl from last night?” Jaden says as he nudges me with his elbow. “It isn’t like that, I have my mind stuck on some other things right now, although Aria is one of those thoughts, I have my mind preoccupied about the bounty hunting job.” Amara scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Do you really think we would get hired for bounty hunting after one good battle? That's not how life goes, Malik, just realize that and drop it. Life is unjust and unfair, I of all people should know that.” “I know Amara, I'm sorry, maybe you're right maybe I was just seeing thi-”

I'm interrupted by a gang of bandits pointing guns at us and threatening us to follow them. Jaden refuses and turns into his Juggernaut form and gets shot in the arm and to our amaze the bullets hits him through the steel, albeit it didn’t go into his arm, it still harmed him badly. “You three are going to follow us now, she's requesting you” I realize this might be the boss lady from this morning so I follow. “Come on guys, I told you this bounty hunting job was real”

We arrive in a room in the back alley and see the hooded figure from this morning stand there, she takes off her hood to reveal a woman with purple eyes and black hair. “Hello there you three, my names Eira, Malik knows who I am already but to Jaden and Amara, we haven't officially met yet” Eira shakes Jaden and Amara hands. “We have a mission for you to do, this will be a test to figure out if you're fit for the job. You three will travel to Noras, the nation to the South of us to scope out the area of possibly abandoned catacombs. This job will require some patience as you will need to report back to us in case something goes downhill there.” Jaden concerningly interrupts out of fear of what might come. “What would even go down in an abandoned catacomb?” Eira stands up “There are reports of cultists walking in there, we don't know what happens when they go in there, that's what you three are going to find out”

“Woah are you sure about this Eira? This seems risky and I'm not sure it's worth it.” Jaden questions this mission as he realizes that this mission could very well lead to our deaths if we aren't careful. “I can't assure you safety during this mission, it's based on if you are going to fight for your life or die it's your choice. The pay is good, 5 times the going rate as well so it's worth it in my opinion, but if you leave now, you will end up going back to fighting for a nine to five job, isn’t that what you said Malik?” I speak up “Yes ma’am, I did say that, and I know the risks, I'm in, I don't want to drag Jaden and Amara into this without their say, so if they don't want to go they can make their choice here and now, but either way I'm going. So for Jaden and Amara, you two decide if you want to go into this with me, either we go into this new chapter together, or we end this story here and I go on my own”

“Malik, as your apprentice I’ll go with you no matter what!” Amara exclaimed with confidence and Jaden proceeded to walk up to me with a weird look on his face as a way to remind me of something.

3 Years Ago, before I met Amara, It had been a couple months since I got out of high school and decided to visit Kaz for a couple days to look at apartments. I was running late for an appointment and stumbled across a fight on the way. These thugs were beating up a weak skinny man on the street.

“Hey! Stop! Give me back my bag!” The guy screamed out. The thugs nabbed his bag off of him and proceeded to rummage through it to uncover a bunch of weapons in the bag. “Oh? Little guy gave us a birthday gift early? Oh why thank you punk.” He proceeds to kick the guy and the thugs run away. I ran over to help him up and proceeded to ask him what's going on. “I was delivering a product for my dad because he's a blacksmith and I was bringing the product to his shop to put up, but now the weapon is gone and my dad’s hard work is gone and it's all my fault, he's going to kill me for this!” I got up and dashed right for the criminals.

“No! Don't you gonna get yourself killed! Please!” The guy screamed at me, but it was too late. I caught up to them using a sand movement spell, Shoreline Skater. I made a board of sand that drifted across the ground at precise speeds that caught up to the thugs in no time. “Hey, hand over the sword and we can settle this like adults, or else.” The thugs began to laugh at me and grabbed the sword and began to dash right at me.

I dodged the first guy's punch, ducked under the second guy, and as I noticed the third guy with the sword, the fourth guy sweeped my leg and my chest got sliced open, although the slice was small it was still a big hit. I stood back up and made a sand bomb to blind the 4 guys, and gut kicked the first guy down. Punched the second guy in the nose, as I did that the man caught up and tried to get my attention but stopped before calling out to me. He saw me fighting the four guys. When I hit the third guy who had the sword, I disarmed him and threw the sword to the side, and gut punched the third guy, and barraged the fourth guy with punch after punch.

After the four guys fell, the second guy stood up and his magic aura grew as if it was his final act. “Kid, you forgot that all of us have magic too y’know, and I’m gonna make sure you're not gonna see tomorrow” I witnessed his aura grow stronger as the 3 other guys got up and linked arms with him and grew their auras all together. The man ran up to me to try and pull me away but it was too late, the 4 thugs were growing their aura to the max to make a kamikaze attack to try and kill all of us in the area. In a last ditch effort, I submerged myself in condensed sand in a way to shield myself from the explosion.

As the explosion went off I blacked out and woke up in the hospital and with the man standing there waiting. “Oh! You're awake! What a relief, I was worried since you were out for a couple days, I'm glad you're alive, and I want to thank you for saving me, my name's Jaden by the way, and my father wanted to thank you by giving you the sword you helped recover.” As I grabbed the sword I learned a new ability that I didn't know I had, when I touch it, sand began to cover the sword and it disappeared right in the palm of my hand, at first we were both shocked but I found out that I harness the ability to store weapons in the form of sand and that I now had the ability to conjure this sword whenever I wanted. “That's… interesting? But good to know you now have it at your disposal, the next thing however, I noticed you had an apartment tour coming up because as it turns out you were coming to tour my place that I'm selling. So I have an offer for you, this 3 bedroom place is expensive on its own, so maybe if you're cool with it, we can just live together and split the cost for bills and such. We do need to find a third person if you're cool with this idea.” I agreed with him. “Also, as we will be living together, I have one request, god forbid this ever happens again, please when in this situation, please don't put me or anyone we meet in the future in this situation where we go into a battle that leads to our possible death if it's preventable, because you didn't have to go recover the sword and it almost killed you in doing so. So please, think it out. And if that means I have to dedicate my life to getting stronger, then I will show you.”

Granted this was 3 years ago so things have changed, like Jaden now is larger and gotten buff over the years, I'm surprised he remembered that.

Back to the present day, “Jaden, I'm not forcing you to come with me, I know you don't want to risk dying for this mission just yet.” He continues staring at me with that face. “I know Malik, I want you to know I don't care anymore about myself, for me, I feel like my life is contempt as is, I wanted to get stronger and I did, if I died right here, would I have any regrets, yeah, but would I feel like I lived my life to its fullest with the time given. Absolutely. I have dedicated myself this far to make sure you get to experience your dream, for this crazy adventure of a lifetime you tell us all the time. So I'm going.”I stood there astonished by both his and Amara’s dedication, I couldn't believe they trusted me so much they were willing to die for my dream. “I promise, that my dream will come true, so that your dedication wasn't in vain.”

“So are you guys ready?