Amara

The day of the mission was finally here, for the past three days me, Jaden, and Amara were packing in preparation for this mission and as we were about to embark, saying goodbye to Eira, I noticed something in the background, two figures on the top of a building in the back again. I thought I was seeing things back then but now that I got a good look I could tell that they were real, but as I turned around to try and get Amara’s attention, they disappeared again. “Malik, you good, c’mon we gotta go now” Jaden helped distract me from it and we were on our way. “You guys ready for this, our big adventure is finally here, Malik you can finally find your adventure, and you can learn new spells and grow stronger too, Amara.”

We had to make our way to Noras, a country to the south of Kaz. Noras has grown to become a dismembered country, politically wise, there is no more form of government after the War of Tides took place 500 years ago resulting in Noras becoming hated by all other countries on the continent of Alagard.

500 Years Ago, the ten nations of Alagard lived peacefully for centuries but one day Noras caused chaos, after their leader was murdered by an evil force, they began unleashing armies of devils to invade the lands. Millions of people were ruthlessly murdered by these devils in search of self-proclaimed infinite power. All until two civilians of the country, Clober, Ain Staro and Lina Nanos, led a revolutionary army called the TideBreakers to fight against the devils which caught the attention of the four gods of Alagard, these gods possessed unbelievable depths of power which could never be matched. Ain and Lina teamed up with the four gods to defeat the great evil controlling Noras and the countless armies of devils and sanctioned him off, not all devils were killed as their were a few that never wanted war and now live in a country on the east of Kaz and Noras called The Land of the Forsaken, a title which followed their lineage for centuries. After the war ended, Ain and Lina married and the Staro name became known as a royal bloodline and it is rumored that anyone with Staro blood holds immense power. For Noras however, after the war, all nations despised their government even though it wasn't their fault for the devils but they received the backlash for it and eventually shut down their government and led Noras to become an anarchy country ruled off with a barrier surrounding the country that can only be entered and exited with permission from anyone with a license for entry.

“Can’t you guys believe we are going to possibly get to visit the wargrounds of the War of the Tides, the history here is unbelievable!” Amara said excitedly as she can't wait. “Woah! Nerd alert, didn't know we had a history geek in our team.” Jaden said jokingly as we all had a good laugh about it.

As we approached the entrance gate for Noras, reality sunk in for us, but something just didn’t feel right, it felt like we were being watched from all angles, both inside and outside the barrier. We aren’t alone here. As we enter Noras we begin following our map to our scoping location, which will take a few days of traveling to get to so we keep walking on to get there as soon as possible.

We soon approach a village after a few hours, from what we noticed is that it's abandoned, which wasn’t surprising seeing how Noras’ population has dropped significantly over the past 5 centuries so it would make sense that people would abandon this country. As we began searching houses for supplies, Jaden noticed some burnt wood on the ground that still had smoke emanating off of it. “Hey! I found something, this wood here has smoke still coming off of it, and it's still warm, meaning that someone was here recently, very recently.”

“Whelp! Looks like we were found!” A voice comes from the roof of one of the abandoned buildings, a ravager of this wasteland appears, along with 5 of his lackeys on the surrounding roofs. “Seems you walked onto our turf, and we just can't be having outsiders in our land, because that's how we roll around here.” Jaden begins to start up his Juggernaut form and I pull out my katana. “Oh ho ho! Don't act like we've never seen other groups traveling here, we’ve had to kill 4 other groups of 3 just like yall, all showing off their flashy magic as if they can beat a good ol’ fashioned explosion.” We begin to search our surroundings to look for any possible locations of explosions to prepare ourselves. “We're not stupid either, you won't be able to avoid the explosions from down there, all the others on the roofs will be playing good ol’ whack a mole, but with grenades!” We stood there realizing any movements we made would result in our demise, stuck in a shell shock we lost all possible options of escape.

But then, something snapped, Amara’s eyes sparkled with excitement, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking but I remember the last time I saw that sparkle in her eyes, when I first brought her on as my apprentice and she mentioned her dream of growing stronger, the look of determination, and then in a sudden strike of aura Amara walked forward.

“Well, I wouldn't say you should shoot us just yet, as we aren’t alone, look behind you and you’ll see” The leader looked behind and noticed an army of soldiers all entering the barrier’s gates and many armed helicopters entered the area. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Why the hell did you bring an arsenal with you! We can’t beat that! Boys! Fire at the army! As for me, I’ll finish you off myself!” Although we got the 5 lackeys distracted, the big bad was still there looking for a fight. Me and Jaden were amazed at what just took place but soon got ready for battle. Jaden jumped in front as the Leader shot a bomb at us, Jaden proceeded to punch the bomb, setting off the explosion and surviving it as we noticed his armor grew stronger and more reinforced. “Huh? How did you not die from that?” The Leader began shooting more bombs as we began running. Amara soon opened her Invisibility Cloud and hid us, and we soon heard one of the lackeys speak, “Uh, boss, the army, disappeared.” “What! How could that be?”

We managed to escape with our lives and Amara struggled to hold together the cloud mentioned to us. “That army they saw earlier was me, in the midst of that battle, I had a mental realization that I didn't want this story to end and that I had to get stronger and that I refused to die in a shithole like this” She unlocked a new spell, Visual Illusion, a spell that can conjure fake objects or people only based off of things Amara has seen before, but the larger the illusion the more magic power it takes up. It was incredible that in such a desperate time, she was able to grow stronger. And it wasn't just Amara, Jaden too, he grew stronger to make his Juggernaut form stronger to withstand stronger attacks.

We continued the next day traveling to the location, as we approached it, we noticed that there was still supplies here. We didn't know from whom but maybe it was some travelers as there were lots of leaves and dirt all over the supplies and the food looked rotten too so it was plausible. We set our supplies down and began staking out on the location, Jaden was first and began searching around the area for anything else, but I still felt off, like we were still being followed so far into Noras, granted I feel less eyes watching us but I still feel like we're being followed.

“So Malik, when we come back, what do you plan to do with the money we earn?” “I don't know Amara yet, one thing I wanna do is try to find the girl, Aria, from the club that one night. God was she amazing, kind, funny, sweet, and cute too.” I couldn't help thinking and talking about her nonstop, I was so preoccupied these past few days I didn't think that much about her but now that I have some free time, I slowly began to realize how perfect she was. “Ooh! Looks like somebody's gotten all lovey dovey now” He wasn’t wrong, but now isn’t the time to keep talking about her, especially when we need to focus on the catacombs.

The place looked abandoned, the stone on the outside is eroded to mere tiny pillars and the vines over it look to have engrossed it entirely. I doubt there was anything going on but we needed to stay focused in the event there was something.

As night grew, we could still see the catacombs entrance but faintly. It was my turn to keep watch and as we were about to call it a night I saw something, 8 people in robes and torches appeared to be entering through the entrance of the catacombs, but they were moving their bodies through the open cracks of the eroded stone to keep the vines covering the entrance to hide their presence.

“Guys! I found something! There's 8 cultists entering the catacombs!” I said to Jaden and Amara who were half awake at this time. I was hesitant to enter, especially because Eira mentioned to us to just get information and report back. “Welp, time to wake up and head home then, now that we got info lets head ba-”

Jaden suddenly gets blown away from a gust of wind as another cultist in a robe appears and pushes Amara away soon after. “So you're our next offering huh? Didn't expect it to take this long but it doesn't matter” The cloaked man ties us up and lifts us using wind magic, Jaden and Amara and unconscious from the gusts of wind but I’m still awake but very faintly due to the fatigue. As the cultist brings us into the catacombs, I notice scriptures on the wall as we go through the halls, common scriptures of what looks to be a prophecy of the War of Tide and 9 cultists gathering together to revive the evil force that initially took over Noras. As I notice this, I try to shimmy my way out of the grasp of this wind spell holding me up, but as soon as the cultist notices this, he punches me with a wind gust and knocks me out.

When I awake, me, Jaden, and Amara are sitting in a cage dangling near what looks to be a ritual circle. Jaden is still out but Amara was awake already when I woke up. Amara whispers to me “Look around Malik, this place is filled with old relics of the War of Tides, devil wings, horns, and even antique weapons, this place is a treasure trove of history, and I have a feeling these cultists are related to this.”

“Attention members of the nine, today will mark attempt number 6 of our attempt to bring back our leader from the War of the Tides, now that the 4 gods have been gone for hundreds of years now, this is the perfect time to try and bring back the one and only Grand Devil, God Killer, Salazor!” Me and Amara look at each other in fear of what is about to take place, realizing we are pretty much powerless in our tied up state. Jaden wakes up soon after and we tell him what's going down and he soon realizes a plan.

As the cultists begin to release their auras for the ritual, the room lights up in green, purple, and black lighting filling up the room with an aura that would bring any normal person to their knees. Jaden turns his body in steel to increase the weight on the cage until the chain gives out that's holding the wooden cage. As the cage breaks open, I summon my Slicer to cut open my rope tying me up and I swiftly untie the others, one of the nine notices us and begins to dash towards us.

I leap forward, evading all attacks coming my direction, trying to knock down his legs, but as i close the distance with my katana, another one of the nine grabs my katana knocking my pace off, he shatters my sword into pieces ultimately breaking the connection my sand magic has with it. Jaden rushes forward to try and distract them so I can get back up. But another cultist appears right in front of him, with such pace that it's like he teleported, he begins to punch Jaden with a landslide of hits with such insane speed, that his steel armor shatters under the pressure, launching Jaden into a wall.

Amara runs into battle, summoning crowds of illusions of people to throw off the cultists but one of them sees through it and grabs Amara and bashes her head into the ground. I get back up leaping into the air using my Sand Grapple, one of the cultists shoots arrows of light towards me, I evade the shots but the light begins blinding me, making my evasiveness falter with each second. Lucky for me I prepared just in case of me losing my slicer, I used my sand weapon summoning magic to summon another sword, Windblown Wiper, a double sided sword, with enough precision I can fire more attacks.

Jaden, stands back up, bleeding all over, calling out for me, “Malik!, I have your back, fight with your life, I’ll try to lessen the attacks blown on you!” Jaden uses his steel magic to use a new spell, Steel Suppression, transferring his Steel Armor to me to dampen the attacks, although it adds more weight to my speed, it allows for more defense. Amara weak and bruised gets up barely and resummons her Visual Illusions to summon multiples of me, but somethings different, they are just fakes, they are weaker versions of me that can hit them, it will allow for me to get closer without them immediately noticing I'm the real one. “Malik! Use this to your advantage!”

I take this opportunity to leap back into the fight and try to deal as many hits as I can land, I fly around the crowd of my duplicates to slowly wear away at these cultists. As I swing I manage to hit a few of them. But I slowly realize, they are far too strong to where they don't even see me as a threat and devote their power to the ritual. So I try to hit as many fatal attacks as I can but to no avail as they are still not faltered by it.

As I slowly lose hope, the room emerges in an unbelievable, demonic amount of aura growing, a portal opens, and a body begins to emerge. “It's happening! Salazor is returning to us! Prepare the sacrifices!” Sacrifices? No!

I jump to the portal and stab the generating body to slow it down. And as I look at Jaden and Amara’s bodies laying there, hardly staying conscious, one of the cultists lifts them with their wind magic, drags them over and holds this in a captive state with me right in front of the portal.

And as I slowly begin to accept this fate, I realize something, the pieces slowly connect, the 6 times the pay, the leader of that ravager saying they’ve slain 4 other groups before going our route, and the supplies left from earlier, it all made sense, we were fodder, Eira never saw us for potential, but as lamb to the slaughter, she tricked us into handing ourselves to the mouth of the Salazor and his cultists on a silver platter. I did this, I dragged us to our doom, I wanted to live out my dream so much for something crazy, I led both myself and my two closest friends to our deaths. “Jaden, I’m sorry, I led us to this hellish end, you wanted to get stronger, and said your were contempt with how live was, even though you said you were happy with the actions you made in this life, I know you don't want it to end like this, and it's my fault, this inevitable end is all because of me! Amara, you idolized me as a mentor for you to grow stronger, you trusted your life to me and trusted that I could help you become stronger and I inspired you when I saved you that day, you just learned how to conjure new illusions after 3 years of training and you only got to use it for not even a whole day, it's all my fault! This is how it's going to end and it’s all because of me!” I cried out as the body conjuring from the portal grew more and more in size.

No, I can’t let this end like this, I must fight back, I can't just sit here and let it end like this. And in that moment, I let out giant spear rocks out of the ground to attack the cultists. This new move, Spearing Stalactites, could work if I hit enough of them. I unleashed 9 stalactites at the cultists in hopes of hitting them. Before I knew it our bodies dropped out of the wind trap captivity spell. I looked around and I hit a few of them and one of them got impaled, feeling accomplished. I helped Jaden and Amara up and we started heading for the exit.

Jaden grabs my arm stopping me “Malik, we fought valiantly tonight, but I don’t think we can get out of here alive, these cultists made up their mind by the time we got here, that this is our resting place and nowhere else will be it, and honestly I'm fine with that, I’ve accepted that fact, these past 3 years with Amara have been the best years of my life, and you helped me grow, you found me when I was weakling just working for my dad’s blacksmith shop and now look at me, a steel juggernaut fighting alongside my best friends. And I'm happy with that, this is the end for us.” “No Jaden! Don't say that, this isn’t going to be our grave” Jaden puts my arm down and reveals under his steel armor, his chest shredded open in steel shrapnel, with the amount of blood loss, it's a miracle he's still standing right now “Jaden!”

Amara gets my attention next “Malik, there isn’t anything we can do, even if we leave now, we don't know how many of the cultists are still alive and waiting to stop us. We should just rest, just like Jaden I'm contempt with the life I’ve had. You met me when I was depressed working in a shitty gas station, you came in, opening my eyes to a new world of possibility, and you took me in under your wing and we began training together with Jaden to enhance our magic, like a real team. And last week when we stopped those two criminals that showed me how we’ve grown, that these 3 years of training weren't for nothing, we made an impact, we changed history, even if it's slight, we gave people hope of new heroes, and that's more than I could ever ask for.” I’m standing there in tears trying to keep my composure as it feels like the world is falling apart around me as I fall to my knees.

“Thank you for everything Malik”

Both say to me smiling with tears rolling down their cheeks, as I hear a slicing sound, I look up and I see the heads of Jaden and Amara fall in front of me and their bodies collapse. I see a shadowy figure standing there, Salazor!

“Ah, It feels so great to be back, 500 years of captivity takes a toll”

The room begins to spin as the glowing portal is emanating more and more, I see devils swarm out, with Salazor standing there menacingly. I'm on my knees in disbelief of what's around me, I begin to fall into a panic attack, like my heart could jump out my chest, I begin hyperventilating, sweat rolling down my face, and my body shaking all over. “No” I say faintly as if my voice can't go an octave higher. I begin fading out mentally, as my eyes begin to close.

“It's time for us to regain the long lost power that was rightfully belong to me, havoc will be reeked all over this world and no one, not one soul can stop me!”

I begin to black out, the weight of the world on my shoulders, my dead friends at my feet, their blood on my hands and their heads by my legs. As my eyes close I hear a familiar voice before I go unconscious.

“Malik!”