by Iaz Grant
Those were his fathers parting words before he left Silus to craft the strongest weapon he could, after all, Sutter had to believe he was receiving the sword in order for this plan to work. So for two days, Silus worked tirelessly to create the Aqua Sword and now the time had come to deliver it to the deceitful Emperor.
A bell echoed through the blacksmithing factory that signified to Silus that Sutter had arrived. Silus wrapped the Aqua Sword in a fine cloth and began to make his way to the main hall of the castle, where his Father and Sutter were meeting. He made his way through hallways and admired the stones that made up the walls of his family’s castle. Approaching a large set of doors that were framed in golden leaves, Silus took a deep breath and placed his hand on the handle before pulling it open with authority. As he entered the main hall where large gatherings usually took place, he looked to the other end of the room to see his father, who was a tall man but appeared tiny compared to the obese Sutter. Sutter had dark grey skin that had what appeared to be permanent goose bumps all along its surface. His face looked similar to a toad’s with long whiskers like a catfish. He spoke out in an obnoxious bubbly voice.
“Ahhh! I assume you have my sword, boy?”
Silus stopped his forward movement for just a moment, almost exploding in anger and sadness for his people. He quickly looked away from Sutter as he calmed himself down in his head before he continued walking. It wasn’t long before Silus was face to face with Sutter, standing on the lower end of three steps that separated the floor from where the King’s throne was, which Sutter had taken as his own seat for the time being. Silus kneeled down in front of Sutter and presented the sword.
“You will never find a sword as powerful as this blade. Take it!” he exclaimed
Sutter struggled to get out of the throne, but did with some grunts and wheezing. He approached Silus and took the Aqua Blade by the handle and raised it high above his head with a smirk on his face.
“DO IT NOW, SILUS!” The King yelled out
Without even hesitating for a second, Silus pulled the black cube from his pocket and clapped his hands together to make sure that the force would crush the cube, activating its shadowy magic.
In the same moment that the cube was destroyed a massive black shadow began to expand and expand until it covered the entire span of the Easelon country. All time and life seized to exist as soon as the shadow expanded beyond a certain point, and with no sound or light, the shadow exploded, completely erasing the country from the face of the planet. Everything was gone leaving no evidence of the Easelon people, their magic, or land forevermore.
But right before the shadow erased everything Silus and his people had ever come to know, the last hope of an ancient race made its escape. For as his life ended, Silus, could feel his spirit pass into a vast and empty realm. A place where he would sleep for 500 years until he could be reborn and rebuild his people and show the future world the magic that they held so dear.
And as Silus’ spirit began its deep slumber, the young boy who was dreaming all of this, 500 years later, was just beginning to wake up from yet another reoccurring dream.
Aero’s Hidden Power
As the sun came over the far spread horizon, it’s rays traveled through entire forests, into many towns and cities that lay across the rich world of Tamir. Filled with many vast oceans, large mountains, and everything from tropical islands to frozen tundra’s Tamir was a lively world that remained mostly peaceful. People of all kind lived on Tamir in its many different countries, but in a small city called Hush, located on the western coast of the largest most populated country; Adule.
Hush was positioned right on the edge of what people called the Inner Ocean, it was a city surrounded by beautiful palm trees and was filled with different kinds of beaches. Most of the houses were made of hardened clay and were quite beautiful with carvings of figures and creatures. But in one particular house, one of those seemingly infinite rays of sunlight made its way into the window of a young boy’s room. His name was Aero.
As he lay asleep with his face in one of the three pillows that were piled on his bed, Aero could be heard snoring slightly. For as deep as he was in his sleep, through the window, and even through the thick autumn-leaf colored hair that curled over his sealed eyes, that ray of sunshine seemed to burn into Aero’s sleep like a laser and his eyelids slowly began to open as he let out a sigh.
He mumbled out some words that couldn’t be heard because of how deep into the pillow he had buried his face, but soon after making those sounds he rolled over and sat up with a look on his face that could only be described as optimistic.
Aero was a 9-year-old boy with fire in his eyes, though because of the shaggy texture of his hair, and the way it fell right in front of his brown eyes, that fire was often hard to see. He was not a large boy, more slender than anything, no taller than the average height of a child his age. He wore a beige shirt what had a fuzzy outside along with long shorts that had far more pockets than he could ever need. A necklace lay under Aero’s neck that looked like an hourglass, with bright green beads inside of it, no larger than grains of salt. Aero rubbed his eyes with his forearm in an attempt to clear out any of that strange sand that builds up if one were to sleep for over 10 hours, after which he jumped out of his large bed and slipped some bedroom slippers on before walking toward the door leading out of his room.
Aero quickly went into a bathroom and acquired a toothbrush that looked to be made of a bamboo-like wood. He placed some minty paste onto the bristles of the brush and began to brush his teeth while scouting through his home as he continued to wake up more and more with each step on the hardwood floors that filled his home. He approached a table that had two freshly toasted pieces of bread with a note next to cup filled with a dark liquid.
“Try this tea! I’ll be in the shop! Stop by if you’d like!” --- Dad
The note was from Aero’s father, a blacksmith by trade and self proclaimed “inventor” of a martial art style involving fighting with a hammer that has an elongated handle, Aero’s father was everybody’s friend in Hush and he was teaching his son to be a great martial artist, as well as a superb blacksmith.
Aero scratched the top of his head briefly while walking back to the bathroom to finish his teeth brushing. He was thinking about his dream, the same one he always though about while brushing his teeth in the morning. No detail ever changed about the dream, as far back as Aero could remember he had it every single night. He wondered why he saw this story that seemed so unrelated to anything in Aero’s daily life. As he put the toothbrush back in its container before rinsing his mouth out, Aero did his best to let the dream go, as he was now as fully awake as he could be for the day. Aero walked over to a rack of coats and hats and grabbed a wool-like hat that stretched over his hair, but still left a small strand that fell over his right eye. He changed his slippers for black shoes that made him a fraction a taller than he was naturally. He finished his cup of tea in a matter of seconds, and gulped down both slices of bread and headed out of his home’s front door, before finally leaving he grabbed a child-sized hammer that had a long handle making it just about as tall as he was, it was the smallest hammer in a row of a of 5 each a different types and sizes that belonged to his father. He closed the door behind him and began walking out on the cobblestone streets of his neighborhood.
He was headed to his father’s blacksmith shop, a store started and run by his father that takes on client’s ideas for armor and weapons and makes them to order. This was Aero’s usual routine, he was almost old enough to attend a real school, but until the next year, he couldn’t apply for any. Aero would go and help his father take customer orders as well as help design some products, Aero loved blacksmithing just as much as his father did, and he was on his way to becoming pretty good, even for his young age.
As Aero brainstormed about different designs of hammers, a sound pierced his ears as while he turned onto another street.
“Help!!” A voice yelled out
.
Aero recognized the voice and ran toward it. After turning onto another road Aero could see the source of the yelp. Behind one of the market tents on this street 3 young boys around Aero’s age were surrounding another young boy, who was holding his glasses and asking the other boys to stop. Aero ran up closer and stopped to demand the boy’s stop.
“Hey, cut it out, pick on someone who’s not afraid of you!” Aero said with a hopeful voice.
The three boys turned around, each with the same look of disgust on their faces. One of the boys was much better dressed than the others, and him and Aero were no strangers. His name was Marcel and he and Aero had been in all kinds of scuffles and fights ever since they were toddlers. Marcel often traveled with a group of young followers, so Aero assumed that the other two boys were just placeholders.
“Marcel! Leave that boy alone! He’s brand new here, if you’re going to fight anyone it’s going to be me!” Aero announced with much more authority than one would expect form a child of his age.
Marcel was wearing a long blue coat that stretched down to his ankles, Marcel claimed he always looked “cooler” than Aero, but Aero never saw what he meant, Marcel reached behind his head, into the back of his coat to pull out a thick wooden stick that seemed to be decorated to look like a sword. They were training swords, a special set made for Marcel, who specialized in using a large sword that split into two equal parts and could be rejoined by a mechanism Marcel invented, he was a skilled fighter, but Aero knew this.
“Oh little Aero, has it been that long since I showed you what a real fighter is? Would you like me to remind you?” He asked with an attitude mocking Aero. Marcel unlatched a small hook that sat at the end of the handle of his sword. This allowed the practice sword to split into two as Marcel pulled them apart and pointed them both toward Aero.
Aero dug his feet into the ground in a fundamental martial arts stance that increased stability. He reached behind his right shoulder to grab the long wooden handle that pointed upward on his back. Though his beginner hammer was not made strong enough to hurt someone too badly, Aero had become a very skilled fighter learning under his fathers Hammer based fighting style. He grabbed the pole section of the hammer and twirled it around above his head before holding it sturdily in front of him, ready to fight.
The two boys behind Marcel back far away from him and the boy with the glasses ran away not saying a word. Aero and Marcel stared each other down for a moment before Marcel launched an attack.
Marcel swung both of his blades in a manner that when one was slashing downward, the other was slashing upward. Aero used the long handle of his hammer like a staff to block Marcel’s initial attack. With a few steps backward Aero leaped to his right, far enough to put some distance between him and Marcel. As Marcel realigned himself to face Aero, Aero brought his hammer back far and swung it hard near Marcel’s feet. After the head of the hammer stuck into the ground enough to make Aero struggle to pick it up, Marcel jumped up and placed his feet on the head of the hammer. He scoffed at Aero before jumping toward him, hitting him in the face with each of his practice swords, sending Aero back a few feet skidding on his back before finally getting back up.
Aero looked up at Marcel before his vision began to grow fuzzy, mental pictures of the reoccurring dream Aero had began to flash up in his mind, taking his concentration away from Marcel, and onto the pain that appeared in his chest. After a few more seconds of pain Aero’s vision went black but as he lost consciousness something extraordinary happened.
As Aero’s body went limp, a huge surge of neon green light began to shine from around Aero like an aura. As Marcel looked on with confusion a much older man in a sharp business suit could be seen watching very closely from outside of one of the tents near where the boys’ squabble was happening. After the light emerged and sent out a humming sound, a faint ring of light could be seen materializing around Aero. It was as green as the skin of a praying mantis and as it slowly solidified it’s shape surrounding Aero something even more amazing happened. The man in the sharp suit that was watching the fight began to take notice of a change happening underneath his polished shoes. The grass that was beneath him was beginning to grow and give off a green glow that seemed to point in Aero’s direction. As the man looked around the road he could see all the grass around the area was all growing incredibly fast. The glow got brighter and the ring as almost fully visible around Aero, but right before it completed itself, a loud crack could be heard that sounded like a whip hitting the air. The light disappeared and the grass stopped growing. Aero’s body went limp again before he finally fell to the road beneath him. Startled the man in the suit ran toward Aero and held him up to make sure he was still alive.
After making sure he hadn’t died, the man in the suit looked back to Marcel, who was frozen from confusion still.
“Marcel, you need to go home. I will talk to you later about all this. On your way home you need to go to Aero’s Father’s shop, tell him to meet me in my office!” The man demanded before picking Aero up.
Marcel nodded his head in agreement and began to run in the other direction. The man began to walk off onto another street with Aero in his hands.
Marcel sprinted his way through the streets of Hush until he reached a large building that had smoke pouring out of chimneys that poked up from the roof. He dashed into the doors and between gasps for breath he yelled out
“Mr. L! Mr. L! Something happened to Aero, The Mayor took him to his office he said you need to come right away!”
The burley man behind the counter who had a strong chin that a thick black beard covered looked shocked. There were no customers in the store so the large man jumped over his counter, bringing with him a hammer that look a lot like Aero’s but was much longer. He rushed past Marcel only giving him a pat on the head as he rushed to The Mayor’s office to discover what happened with his only son Aero.
The Power Of Halo’s
As Aero slept away in a luxurious bed that the Mayor supplied him with, Aero’s father and the Mayor could be hears speaking to each other in the distance. If one followed the flickering light, from a candle that stretched through the halls of the Mayor’s massive office, they would see the Mayor and Aero’s father sitting across from one another at a large wooden table. Both of them had a mug of brown liquid in front of them, and by the way the spoke it seemed as if they knew each other very well. The Mayor finished a chuckle that related to a joke Aero’s father had just told before he began proposing an idea to Aero’s father.
“Genus, I’d like to ask you something about Aero…” The Mayor began as the two men looked at each other with respect.
“Before Aero passed out today, a green Halo was starting to appear around him, and I saw the grass growing underneath him. Aero was using Halo magic. How?” The Mayor looked on with a mix between curiosity and excitement sprawled across his face.
Aero’s father let out a large sigh before grabbing the cup in front of him, bringing it to his lips, and drinking the remains of what was inside. He had been ready for a question like this for quite some time, ever since his son was born he knew that one of the many people who obsessed over what they called “Halo Magic” would find him and ask to take Aero to some special school where they studied Halo’s and how they worked.
“Halo’s” were what people called a magical glowing ring that would manifest itself around people who had access to elemental magic in this world. They came in all different colors, each of which corresponded to an element that the user could control and manipulate in special techniques (Water magic users could be seen with a blue Halo, Fire magic users could be seen with a red Halo and so on) and when a magic user trained hard enough, multiple Halos could be stacked around them and a multitude of techniques could be used. Though the number of people able to use these Halos was increasing every year, it was still a very rare ability; one that Genus, Aero’s father, knew his son had access to. He placed his cup back on the table and began to speak.
“So, someone finally knows huh… Oh well, we had 10 good years.” He said before continuing to explain to the Mayor “Aero’s mom, she was a very special kind of person. When she touched flowers, they would grow. When she walked under trees, they would bend in her direction as if they wanted to be a part of her. It was only a year after knowing her that I realized, after reading some very old books; she had the elemental power of plats inside her…”Grass Magic” as it was. When I decided to marry her, I was exiled from my home village because my people didn’t believe in elemental magic, but I saw what Emerald could do, her powers were amazing,”
Genus took in a deep breath as he paused for a moment, before skipping over a part of this story that was obviously too painful for him to repeat.
