Of Heroes And Villains (Book 4) (8 page)

With little effort, he squeezed and pulled. A crack appeared down the middle of the sword, and Mason’s face went white with horror. He stopped struggling and just stood there. Completely still. Bastion didn’t proceed any further. His mother might have been able to withstand the shock of having her eidolon broken, but he wasn’t so sure about the Sage novice. Though it was now common knowledge that you could survive a destroyed eidolon, it was all based upon the will of the victim. If Mason’s wasn’t very strong, as Bastion suspected, then he would be in real trouble.

He let go of the sword, and Mason sheathed it back into his body. With the eidolon safely tucked away, he scowled at Bastion, trying to decide whether to fear him or punch him in the face.

“Okay, okay, one more round and that’s it,” he heard Kent groan from behind Mason. Bastion’s focus went beyond the Allayan boy and to the others, coming back from their battle. Based on Fern’s normal size, Kent’s cuts, and Zif still on his back, he assumed that Daisy had won.

“Hey, you two aren’t finished yet?” Daisy asked him and Mason. Mason sneered at him and then turned to his teammate.

“We are,” he said. “It’s just you and this kid left.”

“I’m probably older than you,” Bastion retorted, but Mason ignored him.

“So I guess it’s just you versus me, huh?” Daisy said with a warm smile. “The final battle.”

“No, you won,” Bastion chuckled. He really didn’t want to hurt Daisy. “The Sages are victorious. I got beat up pretty bad. I barely won.”

“Yeah, right,” Mason spat, waving a hand toward Michael so everyone could take a look at him. “Look what he did to Michael’s nose. This kid was just playing with us. I would be shocked if he even has a scratch on him.” Bastion winced as the group began looking for one on his body.

“How’d he do it?” Fern asked. “Eidolon?”

“Just strength and speed,” Mason snapped, still angry over the scuffle. “He broke Michael’s face and he nearly broke my eidolon with his bare hands!”

“Damn!” Fern laughed. “I’ve heard of one eidolon being stronger than another, but bare hands?” He slapped Mason on the back playfully, but Mason wasn’t in the mood. He shrugged off the gesture and stuck a finger in Bastion’s face.

“What are you?” he spat. Bastion wiped the spittle from his cheek.

“He’s probably just a Langoran,” Fern replied. “Simple explanation.”

“Seriously,” Daisy laughed. “You don’t have to act like he’s a disease.”

“So which is it?” Michael said with a nasally voice. Everyone waited patiently for the answer, but Bastion wasn’t sure what to say. He just stared at each of them, one by one.

“Whatever he is, he’s good enough to join the Academy,” Kent said, nodding toward the tome sitting in the grass. From where they stood, the sunlight was shining off of the exquisite emerald cover. “So we’ll find out eventually.”

“No,” Mason said. “Now.”

“What does it matter?” Daisy asked, stepping between him and Bastion.

“I need to know,” was his only reply. He balled up a fist, and Daisy noticed it right away.

“Okay,” she said with a slight smile. Her eyes remained steady on his. “He’s an Allayan.”

“Then I want to see his eidolon. I want to see how strong he is.”

“He’s a Langoran then.”

“I want him to prove it.”

“I don’t understand what the problem is,” Bastion spoke up. Mason turned his attention to him. “You’ll know in a couple days. And since you’re so angry about it, that’s even less of a reason for me to show you anything. If you get intimidated, the last thing I need is for you to try beating me up when I’m not looking—just to one up me.”

“No need to hide,” he snapped. “I’m not intimidated! I can take you head on.”

“No. You can’t,” Bastion said with assurance. “And it’s safer for you not to know what I can do. I don’t want to take any chances with hurting you too badly.”

“I like him,” Fern decided. Daisy and Kent just laughed, but the rest weren’t that amused.

“You talk big, but it won’t stay that way. Wait until we get to the Academy. You have no idea what’s in store for you.”

“I doubt it,” Bastion replied, and Mason made an attempt to hit him. Daisy caught the fist.

“Mason, you’re as pathetic as a grown man with the common cold. Give it a rest.”

“You think you can protect him?” Mason scoffed. “Are you serious?”

“Just let this go,” she pleaded with him. “It’s getting old.”

“Get out of my way, or you’ll become a problem too.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” she said sweetly. Mason took a deep breath and glared at her. From the middle of his palm, the tip of his eidolon began to emerge, but Daisy was fully aware. She unsheathed her eidolon faster than anyone could blink and pressed it against Mason’s throat.

“BACK OFF!” she screamed in his face. The tip of his blade slid back in.

“Why are you defending this kid?” he asked, his voice trembling. “We’ve been friends for so long.”

“Number one, you know that’s not true,” Daisy whispered. “And number two, I don’t care for you very much. You know you’re only here because of who your father is.”

“Hey, Daisy,” Kent began. “Come on. That’s going too far.” Kent ran a hand through his only red patch of hair, taking up a corner on the back of his head. “You didn’t have to say that.”

“We all know it’s true!” she shouted. “When are we going to stop walking on ice around this guy? Why do we even have him around? Are any of you really friends with him?”

“I am,” Michael muttered from behind.

“Shut up, Mike!” Daisy shouted back.

“What are you saying?” Mason said to her. “You’re only friends with me because you’re afraid of what will happen if you turn me down? Is that all our friendship is?”

“No, it’s…” her eyes began to water, but then she gained her composure and pressed the blade in further. “Don’t try to play off my kind heart, you snake!”

“Geez,” Kent said, shaking his head. “Can someone go get an adult please?” Michael groaned as he climbed to his feet. He waved to them, signifying that he was the one to do it. He began walking off as Daisy began sweating.

“Hey! We don’t need an adult to sort this out,” she called out to Michael, but he ignored her and kept walking.

“I’ll know what he is by the end of the day,” Mason said coolly, leaning slightly forward, letting Daisy’s blade pierce through his first couple layers of skin. “There are no secrets here. You call it bullying. I call it full disclosure. He hurt Michael bad. With enough strength behind that hit, he could have killed him. So yeah, I think we should know what he is. So we’ll know how to best approach him in the future. What does he have to hide? What dignity will be lost? We’re all exposed.”

“No, we’re not,” Daisy said through grit teeth. “Not all of us. I wish we all were.”

“Get off me,” he whispered to her. Daisy’s eyes wavered as he waited. Fern and the others watched silently as she gently took the eidolon away from his neck. He reached out and rubbed it. Daisy let her eidolon disintegrate at will. “Thank you,” he said. “Now, I’m going to get out of here. Same time tomorrow, guys? We have to stand out from the crowd on opening day, you know.”

They all nodded reluctantly. All except Bastion, who kept a hard stare on the Allayan.

“Not you though,” Mason said, pointing a finger in Bastion’s face. “You can stay home.”

“I can go wherever I like,” he replied. Mason’s face never wavered.

“Fine,” he said. “Every warrior needs a training dummy.”

“That we do,” Bastion said. He felt horrible the moment he said it, but Mason just nodded and turned to leave. Bastion turned his gaze to the rest of the group. All of them had their heads down or in the skies, thinking about what had just happened, and he couldn’t help but feel guilty for demolishing their fun.
Even holding back, I failed
, he thought bitterly.
I still ruined things.

Bastion hung his head low, in sync with the others, but then a glint of steel flashed from the corner of his eye. He looked up, and saw that the edge of Mason’s eidolon was heading straight for the back of Daisy’s turning head. He had no time to think, no time to assess whether it was a scare tactic or not.

He released his eidolon, and met Mason’s head on. Bastion’s clear, ocean blue sword was fashioned like a Gladius, the blade of a gladiator. Their swords clashed, and Bastion’s was clearly the victor. Mason’s jaw dropped as he saw pieces of his soul shatter to the ground before him, falling like the glass of a broken mirror. In vain, he attempted to catch one, but it fell through his fingers. Instead the motion only propelled him forward even further, as his body, and his consciousness, suddenly gave out. He fell face first into the dirt, and he didn’t get back up.

No one moved, not even Bastion. They were unsure if the boy before them was dead or not, and if he was—what that would mean. Bastion’s eidolon shimmered away as he fell to his knees by Mason’s side. He didn’t know what to do.

With his eyes wet with fear, a pair of hands suddenly grabbed him from behind. Big, strong hands. They forced him down into the grass, and he didn’t fight them. He laid there, face to face with what he had done. Mason’s eyes were wide open, and soulless. Bastion’s throat closed up, and he closed his eyes. Whatever punishment came next, he would accept. He would face his consequences. He knew that he was a monster through and through, and he should have stayed where all monsters belonged: in the dark.

Chapter 6 – Search

“Caution or exposure?” Arimus asked. James took a deep breath and examined the forest before them. Having walked through the wasteland, they had finally reached their destination. It was strange how the Quietus forest thrived in their masters’ absence. But then again, the trees didn’t seem very alive to begin with. Coated in a dark purple, and twisting into odd shapes of all sizes and widths, the trees created an area more akin to a network of nerves and synapses than a forest. The branches intertwined and only grew tighter and more clustered the closer one got to the canopy. Down below was the only place one could walk, but even then, it was cramped and dark. If there were eyes watching the two Sages, it would be difficult for Arimus and James to catch them.

“Exposure,” he finally decided upon. He chuckled after he saw Arimus nod in reply. “Geez, how do you do it? Just make these life-changing decisions?”

“Are you saying that you don’t? If I recall, you have a throne chair right next to Catherine.”

“Eh. She does all the deliberation. I mainly just sit there. The only time I speak is when a member of the Order stops by.”

“And even then,” Arimus chuckled. “It’s not too stressful. Not with me being on one of the seats on the inside.”

“How did they feel about that anyways?”

“They weren’t happy,” Arimus replied, putting his only arm on his hip. He remembered all too well how he had lost his other arm. A Quietus—gnawing it off.

“It’s still nice having some eyes and ears in the place. Speaking of, we haven’t received a report in a while.”

“They haven’t called an official meeting in months,” Arimus sighed. “I believe that a few of the ten are meeting in secret to discuss the future of the Order.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful.”

“They are quite crafty.”

“That they are,” James yawned. “You sure you’re okay with the exposure route? We can go stealth if you like.”

“No. No. Not at all. We can get everything done quicker this way. You have your eidolon taking notes?”

“Yes I do,” James said proudly. He didn’t reveal the palms of his hands, but he knew Arimus trusted him. Arimus nodded and took a step forward, toward the heart of the forest.

“At least this way we can continue talking,” his mentor said. James followed right behind him. “Tell me, do you feel that if you were in charge of making life-threatening decisions, you would become a better Sage?”

“I already told you,” he grunted, leaping over a cluster of thick roots. “I’m not even sure if I am a Sage at this point.”

“Well, would making those kind of decisions help?”

“I have no idea. Not that I’m itching to make them.”

“They are necessary in the heat of battle, but it’s still a gut reaction. Nothing wise about it.”

“What are you saying?”

“That it’s not the quick decisions that determine how wise you are. For example, you chose exposure. It might seem like the best plan at the time. But for all we know, we could be walking right into a trap. Perhaps the Quietus have gotten stronger than you over the years, or they have gotten better at their stealth. What did you base this entire decision on? Just the fact that we can do it quickly, and that you can ‘observe’ with your eidolon while they are observing us. That is all. It is very risky.”

“So…,” James trailed off, beginning to sweat. “It was a bad call?”

“The future will let us know,” Arimus replied with a grin that James couldn’t see.

“Then what makes me wise?”

“You must train yourself to become tuned into the world around you. You must go beyond observing. You must understand why something is the way it is. You will quickly find that there is nothing being performed without reason. Everything we see, hear, feel, touch and smell, are results and consequences—decisions made by our ancestors. Decisions that we are still feeling the result of today. You must think long term, James. Not just the immediate. Of course, this is harder than it seems, because there will be times in which you only have a split second to make that decision. However, if you train yourself. If you steel yourself and learn, it will get easier.”

“Is this what you came up with in your spare time?” James chuckled.

“I would be lying if I said that Ashalynn and I didn’t spend long nights deep in conversation. Since I don’t have to worry about the Kingdom as much, I have time to dwell on matters. It has been very soothing. I realized that whether you act or not, a decision is always made. But they don’t have to be. You can know, in almost every situation, what the right course of action is. Don’t just act on whims. Remember that in the face of opposition, a person’s first inkling is to run. That’s how people are destroyed.”