Guardian's Redemption

Chapter Thirty Six

Ashley's breathing was heavy. Her body aching from the exercise that she had been through. She had been fighting her sister who looked like she was enjoying flinging huge boulders and other object with her unnatural strength. Jessica was an Earth Naturalist, mostly using her ability to heal the injuries that came in with the town's people, but she could also fight as well. Most of her attacks dealt with the ground, from large spikes to the dirt boulders she was now using on Ashley. At first Ashley would dodge the attacks, but her body quickly grew tired. Her thighs burning from this new movement, so she began to summon fire to push the attacks away.

Then there was Xavier. She had to deal with him teaching her basic had to hand combat for the past week, but now he was coming at her with blind fury. He didn't have much patience for instructing but when she did snap at him the man's response was to come at her harder. She knew he was holding back and this was just the best way he knew how to teach.

She matched Xavier as best as she could even though he struck her many times, Ashley could tell they weren't hard strikes at first. These separate training regimens took place regularly until she could defend herself easily when matched against Jessica and could endure the hours of sparring with Xavier.

Her two opponents just recently began to work together with their lessons forcing Ashley to fight Xaviers wild hand to hand combat while trying to defend against the earthen bombs from her sister. The woman could tell they had worked together before, their timing to each other almost perfect but they were going easy on her. She felt like her body was beginning to move own its own though, making decisions right before an attack would happen. She grew bored of it on this day. She thought it was a good idea to strike with fire instead of her hands to try and throw Xavier off his guard as she had watched Ben do to his enemies.

A wall of fire summoned between them only that Xavier simply waved the attempt away when Ashley created it. He was laughing at her when she cursed out loud, something she had never done. They had been at this for a couple hours now when Dyrune showed up with a bucket of water and Gzaar holding five cups in his arms. The three fighters taking a break to sit down and rest. The cool water refreshing to each of them. "What are the other two cups for?" Ashley asking as she gulped down that delicious spring water.

"Gzaar and I, right little guy?" Dyrune patted the little demon on the head trying to get a new emotion out of the demon, but Gzaar was still unnerved around them all. He still did not know where he could possibly fit in with his new surroundings. Especially from the comments that Dyrune made about dealing with the demon on the way down. "We worked hard getting that water to you." The assassin gave a wink to the imp.

Ashley still didn't like Dyrune. She disliked the fact that he had acted as an assassin in trying to kill Ben. Instead of saying who he was and helping them on their way, the man had tried to kill them instead for mere enjoyment. Sure he killed the devil that Gzaar had served, but then he had gone straight at Ben. Ashley did notice the man had a large item strapped onto his back with a dark cloth wrapping all the way around it.

She was surprised when he unstrapped the long black cloth on his back and held it out to her. Gzaar gave out a gasp and was shaking his head no. Dyrune ignoring the imp nodded to the woman.

"What is this?" Ashley asking as she looked at the man cautiously. Gzaar was silent but still shaking his head in disagreement of this action.

"A present," the man said as he tore off the black cloth and dropped the item.

A voice began screaming inside her mind the moment the cloth was removed. 'Take me, take me now!' She was staring at the twisted sword that lay on the ground. Ashely barely hearing Gzaar call the weapon Edgebane, the demonic sword of the devil Balazaar. She no longer had control of her body and her hand went for the hilt of the weapon. There was a dark presence guiding her to the weapon. She bent down with her hand grasping the hilt.