A New Beginning

Trying Again

Dale stood in the shadows as he looked at the long, winding path leading to Peasants' Field and let out a breath. Just then, he noticed the sun was somehow nearing noon. He sighed and, continued walking. He ran away deep into the forest and began trailing after the hidden path stopping now and then to make sure he was going down the right path as his destination was not the Rebels' camp, but instead to Peasants' Field.

He was going to start sprinting towards the village but then suddenly, he saw two guards on the outskirts of the forest. He froze as he did not want them to see him and he slowly sidestepped behind them onto a separate path which led to a longer path to the village. He sighed and decided that to his poor legs, it was probably the lesser of the two evils. At least he did not have to explain to the stupid, insolent, pathetic guards why he was following them. He had no plans to act like a stalker, not to those stupid, idiots of a guard anyways. 

That would be a waste of his talents.

He trudged along the path and fingered his spear while thinking of his children. He stood at an area at the turn and stood in a stance with his spear in hand. He picked a random tree and started jumping and leaping at it, slashing wildly with his forearm while moving back and forth, standing on the balls of his feet. 

"Learning some shitty Soldiering back home did some good, I think..." Dale muttered while continuing to slash at the poor tree. Its bark was peeling off and turned into shreds by the time it hit the ground. Apart from that, it also had multiple holes from the innocent (not so innocent purpose) spear. He filled each cut and slash with his rage and anger and he continued until he was tired and sapped of energy to engage in an imaginary fight with the tree. He punched it with the rest of his energy and the skin on his knuckles tore, leaving blood running down the cuts. 

It was nothing but pain. Something to ignore.

Dale picked himself up and ignored the drops of blood that splattered on the floor, an ironic joke on how life played out.

Life gives you life so you can die. The blood you have is nothing but water that washes the Earth. Even the plants do not care whether you live or die. All the better for them when you do die. The plants take in your blood as they do with water. What different was his life from those who caused the end of the first Earth? 

Dale trudged to the nearest stone, one that loomed over his head when he sat down, creating a ghostly presence of a shadow figure watching him. Not that he cared anymore. Death was death. Life was death. What was the difference anyway? Who was to tell him what the difference was when he was too crammed up in that little corner of his mind, trying to sort out emotions in his mental strongbox but instead letting them roam free. He curled up into a ball and slept due to fatigue, with words of death looming around his head.

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Debra sat atop the stone which actually had a sentimental value attached to it by then. The sword Shayne had thrown -- thrown! Such a disrespect to the beautiful sword -- on the ground right next to her. She picked it up and flipped it around and realised that tied at the back with a slip of vine from the forest, was a similar sword. She was wondering what it was for when she remembered she had two hands. She took out the first sword and true enough, it was her blade save for a 'few' touch-ups. The whole thing looked different but it still had that long slit down the blade that came from a sharp and corrugated edged circle for who knows what reason. 

Debra picked up the first blade two-handed and slashed at the tree -- a very common and sad thing for a target that everyone used for practice. Each slash was rather weak and barely cut through the bark of the tree. Just at that moment, Shayne walked towards Debra. 

"Hey soldier! Hit harder!" Shayne barked with amusement. Debra rolled her eyes and gave a lazy slash towards Shayne, of which Shayne drew her sword with surprising speed and parried away with such force that Debra fell onto the floor upon impact. Debra sighed and dropped the blade down to the floor. 

"Sorry. Sometimes my element just links a bit too much to the blade when I wield."

"Eh. Wait.. what?"

"Uh... you see that round slit? Put you whole thumb on that circle and press down hard." Just like that Debra's blood flowed through the whole slit and froze blue without a single shade of red in the whole circle and slit. Debra glanced at the already frozen cut on her thumb and realised that the blood was not even red in the first place. It was rather a cool shade of light purple that had more hints of blue than red. She almost jumped back from her own blood before it dawned upon her that her thumb was still attached to her. 

"So this is what it does..."

"Yeah. It is also an identification area!" Emma butted in and caused Debra to jump because she never saw her there. Emma continued, "When your blood is in there, your blood in your body will react and if it reacts, it is your sword!" True enough, the whole sword froze with Shayne muttering something that sounded like, "Told you I couldn't control it that easily." Debra stood up and brushed imaginary dirt off her pants before she returned the sword to its scabbard and replaced her old one with it. Emma playfully stuck out one sword at Debra, whose reflexes were probably a few seconds too slow. Shayne raised an eyebrow before finally declaring that Debra 'sadly' could not wield a sword.

Emma walked away and then suddenly turned back with a quick move of her hands, causing the blade held within to fly towards Shayne's direction, who dodged it without hesitation

"Then teach her."

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That strange boy kept coming and going but then, he only came at night. Samantha was sure that she never saw that boy before but who was she to judge? She did not even know who she was anymore. Just then, three soldiers, two who had no rank as told by the black arm band they had and one which had a navy blue armband which meant he was a general. 

"Take them," the general guy ordered to his two 'henchmen'. More of minions to Samantha that is. A soldier reached forward to grab Briar's lanky frame and Briar surrendered without a fight. Probably because he knew it was impossible or just because he was frightened. Samantha o the other hand, would rather go to hell than follow the likes of them. She tried to run but, curse those assholes' powers, she got caught. Fuck them. Seriously. They were bound and probably headed to some trash area where they were going to get interrogated for who-knows-what-shit and probably that boy got them into trouble because this happened after they met him... 

WAIT... the boy? 

Briar was still shaking even after they placed him in the back of a wagon covered with a tarp. Sure enough, they got kidnapped to a strange area across the field. They even stumbled over innocent pebbles which made Samantha snicker -- they sucked at moving a wagon! They were plopped on the ground like a sack of potatoes and Briar stared at her wildly, a crazed look in his eyes. 

Meanwhile, Samantha took her time to survey the room and found out that the walls were smooth and polished stones decorated in a checker-pattern. She was sure that this cell belonged to some rich bastard who had no better things to do.

Very likely.

Samantha took a sidelong gaze at Briar and told herself disappointedly, "Tsst, like he never heard of a kidnapping before." Then she realised one thing odd about the room. 

It had a bed, toilet and food -- probably poisoned-- but still, no kidnapper ever gave that, that is, unless they wanted them for some reason other than sheer fun.