A Journey through Kingdoms

CHAPTER 21- INTO THE WOODS

Derrick was busy in the laboratory, failing to notice who was currently lingering outside for him. "Alright, the last ingredient should be a bit of Lycerin Apokside," Derrick says to himself as he goes to get the Lycerin Apokside, which was stored in a bottle. He takes a bottle and pops the cork open before carefully hovering it over the concoction he was making. "Okay, now I need to carefully pour it in so I don't... make... a..." he starts as he slowly tips the bottle over as a single drop falls into the concoction. But before Derrick could finish his sentence, an explosion of smoke bursts forth from the concoction as the lycerin apokside reacts to the concocted solution. The smoke escapes from the front entrance of the laboratory, as did Derrick, as he runs out of the place with the experiment in his hands, coughing from the sudden smoke. "Oops! I didn't expect it to do that." Derrick expressed his surprise as he waved away the smoke that was blowing onto his face. "Derrick Barnes, we finally meet face-to-face." Suddenly, a voice spoke. "Hm? Hello?" Derrick tries to see them through the can of smoke but can't make out anything, so he opted to raise the beaker up so that the smoke wouldn't blow into his face anymore. As he did, he finally saw the man in front of him, who was menacingly holding their sword at their side. "Oh, there really was someone... I didn't really expect any company so late in the night," Derrick tells them as he fails to pick up on the danger that approaches him at the moment.

"You might have evaded my clutches once, but I made the mistake of leaving it in someone else's hands. Now! I take your head myself!" The hooded man exclaims to him as he raises his sword at the boy. A strong aura of bloodlust oozing from his very figure. But Derrick was one to not notice it until it was smacked onto his face with a mallet, as he just smiled at him with a tilted head. "I'm not sure that I follow. Perhaps you could expound a little over some tea, maybe?" Derrick offers, but the hooded figure didn't hesitate in his actions to deny him as he moved so quick that Derrick couldn't see him close in and slash at him. "Wah!" Derrick yelps in surprise as he suddenly appears before him. "It seems like you don't realize what situation you're in, so let me enlighten you." The hooded man starts as he stands up from his crouched position and stares Derrick right in his goggles-covered eyes. "I'm here to kill you." He finishes as the beaker in Derrick's hands begins to crack before completely breaking in half. Spilling the contents onto the floor. "Uh oh." was the only thing Derrick could mutter because, as soon as the concoction explodes into a plume of smoke once again as it collides with the grassy floor,. The cloud of smoke covers the whole area. Making an unseeable wall of gray, which wasn't much of a problem for the hooded figure as he used his sword to slice away a clean view through the smoke. But once he did, he realized that Derrick was now missing from where he was. "It's cute that you think you can outrun me." The hooded figure turns around towards the trees as he sees a small glimpse of Derrick running into the woods.

"That should slow him down for a moment!" Derrick says to himself as he hastily sprints through the trees. Finally realizing his current situation, it was now obvious to the boy that his life was now in mortal danger. But as for why it was? He had no clue, but that didn't stop him from running away. But soon he hears the sound of whizzing and wooshes behind him as he takes one small glance behind him to see the hooded figure fastly approaching him from behind. "Maybe not," he mutters, as his estimation was way over the mark. "Run as you might, Alchemist! But I was bred to hunt people down," the hooded figure says as he jumps from tree to tree in quick succession. He then moves so quickly that his figure looks like it is fazing in and out of reality. After that, a strong hit from seemingly just the wind knocks Derricks' feet. Tripping him up as he rolls onto the floor in distress. "Ough!" The boy grunts as he pushes himself over on the floor to see the assailant walking towards him with his sword ready to strike. Derrick hastily goes to grab a vial from his pouch to defend himself, which the hooded figure obviously notices as he rushes in to stop him from doing so. Miraculously, Derrick was able to reach and throw a vial in time as the potion flew in the air in slow motion. By the time the vial was in the air, the hooded figure had his sword already raised to slice it apart, just as he did the first one. But what he failed to realize was that the potion was something that Derrick concocted right after he got back from the quaint village, where an idea struck him after seeing the Pyrocite. And that idea was a liquid bomb.

Derrick braced for impact as the vial broke and created a chain reaction, which caused an explosion that set the area ablaze. Once the explosion was over, Derrick glanced briefly at the wall of fire that his potion had created before getting up to run again. He was hoping to himself that it was enough to stop him, even for just a little bit. But right now, hope is left as mere hope as the hooded man walks through the fire, now being revealed to the world, as the hood he wore slowly burns off of him by the fire as it shows the pearly white mask with no holes to see out of on their face. "Resourceful little rat..." the now-masked man mutters as he clenches his sword righter as he gives chase for him once again. The boy pants hard as he runs with all his might, but due to him being only an alchemist all his life, he was not able to develop himself a boost in stamina as he was slowly losing his speed bit by bit. "Maybe I can lose him in the city," Derrick thought while he ran through the forest. The trees whizz past him. But soon his luck would slowly run out as the masked hunter was gaining on him at a record pace. "There's nowhere for you to hide, boy! Tonight is when you die!" The masked man exclaims as he speeds up. "The gate!" Derrick mutters as he slowly sees the gate to the city slowly enlarging in his view. "HELP!" Derrick shouts as he nears the entrance. Luckily, there were people there to hear his cry, which were the two knights on guard as they looked to the forest to see Derrick.

"Hey, ain't that the kid?" one of the two knights says as they point him out. "Sounds like he's in trouble, though," the other responds as they hover their hands over their weapon. "HE-" Derrick tried to yell out again but gets tackled to the ground by the Hunter as he pins him on the ground with one arm to his back. "Argh!" Derrick grunts from the sudden impact of the tackle. "Hey! Unhand him this instant!" Luckily, the knights were quick to assess the situation, seeing as a grown masked man was now pinning Derrick on the floor with a sword in hand. The knight who yelled raised his sword up to their faces as a warning as the masked hunter pans his head up, an immediate aura of death oozing from him. "I said unhand him," and the knight decided to encourage them off of the boy by swinging his sword at him, but then all of a sudden he lost all feeling in both his arms. "G-GAH!" The knight screams in pain as the hunter swiftly, at the blink of an eye, severed both his arms by the elbow. "Allen!! No!!" The other knight shouts as he rushes in to help his comrade. The hunter finishes Allen by slicing his throat, a signature that the hunter had always preferred, before blocking a stroke from the other knight, all the while he was still on top of Derrick. And with a swift slice, he ends the life of the second knight. "Guh... ugh." First, his armor severs perfectly in the middle from the top to the bottom before his whole body follows suit. Derrick, even in the most dire of situations, wouldn't stop putting on his smile. But seeing the death that was laid upon his very eyes, the hunter filled him with the sort of dread that made him stare blankly at the corpse of the severed knight and the other, who was choking on their own blood.

"I told you, boy. There is no place for you to be safe now. The people who will try to help you now will face death upon my sword. Now die, son of Lydia." The hunter monologues to Derrick as he firmly plants the sword directly at the nape of his neck. Ready to pierce through it like butter. But as all things, Derrick would then again evade death as a familiar blue light latches onto his sword, snatching it away. making the hunter pause to question its origins, who were not far from him at all. "GRAH!!" And with a furious cry, Tetsuga appears before the hunter and lands a direct hit to their face. Sending them flying away off of Derrick. "ARGH!" the hunter lands on their back. "Ain't no one messin with the kid! Not on my watch, ya hear me!!" Tetsuga exclaims in a shout as he proclaims to the downed hunter before him, clutching their sword in his hand. "Mr. Tetsuga! How did you know I was in trouble?" Derrick exclaims as well. He hoped to fill his system again as Tetsuga had arrived to save his back. "Long story short, kid, the Royal Adviser wanted to find you! And I guess kill you by the looks of things." Tetsuga helped him up as he explained to him the situation. "Now what should we do? I'm all out of potions at the moment," Derrick asks as he stands by Tetsuga's side. "You run!" Suddenly, another voice shouts before a glass of white liquid gets thrown overhead and lands in front of the hunter. "You! Gah!" As soon as the glass broke, the liquid began to expand and encase the hunter's body. Rendering him immobile. "That's our cue! C'mon Derrick!" Tetsuga says as he hoists Derrick onto his shoulders like a log of wood and hightails it to the inner city. Leaving the hunter trapped and enraged, the hunter brought forth a scream that would mark them all for death.

"RRRAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!"