corheim: year one

Episode Nula

"The brighter the flame, the deeper is the shadow..."

~~~Episode 0: The Flames and the Shadows Clash Once More~~~

A story of two children.
A child of the flames, Ryoji Rukavina...
A child of the shadows, Astra Willoby...
A story where these two will become the strongest individuals in existence.
As their hearts and souls burn the brightest of them all...

~~July 17th, 202X~~

I remember when I used to dream of such silly things, things that were small and useless.... They have no place in war. That was when I was younger and back at Surwick, that was.... that many years ago; when I was only fifteen years old at the time.
Now, I am twenty-four years old.
It has been nine years since I'm still alive and kicking in a way.
I am Ryoji Rukavina, The Son of the Flames.
A long night of solace.
One after a long day of running errands, making sure that plans of war were in preparation.
This campaign, this declaration of war. The lives that were lost---The people that we knew that perished under this damned war. Life has always been precious to me; even though I have taken many lives before.
It was not out of malice and greed, but rather my survival.
So now, to take a life is indeed not enjoyable to me. But if my hand must be forced---So be it.
A night where I can spend it with the woman I love in bed. We cuddled for a bit and reminisced about the good days. We laughed a bit and I cooked for her as a surprise.
She wasn't expecting my arrival today, so she was overfilled with euphoria.
Before it was time to shut our eyes and rest for the night, I could feel her finger caressing my body rather seductively.
And I enjoyed every second of it.
My physique could make Demi-Gods feel jealous as I had the perfect muscular body--As if it was shaped from the very heavens themselves. I carved my muscular body through strenuous training and the result of genetic experimentations from my time in....messier times. My body was also riddled with scars from those times I was wounded. I don't wound easily, either.
My betrothed, my wife-to-be, seemed unbothered by it as she too had a few scars now.
"You seem to be enjoying every minute of my presence," I stated to her, she giggled a bit and answered rather seductively. "Of course."
Then she focused on my hair by caressing in bed, veiled in darkness but I could see her clear as day. My hair was a dirty blond with some brown speckles in the middle of my roots. I had an Undercut going on and I find it quite fitting. I was also a bit tall, about 5'10'' or 5'11'', but I wasn't that tall anyway. I believe I was attractive enough to land me a goddess of a woman as my bride-to-be, or maybe I was lucky this time around. My eye color reminded me of wood brown that carried so much hate and anger when I was young, but now mellowed out.
She started to speak rather softly. "I understand that this war has taken much out of us, physically. Mentally. Spiritually."
"It has." I agreed with her as I was getting tired of this pointless bloodshed. In two weeks, our next destination is Corheim.
We're officially storming down to Corheim and bringing the might of our armies.
I want to protect people, and this is a way of doing it.
"That's why I am fighting for us. All of us." I told her as I got closer. I promise her this. "You first. Then our people. Then me. I'll take care of us."
"I'm no damsel in distress, Ryoji Rukavina. Best remember that." Her voice was now stern when I said that. I knew she could kick my ass and anyone else I could think of, but she was my rock.
And I hers.
"I do!" I quickly told her, she raised her arm and her posture was different. "It's just that I don't want to lose you."
Now, I combed her hair, soft as silk and she took good of herself.
"Volim te," I confessed to her in my mother's tongue. She smiled her breath still as the night.
"Znam." She reciprocated our love in Croatian. She is quite the smart-ass. I also taught her some Croatian. Or the bare essentials.
"What will we do in this spare time that we have?" I asked to initiate our "special time" with one another.
She got in the mood to be bewitching once more. "Perhaps some time to reintroduce ourselves. " She suggested quite alluringly as she reached down there.
That was a play that we were about to...Yes. We were about to have coitus.
"RYO!!" Someone I knew yelled outside my front door.
I hope I am using this word right, but I was cockblocked just now and I am undoubtedly infuriated by this.
I heard her swearing under her breath as I put on my pants rather hastily and hurried down the stairs as I heard even more panicked knocking.
"What the hell!" I yelled out as I ran to the door, furious that I could spend time with my beloved. Who in the hell wants to disturb my time with my fiancée?
It was Igneus.
My Heart.
Not literally my heart, because that would be weird...
He was a part of a species called Corheimr...And everyone from Corheim is not like the other.
And I am his Embracer.
For such a reptilian humanoid, his hair was more luxurious than mine and I was quite envious of him for having so. He had orange fur but underneath that fur, his scales were quite durable. There was also a massive height difference between us, as he stood far taller than me.
He also had long pointed ears and his eyes were a pale green. Also, it seemed he was bulking up a bit since I last saw him.
I guess it was his "training".
Wait...I know why he's here.
No...It happened. I was dreading for it.
I already knew what happened or who had done it: It had to be her...It would have happened anyway. Sooner or later...
I told him the truth. "I had a feeling this would've happened. I'll get dressed. Meet me outside when I am ready." I commanded him as I knew he wasn't going to listen to me.
Which he didn't.
My fiancée said hello to Igneus, as she knew Iggy quite well and they were also close. "Hey Iggs, bulking up I see."
"Hey, Mrs. Rukavina. I cockblocked y'all, didn't I?" He had another one of those shit-eating grins while I pushed outside so I could be properly dressed with distractions. He was the one
"What will you do, love?" I asked her, she was covered in the shadows
She stood about 5'8'' and had an athletic figure to her.
She said I have always loved her voice. It was never high or low, but it was a husky one, alright. It was the first thing I loved about her in the first place. That, and how feisty she was and blunt she was about many topics. She never liked riddles and always spoke to people with bluntness and respect.
I used to hate her so much, but now I can't stand being without her.
"I'll take care of the hideaway. I contacted Ervin---This happened forty-five minutes ago." She said so.
"I love Astra like the sister I never had, but if you need to put her down---Don't hesitate." She told me as I kissed her and hugged her for more than twenty seconds before I stopped with our embrace.
"I won't," I promised her as I hurried downstairs with my full gear and armaments ready for battle.
The waypoint gate was ready, and our means of transportation to go to points of interest if we had visited these points of interest before.
Mistidia was no stranger to me and I have also enjoyed
I looked at Igneus, concerned about what was to come. He shared the mutual concern that I had.
The entire city of Mistidia, the crown jewel of Somnus, was covered in ash and smoke as I watched the devastation of a city that I once loved going to have been reduced to ruin by my best friend.
For years, I could never believe that this city could never go down. I believed that the walled city was impenetrable and that the bustling side streets would never be empty and quiet. How the flags of the great city will never besmirched in blood.
Oh how wrong I was now.
Igneus tried his best to bring levity in this bleak situation that we were in.
"Well, she always left a mess when she got like this." He stated that I did not require stuff like that. People are in danger.
"You're not any better."
"...I wasn't talking about myself, Ry." Igneus pouted as the rubble from these destroyed towers fell in our path, obstructing our way to her.
"We'll find a way." Igneus blurted out optimistically while I only grunted. I hated longer ways.
Our intel has revealed that she is in the Sacred Garden, tarnishing the last remnants of a holy site.
I know he wants to bring levity to this...So, Ryoji: Let's do it...I questioned him about it. I, too, wanted to bring levity into a situation that was too dreadful to bring such optimism into the fray. Still, it wasn't impossible for it. "You think you're now an adult?" I asked
"Damn, straight I do!" He roared in excitement, hitting his chest like a damn gorilla.
"Get help." I loved jesting with him, seeing how sensitive he was.
If I could, I would be laughing right now. The situation does not call for it. Igneus just shook his head in disbelief as he continued running alongside me.
I was in awe and fear that a mighty city like this could destroyed by one person.
But when she's like this or undergoes this "berserker" rage, she is just a force of nature. There is no woman anymore. A true tornado in the making.
And a force of nature like a tornado, cannot be reasoned with.
"We need to help her!" He blurted out as we were running to save the poor girl in the rubble.
I know we do.
She was alive, albeit barely clinging onto life as we were struggling to pick up the rubble before we weren't struggling with it.
"I wish our |Gift| was herculean strength or endless stamina!" Igneus jested as I reassured him. "No offense, but I was always the muscle of us two!" I said through breaths as the rubble was lifted from the girl, freeing the girl.
"Once an asshole, always an asshole." He frowned sarcastically.
I smiled when he said in front of the girl, the girl lit up a small smile as well before running to safety.
We continued onwards in this city that was set ablaze from the chaos, and my sister-in-arms Astra.
I confessed to him the truth. She was grieving, heavily grieving as she couldn't handle it. "She lost the woman of her life. She was going to go this route...I know I would've done the same earlier if not earlier than she did."
And it was true.
"But what about the man of her life?" Igneus countered as he was good friends with that man. I was too. He was a better fit for Astra than that she-devil. Even though she truly cared and loved Astra, she hated everyone and was not a good person: She only cared for her life and Astra's up until she didn't want to be selfish anymore...
And that woman abhorred me the most because I could see right through her. I could see what she was: The Personification of Paranoia.
I know I shouldn't say or think ill from the dead, however; I was right in thinking so lowly of her.
"You know that he is also a good man for her. He was there for her when she ran around, trying to exact her damn revenge while Astra was worried sick about her."
I never saw Astra's soulmate (Girl) eye-to-eye and at one point we did try to kill each other, but I knew that she had the best interest in Astra and put her first. That's why she died...She protected Astra and now Astra has survivor's guilt. All Astra was stronger than her and still she couldn't defend her from harm's way.... I theorized as he ran in silence as Igneus kept chattering about something.
That part I kept to myself.
I shook my head. "I know. That's why I am glad he's in Westpool instead of here in Mistidia..."
Corheimr Soldiers. Great. At least the remaining of them...
Fodder to keep up between us and Astra.
We both unsheathed our steel before their armor crushed them to death. All because of magnetism, and I knew a good woman who knew her around using the electromagnetic spectrum like this.
And she revealed herself to us, floating in the air before descending to greet us.
Noelle Adelsdorfer.
A short woman with an incredible |Gift|. A woman with long hazel-brown hair that reached down her back with these large braid.
A friend. A person that I have known for so long. "Iggy and I just came in." I hugged her as I asked her about the situation. "Tell us. What happened?"
Her eyes darted back and forth, trying to hide the shame of it all. She had no reason to---I am not mad at her.
No one was.
"I was in the near, patrolling and standing guard if the Corheimr would attack. Then Astra went berserk. Destroyed the entire city on her own even the ambush that Corheim had planned went up in ruins. I tried to stop her, but that |Gift| of hers was so powerful, that I was struggling with her. I almost got killed a few times before Ervin intervened."
Igneus' eyes widened as I felt that my look hadn't changed, I was unbothered by his name. "Where is he now?" I questioned her as she shrugged.
She didn't know where that damn false messiah was now. "...I am unsure."
I rolled my eyes as Igneus made a snarky comment about him. He would always throw a jab about Ervin. "Of course, he would try to swoop in and save the day! That blue-haired femboy is such an attention whore it's ridiculous now."
Noelle even gave in a sigh about Ervin. "And to think I followed him so blindly back then. I was an idiot."
We were all idiots, Noelle.
We were all idiots.
More of the Soldiers followed suit, and it was time to fight properly this time. I do love a good warm-up, especially in the arts of slinging fire and swinging swords.
I queried her. "Care to join us on our merry company?"
She did not need to use any weapon, as she could control the electromagnetic spectrum with ease. This was going child's play with her. Noelle lit up a big grin as she readied herself. "I'll ride alongside you guys until my last breath."
And we fought the bastards.
It was quick work. They were all blade-kissed by my swords, seared to ashes from Igneus' flames, and crushed to death from their armor because of how broken |Electro-Magnify| was as a |Gift|.
Noelle had a history with Ervin once, as they were quite close due to how much trauma they'd endured to reach Surwick on foot.
Afterward, we had more Corheimr reinforcements coming our way.
They even came with an Ogroman...How interesting. I thought as the large mechanical giant homed in on us, uprooting an entire tree as a weapon. I thought they were no longer in operation. That's even more interesting... I added in my thoughts.
Ogromen were hulking behemoths of fabled steel that were used to commit genocide on the Corheimr back in the Somnus War when Somnus waged war against Corheim. Not more can be said except they are downright menacing when stationed correctly.
"This is nothing." Igneus was a fool to not caution himself. These things killed our kind before and we are still prey to it. Of course, he is too lax about it: I'm the one who worries about everything.
"Bist du verrückt?" Noelle asked me in Deutsch as she pointed at it. "That's a machine that I can't manipulate it! I can manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum, that doesn't obey the spectrum!" She was scared of it. We needed more people to fight alongside.
Another person joined our fight as he appeared to us like the wind.
Sora Kuromiya. My former teacher back in my Surwick days. He always wore this mask that reminded him of a Tengu only this upper half of his upper face. I never saw his true face. His hair was a platinum silver-square color and was windswept in a way.
And I am twenty-four years old now. Never in my life, have I seen a man without that tengu mask.
"Mr. Rukavina. Apologies for my tardiness." He apologized so formally to me as if I was the teacher and he was the student. "I was never good with directions." He explained briefly why he was late.
I was flustered. He never called me by my last name. I think that this was a first.
I had to brush it off. "All good, Mr. Kuromiya. Better late than never."
"Sixty-four against one?" The large knight clad in cold iron, brandishing a large, bloody axe. "I like those odds."
"That doesn't seem fair to say." Mr. Kuromiya confessed as Noelle and Igneus agreed on that part.
Before any person in this battle had moved one more inch, the sky turned an onyx color. Light filled the atmosphere like...
Lightning.
"A Lightning Spear?" Sora asked as Beri was far away from us, but still was able to assist us in this times. Â Spear crafted of lightning took down the opposing force. Including that Ogroman with such ease.
Thank you, Beri!
The Ogroman was inoperable, leaving it nothing more than a part of rust and metal. Thank goddess for that.
"Noelle! Mr. Kuromiya! Evacuate the survivors, and make sure everyone moves to a safe location! I deal with her!" I instructed them to tell their part. I want none of them to get hurt.
Not anymore.
None argue with me and Igneus became one with me from within.
On the way, I saw a child soldier. I thought we were done with these customs of having children fight in wars.
It angers me deeply.
And It saddens me terribly...
I consoled the soldier, who was dying alone in the rubble...It reminded me of someone else from my past. She was dying and needed her soul to be kindled.
Only I can do this. Only I can save this child now.
"Fret not, child..." I said, lighting my hand on sacred flames and placing it on her chest. "
"Thank thee for rekindling me soul..." The girl uttered her final words before the small wick in her vanished, her body felt colder by the second.
I hate seeing children dying. They should fulfill healthy lives; not be snuffed out so soon. This little girl was only eight, and I was too late to save her...
I shook my head in resolution. No matter, I won't let your death be forgotten like this. I will honor you... I declared mentally.
"That is my solemn promise..." I promised the dead body. I hurried to the Sacred Garden barefoot as I wouldn't use all of my energy up for this fight.
As fate will dictate what will happen between us.
The Garden was surrounded by shadows, eaten whole as I saw bodies of soldiers
There was Astra.
The shadows have consumed her, leaving her as this destructive beast.
All of this is happening because you're grieving, Astra... I thought as I saw her, pummeling a defeated low-ranked soldier to death. A Knight from the King of Orissa, a landlocked region in the realm of Corheim.
I understand they are enemies, Astra! Show them mercy! They are but pawns in this game of chess!! I wished to plead with her, but I felt that a ravenous beast would not listen to words.
"She truly walks with the abyss now..." I marveled in disbelief. I hadn't readied myself for battle yet. Not her. I begged myself not to fight her...All the people in the world---She was the last one I'd ever want to duel with.
And she was there--corrupted by her shadows. She had oozed an aura of darkness as her skin was nothing but umbra and hatred. Her eyes were blank and filled with golden wrath. I hadn't seen any sclera in them, either. Her muscular body was outlined still and she had no weapons.
Only uses her fists feet and teeth like a dog without its wits.
All that was left was her radiant pink hair, but it wild out of control.
She lost her sanity and threw that dead soldier's corpse at me with blinding speed. I had no time to block and instead had to dodge out of a small time window before...
Shit. I thought as she was close to me now because of that speed of hers. I swear she was faster than anyone I knew. Like that, she charged like a linebacker, and now... And we were both falling now to our deaths.
Crap...She was not the same girl I found in that alleyway, stripped away from her Gift: She is my equal in combat. Two sides of the same coin.
Two mixed kids that started from the bottom of the barrel, rising to be two of the strongest champions of good.
A Symbol of Tranquility in times when the light never wants to fade away.
A Beacon of Hope in times when the darkness is overwhelming.
God, give me strength. For the first time, I prayed as she and I were falling into the unknown abyss.
My flames will never be extinguished by your shadows.
Just like how your shadows will never be flushed out by my flames.
All of these years have come down for this? I asked myself as I pie-shove her face, which was covered in shadows. She was indeed strong and perhaps stronger than me right now...
But I am strong because people need me. They believe in me.
All of them want me to come home in the morning. I did believe not in promises back then, but now I must keep them!!! I build my confidence in her.
My confidence tremendously raised from my determination. I started to be beleaguered by my flames, rousing them up as I felt roused now. I declared to her as I stood powerful while falling. I was aware that this would not convince her to reason, but I no longer cared for that. All that I want is to protect those I want to protect. "I will build a brighter future--with or without you, Astra!!!!
"COME TO ME, IGNEUS!!!!" I yelled out to her as I embraced my true form to her, a Dragon Man With Hide That of Orichalcum, with Claws that can maw the skies, fangs that can rend steel apart, a tail that can destroy the very earth, and flames that can scorch the very heavens if I wanted to do.
In my normal form, I'd be able to survive three minutes maximum in that twisted, shadowy version of herself. This form?
I am more than ready to put her down.
She yelled out in rage, running the walls downward the spire as we were still falling. I fell towards her and thus began our clash.
In a few days, we were supposed to launch the last campaign against the armies of Corheim.
Corheim--The Realm of Heartz.
It was time to finish this damned war for good.
But for now, that would have to wait...
How did that saying from my old school go again?
Show Them What We're Made Of.
Before our rematch of light and dark, we need to go back.
Back before we made our war against Corheim, our stories before all of this must be told.
How a child from the flames and a child from the shadows became Champions of the Brightest Future possible...How we became legends...

*Feels good to write chapter zero like this. A different atmosphere in a way. Enjoy...*