The Land Never Lost

Chapter 22

Fox was on all floors smelling the floor of the forest. His eyes darted back and forth hoping to catch the slightest glimpse of his target. He had gotten better at using his abilities but it was still hard to sneak up on Belias. The fairy had a wicked ability. It didn't take Fox long to figure that much out. Catching him was an entirely different matter. His large ears were a good tool to make out sounds, but controlling the input was part of his training. He caught a glimpse of something moving in front of him and so, with his tail pointed straight back, he decided to pounce. "Gotcha!" There was nothing. Something dropped out of the tree. Fox turned quickly, "Holy crap!", he fell over in shock and hit the ground hard. Belias was standing over the boy, his hood pulled over his head, draping his face in dark shadows. Fox got to his feet brushing off his pants.

Belias walked away without a word. Fox had gotten used to this behavior, but it was hard to understand what the fairy was thinking sometimes. All the time. Fox took this as part of the training, information of all kinds was important. Belias would wake him early, give him a few minutes to get dressed, and jump into the forest. Fox would spend all day either chasing Belias or hunting him. It forced him to use his brain as well as his body.

"How am I supposed to track you when your entire ability is geared to not being sensed." Early into their training Fox realized Belias was a spike who, instead of enhancing his physical prowess with nemerald, would drain his body of the majority of it. This made Belias not only lighter in weight, therefore incredibly fast, but almost impossible to sense by tracking nemerald. Belias called it 'dark hunt', which Fox felt was a sick joke.

"That's for you to figure out. Why would I tell someone how to catch me?" Belias was picking fruit off a nearby tree. He threw one to Fox, "Hurry up and eat. As soon as I'm done I'm taking off. Try to..."

"Try to keep up. Yeah, I know." Fox said as he scarfed down the fruit.

Brutus and Blink had been granted permission by the king to use the arena to train Fin and Scales. The sound coming from inside the arena was a symphony of crashes and bangs. Scales stood off to the side with Brutus, trying to keep up with the battle taking place between Fin and Blink. Blink wasn't much taller than the boys, about the average height of a pre-teen, but he hit like a tank. It was all Fin could do to get his attacks off, which Scales thought was all wrong.

Brutus stood with his arms crossed. "What is Fin doing wrong?" He asked Scales, never taking his eyes off the fight.

"He is pushing forward too much." Scales looked up at the strong fairy. Brutus looked down at Scales, "Exactly. And why is that a bad plan?". Scale knew the answer, and he knew Fin did also. Brutus and Blink were fighters. No gimmicks. No tricks. In their very first training session, the fairy brothers told the twins what their abilities were. Brutus was a spike that would harden his body from the inside making him difficult to damage. Blink, unlike his brother, was a stoke. He was bitter about not being a spike like Brutus And his ability was a nightmare as a result. His nemerald and the nemerald in the land around him acted like two similar magnetic poles. All Blink had to do was focus the nemerald to a singular point and when his foot made contact he would be shot away from that point. In a fight it looked like the fairy could teleport. The speed of his jumps made his punches ten times harder than normal.

Blink moved away from Fin in green flashes, so there was no point in attacking until Fin got exhausted. Fin moved quickly and could react faster than most of the boys, besides Peter. Still the fight dragged on for a while in the same way, Fin swinging his nemerald like blades of light and Blink moving out the way. Finally, Blink faked a jump and when Fin reacted, he was met with a punch in the stomach. Blinked laughed as he picked the boy up. "Still wild as ever." Blink said judgmentally, which seemed like a hypocritical critique coming from the wicked grin of the fairy. "Let's watch my twin beat your twin up."