Luck Weaver

5. Accusation

Chapter 5 - Accusation

The teenager continually dodged attacks, which just missed him.  Ducking under a swipe, he jumped and swung at the instructor's head.  In midair, he saw the instructor was prepared, so veering off at the last minute, he stabbed at a student.  The student blocked it as he landed gracefully behind the target.  He planted one of his feet down, and pushed with the other, while twisting to avoid a lunge.  The student got pushed forward, and fell on another one.

Both of them were on the ground, but got up quickly.  They were hurt, but not majorly.  Mainly they were frustrated with the teenager who seemed to evade every attack, almost never blocking.  The teen smiled.  Impatience and frustration tended to lead to mistakes, though the instructor and Ray wouldn’t be easy, if possible, to take down.

It almost looked like a dance.  The five fighters were continually swinging, blocking, and moving fluidly with each other.  It looked like a rehearsed performance, but each person there was acting on drilled in reflex alone.  The teen was doing surprisingly well against four opponents, including the instructor.  Avoiding almost every attack, he was conserving energy, and continually annoying the weaker opponents.

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Walking into the forest on edge because of the meph, Jay sensed a movement to his right and dove to the ground just in time.  A rusty common pitchfork sliced through the air right where his head was a second ago.  Looking around frantically for the wielder of the weapon, Jay spotted a sandy-haired boy wielding it clumsily.  He swung again, but Jay had already ducked behind a tree. 

Jay dove behind a tree and yelled, "Are you insane?  Who are you?"

"I won't speak to traitors.  You killed the whole village, you bastard," the mysterious boy venomously replied.

He added emphasis to his words by jabbing at Jay with every syllable.

"No I didn't.  I lived there, unlike you.  Stop fooling around.  Put down that pitchfork before someone gets hurt.  I've never seen you before,” Jay replied while edging toward a tree.

In reply, the boy stabbed at Jay, but missed again.  He swung, but Jay had already ducked, and was climbing a tree.

“Come down you coward!”

Jay stayed on the branch to wait for the boy to calm down.

Seeming enraged with his inability to hurt Jay, suddenly his aura flared.  Before, Jay hadn't noticed it, but now, it was shining too bright for Jay to ignore.  The aura was a really bright brown.

“Crap, I’m facing a warlock.  At least he is young and probably inexperienced.  Maybe I can take him down,” Jay grimly thought.

As if the warlock read Jay’s mind, his aura suddenly flared more, then withdrew.  It started showing on the first plane, sparkling around the boy.  It continued to withdraw, until it thinly encased the boy and his trident.  The brown aura slowly solidified itself into armor for the boy, and it encased the pitchfork turning it into a hybrid between a pitchfork and a trident.  The brown casing glowed softly, but his eyes were a shining light brown.  

"You're a warlock!  Who are you?" Jay exclaimed suddenly turning angry and fearful.

"No. I'm. Not!" the boy shouted while stabbing Jay.

Jay saw the movement too late.  His normal lightning instincts were outmatched suddenly.  Time seemed to slow down as he leapt to the side.  The gleaming tip of the trident drew closer and closer, until it was about to touch him.  Suddenly time returned back to normal for Jay.  Left with a thin bloody cut, he landed enraged on his feet.  He drew out his sword, but he was left gaping at the sight right before his eyes.

The tip of the trident, where it grazed him, was turning red.  Slowly the rust colored spot grew and eventually reached the handle of the trident, where it slowly ran up the boy’s armor.  Back at the tip, something was happening.  The trident began flaking into pieces.  The small thin metallic pieces were slowly fluttering toward the ground, but they would fade and disappear before they could actually reach the ground.  The whole trident was crumbling in the boy’s hands.  Jay wondered what would happen when the crumbling section reached the boy’s armor.  The armor was now completely a rusty blood colored red, and the boy inside was terrified.

Jay was confused.  The boy should get stronger with the red.  Red meant negative karma, and warlocks fed from negative luck to use their powers.  Instead, the red looked sickly, and the boy seemed to be getting weaker by the second.

The trident was now completely gone, faded away into the air, which was slightly tinged red.  The armor instead of breaking away, shined a unhealthy red looking color.  It suddenly vanished, leaving the boy gasping for breath on the forest floor.

Jay acted on instinct, without waiting for the time it would take to think.  His hand closed around the grip of this sword, and drew it out of its metallic sheath.  The sound made the boy gasp, and look up, straight at the deadly sword pointed straight at him, glowing slightly.

The boy looked at the intricately designed sword pointed straight at his forehead.  Backing up, he crashed into a tree.  Gulping, the sword drew nearer, until he had to look cross-eyed in order to see it.  He studied the white and grey patterns that ran up the blade until his eyes rested on the hilt.  Then he refused to look up any further.

"Who are you?" Jay asked deathly calm pressing the sword on the boy's forehead.

On the inside Jay was confused, the adrenaline still pumping through his veins, clouding his thoughts.  Should he kill the warlock?  He would do the world a favor, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to murder a weaponless boy just maybe two years younger then him.

No reply.  Getting angry, Jay asked again in a louder voice.  Still no response.

"Who! Are! You!" Jay suddenly screamed his sword flaring up with a white blazing aura.

Scared, the boy started babbling.

"I'm Alex, and though you've never seen me before, I have.  I lived in Grendel's house hidden because of my aura.  She was afraid someone would kill me.  I'm not exactly a warlock.  I'm the opposite.  I have the same powers, but I need good karma in order to do it.  How did you flare up your sword?  I thought only warlocks could do it?  Are you also a warlock?  Why do you have a blue aura then?"

"Shut up!" Alex replied, mind racing furiously.  What Alex said was true.  Only warlocks could encase weapons in auras.  Still, it was a white aura around the sword, not a blue one.  Jay decided it was the sword.  Feeling his adrenaline finally fade, his arm felt heavy holding up the sword even though it weighed next to nothing.

Letting his arm drop, Jay turned and slowly walked away, sheathing the sword.  His internal debate had came to an end.  The warlock was telling the truth, Jay could just tell, and when he got negative karma through stabbing Jay, he grew weaker, not stronger.

"Wait, where are you going?"  Alex asked.

"I'm finding the mephs," Jay simply replied.

"All by yourself?  I could help with my skills.  Besides, I have nothing left in this world anyway.  When people find out I'm a warlock, I'm dead.  The only way for me to survive would be to make myself a hero, then people would admire, not hate, me.  I can’t think of a better way of doing that then helping you destroy the mephs.  I will not spend the rest of my life hiding because of my bad luck to be born as a warlock.”

Jay found himself welcoming the idea of someone to travel with.  Being a powerful magic wielder, though with one huge flaw, helped.

“You have to understand, we may, and probably will, die.”

“If I don’t help you, I either have to spend the rest of my life hiding, or I would be killed by humans.  I can’t think of a better way to die than fighting monsters,”  Alex spat.

Approving of the response, Jay gave a nod.  Then, he set off without a word, leaving Alex struggling to keep up with his long strides.