Rise (Ares #1)

Anger Is A Burden

A week passes, Ares has become more and more wary of Jackal as time progresses, noticing every slight change in his behaviour and mannerisms in an attempt to catch him off guard and catch his aura. Time for class arrives, and instead of sitting in his usual spot with Quinn and Matthew, Ares sat right next to Jackal, fuelled with intent. "Come on now Ares" Jackal says straight away "we both know why you've sat here now, don't we?" He says shooting Ares a blank stare. Ares looks him dead in the eyes and says "yes, I suppose we do. And you confirm my suspicions" as he gets up from the seat and sits back with Quinn and Matthew, face filled with content at his conclusion. "Hey, what was all that about Ares?" Lucia whispers, "don't worry yourself, it's a personal matter. No need for concern" Ares replies, as Lucia slips him a piece of paper that reads "hey, if you ever need to talk to anyone or need an escape from everything I'm here for you" followed by her phone number. Ares takes the paper and puts it in his pocket. "Thank you" he says "it's very kind", as he says this, he sees Lucia just smiling at him, backing off shyly and blushing when she is caught staring. Ares begins to notice a certain innocence and shyness of Lucia and almost feels a sense of happiness when she is around, "don't think about it too much Ares, it's nothing" Ares thinks to himself "although she does seem nice. No, not now Ares, focus on Jackal" he pings a look back to Jackal and notices that he is staring back at Ares and Lucia out of the corner of his eye.

Ares arrives home later that day to once again see his grandad. "Welcome home son, how was your day?" He asks, "it..was fine? What's going on?" Ares asks visibly confused, "I've got someone I want you to meet, she's part of the family and she's a learning Kaimen like you. Now, we believe that having two of you working together will help you both to learn from each other, and increase your power that way" in the front room sits a young girl with short brown hair "I want you to meet-" but before his grandad could get a chance to finish his sentence, the girls green eyes light up, just like Ares eyes did, and her aura lit up a bright white and grey. "Woah" Ares said in pure shock "I'll introduce myself I think. My name is Skylar, you must be Ares. I'm also a learning Kaimen just like you" Skylar said, smiling as she showed off her control of her power. His grandad continued "this is Skylar, we've taken her in as one of her own, I'm sure you will learn a lot from each other. I'll let you two get to know each other" he said as he left the room. Skylar and Ares stand facing each other in the back garden, power coursing through both their veins. "So, do you think you're tough?" Skylar asks, "I've only just learned about the Kaimen, and my power. But I'm controlling it a lot better than some" Ares says pointing towards Skylars eyes "oh you think that's a lack of control? I just let it flow when I know no one will see it, you should try it, if you have as much control as you say". Ares sees this as a challenge and begins to cut loose on his power a bit, "come on is that all?" Skylar asks as his eyes begin to light up, Ares smirks "just you wait, there's more to come yet" as his aura begins to flow, Skylar stands back "impressive" she exclaims "but that's enough for now" as she quickly calms her eyes and drops her aura, Ares does the same. They look each other dead in the eyes, smile at each other and go to bed for the night to rest.

The next day rolls around, Ares is in his class and carefully watching Jackal as normal in suspicion, slowly becoming agitated with the lack of evidence, he grunts under his breath "come on just do something. I know it's you carrying the aura". Meanwhile, Lucia is looking round and faintly hears Ares comment "what are you talking about? What aura?" Lucia interrupts, Ares looks round in a daze "huh? Oh, it's you Lucia. Sorry, I was distracted. I wasn't talking about anything don't worry. I need to go outside for a minute" he said as he felt his anger slowly rising at the lack of evidence, and with this, he walks out of the classroom for a breath of air. As he walks towards the exit, a hall door opens besides him and a hand pulls him into the hall. "What the fuck? Who are you and what do you want?" Ares shouted, "relax, relax, it's just me" the voice said, as Ares calmed down and came back around, he realised that it was Skylar. "What the hell are you doing here Skylar? This is my school" he shouted at her, "listen, I'm here to test your power again, so let loose. I don't care where we are, I'm gonna teach you control like you've never known. Calm it down, let the power flow" Skylar said. Ares looks at her with a sharp glare "and if I can't control it?" He asked, "then we will cross that bridge when it comes to it, now let loose before I make you" she replied. With this in mind, Ares began to let his power flow through him, his eyes light up with power and his aura flows around him, "good, now keep going" Skylar said, feeling all this power flow through him, Ares begins to let out a sharp and loud shout packed with power, "MORE" shouts Skylar, Ares looks up with the brightest green eyes, with an aura raging around him like a white and grey fire, his energy and power piling up. Ares lets out one last scream of power before his energy begins to spiral out of control and cause shocks of energy to shoot out of him. As his scream reaches its pinnacle, the energy becomes too much, and an intense shockwave of energy, that can be felt all around the school, shoots out of Ares, causing an extreme power cut and also causing him to collapse under the pressure. Shortly after the collapse, Lucia bursts into the hall "what the hell happened to him?!" She screams, shocked at Ares' body on the floor. But Skylar is nowhere to be seen. "Come on Ares, wake up please" Lucia says trying to amateurishly perform CPR on his body, noticing something fall out of his hand, a small piece of paper that looks strangely familiar. It was the same piece of paper with Lucia's phone number on it, simply written with the words "I'll call you when I get through this" by Ares. Everything falls silent as the hall doors open and footsteps can be heard. "He'll be fine" says a voice to Lucia. Shocked, she looks around to see who was reassuring her. She looks up to see Jackals face. "Trust me" he says.