• Chapter 4 - Into the Light

    Deckard slowly opens his eyes and sits up, immediately holding his head which was now throbbing in pain. "Nnngh... where... where am I?” he says as he starts trying to look around. His vision was entirely blurred still, but the reason why was still unknown to him. He suddenly remembers his chest and moves his hand's focus from his head down to his chest where he was stabbed. After feeling around for a moment he gasps, realizing the wound was no longer there. "B-but, I was stabbed! I was definitely stabbed I know it! Estelle was too... Wait? Estelle? Where... where is she?" he looks around again as his vision begins to clear up. "Was it... a dream?” he questions the entire event that only recently happened to him moments before. As he looks down at himself and at the surrounding area where he was just lying in it became clear that it no dream. The blood was still on the ground, and it was still soaking his shirt. The smell of death lingered in the air.

    "I don't get it... I'm completely healed. I thought for sure I was going to die, and what's more is that Estelle isn't even here..." Deckard slowly closes his eyes as he begins to tear away at the situation, trying to find out the mystery behind it all. "You did die.” a rugged voice suddenly interrupts his train of thought. From the shadows of a tree, a lone figure comes out into the light that was let off by the moon and the lake. He almost seemed as if he were a bandit, simply because of the clothing he wore. The man was wearing all black, with a black cloak covering up most of his body and a long black headband that went down to his back, behind his head. His dark brown hair, which also went down to about his back, the only part of his face other than his eyes that was visible, due to a mask he was wearing on his face. "W-who are you?" Deckard starts taking a few steps back quickly. "I'm exactly who you think I am. I'm a bandit, but I can assure you I mean you no harm Deckard." Deckard stops moving as soon as his name is heard, suddenly listening more intently and becoming more interested in who the man was.

    "My name is Kaneas. I can't go into much more detail about who I am right now, but I might tell you at some other time. Right now, the important thing is to get out of here quickly before those other bandits come back. Here, take this." The man opens his cloak up for a moment and tosses Deckard a sheathed long sword. "You know how to use one of those, right?” he says as he turns around and begins to run. Deckard hesitates for a moment before following the mysterious man through the forest. The two of them swiftly make their way through the forest until Kaneas suddenly stops, causing Deckard to do the same. "I'll be right back. Stay here." Deckard looks at Kaneas as the man quickly disappears into the shadows without giving him much time to react. Almost instantly after he is gone, there are 5 male screams heard. Without even thinking, Deckard runs in the direction of the screams. "Who the hell- aaagghh!" a sixth man is suddenly cut by Kaneas in an instant. "W-what's going on?!" Deckard shouts loudly, suddenly drawing attention to him.

    "I told you to stay put damnit!” Kaneas yells at him angrily. On the ground near them were the six dead bodies of bandits. "You've just alerted the others to where we are now! What the hell were you thinking, shouting like that?! Come on, we have to run!” Kaneas speaks without hesitation and quickly begins to run again. "W-who the hell is that guy, he killed six bandits in 13 seconds? H-how...?" Deckard looks at the dead bodies before finally starting to run as well. After a few more minutes of running, the two of them finally come out of the forest, where a group of 14 bandits were awaiting them. "Damn...” Kaneas says softly. "Kaneas hand over the boy and I'll make sure my men only cut off a limb or two.” the largest one in the center of the others threatens loudly.

    Kaneas stands straight up and closes his eyes for a moment, muttering something silently. Suddenly, a burst of wind begins to surround him, making his cloak flutter up slightly in the air around him. In a swift movement too quick for the human eye to even fathom being able to see, Kaneas is behind the group of bandits, and 13 of them are on the ground, with cross-shaped slashes through their bodies. The leader of them was missing from the group, nowhere to be seen or heard. Kaneas turns around quickly, suddenly realizing the leader wasn't hit by his attack. "DECKARD! Look out behind you!" Deckard turns around and jumps away from the leader as quickly as he can, barely managing to escape the wide slash that reaches his chest and leaves a small cut. "A-agghhh." Deckard continues to step away from the bandit, until he is suddenly unable to move. A bright white aura suddenly surrounds him and both bandits turn away and cover their eyes in reaction. "Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!" Deckard screams loudly for a long time. After a minute, the white aura disperses and he collapses onto the ground, unconscious. "Tch. Damn… thought for sure I could kill him. You've won this time Kaneas, but I won't stop until he's dead. I have a contract to fulfill.” the bandit jumps backwards into the forest quickly and disappears into the shadows. Kaneas slowly relaxes and sighs for a moment before heading over to Deckard and slinging him over his shoulder. "I didn't think this job would be so damn difficult.” he sighs again as he speaks and begins running off away from the village and the forest.

    When Deckard finally comes to again, he was laying on a bed inside a room he had never seen before. He quickly jumps out of the bed, throwing the sheets off with him. After looking around quickly, he begins running to the door and attempts to open it. As he does, the door slams open and the end of the door hits him hard in the chest, knocking him down onto the ground. "I thought that you were making all that noise. You should be resting; yesterday's incident should've taken quite a toll on your body." Deckard coughs for a moment before quickly standing up and speaking loudly, "Yesterday's?! What are you talking about?! I barely even remem-" he stops his own words short as he remembers the bright white light that came from his own body. "I see you remember. Have a seat and I'll explain the situation to you." Deckard walks over to the bed and sits down, a confused yet serious look on his face.

    "You already know my name, so I guess I'll explain why I was able to move like I did last night. I belong to a hidden class of society known as a Martial Sorcerer. Basically, I'm a Sorcerer that combines magic with Martial Arts. There aren't many of us, as it requires a great deal of training and magic potential. The bandit leader you saw last night is also a Martial Sorcerer. His name is Toren Falsted, and he's more of a mercenary than a bandit to be honest. Now I bet you are probably wondering why it is that a mercenary was after you, a normal farm boy." Kaneas pauses for a moment. "You believe your name to be Deckard Syrus. Your real name was hidden in order to keep you safe until the right time came. Your real father was Terrus Lightfall and you are his son, Deckard Lightfall. He was one of the greatest Martial Sorcerer until shortly after you were born. His best friend, Maximus Farien killed him in cold blood while he was asleep in his own home. At the same time, you were already in the hands of Ganon Syrus, the man who raised you. Your mother died giving birth to you, and with your father being the person he was it was obvious that he wouldn't be able to raise you properly so he decided to put you in the hands of someone who could. It was something he decided not only to protect you, but to prevent you from taking on the same life that he did."

    Kaneas sits down in a chair after pausing again for another moment. "The white aura you saw yesterday is the proof that you are Terrus' son. It's something rare, even among us, the Martial Sorcerers. There are six elements in this world that control the foundation of magic. Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Dark, Light, and out of those elements Dark and Light are the rarest ones to find. Not only are those two elements rare, but they are also very unique. Most sorcerers can't only use one element to cast magic with. However, a sorcerer who can use Light or Dark magic can also use one more element. The type of element is something that must be found out by practicing for a long time. Since you are the son of Terrus, my first assumption would be that you are also capable of controlling the Earth element. Unfortunately, your mother was capable of controlling Air magic, and that makes it a lot more difficult to determine what your second element is. Fire is defeated by Water, Water is defeated by Earth, Earth is defeated by Air, and Air is defeated by Fire. Are you still with me so far?" Kaneas asks suddenly.

    "So basically, my parents had opposing elements..." Deckard mutters softly. "I still don't quite get everything, and I'm not sure I can even begin to believe you. But I guess that light is proof that I'm not normal. I've always been aware that I wasn't Ganon's son, but I thought my parents were ordinary still..." Kaneas chuckles softly, "Well, you're taking this quite well, despite what happened. I was hired to-" Deckard slams his fist against the wall hard. "Taking this quite well?! My parents are dead, and my best friend is missing somewhere!?" he stands up and continues his rant angrily, "Where is Estelle?! Where is she?!" he suddenly grabs Kaneas by the collar and pulls him up out of the chair. "Calm down for a moment, acting like that won't get either of us anywhere. Besides, you were the only one I found. For all we know she's probably been kidnapped by Toren and dead by now." Deckard grits his teeth at Kaneas' words and throws him against the wall. "I'm only telling you the truth of what I think." Kaneas says while straightening his collar. 'Although it is possible that his aura might have actually healed her as well... There was way too much blood for just one person to have been injured.' Kaneas thinks to himself, in order to prevent himself from giving Deckard any ideas.

    "I'm leaving." Deckard says as he suddenly walks towards the door. "You can leave after you best me in a duel." Kaneas steps in front of him. "Fine.", Deckard replies, his anger still clearly showing on his face. With that, the two of them went outside and faced each other. Deckard quickly looked around to get a grasp of his surrounding and also looked for anything he could use to his advantage. He already knew that the person he was up against was extremely fast, so this all boiled down to a contest of strength. Kaneas closes his eyes, mutters a few sets of words and a short moment later the gust of wind surrounds him again. At the same time, Deckard picks up a wooden pole from nearby and thrusts it at him while he is chanting. In less than a second before the pole would've hit, Kaneas is suddenly gone from sight and the pole breaks apart into hundreds of tiny little pieces. In that same, single motion, Deckard had collapsed onto the ground and it was obvious that the duel was over before it even began. "When you're ready to begin your training, I'll be inside." Kaneas heads into the house, leaving Deckard on the ground panting. "D-damn...I couldn't even... do anything...” he says with some difficulty as he tries to catch his breath.”Estelle... I'm sorry, I couldn't... I couldn't protect you."

    After resting in the dirt for a good while and thinking about the fight step by step, Deckard finally goes inside the house. "You use wind to power your movement. Then, you create dozens of tiny little gusts around yourself with the strength of a tornado to cut things." Kaneas, who was eating at the time, slowly puts down his food and cleans his mouth off. "Impressive, after only seeing my technique twice you were able to discern what I was doing. Except for you are off by a few things. The number of gusts I used just now wasn't a mere few 'dozen'. It was a few hundred. Of course, that is only a basic technique for me but it works so efficiently that I don't need to over-exert myself for the average fighter." Deckard's eyes grow wide when the word 'hundreds' is spoken to him. Surely, this man was tough, but did he really have such precision over his magic that he was able to create that many small gusts? "Oh that's right I forgot. Earlier, you said you thought you had died. And then I told you that you did die." Deckard's eyes widen even more, suddenly remembering everything about that part of the previous day.

    "Your power is uncontrollable right now. You got lucky by being able to activate it during the fight with Toren. Although I was too late to prevent you from dying, it seems that your magic is even stronger than I was originally led to believe. It is so powerful in fact, that it was even able to resurrect you from the dead, after you had already died. You were dead for at least 30 seconds when I found you. If your friend truly is alive, you are probably going to need to learn how to control that power of yours if you want to save her. Of course, that is bearing in mind that she isn't already dead, and that she is indeed in need of saving. I told you to come inside when you were ready to train, but you took longer than I expected. So instead, I'll start training you how to control your power first thing in the morning. Have your fill of food and get some rest, you are going to need to be at your best tomorrow." Deckard sighs for a moment when Kaneas finishes talking and then begins to eat until he became full. After eating, he returns to the room he woke up in and lies down on the bed looking up at the ceiling.

    "Magic." he closes his eyes as he begins to think. His thoughts kept shifting back to when he and Estellise were stabbed, unable to get away from the thoughts of her being dead. He wasn't quite sure what really happened, but she wasn't there when he woke up. That had to have some meaning to something. He moved his hand up towards the necklace around his neck, the one he had worn every single day since a little more than 2 years ago. He slowly gripped his fingers around it tightly, trying to keep from recklessly trying to run away from the house where he was now at. He was barely able to get away from Toren's first attack, which probably wasn't an attack where he even exerted much effort into making. Assuming that Toren was on an even level with Kaneas, the first thing that he had to do was become strong enough to fight on even ground with Kaneas. After accomplishing that task, then and only then could he hope to be able to look for Estellise safely and be able to protect her. His thoughts slowly became less and less and soon fell asleep for the night. Kaneas slowly walks in through the open door in Deckard's room. "I still can't believe you inherited his ability to use light magic...” he sighs for a moment as he leans against the door frame.”I'll have to keep my real identity a secret from him at all costs." he says silently as he closes the door and heads into his own room.