Dark Age Legends

[D. Ein]

The skies were turbulent. Celer, Ogen and Leto went outside to check it out. There were red lightnings everywhere; winds were high. No sign of the sun. Then they heard someone from the direction of the cave. Turning around, they saw Leaven helping Iban come out of the opening.
-"Is it done?", Celer whispered.
-"No, my friend. It has not even begun."
Iban then sort of pushed Felix away, and said something. Three diciples carrying a large open coffin-like structure with a staff in it showed up. Iban picked up the staff.
-"This planet has served it's purpose. We should have all died the second the portal to Hell was opened. Mankind has outlived it's alotted time to live."
The Iron Wing kneeled as Iban raised his staff. Suddenly, a red beam from the skies shone upon him. He slowly started rising in the air.
The staff, which resembled a red wooden stick with a claw-like formation holding a black gem on the top, started glowing. Iban stopped rising, and looked down. A huge red lightning struck his staff, branching off and striking Ogen, Leto and Celer.
-"Felix, my son... I've known you for far too long to just let you die. Step into the light, and be saved..."
Leaven was motionless. Iban shook his head.
-"As you wish."
He pointed the staff to the ground. It made a long humming noise, after which it shot out a red ghostlike skull. It hit the ground and went in deeper.
-"There is still time, Felix... come..."
Leaven still stayed on the spot. As much as he wanted to, he could not move. It was as though he was but a beholder from his own body. He could not control it. Could not move. Could not scream. Could not breathe.
Iban's face showed a few marks of sadness.
-"Very well... Goodbye."
In a blinding red flash, he disappeared into the skies. Suddenly, large beams started coming out of the ground, destroying everything in their path. One, two, three... Then they all combined into one gigantic one, and exploded.
From space, Iban saw the small blue dot emit a bright red flash, and blow to pieces, creating a supernova-like explosion in process.

-"Gospodin Leaven, are you all right...?"
Leaven woke up in cold sweat. He looked around; he was on the table where he last remembered enjoying his drink.
-"Damn, I must've passed out..."

--- --- ---

Ein yelled over to Marshal:
-"Hey! Kill those last ones off, and get on! The fortress is getting away, we're not letting it do that!"

[Dude Man]

Marshal gave the 'okay' sign to Ein. The blue cloud then formed into a small blue dragon. He then hopped onto the dragon. "Now let's see what you can do!"

He flue the dragon towards the remaining wyverns. He fired his gun rapidly at them, killing off many of them. He then reloaded his gun, as the wyverns flue closer. The dragon then fired a blast of flame at them, killing three and the rest flue off in fright.

Marshal then flue his dragon closer to the Leviathan. "I'll stay with this. Let's just catch up with that castle."

----

Abodahon then growled as the smokescreen flue at him. He then narrowed his eyes, and blinked a few times. "He's getting away." The demon snapped. He then flapped his wings and then surrounded himself in a dark aura, to increase his speed, and then flue after Draven.

----

Duilin and Rink began to go there way towards the guest quarters, but then noticed all the sick people get up and begin walking off.

"What the shit!?" Rink exclaimed

"Were are they going?" Duilin asked

"Let's find out."

The two of them stepped outside, and found them all swarming towards Ven and calling out his name.

"Uh oh..." Duilin groaned. He then began to charge up a fireball.

"No! Don't!" Rink snapped, jumping in front of Duilin. "They're still just innocent people. They're probably under some strange trance."

"Well, what else can we do?"

"Umm..."

----

"Oohh--"

Valos swings his head to the side, as Zion's foot smacks him in the face. He then swings a horizontal slash with his sword at his adversary.

-----

//Um, Ein, the elite's use gauntlets, but okay. Maybe some can also have swords, They'll be similar to Valos' but smaller. Good work Ein!\\

Darak then ran at the elite reading to attack Steorra. He swung his axe at him, as it stuck right into the shaded warrior. He then ripped his axe out and the elite fell to the ground. He then helped Steorra up. "Looks like that was the last one..."

He then rolled the dead elite over and looked at the symbol on the chest of his uniform. "That symbol. It's like the one tattooed on Valos' forehead. Remember, that general with the purple glow from earlier?"

He then examined it for a wile. "It's looks like a bird talon making a cut..." He then rubbed his chin, and thought for a moment.

[Haraldur]

Melkoth cursed, and made a note to himself to get some clay darts in the future.

He entered the smoke, and just carried on through it. When he was on the other side, he then saw that he was quite far from Draven. He flew towards Draven and accelerated in order to catch up.

____________________________________________________________________

Quintus laughed at the little man on the roof shouting. He chucked two vibration orbs at the man: if they did not kill the man, they would at least destroy the roof he was on, making the roof tiles and beams shake themselves to pieces.

____________________________________________________________________

Tesla quickly let his mind energy flow to his plasma gun. The strike went right through the gun with no effect other than to send a psychic shock up the weapon towards Hans, which could potentially cause his brain to flow out of his ears. A trick Haraldur had taught him.

"No, weapons can just be useful sometimes."

From his hand, lightning went forth, and he thrust his hand in Hans' face, so that as many as possible of the lightning sparks would hit the man. He then shot at Julian with his plasma rifle.

Haraldur said, "Ignore him, Durruti, he is just stalling us!"

He then threw down a torus (donut) shaped space warp at the barrier. When the warp made contact, the barrier was curled around it, spinning faster and faster through the hole and around the inside, releasing a lot of light as the barrier's energy was sapped, and forming a hole in the middle of the "donut".

Haraldur's aura went through the hole in a very high concentration, forcing the chrystal's aura back into the chrystal, making the chrystal vibrate as if about to explode...

At the same time, Haraldur threw a lava ball inside the barrier.

Durruti saw the hole appear in the barrier, and smiled as he thought of what an explosion in that confined space would do, if the barrier was strong enough. He dropped two dynamite fuses onto the lava ball (when it was inside the barrier). They detonated. If the barrier was strong, then the pressure change inside would be sufficient to literally "splat" even a magically advanced human, let alone a normal person.

[Kahn]

"I found him."

Hyperion looked towards the direction he could sense Draven was in. Until recently he forgot he was still poisoned and if not healed, would soon succumb. As a first test of his new ability he transformed into hawk and flew towards Draven.

[Zeros']

From outside, Zeros' saw the mob shout and scream Ven's name. His eyes narrowed, as he phased out of view. He ghosted himself rapidly towards Ven, and reached him in seconds. He grabbed the slightly shorter man by the back of his armor, and jumped into the air, as the mob reached Ven's position. He flapped his wings, and kept them suspended in the air.

"I knew something was fishy..." he muttered, while holding Ven up higher then the mob could reach, flapping his black wings lightly, easily able to hold Ven in the air.

[Xorlak]

Draven saw the glow of the floating crimson palace far in the distance...  Closer, he was able to sense the auras of multiple attackers...

If he were actually trying to escape, a few tricks came to mind.  But by now it would be obvious that he was trying to reach the palace, so he simply continued on.

Eh, they'll just be first...

----

"Vennnn..."

The crowd grew under Zeros' and Ven futilely jumping up and down, hands reaching in the air.

"Vennn!!"

Ven hung in the air embarrassedly.

"Blast it!  Mavas...  They touched the pendant...  They share his curse..."

"Curse?"

Edward was standing on one of the roofs, only visible now that the two were in the air.

"Ven, you put it in such a negative way..."

He unfolded his arms, revealing a glowing red pendant around his chest...

"The rule is, you touch it, you're mine..."

His body grew taller, his green cloak morphing into Mavas' black armor...

Ven clenched his teeth.

"Why!?  Why must you involve them!?"

"Always with the questions, Ven.  I will show you..."

His glance shot up to meet Zeros'.

"... if you would be so kind as to release him...  Or if you prefer, there is an alternative..."

The villagers stopped their chanting and most of them pulled out knives and swords.  They then held the blades to their necks...

"How much blood does the human body contain, anyway?  With that many, I'd bet it'd be a small river... Myeh heh heh..."

Ven's eyes widened in terror.

"NOOOO!!!!"

"Gah ha ha ha!!!"

"Do it... Drop me..."

----

Hector leapt from the roof as it collapsed.  His forces dwindling and blinded with rage himself, a red aura engulfed the man as he took to the sky after Quintus.

He removed a rod some three feet in length from his belt, holding in the center with his right hand as he closed in on his target.  Both ends flashed red as a thin crimson blade extended from each end, some three feet each.  He spun the dual-blade once and slammed one end down towards his target upon reaching his altitude...

----

"GRAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"

Rufus dashed forward, dispersing his barrier and forcing all of his weight in to a forward punch into the magma ball as the dynamite connected with the ball.  It only took a fraction of a second for the dynamite to explode, but he punched it so hard that the mass was several feet back by the time it went off.

A flash of light and fire engulfed the platform, but the crystal seemed to be okay...

Suddenly, a wall of ice shot up on the platform separating the 1/4th that Haraldur was standing on from Rufus and the crystal on the other side.

"IDIOT!"

James flew in from Haraldur's left, his normally calm demeanor now melted to a worried expression.

"Do you have ANY IDEA what would happen if that crystal cracks NOW?!"

Moving to Haraldur's front, he extended his right hand as moisture in the air crystallized before him.  Thin long streams of ice shot forth, the first ones too low, penetrating the metal platform floor like paper at Haraldur's feet, and moving upward...

Julian swore at his mistake... no time at all...  But his energy was gathered, and now was the time to use it.  Haraldur should have been his target due to him being the strongest... but Durruti's explosives were the largest threat to the crystal, plus he was a better target farther away from the platform...

Julian brough his right first skyward.  Darkness surrounded Durruti as an enormous crackle of Dark Thunder shot at him from both above and below...


Hans faltered from the shock to both his mind and body.

"Argh!"

He zigzagged in the air, losing altitude and crashing into a tall tree below...


The hairline crack that formed in the giant black crystal was unnoticeable...  It's aura continued to grow... a vortex appearing in the clouds above...

----

In a land of endless flames, a million pairs of yellow eyes turned skyward at the point  of light forming...

[Trent]

Aura sighed, and followed Allen into the forest. She couldn't help but wonder what Allen was thinking about, though it was probably of little importance.

--- --- ---

Zion was in a very bad position for the slash. Eternity Weapon was way out of the way, and he had just finished the kick. He could do nothing but roll away from it, but he still got clipped, drawing blood. He rolled backwards, onto his feet, and waited for Valos to come.

[Haraldur]

Melkoth went up behind Draven and threw several clay containers at Draven, to crash into him and his aura. These containers contained liquid nitrogen, and so would react violently with the hot flames of the aura.

____________________________________________________________________

Quintus dodged the red blade and threw two more vibration orbs at him to try to shake him to pieces.

Below him, his soldier started shooting arrows at the man with the red aura.

____________________________________________________________________

Haraldur said to James, "No, I have no idea. Please enlighten me as to what would happen and to what its original purpose is before I finish destroying it, if it is that important to you."

Skipping past the flying ice shards as he walked through the air, he threw two ball lightnings at the orb, wondering what intense heat would do.

Realising that the attack on him would set off his explosives, Durruti shielded himself, and then moved near to the chystal, dragging the Dark Thunder along with him. Just before the attack hit him in his new position, he used a random short range teleport, and appeared above Hans' tree. He used the opportunity to drop a small charge of dynamite on the prone man.

However, his teleport had left some of his explosives there, unshielded, quite near the chrystal. They detonated, with the chrystal receiving the full force of the shaped charge, held in its place by telekinetic force.

Tesla summoned two large winged wolves that would now harass both Julian and Rufus (who was further away). While Rufus' wolf travelled towards him (but still out of range of the explosion) Julian's jumped and lunged for the throat, its wings flapping in order to help knock the man down by proving more force.

Note: These attacks hit in the order as written, except for the one on Hans, which is just after the detonation of the explosive.

[Zeros']

Zeros' sighed, and dropped Ven from the air, knowing the man could land on his feet. Zeros' righted himself in the air, and crossed his arms, making sure his hands went behind his arms, hiding them from view.

Behind his arms, Zeros' hands moved rapidly forming seals.

---

Allen looked back at Aura, as he lead them through the forest. He wondered himself, where they were going. He dodged another tree root from the ground, which, seemed to premiate this place, as he continued into the darkness.

[Trent]

"These things seem annoying. Allen, let me lead. Just tell me where to go." She walked in front, starting to cut away at the annoying roots.

[Dude Man]

Valos then grinned. He spun his sword around and then dashed towards Zion, giving a mighty swing of the sword towards his opponent.

----

Abodahon still kept on the trail of Draven. "Draven seems to be moving a little to quick for my tastes." He then raised his right arm, and a light blue spiral formed around it. He then pointed his fist towards Draven and blasted the spiral at him. If it hit the target correctly his movements would be slowed down.

----

"Holy crap." Duilin exclaimed. "It's Mavas."

"Something's going on. Quick let's get over there!" Rink yelled, as he jumped into the air and flue towards the scene.

Duilin flapped his wings and then flue off, passing Rink and arriving near by Mavas and Zeros'. His position would result in making a triangle, with the tree. He took out his mace. "What's going on?!" He asked demandingly.

[Trent]

Zion swung his sword to connect with Valos's, and parried it away. He quickly snapped a kick up toward Valos's face.

[D. Ein]

//anyone miss me?\\

Leaven walked around a bit, clearing his head.
-"Ughhh..."
The same man that was with him earlier came over.
-"Ah brother, not be doin' too good, are we? Try some readin', it be help."
-"You already suggested something that "be help". It didn't turn out very helpful, to my memory. Then again, you have a point."
He turned around, and walked out of the kitchen.
Walking through a pathway lit by torches, he reached the central area. He came to one of the walls near the area, and took out a book that was sitting on one of the panels. He opened it at a random page.

Iban, once an overly powerful mage
Then later became an all-knowing sage.
He form'ed a cult, called the Nightshade
Consisting of people begging his aide.

So lived the Nightshade in peace and their pleasure
'Till four youngsters came looking for treasure.
They were indeed an odd little bunch
But Iban let THEM in; he had a strange hunch.

Ogen and Celer, Leto and Leaven
All the four kids were basically even.
They each had a power deep in their hearts
And it was indeed not dealing cards.

Celer the gale, a fast little bugger
Could have any quick mugger.
However, as soon as he saw a much stronger man
He looked for a small road and he ran and he ran and he ra-

Felix threw the book down.
-"Argh, who writes this crap?!"
He then took out another book, this time actually reading what was on the cover. The book was titled, in a neat cursive writing, "Recordings of the Oracle". Ah yes, he thought, the Oracle. Everyone had a bit of trouble with their futures that were told. The problem was not of the futures themselves; it was extracting information from the mystic language the Oracle spoke in. Leaven opened the first page.

User: Holthion C.
Date: Yanvar 46, 6943.
Prophecy:
"-We won't lose hate the night we walk in the light reflection."
Possible translation: Love awaits you when you join the cult.[/i]
Fulfilled: Yes.

=== === ===

User: Voda H.
Date: Fevral 34, 6943.
Prophecy:
"-Life hurries us in our tenth friendship."
Possible translation: Your death is soon.[/i]
Fulfilled: Yes.

=== === ===

User: Leto T. M.
Date: Ijun 21, 6944.
Prophecy:
"-We will lose an entity in the next's bed."
Possible translation: Be on the lookout for a date.[/i]
Fulfilled: No.

Leaven put down the book, and looked straight ahead of him. His head was buzzing.
-"What the hell...? Leto already went. I think I should try it out sometime, too."

--- --- ---

Steorra came closer to Darak.
-"Oh? And what would this mean...? Oh wait. Does this somehow include the gentleman with the white hair in this battle in some special way?"

--- --- ---

Ein nodded to Marshal, and rolled ahead in his machine.
-"If these fools think they can get away that easily, they are WRONG!"

[Zeros']

Allen looked at Aura as she stepped out infront.

"It's simple. Just keep heading straight, until you can see a light," he said, walking behind Aura as she chopped down the vines.

[Dude Man]

Valos swung his left hand up and grabbed Zion's foot. "Stop trying to kick me in the face..." He then twisted his foot, either resulting in hurting his foot quite badly or causing Zion to fall over.

----

Marshal nodded in agreement. "Yeeaah." He called to his dragon, and they flue faster towards the floating palace.

----

"Perhaps..." Darak replied. "I wouldn't be surprised. He is highly into demonic worship. I heard rumours that he sometimes drinks human blood." He then thought for a moment. "A half demonic...ally of mine, wouldn't call him a friend, named Duilin, was constantly being pushed by Valos to allow his demonic side take over..."

He then rubbed his chin, as he thought more and looked at the symbol. "Talonscar...Duilin's last name was Talonscar...that symbol looks like it would mean 'Talonscar'. Quite odd, perhaps they are related or something."

Darak then looked at Steorra. "Or perhaps, this Talonscar is some sort of cult, in league with the Grey Empire. I bet Valos and Duilin are spies!"

He then looked around a bit. "Steorra, I'm familiar with how your magic abilities work, but I don't know how to use them. So I know you can detect auras. Can you detect if Valos is near by?"