Still not done with his assault, Matt moves on to the Magician, back on his feet with a chest wound pumping out darkening energy, and is in mid-leap with his sword above his head between both hands. Just as the Magician looks up with terror in his eyes, the black blade chops through him, causing a line to appear with gushing wound energy to show where he was split in half.
As the man falls over backwards, demorphing when he meets the grass, Matt glances to his left to see the Axman has recovered from the shock of the gun shot through his right eye and is upon him, his ax swinging toward him. Raising his own blade to parry the ax’s edge, Matt then does a quick spin, his sword’s point lashing outward and slicing a long streak of yellow energy in the Axman’s waist, before letting his sword fade out and gathering magic in his right hand.
Once the Axman looks away from his shallow wound to the Blastion sphere in Matt’s hand, he shoves it into him, and the resulting explosion sends the Axman’s whole torso flying through the air. Reddening wound energy sprays out of him as he bounces across the ground until a bullet from Matt’s left-armed rifle nails him in the chest, forcing his demorph.
After demolishing his third enemy, Matt turns back to Ryan, hobbling himself towards him on his right leg and air balance as he growls, “This isn’t over, you dirty son of a…”
Ryan fails to finish his cuss when Matt’s rifle fires a bullet through his neck, the pin-point shot rupturing his throat and causing him to gag while the wound spits out darkening yellow energy. The expression on Ryan’s face finally twisting from anger to fear as he struggles to stay up on his good leg, Matt puts away his rifle while crackling volts of purple electricity run down his left arm. When Ryan again falls over onto his back, Matt raises his hand outward while calling out his spell’s name:
“Voltzen Fury.”
The dark sparks of electricity jump from Matt’s arm onto Ryan’s body, which flails and twitches wildly as the volts surge through him. Making disgruntled screams and cries of agony from the electrocution, Ryan can do nothing as the spell zaps him, inflicting multiple wounds all over him and widening his chest and neck wounds with bursts of depleting energy, until the violet volts mingle with red wound energy and he finally demorphs, the flash of red ending Matt’s spell and leaving the normal Ryan yet twitching on the ground.
***
Once Ryan’s body stops twitching, he looks up at his conqueror still in morph, his black armor an ominous hue and his violet eyes glaring down at him. Scrambling back onto his feet, he gets out, “You’re sick, man, you’re a sick freak!” before running off into the open fields away from the scene, followed by the other three men. Watching them leave for a moment, Matt sighs before demorphing and resuming his walk back towards the cabins.
To his curiosity, Matt notices that the other students who watched the skirmish unfold are awe-struck and murmuring to themselves as they scatter, casting him fleeting looks of fear much like the one Ryan had. Rather than bothering himself about it, Matt ignores their behavior as he continues on his way back to his cabin, again thinking about his peculiar situation with Lyn and her lady escorts.
Chapter 3
Meet the Enemy
***
The next day, whether he is in his classes diligently working, walking through the halls in between classes, or passing through the cafeteria on his way to lunch, Matt notices something odd and disturbing. It seems like all the other students around him, from the freshmen like him to even some of the seniors, are afraid of him as they would stay away from him or send fearful or scornful looks at him in quick glances. While through the most of the day it was a faint, nagging feeling of uneasiness for him, it becomes a painful blow when in gym he and the rest of his class are randomly paired to spar with each other in battle morphs. But, instead of fighting him, the student he is supposed to fight begs Professor Serpanz to not fight him. Narrowing her dark eyes at the student, she tells him, “There are no exceptions or excuses in my class, Roger. I thought I made that clear to everyone the first day of school.”
“Bu-but, you, you don’t understand!” Roger explains to her in hushed tones, trying in vain not to make a scene as the other freshmen gather to watch. “The-there’s something not right about him, I, I can’t fight him! I won’t stand a chance, he’ll slaughter me!”
“If he won’t slaughter you, then I will,” Serpanz remarks, making the other freshmen cringe. “You can go ahead and simply spar with him, or I’m going to make you so miserable you’re going to wish you had sparred instead. Either way, you’re going to suffer, apparently. But I would really recommend sparring with Matt.”
“No, no, please, don’t make me do it!” Roger whimpers, casting a frightened look at a hurt Matt. “I’ll do anything, anything but fight his…”
“One hundred push-ups.”
“Huh?”
“Get your face on the ground and give me one hundred push-ups, out of your battle morph. Now!” Jumping a little at her command, he drops to the floor and begins the gauntlet of push-ups, already struggling to do them after just five. Serpanz’ glare cuts through the other freshmen as she asks, “And what are you all looking at? I didn’t hear any of you fighting. Morph and spar!”
As the other freshmen, including Sean and Rose, jolt from her sharp tone and scatter across the arena for their respective match-ups, Serpanz walks past the straining Roger to address Matt in a more respectful manner. “Sorry about your partner suddenly having cold feet, but don’t let that make you think you’re excused from the exercise.”
“Oh, no, of course not, Professor! But, who am I going to spar, then?”
“Me. No guns, no magic.” Before Matt can respond, she enters a brown flash of light before appearing as a large Snake, her scales copper-colored, her serpentine body long and thick, and her head full of knife-sized, arrowhead-sharp fangs as she hisses at him and curves her neck for a striking position.
While the other freshmen are supposed to be fighting each other, they morphed before turning back, spread around the arena, to watch their professor’s morph in action as she feints a lightning-fast strike at Matt, making him fall backwards and gasp with surprise on his face. In the next instant, Matt gets into his battle mentality and morphs, drawing his black sword from his left arm and lunging back at Serpanz, who swiftly slides away on her scales out of the way, slithering over a freaked-out Roger and making him jump up and run away.
Matt and Serpanz circle the other for their sparring match with his sword between his hands and her tongue flicking out between her jaws. Matt makes the next move as he uses air balance to whip himself into a whirlwind, holding his blade outward, and sends himself at her, hoping to whack or hack through her. Serpanz counters him when she slips by under his rotations and wraps herself around him, binding him up tightly and crushing him in her constricting coils.
While Matt struggles against her entangled embrace with wound energy spitting out from between her scaled length, she raises her head, her jaws wide open and lined with sharp teeth, and bites down through his neck, the whiplash of her teeth ripping out of him with a spraying stream of yellow energy from his wounds. Growling from being outmatched so easily and gargling on the darkening wound energy escaping his throat, Matt demorphs as it bleeds red, releasing him from Serpanz’ bind and having her drop to the floor with her body forming a ring around him.
As he staggers on his feet, finding his body sore all over from the crushing constriction beforehand, Matt is startled when Serpanz demorphs next to him, standing beside him after the flash of light and brushing some of her hair back with her hand. Then noticing that the freshmen had all watched their spar, she sighs before saying, “Alright, since all of you have yet to spar, I will take a moment to give you a quick and important lesson. As you undoubtedly observed, I defeated Matt here in a close-combat sparring. Can anyone tell me how it turned out that way?”
When the most of the freshmen are hesitant to dare answer her, Rose raises her hand and says, “If I may, Professor,
you were able to easily outmaneuver Matt’s sword techniques with your quick agility and then immobilize him in your coils, where you weakened him in a constriction and then delivered a vital wound through his neck to drain out the rest of his health energy.”
“That is correct, Rose. In case any of you are unaware of the term, a vital wound is a wound inflicted upon an Alkalian in battle morph that is so deep in him or placed within a weak spot of the morph’s form, for example a humanoid’s neck, that it will lose further energy at a gradual rate, quickened by further uses of energy from the Alkalian, as long as he remains in morph. Also, the more severe the vital wound appears, the greater the rate of health lost. Where one would be decapitated, split in half, or just blown apart if they weren’t in morph, the damage is compensated in morph with a rapid loss of health.
“So, that is how I took down Matt so quickly. With one bite to rip open the vital region of his neck, his health energy, already lowered by my constriction, quickly descended to the red zone and he had to demorph.” Pausing a moment to let the information sink in her students, she then asks, “And can anyone tell me why I defeated him like that?”
When no one, even Rose, could give her an answer, she explains, “Because I wanted to show any who would watch – as you all did – how one doesn’t need special powers or abilities to outmatch his opponent. It isn’t just about what powers he can use, but also about how he uses them, and where he places them in his foe. That is how I was capable of defeating Matt, who was well protected with plate armor from my fangs, with a single bite.”
While some of the freshmen nod in understanding, Jordan raises his hand and says, “But, uh, Professor, you didn’t let Matt use his guns or magic, just his sword. That put him at a great disadvantage against you.”
“That may be true, Jordan, but that didn’t mean he was completely helpless against me. I didn’t use my own arsenal of spells, either, and it’s not impossible for a slower fighter to win against the faster one. Am I right, Matt?” After Matt nods, she continues, “So, the important point here is that, no matter what kind of powers one may have, they can still be defeated by a coordinated combination of techniques to hit his weak spots and leave vital wounds on him. Therefore, I don’t want to hear anymore of you all being afraid to face Matt here in a spar. Even though he has his own kind of special powers, you can still have a chance of harming and defeating him. Do you all understand?”
After the freshmen nod or say “Yes, Professor,” Serpanz waves them off with her hand and says, “Now, you may all spar.” She turns to Matt, tells him, “You may rest for a few minutes before we spar again,” and whips a sharp glare at Roger to remind him, “And you still owe me ninety push-ups.” He miserably gets back on the ground to resume the punishing workout while everyone else begins their spars.
***
Once gym class ends and the students are changed and departing, Matt, despite his fellow freshmen somewhat more tolerable to his presence, if only because they are more afraid of Serpanz than him, again feels forsaken and tabooed amongst the other students as they avoid him in the halls. Trying not to show he notices or cares about it, he slowly makes his way through the large entrance doors and out of the building, only to cause gathered groups of students to scatter like flocks of birds away from him before resuming their chatter. Feeling awful about their behavior towards him, he spots one figure nearby who hasn’t reacted in alarm to his presence. Instead, Dante Goros keeps his pose in the shadow of the building, leaning against the wall while smoking and appearing oblivious to all around him. Forgetting concern for himself, Matt comes over to him and asks, “Uh, hey, Dante. Are you feeling better, from before?”
Taking the cigarette from his mouth to puff out a wisp of smoke, Dante nods and says, “Fully recovered, Matt. As I said, nothing but a flesh wound.”
“Oh, that’s good, then! And, again, I’m sorry for the overboard strike to finish you off, I didn’t mean to harm you that much.”
“No apology is necessary. In the heat of battle, one can easily become carried away and do more than they need.” Dropping his cigarette to rub it out, he then tells Matt, “By the way, you’re a Dark Warrior.”
“…I’m a what?”
“A Dark Warrior. That’s the reason why your attacks seem so powerful and do much more damage against others’ morphs than they should. And…” He gestures to the people yet casting uneasy or scornful looks at Matt from behind him. “That’s why everyone is now so afraid of you.”
“Huh. Okay. But, why? Why are they so afraid of me, just because I’m a Dark Warrior?”
“Well, there can be a number of reasons for that. They are afraid of someone who’s different from them. The history and reputation Dark Warriors have. Or the jealousy of the powers of a Dark Warrior. Any one of those can be a factor.”
“No kidding? Hmm. What kind of history or reputation do Dark Warriors have, then?”
Raising an eye brow, Dante asks him, “You really don’t know about Dark Warriors?”
“No, I’ve never heard of them.”
“Hah, well, that’s interesting. In that case, I probably shouldn’t be the one to tell you about that. You could go look it up in the library, or ask somebody you’re more comfortable with about it.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Good. Well, I’ll leave you to that, and be on my way.” He starts walking away from him until he turns around. “Oh, and Matt. You can be sure that, despite what others think, I am neither afraid nor hateful of you. Rather, you may count me as an acquaintance to call upon for a favor when you need it. I’m sure you will need it, sooner or later.” Strolling down the path towards the cabins, Dante leaves Matt blinking and rattled by things he apparently knows nothing of, but everyone else does.
***
Later that night, Matt is in his cabin room, sitting upon his bed and deep in thought. He has not told Sean or Rose of his encounter with Dante yet as they were busy with Sean’s homework and then ate dinner. Sean had left the cabin for some reason of his own, and Rose was getting ready for bed. Matt has already changed into black pajamas and could use some sleep, too. However, he is yet wondering what could be so bad about him being a Dark Warrior. In little fits of despair or anger, he keeps asking himself what makes him so different from everyone else. Why is one like him called a dark warrior?
A knock at his bedroom door pulls Matt’s attention to it. “Come in,” he says.
Rose enters, dressed in a green nightgown. She leans against the wall, sighs, and asks, “So, Sean and I noticed you were rather moody this evening. There were also moments we thought you were debating on asking us something, but you then decided against it. Would you like to talk to me about it, now?”
Matt chuckles to himself, knowing that she’s right and embarrassed she and Sean had noticed. He then tells of his meeting with Dante and what he told him while she listens. After he finishes, Matt tries to dispel the gloom in the air by saying, “You know, now that I’ve thought about it, I feel I’ve heard of Dante before now, but I can’t pinpoint it.”
“I thought about it, too,” Rose tells him. “And I remember. Dante Goros. He’s part of the Goros family, the noble clan that rules the state of Saratu to the south of here. I heard in the news once that Dante and his sister had become the new heirs to the Goros family.”
Matt nods as he remembers it, and sighs before returning to the greater topic. “Rose, what is a Dark Warrior?”
Rose frowns before explaining, “In today’s society, Dark Warriors are often associated with the terrorist group Shadow Core, or the S.C. These terrorists have done many criminal acts in the past, but, thanks to the government encouraging people to fight back, their numbers have greatly dropped. There used to be any criminal Alkalian in the group, but now it is made up of Dark Warriors, only.”
A lot of things then make sense to Matt, his expression briefly enlightened before darkening again. “I see. I have heard of the Shadow Core terrorists, but I was never told they were
Dark Warriors, nor that I am one myself.”
Rose nods, saying, “Yeah, it was probably an attempt from your parents to protect you from feeling bad about yourself, that you were somehow like the very men your father has to watch out for.”
“…Right.” Rather than feeling worse about the discussion, to his wonder, Matt finds he is feeling somewhat better by talking with Rose, and he keeps the conversation going. “So, is that the only thing bad about Dark Warriors, or is there more?”
Rose walks over and sits on the bed beside him, collects the facts, and tells him. “The reason Dark Warriors are tabooed, and why the S.C. is still a considerable threat to society, is because of the built-in effect they have in their battle morphs. Their attacks automatically cut through enemy defenses, so they do severe damage and create huge wounds. What I mean is, it’s like the opponent isn’t even in morph, and the only thing preventing them from being killed is the battle morph’s health energy.
“There’s another thing about Dark Warriors you should know. They can be any type of Alkalian, but the trait is extremely rare. Especially since their ancestors were nearly brought to extinction long ago. In the Age of Chaos, before our nation was founded and organized, there were many kinds of Dark Warriors about, but the wars soon tore them to pieces, and only remnants from those times survive today, most joining the Shadow Core terrorists.”
Matt nods in understanding, saying, “Uh huh.” Then smiling a little, he looks back to her. “You do know a lot about stuff, don’t you?”
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