Friday, December 9, 2011

Reincarnation Chapter 3

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3- Originality

Three days has gone by since the destruction of West Silvereign City, home to the Falcon Clan. Hundreds of lives perished without a need of explanation, and it was evident that the ongoing war has just begun. With that, the people couldn’t be blamed for absorbing souls of the dead or the sacrificed for their mystical powers; they just wanted to prevent their own souls being devoured by the stronger and greedier ones.

Wyvern City is home to the Gargoyle Clan, and Angelion City is home to the third clan, the Taurus. Yet, the rulers of the clans became more lenient in allowing members of other clans to freely wander around their cities, provided their bases were stood clear of.

Because they had given up accidentally killing their own people just to wipe out the trespassers, it actually caused fifty percent of all deaths which occurred last five years.

***

Wyvern City, such a modernized imagination of what would be a city of cyborgs implanted with souls of the dead. But due to arson attacks by the Taurus Clan, well, the revolutionary project just crumbled like that, and the people eventually gave up. They focused on absorbing wandering souls and improving their own fighting prowess instead, thus Wyvern became more of a “village” compared to the other two sovereign cities.

I leaned against the black concrete wall outside some unknown shop, sipping on a plastic cup of nice old coffee; my free hand whipping out the trusty little phone that I bought three months ago. I pointed it towards a random passerby and the phone eventually made a rather soft beep sound. I looked at the screen.

“72 souls, interesting.” People whose body contained many souls had a very much higher risk of losing bodily control and will soon succumb to the hazardous effects. Well, I couldn’t imagine how could they retain their sanity when I myself, who contained only a mere two souls, nearly destroyed an entire army. I pointed my phone to a masked person, and stared at the screen.

*whoosh* I was this close to being struck on the head by a gigantic metal hammer. Still in bending position, I inserted my phone back into my jeans’ side pocket before firing out a ball of concentrated dark energy right towards the masked attacker. It hit him, but it seemed that he felt no pain. He slammed his huge hammer down onto the road, hard. It caused an earthquake-esque shockwave which I effortlessly dodged, and soon a massive tower of earth rock emerged, piercing through the shop that I leaned on.

Realizing that I was overpowered by some masqueraded freak whose muscles seemingly weighed more than an elephant, I quickly ran down the sidewalk while pushing those humanoid obstacles aside. Well I did get scolded at once or twice, but they all were mauled to death by some twenty-ton hammer anyway.

“Earth, that guy manipulates rock to his desire, oh how frightening.” I was apathetic towards his rather boring powers. I turned my head around, catching a slight glimpse of the raging madman, while charging up my powers and fired three shots of pure darkness directly onto his torso. It did stain his white shirt a little, but it didn’t manage to injure his rock-solid body. He grew mad, really mad. He charged faster, ignoring civilians as he just rammed through them, causing them to fly at least fifteen feet back. He didn’t mind grabbing citizens and throwing them towards me, and my swiftness allowed me to avoid it really easily. It was more like an insult than an attempted attack.

“But really, what is that guy? He didn’t absorb too many souls…” People with a low soul count were usually weaker and deemed useless, as souls lost most of their powers before entering one’s body, unless that particular soul was one of the “original souls”, souls which hadn’t been passed around to more than two people. My two souls were original, which explained why I was able to survive an army assault with just two souls.

I continued firing shots without taking notice of my continuously draining energy, in hope to shoot off his mask and reveal his wretched identity, but my accuracy was far from a skilled marksman. So I just kept running while evading all the random people and objects he threw at me, praying that someone of equal power to him may come and save the day. Oh what was I thinking, his souls were original too, and there were only a handful of people with them.

“Belle Marinette.” I saw her, my best friend for nearly five years. She too, had an original soul, and like me, she only contained two souls. I called out to her but she was too busy staring at the “hot” waiter working in some restaurant, so I just fired a weak shot right towards her. Without leaving any trace, she just disappeared out of sight, and suddenly emerged beside me, slowing down to match my pace.

Idiot! I know there is some weird fat guy rummaging through the city, but I can outrun him you know.” She presented to me her signature frown look, which was way too cute to take seriously. She sprinted forward even faster, before suddenly disappearing again, and soon she continued running beside me again, the sword she carried behind her back then drenched in blood.

“Ahaha, his body is a little strong I guess, but I did manage to cut him.” I turned around and saw a long, deep cut stretching diagonally from the attacker’s right shoulder to his left hip, and it was bleeding profusely. Ah, how I wish I could have her power and be able to move as fast as light, but really, manipulating darkness was all I needed.

“Damn, you’re strong.” I scratched my head and laughed a little before leaping onto the top of a traffic light, before leaping to the top of a rather short building, Belle followed me. I released a cloud of darkness at the T-junction about ten feet in front of the madman, I thought that with his running momentum, he wouldn’t be able to stop in time and would melt when he touch the dark cloud.

He ran through it without even attempting to stop, which he only done so right after he passed the mist of darkness. He barely suffered any injuries, other than his mask melting into liquid, revealing his face. And it was said that people with only two souls were descendants of one of the three clans.

He had only two souls, just like me and Belle. And I was definite on whom that guy was, but I couldn’t believe it, why would he show himself in plain sight?

“Should we head back to HQ?” Belle smiled and took out her uniquely carved sword before revealing her gargoyle wings, ready to escape from the scene.

“We wouldn’t be the direct descendants of the Gargoyle Clan if we ran away do we?” I combed her hair slightly and gave her a smirk, before focusing my eyes on the leader of the Taurus Clan, Sky Frostwing.

“Oh damn, this is gonna be tough.”

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