Jay feels the sharp pain of pieces of bark scratching at his bare back. His vision is completely blurry as he tries to get up but falls back on the grass once again. Laughter erupts from across the grass field. In the center is a small fighting ring made out of reeds and sticks that is supposed to be a mat, Lily is off to the side practicing martial arts moves with her power activated, she has bullets of sweat coming down her face. Even though she is only six years old her ability to use her ability for such a long time with focus is impressive. Kins stands in the center of the ring laughing with his head back, he has his arm extended but his hand has transformed into what looks like the trunk of a tree that is protruding forward.
"Jay, are you doing alright over there buddy?" Kins asks, he tries to sound concerned but with the laughing it doesn't sound genuine. Jay lifts himself from the ground and begins to walk towards the ring, even though he is swaying from side to side.
"Did you just hit me with a tree...I haven't seen that one before," Jay asks. In the past year or so that they have been training, Jay had gotten to know his opponent better through many of their matches, but even now it was rare for Jay to land a good clean hit.
"As I have told you many times, you need to project enough gravitational joules…" Kins says but is quickly interrupted.
"To lessen the force of the object coming towards me and force it to slam against the ground, yeah I know Kins. I don't think you know how it is to generate gravitational force. Everything I apply into my attacks I feel the pressure as well." Jay feels distraught, in the beginning he was doing pretty well at getting used to his gravity magic but he recently hit a wall. He has maxed out at being able to reach three times normal gravity applied around him, but going beyond that makes him feel nauseous. Kins turns his hand back to normal and rests it on Jay's shoulder.
"I know you hate it when I reiterate things, but please listen to me on this. Your body was made to support your own magical type, it may just take a little while before it has fully adjusted to maintaining stronger forces of gravity. The first time I tried transfiguration, my body was stuck as a tree for a week. It takes time, and sitting around waiting for it to be that way doesn't help, it takes trial and error. However, you seem scared of the nausea to try and push forward." Kins looks at Jay, he is trying to penetrate Jay's defenses to further understand the true issue.
"Yes because I would much rather get hit with a tree…" Jay says rolling his eyes. Kins smiles through the fiery anger he feels from Jay's disrespect. Even though the two look roughly the same age, Kins often feels like he is having to be Jay's father with how much he acts like a teenager. Kins takes his hand off of Jay.
"Lets go again, this time: push through. You are currently operating at KpL 2, you need to break into your KpL 3 if you want to deflect this…" Kins says, without warning he jumps back and his eyes begin to glow. He points his palm at the ground and quickly raises his arm. In response the grass begins to penetrate through the reeds and forms tendrils. Kins twist his hand to have his palm face his left side then separates his fingers. The tendrils fire forward towards Jay. Jay lifts his head and his eyes ignite white. He takes his fist and slams it against the air like a hammer. On impact the space in front of him seems to solidify. The tendrils connect with it and are immediately forced to the ground from the pressure. Kins grabs some blades of grass and rushes towards Jay. Jay takes his other arm and extends it forward with his hand in the form of a palm strike. As it thrust it at Kins, a spiral or gravitational energy moved around his forearm until it burst forth from his palm. As the blast of energy rushes forward from Jay's hand, his arm is forced to be cocked back from the energy being expelled, he can feel his bones ache under the pressure which causes him to wince. The wave of opaque energy moves towards Kins, Kins throws his grass blades against the ground and they quickly grow into a wall. The energy hits the wall causing it to topple over as the force pushes past it and destroys it. However, to Jay's surprise, Kins is not behind the wall. Jay looks above and to the sides but does not see his opponent. Suddenly feels the breath of Kins right behind him.
"You are going to need better than three times the gravity to stop me Jay," Kins says mockingly. Jay brings his left hand back to his hit and makes a fist. Gravitational energy forms around his fist making the air shift away from his hand, forming a barely visible ball around Jay's hand. With his right foot planted behind him, he quickly shifts his weight and tries to punch Kins. Kins jumps just as Jay's fist is about to connect and a wave of gravitational energy breaks up the ground and flattens all the grass in a six foot radius. Kins, while in midair, turns his legs into tree trunks and stands a good six feet above Jay. Kins begins to laugh, as he usually does, but this time it bothers Jay more than before. "Again Jay, three times is not enough, besides you keep hesitating, I mean is the pain…" Kins suddenly stops talking as he looks at Jay. The air around Jay's body is being pushed away and the ground underneath Jay seems to be undergoing a great amount of force. Jay looks up at Kins with his eyes solid white. Kins is completely stiff in fear. "Jay…" Kins tries to calm him down. In an instant Jay opens both his hands so his palms are facing each other, in the area between his hands, gravitational energy begins to spiral from his forearms and form into a solid ball of clear energy, that can only be seen because of the shift it has on the space around it. Jay moves his hands away, but the ball stays where it is. "JAY I NEED YOU TO STOP!" Kins yells out desperately. Lily stops training and looks at Kins while breathing hard. "LILY PUT JAY TO SLEEP NOW…" as he says this Jay takes his finger and inserts it into the top of the ball. As soon as he does a wave of gravitational energy explodes down upon Kins. The force of which breaks the tree trunks, reverting Kins legs back to normal. The force causes Kins to fall at great speed and collapse against the ground beneath him. However, it doesn't stop there, the force is so great that Kins is unable to move and begins to be pushed into the ground itself. Kins cries out in pain as his body begins to collapse under the force. Lily runs forward to grab Jay, but before she can Jay yells and punches the ball with his other hand. Around his entire proximity energy bursts forward that sends Kins and Lily flying through the air and causing the ground beneath them to sink a couple of inches deep like a crater. Lily flies 12 feet and hits against the ground. Kins brings his arms to his chest and his body becomes completely wood. He crashes through a tree completely destroying it; the same tree Jay hit not too long ago. As the dust settles Jay goes back to normal as his powers subside and immediately all the pressure hits his head causing him to lose his equilibrium. He walks back dizzily before hitting the ground. Jay lays there for a little bit, drifting in and out of consciousness trying to focus on looking at the sky. As the minutes go by, Jay finally hears the voice of Kins running back towards him.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! WHAT WAS THAT JAY!" Kins yells, clearly in anger. Kins throws out a seed he has in his pocket in the direction of Lily. It forms into the plant monster, Carrie. Carrie hurries over towards Lily and picks up her unconscious body. Kins grabs Jay by the collar and pulls him up from the ground. The force of which causes Jay to have a headache once again from the blood rush. "You could have killed Lily you idiot! How are you going to let your powers control you like that…'' Jay pushes Kins off him as he is talking. Jay holds his head and starts to laugh, antagonizing Kins.
"That...was 20 times gravity….what a rush oh my gosh! The after effects suck though…" Jay says, still wobbly. Kins gets angrier at Jay's lack of remorse.
"Jay you know that you have an extremely dangerous ability! You cannot do that...you sent Lily flying...if it were anyone else we would both be dead right now!" Kins yells louder in an attempt to get his words through to Jay. Jay matches his volume.
"You have been pushing me for days now to go past three times! Well look at me now I did it, are you proud of me Dad!" Jay yells. Both of them stop and move back from each other. They separate a few feet and both sit down in silence. Both boys have their eyes wide thinking over the recent encounter, but neither wants to actually address it.
"I think you have some daddy issues…" Kins says. Jay turns his head and looks at him in anger and slight disbelief. "Sorry I thought that would be a good way to break the tension…" They sit in silence a bit longer, Kins continues to try and think of things to say, opening his mouth then closing it once agains. "Listen, I'm not trying to be overbearing. A year ago when we talked about your magic being different than you thought, I didn't intend to stand over and tell you 'this is the way' because honestly I have no idea what the best way is. All I know is that letting anger and frustration be the driving force of your abilities will make you strong, but it also makes you reckless…" Kins wanted to speak further but began to feel like he was giving a lecture. Jay rubbed his eyes,
"I get what you are saying, and yes I was being a little...hasty...but Kins what am I supposed to do? My progress has stopped, for the life of me I can't push past times 3 without fueling my determination with something that isn't anger, and even then my power is still leaving me in throbbing pain from the pressure…" Jay said. With that, he got up and started to walk towards the old druidic village. He stopped suddenly but kept looking forward. "We are missing something and I don't know what it is, maybe Davill has something in his notes that could help me now…" with that Jay kept walking. This troubled Kins because he knew that in the past months Jay had looked over Davill's journals research and notes again and again, if there was truly anything new Jay would have found by now. Kins became lost in his thoughts as he traveled home, and subsequently for the rest of his day. He locked himself in his room and was stuck in his pondering until he drifted off to sleep. It was around 3 in the morning when Kins woke with a start and proclaimed to his empty room, "Of Course!"
Even though it was still in the early hours of the morning, or as many would consider the middle of the night, Kins jumped up at that moment and ran to grab Jay. In the last year they had done a few renovations on the house to where the upstairs wasn't just one large room. Kins initially built it as a temporary space for himself so when it came to accommodating others it was quite lacking. While he resided downstairs, his upstairs study that housed a few beds and random items had now been refurbished to have three separate sections of walls, all made of trunks of trees as the base with leaves and thickets to cover the holes. The largest room was a makeshift study that had basically just taken all the items Kins stored in the upper room and shoved them into a smaller space, the other side made up Jay and Lily's rooms. Jay was initially staying in the village in order to stay closer to the scriptorium and its many writings, but Lily convinced Jay to stay at the house because it made her feel safer to have her "big brother" nearby. That's what she said, but Jay also figured that Lily might be a little scared of Kins because of his wide variety of strange plants he had come to let patrol the area around the house and do chores within. Kins stormed through the makeshift door of branches and in a fit of excitement, jumped through the air and landed on Jay's bed.
"I FIGURED IT OUT JAYFIFTH!" Kins half yelled, he was conscious of how late it was so when he spoke it was a mix of excitement that came out slightly hushed. Jay awoke and turned to see Kins standing over him on his bed. For a second Jay hadn't fully registered reality so seeing Kins standing over him, on his bed, didn't seem to be a point for worry. But once that second ended, his reactions kicked in and his magic ignited.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL…" Jay thrust his hand forward and a quick blast of gravitational force hit Kins causing him to be swept off the bed and consequently into the wall behind him with a thud. The thickets and leaves fell off of the wall, and the log seemed to shift back and forth but the wall actually held in place. When Jay finally came to his senses he rubbed his eyes and looked at his friend who was laying against the wall, rubbing his back. "Why are you yelling at me when the sun isn't even out yet!" Jay said in a hushed but harsh tone as he sat up in bed. Kins took a second to stand and readjust himself.
"Because I figured it out. In my years of research and overthinking I have found that even when you are unconscious like when you are asleep, your brain is still working on whatever issue is at the forefront of your brain. So I woke up no more than 5 minutes ago and the solution to our problem hit me!" Kins said, he was more expressive with his hands than usual which Jay took to mean he really wanted to get his point across.
"So you dreamt the answer to our problem?" Jay asked. Kins shook his head.
"No I don't dream! In the void of blackness that was my sleep my brain kept working and the idea just kinda popped into my head, fully developed even!" Kins said with a wide smile on his face. Jay looked at him unamused.
"There are so many parts of what you just said that I want to comment on but the truth is I am too tired to care at the moment," with that being said, Jay went back under the covers and tried to get some sleep. However, Kins was not interested in Jay's urge to get some rest. Kins quietly walked over to where Jay's head resided and put his face really close to Jay's ear.
"You and Lily are going to attempt the Druidic trial…" Kins whispered to Jay. As he said this Jay's eyes shot open and he turned himself quickly to look at Kins.
"Are you out of your mind!" Jay yelled at him. Kins quickly shushed him and pointed at the wall that connected to Lily's room.
"Lets go get some coffee and talk about it," Kins said to Jay. With that Kins quietly left the room, stepping over the broken branches and sticks that now littered the ground from Kins careless abruptness. As Kins left, Jay now realized that he had no chance of going back to sleep. Many terrifying and questioning thoughts plagued his mind but the thing he found himself muttering was:
"What is coffee?"
-
In the downstairs area of Kins's house he had one door that connected to his room which covered about a third of downstairs and the rest of it had makeshift furniture and shelves for different strange items. Off to the right of the front door was a small table with four chairs that looked out through a window towards the forest. Jay sat staring out the window at the dark sky. The cosmic colors flashed in and out projecting tints of green, red and blue across the forest. In the moments he watched them flicker he was reminded of the times he and his mother would look up at them together and wonder exactly what they were. His mother would talk for hours about her theories of what causes the phenomenon, most of the time it went over Jay's head, but he still loved to hear her talk about her inquisitions all the same. Kins was over to the left side of the front door in the kitchen area. He was fumbling around with cups and what sounded like beans for a while before coming to join Jay with two cups, one in each hand. He set one down in front of Jay and sat directly across from him. Jay examined the dark brown liquid and couldn't help but feel disgusted by its look. He was convinced Kins was pulling a prank and was trying to make him drink dirt mixed in with water. Jay looked at Kins to examine him but saw that Kins seemed to be enjoying his cup of what seemed to be the exact same thing. Jay looked back and forth between Kins and the cup, consciously deciding whether or not this was a trick. Over the past year Kins had been fond of pulling small pranks like slightly shrinking Jay's clothes or setting him adrift in the bay while Jay sleeps, but they agreed to end it when Jay retaliated and long story short accidentally destroyed one of the houses in the village. But even so Jay was overly cautious of what could be in this cup given that Kins still made jokes about getting Jay back for the house he destroyed.
"What is this…" Jay finally asked after much hesitation. Kins looked at Jay quizzically.
"You mean the coffee?" Kins asked.
"Sure if that's what this is…" Jay pushed the cup away from him slightly, hoping it wouldn't combust suddenly. Kins snickered.
"Just try it. I can promise you it isn't a joke if that's what you are thinking." Kins said.
"Okay, but what is it…" Jay continued to not yield without answers. Kins set his cup down and sighed.
"When I was stuck on the ship for all that time, there was only one person who was nice to me, this girl but I never got her name. Every morning she was the one who would bring me breakfast and each time she would bring me this drink that they called 'coffee'. At first I was sceptical of it but as I began to try it and drink it every morning I found that I felt more energized throughout the day. It is some sort of herbal juice made by roasting these weird beans, grounding them, and then pouring hot water over them. It is quite delicious," Kins took another big sip. Jay took his cup and swirled the contents around making sure there wasn't anything floating around in the liquid. Then finally, and very carefully, he took a tiny sip. Immediately all he felt was the heat from the hot liquid in his mouth that made him almost spit it out, but then as he got to the taste he was hit with a rush of the bitter taste that felt immensely strong. Jay's face began to distort and made a disgusted look as he swallowed. Kins began to laugh while looking at his face.
"I knew you were lying," Jay said, he stuck his tongue out and opened his mouth wide in an attempt to air out his mouth from the heat and bitter taste. Kins waved his hand in front of his face.
"I promise I wasn't lying," Kins said through chuckles, "hear, try it like this." Kins went back to the kitchen and grabbed a wooden cylinder container and then returned to the table. He proceeded to open the top of it and pour some of the contents, sugar, into the cup. Kins stuck up his finger and it began to grow and transform into a small twig but with no bark. He broke the twig and handed it to Jay who tried not to be weirded out by the fact he was taking a part of his friend's finger. "Use this to stir the sugar into the liquid. Jay did so and once again tried the drink and to his surprise it was a lot better than he was expecting. The bitterness became more of an undertone after taste than the foreboding presence it had before. Instead, the coffee now tastes smooth and sweet, which Jay enjoyed.
"This...isn't bad…" Jay continued to drink it and found that as he reached the bottom of the cup, he no longer felt encumbered by tiredness like he had before.
"It's things like this why I think you should attempt the trial," Kins said.
"What do you mean things like this…" Jay was confused by how a hot beverage could relate to an intense combat trial.
"Look at our world compared to theirs. Sure we have magic but what do they have? Innovation. They work, and struggle, and even though we have only gotten to know them on bad terms so far I admire their determination. I mean look at it! It would take either one extremely powerful fire mage or a group of about 100 fire mages to do the same kind of damage they did to Illverstand, and they accomplished it with one boat and no magical power..." Kins ran on in a very matter of fact manner, bringing up the past and admiring the death of Jay's kingdom began to irritate Jay.
"Do you have a point to what you are saying, Kins, because to me it sounds like you are praising the people who destroyed my home…" Jay said, trying to mask his anger. Kins put his hands up in protest.
"All I am trying to say is that they started with a crap hand and proceeded to make it amazing, imagine how great we could be using the exact same techniques," Kins said, his words turned from being irritating to becoming curious to Jay; enticing him to listen or intently. "You told me as a child you read about the exploits of Albert Einstein, a man from another world who we are now learning is real. You told me you aspired to be a scientist, imagine how great our world could become if we didn't try to just combat science, but actually use it to our advantage! That is what I am talking about. In our world we would have found the beans that make coffee and go 'wow it's a bitter bean' and that would be the end of the discussion. However in their world they ask 'why' and that why lead to a beverage that revitalizes and energizes!" Kins said. At the mention of "why" Jay's curiosity set in. He had hit the same instance before of wondering exactly where to take him, but limitless expansion of questions that needed answering was a daunting task to take.
"But still what does this have to do with the trials?" Jay asked. Kins smiled.
"I want you and Lily to attempt the trials. I have realized the key thing missing from your training is personal experience. You have spent too long listening to me tell you how to do things, you need to be put into a survival setting to where you need to overcome, from there your body will begin to learn and adapt." Kins said.
"Ok but from what you told me about the trials they can only be done once. Druids would attempt them after years of training in a specialized aspect and then they either completed the trial, died, or came back to be exiled…" Jay questioned Kins idea.
"That is why we are going to change the way things are done! That was how the old druids did things but they are gone now; remember them but refine their discoveries! What I propose is multiple excursions. You and Lily on, see how far you make it, when you hit a wall or are in legitimate danger, you come back. From there we refine, adapt, and try again. This is easily the best method for the two of you to learn a more practical way to use your abilities without limiters." Kins says this while throwing his hands in the air excitingly, he has a weird habit of doing that when he feels like he has won an argument.
"Two problems: 1. You say once we get into real danger, what if we can't get out of that danger, and die. 2. Lily is six?! Sure she is getting stronger but she is still just a little kid…" Jay said. Kins pointed his finger at Jay ready to reply.
"Two answers: 1. You don't need to worry about that because 2. You will have Lily with you! Almost every creature you encounter during the trials has brain function that is susceptible to her magic. Over the past couple of weeks she has been getting better and causing delirium and sleepiness in animals and other creatures. She can give the two of you an opening…" Kins answered.
"Kins I…" Jay started to say.
"Jay your brother slowly taking over the world…" Kins saying this silenced Jay. "Since the day of the invasion he has been slowly making his way across Illverstand and eventually, he will find us. As sad as it may be...we cannot take the safe route, we need to take risk or else your brother will win and the world will be his prize." Kins interrupted. Jay wanted to protest but he knew that Kins was correct, in their first fight not even his other three brothers had the power to stop Tyrius, and who knows how much he has grown in the past year. No matter what thoughts may withhold Jay, he knew with absolute certainty of one thing: Tyrius did not deserve to rule.
"Fine," Jay closed his eyes and let out a breath of air, "I have been around you for long enough now to understand when you are serious. So I will take your solution on this one. I trust you." Kins nodded his head and the two almost simultaneously took a big gulp of coffee to polish off their cups. They sat for a while in silence, which was commonplace for them and both had become comfortable with it over time. Their minds thought of solutions and new problems to the coming trials that followed until the sun came up. They were finally taken from their thoughts by the sound of Lily coming down the stairs. She rubbed her eyes and looked at the two, feeling the trouble that was clouding their minds.
"Oh no…" Lily said, "We are doing something dangerous aren't we."