Finally the day came. After weeks of training Darius had finally mastered his powers enough to use in combat. With that done, it was time to go down and explore the new world below.
He ate his usual breakfast of water and the strange giant fish meat. Raiga laid opposite of him devouring the rest of the whale sized fish. After taking the last bite of his breakfast, Darius got up to speak with Raiga about their plan for departure. He had only taken a few steps when he realized he only had the now tattered clothes he had arrived in. Of course he had washed them and himself using rain water, but that didn't fix the sad state they were in. He decided that would be his first order of business once they went to the surface.
"Yo Raiga. I've trained and I'm ready to go to the surface. Let's go." "You're right. You've quickly mastered your new gifts with astonishing speed. I guess you are ready to descend. But first, we can now speak as equals. Tell me your name."
He silently stared up at him wondering what he was up to before responding. "It's Darius. Darius DeGray." "Well it's nice to finally speak to you as an equal." Raiga smiled a big toothy grin and reached out a hand. There was something unsettling in his eyes. It looked like mischievous anticipation, but then again, this was a common look for him. As Darius suspiciously reached out to shake his hand, the clouds beneath his feet suddenly opened and immediately sent him falling to the forest below. As he fell, the last thing he saw was Raiga's big toothy grin as the clouds closed back up to hide him from view. "Damn it Raiga you son of a bitch!!!"
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There were two people currently running through the forest. Both looked about 20. Both elves. Both fleeing for their lives. "Faelar! There's no way we can beat this thing. They sent us out here to die and you know it." "Shut it. There's gotta be a way. Just keep running until we can figure it out." Behind them came the strange pitched roaring of the giant creature that was chasing them. They had found it in a clearing a while ago surrounded by others of its kind. Faelar had used his abilities as a ranger to have a deer lure it away from its pack. After they got it alone, they had tried attacking it but they weren't strong enough to get past its armor bare handed. If they had had weapons things might have ended differently, but the elder council had specifically told them no weapons were to be brought on this mission. After attacking and failing to kill it, they'd ran. The creature gave chase and that's what brought them to their current predicament.
"Whatever. Damn the elders. They've hated us ever since we were born. Now they're using our rite of passage to kill us." A sudden noise silenced both of them. "Hey Fenris. Can you hear that?" "Yeah. Sounds like someone else is just as screwed as we are." The sound of screaming was steadily getting louder until something came from the sky and slammed into their large pursuer with a loud crash.
"Um? Did someone just fall on the bark beast?" "Yeah I think so." They both walked to the edge of the fresh new crater behind them. They look in to see a shirtless man in strange tattered pants crawling off of the monster. They heard him speak as he rubbed his head "Ow. Raiga you bastard. I'll get you back for that one. What the hell did I land on? Woah!." He looked down to see he'd landed on the chest of a giant humanoid looking monster. It's body seemed to be made up of tree bark. If it wasn't for the fangs coming out of its very large mouth, it might be mistaken for an actual tree. The beast which seemed to have been temporarily dazed, started to stir. At this, the man leaped out of the crater and nimbly landed behind the two elves.
Fenris and Faelar immediately got into fighting stances. No normal human could survive what he just had. The man put his hands up in an attempt to calm them. "Hey hey. I'm not here to attack you. Put those away before you get hurt." Fenris, being the more aggressive of the two, spoke first. "You fell on top of the bark beast. To make a crater that size, you had to have fallen from quite a height. Yet you seem perfectly fine. What are you?!" "Look I can explain later, but we should probably address that first."
They both turned around to see the beast had risen back to its feet. It let out a strange yet blood curdling roar and started climbing out of the crater. "Fenris it's time to go. Whoever you are, you should probably get out of here as well." "Na. I got this." In unison, both of the elves let out a resounding "Huh?!" The man casually waited for the monster to get out of the crater. It breathed deeply as it stood to its full height and towered over the strange human. It raised one of its giant arms and struck him.
Both boys recoiled from the expected crunching sound, but it never came. They looked as the monster raised its hand only to see the man was gone. They blinked and looked to see him sitting on the beast's head with a smile on his face. "So slow. Guess I couldn't expect more from a walking tree." He jumped, somersaulting in the air, just as the monster grabbed for him. He landed at its feet and jumped again. Leveled at the monster's neck in the air, he pulled his fist back and punched it in the chest. The force of his blow shook the ground and exploded the beast's chest out its back. It fell into the crater, dead before it hit the ground.
Suddenly they heard more strange pitched roaring. The rest of the bark beasts the dead one had been with had arrived. There were five in total. All except one were around the same size as the one laying at the bottom of the crater. The one that stood out was unique in that it's skin looked metallic and smooth rather than like tree bark. It's head was rounded almost like a human's instead of the jagged rough edges of the others. It was also the largest of them all, standing at least six feet taller than the other four.
"So my first fight's gonna be against all of you? Cool." Seemingly in response, the beasts roared and ran in pairs on either side of the of crater. Oddly, the large metallic one stayed behind. "Hey you two get back." The elves snapped back into reality and leaped into the trees behind them. They climbed high enough to be out of the way, but still observe what was happening. Darius, seeing that they were out of harms way, turned to face the monsters. "Two on either side of the crater huh? Hmmmm. Which side first?" He made his decision and walked to the left side of the crater. He slowly got into a sprinter's stance with his head down. He raised it and kicked off the ground in one motion cracking it in the process. To the elves, it looked like he had been there one second and vanished the next. His kick launched him airborne in a straight shot for the two monsters. He outstretched both fists and spun like a bullet straight through the chests of both beasts. Unable to process what happened, they too fell into the crater dead before they hit the bottom.
Darius landed covered in pale green colored blood. The other two had gotten to the other side of the crater where he had previously been. They were seething with rage. He covered the distance to the them in seconds and decided to test his strength. He kicked the leg of the first one from under itself, and pulled the other from under it sending it to the ground face first. The other monster swung both boulder sized hands at him only for him to backflip across the legs of its fallen ally.
He landed on its left side, and picked it up using its left leg. He spun and drug it under the other monster in a swiping motion, knocking it into the air. On the following spin he lifted it a little higher and hit the airborne monster with its fallen friend. It got sent flying into the tree several yards away with a crunching sound that must have been its back. He spun again, with the creature still in his hands, and flung it across the crater at the metallic one standing on the other side. It swung its thick car sized arm, and knocked its kin aside. Then something odd happened. It spoke.
It's voice was deep, yet it sounded similar to the high pitched noise of grinding metal. "YOU NOT A NORMAL SOFT FLESH. I HAVE BAD FEELING FIGHTING YOU. YOU HAVE NO TROUBLE FROM ME." With that, it turned and fled deeper into the forest. Darius stood surprised. He hadn't expected it to speak. He walked back to the elves to make sure they were ok. "You can come down now." They dropped from their perches and landed in front of him.
"That was crazy. Didn't expect that thing to be able to talk. Did y'all know it could do that?" Fenris and Faelar's expressions mirrored each other in wide eyed shock and awe. Fenris again was the first to speak. "Who.....What are you?" They ignored his question, which left him curious about the metal monster, but under the circumstances he guessed what he just did might be a bit different from the norm. "My name is Darius DeGray. And I'm gonna need a bath..... and some new clothes. Think you could help with that?"