Markos was in his bedroom as he was left asleep, something that was next to his sister's. He was murmuring to himself, sweating profusely as he did so.
"No... no... no..." Markos in his sleep as tears begin to form in his eyes "NO!" Markos yelled out before he woke up in cold sweat. He looked at his hands, and they were shaking profusely, along with his whole body. "Damn it... Not again..." he curled his hands into fists, gritting his teeth as he clenched his bedsheets. It was then that his sister came into the room, which was something that took Markos by surprise.
"Was it another nightmare?" Himari asked in concern for her older brother.
"What the... What are you doing here?" Markos made a sigh as he put his hand over his face. "You should be sleeping, you shouldn't be up this late."
"Sorry..." Himari lowered her head. "I went to grab a drink of water, but then I heard you yelling in your room and I wanted to see what was wrong. Were you having a nightmare?"
"Yeah... I guess you could say that. " Markos replied to her as he scratched his hair. "I'm sorry about that, you can go back to sleep now." The time of that day neared soon for Markos, and Himari could recognize it. Markos always had these nightmares ever since "she" died, but the shifts changed. The farther the day of the death came, he would rarely have nightmares like these. But the closer the day comes, the more frequent and active they would become. Himari looked at him with a concerned expression as her brother tried to give her a smile. She closed the door from behind and walked away. Markos groaned in frustration. "Fucking hell..." he put both of his hands over his face. "I'm so out of focus that I even forgot to lock the fucking door." it was then that he heard a notification pop up on his phone. "And my phone as well..." Markos added on before he got out of his bed and walked over to where he charged his phone at before picking it up. He quirked his eyebrows when he saw that it was a message from Chris. She asked if he wanted to see a movie with her and the others. Markos made a small frown when he saw this. Not over the request of course, but more so from the fact that his friends knew about his time of the year and would try to cheer him up. Although, he may as well accept it anyways. Her death still haunted him, and it would be nice to have as much joy before his sadness took over. "I might as well... No use in backing it out at this point." he typed to his mobile keyboard as he accepted Chris' request.
"So today is that day I presume." says a voice behind Markos. Once the God of Thunder looked behind him, it was Tom again.
"Jesus man, how the hell do you sneak in so well?!" Markos reacts in shock.
"I went in through the window. But anyway, today I wanna start your training."
"I thought I had to find the other warrior or whatever THEN we train..."
"Change of plans. I was able to find an available time to train you." Tom explains then he gets out a ring that teleported both him and Markos to the mountains, in an instant this all happened.
"Holy shit. A teleportation ring?!" Markos is surprised at how fast the ring travelled.
"I built it myself if you were curious." says Tom "Anyway, this is the important bit. First we are about to go over the powers of what the Gods."
"The powers?"
"Basically, how you, for example, shoot lightning out of your hands and your katana." Tom states "So Gods have 3 components to their energy, named Divine Energy. The first one we will go over today is Physical energy. This a scale to their strength, speed and durability, depending on how you train with it, you can also use it to control things like the area of effect your attacks give."
"The area of effect? What you mean?"
"Remember that Demon that went to fight you? As I said as well, it can destroy buildings."
"I mean but I only saw it destroy the door."
"But did you notice there was nothing of the door remaining?"
"Wait what?" Markos reflects and realizes that indeed there was nothing of the door left.
"What happened was that it lowered the area of effect so that its all focused on the door, to the point that it destroyed the particle construction of the door, even beyond dust and ash." says Tom.
"Does this allow to our abilities?" Markos asks.
"Yes. I think personally its best if I show it than tell." says Tom and he brings out his staff "I think its best if you take a step or two back." Markos listens and does so. Tom creates a smal lightning orb and shoots it to a closer mountain. Upon contact, it actually just created a small crater on it, there was no shockwave even, it felt like just a standard bomb. Tom then creates a bigger lightning orb out of the sky then throws it to a mountain that was the farthest away from their view. Upon contact with the mountain, an explosion occurred and it encompassed the other mountains around it and Markos could have sworn he was feeling the air pressure from how strong it is, he feels like he has to plant his feet deep to the ground just so he won't be blown away by it. How is Tom just standing there with no issue? How can you control something like this? Are the Gods this powerful? Those were the thoughts that Markos was having as the shockwave was happening. Once it ended, Markos felt like it was ages since he even took a breath "Damn needing to take a breath already?" Tom asks jokingly "I mean I wasn't even trying."
"Hey! That thing felt like it was stronger than a nuke!" Markos yells at Tom.
"Now anyway this is your turn. What you do is that you try to focus your Divine Energy on wherever you want to attack, lets say your hand for example, then you try to control the attack of it." Tom then brings out a robot "Here is a test dummy as a reference."
"Dude! Where did you place it?! When did you have the time to invent it?! AND WHY DO YOU HAVE THE FACE OF 'WHY DOES THIS MAN HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS'?!" Markos asks Tom yelling.
"Anyway, try to replicate this beam. Doesn't have to be 100% accurate, just try to be like 90% accurate." Tom then activates the robot, it shoots a condensed beam at a mountain, causing a crater that it fired. "Now try, to replicate all the effects of that shot." says Tom. Markos extends his hand out and does what he was told, focus his energy on the palm of his hand and try to condense it like how he was told. Lightning starts building up on his hand but all the sudden Markos shoots it and it missed greatly and the crater once it hit a mountain isn't even half of what the test robot did. "Dude, are you sure you're cut out for this?" Tom asks, then Markos gets back up to try again. This time, Markos tries to put more effort onto holding it back and building it up. Tom notices it and is curious about what is going to happen, not a lot of students can do something like this, even the ones who can do it in a day normally had to try again 10 times, but Markos seems different. Tom is anxious to see the results. Once the lightning beam is shot, it hits a mountain next to the mountain that the robot shot and the craters were comparable in size. As Markos is surprised at what he just did, Tom looks at him, nobody else was able to do something like that after just a glance, yet Markos caught on to it after 2 tries.
"Oh God, why do I feel hungry all the sudden?" Markos asks as he feels his stomach growl.
"Oh yes, this is normal for beginners like you, expect some side effects like hunger and a whole lot of sleep when doing these things." says Tom.
"You could have said it earlier!" says Markos yelling again.
"Now I will take you back to your house and try to find the second person." says Tom. After sometime, Markos is ready to walk with his friends. He hears the doorbell ring and when he opens it, the next thing he knew was Sofia tackling him in a hug, she is always the first person to arrive and always gives him a hug.
"I am here Markos." says Sofia as Markos hugs back.
"I know, thanks, that means a lot to me." Markos replies.
"Please! Get on with it already!" says Akira and it causes both to jump and blush hard.
"Stop! This is just for him to be happy!" says Sofia and Akira is just nodding in response.
"Can we just get in the car already? We gonna be heading to the theater now!" says Jin in the car and Chris is the one driving the car. After some time, they arrive at the movie theaters and as they enter the theater, Markos just stops walking and his friends notices.
"What's wrong?" Endo asks.
"Thanks guys... thanks for being here with me." Markos comments.
"Anything for our friend. We stick together." Akira says and every smiles in response. Which made Markos smiles a bit and they continue to walk. Markos then spots someone, he can't tell who it is, and the person doesn't seem alive because there is a hole in its eye. Markos continues to look at the person then they disappear. Markos is confused at what he just saw, he doesn't even recall seeing something like this, then he returns to follow his friends to the theater. After some time, the group of friends are in a McDonalds, located at a table next to the window, laughing together and having fun, just enjoying each other's companies.
"Hey hey Jin come on! I was about to take that sauce!" says Akira.
"I mean I called dibs on it so..." says Jin and Markos just begins to laugh and everyone joins in.
"Yeah should have been faster Akira!" says Markos.
"I wouldn't say that myself Markos, I always arrive first before you." Akira replies.
"Last time I checked I was the faster one."
"No me."
"Yeah yeah sure." Markos rolls his eyes.
"Jeez, you two act like children." says Chris.
"Yeah but these same children are your friends." says Endo and Chris just rolls her eyes but smiling the whole time. Their paycheck arrives, once its all done, Markos is accompanied home. Markos feels empty again, their time, despite of how long it lasted, it felt like only a minute passed to Markos, but he is still appreciative of his friends.
"Thanks guys... I don't know how to put it into words..." says Markos. Sofia places her hand on his arm.
"You don't need to say anything, we will be here for you." says Sofia.
"Thanks." Markos replies and everyone goes their separate ways. Markos then organizes himself to sleep, however he looks at the letter and opens it. Upon opening it, he is shocked, the next person to be the reincarnation of a god is Sofia.
To be continued