King's eyes widened in realisation, he remembered what abilities meant from Kayla (curse her).
He had never been able to produce one before but this voice was now telling him he could?
"r-really?" Forgetting to be angry and depressed, excitement burst from within him
"Wh-what abilities do I have then?" And after glancing at the still confused expression of the other boy, he added " what are his as well"
"Yours I know, but other than one of his abilities that is as a result of our blood running through him, his are still a mystery. He won't be able to use them until he gets a name" responded the voice.
King was genuinely surprised to find out that the boy had no name. The boy seemed really mature for his age but he must've been at least five, almost six like himself and he still had no name?
But then again he also would have no name if it wasn't for Viera.
"You have no name? Why didn't your parents give you one, are you like me?"
The boy shook his head solemnly as a dejected look took over his face "I was born in this jungle, the people of my kind don't name their children until they reach five years old, I'm almost six, my parents... They died when I was three along with the rest of my people"
In that moment, King felt a certain respect for the boy, he was born in this horrible place and had lost his whole race as well as his parents, from the look on his face alone King could tell he had also suffered a lot, but he still strived to survive. King wished he was more like him.
"Sorry for bringing it up" apologised King
"You don't have to, it happened almost three years ago, I have to move on eventually. My goal is to leave this place and one day find out everything there is to know about my clan. so I'm going to be sticking with you if that's alright."
"O-okay?" King answered uncertainly, he didn't want to fall into the trap of blindly trusting someone ever again but he felt this boy deserved his trust. After all whether he wanted to or not, they where both literally connected by blood.
"wait so your telling me, that in this whole world there's only one race of black/dark people and they lived in a jungle, not to mention they all died out somehow?"
"No, that is not true. There are other races of Dark skinned/Black people. There are many races of the same colour and within some of those races there are clans with unique attributes. He is probably from one of such clans-a special one at that- so there are still many dark skinned people and clans/ tribe/colonies out there as well as many other races. More than in your previous world, thats for sure" corrected the voice.
"My clan didn't just die, they where wiped out by someone or something"
"....''
"Do you want revenge or something?" Asked King expectantly.
However, the boy shook his head, " no, my father told me to never fall into the dark hole that is revenge, because it will cause more trouble than it solves. However I do intend to find out who or what did that to my clan as well as why, I know there are other survivors that where taken away and I intend to save them, if revenge comes as a result of that then even better" he said in a determined tone.
"Oh okay" King nodded in understanding, this boy was a lot more mature than himself. He knew if he ever got the chance at revenge...
"Someone or something capable of wiping out a whole clan will surely be immensely strong, even more so if my suspicions about you are right. You're going to need a name as well as power to be able to achieve your goal, we should name you. Since your mana was already activated by our blood, it should no longer matter who give you your name"
The boy nodded and looked at King expectantly.
Suddenly put on the spot ,King froze up. He was suddenly expected to name someone he had known for less than a day?
'Ruth, Cory, Jorge, Oscar....' He mentally went through all the names of his old classmates before shaking his head ' I can't name him after one of those bastards'
'My names King, since we're technically brothers I should name him something similar right? King... Queen. No thats too feminine, maybe Prince? Emperor, Royalty? Royal...'
"Royale! I name you Royale its perf-" he was interrupted by a Flash of black and gold light (can light be black?).
When the light settled he could see the same boy before him except his eyes had transformed from the pitch black it was before to a vibrant gold. King had expected something like this to happen so he wasn't too surprised but he did notice one thing different.
In the naming of Victor and Ruben he had seen before as well as his own, the hair colour had changed, his own changing to a dull purple, but the newly named Royale's straggly and curly, bushy hair retained its same jet black colour.
"Seems I was right, his hair refusing to change colour means he's a member of the Kuro clan, well that answers the question of what his element is." Intervened the voice.
Royale's eyebrows rose in realisation as he looked at King in appreciation.
"The Kuro? Is that what I am? Thankyou, thankyou. That's the first piece of information about my clan I know. Now I'm abit closer, please, if you can, please tell me about their ability "
King found it weird and awkward that he was looking at him yet was talking to the voice instead but saw an opportunity to Change the topic. "Y-yeah, now that we got all of that out of the way, can you now tell us our abilities.?"
"There is an ability you both share so I'll start with your unique magic attributes. As I said before, Royale is part of the Kuro clan. From what I know of them, they are widely known for possessing the unique and rare magic element of the shadows. You can presumably manipulate and use shadows, I cannot help you much with developing this power because I know almost nothing of it but I can tell that it is indeed a very powerful element unique to only the members of the Kuro clans and most likely has something to do with what happened to your them. Develop it well."
Royale looked as if Christmas had come early. He looked down at his hands in anticipation and wonder.
"As for you King, your element is equally as powerful as the shadows and arguably even rarer. You posses the element of lightning. Much like Royale's case there is not much I can do to help you develop this ability because of its rarity, not much is known about it but it is widely renowned as one of the most if not the most powerful element.
In the longevity of both his lives King had never felt more ecstatic and exited, finaly something was going right and it seemed things where finaly looking up for him, however he remembered Kayla (curse her) mentioning that a person's hair would take on the colour of their elements aswell as their abilities. So why was his hair purple? Since when was lightning purple?
"You havent seen your new appearance yet have you? Your hair isn't just purple, its an assortment of different colours now"
"huh? King had to get used to this voice being able to read his thoughts but besides that, his hair had changed colour? Or rather gained some colours?"
"you'll get the chance to see your appearance later, let's get through this First. There's a lot of work to be done if you're going to get your fragile bodies into shape. Now onto your first unique abilities, King we'll start with you. You posses an incredibly special ability, regeneration. At an extreme level as well it seems. This is probably as a result of your previous life experiences as well as being from another world because it certainly has nothing to do with me. "
King felt elated and dumbstruck, he really possessed such an ability? Wasn't he basically invincible then? It was almost like a cruel joke disguised as a present, now even if he wanted to kill himself he couldn't.
"Anywhere in your body will heal almost immediately including crippling and potentially mortal wounds as long as your heart remains well, you will also never fall victim to any diseases or poison. Even I'm shocked at how potent this particular ability is."
So he wasn't invincible, his heart had to remain unscathed but it was still incredibly potent.
"Now Royale, you're just as blessed. Your ability is a peculiar one as in some cases it can be labelled as an element, your ability is gravity and the ability to create as well as manipulate gravitational forces. It is and has the potential to be a ridiculously destructive and useful ability."
The voice paused to let all this information sink in as Royale nodded in silent and determined understanding.
"Now that all of that's out of the way, we should move. We'll be training every day for long hours to get your bodies into shape aswell as develop your magic and your abilities. Prepare yourselves because I will be submitting you to extremely strenuous exercise. Of course we only have six years, so you won't get to the point where you're going to be able to enter the deeper depths of this jungle especially not on my limited knowledge so we'll stay on the outskirts of this jungle. The monsters here should be more than enough to get the both of you to the required strength to enter one of the magic academies."
King felt as if things were moving too fast, one minute he was dying contentedly now he was preparing to train his magic and abilities? This was all not making sense.
And since when was he entering a magic academy?
He remembered Kayla(curse her) mentioning that Ruben, Victor and presumably herself aswell would be entering one of these magic institutes.
Royale seemed already on the move " I have a safe hideout on the outskirts of the jungle not far from here that we can use as a base. Also if you don't mind, I have a manual about the swordsmanship style of my clan that was given to me by my father that I will be learning, Its a clan secret so I can't teach it to you but if you want I can teach you basic swordsmanship from memory that my father had taught me." He explained
"That's perfect, in that case shall we start moving now? The barrier is going to collapse any second now"
Taking a deep breath, King made up his mind. Before him right now was a chance to turn his life around, he was no longer alone and had a way out if this hell hole. 'Tough times only last as long as you let them' the words of the mysterious man echoed in his mind as he decided he would get out of this jungle.
He would get stronger and prove to everyone who had done him wrong and done this to him that he was stronger and better than them. A look of sincere determination seized his face as he took a step forward, following behind as Royale led the way.
As they walked he reflected back on everything that had happened in the last 24 hours and he encountered some slight discrepancies. The sky was covered by the trees and it was always dark here so they can't even tell what time it is, how where they going to know when 6 years had passed by?
" Dont worry about that, I naturally know what time it is so that won't be a problem" replied the voice
"Oh okay" said King uncertainly, that brought him to his next point, he knew nothing about this voice, spirit or entity that had merged with him but he now had to live with it. He felt bad referring to it as 'it' or 'the voice' . What exactly was it?
Once again the voice read his mind.
"You can call me Chronus, as for what I am, I'm afraid I cannot answer that. Not because I don't want to but because I myself are still trying to figure that out"
"Okay..." It seemed even Chronus had his own problems.
The final problem wasn't really a problem but it was still on his mind
"er, Chronus?"
"Yes?"
"You mentioned there being a third ability we both shared but you didnt say what it was"
"Yes, I was just about to mention it."
Royale's ears pricked up as he began listening more intently.
"Your final ability is as a result of my presence within the both of you.
The ability of time...."