THERE were two choices: to be a fool or a coward. One who chooses to follow life's games until you become its puppet. And the other who withdraws from choosing at all, taking the easy way out.
For Zakair, however, cowardice was out of the option.
While a fool remains a fool until he carves a path for himself; it was either he submits to the Parasite's control.
Or he outmaneuvers it.
He has done it once. He'll do it again. And again. And again. Until it tires itself out.
The Coliseum was empty at the approach of midnight. While everyone was preparing for the meteor showers if not asleep, Zakair figured it'd be the best time to hatch the contingency action to subdue the leech in the worst of times.
A young man appeared from the arch entrance of the arena. His almond hair and fair skin were shrouded in the dusk, but his ocean-blue eyes were highlighted by the blue flame torches ringed around.
One can tell he took his time preparing by the neat jacket over his tunic, silken pants, and black shoes. While Zakair adopts the undershirt, pants, and boots, topped over by his black jacket.
"I'm guessing this is your way to get back on us?" Kayne tried to jest. A Blademaster at best, a humorist at worst.
"If it was, I would've also called the others."
It was a wager bent on the outcome of a one versus three clash that prohibits the exertion of mahika.
Not an unfair playoff so to speak; where Kayne, Ryeld, and Hiro lacked behind in skills and experience, they made up for united proficiency.
Like Zakair always said it: the more, the merrier.
It was an onslaught of blades, fists, and technical devices, until it was his fresh defeat--but it's as if he could tell them a creature living off his body was to blame for accidentally conjuring a shadow tendril--which led him to where he is now.
But this time, he can only hope that it would understand that this was a duel.
And it will be his main target.
While Kayne would be the bait.
After thriving in the streets before he was taken in by prestigious merchants, it was about four years ago since he was introduced to the impressionable young brunette by the household's golden child, Damian, who thought it would add to the fun to have another troublemaker run havoc in Markham Mansion.
With Kayne's parents as subordinates under Damian's, he had another to include in his circle of elite children, of which Zakair didn't bother mingling with their extravagant undertaking. Too raucous and wild for his liking while Kayne found it exhausting but acceptable.
Perhaps it was that harmony that Damian found a flourishing camaraderie between them.
He wasn't wrong. Even after the unfortunate incident, he and Kayne had departed for the academy.
Born from a Lynthian knight, Kayne followed the Blademaster bloodline. Since then, Zakair never found a more amusing challenge adversary. Moreover, Kayne's enlistment in the Vanguard of the VPA branch was an irony to his idle manner.
They donned on their metalmold armors. With a few touches, the steel pieces stretched and expanded to perfectly suit the wearer.
True to its name, the metalmold's elastic nature made it susceptible to physical change by mere hand manipulation.
Like pottery but with metal, it was one of the pioneers of pushing into the era of Intermediary Technology. Proving itself a spearheading convenience in all aspects of society.
Those who had the money were quick to demand their concrete and wooden structures be replaced by the resilient alloy and later hardened to withstand exterior forces. VPA was one of them.
"So, any plans after this?"
Zakair was walking along the weapons racks, surveying each blade from daggers and spears to varying swords. "The usual. I'll be too tired to do anything after tonight. So I'll be sleeping."
"And calling me for a duel before the showers is the best way to spend your energy?"
"Like I'm going dancing around watching raining lights."
"Oh, cheer up. You've never left the perimeters since stars know what..." Kayne grumbled, assuring Zakair filtered the irk in his words. "Do you even have a plan after graduating?"
The question sounded more like a remark.
Zakair paid no heed, pulling a sword off the rack the length of his arm. "There's still about a year to think about that." He tossed the hilt at Kayne, who fumbled to catch it before grasping it with both hands. "Someone's getting sloppy."
The Blademaster scoffed. "Unlike you, I made the most of my vacation."
The Timerglass Tower daunted over the Coliseum with its obelisk shadow drawing more than half of the arena's diameter.
It took Zakair two revolutions of the crank by the shaft anchored by hidden gears to turn the hourglass fixed to a mold on a wheel stone for the ropes to loop around, setting a total of twice the preset minute. Once completed, the tension of the uncoiled ropes will unleash enough force to sway the pendulum, colliding with the gongs on either side, winding up of the countdown.
The combatants circled in the middle of the arena, swords aimed toward the other. The goal was simple: whoever gets cut between the chinks of the armor first loses.
For Zakair, it was more an objective of vanquishing a certain foe than landing the first hit.
The Timerglass Tower resounded its commencing tick.
Three...
Two...
One.
Zakair charged first with a side slash, which Kayne blocked expectantly. He won't go for the finishing blow right away.
The last he recounted was that the parasite was festering him at the climax of the battle. It took approximately the first two minutes of the fight until it rattled in his bones.
At the peak of the excitement.
He would have to pare down the time limit for tonight's excursion's sake. So it meant having to keep the fray in a wind's span but effectual enough to unleash it.
Their swords danced in a sing-sang unison. Zakair was hampering Kayne from any opening, whose expression tautened under the relentless attacks behind blocks.
If this shiste leech won't come out, then I might just cut myself open.
He hauled for an overhead strike. Kayne caught and twisted his steel with his, compelling Zakair forward with a supplementary kick to his rigid back as Kayne shifted to the side, making Zakair trudge awkwardly.
"Are you sure I'm not the one getting faulty here?" The Blademaster smirked, fiddling his blade's tip.
Zakair stretched his neck. Burning anger was rousing from his chest. Not at Kayne. Not at the overthrowing feat. But at the fact that he hadn't registered the incoming move on time.
"The one getting faulty here," the phrase unsolicitedly repeated in his mind.
He shook his head, letting his thoughts drown it over. Focus. Just lose it in.
He took a deep breath, releasing the tension in his shoulders. "I was just warming up." This time, he will take it a little slow.
The two rounded at the center again. The amplifying obscurity of the evening rendered them almost relying on the torches and the Moon for light.
A minute and a quarter left.
Zakair was about to engage again when Kayne was taking too long until the Blademaster initiated with a thrust. Zakair parried, and their swords once again grappled.
Focus. Slower but bold. And when it's near done, finish with a fiery strike.
The thoughts kept him wary of the controlled acceleration of the fight; bit by bit, he hastened the paces of their steps drawing backward and fro consecutively while their intonating swords plow into each other, taking note of the modulation.
He slashed at the side only for Kayne to spin and jab his sword at the side of Zakair's helmet. The grating sound of the edge against the metalmold alerted him to quickly step back.
Cursed distrait. That offense was an abrupt action to break off the progressive speed he was aiming for.
Kayne was coming in from the front, sword looming like lance. Zakair deflected with his and brutally pirouetted his steel around Kayne's until it slipped from the brunette's grip.
In his opponent's shock, Zakair wheeled around him, gripping Kayne by the neck. The blade's edge just below the lump on his soft jugular, but never touching the bare skin between the metal.
"Again." He pushed Kayne to traipse, who then stared back at him.
"What was that for?" The tone in his voice was more a surprise than pique.
Zakair might have Kayne thinking he was performing his feinting finale again with an executing move only to trick them into another opportunity to claim the victory until it seemed like he was playing with his food.
But knowing him, which Kayne does at most amongst their circle of crew, that would entail a verbal teasing followed by an instructing chide, persuading the brunette to think otherwise.
Zakair picked up the sword and returned the weapons to the racks.
"Didn't you just ask for another round?" Kayne asked, impatiently watching as Zakair unlatched the pieces of his armor from his body and bid him to do the same. The hesitant brunette followed nonetheless, returning the helmet and breastplate to their respective stands. "There's only ten past seconds in the last minute. What are you egging on?"
An instinctive smirk graced Zakair's expression. A gesture the knight had come too familiar with, it elated him to the same enthusiasm. "Same objective. No rules."
Kayne snickered, "I shouldn't be surprised."
The azure torchlights were soon blinded by a baby mist white glow materializing from Kayne's stalwart physique.
The gleam, barely noticeable unless an eye in close proximity observes, flickered in its way to augment in mass and ferocity until it streamed into a blizzard of light cascading out and over to his limbs hailing the flap of his clothes and hair to flow in its thick intensity like he were underwater.
By the laws of enchantmentcy, mahika is a specter to the material matter adherent to the physical reality. To contradict that and bend the substances within the tangible domain, a mage must lend its essè to the aide of extension.
An absolute cast essentially done with an overabundance of mana.
Hence, a Terra Mage can reform the earth's shape should they wish to, or a Kinetic Mage can reverse the direction of gravity with a mere snap of their finger. So long as it encompasses their reach of influence, and their body spared with remaining amounts of mana for replenishment.
The vessel--as in this case, the human body, be it alive or dead--is subject to these impacts for its innate ability to contain the very source of this vigor: the èlan kore.
"The eidolons made a mistake granting their powers to these vain insects."
"Sometimes, I wonder when you'll tire of impersonating my skills," Kayne said, replacing the distasteful voice in Zakair's mind.
The ethereal essè flowed into the Blademaster's open palms, swirling into an orb that eventually grew, molded, and took the shape of a scythe. With minimal force, he flung its snath for Zakair to seize it.
Once in the latter's touch, sentient ink grew from his grasp to the surface of the monstrous blade to its tip. Devouring the weapon in whole black.
He felt the essè that coursed along it soak into his blood in his body's veins, emulsifying life and pneuma to beget a governable force of vitality and ability corresponsive to the antecedent vessel it sprung from.
"It's not impersonating when you're better at it," Zakair remarked.
An amused beam lit Kayne's eyes. The provocations behind them conveyed that assertion was yet to be tested.
Zakair effectuated the same action, and the orb configured into a twinblade. The overwhelming essè flared his being.
"Don't hold back," Kayne remarked.
Zakair poised the scythe to reposition himself. "I could say the same. Only that you'll be the one eating up your words."