All the students got up and left but Taylen. it turned. All classes were released early also, so Damon found Jolly at the entrance of the school waiting for him.
Jolly informed Damon about the rumors of his fight with taylen, about him using an enchanted weapon to fight.
Damon didn't care too much about the rumors, he was too focused on being able to feel his ki again to care about such a thing.
He told Jolly everything Miss grey told him, including hiding his ki as an ability in which Jolly disagreed.
"ya know Damon, you're pretty smart but something's you do not comprehend well."
"The hell you mean by that."
" well in order to play off your ki as an ability you still need a ability core dumb ass."
"why is that"
"because, other awakened souls and ability users can sense your soul core or ability core which equals a soul beast or a ability. "
"which also determines if you rely on mana of a beast or abilities." I mean you can conceal your cores, but not forever, at least I don't think you can.
"guess what you are lacking" jolly said in a sarcastic manner.
"damn it, I don't have a core."
"right, ya idiot" oh shut up Damon spouted back at jolly.
They both continued to walk and discuss everything trying to determine how to proceed.
Jolly couldn't understand why miss grey would suggest such a thing when she knew it wouldn't work. He couldn't help, but think that something wasn't right with miss grey,but decided to keep it to himself for now.
"I don't see anyway around it." Jolly finally states.
" yea me either."
"Let's stop by the orphanage before we head to the beast free forest." Jolly said.
Damon had also told Jolly about his morning experience with the falling limbs and so Jolly wanted to go with him to check it out.
{_______}
Following far behind Damon and Jolly, were Taylen and his three friends.
"you all know the plan right." Taylen asked the three boys known as Jack,flea and kimbo.
"yea, we all know you want Damon to yourself, so we will handle Jolly if he's with him."
The smallest out of the bunch said which was Flea. An awakened soul that had the face and body of a child, he had brown hair and was the size of a dwarf that used a thread like ability.
"Good,it looks like they are stopping at the orphanage, that will give us time to get in front of them and beat them to beast free forest." Taylen said with a sadistic smile.
{________}
"come to think of it, you've had a pretty tough and weird day." jolly said to Damon.
"yea it's been crazy" he spoke while unpinning his locs letting them hang.
" oh Alice Blackheart, isn't she in the orphanage with you Jolly"
"yea she is, she mostly stays to herself though. she only talks with her friend Leah, what about her."
"oh nothing, just a question"
"As if, you don't ask or do things for no reason. I've known you forever Damon,but hey if you don't wanna tell me now that's fine. just don't keep me in the dark too long ya know" he spoke while cutting his eyes with a smile.
After stopping by the orphanage they continued to beast free forest. Damon had finally thought of something that could possibly help him with his ki that was a gift from his father.
It was a crystalized shard that his dad gave him. when he first began learning ki he would hold the shard in his hand while meditating.
After a while he stopped holding the shard, but would constantly think about it somewhat while meditating. he didn't know if it would work or not,but it was the only thing he could think of.
"Jolly you know what else I just noticed."
"what's that ?."
"It didn't rain when I lost control at the academy."
" hmmm it sure didn't, does that mean you have control over it now."
" I honestly have no clue, I mean thinking about it now it's a possibility but I won't know for sure until my ki returns fully."He said while thinking about the dark snow globe fixture that condensed small enough for him to grab in his subconscious.
"Before I learned ki it was very hard for me to stop the rain once it started,but after I learned ki and discovered that subconscious space, I had a sure way to shut it off.....my only guess is my ki and whatever this rain curse is were combined once I learned ki." he said out loud.
"if that's the case then you can control that through ki then right." well yea if my assumption is correct. "
"after all, that space I enter is only because of ki, I mean it has to be, it didn't appear until I learned ki."
"well it seems like the more logical thing to me ya know" jj
"let's just hope this shard your dad had you practice ki with helps. then we can really find out a few things."
Damon and Jolly were out of village city and beyond the brick road.
"Let's ride the rest of the way." Jolly said while a greenish and desert color light was seen in his chest.
"Soul Release Bronco."
jolly chants to himself.
The light split from his body in seconds and a eight feet tall Bull like beast was seen. it's stature was very muscular, but instead of hair, its body was completely covered with tree bark and vines making it resemble a giant wood carving.
it's eyes flourished with green energy while it's bull like head stretched out over four feet. it had four horns,two looked to be made from solid tree bark while the other two were thick vines entwined together. all four were around a foot long with sharp ends.
Jolly hopped on while leaning forward patting the beast on its head." it's been a while buddy,time to stretch your legs a little. Come on, hop on."
As Damon walked to bronco side, vines came out below it's chest grabbing and lifting him up sitting him on its back behind Jolly.
A layer of tree bark pushed from its back between jolly and Damon separating them a bit. It only reached a foot high, so it wasn't blocking Damon's view or anything as it stretched from one side to the other side of the beast back.
"neat right" jolly asked Damon as more vines reached and wrapped around Damon's and Jolly lap to the other side like a seat belt.
"Are you talking about this piece that separates our lower half from touching each other ?."
"yea I like ya and all Damon but I don't do that funny stuff. "Jolly said jokingly.
"hell I don't either, I'm glad you did something about it cause last time was very uncomfortable being behind you like that"
they both laughed a bit.
"alright bronco, let's go"
They bolted off into the distance, bronco was big and fast as it ran on its four tree bark vine-like legs.
gallop ! gallop! gallop ! gallop ! every stride bronco caused a slight vibration through the ground.
they arrived at beast free forest shortly and bronco stopped right at the wood line, unable to enter the beautiful giant tree forest.
"thanks for the ride buddy."Jolly said while vines came from his chest and wrapped around them both picking them up placing them on the ground.
"Soul retract" once said, bronco was enveloped in the same light in seconds and disappeared.
As they moved Damon recalled the event to Jolly pointing out various areas he was sure limbs had fallen. Damon couldn't make sense of it at all and neither could Jolly.
Jolly believed Damon about his experience,but he did question if he was sure he wasn't dreaming or anything because the evidence which was nothing at all pointed out hallucinations, a dream or just plain crazy.
{___________}
"conceal your cores and try your best to hide your auras as well, you idiots, Jolly is with that soon to be dead bastard." Taylen quickly whispers after spotting Damon and Jolly thirty meters away on the south side of the forest.
"let's move"
{_________}
Minutes later they had reached the tree with the cavity beneath it and they both climbed down.
"fuck without completely harnessing my ki I can't shift it into my eyes to see clearly down here."
"relax I can see clearly it's not a problem for me." said Jolly.
"why is that anyway, I mean your eyes
have always been good in the dark even when we were kids before your awakening, and you don't have an ability to help you see." responded Damon.
" hmmmm, I don't really know. it just seems normal to me." jolly spoke with a light shrug of his shoulders.
" hey I didn't know you made more room down here, it's at least five times bigger than the last time I was here. "
" wait I didn't" he said while holding on to Jolly's arm.
"well maybe it was just a shift of the tree if there actually was an earthquake this morning jolly said while grabbing on to Damon's shoulders.
" Why don't you stay at the entrance, I don't need you holding on to me he said pushing Damon back towards the ladder.
" I have told you to get a light orb or a lantern or something years ago." he added.
"and I told your duck feet head ass I didn't want light down here for the purpose of training my eyes with ki."
"yea yea how's that working out for ya now." jolly mumbles.
" I heard that Damon said squinting his eyes in the direction that jolly voice echoed from.
"it's a black sharp piece of shard, extremely hard, I stabbed it in one of the roots on the ground wall, you can't miss it, it's...." got it" Jolly voiced out interrupting him
seconds later, Jolly could be seen walking up to Damon.
"let's get out of here for some light." Damon suggested.
They were now standing at the base of the tree as Damon held an eight inch long and three inch wide crystalized black shard in his hand with his eyes closed focusing internally.
Within seconds his body began to heat up and sweat. he searched throughout his mind and all he could see was darkness.
Damon was expecting to dive into his subconscious space, but nothing wasn't happening.
Even though his subconscious space was only available to him for stopping the rain,he assumed it could be connected to his ki somehow, further assuming it was possibly something that needed to be done in his subconscious space.
"is it working." jolly asked ...."shhhh I'm trying to focus here." Damon whispers back.
more seconds passed, and then minutes passed as Jolly watched Damon become drenched in sweat with numerous changing face expressions.
"must be one mentally challenging task, he's sweating like he's running a marathon." Jolly thinks to himself.
"there,I see something." After around Ten minutes Damon could finally see it,an orb the size of an orange.
"what's wrong, it's, it's , empty." he said subconsciously.
"Damn it, there's no clouds,no rain no lightning, there's nothing. I can still sense it though, it's very faint. what the hell do I do now though."
Damon started breathing calmly and rested his mind.
" I'll try pulling it out like I would do my internal ki when I enhance my body, maybe that will give it a spark, or it may Just kill me."
Just as Damon started to focus on pulling the faint energy in the orb out.
"well,well,well" a very familiar and young voice spoke as four figures came into veiw from behind nearby trees.
"it seems like your day is about to get even worse tree oaf."
Damon eyes snapped open as soon as he heard Taylen's voice. He froze for a split second and in the next second a serious frown was casted on his face.
Jolly quickly stepped in front of Damon with a calm expression.
"Yo pretty boy,we appreciate you stopping by, but I think it'll be best if you take ya little girlfriends and get the hell out of here."
At the beginning of Jolly's taunt his voice was calm and uncaring, but as he got towards the end aggression could be heard rising in his voice.
" you, you're always making sly comments, and silly punchlines thinking everything is a game and funny." Taylen said to Jolly while giving a certain look and head nod to his crew.
"Well Damon,you're ready." Jolly asked while slowly backing up beside him.
" not by a long shot, but I have your back like you do mine."
They both looked at each other briefly and nodded while whispering to themselves in unison, always.
Damon was not scared at all, he's never been the scared type,just the weak type when it came to power.
He wasn't no scrawny kid that rarely ate and couldn't build muscle. he was never the type of kid to accept being bullied because he was weaker than most.
Although he got bullied here and there, when it came to fighting he wouldn't shy away from it even though he knew he couldn't win.
In others words Damon might have been weak when it came to power and abilities, but he was no bitch.
They all eyed each other waiting for one of them to make the first move.
Jolly was the first to attack, manipulating the roots in the ground to spring up and wrap around all four the boys legs.
unfortunately the bigger roots in the ground he couldn't manipulate,just the smaller ones as it took too much mana.
Two of them were caught off guard, the roots twisted around there legs immobilizing them. Taylen and flea felt the slight vibration in the ground and at the last second, moved out the way.
Jolly rushed forward while generating a vine shooting out of his hand.
"Vine spear." the vine became stiff as the end of it turned into a sharp wood tip cutting through the air towards Taylen.
Damon also rushed forward as fast as he could drawing back his fist the second he arrived in front the boy named kimbo.
Jolly went after Taylen and flea while Damon faced Jack and kimbo. Jolly and Damon knew they were at a huge disadvantage with Damon not being able to use his ki so without even saying what needed to be done,Damon knew he should go after the two who were currently unable to move at the moment.
Damon's fist was about to collide with kimbos fist upon arrival, but he swiftly faked the punch and went for a kick to his nuts.
Bang ! kimbo instantly dropped to his knees holding on to his little man squealing like a pig.
Kimbo's ability allowed him to harden parts of his body in a rock matter. the second he saw Damon aiming for him, he prepared a fist covering it with rock.
Damon knew there was no way in hell his fist would win out without ki, so he faked the punch at the last second,shifting his weight to the side throwing a simple but fast kick downstairs.
fortunately kimbo was too slow to react.
Pew pew! two green energy focused arrows pierced through the wind.
Jolly stomped the ground breifly pausing his pursuit traveling behind his vine spear attack.
A wall of dirt,roots and vines shot out the ground on Damon's side seconds before the illuminated green arrows could hit him.
shoo,shoo, the arrows lodged into the wall and disappeared seconds later.
Jack, the other boy who was currently being held by roots that were wrapped around his legs had used his ability shooting forward the green arrows.
Jolly saw this as he moved towards Taylen and flea and quickly had to intervene.
unfortunately, protecting Damon for that brief second cost him.
After Dodging Jolly's attack Taylen fired a fire ball the size of a grapefruit, while flea cast red thread like energy strings from tree to tree bouncing and moving at high a speed.
The strings attached themselves to the nearby trees in the shape of a square around everyone. boxing them in and cutting off any escape routes.
Jolly quickly formed a wooden vine like shield as the fire ball approached him.
vines shot out the shield attempting to wrap itself around the ball of flames, but we're turned to ashes the second they came into contact.
The ball of fire smashed against the shield knocking Jolly back several feet, but the second it touched the shield Jolly pushed at an angle slightly changing it's path.
it burned holes through the shield, leaving light burns across Jolly's forearm and a few fingers.
Damon had seen everything, the green arrows heading towards him and jolly stopping his attack midway to help him.
clinching his teeth and fits,Damon ran towards Jack who was generating more arrows to shoot the roots from around his legs. seeing this Damon felt like it was his chance to strike.