Growing up in the town of Leonard, a large town located in the south east of Elentia. In other words, count Volden's territory, Alvin spent most of his younger days roaming around the city's slums by his lonesome.
He was initially born into a family of ten, consisting of a single mother, father as well as eight offsprings as the first child. His family lived in the slums as his parents were too poor to feed the mouths of ten people, including themselves, while also footing all the bills required of normal civilians.
Their standard of living was as low as it could get, and the parents were deeply frustrated by the fact. It was so much that Alvin mostly only had memories of his parents arguing due to the number of children they had to cater for. They lashed out at each other with their mouths, sometimes the arguments would escalate to dangerous heights, resulting in a physical confrontation.
The situation only got worse as more child births followed after his. His parents would once again argue and complain, before retiring to bed and creating even more life. When Alvin grew old enough to learn the sacred secrets pertaining to the creation of new life, he was left confused with only a single question weighing down on his mind.
'why?...'
Why indeed. A single three lettered word that could not even serve as a phrase by its lonesome, yet it possessed a natural ability to indiscriminately question everything. Even existence itself, could not escape the interrogation performed by this seemingly insignificant word.
This very same word, played continuously like an anthem in the mind of a young Alvin.
Why were humans so vain?
This question was conjured by his parents' tendency to repeat the very same mistake over and over and over again.
Why were humans so irrational?
This question was conjured after he watched in horror as his father stabbed his mother with a knife after she gave birth to her eighth child. Alvin watched as his father murdered her in cold blood and proceed to crying his eyes out at her lifeless corpse before turning himself in due to the guilt.
Why were we so weak?
He thought as he watched his siblings drop dead like flies due to the severe lack of the basic necessities. His father had been imprisoned because of his crimes, but no one could care less about a murderers spawns. They were left to perish, and persih they did, starting from the last born.
Why were humans so concieted?
Alvin queried himself as he remembered the time when he first beat a human being to the point of near death and looked at the boy's pathetic figure without remorse. He had managed to live long enough to get his magical talents recognized in a chance encounter with a certain farmer named Ross. The farmer had fought hard to get Alvin a scholarship in one of the back water academies and Alvin eventually graduated as one of their best students ever.
The individual whom he had nearly killed was a fellow student who had picked a fight with Alvin just because of a freaking girl. The individual was a pompous noble brat whose magical talent had been low enough for him to get rejected in every other high ranking academy he applied for.
Why were humans so supremely foolish?
Alvin thought as he bore witness to the jaw dropping level of corruption in the Elentian royal knights brigade. He watched as different people blinded by greed concotted plans against their fellow humans, leading to an immense deterioration in the entire system.
These questions which were posed at nobody in particular resonated in Alvin's mind even when he found himself committed these 'human' actions. He was no saint after all, so he could not maintain a perfect living throughout his life. He also was not a hypocrite, and that was why he never got around to asking others these question, since he himself had been found wanting in quite a few of them.
But that all changed when he met the count Raymond.
It was at a particular noble gathering that took place annually. The gathering entailed the presence of every living noble in the country, and naturally, Raymond was in attendance.
Alvin was mesmerized by the count's entire self. His grace, his movements, his strengths, his weaknesses, his way of speech, everything that made up the creature known as Raymond Swordhearth struck Alvin's being.
To the latter, Raymond was not exactly the perfect human, but was the closest to it even with his numerous imperfections. He immediately made a decision.
He decided that he would follow this person, and gladly lay down his life for him if need be. That was why even though he was not bound to the Swordhearth family by anything, he still served them wholeheartedly. As much as, if not more than, even those who were bound to them would.
As the flash back ended, not even a single second had gone by as time seemed to have slowed down and Lark's fist was still slowly approaching his face. It was then that he realized it, his greatest fear.....
What he feared the most was not his own death. Nay, it was the excruciating guilt that would eat away at him if he let down Raymond.
As if all his lost vitality had returned, his eyes regained a strong vigor, and calling upon his enhanced strength and agility, he ducked down and dodged the incoming blow. He did not escape unharmed though as the force generated by the punch was enough to make his right ear bleed a little bit, but he paid it no heed.
A sudden shock came over Lark as he had not expected Alvin to dodge his blow as he had also been using fusion magic birthing a short moment of hesitation. Something that Lark would soon regret.
Moving his left leg forward and affirming his stance, he clenched his fist and contracted his elbow. Using the very minute extra time generated from the short hesitation, Alvin punched upward. His fist landed squarely against Lark's exposed jaw.
*BAM*
"Puah!"
The force of the blow was sufficient to knock Lark's head backwards, creating yet another opening which Alvin did not fail to exploit.
Readjusting his balance in a few split seconds, he raised his entire leg and delivered a kick the side of Lark's neck, a cracking sound was heard as he did this.
*Crack*
He was not stopping there though as he instantly conjured an ice spear before maliciously driving it into Lark's shoulders.
*STAB*
Blood spewed out as the ice spear went right through Lark's shoulders and came out from the other end. He was still not done yet. After all, the best way to defeat an opponent who was exponentially more powerful than you was to relentlessly bombard them with attacks.
He stretched out his hand to the center of Lark's chest, and began the familiar process of chanting a spell. As he did, a congregation of ice Mana made its way over to his outstretched arm. The ice Mana, congregated, formed and compressed itself into a ball.
The ball of ice condensed further till it reached the size of a tennis ball.
'i don't have time to condense it any further. I'll have to do it now!' Alvin concluded decisively.
"Blizzard bomb." Alvin said in a rushed tone. It was a fifth tier ice spell.
As the root chant escaped his mouth, the spell was cast. The small ball of ice that had obviously been condensed to the limits shone brightly, before exploding into a burst of bright light and powerful ice and snow.
*BOOM!*
The sound and power of the explosion shook the walls of the tunnels as the ceiling cracked and the entire structure showed signs of falling apart. They were in fact very lucky that the tunnels had not collapsed already. The structure had definitely seen better days, but despite the powerful explosions it managed to maintain it's overall integrity. It was very lucky that the adventures guild paid frequent visits to perform maintenance on the place due to a certain incident that happened around the time when it was first built.
'phew...it did not cave in.' Alvin thought thankfully as a sigh of relief almost escaped his lips as the from the spell cancelled.
'No. I can't relax yet...at least not until I make sure my opponent is down.' Alvin reprimanded himself as he turned his head in search of his spell's victim and after a few more minutes of searching, he caught sight of Lark.
Sprawled on the ground, with his eyes closed and mouth dripping blood was the squad captain of the magic knights. The maliciously evil aura he once possesed had seemingly dispersed as he now looked harmless.
He would have breathed that long awaited sigh of relief now, but he could feel that characteristically unseetling feeling of something being off.
The dark tunnel now possessed a very eerie silence as Lark still lay unmoving at the other end.
'It can not be this easy...can it?' Alvin thought as he recalled his classes all those years ago.
'those drugs were said to have granted a lot more power than this as well as a physique that was very nearly impregnable. If it was truly the same drug, then it could not have ended simply like this. Or maybe the effects were nerfed to reduce the gravity of the side effects? Thats unlikely though.' Alvin questioned himself..
His thought processes were interrupted by the mainacal laughter which sounded from the other end of the tunnel...where Lark lay.
"Hehehahehahaha!!"
A crazed mixture of both high and low pitched laughter rang out from where Lark's body was.
'cr*p....I should have known.' Alvin thought bitterly.
Like an undead wraith, Lark raised his head in the most freaky and inhumanely way possible to reveal a toothy grin that sent cold shivers down Alvin's spine.
"Hehehahahaha!" The laughter continued as signs of Mana usage appeared on Lark's body.
*HISS*
A hissing sound was heard as hand like figures made entirely of hot magma spawned from mid air and flailed dangerously around Lark.
"Go." At Lark's command, the magma hands flew towards Alvin's direction at break neck speeds. Normally, the latter barely had time to react, but he wasted that remaining precious time on being uneedingly suprised.
"Argh!!" Alvin yelled out in pain as the lava hands assaulted him. The icy aura generated from fusion magic served as a temporary protection against the hands and prevented him from instantly melting away under the combined heat of about ten or so hands.
The sizzling hotness of the hands penetrated Alvin's fusion magic and pressed against his skin, marring it and plunging him into abject agony.
He tried to fight back by conjuring a few spells to try and pacify the magma's effects, but it was all for naught as the Mana factor worked against him. He decided to just focus everything on his aura, generating an even higher level of protection around himself. But the combined power if the hands still overpowered Alvin.
The hands covered Alvin so much that his pained shouts were reduced to nothing more than muffled screams and as he struggled to no avail, the despair which he had temporarily pushed aside began to resurface.
It was at that moment that yet another explosion occured, though it was not caused by the two captains
*BOOM!!*
Another boom, seemingly twice as powerful as their's shook the already shaken walls and ceilings. That was the last straw! The structure experienced a minor cave in and large pieces of the ceiling fell to the ground and buried the two people below under it's rubble.
A/N:
Wow, even I did not expect this particular arc to stretch out for this long, but I've already started it do there is no turning back now.