Chapter 1: Training

Leonard and Joseph have been informed that their training will be far more intense, and they are mostly prepared for it.

Chapter 1: Training and Stories

5 days later.

Catherine’s training regime had become twice as intense. The amount of breaks Leonard and Joseph got was halved as was the length of said breaks. But of course Catherine never was too hard on the boys she couldn’t bring herself to scold them for making mistakes even. She just stayed warm and gentle, guiding them with a soft touch. Even so, she had put them through hell. The harsh training they had to endure would’ve been impossible for most.

The training arena was a large coliseum. There were 3 different structures within the arena, each playing a different role but all serving the same purpose, to help with training.

The main area of the coliseum was just flat, smooth concrete ground. If it was damaged it would repair itself over the course of a day.

Joseph was practicing his magecraft, it was lightning. 3 different types of lightning, all of which were useful, all of which were demanding to use. The stress on his body was rather heavy yet for some reason afterwards, he would feel his strength quickly regenerated.

While Joseph had indeed awakened his magecraft, he didn’t have full control over what type of lightning he would produce as he didn’t fully understand what these different forms did. As such he asked his mother for aid as she had been closely observing him.

“From what I’ve seen Joseph, your magecraft kinda goes like this, red is destruction, green gives you some variety, blue gives you even more variety.”

Catherine tried to sum it up as best she could however she knew that her explanation was oversimplified and lacking. So, instead of using words, she decided to use her actions.

“Let me show you with my own magecraft.”

With a snap of her fingers a wave of fire shot towards the ground and exploded upon impact.

“That is how your red lightning works, a single straight line of lightning that hurts a lot.”

Joseph was a bit disappointed and thought that maybe it wasn’t that useful of a skill. Catherine patted his head to reassure him.

“It’s not the most flashy kind of magic out there but it’s damn useful, don’t forget that. If it makes you feel any better I think it’s kinda cool. Now, let’s move on ok?”

Joseph nodded with a smile, now more excited to carry on. Catherine herself smiled.

She pointed her left arm at a different direction. A bolt of fire fired off at the direction, in midair the bolt split up into 5 other bolts, the explosions caused when the bolts had hit their target was far smaller than the previous singular wave’s explosion but the area covered was far more.

She moved her arm from that direction, from the ground far away fire burst out from it and followed her arm’s movements. Slowly, it began to get closer to her and her son. Eventually, they were surrounded on all sides by a circular wall of flames. With a snap it was all extinguished.

“That’s more or less what your green lightning does, it can split up and be created from places other than your hands. There is something extra, I can’t replicate it perfectly but I’ll give it a shot.”

Her arms were engulfed in fire. She punched the air with tremendous force, after the punch ended a blast of fire erupted from her fist. Behind her she created a volley of arrows, all composed of the same flame currently enveloping her arms.

The projectiles shot forward at the slave. A shield of fire was created, blocking all the incoming arrows with relative ease. The original flame creating the shield was the same surrounding her arms. The fire disappeared.

“You can enhance or enchant weapons and armor but only with the properties of attack and defense. You can basically give a weapon the effect of attacking twice cause’ the first will be a regular hit but then it’ll shoot a blast of lightning. For armor, it will make a shield. It’s straightforward, simple and very useful.”

Joseph felt amazed, his magecraft had a lot of different things that it could do, and he had to be honest, he thought that it was very cool.

On the floor in front of her was created a whip of fire. She tried to grab it but her hand merely phased through, unharmed.

“Now, if this was your blue lightning, you would be able to grab it. That isn’t something I can do with my flames.”

Further ahead a symbol was carved into the floor by her magecraft. It was a circle with a line in the middle.

“That right there is a rune. Not at all one that’s complex, it’s the most basic of basic runes, it would barely hurt a fly even, but this is just to demonstrate and I’m not really that well versed in runes.”

She snapped her fingers and a small explosion was created in the center of the rune, afterwards it completely disappeared.

“As you can see if it was stronger, it would definitely be able to do some damage. But that was a pathetically weak rune. You can make things just like that with your blue lightning.”

Catherine paused for a moment and just stood there, resting. But she was also saying something in a low voice that Joseph didn’t quite catch.

“Damn, I’m almost jealous at how naturally gifted you are, so young, yet so damn strong, ugh, to get at your level I had to train for 3 years straight. Wait, this just means that you’re only this strong cause’ your parents were great, HELL YEAH!”

She mumbled to herself but the final 2 words were quite loud.

Catherine celebrated for a moment when she spoke her final 2 words as well, confusing Joseph, before quickly deciding to get back to the matter at hand.

2 shields of flames were created in front of her.

“You can create these barriers here without needing to enchant something with the property to make them if you use your blue lightning. While this is great and all, you still need to learn how to properly switch between them. Ah, don’t worry though, soon enough this’ll be as natural and easy as breathing, well the switching at least, the whole casting part…yeah, not so much.”

Over the past few days Joseph was unconsciously switching between his lightning forms, sometimes this lead to his spells backfiring completely. He was able to make runes at most, enchant something for a maximum of 5 hits, both for defense and offense, and enhance for 5 seconds, once again for both properties.

She had guided him on how to use these different things, but only now did she give an explanation.

“For now, try to rapidly cast your spells, primarily that red lightning of yours, as you grow you’ll understand the usefulness of the other 2 versions and how to use them better. Remember to use a chant we don’t want it blowing up in your face like before.”

Chants help to stabilize spells, no one has found out why but it would seem that words simply help with using magic as a whole. Some abilities of magic absolutely require a chant in order to activate, said abilities are, more often than not, original.

Joseph nodded his head and took position in front of some training dummies.

Leonard was supposed to awaken his magecraft, a particularly difficult task to accomplish, especially due to the methods his current teacher was using to allow him to do so.

Magecrafts usually awaken when someone is in an exceedingly stressful situation, so much so that they are afraid that they could even die. As such, Catherine decided to create such a situation, of course she would not let her son die, but she would most certainly allow a situation in he’s wounded.

It could be seen as immoral, but it was necessary. Over the past 5 days of the new training regime he had been making the least progress out of the twins. Leonard himself knew this, and he was fully prepared to go through with whatever plan his mother came up with. In fact, he was the one to suggest the plan after hearing Catherine’s story of how she awakened her magecraft.

That did not mean that Catherine took his whole idea, no, she added some tweaks here and there to make it a far better plan.

And so here he was, in the middle of an artificial tundra, fending off wolves with naught but a knife and his warm clothing. Said tundra was created in a dome like structure, originally a labyrinth, but now it’s been repurposed for this. Catherine herself was unable to create such a thing on her own as a result she was given aid by House Phoenix. It was certainly a strange experience for Catherine when she found out that there was an ice mage within House Phoenix of all places.

But that mattered not, what mattered was that she was able to create that which she needed, and the results were marvelous. At least for the creation of the tundra, for Leonard’s awakening of his magecraft, she would have to wait a bit longer to get those results.

Before the boy was a pack of 6 wolves, he’d already fended off 2, this was evident from both the corpses of said wolves that lay beside him, and the bite wounds on his arms and legs that still bled.

Any normal child would currently be crying and running in fear, but Leonard was no ordinary child. He was the son of Catherine and Alastair, a slave of House Phoenix, a boy that had been training from the moment he was able. The life before him was tough, and he decided that he’d just be tougher.

He ran at the wolves. 1 of them jumped forward at him in an attempt to bite the boy. He moved to the right, narrowly avoiding the strike. Quickly, he lunged at the wolf, stabbing it through the eye, it died in a matter of moments. From behind another wolf attacked, it pinned him to the ground but Leonard was able to use his arms to keep the wolf from biting his face. It continued to try but its life was ended as Leonard stabbed his knife upwards, through the wolf’s jaw, blood splattered onto his face but he cared not for it.

In haste the boy shoved the wolf’s body off of him and rolled to the right, dodging an attack from another wolf. Only 4 remained now. To the right a wolf lunged at him, he was not fast enough to evade this, his right arm, the arm carrying his knife, was slashed by the claws of the attacking wolf. The knife fell from his hand as his grip loosened due to the pain.

He tried to recover his fallen knife but another wolf ran at him and latched onto his leg with its teeth, in pain and anger he let out a scream, one that he tried to hold in.

With his fist he punched the beast, trying to get it off of his leg. Another wolf ran at him, it pinned him to the floor, biting onto his already injured right arm. He struggled against the creatures, punching and kicked them, but to no avail. The fallen knife was barely out of reach and on his right side.

He could not grab it even if it was in reach as a wolf was currently biting onto him. Leonard felt several things, fear, anger, pain, but most importantly he felt disappointment in himself. But quickly, he turned these feelings into determination.

He needed to win, he needed to live, he needed to kill these damned creatures on top of him, and to do that, he needed a weapon, anything would work, a stone, a club, a knife, a dagger!

Suddenly, something was in the grasp of his left hand, he inspected what it was, and what he found put a smile on his face, it was a knife, purely created out of steel and nothing more, not even a proper handle. Knife in hand Leonard got rid of both wolves with 2 swift strikes.

He struggled to get back up to his feet, but he still was able to stand.

Catherine felt something, a bit of fatigue, a sudden surge of energy left her. She didn’t exactly know the reason why, but she had a vague idea. She smiled merely thinking about it.

“Joseph, I’ll go get your brother, just continue your work!”

Catherine said as she rushed off, not waiting for any response.

Leonard picked up the knife that fell out of his hand previously and resumed fighting the wolves. He ran at the 2 remaining ones as they stood side by side. He threw the one of only steel it almost landed but nonetheless, missed.

He still continued his sprinting. 1 of the wolves too began running at him, it jumped up and bit his arm. He felt pain, but he didn’t feel the sensation of the wolf’s teeth entering his skin, nor drawing blood. He grew a small smile and sliced the wolf’s stomach, throwing it to the side, letting it die.

The last wolf too bit his arm, at the exact same spot as the last one, but this one’s teeth broke when it bit down, it backed away in pain but Leonard was not letting it go that easily, he rushed forward and sliced its throat, killing it.

Afterwards, the slave fell to the ground in exhaustion. His breathing was unsteady and deep. He heard the sounds of footsteps in the snowy tundra he sat in. The sounds were coming from all sides. He looked around only to see a horde of wolves closing in, too many to count.

The slave stood up, knives in hand, ready to fight. He gestured to the wolves as if to say “Bring it on.”

The wolves ran towards their prey. But before they were able to reach him, blood began gushing out of their bodies as they were sliced by an unknown force. They fell dead before even reaching the feet of the boy.

In front of Leonard stood his mother with a black katana stained in blood. She herself however, didn’t have a single drop on her. She observed Leonard, he had been wounded by scratches and bites, his clothing was ripped apart but still covered most of his body, and most strange, a portion of his arms were seemingly coated in steel.

She looked around the battlefield quickly and spotted the metal dagger. She patted Leonard and the head and kneeled down to his level.

“That knife, did you make it?”

Catherine asked whilst pointing at it.

“Yeah…I don’t know how but it just happened…I was thinking of a weapon and it just…came.”

Leonard said tiredly between his heavy breathing. His mother pulled him into her embrace.

“Rest, you’ve done a good job, Leonard.”

She picked him up in her arms and then picked up the steel knife. After that, she exited the artificial tundra in haste.

The next day

Catherine found out certain things from the knife created by Leonard, first being that it was a metal with no impurities and with incredibly high heat resistance, second being that the knife itself was somewhat hollow. She had this confirmed the blacksmith of House Phoenix, someone with a magecraft that coincidentally helped him see such things, as such he was a perfect fit for the blacksmithing job.

Catherine believed that she needed to give Leonard and Joseph a breather for the current day due to the events that transpired the day before. Leonard’s wounds took the entire day to heal to the point in which he could even move around without feeling pain and Joseph overexerted himself and used too much mana, putting himself in a position on par with Leonard.

So, she decided to take a day off and tell them a story. They all sat in the middle of the training area. They all were on chairs, incidentally 2 members of House Phoenix decided to join in, Jessica and Calam. Both were decent people, not hateful, not arrogant, but instead genuinely kind and caring for others, old friends of Catherine.

“Have I told you 4 about the time me and Alastair got imprisoned?”

“Wait hold on, you what?”

Calam exclaimed, clearly confused.

“We were outcast by the kingdom remember? It’s only natural for the city’s guard to wish to imprison us.”

Catherine smiled a bittersweet smile as she remembered the events.

“Woah there, I don’t remember hearing any of this! Not from you or from Al!”

Jessica chimed in.

“We all know that Al would never tell our stories and I didn’t tell you guys cause’ I thought it wasn’t relevant.”

Catherine said with laughter in her tone.

“Wow, thank you so much Catherine for making sure that we don’t know about something so incredibly important and quite possibly, entertaining."

Calam spoke in a somewhat irritated manner.

“Cal, I think you’re being a bit overdramatic here.”

Jessica responded.

“Yeah, maybe, but why didn’t Al tell ME anything? I was basically his biggest fan.”

“Cal, I think that was the reason why he DIDN’T tell you and preferred to just never talk to you.”

Catherine said, now fully laughing.

“Mom, could you start the story please?”

Leonard asked impatiently.

“Leonard, you should wait, she’s clearly talking to her friends.”

Joseph berated his brother.

Catherine let out a laugh watching them.

“It’s fine Joseph. Leonard’s right, I should get on with the story.”

“Yeah, it wouldn’t be fair if only the adults have fun.”

Jessica said whilst walking around.

Several years ago within the Kingdom of Altir

The Kingdom of Altir was situated near a tundra and as a result, it snowed there quite often, snowstorms were just as frequent.

A blonde haired girl and a black haired boy ran through the streets of the city during one of these snowstorms. Both of their eyes were covered by bandages, upon their body were several more bandages, covering wounds, blood stained them. Both of them wore fairly expensive clothing, it was quite evident that they were descended from rich families despite their wounds.

The boy led the girl by the hand. Behind them were several armored soldiers, chasing them with weapons ready. Eventually the children stopped as a volley of arrows was shot at their feet, they may not have been able to see it, but their hearing was keener than all others.

Several archers were posted on rooftops, all aiming at them, ready to fire.

“Halt your fire.”

A man spoke, he was dressed in a white coat, he was quite clearly of military standing.

“We were personally requested to not kill them yet. Throw them in the jail. They should die over the course of the year, slowly…painfully.”

This man spoke with some level of regret. The children were shackled together, their arms and legs bound, they could not escape. The man knelt down to their level.

“This isn’t personal, we’re just following orders.”

He snapped his fingers and they felt tired, their eyelids felt heavy and in a matter of moments they fell asleep.

They awoke the next day, at Dawn, their surroundings were not familiar to them, but they knew where they were. They lay upon the cold, hard ground. Both sat up, behind them and on their sides were walls similar to that of the floor and in front of them a large steel door without any openings.

Their shackles started glowing with a blue hue. They felt their energy drained suddenly, presumably by the shackles. The bandages on their wounds were gone, as were the bandages covering their eyes.

The boy had blue eyes whilst the girl had red eyes. They were Catherine and Alastair. Nobles by birth, but now stripped of their rank because of their crime.

Around them were others, all children, all in the same position as them, all younger than them. They all looked as if they had lost all hope.

“Damn it!”

Alastair shouted.

He rose to his feet and stood tall. Rather than being in despair, he decided to be determined and started thinking of a plan. Catherine stood beside him, both determined to escape.

Suddenly, the door swung open. An armored guard walked through. All the other children started backing away from him in horror. Only Catherine and Alastair stood before him. He went to grab one of the several children but Alastair got between them.

His shackles broke, as did the ground beneath him, a blast of wind shot out of his arm, shredding the armor wore by the man and his flesh. He screamed out in pain.

The ground opened up beside the boy, more shackles latched onto him, eventually covering all his limbs. An electric current passed through them, shocking the child and sapping away his mana. Catherine tried to free him but to no avail. Eventually, he was dropped onto the floor.

“Agh, Do that again, and you’re f*****g dead!”

The man said as he grabbed a child, raising them by their hand.

“It’s time for your execution, follow the example set by these new ones, and you’ll be digging your own grave.”

He said whilst pointing at everyone else.

“Catherine, we’re getting out of here, no matter what. Be it years or decades later.”

The present

“That’s how we were caught, as for how we broke out…I’ll tell you that at a later time. For now, let’s just rest. Oh and, me and Al were older than both Leonard and Joseph here, I forgot to mention that.”

Catherine said as she decided to lie down upon the ground.

“Oh come on, you’re not gonna tell us more? The whole escaping part of the story’s always the good part!”

Jessica said, clearly intrigued by the story.

“I will, just give me a few minutes. It’s been a long, long time. I gotta remember the details.”

Catherine reassured her.

“But I will say this, it was difficult to escape, very difficult, at every turn we had to fight, at every step we had to suffer, but that didn’t matter. Why? Because we had each other, me and Alastair, we could rely on each other, trust each other, we may have fought each other at some points, hated each other at other points, but what mattered was that we were there for each other when we needed to be. Remember that, Leonard, Joseph, it’s an important lesson.”

She sat up, no longer lying down, she continued. She had a slight smile on her face, though it didn’t last long.

“If you forget who your friends and enemies are, you might end up killing one another. And I’m talking from experience here.”

Catherine wore an expression of bitterness and anger upon her face.

End of Chapter 1

 

 

Author's Note

This chapter is a VAST improvement from the Prologue, in my opinion. As it should be, I rewrote this twice. If I'm wrong, correct me please.