User blog:The Zero of Faram/Guardians' Peril: Chapter 9


 * Cracks Knuckles* Let's do this. Let's make this chance worth it!

And I thought the day wouldn't seem like much. Ophelia's sword connected with my armor and created a dent. I thrusted my spear forward at her but it barely missed her. She spun and landed another hit on me with her sword on my shoulder, creating another dent. I felt the dent like a spike into my shoulder. Ophelia looked at me with a happy grin. She smiled like this when she was having fun or having a good fight. It's an honor to do this actually, with the fighting a hardened and trained warrior with years of training and experience. What was I when I was Ophelia's age? I was an antisocial girl in a somewhat rich family who wrote and read about gods. It's like a person meeting one of the Guardians themselves. I remember this one girl who loved what I did. She came up to me and hugged me and her mother came running to pull her back. I stopped her and gave the girl a gold charm and she was ecstatic. But Ophelia was better. Even before she was a Guardian she was praised. She fought in a militia and gained recognition from that. She still did that when she became one. I had few. She had many. I thrusted my spear forward again and manage to connect with her chest. She shrugged it off and drove her sword toward my head. I sweeped her and followed up with a thunderous slash to her chest. She struck her sword into the ground and swung herself back to the ground and avoided my attack. She pulled her sword out of the ground. She spun and struck me again. This time in the face. I could only barely turn around. The swing cut an inch of my hair off. The inch of brown hair fell to the dirt. I flipped back and threw my gold cape over me and I disappeared into thin air. I teleported behind her and I appeared. I flew towards her, my spear charged with gold-colored Lightning. I drove my spear into her armor. When It connected, I pushed myself off with my feet and landed on the dirt. Ophelia held her hand out and vines appeared before me. They lunged at me, attempting to grab me. I slashed at them with my spear, splitting them in half. I flipped back and gained space between us. She closed her hand slowly and the ground beneath me rose. A big bunch of vines grabbed the land and another chunk of land was grabbed by the vines. Ophelia's hands moved closer together and as she did that, she raised chunks of land flew closer together. Then they flipped on their side, I hung onto the edge of the land I stood on. Then they quickly flew towards each other. I jumped off and teleported away from them. As soon as I appeared, the now joined chunks flew towards me and hit me. They carried me into he forest and I crashed. I tried to push myself out but my left leg got caught. I couldn't lift the Rock and I could use my spear as a lever. I had no way out but I didn't want to surrender. I wanted to beat her at her own game. I tried to teleport out but I couldn't. Maybe I wouldn't be able to get out. I thought for a bit before it hit me. I held my spear in the air.

"Elimination Shine" I yelled out. Thunder struck my spear and charged it with electricity. I stabbed the rock as hard as I could. Unsurprisingly, it didn't do anything. Ophelia jumped into the Rock and looked at me.

"Need help?" She asked me endearingly.

"No. That would mean I would forfeit."

"It's okay. You always lose against me."

"I'm willing to fight the odds." I said to her, trying to pull my leg out.

"Suit yourself." She said before flipping off and making the rock go deeper into the crater. It crushed my leg even more. I yelled in pain and felt a tear coming from my eye from the pain. Alyut then came onto the rock.

"Rina, come on. You might break your leg from all this force."

"Then get off the rock. You're contributing to the weight." I said to him.

"So you want me to jump off and make you feel more pain? I'm not exactly evil you know."

"Not exactly. Fine then, Could you break the rock in half?" I asked him. I struggled a bit more.

"It's forfeiting still."

"Damn it. What now?"

"Ophelia is one of the best fighters in the world right now. And even in the history of mankind. It's not easy to defeat her." He informed me, again. I looked up at him.

"Your point is?"

"Forfeit for the love of everything." He said annoyedly.

"But Mia was able to beat her. She's only twelve."

"It's Mia. We have no idea what she can do. And if it has to do with defeating Ophelia then she might be up there too. I really doesn't matter if she is twelve anyway. The obsidian manipulating is already enough."

"I will not lose! I'll try!" I yelled. Alyut jumped off. It didn't hurt as much this time but it still hurt.

"Be my guest Rina. Go ahead." He told me. I put force on my leg and turned around. I pulled my leg through the small gap and stood up. My leg was almost bent the wrong way and I was limping but I put the end of my spear to the ground and spearhead to the sky. I then pointed the spear towards the field behind the Inn where were fighting and ran back. I saw Ophelia using her sword to open a nut of some kind and ate the insides before throwing the shell and it dissolving into the ground. She looked at me and the smile returned. I smirked back before holding my spear up and lightning struck it. My spear became charged and I swung it to my side. We started again, Ophelia opening with a giant slam into the ground with her sword. I flipped back and landed. I ran up to her and thrusted my spear into her chest, this time actually doing damage. I could see it in Ophelia's face. She grunted before thrusting her sword forward and spinning it like a drill and launching energy. I rolled to the side and spun into a slash to her shoulder. She spun her sword around her after she recovered. I jumped on the blade and walked on the sword like a plank of wood over a chasm. I ran and backflipped, my boots connecting with her chin and she losing grip of her sword and dropping it. I rushed her down and opened with a jumping kick, almost colliding with her face. She grabbed my limping leg and smiled. She smashed me into the ground by the leg. I felt my bone crack and my leg started to hurt a ton. She threw me up and grabbed me by the neck. She walked to her sword and picked it up.

"Nice job. You've fought better than most people in the past month. I'll give you that." She said with a smile on her face. She shook me and my leg made a cracking sound again.

"Agh. It's an honor to fight you, Ophelia."

"Did your leg just crack? Did you break a bone?" She said looking at my legs.

"You shouldn't care. I might escape and beat you down anyway. Make those spirits come back."

"You sure?" She asked.

"Positive." I replied.

"You want a sword driven through you?"

"Huh? What?! Actually, Maybe I should just forfeit."

"Go ahead. I guess these fights only start out well. They never end well." She said. It felt like guilt tripping and I think it was.

"Then let me go. I'll fight you until I can't." I said trying to not disappoint her.

"No need Rina. I'm pretty sure I would get in trouble more for breaking your leg. I don't want to sleep outside with Raydn. Or at least when he gets back." She told me with a bit of guilt. I stabbed her hand with my spear and she let go and dropped her sword. "Rina!" She yelled at me.

"Sorry, but I need to do this." I told her. My leg burned with pain but I still stood on it. She covered her wrist with her hand. She picked up her sword and held it in position. I nodded my head to signal her to approach but she didn't approach. She always waited for others to approach first. I made my move, I teleported above her and dived down. She raised her sword and blocked the hit. She spun her sword around like a baton above her and I could only dance like jester on it trying to stay on. She pushed it up and I was pushed into the air. She straightened her sword and jabbed it forward. I stepped on the tip and jumped up, stomping on it on the way down. She remained steady and threw me off by swinging her sword down. I landed on the dirt, leg aching on impact and I then knew I had to get serious. I teleported beneath her and flipped back, my foot connecting with her jaw again. I pushed her up and pushed myself off the ground with my hands, making my feet connect with her like a upwards dropkick. I started my ultimate attack. I landed and then shot through her like a bullet, An electrically charged one at that. I teleported and shot through her again. I continued to do so and ended after the thirtieth one. I teleported above her and charged myself with even more electricity and lightning. I dashed through her one more time horizontally and landed and got ready to finish it off. I prepared to push myself off but my leg felt like it snapped completely. I could see the others seeing the pain. I stopped attacking, giving Ophelia time to land on my head, jump up and drive her sword through me. It shattered my leg and I had a massive cut through my back. She pulled out her sword and jumped back, probably to let me breath. I tried to stand up but my leg was completely shattered. I dropped my spear on the ground and put my hands on the ground. Blood was already dripping from my back to the ground behind me and I felt something in my throat. I coughed and blood came out. I even started to feel blood in my eyes for some reason. That wasn't the worst part though. The worst was my leg. I felt the shattered bone swim inside the muscle of my leg, painfully too. I was surprised my leg wasn't Jelly by now. Ophelia approached me, her sword was sheathed in her belt and she looked utterly guilty. She looked scared more than anything. I spat to my left side, the spit red mostly in the middle. Of course, it was blood and more than anything, it took over what liquids in my body were used for. Ophelia looked down to me, not on me surprisingly.

"My Lord, Rina. I'm sorry, I didn't know I would puncture bone!" She said not believing her own words. I bet she felt stupid and that was when I studied her words. She punctured my backbone. Not only that, she broke my leg completely and made it jelly, cut my back and almost split my backbone completely. It also killed my movement. Everything from below the arms stopped function. I couldn't move my legs or my hips. My arms were barely functional. The movement was stilted and it hurt to move. Knowing this, I started to cry and letting my body lose more blood through the tears of blood that went down my face. I looked to her, which hurt.

"Kill me! Kill me now!" I yelled out to her. The words were distorted a tiny bit but my body hurt trying to make it normal. "Kill me please! I can't!..." I started but I couldn't finish. It was horrific how the blood came out of my body onto the dirt. I couldn't imagine urinating blood. The thought made me shudder, making more blood coming out. Ophelia stared dumbfounded.

"What do I do? Alyut, what do I do?" She asked as she looked back. I forgot he was there but he only stared and was speechless. He was immobile and only he was there with us. "What do I do? Do I commit Murder?"

"Do it now! You've already hurt me enough without killing me! Do it now!" I said, sobbing and the distortion messing up my voice. Ophelia drew her sword.

"I can't hear you suffer anymore. I'll make sure this won't hurt too much. We'll revive you as soon as possible, Rina." She said with tears brimming her eyes and sobs beginning. She swung downwards and I felt a huge pain. Seeing how I wasn't dead, she raised her sword and uttered the words of her special attack.

"Grass Cage." She said. Energy enveloped her blade. She jumped up and struck her sword down. Last thing I saw was Alyut's face. His scared face and motionless body. I closed my eyes and the sword took me.

I woke up in my bed, head throbbing and my body was sore. It was like I started the day over again though the light wasn't shining through my window. I knew it was at least midday. I jumped out of my bed but stopped when my leg hurt. I threw off the covers and saw a cast on my leg and I then felt bandages on my back. I felt and there was indeed bandages there. That was more evidence that this wasn't a do-over of today.

"I see you've woken up. You scared us you know and you made Ophelia get PTSD over it." I heard somebody say. I turned my head and saw the Reaper standing there against the wall.

"You revived me?"

"I guess it's Josh-Ex Machina. I happened to come along and your friends realized that our airship, the thing you lost two of your group to find, was to the east of the inn." He informed me with a smirk across his face.

"You didn't answer me."

"How are you alive still? You've seen me revive Ophelia before. And Daniel. And Farlon when I get around to it."

"Hm, yeah. I guess it was obvious. Only you reapers can do it." I told him. He looked at me funny before going out and speaking.

"Only my kind can though. It's more confusing as the lore you write."

"Yeah..." I said. I looked at him. It never appeared more to me until now that he was a good looking guy. I felt my face redden.

"You enjoy my presence don't you?" He asked me.

"I-I do..." I said slowly and embarrassed. My face reddened more.

"It's fine Rina. That's your name right?"

"Yes. Agh, I need to stop blushing!"

"I walked around Faram during free days and after I graduated, saying hello to everybody that knew me and talked to me. I went across this group of girls once. It was four I think and they all started to blush. I said hey to one specific one and she fainted in the spot. Don't feel bad for being like this." He told me. That didn't help at all. It made it worse actually. I took a deep breath before laying back down in bed.

"You must get a ton of recognition. You said you were the best reaper in your division of the four."

"You bet. Along with that, I've won two other tournaments, one in my division, one in all of them. The one with all of them came first and it was team matches. Two vs two. Erin and I annihilated the competition. That was before Vanderin's downfall. Then after we had the one in the division tournament. That was alone and I had to win against some of my friends and teammates. Then there was the fact that since Erin was with the Unknown, we were the only team to be able to find them and stop them. The other teams and divisions didn't realize the threat until the end of them even when it was on the news with my face and my team's faces on there along with two others. Eventually, it stopped. That even got the bounty on my head Eve was after. I almost killed her multiple times."

"What is the Unknown and how is Erin associated with them?" I asked, throwing covers over me up until my neck.

"The unknown was a group of people against Reapers. Some were normal people who hated them because of something and they had weapons to combat us. Some were Reapers who hated their status and other reapers. Some were people who rebelled against the divisions and their ways of living. They were lead by Eriole Semar, Erin and Ani's father. Erin was actually their step-daughter. Eriole's wife who had Ani died from a car accident so he married again and had Erin. When his second wife died from a reaper, he went insane. He fused Ani's soul with essence, corrupting it and making half of her hair pink and her normal hair stayed black on one side. He took advantage of a curse Erin contracted from a stone and made her the main weapon of the organization. Erin left to be a reaper almost three months before I started and we met on the plane to the second entrance exam. I chose her, Carol, and Zach to be a team. Soon after we got settled in, Erin went back again to the Unknown for some reason and only got more associated until we stopped them."

"You remind me of Ophelia. You got so much recognition for the things you did. The good deeds you did, the battles you fought, the things you contributed..... I bet like how Ophelia left some of us in the shadows, you did too."

"Sadly yes. After the first encounter with the Unknown, my popularity skyrocketed. People started to ask for autographs. That escalated to putting my face on brands. I didn't mind it but I preferred it when I was a wanderer that would work as a waiter before becoming a reaper. I was invited to parties at clubs and bars. I would occasionally go and come back drunk as hell. Sometimes I was surrounded by hot girls wearing only bikinis. Some offered me money, some other free stuff, some girls offered me sex. I took all of them, except for that last one. I made them faint from something before booking on the spot."

"Ophelia had the same thing. She was so recognized, people from other regions knew and adored her. She fought with people from different kingdoms. One was Aem. He was a warrior with a giant sword. Though that time she lost. She left us in the dust besides Sodis. They recognized him as an amazing leader. Doesn't mean we didn't get recognized. Lunaris was still the apprentice of a famous chef in Lanara, Alyut was still known as a good leader and Ramna and Farlon were a great music duo even before the guardians were formed. I remember this one girl who ran up to me and gave me a hug. She was a small kid, around eight and her mother ran and took her back. I told her to let go before giving the girl a gold charm. She was ecstatic." I said to him. Didn't I already say this earlier? Not to anybody though, Just my head.

"You feel like you're not enough?"

"It's not that. I can't make a difference anyway, everybody is dead." I told him. Then I heard a footstep.

"Doesn't mean anything. Maybe it isn't the fact you weren't as recognized, but maybe it was the fact you didn't accept who you were in the spectrum as good enough. You didn't think you were good enough because she was better. That doesn't mean a thing if you know people respect you. Maybe they won't shower you with praise, flowers, and their babies, but it doesn't mean they don't know who you are and how good of a Guardian you are." I heard him tell me. First it was weird, the voice wasn't Josh's. It sounded familiar. I looked over and saw that he was back next to Josh. Second, it was surprising, Daniel was back. Third, I was weirded out.

"Daniel? Oh my goodness, you're back! And wait, you're telling me you hid behind Josh for dramatic effect?"

"No. I did before going down stairs for a drink and I happened to come along when you said that. I thought I should work on my this philosopher thing since things haven't gone too too well. Well, what do you think?" Daniel told me.

"You have talent." I said.

"I agree." Josh said. Daniel felt his ego go up and that brought a smile to his face. Josh stretched before walking to the door.

"Sorry, gotta bail. Eves probably mad as hell right now."

"Well surprisingly, you didn't make a video game reference in the entirety of your presence." Daniel said.

"Lemme change that. Hm.... Got it! I'm sorry but I gotta juice." He said before making a running pose. I looked at Daniel and he looked back at me.

"What?" I asked.

"That doesn't even make sense." Daniel followed. Josh left his position and made a sad face.

"It was a television show anyway. I'll just leave."

"Bye then." Daniel and I said at the same time.

"Jinx!" Josh said. Daniel and I looked at him. He sighed, waved and left the room without a word and soon after we heard steps on the stairs. I sat up as much as I could on my bed. I pushed myself to the wall and my back and the wall connected. My back stung a little but I recovered from it and looked at Daniel seeming to space out. He recovered and I turned back to whatever I was thinking about. Daniel sat on the edge of my bed and looked at me.

"So what happened to you? I know you were revived like I was but you split your backbone and the lower bones of your leg were turned to almost dust." He asked me endearingly.

"It's kind of disturbing but that won't stop you. Alright then, it started this morning......." I started.

Bit shorter chapter but whatever, Rina dies! Then revived. So, there's only one left, Ramna then the cycle restarts. And maybe they can move from the inn.... Actually..... Anyway, getting constructive criticism or a 'Wow, this was great!' helps. The latter made some of my days previously. Apart from that, hope you enjoyed. ~ZeroGx