Chapter 40: A Strange Meeting

A ball of light shone brightly on the top of a mountain in the middle of the night. It moved and zipped across the top of the mountain. In the strangest way the ball of light seemed to be alive. Its movements were almost human-like. Eventually the flickering ball of light seemed to get darker and darker, until there was no light left at all. The darkness of night hid the mountain peak and all that resided upon it.

The night passed and day arrived. A different type of light began to shine on the mountain; this was the light of the sun. It revealed a boy lying down, sleeping on the mountain top. A snake was wrapped around his arm. The pair slept together so peacefully, but when the sun’s rays hit the boy’s eyes he woke up. This revealed a pair of beautiful blue eyes. The eyes were immensely intelligent; anyone could see that from just a simple glance. But along with that intelligence there seemed to be wisdom. He held an almost ethereal expression, one that had not been tainted by the evil of this world.

This boy was Trip. He had grown up, in more ways than one. Four long years had passed, all of which were filled with difficult and ceaseless training. This ceaseless training had allowed Trip to reach the peak of the technique stage. Unfortunately, to break into the mastery stage was still too far away for him.

Trip had grown, but so had Emer. Emer had become two metres long, and had a speed which could nearly match Trip. Emer had often been Trip’s duel partner, and because of this they had become like brothers, even though they were a different species entirely.

Suddenly Trip stood up.

“I must go and see uncle!” He exclaimed.

The four year period was over. Trip had decided he would say goodbye to his uncle and go find Alex. He had missed Alex all too much over these last couple years. There was not a night which went by where he did not think about how they used to travel and play together.

Trip looked at Emer, who recognised what was happening and climbed up on Trip’s arm. Suddenly Trip seemed to transform into a ball of light and he shot away through the air. This was the newest technique he had learned, and it was by far his favourite. His uncle said it was called Light Travel, and that in later stages it could allow you to go so fast that the naked eye would be unable to see you.

Using the Light Travel technique he swiftly travelled through the sky. It took not even one minute to reach the temple where his uncle resided. He landed on the ground in front of the temple softly and elegantly. A calm smile was on Trip’s face. He walked into the temple and saw his uncle sitting at a table drinking some tea.

Trip sat down across from his uncle.

“How did your battle with Emer go?” Trip’s uncle asked.

A cheeky grin appeared on Trip’s face.

“I won.” He said smugly.

Trip’s uncle smiled. His eyes burned with pride. He was confident that Trip would allow the Levis family to truly grow powerful again. To have reached the peak of the technique stage at the age of fourteen could be considered to be an unchallengeable genius. However, Trip’s uncle had seen too many geniuses fall while they were too young to reach their potential. He feared for Trip’s future, and he feared that Trip’s naivety might at one point become his weakness.

“Trip. I’m giving you a week to find Alex and bring him back here. When you come back you two will go to the school.” He said.

Trip nodded in understanding. He stood up to leave, but went to ask his uncle a question.

“What will happen to you when Alex and I have gone to school?” He asked

Trip’s uncle looked at him for a few seconds.

“I’ll tell you when you get back.” He said with a serious look on his face.

Trip couldn’t help but feel that there was something wrong, but he ignored it for the time being. After all, if it was a problem that his uncle couldn’t solve then he couldn’t solve it either.

Trip left the temple with Emer following closely behind.

As he shot away in a ball of light Trip had some bitter thoughts. If Alex had come to find the temple like he said he would then Trip wouldn’t have to fly off and find him. He had a slight worry that Alex might have forgotten about him. He thought back about how Grelin would help him with these types of worries. However, Grelin hadn’t come back since that day. It hurt Trip every night how Grelin had to sacrifice himself. Trip could only hope he would recover.

After an hour of travelling around Trip hadn’t seen any sign of Alex. He was worried Alex might have gotten lost in the forest around the temple, but that was clearly not the case. Trip then began to execute plan B. Since Trip’s light magic had increased and since he had such a strong bond with Alex he could possibly get a sense of where Alex might be using light magic. Unfortunately, since they were not blood related, it would not be precise, and would probably only show Trip a large estimate of where Alex might be.

He found a good place to sit and began the procedure. He thought of the bond that he and Alex had. Trip was incredibly determined to find Alex. After focusing his mind he began to see a thin string of light appear before his eyes. He used his determination and focus and followed the loose string of light. This string could be seen as a metaphysical manifestation of the bond between Alex and Trip. Every living creature had light within them, but if one were a friend or family member then that light would form a bond. For individuals who use light magic they can see this bond.

Trip had to follow the string of light slowly. It took an immense amount of determination just to be able to continue focusing on the string. After travelling for several kilometres he realised that this method wasn’t going to help him much. It could be that Alex was hundreds of kilometres away, if he were to continue at this rate he’d never find him.

Trip sat down and sighed. Emer went to go and get some food to eat.

“How can I find him?” He asked himself.

WOOSH

An arrow shot through the air directly at Trip. Luckily Trip’s reflexes were fast and he managed to put up an ice shield to block it. He immediately turned around to see where the arrow came from, but he couldn’t see anything or anyone. Suddenly another arrow shot towards Trip, however, this time he was on guard so he easily dodged it. He used the Light Sense technique in order to detect any people nearby. Unfortunately the person shooting the arrows was moving too fast amongst the trees for him to get a good idea of how to get to the person. Trip knew that the only thing he could do was use a long range attack. He called upon the water particles and shot them out in every direction. Waves reached up to five meters tall as the water demolished the surrounding trees.

Trip sensed that the person had stopped for a second in shock at the massive waves of water. This was his opportunity. He shot water directly at the person. The second the water touched the person Trip froze it. Now the person could no longer move.

With ice cold eyes Trip slowly walked towards the half frozen person. The person was wearing a black outfit, which completely covered his or her body and face. The bottom half of the person was completely frozen. Normally this would make someone cry or scream, but there was not a whimper from the person at all.

Trip pulled off the mask and was shocked by what he saw. It was a cute girl. She seemed to be around the same age as Trip. She had a blue eyes and long blonde hair. When she saw Trip she grinned a little bit.

“Hello Trip!” She said.

Trip looked at her suspiciously.

“How do you know my name?” He asked her.

She laughed in response. Trip couldn’t help but feel there was something off about this girl. She was laughing when in reality he could kill her at any time he wanted.

“Why did you attack me?” Trip asked.

She giggled a bit.

“I wanted to test you!”

Trip began to get slightly frustrated. The arrows she shot were accurate and aimed directly at his neck. Those arrows were shot for killing, and not for simple testing.

Trip wondered what he should do. She wasn’t explaining herself at all. She was really just being annoying.

He then remembered something he had read once. Back when he went to the elementary school of magic a teacher had accidentally misplaced one of his own books in the library. This book was about torture, primarily, water torture.

Trip looked at the girl, but decided against it. If she could withstand being within a block of ice she wouldn’t have too many problems with torture. With a smile on his face he simply walked off, leaving her there.

As he began to walk away the expression of the girl began to worsen.

“Hey! Don’t go!” She pleaded.

“Are you going to explain all of this then?” He asked.

“YES! Just let me out of this ice. It’s slightly uncomfortable.”

Trip broke the ice and sat down.

“Speak.” He commanded.

The girl cleared her throat and began to explain everything.

“My name is Mabel and I work in an organisation called Daethia.” She said.

Trip raised an eyebrow. Daethia was an assassin organisation. One would think that the girl would be too young for that.

“Anyway, I worked in the city of Gourn with my boss and Alex.” She said

Trip’s eyes widened. Not only did she know Alex, but she even worked with him.

“So Alex works for Daethia.” He said in disbelief.

“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.” Mabel said “Daethia actually helps society a lot.”

Trip was not in a mood to argue.

“Whatever.” He said “Where is Alex now?”

Mabel laughed awkwardly.

“Let me tell the story first.”

“Fine”

She smiled.

“When Alex joined Daethia I was much stronger than him. However, he seemed to have this passion for growing stronger and he improved like was no tomorrow. Whenever I asked him about it he told me about you and how strong you were and how he wanted to catch up to you.” She paused for a bit. “Alex became stronger and stronger, until he reached a point where I couldn’t even hold a candle to him in a fight. The boss saw that he had gotten much stronger and thought it was safe to leave him in charge for a bit.”

Trip looked at her.

“What happened?” He asked with an intense look in his eyes.

“Well… Alex was always very passionate about making the world a better place. He used to say that you would want it that way…” She looked to the ground for a bit “One day when the boss was gone there had been a murder. It was clear that some politician had done it, but nobody dared say anything. Alex approached it like any other mission, but our boss had told us to not do anything until she came back. I advised him against it, but he wouldn’t listen. And then…”

“Where is he!? What happened!?” Trip asked in hysteria.

“It turned out that the mission was a trap. There were a hundred well trained soldiers waiting for him there.”

Trip’s heart sunk. He knew Alex wasn’t dead because he could still feel the slight bond, but what if he was sick or hurt!? What would he do then?

“Alex killed them all.” Mabel said with a serious look on her face. “He then killed the politician and all his subordinates as well.”

Trip was shocked. But if this was all that happened then there would be no reason for her to search for Trip and find him.

Mabel began to speak again.

“The Daethia organisation called for his capture. They decided it was too much of a risk to keep him acting the way he did and they sent their best agents to capture him.”

“Where is he now?” Trip asked.

“He is currently being held in a high security cell in an underground Daethia base in the capital of West Hrior.” She replied.

Trip looked at her for a second.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” He smiled “Let’s go get him.”