A month Later

 The sky was clear, not even really filled with clouds, birds flew over head letting out a loud call as they passed by, the sun rained down it’s unending heat on to the three boys who laid down on the ground, their chests rising and falling one after the other as they each took labored breaths, yumi walked over looking down at them, her ebony skin glistening with sweat and covered all over in dust, she took the bottom of her black tank top wiping away the sweat from eyes, her hair was undone from it’s usual ponytail, it was instead let down falling down into her back,  

“get up we aren’t finished”, she said, picking up Polaris’ sword from where it laid, she never noticed before but his sword gave off a slight chill, when she moved it, it felt as though water was running through the sword itself,

“just because you guys are exhausted doesn’t mean that we’re done with the training”, yumi said, throwing the sword next to where Polaris laid,  Levant was the first to get up, struggling to his feet, he raised both of his arms out in front of him, both of his guns flying pass yumi’s head and into his hands,

“ Oh as expected of you Levant, your will burns as bright as your flames”, Yumi said, though levant was struggling to stand,

Yumi dropped her hips, and raised both her fists in front of her, she readied herself for the fight to resume,

“guys get up, we’ve been getting our asses kicked by a girl that’s half our size for a month now”, he urged as he pointed both guns at yumi, Aster was the next to rise, his Warhammer dragging itself out of the crater that it rested in and flying right into his hands, he was covered in dirt and cuts, with the arm of his jacket ripped off,

“ well its not our fault that she is so adept at using her power, we know it’s to deal with her eyes, my best guess is that it does two things”, aster said to levant,

“oh so you’ve figured it out, not that I’m surprised, you’ve been the one most focused on it”, yumi stated, a small but pleasant smile came across her face, though it quickly faded,

 

“Also aster I told you stop calling it a ‘power’, the actual term is blessing, we went over this, the terms you guys use aren’t wrong but they have correct names, you guys are what we call ‘blessed’, and I’m a naturally blessed or a natural for short”, yumi explained sounding overly annoyed,

 “ yeah yeah we get it”, aster answered,

“so tell me what is it that you’ve figured out”, Levant chimed in,

“the two ‘blessings’ her eyes have are one, she see’s and processes at about seven or eight times what we normally can, and she can predict about the same number of possible actions we are going to take”, Aster quickly explained to Levant,

“no wonder she seemed to have the answer for anything we threw at her”, Levant remarked,

“well color me impressed, you were close, but it’s closer to ten times the normal speed, and if I really push it to my limit double that but just like you guys it has it’s limits”, Yumi said correcting aster,

 “well it doesn’t matter now, this is the last day of training because tomorrow we are heading for the shadow continent”, yumi told the boys, Polaris, got up from off of the ground, his expression was pained, he took up his sword from in front of him, he rose the blade in front of his face, he inhaled deeply, then slowly he exhaled, in an instant he disappeared, reappearing in front of yumi about to strike, this had caught her off guard because she did not think that any of them had enough energy to attack at that kind of speed, however she still managed to evade the attack, Polaris’ blade swung only hitting air, but he wasn’t finished, the area around his right leg turned chilly and frost started to form over the ground, a stream of ice flowed from the ground sprouting up towards yumi, but yet again she managed to dodge the attack, she landed on top of the ice grinning at a very annoyed Polaris,

 “I couldn’t imagine being such a prideful person, yet losing to someone of a much smaller stature, really that must be such a blow to your ego, or could it be that its because I’m a girl”, yumi said, poking fun at Polaris,

 “yup you are right I’m tired of getting my ass handed to me by a small childlike person for an entire month”, Polaris shouted, as he went in for another attack,

 “I think that pol might have gotten worse”, aster said to levant,

 “what do you mean he’s obviously alot stronger”, levant replied,

 

“i know that but that’s not what i mean, by getting beaten so many times his pride is obviously wounded, and it seems to me that to stop that from happening anymore the idiot decided to double down and become even more prideful”, aster complained as he placed his palm on his face,

 

“oh i see what you mean, he’s definitely been acting a lot more confident, though i just wrote that off as a by product of training and getting stronger”, Levant said to aster,

 

the two off them had just been standing for a while watching Polaris attack yumi while she dodged all of them,

“ I’m getting bored standing here doing nothing”, Levant complained, his body visibly shaking,

“ I was just thinking the same thing”, aster responded agreeing with Levant,

“I’m changing things up”, Levant noted, his guns disappeared in a flash of flames, Aster noticed the amount of heat coming off of Levant began to rise, causing his very fair, light toned skin to turn red, veins started to bulge throughout his arms and into his chest,

Levant lowered his chest to the ground, his body now literally red hot, with heat pouring off of it, Aster knew that this was Levant pushing his fire to the absolute limit, the heat causing Aster’s body to sweat profusely ,the ground beneath Levant began to turn red and levants chest looked like that of a furnace brimming with fire, in a flash of light Levant disappeared from where he was standing, then

A loud explosion went off, from where Yumi and Polaris were, followed by a cloud of smoke and dust, Aster saw yumi emerge out of the smoke first, with a pained yet excited expression on her face, what followed her out was a red streak, then a blue streak, Polaris had followed Levant’s lead, pushing his ice to the brink of what he could handle, the two of them were now able to push Yumi back, as the destructively pushed their way through the forest, leaving a trail of fire on one side and ice on the other wherever they went,

Aster was jumping from tree to tree, at a safe distance from all the destruction, he realized that they were quickly approaching the shoreline of the island, this gave him an idea of how to beat yumi, aster sped up trying to beat them to the shore,

The three of them finally broke through the wall of trees, landing on the soft sand of the shore, Yumi smiled to herself, Levant and Polaris were panting rapidly, Polaris dropped to one knee as he tried to catch his breath, as both the extreme heat and extreme cold subsided from around both of their bodies,

“that’s the closest you two have gotten in such a short space of time, but, now that you’ve wasted most of you energy it’s my win”yumi declared,

“ I wouldn’t be so sure”Aster said, yumi turned around, to see Aster, his dark skin, now turned, a dark silver, as he lunged forward at her,

ten minutes before hand, Back in the city

Barak panted, his chest tight as he gasped for air, but, strangely a grin panned across his face as he looked up to see the absolute destruction he had done, giant craters lined the concrete walls, massive burn marks, which ran from the ground to the wall then onto ceiling, rubble was flung around everywhere, as the lights flickered on and off,

Elphante walked up to him, a similar grin was plastered on his face as well,

“well I’d say these three months were definitely a success, though you still didn’t beat me not even once”, Elphante stated,

“and that’s a shame to be honest, but time’s up, so I’m leaving”, barak replied to him, as he turned and walked away from his master,

But before he could leave, a strange figure stood at the top of the basement doorway,

“I’m surprised that, the building is still standing, considering how much of a ruckus you two have made”, the playful mellow voice said,

Barak looked up to the top of the staircase, a cat sat in the middle, it’s sharp and piercing, bright yellow eyes trained on Barak as it’s tail slowly waved from side to side

“elphante, I didn’t know you were training enforcers now”, the cat said, as it slowly walked down the stairs,

The cat was all black with short fur, it was sleek and slender, with a golden band around one of it’s front legs, and a gold plated collar around it’s neck, although it was a talking cat, it had a presence that made barak stand aside with baited breath as it walked past,

“maria to what do I owe the pleasure”, Elphante said,

“a couple of rats scurried in to city hall a couple nights ago, made off with a very valuable map, they were tracked here”, maria said,

“wait a minute, maria, as in maria almin maltrov”, barak said realizing who stood before him,

“yes barak, she is our great esteemed leader, she’s also a friend from my adventuring days”, elphante said,

“so maria, how important is it that you tracked them yourself”, elphante said,

“I didn’t he did”, maria said, looking back to the doorway, as a short stoute man dressed in a black military uniform, with orange highlights, walked down the stair, he was dark skinned with brown hair and a single white streak of hair,

He carried a large axe with a very familiar looking S on the blade, barak made eye contact with the short man, and then with his blade, noticing the sigil of the S on it,

“a useless kadar enforcer, I can smell it on you”, the gentleman said,

“boss you didn’t tell me another enforcer would be here”, the gentleman said,

“former enforcer, Skovol bitch”, barak said, the lightning beginning to surge within his eyes,

“now now boys, play nice while I’m here, or I’ll punish you both when I’m finished with my conversation”, maria said, walking in between elphante’s legs her tail lightly brushing against them, Barak scoffed, so did the dwarven man who had just came down,

“this is very important that map costed me half of my personal fortune as a way to kee the country a float if we are ever in any financial problems, but that aside I have a secondary problem, an old friend from our adventuring days was spotted intown a month ago”, se said,

“ah, yes, yumi, I know she’s here, infact she’s on barak’s little hideout”, elphante said,

“interesting, she was spotted at a known location of nyoka, from the arman familia, those two together they can’t be up to any good”, maria continued,

“actually her country is in the middle of a civil war, she came to us for help”, Barak spoke up,

“did I tell you to speak , boy”, maria said, callously looking over at barak,

“I’m just saying she isn’t here to cause any trouble”, barak said,

“I don’t care what she’s here for, SHE NEEDS TO DIE, I’m issuing a special order to all my special lieutenants, that she is to be killed on sight, I just came to give the courtesy of letting elphante know, after all she did kill his brother, my husband”, maria said, her words feeling as though they could rip the air apart, a ferocious amount of divine energy began to pour off of her, barak could feel her bloodlust mixed into it,

“anyways that’ll be all”, she said, in a plain mundane voice,

Back on the island

Aster was now pushing himself to his upper limits, which was forcing yumi to get serious as she had used up a lot of energy fending off the other two earlier, her face no longer held any traces of excitement, she had been lured into a deadly trap by aster, he had the surrounding area, marked with various sinkholes and quicksand, which stopped her from evading him so effortlessly, not to mention her blessing was now starting to take a toll on her, as she could feel the beginnings of a headache, from the overuse of her natural blessing,

Aster had a grin all over his face as he could sense the desperation growing from yumi, the two were sitting of to the side, trying to regather what little energy their bodies had left, when suddenly Levant noticed something in the sky, he couldn’t tell what it was, but, he knew it was headed right towards the four of them,

 “aster create a shield right now and hurry”, Levant Shouted,

 “huh, why ?” aster asked, distracting Aster from the person in front of him, as he began to make his way towards levant,

 “Just do it now”, levant told him,

 “GUYS WE GOT SOMETHING HEADED TOWARDS US”, he shouted to Polaris and yumi, as the layer of earth covered up his face fully forming a shield around him and aster, Polaris and yumi looked up and saw that what Levant said was true, they started to dash, off in different directions so that they wouldn’t have been hit, but before the could fully clear the area, a massive bolt of lightning struck the ground, leaving a hole behind after it disappeared, out of the hole emergered barak, his eyes crackling with lightning, as he levatated in the air, with lightning spouting off of him and running through the ground,

 yumi and Polaris looked on in surprise as aster took down the shield revealing himself and levant to barak,

 “Ain’t seen you Guys in a while”, Barak said with a very evil grin spread across his face