Dash reached out and grabbed Jin by the shoulders and leaned in towards him. “He what!? Say it again!” she said, staring daggers, her arms digging into his shoulder.
Jin, unused to being this close to girls, rapidly began blushing and struggled to gain some distance, but Dash, having basically been AJs training partner for years, did NOT have a weak grip by any means.
“I- I said that Spike wasn’t the one who attacked us.” Jin sputtered out. “Actually, he saved my life.”
Dash’s face immediately lit up. With a wide grin she almost hugged him, and her sense of relief almost caused her knees to buckle. However, her jubilation was short lived as her expression turned from happiness and relief, to contention and suspicion.
After a second, she let him go and took a deep breath. “But… that's not the whole story is it?” she said in a low voice. “What happened?”
Pinkie reached out a hand and sat it on Dash's shoulder, giving her just a little bit of comfort in case she heard the worst news.
“Well you heard the first part correctly,” Jinkei began, finally glad to have some space to breathe. “Areth and I met up with Master Trial for our training report before meeting back up with Spike out in the field.”
~~~
“Areth was complaining about having to take more courses than me because he has wings. And by the time we got to Spike, he was already neck deep in training. So we called out to him.”
The figure, hearing a familiar voice, turned and peaked an emerald eye out from his hood and, seeing his friends, Spike lowered his hood to reveal the rest of his smiling face.
“Hay! Over here! I found an entire-” mid statement, the tail of one of the other worms slammed into him, sending him tumbling over to a nearby boulder.
“SPIKE!” screamed Jin as he ran over to help. Areth, growled and charged forward at the rock worm.
Spike, being a dumb ass, got distracted and tossed into the air. I went to check on the dumbass while Areth attacked the thing with the hide as tough as scales and ALSO got his ass rocked.
Spreading his wings, he leapt high into the air and swung his sword down on the part of the creature that struck Spike. His sword sliced through the air but stopped dead on the rock hard surface of the Rock worm. With even less effort, the creature shook him off.
Areth flipped around, righting himself before coming back in for another attack. However, before he could get back at the worm that shook him off another Worm from the group struck him from behind with his horn, while not wholly piercing his dragon scaled hide, did knock him higher into the sky before crashing into the ground.
He coughed, once, twice, three times before getting to his knees to stand back up.
“Dude are you alright,” he looked up to see Jin staring down at him, offering a hand for him to grab, next to him was Spike, doing the same.
“I think you beat your height record with that one,” Spike snickered.
Areth growled, but took their hands anyway. He looked Spike up and down. “Didn’t you get blasted into a rock?”
Spike pushed his arm past his cloak, revealing his, rather dirty, sleeveless red hoodie that had been decorated with a flame emblem. He took a stance and flexed his bicep. “You guys aren't the only ones with high defence!
Jin put a finger to his mouth and shushed Spike. “Shh, don't even joke about that out loud.”
Spike shrugged. “You’re too cautious my dude, nobody’s out here. I checked. Now,” he muttered before summoning his black and white keyblades in a flurry of green and purple flames. “You wanna practise the thing and take them all out?”
Jin sighed and nodded. Areth tried to step forward, but was stopped by Jin’s arm. “I’m fine!” he asserted.
“Stay back, I just don't want you to get caught in the crossfire.”
“I told him that because I really didn't want him to get hurt. But looking back, I think he might have taken offence to what I said. But either way, Spike and I did our cool as hell combo attack and took down the rock worm.”
Jin skid to a halt and threw his keyblade. It spun through the air straight to the middle of the pack. As it picked up speed, the keyblade began glowing with power.
“Twister!” he yelled. The keyblade exploded outward in a waft of fierce winds. While not enough to create a full blown hurricane or tornado. It was enough to raise a cloud of dust, leaves and sand.
Spike continued his dash straight into the dust cloud, both of his keyblades glowing softly. Just as he reached the middle of the cloud, he slammed his black blade down and called out. “Firaga!”
The resulting explosion rocked the area, whipping up fierce winds and forcing Areth to cover himself with a wing in order to not get thrown away by the shockwave. By the time the dust settled and he could lower his wing, his eyes widened at the sight.
Moving inside of the flames were both Spike and Jin, jumping around striking the worms that were rocked and disoriented by the explosion. He also noticed that the explosion created several cracks in the stone worm's hide, and that the two of them were striking them precisely. While Jin glided along the battlefield attacking from below. Spike hopped between the monsters and struck from above.
“While we took down the rock worms with magic. I think one escaped or fell out or something, and it went after Areth. When most of them were dead I noticed Areth having some trouble with it. I just wanted to help him. And honestly, I think that's when the story you know starts to change from what actually happened.
One of the worms, still flailing from the explosion, turned in his direction and dove at him. It swung its head down, bringing its full weight on him like a wrecking ball. Areth braced and blocked with his sword. As it came down, the ground cracked under the weight of the worm. His knees shook, and his muscles ached, but try as he might, he couldn't quite free himself from the weight of the worm.
Instead of throwing the worm off of him, Areth dove to the side, rolling into a sprint around the side of the worm. With a great swing, he sliced at the hide of the beast.
Unfortunately, just as before, his blade bounced off, this time flying clear of his grip. Areth took several steps back, clutching his wounded sword arm.
The worm lifted itself back up and bore down on him, however, at that moment, Jin glided past Areth on a ski of wind. Leaping from his cushion, the boy easily sliced right at the spot that Areth had previously been targeting. The rock worm's head separated cleanly from its body and fell to the ground.
Jin landed on a cushion of wind just as Spike caught up to them.
“That! Was! Awesome!” Spike cheered, rushing past Areth who simply stood there. “That was the best combo yet!”
Jinkei did a fierce fist pump before looking over at Spike with a wide smile! “Hell yeah! What was that move you used to break that one worm’s rock skin!.”
Areth could only stand there, staring at the two boys talking cheerfully in front of what was supposed to be his mark, his kill.
Spike smiled his own big dumb smile and snickered. “Just a skill I picked up from a certain Black Swordsman friend of mine. But hey, do you think that can be our move? That fire and wind move could be a really cool limit break combo.”
“I really wish instead of playing around with Spike, I’d payed attention to Areth. Maybe if I had seen the anger building within him, I’d have been able to stop what happened next.”
Areth clutched his fist, a sneer forming on his face as he began breathing heavily.
Jin shook his head and let out a dramatic sigh. “You know, you keep coming up with these so-called ‘combo attacks’ but they all end up with you self-destructing yourself.”
A vein popped into view near his head.
Spike shrugged, “Not my fault if I’m more dragon than you. I bet Areth could take it,” he said, finally turning around to face their third friend.
By this point however, Areth was shaking, his fists clenched hard enough to draw blood, and his head dipped low enough to see the veins popping out near the top of his head.
Jin looked at him, concerned before taking a step forward. “Areth?” he called out.
“Why you…”
Spike tilted his head and glanced at Jin, who shared his confused look. “Why… us what?”
“Why are you two so special!” Areth blurted looking up at both of them with tears in his eyes. Both of the boys took a step back. “I’m older than both of you. But, why are you both so much stronger!”
Spike nervously scratched the back of his head, while Jin tried to close the distance between the two of them. “I’m not at all stronger than you, Areth.” Jin moved in close and sat a hand on Areth’s arm. “You just need to train more, you keep trying to rush straight in and-”
Areth slapped it away, shocking Jin who cupped his hand defensively. “You’re just saying the same things that Trial said. I know I need to train, but I don't have magic to fall back on like you two,” he yelled, pointing directly at Jin “No explosions or wind attacks. You two just make up whatever you want while I have to learn strict techniques and discipline”
He pointed at Spike, his tone lowering into a hiss. “And you’re not even supposed to be here. Why don’t you just leave already!”
“Dude, sorry,” said Spike, looking a little offended. “I know I'm an outsider, you don't have to compare yourself to me.”
“That’s not what I meant, you idiot. I know what you are! You’re not even supposed to exist, you filthy half-breed!!” Areth yelled, stepping up to Spike directly.
“Areth!” Jin yelled, stepping between the two of them.
Spike was taken aback, dumbfounded at the statement. “Wh… huh? What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, pushing against Jin.
“It means that we know about you! That you’re here to kill us all! We know the legends!” Areth continued.
Spike was taken aback. “What legends! You guys told me that this world just doesn't like outsiders!’
Jin struggled to keep the two apart. “It does, I mean, they do! Just listen! Areth calm down!” he screamed.
Areth broke away from his side, taking several steps back. “ No! You know what? I don’t care anymore. I’m tired of him making us look bad, making me look bad!”
“I really do blame myself for everything that happened after that point”
Jin’s eyes went wide.
“You wanna know the reason why Jin won’t take you to the city! It’s because you’re cur-”
Areth’s speech was cut short as he found himself on the ground, a sore spot on his cheek and surprise on his face.
Jin stood above him, leaning forward from the force of the punch he just threw. His eyes still wide, he looked down at his friend who stared back up at him in shock.
Spike stood back, staring at the two of them.
“I-”
However, a deep rumbling noise echoed through the area, startling all three of the children.
The trio turned around to see one of the rock worms slowly growing in size. As it grew a dark purple aura began emanating from it, slowly at first, then in waves. Its normally char grey rock-like hide began turning almost pitch black.
Almost as if they were reacting to the creature's transformation, both outsiders’ keyblades appeared in their hands.
“We’ll deal with this later!” yelled Spike, taking his normal fighting stance. “That worm is turning into a heartless!”
“What the hell is a heartless?” asked Jin, taking a step back.
“A creature without a heart, duh,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I remember my sister told me… I think.” Suddenly, Spike’s eyes went wide and he clutched his head, dropping his keys in the process. “Aggh,” he screamed, falling to his knees and surprising Jin and Areth in the process.
“Spike!” cried Jin, reaching down to help him.
“There you go again!” said Areth, grabbing his blade and looking towards the monster. “Spike, spike, Spike. He’s all you talk about! I’m tired of it. As soon as this thing is dead, I’m telling him everything.”
“Don’t! We don't know what’s happening to it!” “Jin warned, still holding onto Spike.
“I can handle it!” Areth hissed.
Eventually the former rock worm turned fully black, as it did, two beady yellow dots appeared near the top of its head. It wasted no time in moving forward to attack the group. With speed it didn’t have prior, it slithered over and slammed its head down on the spot where Areth had been standing prior.
Jumping out of the way, Areth sprinted around the monster, slashing at its side. Seeing his attack have no effect, he spread his wings and took to the air.
Although it took no damage, Areth’s attacks did not go unnoticed. The creature turned to him, desperately trying to knock him out of the air. However, unlike last time, Areth maneuvered around the frantically flailing creature.
Spinning through the air, Areth positioned himself directly above the creature. Aiming carefully, Areth let out a war cry as he pointed his sword down and dove at its head.
The tip of his blade stabbed directly into the creature's ominous yellow eyes. The force of his strike brought both him and the creature down to the ground in a cloud of dust.
“At the time, I thought Areth had beaten it, only now do I know that normal weapons can't even hurt a heartless. It wanted Areth to win.
A spray of sand and smoke filled the area around Jin, who used his wind magic to keep it from getting in his eyes, and Spike who was still clutching his head and groaning. Slowly, however, he reached up to grab onto Jinkei.
Inside the cloud, standing on top of the creature, was Areth. His face beamed with pride looking down on his sword that had gone hilt deep into the creature's head.
“Hah! You see that!?” he announced, breathing heavily. As the dust cleared, Areth looked over at his friends, his face falling at the sight of Jinkei still looking down at Spike instead of his victory. Staring at him, Areth grit his teeth and his grip nearly broke the handle of his sword.
Consumed by anger, he didn't even realise the darkness that had begun creeping up his blade.