Fated Paths of Reunion (Whitebrand & Tigra9)

[tigra9]

Ava nodded “I’ve already lay witness to how you use the elemental Magic’s you were born with through me to manipulate plants, however, the more a person knows you the more they will set things in their favor against you... so for your first lesson it will be simple” she reached into her shirt and withdrew a small dead that she then wrapped in water before launching it to the edge of the circle of mist where it quickly grew into a human sized treant “that will be your sparring partner.. your first lesson is simply to fight it without magic, oh and do be aware, this is the only time I will tell you beforehand to begin, every lesson after will start the moment I give it” she then clapped her hands together “begin”

At Ava’s signal the treant moved forward lifting one arm and swinging it harshly at Derek, though Derek would find his movements felt heavy and slow, as if the air itself held more substance then normal and was restricting his body, it wasn’t to the degree he couldn’t move but it definitely took more effort even for the simplest movements

[Whitebrand]

Derek threw himself out of reach and noticed the sluggishness of the air. He made a mental note to compensate for the effect in the future. Without magic against an animated treant with a staff? Not good. Dagger? Less than useless. He ducked around another tree to buy a few seconds to plan.

His staff was pretty close to indestructible so he could use it to block and parry...but how to go on offense without magic? He glanced around, looking for things in his environment that he could use...heavy or sharp rocks, narrower spaces to get into, anything useful.

[tigra9]

Ava simply sat down and watched “your father also endured training here, he couldn’t use magic besides a few simple non combat spells as you recall, and he over came this treant within only a couple hours dear, I’ll prepared as he was when I brought him here” she commented as she watched, there was nothing on the ground for Derek to make use of in dealing with the treant, ignoring the scattered roots the ground looked to be simple dirt and grass soil, and the treant easily avoided the roots so didn’t need fear being tripped based on the design of its feet, with that said its actions were rather simplistic and its swings telegraphed so well it was almost boring, but as a swing that barely missed Derek would remind the boy, this treant packed some real power given its hand had made a small indention into the ground

[Whitebrand]

Lacking other alternatives, Derek engaged the treant. The fact that it was slow and broadcast its moves was a help. He was able to stay out of its way and strike back on occasion. He carefully noted whether or not his blows were doing any damage. He ducked past the creature at every opportunity and struck several blows at the joints of the thing every chance he got.

Two hours? I don't have nearly the stamina... Derek thought. Wait...I doubt that Dad had spent every minute of that in combat...hit and retreat...hit and retreat...rest...that's probably how he did it...

[tigra9]

Derek would bite that his blows at best inflicted only a little damage here and there, thankfully the treant didn’t have any high regeneration abilities it seemed. On the other hand though the treant didn’t slow it’s pace at all as it attacked Derek, though after a length of time Derek couldn’t judge except as being to long the treant finally stopped and Ava spoke “its been an hour, rest for a bit” she said calmly revealing a small basket with some bread and dried meat and Ava looked over the treant, it was damaged but it was still fully capable of moving

[Whitebrand]

Derek glanced at his mother...but remembered her warning. He kept an eye on the treant as he made his way over to her and her basket.

"I'll figure it out," Derek muttered to himself, breathing hard. "He did in in two...without magic...I can do this."

Of course his father had been fairly seasoned in the first place on a scale that Derek was not, a fact that he was failing to consider.

[tigra9]

Ava watched her son and smiled, certainly he was not as a seasoned as his father was when undergoing this training but she did not expect him to get as far as he has with the treant already, particularly considering the true purpose of this first training was to combat his limited stamina without completely breaking him hence her giving him this moment of rest, while Derek ate and rested ava secretly used her power to strengthen the treants healing ability for a bit and also improve it, she was not going to let the treant stay at the same difficulty after all, instead it was a matter of baby steps, he must work a step higher then he did before if he was to gain anything from the endeavors.

[Whitebrand]

Derek seemed to sense that his mother was using magic but seemed to write it off as her reinforcing the wards that were keeping the area safe. As he ate he looked around the wooded area to see if there were and drop-offs or other hazards he might be able to lead his opponent into.

When the exercise resumed, Derek was almost caught off guard by the subtle increase in speed and ability by the animated tree. At first he worried that he was doing something wrong somehow...that he had messed up the rhythm of his fighting from before. It took him a little bit to realize that the thing had improved somehow.

[Aw come on...no fair...[/i]

Derek resumed his hit and run tactics, but more carefully than before. He wasn’t doing as much damage as fast as he had been, so he found himself wondering if he was really getting anywhere...

[tigra9]

Ava just watched and let it keep going, this time she let the pair just continue fighting, the point of this lesson was not for Derek to win against the treant but to build something he didn’t have. After a while Ava spoke “Derek, you have always been a beautiful leaf, more vibrant and colorful then any born from my branches... but your fragile, even a strong grip can tear you apart with ease” she frowned and stood “your father, he was a root, he didn’t hold the same beauty as the leaves on the branches or the bark upon the tree, but he was strong and tough, a man able to weather nearly anything thrown at him”

Ava then held up a hand and the treant stopped “when I first meet your father he was still not very well known at all, and he offended me greatly” Derek would know from growing up his mother did not take kindly to people offending her, a trait she shared with many other spirits “yet I eventually became smitten with him... As your aware your father was not really a looker so obviously that’s not what caught my fancy, so can you guess what about him did cause me to let go my hatred and fall in love with him eventually?”

[Whitebrand]

The Treant stopped but Derek didn’t. Instead he used his staff as a pole, charged the thing as fast as he could and planted the staff in the ground. Derek was vaulted into the air at chest height and slammed his foe in the chest as hard as he could. Unfortunately he’d overestimated his fatigue and landed on the ground with a thud regardless of his effect on the now still tree.

“I cannot...imagine, Mom,” he panted as he tried to recover. “Stubbornness?”

[tigra9]

The treant did lean back form the vault blow, it did not change the end result of the motion for Derek but the treant had to right itself

Ava gave a small snicker “well stubbornness certainly aided him, it was a more plain thing... see after offending me he sought any means to make amends to me... and so in my spite I set before him a series of tasks, each more lethal then the last” she shook her head “had he given up or fled from them I would not have blamed him, mortal lives are after all more fragile then those of the spiritfolk, yet.... he completed every task I set before him” she shook her head “all he had to his name as an adventurer was the body he built through hard work and effort, yet he completed tasks where even that alone shouldn’t have been enough to earn my forgiveness, admittedly I went from never expecting to see him again to yearning and worrying about his safe return as my tasks went on until finally I could not bear to set another task for him that would risk his life, yet I couldn’t bring myself to forgive his offense either”

Ava went silent and closed her eyes for a bit then looked back at her son “finally I gave my final demand, complete training of my own design, so that he may want my forgiveness, and, a resonance with me that he lacked at the time” she pointed at the treant “the first task was defeating that, and do tell me if you have yet figured out why that might be dear”

[Whitebrand]

Now that he had a moment when he wasn’t being chased down by the animated Pine, Derek paused to think.

“Endurance,” Derek said at last. “That’s what you’ve been hinting at this entire time. Stamina. Staying power. The power of the will over the body.”

A look came over his face.

“He didn’t defeat it, did he?” He said suddenly. “It took him two hours to figure it out, didn’t he? I was so focused on beating his record taking the thing down that I didn’t realize the point of the trial. And it took him two hours to realize he couldn’t beat it, didn’t it?”

So perhaps Derek has beaten his fathers record after all!

[tigra9]

Ava giggled “no, he did beat it eventually, unlike you dear he already had the endurance to keep fighting the treant non-stop” she looked at the treant for a moment then back to her son “as I said before, you were blessed from birth with my power, but you lack what made your father the adventurer he became, he even shared with you his skills before he passed, yet you’ve never once practiced them have you?”

[Whitebrand]

Derek looked down at the ground. He had to admit that he hadn’t used the skills his father had given him nearly as much as his magical talent. There simply hadn’t been a need. Perhaps he’d been sheltered more than he thought.

“They’re still in my head,” he admitted . “I’d never forget anything he’d ever said to me. I just...sometimes it hurts to remember. I...can’t imagine what it’s been like for you, Mom.”

[tigra9]

Ava stood and walked over taking Derek’s staff in her hand “for spirits, a human’s life is but a flicker in the flow of time. Because of that we spirits learn not to hold attachment so great that it’s loss would break us down as humans are wont to do, but that doesn’t mean I feel nothing seeing the man I loved physically die either, what keeps me going is I know he is still right here, with me for the rest of eternity” she put a hand to her chest “but for you dear... isn’t there someone just as important to you in your life you don’t want to lose besides me?” She gave her son a knowing smile

While she spoke Ava also produced another seed and created another treant from it, this second one clearly vastly superior to the one Derek has been fighting however it rushed Ava with full intent to hit her while she in turn merely took a stance with the staff as if wielding it like a sword and in a copy of one of the moves Derek’s father taught Derek she swung the staff cutting the treant diagonally causing it to stop and the top half of it to fall off as if split by a sword, there had been no visible magic used far as Derek would be able to tell, his mother had simply cut the treant in half with a staff tip

[Whitebrand]

"I want to be around Corrina and Alisae forever," he said. "And Jarvis too. I want to go on adventures with them all the time. I want to make other friends."

Derek stared in shock when his mother dispatched the bigger treant.

"How..." he stammered. "Th-that was a blunt object...no way should you have been able to...without magic...?"

[tigra9]

Ava smiled “did you forget who crafted this for you?” She ran a hand along the staff, the base of it was a thin part though it wasn’t pointed despite how thin it got at the very end “but in truth it’s something your father could do, I lack his physical ability so I had to compensate in other ways” she placed the staff back on the ground lightly jabbing it into the ground so it stayed standing “however you have to figure it out for yourself” she commented going back over and sitting down “since you have that as your goal in mind dear then clench your teeth and push through this, if you have the energy to say you don’t need to try your hardest then try even harder, life does not need much to take what you care about away from you, and once you lose something you can’t turn back time to retrieve it”

[Whitebrand]

Derek took a deep breath and closed his eyes. As usual, he could once again hear his father's voice as though he had just heard it yesterday. This time, though, he pushed through the hurt and listened to the words.

Set yourself...root yourself in the earth...keep your balance at all times...feel your tools as though they were part of you...

He could feel his heartbeat slowing down and his breathing become less strained.

Know your strengths and your limitations...

In his memory his father was there, standing next to him whispering his lessons...

Focus...

Teaching his son the craft that he had mastered.

When you know to strike, do not hold back...

Are they big? They are slow. Are you small? You are fast. Can they outlast you? Make them use their strength faster. Turn strengths into weaknesses and weaknesses into strengths...

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win...

He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior...

Derek tried to narrow his focus to a point. Excluding every distraction. There was only him and his enemy...

[tigra9]

Ava watched her son, in truth the air had an effect that helped strengthen beings spiritual awareness, it wouldn’t be enough for Derek to physically see or feel his father’s spirit, but he would hear his father’s talking as words in his head and so Ava was watching her husband telling their son the very words he was thinking back to. The treant would move towards Derek as he stood there focusing and lifted an arm intending to strike Derek in the chest.

Ava had stepped back to give them space and watched her son. Once he killed this treant she intended to have him spend a long time just training his body, she still had plenty to teach him about his spirit side inheritance from her aswell as mana manipulation but first he needed to strengthen his weakest point which was his body.

———————

A few days later in the demon castle Artimisa would be walking out of a meeting room where she had attended to a meeting with her father and the top generals of their kingdom about the rising risk of war with the humans and she let out a deep sigh blinking as she saw an aged male orc standing in the hallway, he was wearing plated leather armor and had hooked to his back a large two handed axe, he was one of the generals under the direct command of the demon king, however as of the other day Typhon had ordered he become Artimisa’s subordinate in support of her rising to replace her father on the throne soon enough “greetings, you decided not to attend Saurfang?” She spoke in a friendly and respectful tone, after all Saurfang was considered the strongest monster in the kingdom barring Typhon and Artimisa herself

[Whitebrand]

Derek's eyes opened. His hazel eyes flashed gold. He dove in under the treant's reach and smacked it hard with his staff. The blow cracked the bark loudly as Derek rolled away. He spun around and raised his staff, ready to fight.

*****

The big orc shrugged.

"Not needed," he grunted. "War is coming. Like it or not. The humans are weak and easily frightened. Sooner or later they get it in their heads that we're a threat. They're right, of course, we are." Her shrugged. "Whether it's my people raiding their farms or you feeding your pet. It's only a matter of time before they strike, unless we strike first. My people are getting restless and hungry so I'm up for it."