Eric could hear his own voice laughing at him, whispering his darkest thoughts.
'You lost her the day you ran from that fight, no, you lost her the moment you allowed her to continue to eclipse you in strength.'
'Father was always disappointed in you, a snot nosed brat, uglier than a Muggle Slug. Mother thought you weak!'
'Why didn't you save those people, oh right, you were too pussy to actually step to the plate.'
Eric heard all of the various fears and derogatory comments, little by little, he felt himself....crumble. As time passed, his figure originally standing was now curled in a ball.
Bluish black figures dancing around him with otherworldly speed, they snickered and laughed, cutting at his insecurities.
'I.... I am pathetic.' Crying, Eric could feel darkness shrouding him, he could see images of the people he failed to save, he could see Sil's parents looking at him with disappointment.
'I ran from the enemies of Sil's parents, I couldn't save the woman who were sold, I couldn't keep my girl by my side when I reached the city, I couldn't do anything when Magdy was held by the demon hunters, I've just ran and relied on people.'
'I'm a coward, a piece of shit that crumbles at the slightest adversity, I couldn't even stop complaining when Rudolph was helping me train.'
Eric felt an insecurity with his parents love, Sil, everything up until this point in his life became fragments of pain and fear.
Eric looked around, surrounded by darkness as before him stood a gaunt and lean figure. Wearing a strange armor with eyes filled with ghostly blue light.
Eric's stare was almost vacant, his spirit devastated. The Fight aura thrashed wildly but seemed incased in something, even his spider bloodline tried to activate but the weights on his body prevented it.
"Everything I fear is true..." Looking into the figure's eyes, he stood.
"I can never outrun myself. I cannot save those who died, I cannot take back a woman that doesn't want me."
Eric felt something there, a power in acknowledgement, a power in taking the first step.
'I'm onto something. I'm weak, pathetic, a coward, and I put my interests first, but... WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT?!'
The figure before him that loomed over him like a demon halted it's steps. "So fucking what if I'm insecure, so what if I'm ugly? I ACCEPT IT ALL!!!!"
For a moment, Eric saw his father before him, "I'll enslave my fear to do my bidding. Who cares how much a lowly fucking worm has to struggle. I will tear my cocoon apart and become better. I will harness my fears instead of destroying them, I'll listen to my fears instead of ignoring them, I accept my weakness, but I will not allow that to define my very existence. LET MY FEAR BECOME FUEL FOR MY FEET TO STEP UPON THE THRESHOLD OF UNDERSTANDING!!!!"
For a second, Eric could see his father smile. A blink, and he once more saw the gaunt figure, now wrapped in chains but bearing a power that Eric could feel able to tap into.
His glazed eyes recovered as he screamed, his footsteps leaned into disorder, confusion, into speed that burst through the rough.
Rudolph watched as a bluish black aura seemed to swirl about him as Eric moved like a ghost, his steps silent, his direction undetermined, but the distance covered was immense.
He watched in fascination as Eric eventually stopped, his eyes coming to focus once more. Inside of his mind, a burly red figure stood, ready to fight the world, while next to him stood a bone thin figure filled with the traits of a coward, ready to run at the slightest nudge.
Eric looked at Rudolph before kneeling and just crying, the emotional ups and downs having taken it's toll on him.
Rudolph's eyes softened, "Good work kid, lets get some food, yeah?"
After two more weeks of Training*
Rudolph watched Eric push the boulder without losing ground, calluses adorned his hands as he pushed against the smooth boulder.
His breathing stable and his eyes fully focused as he maintained.
'Astonishing progress, he's nothing short of a diamond in the rough. He's a far distance from a protégé or millennia talent, but he'll be more than cannon fodder once it's time.'
Eric progressed from exercise to exercise, earnestly throwing himself into it, to the point of deep bruising, fractures, gashes, and collapse.
Yet he no longer complained, his steps surer than they'd ever been. The weights never left his body as Rudolph nodded. He smiled as he watched the kid spar against one of the puppet constructs for newbs.
Despite a full day of training and exhaustion, Eric was able to prevent himself from getting completely crushed like last week. This week, he used his Fight in short bursts and Flight to react and attack.
The battle was clearly a losing one but the time it took for defeat was growing. With a nasty gut punch, Eric rolled, trying his best to use the force to gain a bit of distance and reorientate himself.
A flare of red as he went in for an uppercut, only for the puppet to deliver a spinning kick. Arm to the side of his head, Eric was kicked flying out of the ring. HIs head rung as Rudolph stood over him.
"Maybe it's time you try and understand freeze a bit more."
"Cough, Cough, yeah, I've been meaning to but I got a feeling that Freeze is just as bad as Flight."
Tilting his head, Rudolph thought for a bit before making an offer.
"You got one week until the recruitment starts, I want you to do three more days of conditioning. The other four days will be refamiliarizing with your weapons and comprehending Freeze. If you comprehend Freeze before leaving, then I'll impart something that I got from a human elder in my younger years."
Sighing, Eric nodded. Using the next three days, he finished his body conditioning. On the fourth day, however, he rested until midday and met Rudolph in the training area.
His face solemn, he went into meditation to understand Freeze better. "Fight is to advance, Flight is to retreat, and Freeze is to remain. Freeze is to stop, to play dead, to control yourself to a level in which you shut yourself down."
Eric breathed slowly, focusing on freezing himself and understanding what that meant. His musculature slowed in movement, but it wasn't enough.
HIs breathing became even shallower, his eyes no longer twitching, he dedicated himself to stopping his very being. HIs senses dulled, his heart slowing.
His breath no longer flowing, Rudolph watched in concern as he saw Eric reaching a state of false death.
'The true battle begins.'
Inside himself, Eric felt freeze working, he contemplated what it was to truly freeze.
'I'm stopping, ceasing, even... forgetting.' Eric could feel a sense of dullness, it cut his feelings to fight, erased his fears, and created a feeling of nothingness.
'There is nothing, I am nothing, every single part of me will no longer move.' A white hue covered him as his breath, movement, and energy were stollen away.
Freeze was unlike Fight's burly figure, or Flight's ghost like figure. It was a figure like that of a ring, a ring of utter silence that seemed to appear and disappear as though reality itself had trouble touching it.
Eric could no longer feel, no longer see, hear, taste, smell. Everything was in limbo, everything ceased to exist. HIs eyes became lost, his goal no longer existing.
He felt himself being swept away slowly by something, Rudolph watched on in horror at the lack of anything from Eric. It was as though something inside him took everything and was continuing to do so.
Eric's felt his thoughts grinding to such a slow that he couldn't quite think right. "Freeze, nothing, nothing."
Eric was jolted as Rudolph injected a mass of energy into his body, his thoughts and being returning.
"I thought you were exaggerating kid, Freeze is the worst of the three. You have nothing to draw from, your tether to yourself will be erased if you sink too deep."
Eric sluggishly nodded, they took a break as Eric tried to remember what his father had told him regarding Freeze.
A young Eric tried to freeze on command with the game red flare, green flare, yellow flare. Each time his father called out he tried to freeze right on time, it was his favorite of the three.
"Eric, make sure you control yourself, freeze is about control." Eric's thoughts of his father's words swirl with the experience of each of the three aspects.
'Fight was about exuding my will holding onto it, I refused to go down, to give up.'
'Flight was almost passive, like I needed to let go and accept.'
Where does freeze come into this, how do you control nothing. I can't force my control over nothing because it defeats the purpose, but relinquishing control is just as bad, I then become nothing.
Frustrated, he punched the floor. "Ok Eric, think what did your ancestors think of it as, how did they react?"
Thinking over his Eric thought about generals he'd read about, fighting in enemy territory, leading troops and winning battles. The flip side was the losses, arrogances, hubris, and retreats that they also carried.
Yet, thinking about how they may have used freeze felt like a loss. General Kutz fought against the Southern Empire, stuck between the approaching enemy of a rebelling fraction from their Western nation and the still rearing to go South, he miraculously pulled off victory by having them fight each other.
'What exactly is it that allowed him to win. He could neither advance nor retreat, he was stationary, he waited, used patience, he was.... stable.'
Eric jumped at the thought, feeling like he'd found a lifeline. "Stability, stationary, patient. Both Fight and Flight are erratic in movement, but freeze does neither. It isn't up or down, but the perfect in between."
Eric experimented, using the aura of Fight and Flight and mixing the two, trying to find a stable in between until he found it. A thread so thin it looked like it could disappear connected the two while he delved into Freeze reaching nothing again.
Freeze once more tried to take everything but Eric was able to hold on. His senses fading immensely but the tether born of Flight and Fight made it so he didn't lose everything.
'I can't delve super deep yet but this is a start, this is the start to understanding freeze.' Eric felt himself yanked from his mind as Fight, Flight, and the now quiet and illusive figure of Freeze swirl around creating an orb.
The orb was split into three but Eric could tell he finally had an embryonic understanding of the technique.