ONE YEAR LATER...
Sweat dripped from my forehead onto the stone. The world was upside down, I mean, my world, anyway. My hands were planted firm and my body was in a vertical position, and my legs were straight as blades.
Two thousand, I counted.
I'd lost count of the days somewhere around month three. They blurred together like blood in water. But the numbers never lied.
Two thousand and one.
Two thousand and two.
Two thousand and three.
My arms screamed, and my shoulders burned. My core trembled on the edge of collapse.
Two thousand and four.
I started this exercise five hundred years ago. Thought that was impressive.
I had grown.
Two thousand and five.
The cave behind me was home now.
I'd carved training grounds into the mountain itself. I made stone weights and Obstacle courses. I also made dummies made from trees and packed earth.
Every morning, I ran ten miles up the slope, and every afternoon, I sparred with shadows.
The wounds from the wind mage had healed into pale lines across my chest and side. I traced them sometimes and remembered.
I remembered the feeling of being nothing.
Two thousand, eight hundred.
Two thousand, nine hundred.
Three thousand.
I held the position for one more breath, and then I dropped. I fell onto my back and stared at the cave ceiling while my body remembered how to exist.
Three thousand handstand pushups.
A year ago, that would have killed me.
I sat up and looked at my hands.
They were different now. Not just scarred, they were also shaped and corded muscles. My fingers now moved with precision and power.
My whole body was different.
My shoulders were broader, and my chest was deeper. My Legs were like little tree trunks. The softness of childhood had been burned away by a year of hell.
I stood and walked to the cave entrance.
Six months.
Six more months, and I'll go home.
Six more months, and I'll see them again.
Lilia, Luna, Mother and Father.
I'd spent two months tracking the wind mage. I followed old leads and questioned travellers. I also read signs in broken branches and disturbed earth.
I heard he'd gone deeper into the mountains and found a valley where he was turning that place into a kingdom.
Small villages paid tributes to him, and passing travellers disappeared.
I watched from a ridge, half a mile away.
He'd changed, too.
He had gotten Stronger and the magic around him was thicker.
He sat on a throne of stone, directing his "subjects" like a petty king.
I smiled.
It's about time I got my revenge.
I walked down the mountain path.
Instantly, his guards saw me first. They were two lowly knights.
"Halt! This is Lord Vayle's territory! State your—"
I kept walking.
They reached for their scabbards, but I was already past them.
They didn't scream. I didn't have time.
Just a little "THUD" sound could be heard from their heads dropping.
The village was a collection of hovels around the mage's stone throne. Maybe fifty people, and they were all terrified.
I walked through the centre and ignored them.
All eyes on me.
At the throne, the mage stood.
He'd grown his hair longer and was dressed in finer robes. He was surrounded by followers.
But I saw it. The flicker in his eyes when he saw me.
He remembers.
I smiled.
"YOU."
His voice echoed with wind magic. He was trying to be impressive.
I stopped fifty feet from the throne.
"Me."
"The child from the mountain. The one who—" He stopped talking and looked closer.
"You... you've changed."
"So have you."
He laughed, and I could tell he was nervous.
"You think because you survived one beating, you can challenge me? I've grown stronger, boy. My range is greater. My—"
"I don't care."
He blinked.
"I don't care about your wind or your range or your power, just come at me."
I drew my twin blades. They were worn out from a year of use.
"I came to finish what you started."
He attacked first.
His wind blade was much faster than before.
I moved.
This was not a flash step; it was something beyond that. It was my months of training compressed into instinct.
The blade passed where I'd been, but it was already three feet left.
He blinked.
He threw another wind blade, then another, and another.
I moved through them like water through rocks. I read the wind before it formed, sensing the magic before it released.
I closed the distance between us very fast.
He panicked and shot a wind burst, which was an explosion of air in all directions.
I took the hit and used the momentum to land on a rock, push off and come in faster.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
And then ten.
He screamed and then threw everything he had. Wind blades from every angle.
I could tell he was frustrated.
I moved through it.
Five feet.
I was five feet closer.
That was enough for me.
My first strike caught his guard.
He'd summoned a wind barrier barely in time. My blade scraped across it, breaking it into sparks.
But I saw his face.
He's scared.
I pressed him with strike after strike. Left, right, high and low.
He couldn't keep up. His barrier flickered, and his counters went wide. His feet stumbled backwards.
"YOU—YOU CAN'T—THIS ISN'T—"
I slammed a kick into his chest,t and he flew back to hit his throne. Cracks spidered across the stone.
I walked forward with my swords ready.
He looked up at me with blood at the corner of his mouth.
And he smiled.
Why is he smiling??
"You think that's all I've got?"
He reached into his robe and pulled out a red pill.
Fuck, is that pill what I think it is..??
He crushed it and inhaled the dust.
Instantly, his body convulsed and his veins blackened. His muscles swelled, and his eyes turned blood-red.
Suddenly, a wild wind exploded from him. I was thrown back and hit a building.
When I looked up, he'd changed.
He was bigger and darker with claws where hands had been. The wind swirling around him was so thick it was visible.
"NOW," he rasped with his now demonic voice, "NOW YOU DIE."
Well fuck, I think I might have gotten into quite the situation.
THE END.