Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Elemental Eyes: Rising Winds ❯ Chapter 1

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

18 year old Erich Smith opens his once brown, now emerald green, eyes to see the ground rushing up to greet him. The cool fall wind was whipping around Erich’s snow white hair and stinging his eyes. Seemingly endless seconds went by as Erich performed several loops, flips and as he spun around to the point of nausea, laughing maniacally all the while. “This is the BEST!!” Erich thinks to himself. He had always loved to fly, the sensation of falling and of near weightlessness associated with such ever since he was a kid. He remembers the first time he flew, not by plane mind you but by his own psychic abilities.

Erich was four years old, with his snow white hair partially hiding his brown eyes and forehead. It was a warm day in May and he and his parents were out in front of their house secluded at the base of a mountain.  He looked up and saw a hawk flying above him and he instantly had the immense desire to fly with the hawk. When he voiced this desire his eyes began to change from brown to an emerald green, and his hair lifted out of his face as he slowly began to fly due to his psychic powers. When his mom, Erica, and dad, Joseph, saw their son flying they freaked out but by that time he was too high up for them to reach. Erich laughed happily as he began circling his parents and he rose up to greet the hawk. Erica and Joseph were in hysterics and begged Erich to come back down, Erich grudgingly came down but he decided to give his new found “friend” the hawk a hug. When he did this however the hawk panicked and slashed at Erich’s forehead leaving a two inch deep and 4 inch long gash just above his eyebrows. Erich, bleeding and exhausted from over use of his newfound powers, plummeted down to his parents and passed out in Erica’s arms. His white hair had fallen back down but his eyes had stayed emerald green.

The awakening of his powers had changed his eye color from brown to green permanently. Not to mention the wound the hawk had made left him a nasty scar, not that he really cared. “Besides,” Erich thought running a finger along his scar and with a smug grin on his face, “They attract the ladies.” With the ground coming ever nearer Erich rights himself, uses his powers to slows himself down, he then performs a front flip and lands squarely on his feet in the middle of a field about 5 miles from his house. Shortly after he lands Erich feels lightheaded and says, “Note to self, raise my endurance when it comes to using my powers.” When the feeling finally passes he straightens his black t-shirt and dusts off his blue-jeans. He then looks down to his watch and it reads 7:35pm. Erich frantically yells, “Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap, oh CRAP! I’m gonna be late for dinner, jeez mom is gonna KILL ME!” as he starts running towards home, opting to let his powers rest for a while, his neck length white hair flapping like a flag all the way. It was about a 30 minute run to his house from here but he was determined to sprint it in under 20, with the fear of his mother’s merciless nagging about being on time if he was even a minute late being all the encouragement he needed.

Shade approached the coordinates on his GPS and looked up to see a simple, white two story house at the base of a mountain with two windows next to the front door giving him a clear view of the living room and kitchen. There was a third window, this one on the second story, giving him a clear view of what looked to be a bedroom presumably belonging to an 18 year old boy who is obsessed with all things aerial. He had taken all of this in within seconds and was now, all six foot nine inches of his heavily muscled body, on the front porch of the house. Shade, clothed in a black cloak with a hood that covered both his black hair with crimson streaks in it and his dual colored red and blue eyes, rang the doorbell expecting… well he didn’t know what to expect.

Shortly after he had rang the doorbell a woman in a yellow t-shirt and a pair of skinny blue-jeans with blond hair and blue eyes answered the door shouting, “It’s about time you got back Erich it’s almost dinner time now come on in so you can ea…” but she stopped herself as she noticed that it wasn’t Erich she was talking to. Shade smiles and says, “So that’s his name, Erich. If I may ask what is your name madam?”

The woman is slightly shaken by Shade’s appearance but she responds, “Oh, my name is Erica, and this is my husband Joseph.” gesturing to a man in a maroon t-shirt and blue-jeans with red hair and brown eyes that had come to stand next to her in the doorway. “And you are…?” Erica asks Shade.

Shade bows and says, “My apologies, I am Shade. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance Erica and Joseph.” He stands up and removes his hood as he states, “Well I suppose I should get to the point of my being here. Now I’m assuming that your son ‘Erich’ has white hair and green eyes correct?” Both Erica and Joseph nod slowly, but Joseph asks, “We only just met you and I’m sure our son hasn’t met you before so how do you know what our son looks like?”

A smirk passes over Shade’s lips for an instant before it vanishes, and Shade states, “I know what your son Erich looks like sir, because I’ve been sent here to retrieve him by my superiors at The Organization for study purposes.”

When Shade finished his last sentence Erica and Joseph’s hands clenched into fists, their brows furrowed and both shot glares of pure hatred towards Shade as memories of their time at The Organization flooded back. Erica speaks up saying, “Well I’m sorry to disappoint you but as you can see Erich isn’t home right now.”
Joseph adds, “Even if he were we wouldn’t let anyone, let alone someone like you, take him from us so I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.”
At that they slam the door on him and turn towards the kitchen. Not three seconds later did the door burst into flames and fly back into the wall behind the door, leaving Shade standing there glowering at them with a pair of long swords, one crimson and the other sapphire, that weren’t there a second ago hanging in his left and right hands respectively. Shade growls then says, “I suppose I'll have to get rid of you two then, now wont I?!”

Shade leaps toward Erica raising his crimson blade to strike, when Joseph lashes out with his own bronze long sword and blocks the strike. Shade then raises his sapphire blade to slash at where he thought Erica was, but thanks to Joseph's distraction she had time to dodge and raise up her own golden long sword and cut Shade across his back, though not a fatal blow it hurt him all the same. Shade jumps back through the open-doorway and, as he had expected, Erica and Joseph followed after him. When he had established a comfortable distance between him and his pursuers his left eye, the crimson one, began to glow as did his crimson sword. His sword glowed for a few moments then Shade slashed at the air in front of him & released a wave of fire from the blade towards Erica. This time she wasn't fast enough and the attack hit her left side as she tried to dodge, as it did she felt her skin burn and blood erupted from the wound. Erica held her hand to the wound trying to stop the bleeding and let out a scream of pain but quickly stifled it. Joseph was already running up to slice Shade in two with his eyes and sword suddenly glowing a dark brown. When he was close enough Joseph drug his sword through the dirt and sliced upwards causing several rock spikes to form and fling themselves at Shade and though Joseph's timing was nearly perfect Shade managed to dodge the rock spikes and the follow-through slash and managing to only get a scratch on his chin.

Joseph retreated and scooped up his wife, he then erected a stone dome around them so he could tend to his wife’s wound in relative safety. He tore off a long strip of his shirt and tied it tight around Erica’s burn, effectively stopping any bleeding. “There, that ought to do it, can you still stand?” Joseph asked Erica.

“It wasn’t that bad, it only grazed me luckily.” Erica replies.

Shade was pounding Joseph’s barrier with wave after wave of fire and ice trying to break it down. Shade could be heard shouting, “You can’t hide in there forever you two! Even when you come out I’ll still be able to beat you, and I’m not even using half of my strength yet!”

 “Wow, cocky much?  He’s right though, we can’t stay here much longer. We need a strategy to beat him.” Erica says.

Joseph helps his wife onto her feet and nods saying, “You’re right. When I let down the barrier I want you to hit him with your electric ripple and while he is stunned I’ll follow up with my boulder slash. That ought to finish him off.”

Erica nodded and Joseph counted down, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Here we go!” he then launched his barrier at Shade and their plan was set in motion.

When the stone barrier came flying at him Shade easily dodged it then his left eye began to glow crimson again as he prepared to end this battle. Erica's eyes and sword flared a bright yellow as she rushed Shade, then when she is but three steps away from him she brings her sword down from over her head, as she does so Shade notices her blade is engulfed in electricity and quickly sidesteps her attack. When her attack struck the ground a lightning bolt struck where her blade was and the electricity dispersed in a 3 foot radius. Shade hadn't expected that and, as he was in that 3 foot radius, he managed to get shocked. When Shade was struck by his wife’s attack Joseph then charged at Shade and brought down his sword on him followed by a dozen rock spikes. The impact was such that no ordinary person could have survived those attacks. Before the dust had dissipated Erica and Joseph, thinking it was over turned to head back to their house.

"Are you really that arrogant to think you could kill me with such low powered attacks?!" Shade asks putting out a flame the electricity had ignited on his right shoulder with his thumb and forefinger and brushing rubble off of his left shoulder. "I'll admit I underestimated you, not thinking that you might have your own powers, but I had high hopes for the ruthlessness and ferocity in battle, especially when I threatened you with my stealing of your only child." Shade says holding his arms out to his sides in frustration. Shade continues shaking his head slowly, "What a letdown. I hope that wasn't all you had or you will both die. So I suggest, no I demand that you both come at me with everything you have and I will do the same.”

Shade readies himself as Erica and Joseph's eyes and blades begin to glow their respective yellow and brown and then what happens next was something Shade had never expected. Erica took a step forward and suddenly vanished and reappeared behind Shade, her blade held out to her side engulfed in electricity again and yelled, "It’s time for you to die Shade!!" as she sliced at his back again intending to slice him in two, but Shade was just in time to block her strike with his sapphire blade and the electricity was also absorbed by his blade. Erica was stunned as her attack was effortlessly blocked by Shade's sword; Joseph was prepared for this though. Suddenly Erica stabbed Shade in the chest with her sword, she then quickly returned to her husband's side, Joseph captured both her sword and Shade in a tomb of stone, and Erica unleashed a torrent of electricity through her blade electrocuting Shade in the process. Not a minute later did the stone tomb shatter as a tornado of flames and shards of ice tore it apart, and then Shade appeared before Erica and Joseph and said, "This has been fun and all but it's time I end this, I'll be sure to take good care of Erich for you and give him your regards." he then sliced through both of them with his crimson blade engulfed in flames and his sapphire blade engulfed in ice.

"No!” they both screamed before they fell dead into each other.  Shade calmly stood up and sheathed his swords into his robe, he then focused on the bodies and two seconds later they burst into flames.

"Now then all that is left to do is to wait for the son 'Erich' to arrive and capture him. Hopefully he will come quietly. I'd hate to have to hurt such a valuable test subject." Shade thought as the bodies of Erica and Joseph turned slowly to ash.

It had been 15 minutes of hard running when Erich's house came into his view. Almost immediately Erich saw a bolt of lightning strike about 10 feet from his house. Startled by it, Erich stopped and stares wondering to himself, "what the hell was that?!” He shrugged it off as his tired body playing tricks on him and starts running again, only to stop again two minutes later at the sight of a tornado of fire mixed with large shards of ice being flung towards his house only to stop 5 feet away from it. The possibility that his parents were probably in a fight right now spurring Erich on even faster than the threat of one of his mother nagging sessions had. He pours all he is worth in to his legs to get home and help his parents as fast as possible, as he runs he thinks to himself, "Who are my parents fighting and why?!” Erich shrugs and reviews what he has guessed from what he had seen, "Ok, so I know whoever it is they're obviously really strong. Maybe even stronger than mom and dad, otherwise mom wouldn't have used her lightning strike technique. Judging from what I just saw they use fire and ice to attack. So I'm gonna need to be careful and avoid those elemental attacks when I fight them." Erich grimaced and thought, "I'd probably only be able to survive that attack once in my current condition." referring to the fire tornado and ice shard combo attack he'd just seen.

Erich arrives at his house 4 minutes later and is shocked at what he sees. There are patches of scorched grass and large boulders scattered in front of his house, serving as evidence of his mother's lightning and his father's earth based attacks. A pillar of fire mixed with ice erupts in front of Erich, from the pillar a black robed figure materializes with a hood on and robed arms outstretched in greeting. Erich jumps back, an emerald green long sword materializing in his right hand as he lands in a fighting stance. "Who are you and what are you doing here?!" Erich shouts.

The figure removes it's hood and says mockingly, "My, aren't we jumpy today?”

Erich glares at the black and red hair and oddly colored eyes now revealed to him. He then snarls, "Answer me!!!" and readies to attack.

"Fine, since you asked so nicely. My name is Shade,” Shade says, "and I've come for you Erich.”

Shade looks at Erich, taking note of his hand placement on his sword indicating he is right handed. Then there was Erich’s head, he had green eyes, a full head of white hair about mid-neck length and relatively straight in back but sort of spikey on top. He had bangs on either side of his head in front of his ears and about 2 inches hanging down to just above his eyes. He was well muscled and though he wasn’t like a professional wrestler he still looked tough.

Erich is taken aback by the statement and momentarily drops his stance, Shade sees this and launches a flying side kick and hits Erich square in the gut knocking him back 5 feet. Before he has a chance to recover, Shade, with his sapphire eye glowing, lifts his right hand towards him and encases Erich's torso in a thick layer ice. "Now that I have your attention," Shade says, "I'd like to tell you why I've come for you. So hear me out & then you can choose how you want to do this.”

Erich says, "Alright, I'll listen to you."

Shade smiles and says, "Thank you. Now, to why I'm here for you.” Shade creates an armchair out of ice with a motion of his hand, sits down in it and begins, "You have a very unique gift Erich, you can control the wind, you can fly, and you can even use the wind as a weapon either by channeling it through your sword or with just your mind. Am I right?"

Erich's face was unreadable and he was silent, but his silence was all the answer Shade needed.

Shade continues, "I'll take that as a yes. Now, as I've witnessed, & as I'm sure you've known, your parents can do the same but with lightning and earth, & as you've just witnessed I can control fire and all forms of water but I prefer ice." He demonstrates his powers by using fire to make a miniature dragon and water to make a miniature shark.

"We are 'demigods' if you will, and there are many more like us scattered throughout the Earth, or at least there used to be. There are only about 16 like us left free across the world not counting me, your parents and you. 6 of them are here in the States, while there are 7 in Europe, and 3 in Australia. In any-case the Organization I work for is especially interested in you and your powers seeing as no other demigod has been born with your specific power and the Organization thinks you will be able to attain control over every element. Bottom line, the Organization wants to study you and see if they can incorporate your ability into everyday people in order to create an army. So they hired me to bring you back alive.” Shade finishes sinking back into his ice chair.

Erich asks, "Wait, so they are trying to take over the world or something?"

"Probably.", Shade replies.

"So why are you helping them?" Erich asks.

"Well, they’re paying me a lot, they're gonna let me go free, and I get to mix work and pleasure. Now since I'm pretty sure you won't go quietly, and I do enjoy a good fight, I think you will be able to give me a run for my money." Shade plainly replies. He then continues, "On that note I have a proposition for you Erich. I'm going to give you the option of coming quietly, OR you can try and beat me in an all-out fight, till one of us gives or can’t continue. Now if you manage to beat me I will let you go free, for a while, and if I beat you I’ll knock you out and take you to my superiors. Remember that this same proposition will be available in future confrontations between you and me."

Shade stands up and turns his ice chair into water and lets it soak the ground. He then leans down into Erich's face and asks, "So Erich what's it gonna be?” He holds out his hands and continues, “Will you come quietly or do you wanna fight for your freedom?"

Shade noticed the ice encasing Erich's body cracking and backs away saying, "So you want to fight, well you’d better give it all you've got boy!"  It didn't take long for Erich to power his way free, all those hours of training his arms and legs by escaping his dad's stone tomb finally paying off. When Erich had freed himself he sprints towards Shade, sword at his side, and slices at him. Erich had done this as fast as he could and had expected to hear the telltale sound of metal slicing through flesh. Instead he heard the clang of metal on metal; he looked down to see his sword against two blades, a crimson one and a sapphire one. Shade sees the look of shock on Erich's face and says, "Are you honestly that surprised? I'm not just some sword toting moron off the street you know." he then thrusts with his left hand and the crimson blade launches Erich away from him.
When Erich regains his stance he stares at Shade, noticing that his left eye is crimson and his right is sapphire and his matching swords. Erich attacks again landing a solid blow, cutting Shade right down the middle from head to toe. Thinking it was over Erich turns around with a grin on his face saying, "Is that really all you've got?” His grin instantly fades as he sees the two halves of Shade's body form two new Shades, one all sapphire and sword in its right hand while the other entirely crimson with sword in its left hand. Erich steps back and readies himself saying, "Now things are getting interesting.”

The Shades launch waves of fire and ice, which Erich counters with his own waves of emerald tinted wind. They then appeared behind Erich and side kicked him back a few feet. Erich readies himself as the crimson Shade begins its assault.

The crimson Shade slashes at Erich's legs repeatedly only to get a front kick in the face followed by Erich cutting off it's right arm. The Shade regenerates its arm and creates several floating fire balls. With a grin the Shade launches five fire balls at Erich. Erich frantically dodges the fire balls and barely manages to block a slash aimed at his chest. He repels the Shade and rushes in faking an upward slice along its stomach. The Shade skids to a stop and raises its sword trying to block Erich's upward slice only to be cut in half horizontally along its waist. Erich raises his sword and stabs the crimson Shade in its heart, this results with the Shade dissolving in a flurry of flames.

Its crimson partner destroyed the sapphire Shade rushes in, ready to incapacitate Erich with slices at the back of Erich's legs. Erich manages to turn around in time to flip above the attack, kicking the sapphire Shade's chin in the process sending it flying back a couple of feet. Erich lands in a fighting stance, sword outstretched ready for battle. He eyed the sapphire Shade as he waited for it to stand and ready itself before letting loose a wave of emerald tinted air at it.

The Shade countered by letting loose a wave of ice. When the two waves collided the result was mock snowfall which obscured the Shade's view. Seeing this Erich attacks landing a few side slashes, only to have his downward slash aimed at the Shade's head to be blocked an inch above its head.

The Shade had no trouble repelling Erich’s attack and was soon chasing him down while slicing at his shoulders, legs and feet hoping to immobilize him. Erich managed to block the first few slices and doge the others. The Shade’s efforts nearly succeeded when he came within an inch of Erich’s right ankle. So focused he was that he hadn’t noticed Erich’s other foot barreling towards him, the result was him being launched a few feet back. Erich took advantage of this and slung a wave of emerald tinted air at the Shade, he then ran forward and cut at the Shade’s shoulder only to find he was gone.

The Shade appears behind Erich and slices into his lower back letting a torrent of blood flow, then realizing the severity of the wound he’d caused he focused on the wound and it became encased in ice effectively stopping the bleeding. Erich struggled to turn around and attempt to cut the Shade, and much to his surprise his blade made contact and cut deep into the Shade’s side. No blood erupted from the wound, instead the Shade simply side stepped until the sword was out of him. The cut created by Erich was sealed by ice and in seconds the Shade was ready to fight again.

Erich leapt back noticeably slower and thought to himself, “I need to end this now; otherwise I’ll be torn to shreds!” He only had a few seconds to do this though and was snapped back to the battle by a shallow slice in his left shoulder from his adversary.

The sapphire Shade lashed at Erich several more times, only making shallow cuts on Erich’s shoulders, legs arms and chin as he managed to barely dodge the attacks. When the Shade slashed wide Erich made his move, he sent a wave of emerald tinted air at the sapphire Shade. This bought Erich enough time to rush in with sword poised and stab through the Shade’s heart while tackling him to the ground. Erich quickly stood and removed his sword from the Shade and was rewarded with the Shade dissolving in a flurry of snow.

The Shade clones gone Erich shouted out, “Alright, where are you Shade?! Come out and face me like a man, or are you just gonna send more clones after me?!” and was rewarded by Shade looming over him, a smirk on his face.

“Well, I must say I enjoyed that short performance of yours against my clones. It won’t be as easy against me as it was against my clones,” Shade said and his smirk transformed into a grin as he continued, “I can promise you that!”

Erich got into his stance and only slightly winced at the pain of his iced over wound. Shade leapt back a few feet and raised both his ruby and sapphire blades in his right and left hands. “Well let’s get to it shall we?” Shade suggested to which Erich only nodded in acknowledgement. In the intensity of combat they had not noticed the darkened sky and rolling thunder as storm clouds hovered over them. Now the storm winds blew and stirred the fallen leaves and lightning struck in between the two adversaries. When the lightning struck they charged one another and it began to rain.


Converting /tmp/phpeL13pi to /dev/stdout