040

 

40.  Five Averyls

 

Shining silver blades shot across the wasteland, all heading toward a single target: a thin swatch of black, zooming left and right through the onslaught. He could sense the aura of each and every blade flying toward him, and unconsciously dodged past them with ease.

 

Averyl watched the black flash coming toward him and quickly stopped the stream of knives materializing from his chest. He took a step back, redirecting his flow of psynergy from offense to defense, and awaited his nephew.

 

Vance closed in on Averyl, eyes calm and concentrated. His hair had grown long and now reached his shoulders, mimicking that of his uncle's. After his intense training over the past few months, toned muscle kept Vance standing taller than ever. Diving forward, he let a blazing punch explode from his right. Averyl held out his left palm and calmly blocked it, locking eyes with his opponent. The force behind Vance's hand did not weaken against his, and eventually Averyl slid backwards at a rapid rate.

 

Averyl enjoyed the breeze for a few moments, then arched his body backwards, redirecting Vance toward the side of the mountain.

 

Vance went crashing into the rock, but quickly picked himself out with trained finesse. "You held back so I had enough time to cushion the fall. When are you going to get serious?!"

 

"You first..." Averyl winked.

 

Vance snickered. "Hey, there's something that's been on my mind."

 

Averyl cocked his head to the side.

 

"You mentioned that the Dark Zodiacs were the ones involved with my mother's death," Vance said, "but I've been wondering. Do you know of anyone specific?"

 

"Ah." Averyl nodded and went silent.

 

Vance watched Averyl intently. Over the past few months, he’d gotten used to his uncle's personality. If Averyl didn’t answer, there had to be a reason.

 

"Forget it." Vance waved his hand in dismissal. "I'll just kick all their asses."

 

"Have you given any thought to what we talked about earlier?"

 

"About what?" Vance asked, curious.

 

"Wielding a weapon," Averyl explained. "Specialization is key to psynergy mastery...you might wish to find something to channel your psynergy through. For example..." Silver blades slowly rose from Averyl's shoulders.

 

Vance shrugged. "Yeah. I dunno. I can't think of anything right now."

 

Averyl raised an eyebrow. "I see."

 

Vance moved on. "Anyway, the tournament is going to start in a week or so, isn't it?"

 

"Yes. Do you know when your comrades are planning to leave?"

 

"That's a good question...I totally forgot about them."

 

Averyl chuckled. "Well then, you should probably head back and see."

 

"Wait a second..." Vance paused. "You aren’t coming with me?"

 

"I have...other business to attend to." Averyl gave Vance a sly grin. "I'll see you there, though we may have to part ways for a bit."

 

Vance groaned. "Whatever. But stay in contact, alright? I mean...I want to help you."

 

"Help me?" Averyl asked. "What do you want to help me with?"

 

"Finding mom, of course!" Vance shouted. "And getting revenge!"

 

Averyl tapped his chin with his finger, looking up to the sky. "Perhaps I made an error. I gave you knowledge, but now you're going to be running to your death..." Averyl crossed his arms. "You can't fight them yet, Vance. That's another reason why I'm not telling you the name of the person who may have killed your mother."

 

"That's not fair," Vance argued. "I've been here for weeks with you, training day and night, and you're telling me I'm still not strong enough to take them on? That's bullshit!"

 

Averyl slid forward toward Vance. "The truth is, Vance...until you can beat me in fair combat, you have no chance of taking on your mother's killer."

 

Vance frowned, but he knew Averyl was right. Through all their training sessions, and everything that Vance had thrown at his Uncle so far, he had never gotten the upper hand.

 

"You're right," Vance sighed. "I trust you, Averyl. But I'm not taking back my offer. I want to help, somehow, someday."

 

"Understood." Averyl nodded sagely. "Well then..."

 

Vance removed his cloak for a moment and shook off some dust and rubble. Underneath, he continued to wear his tattered, frayed, bloodstained jacket. "I guess I have to go back to them, huh? It feels like it’s been so long, I don’t even know what to say. See ya, Averyl."

 

"Wait..."

 

Vance spun around. "What? Need my help after all?"

 

"No..." Dark purple psynergy flowed out from Averyl as he spoke. "I have one more test for you before you take your leave."

 

Vance groaned. "Haven't we done this enough already?"

 

"Not this." Averyl bent over. "This is a trick you’ve never seen before."

 

Vance crossed his arms over his chest and started tapping his foot. "Oh yeah?"

 

Soon, Vance saw long black hair appear from Averyl's back, flowing out strand by strand and rising into the air. Fingers materialized from the cloak, latching onto his back and pushing upward, revealing a long, pale arm. The hair snaked out, now connected to a scalp, one that Vance recognized all too well. Dark, vengeful eyes, a thin, cultured nose, and a pointed chin were all there.

 

Vance watched as the second Averyl pulled himself out from the original's back and hopped to the ground beside him. Then, the new Averyl bent down and repeated the process. This happened three more times, until there were five clones of Averyl staring at Vance.

 

"This is a little game I play with myself sometimes," the original Averyl said. "I may not be able to materialize other people, but I can split my psynergy up and produce artificial clones. Each of them only have 10% of my power right now, so don't worry. You should be able to take them out...maybe..."

 

The Averyls moved forward, surrounding Vance.

 

"You've fought with me plenty," Averyl continued, "but you've yet to experience combat with multiple foes. You’ll need to know how, for the tournament."

 

Vance spun around, sizing up his opponents. They all had the same wry smile on their face, but seemed slightly different from Averyl himself, perhaps because they only possessed a small part of his terrifying power.

 

"So." Vance turned to the real Averyl, who was watching from a far-off corner. "These things aren't a part of you, right? I mean, if they get hurt, you won't feel it?"

 

"Of course not." Averyl's smile widened. "I have a psychic link with them, but they are made solely from psynergy. And when they die, their energy will dissipate into the environment."

 

"So I can beat the living hell out of them."

 

"That's the idea..." Averyl licked his lips.

 

With that, all five clones dove toward Vance. He instinctively jumped into the air, arming himself with a psynergy blast. The five collided underneath, and Vance smirked confidently. His triumph was short-lived as the five quickly recovered and leapt after him.

 

Realizing they were much slower than the real Averyl, Vance split his psynergy blast into two separate orbs and tossed them. One of his opponents blocked, but the others were clipped and thrown off course.

 

As he landed, the clone that blocked his attack slammed him in the side and tried to pin him to the ground. They grappled until a silver blade appeared out from its palm, but all Vance had to do was harden his aura.

 

The young man curled his fist around the blade and snapped it. "Weak."

 

Vance's body jerked to the side as another clone gave him a hard kick in the side. By the time he picked himself up, the clones stood side by side, looking down at him with the same mocking expression.

 

He layered his right hand with psynergy, hardened it into a blade and aimed it at the throat of the closest one. The other four attacked, and he tried to block as best he could, but a single punch got through and threw off his rhythm. The others were on him in no time, forcing him to retreat. 

 

Vance recalled his training sessions with Averyl and the streams of blades and psynergy he'd dodged day in and day out. The blades all came from the same source, so it'd been comparatively easier. But these five were unpredictable, and worst of all, they were smart. They could anticipate his moves as well as alter their own to parry his attacks, making it the hardest challenge he'd ever faced.

 

Deciding on a different course of action, Vance dashed toward the group. They reacted accordingly and prepared to team up on him, but he stopped and fell back, as if he’d suddenly lost his train of thought. The clones took pursuit. Vance continued to lure them back until he reached a thin crevasse that had been hollowed out in the side of the mountain.

 

Vance ducked into the narrow corridor, hoping it would allow him to take them on one by one. The clone in the front moved up, but instead of attacking, it materialized two massive cleavers from both of its arms and effortlessly carved the tunnel open. Now, they had Vance backed up against a wall. 

 

The first one advanced, looking to kick Vance in the face. The young man put his palm up with practiced ease, pushing the attack away, and reacted fast with his left hand to block another blow from the next clone. This continued for minutes, as Vance had no choice but to frantically dodge blow after blow.

 

Vance tried to calm himself as he desperately worked to stay one step ahead. A millisecond's error would mean a world of pain. He could sense the angle of each attack: left, upper left, up, upper right, and right. Vance stepped side to side at a pace steady enough so that no one could get on either side of him, focusing on only what he could see. The question was how to end the onslaught.

 

The clones began to speed up. Kicks and punches slowly chipped away at his psynergy barrier, and he knew he couldn't keep it up forever. In the next instant, Vance summoned up all the psynergy he could muster and released an explosion of pure power from within. It took all of them by surprise, but most importantly, it knocked them back.

 

Vance didn't miss his chance and dashed to the clone to his immediate left, staying on the outside so that it would take the others longer to reach him. He knocked it down, and as it began to get up, he held out his palm and released violet cannon fire.

 

The clone was driven downward into the earth. Smoke fizzled from Vance's hand as he turned to face the other four. Two of them were directly in front of him, while the other two approached from the right side. Vance leapt out from the crevasse, but this time no one followed. They may not have been as smart as Averyl, but the same trick wouldn't work twice.

 

The clones outstretched their arms, materializing a total of eight blades. Vance powered up his legs and moved into a handstand on the ground, spinning and kicking away the opposition – a move he’d practiced during Averyl's hour-long onslaughts.

 

The four split up, charging violet spheres in their hands. Vance moved backwards, trying to get them all within his peripheral vision, but couldn't do it in time. He was hit in the back by two knives and tumbled forward into the dirt. Quickly, Vance formed another shield, which was easily cracked by the next assault.

 

Vance had been thrown back into the center of them, with nowhere to hide. He began to spin frantically in circle, trying to keep tabs on all four of the clones while he blocked their attacks. They were so spread out that even if he tried to run outside their square, he would be intercepted on his way, and they would simply re-position themselves. Vance had to counter them pound for pound, and on top of that, find an opportunity to take the upper hand.

 

Vance spun around like a gymnast, blocking their attacks and countering as best he could. It worked, but every sixth or seventh attack would connect with him, and they were starting to really hurt.

 

Then, Vance noticed that one of the clones was charging its psynergy without attacking. He thought back to a few weeks ago, when Averyl had called him back over to the field after another session of blade-dodging. For some reason, Averyl thought it would be fun to materialize machine guns and chase Vance around the plateau like a maniac.

 

The true horror, Vance had found, was that Averyl could seemingly pull out anything at any time. One day, he terrorized Vance with heat-seeking chainsaws, and the next with casually-hidden remote mines. He always had another trick up his sleeve in order to keep Vance on his toes.

 

Now, all four of the clones were getting ready to pull anything out from their inner supplies. They had only a fraction of Averyl's strength, so they wouldn't pull out anything like the meteor-sized boulder Averyl did that one time, but it was still cause to worry.

 

The first clone finished its transformation and brought out a large harpoon gun from its right arm. It fired, and Vance dodged backwards, barely evading the weapon as it hooked the ground.

 

Vance noticed a dark shadow approaching from his side, and ducked just in time as a monstrous spiked ball on a chain exploded from another clone's empty wrist. This was followed by a second one, which headed straight for Vance's face as he stood back up.

 

Vance energized his hands and prepared to make a catch. As the spiked ball closed in, he wrapped his arms around the steel and caught it, allowing the spikes to dig into his new psynergy barrier. Skidding backwards, Vance ripped the chained weapon from the clone's arm. It quickly created a new one, but Vance wasn't finished. Channeling his own psynergy into the spiked ball, he quickly sent it zooming back toward its owner. The clone held up drained arms in a last-ditch defense as the weapon went crashing into its body, driving it into the bedrock of a nearby mountain.

 

Dodging another harpoon, Vance scanned the horizon for the other two clones. One had just finished materializing a gargantuan catapult, which the other was busy filling the basin with materialized flaming stone boulders.

 

As he ran toward them, Vance took one last look over his shoulder. The harpooner had given up with target practice and was busy creating another weapon.

 

The first boulder was fired, but Vance was ready. Averyl had taught him well that projectiles were easy to manipulate. His leg erupted in a sinister purple glow as he leapt into the air, ready to meet the boulder head-on.

 

Vance could feel the heat of the flames tickle his face as he soared, and doubled up on his psynergy barrier one last time before he made contact. As he reached the apex of his jump, he rolled his body forward, raising his leg into the air like a shining axe.

 

Vance jackknifed into the rock, destroying its momentum and knocking it back toward its point of origin. It splintered the catapult on impact, but by that time, both of the clones had begun running away. Vance caught one of them off to the right as he hit the ground. Things felt easier now that their numbers had lessened.

 

After downing the third clone with a swift kick, Vance turned back to face the other two, only to find that they had both disappeared from sight. He was vulnerable again.

 

As he searched, Vance's eyes were soon drawn to the area where he had taken down the very first clone. It was now back on its feet, re-energizing its body with Averyl's dark aura.

 

Dammit... Vance watched as the other four clones slowly crept out from the rocks, brimming with fresh power. One-tenth, huh?

Next: Innocent Trespassed