Since it seems like no one cares at all about the little blurbs I write at the top of my stories, I’ll stop doing it after this one. Just two things, I got to level 72 and I got married. Don’t expect any blogs about any of it though… I don’t think anyone really cares. Anyway now on to Chapter 6.

Echo Chapter 6: The Cleric

Interesting how events are playing out. I had no idea he would be this promising when I recommended him.

Don’t try and take credit, you may have recommended him, but I’m the one who got him here.

Call it what you will, but you can’t doubt his worth. Especially now that he has his own Lucida.

Lucida’s are worthless unless they are trained correctly.

Is someone a little bit jealous of the child prodigy?

Everyone who gets into the school is a prodigy.

I’ll be expecting you to prove that today.

That’s if he survives.

For your sake he better.

Is that a threat?

No, it’s a promise.

Jes lead us through another complex series of mazes. I didn’t even try to keep track of where we were going this time. It was hard enough to walk in a straight line. No time or energy for multitasking.

{She could have at least healed my legs before we started walking.}

<Stop thinking and walk faster.>

{Easy for you to say. Get off my head and walk for yourself.}

<Make me. Oh wait, you can’t.> He did one of his growling laughs. Jess looked back at me and I grinned slightly.

{That took more energy than it was worth.}

<Then don’t do it.>

{I wasn’t asking a question, I was making a statement.}

<Your point?>

{No more talking.}

<I’m not talking, I’m thinking. It’s not my fault if you’re eavesdropping on my private thoughts.>

{You have an answer for everything don’t you.}

<Surprisingly I do. Just one more thing Lucida’s can do better than humans.>

We kept walking for a while more until we came to another decorated door. The design on this one was of two snakes coiling around a magicians staff. On the top of the staff was the skull of some animal that had horns. It was creepy and beautiful at the same time.

“Ok Echo, here we are.”

“I figured as much, you know, because of the whole we stopped moving and started staring at a door thing.”

“You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

“Well you don’t have to tell me things that I already know.” She sighed and opened the door.

“Wait here for a second.” She walked in and closed the door behind her a little bit harder than she needed too. A few seconds later she reopened the door.

“You can come in now.”

The room was small. Extremely small. Most likely the smallest room in the whole school or hospital or where ever I was. On the ceiling was a small skylight. In the center there was a small cot like structure, and on the wall there was a small cubby with several medical tools handing out of it. At least they looked like medical tools. How would I know what medical tools look like?

Besides those two things there was only really room for two people, unless one was lying on the bed.

“Lie down now.”

“Not even an explanation?”

“Just do it.”

I climbed up onto the bed. I instantly started to feel nauseous. The ceiling was just too close to my face. It really took a lot of concentration to fight my gag reflex.

“How long is this going to take?”

Almost on cue, a blue light flashed above my head. “Seriously, not helping.” A man appeared where the light originated from. He had brown hair, slightly darker than Jes’ and the same eyes. He wore glasses that were teetering at the end of his nose and skull earrings. He carried the same staff as the one carved into the door, however instead of two snakes, there was a single ribbon wrapping around it, coming to an end at the head of the staff.

“Is this him?”

“Yeah. . . unfortunately.”

“What do you mean unfortunately?!”

“Shut. Up.”

The man raised an eye brow.

“Relationship troubles?”

Jes sighed. “Whatever, lets just get this over with.”

“So you’re Hans?”

“Shut up and lie down.” He frowned.

“Ok. . . whatever.”

“Here drink this.” He handed me a bottle of green liquid.

“What’s this?”

“Shut up and drink it.”

“I thought you were supposed to be kind.”

“I said shut up and drink it!”

<You probably should just do what he says. . .>

{Wow, it’s amazing how your comments get progressively more useful.}

<Is that sarcasm?>

{Yes. Yes it is.}

I drank the liquid cautiously, well, as cautiously as you can be when drinking a possibly fatal liquid. It tasted like watermelon. Well, what watermelons would taste like if they suddenly started tasting like crap.

“Bleh. What is this stuff?” I wiped my mouth vigorously with the back of my hand.

“Stop asking questions and lie back down. Please.”

“Thank you, was it too much to ask for a little courtesy.”

“Don’t test me. Take off your shirt.”

“I’m sorry Hans but I think it would be better if we just stayed friends.”

“Huh?”

“~sigh~ Never mind.”

I slowly pulled the shirt over my head and released the wrist trainers. Hans walked over to the side of the bed holding a bowl of foul smelling black liquid.

“What is-?”

“I have things to do. . . are you going to question everything I do or can I just do my job?”

I resisted my urge to make another sarcastic comment. He dipped two fingers in the liquid and started drawing complex symbols on my chest and stomach. The liquid felt slippery. When my chest was almost full of symbols he drew a small circle and placed his hand inside of it.

“I’m going to start the procedure now. This may hurt a little bit.”

Jes walked out of the room and Yian started to follow her.

{Where are you going?}

<I’ll be right on the other side of the door if you need me.>

As soon as the door closed Hans’ hand began to glow a green light. At first it felt warm, then hot, then burning. The symbols on my chest began to feel like each one was boring into my skin. The burning pain traveled through my body, completely engulfing me in pain. It hurt so bad it was impossible to cry out in pain. Imagine that a chief bandit forced you to swallow one million single meso coins, and then proceeded to explode each one inside your body, one at a time, while a mage was attacking you with lightning and a warrior was stabbing you continuously with a sword. If you multiplied that by 874.373 that would be about half of what I was feeling.

<Ech. . . . I. . . re. . . d. .n. . .rry> I could barely hear my own thoughts, never mind Yian’s. The pain was overwhelming. I slowly felt my self slipping away. Heading toward the darkness. . ..

Slowly I came to my senses. The room seemed much brighter than before, but just as small. Oddly the nauseating feeling didn’t come back. I sat up rather quickly. I braced myself for the same pain that occurred when I tried that in the hospital room, but the pain never came. I looked around the room. It looked relatively the same, but the door was basically incinerated down the middle, and the two halves lay lazily on the floor, still smoldering. Who could have done something like that?

<I think I did.> He sounded scared.

{Yian, is that you?}

<No, just the other creature that has somehow managed to develop a psychic link with you.>

{I see your sense of humor is intact. Where are you?}

<I don’t know. . . it’s really dark in here.>

{Where were your last?}

<The last thing I remember is feeling how in pain you were and cutting through the door, I touched your shoulders and then I ended up here.>

I got up and looked around the room. Everything else looked in tact.

“Echo?”

“Jes? Is that you?”

She ran over and gave me a hug. “I’m so glad you survived.” I could have sworn I saw a tear run down her cheek.

“Hey, like you said, I survived no need to smother me.” She got back up and regained her composure. “Do you know where Yian went? He broke the door and ran inside but I can’t seem to find him anywhere.”

“No I don’t. We can find him later, but for now follow me.” She walked out of the room without further explanation. I jumped out of bed and ran after her. Wait a minute. . . weren’t my legs killing me a second ago? Wow, whatever they did to me really worked. She led me down a long corridor that I didn’t see when I walked in here. We seemed to be walking away from the light provided by all the windows in the hall. As we continued walking something began to bother me. If we were walking away from the light, then shouldn’t my shadow be in front of me? Yet it wasn’t there.

As soon as I though of it, a shadow slithered around my leg and in front of me in its usual position.

“Holy crap, what the flaming raccoon is going on here!” Jes turned around, obviously puzzled about my awfully lame outburst. “Did you just see that?”

<That was me.>

“You!” Jes looked even more confused.

<Stop yelling. Somehow I got stuck in your shadow and I don’t know how to get out.>

{Can you see?}

<I can if you let me borrow your eyes.> On that note my head began to tingle, then it was over.

{Is that it?}

<Yeah, that’s it. Let’s go.>

{Ok. . . never, ever, do that again.} “Let’s go Jes.”

“Are you ok Echo. . .”

“Yeah, I’m fine, let’s go.”

We continued walking down the hall until we came to a huge opening in the wall. “In here.” We walked into the room. It was pitch black. A blue light temporally blinded me, but not for as long as I would have imagined. When I looked over, Jes was gone.

There Echo stood, wondering where Jes had wandered off to. He listened intently to any sounds that might indicate where Jes had teleported off to.

<I have a bad feeling about this.>

{As do I.}
<What’s with that!? Trying to get all cryptic now?>

{Shut up it’s a dark room and I have no idea where I am. . . I’m just trying to get into the moment.}

<Yeah. . . well don’t next time.>

Echo stood patiently in the room waiting for the arrival of Jes, to take him out of the hot room.

{Was the room this hot when we got in here?}

<No, actually I’ve just noticed it myself; the heat has been rising for a while now.>

{How hot do you think it will get?}

<No idea but I don’t like the looks of this.>

{The heat you mean?}

<No. . . the looks.>

{But it’s pitch black in here how can you see anything?}

<I SAID THE LOOKS!>

Now the heat was beginning to become unbearable, Echo could barely stand it anymore. Suddenly he heard a knock on the opposite wall. Echo ran over to it to find where the sound was coming from and after finding it he decided to tap back. As soon as Echo’s hand touched, the tapping sound stopped.

“So. . . you ready?”

“For what?”

<Yeah, for what!?>

“To die of course.”

A sinister chuckle is heard from the wall.

<Get back fool!>

Echo obeyed Yian’s command, and it was good he did, because if he had lingered there for even a second longer he would have been punched by the fist that ripped through the wall. Barely a second after punching through the fist opens up and shoots a fireball towards Echo. He was able to dodge by a hairs width, still feeling the intense heat as it rushed past him. He heard it burn right through the opposite wall. Echo unsheathes his dagger and lunges at the hand, but the hand withdraws making it so that Echo only slices through air. The dagger felt unusually light in his hands. Echo bends over to look into the hole in the wall. As he is peeing through, the man forces his hand through the wall once again, this time maybe a foot above Echo’s neck. Before Echo even realizes what has happened the hand has grabbed his neck and is lifting him off the ground. The hand then pulls Echo through the wall into the next room, smashing his small body into a large cabinet on the far left side of the room. He hit the cabinets so hard that he actually made a hole in the wall. A shard of wood was lodged deep into his back.

“I. . . am Jin, some know me as Jin the Ferocious… but most just call me Jin.”

“Oh. . . I’m. . .”

“I know who you are. . . you are Echo. . .”

Echo clapped as sarcastically as he could possibly manage.

“Good job did you figure that out all by yourself?”

“No. . . I looked it up.” Jin frowned.

Echo gets up and feels a sharp pain in his back. He turns his head around and sees the shard of wood that is sticking out of his back. As he is turned Jin takes out the hilt of a blade, and begins to focus. As he does a small flame ignites itself on the hilt which then grows to the length of a blade. The heat that emanates from the sword burns the surroundings. Echo pulls out the shrapnel and turns back around just in time to dodge Jin’s sword. As he dodges, he ducks down and cuts Jin’s left leg. He then jumps about 5 meters away and gets ready for the next attack. Jin turns back towards Echo and notices the gash in his leg.

“When the hell did you do that!?”

“After you tried to burn me with that oversized match of yours.”

<They don’t get much dumber than that.>

“Ha, that’s funny, coming from a Lucida who can’t even get out of it’s master’s shadow.”

“You can hear him?”

“I can do a lot of things.”

Jin bends down and puts his fingers in the gash to see how deep it goes. He then spreads the flesh apart letting blood drip onto his fingers.

<What the hell is he doing!?>

{I have no idea but I think he’s crazy.}

“Hm. . . well. . . no matter, a small cut is the price I pay for having a bit of fun.”

A wide smile crosses Jin’s face.

{This guy is insane!}

<Your telling me.>

{Why yes, yes I am.}

<. . .>

“How about this, since the gap between our power is so vast, I will let you cut me for 20 seconds, anywhere you want.”

“You sure about that? I cut to kill.”

“Well why don’t you come at me ‘cause your wasting your time.”

Echo quickly contemplates the most efficient and effective way to kill Jin, he then rushes at Jin, dagger ready to slash through his collar bone. He jumps high up and brings his dagger down with all the force he could muster. The blade smacks into Jin’s neck, and almost stops in it’s tracks. It was almost like cutting through rock. The feeling of shock begins to flow through Echo’s body. He had never encountered this type of power ever, how was this man so hard? Why wasn’t he able to cut him? Was he not strong enough? Or was there really that huge of a difference in their power?

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

<What the hell is going on!?>

{I don’t know and I don’t want to find out.}

Echo takes back his blade and slashes the chest of Jin with all his might, a large cut is produced, and he begins to think that maybe Jin is human after all. He cuts through his flesh 4 more times and jumps back.

“19, aaaaand 20… You’re lucky you jumped back, if you hadn’t I would have burnt you to a crisp.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Said Echo matter of factly.

“Hm…?” Jin stole a quick glance at Echo’s back, and realized it wasn’t bleeding anymore. “I see you have some sort of healing ability. Don’t think you’re special, I can heal too, well, it’s not really healing it’s just a way for me to prevent blood loss, the only thing that’s left behind are scars.”

“Well that’s not really healing then is it?”

“Just watch.”

Jin mumbles something under his breath. Steam began to rise from Jin’s cuts, Blood stopped dripping from them and soon all that was left over were scars, just as he had said.

“What the hell are you!?”

“I’m an adept, and so are you, not only that but you have a stronger power than me, you just haven’t mastered it yet.”

“And you have?”

“Nope, I’ve been trainin’ for 4 years and I’ve only got the basics of my powers down, but that’s only because my power is so devastating.”

Jin throws a series of fireballs at Echo’s feet causing him to jump into the air, and while he is suspended in mid-air Jin throws several more at the ceiling.

“Good aim… you missed every single shot.”

“Wasn’t aiming for you buddy.”

Echo looks up and down and sees that Jin has made a perfect square of fire above and below him. Echo looks over at Jin and sees that he’s hunched over in concentration. Jin once again mumbles words but theses seemed like some ancient dialect that was long lost. After no more than a second Echo’s view is obscured by fire that connected the two squares of fire on the floor and ceiling, making in a sense, gigantic cage of fire. Jin then begins to tighten the fire cage, and slowly it gets closer to Echo’s skin.

“It’s over buddy.”

The cage was less than a hairs width from Echo’s skin now. In a matter of seconds he would be engulfed in flames, and eventually, incinerated.
~~~~~~

Like I’ve said before, comments please. Oh, and a BIG thanks to Ryan (girlsryummy) for helping me with the fight scene. This wouldn’t have been possible without his help. -applauds-

And here are some pictures of what the characters look like.

(Echo after the procedure) link
(Echo before the procedure) link
(Roy) link
(Lai) link
(Hans Heal) link
(Jes Heal) link
(Jin) link

Oh and if anyone knows and wants to help me, would you mind telling me how to change the name of the link to the picture, so its just called like Lai instead of link. Just wondering.