In a cataclysm known as the Nightfall, the worlds were almost completely destroyed by a harrowing surge of darkness.
In the shadows of the ensuing chaos a new group has taken shape. Led by an Aegyl named Kalos, the 11th Hour touts an esoteric knowledge of how to combat the darkness and restore the worlds. They might be the worlds’ best chance at survival; but nobody really knows enough about them to confirm or deny their claims.
On the brink of collapse, the universe holds its breath in anticipation. Of restoration? Of destruction? It is up to individuals like yourself to decide.
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Merlin finished the last of his beverage and set it down on the table, next to his empty plate. The two youngsters had finished as well, and were both expressing desires to get things moving. In fact, Max blatantly stated that he didn't want to waste time. Merlin laughed. "Yes in deed... dilly-dally, shilly-shally as Tifa would say. We shall go to the training grounds at once."
Merlin snapped his fingers, and the table settings, plates, napkins, silverware and cups all disappeared. The tablecloth ruffled itself a few times, and then the table vanished, sending the tablecloth to the floor, where it changed into a floor rug again. Merlin stood up and sent his chair back to the wall where it was before, and waved his hand at an unassuming stick on the ground, which soared into his hand and with a flash of green light, became his trademark staff, with a bright green orb fixed to the top. Another wave of his hand brought his sword to his side. opening his cloak, he slid it into a hidden scabbard. Pulling his hat out of his sleeve and placing it upon his head, Merlin nodded to the boys. "Whenever you are ready, follow me!"
Without waiting for them, Merlin turned and headed out the door, walking at a brisk pace that was slow enough to catch up to, but they would have to do a little running. He headed further out of the town, and into a small canyon area that was shaped very much like an amphitheater, yet naturally made. A sign posted outside said; "Trespass at your own discretion, but beware, and do not disturb my practicing." Under the words was a simple "M" which was Merlin's signature.
Walking to the center of the arena, Merlin stuck his staff in a small hole in the ground, specifically built for the purpose. As he did so, a green energy dome slowly expanded out, until it covered the whole area, including the tops of the cliffs surrounding them. He waited for both of the young men to fully catch up to him before closing the energy around the entrance of the area.
"Well, gentlemen, here it is. I can summon a copy of any enemy that you would ever think to face, and have you fight it. Also, I can summon targets that have a small intelligence of their own for you to practice on. But first, I would like to see what you both can do." With a wave of his hand, Merlin summoned two targets: a red one and a blue one. "These targets are intelligent to a degree. they both are fully able to evade incoming attacks, and will re-summon themselves until I stop the enchantment, even if they are completely destroyed by an attack."
As if on cue, the targets both shuddered, and started moving around the arena, randomly stopping and changing their position. Merlin watched them for a moment, smiling. "Now, Maxwell, the blue one is for you to attempt to destroy; and the Red one is for you, Mikhail. Maxwell, I understand that your weapon is MIA, but for now you may use your sword, or if you wish, this spear:" Merlin held out his hand, and summoned a spear into existence. There was nothing out of the ordinary about this spear aside from the fact that Merlin summoned it.
"Whenever you are ready, you may begin." The targets split up and hovered three feet off the ground on opposite sides of the area, waiting for their attackers, and moving slightly, side to side.
"Impatient, as always..." Deep down Mikhail was sure glad that his friend hadn't suffered any changes regarding his personality. He was acting completely normal, as if nothing serious (aka near-death experience) had happened to him. The pyromancer, on the other hand, had changed upon having his heart exposed to pure darkness; he had isolated himself from society for a while and a slight coldness had begun to surround his own warmth.
Regardless, there were some benefits tagging along with the curse and he was learning to exploit them. Mikhail was sure that under Jadis's tutelage he'd soon learn how to master the dark. It was quite foolish to assume that darkness and evil were the same thing; light and darkness were mere elements like those of fire and water and what made one of them "good" or "bad" was the way they were used.
Besides, one must know their enemy in order to defeat it...
Mikhail stood up once Merlin had decided it was time for them to leave. He felt that familiar sensation of uneasiness around his stomach as he continued to follow the magician outside his humble home. And why wouldn't he be nervous? If he was to mess up chances were Merlin wouldn't help the Guardians; after all, Maxwell was still recovering from his wounds and he wouldn't be able to show his full potential.
He bit his bottom lip, not turning to look at either of his companions; the pyromancer would have to think of a plan... and fast. Merlin's training ground weren't as far as Mikhail had expected them to be; it was perfectly shape, quite an admirable work of art of Merlin's ndeed. As he continued to analyze the wonders around him, Mikhail joined Merlin a few moments after the latter had arrived. After all, the pyromancer had always been a quick one.
As soon as the three of them were inside the "arena", Merlin spoke and explained how he planned to test them.
"These targets are intelligent to a degree. they both are fully able to evade incoming attacks, and will re-summon themselves until I stop the enchantment, even if they are completely destroyed by an attack. Now, Maxwell, the blue one is for you to attempt to destroy; and the Red one is for you, Mikhail..."
Not listening to what Merlin had to say next the pyromancer quickly turned away, his eyes locked on the crimson target. Being among nature forced a flashback on his mind, persuading him to believe he was back home, training...
Rutherford kneeled, his palm touching the cold earth beneath him as he channeled energy through it. It would become quite useful in case thing got rocky. After a while he rised, just in time to hear Merlin giving the "GO!" signal. A sigh escaped his lips as he summoned both Flame's End and Path to Mana to his hands and, not thinking twice, darted toward the target with speed.
Instead of being trained to attack with full strength, Mikhail had instead learned how to slash his opponents apart before they could react. His speed was something he took pride of and it was quite rare when one could keep up with his pace. He liked his fights short and sweet.
As soon as he appeared in front of the target, Mikhail delivered a swift slashing combo before jumping back to create some distance between him and the enemy. He dismissed Path to Mana from his left hand while twirling and spinning the other in his right hand grasp. Rutherford couldn't help but wondering if the target had some sort of defense mechanism and he surely would need a free hand to use his other abilities as best as he could in case it did.
Max nodded at Merlin as he quoted a saying from some Tifa person, whoever that was. She was probably a friend of Merlin's, from the way he spoke about her. That thought was soon shaken out of Max's mind as Merlin turned everything back the way it had been when Mikael had arrived. The soldier thought it was amazing how the old wizard could do such things in the blink of an eye.
"Whenever you are ready, follow me!" the old man said once everything was put in its place. Max just glanced over at Mikael, shrugged, and followed after him as he exited the door. The wizard led them through the small town for a short ways before coming upon a small area that looked somewhat like it had been cut out ot be an amphitheater. However, the sign at the entrance very clearly signed by Merlin made it clear that it was no mere amphitheater.
"Well, gentlemen, here it is. I can summon a copy of any enemy that you would ever think to face, and have you fight it. Also, I can summon targets that have a small intelligence of their own for you to practice on. But first, I would like to see what you both can do," the old man said to them as they arrived, turning to face them, "These targets are intelligent to a degree. they both are fully able to evade incoming attacks, and will re-summon themselves until I stop the enchantment, even if they are completely destroyed by an attack. Now, Maxwell, the blue one is for you to attempt to destroy; and the Red one is for you, Mikhail. Maxwell, I understand that your weapon is MIA, but for now you may use your sword, or if you wish, this spear:"
Max watched as a pair of targets, one red and one blue just as Merlin had said, appeared in the center of the grounds. Max looked over at the wizard as he summoned a small spear to his hand. Max reached out and took it with a single hand, feeling the weight of the weapon in his hands. It didn't feel as familiar, and it felt a LOT more clumsy in his hands than it had ever felt before. Then again, he'd never been unconscious for a week, either. It seemed that in the week he'd been bedridden, he'd lost quite a bit more than just time.
As he stood there, looking at the blue target hovering in the middle of the training grounds, he could feel the beginning festiges of fatigue begin to take hold of his body. It made him question just how far his limits had fallen in this past week. Then again, he was about to find out.
Max watched Mikael rush forward, like he always did, towards his target. He struck out hard and quick, and then leapt back, almost as if he was dodging an actual counter-attack from the target. Max decided he needed to show what he could do too, so he turned his attention back to his target. He quickly decided that since his physical condition limited how much fighting he could do with a physical weapon, he needed to use as much water as possible to fight.
With this in mind, he gripped the spear tightly in one hand and began walking towards his target at a steady pace while he started drawing water in towards him from the surrounding environment. He was able to gather quite a bit, due to a large pond off to one side of the grounds. Max grinned wickedly as he felt the familiar rush of using his power while he gathered the water together in small spheres that whirled and rushed around him. Then, without warning, all of the spheres, well over a dozen, launched themselves at the blue target with considerable speed, a volley of deadly projectiles.
Max himself was still rather far away from the target, so he gathered up the water and prepared to launch another volley before closing in to strike out with his spear....
Merlin smiled. Yes, this will be interesting. I hope to push them to their limits, something I somehow think will be slightly easier to do with Maxwell, seeing as his body needs more rest before he's tip-top. I wonder how those Hydrokenetic organisms will react?
Merlin watched the two youngsters fight their targets, Nodding and thinking.
However, I am interested in seeing Mikhail's potential as well... He has quite the fire affinity, I can sense it in his aura. Also, he's been instructed in the use of the element darkness... I wonder how he uses that, and if he knows how dangerous that is?
Merlin watched the two fight the targets, waiting for the moment of when to move on to phase two of the testing. His thoughts wandered to the various things that he could test them with, until he decided upon the perfect one, and smiled.
As Mikhail charged, a second target materialized from the red target. They were exactly identical, but as soon as the second one formed, the first one received Mikhail's attack, and shattered from the impact. The noise it made, coupled with the way it shattered revealed that this target had been made of wood.
However, the pieces did not fall to the ground, they hung in the air for a moment, as Mikhail pulled back- Only to shoot forward just as quickly as he had, splintering as they flew, becoming a cloud of (if he had time to count) 1000 needles, and rapidly flying at him in a straight line.
Meanwhile, The second red target began to form a small sphere of energy at it's center, which shot out three short bursts of triple beam attacks. They weren't very strong, and could probably be blocked without much trouble, if there wasn't a cloud of needle like pieces of wood accompanying them.
On the other side of the testing area, the Blue target had been spinning very rapidly in the clockwise direction. One third of the incoming spheres found their mark, only to be absorbed as the target's size increased to four times of the original. Still spinning, the target rotated in a full circle around its vertical axis, and as soon as it was done, propelled itself rapidly towards the advancing max, a stream of highly pressurized water blasting out of the back. As it hurtled toward him, four large, black spikes protruded from the front of the target. They spun clockwise, making a serrated edge that flew toward Maxwell.
Merlin laughed good-naturedly. "Well, boys! I hope you didn't think this was going to be easy! It's going to take some creative use of your abilities to destroy your targets!"
But of course, it would take more than just that to bring him down.
Mikhail didn't turn to see how his friend, Maxwell, had faired against that target of his own. He could not lose his concentation and focusing on anything else could leave him vulnerable to unexpected surprise attacks. This was Merlin's magic they were facing and he was not to be underestimated. The young man couldn't lower his defenses, no matter how simple and weak the foes seemed.
His eyes remained focused on the target, which had shattered into pieces moments after receiving his combo. "Strange... this was too easy..."[/i] he thought, furrowing his brow. However, Rutherford soon realized that he had actually defeated a decoy target; the real one floated behind the ashes of its clone, without even a scratch.
Mikhail's lips curved into a smile as he raised his foot, stomping the ground below it hard. The energy he had fed to the ground moments earlier began to approach its master with haste as it ran underground. Soon after, a wide wall of lava rose before the man, quickly solidifying to stop the needle attack. Smirking the pyromancer began to circle the area surrounding the target, its fire attack colliding with the wall he had created moments ago.
This had been quite easy to avoid as well. The thought of this being Merlin's magic disappointed Rutherford, who had expected something more. ...But perhaps this was nothing compared to the magician's true power? If so, was he just playing with them? Testing them like an academy instructor would test new recruits? Falling to these conclusions, he couldn't help but frowning; he was no youngster, he had had his own fair share of war and most of his battles had ended in a bloody slaughterhouse.
And with that, he decided to test the little target.
A small orb of purple emerged around his right hand, growing in both size and strength quickly. A similar one would be created by his left hand and both had one same target: the red one. Mikhail grinned as he threw both orbs with speed, each of one having a different property of darkness: gravity and magnet.
With that Mikhail crouched once more, placing his hand on the ground to feed more energy to it while he continued to eye the red target before him. He would not be surprised by it again.
Max watched as the target absorbed the water that hit it and started spinning very fast. That was...unexpected. He'd been expecting something, but not it to absorb his attacks and keep coming. This could prove to be an interesting fight.
Then the target did something else unexpected as it grew spikes and, using water a propellant, rocketed towards him. He grinned seeing this. He might as well try a water attacks one more time. He already had his plan in mind to deal with this little development too.
He waited until it got closer, and then just as it was nearly to him, he sidestepped and, in one fluid motion, stole the water the target was using to propel itself forward, robbing it of it forward motion. Then, he formed it into a large, spikey ball and turned it to ice, then sent it back at the target with the power of a cannon with a loud battle cry.
As soon as he released absolute control of the spikey ball, he could feel the fatigue seeping even deeper into him. Being bedridden for a week had really taken a toll on his body. His endurance was nowhere near where it used to be for him to tire this quickly. However, he couldn't let it show, and so he pushed it to the back of his mind and watched how his second attack on the target would go....