[Kuzco]: 212.TA3GMOM

The Adventures of the Geeks and the man of METAL!

Chapter 1: Alternate Realities rule. 

In a vacant, empty desert. Two figures face each other in the distance.
“Finally, I’ve got you.” The slim short figure of a man enveloped in a white cloak, bottom half of the face and neck covered in a long red scarf that floated behind him, due to the wind. His slightly short black hair, barely combed at all. Brown eyes looking at his target, pants and shirt both black.
The other stood, dressed in normal garments, trousers, a T-shirt and glasses, blondish hair of a curled nature, tall and slim; looked weak and harmless, contrary to what was the reality. The covered man seemed to know it; he was leaning on an offensive stance, but taking his caution. Obviously, they had faced each other before.
“You… got me?” The man asked, smirking. He was far from being concerned.
“Nowhere to run, no tricks left to pull! There is no way you could have set a trap here.” The covered man commented, sure of himself.
“Or not.” The man asked again, touching his glasses slightly, pushing them back to a comfortable position. His tone was annoyingly certain. The way he smiled even though he was doomed.
“Humpf, fine, smile all the way to your grave.” With that, his body leaned further and he charged him. Doing very small leaps, he very rapidly, with a notable serenity of movement, approaches his target. He’s barely visible, his feet barely making a dent on the sand, as he moved as swiftly as wind; when he’s about to connect a flying kick, he notices an explosion on the sand floor. A big sword rising up to intercept him; he span in the air and rotated quickly, using his metal knuckles to keep the sword from touching him. Still, it cut part of his cloth; the man in glasses simply leaned to the right a bit as his hunter passed doing confusing movements in the air.
He landed, using one hand and opened legs, sliding in the sand in such a way he forms a slight path. He looked up and yelled, annoyed.
“Skam??!”
Now circling the apparent mastermind, the man in muscles shook sand out of his head and chest. Long black hair, down to his shoulders, made of bone and muscle, tall and large in muscle. The point is, he had big muscles. He was wielding a heavy two handed sword, had an axe and a spear on his back, knifes attached to his leather boots, a shield over the axe and spear, attached to his back, and two more swords, shorter and lighter, on each side of his waist. He also wore a dagger as a necklace.
He had gloves on, boots and warrior shorts. 
“No, death.” He answered, leaping. Now, this was a serious leap, not like the bunny hops the agile one had done. He leapt a whole 10 meters, slashing downwards with his powerful sword. During his flight, the agile one opened his arms, turning the cloak into a cape and then rotated over his left leg, bringing the cape around so it wouldn’t be cut. It looked like a dancing step.
The wind originated from the sword coming down right in front of his eyes, inches away, cut his hair a bit. The sword smashed the ground, clearing it of a whole lot of sand, but alas blood was not to be found and the agile one had hopped to avoid the shockwave. He straightened his two fingers, on both hands, and hit Skam in the right muscle 10 times before landing on the ground. When he did, Skam let out a shout:
“ARH!” He let go of the sword with his left hand and back handed, or armed, the agile one in the face and torso, such was the might of his arm.
The agile one was, at the time, landing. He took the hit after he crossed his arms in defense and if he hadn’t metal gloves, his face would’ve taken too much of the blunt damage. That man’s strength was legendary and he had fought him before, but every time he got hit, he always thought to himself how ridiculously immense it was.
He was literally expelled, thrown across a 50 meter long flight; more than enough time to flip and swirl and land on his feet, always taking in mind the style of his movements.
Skam lift the sword, shaking his arm because his shoulder, the agile one’s hit point, was itching very much. He knew he had just lost a lot of strength in that arm, that technique really pissed him off. 
“You’re going to die, Azel!” He turned and threw the sword with his good arm; Azel, who had just gotten up, watched as it rotated on its path to pierce his head. He sidestepped to the right, cloak following the motion stylishly, and stretched his left arm outwards. He grabbed the sword’s hilt, unharmed and perfectly timing. But, alas, he didn’t have the strength to stop its movement. Clumsily, he was pulled into falling on his side, almost ass. Rolling on the ground and getting up as fast as he could, to prevent further humiliation. 
“Hahahahah.” The man in glasses laughed. “Always entertaining, lucky Azel.”
Azel let go of the sword, irritated. He looked towards the beast that was Skam.
“Why are you doing this? You shouldn’t be helping him.”
“I’m not.” He drew his axe. Azel didn’t flinch and simply retorted.
“What’s your beef with me, then? I’ve done nothing to you.”   
“You killed my Aracnel.” He said, furious.
“What?! That was him!” Azel complained, pointing to the man in glasses. “RK, The Trickster.”
Skam looked back, confused and uncertain. He had not witnessed the death of his sister with his own eyes. “Lies!” He shouted back, looking at Azel who sighed and commented.
“This is what happens when you mix RK, the Trickster with Skam, the Gullible…”
“Don’t make fun o’ ME!” Skam screamed.
“Ha ha ha ha.” RK laughed again; still so confident it pissed Azel off. “You got a predicament there, don’t you Skam? Hamn? Huh? Got a predicament there. Who killed her, then? Him or me? Huh? Huh? What’ll you do? What? You dunno what to do! Ohhhhh, you dunno what to do, I’m Skam, I dunno what to do!” He mocked, mimicking something like a confused zombie.
“Not really.” Skam said, looking to both of them, at a time. “I’ll just kill you both.” Skam leapt now towards RK who didn’t loose his smile. He readjusted his glasses as the beast neared him. He stepped back once, so not to be hit by the axe, and looked as Skam landed with a step to reach for him but, alas, he fell on quicksand.
“What?!” Skam asked, bewildered, finding himself trapped. 
“Tricky huh?” RK commented, amused. “Triiicky! Hahahaha. Strength won’t serve you of anything in there will it? C’mon, punch the sand! PUNCH IT!” Skam wasn’t one to let reason and logic stop him, or one to ignore mockery. So he decided to punch the quicksand into submission! He clenched his fists together and brought them down on the quicksand, pulling with nothing but his might. He moved himself towards the ledge. He then hauled a roar as he lifted his arms out of the quicksand again and repeated the same thing.
“Whoah! Badass, Skam.” He commented. Just then, he ducked and a hand flashed over his head, having tried to hit him dead. Azel stood, next to him, in the air. “Saw it.” He very lazily pushed Azel a bit so he’d fall inches from him and, just like Skam, he got stuck in quicksand. The weird thing was Azel saw that push coming and so weaved with his arm to catch it, but missed.
“RÁH! You should know better than to challenge my perception!” RK laughed again, pointing amused. The two supposedly greatest warriors in the world; actually, he said it. “The two supposedly greatest warriors in the world… look at ya. C’mon, punch me Azel, do it! Do it!” He mocked. “Course not, punches are for men, like Skam. You? You finger people to death! Hahahaha. Don’t worry; the sand’ll stop once day breaks. I’m going back to my castle now, I’m hungry. Feel free to stop by. I so enjoy our meetings. Oh, and Skam, I am sorry about your sister. The one responsible has been dealt with. I just wanted to see, once and for all, who’d win in a fight.” He smiled.
“Azel’s Luck or Skam’s Strength.” At that, he turned his back to them, hands in pockets and walked away, around the hole where Skam had emerged from.
It was very difficult but Azel eventually managed to retrieve his hook ‘n rope and use it to get out of the quicksand. Before that, Skam had reached close enough to use his axe towards the same purpose.
They looked at each other for a few moments there.
“You still want to kill me?” Azel asked.
“You did gimme an itch.” Skam complained, massaging his arm. “But no, I don’t like itches, I don’t want any more. They should call you Azel the itch giver.” He mocked.
“Right, funny.” He looked at the horizon, the silhouette of RK still visible. “Freakin’ hate that guy; been after him for 5 years now.”
“Why?” Skam asked, curious. “You in love with him?” He suggested.
“…No! I was hired to kill him actually. No problem with it and all, he is playing crazy conqueror. I failed and the contract was canceled but I couldn’t stop trying.”
“huh huh…crybaby.”
“It’s because I can’t kill him!” Azel exclaimed, looking at Skam again even though he was just ignoring him. “Again and again I’ve had him but he always finds a way, and most of all, he never moves a finger! I’ve never failed to kill anyone.”
“Well, he is responsible for my sister’s death. That means he’s going to die.” Skam always applied a simple logic…
“You think you can succeed where I’ve failed?” Azel asked, doubtful. “He’s all brain over matter.”
“I got too much matter!” He punched his own chest. “For his brain.” He forced muscle on his arms and turned to walked in the direction RK had walked.
“Heh, well, guess I could do a team up.” Azel said following him.
“Who said anything about a team uuuu…” He looked down and noticed he was, yet again, trapped on a quicksand. Azel had also just fallen on it.
Silence settled for a few seconds…the wind whistling ever so slightly, making them feel ever so ridiculous.
“How can this…? I saw him walking over here.” Skam stated, perplexed. 
“Fuckin’ hate him…” Azel sighed, shaking his head in frustration.

On a whole different place, a brown haired boy of short stature, wearing a cap and glasses very accurately and aggressively thrusts a pen through the air, then moves it around in a circle, retrieves it and wipes an imaginary something on the wall. He was shouting.
“That’s what I’d to him!” He puts the pen away, on his jacket’s pocket and further comments. “Unfair asshole!”; That was his defining characteristic, his aggressive commentaries and frustrated nature. The ‘dude with the weird left eye’ aka Hugo.
“Nah.” Says the young man in glasses, referred to as ‘that brazilian dude.’ Aka Rafael. “I’ve gone for him for help, he’s cool.”
“So guys…” A long haired man dressed in T-shirt and jeans, who addresses himself as the ‘Man of METAL’ aka Bruno calls out. “Any of you saw the third question?”
“Which test?” Rafael asks, whilst Hugo yawns. 
“That’s not counting!” Another Youngman, normally localized by simply looking for very large headphones, aka Fred, shouts. “That’s not even in the test we’re making.”
“Yes it is!” Bruno complains. 
Four college friends who were about to embark in an adventure of a lifetime…
“So then the intensity points towards where?” After…Electronagnetic class…ugh
It happened, as these things always happen, when you least expect it. It was at the end of the class and the teacher was just making sure who had and had not attended to class.
At a certain point, she got to their names. It was always an entertaining moment for, by chance of fate, they had randomly been set one after another.
“Bruno Firmino.”
“Present.”
“Rafael Kuffner.”
“I’m here.”
“Hugo Damas.”
“Here.”
“Frederico Freitas.”
“Present, teacher.”
Bruno and Hugo laughed, mildly. Bruno commenting:
“What a coincidence, seriously, who would’ve imagined our names would be consequent?”
“So freakin’ funny.” Hugo concurred. Rafael and Fred were having a normal conversation…a “normal” conversation.
Suddenly, their surroundings dim into a blur, from that to pretty unfocused and, from there, to just blank space.
They look around, aware of this awkward change, and they all obviously scream, though their voice refused to show signs of existence as they travel to a world unknown where they’re about to embark in an adventure of a life time…for real now.


Chapter 2: Legends and Fate, Kuzco’s death. 

They showed up in an unknown land full of sand and sand. Worst yet, they showed up in the middle of the air, screams finally taking up form.
“AHHHHHHHH!” They shouted all the way unto the sand-filled ground, Rafael being the only one falling on his back.
“OW!”
“OUCH!”
“SHIT!”
“FUUUUCK!”
Silence for a few minutes. They all get up except for Hugo, who doesn’t move. Rafael, Fred and Bruno look around the desert, seeing nothing but sand.
“Wha…”
“Please tell me we’re not in a desert!” Hugo pleaded, suddenly, from the ground. He had his eyes covered. “I can feel sand and I think I saw a desert. Tell me there isn’t one.”
“There isn’t one.” Rafael quickly stated.
“Ah! Yeah, it’s just a…” Bruno spoke… “reeeally looong beach…”
“Yeah, so god damn long we can’t spot the sea.”
Hugo got up.
“What the hell’s going on??!?!” He asked, freaking out.
“Ok, cool it. Let’s evaluate the…”
“AHHHHHHHH!!! We were transported into another world!? A DESERT WORLD! We’re all gonna DIE!” Rafael yelled, in a serious way that couldn’t avoid sounding funny.
“Nobody’s gonna die…” Fred stated.
“Girlie…” Bruno added, looking around, relatively calm.
“Oh my fucking god!” Hugo shouted, further freaked out.
“Let’s evaluate the FUCKING circumstances! EVERYONE CALM DOWN!” Fred bellowed. “Okay, world disappeared, showed up again, we’re in the desert. What could’ve made this?”
“WE DIED!” Hugo screamed. “Somebody bombed us. This is the afterlife!”
“No, it can’t be.” Rafael simply said.
“Yeah Rafa.” Bruno complained. “Where’s the heaven huh? Great heaven this is! Where’re the broads?! HEY, is that an angel? NO! That’s SAND! Nothing but freakin’ sand!”
“Oh shit! Look!” Hugo pointed at Rafael, more detailed, at what he was keeping safe in his arms. A black briefcase.
“What?” He asked.
“You brought the Mac?!” Bruno asked, baffled.
“You brought the Mac!” Hugo confirmed, astonished.
“WHAT? Look, the world starts to disappear; certain instincts come into place, okay?”
“Unbelievable…” Fred commented, massaging his forehead. 
“Look, what if we were simply transported into another dimension or something. And time didn’t stop? Somebody could just pick it up! Pick MY Mac up.”
“WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE… OF THE FUCKING DESERT!!!” Hugo reacted, pissed.  
“And now we got a computer. I’m going to turn it on and see if I can get any internet.”
“Rafael…spare us.”
“Okay guys, seriously. He could be on to something here. Teleportation anyone?”
Rafael was too busy taking his Mac out; Hugo commented:
“Maybe. But I mean, where are we? Considering what happened, can we assume we’re still on our planet?”
“Maybe…” Fred observed the landscape. “I dunno…”
“Watch out!” Bruno screamed, looking behind Hugo.
“Huh?” A giant sized sand-colored caterpillar had jumped to nab Hugo who, oblivious, doesn’t dodge. She smacked right into his backpack, which apparently had come with since he was still wearing it. The encounter pushed Hugo in front and into the ground, the caterpillar itself falling on its back.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!” Fred reacted, gaining some room. Rafael and Bruno do the same whilst Hugo got up; turning to see what had hit him.
“Who freakin’ pushed me?”
He turned around just as it flipped, showing him its various carnivore teeth.
“Holy…” It leapt.
“AH!” In pure despair, he waved his backpack around, letting go of one arm and pulling with the other; tripping on his foot, he fell backwards but still managed to, somehow, ram his back pack on the caterpillar’s face.
He landed and immediately got up.
“KILL IT!” He ran and waved his backpack, to beat on it. Fred also quickly leapt and started kicking it, Bruno joined in but Rafael decided they had it under control.
Frantically and desperate, the three beat the living crap out of that alien insect. When purple blood had spurt completely and the insect was very much dead, they noticed it smelled horrible.
“Ewww, fucking…” Hugo kicked it again. “Damn, this smells!” They backed up and looked for Rafael who had gained a lot of distance between himself and the stench.
“That is absolutely hideous! DISGUSTING!” He complained.
“Know what’d be disgusting?!” Hugo shouted back. “MY SEVERED HEAD, YOU COWARD SON OF A BITCH!” He walked in his direction.
“What? You had it all under control.”
“That’s what the 7 year old girl said!” Bruno pointed out. Hugo laughed. Fred had, in turn, noticed something.
“Hey guys, look!” He pointed at an approaching silhouette, at a very rapidly approaching silhouette.
“Oh oh…what if it’s that thing’s mom?” Bruno asked.
“CRAP!” Rafael turned around to run, his friends following his example. 
They ran like hell but, as none of them were trained in such a strenuous physical effort, they grew too tired too soon. Looking back, they noticed it was a carriage, being carried by 6 men. They had an escort of another 20 around them.
“Uff…uff…fuck it.”
“Why…must…you…curse all the time?” Rafael asked Hugo, breathing as heavily as the rest.
“Not the time Rafa. Lemme get my pen, I’ll stab ‘em all…” At that comment, he sat on the ground. Accordingly, they all did the same.
“At least we know we’re in another world, cause of the caterpillar.” Fred told them. Bruno looked at him, offended.
“Aren’t…you tired?”
“Me? No. I could keep running but I’m not about to leave you behind.”
“PFAH!” Rafael reacted.
“I’m a hero!” Hugo jested. “Uff!”
Soon the carriage had arrived. All the men were dressed in cloth, if they were all men. Faces and bodies covered by it, swords and spears hanging on to some. The ones in front make way for the carriage which door opened to show no one inside.
“Quickly, you must come with us, chosen ones.” A muffled voice came from what looked to be the leader.
Now, this was very much a shocking surprise. They all just laid there, jaw hitting the floor. All but Rafael who was the first to react:
“Chosen…to get eaten?” They all burst out laughing.
“Hahahahahahah”
“HAHHAHAHEHEEHEAHAHAHA”
The man simply stayed silent, probably confused. He answered:
“No.”
“Chosen…to be sacrificed?” They laughed further.
“No. You are the chosen ones we must protect, I…”
“Chosen…to be in any way put in a situation where our physical and/or spiritual condition will be in jeopardy?” Rafael asked, containing his laugh. Though the others increased, Hugo having convulsions.
“…yes.” The man answered. The laughing immediately stopped as they stared at the man.
“What?” Rafael asked, incredulous.
“Everything will be explained but we must first get you to safety before…”
“Krakty!” Someone called out. “Look” He pointed to sand storm. The one that was talking, apparently named Krakty, looked and so did our four “chosen ones”. They noticed then that was not a sand storm but the result of some very fast movement on the sand. A silhouette finally showed up.
“There is only one man on earth that can do that.” Someone said.
“Oh god, we’re doomed!!” Someone screamed, immediately running away, frightened.
“Everyone! Form a perimeter around the chosen ones.”
“But there’s no way we can…”
“IT’S OUR JOB! Our duty! Our lives… now do it, quickly before he gets here.”
The speed at which whatever it was moved was astonishing, hard to believe. The battalion of armed soldiers surrounded the four before they could even get up, which they did to see what the heck was happening.
“He’ll kill us all…”
“I’ve heard he almost got RK once.”
“What?” Rafael, Hugo and Fred asked, at the same time.
“He’ll be here in a minute. Everyone hold fast! Today, we fight Azel!”
“Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap” One of them kept saying, just as the four of them now react, a very intriguing, hard to believe “WHAT?!”
At that, the figure which stood at about 30 meters from them suddenly showed up, atop the caravan. The white cloak, revolving his whole body, waving at the wind as was his scarf; everyone in the battalion looked at him in awe and fright.
He opened the cloak, causing half of them a scare, showing his thin though athletic build.
“I only want the boys! Leave and keep your lives.” He told them. As always, only the upper half of his face was uncovered, his eyes determined.
“They are our lives!” The commander screamed. Immediately after, another soldier jumped off the formation and ran for it.
“Heh, ok. Die with them then.” Like an illusion, he disappeared. He showed up in front of a soldier; hit his neck with a two finger thrust whilst hitting the one in the left with another. Stepped on the ground and side-jumped to the right with a side-flip, using his hands to hit all the soldiers he passed in front of. Landing, he jumped over the barrier of soldiers to land atop his targets; it was at this point that his victims fell on the ground, dead.
But 5 spears plunged the air between him and his targets whom fell on their buts. He stretched horizontally and lied down on the crossed wooden parts of the spears. Grabbing some he pulled and front flipped, rotating to go through two sword slashes, rotating again as he passed between two soldiers to hit them with his two finger attack again. Landing, he jumped and span, pushing two swords aside with his metallic gloves, kicking the soldiers into a flip and crash on the sandy floor.
A spear thrust at him but he again leaned and straightened horizontally, grabbing it with his hand. With perfect equilibrium, he pulled on the spear, pulling the soldier towards him whilst gaining momentum towards him. Another strike to the forehead.
Slowly but surely, Azel kept hopping and swirling around like a deadly ballerina; a very deadly ballerina. Slowly but surely, Azel kept killing them all without suffering one single hit. And all that without using that incredible speed he had already demonstrated in the beginning of the fight.
“Why is he dancing?” Bruno asked.
“He’s too stylish to kill them normally.” Fred suggested.
“Shut up guys, our body guards are thinning; it’ll be our turn in a moment.”
And that was the truth. In under 5 to 7 minutes, all the soldiers were either on the ground agonizing, on the ground dead, or running for their lives screaming for their mommies and, in one particular case, little sister. 
The last one, the captain, had his sword thrown away by a back hand strike and a broken neck by a round house kick. Landing, he turned to the four of them.
“Ok, calm down now…” Rafael commented, jerking slightly to the side to protect his Mac.
“But what the hell do you want?!” Fred asked.
“Yeah, what the fuck’s going on?” Hugo also inquired, freaked out. 
“I’d love to explain why I have to kill you. But you never know when the priests are going to…” Just as he was saying it, two very old men, dressed in white and black, show up in the middle of the four, out of nowhere.
“AH!”
“WHOAH!” Bruno and Rafael reacted.
“Shit!” Hugo and Fred reacted. Azel leapt immediately and stroke at Fred and Bruno, but they were gone an inch before contact. He landed on his feet and immediately jumped back to kill the other two but one of the old men had already appeared again.
“NO!” Azel screamed, as he saw Rafael and Hugo disappear a nail away from his contact. And all he needed was that, just the touch. “NOOO!! FUUUUCK!”

Rafael and Hugo showed up to see the other old man, on the ground, apparently dead or knocked out. Fred was checking just that, Bruno in turn was waiting for them, relieved to see them alive.
“He’s dead.” The first old man said, suddenly crouching, exhausted. “I’ll be too, soon. There’s a reason why we sent soldiers after you instead of just teleporting in the first place... it kills us.” It was evident the old man wasn’t thrilled about his duties. 
Fred got up whilst the rest of them looked upon the old man, still baffled. After a few silent seconds:
“What’s going on?” The four of them asked, at the same time.
“Come with me…” He breathed heavily. It was no visible his bald head but yet with heavy long beard and moustache. “I’ll tell you on the way. Kuzco, you seem to be around my height, help me please.”
They looked around, confused; Hugo stepped forward to help the old man in robes walk; and so they walked, the four of them still waiting to hear what in God’s name was this all about.
“There is a legend…a legend that has been set in stone and history for as long as this world can remember. It tells of 4 great warriors. At a time of peril, when a demonic creature has seized the cryptic magical castle that floats a mile above the ground, in the middle of the greatest richest fountain of nature, the Wondrous Forest… 4 chosen will be born.
Azel, RK, Skam and Kuzco.” Their attention was completely wrapped in now, as those were his respective nicknames, they used online, back on earth.
“They will be exceptional warriors but not meant to defeat the great evil. They are the chosen trainers for the real chosen ones, who would come from another world. Alternate versions of the trainers, these young men, you, would train under them to awaken and use your powers which they could not wield. Then, fully trained and ready, you would save the world but there was a catch, for the trainers that is.”
They all knew Fred’s counterpart, Azel, was the one that so swiftly killed all those soldiers and so determined was he in killing them. Rafael hit Fred in the back of the head.
“Damn it Fred! You tried to kill us!”
“It wasn’t me!”
“I’m not trusting you anymore…” He stepped away. Bruno did the same adding.
“Bloody traitor…” They were both laughing.
“C’mon guys, I’d never do that! Stop it.”
“OI!” Hugo called out, angry. “The old sage’s talking his last words here, show some respect!”
They all fell silent at that.
“As I was…”
“Spoi…” Bruno had tried to give one last quip but interrupted the old man. He shut up definitely to let him talk, adding: ”Sorry.”
“The catch was that once the world was saved, they would die.”
“What? Why?”
“They just would, it is necessary for the balance of all things. That is all we know, is that they would need to die once the evil one had been vanquished. We found them at an infant age and retrieve and brought them up accordingly but…they were not easy to handle.
Azel was very much the delinquent, always hyped. Kuzco was always frustrated, often smashing his own room to pieces; Skam was always getting into trouble for believing too easily in what others said. And RK…well, he didn’t seem to be wrong in any way, except for the part of tricking Skam once in a while and his small childish feuds with his other teammates. But we were wrong; he was the worst of them all.”
Bruno and Fred looked at Rafael, judgingly. Bruno shook his head in disappointment, ironically.
“After many years, he decided he didn’t like the divine plan, set by the gods of old.
Seeing as though the evil one was roaming free on his slaughter and rampage even though they had been ready to receive you for 3 years already, he decided to take action. So he did the unthinkable…”
A pause for effect…
“He dared, alone, into the magical castle and, alone, vanquished the evil one.”
“RAH!” Rafael reacted. “YEAH! I’m a hero, bitches!” He pointed around. “I saved the world!”
“But upset the balance. He took over the castle and the evil one’s minions and took on the role of conqueror, the role of evil one. So he did two very awful things. Now, when you showed up, what would happen? They were supposed to die after you killed the evil one, what now? And second, he took on the reign of that empire.”
“I am so hardcore.”
“SHUT UP!!!” Hugo shouted, being much immersed in the tale.
“Accordingly, Skam and Azel decided to leave their respective posts here and go live their lives. They didn’t care anymore. Skam moved to live with his family and Azel became an assassin; both grew extraordinarily famous, over the years.”
“What about Kuzco?” Hugo asked.
“Furious at the betrayal and disloyalty; he marched into the castle to face off against RK. Now, contrary to what the tablets tell, both Kuzco and RK were able to develop elemental powers…Kuzco wielded nature itself, RK controlled the air. So a great battle took place, in which Kuzco ended up on the loosing end, having nothing but disadvantages on his side, and perished in battle.”
This time there was no mocking, they simply arrived at the last door, very large one.
“You…you must flee before Azel arrives. The tablets told that because you were here, they had to die. They all understood that there could only be a version of you and…” He coughed…starting to lose it. “They’re out to kill you. So they can live on, they will hunt you down before you become too powerful.” He leaned on the door, weak; Hugo set him down, sitting him next to it.
“You must hurry. Train, gain power and vanquish them, one by one. I…you must. All I can do now is…tell you of your nature selves. You must be the ones to unlock it.
Rafael, you are RK, master of wit and perception, and fire. Frederic, you are Azel, master of speed and agility, and lightning. Hugo, you are Kuzco, master of posture and endurance, and earth. Bruno, you are Skam, master of strength and might, and the metal vehicle. You will save them all for, without you, they cannot travel if not by foot.” He weakly pushed the door open and, beyond it, a hole in the ceiling allowed the sun to illuminate, to shine the prodigal, legendary, metal machine! It hovered in the air, green and old and very very familiar in its epic stature…
“What’s my car doing here?” Bruno asked. At that situation, the stress was broken and they all laughed like maniacs. “Unbelievable!”
“You…” The old man tried to speak but it was not possible. They were laughing too hard.
“It had to be! IT HAD TO BE!” Rafael shouted.
“Awesome man!”
But…eventually they stopped and thus the old man last said:
“You can control every part of that mighty machine, morph it and use it. For now, use it to take yourself and your comrades away from here.” Just then, a great crash sounded out, from far away the corridors.
“GO! QUICKLY!” They run. They frantically get inside the car only Rafael and Fred were both at the front door, wanting to go there.
“I’ll go.”
“No, I’m going.”
“I call shotgun.”
“I don’t care, I’m already here.” Door opened, they struggled to get in, desperate. Hugo and Bruno, already inside, shout.
“For christ’s sakes! You’ll get us killed!”
“Azel!” They hear the old man shout.
“No!” Bruno felt a sudden urge to get them inside as fast as possible and, as such, the car complied. It re-arranged it self, the truck and space from behind remaking the front seat, turning it to two while the door stretch out into a giant hand and pushed the two maniacs inside.
“NO!” They heard again, the familiar shout. Bruno had a sudden wish to get out of there, through the wall, and thus the car responded. Quickly and rapidly, it rammed against the wall and through it, getting out into the open. He sped up.
“Is he…”
“He’s gaining on us!” Hugo let them know, frightened, as he saw Azel running at an inhumanly possible speed. Bruno sped up as much as he could, flying it. Azel circled through the left and showed up next to Bruno, after a few seconds. Arms hang out back, leaned forward for maximum acceleration.
“AH!” With the fright, a part of the door formed a spike that thrust at Azel but he ducked and then side jumped, using his arm to grab to the car and land on it safely.
“For fuck sake, can’t this thing LIFT FLIGHT?!” Fred screamed. Bruno then had the idea and lifted flight.
“Oh yeah…” As it lift flight, a hand violently pierced the ceiling, not hitting Fred in the top of the head because Rafael, not thinking, saw it and reacted instinctively, pushing him aside. The car’s ceiling punched upwards and Azel was forced out into falling from the car.
“Are we safe?” Hugo looked as Azel was still hanging on, grabbed unto a rope that stretched unto them. He was climbing it too.
“Man, he stuck a rope, or something, to us!” He warned. 
Bruno closed his eyes for a second and concentrated. He was already very familiar with this car, he could sense the hook and hence re-arranged the car so it would unhook itself. Soon, the rope lost its stress and Azel fell.
“What about now?” Hugo watched as he back flipped and pirouetted his way unto a crouching land. He saw him look up and then dash in front.
“Yeah, he can’t reach us here. Please tell me this doesn’t run on gas.” Hugo added.
Bruno looked at the gas meter, expecting anything!
“No, but where the heck do we go? What’re we to do?”  
“Just keep flying.” Rafael suggested. “We’ll think of something…”







Chapter 3: The Almighty Sensei.

“So, we’ve escaped Fred. Now what?”
“That’s not me!”
“It sure looks like you…”
“I’m here, he’s outside. We look alike, that’s all!”
“Still, dude’s pretty fast.”
“Will you…stop…ascending…!” Rafael complained, cowering up. You see, he isn’t much good with heights and thus was cowering, trying not to look out.
“Right.” Bruno reciprocally stopped ascending and kept flying forward. To be honest, they were flying too high for anyone’s comfort.
“Oh…my…god…Bruno! If we plunge to our deaths, I’ll never forgive you…” Hugo seriously warned.
“I think I’m more worried about the dying part than you being mad at me…” Bruno admitted.
“Whatever…just-”
“AGH!” The car received a massive shock which pushed it aside and sent it whirling into a plunge towards the ground. 
“WHAT THE FUCK?! BRUNO!!”
“SOMETHING KNOCKED HIM OUT!” Fred screamed.
They approached the ground at an increasingly terrifying speed. The wind whistled aggressively and the car wouldn’t stop rotating and trembling like it was about to be ripped apart. This was NOT fun. Rafael passed out in the middle of it, the other two’s stomachs were about to exit through their mouths.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” They both screamed, bringing their hands up to cover their heads, as miles worth of sand were pulled together to form a mountain against which the car very violently crashes. They both hit their heads, knocked out as the car dug its way through with sheer inertia, almost reaching the bottom of said mountain.
Far above, a figure watched from the clouds; he had been hiding there and caught the chosen of metal off guard. RK hovered, holding his glasses so they wouldn’t fly off due to the winds or the fact he was now diving towards the ground.
What the..? He thought as he noticed referred miles of desert laid bare for all the sand had converged to make a soft landing. There is no way they’ve developed that kind of control already…yes, surely just an instinctive reaction. Let’s clear all the sand and get it over wi-
At first glance, RK figured a sandstorm caught his peripheral vision. But he then focused his vision on it and recognized it as the aftershock of Azel’s running. It had become famous, thus awarding him the nickname of “rampant storm”. He immediately set foot on top of the mountain, not desiring for Azel to know he could fly.
As expected, Azel stopped about 20 meters from the burst mountain of sand that lied in the middle of a now small valley.
“You after them too?!” Azel asked.
“Maybe…” He replied with a mocking smile, thinking it was odd that Azel didn’t notice the newly crafted valley as well as the big tower.
“I hate those answers.” Azel replied in turn, two knifes showing up on both his hands, single pieces of his body that actually showed.
“Azel, you’re seriously fighting me even though the chosen ones HAVE arrived?”
“I can finish them off whenever I want…but you?! Now’s not a time I want to waste.”
“What makes you think now’s different from all the other times I’ve humiliated you?”
“Basically…” Azel shrugged. “You weren’t expecting me this time.” He smirked and threw one of the daggers as he dashed with his amazing speed.
RK hopped back leaning to avoid the dagger and gained height as Azel ran to the top. But he wasn’t fast enough to get high enough; Azel had jumped off the top and was already in front of his belly, knife in hand, about to strike when RK’s forced to use his powers.
He pulled with his left and pushed with his right, his actions having affected the air in front of him.
Azel’s violently pushed into an amazingly fast spin, as well as back.
“You can’t defea…” RK’s forced to interrupt himself as Azel was taking advantage of the immensely fast spinning motion to throw, or ratter, release knives. His cloak made it seem like nothing but a white “pião” from which knives were launched. The releasing was well timed and well aimed. RK dodges the first two but he immediately created a mini tornado around him which automatically diverted the daggers to the side.
Azel span all the way to the ground, landing on his feet, and spinning about 10 more times while his sliding stopped. He stopped spinning in a cool position, facing RK with already two more daggers on each hand.
“So you can manipulate air. THAT’s your real advantage.”
“I never used air on you, until now.”
“Bullshit! You used it to dodge my critical blows.” His hood had come off, obviously, during the spin. 
“Or not…” RK said, adjusting his glasses.
“Fuck you!” He shouted, throwing both his knifes; this time, they weren’t directed at RK but at his right but the tornado pushed the knives, still too fast for him to have to dodge but it told Azel all he needed to. RK noticed them passing a little too close for comfort and then looked back at Azel who had his hook aimed at him.
RK showed a gaze of shocking understanding as the hook flew through the air.
“You’re MY KILL!” Since way back, at the training grounds, RK had always knew one thing. He was the fastest to figure out any strategy or plan that was being employed but in real time combat against Azel, that was worthless for he fought on instinct and no amount of intelligence and foresight can keep up with the man’s crazy instinct. The key was to be previously prepared but this time that had been impossible. Still, RK held too much of an advantage in power to waver and he was the only one of the three whose vision could always keep up with Azel’s movements. He could see it all.
Once the hook touched the little wind tornado, Azel grabbed on as it pulled on him. RK’s forced to lean so not to take the hook to the head and, glancing back, he sees Azel letting go of the cord of the hook, piercing through the tornado of air and stretching his arm to strike at him. RK dashed to the right, extinguishing the tornado…Azel’s middle finger grazes his nose. Azel quickly turned around and threw knives at RK who elevated and then span around to avoid them.
“Man, it’s enough.” RK told him, slightly annoyed; he was positioned on top of the mountain of sand and thus concentrated deeply for the 5 seconds it took for Azel to land; he then looked forward as he released an immense power. A gush of wind, strong enough to move a building, rushed forth to send the weak interloper away.
Sand and dust filled the sand valley with an omnipotence that the gods themselves would fear as landscape itself was redone! But still… once RK cleared the dust and sand to confirm peace and quite, there stood Azel: cloak ripped, bleeding hands and undead skin but still he was standing, having shot the hook to the ground and held firm and stubborn.
“My God...” RK shuddered. 
“You’re…my…kill…” Obsession and determination pushed Azel into another dash to climb the mountain, jumping off it and aiming the hook at him, throwing knifes with the other hand.
Unable to think of a way to get rid of him quickly, RK flew off into the sky and clouds. Azel still fired the hook but, alas, missed.
He crashed on the ground, not able to handle the landing. He rolled feeling his aching body, his strained muscles, his complaining hands. He looked at the ground; breathing hard with maddening eyes and a sore throat… he immediately got up, looking at the sky.
“GGRRRRAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! COME BACK HERE!!” He ran off, towards RK’s castle.
And thank god for Azel’s obsession for without it, our heroes would now be wasted, in the words of a mafia member I’ve never heard of because he doesn’t exist.

So, it takes them a few hours to come back to the conscious realm.
Hugo wasn’t the first to wake up but we’ll go with him. Opening his eyes, he let reality plunder his mind and remind him of all that happened. He made an abrupt motion out of straightening up, a migraine attacked him accordingly for such a crash left backlashes yet to deal their discomfort.
“Sss…fuckin’…ow!” He reacted, massaging his forehead.
“Always the polite one.” Rafael complained.
“Bite me. What happened? Where are we?”
“Buried in sand.” Bruno replied.
“Oh you’re awake? Mind telling me what happened? Why’d we fall?”
“I don’t know. I was listening to you complain, suddenly I’m waking up here. My head hurts though…”
“Well, that can happen when you crash on the sand, inside a metal car, after falling like 4000 feet!!!” He complained, frustrated.
“Ssss…shit…we’re alive?” Fred had just woken up. “Ow! My head!”
“Tell me about it…how are we alive anyways?”
“Dunno, last thing I noticed was we were falling.” Rafael let them know.
“I also only saw the falling part. Sand must’ve broken our fall” Hugo said, shrugging.
“In more ways than one; I saw somethin’. The sand gathered up to cushion the car. At least it seemed that way.”
“What? That makes no sense.”
“Hey, didn’t the old man say something about you three having the elements, being masters or someth…”
“YEAH! He said Hugo was the master of earth. The sand is little specs of earth.” Fred noted.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Not on purpose. Surviving instinct’s a strong thing.” Rafael said. “I guess telling you we’re going to die if you don’t dig us out won’t make you do something?“
“Hey, I can sure try. If this super power thing is true…gimme a second.”
I will spare the reader of the idiotic embarrassing noises of effort and pressure Hugo made at that time, as well as the cursing and the one fart that got away… it was evidently a good thing he was alone in the back seat. After half an hour, he gave up.
“There is no way I did what you said, Fred!”
“I saw what I saw, give me another explanation!”
“Bah, just try and get us out Skam, car might be “mighty” enough.”
“Hum…sure.”

Meanwhile, far away from there, Azel lied on the sandy floor. His skin rot, almost out of breath. He’d lost his prey an hour ago which was when he noticed he had lost his way too. A bird’s shadow showed up, a bird that flew above him, in circles. An eater of dead flesh… these beasts smelled out the carcasses fuming at the sun and caught them dead or half dead.
The bird lowers its altitude, nearing its decaying prey. It resembled very much a vulture, only the neck was longer and it had actual teeth. It landed next to the corpse, making sure it was a corpse before approaching further; lowering its mouth to feed, it found itself suddenly without a head. Azel very quickly used a knife to cut off its head, getting up as the small beast tumbled down, lifeless.
“’Bout time! Hungry as hell. Uh! A meaty one!”

…anyways, at an even long ways away where a huge massive castle floated a few meters above the surface level of sand, RK could be seen flying inside through a window. He landed, flustered and annoyed, and walked towards his throne, past the guards that made out a corridor for him…the throne being a massive golden royal sofa.
Sitting down, he sighed and motioned the guards away.
“That was unexpected. Guess there is a reason why those two developed the fame of being on our level. Hm…it doesn’t matter; he probably got lost by now, again. I’ll just wait a day and track them down once more. At least I’m sure they don’t know about me…” he thought out loud, contemplating an apple in his hand. He bit a piece off, to eat obviously.
“Why I like these things so much, I’ll never understand…” He commented, contemplating the Apple.
“They’re dead?” A voice asked, suddenly. The source was not present but an echo carried out from some other place, RK’s hand shivers a bit from the fright, but he smiles controllably.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“They might…” He shuddered and took another bite from the apple, adding with a mouthful. “They did fell all the way down…”
“What?!” The voice asked, impatient and annoyed.
“They MIGHT! Azel showed up, wouldn’t stop trying to kill me. I’ll see if any of them lived and finish whatever’s left, ok? Calm down.”
“Your plan…thwarted by Azel? Azel of all people…how did that happen?”
“Look, he was supposed to be heading here with Skam. My sources at the village of Huen confirmed they had teamed up to kill me, as I had planned.” He took another bite from the apple, unbothered by Azel’s unpredictability. “But he was there, and now he also knows I control air.”
“WHAT?!”
“I know, he’ll be dead soon enough anyways. Why do I like these so much?”
“Why do I leave these tasks for you?” The voice asked.
“You don’t leave anything; you just don’t want to get off your lazy butt.” He took another bite. “Take it easy, they won’t learn their powers in three days. I’m going after them tomorrow so that’s as far as they get.”
“In three days, you’ll come back and complain that Sensei has taken them in.”
RK was about to take another bite but he stopped…he rolled his eyes and admitted.
“There’s no way he’d find them. Besides, you really think he’d…”
“Are you really doubting his guts? He’d do it just to scorn his traitorous pupil.”
RK sighed, thinking for a moment, and then decided.
“I’ll take that chance. You want to have it done today? Get off your behind and go do it yourself.”
“…sometimes I regret leaving you alive.”
“It wasn’t my idea, even though I like it. Besides, from my point of view, it’s a mutual arrangement. Now shut up and let me appreciate my apple.”
“Fine! But one of these days I swear I’ll-” *CRUNCH* “-....”

Back at our heroes’ grave, the landscape of sand decided to poop a rather large green metallic object. It bent over and fell on the ground; the doors immediately opened and three of our heroes leapt out for gasps of fresh air.
“C’mon, you’re completely blowing it out of proportion.” Hugo complained.
“Exaggerating?! MY neurons are on fire!”
“By gods I could taste the air inside the car.”
“Get out of my baby!” Bruno demanded, painfully.
“That sounded kind of wrong…” A voice commented, a strange voice creeping out from behind Fred.
“WHOAH!!” Fred reacted, hopping in fright and… *KRAKOOOM!!!* Lightning suddenly flashed at the sound of thunder even though it was cloudless. The weird man side-steps so fast no one can even tell he did it.
For a few seconds, no one knew what to be shocked at…if at the strange man that creped on them or the lightning that just hit right near him. The man was completely covering in garbs and cloak with a scarf and bandages covering his face; the only part of the man that could be seen was his right eye; the left remained uncovered behind bandages. But don’t misunderstand, all of his face was covered, only the eye socket could be seen and it was green. All his clothing was white, it was hard to see how wide he was, how big were his arms or torso or legs…it was hard looking at him.
“Well that’s just fuckin’ awesome…” Fred suddenly commented, knowing the lightning had been his doing.
“But dangerous…” The man added.
“OK! Who are you?! I got sand and I’m not afraid to use it!!!” Hugo warned, holding up a fistful of sand he had just retrieved. Oh yeah, he got out of the car too, not able to handle the smell.
Rafael awkwardly glanced at his friend whilst Bruno came around the car, curious.
“Yeah, next one’s a head shot…” Fred warned, pointing at his face.
“Do you realize how ridiculous you look?”
“oh yeah? KRAKOOM!!!!” Fred screamed but nothing happened, nothing sounded out apart from a wind whistling embarrassment. The man crossed his arms. Fred immediately left his position and assumed a fighting one. “I can still kick your ass.”
“With what? Your one practice exercise?” Hugo mocked.
“Shut up, for all he knows I can be a-”
“Master?!” Another voice called out. Our heroes looked to their right and there stood a muscle behemoth that would put Conan to shame.
Fred slowly turned his position half way in his direction.
“You have got to be kidding, Fred…” Rafael said 
“It’s not the size that matters but…”
“Fred, not when you’re THAT gigantic!!”
“…”
“Hello Skam.” The strange man greeted the titan. The four almost break their jaws as they react to that. Bruno’s the first one to laugh.
“Oh yeah, who’s the real man?!” He asked.
“It’s not the size that matters but…”
“Oh shut up.” Rafael and Hugo said in chorus.
“Right, strange guy and killer guy… let’s back up into the car…quietly, they’re looking at each other. They might have not noticed us…” Hugo narrated.
“You do realize we can hear you.” The sensei pointed out.
“Shhhh…” Hugo reacted.
“Am I to understand you will protect them?” Skam asked, clearly ignoring the dimwits getting into the car.
“I am going to teach them their abilities. Until they deem themselves ready, I will protect them.” The man smiled.
“Hold up hold up…” Rafael asked. “Did you hear that, he’s gonna…”
“He’s lying, let’s go!” Hugo talked out loud.
“Oi! Be more respectful of your teacher!” The strange fellow demanded.
“I have great…”
“I agree with Rafa, let’s wait a bit.”
“Can we wait IN the steel made vehicle?!” Hugo asked.
“I have great…”
“FINE! Freakin’ annoying!” They got in and so Skam finally had a chance to talk.
“As I was saying, I have great respect for you so I won’t kill you.”
“Yes, you were always the most honorable.”
“I will prove myself worthy to live. When the time comes, you know where to find me.” At that, he turned his back and started walking away.
“Yeah.” The man shuddered. “Guys, actually, we better take the metal vehicle. I don’t want to risk running into Azel.” He told his would be students.
“You fear your former student?” Skam asked, having momentarily stopped.
“Nah, it’s just that he never gives up and has no sense of personal responsibility.”
“Meaning…?”
“I had four pupils once. Only two of them took unconsciousness as the end of a training session. Only two of them have the mindset to never yield, never quit. But only one of them had the power that made it possible for him not to ever give up to anyone…and he’s dead now. Azel’ll fight me until he dies and I can’t run away from him, not anymore.” He explained, light-toned, implying he’d have to kill him.
“Heh, always without worries.”
“Preoccupation is for rookies, you know that.”
“Aye.” Skam walked again, off into the horizon.
Our four heroes were baffled. That that titan of a man would be brush off by this…master. That this man had single-handedly trained their would be teachers, it was too much a greatness to endure…or that white suit was just too obfuscating, either way it was hard to gaze upon the man.
“So, this is your move, chosens. Will you let me aboard your vessel and heed my guiding or will you run?”
“Come on in.” Hugo said. “But…Bruno, divide the back seat here, make a wall between him and us.”
“Hum…” Bruno closed his eyes and gripped his steering wheel, focusing. The car chirped and whistled annoyingly, cranking up the said position.
“Everyone agree with this?” Hugo asked.
“What choice do we have?” Rafael commented.
“Don’t be so gloom guys, after all. It’s about time we accept what’s happening to us…” He looked at their sensei as he walked towards the car “It’ll be easier if we have help…”
“Heh, optimist for life.”
“Only way to live, Kuzco.” Fred replied with a grin.
“Only way to be betrayed is more like it.” Rafael added. “You okay with this Bruno?”
“Yeah…sure, I trust your judgment.” He stated melancholically, massaging his head.
The door opened, the door closed.
“Up, 70º left and straight on...to your training grounds.” The car lift flight and set off as the sensei added:
“By the way, my name is of no consequence; you will call me as you will treat my very existence. I am now and always will be… Sensei.”



Chapter 4 – It’s easier in the animes…

Sensei seemed to be living in a very large mansion. It had a total of 27 rooms…Sensei said it used to be about twice that size but Kuzco had blown apart most of it throughout various ‘relief sessions’. The debris of said destruction series were still visible. These were divided into three categories:
Bed rooms, 5 of them; no more, no less.
Resting lounge, 10 times bigger than all others, only one. It was equipped with stone made seats and a table.
Training rooms, all others; with more than enough space to run 200 meter laps, these were the grounds on which the chosen would train and on which their teachers had previously trained.
“RK is the only one that can find this place after all those decades and he is bound to come. We will begin after I convince him to let you train in peace.”
“What? But he’s the master of air, how are you going to…?”
“Heed your sensei’s words and do not doubt them. Now go, rest, talk, do what you want, he should be here by tomorrow.”
They settled in the lunge, sitting in the chairs they looked nervously at their surroundings. White and yellow stone as far as the eye could see, Hugo had the most problems with all this light, having been relying on his cap and sunglasses to see what’s in front of him.
Rafael was the one to make the first move by retrieving his Mackintosh from his backpack.
“WHAT’re you doing??!”
“I’m going to change wallpapers.”
“Rafael, you’ve gotta be…”
“Gay.” Bruno suddenly said. The timing was just perfect and warranted an all out laugh fest. And that’s how it was; from the 4 hours battery, Rafael spent 15 minutes to change a wallpaper and then turned it off. The rest of the evening was spent accordingly, speaking of what was happening and joking all around. Hugo, as always, pissed. Fred, as always, sure that everything would be alright. Rafael, as always, teasing Fred with things that could go wrong and Bruno, as always, makes quiet quips of mockery of his friends whilst being evidently worried.
A day went by and then the time came.
Dressed as casually as ever, the figure set foot in front of the palace; Sensei stood by the door, the four watched the meet from within.
“Hmpf…can’t believe you took them in.” RK said though far from being surprised and still smiling content. “I knew you would but hoped you didn’t. I harbor no ill will towards you, Sensei, but their mere existence challenges mine.”
“If their…existence hasn’t caused you to disappear by now, you won’t disappear in the time that takes me to train these youngsters.”
“Why are you doing this? These peppered children stand not a chance against us. Especially me; what chance does fire have against a wind that blows it away?”
“Or that’s ignited by it…” Rafael commented from inside, adjusting his glasses with a smirk.
“Heh…” RK reacted, adjusting his glasses.
“That is so damn freaky…” Hugo commented, changing glances in between the two.
“Arrogance doesn’t suit you well.”
“Likewise. If you really think you can beat me then give me time to learn my ability. Then we’ll…”
“Shut up, RK.” The Sensei harshly demanded.
“Excu…”
“WHAT did you call him?!” RK, lifting flight, asked with a dangerously alit anger underlying his tone of voice.
Sensei looked upon RK with naught a fear.
“The prophecies say the chosen take their teachers’ names, after vanquishing the evil one. The evil one is vanquished and thus the chosen take their prophesied names. If you want it, you’ll have to kill him.”
“Step aside then.” He clenched his fists, focusing or Rafael. “I’ll do it now.”
“You’ll do it later, and like Skam, prove you disserve to survive this age.”
RK turned his gaze towards Sensei and asked:
“You realize I can burst your lungs with but a thought?”
“You realize I can shove my hand through your heart faster than you can think?” The sensei said. “Think about this, with that god given attribute of yours. When do you have a better chance of beating RK? Now or when he deems himself ready to face you?”
RK stood there for what seemed a long time; he stood there thinking, changing glances between Sensei and his target. Finally, he smirked, again in control of the situation.
“Well, later is the obvious answer.” He adjusted his glasses. “Fine, Sensei will show you where I am…when you deem yourself ready.” He turned around to fly off.
“I’ll be ready when I can combust your lungs inside out.” Rafael said, also with a smirk. He adjusted his glasses and Sensei laughed.
“HAHAHAHAHAHA! HA! That must’ve stung!” He commented, gazing upon the figuring disappearing in the horizon.
“Well then, let’s get started shall we?” Sensei turned around towards his pupils.
“I will usually oversee two of you at the same time. RK and Azel will…”
“Please Sensei, I’d like you not to call us by those names.” Fred said. “They belong to our predecessors; it’s theirs till we put them in a grave!” He added, clenching his fist in front of his face in determination.
*PAF* Rafael hit him on the back of the head.
“Stop being stupid, this isn’t some anime and we’re not killing anyone!”
“Hit me again and I’ll shove lighting up your ass!” Fred seriously threatened and thus received another slap on the back of the head, from Hugo.
“That’s even worse!”
“STOP HITTING ME!” He screamed, about to hit back but a shout sounded louder and rendered the children into a stop.
“ENOUGH! You will stop this foolishness immediately. Now, there is but a difference in between your powers. Rafael and Fred have to learn to create what they manipulate whilst Hugo and Bruno need but to learn how to manipulate their respective elements. Bruno seems to be the most advanced of the four and various weeks of training ahead of you all but the rest of you…I’ll push you like no one’s pushed you before. Now, Hugo, walk out that door and keep walking for 500 steps. I’ll be with you shortly, Bruno you can follow him. You two come with me.”
“Hum…sensei?” Hugo called out. “I’m sorry but, why am I going outside? If I manipulate earth, the training rooms would be perfect.”
“No, sand is perfect now go.”
Frowning, Hugo conceded and walked off, followed by Bruno who commented:
“Eh eh…the real man is always ahead.”
Laughing, Rafael followed Sensei followed by a disgruntled Fred.
After a few minutes, they were in a training room with Sensei.
“Creator and wielder of fire. Creator and wielder of lightning. It will be up to you to decide which strategies to use with your ability; it will be up to me to guide you into its mastery. Rafael, you have been handed the power of fire. I do not think it is a coincidence that your predecessor wields the power of air for fire feeds on air.
Azel, I do not think it is a coincidence for with Lightning you will have the ability to make one hit kills, exactly like your predecessor…” They both smirked, confident. “BUT your training won’t sum up to your abilities…I’ll teach you to fight. I’ll teach you to dodge, I’ll teach you to defend and attack and behave unnaturally well in combat. Your styles will be your own but following my exercises will get you speed, strength, endurance, fitness and so on.
First, speed.” Sensei opened his arms, holding two scarves. “It is fairly simple; on each training room you will find a set of scarves, each with different length. When you can run fast enough so that no part of the scarf touches the ground, you switch with a longer one. The evenings will be dedicated to the mastery of your elemental powers. We shall discuss this later, when the time comes. Fred, occupy the room next to this one. When I get back, I want to see you using at least the third one.”
Neither of the two said anything, Fred simply followed Sensei out and into his room as Sensei marched outside.
Outside the speech was a little different
“Manipulator of metal. Manipulator of earth. It will be up to you to decide which strategies to use with your ability; it will be up to me to guide you into its mastery. Bruno, you have been handed the power to control the so called metal vehicle. It is all that remains from an ancient civilization and all that you have but it is the strongest and hardest material in the world. Hugo, you have been handed the power to control earth, the very foundation of everything solid and matter will behave as you command it, deserts will move at your will so always remember. Bruno, you have a little but powerful, Hugo you have much of a force that is second only to metal.”
“You do realize metal comes from rocks right?” Hugo asked.
“This is not iron made otherwise. This is metal; it is different just like Rafael’s fire is different from ordinary fire.”
“I don’t understand…” Hugo said, scratching his head.
“There is no need for you too. Now, aside from mastering your elements, I will be teaching you too fight. How you fight is up to you but I will make you faster and stronger and more resilient and so on. Evenings shall be dedicated to your respective elements, afternoons I will hence train you. Today we will start with a simple one, physical resistance.”
“What do you…” *PAF* Hugo received a punch to the chest that sent him flying for 4 to 5 meters. He landed and rolled, coming into a stop breathing hard, grabbing his lungs.
“HUNnnn….wha….ufff….”
“I will hit you and you will try and remain conscious for as long as you can.”
“Now that doesn’t seem right.” Bruno said. “How can that be training?”
“You are defensive types, not dodging. You have to be able to take a hit and that’s what I’ll teach you FIRST!” He disappeared from sight; next thing he knows, Bruno’s right shoulder received a very violent hit.
Flying off a bit, he landed, or rather, crashed.
“Stop thiUGH!” Hugo’s kicked so he would land next to Bruno and thus began the beating. To much their shame, it wasn’t long before they started to cry.
And unlike either of the optimists, when Sensei got back they had hardly been able to lift half of the second scarf in a dash.
But the thing was, this “Sensei” was gifted with a power as well. As time to dine came close, Hugo and Bruno discovered he was able to very much accelerate the body’s healing process as well as help it along with healing to a level it wasn’t natural. This man, who now two of their would be murderers and self proclaimed strongest of the world feared, was a gifted healer. They spent months training and all four went through various different situations and reactions. I will narrate some of them but will refrain of a detailed description of all their training.

A few weeks later, relatively 4 am, Fred still stood in his training room with an ecstatic smile, thrusting his right hand, all fingers but the pointer closed. Sweating, his shoulder and fore-arm muscles aching, he just kept at it, trying to shoot lightning.
“Sleep is important too.”
Fred grinned.
“All the others already showed some manner of elemental control. I’m the only one left. If I don’t start today, I will be behind…”
“It doesn’t matter that much, Bruno and Hugo have their five senses connected actively to their element and Rafael rationally knows how fire is created. Lightning is the toughest one to spark.”
“But more than that…” Fred continued, not discussing Sensei’s words. “I just can’t wait to shoot lighting off my finger tip.” He thrust again.
“Hmpf…” The sensei reacted. “You won’t get there with determination alone, how much you want it isn’t going to make it…maybe that’s your pro-” *KRAKOOOM*
Lightning suddenly flashed before the Sensei’s and Fred’s eyes, hitting the wall of the training room with such a force that it provokes a small explosion as well as leaving a circle charred.
“Hahahahahahaa” Fred laughed, he brought the arm back “The only ones here with a problem are you guys. The problem being…” He thrust again and another lighting hit, mighty and loud. “Lack o’ faith.” He smiled just in time to receive a shoe to his face. Hugo stood by the door.
“DUDE! We’re sleeping!” He turned around immediately and went back to bed. Fred thought of paying him back for the shoe but Hugo was already spending 90% of his time in a bad mood and Fred was just too glad with his accomplishment to fry Hugo’s butt.
“Hehehehe.” *KRAKOOM*
“FRED!!!” Everybody in the mansion screamed.

Regular training session with Bruno:
“Alright, now, remember that the car is but an extension of your body. A second carcass you can control. It can take any shape you want. Understand?”
“Hum…think so.”
“Okay, so like I said. If you think it’s like a tool you’re trying to figure out to use, you won’t ever have the type of farfetched control you can have. It must be as important to you as a leg or an arm, as indispensable as your head. Do you understand?”
“um…yeah.”
“Alright, now. Your first task will be to shape it into an animal. Do any you wish.”
“um…okay. Ham…would you just, would you mind explaining what I’m trying to do different? I already changed its shape and…”
“Well, try it now.”
Bruno tried to make the car into a cat but halfway there he gave up because he wasn’t succeeding at all.
“I can’t do it.”
“And why is that?” The sensei asked. Bruno looked.
“Dunno…what was that about an extension again?”
The sensei sighed.
“No, the problem’s bigger than I thought. You were doing it right but because it wasn’t being fast enough, you just deduced you were doing it wrong.”
“Hum…no, I wasn’t…”
“Yes you were. You were turning it into a cat, whatever it is.”
“If you don’t know what it is, how do you know I was succeeding?”
“Because I know my pupils; now, carry on and transform.”
“Hum…how do I do it again?”
“Just will it, the same way you will your arm to extend or turn, will your car into the form of a cat.”
“hum…ok.” And hence he tried again but the final shape was that of a mouse. “See? It’s wrong.”
“It’s wrong because you doubted yourself. You were so afraid to fail that you acted towards it and not towards success. It seems you will need the exact opposite treatment I give Fred.”

Two months afterwards:
“HUGO!”
“GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHDAMMIT!!!” Hugo punched an invisible table which resulted in an imaginary giant mallet hitting the point of sand at his front causing a literally explosion. “THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING!”
“HUGO! STOP!” Sensei demanded of the red cheeked, nervous wreck that was Hugo.
“I can’t do this! I can only muster power enraged, this is awful…” He fell on his knees, desperate.
“Hugo, calm down. It’s not that hard, you just need to-”
“I KNOW it isn’t hard, fucking aahhhhhgrrr!! Why do you think I’m so mad??!?! Fred’s shooting lighting out his asshole to draw an F on the walls and I can’t even position a few grains of sand right!”
“You need patience.”
“I need to train with real earth! But every time I try, you smack me! I dunno how the hell you know I’m at it but you DO and it’s very fuckin’ ANNOYING! Lemme train on the rooms!”
“Mastery will be easiest achieved with little specs of earth than….”
“Oh shut the fuck up.” Hugo reacted, consequently receiving a kick to the face. He’s thrown across some distance into a pile of sand that resulted from his blast a while back; his throat is then grabbed as he’s lifted from the ground.
“Whatever…” Hugo coughed through his clenched throat. Sensei dropped him.
“Who cares about me anyways? I’m already rightfully Kuzco. Why does it matter if I learn this right?”
“That is a good question.” Sensei mentioned, inquiring as to why Hugo was so upset in the first place.
“I want too.” Hugo said. “I simply want too but, as always, things keep fucking me over.”
“I don’t have time to deal with you like that. When you’re determined and joyful again, I’ll come back.”
“Pfah…” Hugo reacted, looking down at the sand. He grabbed a handful and lift it up in the sun’s direction, letting the grains fall and watching them being pushed away by the wind. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, grains to grains…Born a loser, die a loser. Heh.” Hugo left after that. When Sensei came back to get him, he was nowhere to be seen.
His destiny had been fulfilled and thus he left; Sensei didn’t let any of the others leave ignoring their talk of being ready; he also very insensitively remarked that since Kuzco was dead, there was no need to hunt Hugo down. All it mattered was that he survived and, surrounded by earth, survive he certainly would.

Two months and two weeks later:

Hum…this training thing turned out to be a tad bit more difficult than anyone thought it would be. Turns out you can’t really learn everything you want in a few days with nothing but the will to go on. Hugo thus left, two weeks now. I bet he changed his mind and wanted to come back but the guy gets lost in a supermarket…Bruno’s in much a disbelief as always, he can’t see a way to defeat his counterpart and thus has been behind in his training, too sure of failure to achieve any amount of success, he’s become accustomed to failing and feeling miserable. It’s awful.
Plus, both Bruno and Fred have girlfriends; that has been a heated topic also. And Fred? 
Fred’s doing better than me, that crazy mentality works well for him but he gets more and more nervous each passing day ever since Hugo left. He’s convinced Hugo can’t survive alone in the desert, with good reason, and fights Sensei daily to get out of here. That’s mainly the reason for his development. He keeps improving his skills in order to defeat Sensei which is what he wants, that sensei…A strange powerful ma: he’s faster than we saw Azel to be and pulverized a whole wall in a way that would put Sanosuke’s special technique to shame. Skam and RK pulled their punches with good reason.
And me? Though I’ve always figured fire to be absolutely cool, the first thing the sensei did was burn my arm. It is curious, the fire I create does not harm me in the least but other fires will burn me. Either way, I’ve decided I’m not burning anyone or using fire on anyone since I’m no killer and, above that, no torturer.

“Rafael, are you paying attention?” Sensei asked.
“Forget about fire, Sensei. I want to further train my perception and reaction speed. I think it’s imperative I have them above RK’s level.” Rafael argued.
“During the day, that is our goal. During the night, our goal is the improvement of your power.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t burnt my arm, I’d be more inclined to use it.”
“It was to teach you responsibility. I’d hit Fred with lightning too, if I could and if it wouldn’t kill him. Fire and lightning are by far the most offensive and deadly of elements, you must res…”
“Respect them, your opponents and above all possess the responsibility to handle them decently. Yes, you’ve told me that again and again. But as fire goes, I’ve reached as higher a level as I want; I’d really like to train myself physically some more.”
“You will do what your sensei tells you too, Pupil. Now, you seem to manage controlling flames easily so you will now burn a hole through this wall, as fast as you can.”
Rafael sighed, slightly annoyed. This training session would supposedly have finished 2 months ago with all four perfectly trained. They would go, joking around, meeting every one of their opponents on one on one battle and, despite the legend, the matter would be settled without deaths in epic battles each of them won.
Instead, each day was painful and full of failures. Bruno was behind, Fred was pissed and he himself was starting to get tired. He’d already missed a bunch of tests because of all this but now; the training session was far from being done with. Oh, another thing they had, in the mean time, learned was about wounds. They hurt like hell and crippled movements and thoughts alike. As Rafael stretched out his arms, hands forming an ellipse facing the wall, he thought.
Yep, this is definitely different from anime training sessions.


Chapter 5 – The War begins, on the lookout for the wanderer!


Four months since our heroes were first transported into a deserted new world, the three we are now following have advanced rather well.
With avoidance of pain being given a higher importance than pessimism, Bruno had decently mastered his metal vehicle which he had tenderly named Skam. Nobody knew if Rafael had made any progress on his own power as he refused to even demonstrate it, a completely opposite attitude in comparison with Fred, who showed off his well trained abilities on tasks greatly in needed of them… like for instancew: exterminating flies.

Flashback:
*KRAKOOM!* “Yeaaahhh, mess with the wrong guy, you weird bug. Oh look, this must be your brother…” *KRAKOOOM* “May you have fun in bug heaven. Right, well, let’s go overkill on the next one, ten fuckin’ lightnings!!!”

Even after all this time, Rafael still had his MAC working because Fred had covertly charged it one day with his power. He wasn’t sure he could do it but it only had half an hour left on it anyways; so Rafael was keeping track of their development on that world by writing notes.
But the day had finally come: the day Sensei would let them go. They weren’t all ready at the same time. Fred was the first, Rafael was still hard to tell due to his lack of fire usage but at least he was physically able so now that Bruno was ready, Sensei was seeing them off.
“So sensei, we’re at our best, ready to kill our treacherous trainers. My question is, we can’t beat you even if we team up. Why don’t you go and finish them?” Fred asked
“Because unlike your treacherous teachers, I follow destiny and the role it set for me. Now go. You’ve all been my worst experience as a sensei, my most awful pupils.”
“Well, you’re a ratter hateful person yourself, Sensei.” Rafael talked back.
“Yeah, thanks for the lesson. Piss easy.” Fred said his goodbyes.  
“Yeah…later…” And that that, the three left the door.
Outside, they observed the desert, its immensity. The dunes stretched out eternally, covering the entire horizon. 
“Right then, first order of business. Find that stubborn asshole!” Fred said, heading towards the car.
“Seriously, the work that sissy puts us through…” Rafael commented, getting inside the car; Bruno was already there, he stated.
“Let’s hope he’s not dead.”
“Of course he’s not dead!” Fred was quick to discard that notion. “The only dead guys are our trainers, now move this hunk o’ metal. We gotta find that emo bastard.”
“Hehehe, it’ll be fun watching you lose a fight.” Rafael poked, as the car set off.
“Shut up, no one’s losing anything. If I can pass Physics, I can kill flash.”
“You cheat.” Rafael reminded.
“Well, what do you call a fight where one commands lightning and the other commands shit???”
“I’m surrounded by people of weak character. And will you STOP ASCENDING??!”
“Sorry”
“Jeez!”

Meanwhile, in a far away place settled a village that survived in the middle of nothing: with little else than a well and a well kept cattle to call their own, this little village of less than a hundred habitants made ends meet with their stomachs.
“Riders!” The watcher of the village yelled. “Riders approaching!”
“It is our straw??” An old man, though still strong in his stance, asked.
“NO! Hide your children, hide your women! The riders bear the mark of the evil one.”
In desperation, the villagers did as they often did, knowing it would be no avail. The soldiers would arrive and they would take what they wanted and then they would leave.
Any resistance, any demonstration of hate and the soldiers would also kill.
They arrived with smirks on their face, looking upon some of the men in the village; the elder and leader of the village spoke:
“Welcome! Your subjects praise your presence, imperial soldiers. Your coming is fortuitous.”
“Right, well, we’re thirsty and horny, so bring out some women from hiding so that we may bed with them, and bring us some water.”
“All the women are gone, sire. They fle-”
“You people are pathetic. Don’t make me look for them again, just fe-” The soldier is interrupted. His head suddenly jerks to the side, making him fall off his horse. His fellow soldiers and the villagers that were nearer looked at the steady body on the ground, as blood started staining the sand beneath his helmet.
The other three soldiers looked around, preoccupied but still menacing:
“WHO DID THIS?”
“Karius, how did-”
“Shut up, WHO DID THIS?” As he asked, he noticed a figure. It was wrapped with a beige cloak, with a strange dark blue hat on his head and sunglasses on his face. He was sitting down, leaning to a wall with one leg crossed and the other’s knee lifted to provide rest of his left arm; his right arm stood effortlessly lifted, holding his hand next to his head. He had three fingers opened, pointing at the sky.
“Holy shit! It’s the wanderer!”
Hugo bent his hand, aiming his three fingers at the remaining soldiers just as they flinched, fearing for their life. Three small specks of sand made their way, fast and harshly, through the soldier’s helmets and heads.
Hugo smirked; he had no sympathy for this people, after what they tried to do to him in the desert. The villagers were awestruck; they looked at the visitor they had welcomed just three days ago, baffled.
“You are the Earth Wandered?” 
“I am.” Hugo stated, laying his right hand over the left.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“I saved your daughters, your wives, and ensured water for everyone.”
“You killed imperial soldiers! The emperor will destroy the village now! More so if anyone finds out we welcomed you, an enemy, into our midst. You will leave, now!”
“Stop that, old man.” A young woman complained, mad. She had obviously left the hiding. “Four times have I been taken by the man of the empire who share no worry about my will. It is about time someone around here showed some balls.”
“Fynra, this will bring the ar-”
“No one will know.” Hugo said, getting up. “Move the mounts aside.” He asked of the villagers, covering his head with the hood. The sun was a killer in the desert, more so to him: the luminescence was unbearable.
Nobody moved, though.
“I apologize for my village men’s weak spine, wanderer. I’ll do it.”
The woman also covered herself in a cloak, black, but with her head uncovered showing short black hair and sparkling green eyes.
She pushed back the four animals and Hugo explained, stretching his arms and pointing his hands at the corpses, hand palms facing down.
“The desert consumes all.” He said, as he made that particular space into quicksand, which absorbed the four bodies, the blood, everything that would point to their presence. “They simply perished before getting here. It happens…after all, there is a wanderer on the loose, thinning the imperial herd.” He added, remorseful and angry at the same time. Once he was done, he told the village elder:
“Eat the animals or release them, they can’t be here next time-”
“We’ll eat them.” Fyrna said.
“Wanderer! I knew that if I followed some soldiers I’d eventually run into you.”
Hugo turned his head towards the voice, seeing the unmistakable garments Azel, the Rampant Storm, wore. He sat on a rooftop, leaned on his arms. 
“There’s a contract out on you…chosen one.”
“See Fyrna?! Nothing but trouble!” The village elder yelled out.
“He’s right. You outsiders are nothing but troublesome to everyone.”
“Humpf.” Hugo reacted, smiling. “Hahahahahhahahahahahahaha” He laughed.
“What? Are you happy you’re dying?”
“Azel.” Hugo stated. “I won’t kill you, but you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.”
“Is that right?”
“Yup” Hugo bent his arms up by the elbows; a cube of rock punched out of the roof top but Azel had rolled backwards with a smile. He stood and jumped to the side avoiding another building punch. He flipped and swirled around, landing on the sand, out of Hugo’s sight. Alas, a tingling in his stomach told him to jump ahead and, just as he did so, the sand where he had stood formed a hole.
He landed and dashed towards Hugo who didn’t move, simply waved his arm around atop his head, lifting a wall of sand between the two. Azel was not fearful of sand and thus simply thrust through to touch Hugo with his fingertips and end this battle, but they didn’t connect. In fact, his arm was now stuck in a thick layer of sand.
“Yup, I assumed you didn’t like thinking ahead: like for instance, striking me while I hadn’t noticed you. Ahhh, that ego is just incredi-” Hugo’s interrupted by a sharp pain in his chest, that pushes him and expels him out against a wall, the sand barrier collapsing. Azel spat sand out as he retrieved his hook, shouting:
“Who the FUCK do you think you are???” He threw knifes at Hugo who, lying belly up, pushed with his arms, thus making the sand push him up. He landed on a roof and gathered his power to crush Azel with all the sand he could muster, but Azel was already stepping on the ledge, about to thrust at Hugo. Hugo raised a wall of rock from the roof, Azel thrust all the same, jumping over the barrier and landing behind Hugo, then thrusting at him.
“Fuck’s sake!” Hugo removed the ground from beneath Azel’s feet and, luckily for him, he had not yet leapt. Hugo then aimed with his finger, pointing out a circle around his feet, then he lifted his arms and the circle of rock up into the air.
Azel jumped atop the rooftop again and looked at Hugo, smirking confidently.
“You’re like RK. I can’t keep you from running away.”
“Who said anything about running away, sand food?” Hugo asked, concentrating.
“WANDERER!” Fyrna then screamed. Hugo flinched on his concentration. “Please, don’t destroy my home!” She pleaded.
Azel noticed Hugo’s hesitation and then looked at her.
“Heh, if you run away, I’ll kill her.” He said. “I’ll kill everyone here.”
Hugo frowned, frustrated. The difficulty of his decision made his stomach hurt and his rage rise higher. Unlike what he thought, his heart had not been dimmed completely.
Then, he had an idea. He started descending his platform unto another roof, as he played for time:
“I was going to go almighty on your ass but, unlike you people, I care about innocents.” He landed. “So I’m going to kick your ass to submission, mano el mano.” He threw his cloak aside, brandishing much tighter garments below it, also of light colors. He then concentrated, seeing Azel smile, amused. He absorbed the rock of the roof, not all of it, but enough to make an armor. His rock armor shined true and completely against the sun, making Hugo a few inches taller and a lot of inches more muscled. He practiced a bit for he would be controlling his rock body with his mind; he moved his arms and then jumped, almost crashing through the floor of that house. He punched his chest and then pounded his hands together.
“I challenge you to mortal combat!” Hugo yelled, then noticing sound didn’t resonate that well through the solid rock that made up his helmet.
Azel swirled and whirled and flipped, doing all kinds of stunts to demonstrate his movement prowess before halting in crucifix position, a dagger sticking out each of his arms.
Hugo willed his armor to jump off the rooftop, gliding his way, rapidly, to Azel who crossed his arms throwing the two daggers who made their way perfectly towards the armor’s eye sockets. Hugo flinched at the sight which, luckily, made the armor fall thus avoiding the hit.
As Hugo finished his blink, Azel had jumped off the ledge and was about to shove a finger inside but the armor fought back, drawing earth from the back of the armor to throw a punch but Azel brought his fists down and pushed on the punch, flipping above the armor, hitting its back of the head with his heel, landing and performing a roundhouse kick that demolished the armor. Alas, Hugo was nowhere to be seen; Azel was quick to notice that the legs of the armor had fused into a box and also a hole in the ground that was closing.
He shook his head in amused disappointment; licking his lips, he looked at the villagers.
“Unfortunately for you, I don’t make idle threats. He ran so you know what that me-.”A gut feeling told Azel to back flip, which he did; sand made punch, the size of his body, uppercut the air, following closely behind Azel.
He landed and looked around, confused. Deciding not to stay in one place, he jumped back, shoved a dagger in the wall and pulled on it to climb and he saw multiple attacks trying to nab him. Finally, he realized what was going on, that Hugo was beneath the sand, using his senses to seek him out and attack.
“Now that’s just not fair!” Azel screamed, irritated. “COME OUT!”
Feeling like jumping to the side, Azel tried to do so but, alas, was already trapped. The roof had hardened around his foot and a rock made hand had already been thrown top hit him but he dodged it by leaning behind to the point of holding with his hand. “Shit!” Numerous more strikes attempted to nab him as he used his hands and free leg to rotate about and around his trapped leg, not having a chance to cut it free.
Finally, though, Hugo pulled off three attacks at the same time and nabbed another limb. At that, the roof absorbed and spat him out at the ground of the house which also swallowed him whole.
Outside, the villagers had given up on running some time ago, since the direction of the fighting was remarkably unpredictable. They simply looked awestruck and corrected their position slightly as the fight developed. When Azel was swallowed, they looked around, in silence; they looked at each other in nervous ignorance and then were frightened by the sand being pushed out in the middle of the street. From it raised Hugo, slowly elevating his open hands until he stood. From behind his sunglasses, he opened his eyes and fell to the ground coughing his heart out, so to speak. He spat out, licking his lips out of painful discomfort. After a few moments of that, he stood up again and brushed his face and limbs without touching them, pushing away all the sand.
“Fuckin’ L” He shouted at the skies, then spitting again. He snorted and then looked at his left side; he pointed his hand, palm turned upside, and raised his hand slowly.
He rose it until Azel’s head popped out of the sand. He also spat and cursed:
“Motherfucking overpowered shitbag!!! This is FENKIN SHIT!!!”
“I did tell you…” Hugo replied. “Anyways, anyone want to-”
“FIGHT me like a man, ya pussy! Ya motherfucking coward! C’mon! I won’t use my weapons efther!” Hugo had buried his mouth, adding. “Concentrate on breathing through your nose. Continue to pester me and I’ll put you under. I won’t kill you because I don’t think Fred would ever forgive me. You people.” Hugo turned towards the villagers. “Carry on the message. Anyone wants to piss on him? Go ahead but no one kills the dude. And, also, I do apologize but I’m sticking around. Something tells me the folk I’m looking for are bound to show up here.”

Meanwhile, far away, a contingent of 100 soldiers had met, during their patrol, with three particularly powerful individuals.
“WOOOOHOOOO!!!” Fred yelled as he dashed with unprecedented speed, shocking men into unconsciousness. “ZAPZAPZAPZAPZAPZAPZAPZAPZAPZAAAAAAAAAP HAHAHAHAHAHA”
Dust filled the scene of battle, and so the soldiers were shouting and yelling trying to achieve order and a fighting chance and failing miserably.
“He enjoys this too much…” Rafael commented to himself, as he hit a soldier’s neck. Another turned the weapon towards him but he was quick to grab it and turn it up before twisting it so he’d let go, and then knocking him out. Afterwards, he hopped back to avoid being hit by a soldier that had been backslapped by Skam who, cautiously, was walking around with poor visibility, and hitting everything that made a sudden movement.
Rafael, still holding on to the weapon, flipped around and smashed it on a soldier’s helmet before crouching a little to deliver a two hand blow on a Soldier’s stomach, knocking him out.
Soldiers were already running away but they were quick to be hit by lightning, falling on the ground almost in a coma.
When the fight was done, they let the dust settle and the visibility return. Fred was farting on a guy’s face, Bruno was looking around still unsure everyone was done for and Rafael has his arms crossed and his foot on a soldier’s neck.
“We’re looking for a guy that walks around with a weird hat and sunglasses. He can control the earth.”
“Ack! The wandered?”
“Wanderer?”
“The earth wanderer. He seems to walk without purpose or direction.”
“That’s our guy.”
“Aw man, he’s a got a nickname?!” Fred complained approaching. “Hey, piss ant. Who gave him that nickname?”
“Why, you want one too?” Rafael asked.
“How about lightning whore?” Bruno proposed.
“How about lightning IN YOUR ASS??!” Fred threatened, pointing at him. Rafael, though, grabbed his finger and twisted it.
“We don’t point mortality at our friends, calm down.”
“I’m just joking around, dude, JEEZ! It ain’t like I can accidentally push the trigger, ya know?!”
“Regardless, let’s drop the stupidity; at least he’s still alive. So where did this guy wander too?”
“He is without direction, how should I know?” The soldier asked. Rafael frowned and then sighed.
“You have been deemed useless. Good night.” He lifted his foot slightly and then kicked him asleep. He then looked up, using his hand to shade, and breathed tiredly. “Hate this heat…”
“Hehe…you’re hot?” Bruno joked. They both looked back at him.
“Don’t be gay, dude. So, where to next?” Fred asked.
“Hugo’s walking about like an idiot so that’s what we need to do. For that reason, you take lead Fred.”
“What? Hey, screw you! I will take lead! I will find him.”
“Sure. Meanwhile, we’ll keep bringing down every soldier we find. After all, we are kinda fighting a war. Now give me a few minutes to destroy all these weapons and upgrade my kill count on my notes.”
“You didn’t kill anyone.” Bruno pointed out. “Pussy.” He added.
“You know what I mean, don’t be foolish, fool. ”


Chapter 6 – Verbal encounter of the first degree.

“HOOOO-LEE FUCKING SHIT!” Fred yelled out as he ran up the back of a giant caterpillar like creature as it dived unto the sand “THIS THING’S FUCKIN’ TITANIC!”
Bruno drove his car by him and Rafael was inside, trying not to look down.
“Get inside, Fred!”
Fred looked to the side and at them. He jumped unto the roof of the car and once he landed, they saw another creature leap out of the sand, opening its mouth to envelop the car.
“Oh oh...” Bruno reacted, willing the car to ascend, just in case they had the time.
“Don’t bring it up.” Fred said.
“What?!” Bruno questioned, worried.
“Hehe, that thing thinks it can just leap out and eat the chosen ones??! It’s in for quite of a SHOCK!!!!” He vigorously pointed both his hands at the thing. “DEATH FROM ABOVE, MOTHERFUUUUCKEEEEERR!!!!” He yelled, tilting his head to all sides in victorious delight, as clouds above banded together and roared to his appeasement.
“KRAKA….” *KOOOOOOM* dozens of lightning sounded out as they headshot the critter into submission. It writhed in pain before giving up on the jump, letting its body fall on the sand below, lifeless.
“WOOOOOOOO!” Fred yelled, raising his right fist at the sky. “Give it up for the STOOORMIIIIING… SHOCKING AWE OF EPICNESS HEROIC!!”
“Nobody’s here to hear your nickname.” Rafael pointed out, a little noxious. “Now get inside, you’re giving me the creeps.” 
“You’re such a damn kill joy, Rafa.” He said, getting in the back seat. “We haven’t seen a village in days, I vote we stop and feed on the thing I just killed. I went ahead and cooked his head for us.”
“You can’t be serious.” Bruno stated. “How can you think about eating that thing?”
“Look: I’m hungry, it’s there, we just gotta keep our minds open.”
“Our eyes closed too.” Bruno added.
“Our stomachs full.” Fred argued.
“I can smell it from here. No way I’m eating that putri…gahk, yuk, I’m gonna be sick.” Rafael succinctly remarked.
“Bah! Pansies.” Fred shouted.

Meanwhile, back at the village, Hugo accepted water from Fyrna.
“Thank you. You are a kind woman, Fyrna.”
“Someone has to be. By the way, Azel is digging with his mouth again.”
“I know, I keep filling it up again but he keeps at it; must be waiting for me to fall asleep or something. Since he can’t see me, he just keeps digging.”
“You should just kill him.” She noted.
“I can’t do that.” Hugo stated. “It’s not an option. Now please leave me be.”
“I don’t care what they think.” She said, talking about the village. “Hospitality used to be a cultural practice. They’re the ones misbehaving.”
“Fyrna, I’m not from this world, you owe no hospitality towards me.”
“Oh? Would you like me to stop bringing you water and food, then?” She asked.
“Heh. Fyrna, I am lazy by nature but do not let that fool you. I can get all that by myself, and I don’t mean by stealing it from you. And don’t take my comment the wrong way either; I am thankful for your kindness. It has allowed me to be lazy.” He smirked.
“Now go.”
“What happened for you to be so sad?” She asked, mildly concerned, more curious than anything.
“I’m not sad.” He stated. “I’m melancholic.” He jested. “The reason is simple, I fuckin’ hate this sun: can’t see shit over all the tears of discomfort and it’s hot as hell, I hate the desert.” That comment finally drove Fyrna away, passing on the notion he was losing patience, which wasn’t true but whatever.
He looked at the horizon again, starting to get impatient. He had been waiting for two days now, where were his good for nothing friends of his?!

Meanwhile, his good for nothing friends of his were finishing off a patrol of 20 men.
“Alright! Found some food on this one!”
“Found water here.”
“Thank you GOD!” Rafael screamed. “Finally a little break in our search. Let’s pillage them then, get teh loot!” He joked.
“Teh loot!” Fred agreed, retrieving a sword. “You know, maybe I can use a sword. You know, lightning sword!”
“That’s not half bad.” Rafael acknowledged, looking around at the weapons. “I think that, seeing as though I’m Fire Man and all, I can use Shishio’s style.” He waved the sword around and made it so the tip left a flaming trail. “Heh, cool. Points to intimidation, huh?” He looked back at Fred who had raised his sword towards the sky.
“BY THE POWER OF GREEEEEYSKUUUUULL!!” He made it so lightning would hit his word and then come out of it in a demonstration of terrifying power, his eyes immersing in his maddening abilities.
“Ok, fine, you win.” Rafael conceded, shrugging. “I rather prefer being underestimated, anyways.”
“Greyskull? That’s lame, Fred.” Bruno pointed out.
“You shall not diss the epic that is He-Man! One that is so much male that his own name points it out! Twice!” He mocked, showing two fingers.
“Fine, we got the loot, can we go now?”
“Sure sure.” Fred agreed, picking up the hilt for his short sword.

Back at the village, Hugo growled with annoyance and frustration. He was already up, walking about in circles.
“Destiny sucks! And they’re always late. ALWAYS LATE!!! GAHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRR” He roared.

It took a few more days but eventually, Hugo set sight on Bruno’s car passing by the village, descending to make a pit stop.
From the air, Rafael was quick to recognize they had found Hugo. After all, he had written in the sand:
“About fuckin’ time, faggots!”
When they landed, Fred was quick to run into Hugo who greeted him accordingly.
“What the fuck took you so long??!”
“US?!”
“I’ve been fuckin’ waiting for days!!” Hugo yelled, arms open in shock.
“We’ve been fucking looking for weeks!” Fred yelled back, also opening his arms in explanation and complaint. “Why the fuck did you run away like some fucking rat?!”
“I couldn’t stand that motherfucking bitch of a sensei anymore! He drove me God damned crazy!!”
“Bull fucking shit! You’re just a fucking emo baby.”
“Don’t make me put you underground, asshole.” Hugo spoke, in a pro wrestling acting kinda way, pointing down.
“Don’t make me zap your SHIT, fucktard!” Fred said, acting gangster.
Rafael and Bruno, meanwhile, had approached them. They paused their greeting, Rafael looked over to them, one at a time with a freak stare.
“You guys need help. But seriously, one more curse and I’ll combust your balls.” He threatened in a serious tone.
“Holy SHHHhhhhhh….kau.” Hugo corrected, under the watchful gaze of his friend. 
“Good thing you’re alive. It’d be bothersome to explain how you died, when we return.”
“If we return…” Bruno pointed out.
“Of course we’ll return!” Fred stated. “My love ain’t here, so we’ll go back. So says my awesome destiny.”
“Awwwwwwww” Rafael reacted. “So cuuuuuuuute.” He approached him but Fred pushed him away, saying.
“Fuck off.”
“Speaking of destiny, I got a present for you, Fred.”
“Wut?!”
Hugo led the three of them to Azel who, still that moment, was trying to dig himself out using his mouth and tongue.
“Hey Azel, guess who dropped by?” Azel saw them approaching and noticed Fred. He frowned, annoyed, commenting:
“Well ainf thish a fuhing coinfihensh.” He spoke, tongue almost completely dry, same with the mouth; reason why he had some difficulty spelling out his words.
“You beat him?”
“I wrapped him up.” Hugo said. “Want me to dig him out or you’ll just cut off his head like that?”
“What? Are you crazy? Obviously dig him out!” Fred was quick to react.
“Freeeed…” Rafael called out, slowly. “At least think on it.”
“There’s nothing to think about. He was beaten by an overpowered maniac and now I just cut off his head? Where’s the honor in that?! I’ll win by my own hands. You should do the same. One on one with each and every last one of them: it is our fate!” Fred paused for a second, before proudly adding “For we are the chosen ones! The prophesy must hold true.” He grinned.
“Pfeh.” Azel reacted.
“Very well, I will get him out then.” Hugo complied. He gave a violent thumb up which pushed Azel out of the hole. Azel landed but was quick to collapse. He had been immovable for too much time.
“Looks like you need to recuperate some.” Fred pointed out. “Hey, why don’t you guys go ahead and head for Skam? I’ll meet you there once I’m done with MR. Loser here.” 
“Af kill you.”
“Sure sure.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Hugo asked. “You shouldn’t underestimate him.”
“You shouldn’t underestimate me.” Fred pointed out, grinning confidently. “I am the Storming Shocking Awe of Epicness Heroic. A measly hired assassin can’t hope to beat me anymore than he hoped to beat you. I mean, I’m faster than him, and I got lightning; he’s got shit. So go ahead, Skam’s been waiting for months now.”
“You know where he is?” Hugo asked.
“Yeah. Sensei told us.” Bruno replied.
“But still, leaving you behind…”
“Just go, faggot.”
“Fine.” Hugo conceded. “Screw you. Hope he shoves his finger up your ass.” He said, turning around.
“God help me!” Rafael said, stretching his arms towards the sky. “More over, help them.” He lowered his arms and sighed. “I’ve no doubt you can beat him, so I’ll concede to your request. Even though you probably want nothing more than to describe the battle without having us constantly go ‘we saw it.’, right?”
“No, nothing like tha-”
“Right right, I understand…” Rafael told him, condescending to him with a hand on a shoulder. “Have your fill, we’ll be going. Once you’re done, run there as fast as you can, ok? You know how Hugo gets when he has to wait on someone.”
“You vill be horry, ahout huch hishain.”
“hiwhat?”
“Disdain.” Rafael let him know. “just put yourself in his place, listening to our conversation.”
“Ouch.” Bruno stated. “We are evil.”
“Well tough. Now leave please, I’ll take care of things here.” Fred asked again.
“Okay, good luck.” Rafael bid farewell and left, followed by Bruno who said:
“Yeah, don’t die.” 
“PFAH! As if!” Fred reacted towards the ridiculous notion.
Hugo was already inside the car. Bruno got in, as did Rafael, and they blasted off.



Chapter 7 – Learn from your Enemies.

The three remained silent for most of the trip. None of them were too certain their decision had been a good one, but all of them except for Bruno were thick headed, there wasn’t much of a choice.
They eventually spotted a myriad of small structures, standing out like drops of oil in the ocean. That was certainly the location.
Bringing the car down, Bruno was quick to notice his counterpart, waiting for him. The car landed, they all got out. Skam looked at Bruno and the other three.
“Are you three going to fight me?”
“No asshole, he can take care of you on his own.” Hugo shouted. “Destiny man, you can’t fight destiny.”
“Humpf, I’ve beaten impossible odds after impossible odds, using my pure strength. There is nothing I can’t punch into submission…that metal controller included.”
“You guys go.” Bruno suddenly said.
“What? You didn’t just say that, that’s Fred thing.” Rafael complained.
“I have this…” Bruno said, forming a gigantic armor, around him. “And destiny…”
“Dude, it may be bullshit.” Hugo pointed out.
“It’s…it doesn’t matter. He just has swords and axes, I have this. He can’t beat me in this.” Bruno smiled. “Just go.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“Actually, if you don’t go, you risk RK double teaming Fred. Have to keep him busy.” Skam said.
“That’s lies, you just want us gone.” Hugo said.
“No, he’s actually right.” Rafael commented. “That’s what I’d do; double team each one of us.”
“Ugh, why did we separate in the first place?!” Hugo asked, annoyed.
“ You can still stay.” Rafael pointed out.
“I’m the last means of transportation. I can get us there quick. Tell me the direction.”
Rafael pointed to the right, somewhat. Hugo raised a sand made couch, told Rafael to sit down.
“Bruno, lose this one and we’ll never forgive.”
“Oh! I’ll be worrying about that so much when I’m dead.”
“No you won’t, you won’t be dead.” Rafael remarked, pushing his glasses back into position.
Bruno smiled.
“This’s turning out stupid…” Hugo complained, as he was sitting. He focused and then pushed forward: the sand-made couch launched forward at an incredible speed, lunging into the horizon at a frightening speed.
“I CAN’T DODGE AT THIS SPEED! IF YOU SEE SOMETHING; SHOUT!!!”
“WHAAAAAT?!??!?!” Rafael screamed out, concerned.
“So, Bruno…let’s see what you’re made of.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Bruno asked. “I’m made of METAL!” He lunged the armor forward towards this man.
Back at the village, Fred and Azel looked at each other. They were both smirking confidently.
“You think you can easily beat me, don’t you?” Azel asked.
“I think it’s obvious.” Fred replied, adding a shrug.
“Hahhahaha, I was once like that. Thought myself superior…completely in advantage; but age has taught me I’m not. More than that, it’s taught me the advantage in inferiority.”
“Advantage in inferiority?” Fred asked, frowning.
“Hard work and dedication, Fred. You can topple prodigy-born titans with hard work and dedication.”
“Hahahahaha.” Fred laughed. “Not going to intimidate me. Just come at me whenever you’re comfortable.”
“Fine.” Azel said, disappearing in thin air.
Fred opened his eyes surprised, but quickly got into gear; he stepped back, evading a round-house kick, and stretched his arm to shoot out lightning from his finger tips, which he did. But Azel bent and span, dodging the lightning which flies through the air and hits a house.
Azel throws another kick but Fred puts the arm in the way, receiving the strike without worries. He pointed the finger tips of his other hand at Azel’s leg and shot out lightning, which didn’t hit the already gone leg. He had jumped off Fred’s arm, spinning to dodge. He landed and disappeared again.
“That’s pretty fucking fast!” Fred conceded, spinning around to grab hold of Azel’s hand. “But not lightning fast.” Fred said, smirking, lightning striking down from above but Azel pulled Fred, so that his head was the one to receive the lightning. He then kneed his stomach, so Fred would let go of him and pulled away.
“I will show you, Fred.” He drew upon two knifes. “How a mortal faces off against a titan.”
“Ugh…I’ll inflict upon you a titanic amount of ass-kicking, fucker.” 
Meanwhile, Bruno faced off against Skam.
Bruno threw a punch which Skam took with his sword on one hand. He swung his axe at Bruno’s side, the violent strike shook Bruno’s armor, he focused so not to lose hold of it. He made it form around the axe, to get it stuck, but then Skam just pulled on it with enough strength to force it out; Bruno didn’t let go, and so he was dropped on the floor. Skam then proceeded to wail on him with both weapons
“Whaaaaa, what is this?!” Bruno asked, suddenly shocked, voice muffled due to the loud clanking.
“Put.Your.Faith.On.Other.Things.Taste.Defeat.”
“Enough, enough!” He willed the armor to move him away, and it did.
“That’s right, you can run away.” Skam told him. Bruno heard that and his armor stopped moving. “That’s what you do right? Defeat is certain so why try? Why try if you already see defeat coming?”
“Shut up. What do you know?” Bruno complained, getting up. “I’m going to beat you.” He moved his armor forward; there was no way Skam could contend against pure metal.
Back at Azel VS Fred, Fred had a cut on his chest and was looking down from a building, at Azel. He kept shooting lightning but he couldn’t hit him Azel kept throwing knifes and he had failed to completely dodge one.
“SHITFUCK! Stop moving!” Fred screamed, raining down lightning upon his foe, who dashed off the area of effect.
“I will never stop moving!” Azel shouted back. “That’s what we do! We never stop.” He dashed towards Fred who grinded his teeth in frustration, shooting off lightning like there’s no tomorrow, missing like there were a lot of tomorrows. Azel showed up in front of Fred and threw his open palm to kill him but Fred cold-heartedly leaned to the side avoiding the thrust, and punched Azel in the gut, pushing him off the building.
“Now!” he shot a lightning at Azel but he had left his hook on the ceiling and pulled on it to dodge, and to pull himself up at the same time, throwing another kick at Fred who simply crouched, spelling out: “Motherfucker.” He rose up with an uppercut, again throwing him off the roof.
“There ain’t no speed like lightning speed!” He leapt off the rooftop unto Azel’s midst, who rotated to dodge the fall attack and threw a punch at the same time; this punch hit Fred but didn’t throw him off…the fight was on.
Back Skam VS Bruno, Skam slashed with his sword with such strength it broke through Bruno’s armor, cutting a bit of his skin. Shocked at Skam’s might, Bruno again stepped back, avoiding Skam’s axe. He stepped forward, noticing an opening, and hit Skam with a punch.
Skam was sent flying against a wall.
“Ah. See?”
“See what?” Skam asked, getting up. “You got a hit in using your cheat, that’s not much to be proud of.”
“There’s a lot more where that came from.”
“We’ll see about that.”
A fight of pure power and strength, as they both clash fists and blades, metal and steel, their fight escalating throughout all the walls and ceilings. They broke the little house to pieces as they fought each other, bruising, cutting, hurting each other.
Sweating and tired, they stopped. They looked at each other, tired; Skam spoke out:
“I know what it’s like…” He sighed, exhausted. “Looking at other people’s backs, seeing them succeed with little effort, watching as they’re able to sacrifice more than we can for what they want, being the lesser man…” Skam said, clenching his fists.
“Some people are just born better…there’s nothing we can do.” Bruno commented, accepting of his inferiority.
“How much better?!” Skam questioned, angry. “A little? Some? A whole lot? Ten times? A hundred? A thousand times better?” He rushed Bruno. “How much better???!”
“How much better do you think you are, huh?” Azel asked.
“A thousand times better!” Fred shouted out, as he dodged from a finger thrust and threw his fingers. Lightning roared and flashed, inches from Azel’s chest, catching his clothes on fire.
“Ah! Finally.” Fred said, as he saw Azel do an incredible spin, the flaming cloak tossed in his direction. Fred jumped to the side but was then intercepted by Azel’s kick.
“OOF!” Fred grabbed it though, bringing him with him to the floor. Lightning rained from the skies, but Azel rolled around and used Fred as a shield. “Then how come you can’t finish me off?” Azel asked, as he pushed off Fred to stand up.
“Just a matter of time.” Fred replied, shooting off lightning without even standing up. They again missed. “For fuck’s sakes! How’re you dodging lightning?!”
“I’m dodging your aim, not the lightning.” Azel explained, throwing knifes which Fred dodged by rolling on the ground.
Meanwhile, everyone in the village had thoroughly evacuated the place; they were in the middle of the desert, a long ways away, and waiting. Fred and Azel started exchanging blows, blows you couldn’t see due to how fast they were. They dodged, pushed them away, counter-attacked…once in a while thunder would roar out an attempt from Fred to hit him but it would miss; Azel kept up the fight, and he was, very slightly, winning it.
And so was Skam, who ignored his bleeding limbs from fighting Bruno’s armor, and just kept wailing on it. He used his weapons against sharp attacks from Bruno, but otherwise he’d go full fist melee against Bruno’s metal, and so his hands and elbows were bleeding.
And Bruno could see his strikes, he could see them, he tried to dodge or to hit back but he wasn’t able to move the car quickly enough to respond to his own reactions. He had thought about just fighting without it, but he would surely lose if he did that. No, he had the complete advantage of his metal power, so he just had to figure out why it wasn’t working, then fix the problem and kill this man.
But after a few more minutes, he was still getting his metallic butt handed out to him; minutes of seeing openings he wasn’t fast enough to take advantage off, minutes of feeling a dead weight on his body. It was too much, the certainty of defeat gradually vanished until it reached the point the frustration out-weighted the fear.
“Gah!” Bruno shouted, shooting off all of his armor away. Skam looked surprised at Bruno as he jumped against him; He let go of his weapons and jumped against Bruno. They grabbed each other, testing their strength.
“I will kill you.” Skam said.
“You….you I know!” Bruno said, stepping to the side, putting Skam off-balance; he then overpowered him and threw him unto the ground. “I know you’re not better than me.” Bruno pointed out, jumping after him.
“Fuck this lightning shit!” Fred shouted. He could only shoot lightning off his fingers, so he was fighting to place his fingers in position, but that meant Azel only had one thing to worry about, anything else would be an attack to ignore. Saying this, Fred kneed Azel in the balls. He placed his fingers on Azel’s head and thunder sounded out.  
But Azel jumped to the side, avoiding the lightning; Fred side-stepped with a spin, delivering a well trained tae kwon do kick to Azel’s face, expelling him.
Azel had to immediately extend his arm towards the ground and pull on it so that lightning from above didn’t hit him. He got up and Fred was already upon him, spinning, he kicked his leg, then his belly then his face with an amazingly fast selection of spin kicks. At the third, he pointed his fingers at Azel:
“BANG!” Lightning hit Azel in the shoulder.
“AHHHHHHH!!” It exploded in his shoulder, for some reason, and he was sent back spinning up against a wall. The encounter was a violent one. Fred walked up to Azel, noticing he was still alive.
“Heh…we always have tricks up our sleeves, don’t we?” He smirked.
Back at the little destroyed rock-made cottage, Skam was being punched by Bruno, pretty hard. Bruno stopped when his fists were bleeding and he could barely make Skam’s face out, in between punches.
“Heh…” Skam said. “And without the armor.”
Bruno opened his eyes, surprised both at what Skam had said, and that he could still speak.
“You fought with all you had, without trickery, without unfair advantages.”
Bruno thought back to his adventures in school, how he bothered mostly trying to find shortcuts and tricks than actually and seriously studying, he saw an analogy there that hurt him. “Convinced that you can’t do without them, you use them. But in the end, you ARE good enough. Strip your mind of doubt…give it all you’ve got, and you’ll always be good enough.”
“This is who we are, huh?” Azel asked, mind-blowing hole in his shoulder. Fred really didn’t know how he was still conscious, even if he was alive. “We take more than anyone else can handle, and we’re proud of it…” Azel looked up at the blue sky. “We walk amidst titans, with pure effort, determination no one can match. Because the reality is we’re not special, we’re not all that great...not that up in the ladder. But hey, nobody has to start on top, right?” He asked. “I’ve been through so much in my life, had to surpass so many people, so many titans…but I was willing to do anything, and the worst it was, the better the tale to tell it would be hahahaha…hehe. You know I made RK run? The guy can control the wind and is a genius, but I made him run away.”
Fred sat down, in front of him. He no longer felt like killing Azel, as he spoke so much like he would. Azel smiled with bloody teeth and red eyes, he smiled content with the life he had had.
“Shit, I’m dying. I just want you to remember…remember that you don’t have to be great, to achieve greatness. Good luck, Azel.” Fred opened his eyes as he saw Azel loose color on his.
“Fuck man…you were supposed to be a bad guy…” Fred complained, bowing his head to hide his face away. “But you just wanted to pass out one last lesson…” A tear dropped down from behind Fred’s hair, disappearing on top of the scalding hot sand.
“Remember…you’re not defeated until you taste it. If you’re defeated in your head, you’ll be defeated in reality before you’ve even tried.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that…” Bruno said. “I know that.”
“It’s been a life…my family killed, I was hunted for years just because I had been born into my people, which was slaughtered…” Skam sighed. “I’ve been fighting so long, so many people…if you won’t remember my lesson, remember me. Remember how I fought your dirty advantage with my bare strength, and won. Remember how I lost when you fought fairly…and with all you truly have. From the point you’re not cluttered and bothered by all the trickery and foul play, you can truly use your strength…your skill. From that point, there is nothing to fear if you put in the effort.”
“You talk too much.” Bruno joked, smiling. “But I…I think I get it…”
“Good.” The splattered face of Skam did what seemed to be a smile. Then Skam lifted his arm and grabbed his chin. “So tired…don’t forget, Skam.” He pushed his chin with remarkable strength, breaking his own neck.
“No! Wha…” Bruno looked at the corpse, dumbfounded. “Why? What was that? What was that for…stupid.” He kicked the corpse, angry. “Idiot.”

Chapter 8 – Let it rise!

As Fred and Bruno met straightforwardly with their fates, Hugo and Rafael met straightforwardly with RK and his army. Arriving at the castle, Hugo launched them into the air, so to actually get on the floating castle. When in it, hordes of soldiers started coming out.
“Just leave them to me, go combust your guy’s lungs.”
“Right, I’ll be back in a jiff.” Rafael said, confident, readjusting his glasses. He hopped over a guy and then lit the air around him in flames, hot scalding, violent flames that burnt even through armor. Rafael calmly just walked through, the soldiers deciding to attack Hugo instead. He didn’t have much difficulty in contending with them.
Rafael coolly walked up stairs and through corridors, surrounding by engulfing powerful flames. He was whistling too.
As he walked up to the throne room, a strong breeze pushed the flames back; the ones in front suddenly went against his eyes which made him wince. He immediately breathed out all the air in his lungs and turned off the fire. He looked forward and there stood RK, smiling.
“I’m going to teach you something new.” He repositioned his glasses. Rafael stretched his arm out, in the direction of RK’s chest, and concentrated. He didn’t do it though, he looked up at RK’s face who looked at him amused.
“What?” He asked. “Were you going to do something?” He waved his hand and threw a wave of wind against Rafael who lowered his arm and breathed…the wave of wind burst into flames which Rafael guided away.
“You’re pretty confident.” Rafael mentioned.
“So are you.” RK said. “As always, am I right?”
Rafael formed a ball of concentrated fire in his hands and then threw it at RK who simply waved his hand, pushing the ball of fire against the wall at his side. Rafael then rushed at him, stopping much closer to him with his palms pointing at RK…and functioning as flamethrowers.
RK just stood still and did the same, spitting out wind. The scene was as beautiful as it was dangerous, a massive column of fire being dispersed by a constant gust of wind.
“THIS IS KINDA WARM!!” RK shouted over the flames which spread above and to the sides and scorching the entire floor.
“YEAH, I’D FIGURE IT’D BE AT LEAST A BIT WINDY…” Rafael mocked. A wave of air behind Rafael suddenly burst into flames and moved to his right. “NOT THAT EASY, I’M AFRAID. NO GIVE IN!” Rafael requested, turning up the heat, putting his whole power into the flamethrower. It grew to be almost as tall as Rafael, twice as wide, but still RK’s wind was a match for the power.
“LET’S GET CREATIVE THEN.” Rafael shouted. From the column of fire, streams of fire got out and circled RK, attacking him from different directions, but he seemed to have created a dome of outward wind, that was protecting him from attacks on any direction.
“Tch.” Rafael was already putting everything he had; he knew then, for certain, what he had expected to be the truth. He wouldn’t be able to overpower RK. He turned off the fire, RK turned off the air.
“I can’t overpower you either.” RK smiled.
“There’s nothing else you can do.” Rafael pointed out.
“Oh, but there is.” RK said, pointing his hand towards Rafael’s lungs. Rafael immediately pointed his towards RK’s.
“I’ll combust your lungs.”
“No you won’t.” RK remarked, smirking. He repositioned his glasses and said: “Being wrong’s not something you know much about, is it?”
Rafael frowned, confused.
“I’m like that too. I’m always right. But there was this time where I was wrong…you know what happens when you’re wrong? When you miscalculate?”
“What the hell are you talking about?!” Rafael asked half offended.
“I’m talking about making a mistake, and thinking it’s right because it’s always right, and it seems completely right, so we don’t listen to those who disagree with us, because we used too and they said nothing but demented crap.”
“Right.” Rafael said, to stall. He was thinking.
“But then we miscalculate. For example, you really thought you could kill me, but you can’t.” Rafael opened his eyes in shocking surprise. 
“Yeah, I know.” RK smiled. “That’s the difference between you and me. You couldn’t kill even if it was to save your life. The life of another, maybe, but not yours…but I can kill on a whim. So now you could combust my lungs, hence fulfilling your destiny, but you won’t… whereas I will.” He smiled and clenched his fists, but as he did that, spikes formed from the ground and lunged at him, all of them piercing his torso, one of them piercing his head, through the neck.
“What the?!” Rafael looked back and there stood Hugo, hands extended in RK’s direction. “IDIOT!!!” Rafael shouted, enraged, flame-throwing in Hugo’s direction. Hugo raised up a wall, screaming
“HE WAS GONNA KILL YOU!!”
“No he wasn’t, you idiot!”
“Yes he was, you idiot!” He screamed back.
“No, he wasn’t.” Another voice said, from behind Rafael. Rafael stopped and looked behind, kind of recognizing the voice.
Behind him stood a short fellow, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, dressed in brown and green trousers and hooded shirt. Hugo lowered the wall and looked, in shock.
“My name’s Kuzco. And you’ve been a good puppet, Hugo.”
“What?”
“Don’t take it the wrong way…I was also a puppet. Everyone was a puppet to that asshole. I really thought he was with me, but turns out he wasn’t.”
“You were dead!”
“Ah, like RK could kill me…no; we fought and I had the chance to kill him but then I didn’t, and because of that, he didn’t burst my lungs. We formed an alliance to beat fate. You see, our sensei told us that we’d one day have students of our one, one for each of us; that they would hold great power, elemental based power. We were to teach the chosen ones on the use of their power but, also, to make them aware of weaknesses they possessed. It was foretold that as they realized their weaknesses…we would die.
When me and RK developed our abilities, RK figured he was actually a chosen one. That belief became stronger when he defeated the evil one by himself. I went after him, because he talked of betraying fate, a heretic so to speak. But during our fight, he asked me: ‘Can these chosen truly be more powerful than us?! Do we, who have elemental-based power have to bow and accept death? The evil one is dead, what are we going to die for?’
I realized he was right. I wasn’t about to die for some little snot-filled kids from another dimension. I allied with him and we decided to kill you all. But as years progressed, he changed. He always underestimated my perception. I’m not very bright, can’t see all that well, but I’m perceptive of one’s mind, attitudes, dialogues, little behavioral hints that tell you certain details…isn’t that right, Hugo?”
Hugo was still looking in awe, spelling out: “Holeeeee shit.”
“Indeed. Divine even. I noticed he had changed, I just didn’t know how much. But he changed back; for some reason, he decided to teach Rafael into RK, as destiny dictated. So now you know your weakness, RK. You can be wrong too. If you don’t catch the mistake in time, it can get you killed.” Kuzco grinned, amused. “Ridiculous. I’m not doing anything of the sort, you know? I’m going to kill you all right here, right now.”
“Same to you, fucker.” Hugo replied, making the floor push him into the air, against Kuzco, but he did a back-flip out the window.
“Whoah.” Hugo moved out the window, unto the balcony, and witnessed Kuzco falling all the way down. “Well, that was easy.”
“Look closely.” Rafael said, holding on to his glasses, focusing his vision. “He just landed on a tree.”
“A tree? But this is a desert.”
“I noticed.”
At that moment, the earth rumbled. The earth shook and trembled like an earthquake was happening. The sand started being pushed away…shades of yellow being engulfed by shades of green.
A forest. A forest was being raised from under the sand.
“The Wondrous Forest…” Hugo pointed out.
“I don’t get it. How’s the flora all alive, even though it was buried for years.”
“As long as it has water.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It needs oxygen as bad as we need.”
“Hey, different worlds, different rules, different trees?!” Hugo proposed.
“I see a palm tree right over there.”
“Really?”
“And there’s a pine tree.”
“Whoah, I can see shit.”
“Magical eyes.” Rafael pointed out.
“Yes, apparently.” Hugo agreed.
When they stopped talking, an entire and beautiful green forest filled the landscape. It was amazing and intimidating: the fact Kuzco had raised it all. His power was indeed immense.
“OK, my kill.” Hugo said. “Back off a bit…”
“I don’t think so. You took my kill.” Rafael pointed out. “So I’m going to steal yours.”
“I don’t think so. I want to learn my weakness.”
“Tough, don’t steal-kill next time.”
“Rafael…” Hugo pleaded, showing a sorrowful face.
Rafael sighed.
“I’m still angry.” Rafael reminded, as he walked back inside. “You owe me one.”
“Sure, whatever. Lemme throw some pieces over there, since he finished my desert, little bitch.” Hugo then waved his arms, back and front, throwing pieces of the castle down unto the soon to be field of battle. He threw huge chunks, and then finally, he pointed each hand to a side of the balcony, and pushed forward to rip the balcony off the castle. He then flew in with is, acting cool.

Chapter 9 – The Chosen Ones

“So I end up being the really evil guy?” Hugo asked.
“I guess you can say that…though between you and me, there’s a lot of difference.”
“Perhaps.”
“Oh, definitely. Now c’mon, I don’t have patience to talk.” Kuzco closed his arms on Hugo and two very strong branches suddenly shot out in his direction. Hugo brought two chunks of castle though, placing them in the way.
“Well aren’t we in a hurry?” Hugo commented, separating two little specks of rock from his balcony and shooting off, at an incredible speed, at Kuzco who used a tree’s gigantic root as a shield.
Kuzco then opened his arms and then bent his wrists to point inwards; all the leaves in the trees around Hugo aimed at him as if straightened by static electric, and then shot off like bullets. Hugo immediately made a dome of the two blocks of stone, a dome all around him. He heard the leafs beat on his stone, and commented to himself.
“I knew this’d have a kick.” He looked and saw some cracks forming. “Whoah.” He looked in front and fixated a piece of the dome. He pushed on it violently so it’d be expelled really quick. It shot off against Kuzco but, apparently, he either took it to the face or wasn’t there…Hugo bet on the latter and had it confirmed once he felt something grasp his legs. He looked down and roots had grabbed on.
“Shi-” He didn’t have time for much else, before being pulled off the balcony and against the floor. He was forced to break through the dome and then flung at two different trees, at which point he was able to concentrate enough to catch the root with earth, he then cut it and looked around for Kuzco as he got up.
“Where are you, fucker?” He heard the trees move to the wind, the grass whistle with taunts. He paid attention, feeling the need to massage his aching back, he didn’t; he just paid attention.
Because of his little sacrifice, he was able to caught on to another root.
“Fuck this.” He brought the balcony back to him, stepped on and lifted flight to hover in the air.
“No more bullsh-” But the roots grabbed onto the balcony itself and pulled on it, throwing it off Hugo feet; he fell all the distance unto the ground,
“OOOF!”
Meanwhile, back the castle, Rafael observed the fight.
“That’s not going very well.” He said out loud. From behind him, a voiced asked:
“What is?”
It was Fred, followed by Bruno. They approached Rafael who didn’t even look back.
“Turns out Kuzco was alive. Hugo’s fighting him but it doesn’t look good.”
“So this whole forest is…”
“Yeah.”
“Shit.” Fred reacted. “That’s impressive. Let’s go help then.”
“Would you have liked for us to interrupt your fight?” Rafael asked. Fred stopped his impending charge, and held on.
“But he could die.”
“He’ll never forgive us if we step in. You know how he is.”
“He’ll be alive though.” Bruno pointed out.
“He’s still holding his own. Let’s not jump the gun.”
At that moment, Hugo was used as an axe against three trees.
“OK, screw it, let’s go.” Rafael said.
Meanwhile…
“You’re going to die.” Kuzco pointed out, from the dark.
“Blow me!” Hugo replied, sweating and bleeding.
“You’re always willing to suffer alone, aren’t you? Always ready to just keep quiet and retain your anger and sorrow unto yourself, on your own.”
“So what?! Like me whining would make a difference, like it ever did.”
“Exactly. It never does make a difference. You do well in counting only in yourself. I counted on my friends once, they didn’t desert me, but they made things plenty worse.” Kuzco admitted. “You can take it, right?”
Hugo raised earth from the ground itself and made two walls on top of his shoulders, taking two trees on it. He grinned his teeth in pain, holding on with all his strength.
“You may lose, but it isn’t like others would’ve made a difference.”
At that, Kuzco used vines to push the protections to the side, and thus the trees bared down upon Hugo, for the kill.
Hugo winced, bowing without knowing what to do. He heard a loud crash, but felt no physical contact with anything.
“You were really going to kill him?!” Azel asked, surprised. Hugo looked up and saw Bruno, wearing only arm armor, holding the trees up.
“Of course, I’ve already told your two friends…I don’t buy into this fate bull-shit from the point RK killed the evil one. I’m going to kill all of you, and then I’m going to take RK’s place and unify the world under one banner. Finally, there will be peace after that.”
“Know what I think?” Rafael’s voice sounded out, from behind a tree’s branch. “You’re the evil one. Take me up, Bruno”.
Bruno concentrated and the piece of metal on which Rafael was standing lifted up.
“Burn.” Rafael said, opening his palms a little in front and down, focusing on a tree line. It started bursting into flames. Rafael started combusting the entirety of the forest, bit by bit.
“Holy shit!” Fred reacted.
“He’s at 7 o’clock!” Rafael shouted out.
“GOTIT!” Fred reacted, dashing off.
“Thanks…” Hugo thanked Bruno, as he pushed the trees down.
“No problem.”
“Tell them to gain me some time, I’ll bury this whole forest even if it kills me.”
Fred was intercepted by tree branches, that sent him flipping unto a tree. Rafael was hailed by a swarm of leafs who flew in his direction.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Rafael had to concentrate on bursting them into flames, while Bruno worked his way to get him back down. At that moment, he also remembered he was afraid of heights.
“BRUNO! GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!” He reminded.
Bruno obeyed, getting the platform down to where he was at. Fred also ran back to him, asking:
“Lost him, where is he?”
“Hugo asked me to gain time. He said he’d bury the forest.”
“That’s my boy.” Rafael said. “Make a platform for us three. I’ll flush him out and work as a shield. As soon as we spot him, Approach him as fast as possible, Bruno. Fred, shoot lightning to limit his movements.”
“Right.”
“Sounds good.” Fred agreed. And it was done like this.
Meanwhile, Hugo had his hands next to his waist, palms turned upwards. He heard a root next to him, moving; he thought of breaking his concentration but decided not too…something in him told him to wait, and before he knew it, thunder yelled out louder than the root, the root moved no longer.
“GET ‘IM!!!” Bruno shouted, moving his platform towards the enemy.
“EAT LIGHTNING BITCH!!!” Fred screamed, shooting out his arms as he shot off lightning. As soon as the platform had reached a considerable proximity, Rafael and Fred leapt off in different directions, diagonal left and right, while Bruno kept forward.
They stroke hard, fast and harsh, even though Kuzco’s flora seemed to be a match for all of them.
“What the fuck is this insane power?!” Fred asked.
“The power of victory.” Kuzco replied
“The power to be defeated is more like it.” Rafael replied, flame-throwing.
But Kuzco kept up a thick flora resistance, actually fighting back. He got to hurt Bruno and Rafael, plowing through their elemental defenses. Fred was soon to be hit too, by a vine from behind. Rafael was soon to notice Kuzco was fighting using more perception than that given to him by his ears and eyes, which also meant they couldn’t let up, lest Kuzco attack a concentrating Hugo.
They kept fighting him, skillfully avoiding death, skillfully keeping him occupied. The fight was put on a momentary hold, when the ground began to shook.
“Shit!” Kuzco looked randomly at his left, extending his arm.
“FRED!”
Fred pointed at him and lightning rained from the skies, forcing Kuzco to point at his head so roots would grow to catch the lightning and conduct it to the ground.
“C’mon guys!” Rafael cheered on, raining fire all around Kuzco. They diversified their attacks so they’d be attacking from all direction; they made sure he couldn’t concentrate on what was happening meters from there, in a clearing, where Hugo started to raise his hands…
Flames from above and the front and the side, lightning from above and the side, daggers and other pointy forms of metal going at him from all sides. Wood after wood being pierced, charred, burnt, wood after wood he was overwhelmed by the power of these three chosen, but he was about to witness the power of the fourth.
The ground began to shake, again it began to tremble. First slightly, the fight went on, it was interrupted when neither of them could stand anymore.
“Bruno!” Rafael pointed out; Bruno brought together a platform which they mounted.
“Keep wailing on him.” Fred said, keeping up the lightning pressure; Rafael and Bruno did the same.
Kuzco, pressured by the three, let himself fall over so he could catch himself with vines and branches, while he kept protecting himself.
“Fuckin’…leamme alone!!!” A local explosion of flora covered all the three’s eyes for a second; a second in which Kuzco used a vine to throw himself a few hundred meters to the side. Landing, he quickly stood and took up position to fight Hugo’s power with his…
“The forest will stand…fucker.”
“The forest will go down…fucker.”
The earth rumbled annoyed and inconvenienced at the battle of external influences that were fighting to control it. Forest up, sand up, forest down, sand down…from horizon to horizon it trembled.
In the end, though, the forest started to gain height again, the sand that had cleared the ground began to decrease and descend again.
“Hahahahah, you don’t have the power.” Kuzco said to himself.
“You’re a fool.” Hugo commented, smiling, his friends surrounding him. “We know where you are and you have underestimated me. As a slave student to my university, I have learned the greatest skill of all…”
It was then that Kuzco noticed he was beneath a shadow. He heard the rumblings and cracking of stone shattering and being pulled by gravity, he looked up and saw the whole castle descending upon him.
“MULTITASKING, MOTHERFUCKER!!!” Hugo descended his left arm, having the right at around belly height. 
Kuzco looked as the massive gigantic castle descended upon him, screams of the soldiers still alive resonating his own.
“AHHHHHHHHH!!!!”
The evil one was thus crushed by the cooperative power of the four chosen, which looked on as the immense castle put a lid on their destiny. It was done, over with, ended. The four chosen had fulfilled prophecy, defeated the evil one, their teachers, and thus, as they were about to discuss what the hell to do then…they were teleported back to their own reality.

Chapter 10 – The Regular Geeks.

Brought back at the classroom they had left from, they looked around in surprise and shock. The teacher was just continuing normally and all the students were oblivious. Their wounds were all fixed, all their muscles and athletic build had vanished, it was as if nothing had happened but there were a few proofs.
“Ah, told you we’d be back!” Fred shouted, interrupting the class. The teacher looked confused and confounded, but didn’t interrupt as Hugo also got up.
“Holy…desert? Powers?”
“YEAH MAN!!!” Fred agreed.
“No way…” Bruno commented, looking around. “I remember it too.”
“But we’re back to this shitty selves! Couldn’t keep my athletic build??!”
“Students!”
“MY MAC!!!” Rafael suddenly shouted, looking around. “My mac stayed behind! We have to go back!”
“BHUAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHA!”