No Such Thing as Good and Evil

“A…B…C…” Shade could hear the faint sound of someone practicing the alphabet as he walked down the stairs. He got to the bottom and walked past Elmyra, Faylen and Aerith who were sitting at a wooden table with what appeared to be a children’s book, practicing the alphabet. “Finally, you’re awake. Now we can go out and begin training!” Elmyra said excitedly as she jumped up from the table and grabbed a wooden sword she had leaned against it, then did some practice swings.

Shade yawned and walked over to, and behind the back counter, then began opening up cabinets and cupboards, moving various jars and containers around. “Where do you keep all the alcohol around here?”

“We don’t have any.” Aerith responded. “We drink teas made with various herbs.”

“Great, I’m staying with a bunch of druggies.” He sighed.

“Weren’t you going to go out last night and get some yourself?” Aerith asked.

“I did, then I drank it all.” He replied.

“You can get more later, come on, let’s go!” Elmyra said while she still enthusiastically practiced swinging the sword.

“What about instead of getting more later, we got more now.” He said. then turned and looked over to Elmyra, then paused for a second as he stared at her, a smirk slowly grew on his face. “What’s with the get up?” he laughed, eyeing the extremely tight black leather armor Elmyra had on. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of its looks, but it’s the middle of the day, you’re not going to blend into anything.”

“Please don’t ogle at my daughter, Shade.” Aerith said as she closed the book they were using for studying, got up, walked over to and behind counter and past Shade, side eyeing on the way by.

“I’ll have you know this armor is made with enchanted fibers that increase its defensive capabilities.” Elmyra said proudly, puffing out her cheeks like a child.

“Warrior must have come out with a new ‘prostitute’ line of armor, huh” he whispered to himself while still looking at her up and down, then looked over to Aerith, who was re-organizing all the jars he had moved around. “Well, she certainly is your daughter, looks just like you did back then.”

Aerith looked at him disgusted. “I always knew you were perverted, but she’s only 19, you’re almost 100 years older than her. This is low even for you.”

“Dragons live longer than almost everybody but elves. Virtually immortal. Am is supposed to stop having sex once I reach a certain age because everybody else around my age is dead or old and ugly?” He asked.

“Women your age are old and ugly, are they?” She responded with a cold smile, as the same murderous aura from before started to leak out from her.

“Guess we should go out and train before it starts getting dark.” he said nervously, turned away, walked out from behind the counter, past Elmyra and toward the front door.

“Yes! Come on Faylen, you too!” Elmyra said excitedly, then started to follow him, but Shade reached out his hand and stopped her.

“Drop that wooden sword and go get a real weapon, if we’re going to train, we’re going to train.” he said, then remembered his daggers are still over by the counter from when he first came in. “Aerith, while your over there can you grab my daggers off the counter and toss them to Elmyra?” then he turned towards Faylen. “You’re only going to practice using echos today, so you won’t need a weapon.”

Faylen nodded and got up from the table then quietly walked over to the front door. Aerith grabbed the daggers and threw them right at him at break neck speed. He picked up a wooden table next to him and lifted it in front of his face, blocking the attack, as the daggers plunged into the table. “What the hell?” he said putting the table back down.

Aerith glared back with an evil smile “You do anything to my daughter out their Shade, and I will rip your head off and use your blood as the base for tonight’s soup.”

“That’s oddly specific.” He said.

“I’ve had a long time to think about what I would do if someone hurt my daughter.” She responded.

“And that’s what you came up with?” he laughed and shook his head, then turned to Elmyra. “Well, grab the daggers out of the table and let’s go.”

“We’re going to practice with real weapons.” Elmyra said nervously as she looked down at the two daggers.

“You are. I’m not sure how much I’m going to attack you today. First, I have to see what this supposed ‘strength’ you have is all about, as I would prefer not becoming soup.” He replied.

She stared at him then looked to Aerith then back to him. “When me and my mom trained with weapons, I accidentally hurt her pretty badly. I don’t want to do that to you.”

Wait, she’s nervous for my sake? He thought confused, then looked at Aerith disappointed. “You lost to a 19-year-old?”

“I told you; I think you’ll find she’s quite strong.” Aerith responded.

He shook his head and looked back to Elmyra with a smile. “Don’t worry about hurting me, you might think your mother’s strong, but we worked together a lot in the past, and based on our time together, I would say I’m 10 times stronger than her.”

“That might be pushing it, maybe 5 times.” Aerith replied with a frown, crossing her arms.

“7 times, take it or leave it.” he said back and Aerith giggled and shook her head, then turned and walked through the door to the backroom. “Well, let’s go.” The 3 of them walk out of the cabin and to the woods that surround it.

“Let’s start with Faylen first.” Shade said. “I imagine since you’ve never used echos before, you must have a lot pent up inside of you. The first thing we need to do is teach you how to use them, and slowly deplete the overflow inside you. First things first, I have to allow a small flow of echos to go through you.” He closed his eyes and felt their connection, he changed the command to the collar and allowed a small amount of echos to flow out; Faylen then jumped from the feeling of echos flowing through her, and her wings began to radiate an even brighter rainbow, while her golden eyes began to glow once more. “Next, Let just try some basic moves, like try imagining a ball of water, or a small flame, or a rock. You know, the stereotypical shit you see and read kids starting with.”

Faylen closed her eyes and began holding her hands out in front of her, palms to the sky. She imagined a ball of fire forming in her hands. She was throwing it and burning her slavers, watching them writhe around on the ground like the bandits Shade killed, but nothing came out.

Then she imagined a boulder flying from her hands and smashing her slavers into a wall, turning them into pancakes and watching their bodies slowly slide down the wall, leaving a painting of blood behind, but nothing appeared.

Finally, she imagined thrusting water towards them, a tsunamis worth, and them flailing around, desperately trying to breathe while slowly drowning from the never-ending geyser of water coming from her hands, but still nothing. She began to breathe heavily and clenched her fists in frustration as she looked at the ground.

“Some teacher you are.” Elmyra quipped.

He looked at Faylen thinking of what to do. There were basic types of magic, water, fire, air, earth etc., and most people were gifted in one or more types of them. Even if you weren't gifted in one, it shouldn’t mean you couldn't use them. It’s like painting, or writing, or building or any other skill. While some people might be born with the innate talent in them, it doesn’t mean others couldn't do those things, they just couldn't do them as well. She’s brand new to all of this, like a child. I need to find what type she’s gifted in first, but what could it be? He thought to himself. Then he looked at her rainbow wings, golden eyes, then up at the sun. “What about light? Its typically a more complicated type, and not many can use it, but some of those with rainbow wings can. Try creating a ball of light in your hand and throwing it at a tree. Look at the sun, well not directly, but imagine the sun as the inspiration for your power.” He didn’t mention that while some people with rainbow wings can use light magic, it was typically only Fairies with royal blood in them.

Faylen held her hands out again and thought hard She imagined a large ball of light forming in her hands, then shooting it at and eviscerating her captors in an explosion of light. She began groaning from the effort she was putting in, but then a small ball of white light appeared in her right hand.

Elmyra looked at it shocked. “You can use light magic? I was told almost nobody can use it.”

“Those of a certain bloodline can.” he whispered to himself. “Ok, like I said, try throwing it.”

Faylen leaned back and tried throwing the ball of light like, well, a ball. But having been a slave and orphan, she had never played sports. Her form was awful and it went no more than a few feet before it hit the ground and dissipated in a pathetic sizzle. She looked down at it dejected.

Shade giggled to himself. “Don’t listen to him, that was great for a first try.” Elmyra said cheerfully, trying to cheer her up.

“I guess throw wasn’t the best term.” he said. “I mean shoot, try creating a ball of light in your hand, then try shooting it towards one of the trees. You might think you can’t do it, as shooting the ball of light is actually combining air and light magic, as the air is what launches the ball forward. But here is the number one most important thing when it comes to fighting, creativity. If you have enough power, and you do, if you can think of something, you can probably do it. Echos affinities do matter a bit, but don't worry about that right now. Think about what Aerith said about me using my echos to hide my echos. She says it doesn’t make sense, and maybe it doesn’t. But one day I thought, ‘I wonder if I can do this’, and then I did. I know I have much more echos then most people, but so do you. I might be stunting the amount flowing through you, but this is a pretty basic technique, it doesn’t need much power. Just imagine shooting the ball of light out of your hands at that tree, like that tree just stole some ice-cream from you.”

“Ice cream?” Elmyra asked confused.

Faylen closed her eyes again and pointed her hand toward a tree about 50 feet from her. She didn't imagine ice cream though; she imagined a man. The man who first picked her up off the streets. The man who told her he was going to give her a home, then locked her in a cage. The man who put the collar around her neck. The man who first raped her. The man she was going to kill one day. A ball of light appeared in her hand then flew toward the tree at a comically slow rate. It hit the tree and dissipated, leaving no mark.

“That was great Faylen!” Elmyra said jubilantly.

He nodded. “That was better, more in line with what I wanted. Now just keep doing that over and over until you get tired, we need to drain all the excess echos in you. It may take a while, but it’ll be good practice, as well as getting your body used to using echos before going on to anything more complicated. Though the first thing you should practice is creating the ball of light with your eyes open. It would be hard to aim at someone when your eyes are closed.” he joked. “Now for you.” He said as he turned to Elmyra. “The first thing I need to judge is how strong you are, so, I’m going to have you try to kill me.”

“Kill you?” Elmyra replied shocked, Faylen looked over in surprise as well.

“Yes, try to kill me. Don’t worry I doubt you can.” He replied.

“Aren’t you going to at least change back into a dragon?”

“Don’t have to.” He said with a wry smirk.

“But Aren’t you weaker in this form?”

“Yes…much weaker in fact.”

Elmyra scoffed. “I get it, you think I’m weak. You don’t believe my mother when she says I’m strong. You think she’s going easy on me, don’t you. You think she’s letting me win. Ok, I’ll play your game, I’ll kill you.” She said angrily as blood lust radiated from her all the sudden, as she slowly walked toward him, sharpening the two daggers together creating sparks.

Well that was fast, she might be strong but she has zero control of her emotions. He thought to himself. “Whoa, slow down miss murder, we need to move away from Faylen first so none of your attacks accidentally hit her.”

Elmyra nodded, though was still clearly breathed heavily with eyes filled to the brim with rage. The two of them walked deeper into the forest until they were about half a mile away from Faylen. “This should be good. Ok, kill me!” He yelled as he opened his arms wide like he was waiting to hug someone.

“Gladly.” She replied with an evil smile, and engulfed the two daggers in bright blue electricity then launched herself at him with the daggers by her side.

She does seem to have pretty solid echos control, and she is rather fast. He thought. As she got within mere feet of him, she slashed the daggers at his neck, but at the very last second, he ducked and went to his knees. She flew past him toward a tree, but before she hit the tree, she flipped her body around midair, landed feet first on the tree trunk then did a perfect backflip off it. “Do you see this rock; this is a pretty cool rock.” he said as he picked up a completely normal round grey rock, got up and showed it to her like it was a scientific marvel.

She scowled at him then jumped back onto the tree trunk and used it to propel herself towards him again, this time she put the crackling daggers in front of herself and corkscrewed through the air, looking like a vampiric drill, but once again, right before she got to him, he dodged out of the way, this time to the left. Then he walked over to a tree and started picking at the bark. “This bark is pretty tough, I can see why Faylens attacks haven’t done too much damage, I hope she doesn’t get flustered by it.”

Elmyra came out of her corkscrew and landed on her feet. She slid backwards through the dirt and spun around 180 degrees to face him again. “Can you take this seriously.” She snarled.

“What do you mean, we haven’t started yet right? I thought you were doing some stretches or warmups. Don’t tell me those were actual attacks.” She growled a primal growl as large amounts of echos began to radiate out of her. So much for her echos control. He thought.

Without a word, she launched towards him once more. This time though right before she reached him, she exploded into a plume of thousands of black bats. None of them were real, nothing but shadows, an illusion. She used the distraction to fly behind him, and went to stab him in the back. As her blades were mere inches from his back though, he reached behind himself and grabbed her arms with his as he peered over his shoulder. “Come on, I sparred with Aerith a million times, you’re really going to use a classic of hers against me?” then he kicked his foot back behind himself like a horse with immense force and sent her tumbling end over end across the ground, with sticks and rocks cutting holes into her armor as she careened over them, before finally she slammed into a tree with so much force it tipped over and crashed to the ground in a loud thud. She coughed up blood and breathed heavily a few times catching her breathe as she looked up at him with her mothers same murderous intent.

He slowly turned around and looked at her. “Come on, kill me.” He said, but not in a joking or sarcastic manner this time, but in a completely monotone voice, emotionless face and cold eyes of a hardened killer. She groaned and picked herself up, stared right back into his eyes, then yelled and launched at him once more. As she approached him the plume of bats explosion happened again, but this time when they disappeared, there were 3 Elmyra's soaring towards him. All 3 went to stab him at once, at the last second once again, he threw a punch at the one flying in from the left. Elmyra yelled out as she was sent flying through the air again as the 2 illusions disappeared into mist. She came to a crashing halt on a large boulder, as the sound of bones breaking echoed through the forest as she slid down it to the ground.

“Pathetic!” he yelled. “When you use a move like that, you need to make sure you are radiating a similar amount of echos as the illusions to blend in with them, or you could even give off less than the illusions to make it seem like you’re the illusion. You didn’t do either and made it simple to figure out which one you were. Not only that, but all you’re doing is trying to trick me with illusions. I thought you were supposed to be strong, yet you fight like a coward! Are you nothing more than a magician in a sexy leather outfit!” He said, then made a point to look her over up and down and lick his lips. “Now that I’m looking closer at you, you are quite sexy aren’t you. Perfect hour glass body, solid sized tits, and a tight ass. I could definitely fuck somebody like you.”

“I would never get with a scumbag like you!” She scoffed as she got up and brushed herself off while she coughed up more blood.

Shade tilted his head and smiled a sadistic smile. “Who said you had a choice.” This time he launched himself at her, as he got within a few feet of her, she went stab him. But he disappeared into mist this time. Just then something grabbed her wings from behind and ripped them clean off like they were nothing more than paper. Blood began to pour from her back while she let out a scream. “That’s how you use illusions.” He whispered in her ear and she spun around stabbing at him, but nothing was behind her except the rock. The blades clanked off the rock in a shower of sparks, and she bounced back a few feet from the recoil. “Did you know when you get better at the technique, you can even give the illusions some physical presence. They become more like clones then illusions.” A Shade said sat in a tree branch above her. She looked up at him in shock. “Your mother used to love me using this move, it allowed her to get gang banged without the need to actually fuck multiple guys.” A shade joked from behind her. “She really does look just like her mother, huh, I wonder if she rides like her too.” A shade chimed in from a different tree branch.

She spun around in circles and found she was surrounded by hundreds of Shades. Her eyes went wide with fear and Shade thought the fight is over. But then the angry look on her face returned and she began to radiate even more echos. Her wings grew back in an instant, and she floated into the air and threw her arms out to her side as her eyes glowed a radiant purple. Then the sound of thunder, and a flash of lighting, then all the sudden, it began to downpour. Shade, the actual one, looked up at the sky. Interesting, she can affect weather, that’s an extremely strong ability. He thought. As the downpour soaked the trees, the ground and all the Shades, electricity slowly began to crackle around her until she looked like a large globe of crackling blue light. Finally, she let it all out in an explosion, sending waves of electricity in every direction. The electricity wasn't strong enough to harm the actual Shade as he had dug his heels into the dirt to ground himself, but it was strong enough to take out all the phonies, causing them all to disappear in a puff of smoke. She made it rain to make everything wet, thus enhancing her natural electric abilities. Finally, this is getting interesting!

Shade dug his feet out of the dirt and floated up into the air. “Finally, you’re actually trying, I thought you were nothing more than a sexy magician with a future in card tricks at a brothel.”

She didn't say anything as she put her two hands out in front of her and slowly formed another large ball of electricity the size of a small bear, then shots it at him at an extremely rapid pace. As it flew towards him, he debated the best action and decided to dodge to the right of it, as he did, Elmyra appeared, having launched herself at him and hidden behind the ball of electricity. He frowned, and just as she was about to stab him again, he reached out and grabbed her by the face with his hand, then in an instant, flew straight down to the ground, slammed her face into the dirt, shattered her nose and created a mini crater where her head hit. He then rolled her over, put his foot on her chest and leaned over her. “That’s a move I taught your mother. After the rain thing I had some hope, but you don’t have a single original creative bone in your body do you.” He snarled, then he took his foot off her and uses it to kick her away with so much force it looked like she folded in half before she tumbled through the mud, her armor again being cut to shreds by all the rocks and sticks before she slid to a stop.

She coughed up more blood and felt her ribs, which were almost all certainly broken. She paused for a second lying in the mud, but then got up again and found she was completely covered in mud and blood, as most of her body was almost completely exposed as her full suit of leather armor had now been torn to ribbons, nothing more than a few strands of leather barely hanging on to each other. She breathed heavily as she looked down at the damage she had taken, then angrily over to Shade. He though was just staring at her body. “I thought you said that armor was defensively enhanced? Now it looks like something I would have had Faylen wear while I fucked her. Your body is quite nice as well though, I got to say. Though not as nice as Faylens. She also seems to be stronger than you as well, so what do you have going for you? You know, she has a sexy maid outfit she used to wear around the house, maybe being a sexy maid is more your speed.”

“You fucking scumbag.” She snarled in a bloody cough. Electricity began to crackle all around her again and she launched at him one last time. Right before she got to him, she let all of it out, all the electricity that all the echos inside her body could muster. Shade, not having time to ground himself, was hit by it and paralyzed for a brief moment. In that moment, she plunged the two daggers into his chest and blood to pour out of him. She had an evil smile on her face as she looked up at him, but he was smiling just as sadistically right back.

“You always have to think multiple steps ahead. You’ve stabbed me, now what?” he asked, knowing he caught her in the same trap he had the wolf, and many other poor souls. She panicked and let go of the daggers in an effort to pull back but before she could he grabbed her, put his hand around her neck and pinned her to a tree. She grabbed at the hand with both of hers, clawing at it, kicking and writhing, trying anything to get away as she can’t breathe, but he didn't let go. He got in close to her and looked directly into her eyes. “Elmyra, listen closely. You had the unfortunate luck of being born a girl. When guys lose a fight in the wild, we either die or get arrested. You, you would have it much worse.” He said in a serious tone. He then transformed into a dragon, the hand around her neck becoming bigger as he towered over her and began radiating large amounts of dark echos, with bloodlust filling the air, while his bright demonic red eyes bore into hers. “Why don’t you ask Faylen what it’s like to be raped, to be a slave. This is important, training lesson number one. Your willingness to brush off extreme injuries and continue fighting to seemingly the death is honorable. But honor is bullshit. Never take fights you can’t win. Do not let yourself be killed, and do not let yourself be captured. There is no shame in running, no shame in living to see another day. Because if you get captured.” He said as his tail worked its way into one of the various holes in the armor, slowly began to wrap around her left leg. “Well let’s just say you don’t want to know what would happen.”

As she was about to lose consciousness, and as his tail was about to reach her pussy, she let out a whisper. “Please, no.”

In an instant, he transformed back into a human, and let her go. She slumped down from the tree, onto her hands and knees and gasped for air. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t actually going to do anything to you. Your mother would kill me. She’s one of the few people even I don’t want to be on the wrong side of. But this is important. You fight naïve, arrogant. It took 10 seconds and one jab for you to let your emotions fly off the rails. You fight with your heart, not with your brain. That might work in books, but this isn’t a book, this is real life. You’re strong, I won’t lie, but you’re not even close to the strongest people in the world. You could win a lot of fights with your pure power, but all it takes is one and your life is over. You spent your childhood growing up in the safety of an Herbery. You don’t seem to grasp the horrors the world contains. Your mother can tell you stories of them, but that’s all they are, stories. Faylen grew up an orphan, a slave, being raped and tortured. Before I became a wandering drunk, I spent the prior decades acting as a vigilante of sorts. Killing and fighting with my life on the line day after day. If I fought like you, I wouldn’t be here training you today.” He stared at her, covered in mud and blood, still wheezing for air. “That’s enough for today, but keep everything I said in mind going forward. Go get cleaned up and check on Faylen, I’m going to town to buy more alcohol.” he said, turning away from her as he took the daggers out of his chest, and walked out of the forest.

Elmyra then collapsed completely onto the ground, rolled onto her back and looked up at the sky She coughed and wheezed as the rain poured down on her, cleaning some of the mud and blood away. “He wasn’t even trying.” She coughed, eyes wide with fear. “How strong is he? He’s…. he’s a monster.”