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The Path of Nothingness

The higher world has its denizens comprised of the four elements: Life, Death, Space, and Time. The Four Nations who exemplified these Elements lived opposite one another, all dedicated to their particular element. War-torn for years, an outside threat, the Beasts, caused them to come together, but it was too late. Internal strife and differences caused too many differences and they couldn't mount a proper defense. The nonsensical monstrosities overran several of the settlements of those living in the higher world, leaving nothing but death and destruction in their wake, forcing those remaining to dig into the last remaining city and defend it as best they can. Years later, a new group of young soldiers seeks to defend their home, and one of them, a young man named Wesley, carries a power never before seen. The Soldiers don't know what to make of him, but his unique abilities give him an edge over the Beasts in a way that they've not seen before. With his and his allies' power growing from the unnatural effects his unique gifts carry, can he be the one to pave the way for humanity to return?

BrainFrog · Fantasy
Not enough ratings
63 Chs

A Close Distance

"Up there? Dude, man, I don't know," Jay spoke, but Wes was already looking skyward. The plan had already started to go off the rails and they'd just started. Dammit.

"I'll grab her and be right back down. It shouldn't take long at all," Wes responded to his brother. Then again, Sasha going up there wasn't supposed to take any time at all either, and yet here they were with it taking a ridiculous amount of time because the girl was, so far, not following their plan.

Evie grinned up at Wes as he offered to go up after Sasha. "Okay! Be careful!" the girl called, giving him a thumbs up with both hands.

Wes nodded before he exhaled slowly. Just up, grab her, and come back down. Of course, he wasn't exactly skilled with his Teleport Skill yet, and the thought of overshooting, or undershooting, her position was something weighing heavily upon his mind.

He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to block out all the mental noise that he was feeling, and then as he looked up, he nodded to himself. He focused on the Space Framework within him, and then after a brief second of waiting... he was gone, up to the sky.

The sudden feeling of weightlessness grasped him, and he realized that he was very much airborne. "Sasha!" he called, looking around for the woman. He couldn't fly or anything of the sort, and as he twisted in the air, turning this way and that, he realized that he had overshot her. "Damn it," he hissed.

Still, hearing her name caused Sasha to twitch and she opened her eyes, looking up... and seeing Wes a good bit above her. "Wes? W-what are you doing?" the girl demanded, trying to put up her usual front, even here hundreds of feet above the ground.

"Saving your stupid ass, that's what," he called back, the roaring wind around them making it difficult for his voice to be heard, but all the same he moved, pinning both arms by his side and making himself have as little wind resistance as possible, hurtling down toward her in an attempt to catch up with her.

"Look, I didn't... I just..." she began, but wasn't able to really get her thought out, and not that Wes really cared what her reason was. She was in trouble, and he needed to help her out. It was as simple as that. He didn't need to work off of any other logic.

He paused his descent and look down to her. "I don't care. Just hang on, I'll get you on the ground soon enough," he called again, before he once more put his head down and began to rocket downward... before he realized there was a faster way. "Man I hope this works," he spoke quietly to himself.

Sasha watched as Wesley had pulled himself out of his nosedive, and started to talk to himself about something. Well that wasn't at all good for her confidence in him. Of course, that was made worse when he suddenly vanished from sight. Her heart dropped, before he was suddenly in front of her, in the span of a heartbeat.

She didn't get a chance to respond as he moved his arms around her, holding onto her and pulling her body against his own. She felt her own heart start to hammer in her chest as she swallowed, before she heard him shout. "Hang on!" he yelled, and the girl swallowed, moving her arms around him, before she closed her eyes, just enjoying the closeness and warmth.

However, it was over all too soon as Wes' grip on her tightened, and then the roaring of wind in their ears vanished fora brief moment, and before she realized that the sound was gone, the pair of them hit the ground, rolling a bit before coming to a stop, with the brunette beauty laying on top of him.

Wes coughed, having hit the ground a little harder than he'd meant to, but he didn't think that anything was broken. If it was, he'd just quietly repair it through use of the Restoration Skill he had adopted from his brother. But he had tried to spare Sasha the impact, and that left her now lying on top of him.

"Hey," he spoke, causing Sasha to twitch slightly, as if she sudden realized where she was, and she looked down at him, her face lit up red with her own embarrassment. "Are you all right? You didn't get hurt in the landing?"

Sasha's face was bright red, but at the question she immediately scoffed, moving to practically shove herself off of him and onto the ground. "I'm fine. I was going to be fine," she spoke, the girl blustering but clearly not doing a great job of it, given the fact that he was watching her with an arched brow.

"Yeah, all right," Wes responded, not really in the mood to argue with her. "I guess the whole not teleporting down right away was to mess up my whole plan then," he offered with a small smirk, mostly just teasing her, but all that earned him was a glower from Sasha.

He realized they'd managed to hit the ground a short distance from the others, who were now hurrying over toward him. "So what'd you find, anyway?" Wes asked her. "I was too busy trying to save you so I didn't even look for anything down there," he admitted.

The girl scoffed, tossing her hair over one shoulder, keeping one hand on it, nervously playing with the strands as she tried to get herself back to normal. If he didn't have a long history with her, he likely wouldn't have even noticed, but he was aware of how she could be sometimes when she was nervous, like that.

"Of course I saw where to go. Where are we now, just so I can get my bearings?" she asked, glancing around, before she glanced to where the others were coming from. "That's where we were at?" she asked.

"Yeah. Just over there. We didn't get too far off the mark, but I'm still not great with Teleporting," he admitted.

Sasha rolled her eyes in response. "Well that's obvious. At least you didn't put us down into the ground or something," she muttered, before she turned away from him, glancing out toward the distance. "There were a bunch of people gathered down that way. So that's what I figure to be our first stop, or whatever."

Wes glanced over his shoulder, lifting a hand toward the others as they came closer, before he turned back to Sasha. "Hey. You don't need to put up a front. I'm just glad you're all right. You scared all of us shitless back there with that. You don't have to apologize or anything," he continued, not wanting to put her on the defensive.

"I know you're going to- and that's fine," Wesley continued. "I just want you to know that you don't have to with us."

Sasha swallowed slightly as she looked into the distance, not turning back around to face him. She knew where he was coming from- she was always rather difficult to handle for most people but there were a lot of reasons for that... reasons that he was aware of.

She had almost hoped (and now felt foolish for hoping) that he was going to say that she didn't have to put up a front around him. But when he had said 'us' instead, she could feel a small pit in the bottom of her stomach. "Yeah," she responded, before she glanced at him over her shoulder. "You know why."

Wes had been about to respond when suddenly Evie's weight was suddenly on his back, the girl having leapt a considerable distance to crash into him, and he grunted, keeping his feet under him but nonetheless grunting quietly. "Hey Evie. Welcome," he spoke with a small smile back at the girl.

"Hey! You two are alive!" she calle dcheerily, earning some laughter from Jay as the man approached, with Ted not too far behind, but per usual he was moving at his won pace.

Jay clapped his brother on the shoulder before moving around to where Sasha was. "Hey, you all right?" he asked. "That looked like a rough landing."

Sasha fixed Jay with a look, a small smirk on her features. "Of course I'm fine. Wes took most of the hard landing," she spoke, gesturing toward him, earning a small wave, even as Evie jumped down.

"Good," Jay responded, before he glanced where Sasha had been looking. "Is that where we're going?"

Wes grinned, happy to disperse the dark cloud that had fallen over him and Sasha as he moved past Jay. "Yeah man, I'm fine," he spoke to his brother, before stepping past the others. "Sasha said she saw a pretty decent crowd out this way. I don't know if we're going to get there in time but we might as well go check it out."

Sasha's gaze lingered on Wesley for a moment, and once more the feeling of being pulled close against him entered her mind, but she frowned, letting that feeling fade as she closed her eyes. That wasn't going to ever happen. She needed to come to terms with that.

"Come on, let's go," she muttered, beginning to head off toward the direction she'd seen everything in.

Why do all of the main characters have to be dense? Because it's very funny to write!

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