5 Chapter Five - General Of Earth

The moon was now rising and the boy tapped his foot on the wooden floor of the establishment he visited so often. The hours he spent watching the stone giant bore no fruits whatsoever and he was at a standstill. He knew Generals could be defeated if someone knew their fear, but how would that exactly help? If this one was afraid of sheep, would he have to throw many sheep at him to defeat him? As the boy pondered, a warm plate of chicken stew was placed in front of him.

"You need some food for that brain of yours, you know? Otherwise you'll make no progress."

"You talk as if I've made any progress in the first place, Claire."

"Well, what did you learn today?"

"He drinks, eats, laughs and talks about being invincible. Other than that, he's as normal a person as you and me. If… we were made of rocks, that is."

"Would poison work?", Lily asked while rubbing her chin, scaring the boy.

"Where the hell did you come from?!"

"I've been here the whole time, you idiot."

"You have?"

"I don't think poison would work.", Roger answered the girl, "If it did, he'd have died long ago. Assassination attempts have ceased after people noticed they did nothing to them."

"There has to be something in the way he acts and behaves."

"I must confess, it's the first time I've seen a General that wasn't… human, so to speak."

"How come, Roger?"

"I've seen four Generals in my life and besides the General of Earth, all the other ones were fairly normal looking."

"Speaking from experience, I'd say he's compensating for something.", Jill snickered and the princess snorted before clearing her throat.

"Compensating, huh?", the boy repeated while staring at the plate.

"Don't… don't focus too hard on that, Cyrus, it doesn't sound good."

"I feel like I've gotten there, but it doesn't exactly want to come out."

"Eat something, young man.", Claire ordered and the boy picked up his fork.

The lady placed a plate in front of the others and they all began eating their dinner. Roger asked where she had gotten the food from and she explained that the room behind the counter had a small kitchen to the side. It was mostly used by those that were taking shifts that lasted through lunch hours. It was a nice dinner with a warm, comforting mood around them, almost like that of a family eating together, but something broke that moment. The sound of a large boulder hitting the ground not too far away from them, followed by the screams of the villagers. Without wasting a breath, they exited the establishment and sure enough, the stone giant had somehow brought quite the large boulder into the middle of the village.

"I. Want. Food!", the giant roared while stomping on the ground, "Now!"

"You heard him, you insolent scum, get him more food!", the golden armor man shouted at the terrified villagers.

As he was about to stomp on a fallen villager, the boy managed to pull them out of danger with a mad dash, which caught the attention of the man who was throwing a tantrum as well as the armored man who pulled out his sword.

"You're that kid. You know, I'm fairly disappointed in you."

"I asked you to watch where you were going."

"I actually thought you'd manage to find my weakness, seeing as you took down one of that shut-in's mutant pets.", the giant continued, "Yet here you are again, with no answer to my question."

"Say the word and I'll gladly slaughter this brat, General."

"He's mine, soldier."

The wide clearing at the center of the village was growing more and more quiet as Claire, Lily, Jill and Roger guided the panicked villagers into the adventurer's establishment. Not only was it built to support people that wanted to adventure throughout the world, it was also built as an emergency shelter in case of an attack such as this. He roared and slammed one of his fists on the ground in an attempt to squash the boy, but he easily dodged the slow giant by jumping backwards.

"Being young must be nice, huh?"

"How old are you?"

"Over a thousand!"

He slammed another fist on the ground and the boy climbed up his arm, throwing a fast horizontal kick with his left leg, but the man barely felt anything. With his free left hand, he punched the boy's whole body and made him hit a tree.

"That's all? What a shame."

"That hurt.", the boy coughed while getting up, "But not as much as I thought."

"You pests are always tough, huh?", the man in the golden armor remarked.

"You'd know about that, wouldn't you?"

"I should kill you, but the General wants to do that himself. Consider yourself lucky, brat."

Cyrus held onto his right arm. It was impossible not to be hurting after that hit, but that was not something he could afford to worry about at that moment.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The knight in silver armor closed the door once everyone was inside. In the middle of the room was an opened door that led to some kind of cellar, the one used in case of emergency, and nearly everyone was there. Outside of that space was Roger, along with the other two knights that were worried about their friend, Claire, Jill and the princess. The loud sounds that the giant was producing with his attacks was scaring the people and whispers were circulating.

"What's the situation outside?", one of the knights asked.

"He's dodging and hitting, but it doesn't seem like anything's effective against the General."

"Those people are invincible, of course nothing will have an effect on them."

"Something has to work.", the princess said, "The General mentioned a weakness. Unless he wanted us to think there is a way to defeat them when there isn't…"

"That's a possibility we forgot to ponder.", Jill sighed, "So this may be the end of our village, huh?"

"What the… Captain!"

The girl looked outside and saw the captain of this squad inching closer to the boy that fought the giant, wielding his sword and ready to strike at any moment. An underhanded strike, but effective nonetheless.

"That man!", Roger shouted, turning to his left as the door had been opened, "Your Highness, come back!"

"Take this!", the man shouted as he swung his sword downwards on the unsuspecting boy.

He expected victory, but his sword was stopped by the girl's sword. Quite surprised by the sudden appearance of the girl, the captain took a few steps back. Never in his life had he thought the princess would stand against him in anything else outside of a playful spar, yet the truth revealed itself differently.

"Knights aren't trained to act so deviously, captain."

"Your Highness… What do you think you're doing? Why are you opposing your own kingdom's will?!"

"That General is not my kingdom, you… insolent oaf!"

"What did you call me?!"

With that shout, he swung his sword again and again in a flurry of strikes, but none came close to hitting the girl. Evenly matched, Lily began pushing the man back with a flurry of her own. Her sword seemed… different from the ones the knights had. Her handle was somewhat longer and the blade looked a bit weird with what appeared to be an opening at its end. Despite its differences, it worked just as well as any blade and it was doing a pretty good job at protecting its wielder.

"You're mine!", the giant shouted, followed by a scream of pain from the boy and the sound of something hitting a tree, "Stay down!"

"Cyrus!", the girl shouted while looking back.

"Don't take your eyes off me, girl!", the captain ordered while attacking her.

She barely had any time to react, but her youth against the man's age was the deciding factor of that moment. With a wide swing in an arc motion, the girl parried the man's attack and her sword showed why it was different. From that opening emerged another blade of equal length that fit perfectly on top of the first with a satisfying "clink" and the girl began a more relentless attack. Each wide swing from her carried more power than before as she took advantage of that weapon's weight and the momentum it created as it moved around. An horizontal swing allowed her to spin for a diagonal slash, which in turn allowed yet another slash with the same orientation, this time in an ascending motion. The man tried to stab the girl, but she dodged to the right and dragged her blade on the ground, twirling in place and hitting the man with the flat side of her blade to push him away.

"Why, princess?!"

"Ravaging a village and enjoying it… What kind of sick man are you? To think you've done many atrocities this entire time and I knew nothing about them."

"We of the Royal Guard serve to protect the Generals and their laws. We're only part of your kingdom to keep up appearances!", the captain replied while attacking the girl, but to no avail, "Your kingdom is nothing but a cover for those that truly rule this land!"

"Lies!", the girl shouted while hitting the captain's right hand and making him drop his sword.

"You're nothing but a kid, you stupid, pampered girl! What do you actually know about this cursed world?!"

"A Royal Guard's knight is meant to protect the people around them.", an horizontal slash broke the captain's armor on his right shoulder, "They're meant to keep peace and order, not to destroy and pillage!", followed by a descending diagonal slash to break the captain's armor on his left arm, "You are nothing but a disgusting parasite!", with a final motion, she jumped and tilted herself sideways before slamming her heavy sword on the armored man, who was only saved by said armor, yet it carried enough speed to slash through it.

While not seriously wounded, the man was defeated and with no pride. At the same time, Cyrus had managed to escape the giant's hand just before being grabbed and landed a kick on his chest, but to no avail.

"An ant can punch an elephant all it wants, but it'll never be enough", the gian laughed and that angered the boy.

As he tried to attack the stone giant, he created a solid boulder out of nowhere, which he launched towards the boy. He somehow managed to dodge it by the skin of his teeth, but not the second one, taking a direct hit from pure rock.

"Come on, kid, is that all you've got?", he asked as he watched the boulder slam between two trees.

"Cyrus!", the girl shouted.

"Sure, the mutant wasn't that great, but you still took down one. I expected much more from you, you know?"

The boy moved from behind the boulder, quite surprised at the fact that he was still alive. The space between those two trees saved his life and the giant smiled as best as he could. He began running towards his opponent, dodging a punch and throwing one of his own with as much power packed behind it as he could. When his fist made contact with the General's body, the sound it made was heard throughout the empty village. The stone giant wobbled back a bit, but quickly recovered his balance.

"I can do it!", he shouted, but the giant laughed.

"Don't be happy that you did the same thing a pebble does by not moving. Everyone can lose their footing because of that."

"Even a stone giant can't break another stone, huh? I wonder if that's your weakness."

"I told you, my weakness doesn't exist. And if it did, it'd be a fear!"

Cyrus grabbed a stone from the ground and threw it as hard as he could at the giant's chest, but nothing happened.

"A+ for effort, but an F for not really paying attention to what others say", the giant said and the boy expressed confusion on his face..

"A fear…"

Not paying attention once more, the boy was punched against a tree and the giant laughed yet again. As the girl went to help him out, the captain picked up his sword and stood in front of her with no intention of getting out of her way.

"Why do you oppose me, your Highness? What happened for you to turn out like this?"

"Your dear princess has been brainwashed by this kid, don't you think?", the giant declared and the captain's face lit up.

"It can only be because of that!"

"Move out of the way!", the girl ordered him.

The man shouted and tried to attack the girl, but one of the other knights protected her with his shield while another one tackled the captain with the same weapon and Roger came to the princess' side.

"I never really liked that guy, if I may be honest.", one of the knights chuckled.

"Your Highness."

"Let me through, Roger, he needs my help!"

"It's far too dangerous! Come, we're going back into the establishment.", the man spoke while holding the girl's arm and dragging her along.

"Let me go, Roger, that's an order!"

Before the knight could talk, the boy was sent flying backwards towards a tree and the giant groaned as he watched the boy get up time after time.

"You know, I truly hate you.", he spoke while trying to hit the boy that dodged, "You're all so resilient and strong.", he continued, successfully punching him again, "You're all so bouncy and agile!", he shouted, seeing the boy use the tree behind him as a platform to jump towards the giant, "It angers me that every single one of you is born like that!"

"You're from another world right?", Cyrus asked, dodging a stomp, "What was it like?"

"So much better than this shithole you live in! We had vehicles that could take us everywhere and fly us through the air! We had devices that could tell us anything we wanted without wasting any time at all. This place has nothing going on for it besides letting me rule over everyone I want!"

"Rule over everyone you want?", the boy whispered before getting hit again by a punch.

"All this power, yet the good feelings stopped centuries ago! I used to think living forever was going to be nice, but it has been a thousand years and everything's so goddamn boring!"

"Seems like someone forgot to drink their milk this morning, huh?"

"Who are you calling a baby?!", the stone giant shouted while raising his right hand.

"I called you nothing, but if the shoe fits, who am I to judge, right?"

A boulder began forming above his rocky palm, growing larger and larger while somehow floating in the air. He ran up to the General in hope of trying to sneak an attack while he was busy, but his punch did nothing while the giant's punch did something. It sent him flying back once more and against a tree, except this time he didn't immediately fall to the ground. He had slammed against that same tree so much that some of its trunk had been chipped and splinters were pointing out, stabbing into his back and causing him to shout quite loudly.

"This is where you die!", the General shouted while pointing his right hand at the boy.

"Don't, Claire!", Jill screamed as the woman in question left the establishment.

This scream caught the two of them off guard and the giant's response was to move his right arm towards the source of it and shoot the boulder. A loud thud followed by the sound of wood breaking was heard and the giant began laughing as if he had been told a good joke.

"I wasn't planning on killing anyone right now, but that's what happens when you scare a General."

The boy managed to loosen himself from the now bloody splinters and his heart began racing faster than ever before as he called out to the woman, "Claire…? Claire. Claire!", again and again, yet no response was heard. Memories came flooding back from his past: the burning village, the screams of the villagers, the silence that followed that night, the solitude he felt for days. His chest began hurting. His vision grew blurry from the tears that formed on the corners of his eyes.

"Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, killing that kid."

"How dare you…"

"Huh?"

"How dare you?!"

"I am a General, kid, I can do whatever the hell I want."

"I'll kill you!""

"Can you?", the General asked before noticing something strange happening.

The grass at the boy's feet quickly turned gray and dissipated. The sound of water being boiled into vapor was low, but present. The boy's chest heaved as he breathed quickly, holding onto the left side of his chest.

"I'll kill you!", he shouted as loudly as he could.

Following that shout was a sudden, intense flame erupting from the ground around him. The giant felt enthusiasm at the sight of this powered-up boy, but something else was settling into his chest. Something he couldn't quite remember what was called.

avataravatar
Next chapter