(POV=Point of View) this is sort of a preview-(dont wanna give everything to the public too fast). Please judge on its flow and character make up and I guess whatever...I want to know if it sounds like a real book.
When Darkness Turns To Light
Chapter one: Mora the Bounty Hunter Mora’s P.O.V.
I was on a high rooftop when I saw a figure upon the neighboring building. My hand was already on one of my weapons, “Fight now, and ask questions later.” The kingdom of Seisui (rise and fall) was a mystical, unpredictable, and dangerous place. The monsters of our world, which left me trying to protect myself, had overcome most humans. As I got closer to the stranger, I began to recognize who it was, “*Gasp*, it’s the Steel Beast! He’d bring a handsome bounty…”
I snuck up on him from behind, jumping from the other building. The Steel Beast had steel chains that grew out of his back; one of them grabbed me as he turned around. His eyes became angry once he saw me. “Not another one of them,” He thought while twisting the chains tighter. I wasn’t very strong at all so, I couldn’t break free…that is until my Elemental powers kicked in. A crack of thunder was heard through out the rooftops and my eyes turned a glossy white. Then a bolt of lightning struck the chains, electrocuting both him and me.
At the point of contact the beast dropped me and was briefly distracted. I got up in time to take advantage of this. “This should do the trick,” I believed and threw a few poisonous throwing stars at him. In defense, the Steel Beast put up his wrists but that was no way near the amazing part. The stars, in the middle of their path, paused and headed back in my direction. Before I could question this feat I had to get away from my own attack. I released a smoke bomb and escaped quickly onto a telephone wire. He located me within seconds and sent his metallic minions after me. Luckily, I was fast enough not to get caught. I leaped off the wire and soared towards him, “Please don’t let me be a total failure.” “Elemental Hammer!” I commanded prior to striking him with the legendary weapon, which was really a big gavel. I knew it had worked when I saw my enemy unconscious instead of me. “Wow, maybe I am getting better,” I congratulated myself. Though I came from a long line of elementalists (those with power over the elements) I couldn’t always tap into my abilities.
“He’s not so scary, “ I said, curiously looking over him. The Steel Beast was rumored to have a monster’s face, horrible boils, and hair everywhere. “Hmph, no boils…no monster’s face… no hair everywhere…hey, this guy almost looks human,” I evaluated, “Well, better move him before he wakes up.” I ran over to the edge of the roof and saw an officer patrolling the streets. “Hey, officer! I got something you might like!” I yelled. This officer was of the elephant race, very strong creatures. He stood on two feet and the points of his tusks lead to his black, beady eyes. When the officer finally made it to the roof, I had noticed that the criminal’s chains had retracted. The officer almost didn’t believe it was him but I eventually confirmed his identity.
“You?” my supervisor, Rakuno was surprised of my deed, “I mean, you have talent but…not that much. We’ve been looking for him for years.” I was considered a normal bounty hunter until then.
“Yes, I know,” I boasted, “So, how much money am I getting?”
“None. Until he’s transported to Jisatu’s Tower.” He explained, “But once he gets there, you’ll be in for the biggest pay day of your life.”
“Wow, all the way to the king’s castle, that’s harsh. What has he done, really?” I wondered.
“ You mean, you don’t know? He single handedly murdered the former king and his family, not to mention killing his own wife.” He professed.
“He was the guy that did that, I thought nobody knew who killed the former king?” I questioned, “Are you sure?”
He nodded at me with certainty, “No doubt about it, Mora. He’ll be off to the king’s castle first thing in the morning.”
“Oh, I had no idea how bad he was…I guess it’s because I’m so young.” I reasoned, “He’s really powerful, is he being kept in a good place?”
Rakuno decided to show me where he was instead of telling me.
The former king’s name was Okusto. He ruled a long time ago, before I was born. My mother told me how peaceful and colorful it used to be back then. Instead, I grew up in a dark and dank city where the best thing to become was a bounty hunter. I was very surprised of myself; I was only nineteen when this happened and had just became a bounty hunter. Rakuno bought me to the basement and unveiled to me the vault my catch was held in.
“I don’t know why you’re so interested in that cursed man.” Rakuno complained as he left me alone with the vault.
“I just…wanted to see him.” I touched the vault and realized that it was just regular steel. The vault should have been made of angel steel; it’s the strongest of all. There was a small rectangle in which I could see through.
“ There he is…” I thought as I watched him, “He looks so sad.”
On the floor, he sat hugging his knees…not really looking at anything. His eyes dimmed at the empty space. “ Is his hair black-no…it’s a dark velvet. Hmm, he seemed so violent before but now…” I kept analyzing him until he became aware of me. His already red eyes immediately started to glow and the light flickered off inside. Although it was pitch black within the vault, I could still see his glowing eyes glaring at me lividly. With vengeance, his chains struck the door, leaving spear-like imprints. I was startled by this and confined my thoughts of him to what Rakuno had said, “What was I getting myself into? I never should have thought of him differently.” I walked out of there with a chip on my shoulder.
“Stupid guy, I thought he was normal for a second and then he does that. Oh well, I’m getting so much money for this anyway, I don’t need to worry about the criminal.” I ranted on the way home. I went into a near by ally and climbed up the fire escape. “Ah, my condemned home,” I sighed happily after hopping into my window. At that time I lived in a condemned apartment building with bad plumbing and hardly a kitchen. By now the doors were locked to the place so I sneaked in through the window. This didn’t bother me though; I was living the adventurous life. The floors were fragile, which is why I only have one couch and a small TV. ”Oh, come on now,” I pleaded with my tub for the water to run, ”Maybe a little elemental power would do the trick” Then I looked around to see if anyone was watching. At this time, using elemental powers was against the law. This law was in place for as long as I could remember. The government even separated those who had the ability and I never got the chance to learn because of that. Anyway though, I constantly broke this decree to get water or electricity in my apartment (If my powers decided to work). Eventually, I got enough water to run a bath and went to bed right after I bathed. While I fell asleep I pondered about the mysterious smell in my couch.
Later on that night the beast decided to make an escape. The steel of the vault shrieked as he tore the door open with his metal chains. Right away, the alarms of the building went of. “Oh, here they come,” the fugitive anticipated, ”It’s silly how they try.” The guards blocked his only exit but, not for long. The beast’s eyes shined a bright red again that signifying his rage. They shot guns at him but like my throwing stars, the bullets failed to reach him. (If I may add, bullets never work in this world. They should have known that.) Swiftly, one of his chains grabbed a guard and smashed him into the others. ”After him!” a guy who seemed to be the chief ordered as the Steel Beast got away. He snickered as he ran from the police, “Heh, they’ll never catch me now.” And the beast was right, they had lost sight of him a couple blocks down.
A ringing phone suddenly awakened me; it was my supervisor wanting to inform me of the Steel Beast’s escape.
“ You better hurry,” he warned, “—every bounty hunter in the city is looking for him.” With this news, I got up quickly and prepared for an all out search. “You know what I should do?” I thought while packing my weapons, “I should try to use the wind element!” The Element of Wind actually changes you into wind. The downfall of this is that you can only go in one direction and you can’t pause for a moment but it’s incredibly fast and would give me a bird’s eye view of city. I climbed to the top of my building to try and do the command. Then I brought out the Feather of Wind and said, “Element of Wind!” Nothing happened. “Why can’t I ever do it?!” I screamed at the sky indignantly. After a minute I figured that I might as well do it the old fashion way, jumping from roof to roof. However, as I made the first leap the Element of Wind consumed me and I began soaring through the sky.
I flew for about five minutes and saw that I was heading out of the city and into the countryside. I never knew that there was a country area outside of the city I lived in. When I was thinking of this, I saw who seemed to be the Steel Beast, “Ah-ha, I’ve found you!” That’s also when my powers conked out, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!” *THUD!* I landed right on top of him.
“Why are you here?” he asked looking up at me strangely. I noticed that this was the first time he ever spoke to me.
For some reason, I analyzed his voice for a couple seconds before I answered, “ You know why I’m here!" I had jumped off him to say , “You tried to escape, you fugitive!”
“Look who’s talking,” he complained, “You Elementalist!”
I winced at him, “You won’t be able to prove it!”
Then we heard a crowd of people say, “There he is!” I turned around and saw a huge group of bounty hunters charging towards us. We both panicked and ran in the other direction. I think one of the hunters behind us was throwing boulders at us because they were dropping everywhere. A boulder almost hit me but the Steel Beast pushed me out the way, “Move!”
“Hmph, I can take care of myself!” I argued dodging another one. To catch my breath, I leaped upon a nearby tree. I thought I was safe until I saw a big blade coming my way. I hopped off before the tree was sliced in half.
Meanwhile, the real target was getting tired of the boulders and decided to throw a couple back. He stopped to see the results but started running again afterwards.
Out of breath, I asked him, “How are we going to get away?”
“We?” he replied, “You don’t need to get away, I do.”
“Uh-oh,” I said seeing a short cliff in front of us. We would have to climb it to escape and in the process lose time. The hunters were beginning to spell out a victory and they were getting closer to it every second we struggled to get over the cliff. I thought we were doomed until, all of a sudden we felt a strong breeze blow against our backs. We heard a silence and realized that no one was chasing us anymore.
”Hey, they’re asleep…How’d that happen?” I mentioned after we climbed the cliff.
“Yeah, I can see a priestess arrow over there in the center. I wonder why a priestess would be here though…?” the beast responded, “But anyway, I’ll be seeing ya’.”
“Wait a second, man, you’re my bounty and I’m taking you in.” I declared assertively, “If I could beat you before, I can beat you again.”
Then he became serious, “You only beat me because I didn’t know you were an Elementalist. If you were to fight me now, you would lose sorely.”
In defense, I responded, “Why should I argue with a person like you? Someone who killed his own wife.”
He cringed at the comment and said, “Lies…but if that’s the way you feel about it then, fight me. I’ll even give you a head start.”
And so, the stare down began. The ground was grassy and cool and there was a river on the right of us. “Alright, here I go…”
Using my agility, I ricocheted off a neighboring tree trunk and flew at him with my Blade of Fire. It was a samurai style blade that was used for the fire element. Anyway, I attacked swiftly yet it didn’t surprise him. He blocked my attacks and hardly tried to strike back. He said this as I struggled to land a hit, “You’re not a very experienced Elementalist are you?” The beast must have noticed that I didn’t use my powers much. At that point, I decided to get a little distance from him, since I was just tiring myself out. I got far enough away so that he had to use his chains to get me. He sent his chains after me, as I expected. Then, instead of letting them grab me, I let them grab my sword. I leaped onto the tip of my blade, giving myself leverage to jump towards him, now with my Elemental Hammer in hand. I assumed that I had him where I wanted and gave him a smirk of triumph but…right before I reached him, one of his chains caught my leg and sent me flying back into the river.
Consequently, my head hit a big rock in the landing and knocked me out. There was a waterfall at the end of the cliff and the strong current was pulling me towards it. The beast took note off this and surprisingly went to save me. He made it with time to spare, heroically pulling me out of the river and even rescuing my hammer. “You can die another day…” he whispered to himself as he propped me against a tree. Dreamily, I could see him putting my weapons neatly beside me. Then, he mysteriously disappeared into the forest lying on the other side of the river. About thirty minutes later, I had awoken. The sun was shining through the leaves of the tree while I realized my head was slightly hurting. I could vaguely recapture what had happened moments before, however I still knew that the Steel Beast was the one that pulled me out the river. His recent actions threw me into confusion once more except this wasn’t enough to change my mind about him. I was still hurt because he had beaten me.
After sitting there for ten minutes, I finally got up. Chasing after the Steel Beast seemed pointless and because of his good deed I probably wouldn’t have fought him with the same determination. I saw that the other bounty hunters had given up too, they were gone. For some reason, I took a slow walk back to the city. As I stared at my grassy surroundings I started thinking of my mother and father. Though they were still alive, it was forbidden for me see them any longer. Once an Elementalist turns eighteen, it was by law that he or she leave and never return to their parents. Mother used to tell me how the Elementalists used to live with nature and how our unity could stop any enemy. “Ah, those were the days,” I thought, “I wish I could have stayed there a little longer past three.”
When I started to approach the city walls, I paused for a short moment but kept going. The city seemed to depress me; it was dirty, noisy, and grim. Its philosophy was “every monster for itself”, which meant that humans weren’t allowed a simple buck either. Although some monsters were nice, I had a hard time finding friends. I missed humans like me. I waited anxiously for a chance to get out and meet some real people.
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