Mikleo 3

6.6

When the squad first meet Nayla, some of them were kind of wishful that she is the one they have been looking for. But the thing was, she is human, which was why they could not confirm their theory. They have been so overwhelmed in searching for the right person that the thought never crossed their minds — that the child could have been half human.

It was unheard of. A cross breed between a seraph and a human, especially when one can not see the other. How was it possible in the first place? That is one of the many questions that they do not have the answer for.

They have been wanting to talk with the girl in question, but they were not sure how to start with this. There are so many things they would like to enquire, but they are concerned about scaring the girl off, especially considering what they want to ask of her.

That is why they have been rather avoiding the girl as of late. They are always on edge when they see her, unsure of how to act after knowing her true identity. How are they going to approach this matter at hand?

There is a prophecy that has been passed around from mouth to mouth, about the legend of a seraph who master all four elements that will save the world from total darkness. The fifth hundredth total solar eclipse marks the night when all seraphs will lose their powers. They will not be able to use their powers during the span of the eclipse, and the hellions will take on that opportunity to attack. They will plunge the world into darkness with their animus energy, triggering the turning of all humans within range into their own kind.

It sounds even worse when they spell it out. The world is running out of time, especially when the total solar eclipse is happening soon.

When the team assembles again, they have a heated discussion in depth regarding what they plan to do with the Omniseraph. The seraphs have come to an agreement. They need to train and polish her skills in order to help the girl fulfill her destiny.

. . . . .

Day 6

Red drips on her shirt, staining the material. Nayla blinks a couple of times, the sight looking so foreign to her that it barely registers her mind. It is only when she stares for a moment too long that she finally earns the attention of the seraph next to her.

“Nayla!” He immediately gets to her side and makes her takes a sit at the nearby chair, before rammaging his hand into his pants pocket in order to produce a handkerchief. He uses it to wipe off the blood from her nose, making sure to remove any traces of it squeaky clean.

“I think we should take a break for a while. You don’t look so good,” he tells her.

“Nah, I’m okay. I think it’s just because I worked too much lately,” is her natural response. “My body’s probably just adjusting. It’s not like I’ve ever used magic before, let alone this much.”

“Let’s hope that’s the case.”

“What were you planning to tell me, anyway? Before my nose decides to have a nosebleed.”

“I think we can talk about that some other time,” he forces a smile, “I’m more worried about you.”

“It’s okay, just go right ahead,” she assures him.

“Really, it’s nothing of importance,” he tries to back away to avoid her question. Nayla follows him, of course, and corners him to the edge of the bench, trapping him with her body.

“Now I’m really curious.”

“Ah, um, well . . .” he hesitates, trying to decide whether to comply or not, before sighing. “Are you sure you want me to say this now? Promise you won’t get overworked?”

“Yeah, sure!” Anything to get him to spill.

Mikleo gestures for her to back away a little bit so that he can get some room to breath. Having her so close to him is distracting him, but he can not admit that out loud. Nayla sincerely abides.

“Do you remember the night of the Spring Festival?” the boy carefully uses his choice of words, know not to upset her too much.

“What about it?” she asks without batting an eye.

“Well, Lu— the hellion—”

“You can say his name,” she convinces him.

“Lunarre mentioned something about you being an Omniseraph.”

She nods.

“The thing is . . . How do I put this lightly?” He bites his bottom lips. “Do you know what the word means?”

Nayla is not planning to lie to him, and she is definitely not going to start now. Plus, her gut is telling her that she can trust the boy. So she speaks. 

“Yes, I know.”

“Where did you hear it from?”

“Remember how my circlet shined when I was recovering from my injuries?” He nods. “Turns out that it was able to give me access to my mother’s memories. Through it, I could recall her explaining what it means, and what we are. She also warned me not to mention any of it to just anyone.”

“A good advice,” he quickly asserts. “So that was why I could feel a strange aura coming from it. There is an Omniseraph power laid inside it.” He nods in thoughts before turning his gaze back to her. “What else did she tell you?”

“So far, that is all I know about it, though I do get a feeling that there is still more things I have not learn yet from the memories she put inside the circlet. I’ve been trying to get it to activate, but so far nothing has come.”

“Maybe there is a specific trigger that needs to be done in order to activate it.”

“I think so too. Both events happened when I was badly injured or was consumed with so much hatred that I was on the verge of turning into a hellion. Maybe that’s the trigger? But if that is true, don’t doing it be such a huge risk?”

“We can do it, if it’s done right.”

“I tried cutting the tip of my finger before, thinking that blood might be the trigger. But nothing happened. I didn’t dare to try anything extreme though.”

“We can try that again later, but for now, there is something more urgent that you should know.”

“What is it?” Nayla straightens her back when she can hear his tone growing more severe.

“There is a rumor of a prophecy that has been passed down from generations to generations, that when the fifth hundredth total solar eclipse occurs, all elemental powers will disapparate from the face of the world.”

“No way! All of it? Forever?” she jumps in her seat.

“It’s not permanent, only occurring during the eclipse. According to what Gramps knows, it is supposed to have something to do with the way the sun is blocked from the earth, and thus preventing its holy light from reaching to the seraphs. But that’s not what concerned us the most. It is what our enemies will do in taking advantage of the situation. If the legend is true, then the seraphs will be in mortal danger.”

The hellions certainly will not hesitate to attack.

“Why is that? I thought most seraphs are living inside the protective barrier of their respective villages.”

“While that is true, but if the seraphs can not use their powers, the barries will also disappear. The one who puts on the barriers surrounding Elysia is Gramps. And it does not matter how strong he is, because he will not be able to hold on to the barrier if our source of powers is blocked.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

A smile threatens to almost breaks out from Mikleo's features as he watches the way Nayla is so committed to this, even though she probably does not even know the names of half the people from his village.

“The prophecy doesn’t stop there. It says that an Omniseraph will possess the power to stop the darkness from reaching the world, even during the eclipse. And we are hoping that you will be able to help us.”

“But . . .  I can’t even perform any other elemental magic except for water.”

“And that is why we would like to volunteer in training you,” a new voice which do not belong to any of them says. Nayla turns around to spot Lailah standing a couple of bushes away, while Edna and Zaveid stick out their heads right behind her.

“Lailah! Edna and Zaveid too. What are you guys doing here?” They have been reconnecting ever since the sudden drift, but they still could not find the right time to hang out yet — much because Nayla has been too busy spending most of her time her boyfriend.

Boyfriend! She can’t believe she is referring the white/blue haired boy with that title.

“We have been waiting for the right time to come out,” Edna grins, titling her huge umbrella to the side.

“You took your time, Mikleo boy. It felt as if we’ve been waiting for ages over here,” Zaveid sends his lazy grin, patting his back a little bit dramatically.

“But how are we going to accomplish that? How does one learn a new element?”

“Well, we do have a theory of our own,” Lailah says.

“We think you’ve been spending an awful lot time with the water seraph, even back before you guys were dating. It’s a wild guess, but we think that the reason why you were able to use water first is because of Mikleo,” Edna concludes.

“But how can that be? Just by being near him?”

“It could be because of the distance. Your untapped magic must have been latched on to his magical signature, thus eventually sublimated it to imitate his.”

“So in other words, if I want to activate my other three elemental magic, I just have to hang around with you guys?”

“Yep! Now that we’ve accomplished that, let’s start our second date with me, Nayla,” Zaveid exclaims shamelessly, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

The girl can feel the weight of his arm on her, packed with pure muscles and strength, but that does not stay long, because Mikleo is already pulling her away from the wind seraph’s reach, hissing at the topless man in the process.

“Hands off my girlfriend,” he says with a dangerous tone. “And if we’re gonna do this, you better put some shirt on,” the water seraph growls hostilely.

Zaveid raises his hands up in the air in a retrieving stance, too caught off guard with how scary Mikleo might be.

It goes to say that he will not like it if he catches the wind seraph trying to seduce his girl again.

While Nayla is being drag towards her boyfriend, the other two female seraphs are laughing at the spectacle from the background. While Edna is practically seconds away from rolling on the ground, Lailah is much more subtle in her amusement, using her long sleeves to cover the smile on her face that she is trying to hide.

Haha, very funny, Nayla rolls her eyes mentally, who is eventually getting used to their antics.

. . . . .

Day 7

“What are you thinking about?” Nayla asks a daydreaming Mikleo.

They are sitting in a royal garden’s pavilion, enjoying the fresh morning air and rare colorful flowers. Mikleo has his back pressed against one of the white pillars, while Nayla is standing at the opposite. The two of them are just savoring the greenery, when the brunette catches sight of him looking out to the vast garden, lavender eyes looking a little bit unfocused.

“Hmm?” he responds distracted.

“You’ve been making that thinking face for the last half hour. What’s bothering you?” she asks again.

When her words finally sinks in, Mikleo tries to avert his gaze when heat starts to creep onto his cheeks.

“N-nothing!” he mutters nervously, but this time she knows that something is definitely up.

“What is it? Tell me,” she begs with a sweet pleading tone, her big golden brown eyes looking up to his. The act only drives the boy into a more nerve-wrecking state.

“Um, well . . .” he trails off.

“I promise not to laugh,” she assures him with a smile, half lying along the way. She is not sure what exacting he has been thinking off, but from the looks of it, this is going to be juicy.

“I’ve been thinking about us,” he finally reveals.

“And?” she baits in for more.

“You know, about the future.”

“What about the future?” Wait, the future? Don’t tell her that he has been thinking about children! A red blush creeps to her cheeks, just like when Mikleo did. No, focus, Nayla, the brunette tells herself. There is no saying that it is the definite case.

“You know, what will happen if we are still together in the next decade or so.”

“Of course we still will be!” she insists in a snap.

“I’m not saying we won’t,” he tries to calm her down. “I’m just saying, should we think of a solution?”

“To what, exactly?” the brunette asks, still as clueless about this whole thing as ever.

“How are we going to stay together then? I mean, seraphs have much longer lifespan than humans. What are we going to do if you get older?”

The thought never crossed Nayla’s mind before. But now that he mentioned it, it does raise some questions to her mind.

“My mother was a seraph, but my father is a normal human. There must be something that can be done to make it happen, mustn’t there?”

“It could be that your father was made a Shepperd, thus allowing him to see her. Though the bigger question is still there. Seraphs can’t have kids. How was it possible that they had you?”

Nayla also has no idea about that. It seems like a visit to her home village is in order, to uncover the mystery of her birth, and possibly the key for maintaining a long lasting relationship for the young couple.

. . . . .

The night is so dark that no stars dare to shine in the sky. The hopeful twinkles are gone, engulfed in the thickness of malevolence that covers the atmosphere. Something so powerful yet so invincible to the eyes is on the move, creeping in the shadows of the city, sucking in negative energy and spreading seeds of evil to many unsuspecting citizen.

A dark cloaked figure manages to sneak into the castle undetected, crawling into the depths of the dungeons without as much as alerting the guards. In a room where no light reaches there, lies a purple stone placed on a table, a mysterious remnant which had been found nearby the destruction of a particular hellion.

A guard was kind enough to spot it and point it out to his superiors, who turned out to be one redheaded military adviser. The piece of rock lands in Maltran’s hand, who was curious enough to take it in. And that was how the thing managed to get itself into this confined space.

“Wake up. I know that you’re not dead,” the hooded figure says to the stone, his voice vibrates heavily. Yet the rock remains still, though only for a second, before it glows with malevolence, allowing a purplish translucent shape to gradually take shape.

“Ah, if it isn’t the great Heldalf himself. What brings you to my dwelling?”

“This isn’t your dwelling,” the other voice simply answers.

“Any threshold I occupy is my dwelling. The world is my home, oh Lord of Calamity.”

Instead of reacting to his claims, the figure asks.

“I know that you have the information that I seek. Who is it?”

“Who is what?”

Heldalf raises his fist without as much as a word, focusing his malevolence energy into that particular hand, ready to strike the fox and beat him to admittance.

“Woah, woah, there! No need for violence!”

He might not be dead yet, but his moves are really limited. If he smashes the purple rock, Lunarre’s last connection to this realm, he will be dead for real.

“Tell me,” Heldalf repeats, this time gritting his teeth with slight impatience.

“Okay, fine. It’s her, the girl. The one with the same eyes as her mother. She is with the Shepherds,” Lunarre finally spits it out.

Lunarre studies the lion hellion’s expression carefully, trying to figure out what he is plotting next.

“Tough crowds to beat.”

“I am unbeatable. Knocking out these scrawny kids will be no trouble.”

“I’m not concerned about the others, though. The brat has her mother’s powers, and that’s how she got me in like this.” Lunarre gestures at his appearance with his hands, looking crestfallen.

“Huh, you underestimated her too much,” he snorts. “You should have known better than to mess with a being such as her.”

“I didn’t even know that the brat was an Omniseraph in the first place.” Until it was too late, of course. “But it’s good to take note of the others. They can teach her stuff. You know just how fast an Omniseraph can grow stronger. What must be learned in decades can be compressed into several nights by one.”

“I’m not as careless are you are, Fox. I know how to tread carefully.”

Heldalf turns around, his steps dying down. Just as the hellion arrived, he disappears quietly, like a cloud of smoke, as if he is never there in the first place.

“Wait, you’re just gonna leave me here?” Lunarre exclaims in disbelief, knowing that he is talking to empty air.

The fox spirit is just about to retrieve back to his stone, when the cloaked figure abruptly appears right behind him.

He swallows back a scream.

“Think of this as my payback,” Heldalf says, before engulfing the spirit with his bare hand.