Above All Opps

The tower

A month later.

Chase had felt himself becoming stronger and stronger during this past month and he felt proud. In fact, it was the proudest he had ever been in his whole life.

"You've been doing well master." Tridius beamed. He was very happy with the progress of his master and it appears that his training had worked, causing Chase to become more confident in his abilities as a fighter and a student.

In fact, the training program was simple: The moment he woke up he would study his textbooks, then he would do a morning jog of about 10 kilometres and then came in the push up and situps before practicing shadow boxing and finally sparring with Tridius. Before he went to sleep, he would study again. The food wasn't an issue as Tridius always brought him something to eat and Chase had never questioned what he had given him since he somewhat trusted him now.

"I think it's time to confront the tower." Tridius said, stretching.

"Do I not need more training first?" Chase asked.

Tridius shook his head. "You're strong enough to attempt the first few stages and you'll get stronger as you advance." Tridius started walking and Chase followed. "Jump on my back, I'll take you there immediately." Chase obeyed and climbed on the wolf's back before it slowly started raising itself up from the ground and in a matter of seconds, they were up and away.

They were going pretty fast and they reached their location in about ten minutes. They saw a tower going higher than the clouds and Tridius headed towards the top.

"The tower has a hundred floors which get harder the further down you are." Tridius explained. He doubted that his master would hear him at such high altitudes so he had decided to use telepathy.

"Shouldn't it start at the bottom so we can make our way up?" Chase telepathically asked.

"This tower does not work like that." With that, they arrived at the very top of the tower. Chase felt himself suffocating a bit but it was manageable. Upon reaching the top, a door inside the wall opened allowing the people outside to walk in the dark room.

"How are you going to get in?" Chase asked. "The door is pretty narrow."

"Do not worry master." he said reassuringly. Just then, smoke formed around Tridius and his unusually huge form turned into a cute pet like form: He looked like a baby wolf. The top of his head was dark blue, his nose was black and his eyes were light blue but this time he had pupils and even his ears were dark blue on the outside but white on the inside. His tail was blue and white and his paws were dark blue. The part above the paws had ice fragments and his wings had disappeared inside his body. The rest of his body was white with some shades of blue here and there and an ice stud could be found in his right ear.

"Cute." Chase said as Tridius jumped on his master's right shoulder. Tridius hated this form because he knew that he would be called cute. He was meant to be scary and fierce looking, not cute! "Even though you have such a fierce name you look cute."

"Alright master let's go inside." Tridius said, ignoring his master's attempt to tease him. Chase wearily walked inside the room and jolted a bit from the lights suddenly turning on before taking in his surroundings.

The room was quite spacious but there was nothing particular about it, just an empty room: the walls were white washed with holes all around the room. Upon stepping inside it, the door automatically closed behind them and it wouldn't open again.

Suddenly, an arrow flew out of a part of the wall and headed straight for Chase. Chase instinctively dodged but he knew that he wouldn't be lucky the second time. Some sound was heard a couple of metres and the boy looked straight to realise that a door had opened for them.

"Be careful master, the door wouldn't just open to let you go through easily." Tridius warned. Chase nodded and started walking towards the door slowly. An arrow sprung up on him again and this time he was ready for it and perfectly dodged it but upon touching the floor, a tiny hole was seen but the wall quickly regenerated and the hole had disappeared.

"Poisonous arrows?" Chase thought to himself as he anticipated the next arrow and swiftly dodged it. The further inside he was advancing, the number of arrows multiply and it became harder to dodge. The exit was at least thirty metres away and it was literally raining arrows. At some point, the arrows slowly started showing new features: Some of them had fire on the tip whilst others had ice or lightning on them and some were travelling very fast because of the wind element that they were attributed.

20 metres left but Chase felt like it was more than that as the number of arrows flying increased once more.

"Use the elements that you learnt during the past month master." Tridius advised. Chase was still dodging but he had processed Tridius' instruction and waited for an opening. But, there was none.

The arrows were coming so fast that it was not possible to cast an element. A couple of arrows would have allowed him to but there was too much and their speed kept increasing. Chase felt sweat pouring out of him as he dodged the multitudes of arrows approaching him, what to do now? he questioned himself but even his thinking was hazy.

But, the room suddenly turned cold and nothing moved. Chase wondered what had happened but Tridius gave him an explanation.

"I temporarily froze the room." He stated. "You were going to keep on dodging until you wore yourself out so, I had to step in."

"Thank you for that." Chase gratefully transmitted. "I should have trained more on speed." He reflected.

"Don't worry about it master, " Tridius said, "You are fine."

"If you say so." Chase didn't know why but he trusted this random companion of his even though they had just met a month ago.

"But, " Tridius continued, "This is the only time I will be helping you master, you are on your own now."

Chase nodded and walked towards the door unto the next challenge.

*****

Rumours spread fast and a month after Chase's disappearance, everyone knew who was involved. Nobody cared about him, it was only for the gossip.

"I heard that Lucas was involved in his disappearance." A girl told her friends as they sat at a table inside the canteen.

"What did you expect?" Another girl asked. "If Chase is involved, Lucas is definitely involved." Everyone around the table agreed and in about ten seconds, he was forgotten.

"I heard that they beat him pretty badly." A group of boys inside a classroom talked amongst themselves.

"I saw Lucas and his friends when I was coming back from a party during the storm, and they seemed frightened." Another boy commented.

"Tell us more." Another boy said. But before he could say anything, Lucas passed through, looking quite angry which caused all the boys to shut up.

They all watched him before and made sure that he was out of ear range before resuming talking.

"So I was heading home straight after a party, " He started, "Then I came across them but they were looking quite lifeless and there were traces of blood on their clothes and shoes but as soon as I saw them I hid."

"Are you some kind of coward?" His friend asked him.

"Yes I am." He simply replied.

"Good to know." Was the reply heard. The boys quickly moved on from their convo about Chase and talked about something else.

Meanwhile Lucas was heading to the principal's office since he was called there. He didn't want to go but he had to.

Finally he arrived and went inside the office without knocking before taking a seat untold.

Maria sighed and looked at him straight in the eye. "Tell me what you did to Chase. Don't you dare lie to me since I already know."

"So if you know, why am I here?" Lucas rudely asked.

"I just wanted to hear it directly from you."

"Well I'm not saying anything."

"So I guess you know what happens now?" Maria asked as she classified a bunch of folders on her desk. "Are you going to reveal who was with you?"

As much as he wanted to snake, he decided to say silent, awaiting for the principal's verdict.

"You're excluded for 3 months." She stated. "If you don't want exclusion, I could sell you off to the police for attempted murder."

Lucas knew that he didn't kill Chase but he found it pointless to argue and just accepted his fate. Maria could have handed him to the police but Chase was possibly still alive and they didn't plan on killing him but, even if he went to the police, he would be released quite quickly but the amount that his family would have to pay would be huge. Even though everyone was quite well off, they didn't want to waste as much money as they had to.

Lucas stood up and walked out, slamming the door behind him as he left.

Maria scoffed and sighed again.

"What a rude boy."