Devil Ash Deceit (Devil Ash Saga) (15 page)

That morning at school, Aura noticed an immediate change. He had always been ignored by the other children and had no friends to speak of. When he entered the classroom and took his seat, the teacher and other children all stared at him before saying anything.

Finally, the teacher spoke up. “Mr. Draxler, please remove that…
armor
.”

“I can’t,” Aura turned red with all the eyes on him.

“This is not a battlefield, it is a classroom.
My
classroom. And in my classroom, students wear their proper uniforms and not random pieces of armor.”

Aura stood. He kept his eyes low, trying to avoid making eye contact with his classmates who had never looked at him for so long before. He walked to the front of the room and handed his teacher a small slip of paper. The teacher took it and began to read.

Aura has developed a delicate and contagious skin condition on his right hand. For this purpose, and for the safety of the other children, I must insist he wear his containment gauntlet at all times. Any questions can be addressed to me. – Amos Draxler.

“
I see
…” the teacher said, eyeing Aura’s right hand suspiciously. “You’d better keep it on, then. Go sit.” Aura walked back to his desk, and just like that it was decided he could wear the gauntlet indefinitely. He was relieved his teacher seemed so dismissive of the strange fashion statement, and hoped things would continue on as normal.

But his classmates weren’t so quick to let the issue die. It started with odd looks from all the kids. Throughout the course of the day, Aura caught nearly every kid in class stealing inquisitive glances at him. At first he was flattered, but when the looks he started getting were those of disgust and laughter, the reality of his situation set in. He was now even more of a social outcast than he was before.

The next day, his classmates evolved from simple stares and began passing notes. He noticed it before class even started, when one boy slipped a small scrap of paper to another boy. That boy immediately glanced at Aura and snickered. Aura watched him later slip the same note to the boy in front of him. The note worked its way around the room throughout the course of the day, passing through everyone but their teacher and Aura’s hands.

At the end of the day the classroom cleared out. Aura lingered behind working on an assignment. He didn’t like walking the academy’s halls until everyone was gone. When he finally got his bag packed and was about to leave the room, he spotted the scrap of paper on the floor near the door. Someone tried to throw it away, but it never reached the wastebasket. Aura leaned down and picked it up. He read:

Look at Draxler’s stupid glove! He reminds me of a defective product.

Yes. I was thinking the same thing! He’s a defect!

Defective Draxler!

Draxler the Defect!

He’s not even a real noble, you know? His daddy is as South Hell as they come!

He’s daddy’s little defect!

More was written, but Aura crumpled the paper up and tossed it away without reading any of it. That night, he thought seriously about removing the gauntlet at school and showing everyone his secret tomorrow. As he lay awake in bed, he wondered what his classmate’s reactions would be if they knew he was a death toucher. Would they still pick on him?

He didn’t reveal his power, though. He carried on like nothing was wrong while his classmate’s behavior devolved. After notes came insults. It started out lightly, with whispers behind his back and never to his face. He’d hear someone say under their breath as he passed by, “
defect,
” and he would ignore it. Occasionally, it would be paired with some act of accidental pushing or bumping into in the halls.

On one occasion, a boy named Bones pushed him from behind. Aura fell flat on his face. “Oops,” Bones said. All the children watched. No teachers were present, and no one was going to help Aura up. “I’m sorry, defective Draxler! At least you had your armor on to protect you!” Bones stepped around Aura.

“Yo Bones!”

Bones the bully turned around. A fist from Nora Draxler connected with his nose.

The crowd dispersed, some laughing and some scared. Nora kneeled down and picked up her brother’s book.

“
Demons
,” she said, holding out the book to him.

“What did I do wrong?” Aura asked, snatching the book. “I’m not mean to anyone. I don’t bug people. It’s not my fault I was born to a non-noble! I didn’t choose to have this evil hand! So why does everyone have to be so
mean
?”

“It’s just going to get worse, you know.”

Aura wiped the tears and snot from his face with his left hand. “No… I won’t let it!”

That night, Aura came to his father with a request.

“Are you serious?”

“I am,” Aura said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about our family legacy. I want to follow in your footsteps. I’ll start training with you now and join the Royal Guard when I’m ready.”

“And the family business? You’ll take over for me too?”

“Of course. ‘We Draxlers make the best steel,’ isn’t that the family motto?”

“I’ve never been so proud of you!” Amos said as he pulled Aura into a loving embrace.

From that day on, Aura would meet his father at the factory after he was released from school. They would spend an hour at night training on the empty factory floor. At first, his training was studying. A week went by and his father still hadn’t let him even
touch
a sword. The bullies at school were only getting worse.

Aura started coming to training with bruises on his face and arms, his clothing suddenly having scorch marks. Amos took notice but never said anything about it. Instead, Amos tossed Aura into sword training with wooden practice swords. Aura was thrilled to finally get into it.

Weeks went by. Months passed. Aura’s aggressors continued to penalize him for being different. Aura took their abuse in stride. He wouldn’t allow himself to sink to their level and fight. Not yet. But he began to take notice that of all the transgressions against him, the majority of them came from the boy named Bones. That boy was quickly becoming Aura’s worst enemy.

Then one fateful day, Bones shoved Aura into a wall so hard Aura almost blacked out. With Bones’s elbow against the back of his neck, Aura heard his bully whisper to him.

“You think you’re tough now that you’ve been putting in time training with your old man? Your old man is pathetic, Southside gutter trash. And that makes you the son of trash. You’ll always be a
defect
!”

Aura was done taking crap from him. With a burst of anger, he pushed off the wall and made Bones take an involuntary step backward.

“After school today,” Aura said. “
Let’s settle this
.”

“You’re on, defect!” Bones said. “Hey everyone, daddy’s little defect here is going to fight me!” Bones ran off to rally his primitive friends. Aura walked to his next class, unaware of his sister Nora watching him go.

The rest of that day went by too slowly for Aura. He stared only at the clock on the wall, waiting for the countdown to end. When at last the final bell tolled, Aura burst out of his seat and sprinted out of the classroom. Bones watched, a smug smirk on his face. The boy and his posse headed outside to the yard to wait for Aura.

Over twenty minutes went by, and there was still no sign of Aura. Nearly half the school stuck around to watch the fight. Nora hid among the mass of children, waiting to see what her cowardly brother would do.

“Well boys, I don’t think he’s going to show up,” Bones said with arrogant confidence.

“Bones!” Another child burst forward. “I saw the defect fly towards the Southern Section right when school let out! Don’t you see? He’s run home! He’s given up!”

“I knew he would!” Bones said. The crowd rumbled and nearly dispersed, until Aura dropped out of the sky and landed. He stood before Bones holding two wooden practice swords. “What? You couldn’t fight me hand to hand, so you ran home and got some swords to attack me with?”

Aura responded by tossing one of the swords to the ground at Bones’s feet.

“What’s this?”

“We’ll duel with swords. It’ll be a fair fight,” Aura said.

“Sounds good to me!” Bones bent down and picked up the sword. The crowd began to cheer and chant, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

“You’re an even bigger idiot than I thought, defect! You think you’re the only one who’s started training early? My old man’s been teaching me swords for two years! There’s no way a beginner like you can beat me!”

Bones leapt forward with a downward slash at Aura. Aura shot forward, holding the wooden sword in his left hand. His right hand rose up to grab at his opponent’s sword. He pulled the sword aside, and with Bones defenseless, Aura slammed him in the side of the face with his own wooden sword. Bones dropped to the ground at once, a dark bruise forming on his cheek.

Just like that the fight was over. The crowd went nuts. Everyone cheered, “Aura! Aura! Aura!” He’d never had so much positive attention in his life. Not wanting to spoil the moment by standing around looking stupid, Aura thought he should say a few words.

“Listen up, everyone who gave me shit about
this
!” he said, motioning to his right arm. Everyone settled down and listened. Nora poked her head through the crowd to get a better look at her brother.

“This gauntlet is a gift from my father! I wear it with pride, because it was made by the best weaponsmith in the kingdom: my father!” Aura raised his gauntlet proudly for all to see. “It’s the only armor I need!”

That image of her brother, gauntlet held up proudly, was burned into Nora’s mind. She’d never seen her brother look so cool.

“Anyone else got a problem with that?” Aura asked. His classmates all shook their heads in denial. Bones still lay unconscious on the ground, his posse attempting to wake him.

“I didn’t think so.”

The school faculty was in an uproar over the fight between Aura and Bones. Many of the teachers pushed for expulsion. The school board decided to simply raise the trouble student’s education fees significantly. Amos and Angelica were grateful, but concerned for their son.

They had greatly misjudged how difficult their son’s condition was making his life. For Angelica, it felt like she had failed as a mother to protect her son’s childish innocence. She took extra care to smother him with affection in the following days. Amos felt the opposite. Though he was disheartened by his son’s ordeal, he beamed with fatherly pride that his once-lazy son was now capable of defending himself.

With the higher fee for Aura’s schooling, Amos would have to put off replacing his office window for a while longer. As he sat in his dampened workspace in the days after Aura’s incident, an idea struck him. When he returned home that night he had a special request for his daughter at the dinner table.

“I want you to paint something nice over the boarded up window in my office,” Amos said. Nora’s eyes lit up with excitement, but Amos was quick to clarify, “not a
boy
.”

“
Aww
,” Nora said, deflated.

“You can do a nice landscape, or even a demon for all I care. I just don’t want to stare at that blank piece of wood anymore.”

“I’m not as experienced with paint as I am with pencils, so I’ll have to practice for a while until I’m ready to commit to a design,” she told him.

The next day Nora joined her father and brother for their after-school training session at the factory. Amos surprised her by revealing an easel and several blank canvases for her to practice painting on. She eagerly taught herself how to mix colors together to create new ones and the various techniques used to apply paint to the canvas while Aura and Amos clashed on the factory floor.

Aura was in the middle of spear training, as Amos jabbed at him with a staff to teach him how to defend. The boy preferred the sword to the spear and offense over defense, but he was holding his ground. He tried sneaking in an attack when he thought his father’s guard was down, but Amos easily deflected his son’s blow and struck him directly in the gut. Aura fell to the ground.

“You’re too impatient,” Amos told him. “If you would have just defended a little longer, you could have taken a shot at me when I tired.”

“I don’t like waiting,” Aura said. “Better to just defeat your enemy and get it over with.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that line of thinking,” Amos said, grabbing Aura’s hand and pulling him up to his feet. “But you must possess the strength and endurance to pull it off. Something you have yet to attain. Rest a moment and catch your breath. We’ll continue shortly.”

Amos left Aura to rest and climbed the staircase up to his office. There, Nora swiped her brush across the canvas as if she were also practicing with a weapon. “How’s it going?” Amos asked.

“I think I’m finally getting the hang of this painting business!” Nora said.

“I can’t wait to see what you come up with, dear,” Amos said as he stepped around the easel to see what his daughter had been working on. His jaw dropped when he saw a painting of three shirtless men in ridiculously suggestive poses. Amos lifted the canvas off the easel and walked to the balcony overlooking his factory floor.

“Target practice!” he said, chucking the painting over the balcony. Aura responded immediately by blasting a small fireball into the air at his target. He hit the painting dead on, raining down scraps of burning canvas to the floor.

“You didn’t have to go that far! It was just for practice!” Nora said.

“I bought these supplies for you to practice landscapes, not more boys! If you don’t do what I asked for I’ll take them all away!”

“
Fine
!”

Over the next week Nora continued to follow her brother to the factory after school. She would work on her painting skills in her father’s office while the two continued their training sessions. Eventually, Angelica caught on to her family’s routine. She came to watch a few training sessions, and although she was opposed to it at first, seeing how happy Aura looked spending time with his father made her reconsider her stance on the matter. She started packing supper to bring to the factory so they could eat there together.

Nora continued to wrack her brain over what exactly she should paint for her father. She could easily do a landscape and get it over with, but that would be too easy. She didn’t want to waste the opportunity to use paint, and more importantly she wanted to impress her father. One day when her creative juices were running low, she took a break and moved to the balcony overlooking the factory floor where her father and brother were in the middle of sword practice. She watched them begin their mock duel.

Aura dashed forward, eager as always to end the contest with a single swing of his sword. “I’ll get you this time!” he said. The boy swung his wooden sword as hard as he could, only to be stopped dead in its path by Amos’s own blade.

“Too hasty as usual, boy!” Amos said. With his superior strength, he easily broke away from his son’s attack. Aura backed up a safe distance, waiting for his father’s next move. “Let’s see you defend from this!”

Amos launched forward, raising his blade and bringing it down quickly. But Aura had learned a new trick from his battle with Bones, and reached out to grab his father’s sword with his gauntlet hand. Amos was surprised by his son’s tenacity, but being a skilled and experienced warrior, came up with a simple solution and raised his leg to kick off of his son.

“Careful with that leg,” Aura warned him. “You wouldn’t want to
lose
it.”

Amos lowered his gaze and saw what his son was talking about. Aura had raised his own sword ever so slightly holding the blade against his father’s right thigh. If this had been a real duel, he would have lost that leg. Amos dropped his sword and smiled.

“You’ve really changed. I have to admit, I didn’t have much faith in you. But you’ve really proved me wrong, son. I think its safe for me to say that I don’t have to worry about the Draxler legacy, or our family’s honor. It’s in good hands with you.”

Aura turned red in the face and averted his eyes. “It’s just because I have the best armor in the Kingdom.” The boy held up his prized gauntlet and smiled. “Without this, I’m nothing.”

Nora, who had been watching the scene intently, was suddenly jolted with inspiration. Her brother had reminded her of something. Something
cool
.

“I got it!” she called down to them. They both looked in confusion at her. “I know what I’m going to paint!”

Nora demanded to stay the night at the factory to work on her painting. After school the next day the kids and their parents all planned to spend the night in the factory. Aura and Amos passed time by sparring while Angelica prepared their meals. Nora laid claim to the office and put up blankets around her work so that no one could see it until it was finished.

Angelica called out for everyone to come eat. Nora decided to skip dinner and stay in the office working on the painting. As the family chowed down, Aura thought he’d be kind and take Nora a sweet biscuit. He approached the office door and knocked, calling out for permission to enter.

“Aura? Hang on a second,” Nora said. “Okay, I’m ready, come in.”

Aura opened the door and stepped inside his dad’s transformed office. What had once been a dreary dim workplace was now a creativity-feeding chamber. Since the artificial sun had just gone out, the room was lit by the glow of hundreds of small candles places all around the room.

“Looks cool in here,” Aura said. “How’s it going?”

“I think I’ve created a masterpiece. Dad might want to consider making this into a logo if he were smart!”

“Not if it’s another
boy,
you weirdo,” Aura jabbed.

“Because of our ‘gifts’, we’re
both
weirdos,” Nora said. “But I think it’s our gifts that set us apart from everyone else. I think if you can manage to hide that cursed hand from the Royal Guard, you’ll go far.”

“It shouldn’t be hard,” Aura said. “I don’t plan on ever using this cursed thing. It’s too scary. I don’t know what would happen to me… What I would become…”

“Then don’t worry. You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.”

Another hour went by. Finally, Nora emerged from the office smiling wildly.

“It’s done!” she said.

At the same time, the demon invasion siren started to sound. The Kingdom was being invaded once more. Aura and Amos jumped up and headed for the door.

“Aura, you’re staying here,” he said.

“What! Come on! I’ve had all the training I need! I’m ready to fight the demons now!” Aura said.

“Wrong,” Amos said. “You have come a long way, but you’re still a ten year old boy. Training or no training, you just aren’t ready to fight the demons yet.”

“That’s bullcrap!” Aura said.

“Instead, I will ask you to take on an even greater task than clearing the Kingdom of demons,” Amos said. Aura listened up. “Stay here and protect your mother and sister. I want you take them all into the basement and lock the door. Should demons find their way in, you will be in charge of their safety. I’m counting on you.”

Aura was touched by the responsibility entrusted to him by his father. He could not deny his father’s request, and in minutes had Nora and Angelica climbing the stairs through a hidden hatch in the floor into the basement.

“It’s not fair!” Nora whined. “Right before I was about to show off my masterpiece!”

“Son,” Amos called to Aura one last time. Aura turned and barely managed to catch a sword that his father tossed to him. He pulled at the sheath and saw a real steel blade underneath. “I hope you won’t have to use it.”

Aura nodded and dropped through the hatch into the basement, slamming the door above him. Amos snuck out the back door to the factory, and making sure there were no demons nearby, proceeded to create a small seal on the door to hold it firmly in place. Hoping for the safety of his family, he took off to face whatever challenges the night would bring him.

Time drifted by slowly in the basement. The storage area was roomy enough, but it was also tragically bare. Since so much of their weapons and armor were being shipped every day, the storage room essentially stored nothing. The family sat on overturned crates in the rear room.

Almost an hour had passed when their playful conversation was interrupted by a loud
BANG
sound from somewhere close.

“What was that?” Nora said.

“Let’s all be quiet,” Angelica whispered. “Don’t speak.”

Everyone stayed quiet. They heard footsteps on the floor above them. A slow, curious pacing set of footsteps walked around the factory floor above. Aura hopped off his crate, his legs shaking so much they almost refused to carry him. The boy stepped towards the door to the hall. His mother put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back.

Aura turned around and whispered “I’m not a baby anymore.”

He walked to the door. Legs still shaking with fright, the boy gripped his sword and pulled it from the sheath. Holding it at the ready, he slowly opened the door trying to be as quiet as possible. He stepped into the hall and closed the door behind him. They’d left the hall unlit on purpose. Now it worked against the boy, leaving him blind. There was only one source of light that came from the opened hatch door at the end of the hall, the hatch that should have been closed.

Aura was alone in a dark basement with a demon he couldn’t see. Not wanting to venture too far from his family, Aura stood still by the door. At first he could hear nothing. The loud invasion siren was still blaring. A barely audible pitter-patter stood out from the sirens. It became easier to hear as the sound came closer. Aura raised his blade just as a creature walked over his foot. The boy jammed his sword downward in a panic, piercing…something.

There was a loud squeak and something was stuck to his blade. The boy kicked it off and lit a flame. The light revealed a dead cat-like demon on the ground. It had long claws and a wiry opposable tail like an opossum. Though the body was demon, the creature’s head was that of a man’s. The teeth were caked in dried blood.

Aura tossed another small fireball down the hall. It reached the area directly underneath the trapdoor hatch without revealing another demon. Aura felt a brief moment of relief, until dozens more of the disturbing creatures dropped down through the hatch. All of them headed straight for Aura. The boy returned to the room with his mother and sister, slamming the door in a frenzy.

“What’s going on?” Angelica asked.

Aura pressed his back up against the door and braced himself. “Help!”

The ladies jumped to the job, pressing their backs against the door. They felt a strong force pushing back and the three of them struggled to keep it closed. They all braced themselves as they defended their safe room. When a minute passed, the family finally felt the demons defeat.

A few tense minutes later, the demon invasion siren stopped ringing. Aura of course had to be the one to test the waters, and so he once more braved the hall. This time he walked all the way down to the hatch and poked his head out. Nothing demonic in sight, he dropped down to fetch his family.