Synopsis: When Senior Drama student Amaranth Graves embarks on a Class Vacation to Spain, the boy arrives in the land of the conquerors expecting to spend a summer sunbathing, visiting museums or frequenting discotheques. However, his vacations take an unexpected turn when he's attacked by a band of thieves and then, a platoon of gargantuan frost giants. Saved by three girls he never expected to meet during his first few hours in his mother's homeland, he unseals the past of his legendary predecessors and accepts his true calling as a Cruciator: the sworn successor of a legendary hero, and pledges to find out why the thieves wanted the weapon, the fabled sword Tizona, and intends to get to the sinister plot brewing in the horizon. Aided by three selfless female Cruciators and the Greek goddess Artemis, will he be able to succeed in uncovering the conspiracy that had been set in motion nearly 800 hundred years ago? Or will all heroes succumb to the machinations of this infernal actor? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ IMPORTANT: Major rewrite ahead _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Prologue ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it." ~Miguel de Cervantes ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ There were people who said magic existed. Perhaps they were right. Because today, I had seen the impossible happen. And the impossible was where my story started. Heroes... It was such a funny word... I never imagined myself as a hero. Heroes were selfless. Heroes were austere. I couldn't possibly be one, even by mistake... I was raised to be noble, kind and not flaunt the fortune I had—No, I wasn't an spoiled brat, sorry. I actually considered myself pretty lucky, born in a gilded cradle, had a loving family, parents and a big sister which dotted on me like there was no tomorrow, a really kind and helpful white pet cat, the master bedroom of my house... Yet I was a nice person despite all this and... ...and I had a few good friends, was a straight A student, was... I hate to sound arrogant, but... I was apparently really nice looking (something that would become too evident even for me to gloss over one month before this madness all started) and even skipped a year and got my dream job on the Bolshoi Ballet Company only a month before. That was way too lucky to get stuck with being a hero. And in spite of that, regardless of the gifts I had been endowed with... I still felt empty. I didn't have the heart of the girl I had always loved. I hadn't seen much beyond the borders of the US,—let alone North America— or even retraced the roots of my mother's family. My roots. I felt something had always been missing. Something that wasn't quite right. I wasn't terribly self-less, but all this plenty always felt like window dressing... as if something was not quite right. As if my family knew I was looking for something and tried to distract me, keeping me in a dream-like haze. But money couldn't buy anything... and it certainly couldn't buy happiness. Then, when I least expected it, I got your answers. The answers. As I stared into the eyes of the frost giant,—one that stood so tall even that even with me atop the rooftop of a two story building I couldn't look at his eyes without looking up— I understood the reason for my emptiness, for that lack of a true direction in my life. Why I felt there was something missing inside me all along. Because there was. And I had finally found it. And I was going to make sure I was remembered for it. The giant moved forward, and I entered the fray. _________________________________________________________________________________________________
Still too early to judge. But it is an okay from me, have you wrote more than this? Btw im subscribing to the latest chap of this novel. Hehehe
I am just getting started on the editing process and will be uploading more soon, don't worry about that.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Reveille ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The strangest thing I noticed when I left the shower was the cold. It was freezing. And yes, that was odd. It was Summer. The temperature should've been way over 55 F, yet even with the AC off, the room was chilled to its remotest corner. I felt my skin stiffen and turn soft as I stepped out, wrapping my arms and torso in the towel as fast as I could and grabbing away the nearest source of warm air I could think of: the drier. I turned it to it's highest setting and blew some warm air around meself before drying my hair, feeling the heat return to my skin and letting an extra dye away my freezing cheeks to a rosy color before turning the contraption off and pulling a shirt over my head. This morning had been really strange. For the ill informed, this had been a strange morning, but to be honest, so had most mornings since the start of my new school year, —which I had taken to affectionately call, The Year— as I had referred to the rest of the school year that started after I was transferred over to my new school. The reason had been that, despite being only sixteen at the time, I had been asked to skip straight to Senior Year. Now, normally this would result in... issues, to say the least. However, the fact that it was a performing and normal arts school and that I had a monumental growth spurt in the weeks leading up to the transfer, compounded by my ability to deal with most stuff the public school system had deigned to toss my way meant not only did I fit in. I thrived. Yes, that's right, I was surrounded by older, wiser students, and I was faring better. Seriously, at this point it's going to be even harder to sound modest. Said growth spurt had replaced my lanky body with something you'd see in an Olympic gymnast or figure skater. Not the 'best' type of body a guy could get, but really good looking for a barely 16 years old teen boy. Add to that the wealth from my family, the humongous sixteenth birthday festa I threw before entering school (and which the whole city would talk about throughout last year, what with the party going from a Hotel ballroom into the streets below) and the fact that the best students of said arts academy had seen me perform live and been impressed with my acting in ye olde school's first production of Don Quijote and you get instant popularity despite everything else having conspired to murder your social pedigree. Alright, arrogant mode off. There, it's much better... and now you know how lucky I was. I wasn't your sob story hero-slash-heroine. But I certainly wouldn't be a jock in any sense of the word. Also, this luck wouldn't last for long. When the Seniors had called a meeting to decide where we would be going for our last field trip, everyone had been flinging ideas around. Naturally, they noticed my conspicuous silence and that of my sister (whom I had threatened to keep her mouth shut lest she earn my scorn, and my scorn could give the worst women's a run for their money, as Rachel knew all too well) and that was when my plan to go unperceived backfired spectacularly. Everyone immediately realized that one of their 'Idols' (oh gosh... yes, they had nicknames, and I was a recipient!) so to speak, had the perfect solution in his mother's origin, since everyone knew everyone in this school. 'Hey everyone, how about Spain! Amaranth-boy here could be our guide and all! He's Spanish after all!' they had all clamored loudly. There were only a few problems with that: one, I wasn't Spanish. I was half-Spaniard. My mother was the Burgalese girl... and two, I had never visited Spain beyond looking at pictures from my mother's youth albums and looking up the places she had visited back then on Yandex (Google had gone belly-up in 2008 bankrupt and the Runet then essentially cannibalized the internet). In other words, I knew jack-squat about Spain. Both me and my sister were able to speak Spanish down to the accent so I did say I could feign being their interpreter. Thankfully, the teachers on the field trip were all fluent Spanish speakers, so I wouldn't have to do anything. But one thing still remained. I didn't want to go. Since now I was stuck in a hole, I had no choice but to go. After all, someone needed to look over my sister and make sure she didn't break anything. After finishing dressing up in a sheer black 'I'd Rather be at Deer Camp' shirt (which summed my mindset up right now), the green baggy cargo pants —they were soft and if I was going to be sitting for 10 hours straight, I wanted to feel as comfy as I could— and the black Demonia platform boots I could only use when I wasn't going to be walking an awful lot, I ran downstairs with my travel bag slung over my shoulders. I certainly did not expect everyone to already be in the car. Apparently, mom had decided to wait me next to the driver's door. Given Rachel had probably already hugged her and wished her good luck on her own journey, I guess this was to be expected. Sighing, I wrapped my arms around my mother, realizing how warm she was and how frozen and crisp the morning air was. There was definitely something weird about the weather given most mornings had been rather warm up until now and we were in the initial weeks of Summer and not the first few weeks of Winter. After breaking up the hug, I almost thought about asking mom if it was just me or the weather was really having bipolarity issues. This was that weird. Well, at least it was nice. Even if my arms froze, it was still better than unbearable heat. "Goodbye mom..." I settled for. It wasn't like we weren't seeing each other again, right? "Farewell Amaranth" she said, pressing a kiss into my forehead tenderly, which made me wince slightly, but I didn't complain about the somewhat childish gesture "Take care of yourself... and your sister. God knows she can't stay out of trouble for more than eight minutes..." I smiled and gave her an smaller, shorter hug. "I will, love you Mama!" I finally said as I opened the door to the driver's side of my CX-9, closing it and watching as Gracie returned towards the house, waving one last time before closing the door. I waved back at her, as did sis from the shotgun seat. She then closed the door and vanished into the house. I had a lingering feeling that I wouldn't be returning here for a while, if ever. But since that idea was silly and unfounded, I just sighed slightly and revved the car to life, sliding the seatbelt on right away before my eyes darted right. Bingo. I turned to address my sister. "Seatbelt?" I asked, though it was clear it wasn't a question. "Can't you just focus on driv-" "Seatbelt?" I pressed on, noting how my sister seemed to shun fastening herself. Given her 'comfortable position' right now —sprawled with the recline as back as she could and with her feet on the dash— I suspected using the seatbelt was not a high priority for her. "Bro..." she pleaded with me, trying to make her visage look pitiful. I only glared at her, making it clear I wasn't driving without her using the bloody seatbelt. Finally, she gave up, righted up her seat, freeing space for one of the other two passengers on the back seat and ended up fuming over the dash as she pulled the seatbelt and fastened it around her waist. "There!" she exclaimed, clearly disgruntled "Better?" "Passable..." I mocked, smiling smugly as I pulled out of the driveway and into the traffic. "I still don't get why you hate seatbelts so much..." the blonde boy sitting behind my sister asked with a playful smile. "Oh just stop it!" Rachel objected, digging through her Twitter feed to distract herself. "I just don't like having to sit upstraight in a friggin car!" "Good thing we aren't flying tourist then!" the blonde added too happily. Sis just kind of shut up, grumbling unintelligibly. That's why Aston —the blonde boy sitting behind her in question— was my best friend. We thought along similar lines. The guy was kind of like me in a different way as well. Despite being 16, he was a Senior as well. Now, something I should have mentioned was that his mother owned the Academy where we studied. I know, I am making it sound as if he used his mom's influence to skip a grade... except the guy was on AP everything, and he still was the star of the Academy's Figure Skating team. He wanted to be either a figure skater or a Ballerina. Now, despite those two futures sounding feminine, my best friend wasn't a weakling or 'manlet' as some would say. He was as tall as I was now, and his figure seemed willowy and flexible, but it was clear from his posture he packed the same amount of muscle as any teen dude, albeit more discreetly. The only feminine things were his hands, face and hair, which I also shared with him in this regard. He was also more of a fashionista than I was, dressing in the best brands all the time... in fact, right now he was decked in so many Gucci and D&G stuff his suitcase was probably the most expensive thing in the car, including the car itself! Even his hair, —perfectly straight, with long bangs and bronze highlights— screamed 'I'm so stinkin' rich I could buy Bel-Air if I wanted to'... It truly was a wonder he didn't use makeup, —which would have essentially made the worth of his whole person soar past the clouds— and still managed to look like a freaking model (which I was surprised to learn he did not want to be) even when we were going to do something completely dirty and dusty and essentially sleep badly for the next 10 hours. There was also another passenger. After all, I did mention I was taking three people to the airport. Riding on the back seat alongside my best friend was the best friend of my crush. As you'd expect from the kind of friends I had been making since I changed schools (being the new guy is supposed to be ruinous, not glamorous!), the girl was very popular, almost as much as her best friend herself. With long, midnight black hair and a body built like that of a glamour model, Felicia Cuda was pretty much one of the two sweethearts of the entirety of Hesperia Academy. Her voice, which was her most prominent trait, was the smoothest and nicest sounding in the city, sounding so velvety it was almost fragrant, her dulcet, soft words being so enthralling you could almost taste the sweetness. Thus her dream of being an Opera singer was a foregone conclusion, one that I didn't question as much as Aston's refusal to be a model. All the students loved her. Well, they said they did. Often, I'd find girls commenting on her and 'her bestie, 'Ms Perfect', hogging attention all for themselves... and guys themselves would spread rumors about one, the other, or even both, being more than just good looking. Indeed, her bestie Selene was often said to be a bit on the slutty side. Naturally, I often ignored this. Well, mostly... I say mostly because the way they spoke of those two didn't bode well with me. However, I did know that at least one of them was at least a bit too bold... and she was sitting right behind me. As for Selene? I couldn't think of her that way. Not because I would mind... but because it was a good way for me to fantasize while I spent time 'on my own'. Also, her personality never struck me that way. Oh, and she was also the crush I was talking about, if it wasn't clear enough. There was also the fact that between Felicia and Selene, I always thought of Selene as more popular. People spoke about her more often. She had a higher social status. She spoke plenty of languages and she was also incredibly good looking even when compared to 'Lucky Felicia'. However, almost everyone seemed to be pinning for the cool and flirty, midnight haired Slovak over the blonde, high fashion socialite ragazza from Turin. What this meant was that Felicity was also more approachable, so anyone could talk to her. This was, sadly, not the exception with me, as it seemed to be for Selene... ...Because ever since I met Selene, she would ignore me. The girl acted as if I didn't exist. Even when others were being addressed, she'd always leave me hanging around, even when I asked her something, even the time. I genuinely wondered what I must've done to deserve her scorn. But the worst thing was that from what I recollected, her bestie had a crush on me. Yes, you're reading right. A popular girl crushed on me and I was not particularly happy about it. The only thing that made this worse was the fact that I was a girl crazy idiot that couldn't stop inwardly fretting over her feeling something for me whilst I still felt something for her best friend. If you're confused now, I have terrible news for you my friend. It only gets worse from here. Fetch yourself some aspirin. Right now, I was thinking of a way to avoid going on a group outing, mostly in an effort to avoid my crush. Avoiding Selene was, so far, my number one priority. I needed to come up with something, —whatever it was— to spend most of the day away from the rest of the class. Away from her. Even now, the idea of crossing paths with her scared me, among other things. There was no way I could even look at her. I could only hope things turned out alright. _________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Departure ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ When we arrived at the airport, I left the car right where my mom would pick it up tomorrow. While my Titanic sister had no issue whatsoever with her luggage (or our own), Aston rapidly sprung to action by flaunting his wealth and after slipping a fifty greenback bill straight into the pocket of an unassuming stewardess who had been nearby, got us a big cart and even pushed it for us. This was truly a display of the strange influence my best friend packed. One thing was that he was rich. The other one was convincing people who otherwise wouldn't do something to do so even though they have better things to do. Even wealth didn't do that sort of crap. We had the woman wheel our stuff to the counter while Aston went to the clerk to try and fix the seating around. Something that worried me, as I could see a mischievous glint in his eyes before he left, claiming he would find me a comfortable window seat like I had asked. Though I was a bit worried, I couldn't complain. I wanted to have a view of a city I had only seen in pictures (to be fair, my mother wasn't a native of Madrid. She was from Burgos, so it isn't like she knew much about the city either, even if she did know far more than I did). The terminal was crowded when we arrived. Our group had gathered near the customs area in a circle. Everyone was watching something on someone's phone. There seemed to be some sort of conmotion around it. The sound of steel clashing and echoes coming from the phone made me think it must've been from a movie or something. Well, at least it sounded that way. When I stepped in closer, I could hear everything more clearly. Fighting sounds, blades swinging in the air... it sounded like one of those swashbucler action movies. I looked at the footage more closely before it caught my attention. Two girls, both blondes, seemed to move around a bullring, which was already worrying. However, things worsened when I heard one of them speak. Spanish, with the same accent as that of me, my mom and my sister. Oh, and the girl in the footage was beautiful. Hell, she might have been even better looking than Selen- No, that's just not possible. Upon even closer inspection, I noticed the place was gorgeous. Even through the shaking camera's image, I could see the entirety of the ring clearly. The arena was clearly the bullring known by the name of 'Las Ventas', which was also the largest bullring in Spain and the main bullring where we were headed. She seemed to be fighting another girl, who was dressed in red. This one had longer hair tied in a ponytail. The girl who had spoken, on the other hand, was veiled in white and black, her own hair a bright and lovely shade of blonde that seemed to change from white gold to dirty blonde as she moved. The long sleeves of her white crochet bolero fluttering wildly in the wind. Her enemy, on the other hand, dressed in something resembling a revealing Matador outfit. She used a short sword that contrasted with the humongous one the girl in black and white was slinging around one handed. It was the most impressive thing I had seen in forever. The way the combatants moved seemed almost unnatural. They essentially danced in each other's personal space until one backed off. The other would try and attack from the side right then and there. When the would be target dodged, however, the offensive actor would withdraw, allowing the other to force the attacker back and counter with their own assault. Every step they took seemed devoid of imperfections. This seemed like the kind of thing some of the nerds over at the AV club would be able to pull off. Well, they'd be nerds in a normal school. In our school they were basically potential directors and they would act like it, down to yelling at everyone and being the closest thing we had to bullies. But the more I saw of the video, the stranger and more surreal everything seemed. When the video ended, I told them to play it again. Apparently, I must've been more forceful than I felt, since everyone seemed taken aback by the way I said it. Well, at least they already noticed I was here. When the video played, I saw their movements more carefully, taking note of their choreography... then realizing there was zero choreography to their movements. The lightning was also off. The way the pieces of debris fell was also not something you'd see on a movie set. It looked real. Like, actually real. As in 'that really did happen' real. I almost grabbed the phone myself, but I suddenly noticed the crowd had gone from chirpy to being dead silent. I looked around me and then noticed why. For one, the girls in the crowd suddenly seemed apprehensive. One of them looked towards me, blushed and then looked away. I couldn't help but feel she was hiding something. Then I looked at the white iPhone carefully and asked the guy who was carrying it if he wouldn't mind letting me take a closer look. He handed me the phone and I grabbed it in my hands, with a familiar scent overloading the tip of my nose. I wasn't holding an open flame, but it suddenly felt like I was. I almost tossed the phone back at the guy. Before the crowd could disperse, I heard footsteps. Footsteps I just knew all too well. The clicking of expensive, open toed heels that had made me sigh whenever I heard them on the hallway at school. The cadence of a loose yet firm gait, as if she was walking down a runway. Those were all things I associated with her. Just her. The love of my life was close. I felt my breath fail me suddenly and a smell of brininess that always followed her around filled my nose, a fragrance that not only was incredibly alluring to me, but also acted as a borderline aphrodisiac. Then I felt a really soft and small hand resting on my shoulder and I gave way. My queen was here. "Right," she started, looking around at the crowd and then at the guy holding the white iPhone with a moon charm in his- Hang on... there's only one person with a moon charm on her phone! She walked straight towards the guy and took the phone straight from his hands. "Right... As I was saying, who took my phone?" The guy, despite his burly appearance and wide arms, seemed unnerved by the slender but still taller girl as he raised his hand. "Well, I-" "Not you!" she hissed offhandedly as she didn't even glance his way, having turned towards the crowd. She then looked at one of the girls hiding behind the wall of female students. She looked as if she was about to be assaulted or robbed at gunpoint, her dirty blonde pigtails trembling alongside her petite body, her red hoodie not helping her look much bigger. "...you." Now, I couldn't tell how she did it, but Selene addressed the girl in such a way that despite her soft voice and rather hushed tone, the way she spoke dripped such strong poison even I felt the butterflies in my stomach increase and my hands go restless. "M-me?! I didn't steal your thing. That guy over there did!" the young girl, which I now acknowledged as Lexi —a third year known for her stunt double antics— argued, but Selene walked up to her nonetheless, towering over the much shorter girl. After all, Selene was 6 feet, and on her heels was literally my height. Lexi, on the other hand, was barely 5 feet by comparison and wore thin sole sneakers right now. Selene glared at her for a few seconds as the shortie trembled in place before sighing, turning around and turning the way she came from. "Next time you blame someone for stealing, don't laugh. I could hear your voice all the way to the bathroom." she said as she walked away, phone in hand, towards me. I felt a hand grabbed me from behind and turned around to find Felicia and Rachel standing together. Rachel seemed mildly amused by the scene. I knew she liked seeing girls scaring the shit out of each other... and then there was Felicia, who was Selene's best friend. Unlike my sister, Felicia seemed to be smiling in a predatory way, almost as if she was looking at a fine meat cut. I felt slightly intimidated by her gaze, wondering what she was up to. "W-what are you looking at?" I spat, feeling strangely self conscious right now. So naturally I missed the next best thing. Selene had been standing right next to me, looking at me with an strangely inquisitive expression as I felt my face redden, realizing how close our faces were right now. Since I wouldn't be able to say anything, I kept my mouth shut, but my face was surprised enough to convey the message. What the hell is going on here? Then in an instant, Selene came so close I almost fainted. Then she took a whiff of me. I couldn't tell how red my face was, but I am sure it wasn't a healthy shade of red. The gorgeous blonde in white pulled back, smiling politely at me in a gesture that melted my heart on the spot. Thankfully, the rest of my body held together just fine. "You smell nice," she mentioned as she turned towards Felicia and the two walked away from me and my sister. This put a very confused look in my face. Just what the hell have I gotten myself into? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ By the time we were through customs and into the VIP Lounge (and I had learned that Aston had also paid for us all to use it so we wouldn't run around the airport unchecked, which as you might imagine, went SNAFU as expected). We had decided to seat together and sip on as much free coffee as we could get in order not to fall asleep on our way there. The last thing I needed was class hearing my snoring. This was about the worst thing that could happen to me, especially with Selene being around. She was a big no no in this regard. I looked at Aston's tablet as he seemed to peruse throughout the restaurant guides to find a good place for us all to eat once we arrived. He must've noticed, because he suddenly stopped to look at me. "...what?" "Nothing..." I lied, trying to look the other way and finding myself feeling watched by his black hole gaze. "Don't lie to me. You wanted to ask something, didn't you?" he asked stubbornly, prompting me to sigh again as I decided I could share my doubts with him. "I have a question." Duh! "You don't say..." "Was there something in Spanish news recently? Something about an incident or event at Las Ventas?" Aston arched an eyebrow as I noticed his fingers suddenly moving throughout the screen, looking for anything online that might ease my worries. "Well..." he started, showing me the screen, "There's a report from El Pais that mentions Las Ventas bullring was closed for repairs three days ago and... apparently they botched something, because some of the seats ended up smashed into rubble. That's a very hefty loss, the way I see it." I sat immobile, reading the words and confirming everything he had just said... and suddenly felt I wasn't getting enough air... so I stood up and grabbed my lappy bag. "Where are you going?" my friend asked as I made my way towards the sliding doors. "I want to grab a bite. Something greasy... You coming?" He shook his head, waving me off before returning to his tablet. "Plenty of stuff to do, but good luck. Remember, we are leaving in 30 minutes!" I nodded in acknowledgment and went straight through the set of doors, rounded a corner and once out of view, slumped against the wall. Just what the hell is going on?! Hopefully it would be nothing bad... would've been what I thought if my intuition wasn't the way it was. I knew how it would be getting soon: much, much worse.
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