"Ax, come on!" a boy yelled out to his friend, running through a narrow-like halfway in a school building.
Behind him was Axion, running too as security chased after them. "Right behind you!" he shouted back.
Before they could fully escape towards the left, Axion's friend noticed security making their way from there too "Oh crap, not that way! Come on!"
He ran forward, making his way to the window to leap out. Despite being on the second floor, it was the only choice.
Axion sighed and glanced over his shoulder, seeing a few security guards behind himself. Upon turning his head back forward, the guards were in front of him.
His eyes widened but he knew he couldn't slow down. Doing the only logical thing he could, Axion used the wall to jump off it and propelled himself over them and continued running.
"Haha! Nice one!" his friend yelled back, diving out the window.
No turning back now, Axion leapt outside too, landing on the ground in the dirt and quickly getting up and going full speed to run away.
The school facility was mostly for rich kids, or that's what the poor and bastardly people referred to them as. "Noble people" what a damn joke. Naught was noble about them.
The guards were common there due to such poor and bastards wandering the streets in this nation.
Panor City. Largest one in Vgorikia and the New World. Many stuck up houses and people with money, using it to buy the best of the best… How they got to it though, that's another story.
Enslaving bastards and the poor as literal slaves or contributors by making them pay weekly was their way of putting bread on the table. And a crap ton of bread too.
Vgorikia - the nation filled with the most poor people and bastards in the entire New and Old World.
Axion and his friend made it back to the trenches of Vgorikia. The dark parts, the slums one might say. All was dirty there, everything shady, dark and atop that, the poorest place for the poorest.
Panor Alley.
It stretched alongside the entire west span outside of Panor City.
"Ragnar, that was close." Axion said to his friend, out of breath and hands rested on his knees.
Ragnar simply nodded and took a few deep breaths before fully having it back. He was quite a big guy, at just 18 he is 6.8feet tall and weighs at 300lbs yet regardless is quite muscular. His hair was black and long, reaching down to his lower back and the way it's groomed could be described as that of a caveman.
And ultimately a bastard, just like Axion. The two of them were best friends for a long long time.
If size was not enough, he had yellow eyes alongside canine vampire-like fang teeth.
"It was…" he reached into his pocket "But we finally got this!" he exclaimed and pulled it out, revealing a manuscript alongside a few pieces of gold.
Axion looked at the manuscript. His hair was black and quite well kept for a bastard. Significantly shorter than Ragnar though, 6 feet tall and 176lbs at 17. Quite lean too from working out a bit and running like that. His eyes were a green color.
As said, Axion is a bastard like Ragnar. He had a mother that died of an illness when he was very young and doesn't know his father.
It never affected him much but his resolve is something different.
As for Ragnar, he never knew either of his parents and was taken in by Ax's mother. Since then, for the last 9 years, they've been best friends.
They could feel the eyes arising onto them from acquiring gold coins which were never seen carried in Panor Alley.
"Put them away." Axion told Ragnar as he looked around. He did so, lowering the amount of eyes. "What mindless idea was it to steal that? What even is it?" Axion asked curiously.
Ragnar wasn't the smartest but he did have his ideas… "It's a manuscript for basic Faint Power control. Seems like the lowest of lows is being able to cloak your hands in your element."
Axion sighed, almost looking away in disappointment "Again? You still believe that one of us has a Faint Power?" he asked him.
Glaring down at the manuscript, Ragnar became serious and nodded with no extra words. However, he didn't know what element. It was troublesome regardless.
Both of them had no awakened element. No Faint Power at all. Ragnar believed that maybe they had awoken something, however nothing.
Axion on the other hand did his best to keep the both of them just alive and well.
They began to walk in silence back to their little set up camp in Panor Alley. Ragnar was reading it. Ax's mother taught him to read and ever since he's been grateful for that gift. Not many bastards know how to read anyways.
The darkness was truly brimming, disorienting even to someone who's been here. It was quite dark even during the daytime.
Soon they arrived back and entered their tent.
Axion was just about to sit down when Ragnar called him over in excitement "Hey Ax, there's another manuscript with this one!"
"Oh yeah?" Axion asked with not much interest, entirely sitting down now "What does it say?"
Ragnar's eyes lit up as he read it out loud "The Commanders of Shaw!"
Axion didn't know what it meant. He didn't know a lot of things Ragnar often said. His best friend wasn't dumb and he knew that but sometimes he said weird and empty stuff.
"Huh?" Axion replied to his words a bit confused.
"Says here that the Commanders of Shaw were the 5 greatest warriors in the nation. But… It doesn't tell a time period though or anything else."
"Odd but hey, the past is in the past."
Ragnar nodded as he laid down the manuscript and pulled out the few gold coins. "So what are we gonna buy with this?"
"Don't know." Axion shrugged "We could get some nice food and good clothes?" he suggested.
Both wore worn out clothing and food was very hard to get where they lived so mostly they had to steal it.
"Or we go get evaluated in Dashai!" Ragnar directed towards another path. "I wanted to tell you this before, I just can't keep it quiet anymore."
Axion raised his eyebrow as he looked at him, not knowing what he meant.
He's sure to find out very soon.