Throwback

"Thrust!" the rough voice of a soldier barked towards the young boy he was training. He was amazed daily not only by the progress of the boy's training, but also his absurd growth. It was beyond comprehension, and it made him gradually agree with the child's mother who said he was destined to be a hero. He was Anak.

The young Anak thrust his bronze short-sword into the straw dummy standing before him with a straight, hard strike landing perfectly between the plates in the dummy's armor. Anak wore a satisfied expression at the neatness of the blow.

"Good! Now don't forget to cover, and pull back quickly after your strike lands." the soldier instructed with a smile on his face. It was hard to believe this was a boy only several months in age.

Anak pulled back into a defensive stance with his sword, mimicking holding up a shield. His stance appeared awkward as he did so. He wasn't used to behaving as if he used a shield.

"Oh, come on, Anak!" The soldier reproached, "You can do better shield work than that even if you are just doing the motions. I know you."

"Yeah, but I don't like shields." Anak pouted.

"Well, if your sword gets stuck in a tree and someone attacks, how will you defend yourself?" The soldier wearily asked. As a soldier, the importance of shield cover had been drilled into him repeatedly. He was trying to impart some of his own experiences to the boy, as something like his hypothetical scenario happened to him once during an invasion.

Anak smiled cockily, "When I grow up, I'll be big enough to wield a giant sword, one so big it can cut through any tree!" The boy declared his plans confidently, and the soldier loosed a barking laugh.

"I mean it!" Anak stamped his little foot angrily, only increasing the soldier's levity. Suddenly, from a distance the sound of a loud explosion echoed out. Smoke billowed up from the slave quarter, and sounds of screaming reverberated through the streets. Bloody people, mostly slaves, were running crying and panicked past the guard station Anak and the soldier were training in.

"An attack?" The soldier muttered dazedly, before snapping to reality once more. "Anak! Go inside! The soldiers will protect you!" He commanded the boy, who was staring at the smoke and bloody people with a blank look. A curious thought floated unbidden through his mind.

'This never happened before.'

The sudden, out of nowhere certainty startled him. 'Before? Before what?' He asked himself. He shook his head, clearing himself from the daze. Now wasn't the time to dwell on weird thoughts. He bolted back towards the guardrooms secure iron door. This was not a time when divine copper was readily available, only just having been perfected.

After getting safely inside, he peered through the slit of a window. He could barely make out a giant horned figure towering over Ischuros' walls. It resembled a bipedal bull, from what he could see. He watched as the bull-like being grabbed the panicked, running people and tossed them through its massive, toothy maw into the gaping throat. Looking closer, aided by his superhuman biology, he could see that the thing was especially targeting children.

Anak trembled, clenching his tiny fist in both terror and rage. It was irrational, but he couldn't shake the feeling he was supposed to do something about it. He looked down at his thin arms and his weak, child's body. 'I'm too weak though. What could I do?'

The two soldiers within, who remained behind for Anak's safety, watched the child trembling with sympathy, and watched him punch the steel wall. "I need more power!" He shouted aloud. The soldiers sighed. It would be cute if it wasn't so tragic.

Anak rubbed his shoulders, bemoaning his childish frame as he watched another large figure join the bull. It had a long, limbless reptilian torso and a lion's head, while a miniature star and moon orbited its skull. It roared thunderously, causing buildings to crumble under the pressure of the sound waves and opening a massive path of rubble.

He could never beat those monsters even with a body ten times the size of the largest man he'd ever met. Anak looked helplessly at his hands once more. Then, another curious unbidden thought flowed through his little head.

'Is power just in the body?'

At this question Anak shook his head. He knew of enchanters and their powers. He knew the king, who a great many soldiers could handily beat in combat, wielded an authority that could be considered power. But what kind of power did he have then, that could reverse this disastrous invasion by unimaginable fiends?

Anak shook his head. "I can't!" He cried out in a fearful sob. The soldiers looked at each other with a mixture of fear and sorrow. They felt the same, though they couldn't voice it.

'You can.' This time the thoughts became a voice. Anak's childish mind didn't think to question that.

'How?' Anak desperately thought back at the voice.

'You have more power than you know. An authority... you must learn to accept this authority and the responsibility it entails. You must think beyond the possible to the real truth. Your will is yours to control, you aren't controlled by your will.' The voice instructed patiently.

'What do you mean responsibility?' Anak sharply asked. This seemed to be a little too casually brushed over for his taste.

'Start by saving your people.' The voice gently responded.

'Well, duh.' The thought wasn't intentional, but it naturally arose anyways.

The voice in Anak's head laughed raucously, 'This is one of many reasons I like you, Anak.'

"Who are you?" Anak carelessly said aloud, making the soldiers look at him skeptically. This kid had been staring nowhere idly, then suddenly threw out this question. It wasn't odd to question his sanity.

'Someone you've met before... will meet in the future? Ah, this scenario is always hard to gauge chronologically.' Concluding with this unhelpful answer, the voice no longer spoke.

Anak thought over what he was told. He had authority? Over who? remembering the advice to 'think beyond the possible,' Anak reconsidered the meaning of authority, in accordance to what he was told. Something to do with will and power? As these came together, he thought he might be able to alter certain things about his reality. Though it sounded insane, he was truly letting himself 'think beyond the possible.' He decided to start small.

Within his childish mind, it became easy to accept that he had this kind of power, especially when he considered his parentage. Unfortunately, as the thought of his astral origins came to him, a scene came unbidden to his mind. A man appeared in a flash of blue, though somehow this adult was shorter than him in the memory. "You are a living weapon. You are my son."

Anak reeled backwards clutching his head. Was that all this authority could do? Destroy? As he gazed over the monsters ravaging Ischuros, he shook his head. This was already enough destruction for a lifetime. 'It's my authority, I'll use it how I please.' He stubbornly thought at the invasive memory. It was very much a childish reaction, but it was exactly the reaction Anak needed.

Suddenly deciding to skip starting small entirely, he stood up boldly as he raised his hand towards the bull like creature. A light flashed in his eyes, and the bull transformed into an owl with no legs, flying away distraught into the distance at this sudden transformation. Anak smirked at this scene. He was right.

Looking at the lion-headed fiend, he closed his fist, and shadows rose up from the ground, dragging the creature below the crust of the planet like a host of grasping hands.

When the monsters were gone, Anak looked over the massive portions of the city that were destroyed, along with the injured, traumatized people and he felt a twinge in his heart. He shouldn't have taken so long. These people had suffered because of him. Suddenly, he collapsed to his knees as memories rushed into his head like a tidal wave, eliciting a high-pitched scream of pain.

He recalled who, where, and when he was supposed to be. He remembered killing Bian, Azazel's words, the Sea of Non, being saved, finding Tzipora, the labyrinth. How had he ended up here, and now? When he recovered from the onrush of memories, he looked around, only to see the surroundings begin to waver like a wet, dripping painting. Reality was wiping itself away.

"That's the end of the scenario. Good job." One of the soldiers smiled at him encouragingly as white and orange light flashed from his pupils. The other winked at him flirtatiously, red flames dancing in the irises of his eyes.

Anak suddenly came to in his regular large frame, sitting once more by a bonfire reaching up to the ceiling of an expansive chamber.

"Welcome, to the last test." A voice rang out. A large figure in a hooded robe stood before him once more, unarmed.

"You again?" Anak groaned tiredly.

"Not quite." The figure tore away its robe to reveal an odd face. Sometimes he looked like Azazel, sometimes, King Gel-ad, and occasionally even Edo's face flickered in and out on his head.

"We're much worse." The false-faced thing smiled unnaturally.