Ch2 - Conflict

Aust has started to recover, but something looms over the horizon. Someone, something, both stalk him and know of his secret. Can Aust overcome both of these threats?

"Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted."
William Hazlitt

     It was the weekend, just another weekend. By now he was feeling better, though still somewhat weak. Today he was trailing through the city. He had never been through it before and had already gotten lost in the urban wilderness.
     He left out of a store and glared down an alley in which he saw something that stunned him, he ran through the alleyway and came to a chain link fence that glared out of the bay the city sat on. In the distance was an island with a children playground and a pier leading up to it. The island however remain mostly empty. Behind him, he felt a chill rush down his spine. They were finally making their move. The darkness had called him out and he could no longer resist. His face went from sadness to a smile as his cold body slowly warmed up, power gently flowing through him. He turned around and came face to face with Revali.
     "I saw you running down the alley and I wanted to speak with you, so I followed. I wanted to apologize for how I acted. I judge you based off what I saw and I know that one should never do this. I would like to know if you would accept this apology and allow me to give you a tour around the city." She said slightly bowing her head but by the time she looked up, Aust was walking past her. Then her turn around a corner within the alley into another pathway. Frustrated, Revali followed and started, "Hey you! I'm trying to apologize to you here! You could at least have the resp-"
     A scene cut her off unexpectedly. Around Aust, a circle of light hovered, slowly rising up past his head. As it passed each part of his body, his outfit slowly changed. His jeans changed into thicker jeans with several pockets, along with gun holsters with their matching guns within them. His shirt changed to a plain black one and a golden jacked materialized in thin air around Aust's arms. The brown hair atop his head also changed color with the transformation, changing from its dull brown into a glowing orange. The last bit of the transformation that occurred were atop his nose, a set of sunglasses, pure black sunglasses.
     "Wait... You... You're the Golden Gunner?!" Revali stood back stunned as the sight before her finished.
     "What does it matter, its not like you will tell anyone." Aust chuckled as he pulled out a revolver.
     "What do you think is going to happen? I'm going to tell everyone! No one will believe this!" She exclaimed excited.
     Once again, Aust laughed and shrugged and then walked past her, "Just as they will believe the story about me begging to tears to get you to take me on a date?"
     She turned and glared at him, "Wha? How do you know about that?"
     "I called a friend to ask what I missed, he told me about the version you made up to make fun of me asking you out. Trust me, not a person will believe you at school." After he finished laughing, he had gotten out of the alley and pulled the trigger of his revolver. A halo of energy surrounded the barrel and magic symbols appeared along the edge of the halo. It closed in upon the barrel and formed a simple ball of energy. As his finger had finished pulling all the way back on the trigger, the energy burst forward and impacted the ground. At the location of impact, a massive stone pillar rose up, blocking the only entrance to that alley.
     "Why are you being like this?" Revali's voice shouted over the piller.
     To himself, Aust whispered, "Because I'm selfish..." No one could hear him, but it was how he felt. In the streets, everyone turned to look at him and behind everyone on the street, monstrosities started to emerge from the shadows. The demons known as Shades. A deafening screen filled the air as several pounced out of their hosts towards Aust. Almost instantaneously, massive bursts of energy crashed into each beast, the beasts dissolving out from impact.
     After nearly a dozen had fallen to Aust's attacks, the others backed off cautiously. They looked back and forth before looking up. The area happened to be under construction, and above them happened to be a massive crane. The Shades merged back with the shadows and sped along the ground upwards. Aust shot burst after burst into the shades, few had been hid, but a majority of them were to fast in this form for Aust to hit. He watched as the Shades manipulated people out of his reach. They merged with new hosts, construction workers, and had started to operate the massive crane. At the end of the crane was a huge magnet. They reached out with it and attached a large steel crate.
     Then the shades came back in their beast forms. Some pounced at Aust while some flanked him. He rolled to his side and shot one in air, its dissolved body splashing onto the other shades who used his particles to become stronger. Aust had forgotten that Shades could merge with each other, even dead ones, and it always became a hassle. He was going to have to be less careless. The merged Shade transformed his arm into a blade and thrust towards Aust. He jumped up and over the Shade, a golden afterimage in his wake, and while looking down the sight of the gun, pointing dead center at the Shade below, everything suddenly became dark. Needlessly he fired but the Shade was nowhere to be seen. It had merged with the shadow of what was above to escape.
     With the Shades below distracting Aust, one still operating the crane has used it to block out the sun causing a shadow that covered the entirety of the block. More Shades were headed towards Aust from all over. He squeezed the trigger again and again, Shades dying, dissolving only to be merged with one behind it. The Shades each started to attack ceaselessly, Aust barely had time to dodge any of the attacks. Duck, roll, jumping back and then to the side, not a single burst was able to leave his gun. For nearly ten minutes this went on.
     It happened suddenly though, as Aust had parried another sword arm with the barrel of his gun, the Shades all stopped for the briefest of seconds. They all seemed to be looking away, all in the same direction. Then they all merged with the shadow below and traveled into a nearby alleyway. Alleyways, as Aust had already know, are seldom lit. Only when the sun is directly overhead do the Shades fear it, and it being such a short portion of the day, this happened to be the perfect spot for a Shade to get away. There was no way to track them down anymore.
     Aust sighed. He was tired, unable to stop them, but something else bothered him. He shot down the pillar he had made prior with a simple magical bullet. In an instant it dissolved leaving Revali behind it in its wake. Aust started to walk away as Revali ran after him, but stopped when he pointed his gun into the air. A bullet emerged from the gun and exploded in air. Revali's as well as the eyes of everyone else were on the explosion, it was that of bright fireworks. As Revali looked back however, Aust, the Golden Gunner, was gone.

     The rest of the weekend flew by quickly. Revali hurried to school on the next school day, she couldn't wait to tell her friends about Aust's secret identity. However, she arrived to class to see Aust sitting on his desk. In his hands was a box, a simple lunch box, one he held in front of Revali mockingly.
     "Guys guess what!" Revali shouted out, her eyes glaring at Aust's. His eyes smiling back.
     "Is it true you lied about taking Aust on a date?" One of Revali's friends asked out.
     "Was Aust telling the truth?" Another asked.
     "What? What do you mean?" Revali was confused.
     "Did you really just lie to make yourself look better?"
     "Go on prove to them that we 'went' on a date..." Aust smiled. In fact, this was one of the few smiles he had shown lately.
     "How do I prove we went on a date, its not like he can prove we didn't!" Her retort tried to mask her lie.
     "Its very simple, just guess what is in my lunch box. I will even give you a hint. If we went on a date, then you should know, its left overs from what I had for lunch, complete with proof that shows where I got it." Aust held his lunch box up playfully. From his smile, she knew he was enjoying this.
     Revali backed off slowly, she did not know what to do. It was either guess lightly and get it wrong, or admit she was lying and try to play it off.
     She hesitated but finally said, "He is right, I didn't go with him on the date."
     "Then why did you tell us you were?"
     "Who else have you lied about? I thought you were a nice person."
     "You just want the attention from being popular don't you?!" Her friends said. Everything she had worked for to achieve, her popularity, reputation, friends, they were all disappearing.
     "Go on, tell them why Revali, I'm sure they are just dying to hear why you told me off." Aust showed an eager smirk.
     "Its because you looked sick... "
     "Like a... what Revali?" She was falling for his trap.
     "Like a drug addict..." She was looking down sadly.
     Aust pulled open his lunch box, not a bit of food was inside, instead of food, a piece of paper. "If you were with me over the weekend, you would know I didn't have anything for lunch you see, I was getting this to prove you wrong, that you just love to lie and judge things before trying them." Aust handed the paper around and opened his mouth again, "This drug test proves I've never taken any sort of medicine, not even cold medicine, let alone illegal substances, in my life. In fact, he gave me a prescription for sleep medication, as I have a mild sleep disorder. Slept like a baby since I got the medicine."
     "Why do you have sleep issues then, eh Aust? Because you go around each and every night?" She needed to get everyone on her side again before it got further out of hand. She had read books on mob psychology. If you get the majority to believe something so strongly, then those against it are wrong entirely, especially when the majority is riled up, but changing their beliefs to her side would make it even harder for Aust.
     "Oh I would love to hear this!" Aust stood up and started to walk towards the door. Calling back, he told her, "Going to try another lie to make yourself look better?"
     Revali had had it, through clenched teeth, she told everyone, "Aust is the Golden Gunner. I saw him change on Saturday and fight off some shadow things!"
     Everyone slowly looked at Aust, believing for a second. Revali was gaining the mob back, gaining her authority over Aust.
     "Is that true? Are you really him Aust?" One girl had said, everyone else was to shocked to ask.
     He continued walking and shrugged, "Maybe I am, who knows, maybe I sleep walk, but do you really thin-" Aust was cut off by getting tripped on a desk leg. He fell forward so suddenly he forgot to use his hands to catch himself until to late. As one of his friends helped him up, his nose was shown, covered in blood.
     "Aust as the Golden Gunner? Yeah right, that idiot couldn't even get out of the classroom, let alone shoot a gun. Geez you are so pathetic Revali," A boy said as he went to help Aust up.
     "Are you ok? What were you going to say?" Another girl asked as she helped lift Aust.
     "I thaid, that the Golthen Gunther would probathly kill somethone ith they thew of hith identithy..." He finished with a injured nose. He secretly winked at Revali, but only so she could see as everyone else helped Aust off, giving angry looks at her in the process.
     Revali had loss. Her friends had gone to his side, she had their trust, and it had all been taken by Aust to protect himself in his selfishness. At the end of the day, Revali looked into her locker. Lined along the walls were images taken out of magazines, images of the Golden Gunner. She had been one of his biggest fans, part of the official unofficial Facebook group for the Golden Gunner and was always interested in meeting him. Sometimes she had even dreamed of what would happen if she knew who he was. She had dreams of what it would be like if she was dating or married to him, or even using his identity as extortion to get things she wanted from him, things of any sort of any nature. Such was the mind of a teenager who had an idol. That night, images of Aust's hidden face burned in her fireplace.
     The next day at school, Revali sat in dismay as her friends had started to avoid her, spending their time with Aust. She was left to wonder exactly had happened that they became such good friends with each other that previous afternoon. She watched as he sat in his seat when the bell rang. He was scribbling something down onto a notepad frivolously and looking somewhat worried. For them, the week went along normally, Revali tried to get her friends back and was tied up in drama, while Aust was seen as the Golden Gunner on the news more and more, destroying wave after wave of the Shades, but of course, only he and Revali knew he was the Golden Gunner.

Author's Note

if anyone wants to review it, go for it >.<