Auralogy - Prologue

Prologue (Produced in Winter 2011, Revised on the published date)

    

Nightmare

Since the dawn of time, we have been surrounded by auras. These are just not forces: they engulf our entities in light.

And, according to what has been written by our forebears in the mysterious book called "Auralogy", these auras are capable of reflecting the feelings and emotions of those which they are borne upon.

Even though there is a specific study called Auralogy, the written properties and statements of auras in this book were disdained by scientists over and over again, eventually it was replaced by parapsychology since aura is also a type of paranormal. Some of the scientists, however, find this study interesting and still follow the theories written on the book, these scientists are known as Auralogist and they play an irreplaceable role in passing on this study of aura to our posterity.

Auralogy defines aura as not only a radiation but two poles of positive and negative energy that twists around us like Yin and Yang. This definition is also one of the main reasons why Auralogy did not get accepted to become one of the legitimate scientific studies because there was never a steady evidence to prove the existence of these poles of energy.

Our forebears also concern the order and equilibrium in everything. A portion of negativity should always equal to the same portion of positivity so that it would be balanced and never get beyond control. Still, there is always a chance of getting this rule broken – an inevitable process that occurs inside our heart and is catalysed by the emotions in us……

The Hidden Dimension was engulfed in darkness, bruised occasionally with dark thorns and withered roses. The wind that blew ever so fast was the only movement that survived throughout the land - a dispirited place which was totally contaminated by darkness in oneself. A frank sight it was to see some parts of the droughty land carpeted by dark grasses as if a glimmer of uncertainty could be felt.

Nobody had ever witnessed the formation of this frightening garden as everything was veiled by a hemisphere barrier the demon created.

The demon let off a deep breath as its yellowish eyes glowed like the luminous moon that penetrates darkness. Demons that transform from humans previously are mostly passive since their minds have not fully undergone reformations yet. Thus, nothing will really happen until someone or something caused the beginning of its gory carnival. A demon normally will not move recklessly unless something that is threatening to it appears.

A Hidden Dimension is meant to be dark but something darker than anything else inside the barrier had appeared. Someone walked in calmly as if all these things were nothing in his eyes. The demon snapped out of its mindlessness as it found him to be rather dangerous because a powerful aura with a horrifyingly gigantic size that could swallow its aura anytime easily could be felt from him. A simple command came to its mind and that was “Kill”.

Without any hesitations, the demon dashed affront and tried to give him a deadly tackle but his dark aura that emerged from the bottom shielded him in the nick of time. He stared at the demon and frowned but he said nothing. He turned his neck and raised his right hand slightly.

The emerged aura pushed the demon back to where it was and sank back to the bottom obediently afterwards. A piece of paper fluttered out from his pocket and words were printed on it via his auras as he began,

"Sainted and tarnished, demonic and angelic, both are linked but are different; an end should be brought to your final grief.” The paper went back into his pocket soon after.

"Well, another masterpiece during the battle, something Ryan Law can never do, he's too unsophisticated for doing these.” He ridiculed someone called “Ryan Law” and continued, "Amdusias, the murky horseman who escaped from the De-demonical Night centuries ago, I, Jackie Idref, in the name of the Aurelist of Staves shall eliminate you and purify the host you invaded.” Jackie cracked his fingers and opened his palm. Then a shadowy rod twirled from the aura beneath him, he caught it and the shadow fixed its shape to become a staff.

"Oh please, how can you forget an unsophisticated guy like me and fight it yourself?" A circular portal with music scores appeared behind him, a blonde guy walked in as he spoke and there was a hand-cannon on his back.

Ryan Law, the Aurelist of hand-cannon and also a pianist from the Bechstein family had arrived with a confident smile on his cute face.

Amdusias uprooted a dead tree by its will and threw it onto Ryan. Immediately, a blast from him using the hand-cannon in his hand destroyed the thrown tree. The dropped hand-cannon vanished into the shiny aura beneath him. “Your attack is no match for my cannons; it doesn’t last long even with my smallest cannon. Just give up.” Said Ryan as he took a new hand-cannon out from his back.

“I will do my usual A·Infiltration while you will distract and hold it, okay?” Jackie spoke Ryan into his mind using Telepathy. “Beg me.” Ryan mocked Jackie as if it was his revenge from Jackie‘s silly comment on him just now.

“Sure, maybe after you are dead because of Amdusias or me.” Jackie‘s evil reply petrified Ryan from in and out for a sec. His attempt to mock Jackie failed miserably and had almost sentenced himself to death.

“Alright, alright, you are cool but cruel at the same time, Jackie.” Ryan grunted as he changed into a larger hand-cannon that could do multiple fires at once. Lots of missiles were loaded and he launched them as soon as he shouted, “Milione Ripresa! (Italian: Million Shots)” The missiles launched were all directed to the demon and a flashy explosion occurred. Jackie teleported into the smoky area and had a thrust into the demon’s body. He went into its body after the thrust. The A·Infiltration (Aura Infiltration) succeeded.

Jackie landed inside an empty room with striped-walls, in black and white. There was only a dark wooden door in front of him. He tried to open the door but the door knob was too rusty to get turned, he broke the door with his staff and there was another identical room inside. He repeated what he had done but the door leaded him to the same room again.

An A·Infiltrator’s job is to save the victim from being corrupted completely by the demonic aura he or she produced. To do so, an A·Infiltrator must also solve the confusing Heart Maze to get to the Memory Room where the victim is sealed. A Memory Room is the place where one’s past stories or experiences are stored and it acts as the core of the Heart Room. One’s soul will show up in the Heart Room to take breathers whenever one falls asleep. When one’s aura gets possessed by the negative energy, the very last piece of one’s mind will be locked inside the Memory Room and that is the last resort to save one out. The Heart Maze is a distortion of the previous owner’s Heart Room that hides the Memory Room.

Solving the Heart Maze is a harsh task because its difficulties are based on how complicated the victim thought previously, the more complicated the victim thought previously, the more complex the Heart Maze will get.

“We could've bombarded every single door we see if Ryan was here.” Jackie gasped and continued smashing the same door to get to the depth. Finally it seemed like he got to enter the main hall after getting through a few more empty rooms, the main hall is a big ballroom with a swinging bloody red chandelier on the ceiling. The floor, the ceiling, the walls, the stairs, all was red in colour with only different intensities. A few cat toys could be seen scattered on the floor and that scene made him acquainted. It was the first time he was so unsure of the aura he detected and he really dislikes sticky situations as such since his skilful Aura Detections would usually have already made every bits of information about the aura he aimed at his fingertips. He stepped onto the broad flight of stairs after shrugging off his hesitations and moved on. Still, the cat toys on the floor remained at his highest priority of his concern and instincts literally told him nothing. There seemed to have no end of the high stairway and it became narrower and narrower as he went up. The lighted torches were arranged at random at both sides of the stairway. The torches are horn-shaped and it's not a very far-fetched logic to relate Amdusias the murky horseman with the shape of the torches.

He ended up in front of a black door after he had walked for quite a while. The door, however, exerted a very eerie aura, so eerie that it could make the calm Jackie trembled a little. He ignored his fear and went on. The door knob was surprisingly not rusty and he entered without breaking in. There was a curled figure and Jackie was very sure that it was girl because of the dress she wore. Oddly, the girl had a pair of cat ears and a pretty long cat tail. She also had a pair of easily-overlooked tiny horns which brought him disbeliefs of their existence. “Is she a human or a cat?” The spiritual self which was sealed in the Memory Room should be always the purest and the truest self. If she was a human, she should look like one but she didn’t. A variety type of guesses popped out one by one in Jackie’s head as he approached her to have a closer look. The moment she turned back she freaked Jackie out with her face. The room was really gloomy that he couldn’t have a clear view but he was very sure that her eyes were glowing bright yellow in colour like a full moon. What happened next was a ferocious stab from her on Jackie’s face, Jackie’s glasses flew up and blood began spilling out from his face like a small fountain.

Jackie woke up in shock and he looked around subconsciously, “Dream?” Jackie mumbled in his mind, he only then noticed that it was just a horrible nightmare. It was a quarter to dead seven in the morning.

He calmed himself down and someone knocked on his door. It was his maid, Alicia. She actually wanted to wake her master up but it seemed like she was a little too late to do so. She left after telling her master that the breakfast was ready. Jackie didn’t respond. He just went to have a shower after getting up and did anything else that an ordinary high school student would do every morning before going to school. Brushing his teeth, washing his face, changing into his uniform and the other stuffs which could be done in Jackie’s monotonous life that he once hated them but now he doesn’t since he had already surrendered to these unavoidable repetitive ways of living quite a while ago. He walked downstairs and Alicia greeted him while she put a few plates of scrumptious-looking pancakes and puddings onto the table.

“Please get me a canned Mocha, Alicia.” It was not quite a new thing to Alicia as Jackie asks for canned coffee drinks almost every morning. She obeyed his command and passed him a canned Mocha fresh from the refrigerator. He thanked her and he finished up the whole can of Mocha within a gulp. Unhealthy lifestyle he has but he doesn’t even bother.

“Guess I will be having breakfast with myself again…” Alicia was home alone once more. Since Jackie became a sergeant Aurelist, he rarely has any meals with Alicia, it’s either a canned coffee or it’s another atmospheric meal for him. She still remembered the time when Jackie was still an Aurelist in training, having meals and chit-chatting with her happily almost every day. However, Jackie is more like getting stronger day by day even though he has such an unhealthy life. Jackie dipped his index finger with some of his saliva and drew the Pentagram of teleportation on the door of his mansion.

He put his palm onto the centre of the pentagram and said, “To Allocer High”, the side lines of the whole pentagram glowed in dark as it is the colour of Jackie’s aura and the door could lead Jackie to a thrown door near the school for a short period of time,. Allocer High has a long corridor after the school gate and most of the students in Allocer call it “The catwalk way” where one's social status could be known when one is walking on it with the other students in a crowd. Jackie dashed off quickly since he is not that popular with fans who would ever appear suddenly from nowhere and send him waves of gifts......

“...like Ryan does.” Jackie ranted and observed the amount of girls surrounding Ryan, he is the ONLY pianist in school and his first concert during the Music Festival was the way he got his first large batch of fans. “Wonder does this guy even need to prepare lunchbox for himself or not, I guess all of his seduced victims will shower him with lunchboxes and free hugs.” Jackie spoke in his mind.

He felt sad for Ryan at the same time, it is a very tired work to be a celebrity with mad fans, especially when you are getting squeezed near the steel lockers by the mad fans, it would terribly painful. Also after fortnight of being an idol, Ryan could no longer withstand such a stressful job of being a celebrity and it seemed like it was a good timing to get him out of it. Of course he knew who was the right person to ask, he ran out of the crowds and patted Jackie’s shoulder then a legendary line from him made the girl fans he had shouted in shock, he clarified his relationship with Jackie proudly, saying , “Hey you girls, I am not straight, Jackie and I are couples."

Jackie was trying to tell them his real sex appeal but Ryan covered his mouth. The girls didn't faint but went more wild, the crowd crashed Jackie away and they were shouting something like, "Oh my! Gays! We love gays! Especially those handsome ones who have forbidden loves but they are dare enough to admit it!”

Jackie was really upset because he had just gotten into a ridiculous sex scandal with an idiot named “Ryan Law”, he would rather go to date with a camel than with him. Another crowd of mad girl fans caught their attentions and it looked like a new idol appeared in Allocer High. Someone seemed to have exerted a huge amount of elegant auras as well as pheromones. Both Jackie and Ryan could sense it and it somehow began to ignite furies in Ryan. The guy had a bass hung on his back and was leaning against the wall with it.

“He has the qualities to become a host!” Winry looked at her own handmade anime encyclopedia and her eyes were shining sharply with will and determinations like the hikers who wanted to conquer the summit of Mountain Everest.
“And definitely he would be MINE!” She joined the crowds and there it started the brutal war of girls!

“Get away you these girls! He is going to serve me for the rest of his life!” Winry dragged the fans in her way just to get to this very handsome bassist. Ryan whispered to one of the girl fans and asked with a scowling face, “Who is that guy with a bass?”

One of the girl fans answered, “His name is Lukas Crossfield, freshly transferred from Berith Secondary School, he had been a celebrity the moment he mastered his bass-playing in Berith, they also call him ‘The sexy bassist with a sexy voice’, some of his fans even transferred to Allocer High along just to be with him, but we would do the same thing if you ever get transferred away, nobody can take our Lord Ryan away.” A loyal fan she was, indeed.

Ryan pointed at Lukas from the crowd and challenged him by throwing him a line, “I challenge you in the name of the celebrity of this school! We are going to fight for the champion, Lukas.” However Lukas said nothing and he beamed at Ryan. He slightly bowed as he rejected Ryan‘s challenge after apologizing for it with a smile. His fans were shouting something like, "Oh Lukas, you are such a gentleman as always!”

Ryan was enraged and he scolded Lukas for being a coward. His rants and angers didn’t last for more than a minute because Winry knocked his head hardly as she cried, “Don’t you dare to insult my host with your dirty mouth!” Lukas clarified himself by saying “Excuse me princess, I am not your host.”

Jackie shook his head speechlessly and opened his locker. An astonishing amount of love letters flooded out from his locker as he opened it, those were mostly the love notes from the passive girls of Literature club, Light Music club, Orchestra too. They do know that Jackie truly hates to get crowded by noisy girls so they acted appropriately and used a milder way to communicate with their idol.

Ryan turned back and looked at him with a dropped jaw.

“You are more an expert in this, Jackie......” Ryan got back to Jackie and picked up one of the scattered love notes and said.

“Interesting, no wonder you are the strongest Aurelist in this place.” Lukas looked at Jackie as he said it sincerely. Jackie and Ryan were astounded by the word “Aurelist” uttered from his mouth. Winry noticed something wrong as their identities are supposed to be kept as secrets and they just got exposed. She held her hands together and rubbed her palm. “可視性·ゼロ!(Japanese: Kashi-sei Zero – Visibility · Zero)” A rather thin shuriken dropped out from her hand and huge columns of smokes came out from it. It was then followed by a violent wind that makes people around could barely open their eyes to see. She dragged three of them away with quick motion when the effects of her skills were triggered. Winry pulled them into an abandoned old library in Allocer High. The library remained deserted since the new one was built. But some of the old and unwanted books and racks were still inside there. It was quite a perfect place to have private talks.

“How comes he knows that Jackie is an Aurelist, is he one too?” Qualms got all over Ryan‘s head since just now, however the suspense only lasted until he saw a tea set.

“Wait, there’s a tea set in a closed library like this?” He approached the tea set and touched them with care like it was a precious treasure.

“Of course, this old library is treated as the school storage too. The tea set is probably from the so-called Senhora(Rich and sophisticated ladies) club which got disbanded not too long ago after all the only few 3^rd grade members had graduated.” Winry came to Ryan and explained so. Lukas gave Ryan some tealeaves he got from his place this morning when Ryan was looking for one. Ryan accepted it even though he was still a little unhappy with the incident just now.

Ryan poured some water into the teapot and heated it up with his Summer-based Aura.

Winry asked everyone whether they wanted to have some snacks or not. Jackie asked for another canned Mocha and Winry stuffed his mouth with a slice of fruit cake she brought as she said, “How unhealthy you are. Fruitcakes will do.” Jackie just chewed and swallowed the whole slice of fruit cake like a hungry wolf.

Eventually they were ready for a fairly fabulous teatime and the one who first pierced the dead silence when they were done was Winry. With passions in her eyes and tone she said, “My host….” unfinished because Lukas responded quickly and steadily, “I am not your host.” That did bring laughter to the young Aurelists. Lukas cleared his throat and only then introduced himself officially, “I am Lukas Crossfield, the Aurelist of archery, my apology for those silly actions in front of the fans just now”, and he bowed.

“And I am Ryan Law, the legendary pianist who is gorgeous, great, charming…” then Ryan‘s line was extended by Winry saying, “and also very boastful, illogically boastful.” with the word “boastful” emphasized hardly and Ryan went totally speechless after that. Next it was Winry’s turn, “My name is Winry Jellybell, the Aurelist of shuriken, I am not from the ninja family but I am a big fan of Japan anime. You should follow all my recommendations; they are all the best, absolutely the best with my great tastes in choosing them.”

Jackie was staring at the steaming cup of tea all the time until Ryan patted his shoulder and made him to introduce himself, “I am Jackie Idref, the Aurelist of staves”, sounded like the number of lines that Jackie would say will ever be more than a whole page of A4-sized paper, still better than being monosyllabic.  Even though his friends were talking all the way, he remained silent as if he was a walking shadow.

Time sure flies, they chatted until the bell had gone. Surprising it was to see all of them being in the same class when they returned. “This year is going to be fun enough for sure”, Ryan said as he put down his bag. “And you are going to get smacked if you are having too much mischief”, Winry gave his head a knock as she said so.

Still, Jackie didn’t even lift his lips in a bit since then.

Something did go wrong……

Something was rampaging in Jackie even though he had his poker face on like a torn puppet.

Continue to Chapter 1