Arablest/ Prototype

“I must thank you two for coming alone. Are you two ready to die?”

Leona and I stood in a clearing on a path that had strayed into the forest. We had walked there, right to where the bandits said they’ll be.
Obviously, I knew that this was a trap but we had no choice. What else could we have done?

Well, I suppose I could just leave and run away, since it had nothing to do with me, and I do value my life, but... nothing much mattered anymore. So I came.

Actually, I have no idea why I did come.

Interestingly enough, this bandit spoke as fluently as I did. Behind him was a hut, where there were some bandits sitting on various objects, their weapons nearby. Not all of them used axes; some had swords, and there were also a variety of other poorly made weapons that don't wish to describe.
Leona readied her lance, which caused me to look at her in surprise, and this very action caused the bandit to laugh.
“Ahahahaha! You think you can take me on? Well, I must prove you two wrong. I will order that the village elder not be hurt during this battle, so you don’t have to worry. Maybe then you two will listen to our demands. Come, try me! And the boy can join, too.”
He pulled out a hand axe and threw at me.

"Woah!"
I instinctively leaped off to the side, and it flew past where I used to be. That was fast! If I had been any later I would have been hit!

"Jeremy!" Leona cried, taking a step towards me. "Are you all right-"

Then remarkably, as Leona took a step towards me, the axe flew back where Leona was standing only seconds before, and the bandit caught the axe, and also rendering Leona speechless.

And as for me, after seeing that, I don't know if I could have been any more speechless than I already was.

The bandits sitting near the hut themselves were laughing at us, but I ignored them. They were not important.

Or, at least, I tried to ignore them, but I couldn't. However, I wasn't going to let their laughter get to me—!

“This is a special axe! Try and hit me, if you can!” laughed the bandit who had thrown the axe. “I do not have to even move, and the two of you will also have to watch for attacks from behind!”

He threw it again, this time at Leona, who sidestepped to dodge it. I looked back at the axe, and literally saw it curve in the air and speed back towards me, where I dived to the side. That’s impossible! I thought as my mind finally took over my instincts. The axe defies the laws of physics!

The bandit caught the axe again, and I swore. Not only did I have to get close to attack, I would have to watch for the axe from behind. However, the axe could not strike from behind if he had not thrown it, but that allows him to be able to defend himself from any close ranged attacks, which was all Leona and I could do. Looking around to watch for the axe would also be dangerous, because the bandit could attack us. Who knows what other weapons he had up his sleeves; ok, well, he didn't have any sleeves, but still.

Fortunately for us, the bandit was so confident in his own skills, that he allowed us to fight him instead of having the bandits surround us, and then kill us and the hostage. Too much confidence could be your downfall; and walking into a trap confidently only means you don’t know something or that you’re hiding something. And that was part of the plan I had.

...plan?

Well, that's troublesome. Things were already not going how I planned it, but then again most of it was as we went along.

Well, anyways I wasn't that stupid to walk into a trap blindly, but there was nothing I could do at the moment.

So this guy was either confident that he could win, or he was hiding something. I didn’t know which, and I hoped he wasn’t hiding a secret weapon somewhere.
Did this guy have another hidden weapon like his hand axe?
I swore aloud, and Leona looked at me.
“Jeremy! What’s wrong?”
“Give me a moment. I’m thinking.” I replied. I probably shouldn’t have said that aloud.
“Oh, so you think you are the one with brains around here, eh? Well, I will not give you time to think, then!”
The attacks on me increased. I was literally forced to keep jumping out of the axe’s way, and it flew much faster. However… there was something rhythmic about it. A pattern.
After consistently dodging attacks and some counting, I figured it out.
The bandit could throw his axe so that it moved slower or faster, to give me more or less time, respectively. But, the time it took for the ax to reach my position was roughly the same the time it took for the axe to reach the zenith of its arc.

So that means, the time it takes for the axe to hit me from behind if I didn’t dodge it is twice the time it takes for the axe to reach me, starting the count from the second it passes me.

Keeping beat is easy. I am a musician, although I don’t believe myself to be that good.
Constantly changing the beat (increasing or decreasing the axe’s speed) doesn’t really challenge me that much either. My athletic and swordsmanship skills, however, are not as good as I would have liked them to be.

However, running forward would make it harder to keep track of the time, as I have to watch for when it the axe would pass my position, and would completely mess up the count. It would give me more time, at least. It’s good that he hasn’t changed his throwing technique yet… But I thought it was too consistent. Was something up?

The fact that he spoke fluently meant that he could very well have something up his sleeve, as he was different from the other bandits.

But it could also mean nothing.

What if the axe were to hit a tree and get stuck? Would he be weaponless? I had to try it out.

I started dodging the axe, and my dodging brought me closer to the edge of the clearing, away from the bandit, to see what would happen. I eventually backed into a tree.

“Interesting. Are you running away, boy?” asked the bandit, who threw the axe again.
This time, as I dodged out of the way, I looked back, and literally saw the axe cut right through. Seconds later, the axe was zooming back towards me, and I ran towards the bandit to dodge. The tree seemed to groan as it fell over, cut and burned where it had been hit by the axe. Perhaps all that friction from cutting so quickly caused the burns. What the... That's not possible! What's with this axe?

“I have already thought of that, boy! As I have already told you, this axe is special!” laughed the bandit.

So. That confirmed a few things for me.
There probably weren’t any bandits behind us, but it was still possible.
The next thing it told me was that no matter where I was, the bandit’s target would always be about halfway between the bandit and the zenith of the axe’s arc.
The axe had some sort of magical power in it that made it an extraordinary and overpowered weapon, and it was in the hands of a bandit, too.
It also told me that the bandit could not be disarmed, but he was weaponless when the axe left his hand, even if it was only for a short time. This meant he was unarmed whenever he threw it…
So the only time I could move forward was after the axe passed me on its return trip to the bandit, and I had to stop after the bandit caught it, so I could estimate when I would be attacked. Not a lot of time, but eventually, I got closer and closer to the bandit, and the counts grew shorter.

There had to be a limit as to how close he could throw the axe. There should be a certain distance the bandit would deem too dangerous to throw the axe.

I shouldn’t kill the bandit either, as this was a hostage situation. If we disabled him, then maybe we could trade instead of dealing with the bandits.
But that would be extremely difficult, especially for someone like me, and I could not relay my plans to Leona without the bandit knowing. So I had to carry out this new plan.

A plan that probably wouldn’t even work, and would probably get myself killed in the process.