Finally the meteor storm nightmare was over, but there was still one more problem within our path. It was the metal dog. Although it had taken some damage, it was still standing ever menacingly. I felt a jolt of fear climb up my spine as I looked into its eyes. They were getting bigger and redder than usual. Instinctively I knew what was going to happen next.
“Kaya Ogana,” I yelled to them. “Find cover now. This monster is about to attack.”
The giant metal dog was getting ready to fire those familiar energy lights from its eyes. Judging from the great big eyeballs, I could tell that taking those beams of light head on would be fatal even for me. It let out a terrible growl and shot out a terrible flash of red light from its eye. Luckily, I was on the move as it barely missed me by the hairs on my neck.
It looked at Dashe next and growled, “this is the end for you human.”
Oh no! Dashe was in trouble and I wasn’t close enough to help him. He was not moving an inch, but his breathing was subtle. Dashe was vulnerable and in a lot of danger. Angling my body forward, I slithered past a few broken metal men and stopped halfway, looking up at the monster. It really wasn’t trying to bluff us, the monster wanted to erase Dashe at that very moment. I dashed towards him with everything I had, but I still was too far. Within seconds of its next energy beam making contact with Dashe, a figure appeared in front of Dashe. It was Ogana, I don’t know how he did it, but there he was and ready to protect Dashe. The strange red light hit Ogana, engulfing his massive body completely. I winced my eyes as I saw the flash of light carry Ogana away into a cave wall. His body hit the wall hard making a large dent into the metal.
“Nooo Ogaanaaa!” I yelled reaching my hand, but I was still too far to get to him.
Ogana wasn’t moving a muscle and his wound on the chest looked severe. Another blast like that and he would be a goner. My emotions were running wild as I saw two of my companions in critical condition. It was my entire fault they were this way. Just like it was my fault Paul and Tye had been kidnapped. “If only I had been there quicker, if only I had done something. Anything.”
My anger began to swirl uncontrollably; I felt a sudden change in my own energy and another unfamiliar presence. The bloodlust inside me was incredibly overwhelming. I wanted to take my fury on something, anything would do. My body tensed as I looked up at the metal dog, my first victim. No, control yourself!
I couldn’t let my anger take over again, otherwise I would lose myself again.
“Rats! I held back too much,” the metal dog said now attacking with its tentacles. “This time I will get them all.”
“What now?” I stopped moving completely.
My body was frozen stiff for some unknown reason. It wouldn’t respond to my commands. In that moment I felt a strange object grab my waist so tight. A large metal tentacle belonging to the metal dog. In mere moments, the creature had all of us in each tentacle. The tentacles lifted us up closer towards the giant menacing creature.
“Ogana are you okay?” I yelled turning my head with difficulty towards him.
He was barely alive and covered in blood. Dashe was in the same condition although his injuries weren’t as bad. I struggled to get loose; however, its grasp on me was tight and strong.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t use my power up close,” Kaya cried, “I would destroy you all.”
“Whatever happens don’t use it, “I agreed with him in a loud growl. “I will get us out of this pickle somehow.”
I felt bad for putting them all in this condition, somehow I had to make it right again. My anger was still swirling wildly building up at astonishing speed. I could barely hold it as it felt like it was about to erupt. Budging hard, I couldn’t get free from the tentacle as I rattled left and right. Perhaps, I was more injured than I had presumed. Only thing I could do was buy some time by making this creature talk.
“So what are you?” I asked it.
Its eyes looked at me with such an evil intent as it swizzed hard on me more. It laughed and drew me in closer with its tentacle, “I am your worst nightmare.”
That wasn’t good enough. I had to stall for more time to let my anger drop and regain mobility of my body.
“I heard from people you are Katarina Fox’s personal pet,” I lied hoping it would work. “And I also heard she got you from the future.”
The metal dog growled loudly almost ripping my ear drums. For a few seconds all I could hear was strange ringing in my ear.
“Your sources are wrong,” it snapped, “what I have with Katarina Fox is a mutual agreement. She brought me to this world from another dimension and made a pact with me.”
It took one of the innocent people beneath its feet with its tentacle and swallowed him whole into its mouth. I felt my anger spike up again after I had done so much to suppress it.
“In this world I have a supply of humans as many as I can eat,” it continued. “In return for this wonderful meal, I give her some of my power and technology to use for her cities. I make weapons and soldiers for her and I all I require are humans to eat. I would say that’s a pretty great trade right?”
I had heard enough, I wanted to destroy it using every remainder of my strength. What was this unbearable feeling? This incredible wrath that swelled deep within me, threatening to consume me whole. I tried hard to suppress it, but it wouldn’t subside at all.
“Now you are next,” it growled bringing me close to its mouth with its tentacle.
I felt an ominous blood lust in the air. Frighteningly enough, it was coming from me.
All of a sudden I began to laugh like a maniac. I was staring death in the face and yet I felt alive. Something was taking over my body and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. In fact, it felt like I didn’t want to stop it. This rage, this insatiable bloodlust felt like the real me.
“That’s fine with me,” I said in a voice not my own, “but I’m a meal that likes to fight back.”
My mind felt warped and my body felt stiff and different. I could feel a terrible killing intent brewing strongly from within me. Everything around was becoming clouded, I had let my anger take over and this was the price I was paying for it. Seconds before I lost consciousness I noticed my tattoo glow and two guns appear in my hands. They were black painted, not too light and not too heavy, but just right. This was the second time I had seen these fine piece of artillery since the time I was still in Rogue. My father’ s friend Lai Leing had brought these weapons over as royal gifts for my father, but he had thrown them away after his friend left. I remembered his saying, “a warrior doesn’t need useless trinkets to fight in a real battle.”
Suddenly, I felt myself being pulled into darkness while something vile took control of my body. My anger was going wild and I had no way to stop it. I kept falling into what looked like a pool of darkness. The light above me seemed to be getting farther and farther away. I couldn’t control what was going through me, it felt like I was being pulled into oblivion. I was right! A yellow energy seemed to be surrounding my body as if I was entering a hole filled with it. Fortunately I could now move my body as I saw where I was headed. I was kind of freaking out because this sort of thing had never happened to me before. There appeared to be land beneath what I thought was a well, it still felt like I was in water though when I landed on the ground.
“Finally you’ve come,” a voice spoke to me.
15
Where was I? I looked behind and saw a dark tanned older man sitting on a rock with a flute in his hands. He wore long robe made of sapphire blue covered around by a large sash going across his torso. There were leather woven scandals covering her feet along with a hidden dagger close to his left Achilles’ tendon.
“I never imagined it would be a Roguean; however, destiny is unpredictable. Sit down please and let’s talk!”
I didn’t like the way he said “a Roguean” it sounded he had something against me because of my country. I tried to look for another way out because I didn’t feel like
hearing what he had to say.
“I said sit please,” he said again sounding impatiently. “We really need to talk.”
I ignored him of course, but then suddenly he swiftly moved towards me and knocked me down with his flute. For an old timer he was incredibly fast and skilled, such power could only mean he was truly a grandmaster of the arts.
“Okay,” I said getting back to my feet and sitting on the ground next to the rock. “What do you want?”
He looked at me and then closed his eyes taking a breath of fresh air, “you young folks don’t learn unless you get a spanking. You clearly have no respect for your elders do you?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I didn’t interrupt fearing he might hit me again with his flute. For some reason the pain wouldn’t go away as I continuously rubbed my head to ease it. I think his flute might have been made of diamond or some kind of hard material because it hurt really badly.
“Now are you ready to talk?” he asked me again going back to his sit on the rock.
I nodded quickly and kept very quiet the whole time. He chuckled to himself and started playing his flute. He played greatly, but I didn’t like it. In my opinion the flute was the most annoying music based instrument. In fact whenever father had a banquet I would skip out whenever the music started playing and come back after. I just truly hated it.
“Life is full is mysteries,” he said putting his flute down on his lap. “I would never have guessed that my gauntlet of destiny would end up in the hand of a Roguean outcast.”
His gauntlet! To me it sounded like he was saying that he was the wizard Ebi. This had to be a dream and I really wished it would end soon. I wrestled with doubt on whether to believe him or not. Although his physical appearance and mental prowess were definitely wizard like.
“It seems you left your anger stored up inside causing it to manifest a personality of its own.” He continued folding his arms tightly.
“You stupid fool! My gauntlet is being misused for the wrong purpose and to make things worse by a Roguean.”
Okay I could live with him insulting me, but insulting my kinsmen was another thing.
“Shut up,” I yelled at him rudely. “If you want your stupid gauntlet you can take it. It has brought me nothing, but trouble and you are not really real. The wizard Ebi died a long time ago.”
Something told me I had gone too far and would regret it. The old man looked really pissed off as I could see his skin turn red
“I am Ebi! You ungrateful child.”
For the next few minutes he hit me with his flute all over. There was barely any part of my body that was not swollen and hurting. I had trouble blinking because of a swollen eyelid. What an abusive man.
“Now let’s talk more,” he said with a serious face. “I have something I need to tell you and it’s very important.”
“What if I don’t want to listen?”
It seemed the more we talked the more things went badly for me. I kept quiet fearing another beating. I don’t know how much my body would take because of the intense pain.
“There is a reason you are here now,” he continued, “by now you should have discovered the first level of the gauntlet’s power. The first level is the First Blast Attack. Yes, naming your attacks sound like a terrible idea, but it helps your mind focus completely on your attack, allowing you to use it perfectly. This attack is the jolt of yellow energy you conjured and used to fight those metal men with. And it is the first level out of an infinite amount of power each responding to your emotion of courage. Why do you think the Rainku tried to get it back so hard? Because its power surpasses theirs, making you a threat to their empire. However, you don’t have the time to master such an immense power which is a problem.”
All of what he said sounded complicated. I was really beginning to hate knowing the truth and origins of pretty much anything although what he said made the gauntlet sound pleasant indeed.
“Hey old man,” I began, “if it’s so powerful then why didn’t you defeat the Rainku yourself and saved me the trouble?”
He blushed and hit me again in the head a few more times and said, “I was tricked. Just as I was about to unleash my full power, Katarina and another female Rainku used a very powerful combination and caught me off guard. One of them then sealed a portion of my soul into this gauntlet and that’s how I’m here right now.”
A victim yeah right!
“It sounded like you were a pervert,” I laughed, “wow what a lecherous wizard, you surprise me.”
He snapped and hit me more times with his flute telling me to take back what I had said. “Beware! Katarina Fox is a very dangerous woman,” he mumbled eating something strange from his pocket. “It’s not just seduction she is good at; her trident gave me quite the trouble when we were fighting.”
I was glad certain secrets were being revealed, but still it wouldn’t help me when I faced her in Danyen. I needed more than knowledge if I ever stood a chance of winning.
“When you come back next time I will teach you everything,” he finished and disappeared with everything else.
“What now,” I looked around as I was pulled out of the yellowish world.
At that moment, I was awake again, and I had two guns in my hands and I seemed to be getting ready to finish off the metal dog. I didn’t understand the situation, although it looked like my new split personality was about to win the duel. Quickly, I took over suppressing my anger, letting go off the triggers. The metal dog looked very badly injured. One of its legs had been ripped off and I think it was by my own doing. It was hard to even believe I had manifested a split personality by storing up all my pent up anger.
“What are you waiting for? Finish me already you worthless human,” it growled looking at me.
Even though it had done terrible things to so many I just couldn’t pull the trigger and do it. I didn’t have any more anger to brutally slaughter it.
“No I won’t do it,” I replied it backing away as the two guns I had faded from my hands.
They seemed to be connected to my gauntlet somehow and yet for some unknown reason I couldn’t use them unlike my other personality. The whole area was in tatters. It looked like a giant battle had taken place inside this cave. There was a small cough which made my eyes turn to my left. A few yards from me, Kaya was kneeling next to Dashe and Ogana. Thank goodness, the others were not hurt during my rampage. It must have been frightening for someone his age to witness me in that state. On that moment, I vowed never to use my anger to hurt others close to me again. I just hoped though I could keep that promise because there were so many people that annoyed me like Dashe who constantly irritated me with his rude personality.
“What happened to you? Please stay away,” Kaya sounded scared when I approached him and so did all the other remaining people.
From the destruction I saw around and the bruises on his arm, it looked like Kaya had protected everyone using his power against me and the metal dog.
I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what was going on his mind at that moment and all I said was “I’m sorry.”
Dashe and Ogana were alive, but unconscious, it seemed some of the people we had helped had treated some of their wounds and probably saved their lives. I wanted to thank them, but I didn’t. The look in their eyes showed me fear, fear against me.
“Darn you,” the metal dog monster got up, “you think it’s over? I have devoured more humans than you could imagine and killed foes larger than yourself so don’t think you can just turn your back to me and walk away.”
It began to charge at me on three legs with everything it had. Everyone was startled, but not me. I barely flinched, and strangely my heart did not falter. Instinctively, I lifted up my arm and fired a yellow jolt of energy at it directly in the head. For some unknown reason, I knew it would work. I watched it crash backwards and growl in pain. This time the blast knocked me back a whole lot more. The ferocity of power
in the attack was stronger than the one I had fired before against one of the metal men. Finally! It was over, the metal dog went down permanently and exploded. Like the rest, it turned it blue light and vanished before our very own eyes. Things were all starting to come together now. It seemed that anything brought to our world by the trident of time and space if destroyed would turn into blue light and vanish. It was still just an assumption and I had a feeling I was going to test it out sooner than I expected. We heard loud rambling noises and we looked up. The roof of the cave was about to collapse on us, we had to get out quickly before we were crushed completely. Only problem was that there was no way to escape this cave. Every entrance had been sealed off and the roof up was being blocked off by the falling rocks and metal.
“Everyone listen,” I yelled to alerting them to our prior situation. “We have to take refuge somewhere now.”
I tensed slowly as I had no idea what to do next. After all, I was never good at thinking under pressure.
“Rid throw me up,” Kaya said, “I will destroy every falling thing into dust.”
That actually sounded like a good idea, the only problem was that it was a double edged plan. The chances of his power destroying the roof of the cave were high along with the chances of us being caught in the aftermath. Could we take this chance? Darn! The unstable debris of the falling cave began to fall even faster than before like they were possessed. What on earth was this? I had never seen anything like it before, my mouth opened as I lost all my words.
“It’s now or never,” Kaya pulled my shirt as the chunks of rocks were halfway towards us.
We were a thousand feet beneath the surface so the chances of us surviving all those falling rock were slightly less than zero. I did what Kaya told me and threw him in the air with everything I had. I watched as he came in contact with the falling rocks and exploded viciously.
“Everyone duck now,” I yelled at the people next to me, “and don’t let go of those two.”
I ordered them pointing to Dashe and Ogana. The explosion was so massive that it filled the whole cave with rock dust. Outside light filled the cave as we began to see the a little more clearly. The sun had already set as the moon was beginning to appear. Time seemed to have flown by fast up there. Cautiously, I got back to my feet and coughed up some dirt, stretching my arms slowly. It was still too dusty to see anything inside the cave.
“Kaya,” I yelled out into the dust. “Where are you?”
He was nowhere to be seen. Out of the nowhere, small particles began to emerge, taking on a physical form. I could see a tiny body come together and seconds later Kaya’s body was dropping down towards us. With my slightly injured body, I rushed towards him and caught him before his body hit the ground.
“I don’t want to do that again,” he whispered to me before his eyes closed. “It wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be.”
I smiled as I put him down and said, “It’s a promise.”
Phew! Our nightmare was over, but this entire explosion was going to attract attention soon. I couldn’t believe we had survived all of that in one piece. My body felt tired and my feet had been burned off by Dashe’s last attack. The trembling in my arms wouldn’t stop, I had pushed myself beyond my limits. Whatever had occurred when I was asleep or in the other world was now affecting me physically. Every muscle in my body hurt, I couldn’t move an inch without pain.
“Katarina isn’t going to like this at all,” I chuckled trying to stay awake.
With all my strength, I struggled to stay up before she appeared, but I couldn’t. Someone appeared from the shadows. I felt their presence lingering towards me as I knew somehow who it was. It was Suzanne and she had her arms folded the whole time. What was she doing here? Had she been here the whole time? I couldn’t look her in the eye and tell her the bad news about her brother. But did she already know? Was she working with Katarina Fox?
“You guys made quite a mess didn’t you?” she said, “for a moment I thought the world was coming to an end but it turned out to be you morons.”
“I’m sorry Suzanne, but Sam is dead,” I said cutting her off. I wanted to get over with before it was too late.
But to my surprise she started laughing, “you fool, I don’t have a brother named Sam. That paper was something I just wrote down and gave to you. I sent you to them because I wanted to test out your strength and conviction to see if you had what it takes to face Katarina.”
What! It didn’t make sense, but for some reason I was relieved in hearing that and at the same time angry with her. We had almost lost our lives countless times just for her amusement? I couldn’t stand just the thought of it, but I didn’t lash out at her. I was too tired and completely worn out to get into an argument with anyone.
“Oh! I see,” I said in a sincere way and closed my eyes into a deep sleep.