The Emerald Road


The golden-haired maiden ran through the forest as fast as her skinny legs could carry her. Behind her, she heard the voices of her pursuers echoing from the behind the thick veil of mist. She had barely escaped them moments before when they assaulted her caravan and killed the guards. She was soaked and sticky with ale that was poured all over her. Her arm was bruised by their powerful grip and her clothes were all but shredded.

Fear. She was rank with it. At that moment she felt as though everyone in the world was after her. The forest itself seemed to lust for her flesh. The branches of dead trees reached out to her, ripping her gown and practically stripping her down to her skin, muddied and scratched. She heard the gang of highwaymen yelling and calling out to her; whistling for her as though she were a household pet. The lust in their voices was as clear as day.

The girl tripped over a log and tumbled down a muddy slope to the creek below. She fell with a splash and hit her head against a rock. It was a light bump, but it stung her awfully and dazed her. She heard the leaves rustling underneath thick, heavy, leather boots. The clanking of their rusty iron armor got louder. She forced herself up and ran.

"There she is!" she heard one of them yell. Upon hearing their voices, she pushed her legs even faster.

Something whooshed past her face. A bolt from a crossbow. More of them flew by, missing her by a hair.

This is it, she thought to herself. She was doomed. There was no escaping now. She felt as if any moment she would feel a sharp pain of a bolt would paralyze her.

She saw something ahead of her. It appeared out of the mist as if born from it. A priory. It looked old and abandoned. The stained glass windows were smashed and the walls were festooned with ivy. The gardens, once green and exploding with color, were overtaken by weeds and covered under a dull gray and brown blanket of dead leaves.

Tombstones poked out of a small cemetery underneath the shadow of an old oak tree. The girl feared she would join the dead resting there if there was no one inside the priory. She ran up the steps and banged on the iron door with all her might.

She pulled on the round handle coming out of the bronze dragon's mouth. It would not budge. It was locked tight. While a grim sight, it brought her hope. Mayhaps there was someone in there after all.

She pounded on the door repeatedly. "Sanctuary!" she cried. "Sanctuary, please! Oh, please, give me sanctuary!"

No one came. It was abandoned. It was just as she feared. An axe flipped out of the mist, missing the girl's head by mere inches and stuck itself on the door.

"Stop you fool! You're supposed to hurt her, not kill her!" A scruffy voice shouted from behind the trees.

The men appeared out of the fog brandishing their weapons. "No more games, poppet," sneered a man covered in rusted iron armor over a leather breeches. He was naked from the waist up. He wore a thick hood over his kettle-hat helmet. A truncheon with tallies carved on it was his weapon of choice.

He made command gestures with his hands. The men understood and surrounded the girl. They lifted her up.

"Please," she sobbed. "I beg of you. I'm a Priestess of Ana. The Rose Priestess is very wealthy. She will pay you handsomely in gold and jewels; rare cards if that is what you desire. Just let me go."

"You're all the gold I need," a raider said, coming from behind her and ripping her gown.

She girl wailed as she stripped naked. She struggled with all her might but could not escape the vice-like grip of her captors. They all laughed and yelled as they surrounded her.

"Hey!" someone shouted.

All went silent. The highwaymen stopped and turned. Someone was standing at the entrance of the priory. A boy, hooded and cloaked in a smelly, brown, and ragged cape. A gold brooch held it over his chest.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked. He was very young and bright in color. An Eldori, the toon folk.

"If you know what's good for you, boy, you'll get back inside and mind your own business."

"You're making an incredible racket, man. You woke me up." He saw the girl in their grip. "What are you guys doing to her? Back away."

Another raider stepped forward with a small crossbow. "You back away, ya bloody toon! Get back inside now, or I'll stick ya like a hog." He smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. "And is that brooch of yours made of gold? It will be a great pleasure if ya hand it over."

"No way, man," said the Eldori boy. "I worked hard to earn this. Don't you know this is given to the top ten best students at Duelist Academy?"

"A Duelist, eh? Then I s' pose you've got a deck of rare cards on you. Hand them over as well."

The boy narrowed his eyes. "You need to back out now if you know what's good for you. Step away from the girl, get out of my place, and get lost."

"Very well. We'll just loot your treasure off your corpse."

"You don't want to do that," said the boy. "Leave now."

The bandit fired his crossbow, but something tall and very muscular caught the bolt in a flash. The tip of the arrow was just a mere fingertip from touching the boy's nose.

The bandits gasped and took a step back when they saw the giant standing beside the boy. He just appeared out of nowhere. The men holding the girl dropped her and drew their swords. But they knew they were doomed.

The boy's lips formed a mischievous grin. He was a conjurer no doubt. And a skilled one to summon such a thing.

The giant he summoned was as white as limestone with a body that was just as hard. He had blue orbs on his shoulders and his domed head. A red gem was inlaid on his chest.

"Okay, boys," the conjurer said, wiping his nose with the back of his index finger. "Allow me to introduce...Elemental HERO Terra Firma!"

Terra Firma tossed the arrow away and walked down the steps of the priory. A bandit with a torch foolishly stepped forward. He waved it in underneath the HERO's chin, thinking he could scare it away with fire like he could any other beast.

"Back!" shouted the bandit. "Back! I warn you, monster, stay back!"

Terra Firma looked down at the bandit. He grabbed the burning end of the torch with his bare hand. The flames hissed, smoke billowed from between his fingers. Terra Firma lifted the stunted bandit off the ground. The bandit could not let go of the torch out of the terror he felt. The terror of what this superhero would do to him.

Terra Firma lifted his arm high until he came face-to-face with the bandit. The bandit sobbed and wet his pants as he looked into Terra Firma's lifeless golden eyes. In a split second, Terra Firm punched the bandit in the stomach with enough force to create a shockwave that caused the leaves to flutter through the air and the trees to tremble.

The gang heard a brief shriek of horror. They all looked up in time to see the tiny silhouette of their companion zooming higher and higher into the sky until he disappeared into the atmosphere.

In their shock, they failed to notice the boy running towards them, brandishing a gold sword with a glowing iridescent blade. He slashed the archer's head off with one quick swipe.

Elemental HERO Terra Firma lunged forward and kicked another bandit clear across the forest and into the fields where he smashed against a rock. The boy blocked one of the bandit's strikes with his vambrace which was plated in mithril. It caused nothing more than bright sparks and chipped the already ill-kept blade.

Terra Firma grabbed the bandit by the head and crushed his skull as if it were clay. He tossed the body over his shoulder and punched through the stomach of another bandit. The boy jumped off Terra Firma's massive forearm and stuck a bandit in the chest before he spun towards another one, sticking him in the face.

In less than a minute, the boy and Elemental HERO Terra Firma stood triumphantly together amongst the pile of dead bandits. Terra Firma crossed his arms over his chest and vanished. The boy pulled off his cloak and gently blanketed it over the girl.

"Thank you," she whispered. She draped the cloak around her shoulders and stood up.

"Think nothing of it," the boy said nervously. He heard storm clouds on the horizon. The trees started swaying violently in the fierce eastern winds. "Uh...looks like quite a storm is coming. Won't you come in?"

"You're so kind. Do you have food? I...I'm a bit famished."

"Fam-who?" the boy replied stupidly.

"Hungry," the girl said, realizing quickly that her knight in shining armor was rather slow in the head.

"Oh," he said awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his head. "I guess I can spare a few snacks."

He allowed her to go in first.

The girl hurried toward the ruined building then stopped. She turned and looked at the boy. "I'm Della," she introduced herself. "Pink Priestess of the Temple of Ana in Birthgarden.

"Hey, Della of uh... All that stuff. I'm Jaden. Jaden Yuki. I just finished my grade school years at Duelist Academy. Now, I want to go back and soar through the ranks of the university levels."

"A pleasure, Jaden," Della said, bowing her head. She felt a raindrop on her nose and hurried inside.

Jaden, meanwhile, dragged the bodies away from the gardens of the priory and tossed them into a cave at the bottom of a large drop behind the cemetery. By the time he got back inside, the storm had arrived. Della was sitting in front of the fire of Jaden's camp located at the priory's central nave. She was staring at the boxes and bags of strange snacks laying around Jaden's duffle bag.

Della did not wish to eat the food without permission so she kept her distance. "Cookies? Pocky? Potato chips? Chocolate milk? I've never seen these delicacies before."

Jaden laughed. He unbuckled the baldric strapped across his chest and sat down on a small wooden stool. "I'm from the East."

"From Domino?" Della gasped. "The City of Light? Your land is rich in technology so I heard. Is it true you travel with flying vehicles and have weapons that can destroy armies of thousands with one blow?"

"I guess so," Jaden said, reaching for a bag of kettle cooked chips. "Help yourself. I'm not going to need all this by the time I reach Domino."

Della dove in at once. She opened a bag of chocolate raisins. "Oh, it's good. You, easterners, love your sweets."

"You have no idea," said Jaden. "Man, I'm starving. Summoning sure burns lots of calories."

"Where did you learn to Summon that creature?" Della asked, picking up a bag of pretzels.

"You mean Terra Firma?" Jaden asked. "Nah, he's been a buddy of mine since my freshman year of High School. I could always count on him when I was in trouble. I got some sweet new heroes to use now thanks to my training back in Rassay."

"Oh! You were at the capital? What's it like?"

"Complicated," Jaden said with a chuckle. "A country girl like you would not survive there lemme tell ya."

"What did you do there?"

"Learning how to summon monsters. I was there all summer getting taught by the best. But let's talk about you. What were you doing all the way out here in the Emerald Road all alone anyway? It's dangerous in these parts. Highwaymen have been running rampant here since this is the ideal road to take for the Termnnian Banks. And with Prince Yuri's return so close, the Church of Yeyu's been on the fritz. You know they've got Witch Hunters around here that will kill you just on the suspicion that you use magic. And you're a priestess of the goddesses."

"Whom they claim do not exist," Della said furiously. "Yes, I know. Preferably, I would have chosen the bandits over them. Bandits are gentler by comparison."

"That's a nasty one."

"At least they let you go when they're done with you. Witch Hunters and other vagabonds of the Church do unspeakable things to women before sending them back north to Naralia to be kept as slaves. Or worse."

"The sooner our long lost prince returns the better," Jaden said, his mood dampened by the topic. "You still haven't answered my question. What were you doing out here?"

"I was delivering something of great importance," Della replied. "A rare and magical stone. But the bandit's leader took it from me and fled down the mountain with his elite squad leaving me to his minions. I must get it back, Jaden. Thank the goddesses I ran into you. You must help me retrieve that stone. Are you by chance a mercenary? Name your price. The Temple of Ana will pay you whatever you like."

Jaden's smiled widened. "Aw, really? That's sweet! One magic stone comin' right up."