Consequences of Capture

By Dixxy

Prologue

The dark night sky shined down on the city of Toyama in a brilliant spectacle of bright, twinkling lights. Not a single twinkler was blocked by even the smallest of clouds. The moon was full and yellow, almost like a giant sugar cookie hung on a dark backdrop. The distant sound of hooting owls and howling wolves added to the serene night life.

All was at peace. . . except for one teenage boy.

Pale blue eyes stared up the sky from the rooftop of Mia Koji's manor as the lone figure thought over his situation. Soft blonde locks moved only slightly as a cool breeze blew by - he shivered slightly from the cold. From a spectator's point of view, one would think Sage was at peace. But deep down inside, he was troubled.

It's over, but I can't live down these dreams, he thought to himself. Over a month has gone by, and I still can't shake these feelings. I can't forget the feeling of being trapped in that statue and hearing Cye and Kento screaming and not being able to do anything about it. . . dear God, why hasn't it stopped yet? Why do we have to keep suffering like this? Why? It's not fair!

I just want to move on with my life. . .

It had been a month since Talpa and the Evil Dynasty had been vanquished by the Ronin Warriors. A month since Anubis had sacrificed himself to save Lady Kayura from Badamon. A month since Talpa had been destroyed. A month since the Jewel of Life saved Ryo's life. And a month since he, Cye, and Kento had experienced inhuman suffering in Talpa's torture chambers.

The screams still echoed in his the back of his mind like old ghosts. His muscles seemed to ache, almost as if they, too, could remember the pain. Sage wrapped his arms around his knees, feeling the soft green pajamas under his palms. To move felt so much different then it had for the first fifteen years of his life. Movement had a whole new meaning after being turned into a stone statue. A statue with a mind, a memory, and the capacity to have thoughts. Sage had hated that. He had almost wished he was back in the torture chamber while he'd been imprisoned there, chained inside that strange cavern. At least he could move, even if it was just a little bit. At least he was still flesh and blood.

At least he could feel his heartbeat.

The Warrior of Light shuddered. He was still having nightmares about the ordeal. There was no question in his mind that Kento and Cye were experiencing bad dreams, too, but he didn't know for sure. Cye and Kento shared a room, and anything that went on behind that door was their business - he was certain that if anything was going on, it was strictly between those two and those two alone. Even if it wasn't any of his business, he often found himself wondering what happened behind that door.

Somehow, Sage felt as if things had changed amongst him and all of his friends. Before Talpa and Cale kidnapped him to the Dynasty, he was positive Rowen and Ryo were the ones he wanted to be with. He felt more at home with Ryo, their leader, and Rowen, he best friend from the time he was eleven. Although there was no huge age gap between any of them, he was still a full grade behind Ryo and Rowen in school - that in itself was a barrier. There wasn't anything wrong with Cye or Kento, but he preferred the company of the oldest Ronins instead of the youngest (Sage wasn't sure where to put himself, being the supposed "middle child" of the Ronins).

But after the second war, Sage suddenly felt as if he wanted nothing more than to spend time with and get to know Cye and Kento. After all, they were all in the same grade, so it was more likely they'd have classes together when they started attending the same high school in the coming weeks. He no longer liked sharing a room with Rowen and Ryo as much as he had - he wanted to be with the other two. Somehow, a bond had formed between the three youngest Ronins. It almost made Sage wonder if the Ronin Warriors had been split into two groups.

But am I the only one who feels that way? Do the others sense it, too?

"You too?"

Sage was taken by surprise as he turned to see Kento was also on the roof. The Ronin of Earth was sitting next to him in an orange pair of sweat pants and an old white T-shirt that had faded to a dull cream from years of use. Previously, Sage would have been irritated by Kento's pressence - he and Kento usually didn't agree on a lot of things, especially when it came to battle tactics. That had caused a lot of head-butting during their battles with the Dynasty. Now, his appearance was comforting. "What brings you out here at two in morning?" Sage asked casually.

"Three," said Kento, tapping at his wrist. "Looks like somebody lost track of time. But if you're out here for the reason I think you're out here, we've got ourselves a problem." He sighed, scooching closer to the blonde. "It's nightmares, isn't it?" Sage nodded. "Thought so. It's been a problem for me and Cye, too. I don't know, but it's been hard to talk about with Mia or Ryo or Rowen, but. . . I had no problem telling you that just now."

"Because we all went through the same thing. Ryo and the others don't know what it was like. We have that much in common, so, I don't know. I know I don't talk to you two much, but sometimes it feels like it's just the three of us here. Alone in this big giant world. I feel like I'm walking down the street and I'm surrounded by people, but I feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere and if I called out and screamed as loud as I could no one would hear me." Sage narrowed his eyes. "It's hopeless. Why are we still suffering?"

Kento sighed heavily. "I was thinking the same thing, actually."

"Really?" said Sage. Seeing an opperunity to temporarily bring a little fun into his suddenly dull life, Sage smirked a little and made his comeback. "You think? We better call the papers. Kento's been thinking. That must mean the world is going to end, pigs are going to fly, and Rowen's changing his name to Peggy Sue." Sage closed his mouth, shut his eyes, and waited for Kento's response. Sure it wasn't the nicest thing he could have said, but Kento was the kind of person who could take those kinds of jokes. The kind of jokes a month ago Sage wouldn't have made with the other Ronin.

"Ha, ha, very funny," said Kento, playfully punching Halo on the shoulder. He gave Sage a smile with a deep, thoughtful sincerity behind it. He'd never seen something like that from him before, or at least, never directed at anyone but Cye, who was more like a brother to Hardrock than a best friend. "I did something about my little hunch. I went to the library and searched for books on the mental side of torture. You know, for the victim? Reoccurring nightmares are completely normal for anywhere from a week to a year or even more."

"A YEAR OR MORE?"

The Warrior of Earth shook his head. "Well, what happened was a lot worse that the examples they gave. But I'd much rather have bad dreams for a year then be dead forever, which could have happened, you know. Our powers and life forces were really taking it. I really thought I was going to die," said Kento. "Ryo and Rowen might've brought back dead bodies to our families. I, I don't know if I'd want my mom to hurt like that. I wouldn't want to see her or my dad or my sisters or brothers or anybody cry because I got myself killed. It could have been the end for us. . ."

Sage blinked. "You're a lot more intelligent than you let on."

Kento laughed. "Yeah, sometimes. I'm not really smart, just observant."

"I could argue that."

Kento grumbled as he shot a look behind him to where Cye was sitting. How he'd gotten there without the other two noticing was a mystery to both of them, but sure enough, there he was - his sea green eyes staring widely at both of them, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. "What do you know, Cye? I'm a tough guy- I'm not supposed to use my head!" Sage couldn't help but roll his eyes - even tough guys had an image to keep up, he supposed.

"How long have you been there?" Sage asked.

Cye smiled playfully, putting an arm around Kento's shoulder. "Since you decided Rowen was going to change his name to Peggy Sue." Kento, who was much larger than Cye, raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh, come on now, Kento, just TRY and tell me that when you took over your little sister's lemonade stand a few summers ago you weren't using that gray blob the Lord gave you at birth- you can use your brain just fine Kento. You ARE smart! You just think the tough guy image suits you better."

"Okay, okay, so I gave her a balance book and tried to put some of the other neighborhood kids on her payroll - I was only trying to help, honest! What if she lost money on her first business venture, huh? She could've ended up a welfare mom with twelve kids and a dead-beat alcoholic husband who can't hold a decent job longer than two days and-"

Sage stared at Kento in amazement as he continued to rant and rave about how the lemonade stand could have ruined his sister's life. Wow. He's either over paranoid, over protective of his little sister, or. . . smoking marijuana. Deciding to change the subject, he turned to the bearer of Torrent. "Cye, what are you doing out here?"

"I saw Kento was gone and realized he'd had another nightmare about. . . you know," Cye said quietly. Sage nodded, his eyes telling the bearer of Torrent everything he needed to know. The youngest Ronin Warrior's eyes widened. "Sage, not you, too?" Halo nodded. "But you're so strong, and you meditate, and, well, I guess I thought it wouldn't have affected you like it's been affecting the two of us. Are you really suffering this badly as well?"

Sage lowered his eyes. He didn't like feeling weak when others saw him as strong. Deep inside, he felt himself cringe. "Believe me, Cye, I'm not immune to nightmares. I don't know if they'd say anything, but Ryo and Rowen know. Sometimes I wake up and find myself crying and soaked in sweat. Sometimes Ryo, or Rowen, or both of them, are sitting beside me in bed trying to tell me it's okay, but. . . I can't stand it! I'm supposed to be a man and I'm crying over stupid nightmares!"

Cye lowered his eyes. "What are we going to do to make it stop?" he said. "With school starting up soon, we're in trouble. What if we suddenly have a nervous breakdown in the middle of class or something? We can't tell them it was en evil demon lord! No one remembers any of it! Don't you see? This incident is stopping us from being able to move on with our lives. If we don't find a way to move past this we'll spend the rest of our lives like this."

"Cye has a point- we need to figure out how to end this," said Kento. "Do you remember all of those things we talked about before the second battle? Sage, you wanted to go to backpacking across Europe for a year after high school, and the rest of us were going to go with you. And we did that big name swap thing to plan out who'd be who's best man at our weddings. We wanted to be together for everything - when we got married and had kids, and we would stay together for a long time. I don't want to miss out on all of that!"

Sage sighed and looked up at the sky. "Maybe we should ask Ryo and Rowen about it."

"Yeah, isn't Rowen a genius or something? Maybe he knows a little about it," said Cye.

"Or Mia - she's smart, too," said Kento.

The three boys nodded as they sat in silence under the moon, eventually falling asleep under the stars, each feeling comfort in knowing they were not alone.

In the Dynasty. . .

Sleep would be really nice. . .Kayura yawned as she contemplated the tempting notion of sleep. The sweet bliss of slumber had been avoiding her grasp for the past several nights and she was beginning to feel the effects of it. Her body whined, but her duties as the last Ancient seemed to pile up faster than she could handle them. Even the help of Cale, Sehkment, and Dais did little to help.

Of course, they were not in the most luxurious of places to be. She and the three remaining Dark Warlords were currently residing in a cave somewhere in the Nether Realm. More specifically, they were hiding from whatever might have remained of Talpa or his allies and trying to sort through every possible solution to the one question that hung over all of their heads -

What were they going to do NOW?

With Talpa temporarily out of power, Kayura free from his control, Anubis dead, and the other Warlords AWOL, they weren't sure where to go with their lives next. The last member of the Ancient One's clan had decided to look through some old scrolls and documents that her clan left behind while the Warlords patrolled Talpa's old haunt to see if he was going to try and attack again. She and her comrades knew very well that if he was not held back, no one would be able to stop him. She knew she certainly wasn't ready for another battle. The Warlord's were not in a position to fight so soon, either. Lady Kayura imagined the situation was not much different with the Ronin Warriors back in the Mortal World.

Of course, none of that would give Talpa any reason to hold back on attack.

While there was no question that the White Armor of Inferno could DEFEAT Talpa, it alone didn't have enough power to KILL Talpa. DEAFEATING and KILLING were two very different things, and if Kayura was correct, the Ronins would soon enough be fighting a third war against their old adversary. The thing was, they were all still recovering from the two previous ordeals that had happened, all of which occurred over the course of a single month. Each of the five was dealing with his own inner turmoil as they all tried to move on from the horrors they'd seen, especially the three whom Talpa had captured.

Which is why it was important that the Warlords knew what was going on.

Kayura sighed, leaning against the wall of the cave as she sat cross-legged on the floor. She truly felt sorry for Halo, Torrent, and Hardrock. Talpa had subjected them to the Gargoyles, his most dangerous and deadly form of torture - from what Sehkment and Cale had told her, most of the poor souls Talpa had put in there didn't even survive the first round, yet those three were able to survive most than ten sessions! The last she'd seen of them the three had been fine, but she knew that it would only be a matter of time before it finally hit them that things would never be the same again, if it hadn't already.

Kayura soon heard several hurried footsteps and turned to the entrance of the cave, where three very worried and frightened Warlords could be found. "What's going on?" she asked, getting to her feet and grabbing the Ancient's Staff. "Has something happened? Is Talpa back already? It's inconceivable that he could recover this quickly!" The Warlords exchanged a look before turning back to Kayura. She felt a pit form in her stomach. She feared that whatever they had found was going to be WORSE than Talpa's early recovery.

Sehkment was the one brave enough to speak up. "Well, the good news is that Talpa isn't coming back- he's dead."

Kayura blinked at them in curiosity. Talpa being dead was good news - why didn't they look happier? "Does that mean Ronins were able to kill Talpa? Are the Ronin Warriors of this generation really that powerful?" she asked. She cocked her head to the side. "If Talpa's dead, that's a good thing, isn't it? That means he won't be coming back-"

"The BAD news is that it wasn't Ronins who did it," said Dais. Kayura's eyes widened in shock. If something else killed Talpa, they were probably dealing with a power-hungry Dynasty general looking for some leverage. THAT was a problem in and of itself. The real question was WHO had killed Talpa. "We found him trying to resurrect himself from under the rubble of the castle, like he did the last time they beat him. There were Nether Spirits all around, chanting and performing the typical rituals. We were almost ready to lay them to waste when this shadowy figure approached."

"Shadowy figure?" asked Kayura.

Sehkment gulped. "It was Trulpa."

In Kayura's mind, the shit had just hit the fan. "Trulpa? Talpa's sister!" she screamed. The three Dark Warlords nodded, all looking very grim.

"Talpa, or at least what was left of him, looked up at her, begging her for help. Evil demons they may be, but they share the same demon blood. She cast some sort of explosion spell and destroyed what was left," said Cale. "It was. . . horrible. I feel no more loyalty to Talpa, but. . . by the Ancient, that was her own brother! I couldn't have done that to any of my siblings! I would've slit my own throat before I did that, even AFTER I joined the Dynasty. There are some things you just can't do!"

Kayura cringed. "There's more, isn't there?"

"Well, yes," said Dais. "As you know, Talpa and Trulpa split the Dynasty in half when they first instated it- Talpa used most of his spacefor the huge labyrinth maze to train his warriors and soldiers in while Trulpa built the Under City. Now, I know you have no recollection of this, but about a hundred years ago or so they got into a huge fight and stopped talking to each other, but they sure didn't mind doing things to annoy each other. When Talpa ordered the mass genocide of the Amazons, Trulpa offered sanctuary to many of them. Pissed Talpa off for sure. But now Talpa has no control over his domain anymore, being dead and all. And, well, since Trulpa is his only next of kin, she now controls not only her own Dynasty but, well, she controls Talpa's domain as well."

"WHAT?" Kayura demanded.

"It gets worse," said Cale. Kayura's eyes widened even larger than they already had widened.

"Worse? How can it be any WORSE?" she demanded.

Sehkment winced. "On our way back to report to you, we encountered Anubra, one of Trulpa's Dark Warladies. She and a wizard named Osiris were discussing the Ronin Warriors of Halo, Torrent, and Hardrock," he said. Kayura felt a knot form in her stomach as she sat down. "It's possible that Talpa's torture sessions broke THE Barriers of those armor sets."

"THE BARRIERS?" Kayura shouted.

"It sounds like they were making plans to capture them for Trulpa's own purposes. Not only is that going to suck for the Ronins, but if they're right the whole world is in trouble. Broken barriers mean we have three ignorant magical powerhouses walking around the Mortal Realm. If Trulpa gains control over those three before they realize what's going on, then she has a HUGE advantage over the Ronin Senshi," Dais started.

"Great, that's just what we need," said Kayura, throwing her hands up in the air. "Now Trulpa's going to try and beat in her own enemies by using three of their own against them. Isn't it lovely when the badguys come up with a good plan? Because that might actually WORK. We don't know how she'd use them, but there are plenty of ways she can bypass the Law of Dependency and use them to fuel her own army. Worse than that, she KNOWS damn well that I am not allowed to spoon feed them information, the three of you and Ryo and Rowen can't help out at all and there's no way the tigers, no matter how smart they are, can convey that serious a warning."

"You can't say anything?" asked Sehkment.

"As a member of my clan I am forbidden to speak at length to any of the Ronins that inexperienced about their powers, the armors, or their enemies," said Kayura. "But there's nothing stopping Trulpa from finding a way to use captives to further her cause." She turned to the Warlords. "However, it's gotten to the point that we CAN talk with the Ronin Warriors about it. I think it's time we paid them a visit and give them a heads up about Trulpa's plans."

"Good plan," said Dais. "As much as those kids need a break. . . Trulpa's too dangerous right now. We've got to do something, or we're all in big trouble."

UPDATED OCTOBER 25, 2005

I wasn't planning on a huge overhaul with the revision, but I had fun changing little details that have been bothering me and re-writing a few poorly worded sentences. Nothing plot shattering. I'm not trying to dance around anything that should be fairly obvious anymore, which was an issue I've had that I've been trying to resolve in my writing as a whole.

UPDATE DONE!

Dixxy