6 Nations

Ch 2

Casey stepped out of the shadows when he saw it was clear.

"Its just too easy sometimes," he laughed to himself.

Casey saw what he was looking for after a quick glance around the room he was in. In the center of the room was a pedestal with a crystal on it glowing bright blue. As he walked up to it, he dug around in his bag until he found what he wanted. He pulled out an object wrapped in a cloth that was the same color as the glow produced by the crystal. He removed the cloth to reveal a glass ball. When he held it up next to the crystal and let go of it, it hovered there. After a few seconds, it started spinning. As it gathered speed, the ball started to give of the same glow as the crystal. The glow started off dull, but brightened as the ball spun. When it finally stopped, the glow it was emitting was the same as the crystal itself. Quickly grabbing it and wrapping it back up in the cloth, Casey smiled knowing he got the result he wanted. After placing the glass ball back in his bag he turned and walked out. But as he exited the room, an alarm went off.

"I must've overlooked something. Oh well, no use worrying about it now," Casey said to himself. After looking both ways down the hall, Casey picked a direction and took off running. He knew that the alarm that was going off would bring every guard and the entire police force of the city to building.

It wasn't long before all guards in the building were running throughout the halls looking for the intruder. There were even a few units of the Storm Riders running around. One of them happened to be Amber's unit. When they reached an intersection, she turned and ordered her unit to split up and search for him.

"Attention all that are searching within the building, we have both the exits covered. So if you find the intruder but can't catch him, don't worry. If you don't catch him, we will out here," a voice said over everyone's radio receivers.

Reaching another intersection, Amber looked in each direction and spotted Casey deciding which direction to go. Casey, seeing Amber, turns and runs the opposite way. Amber gave chase, telling everyone over the radio where he was and which way he was going. As Amber was chasing him, Casey began taking various turns in the hopes of losing her. Since Amber is more familiar with layout of the building, that proved to be a difficult thing to do. As he headed towards another intersection, he saw two guards heading straight for him. Knowing they would reach the intersection before him, he formed a disk of shadows and threw it towards the light above them. When the disk reached the light it plunged the hall into darkness for a few seconds. When the light returned, Casey was gone. The guards and Amber looked down each hall but couldn't see him.

"You two go that way," Amber ordered the guards before heading off the other way. As she continued her search she told everyone to watch out for darkened hallways. She started to think that maybe he had escaped as she was approaching yet another intersection without a single sign of where he was when she saw him sprint by her. She immediately called to everyone when she saw that he was heading towards one of the exits.

As Casey ran out the door and onto the platform there, he had to stop. He saw that the exit had been surrounded by varying levels of the police force. He even saw more than a few units of the Storm Riders among them.

"Twice in one day, I think that's a record," Casey laughed to himself.

"You have nowhere to go now," Amber said as he ran out the door. "Now return the crystal, as well as everything else you took."

"I didn't take the wind crystal," Casey said. "If I had, would this city have started falling?"

"We do have a backup in place in case of emergencies," Amber explained. "But if you didn't take the crystal, then why were you in the chamber?"

"A little experiment I'm working on."

"Be sure to tell us all about it when we lock you up. Like I said, you have nowhere to go."

"I could argue about having nowhere to go, but I think I'll humor you," Casey said as he took a fighting stance. "Let's see what you got."

"Fine, but forgive me I enjoy this. What? Not going to set your bag aside?" Amber said as she removed her jacket and noticed he wasn't removing the bag he was wearing.

Placing a hand on the strap to the bag, Casey sent a shadow around it and pressed it against him so that it as if it wasn't even there.

"Don't trust us?" Amber asked

"Would you?" Casey replied

"Good point."

With that, Amber attacked. Casey easily avoided and blocked every attack that Amber threw at him. No matter how she attacked Casey seemed to be one step ahead of her. After catching her foot from a kick she tried, Casey went on the offensive. Amber immediately knew that it wasn't going to be an easy fight from the way he attacked. Casey left her very little time to react to the speed and number of his attacks. It wasn't long before Casey landed a hit. With a kick to stomach, Casey sent Amber flying back. She landed on her back, but recovered quickly and was back on her feet almost immediately.

Instead of charging back in she started a wind current that wrapped around the platform. With a quick striking motion of her hand, Amber launched the wind stream she had created. When it reached Casey, he stretched out his hand and caught the attack and began condensing it. When it was all condensed into a ball, Casey threw it back. Amber batted it aside, but had a confused look on her face. Casey mimicked her move of swirling the wind around the platform, but instead of just launching it, first he formed it into a javelin then launched it. Amber caught the javelin and, with a quick switching of her grip, threw it back at him. Like Amber did, Casey batted it aside. However, he followed it with two more quick wind attacks. It soon turned into a battle of who had better control of the wind attacks that were sent back and forth between the two.

Amber was confused about how he was matching her strength in wind when he shouldn't be able to. She almost didn't see when he jumped in to attack after launching another wind strike at her. She was able to defend against the attack but he started to force her back towards the door. With the way Casey was attacking, Amber could barely keep up in defending. Casey's every attack was followed by another. Amber knew she was facing one of the more skilled warriors of from the Land of Shadows. She began to wonder if he might even be a Shadow Knight.

Suddenly, Casey jumped back.

"This has been fun, but I really must be going," he said as he removed the shadow holding his bag.

With that, Casey took a couple of steps forward then turned to the edge of the platform. When he reached the edge, he pushed off and dove towards the forest below, despite the fact that the city was suspended miles above it. Amber couldn't believe what she saw. Even the people of the Wind Nation were hesitant to do what Casey just did. However, she wasn't about to let him get away so easily. Amber, following Casey's example, dove from the platform after him. Since she could control wind currents, Amber was gaining on Casey rapidly. When Casey looked back and saw her gaining on him, he laughed as he turned to face her. Pulling his arms back, he gathered shadows into his hands. When he threw his arms forward, he produced a disk between him and Amber. When Amber reached the disk, she punched right through it. When she was through the disk, she couldn't see Casey anyway. She started to slow her descent when she was hit on her arm that turned her around. She noticed a black band that was wrapped on her arm. When she looked up, she saw Casey falling above her. She realized that he used the disk to stop his descent and waited for her to pass. She also noticed that the disk didn't break like she thought when she went through. She saw that she simply left a hole in the center of it. Before Amber could react, Casey pulled what was left of the disk in front of him and launched multiple shadow bands at her.

When the bands hit Amber she was propelled into the forest and bound to a tree. No matter how much she struggled, Amber was unable to break free.

"I would've thought you would know better than that," Casey said as he appeared in front of her smiling. "Very rarely is everything we do exactly as it appears."

Amber didn't say anything to him and just continued to struggle against the shadow's holding her. Laughing, Casey started digging in his bag again. After a few seconds he pulled another marble, this time it was red.

"You wouldn't dare," Amber said when she saw it.

"If you mean this one, no. This one is meant to inflict pain not pleasure. I have no intention of using one like this on you," Casey explained as he dropped the first marble he removed and started rummaging in his bag again. "Ah, here we go."

Walking up Amber, he pressed the marble he was holding and slipped under the collar of her shirt and pressed on it until it activated.

"Since you enjoyed the last one so much," he said when he saw her tense. "I'd love to stay and chat but like I said, I really must be going. Besides, your unit will be here soon and being caught twice in one day is enough for me."

As Casey jumped back, he vanished. Amber knew he was jumping into the shadows as he moved. When Casey reappeared, he was already a few yards away and still moving. Disappearing again, Amber knew they would never catch him in such a heavily shaded area. She looked up and saw her unit descending towards her and she knew all she could do was wait for them to reach her.

After the members of her unit got to her and helped remove the bands holding her, she removed the marble from her shirt.

"Should we go after him?" Shawn asked.

"No. We wouldn't be able to catch him now anyway. With an area as shaded as this, he has the advantage," Amber replied.

Though she hated to admit it, she knew Casey had both defeated her and gotten away. She looked in the direction she had him head in, knowing that his path probably led back to the Land of Shadows.

"Let's head back, we should at least report this to the Wind Lord," she said after a while.

David handed her a cable that was connected to one of the air bikes that hovered above them. Taking it, Amber and the others let themselves be hauled up and returned to the city.