Freedom

By Dixxy Mouri

Chapter Two

"Why do you want to see Anubis so badly?" asked Ria. By this point the three were walking down the streets of Boston, Susie clinging to Ria's hand as Sage walked with them, looking around the city in interest. Ria guessed that this was his first time to the city, so she marked up his wandering eyes to that.

"Anubis knows who I am, and it's really important that he knows what's going on – I'm pretty sure Trulpa wants him dead, too, so he probably needs a fair warning," said Sage. "I don't know if he ever told you, but, well, let's just say that Anubis is very, very unpopular with the Dynasty."
"He's the student of the Ancient One – of course they won't like him."
"It goes deeper than that," he said. Sage turned to Ria, a sad look in his eyes. "I guess he didn't tell you – it's probably better you hear it from him anyways." Ria's eyes widened in surprise, but she didn't push the issue further. "I know you probably don't trust me, but. . . we're all in big trouble, and at least for now, I need your help, and you probably need mine. Things are not the way they usually are right now, and it's not good at all."

"Well, you definitely helped out a lot back there," said Ria. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," he said. "So, where are the other Senshi?"

"They aren't talking to me."

Sage looked at Ria in surprise. "Why?"

Ria lowered her eyes. "Our battle with Trulpa wasn't exactly easy for them, and they all kind of panicked or something, I guess," she said. "None of them wants to deal with the armors anymore – I guess I can't blame them, but Anubis thinks they just need some time to sort things out on their own. They can't exactly run from this forever, but for now I can't get so much as a 'hello' from any of them – they run the other way as soon as they see me coming if they can help it."

Sage sighed. "They'll need to get over themselves soon."

"I've been wanting that for the past few months – I still say they're my friends, and from what little I've seen of them, I can tell they're miserable, but they won't listen to me," said Ria. "They all seem so sad, but they're shutting me and each other out of their lives, and it's kind of scaring me. There's not much I can do, unfortunately."

"Well, we might need to give your friends a kick in the pants," said Sage.

"That's not very nice," said Susie.

The male Halo sighed. "I know it's not, but we can't wait around for them to sort their feelings out forever – we don't have that kind of time," he said. "The world needs them – now. And I wish we could give them more time to figure things out, but the fact of the matter is. . . we can't."

"I don't know why. . . but I think I believe you," said Ria, shoving one hand into her pocket. "It might be because you seem sincere enough, or because of your armor, or because you helped us out back there, or because you have a really nice ass, but I think I believe you."

Sage nearly stopped in his tracks. "I have a nice what?"

"Anubis isn't home right now – he's a police officer and he's on duty until later tonight – but we can at least wait for him there and maybe get some food in you – I know I'm hungry!" said Ria. "Anubis said he'd leave me some money for delivery, so we sit and talk about what's going on until Anubis gets back, order dinner, and then we can fill him in, okay?"

Sage gave Ria and quick smile. "Thanks. But I'm going to ask again; I have-"

"You heard me. A really, nice, ass."

"Basically, the legend goes like this," said Sage. The three had arrived back at Mike's house and were sitting in the living room with some Thai food. "A very long time ago, the Nether Realm wasn't the terrible place it is now – I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't even called that back then. But the world was populated by two intelligent species – the Flitteree and the Amazons. The Flitteree could fly, and the Amazons possessed heightened strength and senses – both species were very humanoid, except for the winged Fliteree, but they have a way of hiding their wings."

"Uh huh," said Ria.

Sage looked sadly down. "I recently found out I'm descended from the Flitteree tribe – I know I look human, but I'm really not," he said. Ria nearly choked on a spring roll and Sage looked at her in worry, standing up to try and help her as she finally got it out of her throat. "Are you okay!?"

"I'm fine, but you're telling me you're not-?!"

"I'm not," said Sage. "About a year ago I found out I was adopted – that led to a really nasty fight between me and my parents, and I'm pretty sure they've either disowned or disinherited me or something over it, but after a while I started having some weird dreams about the last Flitteree city, and then. . ." Sage's voice trailed off, and he reached up to clutch a small pendant around his neck. His eyes closed, and Ria could sense hurt coming from him.

"Sage?" Susie asked.

Ria placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "It's okay – tell us when you're ready."

Sage nodded sadly, looking at his Pad Thai in disinterest. "Well, about two thousand years ago, something corrupted nearly all of the Amazonian blood line – those who weren't affected fled to another realm, and a huge war broke out between the Flitteree, who were unaffected, and the corrupt Amazons.

"Towards the end of the war, demons began to inhabit the Nether Realm, including Trulpa and her twin brother, Talpa. These two were the most feared of the demons because of the magic armors they wore, and they sided with the Amazons – this all but destroyed the Flitteree, and the few who were left went into hiding while Talpa and Trulpa began to expand their separate Dynasties.

"About one thousand years ago, Talpa decided to attack our world, but he was stopped by the Ancient One and his spirit – but not his body, which was his armor – were sent back to the Nether Realm. The Ancient One used this to create the first nine Mystical Armors – this is the set that my Halo armor comes from," said Sage.

"And what about the Senshi armors?" asked Ria.

"Those came about one hundred years later when Trulpa tried the same thing and lost to the Ancient One, just like her brother, but she was able to retain her body," said Sage. "That's why Trulpa looks human. Talpa, on the other hand, had a physical form that was, well, armor. So anyways, the Ancient One now had eighteen armors on hand that could use two kinds of magic – the kind of magic you're used to, called Spirit magic, and the kind of magic now used mostly by the male armor bearers, called Blood magic.

"At some point the Ancient was faced with a tough decision – he had to keep the two sets of armors separate, and he had to separate the kind of magic used by set with barriers. I'm not sure why, but it probably had to do with eight of the armors from both sets joining Talpa and Trulpa."

"The Warladies," said Ria.

"Right. That created four Dark Warlords and four Dark Warladies – leaving five Ronin Warriors and five Ronin Senshi who were not allowed to know about each until they had all proved themselves in some way or another. Because the five of you defeated Trulpa once and my friends and I took down Talpa twice, it's okay for us to meet like this now," said Sage. "I don't know about Trulpa, but Talpa did have a fifth Warlady – I guess that's what you'd call her – under his control. Her name is Lady Kayura, and she is the last living member of the Ancient One's clan."

"What about Anubis?" asked Ria. "I thought -"

"He's the Ancient One's STUDENT, but he wasn't born into the clan. There's no way he'll ever be able to match the powers of the Ancient One, but Kayura can. However, Talpa used her for hundreds of years, making her a very powerful opponent. She was eventually freed of his control – by Anubis, actually – and took on the Ancient's role."

Ria raised an eyebrow. Sage's story wasn't making sense at the moment. "So then why's Anubis doing that now if Kayura's supposed to be playing that role?" asked Ria. Her eyes widened. "What happened to her? She didn't get killed or something, did she?"

"No, I believe she's still alive – Anubis probably doesn't mention it around you or the other Senshi, but he's probably wondering what happened to her himself," said Sage. "He knows that she's the one who should be doing what he's doing now – he should be very interested in that, as well as some of the other information Trulpa does NOT want you guys to know about."

"So basically there are two of each armor, and there's this Kayura. . ." said Ria.

"Right," said Sage.

"Why do I get the idea this isn't the end of it?" asked Ria, crossing her legs.

"The events of the current generation of Ronin Warriors' second battle with Talpa had some rather. . . terrible consequences," said Sage. "Talpa captured three of us, myself included, and tortured us." Ria felt her insides twitch at the mention. "Don't worry about it – we all got out okay. . . at first. What Talpa didn't realize was that his chosen method of torture destroyed the barriers preventing us from using Spirit magic and the corresponding Senshi from using Blood magic."

Ria's eyes widened. "You mean. . . six of the Ronins can use twice as much magic as they are supposed to be able to use!?" she said. "That's. . . that's incredible! And isn't that a good thing? I mean, if I can use the Wildfire Blood magic in conjunction with my own Spirit magic then-"

Sage shook his head. "It's not that simple," he said. "For one, to the best of my knowledge, the Wildfire barrier is intact. Second, Trulpa is immune to Blood magic and Talpa is immune to Spirit magic, so attacking Trulpa with Blood magic wouldn't do you much good. Either way, there's only two barriers left, which Trulpa found out about."

"Normally, the Ronin Warriors wouldn't be a threat to her, but suddenly, three of them were a threat because they could use magic that could harm her," said Ria. "So so wanted to get rid of the three of us in case you ever found out about her and decided to take her out?"

"Not even close," said Sage. "Trulpa and Talpa weren't exactly on great terms in recent years – I'm guessing around a century. Anubis might know more about it, but things got out of control after our second battle with Talpa. Once everyone but Talpa had cleared out, Trulpa showed up."

"What happened?"

"Trulpa killed Talpa," said Sage. "Her own brother."

"But. . . isn't that a good thing for the Ronin Warriors?" asked Susie.

"Actually, it's a really BAD thing for all of us," said Sage. "Because Talpa's dead, his sister now has control over all of his domain – everything. Sorcerers, Nether Spirits, you name it, she's got it. The only things she didn't have were the Dark Warlord armors and Lady Kayura."

"Why not the Dark Warlords?" asked Ria.

"Because all four of them decided to stop being Talpa's puppets and changed sides, plus, Lady Kayura was freed from Talpa's control and given temporary usage over the Dark Warlord of Cruelty's armor. Since Kayura's a female, she couldn't use it for long, but her heritage bought her a little time with it. Either way, Trulpa was after the Dark Warlords, Kayura, and myself and the other two Ronin Warriors affected by the torture."

"But it wasn't to take you out," said Ria.

"Because we could use Spirit magic, and she wanted to exploit that to her advantage," said Sage. "Back in August, the five of us went on a camping trip in Japan to try and get our minds off what had happened. It was just the five of us for a week, and then what was supposed to be the final night of the trip, three of us heard voices in the middle of the night. Ryo and Rowen didn't even budge."

"Those are the Ronin Warriors who can't use spirit magic," Ria concluded.

"Correct – they're Wildfire and Strata respectively, for the record," said Sage. "Kento, Cye and I – that would be Hardrock, Torrent, and Halo – decided to investigate the noise, and we ran into Kayura and three of the former Dark Warlords. They'd found out about Trulpa killing Talpa and wanted to warn us, but it was too late – Trulpa captured all seven of us that night."

Ria gulped. "Now I'm starting to see where this is getting BAD."

"Trulpa was the one who told us about the consequences of the torture sessions and forced us to study magic for her own purposes – she did some horrible things to us if we disobeyed, and had our armor orbs so we couldn't fight back at full power. Making matters worse, the other prisoners she took were all brainwashed back to the side of the Dynasty AND she gave the Cruelty armor to a servant of hers named Osiris. Currently, she has control over seven Dark Warlords and Warladies, Lady Kayura, and she still has Kento and Cye captive."

Ria stood up clenching her fists. "You left your friends?!"

"Trulpa decided to execute me!" said Sage, also getting to his feet. "I didn't have a choice. For some reason she still seems to want Kento and Cye alive, but she decided I would be of more use to her dead. Maybe she found out I was a Flitteree and wanted to kill me because of that, maybe she wanted to use me as an example, I don't know, but I had the opportunity to escape and I took it. I couldn't possibly go back for Kento and Cye. The best thing I could do for them was get help. Ryo and Rowen think we're dead, and since you clearly haven't heard anything about any of this I'm guessing Anubis doesn't know this is what Trulpa's up to, either."

Ria calmed and sat down. "Right now we are not in a good position – there are exactly two Ronins who know what's going on and have the ability to do something about it – your friends are either prisoners or unaware of what's going on, and the rest of the Senshi are refusing to accept their destinies right now." She closed her eyes and crossed her arms. "Right now I'm thinking we should let your buds in, uh, not the Dynasty-"

"-Japan."

"Right, Japan, know that you're alive and get their butts here, or we all head there," said Ria. She pulled her legs up onto the couch and sighed, running her fingers through her hair. "Plus, we need to talk some sense into the other Senshi – fast – and I don't know how to do that."

The sound of the front door opening and closing signaled Anubis' arrival home. Ria, Sage, and Susie all stood up to greet the officer, but it appeared as if he was a bit too distracted by work to notice the Ronin Warrior in his living room. "Hello girls! You would not BELIEVE the day I had today!" he said.

"Anubis, you-"

"I didn't think it was possible to have that much paperwork to file! Just paper after paper, signature after signature, ugh, it was awful!" Anubis said, tossing his hat towards the couch (Sage caught it, but Anubis still wasn't acknowledging his presence). "This isn't why I wanted to be a police officer!"

"Anubis. . ."

"I wanted to protect people for a living! I know that helping Ria and the other Senshi saves people as well, but if I'm going to have to support Susie and myself I want to do something that's going to do even more to help others. . ." It was about then that Anubis locked eyes with Sage. His jaw dropped, and Sage just gave him a weak smile in response. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE!?"

"You know, I could ask you the same question," Sage said.

Anubis placed his hands on the back of a chair, giving Sage an eye. "Talk."

Once Sage had gone over the bare basics of what happened – this time with a few added details (such as having a weapon he called "Daala's Sword" and a weird dog without hind legs named Dasher, "Dash" for short, with him, Kento being a seer, and Cye acting kind of strangely since his birthday), Anubis was sitting pensively in his chair.

"This is really, really serious. Ria's absolutely right, we need to get the other Ronins still in this world together as soon as possible," said Anubis. "I don't even want to think about how Trulpa could use Kento's power to her advantage, and getting him and Cye out of there needs to happen as soon as possible."

"But how can they do that?" asked Susie.

"Well, it's always possible they could escape on their own – Trulpa's castle might be in such disarray from trying to find Sage that they might not be paying as much attention to their remaining captives right now," said Ria. "That or they've beefed up security around them."

"The latter is more likely," said Anubis. "As it may be, Trulpa might be expecting that this conversation has already transpired – and I can guarantee she wouldn't want you or me to know any of this information. Now that we know this, we can begin planning a rescue operation, which I strongly believe is in order."

"Of course," said Sage. "I can't just leave them there."

"But we can't just charge in there, either – that might only harm your friends," said Anubis. Sage nodded, lowering his head. "I know this must be difficult for you, but you needed to get help – you did the right thing, Sage. You can't rescue them on your own – Trulpa would crush you in your own, and she's already expressed an interest in seeing you dead."

Sage closed his eyes. "But with just three of us. . . it'll be hard. Dash is still technically a puppy and the other Senshi aren't talking to Ria. I know the Staff is powerful and and all but. . . we need to get help. But where? I don't know if Ryo and Rowen are options-"

Anubis help up his hand. "We'll be going to Japan. At the very least, I will."

"What?"
"We need to go and get them."

Sage stared at Anubis in surprise. "We're going to. . .?"

"I understand why you're nervous – they think you and I are dead."
"Technically, you should be," said Sage.

Ria raised an eyebrow. "Wha. . . oh yeah, Anubis did the whole dead thing."

"I know it'll be a shock to their system, but it's only fair that they know you're alive – your parents, I'm sure, will want to know you're alive as well, as will Kento and Cye's parents," said Anubis. He saw Sage frown and sighed. "Sage, please, it's not fair for you to-"

"It's complicated," he said. "I mean, I'm sure Kento's parents miss him and Cye, but Cye's mom passed away recently and my parents and I aren't exactly on speaking terms." Ria turned towards Sage – he'd skipped mentioning he wasn't human to Anubis. Maybe he's getting his details mixed up and can't remember who he's told what to – that happens to me sometimes.

Anubis leaned back. "Well, okay, we'll tell Kento's parents that, to our knowledge, he's still alive." Sage started to get up, but Anubis held up his hand. "It wouldn't be fair of us to guarantee he's alive and give them false hope. We're going to do everything we can to help your friends, but you know I speak the truth."

Sage sat back down and sighed. "Point made."

"Now, what came between you and your parents, Sage?" asked Anubis.

Sage was about to answer when they heard a banging on the door and frantic cries from a woman. "Ella?" asked Ria. Sage turned to Ria in confusion. "Ella is Sam's aunt – Sam being one of the other Senshi. In fact, the other Halo. What's she doing here?" Ria was already on her way to the door as she spoke, a bad feeling in her gut.

She opened the door to find Ella near tears and pointing frantically at a letter in Sam's handwritting. "You've got to do something!" she screamed. Sage also stood up, slowly walking towards the short haired woman and the letter. "Sam's been upset for months but, I didn't think she'd be this upset to do something this drastic!"

"Ella, what's going on?" asked Ria.

Gently, Sage took the letter from Ella. His eyes widened as he scanned the paper. "This is. . . she's not. . .AW, SHIT!" He dropped the letter and brushed passed Ella, Ria and Anubis calling after him. Ella looked at Ria and Anubis in confusion, pointing and gaping at the strange boy who'd just run past her.

"Who was that!? Where is he going?" asked Ella.

Ria picked up the letter and read it over. "I'm sorry about everything, Ella. This isn't your fault. I love you. Take care of yourself and extend my deepest apologies to Ria and Anubis." Her eyes widened in realization once the full meaning of the note hit her, and she dropped the letter. "Sam's suicidal!?"

Author's Notes

Dun, dun, DUN!

Dude, this story is working out WAY better than RSL – we're getting right into the action, aren't we?

Dixxy