Chapter 5

Ky stared up at the ceiling over his bed as he thought about Maya, something he had done constantly ever since her untimely death. He closed his eyes and conjured up an image of her, though all that did was make his heart ache all the more for her loss. Still, he clung to that image, for strangely he would rather feel the pain than forget her and move on with his life. A single tear ran from his eye to be absorbed by his tousled black hair.

Suddenly there came a loud crash at the door, the portal bursting open, and Kieran stalked into the room. Ky sat up, thinking to ask what was going on, but then he noticed the sword the king clutched in a white knuckled grip, and he abandoned that line of thought altogether. The king charged at him with the sword raised high overhead. Ky threw himself out of the way, and the sword chopped down and through the bed.

''Kieran?'' Ky balked. ''What the hell are you doing?''

The king did not reply but extracted his sword and charged again, this time leading with a thrust. Ky slapped his hand against the flat of the blade, effectively turning it aside. That left him an excellent opening for a counter, but he did not capitalize on the advantage, for he did not really want to hurt Kieran. The enraged king was bound by no such compunction, however.

Kieran, rage boiling in his green eyes, came on again, slashing again and again but never hitting the nimble kairu warrior. At one point he grabbed the sword in both hands and swung across mightily. Ky glided backwards and out of reach of the blade, or so the thought, for the king had a trick up his sleeve. Kieran reversed his strength, halting the blade in mid swing, and stabbed straight ahead.

The blade would have skewered Ky, had he not fallen into his inner kairu, and with power wrought of desperation, he threw his inner kairu at Kieran, lifting him from his feet and slamming him hard against the ceiling. The impact blasted the air from the king's lungs, and the sword fell from his weakened fingers, clattering noisily on the floor. Ky did not let the king go but kept him pinned against the ceiling.

''Ky!'' Boomer cried, rushing into the room. ''Kieran? What are you guys doing?''

''He tried to kill me,'' Ky rasped.

''Kieran did?'' Boomer sounded skeptical, glancing up at the pinned king. ''This must be some sort of misunderstanding.''

''When my guards get here,'' Kieran said, ''you are both dead.''

Boomer nearly fell over, so surprised was he by the words.

''Why did you attack me?'' Ky demanded.

''To pay you back for what you did!'' the king roared back. ''To pay you back for killing Maya!''

Ky stared up at Kieran, and the king grunted as the pressure on him grew stronger, and the ceiling around him began to creak in protest. Boomer put a hand on Ky's shoulder, and the young Stax reined back on his temper. He loosened his grip on Kieran, though without letting him go.

''We did not kill Maya,'' Boomer said. ''Malice did that. We told you as much over dinner.''

''I saw you!'' Kieran shouted. ''In the vision I had. You grabbed her, and you stabbed her again and again with a knife until the life fled from her. I will see your heads mounted on my wall as retribution for what you did to her!''

''But that never happened,'' Boomer said. ''You sir, have had a nightmare.''

Ky flipped through his attack x-drives until he found the one he was looking for, then he pointed the device at Kieran. Using an attack on a non combatant was strictly against the rules, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And besides, he was not going to let a rule prevent him from setting things aright with Kieran. He called the man a friend, after all, and did not want their friendship to end in this way. But mostly, he did not want anyone to think that he had killed Maya.

''MIND WELD!'' Ky shouted, and he was enveloped by blue energy, and then a tendril of it moved to touch Kieran, similarly enveloping him. Ky closed his eyes, and the vision that had driven Kieran to assail him played out behind his closed eyes. He was indeed horrified by the spectacle, and did not blame the king from going into such a fit of rage. Ky opened his eyes and glanced up at Kieran.

''What you saw in that vision never happened,'' Ky said.

''Then explain my vision,'' Kieran said.

''I cannot explain why you saw what you did,'' Ky said. ''I can only tell you that what you saw did not happen.''

For a long time there was silence, with Kieran thinking about the vision, comparing the Ky and Boomer he had seen there with the Ky and Boomer he personally knew as his friends. He began to see the illusion for what it was. It was hard to erase the horrible images from his mind, but at last he managed to believe that Ky was telling the truth, and that he and Boomer were not the ones who had murdered Maya. He nodded, the tightness of anger flowing from his face, and Ky let him go.

The guards entered the room, laser rifles trained on Ky and Boomer, but Kieran motioned for them to lower their weapons. ''The slight was mine,'' he said to the guards. ''This unfortunate incident is to be forgotten, is that understood.'' The dumbfounded guards nodded. Kieran moved to the door, but paused and glanced back at Ky and Boomer. ''I am sorry.'' That said he moved out of the room and back to his own quarters.

xxxxx

Invisible to their physical eyes, the spirit of Malice hovered inside the room, watching the king depart. In truth she was not overly concerned, for she had only wanted to try and see if this would work. The spirit gave a shrug of her incorporeal shoulders and phased through the wall and into the night outside, but her spirit senses were not hindered by the darkness as were physical eyes. She moved through the courtyard, measuring the defenses of the fortress, before flying off toward her own physical body back in her fortress.

To be continued...

I originally had several ideas for a Redakai story, and I could not decide which I wanted to write. On one hand I wanted to write a story where the villain was an evil version of Maya. On the other I wanted to write a Redakai fantasy story with a villain who had an army. And then I wanted to have a fight between Ky and Kieran. I wasn't able to choose which I wanted to write the most, so I just decided to blend them all together.