Chapter 7
Allie's Pov
Ray has been kind of distracted ever since his little "Date" with Raven. I am tempted to ask him about it, but I don't want it so seem like I am jealous or something. How in the world can I be jealous of a girl I have never met?
Master Kimora has us doing stance holding in the Dojo again today, but for whatever reason, I had the strange feeling that something was going to happen today. I know I normally have a bit of a sense for odd things, but I never would have expected what walked through the dojo doors.
All three of our jaws dropped at the woman who walked into the dojo. She was tall with long curly blonde hair that ended just above the middle of her back. She wore a dark red leather jacket, black pants, and black, knee high boots with red and gold accents. If I didn't know any better, I would have said she looked like some kind of model, but what model would come into some hole in the wall dojo? She took off her large sunglasses and her crystal blue eyes swept over us.
"Hey, do you three know about the special lessons?" She asked us, with a voice like silk. All three of us recognized the code for Kaijudo. We nodded our heads and she smiled. "Great! Do you know where Master Nadia would be?"
"Probably in her lab. She has been working on deciphering something lately." Gabe answered.
"Thanks!" She said cheerily.
The three of us exchanged glances and silently decided to follow the woman. We entered the temple and about halfway to the library, we ran into master Kimora.
"Maria, is that you?" Kimora opened his arms and the woman, Maria, gave him a warm hug.
"Ben, it's been forever!" She laughed as Kimora lifted her off the ground and placed her back down.
"What are you doing here? I thought you wouldn't be back for another month." Kimora asked.
"Well, I am back for a few reasons… Some of which I am not willing to say around kids." She cleared her throat a bit, and winked.
The three of us shared an annoyed look, and shrugged. Kimora waved goodbye as we followed Maria through the library and to Nadia's private lab. Once again, she was hard at work deciphering some old scroll.
"Can you put that away for a bit?" Maria asked?
Nadia whipped around in surprise, and her face melted into a happy smile as Maria crossed the lab and embraced her. When the two finally stepped back from each other, all of us were expecting a cute little jumble of sentences from the two who obviously haven't seen each other in a while, and we might have gotten that… too bad none of us know Russian.
"I thought you said you would be back next month?" Master Nadia.
"Well… problems arose and I am back early… With Presents!" Maria opened her bag and handed her a scroll. "Also, I found Nigel."
I feel like my jaw hit the ground. She said it so nonchalantly too! "Wait, wait, wait! You found Nigel and waited until now to say something?!" I cried.
"Where is he?" Nadia asked with a sigh. The entire tone in the room changed so quickly. From happiness to a quiet chorus of sighs and Maria's laughter.
"He's in Australia. I visited the outpost to get the scroll and lo and behold, there he was, chained to a chair because the specialist didn't know what to do with him. They apparently had a bit of an accident and their phones broke, so they lost the contact number of the temple. It's just a mess over there, despite what the twins said." Maria explained herself after she calmed down a bit.
"You're kidding right?" Ray asked.
"If only. I need a map of the kaiju realm that parallels our world so I can go pick him up." Maria said.
Nadia walked over to one of the shelves and took out a large scroll. She rolled it out on her desk and pointed to the fire realm. "You will have to following the ring of fire around Japan and down to Australia. I suggest taking this route as it is the safest. You will be going along the water fire border the entire way."
"Sounds fun. I'm gonna go ask around and see if anyone is up for a field trip." Maria turned to the three of us. "Are any of you interested?"
"You didn't even need to ask. They would have followed anyways." Master Nadia sighed.
"Oh, really? Well, I might need to find another adult to tag along then." She scratched the back of her head in thought. "Oh, I know who I want to come with! I'll see you later, Sestra."
We followed as Maria ran out of the lab. Sestra? I had no idea Nadia had a sister. I thought to myself. Master Nadia tried to say something to her, but was gone too fast to listen. We didn't exactly hear either since we followed her.
We followed her to the Master Chavez' cave.
"Yo, Chavez!" Maria called out to the fire master.
"Do either of you feel like this might be a bad idea?" I asked Ray and Gabe quietly.
"What, that Nadia's younger sister is about to take her older sister's boyfriend into the fire realm? No, it's a perfectly reasonable idea." Gabe answered sarcastically.
"We might want to keep an eye on them if he does come with, which he probably will." Ray said quietly.
"Maria, is that you?" Master C called out.
"Yep. You wanna come get Nigel from Australia with us?" She asked.
"How? The ley lines were des- wait. You want to go through the veil, don't you?" He walked over to us from his little meditation area.
"Yeah. I got a parallel map from Nadi, are you in or out?" She waved the map in front of his face.
"Fine, I'll go." He sighed. "But you need to listen to me sometimes."
"I'll listen when you make sense." She scoffed.
All three of us cringed and waited for Master Chavez to respond, but instead of saying something back, he opened a breach in the veil. Maria jumped through as soon as she could, and Chavez let out a deep sigh. We followed her through the veil and closed it behind us.
Ray's Pov
Once we crossed the veil, I summoned Bob to make the trip quicker.
"Wow. So Nadi wasn't kidding when she said the rules were loosening up." Maria said as she watched me climb up Bob's arm.
"Yeah, thanks to these three." Chavez said.
"Well, there's a first time for everything." She said excitedly. She climbed up bob's arm and waited for the others to climb up as well. Once everyone was on his back, Bob spread his wings and took to the skies. I have to say, it was pretty funny watching Maria scream with joy as we soared skywards.
Once Maria calmed down, she directed Bob where to go.
"This path might not be the best idea. There are rumors around the fire civilization about an attack near the water fire border." Bob said.
"So, a fire/nature creature would rather fly across miles and miles of water? From what I've seen, something's up in the water civ." Maria asked.
"The water Civilization is in the middle of a sort of civil war." I explained. "There is a small, yet strong, rebellion against the council of logos."
"Wow. Hopefully it doesn't spill over into the other civilizations." She looked over the lava fields.
"Hey, there's the border." Gabe pointed to a large bit of blue on the horizon.
Instead of following along side the border, we decided to go a bit inland. According to the map, we were about half way there before Gabe spotted something interesting.
"Hey guys, look over there!" He pointed farther inland, and we saw something quite strange. A massive fox-like creature was chained down to some kind of platform and was being pulled across the lava field, surrounded by almost fifty dragon and drakon guards.
"What's going on?" I asked Bob.
"A prisoner transfer. I have heard rumors that there was going to be a major transfer from a jail not far from here to Blastforge." He replied. "We need to leave. Those guards will not tolerate us being so close."
Bob began to veer away from the group, but not before Gabe spotted something else… Something way more concerning. A large groups of fire creatures were heading straight for the guards!
"What do they think they are doing?!" Maria cried. "They're all going to get themselves killed!"
"Bob, we have to do something!" I yelled to him.
"There is nothing we can do. Look at the large dragon leading the other creatures." I looked to the massive wyvern flying straight for the prisoner. "Her name is Raja, the Sky Burner. The titan rumored to lead the attack, and now it is happening. They know what they are getting into."
"But, what about the prisoner? If he needs that many guards, he shouldn't be freed." Master Chavez said.
Bob growled. "…Fine. I know that creature, and he cannot be freed no matter what."
Bob landed near by to let us off and summon some creatures.
"Gillaflame, the assulter!"
"Scaradorable of gloom hollow!"
"Reef Prince Glu-urgle!"
Maria performed the fire kata and called out a creature."Dragon Mare!"
The dragon mare was a large horse with scales and spines instead of a mane and fire as a tail. It was a high powered, difficult to control creature, so difficult in fact that no one under the title of specialist were allowed to attempt summoning it. It snarled as Maria hopped onto its back.
"Okay, Ray and I will try and warn the guards, the rest of you, try and talk to those creatures. Convince them not to fight." Master Chavez ordered.
"All of us should head over to the guards." Maria argued. "If Raja is really going to attack them, I doubt she will be convinced to stop now. Besides, I don't think Mare or the Scaradorable will be able to catch up to a flying creature."
"Or, you can convince all of the walking creatures following her that there are over fifty trained dragon and drakon guards that will kill anything that seems aggressive?" Chavez shot back. "If you convince them not to fight, she might stop as well."
"…Fine. Just be careful. If you die, I will kill you." She glared at master Chavez while Allie and Gabe climbed up onto Squeaky.
Gabe's Pov
Maria led the way to the group while Allie and I hung back on Squeaky. Ever since we saw that prisoner, Allie has been really quiet.
"Hey, Allie, is something wrong?" I finally asked.
"You saw how that creature looked, right?" Allie asked. I was taken back by how serious she sounded.
"Yeah, what about it?"
"You didn't notice, did you? Did anything about that creature look familiar?" She pressed, looking back at me.
I though back on the prisoner. It was a huge fox creature with nine tails, it had a black line running down its back… and black markings around its eyes and mouth!
"It has black marks like yours!" I exclaimed, but Allie didn't seem happy at this. "Maybe it knows why you have them."
"Maybe, but right now, we need to prepare for a fight." Allie looked ahead.
"What, why?" I was a bit startled. Did she really think we wouldn't be able to convince at least a few to stop?
"Guys, abort mission! I repeat, ABORT MISSION!" Maria yelled from ahead, the dragon mare skidding to a stop ahead of us.
Just as we reached the top of an up rise, I realized how badly we misjudged how far apart the two groups were.
The battle had already begun.
