chapter 10: the ruby island
me and rukia dropped onto an island of pure ruby after being debreifed in the chinook. we had to scout out the island and find anything of intrest. "jake! come on!" i turned around a rukia rolled her eyes. "are you coming or not?" i nodded and ran after her with my pistols in hand. we ran across the island until we found a cave with gigantic white eggs covered in webs around the entrance. i shuddered and rukia patted me between the wolf ears. "dont get so worked up. you have those new explosive rounds that lyra gave you" i nodded but shuddered again all the same. we started walking down the cavern until we couldnt see anymore. i turned on the underbarrel torch on both of my pistols and saw the gigantic mandibles of a spider. i shot a round into it and saw rukia smiling behind it. "RUKIA!" i shouted. she laughed and hugged me tightly. "is the little pup gonna cry?" i growled and she ran off down the cave. "your so scary! just like a wolf!" she hid behind a rock and i growled louder. "get back here!" i shouted. the top of the rock split open and a creature grabbed rukia. it clicked angrily and i pointed the desert eagles at it. the thing dropped rukia and i faintly hear it say "you! you killed corcunus!" it ran off deeper into the cave and rukia coughed. "whats this about corcunus?" i picked her up and said "the gigantic spider in the dragon temple was going to kill me so i shot him" rukia smiled and i saw a gash i her arm dripping poison. "jake..." she said weakly. she must have only just noticed it. her eyes slowly closed but i shook her awake. "stay with me rukia! dont go to sleep! try and hold out!" she nodded and i started carrying her on my back. her head lolled forwards onto my shoulder as she breathed heavily. "hang in there rukia! where almost to the bottom!" when we reached the bottom of the cave, we where inside a beautiful cavern filled with unrefined crystals of every kind. a walkway made from stone extended in front of me to an altar with a dragon engraved and inlaid with amber. thats what it would probably look like if it wasnt covered in webs and spiders like the dragon temple. i shuddered and fitted a magazine into my pistol. the spiders where weaving some sort of sigil over the dragon. it looked like...oh god. "thats the C.O.R.R.U.P.T emblem!" a gigantic spider even bigger than corcunus dropped in front of us and spat a ball of sticky web at us. it wrapped around me and rukia tightly, restricting all movement. the spider took hold of us in its front legs and stuck us to a web. "yes. that is C.O.R.R.U.P.T's emblem. though they do not rule us, we have signed a contract with them" i smirked and said "how can you sign a contract? you dont have fingers!" the spider hissed and said "do you want my help or not?!" i stared into its eyes and asked "you want to...help us?" the spiders eyes rolled and he said "though you have killed my brother and destroyed one of our many settlments, my younger siblings do not see sense like i do. they are simple minded and frankly, i cannot relate to them in any way" the spider sighed and i nodded. "i know how you feel when you cant relate to anybody but..." i stopped and felt rukia's body get weaker on my back. "look. you said you see more sence than your younger siblings so listen to me! i need an antidote for your poison! she'll die if we dont help her and if she dies then i have nothing to live for. we are both each others quest bearers and it only works with two people!" the spider looked around and said "well...this temple is very old and was settled by renouned spider hunters so there must be some thing i can find" the spider disapeared and i heard the sound of bottles clinking around. i looked over at a shelf and saw a smaller and older looking version of the spider. he probably only reached up to my waist. hair was over his fangs and it made him look like he had a moustache. "let me just get you down" his voice was squeaky like an joyful old man. the spider reached up and tore away the webs around me and rukia. "thanks...uh...older corcunus?" the spiders fangs widened in a smile and he said "just call me phil. its philosis but its easier to say phil" he smiled again and i nodded. "so where is this antidote?" phil jumped out of his...exoskeleton? and ran over to a shelf. "how long has she had the poison in her system?" i looked at my watch and said "about ten minutes" phil sighed and said "then i have to be quick! its probably already in her main blood stream!" i nodded and lay her down on a stone table that had a few bottles of weird liquids on it. i picked one up and uncorked the top. "this smells like cola!" i said to phil. he nodded and started crushing up some leaves with a mortar and pestil. "thats because it is. coke wasnt just from the nineteen hundreds. it was an old recipe from near the medievel times made by humans as a medicine. they kept using it but it just killed people off because of what you humans call 'colestoral' or something like that. they locked it deep away in a vault somewhere around the world along with some ancient automaton technology" i nodded and phil ran over to me. "put these in the cola" i nodded and poured the crushed leaves into the red bottle. phil took it in his claw and drank it in one go. "i thought you said that was the antidote!?" phil looked at me and said "no. that was just to calm my nerves. this is where we really start getting serious!" phil climbed up the wall and snapped a bit of crystal from the wall. he crushed that up in the mortar and pestil while his other legs worked on creating a liquid. i just sat back and watched, mesmerized by him. "could you pass me the dried lycan ear?" i jumped out of my skin when he said dried lycan ear. "that plant by you" i looked at the plant and saw it actually did look like a lycans ear. i picked a few leaves from it and he took it from my hand. "so who are you anyway?" phil asked while he added the leaves. "im jake. jake smith. lightning elemental and agent to E.L.E.M.E.N.T" phil nodded and said "i figured as much. an elemental dosent exactly smell normal but a lightning elemental smell just that bit more sour" i stared at him and asked "why would an elemental smell sour?" phil smiled and said "well because of your genetic structure, your cells have to change form an..." i held up a hand and said "i can tell this is going to be boring" phil laughed and said "i'll just keep making the antidote then" i nodded and phil started taking things off shelves and adding them to the mortar and pestil. "jake. pass me some of the lycan tail" i jumped again and phils eyes narrowed. "why are you so jumpy whenever i mention the plants of wolves?" i sighed and took off my cap. "because i am one" my wolf ears popped out from under my hair and phil laughed. "i've never seen a lycan before. so is it true that your blood can be used to make a draught of life?" i shrugged and said "i only just found out i was a lycan after your brother told me" phil nodded and poured the crushed ingredients into the bottle of liquid he had been making. "this should work if the poison isnt to far developed into her system" i nodded as he handed it to me. "just a few drops, ok? if you put to much into her system then it will just be like giving her a double dose of poison" i nodded again and poured a few drops down her slightly open mouth. i waited...and waited. she didnt stir once but her shallow breathing had finally levelled out to what she would if she where sleeping. "i forgot to tell you. one side effect of the antidote is that it puts the reciever to sleep for a while. she should wake up in a couple hours. i'll be seeing you then" phil went to walk away but i stopped him. "why dont you come to E.L.E.M.E.N.T? your alchemy skills could be useful to us but...your younger siblings will either have to leave or be killed" phil just laughed and said "i lied when i said they where my siblings. im not actually a spider. i was just cursed by corcunus and arachne to be like this. i would gladly come to your faction with you and work for you IF you can find a way to get rid of my curse" i nodded and looked over phils body. i saw a small syringe in a joint near his back leg and walked over to it. "is this meant to be here?" phil tried to look at is but couldnt actually turn his head properly to see it. i pulled it out and light shined from the small hole that had been made. i saw phils body float up and burst into shards of crystal. the light wasnt blinding but i still had to put a hand over my eyes to stop it hurting. when i opened my eyes again, i saw a girl touch down on the floor gracefully. she was naked apart for a small scarf around her neck made from white silk. "my name is eris tain and i am forever...in your...dept..." her eyes closed slowly and and she fell forwards. i caught her in my arms and she smiled in her sleep. "thank you" she said quietly. i nodded and looked at her face intently. she was, to put it simply, stunning. perfect features, definitly a perfect body. i took off my jacket and put it on her gently so not to wake her up. her long hair was a white blond colour that seemed to shimmer in the crytals light. it was so long that if she where to stand up straight it would still touch the floor. she was young, only about mine and rukia's age. i zipped up the jacket and lay her on the stone table gently. i looked around and noticed that the spiders where all watching me intently. "so whats wrong? you to cowardly to face me now that corcunus and phil are gone?" they clicked angrily and one spoke up. "we will leave for now but if you stumble across one of our settlments again, we wont be so lenient" the webs disapeared in dark energy as the spiders started out the temple. one stopped and said "you are an enemy to the arachtines. do not think we will spare you when C.O.R.R.U.P.T take over" it followed its siblings. not one trace of a spider was left. the temple was just as beautiful as the one inside snowdon. i walked around the temple and found some random stuff like swords and axes that have aged and broken over the years. i walked up to the main altar and flames erupted on torches around the cavern. the glittering crystals reflected the fire and casted amazing lights across the room. "beautiful isnt it?" i looked over to my left and saw eris standing there with my jacket on. "yeah...it sort of looks like constelations" eris nodded and pointed to a cluster of lights. "you see them? what does it look like to you?" i looked at them closer and said "it looks like...orions belt" eris nodded and said "look even closer than that" i narrowed my eyes and they widened when i saw what they really were. "oh my god...there planets!" eris nodded and widened her arms in front of her (she did it like you would on a touch screen if you where zooming in a photo). the image zoomed in and i was looking a cluster of planets. six in total. "these are the reason for our existance. this one here gave us water and this one gave us fire. these two are wind and earth" she stopped and smiled at me. "what about these two?" i pointed to a dark grey planet and a black planet that seemed to be covered in a black sludge. "well this one here is darkness and this one is..." i stared at it as i saw a lightning bolt flicker over its surface. "thats lightning. these are the elements!" eris nodded and said "yes. these are what created our world. watch this" she pointed a finger at the constelation and they started shining brightly. four beams of coloured light shot from the wind, fire, earth and water planets, slamming into each other right where out solar system should be. "that is what you call the big bang. it created our star system, not with space dust but with the four elements. lightning is introduced later" a beam of yellow light shot from the lightning planet and hit the newly formed earth. the screen zoomed in on earth to the top of a volcano. fire spewed from the top and a small egg landed on its surface. the screen played out the creation of the eggs. the vision zoomed upwards into the clouds where two eggs where floating. the one rei had found and mine. "these are the four elements. lightning was never an element back then and sky still isnt. now lets watch the earth form" she pointed a finger at the lights again and the earth spun, millions of years per minute. i could see fire storms clashing with water and tornados clashing with mountains. over the antarctic part of the earth, grey clouds where gathering. about when the first organisms where being created, the elements all clashed at once. the clouds over the antarctic spread out in a thick layer over the whole earth and all four elements where wiped out. "thats how lightning became the ruler of elements. overlord of the earth. though it had the power, it did not over use it like fire or the other elements would of. it created people and chose a select few to rule over them. have you ever heard of the greek gods?" i nodded and eris smiled again. "before he chose the greek gods, he chose people like gia and the other titans to rule. he chose the most powerful people around the world and bestowed them with the powers of the elements. when kronos was defeated by his own sons, lightning realised his mistake and bestowed his children with the powers of the elements. zeus being sky and lightning, he became the ruler. water became posiedon" eris paused and i looked at her. "what about hades?" she smiled and closed her arms inwards. "this was when this planet here became active" a black beam exploded from the planet and hit the greek age world. "hades was manifested with darknesses power and became a god by lightnings choice. lightning had thought he needed a balancer for all the good in his choice of gods and put hades in the underworld. what it didnt expect was that hades soon started getting more powerful and that is how all of those greek stories started. when lightning started loosing influence, he grew weaker until about around the medievel plague time, he was gone. he just disapeared. now that the elements where running amok with no leader, darkness stepped in with fake promises and corrupted the elements into darkness. this has gone on for millenia, until you came in. now that lightning has chosen a new manifestation, you can finally bring this world to its former glory" eris stopped talking and i said "is that everything?" eris nodded and i sighed. "so im basically the catalyst for the creator of gods and that i have the power to thwart darkness" eris nodded and i sighed louder. "its like something out of a crappy movie" i looked at eris and she smiled. "this coat is really warm" she said simply. i nodded and looked over at rukia. she was still sleeping. "um...jake?" i looked at eris and she had gotten right up close to me. "will you still let me come to E.L.E.M.E.N.T and help you?" i nodded and she hugged me tightly. "thank you" she said politely. i smiled and patted her on the head lightly. "its fine. where always looking for recruits and your alchemy skills could really help our infirmary. with any luck you'll know a cure-all potion?" eris raised an eyebrow and said "you wound me with your underestimation" i smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. "then you had better make something for that or it might get infected" god i make the worst jokes. i laughed and eris walked over to rukia. "she should have woken up by now. its not like it to take this long" i looked at rukia and sighed. "its not your fault. rukia's just lazy" i prodded rukia in the stomach and she woke with a start. "what happened!? did i miss something important" rukia looked around the cavern and looked amazed at the bright lights. "wow! there so pretty!" i picked rukia up on my back and she put a head on my shoulder. she suddenly noticed eris. "whos that?" she hissed in my ear. i smiled sheepishly and said "thats eris. she's going to be helping us out around E.L.E.M.E.N.T" rukia nodded and said "oh! i thought she was somebody you had just gone and had it off with because she naked and everything" i sighed as eris started walking back up to the cave with me and rukia. "hi. im eris" she introduced herself to rukia and they shook hands. "rukia. so your a witch are you?" i looked at rukia and she corrected herself. "alchemist" eris smiled and said "yep. been an alchemist all my life. ever since the spider hunters guild was destroyed and i was turned into a spider, i practiced alchemy. i found i was quite good at it and practiced out of old spell books and alchemy tomes i found in the underwater temple. when the ruby cave appeared, i was to afraid to go out and seek help to actually do anything. i was the only one in here until the other spiders came in and overrun the temple. i used some old glass and shields to create an illusion trap at the entrance. it projects a larger image of me down on the main entrance while im safe in the main control. i cant use it now though. i made it for my spider form and i dont think a thirty foot naked girl would be very scary. guys would probably start flocking to see it though" eris laughed as we reached the mouth of the cave. "its been milenia since i've seen the sunlight! its so nice and warm!" eris smiled as the chinook started decending down onto the island. it bumped down on the ruby and jane jumped out with rei. eris looked terrified and hid behind me. i put a hand on her shoulder and she looked at me. "its alright. there your new team mates" she nodded but clung to my arm all the same. "jake! come on!" i nodded and walked over to the chinook. soon we where airlifted back out to HQ.