Okay enjoy this next chapter. This will be all until Tuesday. I don't have internet at home and tomorrow I'm going to this camp with friends, Sunday dress fitting for seinor banquet, and monday is Memorial day and the library will be closed. So enjoy, have a great weekend and to my annon. reviewers, thankee! It makes me smile when people say that this story is unique and that they like it. :)

Chapter ten

Pure Evil

"Damnit! Stupid portal!" screamed Cort kicking the ground.

"Well we can just go back and try again," Ceara said.

"Oh come on! We're in Numenor! We have to look around first," Hugh said excitedly.

Arda shook her head no.

"No way, we have to rescue Adrian. We can't afford to walk around Numenor," Arda explained.

While the group bickered and argued about staying or leaving the sun set. With the setting of the sun a lone figure passed a shadow over the four of them making them feel the bite of a cold chill.

"Why hello, it's such a pleasure to see you again," a voice said behind them.

The group froze. The figure huffed.

"Stop being impolite to me," the voice said. "It's rude to ignore old friends."

The four turned around. There standing like a blackened shadow against the darkest night stood Galen. He looked different though. His hair shined like the same colour of the moon and his eyes looked like the demon moon. The blood red colour of his eyes frightened the four of them. His facial features had changed as well. He no longer looked like a teenage senior boy in high school. He looked like a seasoned fighter with many battles behind him. He blended in with the darkness around him. He wore a black long sleeve shirt and pants. His black cape fluttered in the moonlight and around his waist laid the scabbard of a sword sheathed. He wasn't the Galen they knew anymore.

"Galen…," whispered Arda.

He laughed at them in the queerest sort of way.

"You remember me," he scoffed.

"For us it was only twenty minutes ago," Hugh explained.

He rolled his eyes.

"For me it's been ages," Galen said.

"What happened to you?" Ceara asked.

He advanced at them.

"Sauron never killed me. He offered me a new life and I took it. I serve him now," Galen said with a smile.

Cort shook his head.

"How could you? You know how evil he is!"

Galen threw back his head and laughed.

"Evil is as evil does. I know him like the back of my hand. I know all of his weaknesses. When the time is right I will destroy him and rule Middle-Earth."

Arda shook her head.

"No you can't."

Galen focused his evil eyes at her.

"Why is that oh Middle-Earth scholar?"

"You will screw up Middle-Earth's history. You can't do it," Arda explained.

Galen laughed at her again.

"So? What are you going to do about it?"

He unsheathed his sword. The blade shimmered in the moonlight. The four of them took out their swords as well.

"You don't think you could defeat me do you?" Galen asked. "It'd be a pity if you thought you could hurt me."

"Damn you Galen!" shouted Hugh.

Hugh ran at Galen and attacked him. Hugh never really could control his temper and he was never really a skilled fighter but through anger and extreme tiredness his slashes became vicious and brutal. Hugh kicked him in the arm and Galen laughed again.

"Petty cuts and scraps won't hurt me," he sneered.

Fifteen minutes earlier Ceara lay on the floor of the Chemistry classroom sobbing for Galen. Now she engaged in hand to hand combat with him. Ceara and Galen had always been a good match for a sword fight. She was given the name Ceara after her grandmother who lived in Ireland. The grandmother was an excellent fighter and her speciality was the spear. Ceara's parents had always hoped that she would follow her grandmother's footsteps but as she grew up in Ireland they realized that her true love lay with the sword. So being good parents they taught their daughter everything they knew about sword fighting. Galen on the other hand learned how to fight later on in life. His father took him to medieval festivals when he was a small boy and he always liked the sword fighters. When he was thirteen he joined the festivals as a forger/ sword fighter and as they say the rest is history. To watch Galen and Ceara sword fight was akin to getting tickets to see the Boston Red Soxs against the New York Yankees at game seven of the World Series and catching the home run ball that won the game.

The two fought under the moon and stars on the island of Numenor through anger, resentment, hatred and pain. Every blow that one threw the other blocked with ease. Ceara began to get tired after five minutes. Her body was physically tired from the entire day and her mind was on overload. Half of her mind told her fighting Galen like this was wrong and the other half told her to keep fighting and to defeat him. The other three saw that she was getting tired so they helped her fight. The four fought Galen on all sides but they still could not defeat him. The many years that they had not seen him (though to them it was a matter of minutes) he had become stronger then they ever thought he would. Galen mocked a yawn and then laughed.

"What a pity it came to this isn't it?" he said smiling.

"Galen stop this," Arda began. "There's still time to change."

"Stop? Stop? Are you mad woman! You've always been mad! Killing is like an addiction. Once you start there's no stopping."

Galen saw that Ceara was on the verge of collapsing due to tiredness and he took advantage of it. He focused all his attention on her and used all his strength against her.

"Please Galen stop," Ceara whispered blocking another one.

He smiled, "never."

He brought the sword down on the crown of her head taking skin, bone, and brain with it. Her eyes went wide with shock and despair. The life seemed to drain from her face. No noise emitted from her vocal cords as she dropped to the ground landing on her stomach and face. Galen laughed.

"Way to easy if you ask me," he said smiling.

The three looked at Galen in shock. All they could think of was running back to the portal. Back to the world they knew. The three ran blindly to the portal through the pitch darkness. Cort dove in first followed by Arda and then Hugh. Galen let out another gruesome laugh. He watched as the portal closed.

"This is not over," he said.

--

The wind whirled around them as Arda closed the portal and the three ran for it.

"What the hell is going on?" Cort yelled above the wind.

"I'm guessing there's a tornado!" Hugh yelled back. "The rest of them must have gone down to the basement. Come on we must hurry!"

The three ran through the empty corridors of the school they all practically grew up in. The empty darkened classrooms gave off an eerie aura of danger and pain. Arda glanced at the art room and memories struck through her like a knife.

Galen, Ceara, Rubi, Adrian and Arda sat around the sculpture with brilliant smiles across their faces. Everything, including themselves, in the vicinity of the sculpture area was covered in paint, clay and water.

"I can't believe we finished it!" Galen happily exclaimed.

Arda nodded.

"Me too, even Miss. Ho-Lung thought we'd never complete it but we did."

The group surveyed their masterpiece. For final project in their year ten art class they had to make a sculpture. The group decided on making a, to scale, sculpture of Barad-Dur and Mt. Doom. Complete with flaming eyeball and lava pouring from the volcano. It had taken them a month plus many days after school planning their project but they finished it.

Ceara smiled brightly and hugged Galen.

"It's amazing. Who would have though Barad-Dur and Mt. Doom would be so interesting," she said.

"I think this calls for a celebration party," Rubi said.

"And what will this celebration party contain?" asked Galen.

Rubi thought about it.

"Well, for starters we could watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy while we eat pizza, drink soda, and celebrate the completion of our project," Rubi answered.

"I like that idea," Adrian said.

"I like it to," Galen said laughing.

Arda wiped a tear from her eye. How could things have changed so much since then? For them it had only been about twenty minutes but for Galen he lived through the fall of Morgoth, the rise and fall of Sauron to Numenor. A thought occurred to her.

Is Numenor going to sink soon? It has to. If he's there then Sauron's there, she concluded.

They reached the basement door and Cort banged on it.

"Open up damnit!" he yelled with each pound of the fist.

"Mr. Kazinski open up! We're back!" yelled Arda.

The door opened and a dishevelled Chemistry teacher stood on the other side. The three ran into the basement and he closed the door behind them.

"Where's Ceara?" Rose asked.

--

She was on her fourth pint of hard cider when Gandalf said enough was enough. He had told her she shouldn't be getting drunk at her age but Adrian just scoffed at him saying that he hadn't lived through what she had. She mumbled something about the two hobbits, Frodo and Sam, defeating the idiot dark lord. Gandalf quickly led her back to the Fae's house and put her in bed but he did not leave her. Instead he pulled up a chair and watched her sleep. She mentioned a few more odd things like diversions at the black gate and then something that he really did not understand. He didn't know the meaning of the words 'the refugees have turtle wax' nor did he want to. She mumbled something else about a portal in a forest and how stupid she had been to go through it. Gandalf watched her in complete fascination until heard the sounds of warfare not far off. He stood up and left the room. He turned and took one last look at the drunken child lying in the bed.

"May the orcs not break through to this level," he said as looked at her. She rolled in her sleep as he sighed and left the room, closing the door behind him.