I am very sorry for the long hiatus. However you guys (who are still with me) deserve an ending to this story, so I will do my best to finish it it in a timely manner.
El Tigre: Redemption
"What're those pointy things over there?"
-Frida Suarez
Chapter 10
Manny Rivera opened his eyes.
"This…isn't Japan."
Indeed it wasn't. He was, instead, in the familiar landscape of red sand, the realm between worlds, the wasteland of the gods.
He looked around. Nothing. He appeared to be alone, but he knew better than that when dealing with the gods.
"All right, where are you?" he demanded. "Show yourself!"
Nothing.
"El Dios de los Gatos? Las Aranas?"
Still nothing.
"Someone else?" His voice broke nervously.
Laughter rang out, echoing through the emptiness.
"Okay, okay, I'm through messing with you."
The owner of the voice appeared in front of Manny, causing him to gasp. He was floating in the air, cross-legged. He was a boy, slightly older than Manny, and even looked like he could be Manny's older brother.
"Wassup?" asked the floating boy.
"Who are you?" asked Manny.
"I go by many names. El Dios de los Coyotes is one, but for brevity's sake you can just call me Coyote."
Manny pondered for a moment. Where had he heard that name before?
Coyote smiled. "You heard it from Two Moons' story."
Manny's eyes widened. "You can read minds?"
Coyote's smile grew wider. "It's not that hard. I could teach you sometime. It helps when you know the person. And I know you, Manny Rivera."
"Oookay," Manny said, creeped out.
"You see, I've been keeping track of you ever since the beginning. You may be the Cat God's protégé, but you've always reminded me of myself. You have that certain…something. A mischievous quality, if you will, but your head's in the right place. As is your heart."
"That's great and all," Manny started, "but why have you brought me here?"
Coyote scratched his chin. "Us gods never took much stock in what you humans did. Our solution was just to give you objects of power and let you sort it out amongst yourselves. It wasn't until I intervened that they took interest."
"You…intervened?"
"Yup. I took the Cardinal Objects they created to police the others to stop them from tearing themselves apart. Without each other to torment, they turned to their attention back to humans."
"You still haven't answered my question. Why have you brought me here?"
Coyote took a breath and exhaled. "Because it's time for me to intervene again. You were about to walk into a trap."
Manny nodded. "We knew there was a chance of that. "Espadas already has one of the Cardinal Objects. So it must be the Sword!"
Coyote shook his head. "You misunderstand. You were all walking into a trap."
"What do you mean by that?" Manny asked, puzzled.
"The man known as Joaquin Espadas possesses not one, but all four Cardinal Objects."
"What? How?"
"His power spreads far beyond the Miracle City Military Base. What is happening now is the result of decades of planning on Espadas' part."
Manny thought for another moment, then asked, "So…what exactly is he going to do with the Cardinal Objects? And the Tome of Torment?"
"An incantation read from the book with the Cardinal Objects gathered at hand will give one the power of a god. Maybe even greater."
"And that's bad," Manny concluded.
"Yes."
"So what do we do about it?" Manny asked. "Where are the others?" Manny looked around again. "Where's Mer and Trina? John and Meredith? Mi madre?"
Coyote sighed. "Alas, I could only save you. The others fell into Espadas' clutches."
"What? Why did-"
Coyote held out a hand. "We could go into the whole 'why didn't you save them,' 'my powers are limited,' 'but you're a god,' blah blah blah, but let's save time here. You're important. In the end, I believe you'll be the one to end this war. I believe in you, and the world is counting on you. Got that?"
Manny met Coyote's gaze for a moment, then nodded.
"Got it. What do you need me to do?"
"Go to the Miracle City Military Base, save your friends, recover the Cardinal Objects…and end this."
Manny smiled, and spun his belt buckle.
"EL TIGRE!"
Now in his feline superhero form, El Tigre flexed his claws. He turned to Coyote, who smiled warmly.
"Good. It's time to go back now."
After putting some distance between themselves and the Black Shrine, Frida and Blitz stopped to rest. Ominous mountains rose up on the horizon of the wasteland, with one towering above the others.
Frida pointed at the mountains. "What're those pointy things over there?"
"The foothills of Mount Tartarus," Blitz explained.
"And what's Mount Tardiness?"
"Tartarus," he corrected. "It's a mountain which contains a pit which in turn contains all the baddest souls in the Land of the Dead."
"Hmm," Frida thought, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I don't follow," Blitz admitted.
Frida grinned. "That would be the perfect place to keep the Crown!"
"What?" It was Blitz's turn to point at the mountains. "You want to go there?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Didn't you hear me? That mountain holds the baddest souls ever! Wanna know how bad? I didn't end up there! I wasn't bad enough!"
"Got any better ideas?" Frida asked smugly.
Blitz opened his mouth to answer, but had nothing. Grumbling, he trudged off after Frida, heading toward the dark mountain.
