Chapter 29: Deja Vu
The next thing Pit knew, he found himself and the others standing in the middle of a wide grassy plain. He looked around in confusion. Where were they? The cloaks had certainly taken them far. The mountains were not even visible from where they were standing. They couldn't tell north from south if they wanted to. The sun was high overhead.
"Now what?" asked Pit throwing his hands in the air, "We're in the middle of nowhere!" He saw that Vinnia had her eyes shut and seemed to be scanning the area. She opened them again.
"Not so," she said, "There's a town that way." She pointed in no particular direction. Zephynn added in, "That way is east. The west wind blows away from it." Raven shuddered.
"The ocean is far..." she said. That meant that they had moved quite far south, and, judging from the terrain, into the Great Plains again. Pit looked across his three friends in amazement. Together they could approximate where exactly they were. It was amazing. They began to walk east. About an hour and a half later, as the sun was just beginning to keel behind them, the town came into view.
"One interruption in the flow of nature and I'll be able to feel it from miles away," said Vinnia boastfully. The others rolled their eyes. They continued on. The sun was widening its descent behind them. They came quite close to the town. At this point, they were near a farmhouse and a beautiful flowery field was before them. There was a clearing to their right and a path that led all the way up to the town. And Pit felt the strange sense known as deja vu.
"I feel like I know this place," he said almost in a whisper.
"What do you mean?" asked Vinnia.
"I mean, I feel like I've been here before," said Pit. Then, a short distance away, Zephynn sighted a troop of Monoeyes and Slimeclopses approaching the town.
"Oh crap," said Zephynn, "We've got an enemy on hand." The rest of the group took notice and each readied their respective weapon. Raven stayed back.
"My powers aren't very good when I'm far from the ocean..." she said helplessly.
"Don't worry about it," said Vinnia, patting her on the shoulder, "You can get into the town and warn the people. We'll cover you." Pit and Zephynn nodded.
"Let's go," said Pit pointing the staff at the force of enemies.
"Find their commander first," said Zephynn, "It'll probably be the one that is most protected. Either that or it'll be the strongest." They began to run so as to meet the enemy. As Zephynn and Vinnia ran straight at their enemy, Pit stopped by the farmhouse to warn its residents. Raven went on ahead down the path.
Pit banged on the door and a young girl maybe twelve years old answered it.
"Hello," she said timidly, "Who are you?"
"I'm Pit, and I'm on a mission to save the gods," he said. He thought he saw the girl's eyes flash a little, but he disregarded it. "You have to get you and your family to town as fast as you can," said Pit urgently, "There is an enemy force approaching this area."
"I know," she said mysteriously, "I will head out as soon as I can." She shut the door in his face, and Pit was able to focus long enough to see her black hair hanging in braids down her back and her innocent brown eyes. Something about her seemed familiar as well.
Trusting the girl's word, though somewhat mystified by it, Pit ran to rejoin his friends, who were fighting fiercely to get rid of the enemies. As Pit fired a long range charge shot, Zephynn rolled under a Monoeye and slashed it from below. Almost immediately afterwards, he jumped up and slashed through three more with his sword. He hit the ground and was immediately charged by a hoard of Slimeclopses. Seeing that he had no escape, he crossed his fingers and then said something under his breath. Out of nowhere the wind picked up and he vanished, reappearing twenty feet from the battle. An amazed look on his face, he charged a sword beam and reentered the fight.
Vinnia in the meantime was showing no mercy. Monoeye after Monoeye, Slimeclopse after Slimeclopse, she stabbed and stabbed and stabbed. Her mind was in full stab mode. If an enemy creeped out of her range and tried to shoot her with their energy bolts, she knocked it out of the sky or vaporized it into the ground with a long range beam. On a few instances, she smashed her enemies to the ground using her wooden ribbons.
As Pit joined, he took out ten of the Monoeyes that were after Zephynn, who was again charging into the battle. The wind beam that came from his sword wiped out the entire front line of Slimeclopses. Vinnia took care of the Monoeyes in the air. Pit sniped when he could, sometimes in the heat of battle, sometimes rolling out before even trying. As the force began to dwindle in number, they thought they had achieved an easy victory. They had not been pushed back and had in fact pushed the enemy back nearly ten feet.
However, as Vinnia stabbed the last Monoeye in the... well, eye, a rumbling sound shook the ground. The three of them almost lost their balance, but before they could, an enormous cyclops suddenly tore through the earth and pulled itself out. It beat its chest heavily and let out a roar. Even Vinnia was wide-eyed. This cyclops was nearly five times taller than the ones they had already faced. It looked quite similar but it was huge. There was no way they were reaching that eye.
"Yeah, I think we've found the commander," said Vinnia in shock.
"No kidding," said Pit shaking his head in disbelief.
The Cyclops brought its enormous arm down to smash them. Zephynn made a quick hand motion and then yelled, "Think fifty feet away from here and pull your cloaks over!" The other two did as they were told and they found themselves out of range of the smash. However, Zephynn nearly collapsed as they reappeared and Vinnia caught him.
"Take him to the town," said Pit, "I'll handle this." Vinnia shook her head.
"I can't just leave you alone!" she cried, "You'll get yourself killed! And town is the last place we want to be!"
"Just go," said Pit, this time more commanding, "I can handle this. I will redeem myself!" Vinnia saw that there was no point in arguing this time and sheathed her lance, taking Zephynn in her arms and jogging towards the town.
Pit faced the enormous cyclops on his own. He ran to dodge a punch that it threw at the ground. The earth rippled from the force of the punch. Towns within fifty miles would be able to feel it. He looked around for any way he might find his way up besides going up its arm. He didn't like his chances since one of them involved being thrown off of the beast's arm and ultimately landing on the ground very hard. It was at this moment that he noticed a small object floating above the enormous cyclops' head, and it was flashing green every few seconds.
He then shuddered. That memory was coming up. He had forgotten about it until the beast had come up out of the ground. It had happened when Vinnia and Zephynn had ditched him to go steal their weapons. In a split second, he went over what had happened:
Pit emerged from the vine igloo and saw that his two companions had vanished somewhere. Probably to get food. His eyes were splotched from crying. He still had the Somewhat Staff in his hand.
"Now see here," said the staff, "That loss wasn't your fault. It was all the recklessness of your twin."
"It was my fault," said Pit, "If I would have not taken the challenge, none of this would have happened."
"Had you not taken the challenge, you would have been killed," said the staff, "And then where would we be?"
"Please be quiet, I need to think," said Pit finally. He decided to walk in silence as he thought. As he did this, he found himself in a dark part of the woods. He felt an ominous presence. There was something not right. Shadows took the light overhead. Pit found himself in almost complete darkness. He heard a bellowing noise. He moved towards it. He found himself looking through foliage at a horrific sight. In front of him were five enormous cyclops wrestling each other, or at least trying to. They were each about ten feet tall and the sight terrified the light angel.
He slowly backed away in terror, but he stepped on a twig and every one of the cyclops turned its eye on him. Five eyes stared at him angrily. Pit ran. The cyclops followed with heavy footsteps. Pit took a turn to the right and lost them. They continued running through the forest searching for him. Pit moved back to where they had come from. He pushed his way through the foliage that he had previously been looking through.
It was a small dank clearing, covered in darkness, pretty much like the rest of the forest. However, there was an evil aura about this place. Pit took a few cautious steps forwards. He could feel a trap. He sharpened his senses the best he could and took a few more steps. Then, as he walked into the bushes at the other end of the clearing, he lost his footing suddenly. He slipped and fell and found himself sliding down into a much larger clearing nearly fifty feet below. It was hidden well by the thick foliage above.
Pit stood up and began to look around.
"What is this place?" asked Pit.
"I sense evil nearby," said the staff. Pit nodded. He felt it too. There was a tall stone in the center of the clearing. It looked like a normal stone, minus all of the strange markings on it. Then Pit noticed that it was floating above the ground and slowly spinning in the air and was flashing green every few seconds.
"What the..." Pit didn't get to finish his sentence. The ground shook and then out of nowhere, the head of an enormous Cyclops tore through the ground. Pit, startled beyond belief, screamed. The Cyclops pulled itself out of the ground. It was as tall as the clearing itself. Without thinking, Pit shut his eyes and fired straight at it. He must have gotten lucky because when he opened his eyes again, a pinkish red laser had embedded itself in the enormous Cyclops' eye, and it was letting out a bloodcurdling scream.
The Cyclops slowly retreated back into the hole it had created in pain. Pit followed it with the laser. Then, as the top of the Cyclops' head disappeared beneath the earth, Pit fell to the ground, drained of anything that could keep him going. The flashing stone, which had followed the Cyclops' head up to the skies, had wedged itself into the air where it had been before as though the ground in the center of the clearing was still there. It was no longer spinning around.
"You... shouldn't have... done that..." the staff gasped, "I feel as though I'm going to explode!"
"How do you think I feel?" asked Pit in exhaustion. He looked at the enormous hole in the ground and wondered just where that enormous Cyclops had come from. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a glimpse of a shadow in the darkness on the other side of the hole. A small green light, similar to the one on the stone, was the only thing that illuminated it, but it was all blackness. Then it vanished.
Pit dodged the next punch to the ground and was nearly thrown off his feet. This Cyclops was quite resilient. Pit was sure such a long strike to the eye would have killed it. It also came to his mind that that was the first battle against a larger cyclops monster. It seemed fitting to call it a Gigaclopse.
He quickly analyzed how he could defeat the monster. He remembered the figure in the memory, with the flashing green being the only luminescent item on it. It had to be some sort of Aurum weapon, which meant that the figure must have been like the woman that had attacked them before they were whisked away; an agent of the darkness, or so Pit thought. After all, if there was a god around at the time, it would have to be an evil one, one on the opposite side.
A foot almost came down on him. He had to find that agent of darkness. They wouldn't be far. Somehow they were controlling the Gigaclopse. As Pit looked around and ran constantly, he wondered what he would do with the agent of darkness. Perhaps if they were controlling the Gigaclopse, killing them would only make the monster go on a rampage. But what other solution was there? Perhaps removing control suddenly would cause the monster's brain to overload, if it had one at all. It didn't matter, because at that moment, Pit saw a flash of green not a hundred feet away from him.
He ran towards the flash as hard as he could. The Gigaclopse pursued him. He noticed that the light was moving and he adjusted. Then he jumped. He tackled a man in dark clothing, whose face was behind a hooded cloak. It was practically invisible. Pit saw an Aurum Palm on the man's arm. Everything was just as he expected. He felt the Gigaclopse's footsteps stop behind him. He figured the Aurum Palm allowed for control over the creature's mind.
He socked the man in the face and tried removing the weapon, but the man fought back by knocking him off with a couple of shots from the palm. The man made the Gigaclopse turn around and try to smash Pit, but Pit ran and avoided the slam. Then he shot at the dark agent from afar. Surprisingly, he was able to land a direct hit. The dark agent was shot over thirty feet and out of viewing distance.
Pit quickly ran for the hole that the Gigaclopse had come from. Perhaps he could make it fall back in. It was worth a shot. He arrived at the edge of the hole and looked into it. He couldn't comprehend how deep it was; as a matter of fact, it seemed to go straight to the Underworld. He heard rumbling behind him. The Gigaclopse was coming. He turned around and saw the monster stamping towards him. It began to jump at him.
Pit then made a crazy decision; he jumped into the hole. The Gigaclopse tumbled after him, hitting the edge of the hole and falling in. The dark agent walked up to the edge of the hole and peeked inside. His prime weapon was gone, but the light angel his boss had talked about seemed to have suffered the same fate. He turned to walk away. Then suddenly, he was shot to the ground by a massive blast from behind. He felt a powerful energy radiating from behind him, poking at his back.
"Disarm yourself," said Pit fiercely. The man slowly allowed the Aurum Palm to fade back into its ball form. Pit picked up the weapon and stored it in his tunic.
"Now, who are you working for?" asked Pit.
"I can't tell you that," said the man quickly. Pit dug the melee empowered staff into the man's back.
"Tell me!" Pit said fiercely. The man opened his mouth to speak but suddenly, he disintegrated into dust. All that was left was his cloak. Pit cursed under his breath but when he felt around the cloak, he found something. He pulled something out of a pocket hemmed into the cloak. It was a piece of paper that appeared to be a map, but it was fiercely singed and incomprehensible. Looking around, he saw that the field had been turned into a crater-like surface, as desolate as the moon.
"At least no one got hurt," said Pit with a sigh. He took his leave from the wasted site and towards the town where Vinnia and Zephynn were waiting for him, taking only an Aurum Palm, a burnt map, and a lot of unanswered questions.
