The Armor of the Soul

By Dixxy

Chapter Twenty-Nine: A New Ally

(Sage)

Even though Cara had been cruel to me during my captivity, I had begun to understand why. Now I felt bad for her as I watched her in pain on the floor. I had to help her! No one deserved something so ruthless and painful. She had joined the Dynasty because she'd been hurt and wanted healing. And I knew that Sam and I could give her the healing she needed. We couldn't bring her fiancé back from the dead, but we could restore her vision. "We've got to help her," I said to Sam.

"But how? We can't even help ourselves!" she said.

"SAM!"

"Who said that?" I asked, looking up and around.

"It's one of the other Senshi! Keisha! She's our Hardrock! I don't know how she's here, but. . . KEISHA! WHERE ARE YOU!?" Sam answered. "HELP!"

"SAGE, YOU THERE, TOO?"

I nearly froze. "KENTO?!" I asked. Then, I inwardly sighed with relief. All right! The Senshi busted Kento and Cye out of the Dynasty! I watched as a door that I originally thought was part of the wall open. Kento and the black Senshi of Hardrock rushed in. Keisha gasped at the sight of Cara, and Kento looked confused, but he went over to where we were and began to untie us.

"What happened to her?" asked Keisha. "I've never seen any of the Warladies like THIS before? Did something bad happen?"

"Stay back, Trulpa did that to her," I said once the last of the ropes fell. I turned to my partner in arms and gestured over to where Cara sat crying. "Sam?"

"Sure thing," said Sam. The two of us walked over and knelt on either side of the sobbing Warlady. "Do you know how to do this?"

"Child's play," I said. I placed two gentle hands on Cara's shoulders. "Cara, calm down, we want to help you," I said. Cara grasped her knees, nodding. I felt around her goggles, which were strapped securely to her head.

"Sage, are you trying to HELP her?" asked Kento, his arms at his sides as he started to verbally announce his protest to what Sam and I were doing. "Are you nuts?! She's a bad guy! She'll kill you once you heal her!"

"Kento, she's changing sides," I said.

"Keisha, how did you know that Trulpa had two of the Ronin Warriors ready to be killed?" asked Sam, holding one of Cara's hands. "Good move getting them out like you did."

"Huh?" asked Keisha, cocking her head to one side. "What are you talking about?"

"Trulpa told me that she had Kento and Cye in the gargoyles. She was going to use more energy than usual and kill you two," I said. I looked over at Kento, who had a look of bewilderment plastered onto his face. "Doesn't that ring a bell?"

"No. I got away when Kaze was destroyed. I've been in Boston since then," said Kento slowly.

I froze. "What?"

"I was living with some fortune teller for a few weeks, working for her by reading fortunes, when-"

"But you weren't in the Dynasty," I said.

"No," said Kento.

I growled. "That lying piece of crap!" I said. "She told me if I didn't cooperate she'd kill you and Cye!"

Kento's eyes widened. "Kill us?" he said.

"And she was going to send Kayura and Kamusa to kill my aunt," said Sam. Then, her eyes widened in panic. "Ella!"

"Tiger Lily is back in Boston keeping an eye on our families," said Keisha. "They're all at Ria's place for now. But why would she lie about that?"

I sighed. "I don't know, but right now I'd suggest turning if you have a weak stomach. I found the switch to remove the goggles," I said. "And it isn't going to be pretty." Slowly, I clicked the buttons I'd found on the goggles and Cara cried.

"The claws!" she said.

"Are they going in?!" I asked. If I messed it up I could have hurt her even more than she already was.

"They came out but it HURT!" she screamed.

"Well, stay calm. We've taking them off and we're going to heal you up," said Sam. The goggles slowly came off and I gasped. Blood poured down her face, her eye sockets filled with two indistinguishable red blobs of blood that were once her eyes. Cara got even worse as the blood began to flow down her next, mixing with her hair.

"Kento, hold her down!" I said. Kento darted behind her and put her in an arm lock. Cara wasn't too happy over that, crying out again. She started to beg for her mother and some man named Rinji in Japanese. "Sam, place your hands over her eyes."

Sam grimaced but did so. I placed my hands over her. "Now concentrate on healing her eyes. Concentrate hard, this is a pretty bad injury," I said. Sam just nodded as the two of us began to concentrate. I felt the warm power flow through our hands and into Cara's body. She quieted.

For several minutes, the combined healing powers that generated from my body and Sam's body flowed into Cara, slowly reconstructing her eyes. Veins that had been broken reconnected. The corneas, retinas, nerves, and all of the other parts were rebuilt.

Finally, the healing power stopped. I pulled my hands away from her eyes to see through the blood, two unmarred eyelids. Slowly, timidly, Cara opened her eyes. Pale blue eyes looked back at me.

Cara moved her eyes around a little bit, as if she couldn't believe that she could see. The shock of suddenly seeing colors, shapes, motion again must've been a shock to her system. She raised her hand a few inches before her face and started to curl and uncurl her fingers. Tears began to mix with the red blood on her face. "I, I, I can see," she said. She laughed lightly. "I can see!" Her eyes turned to me. "You look like a yellow blob."

"Um, we might need to work on you again later," said Sam. She then looked down at her subarmor, which looked almost festive for Christmas with the red blood running all over her green subarmor. "I think we need to clean up. I look like one of Santa's elves got shot up."

"What's a Santa?" asked Cara, blinking.

"Do we trust her?" asked Keisha. "I mean, she at least WAS working for Trulpa."

"Trulpa wouldn't have done that to one of her most valued generals unless she was REALLY firing them," said Kento. He sighed heavily, bit his lip, and nodded. "Let's get back to the Mortal Realm. Fast."

~

Although it took a lot of doubling up and lack of elbow room, the lot of us somehow made it back to Boston and straight to a large house owned by someone the girls called Mike. We all piled out and went inside to find Mike wasn't home, but apparently Anubis was his room mate and let us in.

First thing we did was compare stories while we had something to eat. Kento and I couldn't make any connections from either of our encounters to figure out what Trulpa was going to do with the Jewel of Death or what she was doing with Cye. Cara, who still needed more work on her eyes, said she had heard how they planned to get the Jewel, but Trulpa had only filled the Warlords in on what she was going to do with it.

Turning our attention back to our new ally, she told us how she lost her vision. Apparently on her wedding day, a Dynasty beast had killed her fiancé and shot poison into her eyes. That was when Trulpa found her and convinced her to join her forces. The pain in her eyes told us how much her husband-to-be had meant to her.

"I loved Rinji so much, and now he's gone forever," she said. "I'm alone. Cale hated me. He only bothered with me for sex."

We all stared at her in shock. Sara was the one who verbally announced the pretty much universal opinion, however. "That's all he ever did with you for all of your four hundred something years in the Dynasty?! For THAT!?"

Cara shook her head. "Oh no, only after he was brainwashed. He said he'd hurt me really bad, but, I felt like dirt," she said. She curled up on her corner of the couch. "I don't understand why he did that to me. . ."

"That's probably a side effect of the brainwashing. Cale, in his right mind, even while he was evil, despised using women like that," said Anubis. "For all the times Dais and I got drunk and slept around he went absolutely nuts."

"Anubis and drunk don't seem to fit in the same sentence very well," said Kento, scratching his head.

Sam snorted. "You kidding me? According to Mike, Anubis makes the BEST Mud Slide he's ever had!"

"I do know how to mix a fair amount of cocktails, I will admit," he said, "but none for you kids until you're of proper age. The last thing I need is a drunk Ronin on my hands to make the whole training operation harder than it already it."

"Right, right, lay off the booze, we got it," said Keisha. "Now we have to figure out how we're going to bust Cye out of the Dynasty AND figure out what the heck Trulpa's got up her sleeve."

"As well as get Sage and Cara settled in," said Anubis. "I don't think Mike will mind housing you all, but Cara, you have to prove to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that you've changed."

"You should talk," said Rona.

"I had to do the same thing!" he said, stamping a foot on the ground. "I'm saying this from experience!"

Kento and I exchanged looks, shrugged, and began to attack the popcorn Rona had popped.