The Armor of the Soul

By Dixxy

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Truth

(Sage)

Watching the fight from up high as we were was murder, knowing we couldn't help. Cye was trying to help Sara with the Nether Spirits, but it wasn't doing much good. Things were looking bad, especially after Trulpa pulled out the Jewel of Death. All of the Senshi were pretty much down for the count. It hurt me to see Sam had tried to do something and was ultimately thrown into a wall.

"This is it. We're doomed," said Cye.

"Don't say that, the prophecy may still hold true," said Kento. I could barely see him out of the corner of my eye. "Keisha told me that I said 'The Demon Empress will fall at the hands of those whom she treated worse. The Sword of a Fallen Warlord shall aid the three in their fight for revenge'. Just keep your fingers crossed."

I had about all of my fingers and my toes crossed.

Suddenly, the energy hit. I screamed in pain as the energy began to envelop me. Strangely, I couldn't hear Cye or Kento screaming, which, I remember is mostly what I heard last time we'd been in a situation like this. But they were oddly silent.

That was when the whole thing exploded.

I was sent several thousand feet skyward like I'd been fired out of a canon while I watched as Cye and Kento fall gracefully to the ground. Why was I doing something so different? Why were we even alive? Shouldn't it have killed us? What was going on?

I finally stopped my ascent. For a few seconds, I hung motionless in the air. I was close to breathlessness. I was so high up in the air! Everything below me looked so. . . small. Then I began to fall. Really, really fast.

I screamed. From this height, there was just no way I could survive the impact of hitting the ground. I was going to die anyways, but at least my soul would survive and go to heaven. My life began to flash before my very eyes. Scenes of me playing with my sisters as a child, scenes of me training with my grandfather, and scenes of me with my parents passed through my head.

The most soul stopping scene came soon after. . .

~

It was late at night. I was in my room, packing clothing, money, and a food supply into my backpack. I zipped it up, patted it, and threw it over my shoulder. I bit my lip, and left my room. I closed the door behind me, took in a deep breath, and prepared to make my last good-byes.

I poked my head into my sisters' room first. Both of them were asleep, surrounded by whatever stuffed animals they had at the time. They looked so peaceful, so naïve. I didn't want to leave them, but I didn't have much of a choice. Satisfied with that last glance, I left their room and started for my parent's room.

Just like my sisters, my parents were asleep. My mom had her sleeping mask on and my father had a nasal strip across his nose. I smiled, thinking of how funny they looked. I stepped inside and gently kissed my mother good-bye. Fighting back tears, I left their room. Only one room left.

When I reached my grandfather's room, I found the light on and my grandfather writing something in his journal. He looked up at me, his eyes wise with age and his hair gray with time. "Sage," he said.

"Grampa," I said. I looked down at the floor, where my foot was tracing circles on the hard wood. I lifted my head to see my grandfather had pulled a chair up beside me and pat on the seat. Not wanting to disobey him, I took a seat.

"I know you're leaving tonight," he said. "Is this true?"

"Yes," I said. I started to wring my hands with nervousness.

"I won't question why you're leaving, but before you go, there's something I must share with you, Sage," he said. He stood up and turned to me. "Wait. This is something you're going to need to know." I waited, gripping the seat of the chair as he left the room. Minutes passed and he returned with a box.

"What's in the box?" I whispered.

Grampa opened the box, where he showed me several official looking documents. "This box is where your mother keeps all of the important papers in this house. The mortgage, her marriage license, receipts of the major purchases, you know, those kinds of papers," he said.

I wasn't sure what he was getting at until he hand me a big envelope with my name on it. I looked up at Grampa in curiosity. What was he up to? "Grampa? What's in this folder? And why does it have my name on it?"

"These are all the documents that pertain to you," he said. "Open in."

Carefully, I opened the envelope and pulled the papers out. I saw several medical forms from past physicals and tests I'd taken throughout the years. "Grampa, what do all of these. . . oh my God," I said as I reached the last stack of papers. I held them up, my eyes wide with shock. "Grampa, are, are these what I think they are?"

"They are, Sage. They're your adoption papers," he said. He took my hands. "Your mother found you outside when you were just a baby. We brought you to the authorities, but they never found your parents or a reason as to why you were left with us. Your birthday is a date that the doctors think you were born on or around. After a few weeks of no new evidence, the courts allowed you to be adopted."

"You mean that all this time I've been living a lie?!" I said, standing up. "You've all lied to me this time!? You let me think that I was just like the rest of you when I'm really not!? Is that it!"

"Sage, listen to me," said Grampa, placing a hand on my shoulder. Tears streamed down my face as I looked at him. I sniffled, wiping the tears away with the back of my sleeve. "You needed to know this. I've wanted to tell you for years, but your parents wouldn't let me. Since you're leaving, I thought that now would be a good time. You're very mature for your age, Sage, and I know you can handle it."

I held my head in my hands. "But Grampa. . . I don't know who I am anymore."

"You have always been Sage Date. You are Sage Date. And you will be Sage Date until the end of time. It doesn't matter that you don't share our blood. You're still family and we all love you," he said, hugging me. Once the hug ended, he gave me a pat on the back. "Get going, young man. I can sense you've got quite the adventure ahead of you."

~

The knowledge of my adoption was one of the hardest things I ever had to face. I had been living a lie for fifteen years of my life. I had known about my adoption for a year, and I was grateful to my grandfather for telling me about it.

Too bad I'd never get to thank him in person. . .

Suddenly, my decent stopped. I was about where the Soul Turner's main unit was when I was bathed in a strange, yellow glow. I felt a little queasy, my body feeling strangely numb for a brief moment. The numbness faded, and I felt something very, very strange. Especially behind my back. I looked behind my shoulder to see what it was that was bothering me.

Behind me, two glossy wings were flapping in the wind. Several lightly bolts had shot out of my back, connecting the shiny green skin like material that kept me aloft. Little by little, I could feel myself controlling the wings. It was as if I'd suddenly grown two new limbs. It was as if they're been inside of me for my whole life, just waiting to come out.

That was when I knew.

I was a Flitteree.

Down below, not everyone was pleased with this information. "I thought Talpa had the last of those stupid winged brats killed!" Trulpa screeched. Amidst her screaming, I heard Cye and Kento cheering and jumping for joy.

I got brave and tried to get used to my wings. I did a few "loop the loops", a few mid-air somersaults, and started diving up and down. The feeling was incredibly! I was flying! I had wings! I felt so free and cheery!

Trulpa was raising the hand with the Jewel of Death. She was going to use it again. I dove down and grabbed the Jewel before so much as a spark was emitted from it. Trulpa cursed at me.

"Give that back you little winged snot!" she said. I dove back down, grabbed the belt of her dressed, and dropped her from about, oh, a hundred or so feet. She was going to feel THAT one in the morning. If she lived.

Apparently she did since she got right back up, her hair a mess and her eyes glowing. Drats, knew I should have gone for a thousand feet, I thought, snapping my fingers in frustration. I looked at the Jewel of Death, threw it up, and tried to use some of the Flitteree magic Kento had told us about to try and destroy it.

A bolt of lightning shot from my fingers and disintegrated the evil talisman. Trulpa wailed in agony at the sight of the Jewel of Death's demise, while my friends and allies cheered. The Warlords all swore, knowing that the odds had just taken a rather drastic change.

Trulpa screamed out. "KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!"

Kento and Cye reacted fairly quickly and put up some strong shields against everyone before starting to ward off the Warlords and Ladies. I helped by flying Cale, Anubra, and Dais far away enough from the castle so they wouldn't be able to make it back in time to help Trulpa, but it wasn't enough. We were still getting badly beaten, and the Senshi weren't in any shape to help us. I tried some of my old Halo lightning bolts, but the Warlords were faster than that. Then I reverted to my newly discovered Flitteree magic, which was a little faster, a little more concentrated on positive energy, but not as powerful as the Halo magic. But it looked like it was my only choice.

Tiger Lily was helping, too, taking down a serious number of Tin Cans. Her style of fighting was a lot like White Blaze's style of fighting- steals a spear, then runs past the soldiers so they were cut in half. Primitive, but very effective.

Still, we needed something more. "Okay, Sage, think. What next?" I said to myself as I watched the battle raging below. I had to figure out what Kento's prophecy was talking about. The sword of a fallen warrior. Well, what swordsman died who had a significant sword? Sword, sword, sword-

Of course!

"The sword!" I said, snapping my fingers. When Talpa had captured the three of us, he'd created a really big and powerful sword using our armor powers. Then he'd given it to one of his minor warlords, who attacked Ryo and Rowen. Kento, Cye and I sent our powers to Ryo after Rowen gave us the signal, we formed the Inferno, and trashed the loser. So I needed that stupid sword! But where was I going to find it?

"Trulpa, you idiot," I said, looking into a window. The window led to some sort of a museum of all sorts of relics from past battles. On display right by the window was the sword and, apparently, the helmet of the demon who'd used it.

I flew over to the window, smashed it open with one of my wings, and went inside. I took the glass case off of the pedestal the sword was laid out on, picked it up (It was bigger than my Halo no-datchi) and dragged it out the window and flew back into the middle of the battlefield.

"What one Earth are you doing with THAT!?" asked Kento after tossing Daria over the edge of the balcony. She vocally swore at the fact she'd landed in a large wagon filled with manure. "That was Daala's sword! It's dangerous!"

"It's the sword you were talking about in the prophecy," I said. "It has a connection to all three of our armors, and the person who used it died. Don't you see? This is the key to the whole prophecy!"

"Well what's it gonna do!?" Sara cried, ducking as both Sehkment and Vanessa tried to punch her from opposite sides. They punched each other, each knocking the other out. Sara stood up once her work was done.

I looked at the sword, and narrowed my eyes. "I'm going to call up the Armor of the Soul and use Trulpa's own weapon against here, that's what I'm going to do with it!" I said, holding the blade at the ready.

"Are you insane?!" asked Ria. "It's evil!"

"No armor is good or evil, just like Anubis keeps telling us," said Sara. "What the armor does is a reflection of the person controlling it. Since the boys will be controlling it, we can count on it to be good."

"So how do we activate it?" asked Cye.

I narrowed my eyes. He was right- how did we use it? I shrugged and made a few fancy slashes at the air. Apparently, it worked, because Cye and Kento changed into glowing orbes of light and flew up at me. I closed my eyes and tried to prepare myself.