Sherbet Mayhem: Well hey and howdy my fabulous little readers! It is I -
the bringer of torture to Kai and company and do-er of evil deeds! The one,
the only--- I need a hobby.
Kai: Yup.
Anyways . . . on with the disclaimery thingy. I own nothing. You stole it all. YOU! I know you're reading. Special, extra special Thankies to Emerald Skies, who hopefully will be showing her face not too soon (you know what I mean, get yourself down here!) and also a HUGE 'I couldn't do this without you' thanks to Oil Pastel, the crazy ski mask wearing cheesecake who has helped me tremendously on this story and STILL insists that she doesn't take any of the credit. Just to tell you now that she came up with most of the plot for this thing, so any admirable plot lines are hers. You wanna hear more of her? Hey, check her stories out. And check out our *cough unfinished cough* joint fics! Trust me, we're a good team (well, trust whoever it was who reviewed and said that!) Hee, hee!
On with the show then! Read and REVIEW! Make my day! The time is: 20.04
Those who asked for a quick synopsis of the first chapter, as they didn't understand, check the end of this chapter. I don't want to bore people with a long disclaimer up at the beginning!
Enjoy!
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Chapter Two: Haven Shattered
Lindsay threw up her arms and bit back a scream. She really wasn't enjoying herself. The long brown pole connected sharply with her right arm and she winced, a tiny flame of pain writhing through her skin. She shut her eyes for a second and then opened them again, lowering her arms and gazing back at her assailant.
Kai Hiwatari stood directly in front of her - about two metres away, his strong arms, pale and glinting with silvery beads of sweat in the sunlight, tensed and ready to spring into action once more. His knuckles were red with the pressure he was putting upon his hands as he gripped the four foot long pole, dark, almost mahogany wood, unvarnished and splintering here and there. Lindsay swore she had at least ten splinters from this.
As she lowered her arms, her own face slightly flushed and her green eyes glowing in the brightness of the golden orb above, Lindsay took a glimpse at her watch. She had still managed to keep a hold of that, through all of the battles and such. The time was a quarter past three in the afternoon. She and Kai had been training for just over three long hours.
~"It feels like three long days . . ."~ Lindsay thought with a wrinkle of her small, slightly freckled nose. She pushed her glasses up it, as they were slipping down, and watched Kai lower the pole.
"Better. But it's still not enough."
She's smiled at the word 'better', but the latter comment made Lindsay sigh again. Her eyes travelled up the slim form of her trainer, his shirt still hanging open from his escapades in earlier hours, some bruising beginning to form along his side where he had slammed into his teammates after leaping heroically into a thirty-metre drop. The purple marks swelled along the skin, broken occasionally by random slits and tiny gashes, dark brown and black, that had infiltrated his body. Oddly enough, they didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. His black shirt simply hung about the un- bandaged wounds, and Lindsay saw a quick opportunity for a diversion.
"Um . . . Kai, don't you think you should check those bruises out? They look pretty sore. Maybe you should . . ."
"I'm fine," he snapped, his mouth barely moving but his icy gaze fixing straight upon her own. "Let's continue."
Lindsay smirked. "You're fine? What if I . . ."
Without warning, she darted forwards, and swung her long, rickety pole at her adversary with a force she hadn't used yet. She aimed directly for Kai's wounds, knowing that this was probably the only way she would get out of another six hours of relentless, harsh training. She didn't want to be stuck out here until nighttime!
She swung the pole horizontally, with all her might, and closed her eyes, not particularly wanting to watch it collide. It swept through the air and spliced right into its mark, and she opened her eyes again, grinning animalistically.
"Ha! Got you---what?!?"
Lindsay let out an exclamation of incredulity. Kai had simply blocked her blow with his own pole. Her green pupils moved slowly up the tense, taut muscles of his slender arms, gripped ever so tightly about his weapon, and then suddenly, before she even knew what to expect, she felt a sharp blow in her right side. It sent her flying and she skidded onto the gravely floor with a grimace. They were in the remnants of a parking lot - it was now merely a huge expanse of grey gravel, with tiny pieces of moss and grass splitting through the occasional crack in the floor. There was no fencing, no reminder that this had once been a public place. The people were gone. Now only this training ground remained, about a minute's walk from the warehouse.
Lindsay stayed down for a second, wondering if anything was broken. Her side hurt very badly indeed; throbbed with a flare she had never met. She breathed in and it decreased a little, and she struggled into a sitting position.
"Kai? What was that?"
She looked up at a voice, a familiar one, and saw that Tyson and Rei had exited the huge warehouse and were walking their way. The warehouse, from the outside, was a ruin. A huge, empty shell of life and thriving business that it had once been, it was haunted by shadows and blackening brick red, its once vibrant eyes now bordered shut with flimsy pieces of scavenged material. The sun shone down on it, but still the dying building could not come to life. No light would breathe air into its lungs. It would simply remain, dormant as the sleeping rocks and lifeless as the bones of the lost.
Kai turned, a look of mild surprise written across his features. "What?" he asked, running a hand through his hair, which was sticking to his forehead in the heat. Lindsay noticed the gash that hadn't even scabbed over yet, a tear jutting across Kai's forehead that was still bleeding. She didn't know if it had re-opened with the exercise, but suddenly she felt a little guilty for trying to hurt Kai where he was already injured.
Rei waited for a hobbling Tyson to catch up, and Lindsay got to her feet a little unsteadily, still reeling from the vicious attack Kai had released upon her. She had no idea he was so strong. And she had no doubt that Rei and Tyson could display similar strength.
"Why d'you ram her like that?" asked Tyson, a roguish looking lad with bright, youthful eyes that had not allowed the events of late to darken them. Lindsay could never recall a time where she had heard Tyson complain, or grumble, or even ask for assistance. He was a happy, bubbly character, who loved to talk about his past life and was easy to get on with. He looked over at her with concern, and then turned back to Kai, shaking his inky fringe out of his grey eyes with a disapproving look.
"Because she tried to ram me like that."
"But Kai," Rei attempted to reason. Rei had cleaned himself up. His face was free of dirt and all of his wounds had been treated and were bandaged up neatly. His hair was tied back neatly, its long jet lengths being wrapped in a piece of cloth, and he generally looked like he had rested a little. "You can't just attack her like that! She's new!"
"So."
"It's okay, guys," interrupted Lindsay before this got any hotter. "I deserved it. And on the battlefield, nobody is going to spare me their full strength. I need to get used to it."
Rei, Tyson and Kai looked at her, with a mixture of confusion and impressed agreement in their smiles.
"Lindsay," said Kai, throwing down his pole and watching it clunk upon the gravel, "Until tomorrow. Then we take out the swords."
She nodded, her curly, messy hair bobbing up and down as she did so. She hadn't had access to a brush for a long time. There was no time to be vain, or even conscious of the way one looked in this day and age. It was all about survival - and Lindsay knew she could survive with un-brushed hair for a while. She looked over at her trainer, who nodded, and she scampered back inside, knowing that she could get in a few hours of sleep before having to wake once again before the sun set.
Kai turned to Rei and Tyson, watching a tiny bead of sweat drip down his nose and run off the end. He didn't like to admit it, but he was tired. He hadn't slept for a good thirty hours now. The patrol, the attack, the clean up and now Lindsay's training were taking it out of him. He hadn't eaten for that long either, and his stomach growled at him for nourishment.
"How'd the clean up finish?"
Rei and Tyson smiled, the sunlight grinning down upon their faces and letting them shine. The weather, although still foggy and cloudy, was brighter than usual. The sun smiled through the haze and the heat had risen rapidly, making for humid air.
"Well," began Rei, "all of the windows are blocked again. There's no glass left around except the bigger pieces, which can be used in making weaponry or utensils. The torches are still burning but I asked someone to put them out. All of the beasts' bodies have been stored and salted. Injuries have been treated," he pointed to Tyson, who lifted his once yellow, now dirty grey shirt and bared his bandaged ribs proudly, "and that's about it."
"Any human deaths?"
"Only Jenny," answered Tyson, watching the grey gravely floor, "and her body hasn't been found."
Kai looked at him for a second, and then nodded. "Good job guys."
He turned, and walked in the opposite direction, facing the run down city before them, and Rei and Tyson followed, allowing their gazes to feast on the ruin of their world. Blackened, charred smoke still billowed from the remnants of the once alive city. The pulse of the city, the steady rhythm of the beating heart had died long ago. The skyline was a horror to look at. Trees, parks, statues, had all been ripped down with no mercy. The city was a literal melting pot. Some of it was still on fire, and, squinting into the distance, Rei could make out tiny images of flames glowing upon the horizon. He could even smell the tiny tinge of smoke from them.
"It's sad, isn't it?" he heard Tyson say, and he half smiled.
"I wouldn't call it that. It's much worse."
Tyson nodded, and a slight breeze rustled through the three boys, contesting greatly with the sudden warmth on their backs. For only boys they were - thrown into this huge macrocosm of men, wars, survival games, weapons, blood, violence, horror. Only boys. They hadn't seen an adult in weeks. Months.
Kai took a seat on a small patch of browning grass, brushing a bit of dirt out of the way and then smiling to himself when he remembered that he was filthy and it wouldn't make any difference. Rei and Tyson sat either side of him, and they just sat for a while, watching that distant skyline, their hearts crying for the loss of their world, their loss of innocence, and the dawn of night. Their world was an empty field, scattered with broken grain stalks, ruined plot land, and the occasional hollow man to stare at them with his beady eyes. As Tyson watched, he could suddenly picture it. The field. A gentle wind, sweeping noiselessly across the black stalks. A silhouette of a bare winter tree upon the horizon. And the hollow men, the scarecrows, watching him. Stuffed men, violent souls, as were all. And a swing. An empty swing, reflecting sunbeams from its splintered, shattered old wood. Abandoned. Lost.
"Sunlight on a broken column," Tyson broke the sudden silence that had fallen upon them. "There is a tree swinging. And voices are in the wind's singing more distant, and more solemn, than a fading star. In a field. Behaving as the wind behaves---"
"What on earth, Tyson?" interrupted Rei with a look of disbelief. Tyson snapped out of his little reverie, and realised he had been remembering times of long ago.
"Oh, sorry. It's from a poem I studied in school. I guess it's kind of stayed with me."
"It was pretty good," commented Kai, folding his arms and glancing up at the blue grey sky. "And I can see what you mean."
Tyson nodded, and looked up himself, watching a tiny spiral of dark grey smoke weave its way through the air, drifting over from some burning building, some poor wreck about to finally lose its life. It was so fleeting, so flimsy; that he could easily compare it to their own lives now. They were of no importance, but were just like that piece of smoke on the wind, changing, only able to go where taken, slowly getting thicker and heavier . . .wait a second. . .
"Guys, is that smoke getting thicker?"
Rei glanced down, his eyes glimmering beautifully in the sunlight, and looked at Tyson. "That little grey piece? I thought so too . . ."
Kai watched the spiral, growing slowly in density and size, and then suddenly jerked, as if pulled to his feet by an invisible being. He stood nimbly and then turned to face the warehouse. Rei and Tyson watched his face fall, and then they turned too.
It was alight, huge, angry flames licking the slowly darkening sky, dancing miserably, a cruel fervour emitting from the very tongues and forks of the glowering mass. The buds of fire leapt out, climbing the building, flooding the sky in a cabbalistic fashion, the animal flames reaching higher and higher as if climbing upon each other to escape the confines of the warehouse.
"No way . . . " mouthed Tyson as he stood still, hypnotized by the passionate, quivering flames as they danced. He couldn't move, but could only watch in despair as those evil blossoms engulfed the entire warehouse.
A blur of grey darted past Tyson, ad when he looked again he realised that Kai had started off for the warehouse. Rei closely followed him, and Tyson hurried along as quickly as he could, his sore ribs proving a bit of a difficulty. He caught up with Rei and Kai as they ran, both hurtling towards the hellfire before them.
"Who did you ask to put the torches out Rei?"
"Um . . . I don't remember . . . maybe . . . maybe Lee? Or Max? I . . . I don't remember Kai!"
"Next time, if you want a job doing, DO IT YOURSELF!"
Tyson winced. Boy was Rei in trouble. And whoever had let the torches burn too long - they'd better hope that the weaponry hadn't been lost.
They reached the warehouse in a matter of seconds, as they neared hearing the sounds of screaming. Outside the entrance to the warehouse was a small gathering of people, all panicking, some having grabbed supplies and weaponry in their haste to escape the volcano that lay behind them now. The three boys reached them quickly, hurtling questions back and forth, with no time to catch their breath. People milled around them, smoke lingering on their persons and filling their air. Already the atmosphere was difficult to see through.
"STOP! Just wait a sec!" yelled Kai quickly as the panicking voices began to rise to an uncontrollable level. "Have we got everyone out here?"
There were murmurs, and people looked around at each other. Rei noticed the blond mop of Max's hair, and he pushed his way over to him.
"Max, is there anyone still in there?"
It seemed that Max was thinking a little clearer than everybody else. He looked around quickly, and nodded.
"We're missing . . . Lee . . . and I think everyone else is here."
Kai snapped around at this, a strong, chilly breeze suddenly blowing through their shivering forms and sending tiny flecks of bright ember glow amongst them.
"Lee's still in there?"
Another nod from Max confirmed this, and Kai turned back to the flaming building, its walls now starting to crumble under the massive pressure of the cruel, mocking flames, which laughed and grew in the wind's presence.
"Tala, with me," he called sharply to the redhead, who stood nearby, his slim form shaking from either fear or cold. Despite the warm sun of moments earlier, it now seemed colder. The sun was lost amongst the billows of black, and darkness appeared to be falling once more.
Tala moved swiftly over to where Kai stood, and then, without warning, the two of them sped off towards the inferno that raged before them. The others' shouts of protestation and indignation were not heard above the crackle and hiss of the flames, and soon the two were lost to the sight of the crowd.
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~"It's so . . . so . . . what's happening? Where . . . where am I? Where are the others? What's happened to them? Do they . . . do they remember me? Will they help me? I . . . can they . . . I hope they're safe. Away from this . . . I'm not choking . . . I won't give up . . . I won't let go. Can't . . . but it's so hard . . . no, I won't break . . . I . . . I'm faltering . . . if I just shut my eyes . . . . . . wait . . . light shedding . . . but my eyes are still groggy . . . getting brighter . . . who . . .?"~
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Lindsay began to nibble on one of her fingernails. She was watching the scene through misted glasses, and finding it difficult to follow what was happening. Kai and Tala had been gone a good four or five minutes now, and the warehouse was now a bouquet of flames, all passionate, quivering in the fading light, their scent filtering through the air, diffusing with no hesitation. Their whole world was crumbling around them once more. If only there was a way to stop it, to support it . . .
They'd been gone for far too long. Lindsay glanced at Rei, and saw that he was pacing apprehensively, his face fretfully turning ever now and then back up to the flames. Tyson stood very still, his arms folded, his grey gaze merely fixed upon the building. Max was talking to Sara and they seemed to be discussing the weaponry that had been salvaged - which was not much. Lindsay shook her head at the tiny pile - two swords, one axe, a few spears and poles and four or five arrows made for pitiful pickings.
~"We still have our best weapon though. The beasts. They're still here."~
Lindsay blinked, the luminance of the blaze reflecting in her green orbs, and then gasped, surprised at her own thinking.
"MAX! Max, come here!"
Max turned from his discussion with Sara, and jogged over to Lindsay, who looked as though she were about to burst with anticipation.
"What is it, Linz?"
Lindsay flailed her hands in front of his face in frenzy.
"DRACIEL!"
Max stared at her for a moment, his bright blue eyes vivid in the quickly falling darkness. They brightened further when her words registered.
"Genius Linz!"
The smell of smoke beginning to waft from even within his own hair, Max shoved his dirty hand into his trouser pocket and rummaged around in it for a second. Eventually he relinquished a small purple chip, the surprisingly small prison of a mighty beast. With a determined, fighting sort of grin upon his freckly face, Max took the tiny, almost weightless chip, and, with a wink at Lindsay, he flipped the chip into the air, its lilac surface glinting in the light radiating from the flames nearby. Lindsay watched eagerly - she'd never seen this before. Only rumours heard in quiet conversation. This was going to be good.
The chip spun rapidly, the smoke around it seeming to dispel, and Lindsay was so fascinated with it that she almost forgot the fire and nearly missed Max's command for Draciel to exit. She glanced at the freckled young boy and restrained from jumping out of her skin when she saw that his normally warm blue eyes had turned a beautiful lavender, the same colour as the light that now exploded from the bit. The evil scarlet and orange glaze that had surrounded them was suddenly gone, and the smell of smoke drifted away from just a split second. The heat disappeared, and left a refreshing, chilled atmosphere, and then suddenly, before Lindsay had time to explain it, there was Draciel, standing above its master, its massive, stocky body clothes in entirely different flames of mauve and blue, and its beady eyes focussed completely on Max. He smiled up at the turtle like creature, with its powerful claws and limbs like tree trunks, clothed in pieces of darker purple armour, ready for battle.
"Draciel," said Max quietly, almost out of audio of the others, who were now watching in awe and wonder, their eyes wide and their faces illuminated in the lilac iridescence, "Can you . . . can you put out that fire?"
A roar was his only answer, echoing and blocking out the dying cries of the warehouse. Max simple smiled, and watched as his Draciel took its steps towards the once safe haven. The ground shook tremendously as the beast approached its destination, and then, suddenly, it seemed to take in a huge breath, its whole body pulling backwards with the force of this mighty inhalation.
"Here we go," commented Sara, who stood next to Max, "What a show off."
Max chuckled. "Would you rather lose Tala and Kai, not to mention Lee?"
Sara's eyes widened in utter fear at losing her 'arching partner', and Max would have laughed if he hadn't been interrupted by the sound of a rushing waterfall. He turned and watched with a smile as his beast released a powerful gust of thrashing waters from its clasped claws. The torrent smashed into the wall of fire that it was up against and the two immediately began to battle, raging fire versus hammering waters, the cold instantaneously knocking down thousands of the flame's army in its path.
Lindsay watched with wide eyes. This was incredible. Draciel stood still, the flood of liquid still emerging from within its clasp, its tail thrashing back and forth in a display of its power.
"Impressive, huh?" Max's voice came, and Lindsay nodded, brushing a curl out of her eyes to watch the battle.
"That's all well and good," said Sara dryly, "but where are the others? Flooding the place won't help, Max."
Max rolled his eyes, smirking at Sara's cynical voice. She was generally like that.
"It might not get them out, Sara dear, but it will put out the flames. It'll save anything that hasn't been burned yet."
Sara wrinkled her nose in irritation, pursed her lips shut and flicked her hair out of her face. "Yeah, whatever. Just as long as Tala . . . and the others . . . get out."
Lindsay repressed a giggle, and turned back to the flames. Sara had a point. If they were trapped in there, the waters wouldn't help. But then again, the fire wasn't a good thing either. It was an awful dilemma, and all they could really do now was watch.
"They'll get out," said Rei quietly, his smooth voice still able to be heard over the sound of the elements clashing ferociously. "They'll be okay."
Tyson nodded. "It's true. Takes more than a bit of fire to beat those guys."
Lindsay watched them both, and despite their stout, confident words, their eyes revealed that they were still extremely worried about their friends. She turned away, feeling troubled herself, and allowed her green eyes to focus on the building, the front entrance wreathed in flame, yet spills of water cascading over it. It was an odd sight to behold. When she caught sight of three figures clambering about one of the windows near the entrance, she wasn't sure that they were real, but perhaps they were just shadows, brought from this incredible mix of the two most powerfully clashing elements. She blinked, and grabbed Max's arm.
"There."
Max looked to where the young girl pointed, and smiled. "Yup, that's them."
Besides him, Rei sprang forwards, quickly followed by Sara, and they ran towards the smouldering ruin as swiftly as they could. Tiny splashes of water covered the ground and made it slippery, but Rei and Sara were very sure footed and this proved little difficulty. The heat was dying down as they ran, and they soon reached the three shadows.
Tala already stood outside the warehouse, his creamy clothes blackened with soot. He turned to face Rei upon his friend's call, his icy blue eyes startlingly bright against the black backdrop. His flaming hair also seemed put out, not by water but decorated with soot. He blinked at Rei and then turned back to the window, where the fire, the water, or the team had ripped the material barrier down. The limp form of Lee was being passed out, his whole body covered in blackness from the ashes of the flames, and a dreadful gash stretching across from the left of his stomach to the upper right of his chest. It was bleeding cruelly, and rivers of blood ran across the blackened skin, standing out as if the blood itself were alight.
"Lee!" exclaimed Rei in shock, shaking his head as he ran up to Tala and helped him take the lifeless boy from his prison. They dragged him out and Rei glanced up at the window to see Kai, who was absolutely drenched from head to foot, his black shirt shiny and clinging to his torso, and his skin glistening in the dying light of the fire. His blue and grey bangs were plastered to his face and hung into his eyes irritatingly. Rei watched a drop of sooty water run from his friend's chin, and offered half a smile.
"Which bright spark decided to flood us out?" Kai said with a glare at Rei and Sara as he pulled himself out of the window. Sara noticed that his trousers were just as wet.
"I was against it from the start, Kai. However, if you're quick, you can stop Draciel and maybe . . . dry off in front of the fire?"
"Shut up."
"Sorry."
Kai took a breath of the 'clear' air outside of the building, and then helped Tala take a proper hold of Lee, who was semi conscious and mumbling something to himself. They hoisted him from the ground, Rei speaking to his friend to help him stay awake, and Sara shoving her hands in her pockets and grumbling about something or other to nobody's surprise. They moved over to the assembled group, where Max gave them a quick greeting before called off his Draciel. It stopped its attack of glittering blue currents and the giant creature seemed to dissolve into a million opalescent shards. Max greeted the others with his regular blue gaze, the lavender completely gone from the orbs, and slipped the bit chip back into his pocket.
Lee was laid on the floor, and two or three of the group began to examine his wound, which was still pumping blood at an incredible rate.
"What happened to him?" asked Rei, looking very upset, his amber eyes contrasting against the dark atmosphere around them. Kai watched the sky as it darkened, and grabbed Lindsay's arm, holding up her watch to his face and scanning the time.
"He got hurt."
Rei growled, not in the mood for Kai's strange sense of sarcasm. "How?"
"Staircase."
Enough said. Rei winced, and sighed. The metal staircase had collapsed, and had trapped his friend. Lindsay wrenched her arm away, as Kai had been gripping tightly. She looked down at her arm and noticed the tense red marks left by his fingers. He was obviously more upset by this than he let on. She glanced at the time. It was five minutes past four. She hated the early winter nights. They always brought with them the early darkness. The early Rages.
"We need to move," she said, a little afraid of making such a blunt comment but knowing it was important that they didn't stay. The beasts would be drawn to the smell of the smoke, the charred mass. It would entice them, as where there is smoke, there is always a fire - and usually bodies. They needed to find a new shelter.
Kai turned to her. "I know. But we have to make sure Lee won't die on the way."
Lindsay's eyes widened. "He . . . he might die?"
Kai's eyes narrowed, and he looked back down at the still, compact form of his friend. "There's a good chance."
Lindsay watched the lad as he lay still, his chest dragging up and down gingerly as though each breath would simply cause more blood to seep from the wound. Sara had already set to work on the injury - she wasn't half bad at being an unqualified nurse. Her hair hung down into her eyes and she pressed her hands against the wound here and there, not bothered at all by the splurging crimson liquid that leaked from the boy that was littering her fingers and occasionally flecking into her face.
"Did we save any bandages?"
Tyson looked over at the pile of salvaged materials. There was no food, no medical equipment, only a few weapons and even they were dwindling in numbers.
"Nope. Not even an aspirin."
Sara cursed under her breath, and then turned back to the wound. Kai began to unbutton what was left of his filthy shirt but someone else got there first.
"Here."
Sara took Rei's bandanna with an awed look. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, it's already red anyway."
Sara laughed. "Okay then. But . . . I don't think it's big enough to cover it."
Rei frowned. "How about . . . give me my bandanna back."
Sara looked very confused, and passed back the piece of red material. Rei slipped it into his teeth for a second, and started fiddling with his hair. Sara watched, her face the perfect picture of bewilderment, and gasped as suddenly a cascade of jet-black shiny hair fell upon Rei's shoulders, stretching down to his knees, beautiful in the dim light about them. He let the white sheet of material that had tied it back fall to the floor and removed his bandanna from his mouth, tying it back again very quickly. It now fell in a long ponytail, wild and untameable, with some pieces falling forwards in a random fashion. Her eyes wide, Sara leaned over and surveyed the length of Rei's hair.
"Sham-Ow . . ."
Rei laughed and moved the white material towards her. She picked it up, marvelling at its length, and then made a makeshift bandage about Lee's wound.
"Wait a second!" Tyson grabbed Sara and moved her away. She resisted the urge to slap him, pulled a very indignant face and spoke.
"What?"
"There's still something stuck in his chest!" cried Tyson, making a move to remove a glinting piece of shiny metal from Lee's weakly moving chest. Max dove forward.
"NO TYSON! Don't remove it! He'll lose even more blood and that's more likely to kill him!"
Tyson gave Max a very incredulous look. "Yeah right."
"No, he's right!" piped in Lindsay, thoroughly amused despite their predicament. Tyson's face fell. He felt rather useless, and had only been trying to help.
"Okay then."
Sara turned up her nose and went back to bandaging poor Lee, who's eyes were still open a little, the usual amber glazed with something that none of the group liked to see. Lindsay turned to Kai.
"Won't he be in a lot of pain, Kai?"
Kai looked down at her from looking about them all, his russet glare watching the shadows that surrounded them in the darkening sky. He'd not seen anything out of place . . . yet.
"He's in shock, Lindsay. I'm pretty sure he can't feel a thing. Do me a favour and go talk to him. Keep his concentration."
Lindsay moved off, obeying her orders, and Kai looked around once again, his gaze constantly alert, on the prowl for any prowlers in their turn. He felt the urgency that had plagued Lindsay just moments ago. They weren't safe here. The darkness was falling . . . and they all knew what that meant. And besides . . .
He knew that the beasts weren't the only ones who prowled the cities at night . . .
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~"I can still hear them . . . they'll help me . . . don't fade away . . . don't leave me here . . . by myself . . . I . . . can't . . . please . . . I can't take the heat anymore . . . it hurts . . . . . . is that smoke?"~
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They'd been walking for a good hour now. They'd quickly decided that they couldn't stay where they were, where the embers of the once vibrant flames would make them ample prey. And so they had moved, in the dangerous direction of the city, where the dark mist seemed to be thicker, going on Tyson's guidance, as he thought that perhaps his grandfather's dojo might still remain. It was no place to set up camp or anything, but it would have weapons, possibly food and maybe even some medical equipment. It was better than nothing, and there was nowhere else to go.
Kai walked at the back of the group, constantly watching the shadows about them. Darkness had completely fallen now. They were shrouded in that bluey grey hue, where sight was hindered and senses deemed pointless. He was constantly on the lookout. Tala and Sara, the only couple who had managed to keep all of their weapons, had been told to search through the city, as there had been rumours on the horizon of survivors throughout the city for a few days now. Kai figured the survivors would have had to have some sort of safe haven. Maybe if they were lucky, his own group would be able to join them in their safety.
So they were two warriors down - oh wait, three. Lee. Oh . . . four, including Tyson, who, although he was able to walk, could not wield a weapon. That left . . . himself, Rei, Max . . . and Lindsay. Okay, so that left himself, Rei and Max.
He sighed. This whole thing was a mess, and really did fear for their survival. Around them was pitch black and misty, freezing cold, and they were in the middle of a cyber-beast infested breeding ground. They were missing a good few warriors and weapons, and frankly things weren't looking up. He was running on the remnants of sleep from at least thirty hours ago, and hey, he had a headache. What more could go wrong?
Oh wait. He'd forgotten about them.
Cannibals.
He'd kept his thoughts to himself on this - nobody else in the team knew. He'd spotted them on a city search a little while ago. A group of five or six youngsters, whom he didn't know and wouldn't want to. They'd been eating something larger than chicken or turkey, roasting it over a fire, and Kai had almost reeled when he had seen the small, severed head next to the fire, its mouth open in a petrified scream, tongue lolling out and spectacles broken. The fuzzy brown mass of hair had been splattered with globules of his own blood, and Kai realised that he had been looking at the body of Kenny. The Chief. The only one who would have had the brains to sort the group out in this sort of situation.
He'd told the group that Kenny had been killed in battle. They'd believed him and he'd been glad of it. Nobody would have liked to know that Kenny had been eaten by fellow human beings, who by all rights should be grouping together to stand up to this threat, not killing each other. Later on, Kai had understood Hilary's sudden disappearance. No one had seen her die - in fact, she had rarely fought in battle. She had been one of the youngest members of the group, an outgoing, brave young girl. In fact, countless numbers of others had disappeared vaguely, nobody knowing what had happened and most simply assuming innocently that they had been taken in battle.
~"Is that what happened to Jenny then?"~ Kai thought as he walked at a brisk pace, his eyes piercing the gloom around them. He'd noticed with a heavy heart the flitting, ephemeral shadows that followed them in silence, and didn't know whether they were the beasts or the cannibals. All he could do was let his group walk on; get them to Tyson's dojo, where they had arranged to meet with Tala and Sara. At least it wasn't far now - about another ten minutes of walking and they would be there.
The shadows unnerved him. He could see things moving, and he hated being at the bottom of the ladder here. Hated being at a disadvantage.
Something moved to his left, and he glanced over, catching a glimpse of a dash of red.
/What just happened? The Hollywood empire strikes back. . . And this time I'm standing in their way/
He felt the adrenaline pumping throughout his body, a weighty surge that flowed throughout his already pulsating veins. He was too tired for this, but still he slipped his hand about the hilt of his sword, which lay in its sheathe at his side. He was definitely glad someone had rescued it for him.
"Rei?" he called a little more quietly than he would have usually called his Vice, "We've got something . . . eyes open."
At the front of the group, Rei heard this call only just. He narrowed his amber eyes, glaring about the group cautiously, tightening his grip on his spear. Max, who stood directly behind him, heard too, and also prepared his spear. The darkness made them all tense and suspicious, and the panicked breathing of the group behind them caused some confusion. It was difficult to tell the difference between the noises of the enemy and the noises of the allies.
Kai turned at a sound behind him, and, squinting through the fog, could make out a figure, moving towards them. He clenched his fists. Part of him was glad it wasn't a beast.
Part of him wasn't.
He peered through the mist once more, tensing his arm, ready to yank his sword from its sheathe. He had a feeling that even though he could only see one, there would be more.
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~"A sword? Will he attack? How many are left . . . will I make it? Everything's spinning . . . I hate this . . . am I going to die?"~
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With a wrinkle of his nose, Kai wrenched his arm upwards and removed his glinting sword from about his waist, and lifted it, bright in the dusk of the night, the splicing metallic sound of the sword grating against the sheathe cracking the silence of darkness. Above them, the moon watched on, a dying spectator, blessing them all with what little light she could afford.
Rei was beside Kai in an instant, and Kai found that Max was on his right. They had both raised their spears and were ready to attack. Breathing in deeply, and wondering if they'd get out of this alive, Kai stepped forwards towards their predator.
The mist cleared, and the aggressor could be clearly seen. Spiky hair fell into hopeless eyes, their dull jade almost given up completely. Broken posture, trembling, staggering towards them, the will to go on having been devoured from within. A slight breeze blew through the black hair, and a slight red streak rustled across his pale green orbs of the eyes. The figure stumbled forwards a few more steps, before being beaten down by the wind, and falling with a lifeless thud to the hard, ruined ground.
Kai, Rei and Max stared for a moment, utterly taken aback. Another breeze blew among them and seemed to take away any suspicion or ambiguity from moments earlier. They couldn't take their eyes off the figure who had fallen before them.
"OZUMA!"
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Sherbet Mayhem: Oil Pastel, can you do an impression of a coat?
Oil Pastel: Erm . . . can you?
Sherby: Yup ^_^ Just watch! *stands up and goes limp* See?
Oil Pastel: Um . . . good one, Sherby.
Sherby: so, readers, how d'ya like it? Just a quick note to first of all say that when Sara said "Sham-ow" it was that word that crazy people say that is pronounced "ShamOh!" with the emphasis on the 'oh' and the 'sham' sounding the same as the word ram. Shamow! Just in case there was confusion there.
The lyrics that Kai was thinking about were by Blindside, as usual. The song? Caught A Glimpse. The poem earlier that Tyson quoted was by T.S.Elliot, and was called "The Hollow Men". It's a really good poem.
Um . . . oh yeah, just a quick synopsis of the last chappie coz some people didn't quite get it. Here we go:
Boris has created a race of cyber bit beasts, that only generally come out at night. There has been a world wide electricity cut, and there is no electricity left. Most people are dead, and there are only a few survivors, and most of them are kids. Those who are surviving have formed a resilience against the dark beasts, and are determined to survive. Last chapter, Tyson got injured, Jenny died, and . . . um . . . that's really it. The four sacred bit beasts, Draciel, Dragoon, Drigger and Dranzer, are still available to the good side, but only at great risk, and so the kids are trying to fight without the use of them. However, some circumstances will call for them to come out.
Is that all? If you have any problems, just email me with your questions and I'll be more than happy to answer.
Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and please review! I'm starting to get into the swing of things now, and I like this chapter better than the first. Hope you did too. Once again, thanks for all the encouragement, and REVIEW! Coz it makes me smile.
Oil Pastel: And that you don't wanna see.
Sherby: SHUT UP! *cough* Review! And I'll see you next time I update. The time is . . . 17:10. It took me far too long to write this thing. Ah well ;p
Au Revoir!
Oil Pastel: What are you on about? You're not French!
Sherby: Shut up or I'll kill Tally wally!
Oil Pastel: *zips lip dutifully*
C ya, and God bless x x x
Kai: Yup.
Anyways . . . on with the disclaimery thingy. I own nothing. You stole it all. YOU! I know you're reading. Special, extra special Thankies to Emerald Skies, who hopefully will be showing her face not too soon (you know what I mean, get yourself down here!) and also a HUGE 'I couldn't do this without you' thanks to Oil Pastel, the crazy ski mask wearing cheesecake who has helped me tremendously on this story and STILL insists that she doesn't take any of the credit. Just to tell you now that she came up with most of the plot for this thing, so any admirable plot lines are hers. You wanna hear more of her? Hey, check her stories out. And check out our *cough unfinished cough* joint fics! Trust me, we're a good team (well, trust whoever it was who reviewed and said that!) Hee, hee!
On with the show then! Read and REVIEW! Make my day! The time is: 20.04
Those who asked for a quick synopsis of the first chapter, as they didn't understand, check the end of this chapter. I don't want to bore people with a long disclaimer up at the beginning!
Enjoy!
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Chapter Two: Haven Shattered
Lindsay threw up her arms and bit back a scream. She really wasn't enjoying herself. The long brown pole connected sharply with her right arm and she winced, a tiny flame of pain writhing through her skin. She shut her eyes for a second and then opened them again, lowering her arms and gazing back at her assailant.
Kai Hiwatari stood directly in front of her - about two metres away, his strong arms, pale and glinting with silvery beads of sweat in the sunlight, tensed and ready to spring into action once more. His knuckles were red with the pressure he was putting upon his hands as he gripped the four foot long pole, dark, almost mahogany wood, unvarnished and splintering here and there. Lindsay swore she had at least ten splinters from this.
As she lowered her arms, her own face slightly flushed and her green eyes glowing in the brightness of the golden orb above, Lindsay took a glimpse at her watch. She had still managed to keep a hold of that, through all of the battles and such. The time was a quarter past three in the afternoon. She and Kai had been training for just over three long hours.
~"It feels like three long days . . ."~ Lindsay thought with a wrinkle of her small, slightly freckled nose. She pushed her glasses up it, as they were slipping down, and watched Kai lower the pole.
"Better. But it's still not enough."
She's smiled at the word 'better', but the latter comment made Lindsay sigh again. Her eyes travelled up the slim form of her trainer, his shirt still hanging open from his escapades in earlier hours, some bruising beginning to form along his side where he had slammed into his teammates after leaping heroically into a thirty-metre drop. The purple marks swelled along the skin, broken occasionally by random slits and tiny gashes, dark brown and black, that had infiltrated his body. Oddly enough, they didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. His black shirt simply hung about the un- bandaged wounds, and Lindsay saw a quick opportunity for a diversion.
"Um . . . Kai, don't you think you should check those bruises out? They look pretty sore. Maybe you should . . ."
"I'm fine," he snapped, his mouth barely moving but his icy gaze fixing straight upon her own. "Let's continue."
Lindsay smirked. "You're fine? What if I . . ."
Without warning, she darted forwards, and swung her long, rickety pole at her adversary with a force she hadn't used yet. She aimed directly for Kai's wounds, knowing that this was probably the only way she would get out of another six hours of relentless, harsh training. She didn't want to be stuck out here until nighttime!
She swung the pole horizontally, with all her might, and closed her eyes, not particularly wanting to watch it collide. It swept through the air and spliced right into its mark, and she opened her eyes again, grinning animalistically.
"Ha! Got you---what?!?"
Lindsay let out an exclamation of incredulity. Kai had simply blocked her blow with his own pole. Her green pupils moved slowly up the tense, taut muscles of his slender arms, gripped ever so tightly about his weapon, and then suddenly, before she even knew what to expect, she felt a sharp blow in her right side. It sent her flying and she skidded onto the gravely floor with a grimace. They were in the remnants of a parking lot - it was now merely a huge expanse of grey gravel, with tiny pieces of moss and grass splitting through the occasional crack in the floor. There was no fencing, no reminder that this had once been a public place. The people were gone. Now only this training ground remained, about a minute's walk from the warehouse.
Lindsay stayed down for a second, wondering if anything was broken. Her side hurt very badly indeed; throbbed with a flare she had never met. She breathed in and it decreased a little, and she struggled into a sitting position.
"Kai? What was that?"
She looked up at a voice, a familiar one, and saw that Tyson and Rei had exited the huge warehouse and were walking their way. The warehouse, from the outside, was a ruin. A huge, empty shell of life and thriving business that it had once been, it was haunted by shadows and blackening brick red, its once vibrant eyes now bordered shut with flimsy pieces of scavenged material. The sun shone down on it, but still the dying building could not come to life. No light would breathe air into its lungs. It would simply remain, dormant as the sleeping rocks and lifeless as the bones of the lost.
Kai turned, a look of mild surprise written across his features. "What?" he asked, running a hand through his hair, which was sticking to his forehead in the heat. Lindsay noticed the gash that hadn't even scabbed over yet, a tear jutting across Kai's forehead that was still bleeding. She didn't know if it had re-opened with the exercise, but suddenly she felt a little guilty for trying to hurt Kai where he was already injured.
Rei waited for a hobbling Tyson to catch up, and Lindsay got to her feet a little unsteadily, still reeling from the vicious attack Kai had released upon her. She had no idea he was so strong. And she had no doubt that Rei and Tyson could display similar strength.
"Why d'you ram her like that?" asked Tyson, a roguish looking lad with bright, youthful eyes that had not allowed the events of late to darken them. Lindsay could never recall a time where she had heard Tyson complain, or grumble, or even ask for assistance. He was a happy, bubbly character, who loved to talk about his past life and was easy to get on with. He looked over at her with concern, and then turned back to Kai, shaking his inky fringe out of his grey eyes with a disapproving look.
"Because she tried to ram me like that."
"But Kai," Rei attempted to reason. Rei had cleaned himself up. His face was free of dirt and all of his wounds had been treated and were bandaged up neatly. His hair was tied back neatly, its long jet lengths being wrapped in a piece of cloth, and he generally looked like he had rested a little. "You can't just attack her like that! She's new!"
"So."
"It's okay, guys," interrupted Lindsay before this got any hotter. "I deserved it. And on the battlefield, nobody is going to spare me their full strength. I need to get used to it."
Rei, Tyson and Kai looked at her, with a mixture of confusion and impressed agreement in their smiles.
"Lindsay," said Kai, throwing down his pole and watching it clunk upon the gravel, "Until tomorrow. Then we take out the swords."
She nodded, her curly, messy hair bobbing up and down as she did so. She hadn't had access to a brush for a long time. There was no time to be vain, or even conscious of the way one looked in this day and age. It was all about survival - and Lindsay knew she could survive with un-brushed hair for a while. She looked over at her trainer, who nodded, and she scampered back inside, knowing that she could get in a few hours of sleep before having to wake once again before the sun set.
Kai turned to Rei and Tyson, watching a tiny bead of sweat drip down his nose and run off the end. He didn't like to admit it, but he was tired. He hadn't slept for a good thirty hours now. The patrol, the attack, the clean up and now Lindsay's training were taking it out of him. He hadn't eaten for that long either, and his stomach growled at him for nourishment.
"How'd the clean up finish?"
Rei and Tyson smiled, the sunlight grinning down upon their faces and letting them shine. The weather, although still foggy and cloudy, was brighter than usual. The sun smiled through the haze and the heat had risen rapidly, making for humid air.
"Well," began Rei, "all of the windows are blocked again. There's no glass left around except the bigger pieces, which can be used in making weaponry or utensils. The torches are still burning but I asked someone to put them out. All of the beasts' bodies have been stored and salted. Injuries have been treated," he pointed to Tyson, who lifted his once yellow, now dirty grey shirt and bared his bandaged ribs proudly, "and that's about it."
"Any human deaths?"
"Only Jenny," answered Tyson, watching the grey gravely floor, "and her body hasn't been found."
Kai looked at him for a second, and then nodded. "Good job guys."
He turned, and walked in the opposite direction, facing the run down city before them, and Rei and Tyson followed, allowing their gazes to feast on the ruin of their world. Blackened, charred smoke still billowed from the remnants of the once alive city. The pulse of the city, the steady rhythm of the beating heart had died long ago. The skyline was a horror to look at. Trees, parks, statues, had all been ripped down with no mercy. The city was a literal melting pot. Some of it was still on fire, and, squinting into the distance, Rei could make out tiny images of flames glowing upon the horizon. He could even smell the tiny tinge of smoke from them.
"It's sad, isn't it?" he heard Tyson say, and he half smiled.
"I wouldn't call it that. It's much worse."
Tyson nodded, and a slight breeze rustled through the three boys, contesting greatly with the sudden warmth on their backs. For only boys they were - thrown into this huge macrocosm of men, wars, survival games, weapons, blood, violence, horror. Only boys. They hadn't seen an adult in weeks. Months.
Kai took a seat on a small patch of browning grass, brushing a bit of dirt out of the way and then smiling to himself when he remembered that he was filthy and it wouldn't make any difference. Rei and Tyson sat either side of him, and they just sat for a while, watching that distant skyline, their hearts crying for the loss of their world, their loss of innocence, and the dawn of night. Their world was an empty field, scattered with broken grain stalks, ruined plot land, and the occasional hollow man to stare at them with his beady eyes. As Tyson watched, he could suddenly picture it. The field. A gentle wind, sweeping noiselessly across the black stalks. A silhouette of a bare winter tree upon the horizon. And the hollow men, the scarecrows, watching him. Stuffed men, violent souls, as were all. And a swing. An empty swing, reflecting sunbeams from its splintered, shattered old wood. Abandoned. Lost.
"Sunlight on a broken column," Tyson broke the sudden silence that had fallen upon them. "There is a tree swinging. And voices are in the wind's singing more distant, and more solemn, than a fading star. In a field. Behaving as the wind behaves---"
"What on earth, Tyson?" interrupted Rei with a look of disbelief. Tyson snapped out of his little reverie, and realised he had been remembering times of long ago.
"Oh, sorry. It's from a poem I studied in school. I guess it's kind of stayed with me."
"It was pretty good," commented Kai, folding his arms and glancing up at the blue grey sky. "And I can see what you mean."
Tyson nodded, and looked up himself, watching a tiny spiral of dark grey smoke weave its way through the air, drifting over from some burning building, some poor wreck about to finally lose its life. It was so fleeting, so flimsy; that he could easily compare it to their own lives now. They were of no importance, but were just like that piece of smoke on the wind, changing, only able to go where taken, slowly getting thicker and heavier . . .wait a second. . .
"Guys, is that smoke getting thicker?"
Rei glanced down, his eyes glimmering beautifully in the sunlight, and looked at Tyson. "That little grey piece? I thought so too . . ."
Kai watched the spiral, growing slowly in density and size, and then suddenly jerked, as if pulled to his feet by an invisible being. He stood nimbly and then turned to face the warehouse. Rei and Tyson watched his face fall, and then they turned too.
It was alight, huge, angry flames licking the slowly darkening sky, dancing miserably, a cruel fervour emitting from the very tongues and forks of the glowering mass. The buds of fire leapt out, climbing the building, flooding the sky in a cabbalistic fashion, the animal flames reaching higher and higher as if climbing upon each other to escape the confines of the warehouse.
"No way . . . " mouthed Tyson as he stood still, hypnotized by the passionate, quivering flames as they danced. He couldn't move, but could only watch in despair as those evil blossoms engulfed the entire warehouse.
A blur of grey darted past Tyson, ad when he looked again he realised that Kai had started off for the warehouse. Rei closely followed him, and Tyson hurried along as quickly as he could, his sore ribs proving a bit of a difficulty. He caught up with Rei and Kai as they ran, both hurtling towards the hellfire before them.
"Who did you ask to put the torches out Rei?"
"Um . . . I don't remember . . . maybe . . . maybe Lee? Or Max? I . . . I don't remember Kai!"
"Next time, if you want a job doing, DO IT YOURSELF!"
Tyson winced. Boy was Rei in trouble. And whoever had let the torches burn too long - they'd better hope that the weaponry hadn't been lost.
They reached the warehouse in a matter of seconds, as they neared hearing the sounds of screaming. Outside the entrance to the warehouse was a small gathering of people, all panicking, some having grabbed supplies and weaponry in their haste to escape the volcano that lay behind them now. The three boys reached them quickly, hurtling questions back and forth, with no time to catch their breath. People milled around them, smoke lingering on their persons and filling their air. Already the atmosphere was difficult to see through.
"STOP! Just wait a sec!" yelled Kai quickly as the panicking voices began to rise to an uncontrollable level. "Have we got everyone out here?"
There were murmurs, and people looked around at each other. Rei noticed the blond mop of Max's hair, and he pushed his way over to him.
"Max, is there anyone still in there?"
It seemed that Max was thinking a little clearer than everybody else. He looked around quickly, and nodded.
"We're missing . . . Lee . . . and I think everyone else is here."
Kai snapped around at this, a strong, chilly breeze suddenly blowing through their shivering forms and sending tiny flecks of bright ember glow amongst them.
"Lee's still in there?"
Another nod from Max confirmed this, and Kai turned back to the flaming building, its walls now starting to crumble under the massive pressure of the cruel, mocking flames, which laughed and grew in the wind's presence.
"Tala, with me," he called sharply to the redhead, who stood nearby, his slim form shaking from either fear or cold. Despite the warm sun of moments earlier, it now seemed colder. The sun was lost amongst the billows of black, and darkness appeared to be falling once more.
Tala moved swiftly over to where Kai stood, and then, without warning, the two of them sped off towards the inferno that raged before them. The others' shouts of protestation and indignation were not heard above the crackle and hiss of the flames, and soon the two were lost to the sight of the crowd.
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~"It's so . . . so . . . what's happening? Where . . . where am I? Where are the others? What's happened to them? Do they . . . do they remember me? Will they help me? I . . . can they . . . I hope they're safe. Away from this . . . I'm not choking . . . I won't give up . . . I won't let go. Can't . . . but it's so hard . . . no, I won't break . . . I . . . I'm faltering . . . if I just shut my eyes . . . . . . wait . . . light shedding . . . but my eyes are still groggy . . . getting brighter . . . who . . .?"~
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Lindsay began to nibble on one of her fingernails. She was watching the scene through misted glasses, and finding it difficult to follow what was happening. Kai and Tala had been gone a good four or five minutes now, and the warehouse was now a bouquet of flames, all passionate, quivering in the fading light, their scent filtering through the air, diffusing with no hesitation. Their whole world was crumbling around them once more. If only there was a way to stop it, to support it . . .
They'd been gone for far too long. Lindsay glanced at Rei, and saw that he was pacing apprehensively, his face fretfully turning ever now and then back up to the flames. Tyson stood very still, his arms folded, his grey gaze merely fixed upon the building. Max was talking to Sara and they seemed to be discussing the weaponry that had been salvaged - which was not much. Lindsay shook her head at the tiny pile - two swords, one axe, a few spears and poles and four or five arrows made for pitiful pickings.
~"We still have our best weapon though. The beasts. They're still here."~
Lindsay blinked, the luminance of the blaze reflecting in her green orbs, and then gasped, surprised at her own thinking.
"MAX! Max, come here!"
Max turned from his discussion with Sara, and jogged over to Lindsay, who looked as though she were about to burst with anticipation.
"What is it, Linz?"
Lindsay flailed her hands in front of his face in frenzy.
"DRACIEL!"
Max stared at her for a moment, his bright blue eyes vivid in the quickly falling darkness. They brightened further when her words registered.
"Genius Linz!"
The smell of smoke beginning to waft from even within his own hair, Max shoved his dirty hand into his trouser pocket and rummaged around in it for a second. Eventually he relinquished a small purple chip, the surprisingly small prison of a mighty beast. With a determined, fighting sort of grin upon his freckly face, Max took the tiny, almost weightless chip, and, with a wink at Lindsay, he flipped the chip into the air, its lilac surface glinting in the light radiating from the flames nearby. Lindsay watched eagerly - she'd never seen this before. Only rumours heard in quiet conversation. This was going to be good.
The chip spun rapidly, the smoke around it seeming to dispel, and Lindsay was so fascinated with it that she almost forgot the fire and nearly missed Max's command for Draciel to exit. She glanced at the freckled young boy and restrained from jumping out of her skin when she saw that his normally warm blue eyes had turned a beautiful lavender, the same colour as the light that now exploded from the bit. The evil scarlet and orange glaze that had surrounded them was suddenly gone, and the smell of smoke drifted away from just a split second. The heat disappeared, and left a refreshing, chilled atmosphere, and then suddenly, before Lindsay had time to explain it, there was Draciel, standing above its master, its massive, stocky body clothes in entirely different flames of mauve and blue, and its beady eyes focussed completely on Max. He smiled up at the turtle like creature, with its powerful claws and limbs like tree trunks, clothed in pieces of darker purple armour, ready for battle.
"Draciel," said Max quietly, almost out of audio of the others, who were now watching in awe and wonder, their eyes wide and their faces illuminated in the lilac iridescence, "Can you . . . can you put out that fire?"
A roar was his only answer, echoing and blocking out the dying cries of the warehouse. Max simple smiled, and watched as his Draciel took its steps towards the once safe haven. The ground shook tremendously as the beast approached its destination, and then, suddenly, it seemed to take in a huge breath, its whole body pulling backwards with the force of this mighty inhalation.
"Here we go," commented Sara, who stood next to Max, "What a show off."
Max chuckled. "Would you rather lose Tala and Kai, not to mention Lee?"
Sara's eyes widened in utter fear at losing her 'arching partner', and Max would have laughed if he hadn't been interrupted by the sound of a rushing waterfall. He turned and watched with a smile as his beast released a powerful gust of thrashing waters from its clasped claws. The torrent smashed into the wall of fire that it was up against and the two immediately began to battle, raging fire versus hammering waters, the cold instantaneously knocking down thousands of the flame's army in its path.
Lindsay watched with wide eyes. This was incredible. Draciel stood still, the flood of liquid still emerging from within its clasp, its tail thrashing back and forth in a display of its power.
"Impressive, huh?" Max's voice came, and Lindsay nodded, brushing a curl out of her eyes to watch the battle.
"That's all well and good," said Sara dryly, "but where are the others? Flooding the place won't help, Max."
Max rolled his eyes, smirking at Sara's cynical voice. She was generally like that.
"It might not get them out, Sara dear, but it will put out the flames. It'll save anything that hasn't been burned yet."
Sara wrinkled her nose in irritation, pursed her lips shut and flicked her hair out of her face. "Yeah, whatever. Just as long as Tala . . . and the others . . . get out."
Lindsay repressed a giggle, and turned back to the flames. Sara had a point. If they were trapped in there, the waters wouldn't help. But then again, the fire wasn't a good thing either. It was an awful dilemma, and all they could really do now was watch.
"They'll get out," said Rei quietly, his smooth voice still able to be heard over the sound of the elements clashing ferociously. "They'll be okay."
Tyson nodded. "It's true. Takes more than a bit of fire to beat those guys."
Lindsay watched them both, and despite their stout, confident words, their eyes revealed that they were still extremely worried about their friends. She turned away, feeling troubled herself, and allowed her green eyes to focus on the building, the front entrance wreathed in flame, yet spills of water cascading over it. It was an odd sight to behold. When she caught sight of three figures clambering about one of the windows near the entrance, she wasn't sure that they were real, but perhaps they were just shadows, brought from this incredible mix of the two most powerfully clashing elements. She blinked, and grabbed Max's arm.
"There."
Max looked to where the young girl pointed, and smiled. "Yup, that's them."
Besides him, Rei sprang forwards, quickly followed by Sara, and they ran towards the smouldering ruin as swiftly as they could. Tiny splashes of water covered the ground and made it slippery, but Rei and Sara were very sure footed and this proved little difficulty. The heat was dying down as they ran, and they soon reached the three shadows.
Tala already stood outside the warehouse, his creamy clothes blackened with soot. He turned to face Rei upon his friend's call, his icy blue eyes startlingly bright against the black backdrop. His flaming hair also seemed put out, not by water but decorated with soot. He blinked at Rei and then turned back to the window, where the fire, the water, or the team had ripped the material barrier down. The limp form of Lee was being passed out, his whole body covered in blackness from the ashes of the flames, and a dreadful gash stretching across from the left of his stomach to the upper right of his chest. It was bleeding cruelly, and rivers of blood ran across the blackened skin, standing out as if the blood itself were alight.
"Lee!" exclaimed Rei in shock, shaking his head as he ran up to Tala and helped him take the lifeless boy from his prison. They dragged him out and Rei glanced up at the window to see Kai, who was absolutely drenched from head to foot, his black shirt shiny and clinging to his torso, and his skin glistening in the dying light of the fire. His blue and grey bangs were plastered to his face and hung into his eyes irritatingly. Rei watched a drop of sooty water run from his friend's chin, and offered half a smile.
"Which bright spark decided to flood us out?" Kai said with a glare at Rei and Sara as he pulled himself out of the window. Sara noticed that his trousers were just as wet.
"I was against it from the start, Kai. However, if you're quick, you can stop Draciel and maybe . . . dry off in front of the fire?"
"Shut up."
"Sorry."
Kai took a breath of the 'clear' air outside of the building, and then helped Tala take a proper hold of Lee, who was semi conscious and mumbling something to himself. They hoisted him from the ground, Rei speaking to his friend to help him stay awake, and Sara shoving her hands in her pockets and grumbling about something or other to nobody's surprise. They moved over to the assembled group, where Max gave them a quick greeting before called off his Draciel. It stopped its attack of glittering blue currents and the giant creature seemed to dissolve into a million opalescent shards. Max greeted the others with his regular blue gaze, the lavender completely gone from the orbs, and slipped the bit chip back into his pocket.
Lee was laid on the floor, and two or three of the group began to examine his wound, which was still pumping blood at an incredible rate.
"What happened to him?" asked Rei, looking very upset, his amber eyes contrasting against the dark atmosphere around them. Kai watched the sky as it darkened, and grabbed Lindsay's arm, holding up her watch to his face and scanning the time.
"He got hurt."
Rei growled, not in the mood for Kai's strange sense of sarcasm. "How?"
"Staircase."
Enough said. Rei winced, and sighed. The metal staircase had collapsed, and had trapped his friend. Lindsay wrenched her arm away, as Kai had been gripping tightly. She looked down at her arm and noticed the tense red marks left by his fingers. He was obviously more upset by this than he let on. She glanced at the time. It was five minutes past four. She hated the early winter nights. They always brought with them the early darkness. The early Rages.
"We need to move," she said, a little afraid of making such a blunt comment but knowing it was important that they didn't stay. The beasts would be drawn to the smell of the smoke, the charred mass. It would entice them, as where there is smoke, there is always a fire - and usually bodies. They needed to find a new shelter.
Kai turned to her. "I know. But we have to make sure Lee won't die on the way."
Lindsay's eyes widened. "He . . . he might die?"
Kai's eyes narrowed, and he looked back down at the still, compact form of his friend. "There's a good chance."
Lindsay watched the lad as he lay still, his chest dragging up and down gingerly as though each breath would simply cause more blood to seep from the wound. Sara had already set to work on the injury - she wasn't half bad at being an unqualified nurse. Her hair hung down into her eyes and she pressed her hands against the wound here and there, not bothered at all by the splurging crimson liquid that leaked from the boy that was littering her fingers and occasionally flecking into her face.
"Did we save any bandages?"
Tyson looked over at the pile of salvaged materials. There was no food, no medical equipment, only a few weapons and even they were dwindling in numbers.
"Nope. Not even an aspirin."
Sara cursed under her breath, and then turned back to the wound. Kai began to unbutton what was left of his filthy shirt but someone else got there first.
"Here."
Sara took Rei's bandanna with an awed look. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, it's already red anyway."
Sara laughed. "Okay then. But . . . I don't think it's big enough to cover it."
Rei frowned. "How about . . . give me my bandanna back."
Sara looked very confused, and passed back the piece of red material. Rei slipped it into his teeth for a second, and started fiddling with his hair. Sara watched, her face the perfect picture of bewilderment, and gasped as suddenly a cascade of jet-black shiny hair fell upon Rei's shoulders, stretching down to his knees, beautiful in the dim light about them. He let the white sheet of material that had tied it back fall to the floor and removed his bandanna from his mouth, tying it back again very quickly. It now fell in a long ponytail, wild and untameable, with some pieces falling forwards in a random fashion. Her eyes wide, Sara leaned over and surveyed the length of Rei's hair.
"Sham-Ow . . ."
Rei laughed and moved the white material towards her. She picked it up, marvelling at its length, and then made a makeshift bandage about Lee's wound.
"Wait a second!" Tyson grabbed Sara and moved her away. She resisted the urge to slap him, pulled a very indignant face and spoke.
"What?"
"There's still something stuck in his chest!" cried Tyson, making a move to remove a glinting piece of shiny metal from Lee's weakly moving chest. Max dove forward.
"NO TYSON! Don't remove it! He'll lose even more blood and that's more likely to kill him!"
Tyson gave Max a very incredulous look. "Yeah right."
"No, he's right!" piped in Lindsay, thoroughly amused despite their predicament. Tyson's face fell. He felt rather useless, and had only been trying to help.
"Okay then."
Sara turned up her nose and went back to bandaging poor Lee, who's eyes were still open a little, the usual amber glazed with something that none of the group liked to see. Lindsay turned to Kai.
"Won't he be in a lot of pain, Kai?"
Kai looked down at her from looking about them all, his russet glare watching the shadows that surrounded them in the darkening sky. He'd not seen anything out of place . . . yet.
"He's in shock, Lindsay. I'm pretty sure he can't feel a thing. Do me a favour and go talk to him. Keep his concentration."
Lindsay moved off, obeying her orders, and Kai looked around once again, his gaze constantly alert, on the prowl for any prowlers in their turn. He felt the urgency that had plagued Lindsay just moments ago. They weren't safe here. The darkness was falling . . . and they all knew what that meant. And besides . . .
He knew that the beasts weren't the only ones who prowled the cities at night . . .
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~"I can still hear them . . . they'll help me . . . don't fade away . . . don't leave me here . . . by myself . . . I . . . can't . . . please . . . I can't take the heat anymore . . . it hurts . . . . . . is that smoke?"~
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They'd been walking for a good hour now. They'd quickly decided that they couldn't stay where they were, where the embers of the once vibrant flames would make them ample prey. And so they had moved, in the dangerous direction of the city, where the dark mist seemed to be thicker, going on Tyson's guidance, as he thought that perhaps his grandfather's dojo might still remain. It was no place to set up camp or anything, but it would have weapons, possibly food and maybe even some medical equipment. It was better than nothing, and there was nowhere else to go.
Kai walked at the back of the group, constantly watching the shadows about them. Darkness had completely fallen now. They were shrouded in that bluey grey hue, where sight was hindered and senses deemed pointless. He was constantly on the lookout. Tala and Sara, the only couple who had managed to keep all of their weapons, had been told to search through the city, as there had been rumours on the horizon of survivors throughout the city for a few days now. Kai figured the survivors would have had to have some sort of safe haven. Maybe if they were lucky, his own group would be able to join them in their safety.
So they were two warriors down - oh wait, three. Lee. Oh . . . four, including Tyson, who, although he was able to walk, could not wield a weapon. That left . . . himself, Rei, Max . . . and Lindsay. Okay, so that left himself, Rei and Max.
He sighed. This whole thing was a mess, and really did fear for their survival. Around them was pitch black and misty, freezing cold, and they were in the middle of a cyber-beast infested breeding ground. They were missing a good few warriors and weapons, and frankly things weren't looking up. He was running on the remnants of sleep from at least thirty hours ago, and hey, he had a headache. What more could go wrong?
Oh wait. He'd forgotten about them.
Cannibals.
He'd kept his thoughts to himself on this - nobody else in the team knew. He'd spotted them on a city search a little while ago. A group of five or six youngsters, whom he didn't know and wouldn't want to. They'd been eating something larger than chicken or turkey, roasting it over a fire, and Kai had almost reeled when he had seen the small, severed head next to the fire, its mouth open in a petrified scream, tongue lolling out and spectacles broken. The fuzzy brown mass of hair had been splattered with globules of his own blood, and Kai realised that he had been looking at the body of Kenny. The Chief. The only one who would have had the brains to sort the group out in this sort of situation.
He'd told the group that Kenny had been killed in battle. They'd believed him and he'd been glad of it. Nobody would have liked to know that Kenny had been eaten by fellow human beings, who by all rights should be grouping together to stand up to this threat, not killing each other. Later on, Kai had understood Hilary's sudden disappearance. No one had seen her die - in fact, she had rarely fought in battle. She had been one of the youngest members of the group, an outgoing, brave young girl. In fact, countless numbers of others had disappeared vaguely, nobody knowing what had happened and most simply assuming innocently that they had been taken in battle.
~"Is that what happened to Jenny then?"~ Kai thought as he walked at a brisk pace, his eyes piercing the gloom around them. He'd noticed with a heavy heart the flitting, ephemeral shadows that followed them in silence, and didn't know whether they were the beasts or the cannibals. All he could do was let his group walk on; get them to Tyson's dojo, where they had arranged to meet with Tala and Sara. At least it wasn't far now - about another ten minutes of walking and they would be there.
The shadows unnerved him. He could see things moving, and he hated being at the bottom of the ladder here. Hated being at a disadvantage.
Something moved to his left, and he glanced over, catching a glimpse of a dash of red.
/What just happened? The Hollywood empire strikes back. . . And this time I'm standing in their way/
He felt the adrenaline pumping throughout his body, a weighty surge that flowed throughout his already pulsating veins. He was too tired for this, but still he slipped his hand about the hilt of his sword, which lay in its sheathe at his side. He was definitely glad someone had rescued it for him.
"Rei?" he called a little more quietly than he would have usually called his Vice, "We've got something . . . eyes open."
At the front of the group, Rei heard this call only just. He narrowed his amber eyes, glaring about the group cautiously, tightening his grip on his spear. Max, who stood directly behind him, heard too, and also prepared his spear. The darkness made them all tense and suspicious, and the panicked breathing of the group behind them caused some confusion. It was difficult to tell the difference between the noises of the enemy and the noises of the allies.
Kai turned at a sound behind him, and, squinting through the fog, could make out a figure, moving towards them. He clenched his fists. Part of him was glad it wasn't a beast.
Part of him wasn't.
He peered through the mist once more, tensing his arm, ready to yank his sword from its sheathe. He had a feeling that even though he could only see one, there would be more.
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~"A sword? Will he attack? How many are left . . . will I make it? Everything's spinning . . . I hate this . . . am I going to die?"~
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With a wrinkle of his nose, Kai wrenched his arm upwards and removed his glinting sword from about his waist, and lifted it, bright in the dusk of the night, the splicing metallic sound of the sword grating against the sheathe cracking the silence of darkness. Above them, the moon watched on, a dying spectator, blessing them all with what little light she could afford.
Rei was beside Kai in an instant, and Kai found that Max was on his right. They had both raised their spears and were ready to attack. Breathing in deeply, and wondering if they'd get out of this alive, Kai stepped forwards towards their predator.
The mist cleared, and the aggressor could be clearly seen. Spiky hair fell into hopeless eyes, their dull jade almost given up completely. Broken posture, trembling, staggering towards them, the will to go on having been devoured from within. A slight breeze blew through the black hair, and a slight red streak rustled across his pale green orbs of the eyes. The figure stumbled forwards a few more steps, before being beaten down by the wind, and falling with a lifeless thud to the hard, ruined ground.
Kai, Rei and Max stared for a moment, utterly taken aback. Another breeze blew among them and seemed to take away any suspicion or ambiguity from moments earlier. They couldn't take their eyes off the figure who had fallen before them.
"OZUMA!"
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Sherbet Mayhem: Oil Pastel, can you do an impression of a coat?
Oil Pastel: Erm . . . can you?
Sherby: Yup ^_^ Just watch! *stands up and goes limp* See?
Oil Pastel: Um . . . good one, Sherby.
Sherby: so, readers, how d'ya like it? Just a quick note to first of all say that when Sara said "Sham-ow" it was that word that crazy people say that is pronounced "ShamOh!" with the emphasis on the 'oh' and the 'sham' sounding the same as the word ram. Shamow! Just in case there was confusion there.
The lyrics that Kai was thinking about were by Blindside, as usual. The song? Caught A Glimpse. The poem earlier that Tyson quoted was by T.S.Elliot, and was called "The Hollow Men". It's a really good poem.
Um . . . oh yeah, just a quick synopsis of the last chappie coz some people didn't quite get it. Here we go:
Boris has created a race of cyber bit beasts, that only generally come out at night. There has been a world wide electricity cut, and there is no electricity left. Most people are dead, and there are only a few survivors, and most of them are kids. Those who are surviving have formed a resilience against the dark beasts, and are determined to survive. Last chapter, Tyson got injured, Jenny died, and . . . um . . . that's really it. The four sacred bit beasts, Draciel, Dragoon, Drigger and Dranzer, are still available to the good side, but only at great risk, and so the kids are trying to fight without the use of them. However, some circumstances will call for them to come out.
Is that all? If you have any problems, just email me with your questions and I'll be more than happy to answer.
Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and please review! I'm starting to get into the swing of things now, and I like this chapter better than the first. Hope you did too. Once again, thanks for all the encouragement, and REVIEW! Coz it makes me smile.
Oil Pastel: And that you don't wanna see.
Sherby: SHUT UP! *cough* Review! And I'll see you next time I update. The time is . . . 17:10. It took me far too long to write this thing. Ah well ;p
Au Revoir!
Oil Pastel: What are you on about? You're not French!
Sherby: Shut up or I'll kill Tally wally!
Oil Pastel: *zips lip dutifully*
C ya, and God bless x x x