Author's Notes: Sorry for taking so long to update, but I'm finding it a little hard to with school and all.

Emblem Wars: A New Game

Chapter 5: Breaking in the Morphs

Later, after the merchants had left, Uncle Cornwell, Raven, Kent, and Nils all gathered in the barn.

"All right Raven, I've got some work to do out in the fields. I want you to show these morphs the ropes. You know, break them in."

Raven smiled and eagerly pulled out his baseball bat.

"Not THAT kind of breaking, Raven."

"Dang."

Raven frowned and put his bat away, much to the relief of Kent and Nils.

"Okay, first things first, we gotta get you guys cleaned up. You are just filthy. What did you guys do, fall out of ship and wander through the desert?"

"Uhhh..."

"Whatever. Lets just get this over wi- hey, what's this?"

Raven bent down to pick up what looked like a disc on the floor. Nils' eyes widened in surprise.

"Hey, that's-"

Raven casually shoved the small morph away and kept him at bay with his arm as he examined the disc.

"Hm, well, its worth a try."

He inserted the disc into a project and set it "play."

"Hey, how do you have one those?"

Raven shrugged.

"I don't know."

At that moment, the disc began to play, and the projector produced a small figure, about four inches tall. It was a very small, very pretty red haired girl. Raven couldn't help but feel that she looked familiar. The girl began to speak, but it was apparent that the disc was corrupted, as it started to spit out footage like a broken record.

"Help me, Lord Pent, you're my only hope."

She said that over, and over, and over again. Raven frowned.

"Great."

He pulled out the disc and examined it.

"No wonder, "made in the USA", it's a piece of cr-p."

"Can I have the disc back now?"

"No! I'm keeping it, for.. uh... just shutup, okay?"

It was at this moment Kent decided to intervene.

"Can we please just forget all this stupid nonsense? I just want to get all this sand out of my armor. You know how annoying that is?"

Several seconds of silence followed.

"Uhhh, Raven, did you hear me?"

"Yeah, but I was ignoring you, because I don't care."

Raven thought for a moment.

Lord Pent? That sounds mighty familiar...

"Nils? Do you know who Lord Pent is?"

"Uh, no?"

"Liar. Tell me the truth before I beat your brains out with this bat."

"I was supposed to see him for something important!"

"Lets see... Lord Pent... could she be talking about Old Man Pants?"

"Old Man Pants?"

"Yeah, some sort of hermit who lives out in the middle of the desert. Claims he's a researcher or something, but my Uncle says that's the nice term for "hobo." Never let me go near the guy."

"Afraid you were gonna beat him up?"

Raven grinned evilly.
"Yep."

Later that night, Raven realized he left his bat in the barn, so before curfew, he ran back to try and find it. Once he reached the barn, he turned on the lights when someone rammed right into him.

"What the-?!?!"

Thinking quickly, Raven snatched the bat lying next to door and started pummeling away at the intruder.

"Hey! HEY! OW! Stop that! That hurts!"

Realizing who it was, Raven stopped hitting Kent after a couple of more good hits against his legs.

"OW! What the heck was that for!??"

"Because I don't like you. Now what the heck are you doing in here and where's Nils?"

Kent slowly got up, wincing in pain from the beating.

"Oh man that hurts... I'm going to feel that in the morning..."

"Where is Nils!??"

"Huh? Oh right. The little brat ran off to try to find that 'Lord Pent' guy."
"Son of a-"

Like lightning, Raven bolted out of the barn and began to look into the distance, but he saw nothing.

"Great. He's gone. Uncle Cornwell is going to be so pissed..."

Kent slowly limped up behind Raven.

"So we're not going after him?"

Raven took another look out, and shook his head.

"No, it's getting dark out. We might run into bandits and some fugly little... thing... calling itself Vaida or whatever. Plus, Uncle Cornwell would kill me if he found out I snuck out again."

"Raven! It's already 11:00! Time to come inside!"

Before walking off the house, Raven turned and pointed a finger at Kent.

"Any word, anything at all about Nils being missing, and I swear to Elimine, I will break your legs with a passion that you can never imagine."

Kent quickly nodded and was careful to keep his distance from the angry teen.

The next morning, Raven and Kent jumped onto a speeder and set off to try to find the wayward Nils. Unfortunately, for Raven, Kent found no shortage of things to complain about on the trip, and likewise, Raven found no shortage to the limits of his temper.

"Can you please drive a little slower, Raven? I mean, we're probably violating a speed- OW!"

Kent rubbed the spot on his head that had met with Raven's fist.

"I would've hit you harder, but I'm in no mood to carry your sorry butt around."

Raven smiled.

"Besides, there's no speed limit in Nabata. Actually, there aren't any laws around here at all."

Raven laughed at Kent's expression of pure horror and drove on.

Nils, meanwhile, was regretting his decision. Not to run away, but because he skipped the part in his 'worst case scenario' class that would've taught him how to hotwire a speeder.

I just had to choose that day to call in sick...

Nils kept on walking until he thought he heard something behind him.

Rustle rustle

Nils quickly turned around, and nearly got a heart attack from what he saw and screamed.

Meanwhile, Raven and Kent were not very far away when they heard someone scream.

"OH MY ELIMINE! IT'S FUGLY! FREAKING FUGLY!!!"

Raven brought his speeder to a screeching halt, throwing Kent around.

"Hey! That was totally unsafe! I would've been killed if it weren't for my seatbelt!"

But Raven was already dashing over to where the scream came from. Kent rolled his eyes in annoyance and began to unbuckle his seatbelt.

The moment Raven reached the spot where he heard the scream, he suddenly saw that Nils had good reason to.

"Holy! It's Vaida!"
Nils was trying to back away from Vaida. Raven would've laughed if he had seen the look of pure horror on Nils' face, but he was covering it up with his hands in an attempt not to see the fugly little woman.

"Vaida, what did I tell you about scaring people in the desert?"

"But I just wanted a friend-"

"Go. Now."

Dejected, Vaida slouched and slowly walked away. Seeing that Vaida was well on her way, Raven turned to Nils, who was still lying on the ground.

"Okay Nils, it's time for a little talk..."

But Nils wasn't listening. He was concentrating on something behind Raven.

"What the-"

Before he could react though, he felt something hit the back of his head.

"OW! What the heck was that for?!?"

The bandit, who had slowly snuck behind Raven, was thoroughly surprised the blow didn't knock Raven out..

"I mean, seriously, who the heck hits someone in the head with a freaking rubber chicken!? If you want pain, you need something a little harder-"

Raven brought his bat around, swinging right into the bandit's head. Raven heard a sickening crack!, and the bandit dropped to the ground.

"Heh, that was easy-"

This time, another bandit hit him the back of the head. Unfortunately for Raven, this one was a little smarter and hit Raven with a brick. Raven fell to the ground, but as he did so, he heard a lot of strange noise and a lot of heat.

Before Raven fainted though, he thought he saw a strange cloaked figure standing over him.