This fic is the one I go to when I can't sit down and write for any other of my stories. I will probably plan the story out before I make anymore posts only because right now I only have major events planned out in my head.

Make sure to reread chapters 1-3. I rewrote them!

Adeliea

Chapter Four: Usma's Gift

Luther walked up the slope of the small hill as he neared the demon barrier. The spider demon was still trying to break through the aura that the white line emitted. He whistled as he went, readying his hand to draw his sword. The spider demon screeched at the approaching intruder and backed away, only to ram his body against the barrier. Small flecks of blood sprayed passed the barrier. A small smile graced Luther's lips as he saw that the demon had already injured himself trying to break through. The demon would be an easy kill for sure.

Sizing up the demon, Luther found him to be only about ten feet in height; his legs stretched eight feet long at the most. Four of his legs were already streaming with blackish-red blood; the front two on both sides and the next two in line on his right side. Luther drew his sword and held it up in front of his face. The entire length of the sword was just over four feet and the hilt made up one of them. It was a simple single-edge two handed sword with nearly enough room on the grip between the pommel and the quillian for both of his hands. Luther just used the ricasso and put his hand on the unsharpened portion of the blade when he actually needed his second hand to have enough space.

He wanted to finish off the spider demon quickly and return to the village. Luther side stepped passed the barrier and the spider turned to follow his movements. The giant creature lifted his front legs defensively and slashed in the air as a warning. Luther pounced forward and rolled on the ground, landing in a sitting position beneath the arachnid. He thrust his sword upward into the soft underbelly of the black beast and blood oozed down on his broad shoulder.

Another screech echoed through the air as the spider tried to claw at Luther beneath him. Luther untied his axe and cut at the legs as they neared his flesh. Losing balance, the spider fell sideways and Luther backed away to avoid the flailing ligaments. Removing his sword would be foolish at the point since all eight legs were moving wildly around his belly. Luther walked around the fallen spider demon and raised his axe above its head. Using both hands, Luther swung downwards against the arachnid's neck. He grunted as the axe sliced through bones and cut into veins, prompting a spurting of blood into the air. Slowly, the movements of the limbs stopped and the spider became still. His screams were reduced down to a faint wail and then died off altogether. Luther removed his axe and the head of the spider loped to the side, barely connected to the body anymore.

Luther removed a leather pouch from his belt and filled it with blood before securing it tightly. Returning to the side of the demon, Luther withdrew his bloody sword. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and sighed deeply. The thing hadn't put up much of a fight but it still took quite some strength to kill.

Placing his free hand on the ricasso, Luther sliced downward where the limb connected to the main part of the demon's body and one leg fell to the ground. He repeated the action twice more on the legs that were in better shape before approaching the face of the spider. He sliced out the fangs and attached them to his belt, put the limbs around his shoulders, and lit the body on fire so that no other demons would come and make a meal out if it.

(0)

There was one bedroom in Usma's house, which contained two small cots on opposite sides of the room. Ken collapsed on the one closer further from the doorway and closed his eyes. He wasn't tired, but he was too upset to do anything. Kari pulled her hair back into a lose ponytail before sitting down on the free cot. She looked over at Ken, who appeared to have fallen asleep.

Sighing silently, Kari lay down as well. She stared at the ceiling for a while before closing her eyes. She didn't know what to think about the current situation, and she didn't want to think about the possibility of being forced to go on a quest with Ken. She had known that something was going to happen, but she didn't expect to be transported to another world with her enemy. Suddenly she regretted not telling Tai about her dreams, though she had not wanted to worry him in the first place. He was going to freak out and her parents…she could only image how they would act when they found out she had disappeared.

Gatomon had warned her not to keep her suspicions to herself, and now she wondered if it would have helped any if she had told TK or Davis. They'd have sworn to protect her, of course, but could they have actually helped?

Ken found the cot he was lying on to be extremely uncomfortable. The wood base beneath it could be felt through the thin cotton mattress and the wool blanket he was on was scratchy. Maybe I should go lye down next to Kari. Ken's eyes shot open. Stop thinking like that! He didn't understand how Kari affected him, she either made him angry or he felt indecisive when she was near, but either way he felt weak around her.

It was like his dreams; the answers to his questions were so close, yet he could not grasp onto them. Kari was something that he did not understand, and that was a scary thought in itself. He couldn't tell what she was thinking, but he wanted to. He wanted to get inside her head and figure out the girl that he was now going to be forced to travel with. In a way, he was excited about the prospect of an adventure, but he hated being in the dark about all of it.

Usma entered the doorway of the room. "Dears, Luther is about to return. You must get up so I may prepare your gifts."

Ken was all too eager to get off the scratchy cot but Kari was slow to get up. She yawned and stretched her arms above her, allowing Ken to see her defined, although relatively small, biceps. He sighed at his own weakness towards the enemy and quickly exited the room to avoid staring.

Usma led Ken into what he assumed to be the living room, though it wasn't much to look at. He took a seat in one of the wooden chairs and rapped his fingers impatiently against the armrest.

Kari was exiting the bedroom just as Luther was returning to the dwelling, and gasped at his appearance. Dry blood ran down the length of his sleeve, dying the white shirt to a dark crimson color. He greeted her with a small smile, ignoring the slightly disgusted face she was wearing. "That isn't your blood, is it?"

"No," he replied simply, ever a man of few words. "I am uninjured," he added as he tossed the three limbs onto a dark oak table. The bag of blood and fangs were added to the collection of body parts that were being piled on.

"You killed that thing and didn't get a single injury?" Ken questioned with disbelief.

"Yes. The creature was weakened by his attempts to break my mother's barrier. Barely put up a fight at all."

Kari cringed as she envisioned Luther fighting the spider demon. Looking at the collection he had gathered, Kari suddenly felt ill. Strangely enough, she was not bothered by the fact that Luther had gone out and killed something without so much as a second thought, but the dismembered body parts made her nauseous. "My friend, Yolie, would have freaked out on you if she knew that you killed something."

"Does she know that either I kill it or it kills the two of you?"

"Why us," Ken asked.

"It was sent after you," Luther explained.

"Stop scaring them," Usma scolded. She carried a cooking knife with her as she looked over the legs. With one swift movement, she cut each of the legs in half, and continued until each leg was divided into four pieces. There was a black cauldron over the wood in the fireplace and Usma took the blood pouch and dumped the contents into the cauldron. She added water from the kettle that was on a cooling rack near the fireplace until the cauldron was almost filled. The cut up ligaments were added to the mixture, as were the fangs. A flame was shot out from her finger and the wood beneath the cauldron with ignited.

Humming to herself, Usma left the room and went into the bedroom. She returned cradling something wrapped in blankets. Kari and Ken watched with heightened interest as Usma unwrapped the concealed object-objects. A long rusted sword and a dagger, much in the same condition were revealed. The old seer dipped the blades into the cauldron and they disappeared into the concoction even though the sword was longer then the container it was dropped into.

The blades seemed to soak up the blood and water mixture and the water level decreased. Usma turned away from the mixture and glance over at Kari. "Something you said before has been troubling me, Dear. You said that you were told you're powers were too dangerous to learn to control them, does that mean you have ne'er tapped into them?"

Kari shook her head. "I have used them, a few times."

"Aye, that is better than nothing. And when did you use them, if I may ask?"

Kari thought for a moment. "The first time was when I was eight and we were fighting the Dark Masters in the Digital World. They were some really screwed up but really powerful digimon. I got sick one day while we were walking and my brother had us go into a city. It was Machindramon's city, one of the Dark Masters. Basically we were attacked and separated; two of my human friends and three of our digimon were with me. While we were going through the sewers we found a bunch of Numemon being held prisoner and I freed them with my powers. My light gave the digimon enough strength to digivolve and my brother's digimon beat Machindramon." Kari stopped, realizing how stupid she sounded. She was like a human light bulb, not very impressive when it came down to it.

"Any other time?" Usma pried.

"There was one other time. It happened a few months ago, when these digimon were trying to take me to their world to help them. They were trapped in the Dark Ocean with dark spirals attached to them and they had used up all their power to bring me there. I removed the spirals, but I found out…they had ulterior motives."

"They wanted to use your powers for their own purposes?" Usma inquired.

"More or less."

"Wait just one second. You removed MY dark spirals from the digimon?" Ken shouted.

"Yeah."

"And they weren't being controlled? They would not have called for your help if they were being controlled!"

"Maybe you're not as powerful as you thought," Kari growled. She didn't know why but Ken got under her skin so easily. "They were able to think for themselves."

Ken crossed his arms over his chest. I'll show you who has the power around here. He glared at Kari, but lacked a rebuttal.

"I think it's safe to assume that you have only been able to draw out your Gift when there are those in dire need of your aid."

Kari shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

"You'll have to learn to bend your Gift to your will. It was given to you for a reason." Usma smiled softly and turned back to the contents above the burning wood pieces. She tipped the cauldron sideways and let the blood water drip down onto the flames, extinguishing them. She grabbed a cloth and wrapped it around the handle of the black container before lifting it off the wire it was attached to and setting it on the cooling rack.

Removing the two weapons from the cauldron, Ken and Kari could see that they were not bloody at all. Usma handed the sword towards Ken and the dagger went in Kari's direction. "These are supposed to be what you're giving us?" Ken asked. "I'm not going to touch that and burn myself."

Kari saw that Usma was holding the hilts with no problem and considered taking the small weapon. Luther handed Ken and Kari a scabbard each, which they tied onto their belts. With some hesitation, Kari gingerly took hold of the dagger which was, as she had expected, quite cool. She wasn't sure what possessed her to take the weapon, but it felt like the dagger was calling to her, like it belonged to her.

She made a simple flicking motion with her wrist and was surprised at how natural the blade felt in her hand. The weapon was about a foot and a half long with its hilt included. Her hand fit perfectly around the grip. The pommel was crescent shaped and the quillian curved slightly downward on both sides. The blade itself had an aqua blue tint and the forte was decorated with intertwining aqua lines. It was double-edged with a tapered tip.

Ken sighed before taking his blade. It was just over three and a half feet. Rolling it over between his hands, he did not understand how this shining metal blade was the same weapon as the rusty thing Usma had thrown into the mixture. The blade was silver but the hilt was decorated with golden patterns and a light, almost transparent, green emerald was in the center of the round pommel. Two grooves ran parallel down nearly the entire blade on both sides, making a fuller on either side. It was a double-edge as well, and could be served as either a single or double handed blade. Ken sheathed the long sword into his scabbard.

Luther handed Kari a quiver of arrows and a recurve bow that was a quarter less than four feet long. "You'll need to get a chest plate and an arm guard," he advised.

"The quiver has been enchanted," Usma began. "So long as you will it, there will be arrows for you to use."

Kari didn't know how to 'will' the arrows or the quiver, but she didn't really want to ask. The old woman was beginning to freak her out. "Thanks," she said simply.

The quiver had a string attached and Luther helped Kari to tie it around her. It went over her right shoulder and across her stomach, much like Luther's axe had done. The arrow fit nicely into a groove that was carved along the side of the quiver where she could grab it with ease.

"I am afraid that tomorrow morning I must send you off. I can provide you with a direction and a few things for travel, but this is your adventure to figure out. You may sleep in the bedroom tonight, but at sunrise I will see you off. You may have been enemies in this World of the Digital you speak of, but now you must depend on each other to survive."

Ken and Kari looked at each other with narrowed eyes. That was not what either of them wanted to hear.

"You're really going to send us off when there are spider demons out there? We don't know how to defend ourselves!" Kari argued.

"My dear, there are things far worse than spider demons out there. This I can assure you."

(00)

If you're all like 'what the hell are these words she's using to describe the weapons? WTF I'm confused!" Then don't worry. Just let me know and I can explain them to you, I did my research. (I'm very proud of myself, BTW.)

Chapter Started June 28, 2006

Chapter finished and posted June 29, 2006 I finished just after midnight. That sucks