A/N very little will be happening in the jade palace, in this chapter… just read and enjoy you will see the significance later on, the song is by Adele it is called skyfall, enjoy and review…
(Start playing it, it may not be relevant but it adds taste to this chapter.)
"Vell it sounds like you have a problem"
"Tell me about it, it's the unsolvable problem" I responded looking down.
"No… zere is no unsolvable problem" He said gaining my attention.
"Well what do you propose" I said looking at him.
"You must choose between the vesser of the two evils" he said staring straight ahead.
I looked down; this was a very true, logical, unarguable point.
"Which one should I choose Anton" I said still looking at me.
He sighed "I am 35 years old, I have lasted on that battlefield for a long time, so I must have some sort of experience… but you… you just stumped me."
I looked down.
"However… I vould have to weigh the two out, should I kill my last brother and only member of my family, or should I try to dedicate my life someone who wants nothing but to control me, and therefore love me." He said.
I wanted to say something, but Jacob was my only family and Tigress is a control freak (not up for debate).
I might even be better off under Tigress' control. I thought to myself and it was true, she could keep me out of a lot of trouble, and I did want to be with her a lot, even if it meant me being… controlled… Niko didn't like that idea but it was the only way possible for a relationship.
He looked at me as I balanced the two out.
"I feel a duty to my parents and god to end this evil bastard at any cost" I said.
Anton giggled "Nikolas, god does not take joy in the deaths of the wicked, I don't think your parents would want you to kill their son, and as for what happens between you and Tigress is between you three, and besides you are safe now he can't come here" he said.
I just stared "that's not true he has an implant too"…
Anton sighed "Vell… shiza… zat complicates matters, but for ze time being you must choose, you vill find the answer, and vhen you do you must realize zere is no turning back" he said standing up and walking away.
So there I sat… now alone and confused…
We see Nikolas setting on the steps of the jade palace alone and broke, he eventually drifts off to sleep there, it's dark at night, we then zoom westward through china past Bamboo forests, cities, and a peacock surrounded by a lot of wolfs standing around a map planning something, but we keep on going and we find ourselves directly under the northern star (Polaris) looking up at it, we then look down and we see two people wearing turbines examining a cylindrical object, they are babbling back and forth, they don't know what it is, they have never seen anything like it even though they are Muslim traders.
It was a metal tube half way lodged under the sand it looked burnt a little, it had been there a few days, there was a parachute lying in the distance, and also a round plate that was thick with metal it was burnt and warped, there were also some metal shells lying around. But they dismissed all of this in favor of the tube.
One was a brown bear, and the other was Caspian tiger.
"What is it" the bear said.
"I don't know" the tiger replied.
"Maybe it is a gift from Allah" the bear said.
They exchanged glances.
"Who are we to decline?" they agreed.
So they struggled as hard as they could, to get it on their raggedy trading cart, with no avail, it wouldn't budge.
"Maybe we should dig it out" the tiger said.
And so they began digging, it took about an hour and when they could see the tube fully, they rolled it to examine the other side, what they found shocked them…
There was a glass panel on the front. They stood it up right.
They look into the glass panel they could see a black figure but it was blurry almost as if there was… Ice?
There was something that grabbed their attention to the right of the panel it said 'do not press unless emergency'.
They exchanged glances.
They couldn't read English.
"Maybe it wants us to touch that red thing" the bear said pointing to it.
"Maybe" Tiger replied slowly reaching up to press it.
His finger made connection… nothing happened.
"Well what-" the bear said to the tiger as they both dodged the panel as it came flying off.
They regained their balance and looked into the ice, a light was emitting from it now and the black figure was silhouetted, there was also cold air coming out of it.
They both shivered they were in the desert and weren't used to ice or cold.
Then air began blowing around in the tube, and steam came pouring out, they jumped back. And the light turned off…
The figure fell out on the ground and gagged violently, they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
They exchanged glances, the figure was naked, he had black fur, and red stripes, he had a tigers tail with the same striping pattern, they couldn't see his face because he was lying face down on the ground spitting up water…
"Get him some clothing" the tiger said to the bear as he knelt down to get a closer look. The bear ran to the cart, turned on a lantern and grabbed some of the clothing they had and a turbine they carried with them.
After the figure was done gagging he stood up calm and collect they handed him the clothing and he put them on.
"Thank you" he said standing up and putting on the robes but not the turbine, he was absorbing the darkness around him effectively cloaking himself; all they could see was the robes, his stripes, a (Christian) cross on his forehead, and his two red eyes glowing in the dark.
"Are you Mohammed?" the Bear asked.
The figure couldn't remember anything except for very basic things he remembered something about a book he once read, it was a little confusing at the time it was about religion.
I think it was called the Holy Bible. He thought to himself.
"Are you Mohammed?" The bear repeated.
The figure stood up and turned to him "No" he said.
"Well who are you then?" the tiger said.
The figure thought a moment.
"Just call me… The Wanderer (cool song by Johnny Cash look it up)"
The Wanderer put on the turbine.
"I must continue my journey" the wanderer said.
"But aren't you hungry, or thirsty" the Tiger asked.
"I merely need some information" the wanderer said.
They nodded…
"Point me to the east" The wanderer said.
"Where are you going" the bear asked.
Something told him to go east.
The Wanderer giggled "I must go towards the land of the rising sun" the Wanderer said walking up on top of a sand dune about 50 feet away and being silhouetted by the full moon behind of him.
They just stood there staring at him they had not seen his face or known anything about him, they merely pointed towards the full moon.
He nodded and then he went over the dune…
They ran up there as fast as they could (it's hard to run through sand…) to try to look at him but they looked over the sand dune and saw nothing, just sand illuminated by the moonlight.
He was gone, he had left as mysteriously as he had come, he had just left them there shocked but they just shook it off as they got back to trading, they were disturbed and confused but they had to go on, there wasn't anything to say, there wasn't anything they wanted to say…
The wanderer moved east slowly, every once and a while he would get some food and water off of a trader, he slept in the day using his clothing to make a miniature tent, but in the dark he came to life, he liked the night, it was his type of environment.
It was cold sometimes, and it was hot others, but both had one thing in common… if the moon was out the Wanderer was marching towards his destination, trying to find something, even though he didn't know what he was looking for, he knew he had to find it so he marched on…
We go back in time to the present (story) and then we zoom back to the valley of peace and we see the sun barely popping over the mountains and we see Nikolas lying face down on the top step, as if he had been drinking (might had ;), he startled to wake.
"The Wanderer, what a weird dream" Nikolas said to himself.
Only it wasn't a dream…
A/N Ok guys there are probably a lot of grammatical errors in here, but I had a headache and I wanted to get this out on 9/11 in honor of them, speaking of which just take a moment of silence for them… Now it was a boring chapter, I know, but you will see the relation later on… Now you all make up your own theories ;) and please leave a review.