Chapter 3: Qai
"Don't even think of reaching for your weapons," a male voice, around my age, commanded.
I chuckled. "You're wide open," I whispered before I spun around, disarming and modifying his blaster before I placed it back in his hands, faster than he could register. His finger tightened for a second, launching the unfamiliar slug at me, although my simple modification flipped the barrel around, launching the slug at him and freezing himself solid.
A few seconds later, though, before I could react, a MegaMorphed Infernus slug flew in and thawed out the guy, most likely Qai, before it returned to its slinger, the famous Junjie, protector of the Eastern Caverns.
"Careful, that's my son you're attacking," he growled at me as he loaded the Infernus, Juju, into his blaster and activated the accelerator.
I grinned as I loaded Speedy and Yang into my fusion blaster, which I split and aimed at him.
He paused. "A fusion blaster?" he whispered as I activated my powers and charged the two balsters to UltraMorph.
I grinned wider. "MegaMorph, how outdated," I whispered before we launched our slugs. Speedy and Yang joined into a completely black Speedstinger with a trace of light on his back as he left a trail of smoke, and surrounded Junjie with smoke before the fusion slug knocked away Juju and used the extra time to knock Junjie's blaster away.
"You've got no idea who you're dealing with," I told him as I loaded Brisingr and aimed it at his head, although Qai launched his strange slug at me, freezing me solid as Junjie got up. My eyes lit up and I shattered the ice, launching Thorn, my Dirt Urchin, to pin him to the ground by his shirt while not harming him.
"I suggest you put down the weapons, boy," Junjie growled as he launched a Dirt Urchin at me.
I smiled and dropped the staff, throwing knives at every spike launched at me, splitting them in two while negating the momentum of every spike before I used Nuker, my Grenuke, to try to blow Junjie away, but a whip of water swatted away as I felt a large mental presence, freezing me in place.
"WHO ARE YOU AND WHY DO YOU DARE ATTACK MY FAMILY?" the voice yelled in my mind as I saw an older woman, around Junjie's age, with brown hair and green eyes approach me, blaster drawn with a slug simmilar to Qai's in the barrel.
I slowly held out my hand. "Name's...Jacob...Taylor...Shane..." I growled as I struggled to push off her mind. She noticed this and ceased the pressure, allowing me to talk and move freely. "Are you Quora Tsuyoi?" I asked her, using the name Doc gave me.
She nodded slowly. "The slugs that kept you safe contacted me about you," she told me. "I don't appreciate you attacking my family, though," she added.
I shrugged and pointed over my shoulder to Qai. "Well, hotshot over there threatened me first, and I don't like being threatened, so I retaliated, and it gradually turned into this entire thing," I told her before turning to Junjie. "I apologize for any harm I caused," I told him, bowing.
He nodded. "So, are you Eli's son?" he asked me.
I shook my head. "No, I'm Karina's," I replied. "I don't really remember them except for this picture," I added, holding out a picture I grabbed from the Hideout containing my parents and I moments after I was born."
He nodded and smiled. "I can see it now. Anyway, where are Eli and Trixie?" he asked me.
I lowered my head. "They were killed by Leon Blakk," I replied.
His eyes widened. "Oh," he whispered before Quora walked up to me.
"I need you to come with me if you wish for your memories to be fully restored," she told me before turning around and walking toward a wooden shack not far away, with steam rising slowly from a hole in the roof.
When we got to the room, a little girl raced out and into Quora's arms. "The preparations are all ready, Mom!" she told Quora before she noticed me. Her eyes widened and she automatically dove behind her mother.
Quora simply lightly laughed and patted the girl's head. "You have no need to fear, Jazira, he is a friend, the one that we are doing this for," she explained to the girl, Jazira. She gradually nodded before running away, back to Junjie, as Quora and I continued to the shack, and upon opening, it revealed a hot spring.
We had been inside it for about five seconds when Quora began to back out. "I need you to strip to your boxers and sit in the hot spring," she told me through the closed door. "It has healing properties, and will help me.
I nodded and began removing my backpack, shoes, jacket, shirt, pants and socks until I was standing only in my boxers, when I climbed into the spring and sat on a natural seat by the edge. The water was hot almost to the point of scalding me, but I could stand it, so I whistled to let Quora know I was ready.
"Okay, I'll need you to relax your body and your mind," she told me as she sat behind me, placing her hands on my temples. "I cannot guarantee that this will return all of your memories, but in the very least it will return the majority of them," she explained. "Be patient with me, though, because this is the first time I've worked with a person's memories."
I tensed up slightly at that, but forced myself to relax.
"Now, I need you to fall asleep so that I will have less resistance accessing your mine," she continued. "When you wake up, I guarantee that you will at least have more memories."
"What if I don't have more memories?" I asked her.
"In that case, the procedure would most likely kill you, so you wouldn't even wake up," she explained before applying slight pressure to the base of my neck, knocking me out cold.
While I was sleeping, I could hear strange words being whispered into my mind as the energy throughout me started to change its course, flowing to different parts of my mind. Every few seconds I felt a jolt of pain run through me, but I got through it and focused and staying relaxed. However, I soon sensed new images and videos runnnig through my mind. I grabbed one of them (subconsciously) and saw a video of when I almost died and talked to my father, Jacob Taylor.
Wait, I remember his name when only days ago I had no idea what it was! Woo!
As the procedure continued, memories began pouring through my mind at an insane rate. The sensation I got from it changed from happiness to a slight twinge of pain, to a full-on rush of body-crushing pain that made my body involuntarily tense up as my subconscious sought to protect me from whichever attack this was.
"Jacob, you need to relax, or else things will get even worse!" Quora shouted, bringing me back from my sleep.
I opened my eyes slightly. "It...hurts..." I groaned before the pain intensified. It was then that my powers jumped in, surrounding us in a defensive blue nexus of energy.
Same time, Emma's POV...
As we traveled through yet another cavern, Luke sensed that Jake was slowing down, a sign that he was nearing his target.
"Where do you think he went?" Leo asked us. He joined us after claiming to have seen Jake fly by on Stryder while he was in sports bike mode. The others soon realized I was lying to them about not having seen Jake, and dragged all the information out of me.
Luke shrugged. "No clue," he began when we sensed a giant spike in energy nearby.
To be more specific, Jake's energy.
"JAKE!" I screamed, hitting full throttle on my Mecha so that I was almost flying across the ground until I saw Jake's Mecha parked outside a cavern. I stopped next to it and ran into the cavern, where I saw a small wooden shack on top of a hill being guarded by two men, one of which is our age. I could sense Jake's energy spiking inside the shack, though, and the blue sphere of energy slowly growing around it was another clue.
"I'm coming, Jake!" I yelled as I activated my powers, sprinting up to the guys and flinging the door open to find Jake lying in a hot spring in his boxers, another woman behind him with her hands on his temples, attempting to soothe him at the same time.
"We have to calm him down," the woman told me, apparently having realized who I was.
I nodded and appeared by his side, hand on his shoulder. "Jake, you need to calm down and control your energy," I told him.
He opened his eyes slightly. "Emma?" he whispered in surprise.
I nodded and kissed his cheek slightly. "If this is the woman you said could get your memories back, you need to calm down so that you don't hurt her or anyone else."
He tried to nod but groaned in pain as his energy intensified. "The pain...it hurts...so much," he groaned.
I started to cry then, hearing how much pain he was in, but nodded. "Don't worry, it'll be over soon," I told her before placing my hand on the woman's shoulder. "I'll give you a boost so that this can end sooner," I told her, openly crying as my eyes glowed brighter and a small nexus of yellow energy encompassed the three of us, although all the energy was focused on the woman.
"Jake! Emma!" I heard Luke and Leo yell from outside the shack before slugs were being fired.
"Stay back! It's okay in here!" I screamed back at them, hoping to keep them away before I turned to the woman. "How much longer will it take?" I asked her.
She shrugged her shoulders slightly. "At least five minutes," she said. "It sounds like the men that came with you aren't faring well against my husband and son," she added.
I smiled slightly. "They won't go down easily, I can assure you of that," I told her. "Leo is a Shane, and Shane's never give up. Luke, well, he was one of the best in the class, second only to Jake and I," I added.
She nodded. "I just hope that they don't carry weapons like Jacob did," she replied. "We only have blasters."
I nodded as realization dawned on me. I grabbed my communication device. "Guys, blasters only! We don't want to cause unnecessary harm!" I told them.
"Got it!" Leo yelled back. "Man, these guys are good!"
I nodded slightly before Quora started to look faint, when I gave her more of my energy.
She shook her head. "If you continue to use your energy to help me, the drain on your own body will kill you," she told me.
This time, it was my turn to shake my head. "I'll deal with it, and I'd do anything to help Jake," I told her.
She nodded solemnly before she removed her hands from Jake, telling me she was done. When I looked back at Jake, though, I was surprised by a large, black tattoo covering his right arm and the right side of his chest.
"That's a side effect of the procedure I used on him," she told me. "It won't affect his abilities in any way. Now, it is time to go stop the fighting while Jacob recovers. From here on, it is all up to him to decide whether he will live or die."
I nodded sadly before we walked out the door, supporting ourselves as we drew our blasters, only to be dumbstruck by the appearance of two women, both of which seemed to have knocked the rest of them out without being heard.
"Ms. Shane?" I asked the same moment the Quora squealed, "ELINA!"
Elina Shae grinned and they ran toward each other before tackling each other in a giant hug. "Oh, I missed you so much!" Quora told her. "It's been so long since we've seen each other!"
Elina smiled. "Only a few months, when I came to ask if you'd seen Jake Shane," she replied as Ms. Shane walked up to me.
"Where's Jake?" she asked me.
I jerked my thumber over my shoulder, at the shack. "He's recovering from his memories returning," I told her. "I'm sure he'll be fine, though."
She nodded hesitantly before she walked into the shack and knelt behind Jake, closing her eyes.
I smiled and turned back to Elina and Quora. "So...um...you know each other?" I asked them.
They nodded. "You could consider Quora as the Eastern Caverns equivalent of me," Elina told me. "Some claim that she's more powerful, but I still doubt that."
Quora laughed. "Oh, I could take you any day once my energy recovers!" she replied. "By the way, what did you do to everyone?" she asked Elina.
Elina shrugged. "I sent out a mental wave to knock out everyone in the area when we arrived," she explained. "The energy that Jacob was outputting, though, must have blocked the attack from hitting you guys."
Quora nodded. "That makes sense," she muttered before she woke them all up.
We spent the next few hours trying to create peace between our group and Quora's family, as they still wanted to continue the fight, but we managed to dissuade them when we learned that Junjie was the hero of the Eastern Caverns.
"Hey, but Jake beat both of them by himself!" Leo protested. "If he can do it, so can I!"
Junjie shook his head. "I could tell that he had trained extensively while he was gone, and his fusion blaster helped him by quite a bit," he explained. "His skill is beyond any level I've seen. His father would be proud."
Karina smile when she heard that, but we all spun around when we heard a voice.
"Hey, do guys have any food? I'm hungry," Jake muttered.
A/N: Hello, everybody! I'm finally starting to get over my block (knock on wood), so here's the latest chapter!
Disclaimers: I do not own SlugTerra, only my characters and the plot.
Leo Shane belongs to Create-gunner1209. Thanks, dude!
Quora and her children belong to JackieWinters. Thanks, Jackie!
Karina Shane belongs to Aist Elixie Fan Shane. Thanks!
And, last of all, thanks all of you reviewers! Don't forget to leave a review at the bottom!