Ch. 6 Battle Within

"Blaze, wake up." The distorted voice woke Blaze from his sleep. The former privateer-class pirate held his right hand to his forehead, feeling a massive headache. He looked around, wondering where he was.

"Where am I?" Blaze looked around and saw a bright green forest. In the distance, Blaze saw a golden temple overlooking the island he stood on. "I'm still on El Dorado. Good." Blaze took his sword off his belt and got ready to cut through the forest to the docks. "Wait," Blaze told himself. He looked down and saw that he was holding his sword with his right arm. "This isn't real."

"No, it isn't." Blaze turned to the voice, which now sounded more feminine than the one he had heard earlier. "What? Are you surprised?"

"You're dead."

"Yes, I am, but this isn't reality is it, sweetie?" Fearless Alexis Silver walked to her son. "I've missed you." The young privateer pushed her away. "Hey, is that any way to treat your mother?"

"You're not my mother. My mother died years ago."

"Didn't I just say this isn't real?" Alexis drew her sword. "I'm here to help you."

"I don't need your help. Adam set you free; what are you still doing here?" Blaze made his way through the fictional forest.

"Helping you break out of the prison Tauros has made from your mind." Blaze stopped moving and turned around to face his mother. "Ah, you didn't know that part, did you?" Blaze started to concentrate, trying to force Alexis to disappear. "And right now you're trying to erase me from your memory. That only works if I'm one of your memories; my son, I am anything but. I am, quite literally, a ghost."

"Why are you helping me? Don't you think I've done enough to hurt you and your memory?"

"That's why I'm helping you." Alexis put her open hand on Blaze's right shoulder. "Your brother needs you, and so does the rest of the Spiral. Even if you don't see it yet, you are too important to stay trapped in a prison of memories."

"Okay, so what do we do?"

"I broke through about a dozen levels of memories to find you. No doubt that Tauros has blocked the way I've come in. Which means we'll have to fight our way out."

"Why can't anything ever be easy?"

"Ask yourself that. They're your memories." Blaze and Alexis were surrounded by all of the elite clockworks that had been built, except for Queen. Blaze and Alexis readied their swords. "Any advice on taking them out?" Blaze couldn't think of anything until he saw Deacon step forward, exposing his legs.

"Their joints don't have any armor plating. Attack those first and they'll fall, limb from limb." Alexis ran forward and slashed at the legs of Rooke and Phule. Blaze followed suit to Bishop and Deacon. Deacon started to shoot from his position on the ground, hitting Alexis in her left shoulder blade. She gasped out in pain, but finished stabbing Rooke in the head, shutting down the clockwork general. Blaze saw this and instantly severed Deacon's head from his body. "Don't touch her!" Blaze smashed his boot onto Deacon's faceplate, stomping even after the metal was nothing but fragments. Leaning on his knees, Blaze turned his head and saw that his mother had gone ahead and incapacitated the other elites. "I could have taken out another." Sheathing her sword, Alexis chuckled.

"I know you could. That's why I did more of the work; you need your strength." Alexis grabbed a pistol off of her belt and shot into the trees. "We need to move, now. That shot will attract any dangerous memories that may get in our way." Blaze sheathed his blade and followed Alexis into the jungle. After hours of running, the pair stopped for a breather. "Good to see that being stuck in a suit of armor didn't make you lazy."

"This isn't real, remember?"

"True, but you're only as strong in here as you are on the outside." Alexis looked down at herself. "Or 'were' in my case." Finally, Blaze asked a question that had been gnawing at his mind since he saw his mother.

"Did dad send you in here?" Alexis quickly rubbed her forehead and stood up straight.

"He did."

"Why? I would have thought he'd be the last person to want me free." Alexis walked up to her son.

"Honey, your father loves you. You may have made some bad choices, and yes one of them was killing him, but you're his son; nothing you do could change that." Blaze recoiled when she reached her left hand to his face.

"I don't even deserve to be called his son; I'm just another monster, like Flint." Alexis stepped back and frowned.

"If that's how you're going to think, then what are you fighting for?" Blaze lifted his head. "My brother-in-law wouldn't have ordered Tauros to trap you if he didn't think you were a threat to his plans. I'll ask you again: What are you fighting for?"

"I don't know." For the first time in his life, Blaze was unsure. "All I wanted was to bring you back. I want to help Adam, but I don't want to hurt anyone else."

"You can't stay out of this fight, Blaze." Alexis took a picture off of her belt and handed it to him. It was the same picture that Sagittarius had shown Queen in El Dorado. "Adam is the only true family you have left. You owe it to him to be there." Looking at the picture, Blaze remembered how happy he was before Alexis' death and how angry he was when she died. He'd do anything to avenge that event.

"I'll fight for you. And I'll fight for Adam. I won't let Flint hurt anyone else." Blaze drew his sword and started cutting a path through the imaginary jungle.

"That's my Blaze."