Here we see a bit more of Sarah's new magic, and we get to see that pretty much everyone has also been improving. Kris is basically a technomancer now, and Amanda is literally defended by the wind all the time. Still, is it enough? Nope. They end up having to play a card game.
Oh, and Max randomly shows up here because I accidentally designed one too many enemies, and I liked them all too much to take one out.
Chapter ThreeYou Know Things Are Bad When...
“I like that Wilson guy,” said Jenna, beaming, as we walked back to the alley where Tucker and I had fought Mohawk.
“You only say that ’cause he gave you a magic artifact,” said Amanda.
“It’s better than just any old Shadow Item too,” said Jenna excitedly. “I can actually use this one right off the bat!” She removed the Shadow Baton from its place tucked into her knee-high sock and twirled it expertly.
“You handle that thing like a pro,” said Tucker, impressed by Jenna’s proficiency. “Do you think you can use it as a weapon?”
“Oh yeah,” Jenna replied frankly.
“I could do that too,” said Amanda. Her dark hair was cast over her eyes. She didn’t seem to mind.
“No you couldn’t,” Kris countered. She did care that her hair was in her eyes and was busy putting it up into a ponytail.
“Shut up, guys,” I said. “We’re here.”
I turned a corner. My friends followed. We found ourselves alone in the alleyway, evidence of the earlier battle still strewn about. A bashed dumpster here, a long gash in the solid brick of the wall there. The usual.
“Okay,” Tucker wondered, “we’re here. Now what?”
“Watch and learn,” I told him, smirking, “if it’s possible for you to learn.” My Soul of Water flared, glowing faintly, and suddenly every bit of water vapor hanging in the air around us lit up. Most of the water vapor glowed like clear diamond, but some, which formed a distinct path away from the alley, in the direction of Mohawk‘s retreat, glowed a bright cerulean blue.
“What is this?” Tucker asked, in awe.
“Aqua Memory,” I replied “When I hit Mohawk with the Water Burst I made, I hid some of my magical energy in it, tagging him in case he got away. That energy rubs off on any vapor Mohawk steps through, causing it to stay in one place for a little less than a day. It retains some of that energy for about half that time. Lighting up my Soul causes any water vapor around us to light up. Water vapor saturated with my magical energy lights up blue. We can follow this trail and have Mohawk and his pal cornered in no time.”
I was beaming with pride.
“Cool,” said Amanda. She sounded jealous, and she probably was. Amanda’s Soul is the Soul of Wind. It’s the Soul of quick action, and it’s fueled by how quickly she reacts to a dangerous situation, and is only really good for anything once things heat up. She has power at par with any of us during a fight, but right that moment the best she probably could have done was create a strong breeze. She likes her Soul, but sometimes she gets jealous of those of us who can use our powers any time.
I led the way, following the path created by my Soul, my team following at my heels. It wasn’t long before I deactivated the visual aspect of my Aqua Memory power and started going by what my Soul itself could see. The magical trail led us through the more rundown sections of the city’s edge. Not the safest place for kids at night. At least not normal kids. In fact, it wasn’t long before someone attempted to mug us, and Amanda got a chance to display her power by promptly blowing him to the top of a four story building. Just for the fun of it Kris used the metal manipulating power of her Soul of Mettle to disconnect both the building’s fire escape and roof access ladders. That guy would probably be up there for days.
Anyway...
It wasn’t long before it became clear that we were headed for the old warehouse district, which is essentially just six run down warehouses. They haven’t actually been used for anything in years. At least nothing either official or, ya know, legal. We followed the path of my Aqua Memory to the door of one of the warehouses scheduled for demolition. The notice on the door was dated two years earlier, so it was safe to say that any and all kinds of officials had forgotten about it.
“They’re in here,” I said, gesturing toward the warehouse’s heavy door.
Kris closed her eyes and concentrated. Her Soul glowed faintly, and after a second she announced, “The door was locked. It’s not now. I did it quietly. No way the guy heard. He shouldn’t even know we’re here.”
“Well we can’t have that,” I said with a wicked, cocky grim. “What do you say we announce our presence?”
I cracked my knuckles and focused. My Soul glowed and water formed in the crack along the edge of the massive steel door. I waved my hand, and the water expanded, forcing the door open. The five of us stepped inside the dark warehouse, the automated streetlights outside the only source of illumination.
“Time to light this place up,” announced Tucker. He snapped his fingers, meaning to produce a flame, but instead he produced only some sparks.
“What the...”
“Guys,” said Amanda through chattering teeth, “is it just me or is getting cold in here?”
I looked down in the low light, “The floor is frosting over!”
“The cold is keeping my fire out,” explained Tucker. “Sarah?”
“I’m on it.” I waved my hand, trying to disperse the ice, but nothing happened. Something should have happened.
“Well that’s just strange,” said Tucker.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “and I’m not likin’ where this is goin’.”
The creeping ice thickened, and the ice in one point formed into a spike and stretched toward us almost too fast for me to react. I threw up my arms, creating a wall of water. Behind me Jenna held up her baton defensively, and Kris flinched, too shocked to do a thing. It was Amanda who saved us. Almost as soon as the spike formed Amanda reacted, creating a blade of wind, tinted with the green energy of Amanda’s Soul, that shattered the oncoming ice. Then she focused and her Soul flashed green, creating a small, green-tinted tornado around us that shattered the closest of the ice, buying us some time. The ice was still creeping closer, but it was still a ways away.
“Any ideas, Boss?” Jenna asked.
“Yeah, Boss,” asked Tucker, “what are we doin’ here?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I didn’t expect anything like this. Just stay on your toes.”
“Can do,” Kris replied, having recovered from her previous shock. Determined to redeem herself, Kris activated her Soul and scrap metal from around the warehouse flew to her arm and attached as if her arm was magnetic. A wave of electricity ran down her new robotic armor and collected in her hand.
I smiled, Guess Kris has been practicing with her powers too. Amanda called up a ball of swirling air, tinted by her green aura, I surrounded myself with multiple floating water balls that I could expand out to form various attacks, and Jenna held her Shadow Baton at the ready, its ends lighting up with Shadow fire.
“Best I can do is create a wave of heat around my hands,” said Tucker.
“Stop whining,” I commanded, “and get ready.”
The ice seemed to stop creeping, but I only felt more threatened. Like I was on a safari in the path of a tiger about to pounce. I grumbled, Something’s coming.
Suddenly my water balls froze and shattered, leaving me defenseless. Then the ice suddenly sprung forward, creating multiple thrusting spikes, most of which were aimed at me and Tucker. It was all I could do to avoid the spikes without dying. Tucker held his hands like knives and slashed at the spikes as they neared him, splitting them in two with a burst of heat. Kris shattered two spikes with a burst of electricity. Amanda shattered the few spikes bound for her with a single burst of compressed air, and Jenna shattered a crap load of spikes with a forceful twirl of the Shadow Baton.
“This is stupid,” I said. “I’m no sitting duck.” I ran forward into the darkness around us, forming my extra strong ice blades in each hand. I called back to my friends, “Spread out and find this guy!”
“Amanda ran in a different direction alongside Kris. Both were hit by a fleeting high kick launched by a slender form that retreated instantly back into the darkness. They were sent sprawling. Tucker moved to follow them and found his legs frozen in a block of ice that quickly crept upward to encase his hands as well. Jenna had her baton blown from her hand by a strong burst of wind that also served to knock her over.
That’s when Mohawk reappeared, stepping out of the deeper darkness with his sword held high. He struck. I defended, but the force of his blow brought me to my knees. I expected Mohawk to strike the final blow, but instead he stepped back and simply stood over me. “Pity,” he said, “I really thought that taking on the Duel Force would be more fun than this.”
I thought he was just talking smack until something surprising happened. A voice came from within the darkness, “I’m sorry, Baby.”
A tall, lean woman dressed in leather, with dark green hair, wearing dark green eyeliner and lipstick of the same shade, stepped up beside Mohawk and hung on him possessively. I noticed that she wore a deep emerald green crystal pendant. She asked, “Want me to torture them a little and see if I can spice things up?”
“Don’t bother,” Mohawk replied. “I’m just gonna finish them off and get it over with. I’m gonna kill the pathetic excuse for a leader, and then I’m gonna kill the one who stole Jimmy’s baton and scared him off,” he looked up at Jenna. “You can have the water Soul if you want. I like the fire one.”
“No fair,” came a third voice, this time a male voice, from within the shadows, “I want the fire one!”
“Don’t you think that the metal Soul would suit you better? Or maybe the wind Soul?” Mohawk asked. As he spoke a tall disheveled man with erratic eyes, long(-ish) unkempt red hair and chin stubble emerged.
“But I like fire,” the man whined.
“You will take the Soul I tell you to take, Snap!” Mohawk cried, and the man seemed to shrink back, defeated.
“Yes, Mask,” Snap replied sheepishly.
“I want the baton,” came yet another voice, and a young male figure about my brother’s age (so about seventeen or eighteen) with long red-blond hair, wearing a white shirt and black jeans emerged from behind Mohawk, or I guess Mask. He had his hands placed nonchalantly in his pockets, and he wore a cool smirk across his face. “You know I’ve never liked the idea of the Souls. They’re too powerful. They make things too easy.”
“Works for me, Scourge,” Mask told his compatriot. He turned to look behind his back, “What about you, Warp?”
“I’d prefer the metal Soul,” came a final male voice, and I noticed a dark-haired man in his forties wearing glasses and an old, dirt-stained lab coat standing at the edge of the light.
“Frost?” Mask asked, looking deep into the shadows into the very back of the room. I squinted, and I could barely make out the form of a young woman with pale blue hair, staring blankly ahead. I could feel that she was the source of the ice, and when I looked closely, I could see a blue crystal hanging around her neck. She remained silent in the face of her leader’s question. Mask laughed mockingly, “Of course you don’t care. Okay,” he continued, “so it’s settled. I get the fire Soul, Scourge gets Jimmy’s baton, Snap gets the wind Soul, Warp gets the metal Soul, Frost gets nothing-.”
“And I,” said Princess Leather, “get the water Soul, right now!”
And while I knelt there, dumbfounded by how completely I had underestimated my enemy, the green crystal around the leather-bound woman’s neck began to glow, and a spinning blade of emerald-green-tinted wind formed, hovering just above her palm (like the Destructo-Disk in Dragonball Z). She prepared to unleash it. I was too stunned to move. Too stunned to fight back.
“NOOO!!” I heard Tucker cry. There was a burst of heat and a flash of red light, and I heard the ice that had been encasing Tucker shatter, snapping me out of my stupor. I saw Tucker lunge past me, acting heroically with little regard for himself, causing Leather to recoil and her attack to collapse. She jumped back out of Tucker’s reach, and Mask charged forward, but he was too late. Tucker kicked Mask’s sword to the side and summoned up a fireball, letting it fly at the defenseless swordsman. Just before the attack could hit, however, Scourge moved himself into the path of the fireball. A disk-shaped pendant that he wore flashed, and a disk-shaped energy shield appeared, deflecting the fire.
“I don’t know how you overpowered Frost’s cold, Fire Boy,” said Scourge, “but know that my shield can deflect any magical attack.”
“That’s not true,” spoke yet another new voice, “just ones as straightforward as his magical attacks.” Suddenly I felt a cold but reassuring presence beside me. Of course I recognized him at once without even looking. Even if I had looked, I wouldn’t have been able to see his face, thanks to the dark cloak that he wore, clasped around his neck by a metal disk embedded with the amber-colored Soul of Life.
I smiled at the arrival of Reaper, better known as-, “Max!”
“Who the hell are-.” Mask began, but Max raised his hand, his Soul glowing. A look of fear overcame Mask, causing him to stumble back and almost fall over, but his composure was quickly restored and he looked at Max with a hatred that normal people usually reserve for Tucker.
Max lowered his hood, revealing fierce blue eyes, a head of short, self-cut blond hair, and a confident smile, “I told you. That was a taste of my Wave of Fear. What did you think?” he asked rhetorically. Then he looked over at me, “Hey kid. I was planning on busting these guys tonight too.”
I smiled again. “Great minds,” I replied, feeling that Max had been watching over us all night, waiting for a chance to make his presence known.
Or maybe not. How should I know?
I let Max help me to my feet, and I looked Mask in the eye, “How does it feel, seeing the tables turning before your eyes? Can you still beat us when it’s a six-on-six fair fight? Or should we settle this in a game, keep things less messy?”
“That sounds good to me,” Mask replied arrogantly, eager to prove himself in the aftermath of Max’s magic, but despite his tough front I saw a bead of nervous sweat form on Mask’s brow. “We defected from the Duelists Elite to pursue our own power,” Mask explained. “All of our hard work will not go to waste. We’ll beat you, and your powers will be ours.”
As our two teams paired off, me against Mask, Amanda against the girlfriend, Max against Scourge, Tucker against the silent Frost, Jenna against Snap, and Kris against Warp, I looked Mask in the eye and shot him a smirk that would have made my brother proud, “We’ll see about that.”
Next Chapter >>
No comments:
Post a Comment