Mutation- Chapter 2

What's up.

 

The next chapter of Mutation is a bit different. It takes a new twist on the world that I'm creating. The exposition in this story is like wading through mud, I know, but it'll all come in handy later. Next chapter is going to be a major twist that will basically shape the plot of the story.

As usual, enjoy.

DMS

Chapter 2:

He was still snarling at us when we threw him down before the table. As we ripped off his blindfold, he looked up to see who was sitting before him on the ornate, golden table. He jumped backwards from surprise, landing on the cold, hard stone floor. As Pierre, Tyla and I stood behind him, one of the five people sitting at the table slowly rose. His robe billowed around him as he pushed back the heavy oak chair back with one hand. A bony finger extended from his sleeve as he pointed at the prisoner. A raspy voice echoed throughout the stone chamber when he spoke. “Traitor. You betrayed us for nothing apparently, and the Parliament hates you now too. No one likes you.” He shivered. “I’m sorry, so sorry, so so so sorry, please, please, please...”

Two of the guards stepped forward as a clear, baritone voice resounded from one of the ends of the table. “I think we have a standard punishment for traitors lined up here already, Master.” The brawny figure at the end of the table rose and threw off his hood, revealing a man’s angular face and a rock-solid jaw. The prisoner crawled backwards as the huge man’s pale blue eyes seemed to scorch him. “I think that we have to throw you in the jail, now don’t we?” The guards grabbed him and hoisted him by his shoulders.

“Just one minute,” rang out a high-pitched voice from a slender shadow at the opposite end of the table, from a shape almost too small to be real. I automatically assumed that the formal, concealing garments contained a woman. “What about the documents?” The person sitting in between her and the person in the center threw out his hands and started making circles and shapes with his fingers. One of the guards stepped forward and I handed him the papers. He handed them to the two figures on the end and they sat down, browsing through through them. They stopped after about a minute, simultaneously sharply glancing upwards. “GET HIM!” yelled the woman who had asked about the documents. But in a flash, the man ripped out of the guard’s hands had laid out both of them. They lay on the ground, blood dripping from their noses and mouths. Pierre tried to land a flying tackle, but in an instant the seemingly transformed man sidestepped and shoved him to the ground with a quick trip.

Tyla came toward him throwing a series of short, fast punches. While they didn’t look harmful at all, each had an impact not unlike a tiny bomb because of her power. She rapidly converted that energy into explosions. As they fought, the brawny, robed man threw off his cloak and sprinted toward the battle. As he did this, I dove out of the way of the huge person barreling toward me. The prisoner, with a sharp crack, sent Tyla spinning to the floor, but too late. As a heavily muscled arm wrapped around his neck, he fought in every way that he could, but nothing could free him. The man, with his other hand, broke from his chokehold for a split second to grab a weapon from his pocket. The prisoner seemed to go limp as a very sharp knife was held to his throat. The four left at the table stood and watched. Looking to them for permission to kill, the person who seemed to be the leader gave a slight nod.

As the body hit the ground, the man said, loudly so that everyone in the room could hear it, “They don’t call me The Executioner for nothing.”

I caught up with the last man at the table, the one who hadn’t spoken or moved much for the entire ordeal. He had been my best childhood friend, and being promoted to the extremely high rank that he was, I received a lot of my information from him, much of it classified. “What was going on in there?” I nearly shouted as I matched his brisk pace throughout the hallways of the underground stronghold. Without missing a beat, he dodged sideways into an empty room and snappily closed the door behind him. “John, you can’t tell anyone about this, all right?” He was a bit shorter than me, but lean and toned. I nodded and he went into an explanation. “The five people that you saw, including me, were the Executioner, which you probably figured out. He’s basically in charge of the justice system and punishment.” I nodded quickly, eager to get more. “I’m the Minister of Internal Affairs, so being part of The Gathering, which I’ve already told you is that group, is part of my responsibility.” He had already told me about his job. Basically he has to keep the whole Underground Nation running.

    I guess that I haven’t explained that much, but in the rest of this it’ll basically become apparent. The year, currently, is AS 478. After the government became defunct, a new group arose from the ashes, called the Legion. It was a group of citizens, led by those with abilities caused by mutations. The Legion is led by a group of people similar to our leaders, who are called the Gathering, who are completely ruthless. They’ll do anything to establish complete power over Domain 3. More on Domains later. Anyways, because the Legion was, and still is viewed by its citizens as corrupt, another group broke off, known as the Underground Legion. We aren’t so underground anymore, but no one has even suggested to change the name.

    Tanner kept talking, explaining more and more. “The woman who asked about the documents was the Minister of Information. I don’t want to talk much about her, because now the penalty to talking about this is crossing over from high fines to death.” I already knew that most of this was covert information. The Underground Nation doesn’t speak a lot about its leadership. All of the sessions of the Gathering are closed and the identities of the people involved, as well as their responsibilities, are private. Once you’re inducted, you’re listed under “Employed by Government” and that’s all there is to it.

    Tanner continued to speak. “The man who you saw make symbols with his hands is the one leader we have who is a Deformed. I’ve never seen him take his hood off. The King of the Deformed always has reasons behind his actions and has lived through things that we haven’t even imagined. One of the guards was deformed, which you probably couldn’t see, but he can read their sign language.”

    The Deformed have a complicated history. About a hundred years before the Seperation of Deformed, Mutated, and Normal, normal people, who didn’t possess a mutation, started being born looking different or having something about their physicality altered. A period of discrimination ensued, culminating in the Seperation, where the Deformed, Normal, and Mutated were divided into different parts of Domain 3. The Normal took the left half of the island, the Mutated took the right, and the Deformed were cast into the Pit, a deep abyss near the center of the island. They say that no one that isn’t Deformed or sentenced there to life for their crimes knows what’s down there. Over time, the Normal and Mutated diffused, and the Deformed sent emissaries up to us. The old government that decreed the Separation has nothing to say about this, because it long ago crumbled into dust.

Tanner finally got to the last person. “The person in the middle was the Grandmaster. Nobody who isn’t in the higher levels of the Nation or has been clued in, like you, even knows that he exists. He is the supreme dictator, and what he says, goes, unless it is strongly opposed by the rest of us.” None of this really came as a shock to me, surprisingly. I had assumed that a secret, ultra-high ranking group had existed and basically called the shots. Tanner finished, and asked if I had any more questions. I shook my head no, until suddenly, I wondered what had gone on with the man that we had captured. You see, there’s a story beside him.

In the armed forces, there are several divisions. Pierre, Tyla, and I are part of the Scout faction. We mainly accept special assignments that are decreed by higher-ups, but there’s a fair amount of patrolling the area as well. For a year, Pierre and I were stuck in patrol duty with a man by the name of Markus. Markus was lazy, and not really fit to be in the armed forces. He had fallen into the habit of slacking off, as most patrols are uneventful. One day, Pierre and I had traded out our patrol duty for a different assignment, and we heard about what had happened to our replacements and Markus. Apparently, a group of enemies had attacked, and killed one of the three patrolmen. The other fled to get reinforcements, and when they finally came back, they found a spiteful note laying on the body of the deceased patrolman, telling the Underground Nation to burn in hell. There was one thing I noticed, though. The Markus that I used to know was different. The overweight, slobby, and lazy Markus that I remembered had been replaced by a jacked, ruthless-looking killing machine.

Tanner answered my question with a promise. “I’ll find out, don’t worry. There was definitely something different.” The door swung open and a man with a buzz cut stood imposingly in the doorway. “Minister Tanner. The Gathering awaits.” He glanced at me menacingly. “I feel as if you should be saluting right now.” On the left breast of his uniform hung a rank signifying that of a rank I didn’t really know, but was obviously extremely high. I snapped into a solid salute and held it until he and Tanner walked out of the room. I pondered the information for a while, and then stepped out, ready to protect what I had just learned with my life.

Demons

Hi! So I decided to write a horror story. It isn't too good because it's my first time writing horror. It's a oneshot about Demons. Enjoy!

Theme #1: Demons

If you're reading this be warned. The stuff that happened to me might someday happen to you. And trust me, that's not something that you want to happen. Normally, people don't screw around with this stuff. I did. Don't. Be warned.

One day I was sitting upstairs in my room playing video games. I'm kind of a nerd. My friend Steve burst into my room. Completely out of nowhere. "Dude!" I jumped backwards, because  I wasn't expecting him. My mom poked her head through the doorway. "Sweetie, your friend Steven is here!" I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I figured that out." "Have fun working on your robotics competition! I'm so proud of you honey!" She smiled and left.
Steve literally sprang across the room and closed the door. "What's going on? We don't do robotics!" I questioned him accusingly.
"I made that up to get past your mom. I gotta show you something."
"What?" He reached over to my PlayStation and turned it off, then flicked the lights off. He started to take off the backpack he was wearing.
"Hey! I just made it to rank 50 in Telephone of Obligation!" Steve reached into his backpack and pulled out something that looked like a rock.
"Well this is way more important. Good job on that level 50, though. Welcome to the club."
He picked up the stone and held it close to my face. It was about the size of a pack of cards. "This," he said, "is supposed to do some pretty cool stuff."
"Like what?"
"Well, I Was at the movies with Ashley and-"
"Bro you were at the movies with Ashley? Score!"
He grinned and said, "Yeah it actually happened up that's not the point. So anyways she walked me upstairs and showed me this rock. And basically she said that you could say some stuff and like you'd see this weird thing appear."
This sounded pretty sketchy. "So... What do you have to say?"
He grinned mischievously at me. "Well, she didn't know, but I did a little online research and found this."'
Steve reached into his backpack and pulled out a sheet of paper. On it was a bunch of weird words in another language. It didn't look like anything I had ever seen before.
"So, you're supposed to see something when you say this?"
 "Yup," he said while nodding. "Wanna try it out?" It couldn't hurt, so I agreed. Steve lifted up the rock, looked at it quizzically, and declared, "Okay, here goes."
Looking down at the sheet of paper, he said, "Vos obsecro, alius spiritum mundi." Nothing happened. "Um," I stated while looking down at my shoes. Steve was quiet for a while, so I looked up and saw him convulsing, staring upward at something that wasn't there. Quickly, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled up, trying to execute the Heimlich. He stopped, abruptly, and I let go of him. "Dude, what was that about?" He stared at me with blank eyes. "What was what about."
He was messing with me. "What did you see?" His voice utterly monotone, he said, "I didn't see anything. I have to leave now." He started to turn toward the door, flinging the backpack over his shoulder as he went. I said, "Okay, bye!" He whipped around to face me, his face contorted into a struggling position. "Help," he rasped, "It's possessi-" and suddenly he snapped back into walking out of the door. "Goodbye, John." He closed the door after him.
I started to wonder what was going on. Steve was probably playing some sort of stupid trick on me. I bet he didn't even go to the movies with Ashley. I guess we might get a good laugh out of this tomorrow at school. That still kind of freaked me out, though.
The next day at school I learned that Steve was absent. He apparently had a high fever. Since he lived close to me, I volunteered to take homework to him because he wasn't there. I figured that I might see what was going on. It sounded like serious business, because if this whole rock thing was a real thing, he might be in a lot of trouble.
I showed up at Steve's house after school. After ringing the doorbell. Steve opened the door. There was something odd about the way he moved, though. It seemed, robotic. Or planned. I handed over a sheet of notebook paper with the problems on it and a couple of worksheets and told him about the project we had coming up. He stared at me unsettlingly the entire time. It freaked me out, big time.
"What's up, Steve?" I asked.
He replied, again in a robotic monotone, "I've been very sick. Here is a note to give to the secretary tomorrow."
I looked at the folded sheet of paper and put it in my pocket. "Anything wrong?" He replied no and I left.
The next day I took the note into the secretary. She looked at it and handed it back. “It says that it’s to you.” I unfolded the sheet of paper. It said, “To John- St. John’s Catholic Church. HELP ME. See Fr. Jebediah.” I looked back up at the secretary. “Ok, sorry. Thanks for letting me know.” She glanced up at me and said distractedly, “Anytime, honey.”
After school I showed up at St. John’s. There were several people in the pews, praying. A deacon came up and asked if he could help and I requested a meeting with Father Jedediah. He nodded and led me into a confession box. He shut the door behind me and I said, “Father, I didn’t come here to confess my sins. I would like to meet with you about a serious issue.” I didn’t get a reply for about thirty seconds, and I started to open the door. I almost fell over as an elderly, robed priest yanked it open for me. “This way, my son. I’m sure I can help you with something.”
He led me into an office near the reception of the church. It was almost bare, except for a humble, empty wooden desk and a couple of crosses hung on the walls. I took a seat and he said. “What seems to be the problem?” I explained that I met with my friend and he had shown me a rock that had seemed to change the personality of my friend, and not for the better. He made a face that seemed to suggest that this wasn’t a good thing. “Did he seem, almost robotic, or cold towards you after?” “Yes! That describes exactly how he acted.” The priest seemed to grow a bit more frightened.
“I assume that he goes to school with you.” I affirmed this, and, almost like he was reading my mind, he asked if he had been “sick” the past couple days. “Yes! How did you know that? That’s amazing!” Father Jebediah didn’t seem to think anything about this was amazing. “I fear the worst my son. It seems that your friend has been possessed by something not of this world. Something... sinister. I am not the person to ask for help on this. We may have to go to someone else... one of my colleagues.”
He lifted his ancient bones out of the chair and walked to the door. “And I sense that we must do it quickly, there isn’t much time left.” We walked out of the church and he made a left. “The person you wish to see is someone who recently fell out of good standing with the Church, but remains a friend of mine nonetheless. He specializes in cases such as these. And fortunately, he’s only a couple blocks away.” I learned that we were going to see Dr. Christopher Raymond, who specialized in rare personality defects. We entered the door of his office and a receptionist jumped from her seat.
“Uh, Father, uh, Jebediah, the doctor is, uh, busy right now.”
The priest stormed past her and I followed. “Save it, Nancy. This is urgent.” He burst through a door and another elderly man hung up the phone with an abrupt, “Hold on. Call you back tomorrow.”
The father said, “This is urgent, Christopher.” The doctor whipped out a cross from his pocket and stalked toward me, swinging it in front of my face. I recoiled a bit, but he retreated.
“Who’s the lucky victim? It’s not this here boy.” Father Jebediah looked at me.
 “Tell him what you told me.” I repeated my story from start to finish and Dr. Raymond looked at me.
“I’m extremely sorry, young man, but this is a case for tomorrow. I need to prepare with Jebediah and I will see you in the morning.”
He picked up a cross from his desk and handed it to me. “Keep this on you at all times.” He also handed me an extremely worn, thin book. “Read this before tomorrow and keep a close eye out for anyone who looks suspicious. Now go home and get a good rest. Tomorrow is going to be a taxing day. Close the door on your way out.” I stuffed the cross in my back pocket and walked out. Were we going to perform an exorcism? Guess I would find out tomorrow.
I set the cross down on the table as soon as I walked in. “Ugh... well l won’t see Steve today so I guess I'm fine. Why does it even matter that much? These guys are going to extreme measures for something that’s not even really a big deal.”
After that, I went straight upstairs and opened the book. I turned to Chapter One- Preparation. In all capital letters, it said at the very beginning of the chapter, “WARNING- KEEP A CROSS ON YOU AT ALL TIMES. THIS DRIVES THE DEMON INSIDE A PERSON’S BODY AWAY FROM YOU. IF YOU DON’T, YOU ARE SUBJECT TO THE DEMON APPEARING AROUND YOU, NEAR YOU, OR EVEN RIGHT-” as I read this, a cold hand gripped my shoulder, and a robotic voice, with a hint of mischievous venom said, “Behind you.”

Tumblr

Hi everyone,
I'm now on tumblr! I'm still going to post on blogger, but if you want to, follow me there. My blog is at http://dmsthewriter.tumblr.com/ I'm kind of new to it so don't hate. Follow and like for more stories!

Sincerely,
DMS

Mutation- Chapter 1

Hey everyone. I know that I haven't posted anything or written anything in a while but I felt like creating something new so I whipped out this story. Yes, it's a little bit comfusing but all will be explained later. Just trust me. Leave a comment if ya like, don't hate, and enjoy.

Chapter 1

To them, it seems like just another quiet day in the forest. A small metal cube on wheels rolls along, drawn by two horses. Alongside it are five people. Four of them are wearing heavy chain mail, one a simple shirt and pants. The rolling jail cell- and it is a jail cell seems free of any disturbances. There's a small, barred window near the top of it, and a double-locked door in the back. If you look closely, you might be able to see the worn-out, broken inhabitant, gazing wistfully into the sky.

All six of the people in this strange little entourage seem ready to fall over and into a deep sleep. They've been traveling for almost ten days now, and all feel that this escort to a prisoner is unnecessary. The guards wearing the armor don't even know who is in the boxy little cage. All that they know is that there is a large stack of money waiting for them at their destination, just a couple day's more walk.

The last person in the escort knows better. He knows of the true purpose of this mission and os ever watchful. While on first glance the armored guards, who, incidentally, are carrying hefty spears, might seem much more intimidating, everyone knows that the real power lies with this unassuming little man. For ten days now, he's been watching everything around him to guard the prisoner. He and be alone knows that to keep the prisoner from falling into someone else's hands, he is the only important one there. The guards are just intimidating looking, to keep others from intruding. 

It's nearing sunset on the tenth day. The four armored guards have by now concluded that this is a futile waste of their time and have let their guard down. They just want to finish their cryptic little assignment and ride back home on horseback to their families. They believe that no one is watching and that they will be safe for the rest of their journey. And of course, they're wrong.

You see, they aren't the only ones in this seemingly abandoned woods. Of course, that's where I come in. My teammates and I know that it's important that we free this prisoner, as he could be vital to the outcome lf these next few months. Why? I'll explain later, but just know that a lot is riding on this, and I don't want to screw it up. 

We know that they will pass by us in a matter of minutes, and we're ready. I am positioned relatively low in the branches of the trees above. The most important thing is that I have a clear line of sight to the one guard that matters. One of my closest friends and allies, named Pierre, is hiding behind a large, fallen tree. There is a reason for this as well. The last person in our tiny group is a girl, high amongst the treetops. She's a good twenty five feet above where I am hiding, ready to drop down once we attack. Just as we finish getting ready, we hear the clop of the horse's hooves on the ground and are ready to strike. I place a small stone on my right hand, and as soon as the plainly dressed guard walks into my vision, I fire.

You might be asking how. I never said I had any sort of gun, bow, or slingshot. And I do not. The way that I propelled that stone from my hand to my target was with my mind. You see, I have possess the ability to perform a type of telekinesis. That means that I can move objects using nothing but my mind. I can only move objects toward or away from me at high speeds, and within a certain range. It's an astonishing ability, but nothing compared to the strange powers that some possess. 

Have you ever had a rock thrown at you? It hurts. If you're reading this today, you probably haven't been shot either. The way that I decided to use my power today was more like shooting someone than throwing a rock at them. I used a small projectile that moved at extremely high speeds. This was part of our strategy, to disable the truly dangerous person before he could harm anyone.

The stone sped from my hand and buried itself right above the hip bone of my target, on his back. He lurched forward and yelped in surprise and pain. He then seemed to concentrate on something and, suddenly, the earth began to rise from the ground. It slowly moved towards him while he winced and gasped in pain. The guards formed a protective circle around him and the jail cell. They held their spears up in a defensive position, ready to face any threat that the surrounding area might present. As it turns out, flying rocks weren't the only thing.

The moment Pierre saw the man lurch forward, he swung himself over the log he was sitting on and charged at the guards. They turned to face him and steadied their spears to impale him. He came running at them, seeming like he was going to impale himself, but at the last second, jumped into the air and right at their spears. To the average person, it may have looked like Pierre was commiting suicide, but that is Pierre's power. When he's jumping or falling through the air, he's invincible. So even though the guards may have thought that they had killed their attacker, he smashed straight through their spears and into him.

While he was doing this, I was trying to put stone after stone into the other man's body. The earth kept forming to make a shield around him, but every single time I nailed him, he moved a bit slower. He was getting hurt badly, but he was going to keep on using his ability to lock down his area. This wasn't going to work. The earthen dome almost enclosed the box, the man creating it, the others guards, and Pierre. I had to stop this now. Just before the earth completely surrounded them, I shot one stone up into the sky.

The purpose of this wasn't to hit anybody. Rather, it functioned as a signal. It crashed up through the trees and shot beyond the roof of the forest. Then, like magic, a shadow seemed to fall to the ground. Fast. From at least thirty-five feet up. Headfirst. This may have looked like another suicide attempt, but it wasn't. The figure was heading straight for the dome, which was sealing itself in place. Then, as the figure hit, the dome exploded.

The shadow falling from the sky was our third team member, Tyla. There's a reason other than the element of surprise that she fell from the sky- her power. She has one of the trickiest powers to manipulate. When she falls, she can transfer the kinetic energy from when she hits the ground into an explosion. So basically when she hits the ground, she can choose to make a large explosion. 

The dome bursts apart, and rocks flew everywhere. I ducked to the other side of the branch I was sitting on, but still got hit with some dirt and rocks. As the dust cleared, ther was only one person standing. Pierre. All of the otheres were on the floor. I dropped from my branch and jogged over to where Pierre and Tyla were standing, just as Tyla pulled out a rope from the backpack she was carrying. She went over to the plainly dressed man and ties his hands behind his back. In a couple of minutes, we had bound all the guards to the wheels of the metal box. The horses snorted impatiently. 

They were ready to get a move on. I walked over to the jail cell and shattered open the lock with a couple of stones. The prisoner, agitated and confused by the action going on around him kicks open the door and starts running into the forest. Pierre stops him with one hand, and the look of shock on the prisoner's face is almost laughable. "Pierre?" He looks in my direction. "John?" His expression contorts into an ugly snarl. "I had hoped never to see you again."

Discovery- VI

This is the last part of the book and my all time favorite. Personally, I think it's a nice and twisty ending, and some other stuff happens too. Huehuehuehue. Enjoy, and that is the end of Discovery!

Part 6- War

Chapter 36: Rest In Purple

Me, Kaylee, and the rest of the gang exited the metal temple through a portal that the tin-man had created for us. Shortly before Tinny had opened the portal, Christopher had mentioned something about poker. That he wanted to play some or something. When the portal opened, I realized that maybe he would get the chance soon. By the looks of the unique landscape, we weren’t in Russia at all. 

“Viva Las Vegas Baby!” Christopher yelled. We were smack dab in the middle of the Las Vegas Strip. We treaded along the roads, skipping and jumping. Christopher pulled out a gold credit card from his coat pocket. “Unlimited money.” He said, dangling the credit card around us. I smiled and shook my head, “I was wondering how you could afford all of that.” Christopher took a phone out and dialed a number. “Yes, three rooms at MGM Grand Hotel. In approximately 10 minutes. Yes.” He then spoke a number consisting of at least fifty digits. He hung up the phone and smiled at us, “there we go!” 

We passed a long alley that we had to cross the get to the hotel. Everything was going to turn out alright. We could rest for a couple of days and now, with our new improved armor, we could defeat the rest of the bad guys easy. Or so I thought.

We saw two shadows in the distance. Christopher gasped. “It’s them. Soul Prophet and Mordred. How did they find us here!?” We ducked behind a trash-can and started to put on the armor and armed ourselves. They got closer and Mordred ran ahead. I jumped out at him and sent a wave of fire at him. He blocked it and sent a wave of black fire at us. It bounced off my armor harmlessly, the armor actually did work! And well too!

 

The rest of the gang started to attack Mordred in a flurry of fire and lightning. Mordred made a portal under Misty, but she boosted herself away from the portal with a wave of air. I snuck up behind Mordred and stabbed him in the back with the sword. The sword went through him like thin air and he turned around and sent a punch right towards my head. The armor was not in fact covering my head, so the punch did hurt a little. I stepped back and sent a wave of fire at him he stepped back and avoided the wave of fire, but not all of it. Misty then sent a ball of air hurtling at him. He leaned forward a lot from the gust of air and I hit him in the face with the butt of the sword. He got a bloody nose and stepped back a little. Avoiding a wave of water by only inches. 

Christopher shot a bolt of lightning towards him and he hurtled backwards and into a nearby trashcan. He got up and held his nose, shooting a black wave of lightning at me. The armor absorbed most of the hit but I still fell over backwards and got a severe headache. He boosted himself up in the air. I channeled the power that The Puppeteer had told me about, so long before today. Or even was it so long ago? It sure felt like it. I flew up with him onto the roof of the Mandalay Bay hotel while Daniel, Misty, and Kaylee were following me on the ground and trying to use an elevator to get to the top floor of the hotel. Christopher had flown up with me and it was just us three on the roof of the hotel. “How did you find us?” I demanded and pointed the sword at him. “I brought you here” he answered. “I can control portals you idiot.” He then shot a portal right at Christopher’s feet but he jumped out of the way just in time. 

I then sent a wave of fire at Mordred, he deflected but Christopher struck him with a deadly bolt of pink lightning. The lightning hit him square in the gut and he fell over backwards. He was growing weaker. Mordred shot a bolt of lightning at the sky. Then, a light from the sky came down and struck me. I was carried up into the sky by the light. I tried stabbing it but nothing worked. The light was carrying me off the building, I screamed for help and I suddenly dropped to the roof of the hotel. Christopher had managed to disintegrate the light, and he had managed to save my life. 

“Thanks” I muttered. Mordred was still on the ground, his skin getting paler. I picked him up by his shirt collar and brought him to the edge of the roof. I then slammed him on the ground below the hotel. Christopher jumped off the roof with me. The rest of the gang was already here with me. The concrete cracked and Mordred lay, still alive, but severely injured. “You can’t regenerate with us all around you” I said. “We’ll kill you as many times as we have to.” We all smiled and I pointed the sword at his throat. He then spoke the few words that would change my life forever.

“Kaylee” He spoke quietly. “Kaylee!” I yelled and looked behind me. Kaylee was gagging and wheezing, she was leaning on the wall of the ally. Her eyes were flashing yellow with light, then I realized what was happening. I ran over to her and held her head up with my hand. She fell in my arms and sputtered. She opened her mouth wide and a beam of yellow and purple light shot out. Her head swelled and her body began to get thinner. “SAVE HER” I yelled to Christopher. “SAVE HER NOW!” Christopher shook his head sadly. “She has Soul Prophet inside of her. I can’t inhabit a body along with another entity. We would all die.” I felt tears well up in my eyes and I stroked her burning forehead. “SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!” I yelled and my voice cracked. She spoke softly. “I’ll see my family soon.” “DON’T TALK LIKE THAT!” “Don’t think I don’t know. Only a fool wouldn’t see what was right in front of ones face.” I started to sob and Kaylee brought her hands to my face softly.

I bent down and kissed her, our final kiss. She then twitched her head to the side. A purple smoke came out of her eyes and she fell limp. I let out a scream. Yellow light then began to come out of her eyes. Her soul was coming out of her eyes. Soul Prophet had stolen her soul! 

I let out a scream and turned around sharply. Soul Prophet and Mordred had disintegrated into thin air. They had escaped. “This is war” I said sharply. The rest of the gang gathered around me and helped me into the hotel. I kept repeating those same few words in my head. THIS IS WAR!

Chapter 37: Plotting And Recounting 

We all sat quietly in my room at the MGM Grand Hotel. Christopher had changed it to be 4 rooms. We all wanted some privacy. “What are we going to do now?” I asked. “Uh...” muttered Daniel. It was a huge loss. Everybody was depressed, so the overall mood was not too good. We had just lost a big part of our team. We had not known what to do with the body, so Christopher suggested that we carry her into our hotel room as a publicity stunt. Since this kind of stuff is always happening in Las Vegas anyway, we decided to go ahead with it. I had desperately thought of ways to make her alive, but nothing seemed to work. Tears trickled down my cheeks. She was... gone.

Just then, we heard a struggle outside of the room and I bolted to the door, throwing it open. But no, it wasn’t Kaylee’s soul, it was some stupid drunkard brawling in the hotel. I sobbed loudly and slammed the door closed. I walked over slowly to Kaylee. Her eyes were still open. I tried to shut her eyes but I couldn’t, she was missing eyelids. Soul Prophet had not only killed her, she had taken her eyelids in the process too. She can never rest now. I walked into the small kitchen area that divided our rooms. The rest of the gang was already in there. “We have to do something. We have to kill them.” I said angrily. “You think we can just stumble in there and kill them?” Christopher said angrily. He grabbed me by my shoulders looked me right in  the eye. He seemed to grow taller and his features more distinct. “We all know that she was your girlfriend. But right now you’re acting like you’re the girlfriend here. You have a mission here, you are not going to be stopped by moping around like you are. Peoples times pass, hers did too. You can’t grieve about it your entire life, expecting her to just jump out out of the grave. You have to look at it reasonably. We all took a loss here today, but you have to calm down.” I looked at him blankly, “I have to?” He bit his lip and sat down on the futon next to where he was standing. 

I sat down next to Misty on a separate futon from Christopher and Daniel’s. She sat on the edge of the couch uncomfortably and about as far away from me as she could get. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I realized it a bit later and I felt bad. “So how do we kill them Nathaniel?” Christopher asked with mock surprise. I bit my lip and sighed. “Where’s that chessboard of yours Christopher?”

“Okay. So we figure out how to summon Mordred and the others to one place like they did with us.” I moved the black pieces a step closer to the white ones. “We then launch into a full fledge war.” I knocked some pawns off of the table. “When it looks like, and if it looks like, we will be out numbered. We simply retreat and make them follow us.” I moved the white team back to their side of the board while I advanced the black pieces slowly toward the white pieces. “We then set a trail of breadcrumbs that only Mordred and/or Soul Prophet can find.” I took the queen and king of the black pieces towards our whole group. “We then set a magical trap and BOOM!” I knocked the black team off the board with a smug expression. 

“You know it isn’t going to be that easy?” Christopher implied. “Then we’ll make it easy.” I answered snarkily. 

“Step one” Daniel said, “we find a way to teleport them here.” Christopher nodded solemnly. “I know a way, but it’s not very pretty.” “We have to use what we have” I implored. “And that’s the only thing we seem to have to get them over here.” Misty shrugged, “We could declare war? I’m sure they’d like to have a battle with us.” “Yes, but they would be ready for war. They would prepare troops and such, we want to catch them by surprise.” Christopher said. 

“So what is your ‘not pretty’ way?” Daniel asked shyly. Christopher sighed again, “It involves very dark magic.” “That you can do?” I said, testing the water.  “That I unfortunately learned to do.” Christopher answered.  

“Moving on” Misty said. “How are we going to set the trap and what is it going to be?” I shrugged, “Something like a pitfall full of magical spikes or something along those lines.” “Or maybe a portal?” Daniel suggested. Christopher popped out of his seat and snapped his fingers. “A portal!” Genius!” He ran over to Daniel spun him around against his free will. “I can easily summon a darkness portal, and it takes a simple spell to camouflage it.” “Where would the portal lead to?” Misty asked. “A different dimension” Christopher said, seemingly more enchanted in his plan than all the rest of us were. 

“Wait, wait, wait!” I said. “There are different dimensions?” He smiled at me, “Of course! Where do you think that white world that The Puppeteer used is? There are numerous dimensions, I can make a portal and we can escape to a different dimension right now!” I started to grow agitated. “So why didn’t we just use that to escape all of our problems we’ve been facing?!” He bit his lip and looked to the side nervously. “Too much magic to use at short notice.” I groaned and plunked my head in my hands. 

“We always figure out that you have these awesome magical abilities. And you don’t use them whenever we’re in danger. What’s with that!?” He shrugged and walked backwards to his room, talking to us all the way. “Dunno. But what I do know is that tomorrow we will be doing the first steps in creating a summoning spell.”

Later that night, I went into Christopher’s room silently. If he had a book of spells that he wasn’t sharing with us. I could benefit the whole team with actually using it in times of need. Christopher was sleeping soundly, or so I thought. The second I stepped inside the door, I heard a, “What are you doing Natty?” “N-nothing.” I stepped back and the door behind me shut with a wave of his hand. “What do you want?” His voice was still soft, but growing a little more agitated. “To get out of your room!” I said and pushed open the door. I ran to my own room and locked the door behind me. I was having my doubts about Christopher. He seemed to possess such power. But what was all the power going to? Us or him? I thought about that when I went to sleep, and that didn’t cause very many pleasant dreams.

Yes, I had my suspicions about him. It maybe wasn’t that good that I suspected my own teammate would betray me, but when I heard him muttering about power the next night, I knew that something was up. I quietly sneaked up to the door with a mythical weapon, and when I heard a curse, kicked open the door and jumped in. Christopher looked up, surprised. He stood up. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” I pointed the weapon at him. “Don’t try it. I know about your secret plans for power. Admit it!” He stepped back, shocked. “WAIT wait wait wait, what???” “What’s this? Have you been using your power for something that we aren’t aware of? Because it sure sounds like you have!” He laughed. “No, I’m trying to break my shackles, stupid.” He snapped his fingers and they reformed. “What do they do?” “Nothing, really. They prevent me from going within a hundred miles of the school of magic.” Now I was really confused. Rapidly, I started pelting him with question. So is that where you learned magic? What kind of magic did you learn? Geez, where is this place? Is it cool? Do I get to go there?” “Whoa, slow down, I’ll tell you about it.”

“There are two main schools of magic, elemental and otherworldly. There are four types of elemental magic: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air. There are also four types of otherworldly magic: Summon, Control, Life, and Death. I studied Earth, as a genie. Then I left to go to Russia. It involved unmaking earth, creating earth, lifting earth, and separating different kinds of earth. You learn all different types of spells, and you get a spell book as well. Since my shackles are Summoned, you can’t break them with Earth. The only real way would be to learn the specific spell for these shackles. Which I was told is not taught at the Academy of Magic anymore.” I was confused, “but how come you’ve been across the country and this hasn’t affected you?” “Because, I'm doing these spells here to increase the distance. The only reason I'm here, is that I'm doing magic constantly.” I nodded my head slowly. 

“So you’re not using magic for your own good.” “Technically I am, but not in the way your thinking I am.” 

“So are we really going to try and track Mordred and Soul Prophet?” I asked. “Unless other plans interfere.” I nodded my head slowly, but little did I know that interference was the least of our problems the next day. 

Chapter 38: Haywire And The Worlds Beyond

I really hate it when we have a straight-on, trustworthy, awesome plan and then some stupid thing gets in my way. Like, say, the WPA. Yeah, that’s who got in the way this time. Ugh. One time it’s Soul Prophet, the next, Mordred, after that, The Puppeteer, and even after that, the WPA. Ugh. Why can’t one of my enemies DIE already, like the Twinkly Team?/ Like I was saying,  our plan was not in action and we weren’t ready when all this happened. We were all sitting on the couch and waiting for Christopher to wake up. He walked groggily out of his room and smiled at us. “Time to make the spell.” Just after he said that we heard a small knock at the door.

 “Housekeeping.” We heard a Hispanic sounding voice say. “Housekeeping.” She said again. “No, we do not want housekeeping.” I said. “I come in now.” I heard her say through the door. I rushed over to the door and bolted it and the knob tried to turn. “Housekeeping!” The knocking got progressively louder. “NO!” I shouted. “I come in now.” An explosion rocked all of us as the door swept off its hinges and we were all blown back. Standing in the doorway was a happy looking Mordred. His hand in the knocking position. “Housekeeping” He said in the housekeepers voice. Sirens started to wail inside the MGM Grand and Mordred looked all around worriedly. He then quickly shot a large lightning bolt at us but we all dodged out of the way. Christopher yelled something in Russian and shot a black portal under Mordred’s feet. Mordred was sinking into the portal like quicksand, but quicker. He spat at me and grabbed my hand. He was dragging me with him!

Christopher shot a bolt of pink lightning at his hand but his hand turned into a metal glove and we were gone. The last thing I saw was Christopher jumping into the portal with me. I found myself in a large room with large refrigerators on either side of the room. There were no doors nor windows in the room. I looked around and saw Christopher next to me. We heard a chorus of laughter and Christopher whispered to me.

 “This is a different dimension. Do not do anything that could cause a ripple in dimensions.” “What's that?” I asked. “You affect one thing in a dimension. It messes up the rest of the dimensions. Lets say you break a bottle here, a bottle gets broken in all the other dimensions until the bottle grows into a progressively bigger catastrophe until the glass bottle is a glass dome over the earth keeping the atmosphere in place.” “But what about the people here, does that happen every time they do something?” “No, it’s just dimension hoppers that can cause those things to happen.”

 Mordred landed next to us and looked around quickly. The walls were beginning to get absorbed by a greater force. The small room rocked back and forth. I could see the refrigerator walls were begining to get changed to starry landscape. The oxygen in the room started to fail and I clung to the floor for dear life. Christopher stood up readily, despite the vast winds sucking all of us up. Christopher closed his eyes and shot a large portal in the center of the room. I climbed inside the portal and Christopher followed. But not Mordred, I thought we had got rid of him for good, I thought wrong. 

I found myself suddenly in a large shopping-mall like place. But the people here were bright yellow and had strange hairstyles. There was no roof to this place and the mall seemed to go on forever. People screamed and ran all over the place. Mordred shot pink lightning at us and we scrambled. I was pushed over by a large man with a large sponge-looking thing as hair. Everybody was running all over the place. Mordred was suddenly absorbed inside a large portal. But we weren’t with him, we were in this dimension. “I didn’t make that portal!” Christopher said. We then saw Mordred’s face on a megatron above an abandoned restaurant. He smiled at us and we saw him with a domino on a table. “Welcome to your death.” He said and tipped the domino over. “GET TO COVER!” I yelled at him and we ducked under a vendor stand. The whole world tipped upside down and we flew and hit the wall of a bathroom. People screamed and ran everywhere, but suddenly they were all flipped upside down. A tangle of limbs kept me suspended in one place. Christopher was wading through bodies as the world tipped upside down again. We all flew and smacked against the ceiling, or was it the floor. It made it very hard to tell. 

I slammed into a chinese food stand and my back made a cracking sound. Christopher was pinned to the ceiling by thousands of bodies crushing him. I could still see Mordred’s face, smiling wickedly at us. “You think you stand a chance against me?!” He laughed crazily. “No!” I yelled back. “But she does!” I motioned to Christopher and he shot a large portal towards the back of the room. Then he shot another portal inside of that one. He kept making concentric portals until we saw a body drop onto the mega-tron screen. Misty flew down and hit the ground behind Mordred with a thud. “What do you mean by she!? Are you hiding something?!” Mordred asked amusedly. We just smiled at him as a loud thud was heard. 

Mordred fell to the floor. A large bruise in his head. Misty stood over him, her metal cast resting comfortably in her opposite hand. “You're welcome” She said sharply. Gravity was still screwed up so me and Christopher waded to the portal slowly. Before going through Christopher shot a portal towards Misty’s screen for her to get back to the regular world. We all appeared in the hotel floor at the MGM Grand. Daniel looked worriedly from side to side, seeing us here.

“Where’d you guys go?” He asked. “To a world beyond your wildest imagination.” I answered with a smile. “So Mordred’s trapped inside of that world?” I asked. “No” Christopher answered. “Not for long at least. We only managed to get out alive, but he’s still going to be out there somewhere.” Suddenly the ground around us started to shake. It was like we were inside a small tornado. We spun around and were thrashed everywhere inside the room. We then began to spin up in the air and towards the ceiling, and the ceiling fan. “Soul Prophet!” I yelled angrily as we approached the fan. It all over because of her. All of it. But right as we should of been chopped to pieces. We went right through the ceiling fan and onto the roof of the hotel. But she kept making us go up. We then were absorbed into a portal in the sky. The large black portal swirled us around and around until we were absorbed by it.

I found myself on a grassy meadow that looked a little nice, except for what we were faced with. I looked ahead and at least a mile ahead, were Mordred and Soul Prophet. With an army of wax men. About three thousand people....against three.

Chapter 39: A Whole Lot of Ugly

Christopher decided that he wasn’t putting up with this, so he shot a portal directly under us. We were back in the hotel room. Christopher looked like he was ready to drop dead, but we had to keep going. He was too tired to create a portal, so we purchased a plane ticket to Greece. Christopher, while getting on the flight, furrowed his brow, and then suddenly gasped for breath. “They’re trying to create a portal!!! HELP!”  I meditated and gave him some energy, but I could tell that the combined forces of Soul Prophet were beating down on him. I quickly explained Meditating and Energy 101 to Misty and Daniel, and, soon enough, they were helping. Christopher was thoroughly exhausted, so all that he did was take our energy, but pretty soon, I was done too. Now it was just Misty and Daniel holding us up. Finally, about an hour into the flight, the force of energy slackened. I collapsed and slept in my seat for the rest of the plane ride. 

When I woke up, I realized that we were not in Greece, but instead we were at the first stop in the plane ride. I was feeling rested, and I pulled out the pike (which had gone undetected throughout the plane flight) and readied myself. The rest of the population looked confused. Then, a huge rumble sounded throughout the airport. I breathed deeply and calmly. Daniel shuddered. A HUGE media frenzy raced through the hallway and stopped in front of me. “Hello, this is CNN with the news, who are you and why are you pointing that strange weapon at me?” A bunch of reporters started calling out. “Fox News!” “Channel One News!” “ESPN!” I shouted. “HOLD UP!” They all fell quiet. “Everyone, I have something to say.” The ESPN reporter shouted. “SAY IT! OUR VIEWERS ARE WAITING!” “Why the heck are you here anyways, ESPN? You do sports, for crying out loud.” He shut up quickly. “These are the only ways to stop the end of the world! Run!” I ran off screaming. “ANY FURTHER COMMENTS? You’ve been seen all over the world!” I kept running, and hid behind a rack of magazines at an airport shop. They stormed past me. I breathed a sigh of relief. About two minutes later, the rest of the crew caught up. 

“Nice,” whispered Misty. “Keep acting crazy whenever the reporters are around.” I nodded. “That might actually work. But remember... we have a flight to catch.”  Christopher ran out from behind the rack and we followed him to the flight gate, where we boarded the next plane. Thankfully, there were no attacks from either Soul Prophet or Mordred during this plane flight, but as I turned on my phone to check the news, I was in all of the headlines. Even on ESPN. Ugh. The flight was uneventful- nothing really bad happened. Of course, that was a bad thing. It never gave a hint as to what our enemies were planning... and what they were planning was pretty big. I checked in the book what the next stop was supposed to be- the exact location. Grandpa apparently thought that this temple was in the Labyrinth under the Knossos Palace in Greece. 

As we hit our last stop, I was kind of hoping for some drama to show that our enemies were indeed stupid. But our rotten luck did not in fact change. We arrived at a dingy old airport in Heraklion. We had to go through baggage security, and luggage check like EVERYONE ELSE. That was what really bothered me. I had gotten used to fighting dragons and meeting spiritual beings and I wasn’t ready to start acting like a normal civilian. 

I looked around outside and got used to our surroundings.  Christopher commented, “Well, this is a bit of a change.” I nodded, looking around at the crowd around us. Daniel stepped beside me and commented, “Well, sir, I believe that we have some rough times ahead of us.” A greek taxi sped by, and we stopped it. Jumping into it, we realized that we would need another taxi to carry all of us, and while we waited (our driver did so impatiently) I looked into an alleyway. There I saw a flash of wax... but then it was gone. I reached inside my backpack and crept inside the alley, but nothing was there. I returned to the gang, who I had hailed another taxi. I gave my driver directions to the Knossos Palace.

He instantly believed us tourists, but that might be a good thing: disguise. It only took about fifteen minutes to get there, and after paying the driver, we set off. We wandered inside the palace, after paying admission, and I suddenly noticed a blue symbol on the wall. The hallway was deserted except for us, and that symbol seemed, well, magical. I drew out the sword and tapped it, and then another one appeared three feet down the hallway. I ran up to it, and then yet another appeared. As this continued, there was a clear path to where we were supposed to be going. We were lead down a flight of stairs. Then another. And another. And another. Soon, we were tired out, but as I was about to collapse, the symbols stopped. I looked around. We had reached the bottom of a flight of stairs. Around us was a maze. That’s what it looked like, at least. The stairs seemed to crumble, and suddenly there was no exit. We were trapped. I figured that in that maze would be a whole lot of ugly. 

Chapter Forty: No Way Out

I decided that we had to get to the center of the maze as soon as possible. Misty suggested always turning right when we came to an intersection, because that was supposed to work, but after a few right turns, we hit a dead end. We stumbled blindly through the maze, keenly aware of the skittering and slithering sounds all around us. Nothing had reared its ugly head... YET. I had noticed that fact. I had handed out mythical weapons to everyone, and we all noticed that the symbols on their handles/blades were glowing brightly. Very brightly. They seemed to hum in our hands. We decided that we would rely on Christopher (who had an infallible sense of direction) to lead the way. He noticed that the weapons would hum louder when we got closer to the center, so he used the sound to figure it out. 

We quickly located what we thought the center of the maze was, but it was blocked by a wall. Christopher pressed the handle of the whip against it. “It’s on the other side!” We decided that instead of continuing to find another entrance, we would break the wall down. I made a huge landslide of rocks, Christopher conjured a firestorm of flames, Daniel created a tornado of air, and Misty a tsunami of water. Then we hit it all at the same time. The wall crumbled, but another fell down from the ceiling to replace it. I leaped under it, Daniel rolled, and Christopher dived. Misty wasn’t fast enough. Her leg wasn’t in time. The wall fell on, and certainly crushed her leg. I hurried forward, but she pulled her leg out. The armor gleamed around it, unbroken, untouched. Her leg wasn’t crushed- the armor was so strong that it held back that huge force. We were in the middle of the maze, and floating majestically on top of a raised platform were three things that each looked like computer chips. 

I stepped up to the platform. Misty, Daniel, and Christopher joined me. “This is it,” I said. Misty solemnly nodded. Christopher bowed his head in reverence, and Daniel looked awestruck. “Pennsylvania. Maine. Nevada. Argentina. Hawaii. Indonesia. Senegal. Botswana. Greece. Russia. It all leads up to this.” Christopher said, “I know what they are.” Daniel exclaimed, “What???” Christopher said, “The fabled Mind-Breakers of the Jester of Blood. Place one on the forearm of anyone, anyone at all, and they will bend to your will. You will have half an hour to sift through their memories, erase things, add things in, and change things. Honestly, these are the best for your enemies.” I was kind of disappointed. “This is it?” Christopher looked shocked. Again. “These are easily the most power mental instruments in the world. Don’t insult them.” Daniel said, “I don’t know whether to really touch them or not...” I announced, “My quest. My prize.” Christopher looked hurt. “I’ve gotten you out of so many tight spots, it deserves to be my quest too.” I nodded. “Sorry. I was being kind of selfish. Still...” He conceded. “Go ahead, man. They’re all yours.” I stepped forward again, right up against the stand. 

The chips were light in my hand. I knelt before Christopher, and he took them, and, with some effort, created a box to set them in. He sealed it, and I placed it in my backpack. Then I looked toward the only exit, the one we had failed to find. The weird noises had stopped. Standing in front of me was a gigantic spider. The tips of its legs were axes, and its fangs... well, let’s just say that they were NOT pretty at all.

I growled and leveled the pike at it. “BRING IT ON!” I shouted. If this was all that was in my way, I was ready to leave. Then I heard a quiet voice from behind me. “Oh, that’s not all that’s in your way.” I whirled, and the others covered my back. Standing behind me was The Puppeteer. “Come on, lets end it, whatever your name is!” He said quietly, “Cyrus. That’s my name. Nobody bothered to ask. Well, maybe because I was too busy killing them. Oh, and I’ll be too busy killing you for you to ask my last name. He opened his hand, and on it was a small metal ring, the inside of which was glowing. 

“This will summon all of your worst enemies, Nathaniel. I suggest you not mess with me.”

“What do you want then?” 

“The chips. Haven’t you figured it out?” 

“Shut up. And, by the way, no.” 

“Sure?”

“You’re wasting your time.”

“Absolutely sure?”

“GO CRAWL UNDER A ROCK AND DIE!”

“Okay then, your funeral.”

He slipped his finger through the ring. Beams of glowing blue light shot through the walls, attaching on to what were supposedly my “worst enemies.” They pulled back into the ring, and suddenly, they were all there.

Mordred. Now, miraculously aged into a twenty-something man, wearing stormy black armor, he looked as menacing as ever. He carried an enormous spear, crackling with electricity. Hate gleamed in his eyes, which I could see through his helmet. He looked dangerous. Menacing. And like he could completely murder me. 

Soul Prophet. A figure cloaked in black, wreathed with an ominous purple glow. She had taken the life of Kaylee. I would END her. For once and for all. She would never take another life again. Orange sparks danced around her, ready to incinerate me. A hint of a sadistic smile came through the hood of her cloak. 

The Sphere. Back in Africa, I thought it had been killed by the fire guy who killed off the rest of the Twinkly Team. Apparently, it survived. Still shining as blue as ever, its twelve spindly legs were sharpened like controllable spears for battle. One of those through my heart... ouch. Having no facial features (but somehow being able to speak), I could quite gauge its expression. 

The WPA. A group of assorted wizards stood before me, grumbling, but the most prominent was the figure that had tried to kill/interrogate me in Botswana, a hint of blood stained underbite showing. Another wizard, who had tried to magically duel me, with purple skin, appeared too. He glared at me with pure hate. Another who had tried to interrupt my escape literally snarled at me when he first appeared. Ouch. They seemed almost the most deadly. Besides the Puppeteer, and the last person that appeared before me.

The Cloak. I can’t really name it anything else. It appeared to be a shadowy black figure who floated a few inches off the ground. I had never seen it before. It seemed like something that would murder me and then silently walk away. I was especially confused by it because I had never encountered it. How could something that I had never seen before try to kill me? I was flabbergasted. Maybe it had carefully planned out all of its steps and planned to approach me right at this moment. That thought was utterly terrifying. 

The Puppeteer. Cyrus. We had met him back in Argentina, when he had killed Kaylee’s parents. Then he had tried to take over Russia, using the metal staff things. He seemed like the kind of enemy whose power had only been revealed a tiny bit. I was scared of him more than all the rest, except what I’m calling The Cloak. 

They all stood before me. The Puppeteer smiled happily. “Oh boy. You know that you’ve all been waiting for this moment!” A murmur spread throughout the group. I was shaking in my boots. There were only four of us, against more than seven people who were probably murderers, assassins, and thieves of the worst sort. 

The cloak or whatever floated a little bit forward. "Now who is the floating bogeyman?!" Misty said, obviously annoyed. A soft hymn seems to flow through the room. Misty was suddenly covered in black ink writing which was continuously writing itself all over her. She screamed and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. The meaningless words turned molten hot, all over her and her armor. After dousing herself several times with the sword, she stood up, breathing heavily. We were trapped. On one side of us was a gigantic spider that could probably murder us without breaking a sweat. On the other side was a pantheon of our most deadly enemies. What to do, what to do? I chose the giant spider.

Running at it, I swept a wave of rocks toward it,triggering an explosion of dust as the rock crumbled against its magic hide. I backed up nervously, then caught myself. One of the magicians outright laughed. “Enough of this trickery,” growled Mordred. He stomped forward and stabbed at Daniel, who propelled himself out of the way using a blast of air. Cyrus clapped as the spider stabbed a leg at me, and barely missed, causing me to dive out of the way. Christopher growled, and along with Misty rained blows down on it. They did absolutely nothing besides knock the spider down. Daniel grabbed me and helped me jump over the writing spider, Christopher doing the same. We landed and took off at a million miles per hour. I heard the Puppeteer yell, “Split up, you morons!” We skidded around a corner to come face to face with a huge beetle. It spit some kind of venom at us, which I stopped with a wall. Floating ethereally behind us was Soul Prophet, having floated over the spider. She extended a hand, a wall of dark energy surging around us, when Christopher dispelled it with a huge, fiery, and just plain awesome explosion.

 I stalked toward her, when I felt cool. Confident. Energized, but so relaxed. I punched the air in front of me, a punch that would have KO’d someone if they were in front of me, and suddenly... magic. A bolt of shining energy launched from my fist and coursed toward Soul Prophet, hitting her square in the stomach, and she stumbled backwards from shock. This was the thing that had killed Kaylee. It was time to avenge her for once and for all. Around the corner, I heard Mordred yell, and the “shunk” of a sword or spear being removed from the body of someone. I hoped that Mordred had suffered from that. Planting the pike in the ground, and flickinit upwards just as Soul Prophet got back to her feet, a wave of rocks smashed into her diabolical, floating, and crazily evil body. She fell down, and Misty was suddenly behind her, having ran toward her in a split second. She planted her sword directly into Soul Prophet’s heart, and exclaimed, “Good riddance, soul sucker.” The hood fell off of Soul Prophet’s face, and the features slowly changed from a black orb in place of a head to a gargoyle, mixed with the most evil mother-in-law that you could ever imagine. Daniel, who was now standing behind me, took the hammer and buried it in her face. She tried to teleport away, but Christopher’s brow tightened. “Oh no, you don’t.” A beam of light emerged from her eyes, and she screamed, louder than you could ever picture.” Her body seemed to melt into tiny speck, and then disappeared, leaving a faint hint of purple light and chalk-white robe. Then Misty gasped in shock and whirled, only to have the blade of a spear planted against her throat. She was slowly turned around by Mordred, exhausted and bloodied from his battle with the spider, but still very much alive. Behind us,the earthen wall smashed open and the beetle burst through. “Fight me and the girl dies,” proclaimed Mordred. “Go fight that huge beetle and hand over the chips if you want her to live.”

Chapter Forty-One: The End

“Christopher, get on it!” I yelled. He nodded and turned to face the beetle, whip lashing out in rhythm. I turned to Mordred. “Mordred,” I said, sounding defeated, “You win.” I set my weapon down with a bang, pounding it on the floor before I dropped it. Two twin columns of earth shot up under his feet, and he went flying, dropping his spear. “Ah-ha!” I heard Christopher shout, with a shriek from the beetle. “Come on, before he gets up!” shouted Christopher. I ran after him, deeper into the maze. 

The maze was huge. I guess that was why they called it The Labyrinth, after all. Christopher took a right, then a left, then another right. He was leading us out of here. I trusted him. “That was amazing!” said Daniel as we sprinted. “Yeah (gasp) I don’t know (gasp) where that came from!(GASP)” I had stopped dead in my tracks, because in front of me shot a bolt of aqua light that burned a hole in the wall. We had ran past an intersection, and wizards had been lying in wait. “Time to get my game on,” growled Daniel. He proceeded to shrink a few inches and become his dwarf form. “LET’S DO THIS!” he screamed at the wizards. They chuckled. “Shorty, you don’t know what you’re messin’ with,” said one of them, the one who had tried to stop me from escaping. The one who had interrogated me, the boss, I suppose, pointed at me, and howled, “KILL THEM!” As the four other wizards advanced, the wizard in command gruesomely smiled and whispered, “I ordered the attacks on your family, Nathaniel.” I screamed in rage. Swiping the pike to and fro, I clobbered the wizards advancing on me. I stuck the pike up to his throat. “YOU!” I shouted into his ear. With a discharge of magical energy, he pushed me away. I was panting with fury. I reached into my backpack. “DIE, SCUM!” I pulled out something from my backpack and flung it at him. Then I gasped in horror. It was the box. With the mind chips. Oh no. I was doomed. The man caught it with surprising reflexes and pulled out one of the chips. “Oh, I’ll have fun torturing you.” He cackled, and in blind fury I lunged forward and smacked it out of his hand. The chips flew through the air, with agonizing slowness, and landed on the man’s forearm. 

Time stopped.

Literally.

I was standing inside of a command center, memories floating around me. Christopher’s words echoed in my mind. You have half an hour. I was going to put enough memories of pain and sorrow in this man’s memory and take away all the evilness and happiness. I was going to make him pay for what he did to my family. He was going to be a nervous wreck by the time I got through with him. The first thing I did was take away all of his memories of the WPA- around eighty years of his life (THIS GUY WAS OLD!) Then I took away all of the happy memories he had, which were surprisingly few. I gave him back one of a bike ride with his dad, over a hundred and ten years ago. I replaced them with semi-sad ones. Next came the fill-in job. I pretended that he had been given a life sentence by the government and they had exposed him to a thing that took away all of his magical abilities. Then he somehow broke out and was abducted, where he mysteriously ended up here with a bunch of strange people. It was pretty good. I felt myself being pulled away, and then I was back.

The man stood still for a moment, and then fell down. He scuttled against the wall and curled into the fetal position while screaming expletives at his fellow wizards, who had gotten up. It only seemed to take around thirty seconds for me to rearrange his memory, but inside of his mind it was around thirty minutes. I was mad, because I had wasted one of my chips, but he was important. I suppose. I knocked the other wizards back down (three of them were KO’d, and after they got up the first time, all were injured. The other one didn’t want to get up, so he just laid there.) 

Christopher seemed to want me to hurry, so I went running after him, after scooping up the VIB (Very Important Box). We turned two more corners, and Christopher said that he sensed we were close to the exit, when we spotted The Puppeteer. He was standing next to The Cloak, waiting for me. “I knew that you would survive,” said Cyrus. “Yeah, now I just have to get past you and I’m home free,” I said. He smiled. “Oh, and my friend.” The Cloak seemed to... I don’t know how to describe it, other than to grow more menacing. “No big deal! We’ve kicked your butt before, and we can do it again!” The Cloak floated forward. “Oh, no. Not with The Cloak here. He’s easily twice as powerful as I am.” Cyrus smiled. “I like him because he works in the shadows. He never comes out to murder you until the very end. Who do you think sent all of those “random” enemies after you?” I frowned. “Like who?” “Oh, let’s say... Morlordghast. Remember that?” I vaguely remembered the knife serpent. Ugh. 

“Or, say, your more powerful enemies? Like Mordred?” “Wait, he was in the Cathedral of Water. He was like, a challenge or something.” 

“Uh, actually, no. The challenge there was another person, until my friend killed that and stuck Mordred there instead to wait for you.”

 “So you’ve been working in the shadows, all along.” 

Cyrus started to speak, but The Cloak raised a hand. His body had been entirely hidden in his Medieval style robe until now, but his skin was coal black, flecked with spots of grey. Not like African-American black. Like actual black. The color of death black. “Yes. It is I.” His voice was raspy, and sent chills down my spine. It was like nails on a chalkboard, but ghostlier and deeper. “You may call me Anratut.” I steadied my grip on the pike. “Pleased to meet you. Now let’s stop with the evil villain confessions and actually get to the fighting, please.” A soft note, metallophone almost, sounded throughout the room. A portal opened, a skeleton emerging. “This is just to gauge your power,” explained Cyrus. “I’ve told him many times how competent you are, but he wants to test it himself.” The skeleton pulled two swords from nowhere and ran toward Daniel. He growled and charged with the hammer. He swung the hammer like he was hitting a homer, but the skeleton dodged and swung his swords at Daniel’s unprotected neck. Christopher lashed the skeleton once to divert its attention while Anratut watched silently. I raised the pike from behind it. The skeleton lunged at Christopher, but as soon as it set its foot down, earth surged from the floor and encrusted the feet and leg joints of the skeleton. Daniel moved close, but its flailing arms were too wild. I raised the dirt level to its arms, and Daniel had the pleasure of knocking its head off. The head flew and bounced once. 

I thought that Anratut would be furious and try to kill us, but he didn’t seem too mad about us killing that skeleton. Instead, he started clapping softly. “Very good, very good.” I glared at him. Jabbing my pike, I threw a rock at this mysterious enemy. A chorus of piano notes echoed throughout the room, and a giant rock hand reached up out of the ground and grabbed it, then threw it back at me. I speared it in half with the pike, and then got ready. 

Anratut raised a hand. “My name,” he rasped, “means ‘Bringer of Death’ in the Old Wizard language.” He raised both of his hands, and water rose out of the ground. The Bringer of Death crashed a wave upon us, following it with a crackling blizzard of fire, a mountain of earth, and a tornado of air. I was blown backwards. It hit my head on the wall of this idiotic maze of hallways. I stood back up. The others were lying on the ground, and except for Misty, they were all burned, not bad, but it looked painful. I turned back to Anratut. “The Bringer of Death shall have death brought upon him,” I proclaimed, and then planted my feet on the ground, and swung the pike.

The pike barely touched the ground, but a flurry of boulders surged up through it. Stones crashed through the roof, only to rain down against. And directly toward them? I had never seen anything like it. The entire corridor was blockaded with rocks. I distinctly heard Cyrus roar. Anratut was laughing. It was bone-chilling, mind-numbing, and utterly evil. Eventually, the blockade collapsed. Anratut seemed unharmed, but Cyrus was on the ground. His lower half had been crushed by rocks. Entirely crushed. Anratut was probably impressed. “You seem powerful,” he said. Then he seemed to grow, until his head touched the ceiling. “I shall still crush you and your friends.” “NOT TODAY YOU WON’T!” screamed Daniel from beside me. The rest of the gang was behind him, but they were looking worn down and tired. Not Daniel. Not him with his fiery dwarf spirit. “You may outfight us and outsmart us, and you might try to crush our spirits, but at the end of the day, know that we will still have the will to keep on fighting!” Anratut flung off his hood and smiled. “Is that so?”

 Anratut’s skin was pure black, as I expected, but his head kept shifting between a wolf’s, a bear’s, a lion’s, and a tiger’s. The last was the most chilling of all: a gigantic snake’s. All were black and shades of it, except for their eyes, which evilly glowed red.  I gasped in shock, and then readied myself. The Bringer of Death would be going down.

Suddenly, Misty screamed. Mordred was behind her. Quick as a flash, Christopher darted over while Anratut watched. Mordred ruthlessly advanced, but Christopher, instead of using a magical attack as I expected, dove at him. This took Mordred by surprise, but it was pretty cool what Christopher did next. He grabbed Mordred’s legs and threw him to Anratut. The Bringer of Death gasped. Mordred’s eyes widened, and suddenly, both were down. Mordred seemed to struggle, but Anratut didn’t like that, so they were fighting one another. Clearly, Anratut was the victor, but I wasn’t going to stick around to wait.

We ran past the pair of them, stepping over Cyrus. “Please, help me!” he begged. “Go jump into a lake,” I said. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t, Legless Wonder.” I kicked him once in the head. He moaned. “That’s for Kaylee’s family.” Then I sprinted out of our final destination. 

Outside, another enemy was waiting for us. The Sphere. No way. It couldn’t come to this. But Misty saved the day by calmly washing in away in a hurricane-worthy wave. It sputtered against a wall it had flown against, and then relented and lay still. “That was easy,” she said. We all laughed as Christopher opened a portal and we ran away and escaped from our enemies together.

Chapter Forty-Two: Almost Happily Forever After

SIX MONTHS LATER:

I waited nervously in the foyer. Christopher was never late. I checked my watch again. Then the doorbell rang and I answered it before his finger was even off the doorbell. “Well, you seem to have grown a bit,” remarked Christopher. I gave him a bear hug. “Nice mansion, bro,” he said. “Well, it’s not mine, exactly.” He smiled. “You live in it, and it’s probably yours when you turn 18.” “Really?” “Yes.” I went to ask the maid (who had been temporarily given it until the court could decide- Gustav the cook was STILL fuming about this) and she gritted her teeth and told me the truth. Christopher and I sat down in the living room and talked about the latest magical news (Anratut, the Puppeteer, and Mordred were still missing) when the doorbell rang again. Daniel was standing at the door this time.

Daniel had been exiled from the land of the dwarves for “treasonous and evil activity,” but had been given a full pardon by the King because of “Heroic Activity and Valor in saving the world from evil”. I was pretty glad, because it made him happier. We relieved our quest in full detail, laughing the entire way (Christopher cracked up when Daniel rescued me from the Twinkly Team, he hadn’t heard that part yet.) The only sad moments were whenever we talked about Kaylee. The entire time, we were wondering where Misty was. 

Finally, the doorbell rang again. Misty stepped in, wearing a black dress and Ray-Bans. Her parents were wearing formal attire as well. “Nice, Misty!” I exclaimed. She smiled and we gave eachother a formal hug along with the rest of the gang. 

 We had been living our lives as normal as we could for the last six 

Daniel had been living at the dwarf kingdom while Christopher had been on the move around the world for some reasons that he wouldn't explain to us. Misty had gone back to her parents and lived life as normal while I was kind of like a hermit. I had locked myself in my house refusing to go to school for the single reason of mastering the weapons of power I had inherited about seven months ago. I had been unsuccessful the first few months, but I was starting to get the hang of earth and water. I was better at Earth, and Daniel was a self-proclaimed master of Air (he knew all of the tricks), but nobody was really too good at Fire. 

 

Her parents tried to step inside, but Christopher rudely shut the door in their faces, leaving room for only Misty to come inside. Misty tried to protest but Christopher shushed everybody loudly. "Everybody, Nattys room, now!" We ran upstairs and slammed the door. We didn't question Christopher's word. He could definitely take all of us, easily. "We don't need your parents in here." He said. "I have to show you something!" He pulled out a camera and filed through pictures. He then showed us a picture on the camera of a figure. The figure was female. She had long black hair down to her waist and wore large sunglasses covering her eyes. She wore casual clothing and red heels. She was pale, very pale. She looked around Christopher's previous age before he inhabited copycat. The shot of her was a blurry side shot of her walking in a crowd. It was like a photo that the police used to identify criminals.

"I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you." He said. "You see, you know how I was locked inside a bottle for about a hundred years." We nodded. "We'll, I wasn't the only one. There was another person that the monks locked in a separate bottle, my 'partner in crime.'" He smiled slightly, his eyes seemed to tear. We all silently gasped when we saw that. We had rarely seen Christopher get hurt, let alone him cry. "To get sentenced to death by the monks. I stole an orb. But I had help. And when it was time to take the blame, I slipped away and left her to die. They of course caught me a couple days later. But I guess I ticked her off. We had gotten into cahoots to share the power of the orb. But I also took that." His cheeks got red with embarrassment and he put his head in his hands. 

 

"She apparently got out of the bottle, and she's out for revenge. That's why I was traveling the world, to avoid her." Misty looked at him concerned. "Our battles are your battles, were a team." She smiled at him, but Christopher snubbed her off. "You wouldn't be saying that if you knew the cost." Misty put her chin in her hands and listened attentively. "Misty, if she knew you were here, you'd have to go to extreme costs to make sure they don't hurt the ones you love most. " He looked outside of my window at Mistys parents, sitting on the front porch of their house. 

Misty gasped. "So along with the Puppeteer, along with Mordred, along with the cloak dude, we have this guy." Daniel complained. "Melinda" Christopher said, "she went by that name. It's even a risk being here with you." I nodded, then heard a small beeping noise. I furrowed my brow. "What is that?" I asked. 

 Christopher froze and stared at all of us. "I didn't want to do this to any of you! I wish I had never came!" The beeping noise because louder and louder. "What's going on!" Misty shouted. Christopher kicked open the door and ushered us out of the room. I traced the beeping noise to Christophers wristwatch. We all ran down the stairs and Christopher led us out the front door. 

    

Mistys parents went up to her and tried to ask what she was doing. Christopher then shot a beam of white light towards both of their heads. They had large spasms then fell to the ground, unmoving. Misty screamed and lunged towards Christopher. She yelled curses, tears streaming from her eyes. Christopher shot a beam of white light towards her, freezing her in mid air. "She knows where you are!" He said. "I only erased their memories of you, I didn't kill them. If was for their own good!" 

Christopher shot a portal towards the ground, opening a large hole in the concrete. "The dwarf land." Christopher said. "She'll have a hard time finding us there." I picked Misty up, and carried her over my shoulder. She pounded her fists on my back, trying to get free. Misty was the only one with something to lose back here. Not any more. We leapt through the portal and into another world.

Discovery- V

This one is not my absolute favorite, but it's one of the best parts. It's also kinda cheesy but whatever :p. Enjoy!

Part 5- Metal

Chapter 30: Copycat 

We managed to get a small helicopter to take us to Russia. I can’t see how we were going to afford it, but I try not to ask questions when it comes to the money. I just hope for the best. We were ascending into the pale gray sky. Daniel was our pilot. The rest of the gang and I sat in the back of the helicopter and relaxed. Kaylee’s hand found mine and we gripped each other tight, like for dear life. We had both gone through a lot in the past couple months and we weren’t ready to let go. Misty was playing on her new phone while Christopher wrote furiously on a sketch pad. 

The weather outside started to get windier and windier as the pale gray clouds turned an ugly black color. Lightning bolts appeared all around us and the plane swerved to avoid the bad weather. We all sat up in our seats and waited to see if we had any other monsters after us. But we were wrong, it wasn’t a monster. It was worse.

We all scattered around the inside of the helicopter. I had no idea why though, fear was captivating us and we had no control. Misty crouched down and uttered a scream. A large white wisp entered our helicopter. Everything went black suddenly. When the lights came back on, we were still in flight. There was Misty, on the ground. Her head in her hands, but she was silent. I walked over to her and I heard a gasp coming from the other side of the plane, it was Misty. I was very confused. Christopher gasped and shrank back, whatever brought him to cowardice, I would not like to meet. But unfortunately, I already had. Misty- or other Misty, turned her head around at us and stared blankly. She looked exactly like Misty, but so did the other Misty. “Who are you?” I asked slowly. Then I stepped back in fear, for she spoke with me. She didn’t hesitate a second. How could she have known what I was going to say. 

Her face changed and suddenly she was me. I gasped and collapsed in the seat behind me. “Do not talk!” Christopher mouthed. The being tried to change into his face but changed into a completely different face all together. It was a young boy with brown hair and a strange gleam in his eyes. Before we could get a better look, he jumped in front of the being to block us from seeing the face. The face changed into Kaylee’s face and she jumped back in fright. “Stop it” She said, also to be copied by the being. Christopher took out his sketch pad and drew a small, shaky picture for us to see. It showed a wire connecting us to the being, feeding all of our information in our brains to it. I was confused but not upset. She wasn’t bringing any harm to us in any sort of way. I started to say my next words but they choked in my mouth. It was stealing our words from us. She spoke before I even could, in my voice.  “She isn’t bringing any harm to us, is she?” I stared back in shock, unable to say anything. “Get the mystical-” Misty was cut off by the being. She stared at us and cocked her head. “Weapon?” she said softly. Misty ran over to the being and tried to punch it. Her fist went straight through, Misty’s hand recoiled from it, her fist red and steaming. She screamed and fell over backwards, her wrist writhing and recoiling, bursting with blisters. I ran over to her in concern. She was crying with pain clutching her wrist. Her wrist was in an awkward position, this was NOT good. 

Christopher ran over to the being with the hammer. But something strange happened. The being formed a hammer made completely out of a checkered matter. When Christopher ran over to it with the hammer, he ran over to him with the dark copy of the hammer. Christopher backed off and set the hammer down carefully, the entity did likewise. Kaylee cowered under the seats of the helicopter. The being suddenly turned into Daniel’s face. Then I heard her voice, “You guys okay?” I gasped, then I heard Daniel saying: “You guys okay?” The being then turned into Christopher’s regular face. “Be very quiet.” They both said together. Then Christopher spoke on his own, without the being copying him. “I know who this is. It is very dangerous, make sure. DO NOT SAY ANYTHING!” I was about to ask him why it wasn’t copying him, but I thought better. Misty breathed heavily, still clutching her steaming wrist. 

A steaming white mist came out of Misty’s mouth and went into the beings head. Misty then started to look like an all white human being, her skin was paper white, literally. She was unrecognizable to any of us. The being then started to look more and more like Misty. Christopher gasped and then made a cross over his face with his nimble fingers. He then spoke softly: “I-I  v-volunteer.” He nodded his head, tears forming in his eyes. The being started to turn vica versa, Misty was saved. The being turned into a white mist and went into Christopher’s head. He still looked the same, his eyes rolled backwards and he started to steam with smoke. His neck tilted to the side suddenly. His skin started to change, his skin color turned a deadly white color. His eyes bugged out and he gave us a strange smile. The white’s of his eyes turned into checkered globs. He shook his head and I could faintly hear the rattle of nuts and bolts. What was happening to him?

His hands were shaking, he was in there somewhere. He slowly walked over to the helicopter door. He screamed, fighting back an invisible and deadly force. He opened the door to the helicopter and Kaylee tried to run over to him, but I stopped her. He looked at us and blew a kiss, he then dropped out of the helicopter, and into the cold ocean below. Kaylee screamed and started sobbing, Misty was still knocked out because of the excruciating pain in her wrist. Daniel was still unaware, for all I knew. And I, I was starting to tear up and I held Kaylee close.

Then a water splash echoed from below and a boy came up to the door. He had white skin and blue eyes. He had black hair and pearly white teeth. He winked at us. “Who are you?” I asked. I’m the regenerated version of Genie Of Golden Shackles. Who are you Nathaniel?” He then stopped and shook his head, I could still hear the distant rattle of nuts and bolts. He had killed himself and regenerated as a mixture between him and the copycat. As if reading my mind he spoke. “But I am in control now, just a little minor differences.” He had all the abilities of copycat but he was also Christopher, but he was pint-sized. Kaylee ran over to him and gave him a bear hug. From behind her he gestured with his thumb and gave me an approving look. He was Christopher alright, but he was a little insane now, at least more than usual. 

We were back on board, an almost to Russia. 

Chapter Thirty-One: An Enemy In Authority

We saw Russia from the window of the helicopter. Christopher and I sat next to each other. “So who was copycat from earlier?” Christopher leaned back and put his hand over his eyes. “No” He just said. I could tell it was a really touchy subject for him. Misty had her arm in a strange metal cast that Christopher had formed to stop the pain. She was resting now though. Kaylee was relaxing and I wasn’t sure if she was sleeping or not. I then saw something that made my heart stop.

There was a large megatron in Russia with a picture of a man I knew all too well. I translated with google translate on my iPhone (that I had found in the Temple of Fire) the board to make out: Your Governor, John Smith: Running for a Sustaining Position in Government against Boris Tracie. “John Smith: Your Man For The Job!” On the billboard showed a large man with pearly white teeth and long dreadlocks that reached to his waist. He was the man I hated most, and he was in the government!

He smiled at me in the billboard, almost as if he could really see me. I leaned over to Christopher and explained him the whole story about the man, and killing Kaylee’s family. He said he already knew, for some reason he knew the rest of the tale. How could he have known about this man?

I then showed him the billboard and he let out a gasp. “He’s in government?!” He said incredulously. I nodded; “There is something not right with that!” “We have to stop him.” Christopher began. “He will take over this whole dang city if we let him go for another term.” I nodded, “Then how come the city isn’t already destitute if he already had a term here?” Christopher touched his hands to his temples and his eyes glowed a sickly yellow. “He has found the power source for metal energy recently” Christopher recited carefully. “If he gets elected next term, he will use the metal energy to brainwash and use the people of Moscow for his personal benefit.” I gasped, “he can’t do that!” 

“The whole reason he ran for governor was to send people out to find you.” Christopher said. “Like the copycat?” At this Christopher shook his head, “That wasn’t working for anybody.” 

 Daniel landed the helicopter at an airport in Moscow. As we slowly walked to the exit, I could feel a couple of pairs of eyes on us. I did not like the feeling of being followed, the others didn’t seem to know who we are. A security guard stepped up to us. He cleared his throat and held up a piece of paper with my face on it. “Nathaniel Stone, you are under arrest!”

Misty immediately punched him square in the jaw, with her metal cast. The mans head twisted to the side in an awkward angle. He then put his head back the way it was. He was not human.

I then swiftly took out the sword and sent a wave of water towards him. He was immediately affected by the wave. His skin started to turn a coppery color and he fell to the ground in a tangled mess. “He was a metal man created by the metal source,” said Daniel. We ran out of the airport and hitched a taxi to the nearest motel. Inside of the taxi, the man turned around and pointed a rifle straight at my face. “You’re going to the police” He said. The cab was too small for me to use a wave against him, we’d all drown. Christopher punched him in the gut, it did nothing. Then Kaylee took a water bottle out of her bag and splashed the taxi driver. The taxi driver rusted and fell to the ground like the security guard earlier. “How can he understand us and we him?” I said to Christopher. “John Smith has already started controlling these people with the metal source. The few we’ve seen are already his slaves. He must of already wired something in everybody’s brain to make they’re language English here.” I nodded slowly, “His name isn’t John Smith, is it?” Christopher shook his head, “Nobody knows his real name. Most people who know him refer to him as The Puppeteer.”

“Okay.” Kaylee said, “we should probably get out of the taxi now.”

We exited the taxi and found ourselves fairly close to our location as Christopher says.  We walked carefully into a motel, getting strange looks as we purchased a room. Christopher had provided paper bags to cover our faces (which Kaylee was opposed to). 

We got to the dusty room and told the rest of the group about The Puppeteer running for government. “How do we stop him?” Daniel asked. Christopher reached in his bag slowly and we all waited in anticipation for what he had to show. Simply he brang out a chess board and we groaned, expecting the best. He took the chess pieces out and laid them on a simple chess board. 

“We” He said gesturing to the King “Are here. They” He said gesturing to the other king “are they’re. We send someone that they don’t know or have never seen.” He moved a bishop to the dark king. “They will let that lucky someone right through their security. For he can only be, just a country-man.” Christopher smiled demonically. “After he knocks out their defenses” Christopher moved some of the black pawns off the board and moved the white pawns up to the black king and queen. “The rest of the team will advance.” In a violent motion he knocked the black team off the board.

I rubbed my hands and smiled. “Perfect. Just perfect. Only one problem though... how are we going to get this person?” Christopher smiled. “That’s easy.” He reached into my backpack and pulled out the mask of comedy. “Как это?” “Huh?” “Do you like it?” He had a long beard now, with an amazingly cool handlebar mustache. He was covered in small marks, and had green eye, a protruding nose, and yellow teeth. He wore a baseball cap, underneath which grew very short hair. “Whoa!” “Yeah. Okay, so here’s the plan. I have to go to the rally being hosted tonight, courtesy of John Smith. I eliminate the guards, and then you guys get in.” “Okay, go it.” 

Later that night, we waited anxiously in the shadows outside the meeting place. We watched Christopher go in, and a few minutes later one of the guards walked inside. He never came back out. The crowd entering started to die down, and we watched Christopher eliminate the other. Everyone was inside, and we sneaked inside, and found a seat. The dreadlocked man was onstage, waving at the crowd. “Friends, friends.” He spoke. He then suddenly tensed up. He took out a large staff with a skull of a ram on the top. He waved the stick around the stage. Then, people around us started to change. Their skin became a coppery tone, their eyes became cold and lifeless. Misty stifled a scream. He was turning them into his personal slaves. 

Then, everybody started to turn back to normal. They walked and chatted outside, like the performance was over. But the only problem was, they talked in English. Christopher sneaked around while me and the rest of the gang went back to the hotel and hoped for the best.

                                                                    ***

Christopher went behind the curtain, he was now the man with the long beard. The Puppeteer bumped into him and looked at him suspiciously. “Master John Smith. I await orders.” Christopher almost laughed at this point; he had seen this same scene on a TV show back at the hotel. The Puppeteer smiled and said, “The back room, down the hall and to the left. Deliver this.” He handed Christopher a small package reading: Fragile. Christopher, immediately out of The Puppeteer’s sight, went into the men’s bathroom and opened the package in a secret manner. He saw inside was a small wand with the head of a ram on the top. “If we could use this on the city of Russia, we could reverse all of them and save them.” A guards boots suddenly tromped into the bathroom. Christopher hid in a stall and stood on the toilet seat. He saw the flash of a flashlight, then it was gone. The Puppeteer had split the metal source into two parts. One part for him and one part for..... Who was his accomplice? It puzzled him, but he had to get out of their.

 

If he didn’t deliver the package, The Puppeteer would know something was up. So he put the wand in his jacket pocket and walked over to the room with an empty package. The men were all in a semicircle that went around the front of the room. 

Christopher set the package easily on the table. A person came from behind him and bumped into him. Everybody gawked. He heard a thud as the mask fell to the floor. Everybody now approached him with their hands out. Christopher acted suddenly. He switched off the light switch, leaving everybody in complete darkness. He didn’t care if he got out, he was going to have some fun!

He sent an orb of water towards the first man and he fell to the floor in a rusty puddle. But. unfortunately, he was the only metal man in this room. 

He flipped over a tall man’s punch and sent an elbow to the back of his head with SNAP sound. 

A large man with a pocket knife approached him hurriedly, this was too easy. He sent an orb of magic at the chandelier, sending it down on 5 people. He then took a bottle from the refrigerator behind him and smashed that on the man’s head. But the refrigerator produced a light. Everybody saw where he was. He tried to move but a man sent a fist in his jaw. He shot a water ball at the man but he ducked, now seeing where the attack was coming from. A man was standing behind him, propping up the refrigerator door. Then the men had a sudden facepalm moment. Christopher managed to get out of their grip and switch on the light. He had taken a gun from one of the men. He smiled mischievously, and said, “I’ll take this. Hasta la pasta!” He shot at The Puppeteer a few times, and then ran down the hallway and toward us, firing over his shoulder. We could see The Puppeteer deflecting the bullets and ordering the men to go after us. However, with a well placed wall of rock, we escaped. 

Chapter Thirty-Two: How to Rig a Russian Election

The night of the polls were coming soon. We had decided that since there was no way that anyone could beat The Puppeteer, we would rig the election votes. We waited outside the polls at about 3:00 AM, and mugged the people counting. It sounds bad, but we couldn’t let the Puppeteer win. One kind of looked like Daniel, and one like a grown up-version of Misty, so we used the mask on me to make me look old enough. Kaylee could pass for an 18-year-old. We walked inside to the people, and having “borrowed” the people’s ID’s, and having created a fake one for Kaylee, we were in.

The first people started streaming in to the Moscow polls, and my fears were realized- over 50% had filled it in for The Puppeteer. When the authorities weren’t watching, we took erasers and filled it in for the other candidate, Boris Tracie. It was hard work, but we changed the vote every five minutes when the people running it took a break. The polls were getting crowded, and it became harder and harder to fill the right answer in. The standings were even worse than I thought- now over 75% had voted for the Puppeteer. It was hard to believe that so many people were voting for the position of mayor, but I guess that everyone either loved or hated him.  

The results were in. Christopher had managed to duplicate the masks for us with some sort of magic. It was funny, we weren’t even worried about finding the temple. Christopher had said, that when we find the other metal source, we can connect the two and get to the temple of metal. 

We heard a loud drum solo, then we gasped. John Smith stood out on the podium and waved to the people. I gawked: “How! I was sure we had rigged it!” Christopher shook his head, “Someway or 

another, he rigged the rigged voting ballot It’s insane!” 

The Puppeteer waved, seemingly right towards us. “I hate him” Misty said quietly, her cast plunking down on the table.With the mask on, Misty now had dyed blue hair and a long pointed nose. I looked a little like a teen pop star. With spiky black hair and pearly white teeth. Christopher had a very distinct jawline and giant ears. Kaylee had strawberry red hair and a large frame. 

We had to wear these masks to avoid any public appearance. The most played advertisement around here was the one with all of our faces on wanted posters. Dead or alive.

We sulkily sulked back to the hotel. Me and Christopher were sharing one room, while Kaylee and 

Misty were sharing another. Daniel had a couch in the back of me and Christopher’s room. “We have to wave this” Christopher held up the large staff in front of us. “In Front of everybody. Then everybody will change back to regular Russians.” “But how?” Daniel asked. “Live TV.” Christopher answered. 

“The Puppeteer’s next speech is tomorrow at 5:30. If we can pop up in the background and wave the staff, we can turn everybody back to normal.”

“But how are we going to get on LIVE TV?” Misty commented. 

“We sneak in on one of his speeches and wave the staff in the background?” I asked. Christopher sighed, “I think that’s all that we really can do.” “But how are we going to get through security?” I asked. This time Kaylee spoke up, “We don’t have mythical weapons of power for nothing.”We were going to use our weapons of power to get past the guards. Go onto live TV. And wave the metal source in front of everybody to change them back to normal. 

“But we haven’t considered how we get the other half of the metal source” Daniel said. 

Christopher yawned. “Try and beat him. As a team. He might not be able to handle it. Then we take the metal source from him. He does always keep it around. Anyway, we take the metal source from him and open up the portal to the metal kinhat’s a lot of stuff” Kaylee remarked. Christopher shrugged, “Not if you think about it.” 

I clapped my hands together and sighed deeply. “Well, time for bed everybody.” We all walked it back to our separate rooms and started getting ready for bed. We had, had a very interesting day with all the bitter disappointments and seemingly impossible tasks. We tried to fall asleep, but it was nearly impossible, with the stress of what was happening. I just hoped that we could pull it off the next day. 

The next day, we all woke up and gathered in my room. “Guys,” I said, “Here’s the plan. The enemy speaks today here (I pointed at the maps screen on my phone) and it’s sure to be live. In fact, I’m almost positive.” Daniel cracked his knuckles. “Let’s get this show on the road.” 

Chapter Thirty-Three: We Make A Public Appearance

We had lost our driver to regeneration so we decided to hitch a cab, like ordinary citizens. Thankfully, this person did not like John Smith, as he told us, so he wasn’t a robot. He railed on about him as we drove to the site of the speech. He dropped us off there with a tip of his hat and we saw the empty podium. We had about 2 and a half minutes before he made his appearance. A man came up to us excitedly. “Can you believe this is going to be broadcasted to the WHOLE WORLD. Everybody says he is going to do something exciting this time!” We all gawked. “A-all over the world?” I said.

The man nodded and skipped over to the rest of the crowd. “He is going to control the whole world.” I said. “Unless we stop him!” Christopher replied. We ran over and ducked under the curtain. We were backstage. A man in a security guard uniform ran up to us. Misty took out the sword and sent a wave of water towards him. We kept running forward, destroying his bodyguards and getting closer and closer to our target. Then, we heard a booming voice say: “Governor John Smith is coming to speak to you.” People cheered, we sprinted towards the stage but were blocked by a man in a long trench coat. Stepped in our path. He held a sawed-off shotgun and had a long scar running from his eye to his lower lip. “Five, Four” The voice was counting down and the man shot right at me. But I tried to dodge and the bullet hit my shoulder. 

“Three, Two!” Our masks all fell to the floor with a wave of the man’s hand. We tried to stop him with the weapons but they were useless against him. “One, Zero!” Lights flashed everywhere and I let out a yelp as I felt another bullet connect with my knee. I focused really hard and tried to connect with the fantasy world in my head. I imagined a beam from the rafters coming down and crushing the man. 

“Friends, friends” I heard John Smith say melodiously. A man screamed, “ANARCHY” and threw a pack of marbles at him. Men in black suits took the man away while one of his advisers tripped over the marbles. The man falling knocked down a mic-stand in the background which hit the large man in the back of the head. He fell over backwards and our path was cleared. Everybody had a couple of bullet wounds but we would survive. We ran towards the stage, John Smith cleared his throat again.

“Friends. As I was saying before I got so rudely in-” BOING. Misty had swung her metal cast, hitting The Puppeteer over the head and knocking him out. 

Everybody gasped as Christopher raised the staff over his head and waved it around. A wave of white matter absorbed the room. Then, it was gone. People walked out of the room, back to normal. We all laughed and cried, this was amazing! The Puppeteer stood up, a large welt forming on his forehead. He looked so mad I almost stumbled back, just by the sight of him. He ran over to me and put his finger on my temple. 

I was instantly transported to a white land. The gang was with me, we were all facing him. The Puppeteer opened his mouth to talk, he closed it then and charged at us. He dove at me and I tried to dodge, but to giant clay hands appeared on either side of me, knocking me down. I tried to get back up but the clay hands pinned me down. The Puppeteer walked up to me, a wide smile on his face. The suddenly Kaylee hit him square in the jaw with the hammer, he stumble backwards a little. 

‘How’s your family?” He asked with a smile. She looked at him strangely, “What do you mean?” He then looked back at me, pinned and helpless. “You didn’t tell her. Well I guess I have to spill the beans.” A portal opened up, the same one that I saw. I couldn’t bear to watch this next part.

Christopher then performed a miracle. He shot a bolt of pink lightning at the portal, making it close before the killing part. He then blocked a clay mace with a shield of dark matter. After that, he jumped over The Puppeteer and sent a pink lightning blast toward the small of his back. The Puppeteer did a 360 flip and fell on his back with a groan.

Daniel clapped while Misty had her jaw wide in amazement. The Puppeteer stood up slowly but too slowly. I broke free of the clay hands and hit him with the pike, sending a wall of earth his way. The earth crumbled under his touch but by then, Misty had hit him in the crotch with her metal cast (which seemed to be doing her very well so far). He bent over and Daniel hit him with the handle of the whip, making him bend over backwards. He shot a large dark matter ball at Misty and she was suddenly absorbed into nothingness. I ran to the spot where she was and all I found was some specks of dust. We all ran at the Puppeteer but he flew into the air and shot another dark matter ball straight at Daniel. He disappeared just like Misty did. The dark matter balls shot at, at least 200 miles per hour. He then shot one at Kaylee and she disappeared. It was just me and Christopher. The Puppeteer shot a ball at Christopher but he made a stone wall to block the hit. “WHAT IS HE DOING!” I yelled to Christopher over the sound of the portals disintegrating. “GET BEHIND THE WALL!” He answered.

I dove behind the stone shelter, narrowly dodging a shadow portal. 

Christopher snapped his fingers and the stone wall turned into a stone building. The bricks building themselves to form a cocoon around us. The sounds outside were muffled by the stone walls. “He is trying to kill us!” Christopher said matter-of-factly. “Did he kill-”NO, he did not kill the rest of the group. He merely wanted us to think that we did to break our spirits. He WAS in fact trying to kill us two. We’re the only ones that really pose a threat to him. He probably just transported the other members of the group to some random place.” 

Then the bricks closed in and there was no light, but Christopher started to hum and sing. The bricks seemed to fall apart and crumble.

 

“The iron returns to dust and ash

 Upon mere sand a fortress will crash.

 The diamond returns to the seashore, the platinum to misty moor.

The value of silver and the gold

Will return to lands untold.

The opal from inside the dust

Shall return, but it will be crushed.” 

The bricks fell away to dirt and minerals. Christopher stepped over the pile of dirt and calmly levitated a piece of earth. “Never enclose a master of Earth inside of bricks.” An emotion flickered briefly over the Puppeteer’s face- it almost looked like fear. That was impossible, though. He stepped forward. “I believe that while earth is a potent magic, the arts of Summon and Control will triumph.” He sighed at this point. “You’ve just gotten in my way- this is a step of the master plan. I suppose I could manage without the people of Russia.” I stepped forward.

“No! Nothing that I have done has fit inside your master plan! Did Mordred? Did the WPA? Did Soul Prophet? No! Those aren’t part of your ‘master plan’!” He chuckled. “They were never controlled by me. In fact, I have no idea what they plan. He pointed a finger in my face.” We have a common objective though. You. I’ll simply let them fight it out, and I’ll take the rewards.” He winked. “Bye now.”  The room around me floated away, and I was kneeling on the ground at the campaign place.” An announcement went over the loudspeaker. “Due to recently-developed and frightening health concerns, John Smith has turned down the position of the Mayor of Moscow. We announce the other candidate, Boris Tracie, as the winner!” The entire crowd groaned and tromped off. I shook my head. “What just happened?” Christopher put his arm around me, and explained, “Kid, I really have no idea. Now we have to find the others. Seriously.” I nodded. “Got it.” Just then they came running up to us. “OH MY GOSH YOU’RE ALIVE!” said Kaylee and ran towards me, giving me a hug. Christopher held his arms out, but he was ignored by Kaylee. She kissed me, full on the lips, and it was one of the happiest moments of my life. We stopped when Misty cleared her throat. “If I'm not interrupting you two love birds over there. May I ask, did you get the metal source?’ I gasped, we hadn’t gotten the metal source. Then, Christopher pulled the two pieces out of his coat pocket. “How did you get those?” I asked in awe. “I simply took them from his pocket while he was looking away.’

We all smiled and Christopher clashed the two pieces together. A black portal appeared leading to the Armory. The last temple. We all held hands and dove  into the swirling black abyss. Together.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Don’t Move A Muscle

We appeared in this dusty old room seemingly made out of weak clay. The ceiling was at least a mile high with a sparkling glass roof that revealed a destitute city with burnt rooftops and broken statues. We were literally in a dystopia. There were no doors on either side of us, and no windows besides the roof. “This is the Armory?” Daniel asked strangely. “Has to be” Christopher murmured. We then heard a fluttering noise all around us. Christopher looked around and put a hand to Kaylee’s mouth to keep her from screaming. “Don’t. Move. A. Muscle.” Christopher  said quietly. ‘Why?’  Kaylee asked. We had all frozen in our spots and we not moving any muscle.

 “There are creatures around us. They look a little like giant insects. They don’t have a sense of smell or a sense of taste. They don’t have sight, but they can hear movement. And movement only, we’re safe talking but any movement. They could be on us.” Kaylee gasped. I felt myself start to sneeze. I let out a loud sneeze and suddenly my vision was a blur. I could see large antennae and a bug-like face. A could feel skin being torn off of my flesh and I let out a scream. The large bug flipped over to the side and lay stone dead. Christopher had somehow killed the beast without moving a muscle. Then I saw smoke come from his eyes. “You shot him. With your eyes?” I asked amazed

. “Don’t move.” He repeated. I looked over to the dead bug without moving a muscle. I could see that it was green with a thousand tiny eyes and two large bat-like wings. It had at least ten legs with little hairs sticking straight up. “We can’t stay like this forever.” I commented.

 Christopher then turned around to face me as a green blur shot towards him but he spun on his heel and sent a large pink lightning bolt, killing the bug instantly. “Everybody, get behind me.” We all hesitantly ran towards him and  we could see he was firing pink lightning at all of the bugs trying to attack us. We all stood in a single file line behind Christopher. “There is a door right next to us.” We all glanced at the wall. “No there isn’t.” I said. He cleared his throat again. “There is a DOOR right next to us.” Just then a hole in the rock wall broke open and we ran into the other room. Christopher swiftly closed the rock wall behind us. 

“This is the secret door, they don’t want us to go to.” Christopher commented. There in the secret room stood a long hallway. “Another one of these.” Misty complained.

We started to tread down a long hallway and Kaylee came up to me. “What did the Puppeteer mean about my family.” I stuttered and said, “I don’t know, he was probably just tricking us into believing 

that something was going on.” And even though I was sweating like crazy, she bought it. We kept walking down the long hallway, side by side and holding hands. “The bugs are actually made of tin.” Christopher commented. “Really” I said “that seems so strange, they look so alive.” Christopher nodded his head. I think that’s the extent of what we’ll find in this temple. A bunch of man-eating bugs.” “Peachy.” Misty said sarcastically. 

We came to a large room, that looked a lot like the first. Except of course for the one thousand tin bug -eggs on the ceiling. Along with that there were a lot of metal bugs on the walls and on the floor. Christopher cursed.  “Get out!” He said “Get the heck out of here!” We started to run towards the exit of the door but the bugs were all on us. We were drawn into the middle of the room by the bugs. Christopher made a shield out of pink lightning but the bugs were slowly ebbing away at the force of the shield. Outside of the shield, it was a swarm of tin bugs, they were all over the place.

. Even some of the eggs started to crack. Our shield was keeping us safe now, but it wouldn’t hold for long. I started to see some cracks in the shield as the bugs mercilessly rammed their disgusting bodies against it. Christopher let out a scream as he held the shield up with his hands. He was the only thing between us and the bugs. “HELP HIM!” I yelled over the sound of the flutter of wings and the buzzing of the bugs. We all pitched in and held up the roof along with Christopher. The cracks seemed to form in the shield and the bugs started to give up. We were doing it!

Just then, I saw something that made my heart stop and I almost dropped the shield. A colossal bug, at least ten times the size of the other bugs, made its way towards us. “THE QUEEN!” Christopher yelled. “DUCK!” We all dropped to the floor just in time as the queen bug shot a bolt of sticky matter through the shield, and right over our heads. “We can’t escape!” I heard Daniel yell over the buzz of the bugs. Christopher then said something that sounded like.

“Pama La Racosheni!” 

The floor dropped beneath us and we all found ourselves hurtling through darkness. We had, in fact, escaped the bugs. But we were about to face a challenge that was so terrible. We would be begging for the bugs to come back. 

Chapter 35: We Meet The Tin-Man

We dropped onto a cold floor. The room was completely lighted. I could see a large ceiling, very much like the other ones in the temple. “What did you do?” Misty asked Christopher, awe-struck. “Used a very dangerous amount of magic to save all of your butts.” Christopher held his stomach and sat down on the ground. We came to his aid on either side of him. “I’m fine” he said and swatted our hands away.

A creaky voice came from the shadows. “Hello, children.” We all whipped to face it, and we saw that the voice had emitted from a tin man standing in a corner. “I see that the bugs have not killed you yet, and perhaps it is a good thing.” He stepped forward, toward us. “I suppose that they left the fun for me.” 

He started moving quickly toward us, and, panicking, Christopher shot a bolt of lightning at him. It seemed to bounce off without effect. Daniel growled and lunged at it with the hammer. The robot raised a hand to block it, and it bounced off. We all gasped. Neither magic nor mythical weapons could hurt it. In a fury, I grabbed the whip and with a crack, whipped the tin man. It kept moving, quickly, its emotionless face frowning down at us. I was scared. Why the heck was a tin man chasing us?

Misty slashed at it with the sword, but it bounced off, as did the wave of water. It stopped in front of me, and said. “ARMOR. THE KEY.” I stepped back, and it extended a hand and punched me square in the gut. I fell backwards, shocked. “Christopher! The Puppeteer’s things!” I yelled as the metal man moved forward to kick me in the gut. He tossed them to me, and I caught them, holding them out towards the robot. Tinny (as I will call him) reached out and accepted it. “Come with me. To the forge,” said Tinny and moved off. We all followed him, walking toward his corner. He placed a hand on the segment of the wall, and the building seemed to open up. 

The walls fell away and, suddenly, the chamber that we were standing in was huge. The biggest thing in it was the fireplace, where a bluish-green fire crackled. “Place the weapons on the table.” A huge stone block of earth was ahead of us, and we laid the weapons on it. The pike started to glow, and I picked it up. “Do you wish to make armor for five?” asked Tinny. I responded in the affirmative, and he told me to make twenty-five long, flat, and wide slabs of earth.

 It took several times before I produced a satisfactory one, but I finally got it. It was very hot in the room from the fire crackling. After I had made twenty five, Tinny told me to place the pike back on the table. 

The whip started to glow. Kaylee picked it up, and Tinny ordered her to go fed the fire with the whip. The armormaster (Tinny) told me to meditate, along with Christopher, and to pour energy into each of the pieces. We were exhausted after this, but he ordered us to sprint these over to the fire before the energy left them, then to toss them in. We panted, tired, after this, while they heated up, and Kaylee was having a hard time keeping it going, so Daniel pitched in and took her place. Misty had sat down on the floor and was drawing in the dirt. We were informed that the armor was hot enough to remove, so we used equipment (which I’m sure was enchanted) to remove it.

 Immediately, Tinny told Misty to strike each piece of armor with the sword to help it cool off. I noticed that the pieces of earth had acquired a sheen, and almost looked like metal. We were all really tired by this point, but the work was not over. Each of us seized a non enchanted hammer and started pounding recklessly on the plates to soften them for formation. 

This was where Tinny came into play. Being impervious to fire, he shaped the metal into armor and let them cool for while. It was almost done. We had to smash each with the Hammer of Air, and none of us were up to the task. 

Christopher had collapsed after removing them from the fire, and pounded weakly on the metal when it had to soften up, Kaylee after fueling the fire, Daniel after hammering out Misty and Kaylee’s part too, because Kaylee was collapsed and... wait a minute, where was Misty? We looked around the gigantic room, and I spotted her in a corner, sipping a chilled latte and being fanned with a palm leaf.

No... I was hallucinating. Misty had collapsed after working with the sword. I had somehow ended up on the ground after softening the armor. The metal was getting worse and worse after the time we had spent relaxing. I was tempted to let someone else do the work, but it was my duty. I had dragged everyone along on this quest. I hauled myself up, and started to work.

As I hit things with the hammer, I thought back. Had I really dragged everyone along on this trip? I remembered meeting Daniel. Suddenly I spotted one of those fighter pilots flying high above me. I took out the hammer and sent a gust of wind swirling his plane out of control. He shot at me once and had pretty good accuracy. (I now had a large hole in my suitcase.) Then he flew down low and saw me lying there. ”Get up kid!”  he shouted angrily at me. Later that day, I guess he had somewhat accepted me. “Run. Now!” The pilot shouted. I hopped into his plane, slid the door closed with a slam, and slumped against the wall. “Get me to Indonesia, please.” The pilot glanced at me in disbelief. “The farthest I can take you is Africa. It’s because of fuel, even though I have a full tank, and besides, why would I do that?” Okay, I’m pretty sure that Daniel had actually wanted to get involved, seeing that he was a former employee of the WPA. And he was a dwarf. That too. It was pretty shocking when I first found that out, but it was okay now. 

I had finished the first five pieces, and Tinny arrived to take them. Somehow, by remembering my friends, I was pulling through. Misty was a bit of a different case. I realized this on the next set I hammered. I freed the slaves, and they stampeded straight over the guards. I guess they went to help with the fight, but one teenage girl stayed behind. She looked about fourteen (my age). She said, “You guys need help much more than the battle does.” I looked outside the door. A slave was piggybacking a soldier, bonking him on the head with a shield. “Yeah.” Without her, we probably wouldn’t have made it through the Castle of Earth. She had solved a riddle posed by a freaky monster, and we would have been eaten if she hadn’t solved it. She had got us to Hawaii, through methods that we didn’t quite see coming. Such as attacking the lady at the front desk of the airport. That was kind of funny. 

Daniel had found the strength to get up, and he picked up the first set of armor that was completed. As he touched, one of them attached itself to his arm, molding to his body shape, and he fit the rest on easily. “Hey, I kind of feel... connected to this armor. Like it was made for me, you know?” He smiled and went to wake Misty up, just as I placed the second set down. 

I went to work on the third set. Kaylee was even weirder than Misty and Daniel combined. When we first met her, she was possessed by Soul Prophet. And Soul Prophet could have eaten our souls. Not pleasent. But somehow it all worked out, thanks to Christopher. Then I remembered when I actually met Kaylee, not Soul Prophet.  Soul Prophet turned to me. “I’ll spare your friends because I like you. Until next time!” She smiled cheerily, and then, when I expected her to disappear, said, “Oh, gosh, I’m not possessed anymore!” Her body suddenly crumpled on the ground. She then steadily got to her feet and made a surprisingly fast recovery for someone who was apparently possessed a minute ago. The girl was standing before me. “Hey, who are you?” I had no idea who the heck she was at the time, but that didn’t matter. She became my best friend, and to the rest of the gang, my girlfriend. Which I had to admit, was pretty awesome. 

The third set went into the pile. Then I started working on what was sure to be Christopher’s. I had liked Christopher the least from the start. But that had changed- he had become my magic teacher. That was amazing. When we met, I had my doubts. Out of nowhere stepped a man. He looked around 25 with white-blond hair and a gleaming smile. He had a british accent and pale skin. 

“Who are you?” said Misty, smirking. “Why I,” the man said gesturing to himself “am the Genie of Golden Shackles. Though I prefer the name Christopher.” He had a slight bounce to his step and his eyebrows raised with every word he said. I didn’t like him. I realized that he had helped me along every step of the impossible journey, though. Like it or not, he was definitely part of the team. I had grown to like him, though. 

Finally, the only set left was mine. The rest of the gang had gathered around me by this point. Daniel stepped up and tried to take it from me, but it was my job. I had to finish it. I thought about me. Did I really want to go on this journey? It had wounded me, depressed me, and nearly killed me. Then I thought back to when we had gotten through the Castle of Earth. I know that someday, I’ll think back and say that maybe these times weren’t all that bad. I realized that that was still true. And I was happy about that. It would not be so bad after all. With that, my set was done. I was good. I lifted it onto me, and I instantly felt better... happier. It made me feel like I was reliving the happiest moment of my life, and then I realized that the armor had a magic beyond protecting us- the armor was who we were.