I sighed and responded, “Can’t I just relax for a day?”
Water crossed his arm, and with a stern look, he answered, “Well, sure you can, but I don’t think the rebellion is taking a break. Your companions aren’t taking a break either from the looks of it.”
I thought for a moment and said, “It’s been pretty quiet, now that I think about it.”
Water then added, “Which is why this is the best time to train and prepare. What if they are getting ready for a surprise attack?”
I sighed, “Yeah, okay. You’re right.”
I got up and got dressed in my normal clothes. My training clothes were being cleaned, so I couldn’t wear them. I then went back into the forest again to continue training. I took a break after a while and sat up against a tree. Suddenly, I felt a dark presence. I opened my senses, but I couldn’t pin point where it was coming from. I looked to my right then back in front of me and saw a man wearing a top hat. He had armor on his right arm and was wearing all black clothing, which was a black dress suit with a tail coat. He also had long black hair with a gray streak. He was sinister looking. I started to recognize him. This was the evil guy from my dreams!
“That’s the guy who tried to kill Tana and Vlayru earlier! Wait...I remember now who he is!” Spex said, surprised and leaning in close to the hologram.
I sprang up and unsheathed out my sword. The guy gave a small quick chuckle, pulled out two small scythes from his jacket. they attached together with a chain. he lunged towards me and readied an attack. I blocked with my sword. We continued to clash our weapons until I pushed him back. Following that, I created Water Blade. He jumped back and I quickly used Lightning Blast, creating a bolt of lightning crashing down from the sky where I aimed. the attack forced him into the air, then hit the ground hard. He got back up and released a massive black energy and almost pushed me backward from the force, but I braced myself at the last second. He leaped forward for a critical blow, but what he didn’t expect was me in transforming into Fire Form and blasted him back with a massive Fire Blast.
The next thing I knew, he was behind me and spoke, “You are pretty powerful. No wonder I was warned about you. My name is Crios. And your name?” he asked me.
I turned my head towards him and stared.
‘He stops in the middle of a battle to ask my name? What an idiot!’ I thought.
I changed to Water Form and blasted him with water. He dodged it, then jumped at me. He slashed his scythes at me, but I quickly blocked him with small water shields that formed by my hands and I held him back.
“So, you’re not going to tell me your name, huh?” he asked me once again.
I pushed him back and Crios shot a black beam from his hand while flying backward. He landed near a tree gave me a look as if he was still waiting for my answer to his question.
I answered him back, “My name is Tana.”
“Good. It’s nice to meet,” Crios said in a deep tone.
I looked around and he was suddenly gone. I powered down from my Water Form to my normal state.
“Are you part of the Dark Rebellion?” I asked him.
I turned around and he was standing right behind me. he was still giving a menacing smile.
“I have my own agenda. There is something I want to show you,” He said, as a darkness formed around our feet.
It swallowed both of us. It was pitch black and I could barely see anything.
“This is my world. Welcome to the Shadow Realm. Your worst nightmare!” Crios said with an echo as if he were talking from all directions.
Suddenly, I started to see something making its way toward me. As it got closer, they appeared to be these huge black creatures from all directions. They were shadow dwellers. Fear started to get the best of me. I fought them off with different element attacks, but there seemed to be no end to them. I heard Crios laughing all around me.
“Vlaykre!!” I shrieked in terror.
One of the smaller creatures jumped on me and I started to get consumed in darkness, losing my sight completely. Just then, something grabbed and pulled me backward.
I faintly heard Vlaykre talking with Vlayru and Ryuu, but everything was black and I couldn’t see anything.
“It’s just like before! Quick Vlaykre, do something!” Ryuu demanded.
“Is she going to be okay?!” Vlayru asked.
I could hear how worried they were from their tone of voices.
Vlaykre replied, “There’s nothing we can do for her. She has to fight this on her own.”
Spex stopped the playback and stood up.
“I think I need to be there in person,” He said.
Spex then disappeared into his aura and ended up nearby the others. He quickly hid behind a tree. Shadow dwellers were pouring out of the black dome that was created by Crios. Vlayru and Ryuu were defending themselves against the Shadow Dwellers, while Vlaykre was fighting against Crios with his duel swords.
Tana’s body was cover in a black aura. It then formed around her body. her scarf became bandages that wrapped around her body. Her hands and feet were now black claws, her skin looked extremely pale, and was holding a sword that was differently shaped from her normal sword and was all black.
“I’ve seen this before,” Spex said to himself quietly.
He continued, “Sabre went through exactly what Tana is going through right now. But it looks like she has a skull helmet, rather than a skull mask like the other casts. Very interesting.”
Everyone looked her in shock with shock, except Vlaykre.
He said to her, “Do it, Tana.”
Vlaykre then looked at Vlayru and Ryuu and yelled, “Move!”
Vlaykre, Ryuu, and Vlayru jumped out of the way, as Tana quickly charge then blasted Water Blast at him. The blast looked different than usual. it had a black aura around it. Crios was sent flying back into the air, dropping his scythes to the ground. He broke through multiple trees and out of sight into the forest. The blast also broke the chain connecting the two scythes. Everyone looks at her and started examining her. Tana was doing to the same as well. She looked at her hands, then her body, followed by feeling the helmet on her face.
Crios appeared from the direction where he was thrown, sprinting towards Tana with a large ball of darkness in his hand. Crios hit Tana, but Tana grabbed him by his arm, threw him into the air with one arm, and hit him with Lightning Blast with the other. The lightning also had a black outline of aura around the lightning streaks. Crios had lightning arc around his body then fell to the ground face down. The shadow dome dissipated.
“You may have foiled my plans to get rid of you, but don’t think I’m escaping without lackeys to back me up. Also, here is your reward Tana.” He said to them, slowly getting back up.
He picked up and threw one of the scythes that were nearby, stabbing Tana in the stomach. He then jumped into a black portal that he created. Vlaykre, Vlayru, and Ryuu ran over to Tana. Her shadow form dissipated away and she was back in her normal state. She started to fall back but was caught by Vlayru.
“This is going to hurt, Tana,” Vlaykre said.
He pulled out the scythe and threw it away. A few moments later, Shadow Beings started appearing from the portal that was left open.
Ryuu made a fist and said, “More shadow dwellers, again? Let’s have Vlayru take care them.”
Vlayru started releasing a large amount of energy and had a light blue aura emanating off his him. His body started turning into ice and he created duel ice swords that appeared in his hand.
He was using Ice Form, but something was different about it. Dark blue aura was also emanating from his body and large spikes grew from his back.
“This isn’t normal of an Ice Form. I’ve never seen that happen before with any element form, actually,” Spex said as he continued to watch.
He started shooting ice beams and freezing the shadow dwellers followed by slicing them in half with his swords. After taking care of the last one, Vlayru reverted to
normal and waited to see what was next. Just then, two big shadow dwellers came out of the portal. They were almost two stories tall and were carrying extremely large swords.
“Shadow demons,” Vlaykre said.
Two round objects appeared near some of the shadow dwellers and exploded outward. Some of the shadow dwellers got knocked into the air, dissipating them. The area got covered with dark smoke. Spex looked overlooked over to find Kaido with Regan.
“It's time to end this fight,” Said Kaido.
He began fighting the shadow demons along with Vlayru and Ryuu. Kaido was wearing armor on both of his arms and shoulders, a mask on his face, and still had everything else normally wore on. He was wielding a bigger version of his sword as well. Spex examined their powers and sensed that they have gotten stronger.
“Tana! What happened to you?!” Kaido asked.
“Uhh…” she moaned, faintly.
She then fainted. Kaido ran over kneeled down closer to her.
Vlaykre then reassured everyone and said, “It’ll be okay, guys. We need to bring her to the hotel and have her get some rest.”
Spex sighed in relief. He felt something dark and sinister off in the distance. He looked closer and saw something looking in the direction of the everyone. It was holding something big. It vanished a few seconds later. He made his way over to where he felt a presence, but couldn’t evidence to verify what he saw and felt.
Looking back at the group. He saw Vlaykre looking right in his direction.
“Uh, oh. Better go,” Spex said, disappearing back to his house.
Spex spoke to himself, “I feel like I’m getting close to who I’m looking for. I wonder if was that presence I felt was what made this mess. I need to keep watching.”
Spex turned to the hologram, did some quick stretches, and continued watching.
Chapter 11 – Witching Hour
I woke up later that night in the hotel. Everyone was standing over me. My mother was sitting next to me in my bed.
“Good, you’re awake. How are you feeling?” my mother asked me.
“Exhausted and sore,” I answered back to her.
I sat up a little bit and looked down at myself and saw that my stomach was bandaged, along with my arm and wrist. My mother readjusted herself on the bed.
Vlayru asked Vlaykre, “So, what was that power she was using?”
“It’s the power of the shadow dweller,” Ryuu explained.
“Shadow dweller? Really?” I asked him.
He replied, “Yes, you now have the power of a shadow dweller locked inside of you. What you were using is called Shadow Form. There are two kinds of Shadow Forms, one is controlled, and one is uncontrolled. The one you were using was uncontrolled. I could tell because you weren’t yourself.”
“I wasn’t?” I question, trying to process this new information.
“No, you weren’t. It’s different from element forms. It is controlled by your stamina and emotion. The shadow dweller that is now bound to your soul will feed off this. Don’t worry you won’t die, but you can lose yourself to it permanently. So, just be cautious from now on,” Vlaykre explained.
“So, that’s why I couldn’t control myself?” I asked him.
“Yes. You had a similar mindset to the shadow dwellers, more specifically the shadow beings, which are the more evolved shadow dwellers, but you are the next step in the evolution, the shadow humans.” He answered back.
I was in shock.
‘Am I going to turn into a shadow dweller?’ I thought to myself.
My Mother added, “Don’t worry. The other casts all had Shadow Forms too. The ‘Good Casts’ was the first to get it during an experiment. Also, just like them, it takes time and control.”
I shook my head and questioned, “How am I going to control it, though? It sounds and feels like I could end up killing a lot of people. That is something that I just don’t want to do.”
Ayla then spoke, “You could, but we need to think of a way to train you, so in the meantime, try and control your emotions, especially, your anger. That is what feeds it the most and will make it harder to keep it from turning you into your uncontrolled form.”
Kaido then asked, “What were those really big shadow dwellers that came out of the portal?”
“Shadow demons,” Ryuu started to explain, “They are demons that are consumed by a shadow dweller and then turned into one. They normally don’t go after demons since shadow dwellers are more interested in attacking the light, hence why they go after us. Demons don’t really have a light, but during the Heaven and Hell War, the demons provoked the shadow dwellers and some demons were consumed by the darkness.”
My Mother started getting teary-eyed.
“Are you okay, Mother?” I asked her.
She rubbed her eyes and replied, “I’m fine. I’m just sorry that I was there to help protect you.”
“It’s okay Mother, really,” I said, giving her a hug.
“We’ll let you rest,” Regan said.
Ayla put her hand on my mother’s shoulder as she stood up, and everyone exited the room.
I laid back and thought to myself, ‘So, I’m now part-monster. I don’t know if I should even continue on.’
I then fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up, followed by the boys after, who were asleep in their own beds.
Kaido first spoke, “Good morning. Feeling better?”
I nodded and said, “Yes, much better, thank you.”
“So then, you want to know about our training?” Kaido asked me.
“Sure,” I said, smirking.
Vlayru begins to tell his story. “I’ll go first. My Dad wanted to train me to get Phoenix Form, but I didn’t want to learn it. I was actually pretty mad at him for suddenly caring. So, I had Vlaykre take me to Abeyance and Master Ice trained me in Ice form. There was a point during the training where Vlaykre disappeared and I was left to train on my own for a while. He did come back, but not long before Vlaykre felt that you were in trouble, so we left to go help you and met up with my dad on the way.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. Kind of hard to comprehend the time difference,” I said then laughed.
I looked at Kaido and asked, “Did you want to tell your training story, Kaido?”
“Sure,” he said, then continued, “Well, you left to go train and I decided to just chill in the living room. But then, Regan came up to me and said “I notice that your element is fog. No one ever has had fog powers before. Where did you say, you were from?”. I told him what I told you two about my parents and being a mercenary. He said studied me for a few moments. But then, he looked away then said, “I’m going to train you. Let’s go.” I sprang up and grabbed my sword. We jumped on Regan’s motorcycle and took off out the city to the deserted plain and trained to use my new-found power. Vlaykre also showed up at one point and took my sword and put it through the Gravity Forge, making it bigger. “
Vlayru then said, “That explains why Vlaykre disappeared.”
Kaido continued, “We sensed that you were in trouble so we rode over on the motorcycle. Seriously though, your new power is amazing.”
“Thank you. So you are Master Fog, then?” I asked him.
He nodded and replied, “I guess so. Although, it’s going to be hard to combine it with my fighting style.”
“The question is though, when am I going to get those master powers from you guys?” I asked them
“Well remember, I’m holding on to ice. When the time comes for when you need it, Tana, I will give Ice to you, just as I promised,” Vlayru said
“...and you can have my power whenever you want. Heck, you can even have it right now.” Kaido explained, extending out his hand.
“Oh, okay then,” I said as I reached out and grabbed his hand and absorbed the power.
Just then, he collapsed on top of me.
“Is he okay?! Oh no, did I just kill him?” I asked, freaking out.
Vlayru checked for a heartbeat and replied,
“Yeah he’s fine. He was in good health, so he is just unconscious right now.”
“Oh, man! I need to get dressed too!” I complained.
“He is fine, just get dressed. I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast.” He told me, as he walked out and closed the door.
I stared at him for a second. I noticed how cute he looked as he was sleeping. I couldn’t believe I was going to do this. I took out clean clothes and started to undress. Just as I got all my clothes off and Kaido woke up and look over to find me naked. He was staring at me with a dumb look and blood started seeping out of his nose. I shrieked, covered myself with a nearby blanket.
“Get out! And take your power with you!” I yelled.
I put my hand on Vlayru shoulder, transferred his power back to him and push him out the door hard. I saw him hit the wall in the hallway hard, then I slammed the door. I was so mad at Vlayru and Kaido. I realized that I transferred power back without thinking about it.
‘huh, didn’t know I could do that.’ I thought.
I finished getting dressed and came downstairs for breakfast. We just relaxed the rest of the day and my mother cleaned my armor. I apologized to the boys and they forgave me. The next day, we got our stuff together the adults walked us downstairs and just outside of the hotel.
“You guys be safe.” My Mother said to us.
“We will,” Kaido reassured her with a smirk.
My mother hugged me and Ayla hugged Vlayru.
Kaido, Vlayru, and I then left for Roc Domain.
“That presence I felt before,” Spex said to him, “Thinking back to what I saw, I’m pretty sure it was something holding a giant scythe. Is it the same person that Hylin mentioned?”
A day went by, as we continued down the road and started getting tired. We had a few unexpected shadow dwellers run-ins. I almost lost myself in anger in the last fight. The fights were getting on my nerves. We stopped at an inn and got a room, in a small town right before the Roc Domain/Central Union border called Rock Point Town. Stayed in the room and ate cheese thank to my mother who, along with Ayla, repacked our supplies.
“I love cheese. It’s so good,” I said then took another bite of my cheese cover cracker.
The Masters: RE: The New Cast (The Crisis in Time Series Book 1) Page 9