(no subject)
Chapter 15
The door of the room was pushed open with such fierce power that not even a live soul in the room would have known what was happening unti it would have been too late for that soul. The Light Warriors all stepped intot he room as one unit. They looked around. There was no one in the room. A chill wind blew from an open window. Scot and April moved deeper into the room and then faced the window. It wasn't open.....it was completely shattered! Small pockets of ice hunge to the window frame. They rushed over to the window and then stared at it. An ice bridge that flowed down to the street below them was still partly intact on the window. The middle of it was shattered and lay upon the pavement as if it were glass. The part from the street up to where the sections were cut in half, was rapidly melting in the sunlight. They then turned to face the questioning eyes of the people behind them.
"Well, what's with the sudden blank expressions to the shattered window?" Nate asked the two of them. They looked at each other with a slight light of hope shining in their eyes. They knew that their friends, or at least one of them, might still be alive.
"The ice is the work of Ice----Randy has got to be alive. Who else knows of the desatructive powers of ice and of its ability to save someones' life?" Scot said to the small group. They rushed to the window and looked at the bridge of ice. They then looked back to each other.
"How do we get down there and see if there are any other clues as to where the two of them might be without getting killed in the process?" April asked the open air.
"Like this." Scot said and he bolted out the window and onto the ice bridge. He landed upon it with his left leg behind him, bent at the ball of his foot and at the knee. His right foot was straight and was only bent at the knee. Both knees were in a forty five degree angle and about three feet separated them. His hips were turned to the left, so that his right shoulder would be facing forward down the entire bridge as he slid down it. A thin spray of ice went up from under his boots as he slid down the ice bridge. He reached the space where the bridge had been broken and then jumped into the air about ten feet. His dropped his legs and locked them att he knees and at the ankles. His arms shot outward so that they were facing the east and west and were at shoulder length. The hands were ridged and the thumbs had been tucked in so that they rode upon the ridge of the index finger. The palms of the hands faced down to the street below him. He closed his eyes and then flipped in a three-sixty degree circle, never balling up into a ball shape, but only moving his hips so that his legs were now pointing straight forward instead of down at the street. He turned his body into another of the three-sixty degree turn and then another followed that one. He landed on the rest of the ice bridge as slid the rest of it down on his right hip, for he hadn't calculated his balance correctly and had slipped and fell to the ice bridges' wrath. He reached the bottom safely and looked round himself. There was no one in sight.
He then turned and looked back up the way that he had come. Water was dripping from the ice bridge. He called to the others. "Let's go. There is nothing that we can do in the hospital any more. I say we scour the city for the two of them. Maybe they managed to get back to the temple or to some other place where they might be dsafe from the spirit or creature that caused the deaths that we had seen in the areas that we had been in." Scot said. The others looked at each other.
"He's right, you know." April said. "There is really nothing else that we can do here. We have done all that we can for the people that died here. By the time we reach the first floor through the means of the stairs or whatever route we wish to take, any other people that wil have survive the attack will have died. There is no way that we can find them all and end all of their lives for them without wanting to end ours as well." She leapt out of the window and then slid down the rest of the ice bridge in the same manner that Scot had taken. The others were soon to follow. Once they stood at the bottom of the ice bridge, they turned to face it and saw that it was about to give way and collapse. It did so in a brillant spray of water and light and then the last remains of their group was gone, melted into the bright light of the day. They all breathed heavy sighs. They all were tired and sore in the eyes and mind, but their spirits fought on. Many of them were about ready to quit and give up and claim that they could not fight the evil that they knew that they had to, one day, come to face and fight. Jacky looked into her friends' eyes and saw the pain that flashed there; the hell that they were going through. She balled her hands into tight fists of rage and anger. She could not let them think the thoughts of givving up and quitting----not while the world needed them to fight for its salvation of hate. She looked into Scots' cold green eyes and saw that they had darkened.
"You know....the more I think of it....the more stupid this quest is. I mean, hey, we're only teenagers. And we can do only so much in the world. What good are we against the powers of Hate and her minions of evil? How can we ever hope to stop her quest to destroy this world and make us all slaves to her power? How can we really fight her? How could we have allowed ourselves to be thrown into the fight unprepaired to fight the hell that we've just seen in the hospital?" Scot said to the open air. April stepped forward and placed her hands upon his shoulders.
"I agree, Scot." She said to him. He looked into her bright blue eyes and saw the fear and the tiredness echoing in them. They knew that they did not want to fight Hate nor any other creature of evil again. They hoped that they others agreed with them as well, but they could not force them to agree with them. If they did not, then they would simply declare that they would no longer be apart of the Light Warriors and would leave, never to evoke their powers again. Elisabeth took a step forward and faced April and Scot. She also agreed with them. Her black eyes shinned with the agreement that she wanted to say to them.
"I too agree with the choice that you've made. I long to be free of this Pandemonium that I face now. I long to be free of being a Light Warrior. I say let someone else do the fighting. I'd rather be a teenager now and not have to live with the threat of Hate and her evil upon this world. If there be any that wants to have my life as it is now and see the hell that I have seen, by all means come forth and recieve my powers of hell and my life of death." Elisabeth said to them. She looked over to Jacky and Nate. Nate was the only of the two of them that took a step to join in the group.
"I know what you're going through, kids. I agree. I'd rather not force you to fight Hate any longer than you already have. You've done so much for this world already. What else is there to be done?" He said to them. Jessie looked at her father and smiled slightly.
"I also wish to voice my concern and agreement with this group. I do not want to fight Hate any more than I already have done so. I did not want to be a Light Warrior in the first place, so I shall not wear this garb any longer than I have to do so for this day. On the morrow, I throw the garb of the Light Warriors away for good and shall be forever more Jessie Williams----a human teenager." She said and joined the group. They all them looked over to Jacky. She stood where she was looking into their cold eyes.
"Well, Jacky?" Nate asked her. She knew the question that he was really asking of her. Would she side with them and no longer be a Light Warrior or would she remain one and be a traitor to the group and her friends? She decided to remain where she was. She did not blink nor move an inch. Her hands she unballed and placed them gently by her sides. Her eyes were cold and yet they seemed to harbor some warmth within them. Her face was blank and yet it brought forth despair and anger. She looked as if she were at war with herself and her friends at the same time, yet she was not.
"Will you join with us, Jacky?" April asked her. She did not answer nor did she move an inch.
"How about it? Come on. The world doesn't need the Light Warriors! It's like relying on machines too much and pretty soon you know what happens? The machine breaks down and you won't be able to fix it. That's what just happened here. The Light Warriors were the machine and we have broken down so that we can reclaim what was stolen from us: our humanity and our being free to chose who we wanted to be. As teenagers we could do that. As Light Warriors, we couldn't." Scot said.
"Come on, Jacky, we haven't all day!" Jessie said coldly to her friend.
"No." Jacky said determidly. Her eyes shined with a brightness that they had never seen in they before.
"What did you just say?" Scot asked her.
"No. I will not give up on this quest just because you all have. I will not give up on it because we've reached a point where we might never see two of our friends again just because of the hell that we lived through at the hospital. I shal not do that." Jacky said softly.
"Then you would betray us?" Nate asked.
"No. I am not the traitors here. You guys are the betrayers." Jacky said.
"What? I don't think you see what's going on here, kid!" April said.
"No, it's you who can't see, Dawson!" Jacky said angerly. Her adreneline was starting flow. She was getting ready for a fight, which she knew might happen.
"Oh, now it's time to address everyone that you run into by their last names?" April said childishly. "I don't think so, bitch! You really are blind! No wonder you got stuck with the power of the thunder bolt---so you can be able to see things!"
"Please, April, I don't want to fight. I'm just trying to-----" Jacky said and got no farther on her sentence. Jessie had cut her off.
"What you're trying to do is get us all killed with this damn mission, girl! Can't you see that there is no way that our so-called powers will stand up to the forces of evil. For once the other side has finally won the war! Sure we'll end up as slaves to Hate, but that's better than being dead!" Jessie said coldly.
"You mean to say that being a slave to Hate and her evil is better than your freedom?" Jacky asked the group.
"Being a slave is better than being dead, Jacky." Nate said.
"Bullshit, Windstar!" Jacky shouted to him. His face became a mask of hate and rage at the mention of that word. He raised his left hand up and back handed Jacky across the face. She dropped to the ground in pain and then rose with a few tears shinning in her eyes, but they didn't fall.
"So what you're saying, Windstar, is that you'd rather be evil than good. That you'd rather not let your child live in a world where hatred and evil does not exist. That you would rather die than fight for your life and for your freedom of hate. I can't speak for you and the others, but I can speak for myself. I am going to continue with this fight against Hate with or without you. But before I ask that you again chose your sides, let me tell you this. I know what the world will be like if Hate wins this battle; this war; this fight. I know all too well of what it shall be like. The hospitle that we all just walked through to try to find Randy and Serena is proof of this. The Holocaust of nineteen-fourty five is proof of this. Adolph Hitler is proof of this. World War One and World War Two are both proof of this. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also proof of what Hate will do to this world if we allow her to win this war. Do you really want to see our world end up like that or do you want to help me fight for its survival?" Jacky said to them. She faced blank eyes and gray faces. There was a moment of silence between the two groups. Jacky finally broke that silence with a heavy sigh from her lips.
"Alright. I see that you do not want to help me fight Hate and her evil. If you all want to die by her hands be my guests, just don't come whining to me to help you out of any problems that you may have when Hate takes over after I'm killed in a battle or whatever, because I will not help any of you. Farewell. It was nice to know you all, but you obviously aren't really my friends for if you were any friends that I knew or will know in the near future, then you'd have stuck with me when I had asked you to do so. Good-bye, Light Warriors." Jacky said the last two words with such evil and hate upon her voice that the rest of the group reconsidered their motives. They watched as she walked back over to where the remains of Randy’s ice bridge lay in a heap melting in the sun. Much was already melted by the bright rays of the sun, but a little of it was yet to melt. She looked at the water on the ground and then knealt down to it. She placed her right hand into the small river of water and then pulled it up to her eyes to look at it more closely. The tips of her fingers were stained red.
"Blood." Jacky said to herself. She balled her hand into a fist and looked up from where she knealt. The trail seemed to go off into the city. At least she would be able to follow one of them. She rose and then felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked over shoulder and into the eyes of April and the rest of her friends.
"We're going with you." April said. Jacky nodded and then pointed to the trail of blood she had found.
"I think that if we follow this, we'll find Randy and Serena. You guys ready to fight this battle?" Jacky said.
"Before we go, I'd like to thank you, Jacky. For what you said to us back there. I know now that we were wrong to give up on this fight. Hate is a very powerful foe. You won't be able to stop her yourself and together, fighting side by side, we'll stop this horror and the hell that she has caused. Together?" April said to Jacky. They shook hands.
"Together." Jacky said to her and then they started to follow the trail of blood. It took them to a small store near the western side of the hospital. It was a book store that they had been led to by the trail of blood. They looked at the door and saw that a hand print was painted there in blood. One of their friends had been badly hurt. They pushed open the door and walked inside. The moment that April took a step into the store, she was flat on her back. She had not seen a small puddle of water that was in front of the door and had slipped because of it. Jessie helped her gain her feet and then looked around. There was no sign of Randy or Serena. Then she spotted a stairway that led to the second floor. Upon the forth step from the top was ice. The entire step had been covered in ice. Randy and Serena had been here and perhaps they were still here.
"This way, guys. I think I found a clue as to where the rest of our team went." Jessie said as she started for the stairs. She was grabbed by Scot and pulled back to the door. She looked into his eyes and saw the fear the echoed there. She knew that he didn't like the quietness of the store. The hospital had proved that even places as safe they were not safe from Hate----so what was to stop the creature from going on its killing raid and kill even more people?
"What is it, Venus?" Jessie asked him.
"I feel as if we're being watched, but not by our friends. By the creature that has struck the hospital into the world of hell." Scot said.
"I also sense the evil that lurked in the hospital here. I'd say we're walking into a trap." Elisabeth said.
"I'd like to second that thought." Nate said. He took a step past Scot and Elisabeth and stood before them as if he were using his body like human shield. They all looked at each other and looked each others' eyes for a long moment of space and time. Then they took a step deeper into the store. They walked over to the stair case and looked at the stair that had been frozen and covered by ice. They again looked at each other and then started up the case of stairs. They skipped the one that was covered in ice, for they had no way of knowing if it had been frozen to a solid block and what their weight upon it would do to it. They looked at the second floor of the book store. Rows and rows of books lay before their eyes. Many of the wooden cases were covered in ice and some of the ceiling was dripping water; ice had been launched upon it and it had frozen to it.
"Well, we definitely know that at least Randy survived the attack this far from the hospital." Scot said aloud and then walked into the room that they were in. They looked around and saw the damage done by the fighting. There were many books spilled and burnt and torn upon the floor, the shelves were either ripped to shreds or covered partly in ice. They moved deeper into the second floor and then found a passage that would take them down to the basement. They took it and then they stood in the cold and damp air of the basement. Darkness covered everything. Webs of dust and insect silk covered many beams of wood and crates of old and no longer wanted books. Many of the crates were covered in a thick layer of dust and spider silk covered them. They moved into the he darkness and then waited for a moment to let their eyes adjust tot he gloom of the hell that they were investing upon. They had no idea of what would await them in this maze of crates and hell, but they were prepared to fight and to protect whatever it was that they needed to serve to that end. They were prepared to go to hell or heaven now; they had seen both. They had seen none of them. They knew what would happen if they ran into the beast that caused the massacre at the hospital; they knew all too well.
Their eyes had adjusted to the gloom and they walked into the basement and then they froze. Something was terribly amiss down here in the cold hell that they were within. Something was watching them; waiting. Watching and waiting; waiting and watching. Eyes seemed to glow red and yellow and white from all places where their own sights could see into. Even the deepest of the dark corners seemed to be watching them. They seemed to be walking into something that they had no idea of its power nor its evil. "Let's go." Scot said.
He took a step forward and then the rest of the small group followed his lead. They rounded a bend in the basement walls and suddenly something fell upon Scot and took him to the dusty floor in a rage that seemed to be from a beast of hell. In a moment the two people were up on their feet and both were ready to fight the other. Red eyes glowered at them. Evil was upon them. The hate in the eyes would melt even the strongest of metals in an instant. The evil the brooded upon the ghastly face was immense. Blood stained the left eye in a small trail that seemed as if it were a tear of blood that had been shed from eye. Blood dripped from the hands of the beast that they now faced.
It was wearing dark black cloth. It floated above the floor with no legs. It didn't have them and nor did it need them. It was a creature of the super natural. A being to be feared and hated. A being that was immortal and that preyed upon mortals. Its food was the souls of the men, women, and children that it slain day after day, night after night. The ends of the black cloth, where its legs would have been, was torn and shredded. Its face was covered by the dark cloth so that none could see what it really looked like. Its arms were the only things that weren't covered by the sick looking cloth. They were white and deathly pale. They were cold as ice cold stone and red finger nails adorned each of its five fingers, but each nail was two inches long. Its eyes glowed red with hate and vengeance.
A large black cape rode upon its back. It billowed in the breeze of its passing from the world of hell, where it lived, to the world of men, where it had served the other in its ice cold and dead Palace. It looked out upon the world with its cold stare of hate and pain and hunger. Its eyes were cold as death and iced with hatred for the one that it had served. "Spirit Master." Scot said in a deathly cold voice of hate and evil. A voice that scared even himself. They faced the Spirit-Master with fear of him dwelling upon their hearts. They knew who it was that had killed the people in the hospital now; they knew who it was. They knew.
A sickening laugh echoed from the bowels of his throat and then dispersed itself over the ears of the Light Warriors. It made them all sick to their stomachs, but they forced themselves to endure it. The eyes of the Spirit-Master glowered with a bright red flaming light, but in a moment, that light had disappeared. The Light Warriors stared long into the eyes of the Spirit-Master. He in turn stared long into their eyes. Both were filled to the toe-top full of the direst coldness. The eyes of the Spirit-Master were also filled with hate and evil and death and dread. Fear sprang for forth in the hearts of the Light Warriors. Fear clung to their hearts and stopped it up full with its touch of death and fear and hate and evil. Fear clung to their souls and froze them dead in their tracks so that they could not move a muscle of their bodies and could not blink a lid of their eyes for the fear of the Spirit-Master was too great and yet too weak for them to fear and move themselves.
A crate to the left of the Spirit-Master was suddenly turned to ice and fell towards him. He moved to the right and dodged it with only an inch of room left to save him from being crushed by the crate. It hit the floor and shattered, books and magazines spilling across the floor in a dusty cloud of wake. The Spirit-Master was full of rage. Another crate, this time to the right of him, was turned to ice. It fell towards the Spirit-Master and this time hit him square into the he back, causing him to fall towards the ground. The second he hit the ground, though, he disappeared. The Light Warriors all looked tot he right of themselves. They then saw a figure standing in the shadows, breathing heavy breaths of life. Another person was standing behind the first. They stepped into the light and then were known to the group.
"MOTHER!" Jessie said as she raced over to her mother and hugged her close to her body. Tears of joy and happiness sprang forth from her eyes and she let them flow for a time. Randy then greeted his friends.
"Hello, Light Warriors. You wouldn't start the party without me, now would you?" He said. The group laughed and then faced the area where the Spirit-Master had been.
"Damn. I thought that I could trap him there. Shit. He got away from me. Well, no matter. We'll get him sooner or later. Either way, he'll pay for his crimes of life and death. Either way....he'll pay." Randy said with a voice of ice cold determination and hate. The image of the dead newborn babe flashed into his mind and he saw yet again the poor child being torn apart by the evil of the Spirit-Master. He saw everything. He saw the deaths of so many people as he tried his best to save their lives, but could not. He had run from the hell that the two of them had been forced to see and hear as they tore from the building in a great whirl of speed that had shocked themselves. They still felt the fear of the Spirit-Master. They could still sense his evil, but he was no longer there among them.
He had fled back to the world in which he lived. He had gone back to the evil that he had once served before. He had gone back to Queen Hate. The Light Warriors exited the building and then they looked at the hospital that they had seen their own ends in. They were scared to death, but they had to hold their fears in. They would need them.
They knew when to let it all out. They knew when they would have to let it all out. Sooner or later they would find their way to the dominion of Hate and then the final battle would be fought. Would they live or would they die? They had not the answer to such a question; they only had a hope, a dream, a wish, a prayer, a thought, a friend. They only had so much and yet that much was very little. They knew that one or all of them might die in the battle to come, but they would fight to their own deaths and would continue to fight even after that had happened. They knew what the after-life would be like. One of them had already seen the world of the dead. They were prepared to fight to the death of themselves and after their own deaths. They would not let Hate win the war; they would destroy her and her minions of evil....but how were they to do that if they could not fight the most powerful of all creatures under her power? They did not know. Within a few hours time, they found themselves in their own beds and sleeping peacefully despite what they had seen and done and heard.
Chapter 16
The morning sun rose above the city buildings cold and frozen in the midst of the misty clouds of the dying night. The stars winked their good-byes to the world and then vanished without a trace. The moon was already in her bed and sleeping peacefully. The day seemed to be of great promise for the mortals of the earth, but five of them knew that it would only be another day of their lives in this hell that they had to fight. Elisabeth woke with a start and then looked out her window. She saw her father outside in the meadow that was their backyard, practicing with a pair of swords. She looked at the blades of the weapons and then gasped silently. They were the Swords of the Armor of NightHawk, her fathers' legendary Light Warrior Armor from when he was her age and fighting the evil that plagued this world nearly twenty years ago. She then climbed out of her bed and began to get dressed for the day. She donned a pair of blue jeans and a white short sleeve shirt that bore the dark face of a jaguar with red eyes and bright yellow teeth. Under the jaguars' face were the words "Go Jaguars!" printed in bright blue lettering. She walked outside and then looked at her father. He had just finished the kata that he had been practicing for two and half hours. Sweat shined brightly on his chest and back and shoulders. His face was slightly colored red from the exurtion of the kata. He stared into her eyes for a moment and then smiled.
"Good morning, Elisabeth." He said to her.
"Ay, if it is a good morning, then good be it." She said to her father coldly. Her eyes were filled with pain and fear....fear from what she had seen in her dreams. She had relived all of the horrors that she had had to face in the past as well as the hospital. "Dad, I was kinda wonderin' if it'd be okay with you if I go down to the Arcade and play some of their games there?"
"Sure. Just make sure that your room is cleaned up before you go, honey." Benji said to his daughter.
"I've already done that."
"Then you may go. Oh, by the way. I noticed that your back tire on your bike was running low on air so I pumped it back up for you."
"Thanks, but what I really need is a new air tube. The one that's inside of the tire right now is too old for any serious racing of any sort. I'm afraid it'll pop if I put it to the test."
"There's a spare and unopened tube in the garage. You'll find it in the place where you keep all of your bike tools and stuff like that."
"Thanks. I'll see you in a few hours time, dad." Elisabeth said and then walked back into the house and was soon on her way to the Arcade. Within a half hour or so, she was standing in front of the glass doors that allowed access to The Arcade itself. Elisabeth opened a door and then walked inside. The familar sounds of the games, the smells of the food, the voices of the kids from her school or from other schools and other towns and places, the slight layer of dust on the screens of the games, the friendly people who worked there, the tutoirs that were helping the kids with their homework or with other projects that had to be done-everything about The Arcade made her feel as if she were only a mere teenager with mere teenage problems; that she had forgotten to don the costume and identity of the Light Warrior of Fire, that she had donned only the identity and costume of the girl that she had always wanted to be when she had become one of the Light Warriors. Now she could get those last few moments in her life before the final battle would draw nigh to her face and she would be plunged back into the world of hell that she had seen and heard and felt and was alive and dead in at the same time.
She walked to the front counter and then spotted a familar face. It was Charles, a friend of her parents. His black hair hung down in front of his left eye so that he could not see Jacky walk up to him. She tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped backward about a foot and a half, but then relaxed when he saw who it was. A long twisted scar hung upon his left eye. It did not extend into the region of the cheek; it merely stayed within the confines of the eye. Two coal black spheres of energy and life glowed back into Elisabeths' own eyes. "What.....what happened to you?" Elisabeth finally managed to say after a moments' pause.
"I cut myself while I was working with some metal pipes at my home. Anything I can do for you, Elisabeth?" Charles said.
"Not really. I was just going to hang around here for a while and hopefully get a look at some of the games here. I've not seen that one over there by the Killer Instinct game." Elisabeth said as she pointed to a game that had the words: Arcade written upon its back surface in blood red lettering that seemed to look as if it were real blood and not mere red paint. Charles looked at the game that she was pointing to.
"Oh, that piece of junk? It's not even working right. It's supposed to be a game based on the adventures of some group of people that call themselves the Light Warriors, I think. There's just one problem with the game, though." Charles said as he faced Elisabeth again.
"What's that?" Elisabeth asked.
"When it's plugged into the wall sockets so that kids can play it, nothing appears on the screen. It's got a faulty projector or something like that. I'm not really sure what's wrong with it. You won't see it again after two o'clock, though. We're having it returned to the people who built it and are going to get another action adventure game. I have no idea what the new one will be called. All I know is that the game is like the Dark Warrior games that we have: totally new and hardly anyone knows anything about them. Anyway, I've got to get back to work. Have a good time here, kid. See ya later." Charles said. He walked away and then went over to the janitors closet to get a broom to begin cleaning out the area where The Arcade kept the sixth Dark Warrior game. He looked over his left shoulder at Elisabeth and their eyes met for a moment.
"I swear there is something familar about him." Elisabeth thought.
"I swear there is something familar about her." Charles thought. He opened the door of the janitors' closet and then walked inside. He found the broom and then walked back outside with it in his right hand. Soon Elisabeth saw that he was gone and decided to find a game to play. Half the turn of the clock, Scot, Randy, Jacky, and Jessie all walked into The Arcade and met Elisabeth by the door.
"Hey, guys. What are you all doing here? I should think that you'd be asleep or something like that." Elisabeth said as they walked inside.
"Howdy, howdy, howdy!" Randy said.
"Oh, chill out Randy! Sheesh! So, what are you guys doing here anyway? Surely you're not here to play games all day, are you?" Elisaebth asked her friends. Scot looked her right in the eyes.
"We're just here becasue we wanted to get away from our homes and our parents for a while. You?" He said as he looked at her.
"The same goes for me." Elisabeth said as he turned to walk back to whatever she had been doing since she had come to The Arcade. She could barely remember what she had been doing since she had met Charles and had seen the scar on his left eye.
"Somethign wrong, Beth?" Randy asked her. She jumped with a start and then smiled kindly at her boyfriend. She breathed a heavy sigh and looked into his eyes for a moment.
"Not really. Not unless you guys have seen Charles of late. He's got a long scar down his left eye." Elisabeth said.
"A scar down his left eye? I wonder if.....no....it can't be. I seriouly doubt that Charles and the Dark Warrior are one and the same----but...it would explain much in our fights. He's always loved those type of characters and games and all, so why should he not want to be like the Dark Warrior?" Scot thought. He remembered when he had seen the Dark Warrior holding his cape before his face, the blood dripping from his wounds like a waterfall of life. He then remembered that it was the left portion of his face that he had hidden from his view. Now that he might be healed and ready to cotinue to fight, he might very well have a scar on his face from where he had been cut from the broken glass that he had landed on and all that other stuff that the two of them had gone through in one terrible night at the Temple.
Scot brushed the thought away and turned the conversations over to Charles. "So, where is Charles anyway? I haven't seen him for some time. He usually likes to work out in the front desk or some other place close to the front doors of this place so that he might be able to greet and direct the kids that come in here and so forth. But he's not at his post." Scot said. Elisabeth looked around. She had not seen him come out of the Dark Warrior Six game room.
"I think he's still in the Dark Warrior Six game room. He had to clean it today. He might still be in there." She said to her friends.
"Hey, you guys want to go and see if we can play that game again?" Randy asked his friends. They all nodded to him, all save for Scot. He did not want to play such a game. He had better things to do in his time that he had to spend here. He had other obligations that he had to fulfill and he was not about to betray those oblibgations for anyone or anything.
"Oh, come on, Scot! You can play the game just once in your life can't you? I mean it won't be here for very long. It may be sold for a better system in the future or something like that. You ought to play it just once and see all of your favorite characters as if they were real humans or creatures and not flat images on the screens of most of these games." Jacky said. He looked into ther brown eyes for a moment and then looked away. He looked back with cold eyes glaring at hers. She was taken aback by the sudden coldness she saw flowing in his eyes.
"What do you mean by 'my favoirite characters?' He said slowly and with a deep cold voice that echoed tiredness and coldness all at once. "They are only images from a projector and they can do you no harm nor you them. Why fight an image of a person when you can fight the real person or people in real life? Why fight something that is fake and not real when you can easily fight the real things in life anf gain knowlege and wisdom and power from those battle, be they small or big? No, I will not be amused by a game that is meant for children. Sorry." He said and they watched as he strode from them with a deep coldness in his eyes.
"I'm a bit worried about him. These battles are either too real for him or too hard for him to deal with, either way....they are taking a termedious toll on his mind and spirit. He was usually not as cold as this before." Jessie said and breathed a heavy sigh. Randy placed his left hand on her shoulder and looked into her sad eyes.
"Take it easy, Jessie. He'll be okay. If I know Scot, he'll live through this." He said and he silently thought the word: "Hopefully."
They walked over to the door of the Dark Warrior Six game room and Randy knocked upon it. It did not open. They went over to the window that would allow them to see into the room...no one was in the room. Not a soul was to be seen withon the confines of the room. Charles had never come out of the room, so how could he not be there? they all wondered at the same time.
They left the window and walked over to the front desk. He was not there. In fact, he wasn't anyhwre in the building. "Well, now what?" Jacky asked the open air.
"Simple. We'll just ask if we can use the Dark Warrior Six game room." Jessie said. She walked up to another of the vouleteer people and tapped the person on the shoulder.
"Yes?" Andrew said when he felt the finger tap him. He turned to face Jessie full in the eyes. "Oh, hi guys!" He said when he saw that it was Jessie whom had tapped him on his left shoulder.
"Hi. I was just wondering if we could play the Dark Warrior Six game that you guys have here again?" Jessie asked.
"Unfortunately you guys won't be able to do so today. It's down for repairs on one of the characters. It seems that when you try to punch with the left hand of Viking you end up killing yourself and you can't restart the game. It seems to freeze up whenever you use the left hand of that character. Anyway, it'll be fixed in a few hours and then I'll let you know when you'd be able to use it. Sorry." Andrew said.
"Thanks anyway. Oh, by the way have you seen Charles? He went into the Dark Warrior Six game room and never came out again." Jacky said.
"Yeah, he said that he had to do a few errands before his lunch break ended and that he might be late getting back here, why?"
"Oh, nothing really. I was just wondering if he might need some help with the game room that he needed to clean today, that's all."
"Actually he finished cleaning that and then he left. I haven't seen him since." Andrew said.
"Well, thanks anyway." Jacky said. They walked back outside and unlocked their bikes. Once they had all climbed upon their horses of steel and iron, they rode away from The Arcade. It was a bright warm day for the middle of the dead of winter. The snow, what was left of it, seemed to smile at them all as they biked past it and saw it flashing before their own eyes on the ground and street before them. They turned down a lonely street and biked on to the forest that the town was nestled in. They entered the woods and then picked up the pace. Soon they had reached Reapers' Trail. They faced it with a light in their eyes that seemed to burn inside of them as if they were mere candles aflame of love and hate and coldness and warmth and death. They knew their own world would look like the trail if they were not careful in the Battle that would soon come. They biked over the trail without falter of trap or injury and then they all biked to the temple. The destruction of it was immense and yet small at the same time.
They looked at the shattered doors and the columns and the building. Tears seemed to spring forth in their eyes, but they held them back. Tears were not meant for such a wreck. They could rebuild; so there would be no need of the tears that they had all felt spring forth in their eyes for frosty coldness for the hateful demon of hell that had killed their dreams and their lives. They were ready for the final battle. They were ready to die in that fight. They knew that they still had a long way to go, but they were well prepared to fight every inch, every foot, every yard, every centimeter of the way. They were ready. They were ready to fight for the right of life and right of freedom. They were ready. Oh, God they were ready!
The door of the room was pushed open with such fierce power that not even a live soul in the room would have known what was happening unti it would have been too late for that soul. The Light Warriors all stepped intot he room as one unit. They looked around. There was no one in the room. A chill wind blew from an open window. Scot and April moved deeper into the room and then faced the window. It wasn't open.....it was completely shattered! Small pockets of ice hunge to the window frame. They rushed over to the window and then stared at it. An ice bridge that flowed down to the street below them was still partly intact on the window. The middle of it was shattered and lay upon the pavement as if it were glass. The part from the street up to where the sections were cut in half, was rapidly melting in the sunlight. They then turned to face the questioning eyes of the people behind them.
"Well, what's with the sudden blank expressions to the shattered window?" Nate asked the two of them. They looked at each other with a slight light of hope shining in their eyes. They knew that their friends, or at least one of them, might still be alive.
"The ice is the work of Ice----Randy has got to be alive. Who else knows of the desatructive powers of ice and of its ability to save someones' life?" Scot said to the small group. They rushed to the window and looked at the bridge of ice. They then looked back to each other.
"How do we get down there and see if there are any other clues as to where the two of them might be without getting killed in the process?" April asked the open air.
"Like this." Scot said and he bolted out the window and onto the ice bridge. He landed upon it with his left leg behind him, bent at the ball of his foot and at the knee. His right foot was straight and was only bent at the knee. Both knees were in a forty five degree angle and about three feet separated them. His hips were turned to the left, so that his right shoulder would be facing forward down the entire bridge as he slid down it. A thin spray of ice went up from under his boots as he slid down the ice bridge. He reached the space where the bridge had been broken and then jumped into the air about ten feet. His dropped his legs and locked them att he knees and at the ankles. His arms shot outward so that they were facing the east and west and were at shoulder length. The hands were ridged and the thumbs had been tucked in so that they rode upon the ridge of the index finger. The palms of the hands faced down to the street below him. He closed his eyes and then flipped in a three-sixty degree circle, never balling up into a ball shape, but only moving his hips so that his legs were now pointing straight forward instead of down at the street. He turned his body into another of the three-sixty degree turn and then another followed that one. He landed on the rest of the ice bridge as slid the rest of it down on his right hip, for he hadn't calculated his balance correctly and had slipped and fell to the ice bridges' wrath. He reached the bottom safely and looked round himself. There was no one in sight.
He then turned and looked back up the way that he had come. Water was dripping from the ice bridge. He called to the others. "Let's go. There is nothing that we can do in the hospital any more. I say we scour the city for the two of them. Maybe they managed to get back to the temple or to some other place where they might be dsafe from the spirit or creature that caused the deaths that we had seen in the areas that we had been in." Scot said. The others looked at each other.
"He's right, you know." April said. "There is really nothing else that we can do here. We have done all that we can for the people that died here. By the time we reach the first floor through the means of the stairs or whatever route we wish to take, any other people that wil have survive the attack will have died. There is no way that we can find them all and end all of their lives for them without wanting to end ours as well." She leapt out of the window and then slid down the rest of the ice bridge in the same manner that Scot had taken. The others were soon to follow. Once they stood at the bottom of the ice bridge, they turned to face it and saw that it was about to give way and collapse. It did so in a brillant spray of water and light and then the last remains of their group was gone, melted into the bright light of the day. They all breathed heavy sighs. They all were tired and sore in the eyes and mind, but their spirits fought on. Many of them were about ready to quit and give up and claim that they could not fight the evil that they knew that they had to, one day, come to face and fight. Jacky looked into her friends' eyes and saw the pain that flashed there; the hell that they were going through. She balled her hands into tight fists of rage and anger. She could not let them think the thoughts of givving up and quitting----not while the world needed them to fight for its salvation of hate. She looked into Scots' cold green eyes and saw that they had darkened.
"You know....the more I think of it....the more stupid this quest is. I mean, hey, we're only teenagers. And we can do only so much in the world. What good are we against the powers of Hate and her minions of evil? How can we ever hope to stop her quest to destroy this world and make us all slaves to her power? How can we really fight her? How could we have allowed ourselves to be thrown into the fight unprepaired to fight the hell that we've just seen in the hospital?" Scot said to the open air. April stepped forward and placed her hands upon his shoulders.
"I agree, Scot." She said to him. He looked into her bright blue eyes and saw the fear and the tiredness echoing in them. They knew that they did not want to fight Hate nor any other creature of evil again. They hoped that they others agreed with them as well, but they could not force them to agree with them. If they did not, then they would simply declare that they would no longer be apart of the Light Warriors and would leave, never to evoke their powers again. Elisabeth took a step forward and faced April and Scot. She also agreed with them. Her black eyes shinned with the agreement that she wanted to say to them.
"I too agree with the choice that you've made. I long to be free of this Pandemonium that I face now. I long to be free of being a Light Warrior. I say let someone else do the fighting. I'd rather be a teenager now and not have to live with the threat of Hate and her evil upon this world. If there be any that wants to have my life as it is now and see the hell that I have seen, by all means come forth and recieve my powers of hell and my life of death." Elisabeth said to them. She looked over to Jacky and Nate. Nate was the only of the two of them that took a step to join in the group.
"I know what you're going through, kids. I agree. I'd rather not force you to fight Hate any longer than you already have. You've done so much for this world already. What else is there to be done?" He said to them. Jessie looked at her father and smiled slightly.
"I also wish to voice my concern and agreement with this group. I do not want to fight Hate any more than I already have done so. I did not want to be a Light Warrior in the first place, so I shall not wear this garb any longer than I have to do so for this day. On the morrow, I throw the garb of the Light Warriors away for good and shall be forever more Jessie Williams----a human teenager." She said and joined the group. They all them looked over to Jacky. She stood where she was looking into their cold eyes.
"Well, Jacky?" Nate asked her. She knew the question that he was really asking of her. Would she side with them and no longer be a Light Warrior or would she remain one and be a traitor to the group and her friends? She decided to remain where she was. She did not blink nor move an inch. Her hands she unballed and placed them gently by her sides. Her eyes were cold and yet they seemed to harbor some warmth within them. Her face was blank and yet it brought forth despair and anger. She looked as if she were at war with herself and her friends at the same time, yet she was not.
"Will you join with us, Jacky?" April asked her. She did not answer nor did she move an inch.
"How about it? Come on. The world doesn't need the Light Warriors! It's like relying on machines too much and pretty soon you know what happens? The machine breaks down and you won't be able to fix it. That's what just happened here. The Light Warriors were the machine and we have broken down so that we can reclaim what was stolen from us: our humanity and our being free to chose who we wanted to be. As teenagers we could do that. As Light Warriors, we couldn't." Scot said.
"Come on, Jacky, we haven't all day!" Jessie said coldly to her friend.
"No." Jacky said determidly. Her eyes shined with a brightness that they had never seen in they before.
"What did you just say?" Scot asked her.
"No. I will not give up on this quest just because you all have. I will not give up on it because we've reached a point where we might never see two of our friends again just because of the hell that we lived through at the hospital. I shal not do that." Jacky said softly.
"Then you would betray us?" Nate asked.
"No. I am not the traitors here. You guys are the betrayers." Jacky said.
"What? I don't think you see what's going on here, kid!" April said.
"No, it's you who can't see, Dawson!" Jacky said angerly. Her adreneline was starting flow. She was getting ready for a fight, which she knew might happen.
"Oh, now it's time to address everyone that you run into by their last names?" April said childishly. "I don't think so, bitch! You really are blind! No wonder you got stuck with the power of the thunder bolt---so you can be able to see things!"
"Please, April, I don't want to fight. I'm just trying to-----" Jacky said and got no farther on her sentence. Jessie had cut her off.
"What you're trying to do is get us all killed with this damn mission, girl! Can't you see that there is no way that our so-called powers will stand up to the forces of evil. For once the other side has finally won the war! Sure we'll end up as slaves to Hate, but that's better than being dead!" Jessie said coldly.
"You mean to say that being a slave to Hate and her evil is better than your freedom?" Jacky asked the group.
"Being a slave is better than being dead, Jacky." Nate said.
"Bullshit, Windstar!" Jacky shouted to him. His face became a mask of hate and rage at the mention of that word. He raised his left hand up and back handed Jacky across the face. She dropped to the ground in pain and then rose with a few tears shinning in her eyes, but they didn't fall.
"So what you're saying, Windstar, is that you'd rather be evil than good. That you'd rather not let your child live in a world where hatred and evil does not exist. That you would rather die than fight for your life and for your freedom of hate. I can't speak for you and the others, but I can speak for myself. I am going to continue with this fight against Hate with or without you. But before I ask that you again chose your sides, let me tell you this. I know what the world will be like if Hate wins this battle; this war; this fight. I know all too well of what it shall be like. The hospitle that we all just walked through to try to find Randy and Serena is proof of this. The Holocaust of nineteen-fourty five is proof of this. Adolph Hitler is proof of this. World War One and World War Two are both proof of this. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are also proof of what Hate will do to this world if we allow her to win this war. Do you really want to see our world end up like that or do you want to help me fight for its survival?" Jacky said to them. She faced blank eyes and gray faces. There was a moment of silence between the two groups. Jacky finally broke that silence with a heavy sigh from her lips.
"Alright. I see that you do not want to help me fight Hate and her evil. If you all want to die by her hands be my guests, just don't come whining to me to help you out of any problems that you may have when Hate takes over after I'm killed in a battle or whatever, because I will not help any of you. Farewell. It was nice to know you all, but you obviously aren't really my friends for if you were any friends that I knew or will know in the near future, then you'd have stuck with me when I had asked you to do so. Good-bye, Light Warriors." Jacky said the last two words with such evil and hate upon her voice that the rest of the group reconsidered their motives. They watched as she walked back over to where the remains of Randy’s ice bridge lay in a heap melting in the sun. Much was already melted by the bright rays of the sun, but a little of it was yet to melt. She looked at the water on the ground and then knealt down to it. She placed her right hand into the small river of water and then pulled it up to her eyes to look at it more closely. The tips of her fingers were stained red.
"Blood." Jacky said to herself. She balled her hand into a fist and looked up from where she knealt. The trail seemed to go off into the city. At least she would be able to follow one of them. She rose and then felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked over shoulder and into the eyes of April and the rest of her friends.
"We're going with you." April said. Jacky nodded and then pointed to the trail of blood she had found.
"I think that if we follow this, we'll find Randy and Serena. You guys ready to fight this battle?" Jacky said.
"Before we go, I'd like to thank you, Jacky. For what you said to us back there. I know now that we were wrong to give up on this fight. Hate is a very powerful foe. You won't be able to stop her yourself and together, fighting side by side, we'll stop this horror and the hell that she has caused. Together?" April said to Jacky. They shook hands.
"Together." Jacky said to her and then they started to follow the trail of blood. It took them to a small store near the western side of the hospital. It was a book store that they had been led to by the trail of blood. They looked at the door and saw that a hand print was painted there in blood. One of their friends had been badly hurt. They pushed open the door and walked inside. The moment that April took a step into the store, she was flat on her back. She had not seen a small puddle of water that was in front of the door and had slipped because of it. Jessie helped her gain her feet and then looked around. There was no sign of Randy or Serena. Then she spotted a stairway that led to the second floor. Upon the forth step from the top was ice. The entire step had been covered in ice. Randy and Serena had been here and perhaps they were still here.
"This way, guys. I think I found a clue as to where the rest of our team went." Jessie said as she started for the stairs. She was grabbed by Scot and pulled back to the door. She looked into his eyes and saw the fear the echoed there. She knew that he didn't like the quietness of the store. The hospital had proved that even places as safe they were not safe from Hate----so what was to stop the creature from going on its killing raid and kill even more people?
"What is it, Venus?" Jessie asked him.
"I feel as if we're being watched, but not by our friends. By the creature that has struck the hospital into the world of hell." Scot said.
"I also sense the evil that lurked in the hospital here. I'd say we're walking into a trap." Elisabeth said.
"I'd like to second that thought." Nate said. He took a step past Scot and Elisabeth and stood before them as if he were using his body like human shield. They all looked at each other and looked each others' eyes for a long moment of space and time. Then they took a step deeper into the store. They walked over to the stair case and looked at the stair that had been frozen and covered by ice. They again looked at each other and then started up the case of stairs. They skipped the one that was covered in ice, for they had no way of knowing if it had been frozen to a solid block and what their weight upon it would do to it. They looked at the second floor of the book store. Rows and rows of books lay before their eyes. Many of the wooden cases were covered in ice and some of the ceiling was dripping water; ice had been launched upon it and it had frozen to it.
"Well, we definitely know that at least Randy survived the attack this far from the hospital." Scot said aloud and then walked into the room that they were in. They looked around and saw the damage done by the fighting. There were many books spilled and burnt and torn upon the floor, the shelves were either ripped to shreds or covered partly in ice. They moved deeper into the second floor and then found a passage that would take them down to the basement. They took it and then they stood in the cold and damp air of the basement. Darkness covered everything. Webs of dust and insect silk covered many beams of wood and crates of old and no longer wanted books. Many of the crates were covered in a thick layer of dust and spider silk covered them. They moved into the he darkness and then waited for a moment to let their eyes adjust tot he gloom of the hell that they were investing upon. They had no idea of what would await them in this maze of crates and hell, but they were prepared to fight and to protect whatever it was that they needed to serve to that end. They were prepared to go to hell or heaven now; they had seen both. They had seen none of them. They knew what would happen if they ran into the beast that caused the massacre at the hospital; they knew all too well.
Their eyes had adjusted to the gloom and they walked into the basement and then they froze. Something was terribly amiss down here in the cold hell that they were within. Something was watching them; waiting. Watching and waiting; waiting and watching. Eyes seemed to glow red and yellow and white from all places where their own sights could see into. Even the deepest of the dark corners seemed to be watching them. They seemed to be walking into something that they had no idea of its power nor its evil. "Let's go." Scot said.
He took a step forward and then the rest of the small group followed his lead. They rounded a bend in the basement walls and suddenly something fell upon Scot and took him to the dusty floor in a rage that seemed to be from a beast of hell. In a moment the two people were up on their feet and both were ready to fight the other. Red eyes glowered at them. Evil was upon them. The hate in the eyes would melt even the strongest of metals in an instant. The evil the brooded upon the ghastly face was immense. Blood stained the left eye in a small trail that seemed as if it were a tear of blood that had been shed from eye. Blood dripped from the hands of the beast that they now faced.
It was wearing dark black cloth. It floated above the floor with no legs. It didn't have them and nor did it need them. It was a creature of the super natural. A being to be feared and hated. A being that was immortal and that preyed upon mortals. Its food was the souls of the men, women, and children that it slain day after day, night after night. The ends of the black cloth, where its legs would have been, was torn and shredded. Its face was covered by the dark cloth so that none could see what it really looked like. Its arms were the only things that weren't covered by the sick looking cloth. They were white and deathly pale. They were cold as ice cold stone and red finger nails adorned each of its five fingers, but each nail was two inches long. Its eyes glowed red with hate and vengeance.
A large black cape rode upon its back. It billowed in the breeze of its passing from the world of hell, where it lived, to the world of men, where it had served the other in its ice cold and dead Palace. It looked out upon the world with its cold stare of hate and pain and hunger. Its eyes were cold as death and iced with hatred for the one that it had served. "Spirit Master." Scot said in a deathly cold voice of hate and evil. A voice that scared even himself. They faced the Spirit-Master with fear of him dwelling upon their hearts. They knew who it was that had killed the people in the hospital now; they knew who it was. They knew.
A sickening laugh echoed from the bowels of his throat and then dispersed itself over the ears of the Light Warriors. It made them all sick to their stomachs, but they forced themselves to endure it. The eyes of the Spirit-Master glowered with a bright red flaming light, but in a moment, that light had disappeared. The Light Warriors stared long into the eyes of the Spirit-Master. He in turn stared long into their eyes. Both were filled to the toe-top full of the direst coldness. The eyes of the Spirit-Master were also filled with hate and evil and death and dread. Fear sprang for forth in the hearts of the Light Warriors. Fear clung to their hearts and stopped it up full with its touch of death and fear and hate and evil. Fear clung to their souls and froze them dead in their tracks so that they could not move a muscle of their bodies and could not blink a lid of their eyes for the fear of the Spirit-Master was too great and yet too weak for them to fear and move themselves.
A crate to the left of the Spirit-Master was suddenly turned to ice and fell towards him. He moved to the right and dodged it with only an inch of room left to save him from being crushed by the crate. It hit the floor and shattered, books and magazines spilling across the floor in a dusty cloud of wake. The Spirit-Master was full of rage. Another crate, this time to the right of him, was turned to ice. It fell towards the Spirit-Master and this time hit him square into the he back, causing him to fall towards the ground. The second he hit the ground, though, he disappeared. The Light Warriors all looked tot he right of themselves. They then saw a figure standing in the shadows, breathing heavy breaths of life. Another person was standing behind the first. They stepped into the light and then were known to the group.
"MOTHER!" Jessie said as she raced over to her mother and hugged her close to her body. Tears of joy and happiness sprang forth from her eyes and she let them flow for a time. Randy then greeted his friends.
"Hello, Light Warriors. You wouldn't start the party without me, now would you?" He said. The group laughed and then faced the area where the Spirit-Master had been.
"Damn. I thought that I could trap him there. Shit. He got away from me. Well, no matter. We'll get him sooner or later. Either way, he'll pay for his crimes of life and death. Either way....he'll pay." Randy said with a voice of ice cold determination and hate. The image of the dead newborn babe flashed into his mind and he saw yet again the poor child being torn apart by the evil of the Spirit-Master. He saw everything. He saw the deaths of so many people as he tried his best to save their lives, but could not. He had run from the hell that the two of them had been forced to see and hear as they tore from the building in a great whirl of speed that had shocked themselves. They still felt the fear of the Spirit-Master. They could still sense his evil, but he was no longer there among them.
He had fled back to the world in which he lived. He had gone back to the evil that he had once served before. He had gone back to Queen Hate. The Light Warriors exited the building and then they looked at the hospital that they had seen their own ends in. They were scared to death, but they had to hold their fears in. They would need them.
They knew when to let it all out. They knew when they would have to let it all out. Sooner or later they would find their way to the dominion of Hate and then the final battle would be fought. Would they live or would they die? They had not the answer to such a question; they only had a hope, a dream, a wish, a prayer, a thought, a friend. They only had so much and yet that much was very little. They knew that one or all of them might die in the battle to come, but they would fight to their own deaths and would continue to fight even after that had happened. They knew what the after-life would be like. One of them had already seen the world of the dead. They were prepared to fight to the death of themselves and after their own deaths. They would not let Hate win the war; they would destroy her and her minions of evil....but how were they to do that if they could not fight the most powerful of all creatures under her power? They did not know. Within a few hours time, they found themselves in their own beds and sleeping peacefully despite what they had seen and done and heard.
Chapter 16
The morning sun rose above the city buildings cold and frozen in the midst of the misty clouds of the dying night. The stars winked their good-byes to the world and then vanished without a trace. The moon was already in her bed and sleeping peacefully. The day seemed to be of great promise for the mortals of the earth, but five of them knew that it would only be another day of their lives in this hell that they had to fight. Elisabeth woke with a start and then looked out her window. She saw her father outside in the meadow that was their backyard, practicing with a pair of swords. She looked at the blades of the weapons and then gasped silently. They were the Swords of the Armor of NightHawk, her fathers' legendary Light Warrior Armor from when he was her age and fighting the evil that plagued this world nearly twenty years ago. She then climbed out of her bed and began to get dressed for the day. She donned a pair of blue jeans and a white short sleeve shirt that bore the dark face of a jaguar with red eyes and bright yellow teeth. Under the jaguars' face were the words "Go Jaguars!" printed in bright blue lettering. She walked outside and then looked at her father. He had just finished the kata that he had been practicing for two and half hours. Sweat shined brightly on his chest and back and shoulders. His face was slightly colored red from the exurtion of the kata. He stared into her eyes for a moment and then smiled.
"Good morning, Elisabeth." He said to her.
"Ay, if it is a good morning, then good be it." She said to her father coldly. Her eyes were filled with pain and fear....fear from what she had seen in her dreams. She had relived all of the horrors that she had had to face in the past as well as the hospital. "Dad, I was kinda wonderin' if it'd be okay with you if I go down to the Arcade and play some of their games there?"
"Sure. Just make sure that your room is cleaned up before you go, honey." Benji said to his daughter.
"I've already done that."
"Then you may go. Oh, by the way. I noticed that your back tire on your bike was running low on air so I pumped it back up for you."
"Thanks, but what I really need is a new air tube. The one that's inside of the tire right now is too old for any serious racing of any sort. I'm afraid it'll pop if I put it to the test."
"There's a spare and unopened tube in the garage. You'll find it in the place where you keep all of your bike tools and stuff like that."
"Thanks. I'll see you in a few hours time, dad." Elisabeth said and then walked back into the house and was soon on her way to the Arcade. Within a half hour or so, she was standing in front of the glass doors that allowed access to The Arcade itself. Elisabeth opened a door and then walked inside. The familar sounds of the games, the smells of the food, the voices of the kids from her school or from other schools and other towns and places, the slight layer of dust on the screens of the games, the friendly people who worked there, the tutoirs that were helping the kids with their homework or with other projects that had to be done-everything about The Arcade made her feel as if she were only a mere teenager with mere teenage problems; that she had forgotten to don the costume and identity of the Light Warrior of Fire, that she had donned only the identity and costume of the girl that she had always wanted to be when she had become one of the Light Warriors. Now she could get those last few moments in her life before the final battle would draw nigh to her face and she would be plunged back into the world of hell that she had seen and heard and felt and was alive and dead in at the same time.
She walked to the front counter and then spotted a familar face. It was Charles, a friend of her parents. His black hair hung down in front of his left eye so that he could not see Jacky walk up to him. She tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped backward about a foot and a half, but then relaxed when he saw who it was. A long twisted scar hung upon his left eye. It did not extend into the region of the cheek; it merely stayed within the confines of the eye. Two coal black spheres of energy and life glowed back into Elisabeths' own eyes. "What.....what happened to you?" Elisabeth finally managed to say after a moments' pause.
"I cut myself while I was working with some metal pipes at my home. Anything I can do for you, Elisabeth?" Charles said.
"Not really. I was just going to hang around here for a while and hopefully get a look at some of the games here. I've not seen that one over there by the Killer Instinct game." Elisabeth said as she pointed to a game that had the words: Arcade written upon its back surface in blood red lettering that seemed to look as if it were real blood and not mere red paint. Charles looked at the game that she was pointing to.
"Oh, that piece of junk? It's not even working right. It's supposed to be a game based on the adventures of some group of people that call themselves the Light Warriors, I think. There's just one problem with the game, though." Charles said as he faced Elisabeth again.
"What's that?" Elisabeth asked.
"When it's plugged into the wall sockets so that kids can play it, nothing appears on the screen. It's got a faulty projector or something like that. I'm not really sure what's wrong with it. You won't see it again after two o'clock, though. We're having it returned to the people who built it and are going to get another action adventure game. I have no idea what the new one will be called. All I know is that the game is like the Dark Warrior games that we have: totally new and hardly anyone knows anything about them. Anyway, I've got to get back to work. Have a good time here, kid. See ya later." Charles said. He walked away and then went over to the janitors closet to get a broom to begin cleaning out the area where The Arcade kept the sixth Dark Warrior game. He looked over his left shoulder at Elisabeth and their eyes met for a moment.
"I swear there is something familar about him." Elisabeth thought.
"I swear there is something familar about her." Charles thought. He opened the door of the janitors' closet and then walked inside. He found the broom and then walked back outside with it in his right hand. Soon Elisabeth saw that he was gone and decided to find a game to play. Half the turn of the clock, Scot, Randy, Jacky, and Jessie all walked into The Arcade and met Elisabeth by the door.
"Hey, guys. What are you all doing here? I should think that you'd be asleep or something like that." Elisabeth said as they walked inside.
"Howdy, howdy, howdy!" Randy said.
"Oh, chill out Randy! Sheesh! So, what are you guys doing here anyway? Surely you're not here to play games all day, are you?" Elisaebth asked her friends. Scot looked her right in the eyes.
"We're just here becasue we wanted to get away from our homes and our parents for a while. You?" He said as he looked at her.
"The same goes for me." Elisabeth said as he turned to walk back to whatever she had been doing since she had come to The Arcade. She could barely remember what she had been doing since she had met Charles and had seen the scar on his left eye.
"Somethign wrong, Beth?" Randy asked her. She jumped with a start and then smiled kindly at her boyfriend. She breathed a heavy sigh and looked into his eyes for a moment.
"Not really. Not unless you guys have seen Charles of late. He's got a long scar down his left eye." Elisabeth said.
"A scar down his left eye? I wonder if.....no....it can't be. I seriouly doubt that Charles and the Dark Warrior are one and the same----but...it would explain much in our fights. He's always loved those type of characters and games and all, so why should he not want to be like the Dark Warrior?" Scot thought. He remembered when he had seen the Dark Warrior holding his cape before his face, the blood dripping from his wounds like a waterfall of life. He then remembered that it was the left portion of his face that he had hidden from his view. Now that he might be healed and ready to cotinue to fight, he might very well have a scar on his face from where he had been cut from the broken glass that he had landed on and all that other stuff that the two of them had gone through in one terrible night at the Temple.
Scot brushed the thought away and turned the conversations over to Charles. "So, where is Charles anyway? I haven't seen him for some time. He usually likes to work out in the front desk or some other place close to the front doors of this place so that he might be able to greet and direct the kids that come in here and so forth. But he's not at his post." Scot said. Elisabeth looked around. She had not seen him come out of the Dark Warrior Six game room.
"I think he's still in the Dark Warrior Six game room. He had to clean it today. He might still be in there." She said to her friends.
"Hey, you guys want to go and see if we can play that game again?" Randy asked his friends. They all nodded to him, all save for Scot. He did not want to play such a game. He had better things to do in his time that he had to spend here. He had other obligations that he had to fulfill and he was not about to betray those oblibgations for anyone or anything.
"Oh, come on, Scot! You can play the game just once in your life can't you? I mean it won't be here for very long. It may be sold for a better system in the future or something like that. You ought to play it just once and see all of your favorite characters as if they were real humans or creatures and not flat images on the screens of most of these games." Jacky said. He looked into ther brown eyes for a moment and then looked away. He looked back with cold eyes glaring at hers. She was taken aback by the sudden coldness she saw flowing in his eyes.
"What do you mean by 'my favoirite characters?' He said slowly and with a deep cold voice that echoed tiredness and coldness all at once. "They are only images from a projector and they can do you no harm nor you them. Why fight an image of a person when you can fight the real person or people in real life? Why fight something that is fake and not real when you can easily fight the real things in life anf gain knowlege and wisdom and power from those battle, be they small or big? No, I will not be amused by a game that is meant for children. Sorry." He said and they watched as he strode from them with a deep coldness in his eyes.
"I'm a bit worried about him. These battles are either too real for him or too hard for him to deal with, either way....they are taking a termedious toll on his mind and spirit. He was usually not as cold as this before." Jessie said and breathed a heavy sigh. Randy placed his left hand on her shoulder and looked into her sad eyes.
"Take it easy, Jessie. He'll be okay. If I know Scot, he'll live through this." He said and he silently thought the word: "Hopefully."
They walked over to the door of the Dark Warrior Six game room and Randy knocked upon it. It did not open. They went over to the window that would allow them to see into the room...no one was in the room. Not a soul was to be seen withon the confines of the room. Charles had never come out of the room, so how could he not be there? they all wondered at the same time.
They left the window and walked over to the front desk. He was not there. In fact, he wasn't anyhwre in the building. "Well, now what?" Jacky asked the open air.
"Simple. We'll just ask if we can use the Dark Warrior Six game room." Jessie said. She walked up to another of the vouleteer people and tapped the person on the shoulder.
"Yes?" Andrew said when he felt the finger tap him. He turned to face Jessie full in the eyes. "Oh, hi guys!" He said when he saw that it was Jessie whom had tapped him on his left shoulder.
"Hi. I was just wondering if we could play the Dark Warrior Six game that you guys have here again?" Jessie asked.
"Unfortunately you guys won't be able to do so today. It's down for repairs on one of the characters. It seems that when you try to punch with the left hand of Viking you end up killing yourself and you can't restart the game. It seems to freeze up whenever you use the left hand of that character. Anyway, it'll be fixed in a few hours and then I'll let you know when you'd be able to use it. Sorry." Andrew said.
"Thanks anyway. Oh, by the way have you seen Charles? He went into the Dark Warrior Six game room and never came out again." Jacky said.
"Yeah, he said that he had to do a few errands before his lunch break ended and that he might be late getting back here, why?"
"Oh, nothing really. I was just wondering if he might need some help with the game room that he needed to clean today, that's all."
"Actually he finished cleaning that and then he left. I haven't seen him since." Andrew said.
"Well, thanks anyway." Jacky said. They walked back outside and unlocked their bikes. Once they had all climbed upon their horses of steel and iron, they rode away from The Arcade. It was a bright warm day for the middle of the dead of winter. The snow, what was left of it, seemed to smile at them all as they biked past it and saw it flashing before their own eyes on the ground and street before them. They turned down a lonely street and biked on to the forest that the town was nestled in. They entered the woods and then picked up the pace. Soon they had reached Reapers' Trail. They faced it with a light in their eyes that seemed to burn inside of them as if they were mere candles aflame of love and hate and coldness and warmth and death. They knew their own world would look like the trail if they were not careful in the Battle that would soon come. They biked over the trail without falter of trap or injury and then they all biked to the temple. The destruction of it was immense and yet small at the same time.
They looked at the shattered doors and the columns and the building. Tears seemed to spring forth in their eyes, but they held them back. Tears were not meant for such a wreck. They could rebuild; so there would be no need of the tears that they had all felt spring forth in their eyes for frosty coldness for the hateful demon of hell that had killed their dreams and their lives. They were ready for the final battle. They were ready to die in that fight. They knew that they still had a long way to go, but they were well prepared to fight every inch, every foot, every yard, every centimeter of the way. They were ready. They were ready to fight for the right of life and right of freedom. They were ready. Oh, God they were ready!