Starfire Insurrection

Chapter 10 - Dream Master part 2

Holly whipped around her heart skipping a beat. There stood Kimberley. "Son of a biscuit eater Kimberley you scared the daylights out of me!!!" Holly chastised her as she tried to get her heart rate and breathing under control. Kimberley surveyed Holly with inquisitive eyes looking her over as she stood between her and the cliff face. Holly smiled at her. She smiled back likewise in a mirrored reaction.

"What are you doing down here?" Holly inquired. "Following you," she said with blanched indifference. "Sensing something was wrong Holly asked. " Kimberly, what's wrong." She was worried something might have happened to her.

"What's wrong?" Kimberley said advancing on Holly. Her face changed from inquiring to downright hostile aggression. "What's wrong is that we always have to watch out for little Holly. Cyrus is so worried about having to take care of you that it's taking a toll on him. Not that you would have noticed."

Holly staggered back visibly in recoil. Her breath caught in her throat as she backed up. "Kimberley," Holly said her voice barely making any noise as she choked with emotion. Holly tripped falling on her butt painfully on the stony outcrop. She looked up at Kimberley looking for some explanation in her eyes as her own poured tears down her face into the dry ground and dust. Holly then saw a light behind her growing brighter. Holly also saw a new light of anger in Kimberley's eyes now but not directed at Holly.

Holly heard a voice from behind her. "Get the hell away from my sister." Still sitting on the ground she craned her neck around just in time to see Cyrus at the cave entrance advancing towards her looking at Kimberley with eyes of steel. He was wearing a combat suit of armor and light with a black cape and hood with a bright metallic cobalt blue hem along the border trailing behind him. He carried a staff of three woven metals; silver, cobalt blue, and emerald intertwined in a circular winding pattern coming to a flat point on the bottom end. The three metal cores each formed a two-pronged fork on the top end. These three forks held a faceted six-sided stone of opalescent light. It lit the cave up like a radiant star.

He pointed the staff at Kimberley. "Ego lux in domino somnium!" He shouted. The staff emitted a beam of light and was accompanied by a growing noise. Both light and noise lilted in synchronization gradually rising in pitch as it lifted Kimberley off the ground as she struggled. He lifted her high in the air before throwing her the length of the room near-instantaneously. Some twelve or thirteen hundred feet across the gorge, she slammed against the far wall making a hole in the wall before she fell into the valley.

"Who was that?!" Holly asked now convinced that whatever it was it could not have been the real Kimberley. "The Dream Hacker," Cyrus said. Holly was confused. Who was he talking about? The dream what? Cyrus must have seen her face. He responded gently, "Suffice it to say he is an enemy." Cyrus slammed the staff into the ground standing it on end responding with a grunt of force as it sunk slightly into the stone floor now standing on its own. "He will be back. He's not dead and I can only keep him at bay for so long. Listen to me Holly," he said a note of desperation in his voice. "You are the only one who can defeat him truly. I will always be by your side but this fear you must face and conquer." In the background, a glowing light of fire had been growing as a cry of tumultuous rage bellowed forth from the gorge beneath. The creature's lumbering form could be seen as it stood twenty feet tall a solid rock of a monster. The golem's eyes were a blaze of anger. In a display of rage and intimidation, it breathed a stream of fire upwards defiantly in a blazing torrent that lit the cave dimly.

Cyrus fell to his knees taking Holly's hands. She turned back to face him as he looked up into her eyes with solemnity and resolve. "You have always carried the strength within you. It was only ever the lies of fear that buried it. I have tried to protect you from it in love, but I never showed you to face it. For that I am sorry," he said softly hanging his head. Then as he raised his head to face her his countenance changed. He stood up, his eyes now kindled with a consuming passion as he held her hands. "You carry a star of justice and light within you Holly. The enemy plays in the shadows." Stepping forward he embraced her with arms of love. He whispered in her ear, "Show him the light."