The Lost one's journey

Part 36: the prelude

Voda walks down the hallway of his palace and arrives at a large set of doors with Shemesh, Sahar, and Kokhav awaiting him. Shemesh slightly bows her head to him. "They all await you, Lord Voda." She says with a grin. Voda nods and opens the doors, revealing the hot Kruha sun. "ETMOCH!" Voda shouts out as he stands on a balcony. All over Kruhabelt, all the Beastkins turn towards the center of Kruhabelt, while the elves don't seem to react. "Etmoch?" Sahar asks Shemesh, confused. "It's an old tongue. He infused his words with magic so that only us and the Beastkins will hear him.". Voda clears his throat. "My people, I have spent centuries doing everything I believed was best for all of you. But today I come to you with a selfish request. My daughter, Ikati, has returned. However, she refuses to return to us. My people, this old king has come to ask for your help. Will you accept my selfish request?" Many of the Beastkins all erupt in agreement with Voda, some even saluting him as they all agree to help. "Huh, I wasn't expecting that." Sahar says with a surprised tone. Hundreds of small stars surround Kokhav until she lets them out into the air and they scatter. "Lord Voda, your hand, please." Shemesh says this with a smile as she extends her hand to him. Voda complies and gives her his hand as she uses her other hand to hold onto Kokhav's. "It's always so beautiful when this happens." Sahar says as she sees a shadowy aura surrounding him transfer to Shemesh, then to Kokhav, and finally to the hundreds of stars. Each star floats next to a different beastkin as they look at it curiously. "Thank you all." Voda breaks one of his fingers, and his mana seems to double in its amount as hundreds, if not thousands, of black pillars shoot up from the ground. "And so it begins. Father versus daughter, beast versus beast, human versus human. What they choose is what they want. Either way, someone dies, and the Arcana, No. Harishon, will win. We can't fail him." Sahar says as she looks at her sisters, who nod In response.

Back at the house, Pocu awakens and looks around, confused. "Where am I?" She asks herself as he looks around the empty room. She gets out of bed and walks around. "Hmmmm. I don't really know what happened before I fell asleep." She heads towards the door and opens it. "You have no clue what he can do! He's stronger than all of us; then we have to include the Arcana in this!" "Yes, I understand that that! That's why I know we have to include ¡La Niña! She can create an army to hold off the Arcana!" "She can't even control her own gift! What don't you understand about that?" Pocu can hear the shouting of Raphael, Zam, and Folmon as she opens the door. She walks out of the room, slightly nervous, and into the living room, where she can see the frustrated faces of Zam, Raphael, Folmon, and Domo. "What's going on!?" She shouts out, sounding full of confusion and annoyance. "Pocu!?" Raphael says as she sees her up and awake. "Ay! She's awake!" Zam happily says "Just a discussion, Pocu. You don't need to worry about it. Go back and rest some more." Pocu looks at them, annoyed. "Hey! Something's going on! You only yell when something bad is happening! So what's happening?" Pocu shouts at them. Folmon looks annoyed and walks up to Pocu. "You really want to know? We're discussing a way to kill a man." "Folmon!" Raphael shouts as she stands up, but Domo stops her. "No, let him." "What!?" "He's good at this kind of thing. He's had to do it a lot. Trust me." Raphael stares down at Domo, who doesn't relent. She sits back down with a look of anger. "W- what!? Why! You don't have to kill anyone!" Folmon sighs and looks at Pocu with a serious expression. "You think that we want to? We have to Pocu. This is life or death—do or die. The man we are going to hunt down is more powerful than you can believe, Pocu. If we don't kill him, he'll kill us." Pocu looks at Folmon in disbelief. "I-I'm sure we could ta-" "We can't, Pocu!" Folmon shouts at her. "This isn't a simple matter; he has other people working for him who are extremely powerful. If we just walk up to them and try to talk, they will kill us." Pocu looks nervous; her eyes are beginning to shake. "B-but... W-why don't we go away!" "We can't. He won't let us leave and run. We can only fight." Folmon sighs as he looks Pocu in the eye. "We don't have a single choice. So I'll ask you this one time and one time only: Do you want to help us?" He extends his hand to her. "If you help us, you will have to fight. You will have to hurt people. You will learn how to use your gift. You will save people. Do you want to help us?" Pocu looks nervous and is hesitant to make a choice. "I-" She has flashes to the burning village, of Galdur and of Raphael. "I- I want to try and help." She shakes his hand hesitantly. Folmon turns to others. "How long do we have?" Domo shrugs. "Maybe a week? A month at most?" "I would assume not even a month." Zam says, sounding concerned. "Voda wouldn't harm his people. He'll waste time evacuating them. With that many people, he'll definitely need a couple of days at least." Raphael says as she stands up. "What are you talking about?" Pocu asks. "I- I can help!" "It isn't that complicated, kid. The portals that connect the worlds can be turned off, but that doesn't mean that the one portal we know of is the only way out. There's a couple other ones, but Kruha is the only world that doesn't have a lot of people, so because of that, we only know where the one portal is. Voda is probably gonna shut down the portal for awhile to wait us out." Domo says as he now stands up. "Pocu, if you're gonna help us, then you can't be useless. You'll be spending awhile with us to hone you. We'll be doing the majority of the fighting, but your gift will definitely help." "To say what he's saying more simply, you gotta get strong, niña." Zam interrupts with a grin as he puts his arm around Folmon. "Y-yeah! I can do that!" Pocu says this with a hesitant determination in her voice. "Zam, you're the only other human here, so I'll delegate her gift training to you." Folmon says as he takes his arm off of him. Zam smiles and picks up Pocu. "Well, are you ready, Chiquita?" Pocu nods, so Zam takes her outside while the others continue their discussion.

As Zam walks out, he sees pillars of darkness in the far distance. He puts Pocu down and asks her to wait as he goes back inside. Not long after, they all come out and see the pillars. "He's already started. We don't have time to waste." Raphael says as she quickly goes back inside and is followed by Folmon and Domo. "Well, we gotta do this fast. Do you even remember earlier today?" Pocu looks a bit confused as she tires to remember. "I remember being nervous in the big circle. Then... I- I saw fire, and it scared me." Pocu's breathing quickly becomes ragged and shallow. Zam pats her head, which seems to calm her down. "Well, let me just tell you about your power that you had. Since it doesn't seem like you remember, ok?" He says it with a big smile on his face. Pocu nods as her breathing slowly returns to normal. "You could summon a giant flood of red ink. From that ink, you could create pretty much anything you wanted. An army of knights, shields, tentacles, flowers, buildings, animals, weapons, fire, even a giant person!" Zam speaks with a kind, casual tone as Pocu looks up at him in amazement. "Wow! I did all that!?" "Yes, you did! So we're gonna try to get you to redo it." Zam walks ahead, signaling for Pocu to follow him as they walk not too far from the house into a large, empty desert field. "Whatre we-" "Pocu, do you know what causes a gift in a human to awaken?" Zam interrupts Pocu as he turns away from her to face towards the sun. "N-no?" "Gifts awaken in many different ways. Some awaken from life-or-death experiences. Others are simply born with the talent to access these gifts, but that's not all the ways to access them. No, no, no, no, chiquita, some gifts can be awakened by training or by experiencing and then re-experiencing a not-so-fun experience. However, we don't have a lot of time, so we'll be doing this in a faster way." Suddenly, Zam kicks Pocu in the stomach. She's sent flying into a sand dune. Pocu slowly gets up, groaning in pain. "Owww. Why'd you do that!?" She shouts while clutching her stomach. "I'm going to force the gift to manifest Pocu." Zam says this with a wide grin as he summons his white hands and attaches them to himself. Pocu looks up at him nervously before slowly standing.