Specials

Chapter 19- Capture

Huge metal monsters, the kind you imagine only in sci-fi fantasies, had crashed in front of them. They were shaped like massive bugs, aluminum skin shining acid green. Wicked metal pincers, sharp as knives clicked in front of their huge bodies. Silver eyes made of hexagonal shapes glared at the group, and wings so large they could serve as the mast of a ship whirred, kicking up a storm of dry leaves and dirt. Angel gasped as their sharp metal wings punched through their simulation suit. Angel soared up a few feet into the air to get a better perspective of these metal creatures. They were certainly very large, and there were three of them. The team looked like ants compared to them, scrambling around and trying to fight against mammoths. Chameleon was shooting jet after colored jet at the creatures, but none of her blasts could puncture the bugs' metal skin. Kia wasn't having much luck either, trying to swoop through the bugs to throw them off, enlarge their metal shells so they fell off, anything. Nothing worked. Kia was able to contribute the knowledge that the bugs were not being manually controlled by a driver within them, they were seemingly acting of their own accord, or a program of some sort.

The bugs were deathly fast, that was for sure. Angel could see them moving, in speedy blurs, trying to get a cut in on one of the team. Angel decided it was time to see if their wings could be of any help, so Angel called up every ounce of anger available to muster up, and thrust it out through their wings. Three metal feathers shot through the air, spiraling and sticking themselves into each of the bug's back. The bugs shook, like a dog shaking off water, and the feathers went flying through the air, embedded in trees. Hm. So that hadn't worked so well. Angel drifted closer to the bugs, trying to see if the creatures had a weakness, like a bit of skin unprotected by their thick armor or something of that sort. Angel found nothing. So how could these things be killed?

Angel never got to answer that question.

From the massive bugs came a sickly, yellow-colored gas.

"No one breathe!" Angel screamed, trying to fly up to escape the fumes. But it was too late. Angel's wings felt heavy, brain fogged, and within seconds, Angel had thudded to the ground, thrown into a world of cold and black.

*

"Where am I?" Jaina asked aloud. Her head was throbbing, like someone had been repeatedly hitting her. For all she knew, that could have happened, because Jaina could remember nothing. She couldn't even remember her own name. She had a feeling that it started with 'J,' that it had a pleasing sound at the beginning, but like a fish, the harder she concentrated on it the faster it slipped away. What had she been doing before this? Jaina decided that it had probably been housework, since her arms were very sore. Her mother liked to have her do the dusting of very high places. What was her mother's name? What was she like? Thinking on these questions made her head hurt more, so Jaina decided to do something else. But what would she do? What kind of things did she like to do? This caused a searing sensation at the front of her forehead, so Jaina decided to stop thinking so much and just observe the place she was in. It was dark, the only light coming from a tiny candle next to her. It was on a tray, so Jaina could carry it around if she wanted to. The place she was in seemed like it was underground, dirt walls with lattices of roots telling her that it probably was. Jania wasn't quite sure what to do, so she sat in the near darkness, trying not to think, since it made her head hurt too much.

After a long time, a metal door that Jania hadn't known was there swung open. Standing in the door frame, a mere silhouette of a man, since the light didn't quite reach there. The man stepped into the light. He was huge and heavily built, his bald head shining in the half-light. His face was stern and solid, as if he'd been made of rock. The most interesting part of him, though, was the dusty blackness spiraling from his fingertips all the way up to his forearms, as though his whole arm was made of ash. Something told Jania that if she looked at her feet, she would see the same material slowly snaking it's way up to her ankles. She couldn't remember why it was there, though.

"Jania, my dearest, what are you doing down here?" The man asked.

Jania was her name, then! She had been almost right. She replied truthfully to the man, while wondering while she was also being addressed as 'dearest', "I don't know."

"Oh, no! I recall one of my apprentice magicians practicing in the same area as you, I hope he didn't accidentally strike you," The man crossed the room to Jania in two graceful steps, his long black robe sweeping across the ground. He pressed one of his hands to her forehead, the other cupping her face, as though taking her temperature. His hands were surprisingly cold, but also painfully dry, an almost sandy texture. "Oh, my poor Jania! You were indeed hit with a memory spell. That foolish apprentice! I'll have his hide for striking you, then hiding you down in the basement!"

"Who are you?" Jania asked, looking up at him and ignoring his last remark. At least it explained why she couldn't remember anything.

"It's me, your brother Alec!" The man frowned. Jania frowned as well, but for a different reason. This man's skin was whiter than snow, how could he be her brother? Jania nodded anyways, as thinking too hard about things made her head pound like something was inside it, trying to get out. Alec, if that was really his name, crumpled his face into a heart-wrenching expression of sadness. "You don't remember me, do you?"

"No," Jania replied, though she had suddenly felt a little tugging in her head, a small give in the block that prevented her from accessing her memory. She did slightly remember a brother, though for some reason he seemed younger than her. Jania pushed those thoughts aside, because the fact that she had a brother was as far into the block as she could get for now.

Alec gave a heavy sigh, "Come with me to your room. Maybe seeing your things will help." Jania followed as he led her through a maze of hallways, all with root threaded, dirt walls. Eventually, they seemed to be walking upwards, and the dirt walls faded to stone. Alec led her to a set of huge oak double doors, throwing them open to reveal a huge room. Jania gasped. This was hers? If so, what did all this say about who she was as a person? The room, while blessed with a massive window, was dark. Jania could almost feel the darkness, shifting through the shadows not only as an absence of light, but as a creature. A writhing, worming snake-like thing that slithered under the black silk bed, weaving between the slightly blood stained swords hung like a garland on the wall, slipping over a bookshelf full of heavy tomes that radiated more of the dark energy, and waiting behind the closed closet doors along with something else locked within. Jania shivered, then tested at the block in her memory some more, fearing yet pleading to see the horrors she had committed in the life that didn't quite feel like hers. The block didn't give, only pounding in Jania's head some more as she pushed against it. Before Jania could say anything more to Alec, a thudding against the closet door startled her. There was something in there, after all!

"Oh, how sweet," Alec's mouth curved up in a somewhat sickly smile, "Slice wants to see you."