Travelers

Chapter 12 - The Beast

While they still needed to find Elanor, they realized now that they needed to solve the problem at hand. Vince was extremely powerful, and he couldn't be controlled, and he was going to kill Ryan. Luckily, he had passed out after his display of his massive powerful. It gave them time to get away, but unfortunately it also gave Ryan time to wake and run after them. Ryan himself had found them in the desolate wasteland, but he hadn't come to kill them. He had come to give them an offer. Now they were here pondering his offer, and finally, they agreed to the deal and had decided on a way to double cross Ryan. Ryan had offered to give them Elanor, on the condition that they sent word to Gondor and Rohan. They needed a massive force to oppose the power that Vince had. Finally, when they had Elanor with them, they set out for Gondor. Soon, they knew that two more fortresses in Mordor had been completely decimated.

When they reached the gates, they opened immediately revealing Strider and Mendon. Strider was in his normal outfit, rather than his ranger's rags. Mendon stood there, looking just as he always did, serious and thoughtful. When they revealed what they had to do to Aragorn, he wasn't the most enthusiastic participant, but Mendon fully agreed, realizing the threat that Vince posed if he was capable of destroying an entire fortress with one blow. Mendon rode off at the end of that day, but still the three friends were worried about how this battle would end. If their visions meant what all three of them suspected, both Ryan and Jacob would die, and Vince wouldn't be the one to fight Ryan.

They didn't want to endanger Elanor again, but they had too. They had decided that Ryan wanted Vince dead, so he was throwing everything he had into this battle. However, they didn't want Vince dying, because he was their friend. He might have been corrupted by so much travel into and out of the same world, but he was still Vince. They had decided that the only way to save Vince was to send him out of Middle Earth. They decided to muster their armies by the black gate, surrounding the burn where he had landed. In the chaos of the battle, they hoped to send Vince home, and they wouldn't have to worry about him destroying anything there. This would also spare him of the death that awaited from the armies that now wished him gone.

Jacob was sure that the plan would work, but he didn't know the cost it would have. How many people would have to give their lives trying to stop him? He knew that he might very well be one of the people who did, but he couldn't have possibly been sure about it. When he thought about it, he realized that even if Vince managed to escape the flames like he did, he would still turn back to his regular self, of course, he would have the combined armies of three of the most powerful regions still trying to kill him, so that would be a slight complication if their plan worked. Jacob realized that their plan had to succeed. All they had to do, was get Vince into the area in which he had landed, but that would be no small task. As a matter a fact, it would be the biggest challenge any of them had ever faced. Not because he was so powerful, but because he was their friend.

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Cat had agreed to the plan, but she was almost certain that even if it worked, Ryan would turn on them immediately. She realized that her last vision might very well mean that she would kill him though. It was that thought that haunted her as she walked down the street in Minas Tirith. She didn't want to kill another living person, she barely put up with killing the orcs that continuously attacked them, and that was only in self-defense. She had realized by now, that the visions didn't always mean what they thought they meant, and she was almost certain that the first vision wasn't a memory. She had noticed something that bothered her about it. She had been the second one through the door when they had originally arrived in Middle Earth, but in this vision, she was the one to open the door. She was almost certain because of this that they would travel again.

She stopped her train of thought as soon as she reached her destination. She approached the door to meet the eyes of the second person she had met in this world. Enma welcomed her in with a great joy and asked if she wanted anything to drink while she was there. She declined the offer, but sat at the table as the children greeted her with gleeful cheers. She smiled and greeted them each one by one, loving to see the smiles on their faces. She talked for several hours with Enma about their journey, and about life in Minas Tirith on a regular day. Cat had forgotten that there were people going about their regular lives while she was away, and at first, she started to worry about the world they had left behind, but she remembered how Vince had described the world back home. He had said it was like he had just left, and he hadn't been missed at all. That no other guests had even arrived for the party yet.