Robot Ridge

Chapter 3: New Discoveries

     In the morning, everyone woke up to see Lucifur still standing there, his eyes fixed on the mouth of the cave. I patted him on the head.

     "Go get some sleep. You're probably exhausted," I said.

     I saw Lucifur curl up on the cave ground. Everyone had a few pieces of fruit and then were done with breakfast.

     "I saw how you were fighting when the Kreluks were chasing the Jeep. No offense, but you need some training. Being out in the wild for so long has taught me some things that I want to teach you. I also think that Cassie could benefit from learning with Amber, just in case we find ourselves in another situation like yesterday," Phillip said.

     "Sure, I'll learn," I said.

     "Good. Let's move over deeper into the cave, where there are more stalagmites and stalactites that we can practice on," Phillip said, pointing behind us.

     Everyone except Lucifur started walking deeper into the cave. We kept on going until we could just barely see the Jeep in the distance.

     "Okay, Amber, take Cassie over there," he said, pointing at a wall a good ten meters away. "I'll take Jack over here."

     "What are we going to be practicing? Isn't it mostly just swinging and dodging?" I asked.

     The look on Phillip's face was priceless. He looked like I just insulted him.

     "Just dodging and swinging? Boy do you have a lot to learn. In addition to dodging and swinging, you have to learn how to block and control your swings so that you're not missing all of your attacks," he said.

     He showed me how to kind of predict what the opponent was going to do, based on muscle memory. Then, he showed me a really cool thing that you can do with weapons made from one of the five different crystal types. The five are apparently the purple deprenium, the one we have, the silver isolanium, the red chiathill, the blue aquamarium, and the black losmenyx.

     "You might want to step back," he said.

     He took his sword, and stabbed it straight through the rocky ground. I didn't expect the sword to go in, but it did. All of a sudden, a clear purple ring that at full length was about two and a half to three feet in diameter spread around him, crushing all of the stalagmites that it touched. Then, an almost electrical surge of purple coursed throughout the sword's blade. Purple armor started forming first over his shoes, then his pants and so on. The armor kept forming until it finally hit the bottom of his neck and stopped, not forming a helmet. The purple ring on the ground propelled itself into the air, bent the middle outward, formed a handle on the other side, and fell right onto his arm, forming a shield.

     "Is it safe to touch?" I asked, unsure what would happen.

     "Perfectly normal," he replied.

     I walked over to him and reluctantly touched the shield. It felt like it was made out of metal. A bunch of questions filled my mind. There were only two that actually stood out so I asked those.

     "How long does it last?" I asked.

     "Twelve hours, but you can turn it off at any moment by sticking it back in the ground. The twelve hours also don't have to be consecutively. But whenever it isn't in use, it is recharging," he replied.

     "How heavy is the armor?" was my second question.

     "Why don't you find out?" he said.

     I drove my sword into the ground. The familiar purple ring materialized and everything else that had happened. I felt the armor come on over me but instead, it felt like it replaced my shirt. As it formed, I felt myself get a little heavier, then back to normal. And this repeated until all of the armor was on. I felt normal. the shield on my arm didn't add any wait, and my armor weighed the same as my clothes. I felt ready to fight.