|
.:[Chapter 2]:. The Gauntlet |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Joint Story
By: Konan of Paper and TheGiftMistress
Blurs of colors and different foreign smells assaulted my nose and eyes as I slowly tried to get up from the ground. My ears rang at all of the loud noises around me. Trying to shake off the migraine that was beginning to form, I lifted my hand towards my head in hopes of massaging my temples. I suddenly stopped as a hint of silver caught the corner of my eye. As my eyes come back into focus, I find myself staring stupidly at my right hand. I found myself staring at a strange silver gauntlet with a marking of a wing as it's emblem.
I moved my hand closer to my face, as if that would make everything clearer to me. Still, I had no idea what it was. I looked around me. I'd never been here before. Everything looked, smelt and felt strange. I tried standing up, but my legs felt a little weak.
I hit the floor with a thud and I winced from the impact. Suddenly everything seemed to go still and all the noises stopped. I looked around somewhat dazed, but if I wasn't mistaken, I was in... a bar? How on Earth did I wind up here anyways? The sound of a human voice brought me back to reality as I found myself staring at a man with green hair and a scar down his right eye. "Careful Miss, wouldn't want you to get hurt out here before we reach the Capital now would we?" I blinked several times. "Oh right, Miss? You can just call me Ace." He grinned widely and that was when I noticed his golden eyes and sword. I blinked again and I bolted...
I heard Ace's voice behind me, "What are you doing?" I didn't know what I was doing, I was lost and confused. I didn't know who to trust, where to go, or what to do. My legs ached, my breath was raspy. I could feel my brain whirring, desperately trying to figure out what to do next.
I stopped and looked down at the ground and tried to catch my breath. Ace crossed his arms and thought for a second before he lifted one of his hands to his chin and examined me. I looked up at him in question when he made a sound of recognition. "Ah~ You're just really eager to get to the Capital to meet the Chief!!" I stared at him stupidly feeling even more confused then before. He grinned again before saying, "You don't need to go all the way over there to be accepted you know." "Huh?" was the most intelligent thing I could say. "I'm the Chief Bandit in the flesh! Since Aeolus told me to take care of you, you must be something special, you are more than welcome to join us."
"I..." I managed to squeak it out, but couldn't say anything else, "Patience," said Ace and he did a big hearty laugh, throwing his head back, "You really are just as he described" I sighed," Look, I don't know what's going on. I just appeared here. Where's Aeolus?"
Ace stopped smiling and snapped his head in front of my face so quickly that it caused me to flinch and take a step back. "How the hell should I know? He just dumps you on top of me, orders me, The Chief, to guard and watch over you before running off God knows where!" Ace straightened himself up and turned around grumbling something about crazy freeloaders.
I didn't know what to say. He was acting as though I did all this on purpose! He was starting to remind me of my sister, "Well come on" he barked at me, "We haven't got all day" He was a complete hypocrite. He tells me to have patience, then tells me to hurry. Regardless, I didn't want to anger him further, so we both pressed on in to depths of this foreign land.
By the time that we finally got a chance to stop and rest, the sun was already setting. I was hungry, tired and sore all over. I glared at Ace who seemed to be completely unaffected. He simply smiled at me as we entered an abandoned temple. As we sat down to rest, I heard a strange noise outside in the bushes. I yelped as a small and green blur leaped from the bushes and ran towards us.
It pounced on top of me and looked me in the face. It was a dragon looking thing. It had small blue eyes and a cheeky little grin. It looked at Ace, "This is her?" is said. I yelped and threw him off me. He fell to the floor and complained. "You talk!?" I shouted, amazed.
The thing grumbled as it got up from the floor. "You didn't have to throw me you know." I heard a squeak and I looked towards Ace who was staring at his pocket. Ace unbuttoned the pocket and another green thing shot out of the pocket and tackled the dragon to the floor once again. "Gah! Ace! Get this evil menace off of me!" Ace snickered and whistled. The green blur climbed up Ace and onto his shoulder, hissing at the dragon. The dragon got up disgruntled, "That grunny nearly ripped out my scales!" "Haha! Sorry about that my old friend, I can't help it if my pet thinks of you as an enemy"
The dragon muttered to himself under his breath. I couldn't make out he was saying - "I'm sorry I threw you," I chimed in, and Ace laughed, " Ah, don't apologize. He deserves it for jumping on you like that" The dragon threw Ace and evil look then returned his gaze to me, "Forgiven, I'm Archie"
"I'm a shape changing dragon." What? I stared stupidly at the dragon. I have never seen a dragon before let alone see a shape changing one. Was he pulling my leg? I looked towards Ace who merely grinned and shrugged.
I turned my head back to the dragon, who'd already started changing. His body was glowing, and it grew in size, until eventually he was bigger than me! He towered above me and looked down, "It makes traveling easier, to be able to change size like this. I can do more, but I don't want to amaze you too soon" Ace laughed, "Stop being such a big head Archie" He petted the grunny before putting him back in his pocket.
All of this was so overwhelming. Ace must have noticed that I wasn't feeling well because he signaled the dragon to return to its normal size. "... I think we've had enough traveling for today." My body seemed to have agreed with him because all of a sudden it swayed and I felt myself falling towards the ground. "Woah~ Now Miss, be more careful." Ace's grinning face was the last thing I saw before exhaustion took over and I felt my eyes slowly close.
I felt nudging beside me. It was frantic. I opened my eyes, but things were blurry. Slowly, things came in to focus. Ace was in front of me shaking me, "Wake up," he hissed, I sat up slightly, "What is it?" I asked. He looked around him. "We have to set off....now"
I looked around, it was already dark and the moon was covered by clouds. There was barely any light to see anything. "What's wrong, Ace?" Ace's face looked grim as his grunny growled.
"There's been a change of...plan," He said, though that didn't explain the situation any. He could tell from my face I was confused, "Look, just get up," he said, " We NEED to get going NOW, I will explain on the way," and with that he grabbed my hand and yanked me up.
I was groggy but did as I was told. Archie was already outside in his larger form, ready to take us further along our path. Ace jumped on first before holding out his hand to help me up.
I was afraid of heights! I couldn't get on his back! I could see Ace looking at me impatient, "Get up NOW," He demanded, but I had frozen to the spot. Suddenly I felt something hit me from behind. It was Archies tail! "I'd do as you were told," He said, "You don't want Ace to get mad."
"Bu-But I!" Ace tsk-ed and grabbed onto the front of my shirt, forcing me onto the dragon. I heard a whizzing sound right by my ear as I was pulled up. Ace pulled me up next to him and pushed my head down, "Get down! Archie lets go!" Archie leaned back for a moment before large green crystal wings emerged from his back. I grabbed onto Ace as I began to feel the wind against my face. I could feel the goosebumps starting to form on my arms.
I shut my eyes tight as Archie took flight. "s**t-" I snapped my eyes open as I heard the sound of a metal against metal to the right of me. Ace cursed under his breath. In one hand, he was holding me and the other was holding a dagger against something I couldn't really make out. Ace's hand was starting to shake from the power of the enemy. "Raaahh!" Ace pushed the opponent back and Archie used that opportunity to accelerate his speed.
For a few minutes my heart felt a though it had stopped. "Hey, they didn't hurt you or anything did they?" I mutely shook my head and took ragged breaths. I nearly jumped out of my skin as I heard Archie growl in agony. His neck was bleeding but strangely enough, the blood was not red. It was a metallic silver and it glowed making things much brighter and more visible then before. However that wasn't what really caught my eye.
A strange creature with sharp metal bladed claws had its fangs in Archie's neck. It let out a high shriek before digging its claws into the most vulnerable part of the dragon, the top of its head. "Shi- Archie!" Ace jumped up and sprinted down the dragon's back and pulled out both of his daggers. He pulled them up close to his face before seemingly vanishing an reappearing behind the creature. Ace ripped away at the creature's back tearing apart the creature's wings.
The creature tried to retaliate, giving another ear piercing shriek it lifted it's forked metal bladed tail and aimed it at Ace without him knowing. Ace's grunny shot out of his pocket straight at the tail. The grunny dug its razor sharp teeth into the tail causing enough pain to let go of Archie as it lost its grip. The grunny leaped away from the creature right before it fell, safely hanging onto Ace's cloak. Ace took his two daggers and reversed their positioning on his hand, causing the blades to face the sides. He then swiftly cut through the air leaving a shining green trail as it reached the creature. It gave a pitiful cry before it was sliced across the neck and the chest in two parallel lines.
"Uh~" I watched as Ace turned his head frantically in my direction, his eyes growing big. It was almost as if everything was in slow motion. I looked down and noticed two large metal clawed hands cutting through my stomach before I was lifted off of Archie. Ace raced as fast as he could towards me but it was too late. He held out his hand in hopes of reaching me as the second creature pulled out its claws with a spray of my blood. I felt myself falling and I lifted my hand with the gauntlet up weakly towards Ace. I choked up blood as everything began to blur. I felt a slight tingle from my hand covered by the gauntlet and then I knew no more.
 Konan of Paper · Wed Jan 21, 2009 @ 02:48pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
