The land was transforming them—transforming them all. Rosita could feel it. The air seemed to whisper and twine itself around her, telling her to unleash the true magnitude of her power and release her inner form. As she struggled with the presence, she was glad to note that the others remained mostly unaffected so far.
It seemed as if the red sun was too weak, too timid, to shine upon this savage land. As they walked, Catherine could not help admiring the flat dreary terrain, broken here and there by smouldering craters and skeletons of creatures long dead.
“See this?” she slowly turns her head in Wenhao’s direction, but her eyes never left the bleak landscape. “This is what my powerful nation will look like when I am dictator. Except there will be fires raging across the plains as well.” Deep in thought, Catherine fails to see the ash-grey face of Wenhao as he struggles not to aim his bile-induced projectile towards her face.
Seeing his expression, Nicole bursts into harsh laughter and drops to the ground, tears running down her face. In a valiant attempt to get air into her system, she roflhfo…straight into Wenhao’s chemical stew.
Diya, obviously disgusted with the maturity level of the group, threateningly slides her blades out of her arms. The knives seemed to be sharper now, more alert. Rosita, still struggling with the voice, exclaims, “I love cheese!” which in magical terms apparently means “Vomit be gone, Nicole stop laughing, Wenhao turn back to your normal Asian colour”. Because that’s exactly what happens.
Maria starts to cough. “Guys, why are we following Rachel on foot? Who knows how long it’s going to take before we reach her whatever-Quadrant 2 headquarters.”
Rosita, finally relieved she was under control, slaps her forehead. “Oh, stupid me. I apologize.” She makes a broad sweeping gesture with her staff, and a fleet of six hovercanoes materialize.
Emily, with the help of Nicole, barely manages to push Maria into a vehicle. Wheezing from the effort of toppling into the hovercanoe, Maria gives the two a thumbs-up, and they climb in after her. Catherine, still deep in thought, mechanically climbs into the same canoe that Diya’s in, causing a deep whir of resentment from the cyborg’s blades. Johnica climbs into one, of course. Rosita levitates herself into another hovercanoe, and the tired Kyna stops flapping and drops into the back seat. Aaron claims yet another vehicle, and Wenhao, admiring the beautiful keyboard on Aaron’s back, follows him in.
Anna, meanwhile, is motionless on the ground. A deliciously lonely feeling has crept over her, and she thinks, how nice it would be to leave this group behind and wander the wastelands alone…
Aaron turns to reprimand Wenhao for dirtying his precious keyboard with his soiled fingers. In his peripheral vision, he sees Anna standing there with her eyes closed, looking lost in herself.
“Yo! Anna, let’s go! We’re waiting,” he called, and Anna’s eyes fly open in shock.
“What’s happening to me?” she wonders. “I almost wanted to die for a moment there.” Aaron motions for her to join him and Wenhao, but Anna rebelliously climbs into the last hovercanoe. “What am I turning into? Where is my usual psychotic self?” she thinks. “If I don’t find that side of me again, all is lost.”
The poisoned air pursues Rachel and the fleet of hovercanoes. Rosita could sense the coming of war in that toxic wind, whether or not with Rachel and her band, she did not know. What she was aware of, however, was that all members in the fleet would be involved in their own way.
And it was coming soon.
Everybody landed on the ground with a massive thump. (The adjective 'massive' was added thanks to John and his voluptuous (thank you Jessica for that adjective) behind.)
I gasped. Everyone was wearing clothes more...um...suited to their personalities and what they were doing.
Jessica and John were in a classy looking tux and a black lacy dress, respectively.
And again, I looked away in fear of my life as John squealed.
"Ducky, were you following me again?" I turned toward my companion.
She quacked in the affirmative.
"Don't tell me this is another practice misson--
"No, this was not planned. Really, your sensei had already said all her tests were over. Learn to trust her more," Ducky said.
I rolled my eyes. We were transported to different place, but I had a feeling we were in the same time.
I opened the star key box. Mitchell and Wenhao had two pieces, but Aaron and they were huddled in a corner talking about what to do, after Anna had pushed the button.
Everything was in disarray, and nobody really knew what to do.
Get the reinforcements...ah...good...they are here...
Who was thinking this?
Those silly humans, we shall prepare ourselves for battle.
An unidentified nerve twitched inside of me...everyone seemed unaware...
Kill them...now...
"NOOOOOOO!" I screamed, and a bright light exploded from my staff, momentarily shielding everyone from the flaming arrows.
Diya, as quick as lightning, cut the disintegrating tree, revealing a strange group of wolf-bird-like human things falling from the branches. It seemed they had been watching us.
The scientists stopped talking immediately and faced the attack.
"Eeeeeagggghhhh!" Anna screamed, while sitting on Nicole's shoulders.
"Eeewww...they stink! What stinky stinky pets! The pet pet wash shall do you good," Nicole pinched her nose.
"Ahhheugghhhahhh!" Anna picked up one of the spears that fell from the tree, and she pushed yet another shiny button.
A blast of green light surged from the end and hit one of the mutants in the chest.
Maria was setting up a circle of cigarettes in the middle of the clearing. What was she doing? She gave me a thumbs up sign and pointed at her lighter. How very clever...
Anna and Nicole ran into the cigarette circle, luring about five warriors. Maria lit the circle of cigarettes on fire, and the ground went ablaze.
"Human scum," a warrior slapped Jessica.
"Boo-boo!" John screeched, and he used his very large, round, feminine bottom to block a blast of green light from hitting Jessica.
"Oh, my cushioning fat!" John wailed.
"Oh baby!" And...they did some lusty practice, again, which I DID NOT want to see.
Catherine was critqueing the warriors' battle moves. Emily had a fierce struggle of laser-eye...no not surgery, but glaring with a fighter who had an eyepatch.
Ducky snatched another fighter in her talons and swung it in the air.
The mutant that looked like the leader approached me.
"Who are you?" I gripped my staff tightly.
Mitchell was engaging in an arm wrestle with three soldiers, while Aaron was smashing someone with his piano.
Wenhao was screaming his victims to death, as expected.
"I am Rachel. And I am the leader of this regimen of these fine fighters. We are the pride of Lehtrocy, the beautiful country of wolf-bird-hybrids. We have some of the greatest warriors here--
I interrupted her, "Well, apparently, you're not doing very well."
"Rosita, the star-key box!" Aaron yelled at me.
I tossed it to him, and he fit Mitchell's piece inside. Mitchell was currently very busy now, doing a roundhouse move and some stomping.
A faint glow came from the puzzle.
"Ah...the legendary star-key box. It is the property of my race. Give it," Rachel swooped down upon Aaron with incredible speed.
"Wenhao!" I called, and he threw his puzzle piece to Aaron with intense precision.
Aaron with the ultimate velocity of a scientist pushed it in, and the cold air rushed by us. We were rising above the hybrids, and I heard Rachel scream: "That box is ours! We'll come to pursue you!"
And the sky spun around us with a dizzying whoosh, and that must mean that we were journeying to another time.
We were on a routine patrol when I sensed an unfamiliar smell. My wings spread wide, my fur bristled, and I bared my teeth; ready for a fight. Intruders! I left the my two companions to search further. Occasionally someone would cross our borders, thinking that they could overpower us. But they soon learned that we were not as weak as we seemed.
The humans that controlled the land on the other side of our borders thought that we were inferior, a lesser evolved species of human. They saw our half human bodies as grotesque. They assumed that we were animals, only fit for slave work. Therefore, when humans cross our borders, we show them no mercy. My species, a hybrid of human, wolf and hawk, were the chief protectors of our territory.
As I glided over the bleak terrain, I tried to find the scent that had caught my attention. I picked it up near a small wood. I landed in a tree so that I wouldn't catch my feathers on a branch, and paused to identify the smell. My canine nose easily picked up their scent. I recognized human, duck, and a strange metallic smell that reminded me of weapons. An ambush! I moved closer, to make sure of their intent.
What strange creatures they were! At the front of the group, I saw a human wearing some strange black and white device on his back. He seemed very angry with a shorter human, as he kept yelling at her.
“I told you not to push the purple button Anna!”
“BUT IT WAS SO SHINY!!!”
In the middle of the group was a small human, with absurdly large eyes. She also seemed angry at the human named Anna.
“Give me back my hair!” Then red light beams emitted from her eyes. They had advanced weaponry!
There was another human that seemed to be injured. She was curled up on the ground rocking and muttering. I swivelled my pointed ears towards her in order to hear what she was saying. She was muttering something about “cigarettes”. Sitting beside her, was a strange being. It seemed to be part human, and part metal. That explained the metallic smell.
Towards the back of the group stood a tall human, who seemed to view the rest of the group with disdain. She had a feline creature on her shoulder. Beside her sat a human in a flowing robe, carrying a purple stick. She was conversing with a being that looked to be of our kind, part animal and part human. Though I had never seen a duck hybrid before.
My sharp eyes spotted two more humans, hiding underneath a tree. They seemed to be engaged in some sort of romantic ritual.
I leaped off the branch and flew back to my patrol. Even with my advanced senses, I failed to notice an additional human, lurking in the shadows.
“I have located a group of ten intruders. They are armed with advanced weapons.” I quickly relayed the details, and the least experienced fighter left to get reinforcements.
The two of us remaining dived down towards the trees, hoping to shadow the intruders and gain the element of surprise when reinforcements arrived. We crouched on a tree branch, high above the group to observe their movements...
-Summary of Events in Arc 1, between the months of June and October-
-I'm writing this on my itouch so give me a break-
Caught by surprise, the three of them weren't able to react fast enough. The guards, moving much swifter than the guards they met in the castle, shackled the three, rendering them helpless.
Yet more chattering approaches. As the rest of the friends drew closer unsuspecting, one of the guards whipped out with a long vine-like whip. Except this whip was alive. Snaking its way through the group, it curled itself around Rosita in a firm grasp. The other guards proceed to shackle the rest of the shocked group. Furious, Rosita began murmuring. Her eyes rolled back showing only the whites of it. She began shaking violently, then went limp.
Chuckling, the guard holding the whip, explained," Fool! This is an anti-magic whip, used on pathetic witches like yuu! There's no point in using yuur witchery, for it will just cause yuu more pain." Suddenly, Diya exploded. Or rather the chains binding her exploded, for now she was fully charged and had her cyborg strength back. Without hesitation, one of the guards pounced on Diya, forcing a metallic collar on her neck. Immediately, Diya powered down and was re-shackled.
The now arrested group of friends were led forcefully back to the castle, where they were handed back to the real guards of the castles.The group of elite guards turned to leave when the apparent leader of the group turned and said, "My name is Wenhao the Great. We are an elite group of assassins set to protect Our Highness. Do not forget us or yuu'll regret it."
The group, paying attention to his face for the first time, stared in amazement at Wenhao, his face, which was once so innocent, now tarnished with the evidence of evil and serenity. Not allowing a chance to respond, the group was led to their prisons.
Stumbling down the long, winding stairways to the dark dungeon, the group was prodded and shoved. With a hard shove, one of the guards accidentally tipped Anna too far. High off who-knows-what as usual, Anna functions exactly like a cow. When tipped, she is unable to get up again. With a cry, Anna fell the length of the spiraling staircase. Her cry went on for minutes on minutes, fading into the distance. Soon she was so distanced that even her voice disappeared. John started to cry, tentatively snaking his hands towards Maria yet again. Despite being chained up, Jessica managed to round house kick square on John's round feminine butt. Caught off guard by the sudden attack, John fell in the direction Anna had disappeared. If not for Nicole's convenient foot stuck out, John would have joined Anna's eternal tunnelling through the castle's endless stairway. But instead, he fell forward, planting a big smooch on one of the guards.
"Dude, quit feeling up whoever's around yuu," Nicole said cooly as Jessica gave a surprise cry. The guard, furious, turned to John and raised his arm threateningly. Suddenly, the walls around them began to glow with a rainbow of color. A soft eerie tune began to play in the background "... Gee gee gee gee baby baby..." Everyone turned to see Diya glowing with colors. The guard immediately recoiled with horror.
"DUDE! How did yuu do that?!?!" Rosita questioned, as she watched Emily's feet shuffle in time with the time.
"Oh yuu mean my screensaver?" Diya replied, lifting her arm to reveal a bright screen shining with dancing lights," It plays sounds too!"
Diya turned towards the guards. "And yuu should let us go before Rosita burns off yuur most precious posession!"
"WITCH!!" cried the guard, now pressed up against the wall shielding their manhood protectovely with their hands.
"Oh quit with this nonsense, yuu idiots." Everyone turned to the direction of the speaker. From the shadows emerged Mitchell, but enlarged by five times. The soldier's attention automatically focussed on him.
Trembling, they bowed their heads and whispered "Captain Kirby" in unison.
"Pathetic lowlifes... She may be a witch but we are in control of her at the moment. Execute her!"
The guards merely gawked at the enormous man, as if deciding whether they are more scared of their captain or Diya, whose screensaver has taken to illuminated a kirby bouncing back and forth.
"Wimps... I'll deal with yuu guys later," murmured Captain Kirby, as he drew a sword from the sheath strapped to his back. The sword was plain but magnificant. It was twice the size of the wielder with a simple rose design carved upon it.
"Wow...," whispered John, one hand clinging tightly onto Jessica, his other grasping out to Maria. Unfortunately, John's arms were unusually short and all he grasped was Maria's butt. Despite of the situation, Maria turned around, arm raised, and kneed John's family jewels.
"Usually when yuu raise yuur arm we expect yuu to use it to slap him...But that works too," Emily whispered to Maria, as she watched John rolling on the ground in pain as Jessica frantically tried to calm him down and make his "boo boo" feel better.
Captain Kirby, unaffected by what had just happened, picked up Diya and threw her down against a well. Forcing her down in a kneeling position, he raised his giant sword.
Everyone shut their eyes, except for Catherine who was still busy laughing at what happened to John. Everyone grew silent, except for John who was rolling around, whispering, "I want to have babies. Please let me still be able to reproduce."
A gentle breeze filled the room as the sword swung down with great force. (I'll give a cookie to whoever first tell me what is the final velocity of the sword if the initial velocity was 10 m/s and the acceleration was 113 m/s2 for 1.86 s)
The last thing they heard was John's feminine scream before the gentle breeze disappeared and everything went silent.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh-"
"Sigh... I knew I should have programmed in that chip to make yuu obey my every command. Then yuu wouldn't go messing around with my invention."
Everyone opened their eyes slowly, confused how everything disappeared. Instead they were in a small room, alit by a small glowing box located at the corner of room. Beneath them laid a vast dim glowing circle. In the middle of the circle laid Anna, still flailing her arms as if she was falling down an eternal winding staircase.
I stepped from the shadows, amused at everyone's wide shocked eyes. "Quit messing around with my inventions. Don't make me regret fixing yuu up Diya. The least yuu can do for me is to not mess around down here."
"What..? Inventions..? Fixing up Diya..?"
"Yuu might as well know since yuu'v found this place already," I sighed, " well I'm a scientist, if yuu guys haven't already figured out, and this is my underground laboratory. I found this place by chance one day and found it beneficial to me. What yuu guys have just been messing with, is my virtual time traveller. It's in beta mode right now, so whatever yuu guys see when yuu time travel will appear real but really is fake. Yuu guys were in no real danger. But don't look down on this machine, its only in beta mode, but it can time travel for real. It's just far too dangerous right now to do so, for I haven't figured out the real mechanics of it yet. Because of that I gave each of my helpers a piece of the star key that's essential in returning back to our time."
I held up a piece of the shattered stars, as more forms appeared behind me. "Ahh and here are my assistants: Wenhao and Mitchell. Anyways, for Diya, I found her beside my dimensional portal in the other room. She was gravely injured, with missing body parts and everything. Seeing how she didn't have long to live anyways, I decided to try to save her with technology. I fitted her with cyborg parts and placed a cyborg chip in her brain. That's how she's half a cyborg now. And don't bother asking her what happened, her memory was completely erased when I found her."
The group exchanged perplexed glances, clearly shocked and confused by the situation they were in and from what they had just found out.
"So Aaron... Yuu are-"
John was cut of by a squeel of delight from Anna. She has clearly figured that she was no longer falling down a staircase, for she is now busying herself with the small glowing box at the corner of the room.
"DON'T PRESS THE-"
Too late. Anna decided that the tiny violet button was worthy to be pressed. The circle underneath the group began to glow brightly in a rainbow of colors. A sudden flash of white filled the room then everything went black.
Grunting, I propped myself up with my elbow. Looking down myself, I saw that I have transformed. I was wearing a black v-neck shirt, and grey skinny jeans with chains strapped across and about it. I had a black vest and cloak on. Strapped on my back was a piano keyboard surprisingly. I shifted my attention to the rest of the people and their transformation...
"Uhh... so. Where to now, guys?" Nicole asks.